Controlling epidemic outbreak based on local dynamic infectiousness on complex networks.

Resources are limited in epidemic containment; how to optimally allocate the limited resources in suppressing the epidemic spreading has been a challenging problem. To find an effective resource allocation strategy, we take the infectiousness of each infected node into consideration. By studying the interplay between the resource allocation and epidemic spreading, we find that the spreading dynamics of epidemic is affected by the preferential resource allocation.

Comparative transcriptome analyses of oleaginous race A reveal significant differences in gene expression upon cobalt enrichment.

Background: is known for its high hydrocarbon content, thus making it a strong candidate feedstock for biofuel production. Previous study has revealed that a high cobalt concentration can promote hydrocarbon synthesis and it has little effect on growth of cells. However, mechanisms beyond the cobalt enrichment remain unknown.

USP1 inhibition destabilizes KPNA2 and suppresses breast cancer metastasis.

Metastatic progression is the main cause of mortality in breast cancer, necessitating the determination of the molecular events driving this process for the development of new therapeutic approaches. Here, we demonstrate that hyperactivation of the deubiquitinase USP1 contributes to breast cancer metastasis. Upregulated USP1 expression in primary breast cancer specimens correlates with metastatic progression and poor prognosis in breast cancer patients.

Robust in-fiber spatial interferometer using multicore fiber for vibration detection.

We report the demonstration of a novel in-fiber spatially integrated Michelson interferometer based on weakly coupled multicore fiber (MCF) for vibration sensing. The compact interferometer is constructed by using two separate cores of the MCF, where the fiber end is cleaved in order to generate strong Fresnel reflection, and independent light coupling between the cores of MCF and the single mode fibers (SMFs) is enabled by the fan-in coupler. Vibration gives rise to differential strain variation between cores which results in the modification of phase difference of the interferometer.

Elevated expression is an independent unfavorable prognostic indicator of survival in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Purpose: DKK1 is an antagonist of the Wnt signaling pathway that has various roles in human physiology. Notably, aberrant expression is observed in several cancers. In this retrospective study, we assessed the association between expression levels and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and its prognostic value.

Model-Based and Model-Free Techniques for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Diagnostic Prediction and Patient Clustering.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a complex progressive neurodegenerative disorder with an estimated prevalence of about 5 per 100,000 people in the United States. In this study, the ALS disease progression is measured by the change of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Functional Rating Scale (ALSFRS) score over time. The study aims to provide clinical decision support for timely forecasting of the ALS trajectory as well as accurate and reproducible computable phenotypic clustering of participants.

Synthesis of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) via a Transient Directing Group.

In this work, an efficient synthetic route was developed to construct PAHs with diverse shape, width, and edge topology. The precursors of PAHs were obtained by using a direct arylation of arenes via a transient ligand-directed C-H functionalization strategy and the cycloaromatization was readily achieved by using a Brønsted acid catalyst. This novel route provides an opportunity to build up PAHs in a highly efficient manner.

Interaction of gold nanosurfaces/nanoparticles with collagen-like peptides.

Nanotechnology has quickly emerged as a promising research field with potential effects in disease treatments. For example, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been extensively used in diagnostics and therapeutics. When administrated into human tissues, AuNPs first encounter extracellular matrix (ECM) molecules.

Digital Domain Power Division Multiplexed Dual Polarization Coherent Optical OFDM Transmission.

Capacity is the eternal pursuit for communication systems due to the overwhelming demand of bandwidth hungry applications. As the backbone infrastructure of modern communication networks, the optical fiber transmission system undergoes a significant capacity growth over decades by exploiting available physical dimensions (time, frequency, quadrature, polarization and space) of the optical carrier for multiplexing. For each dimension, stringent orthogonality must be guaranteed for perfect separation of independent multiplexed signals.

Dosimetric impact of interfractional organs at risk variation during high-dose rate interstitial brachytherapy for gynecologic malignancies.

We sought to develop a framework for the identification and management of patients at risk for organs at risk (OARs) overdosing due to interfractional anatomic variation during high-dose rate interstitial brachytherapy for gynecologic malignancies. We analyzed 40 high-dose rate interstitial brachytherapy fractions from 10 patients. Planned OAR doses were compared to delivered doses, which were calculated from computed tomography scans obtained prior to each treatment fraction.

