TaWRKY50-TaSARK7 module-mediated cysteine-rich protein phosphorylation suppresses the programmed cell death response to Chinese wheat mosaic virus infection.

WRKY transcription factors are widely involved in plant responses to biotic and abiotic stresses. However, there is currently a limited understanding of the regulation of viral infection by WRKY transcription factors in wheat (Triticum aestivum). The WRKY transcription factor TaWRKY50 in group IIb wheat exhibited a significant response to Chinese wheat mosaic virus infection. TaWRKY50 is localized in the nucleus and is an activating transcription factor. Interestingly, we found that silencing TaWRKY50 induces cell death following inoculation with CWMV. The protein kinase TaSAPK7 is specific to plants, whereas NbSRK is a closely related kinase with high homology to TaSAPK7. The transcriptional activities of both TaSAPK7 and NbSRK can be enhanced by TaWRKY50 binding to their promoters. CRP is an RNA silencing suppressor. Furthermore, TaWRKY50 may regulate CWMV infection by regulating the expression of TaSAPK7 and NbSRK to increase CRP phosphorylation and reduce the amount of programmed cell death (PCD).

Towards accurate indel calling for oncopanel sequencing through an international pipeline competition at precisionFDA.

Accurately calling indels with next-generation sequencing (NGS) data is critical for clinical application. The precisionFDA team collaborated with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) National Center for Toxicological Research (NCTR) and successfully completed the NCTR Indel Calling from Oncopanel Sequencing Data Challenge, to evaluate the performance of indel calling pipelines. Top performers were selected based on precision, recall, and F1-score. The performance of many other pipelines was close to the top performers, which produced a top cluster of performers. The performance was significantly higher in high confidence regions and coding regions, and significantly lower in low complexity regions. Oncopanel capture and other issues may have occurred that affected the recall rate. Indels with higher variant allele frequency (VAF) may generally be called with higher confidence. Many of the indel calling pipelines had good performance. Some of them performed generally well across all three oncopanels, while others were better for a specific oncopanel. The performance of indel calling can further be improved by restricting the calls within high confidence intervals (HCIs) and coding regions, and by excluding low complexity regions (LCR) regions. Certain VAF cut-offs could be applied according to the applications.

Clinical features and treatment options for pediatric adrenal incidentalomas: a retrospective single center study.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to investigate the clinical features and treatment options for pediatric adrenal incidentalomas(AIs) to guide the diagnosis and treatment of these tumors. METHODS: The clinical data of AI patients admitted to our hospital between December 2016 and December 2022 were collected and retrospectively analyzed. All patients were divided into neonatal and nonneonatal groups according to their age at the time of the initial consultation. RESULTS: In the neonatal group, 13 patients were observed and followed up, and the masses completely disappeared in 8 patients and were significantly reduced in size in 5 patients compared with the previous findings. Four patients ultimately underwent surgery, and the postoperative pathological diagnosis was neuroblastoma in three patients and teratoma in one patient. In the nonneonatal group, there were 18 cases of benign tumors, including 9 cases of ganglioneuroma, 2 cases of adrenocortical adenoma, 2 cases of adrenal cyst, 2 cases of teratoma, 1 case of pheochromocytoma, 1 case of nerve sheath tumor, and 1 case of adrenal hemorrhage; and 20 cases of malignant tumors, including 10 cases of neuroblastoma, 9 cases of ganglioneuroblastoma, and 1 case of adrenocortical carcinoma. CONCLUSIONS: Neuroblastoma is the most common type of nonneonatal AI, and detailed laboratory investigations and imaging studies are recommended for aggressive evaluation and treatment in this population. The rate of spontaneous regression of AI is high in neonates, and close observation is feasible if the tumor is small, confined to the adrenal gland and has no distant metastasis.

The promotional effect of prosocial motivation on time-based prospective memory.

