Ore Extension of Group-cograded Hopf Coquasigroups

The aim of this paper is the Ore extension of group-cograded Hopf coquasigroups. This paper first shows a categorical interpretation and some examples of group-cograded Hopf coquasigroups, and then gives a necessary and sufficient conditions for the Ore extensions of group-cograded Hopf coquasigroups to be group-cograded Hopf coquasigroups. Finally, a certain isomorphism between Ore extensions are considered.Comment: 15page

Characterization of Electronic Cigarette Aerosol and Its Induction of Oxidative Stress Response in Oral Keratinocytes.

In this study, we have generated and characterized Electronic Cigarette (EC) aerosols using a combination of advanced technologies. In the gas phase, the particle number concentration (PNC) of EC aerosols was found to be positively correlated with puff duration whereas the PNC and size distribution may vary with different flavors and nicotine strength. In the liquid phase (water or cell culture media), the size of EC nanoparticles appeared to be significantly larger than those in the gas phase, which might be due to aggregation of nanoparticles in the liquid phase. By using in vitro high-throughput cytotoxicity assays, we have demonstrated that EC aerosols significantly decrease intracellular levels of glutathione in NHOKs in a dose-dependent fashion resulting in cytotoxicity. These findings suggest that EC aerosols cause cytotoxicity to oral epithelial cells in vitro, and the underlying molecular mechanisms may be or at least partially due to oxidative stress induced by toxic substances (e.g., nanoparticles and chemicals) present in EC aerosols

E-cigarette aerosols induce unfolded protein response in normal human oral keratinocytes.

Objective: Since the introduction in 2004, global usage of e-cigarettes (ECs) has risen exponentially. However, the risks of ECs on oral health are uncertain. The purpose of this study is to understand if EC aerosol exposure impacts the gene pathways of normal human oral keratinocytes (NHOKs), particularly the unfolded protein response (UPR) pathway. Materials and methods: EC aerosols were generated reproducibly with a home-made puffing device and impinged into the culture medium for NHOKs. DNA microarrays were used to profile the gene expression changes in NHOKs treated with EC aerosols, and the Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) was used to reveal signaling pathways altered by the EC aerosols. Quantitative PCR was used to validate the expression changes of significantly altered genes. Results: DNA microarray profiling followed by IPA revealed a number of signaling pathways, such as UPR, cell cycle regulation, TGF-β signaling, NRF2-mediated oxidative stress response, PI3K/AKT signaling, NF-κB signaling, and HGF signaling, activated by EC aerosols in NHOKs. The UPR pathway genes, C/EBP homologous protein (CHOP), activating transcription factor 4 (ATF4), X box binding protein 1 (XBP1), and inositol-requiring enzyme 1 alpha (IRE1α) were all significantly up-regulated in EC aerosol-treated NHOKs whereas immunoglobulin heavy-chain binding protein (BIP) and PRKR-like ER kinase (PERK) were slightly up-regulated. qPCR analysis results were found to be well correlated with those from the DNA microarray analysis. The most significantly changed genes in EC aerosol-treated NHOKs versus untreated NHOKs were CHOP, ATF4, XBP1, IRE1α and BIP. Meanwhile, Western blot analysis confirmed that CHOP, GRP78 (BIP), ATF4, IRE1α and XBP1s (spliced XBP1) were significantly up-regulated in NHOKs treated with EC aerosols. Conclusion: Our results indicate that EC aerosols up-regulate the UPR pathway genes in NHOKs, and the induction of UPR response is mediated by the PERK - EIF2α - ATF4 and IRE1α - XBP1 pathways

Fully Context-Aware Image Inpainting with a Learned Semantic Pyramid

Restoring reasonable and realistic content for arbitrary missing regions in images is an important yet challenging task. Although recent image inpainting models have made significant progress in generating vivid visual details, they can still lead to texture blurring or structural distortions due to contextual ambiguity when dealing with more complex scenes. To address this issue, we propose the Semantic Pyramid Network (SPN) motivated by the idea that learning multi-scale semantic priors from specific pretext tasks can greatly benefit the recovery of locally missing content in images. SPN consists of two components. First, it distills semantic priors from a pretext model into a multi-scale feature pyramid, achieving a consistent understanding of the global context and local structures. Within the prior learner, we present an optional module for variational inference to realize probabilistic image inpainting driven by various learned priors. The second component of SPN is a fully context-aware image generator, which adaptively and progressively refines low-level visual representations at multiple scales with the (stochastic) prior pyramid. We train the prior learner and the image generator as a unified model without any post-processing. Our approach achieves the state of the art on multiple datasets, including Places2, Paris StreetView, CelebA, and CelebA-HQ, under both deterministic and probabilistic inpainting setups.Comment: This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessibl

Skeleton2Humanoid: Animating Simulated Characters for Physically-plausible Motion In-betweening

