20-Hydroxyecdysone (20E) Primary Response Gene \u3cem\u3eE75\u3c/em\u3e Isoforms Mediate Steroidogenesis Autoregulation and Regulate Developmental Timing in \u3cem\u3eBombyx\u3c/em\u3e

The temporal control mechanisms that precisely control animal development remain largely elusive. The timing of major developmental transitions in insects, including molting and metamorphosis, is coordinated by the steroid hormone 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E). 20E involves feedback loops to maintain pulses of ecdysteroid biosynthesis leading to its upsurge, whereas the underpinning molecular mechanisms are not well understood. Using the silkworm Bombyx mori as a model, we demonstrated that E75, the 20E primary response gene, mediates a regulatory loop between ecdysteroid biosynthesis and 20E signaling. E75 isoforms A and C directly bind to retinoic acid receptor-related response elements in Halloween gene promoter regions to induce gene expression thus promoting ecdysteroid biosynthesis and developmental transition, whereas isoform B antagonizes the transcriptional activity of isoform A/C through physical interaction. As the expression of E75 isoforms is differentially induced by 20E, the E75-mediated regulatory loop represents a fine autoregulation of steroidogenesis, which contributes to the precise control of developmental timing

The increased functional connectivity between the locus coeruleus and supramarginal gyrus in insomnia disorder with acupuncture modulation

BackgroundInsomnia disorder (ID) seriously affects the quality of people’s daily life, and acupuncture is an effective therapy for it. As an essential component of the upward activation system, the locus coeruleus (LC) plays a crucial role in sleep–wake regulation, its aberrant functional connectivity (FC) is found to be involved in ID. The purpose of this study was to explore the modulation effect of acupuncture on the resting state FC of LC in ID patients.Methods60 ID patients were recruited and randomly assigned to real acupuncture (RA) or sham acupuncture (SA) treatment. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected before and after the treatment. With LC as the region of interest, the FC method was adopted to examine acupuncture-related modulation of intrinsic connectivity in ID patients. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), Hyperarousal Scale (HAS), and actigraphy were used to assess sleep quality and cortical hyperarousal states. Associations between clinical outcomes and FC features were calculated using Pearson’s correlation analysis.ResultsThe improvement in sleep quality and hyperarousal in the RA group was greater than that in the SA group. After treatment, the FC between the LC and left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) decreased in the RA group. The FC between the LC and left insula and supramarginal gyrus (SMG) was higher in the RA group. The change of LC FC values with the SMG was negatively associated with the change in PSQI scores.ConclusionAcupuncture can modulate FC between the LC and IFG, insular gyrus, and SMG. This may imply the potential mechanism of acupuncture treatment for insomnia

Failure Analysis of the Pin Bore of the Combined Piston for the Aero Engine

The combined piston can be used in an aero piston heavy fuel engine because of its light weight, so as to reduce the reciprocating inertia force and improve the engine power-weight ratio. However, the pin bore of the combined piston is prone to deform leading to the failure of the piston. Based on the structure of the piston, the stress of the piston under thermomechanical coupling is analyzed, the temperature field of the piston is determined by experiments, and the deformation rule of the piston pin bore under the thermomechanical coupling is summarized. A design scheme is proposed to change the position of the thread connection between the piston crown and the piston head. Under the same conditions, the deformation of the piston pin bore of the original scheme and the new scheme is analyzed. The results show that together with the changing of the connection thread between the piston crown and the piston head, the deformation of the piston pin bore decreases by 60 μm and the deformation of the piston pin bore is controlled. The test results show that the deformation of the pin bore is within the acceptable range, which proves the effectiveness of the improved scheme

A Novel Borehole Cataloguing Method Based on a Drilling Process Monitoring (DPM) System

Borehole cataloguing is an important task in geological drilling. Traditional manual cataloguing provides the stratification of underground boreholes based on changes in core lithology. This paper proposes a novel borehole cataloguing method using a drilling process monitoring (DPM) system. This DPM cataloguing method stratifies a borehole according to the drilling speed through the rock. A 102 m borehole was drilled and cored in Baota district, Yan’an city, Shaanxi Province, China. The rock-breaking response parameters of the drill bit displacement, drill rod rotation speed and inlet pipe and outlet pipe oil pressures were monitored throughout the drilling process, and the drilling depth-penetration rate curve during the net drilling process was obtained. The changes in drilling speed show that the DPM cataloguing can identify the depths of the layer interfaces of the borehole and describe the stratification. The interface depth values obtained by DPM have little difference from the interface depth values obtained by manual cataloguing, and the errors are between −0.04% and 4.29%. From the DPM stratification results, the engineering quality evaluation of the rock mass can be realized without coring. DPM is fast, convenient, accurate, can greatly improve the efficiency of existing catalogues, and can be applied to scientific research in any underground space. DPM is a measurement-while-drilling technology. According to DPM data, the operating state of a drilling rig and the parameter changes while drilling can be obtained in situ and in real time throughout the drilling process

Artificial intelligence in ischemic stroke images: current applications and future directions

