461 research outputs found

    A New Method for Analyzing Integrated Stealth Ability of Penetration Aircraft

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    AbstractTaking into account the limitations of existing stealth performance analysis methods, a method termed as the integrated stealth performance analysis method is proposed for evaluating the stealth ability of the penetration aircraft. Based on various target radar cross section (RCS) scattering characters, this article integrates the relevant parameters needed for building up target circumferential RCS scattering model and proposes the RCS scattering controlling parameters to control the changing trends of the relevant model RCS scattering characters. According to the radar dynamic detecting characters during the whole penetration course, a dynamic stealth performance evaluating model is proposed accompanied by a series of stealth ability estimation rules. This new analysis method can enhance the integrality and dependability of the stealth analysis conclusions and summarize the relationship between the target RCS scattering characters and their effects on stealth performance. The rules indicated by this relationship can be used as the reference for designing new type of stealth aircraft and setting up specific penetration tactics

    Omega-3 fatty acids supplementation restores mechanisms that maintain brain homeostasis in traumatic brain injury

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    ABSTRACT Traumatic brain injury (TBI) produces a state of vulnerability that reduces the brain capacity to cope with secondary insults. The silent information regulator 2 (Sir2) has been implicated with maintaining genomic stability and cellular homeostasis under challenging situation. Here we explore the possibility that the action of Sir2␣ (mammalian Sir2) in the brain can extend to serve neuronal plasticity. We provide novel evidence showing that mild TBI reduces the expression of Sir2␣ in the hippocampus, in proportion to increased levels of protein oxidation. In addition, we show that dietary supplementation of omega-3 fatty acids that ameliorates protein oxidation was effective to reverse the reduction of Sir2␣ level in injured rats. Given that oxidative stress is a subproduct of dysfunctional energy homeostasis, we measured AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and phosphorylated-AMPK (p-AMPK) to have an indication of the energy status of cells. Hippocampal levels of total and phosphorylated AMPK were reduced after TBI and levels were normalized by omega-3 fatty acts supplements. Further, we found that TBI reduced ubiquitous mitochondrial creatine kinase (uMtCK), an enzyme implicated in the energetic regulation of Ca 2؉ -pumps and in the maintenance of Ca 2؉ -homeostasis. Omega-3 fatty acids supplements normalized the levels of uMtCK after lesion. Furthermore, we found that the correlation between Sir2␣ and AMPK or p-AMPK was disrupted by TBI, but restored by omega-3 fatty acids supplements. Our results suggest that TBI may compromise neuronal protective mechanisms by involving the action of Sir2␣. In addition, results show the capacity of omega-3 fatty acids to counteract some of the effects of TBI by normalizing levels of molecular systems associated with energy homeostasis

    Electroacupuncture Improves Cognitive Deficits through Increasing Regional Cerebral Blood Flow and Alleviating Inflammation in CCI Rats

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    Objective. To investigate the effect of EA on regional cerebral blood flow, cognitive deficits, inflammation, and its probable mechanisms in chronic cerebral ischemia (CCI) rats. Methods. Rats were assigned randomly into sham operation group (sham group) and operation group. For operation group, CCI model was performed using the permanent bilateral common carotid artery occlusion (BCCAO) method, and then rats were further randomly divided into model group and electroacupuncture (EA) group. 2/15 Hz low-frequency pulse electric intervention was applied at “Baihui” and “Dazhui” acupoints in EA group. Four weeks later, Morris water maze test was adopted to assess the cognitive function, using laser Doppler flowmetry to test changes of regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF); double antibody sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (DAS-ELISA) to measure proinflammatory cytokines (IL-6, TNF-α, and IL-1β); western blot to test the protein expression quantities of proinflammatory cytokines, JAK2, and STAT3; and RT-PCR to test JAK2 mRNA and STAT3 mRNA in the hippocampus in each group. Results. Compared with the model group, learning and memory abilities and rCBF and IL-6 expression of the EA group enhanced markedly; IL-1β and JAK2 significantly decreased; TNF-α and STAT3 also declined, but the difference was not apparent. Conclusion. Our research suggests that EA can improve cognitive deficits which may be induced by increasing rCBF and anti-inflammatory effect

    Effects of diet and/or exercise in enhancing spinal cord sensorimotor learning.

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    Given that the spinal cord is capable of learning sensorimotor tasks and that dietary interventions can influence learning involving supraspinal centers, we asked whether the presence of omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and the curry spice curcumin (Cur) by themselves or in combination with voluntary exercise could affect spinal cord learning in adult spinal mice. Using an instrumental learning paradigm to assess spinal learning we observed that mice fed a diet containing DHA/Cur performed better in the spinal learning paradigm than mice fed a diet deficient in DHA/Cur. The enhanced performance was accompanied by increases in the mRNA levels of molecular markers of learning, i.e., BDNF, CREB, CaMKII, and syntaxin 3. Concurrent exposure to exercise was complementary to the dietary treatment effects on spinal learning. The diet containing DHA/Cur resulted in higher levels of DHA and lower levels of omega-6 fatty acid arachidonic acid (AA) in the spinal cord than the diet deficient in DHA/Cur. The level of spinal learning was inversely related to the ratio of AA:DHA. These results emphasize the capacity of select dietary factors and exercise to foster spinal cord learning. Given the non-invasiveness and safety of the modulation of diet and exercise, these interventions should be considered in light of their potential to enhance relearning of sensorimotor tasks during rehabilitative training paradigms after a spinal cord injury