Human motion synthesis is a long-standing problem with various applications in digital twins and the Metaverse. However, modern deep learning based motion synthesis approaches barely consider the physical plausibility of synthesized motions and consequently they usually produce unrealistic human motions. In order to solve this problem, we propose a system ``Skeleton2Humanoid'' which performs physics-oriented motion correction at test time by regularizing synthesized skeleton motions in a physics simulator. Concretely, our system consists of three sequential stages: (I) test time motion synthesis network adaptation, (II) skeleton to humanoid matching and (III) motion imitation based on reinforcement learning (RL). Stage I introduces a test time adaptation strategy, which improves the physical plausibility of synthesized human skeleton motions by optimizing skeleton joint locations. Stage II performs an analytical inverse kinematics strategy, which converts the optimized human skeleton motions to humanoid robot motions in a physics simulator, then the converted humanoid robot motions can be served as reference motions for the RL policy to imitate. Stage III introduces a curriculum residual force control policy, which drives the humanoid robot to mimic complex converted reference motions in accordance with the physical law. We verify our system on a typical human motion synthesis task, motion-in-betweening. Experiments on the challenging LaFAN1 dataset show our system can outperform prior methods significantly in terms of both physical plausibility and accuracy. Code will be released for research purposes at: https://github.com/michaelliyunhao/Skeleton2HumanoidComment: Accepted by ACMMM202

Effect of amber powder on endometrial ultrastructure and MAPK pathway in endometriosis model rats

Purpose: To explore the therapeutic role of amber powder in endometriosis by investigating its effect on endometrial ultrastructure, ERK1/2, p38MAPK, and NF-κB mRNA pathways and CSRC/EFR/ERK1/2 proteins. Methods: Sprague Dawley (SD) rats were randomly divided into blank group, disease model group (untreated), amber powder high-dose group, amber powder medium-dose group, amber powder lowdose group and danazol group. Morphological changes in endometrial cells were studied using transmission electron microscopy. The expression of ERK1/2, p38MAPK, and NF-κB mRNA in endometrial tissues of each group was determined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). Immunohistochemistry was utilized for the measurement of C-SRC/EFR/ERK1/2 pathway protein expression. Results: The endometriosis rats treated with a high-, medium- and low-dose amber powder showed a decrease in the volume of ectopic lesions, compared with the untreated disease model group. The expressions of ERK1/2, p38MAPK, NF-κB mRNA, and C-SRC/EFR/ERK1/2 protein were higher in the eutopic and ectopic endometrial tissues in untreated disease group than those in normal control group. Moreover, treatment of endometriosis rats with amber powder revealed a reduction in the expressions of ERK1/2, p38MAPK, NF-κB mRNA and C-SRC/EFR/ERK1/2 proteins in eutopic and ectopic endometrium tissues. Conclusion: Amber powder reduces ectopic lesions and slows down the development of endometriosis, probably via inhibition of MAPK pathway genes in eutopic and ectopic endometrial tissues

AlN nanostructures : tunable architectures and optical properties

Novel AlN nanostructures with tunable building units of the architectures have been successfully synthesized without any catalyst or template; the subsequent photoluminescence (PL) indicates that the optical properties of the AlN nanostructures can be adjusted by tuning the architectures.<br /

Genome-wide identification and expression profiling analysis of DIR gene family in Setaria italica

Dirigent (DIR) proteins play essential roles in regulating plant growth and development, as well as enhancing resistance to abiotic and biotic stresses. However, the whole-genome identification and expression profiling analysis of DIR gene family in millet (Setaria italica (Si)) have not been systematically understood. In this study, we conducted genome-wide identification and expression analysis of the S. italica DIR gene family, including gene structures, conserved domains, evolutionary relationship, chromosomal locations, cis-elements, duplication events, gene collinearity and expression patterns. A total of 38 SiDIR members distributed on nine chromosomes were screened and identified. SiDIR family members in the same group showed higher sequence similarity. The phylogenetic tree divided the SiDIR proteins into six subfamilies: DIR-a, DIR-b/d, DIR-c, DIR-e, DIR-f, and DIR-g. According to the tertiary structure prediction, DIR proteins (like SiDIR7/8/9) themselves may form a trimer to exert function. The result of the syntenic analysis showed that tandem duplication may play the major driving force during the evolution of SiDIRs. RNA-seq data displayed higher expression of 16 SiDIR genes in root tissues, and this implied their potential functions during root development. The results of quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) assays revealed that SiDIR genes could respond to the stress of CaCl2, CdCl, NaCl, and PEG6000. This research shed light on the functions of SiDIRs in responding to abiotic stress and demonstrated their modulational potential during root development. In addition, the membrane localization of SiDIR7/19/22 was confirmed to be consistent with the forecast. The results above will provide a foundation for further and deeper investigation of DIRs