An ongoing search for potential targets and therapies for lethal sepsis

Sepsis, which refers to a systemic inflammatory response syndrome resulting from a microbial infection, represents the leading cause of death in intensive care units. The pathogenesis of sepsis remains poorly understood although it is attributable to dysregulated immune responses orchestrated by innate immune cells that sequentially release early(e.g., tumor necrosis factor(TNF), interleukin-1(IL-1), and interferon-γ(IFN-γ) and late(e.g., high mobility group box 1(HMGB1)) pro-inflammatory mediators. As a ubiquitous nuclear protein, HMGB1 can be passively released from pathologically damaged cells, thereby converging infection and injury on commonly dysregulated inflammatory responses. We review evidence that supports extracellular HMGB1 as a late mediator of inflammatory diseases and discuss the potential of several Chinese herbal components as HMGB1-targeting therapies. We propose that it is important to develop strategies for specifically attenuating injury-elicited inflammatory responses without compromising the infection-mediated innate immunity for the clinical management of sepsis and other inflammatory diseases.

Research of Security Constrained Dispatching for Monthly Generation Plan

The dispatching for monthly generation plan is to manage the congestion considering the security constrains of the power grid, where the monthly generation plan is the result of vary monthly power exchange, including long-term power contract, power exchange among provinces and generation constitution exchanges. The application of monthly security constrained dispatching is with significant meaning for the security and stability of power grid. This paper brings forward the purpose and contents of security dispatching and introduces the working procedure and mathematic models. At last, the practical example of the Anhui Province power grid is introduced to explain the models.

MicroRNA miR-2765-3p regulates reproductive diapause by targeting FoxO in Galeruca daurica

The forkhead box O(FoxO),as a conserved transcription factor,plays an indispensable role in regulating insect diapause.However,how FoxO is regulated to control diapause in insects remains unknown.In this study,we discovered functional binding sites for miR-2765-3p in the 3′untranslated region of FoxO in Galeruca daurica.The luciferase reporter assay showed that miR-2765-3p targeted FoxO and suppressed its expression.The expression profiles of miR-2765-3p and FoxO displayed opposite patterns during the female developmental process.Overexpression of miR-2765-3p by the injection of the miR-2765-3p agomir into adult females reduced FoxO expression,leading to the suppression of lipid accumulation,promotion of ovarian development,and inhibition of reproductive diapause.This is similar to the phenotype that results from the depletion of FoxO by injecting dsFoxO into adult females.In addition,the repression of miR-2765-3p by injecting the miR-2765-3p antagomir increased the FoxO transcript level,leading to the stimulation of lipid accumulation,depression of ovarian development,and induction of reproductive diapause.A hormone injection assay showed that the juvenile hormone(JH)agonist(methoprene)upregulated miR-2765-3p and downregulated FoxO.Notably,injecting methoprene rescued ovarian development defects associated with miR-2765-3p inhibition.These findings indicate that the JH/miR-2765-3p/FoxO axis plays a vital role in the regulation of reproductive diapause in G.daurica.

Phase problems in optical imaging

Because the phase contains more information about the field compared to the amplitude, measurement of the phase is encountered in many branches of modern science and engineering. Direct measurement of the phase is difficult in the visible regime of the electromagnetic wave. One must employ computational techniques to calculate the phase from the captured intensity. In this paper, we provide a review of our recent work on iterative phase retrieval techniques and their applications in optical imaging.