The Effect of Metformin on Radiation-Induced Lung Fibrosis in Mice.

Radiation-induced lung fibrosis (RILF) is a common complication of thoracic radiotherapy. Metformin has been suggested to have a radioprotective effect. This study explored the radioprotective effects of metformin on RILF and its mechanisms.

Definition of a new blood cell count score for early survival prediction for non-small cell lung cancer patients treated with atezolizumab: Integrated analysis of four multicenter clinical trials.

Importance: Blood cell count test (BCT) is a robust method that provides direct quantification of various types of immune cells to reveal the immune landscape to predict atezolizumab treatment outcomes for clinicians to decide the next phase of treatment.

Objective: This study aims to define a new BCTscore model to predict atezolizumab treatment benefits in non-small lung cell cancer (NSCLC) patients.

Design Setting And Participants: This study analyzed four international, multicenter clinical trials (OAK, BIRCH, POPLAR, and FIR trials) to conduct analyses of NSCLC patients undergoing atezolizumab (anti-PD-L1) single-agent treatment ( = 1,479) or docetaxel single-agent treatment ( = 707).

Artificial Intelligence Model for Antiinterference Cataract Automatic Diagnosis: A Diagnostic Accuracy Study.

Cataract is the leading cause of blindness worldwide. In order to achieve large-scale cataract screening and remarkable performance, several studies have applied artificial intelligence (AI) to cataract detection based on fundus images. However, the fundus images they used are original from normal optical circumstances, which is less impractical due to the existence of poor-quality fundus images for inappropriate optical conditions in actual scenarios.

Slowly Digestible Carbohydrate Diet Ameliorates Hyperglycemia and Hyperlipidemia in High-Fat Diet/Streptozocin-Induced Diabetic Mice.

Objective: Given that the prevalence rate of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) continues to increase, it is important to find an effective method to prevent or treat this disease. Previous studies have shown that dietary intervention with a slowly digestible carbohydrate (SDC) diet can improve T2DM with almost no side effects. However, the underlying mechanisms of SDC protect against T2DM remains to be elucidated.

Preventive effect of sanguinarine on intestinal injury in mice exposed to whole abdominal irradiation.

Intestinal injury is one of the major side effects that are induced by medical radiation exposure, and has limited effective therapies. In this study, we investigated the beneficial effects of sanguinarine (SAN) on intestinal injury induced by ionizing radiation (IR) both in vitro and in vivo. Mice were exposed to whole abdominal irradiation (WAI) to mimic clinical scenarios.

p-Coumaric acid ameliorates ionizing radiation-induced intestinal injury through modulation of oxidative stress and pyroptosis.

Aims: Intestinal injury is a clinical problem related to radiotherapy or accidental exposure to ionizing radiation. This study aimed to investigate the protective effect of p-coumaric acid (CA) against radiation induced intestinal injury.

Main Methods: The present study orally administered CA to C57BL/6 male mice at 30 min before total body irradiation and continued for 3 days post irradiation.

Anti-Oxidative and Immuno-Protective Effect of Camel Milk on Radiation-Induced Intestinal Injury in C57BL/6 J Mice.

Purpose: The main objective is to investigate the protective effect of camel milk (CM) on radiation-induced intestinal injury.

Methods: The C57BL/6 J mice in 2 experiments were assigned into control group (Con), irradiation group (IR), and CM+irradiation group (CM+IR). After receiving the CM via gavage for 14 days, the mice in the first experiment were exposed to 6 Gy X-ray whole body irradiation, and survival rate was compared among the groups.

At What Dose Can Total Body and Whole Abdominal Irradiation Cause Lethal Intestinal Injury Among C57BL/6J Mice?

Purpose And Methods: To investigate the doses of total body (TBI) and whole abdominal irradiation (WAI) induced lethal intestinal injury, healthy C57BL/6 J mice were divided randomly into 7 groups: control group; 6, 7, and 8 Gy TBI groups; and 5, 10, and 15 Gy WAI groups. The survival length, general conditions, body weight, daily food and water intake of the mice and the histopathological changes of small intestine were observed.

Results: Lethal injury among C57BL/6 J mice was caused by ≥6 Gy TBI and 15 Gy WAI.

The Constipation-Relieving Property of d-Tagatose by Modulating the Composition of Gut Microbiota.

d-tagatose, a monosaccharide as well as a dietary supplement, has been reported as having a wide range of applicability in the food industry, however, the prebiotic activity, anticonstipation effects, and related mechanisms are still unclear. In this study, using the loperamide-induced constipation Kunming mice as the animal model, the effects of d-tagatose for the prevention of constipation were evaluated by gastrointestinal transit experiment and defecation experiment. Furthermore, the underlying mechanism was clarified by evaluating the change of the biochemical indicators and analyzing 16S rRNA amplicon of gut microbiota among the different mice groups.