Time-based prospective memory (TBPM) is the ability to remember to do a planned task at the right time. In social interactions, people are often motivated to do things for others, which reflects an important factor that influences prospective memory, namely prosocial motivation. According to the motivational cognitive model, prosocial motivation promotes TBPM by paying more attention or adopting more effective strategies. This study explored the effect of prosocial motivation on TBPM under different time-monitoring conditions within the motivational cognitive model framework. One hundred and thirty-one university students participated in this experiment that adopted a 2 (groups: control, prosocial motivation) × 2 (viewing time conditions: limited, unlimited) between-subjects design. The results revealed that the prosocial motivation group had better TBPM performance than the control group under both limited and unlimited viewing time conditions. At the same time, compared with the control group, the prosocial motivation group consumed more internal attention and utilized more strategies under both viewing time conditions, and their external attention was more effective. In addition, the external attention of the prosocial motivation group was higher only when time-monitoring was unlimited. The results of this study further extend knowledge of the motivational cognitive model and expand its scope of application, which has theoretical significance.

Regulation of Disease-Resistance Genes against CWMV Infection by NbHAG1-Mediated H3K36ac.

Post-translational modification of proteins plays a critical role in plant-pathogen interactions. Here, we demonstrate in Nicotiana benthamiana that knockout of NbHAG1 promotes Chinese wheat mosaic virus (CWMV) infection, whereas NbHAG1 overexpression inhibits infection. Transcriptome sequencing indicated that a series of disease resistance-related genes were up-regulated after overexpression of NbHAG1. In addition, cleavage under targets and tagmentation (Cut&Tag)-qPCR results demonstrated that NbHAG1 may activate the transcription of its downstream disease-resistance genes by facilitating the acetylation level of H3K36ac. Therefore, we suggest that NbHAG1 is an important positive regulator of resistance to CWMV infestation.

The role of CEMIP in cancers and its transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation.

CEMIP is a protein known for inducing cell migration and binding to hyaluronic acid. Functioning as a hyaluronidase, CEMIP primarily facilitates the breakdown of the extracellular matrix component, hyaluronic acid, thereby regulating various signaling pathways. Recent evidence has highlighted the significant role of CEMIP in different cancers, associating it with diverse pathological states. While identified as a biomarker for several diseases, CEMIP's mechanism in cancer seems distinct. Accumulating data suggests that CEMIP expression is triggered by chemical modifications to itself and other influencing factors. Transcriptionally, chemical alterations to the CEMIP promoter and involvement of transcription factors such as AP-1, HIF, and NF-κB regulate CEMIP levels. Similarly, specific miRNAs have been found to post-transcriptionally regulate CEMIP. This review provides a comprehensive summary of CEMIP's role in various cancers and explores how both transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms control its expression.

The effect of verbal praise on prospective memory.

Verbal praise is often used to improve prospective memory performance in daily life. According to the motivation cognitive model, the promotional effect of verbal praise on prospective memory may depend largely on redeploying attentional resources, so its promotional effect is likely to be influenced by attention. Two groups of college students (n = 128, n = 117) participated in two experimental studies that examined this hypothesis. Experiment 1 manipulated attention load by changing the difficulty of the ongoing tasks to focus on the effect of verbal praise on prospective memory under different attention load conditions. The results showed that verbal praise promoted prospective memory performance under both attentional load conditions (low, high), but verbal praise mainly promoted the prospective component when the attentional load was low, meanwhile, verbal praise mainly promoted the retrospective component when the attention load was high. Experiment 2 altered the dependence of prospective memory tasks on attentional resources by manipulating the cue focality, further exploring the promotional effect of verbal praise on prospective memory with different types of cues under the low attention load condition. The results showed that verbal praise only promoted prospective memory when non-focal cues were used. The results of this study partially verified the motivation cognitive model.

Quality of life among people with eye cancer: a systematic review from 2012 to 2022.

BACKGROUND: Eye cancer is a serious eye disease that threatens patients' lives. In the past decade, there have been more and more studies on eye cancer. From the recently published eye cancer literature review, it can be seen that the two most popular research hotspots are retinoblastoma (RB) and uveal melanoma (UM) [1, 2]. Although several studies have assessed QOL in different types of eye cancer patients, a study that synthesizes the factors influencing QOL in eye cancer patients is yet to be undertaken. This study aimed to review and evaluate the literature related to the QOL of RB and UM survivors, and provide a synthesis of the current evidence on the impact of the two types of eye cancer on the overall QOL of patients. METHODS: Eight databases (APA Psych Articles, CINAHL Complete, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, MEDLINE Complete, Scopus, Cochrane Library, PubMed, and Registers (Clinicaltrials.gov.)) were searched between January 2012 and December 2022 for English, peer-reviewed quantitative original studies within this review. All publications were screened using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses reporting guidelines. The methodological quality of the reviews was assessed using the Joanna Briggs Institute Critical Appraisal Checklists. The findings were summarised and tabulated accordingly. RESULTS: Seventeen articles were analysed. Among them, 14 articles on patients with UM, and three articles on patients with RB using 18 different types of measurement tools were included. Eight researchers claimed that the overall QOL of patients with eye cancer was better than or similar to that of the general healthy population. However, nine studies indicated that these patients had poorer QOL than others. Many factors affect QOL, including treatment, sex, and age. CONCLUSION: This systematic review identified the QOL levels and several factors that influence the QOL of ocular cancer patients worldwide, due to the variability in quality of the studies, it also showed the need for further research to assess factors affecting long-term QOL outcomes in RB and UM survivors. Simultaneously, it clarified the necessity and importance of developing standardized and complete assessment tools to compare QOL in different countries. Early interventions can be developed to improve the survivors' QOL by identifying potential deficits in specific areas.

pH-responsive, self-sculptured Mg/PLGA composite microfibers for accelerated revascularization and soft tissue regeneration.

Biodegradable Mg/polymer composite fibers offer a promising therapeutic option for tissue injury because of bioactive Mg2+ and biomimetic microstructure. However, current studies are limited to the contribution of Mg2+ and the single microstructure. In this study, we designed Mg/poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (Mg/PLGA) composite microfibers that significantly enhanced angiogenesis and tissue regeneration synergistically by Mg2+ and self-sculptured microstructure, due to spontaneous in situ microphase separation in response to the weakly alkaline microenvironment. Our composite microfiber patch exhibited superior performance in the adhesion, spreading, and angiogenesis functions of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) due to the joint contribution of the hierarchically porous microstructure and Mg2+. Genomics and proteomics analyses revealed that the Mg/PLGA composite microfibers activated the cell focal adhesion and angiogenesis-related signaling pathways. Furthermore, the repair of typical soft tissue defects, including refractory urethral wounds and easily healed skin wounds, validated that our Mg/PLGA composite microfiber patch could provide favorable surface topography and ions microenvironment for tissue infiltration and accelerated revascularization. It could cause rapid urethral tissue regeneration and recovery of rabbit urethral function within 6 weeks and accelerate rat skin wound closure within 16 days. This work provides new insight into soft tissue regeneration through the bioactive alkaline substance/block copolymer composites interactions.

Cross-Coupling of Benzylic and Aldehydic C-H Bonds via Photocatalytic Tandem Radical-Radical Coupling and Acceptorless Alcohol Dehydrogenation.

The construction of a C-C bond by cross-coupling of two different C-H bonds with the release of hydrogen gas represents an ideal yet challenging bond formation strategy. Herein, we report a photocatalytic metal-free cross-coupling of benzylic and aldehydic C-H bonds by synergistic catalysis of organophotocatalyst 4CzIPN and a thiol, which affords the corresponding α-aryl ketones in acceptable yields along with hydrogen evolution. The mechanistic investigation indicates a radical-radical coupling to give an intermediary alcohol, followed by an acceptorless alcohol dehydrogenation.

The processing mechanism of mixed prospective memory: Changes in internal and external attention.