BOMA and OFDM/OQAM modulation for a radio-over-fiber system with enhanced spectral efficiency.

A novel radio-over-fiber system with enhanced spectral efficiency is proposed by using a building-block-sparse-constellation-based orthogonal multiple access (BOMA) technique, and orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing with offset quadrature amplitude modulation (OFDM/OQAM) technique. With the help of BOMA, a user with good signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) can use the frequency band of a user with poor SNR to transmit extra information by sharing the same well-designed constellation. Moreover, the cycle prefix in OFDM is no longer required due to the properly designed prototype filters in OFDM/OQAM, contributing to maximum spectral efficiency (SE).

POH1 deubiquitinates pro-interleukin-1β and restricts inflammasome activity.

Inflammasome activation is essential for host defence against invading pathogens, but is also involved in various forms of inflammatory diseases. The processes that control inflammasome activity are thus important for averting excessive immune responses and tissue damage. Here we show that the deubiquitinase POH1 negatively regulates the immune response triggered by inflammasome activation.

Reassessment of the taxonomic status of Craseomys and three controversial species of Myodes and Alticola (Rodentia: Arvicolinae).

The genera Myodes (red-backed voles) and Alticola (mountain voles) appear to be sister taxa based on morphological similarities, but molecular analyses fail to resolve them as monophyletic genera owing to the uncertain taxonomic status of Craseomys and Phaulomys. As a result of incomplete sampling of related specimens, ongoing controversies on the taxonomic positions of several generic and specific taxa necessitate further clarifications. Herein, we combined molecular, morphometric, and geometric morphometric approaches to analyze 217 specimens of 10 taxa of Myodes and Alticola systematically.

Histone deacetylase inhibitor targets CD123/CD47-positive cells and reverse chemoresistance phenotype in acute myeloid leukemia.

Chemoresistance may be due to the survival of leukemia stem cells (LSCs) that are quiescent and not responsive to chemotherapy or lie on the intrinsic or acquired resistance of the specific pool of AML cells. Here, we found, among well-established LSC markers, only CD123 and CD47 are correlated with AML cell chemosensitivities across cell lines and patient samples. Further study reveals that percentages of CD123CD47 cells significantly increased in chemoresistant lines compared to parental cell lines.

SIR Model for Dengue Disease with Effect of Dengue Vaccination.

The dengue disease is caused by dengue virus, and there is no specific treatment. The medical care by experienced physicians and nurses will save life and will lower the mortality rate. A dengue vaccine to control the disease is available in Thailand since late 2016.

Landscape of EGFR-Dependent and -Independent Resistance Mechanisms to Osimertinib and Continuation Therapy Beyond Progression in -Mutant NSCLC.

Purpose: Osimertinib was initially approved for T790M-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and, more recently, for first-line treatment of -mutant NSCLC. However, resistance mechanisms to osimertinib have been incompletely described.

Experimental Design: Using cohorts from The University of Texas MD Anderson Lung Cancer Moonshot GEMINI and Moffitt Cancer Center lung cancer databases, we collected clinical data for patients treated with osimertinib.

Phosphorus and Nitrogen Drive the Seasonal Dynamics of Bacterial Communities in Forest Rhizospheric Soil of the Qinling Mountains.

The temporal distribution patterns of bacterial communities, as an important group in mountain soil, are affected by various environmental factors. To improve knowledge regarding the successional seasonal dynamics of the mountain soil bacterial communities, the rhizospheric soil of a 30-year-old natural secondary forest, located in the high-altitude (1900 m a.s.

Steep Switching of InAlN/AlN/GaN MIS-HEMT (Metal Insulator Semiconductor High Electron Mobility Transistors) on Si for Sensor Applications †.