This paper reviews the current research progress in the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) based on ischemic stroke imaging, analyzes the main challenges, and explores future research directions. This study emphasizes the application of AI in areas such as automatic segmentation of infarct areas, detection of large vessel occlusion, prediction of stroke outcomes, assessment of hemorrhagic transformation risk, forecasting of recurrent ischemic stroke risk, and automatic grading of collateral circulation. The research indicates that Machine Learning (ML) and Deep Learning (DL) technologies have tremendous potential for improving diagnostic accuracy, accelerating disease identification, and predicting disease progression and treatment responses. However, the clinical application of these technologies still faces challenges such as limitations in data volume, model interpretability, and the need for real-time monitoring and updating. Additionally, this paper discusses the prospects of applying large language models, such as the transformer architecture, in ischemic stroke imaging analysis, emphasizing the importance of establishing large public databases and the need for future research to focus on the interpretability of algorithms and the comprehensiveness of clinical decision support. Overall, AI has significant application value in the management of ischemic stroke; however, existing technological and practical challenges must be overcome to achieve its widespread application in clinical practice

Investigation of PVT-Aware STT-MRAM Sensing Circuits for Low-VDD Scenario

Spintronic based embedded magnetic random access memory (eMRAM) is becoming a foundry validated solution for the next-generation nonvolatile memory applications. The hybrid complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS)/magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) integration has been selected as a proper candidate for energy harvesting, area-constraint and energy-efficiency Internet of Things (IoT) systems-on-chips. Multi-VDD (low supply voltage) techniques were adopted to minimize energy dissipation in MRAM, at the cost of reduced writing/sensing speed and margin. Meanwhile, yield can be severely affected due to variations in process parameters. In this work, we conduct a thorough analysis of MRAM sensing margin and yield. We propose a current-mode sensing amplifier (CSA) named 1D high-sensing 1D margin, high 1D speed and 1D stability (HMSS-SA) with reconfigured reference path and pre-charge transistor. Process-voltage-temperature (PVT) aware analysis is performed based on an MTJ compact model and an industrial 28 nm CMOS technology, explicitly considering low-voltage (0.7 V), low tunneling magnetoresistance (TMR) (50%) and high temperature (85 °C) scenario as the worst sensing case. A case study takes a brief look at sensing circuits, which is applied to in-memory bit-wise computing. Simulation results indicate that the proposed high-sensing margin, high speed and stability sensing-sensing amplifier (HMSS-SA) achieves remarkable performance up to 2.5 GHz sensing frequency. At 0.65 V supply voltage, it can achieve 1 GHz operation frequency with only 0.3% failure rate

Molecular Identification of the Glutaredoxin 5 Gene That Plays Important Roles in Antioxidant Defense in <i>Arma chinensis</i> (Fallou)

Glutaredoxin (Grx) is a group of redox enzymes that control reactive oxygen species (ROS), traditionally defined as redox regulators. Recent research suggested that members of the Grx family may be involved in more biological processes than previously thought. Therefore, we cloned the AcGrx5 gene and identified its role in A. chinensis diapause. Sequence analysis revealed the ORF of AcGrx5 was 432 bp, encoding 143 amino acids, which was consistent with the homologous sequence of Halyomorpha halys. RT-qPCR results showed that AcGrx5 expression was the highest in the head, and compared with non-diapause conditions, diapause conditions significantly increased the expression of AcGrx5 in the developmental stages. Further, we found that 15 °C low-temperature stress significantly induced AcGrx5 expression, and the expression of antioxidant enzyme genes AcTrx2 and AcTrx-like were significantly increased after AcGrx5 knockdown. Following AcGrx5 silencing, there was a considerable rise in the levels of VC content, CAT activity, and hydrogen peroxide content, indicating that A. chinensis was exposed to high levels of reactive oxygen species. These results suggested that the AcGrx5 gene may play a key role in antioxidant defense

Research and Application of Kupffer Cell Thresholds for BSA Nanoparticles

Over the past decade, the dose of nanoparticles given to solid tumors has remained at a median of 0.7% of the injected dose. Most nanoparticles are trapped in a mononuclear phagocyte system (MPS), of which 85% are Kupffer cells. In our study, threshold doses of bovine serum albumin (BSA) nanoparticles were investigated for the uptake of Kupffer cells in vitro and in vivo. The antitumor effect and safety of albumin-bound paclitaxel (ABP) were improved by using threshold doses of BSA nanoparticles. We found a threshold dose of 20,000 nanoparticles per macrophage uptake in vitro and a saturation dose of 0.3 trillion nanoparticles in tumor-bearing mice. In vivo efficacy and safety evaluations demonstrated that the threshold doses of blank BSA nanoparticles could significantly improve the efficacy and safety of ABP against tumors compared with ABP alone. In this study, the delivery efficiency of ABP was improved by using blank nanoparticles to saturate Kupffer cells, which provided a new approach to studying the Kupffer cell saturation threshold and thus a new scheme for improving the curative effect of ABP

Data-driven distributionally robust joint chance-constrained energy management for multi-energy microgrid

Multi-energy microgrid (MEMG) has the potential to improve the energy utilization efficiency. However, the uncertainty caused by distributed renewable energy resources brings an urgent need for multi-energy co -optimization to ensure secure operation. This paper focuses on the distributionally robust energy management problem for MEMG. Various flexible resources in different energy sectors are utilized for uncertainty mitigation, then, a data-driven Wasserstein distance-based distributionally robust joint chance-constrained (DRJCC) energy management model is proposed. To make the DRJCC model tractable, an optimized conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) approximation (OCA) formulation is proposed to transfer the joint chance-constrained model into a tractable form. Then, an iterative sequential convex optimization algorithm is tailored to reduce the solution conservatism by tuning OCA. Numerical result illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed model