Permanence and Global Attractivity of a Delayed Discrete Predator-Prey System with General Holling-Type Functional Response and Feedback Controls

This paper discusses a delayed discrete predator-prey system with general Holling-type functional response and feedback controls. Firstly, sufficient conditions are obtained for the permanence of the system. After that, under some additional conditions, we show that the periodic solution of the system is global stable

Tumor-derived extracellular vesicles regulate macrophage polarization: role and therapeutic perspectives

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are important cell-to-cell communication mediators. This paper focuses on the regulatory role of tumor-derived EVs on macrophages. It aims to investigate the causes of tumor progression and therapeutic directions. Tumor-derived EVs can cause macrophages to shift to M1 or M2 phenotypes. This indicates they can alter the M1/M2 cell ratio and have pro-tumor and anti-inflammatory effects. This paper discusses several key points: first, the factors that stimulate macrophage polarization and the cytokines released as a result; second, an overview of EVs and the methods used to isolate them; third, how EVs from various cancer cell sources, such as hepatocellular carcinoma, colorectal carcinoma, lung carcinoma, breast carcinoma, and glioblastoma cell sources carcinoma, promote tumor development by inducing M2 polarization in macrophages; and fourth, how EVs from breast carcinoma, pancreatic carcinoma, lungs carcinoma, and glioblastoma cell sources carcinoma also contribute to tumor development by promoting M2 polarization in macrophages. Modified or sourced EVs from breast, pancreatic, and colorectal cancer can repolarize M2 to M1 macrophages. This exhibits anti-tumor activities and offers novel approaches for tumor treatment. Therefore, we discovered that macrophage polarization to either M1 or M2 phenotypes can regulate tumor development. This is based on the description of altering macrophage phenotypes by vesicle contents

Breakdown of effective-medium theory beyond the critical angle

Effective-medium theory pertains to the theoretical modelling of homogenization, which aims to replace an inhomogeneous structure of subwavelength-scale constituents with a homogeneous effective medium. The effective-medium theory is fundamental to various realms, including electromagnetics and material science, since it can largely decrease the complexity in the exploration of light-matter interactions by providing simple acceptable approximation. Generally, the effective-medium theory is thought to be applicable to any all-dielectric system with deep-subwavelength constituents, under the condition that the effective medium does not have a critical angle, at which the total internal reflection occurs. Here we reveal a fundamental breakdown of the effective-medium theory that can be applied in very general conditions: showing it for deep-subwavelength all-dielectric multilayers even without critical angle. Our finding relies on an exotic photonic spin Hall effect, which is shown to be ultra-sensitive to the stacking order of deep-subwavelength dielectric layers, since the spin-orbit interaction of light is dependent on slight phase accumulations during the wave propagation. Our results indicate that the photonic spin Hall effect could provide a promising and powerful tool for measuring structural defects for all-dielectric systems even in the extreme nanometer scale.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure

Study on the Anti-inflammatory mechanism of volatile components of hebei Aster tataricus before and after honey-fried based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and network pharmacology

Aster tataricus (AT) and honey-fried Aster tataricus (HAT) have a significant effect on relieving cough and reducing sputum, both of which contain many volatile components. Studies have shown that the volatile components of AT and HAT may have an anti-inflammatory effect, but the mechanism is unclear. This study aimed to analyze the daodi herb of Hebei AT and HAT qualitatively and quantitatively using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and systematically explored the similarities and differences of anti-inflammatory molecular mechanisms of volatile components Hebei AT and HAT by using network pharmacology. These results indicate that there are significant differences in volatile compositions and percentage contents between AT and HAT. Moreover, the anti-inflammatory mechanism of volatile components of Hebei AT and HAT have more prominent similarities and fewer differences. AT and HAT’s similar potential active components such as humulene,γ-muurolene, α-phellandrene, and acetic acid were nine. The similar key gene targets were forty-seven, such as CAT, GAPDH, HMOX1, and CTH. The potential active ingredients peculiar to HAT were furfural, β-elemene, methyleugenol, and unique targets of EIF6 and PKIA. It suggests that HAT had its characteristics in clinical anti-inflammatory. Their active anti-inflammatory components and percentage contents were different, and HAT was higher than that of AT. The anti-inflammatory effect of volatile components of HAT may be better than that of AT. These results provide a theoretical basis for the study of the anti-inflammatory molecular mechanism of AT and HAT

Evaluation of the 50% infectious dose of human norovirus cin-2 in gnotobiotic pigs: a comparison of classical and contemporary methods for endpoint estimation

Human noroviruses (HuNoVs) are the leading causative agents of epidemic and sporadic acute gastroenteritis that affect people of all ages worldwide. However, very few dose?response studies have been carried out to determine the median infectious dose of HuNoVs. In this study, we evaluated the median infectious dose (ID50) and diarrhea dose (DD50) of the GII.4/2003 variant of HuNoV (Cin-2) in the gnotobiotic pig model of HuNoV infection and disease. Using various mathematical approaches (Reed?Muench, Dragstedt?Behrens, Spearman?Karber, exponential, approximate beta-Poisson dose?response models, and area under the curve methods), we estimated the ID50 and DD50 to be between 2400?3400 RNA copies, and 21,000?38,000 RNA copies, respectively. Contemporary dose?response models offer greater flexibility and accuracy in estimating ID50. In contrast to classical methods of endpoint estimation, dose?response modelling allows seamless analyses of data that may include inconsistent dilution factors between doses or numbers of subjects per dose group, or small numbers of subjects. Although this investigation is consistent with state-of-the-art ID50 determinations and offers an advancement in clinical data analysis, it is important to underscore that such analyses remain confounded by pathogen aggregation. Regardless, challenging virus strain ID50 determination is crucial for identifying the true infectiousness of HuNoVs and for the accurate evaluation of protective efficacies in pre-clinical studies of therapeutics, vaccines and other prophylactics using this reliable animal model.Fil: Ramesh, Ashwin K.. Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Parreño, Gladys Viviana. Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. Centro de Investigación En Ciencias Veterinarias y Agronómicas. Instituto de Virología E Innovaciones Tecnológicas. - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Pque. Centenario. Instituto de Virología E Innovaciones Tecnológicas; ArgentinaFil: Schmidt, Philip J.. University of Waterloo; CanadáFil: Lei, Shaohua. Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Zhong, Weiming. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center; Estados UnidosFil: Jiang, Xi. Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center; Estados UnidosFil: Emelko, Monica B.. University of Waterloo; CanadáFil: Yuan, Lijuan. Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine; Estados Unido

Characterization and health risk assessment of airborne pollutants in commercial restaurants in northwestern China: Under a low ventilation condition in wintertime

Impacts on indoor air quality of dining areas from cooking activities were investigated in eight categories of commercial restaurants including Szechwan Hotpot, Hunan, Shaanxi Noodle, Chinese Barbecue, Chinese Vegetarian, Korean Barbecue, Italian, and Indian, in Northwestern China during December 2011 to January 2012. Chemical characterization and health risk assessment for airborne carbonyls, and particulate-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and heavy metals were conducted under low ventilation conditions in wintertime. The highest total quantified carbonyls (Sigma(carbonyls)) concentration of 313.6 mu g m(-3) was found in the Chinese Barbecue, followed by the Szechwan Hotpot (222.6 mu g m(-3)) and Indian (221.9 mu g m(-3)) restaurants. However, the highest Sigma(carbonyls) per capita was found at the Indian restaurant (4500 mu g capita(-1)), suggesting that cooking methods such as stir-fly and bake for spices ingredients released more carbonyls from thermal cooking processes. Formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and acetone were the three most abundant species, totally accounting for >60% of mass concentrations of the Sigma(carbonyls). Phenanthrene, chrysene, and benzo[a]anthracene were the three most abundant PAHs. Low molecular weight fraction (Sigma PAHs(<= 178)) had the highest contributions accounting for 40.6%-65.7%, much greater than their heaver counterparts. Diagnostic PAHs ratios suggest that cooking fuel and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) contribute to the indoor PAHs profiles. Lead was the most abundant heavy metal in all sampled restaurants. High quantity of nickel was also found in samples due to the emissions from stainless-steel made kitchen utensils and cookware and ETS. Cancer risk assessments on the toxic substances demonstrate that the working environment of dining areas were hazard to health. Formation of reactive organic species (ROS) from the cooking activities was evidenced by measurement of hydroxyl radical (center dot OH) formed from simulating particulate matter (PM) react with surrogate lung fluid. The highest center dot OH concentration of 294.4 ng m(-3) was detected in Chinese Barbecue. In addition, the elevation of the concentrations of PM and center dot OH after non-dining periods implies that the significance of formation of oxidizing-active species indoor at poor ventilation environments. (c) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

GPT-4V in Wonderland: Large Multimodal Models for Zero-Shot Smartphone GUI Navigation

We present MM-Navigator, a GPT-4V-based agent for the smartphone graphical user interface (GUI) navigation task. MM-Navigator can interact with a smartphone screen as human users, and determine subsequent actions to fulfill given instructions. Our findings demonstrate that large multimodal models (LMMs), specifically GPT-4V, excel in zero-shot GUI navigation through its advanced screen interpretation, action reasoning, and precise action localization capabilities. We first benchmark MM-Navigator on our collected iOS screen dataset. According to human assessments, the system exhibited a 91\% accuracy rate in generating reasonable action descriptions and a 75\% accuracy rate in executing the correct actions for single-step instructions on iOS. Additionally, we evaluate the model on a subset of an Android screen navigation dataset, where the model outperforms previous GUI navigators in a zero-shot fashion. Our benchmark and detailed analyses aim to lay a robust groundwork for future research into the GUI navigation task. The project page is at https://github.com/zzxslp/MM-Navigator.Comment: Work in progres