Simultaneous determination of multiclass illegal dyes with different acidic-basic properties in foodstuffs by LC-MS/MS via polarity switching mode.

Simultaneous determination of multiclass illegal dyes possessing different chemical properties is difficult. By using LC-MS/MS via negative/positive ion switching mode, an efficient and fast multi-residual method for simultaneous determination of multiclass 52 illegal dyes with different acidic-basic properties in foodstuffs was developed and validated during one single run, including 23 fat-soluble neutral azo dyes, 8 acidic sulfonated azo dyes, 12 triphenylmethane basic dyes, three basic indole dyes, three xanthene dyes, one quinoline dye, and two anthraquinones dyes. The illegal dyes were extracted with methanol-acetonitrile and further purified with d-SPE procedure to reduce interference.

Sparse dynamical Boltzmann machine for reconstructing complex networks with binary dynamics.

Revealing the structure and dynamics of complex networked systems from observed data is a problem of current interest. Is it possible to develop a completely data-driven framework to decipher the network structure and different types of dynamical processes on complex networks? We develop a model named sparse dynamical Boltzmann machine (SDBM) as a structural estimator for complex networks that host binary dynamical processes. The SDBM attains its topology according to that of the original system and is capable of simulating the original binary dynamical process.

Dexmedetomidine mitigates isoflurane-induced neurodegeneration in fetal rats during the second trimester of pregnancy.

Dexmedetomidine has significant neuroprotective effects. However, whether its protective effects can reduce neurotoxicity caused by isoflurane in fetal brain during the second trimester of pregnancy remains unclear. In this study, timed-pregnancy rats at gestational day 14 spontaneously inhaled 1.

Physical controllability of complex networks.

A challenging problem in network science is to control complex networks. In existing frameworks of structural or exact controllability, the ability to steer a complex network toward any desired state is measured by the minimum number of required driver nodes. However, if we implement actual control by imposing input signals on the minimum set of driver nodes, an unexpected phenomenon arises: due to computational or experimental error there is a great probability that convergence to the final state cannot be achieved.

Energy scaling and reduction in controlling complex networks.

Recent works revealed that the energy required to control a complex network depends on the number of driving signals and the energy distribution follows an algebraic scaling law. If one implements control using a small number of drivers, e.g.

Extreme events in multilayer, interdependent complex networks and control.

We investigate the emergence of extreme events in interdependent networks. We introduce an inter-layer traffic resource competing mechanism to account for the limited capacity associated with distinct network layers. A striking finding is that, when the number of network layers and/or the overlap among the layers are increased, extreme events can emerge in a cascading manner on a global scale.

Spatiotemporal patterns and predictability of cyberattacks.

A relatively unexplored issue in cybersecurity science and engineering is whether there exist intrinsic patterns of cyberattacks. Conventional wisdom favors absence of such patterns due to the overwhelming complexity of the modern cyberspace. Surprisingly, through a detailed analysis of an extensive data set that records the time-dependent frequencies of attacks over a relatively wide range of consecutive IP addresses, we successfully uncover intrinsic spatiotemporal patterns underlying cyberattacks, where the term "spatio" refers to the IP address space.

Controlling extreme events on complex networks.

Extreme events, a type of collective behavior in complex networked dynamical systems, often can have catastrophic consequences. To develop effective strategies to control extreme events is of fundamental importance and practical interest. Utilizing transportation dynamics on complex networks as a prototypical setting, we find that making the network "mobile" can effectively suppress extreme events.

Optimizing cooperation on complex networks in the presence of failure.

Cooperation has been recognized as a fundamental driving force in many natural, social, and economic systems. We investigate whether, given a complex-networked system in which agents (nodes) interact with one another according to the rules of evolutionary games and are subject to failure or death, cooperation can prevail and be optimized. We articulate a control scheme to maximize cooperation by introducing a time tolerance, a time duration that sustains an agent even if its payoff falls below a threshold.

Diversity of rationality affects the evolution of cooperation.

By modifying the Fermi updating rule, we present the diversity of individual rationality to the evolutionary prisoner's dilemma game, and our results shows that this diversity heavily influences the evolution of cooperation. Cluster-forming mechanism of cooperators can either be highly enhanced or severely deteriorated by different distributions of rationality. Slight change in the rationality distribution may transfer the whole system from the global absorbing state of cooperators to that of defectors.