While time-based prospective memory (TBPM) includes only time cues, mixed prospective memory (MPM) is a special form of prospective memory including both time and event cues. Depending on the classification of the clarity of time cues, MPM can be divided into time-period MPM and time-point MPM. While the time cue of the latter is a definite time point, the time cue of the former is a vague time period. As such, MPM and TBPM may have different processing mechanisms due to the additional event cue. This study aimed to investigate whether there are differences in the processing mechanisms between TBPM and the two types of MPM. A total of 240 college students were recruited to participate in the experiment. They were randomly assigned to a TBPM group, time-point MPM group, time-period MPM group, and baseline group. We adopted the performance of ongoing tasks to reflect internal attention indirectly and the frequency of time checks to measure external attention. The results showed that in terms of prospective memory, time-point MPM had the best performance, followed by time-period MPM, while TBPM had the worst performance. In relation to ongoing tasks, the two types of MPM had a better performance than TBPM in some stages, although worse than the baseline. In addition, the two MPMs evoked a lower time monitoring frequency than TBPM under different monitoring conditions. These results suggested that, compared with TBPM, MPM reduced both internal and external attention consumption and achieved better prospective memory performance. Internal attention consumption displayed dynamic changes for both types of MPM, and the time-point MPM had higher internal attention effectiveness than the time-period MPM. These results support the Dynamic Multiprocess Theory and the Attention to Delayed Intention model.

Genome-Wide Identification and Analysis of the ABCF Gene Family in Triticum aestivum.

The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) superfamily of proteins is a group of evolutionarily conserved proteins. The ABCF subfamily is involved in ribosomal synthesis, antibiotic resistance, and transcriptional regulation. However, few studies have investigated the role of ABCF in wheat (Triticum aestivum) immunity. Here, we identified 18 TaABCFs and classified them into four categories based on their domain characteristics. Functional similarity between Arabidopsis and wheat ABCF genes was predicted using phylogenetic analysis. A comprehensive genome-wide analysis of gene structure, protein motifs, chromosomal location, and cis-acting elements was also performed. Tissue-specific analysis and expression profiling under temperature, hormonal, and viral stresses were performed using real-time quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction after randomly selecting one gene from each group. The results revealed that all TaABCF genes had the highest expression at 25 °C and responded to methyl jasmonate induction. Notably, TaABCF2 was highly expressed in all tissues except the roots, and silencing it significantly increased the accumulation of Chinese wheat mosaic virus or wheat yellow mosaic virus in wheat leaves. These results indicated that TaABCF may function in response to viral infection, laying the foundation for further studies on the mechanisms of this protein family in plant defence.

QGWFQS: A Queue-Group-Based Weight Fair Queueing Scheduler on FPGA.

Weight Fair Queuing is an ideal scheduling algorithm to guarantee the bandwidth of different queues according to their configured Weights when the switching nodes of the network are congested. Many of the switching nodes based on FPGA in the current network support four physical ports or hundreds of virtual ports. Massive logic and storage resources would be consumed if each port implemented a WFQ scheduler. This paper proposes a Queue-Group-Based WFQ Scheduler (QGWFQS), which can support WFQ scheduling across multiple ports through the reuse of tag calculation and encoding circuits. We also propose a novel finish tag calculation algorithm to accommodate the variation in the link rate of each port. The remainder of integer division is also taken into account, which makes the bandwidth allocation fairer. Experimental results show that the proposed scheduler supports up to 512 ports, with 32 queues allocated on each individual port. The scheduler has the capability to operate at 200 MHz and the total scheduling capacity reaches 200 Mpps.

Vision-Based Human-Machine Interface for an Assistive Robotic Exoskeleton Glove.

This paper presents a vision-based Human-Machine Interface (HMI) for an assistive exoskeleton glove, designed to incorporate force planning capabilities. While Electroencephalogram (EEG) and Electromyography (EMG)-based HMIs allow direct grasp force planning via user signals, voice and vision-based HMIs face limitations. In particular, two primary force planning methods encounter issues in these HMIs. First, traditional force optimization struggles with unfamiliar objects due to lack of object information. Second, the slip-grasp method faces a high failure rate due to inadequate initial grasp force. To address these challenges, this paper introduces a vision-based HMI to estimate the initial grasp forces of the target object. The initial grasp force estimation is performed based on the size and surface material of the target object. The experimental results demonstrate a grasp success rate of 87. 5%, marking significant improvements over the slip-grasp method (71.9%).

The Processing Mechanism of Repetitive Practice Affecting Time-Based Prospective Memory.

Time-based prospective memory (TBPM) refers to performing intended actions at a specific time in the future. The TBPM task is very common in daily life, and whether it can be successfully completed can affect our quality of life. Repeated behavior training can usually improve social cognitive performance, and this study focused on exploring whether TBPM performance could improve with repeated behavior training. Meanwhile, we also focused on whether behavior training could reduce attention consumption, both internal and external, attention on TBPM tasks. In this study, a single-factor between-subject design was adopted. Seventy-three undergraduates were assigned to three groups: the control group, the baseline group, and the experimental group. The baseline group only needs to perform ongoing tasks, so the ongoing task performance of the control group will not be affected by TBPM tasks. The control group needs to perform both ongoing and TBPM tasks without practice. The experimental group needs to perform both ongoing and TBPM tasks after 30 exercises. The ongoing task is a typical working memory task. The TBPM task was to press a "1" button every 1 min. The results showed that the performance of ongoing tasks in the baseline group, experimental group, and control group decreased sequentially, and the experimental group had less time monitoring than the control group. The results indicated that behavior training could reduce attention consumption in both internal attention and external attention, but it could not reach the level of automatic processing.

Preclinical Evaluation of a Protein-Based Nanoscale Contrast Agent for MR Angiography at an Ultralow Dose.

Purpose: BSA-biomineralized Gd nanoparticles (Gd@BSA NPs) have been recognized as promising nanoscale MR contrast agents. The aim of this study was to carry out a preclinical evaluation of these NPs in a middle-sized animal model (rabbits). Methods: New Zealand white rabbits were treated intravenously with Gd@BSA NPs (0.02 mmol Gd/kg) via a clinically-used high-pressure injector, with commercial Gd-diethylene triamine pentaacetate (Gd-DTPA)-injected group as control. Then MR angiography was performed according to the standard clinical protocol with a 3.0-T MR scanner. The SNR and CNR of the main arteries and branches were monitored. Pharmacokinetics and bioclearance were continuously evaluated in blood, urine, and feces. Gd deposition in vital organs was measured by ICP‒MS. Weight monitoring, HE staining, and blood biochemical analysis were also performed to comprehensively estimate systemic toxicity. Results: The ultrasmall Gd@BSA NPs (<6 nm) exhibited high stability and T1 relaxivity. Compared to Gd-DTPA, Gd@BSA NPs demonstrated superior vascular system imaging performance at ultralow doses, especially of the cardiac artery and other main branches, and exhibited a significantly higher SNR and CNR. Notably, the Gd@BSA NPs showed a shorter half-life in blood, less retention in organs, and improved biocompatibility. Conclusion: The preclinical evaluations here demonstrated that Gd@BSA NPs are promising and advantageous MR CA candidates that can be used at a low dose with excellent MR imaging performance, thus suggesting its further clinical trials and applications.

USP4 promotes the proliferation and glucose metabolism of gastric cancer cells by upregulating PKM2.

BACKGROUND: The pyruvate kinase enzyme PKM2 catalyzes the final step in glycolysis and converts phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) to pyruvate. PKM2 is often overexpressed in cancer and plays a role in the Warburg effect. The expression of PKM2 can be regulated at different levels. While it has been proven that PKM2 can be regulated by ubiquitination, little is known about its de-ubiquitination regulation. METHODS: Immunoprecipitation was applied to identify the PKM2 interaction protein and to determine the interaction region between PKM2 and USP4. Immunofluorescence was performed to determine the cellular localization of USP4 and PKM2. The regulation of PKM2 by USP4 was examined by western blot and ubiquitination assay. MTT assays, glucose uptake, and lactate production were performed to analyze the biological effects of USP4 in gastric cancer cells. RESULTS: USP4 interacts with PKM2 and catalyzes the de-ubiquitination of PKM2. Overexpression of USP4 promotes cell proliferation, glucose uptake, and lactate production in gastric cancer cells. Knockdown of USP4 reduces PKM2 levels and results in a reduction in cell proliferation and the glycolysis rate. CONCLUSIONS: USP4 plays a tumor-promoting role in gastric cancer cells by regulating PKM2.