InAlN/Al/GaN high electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) directly on Si with dynamic threshold voltage for steep subthreshold slope (<60 mV/dec) are demonstrated in this study, and attributed to displacement charge transition effects. The material analysis with High-Resolution X-ray Diffraction (HR-XRD) and the relaxation by reciprocal space mapping (RSM) are performed to confirm indium barrier composition and epitaxy quality. The proposed InAlN barrier HEMTs exhibits high ON/OFF ratio with seven magnitudes and a steep threshold swing (SS) is also obtained with SS = 99 mV/dec for forward sweep and SS = 28 mV/dec for reverse sweep.

Positive Regulation of Transcription by Human ZMYND8 through Its Association with P-TEFb Complex.

Although human ZMYND8 has been implicated as a transcriptional co-repressor of multiple targets, global association of ZMYND8 with active genes and enhancer regions predicts otherwise. Here, we report an additional function of ZMYND8 in transcriptional activation through its association with the P-TEFb complex. Biochemical reconstitution analyses show that human ZMYND8, through direct association with CylcinT1, forms a minimal ZMYND8-P-TEFb complex.

Code reservation enabled PAPR reduction of digital CDM based channel aggregation for mobile fronthaul.

A code reservation technique is proposed to reduce the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of digital code-division multiplexing (CDM) based channel aggregation for mobile fronthaul. We numerically investigate the relationship between the PAPR and the number of aggregated channels during the CDM based channel aggregation, and experimentally verify the transmission performance with the code reservation technique. The PAPR of aggregated signal, which is composed of 48x20MHz Long Term Evolution (LTE) signal mapped with 64 quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), is reduced with the help of code reservation technique.

Design of highly mode group selective photonic lanterns with geometric optimization.

Highly mode group selective photonic lanterns (PLs) are desired for mode-division multiplexing transmission systems. Usually, mode selectivity is achieved by using input fibers with different core diameters or refractive indices to break degeneracy between mode groups. We demonstrate that mode group selectivity can be greatly improved by optimizing core geometry of PLs.

Link optimized few-mode fiber Raman distributed temperature sensors.

A link optimized few-mode fiber-based Raman distributed temperature sensor is proposed to enhance the temperature resolution of the long-distance sensing system. Comprehensive theoretical analysis and experimental validation in contrast with the traditional single-mode fiber-based sensing link have been conducted to reveal the benefits provided by the optimization scheme. The temperature resolutions are about 3.

Few-mode multicore fiber enabled integrated Mach-Zehnder interferometers for temperature and strain discrimination.

We proposed and experimentally demonstrated paralleled Mach-Zehnder interferometers (MZIs) in few-mode multicore fiber (FM-MCF) for temperature and strain discriminative sensing. A section of FM-MCF is sandwich-spliced between two single-mode multicore fiber (SM-MCF) with a rotational offset. The arbitrarily controlled angular misalignment generates intentional intermodal interferences in outer cores of the FM-MCF thus multiple MZI structures are implemented.

Bidirectional long-reach PON using Kramers-Kronig-based receiver for Rayleigh Backscattering noise and SSBI interference elimination.

In this paper, a novel bidirectional long-reach PON is proposed and demonstrated by using Kramers-Kronig (KK)-based receiver and 7-core fiber to simultaneously cope with the induced signal-signal beating interference (SSBI) and Rayleigh backscattering (RB) noises. A low-cost self-homodyne detection using only one PD is used at both OLT and ONU, and the middle core of 7-core fiber is used to deliver the seed light to ONUs for colorless upstream transmission, and the upstream and downstream signals are transmitted simultaneously over the same outer core for each ONU. By this means, the signals and local oscillators for upstream and downstream transmission all originate from the same laser which is located at OLT.

Effects of chelator lipids, paramagnetic metal ions and trehalose on liposomes by solid-state NMR.

The effects of various lipid bound paramagnetic metal ions on liposomes prepared in the presence of trehalose and chelator lipids are evaluated to observe site-specific signal changes on liposome samples with optimal resolution in solid-state NMR spectroscopy. We found that Mn, Gd and Dy have different influences on the lipid C sites depending on their penetration depths into the bilayer, which can be extracted as distance information. The trehalose-liposome mixture is efficiently packed into solid-state NMR rotors and provides optimal resolution at reasonable instrument temperatures (10-50 °C).