Diesel exhaust exposure induced squamous metaplasia of corneal epithelium via yes-associated protein activation.

Atmospheric pollution has been demonstrated to be associated with ocular surface diseases characterized by corneal epithelial damage, including impaired barrier function and squamous metaplasia. However, the specific mechanisms underlying the impact of atmospheric pollution on corneal damage are still unknow. To address this gap in knowledge, we conducted a study using a whole-body exposure system to investigate the detrimental effects of traffic-related air pollution, specifically diesel exhaust (DE), on corneal epithelium in C57BL/6 mice over a 28-day period. Following DE exposure, the pathological alterations in corneal epithelium, including significant increase in corneal thickness and epithelial stratification, were observed in mice. Additionally, exposure to DE was also shown to disrupt the barrier functions of corneal epithelium, leading to excessive proliferation of basal cells and even causing squamous metaplasia in corneal epithelium. Further studies have found that the activation of yes-associated protein (YAP), characterized by nuclear translocation, may play a significant role in DE-induced corneal squamous metaplasia. In vitro assays confirmed that DE exposure triggered the YAP/ß-catenin pathway, resulting in squamous metaplasia and destruction of barrier functions. These findings provide the preliminary evidence that YAP activation is one of the mechanisms of the damage to corneal epithelium caused by traffic-related air pollution. These findings contribute to the knowledge base for promoting eye health in the context of atmospheric pollution.

RIS-Assisted D2D Communication over Nakagami-m Fading with RSMA.

In this study, we investigated reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted device-to-device (D2D) communication systems over Nakagami-m fading channels. To enhance the reliability of RIS-assisted D2D communications, we utilized the rate-splitting multiple access (RSMA) technique to maximize the achievable ergodic rate for our considered systems. Specifically, both devices decoded the common symbol by treating private symbols as interference, and then each private symbol was decoded by treating the other as interference. In order to maximize the achievable ergodic rate at the destination, we analyzed the achievable ergodic rate of the RIS link and the D2D link, and the destination jointly decoded both symbols transmitted from the source and device by involving the maximum ratio combination (MRC). We obtained a closed-form expression for the achievable ergodic rate of the proposed RIS-assisted D2D communication system. Finally, we investigated the influence of power allocation factors and the number of reflective elements on the achievable ergodic rate. As seen by the numerical results, there was a good match between the analysis and simulation results, as well as significant superiority compared with existing works.

Optical authentication scheme based on all-optical neural network.

Diffractive deep neural network is architectural designs based on the principles of neural networks, which consists of multiple diffraction layers and has the remarkable ability to perform machine learning tasks at the speed of light. In this paper, a novel optical authentication system was presented that utilizes the diffractive deep neural network principle. By carefully manipulating a light beam with both a public key and a private key, we are able to generate a unique and secure image representation at a precise distance. The generated image can undergo authentication by being processed through the proposed authentication system. Leveraging the utilization of invisible terahertz light, the certification system possesses inherent characteristics of concealment and enhanced security. Additionally, the entire certification process operates solely through the manipulation of the light beam, eliminating the need for electronic calculations. As a result, the system offers rapid certification speed. The proposed optical authentication scheme is further validated through computer simulations, which showcase its robust security and high precision. This method holds immense potential for diverse applications in optical neural network authentication, warranting a broad scope of future prospects.

Physiologic Effects of Isolated or Synthetic Dietary Fiber in Children: A Scoping Review.