    Decrease in CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ Treg cells after pulmonary resection in the treatment of cavity multidrug-resistant tuberculosis

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    SummaryObjectivesImmune regulatory mechanisms may limit the immunopathologic condition of infection with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and suppress cellular immune responses in the host. We investigated the CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ circulating regulatory T cells (Treg) in patients with cavity multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) before and after surgery.MethodsWe compared the proportion of Treg cells in 13 patients with cavity MDR-TB pre- and postoperatively and in 10 healthy control subjects by flow cytometry using three specific markers in peripheral blood lymphocytes: cell-surface CD4 and CD25 expression and intracellular FoxP3 expression.ResultsThe proportion of CD4+CD25high and CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ Treg was significantly higher in patients with cavity MDR-TB and at 1-month postoperatively than in healthy controls (p<0.001). The proportion of CD4+ and CD4+CD25− cells was significantly lower in patients with cavity MDR-TB than in controls (p<0.001). Pre- and postoperative proportions of CD4+CD25high and CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ Treg cells showed a positive correlation (r=0.878, p<0.001).ConclusionCirculating Treg cells are increased in proportion in patients with cavity MDR-TB and decreased after surgery. Infection with M. tuberculosis may induce Treg cell-surface molecular changes with increased numbers of cells

    An integrated hydrodynamics and control model of a tethered underwater robot

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    An integrated hydrodynamics and control model to simulate tethered underwater robot system is proposed. The governing equation of the umbilical cable is based on a finite difference method, the hydrodynamic behaviors of the underwater robot are described by the six-degrees-of-freedom equations of motion for submarine simulations, and a controller based on the fuzzy sliding mode control (FSMC) algorithm is also incorporated. Fluid motion around the main body of moving robot with running control ducted propellers is governed by the Navier–Stokes equations and these nonlinear differential equations are solved numerically via computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique. The hydrodynamics and control behaviors of the tethered underwater robot under certain designated trajectory and attitude control manipulation are then investigated based on the established hydrodynamics and control model. The results indicate that satisfactory control effect can be achieved and hydrodynamic behavior under the control operation can be observed with the model; much kinematic and dynamic information about tethered underwater robot system can be forecasted, including translational and angular motions of the robot, hydrodynamic loading on the robot, manipulation actions produced by the control propellers, the kinematic and dynamic behaviors of the umbilical cable. Since these hydrodynamic effects are fed into the proposed coupled model, the mutual hydrodynamic influences of different portions of the robot system as well as the hydrological factors of the undersea environment for the robot operation are incorporated in the model

    On the Complexity of Bayesian Generalization

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    We consider concept generalization at a large scale in the diverse and natural visual spectrum. Established computational modes (i.e., rule-based or similarity-based) are primarily studied isolated and focus on confined and abstract problem spaces. In this work, we study these two modes when the problem space scales up, and the complexitycomplexity of concepts becomes diverse. Specifically, at the representational levelrepresentational \ level, we seek to answer how the complexity varies when a visual concept is mapped to the representation space. Prior psychology literature has shown that two types of complexities (i.e., subjective complexity and visual complexity) (Griffiths and Tenenbaum, 2003) build an inverted-U relation (Donderi, 2006; Sun and Firestone, 2021). Leveraging Representativeness of Attribute (RoA), we computationally confirm the following observation: Models use attributes with high RoA to describe visual concepts, and the description length falls in an inverted-U relation with the increment in visual complexity. At the computational levelcomputational \ level, we aim to answer how the complexity of representation affects the shift between the rule- and similarity-based generalization. We hypothesize that category-conditioned visual modeling estimates the co-occurrence frequency between visual and categorical attributes, thus potentially serving as the prior for the natural visual world. Experimental results show that representations with relatively high subjective complexity outperform those with relatively low subjective complexity in the rule-based generalization, while the trend is the opposite in the similarity-based generalization

    The Systemic Evaluation and Clinical Significance of Immunological Function for Advanced Lung Cancer Patients

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    Background and objective The actual evaluation of immunological function is significant for studing the tumor development and devising a treatment in time. The aim of this study is to evaluate the immunological function of advanced lung cancer patients systematically, and to discuss the clinical significance. Methods The nucleated cell amounts of advanced lung cancer patients and the healthy individuals were counted. The immune cell subsets and the levels of IL-4, INF-γ, perforin and granzyme in CD8+T cells by the flow cytometry were measured. The proliferation activity and the inhibition ratio of immune cells to several tumor cell lines were evaluated by MTT assay. Results The absolute amounts and subsets of T, B, NK cells of advanced lung cancer patients were lower than the healthy individuals (P < 0.05); However, the proportion of regulatory T cells of advanced lung cancer patients (4.00±1.84)% was lower than the healthy individuals (1.27±0.78)% (P < 0.05). The positive rates of IFN-γ perforin, granzyme in CD8+T cells decreased while them in IL-4 did not in the advanced lung cancer patients compared to the healthy control group (P < 0.05). The proliferation activity of immune cells, the positive rate of PPD masculine and the inhibition ratio to tumor cells in the advanced lung cancer patients was lower than the healthy subsets obviously (P < 0.05). Conclusion There was a significant immune depression in the advanced lung cancer patients compared to the healthy individuals

    Large Exchange Bias Effect and Coverage-Dependent Interfacial Coupling in CrI3/MnBi2Te4 van der Waals Heterostructures

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    Igniting interface magnetic ordering of magnetic topological insulators by building a van der Waals heterostructure can help to reveal novel quantum states and design functional devices. Here, we observe an interesting exchange bias effect, indicating successful interfacial magnetic coupling, in CrI3/MnBi2Te4 ferromagnetic insulator/antiferromagnetic topological insulator (FMI/AFM-TI) heterostructure devices. The devices originally exhibit a negative exchange bias field, which decays with increasing temperature and is unaffected by the back-gate voltage. When we change the device configuration to be half-covered by CrI3, the exchange bias becomes positive with a very large exchange bias field exceeding 300 mT. Such sensitive manipulation is explained by the competition between the FM and AFM coupling at the interface of CrI3 and MnBi2Te4, pointing to coverage-dependent interfacial magnetic interactions. Our work will facilitate the development of topological and antiferromagnetic devices

    Global-regional nested simulation of particle number concentration by combing microphysical processes with an evolving organic aerosol module

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    Aerosol microphysical processes are essential for the next generation of global and regional climate and air quality models to determine particle size distribution. The contribution of organic aerosols (OAs) to particle formation, mass, and number concentration is one of the major uncertainties in current models. A new global–regional nested aerosol model was developed to simulate detailed microphysical processes. The model combines an advanced particle microphysics (APM) module and a volatility basis set (VBS) OA module to calculate the kinetic condensation of low-volatility organic compounds and equilibrium partitioning of semi-volatile organic compounds in a 3-D framework using global–regional nested domain. In addition to the condensation of sulfuric acid, the equilibrium partitioning of nitrate and ammonium, and the coagulation process of particles, the microphysical processes of the OAs are realistically represented in our new model. The model uses high-resolution size bins to calculate the size distribution of new particles formed through nucleation and subsequent growth. The multi-scale nesting enables the model to perform high-resolution simulations of the particle formation processes in the urban atmosphere in the background of regional and global environments. By using the nested domains, the model reasonably reproduced the OA components obtained from the analysis of aerosol mass spectrometry measurements through positive matrix factorization and the particle number size distribution in the megacity of Beijing during a period of approximately a month. Anthropogenic organic species accounted for 67 % of the OAs of secondary particles formed by nucleation and subsequent growth, which is considerably larger than that of biogenic OAs. On the global scale, the model well predicted the particle number concentration in various environments. The microphysical module combined with the VBS simulated the universal distribution of organic components among the different aerosol populations. The model results strongly suggest the importance of anthropogenic organic species in aerosol particle formation and growth at polluted urban sites and over the whole globe.Aerosol microphysical processes are essential for the next generation of global and regional climate and air quality models to determine particle size distribution. The contribution of organic aerosols (OAs) to particle formation, mass, and number concentration is one of the major uncertainties in current models. A new global-regional nested aerosol model was developed to simulate detailed microphysical processes. The model combines an advanced particle microphysics (APM) module and a volatility basis set (VBS) OA module to calculate the kinetic condensation of low-volatility organic compounds and equilibrium partitioning of semi-volatile organic compounds in a 3-D framework using global-regional nested domain In addition to the condensation of sulfuric acid, the equilibrium partitioning of nitrate and ammonium, and the coagulation process of particles, the microphysical processes of the OAs are realistically represented in our new model. The model uses high-resolution size bins to calculate the size distribution of new particles formed through nucleation and subsequent growth. The multi-scale nesting enables the model to perform high-resolution simulations of the particle formation processes in the urban atmosphere in the background of regional and global environments. By using the nested domains, the model reasonably reproduced the OA components obtained from the analysis of aerosol mass spectrometry measurements through positive matrix factorization and the particle number size distribution in the megacity of Beijing during a period of approximately a month. Anthropogenic organic species accounted for 67 % of the OAs of secondary particles formed by nucleation and subsequent growth, which is considerably larger than that of biogenic OAs. On the global scale, the model well predicted the particle number concentration in various environments. The microphysical module combined with the VBS simulated the universal distribution of organic components among the different aerosol populations. The model results strongly suggest the importance of anthropogenic organic species in aerosol particle formation and growth at polluted urban sites and over the whole globe.Peer reviewe
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