The difference of time-based prospective memory between Type A and Type B individuals under different time monitoring conditions.

Time-based prospective memory (TBPM) is affected by many factors, which include Type A and Type B personality types. Type A individuals have a strong desire to complete tasks and a strong sense of time-urgency to complete established tasks before the deadline. Type B individuals have fewer time constraints and usually procrastinate until the deadline to complete the task. Compared with Type B individuals, Type A individuals may perform better in TBPM due to their advantages in time cognition and attitude. This study explores the differences in the TBPM ability between Type A individuals and Type B individuals under different time monitoring conditions. In Experiment 1, there was no limit to how many times participants could check the time. The results showed that the performance of TBPM between Type A individuals and Type B individuals was not different. In Experiment 2, participants could only check the time once during each TBPM task. The results showed that, compared to Type B individuals, Type A individuals performed better in TBPM, with higher time monitoring frequency and slower response speed to the ongoing tasks. These findings suggest that the performance of Type A individuals in TBPM has an advantage only under the restricted time monitoring condition. This advantage is then mainly due to the increase in the attention consumption of Type A individuals in both internal and external attention.

The Effect of Implementation Intentions on Prospective Memory Commission Errors under Different Cognitive Loads.

Prospective memory (PM) refers to the ability to remember to perform a planned event or activity at a specific time or situation in the future. Implementation intentions can promote a connection between PM cues and intended actions, thus improving an individual's PM performance. However, this simple and effective encoding strategy may also have negative effects. For example, an implementation intention may result in PM commission errors that occur when an individual makes a false PM response to repeated PM cues that are no longer relevant as the PM task has been completed. Existing studies have explored the effect of implementation intentions on PM commission errors under low cognitive load. However, the role of implementation intentions in promoting linkages between PM cues and actions tends to disintegrate under high cognitive loads. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the effect of implementation intentions on PM commission errors under different cognitive load conditions. In this study, 58 college students participated in a mixed experimental design of 2 (encoding methods: implementation intention, standard) × 2 (cognitive load conditions: low, high). The results showed that implementation intentions promoted PM commission errors under the low-cognitive-load condition only, and there was no difference in the performance of ongoing tasks between the implementation intention encoding and the standard encoding conditions. However, individuals in the implementation intention condition reacted more slowly when encountering previous PM cues. The results suggest that the effect of implementation intentions on PM commission errors relies upon automated processing as a whole. However, individuals in the implementation intention condition required more attentional resources to suppress the no-longer-relevant intended actions when previous PM cues appeared, supporting the dual-mechanism theory.

A Lightweight Detection Method for Remote Sensing Images and Its Energy-Efficient Accelerator on Edge Devices.

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been extensively employed in remote sensing image detection and have exhibited impressive performance over the past few years. However, the abovementioned networks are generally limited by their complex structures, which make them difficult to deploy with power-sensitive and resource-constrained remote sensing edge devices. To tackle this problem, this study proposes a lightweight remote sensing detection network suitable for edge devices and an energy-efficient CNN accelerator based on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). First, a series of network weight reduction and optimization methods are proposed to reduce the size of the network and the difficulty of hardware deployment. Second, a high-energy-efficiency CNN accelerator is developed. The accelerator employs a reconfigurable and efficient convolutional processing engine to perform CNN computations, and hardware optimization was performed for the proposed network structure. The experimental results obtained with the Xilinx ZYNQ Z7020 show that the network achieved higher accuracy with a smaller size, and the CNN accelerator for the proposed network exhibited a throughput of 29.53 GOPS and power consumption of only 2.98 W while consuming only 113 DSPs. In comparison with relevant work, DSP efficiency at an identical level of energy consumption was increased by 1.1-2.5 times, confirming the superiority of the proposed solution and its potential for deployment with remote sensing edge devices.