Background: Fiber is an integral part of a healthy diet. Studies have shown that the fiber intake in children is below adequate amounts, leading to adverse health outcomes. Objectives: This study aimed to perform a scoping review to assess the available evidence for the impact of isolated and synthetic dietary fiber on children's health outcomes. Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted in Ovid Medline, Ovid Global Health, Embase, and Cochrane Library via Wiley to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in healthy children aged 1-18 y at baseline who consumed added, isolated, or synthetic dietary fiber. The outcomes of interest were categorized based on the Food and Drug Administration's guidance for industry on nondigestible carbohydrates and the Vahouny Fiber Symposium criteria, which included reduced fasting blood, glucose, total and/or LDL cholesterol concentrations, attenuation of postprandial glycemia/insulinemia, increased fecal bulk/laxation, reduced transit time, weight loss/reduction in adiposity, reduced energy intake from food consumption, increased satiety, bone health/enhanced mineral absorption, and blood pressure. We also cataloged additional reported outcomes. Results: Of 3837 randomized controlled parallel or crossover trials screened at the abstract level, 160 were eligible for full-text review, and 32 included for data extraction. This scoping review presents analysis of data from 32 RCTs in children who were healthy, overweight/obese or had mild hypercholesterolemia. Inulin-type fructans (41%) and psyllium (22%) were the most frequently administered fiber types, with weight/adiposity, markers of lipid metabolism (41%), and bone-related markers (38%) being the most frequently reported health outcomes. Only a few RCTs have investigated the effects of laxation (9%), and none specifically studied the impact of fiber on reducing postprandial glycemia/insulinemia. Conclusions: This scoping review demonstrates sufficient evidence for conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses for several outcomes. Evidence gaps remain on the impact of isolated fibers on outcomes such as laxation, colonic transit time, and postprandial glycemia/insulinemia in children.

NIR-responsive carrier-free nanoparticles based on berberine hydrochloride and indocyanine green for synergistic antibacterial therapy and promoting infected wound healing.

Bacterial infections cause severe health conditions, resulting in a significant economic burden for the public health system. Although natural phytochemicals are considered promising anti-bacterial agents, they suffer from several limitations, such as poor water solubility and low bioavailability in vivo, severely restricting their wide application. Herein, we constructed a near-infrared (NIR)-responsive carrier-free berberine hydrochloride (BH, phytochemicals)/indocyanine green (ICG, photosensitizer) nanoparticles (BI NPs) for synergistic antibacterial of an infected wound. Through electrostatic interaction and π-π stacking, the hydrophobic BH and amphiphilic ICG are initially self-assembled to generate carrier-free nanoparticles. The obtained BI NPs demonstrated NIR-responsive drug release behavior and better photothermal conversion efficiency of up to 36%. In addition, BI NPs stimulated by NIR laser exhibited remarkable antibacterial activity, which realized the synergistic antibacterial treatment and promoted infected wound healing. In summary, the current research results provided a candidate strategy for self-assembling new BI NPs to treat bacterial infections synergistically.

Safety and Efficacy of Botulinum Toxin Type A in Children With Spastic Cerebral Palsy Aged <2 Years: A Systematic Review.

In this study, we reviewed the safety and efficacy of botulinum toxin type A (BoNT-A) injection with respect to motor development in children with spastic cerebral palsy aged <2 years. Randomized controlled trials of BoNT-A published between July 1993 and May 2021 were searched in PubMed, WANFANG, CNKI (Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure), and Cochrane Library Central Register of Controlled Trials using keywords "Botulinum Toxin," "cerebral palsy," "nao xing tan huan," "nao tan," and "rou du du su." The 11-item PEDro Scale was used to rate the quality of all the identified studies. Twelve studies, involving 656 subjects, met the inclusion criteria, and of these, 2 involved patients aged <2 years. Treatment safety was assessed based on adverse event (AE) number and frequency, and efficacy was assessed based on spasticity, range of movement, and motor development. We observed that 3 self-limiting adverse events that were frequently reported included weakness, dysesthesia of the skin, and pain at the injection site. Moreover, there was a significant decrease in the incidence of spasticity and a notable improvement in the range of movement of BoNT-A-treated patients. Therefore, BoNT-A injection shows great safety and efficacy in the treatment of children with cerebral palsy aged <2 years.

Preparation of aripiprazole-poly(methyl vinyl ether-co-maleic anhydride) nanocomposites via supercritical antisolvent process for improved antidepression therapy.

Aripiprazole (ARI), a second-generation atypical antipsychotic drug approved for schizophrenia treatment, shows good efficacy against depression. However, the poorly aqueous solubility of ARI leads to low bioavailability and increased dose-related side effects, seriously limiting its application in pharmaceutics. Herein, we demonstrated the fabrication of ARI and poly (methyl vinyl ether-co-maleic anhydride) (PVMMA) composite nanoparticles (PA NPs) using the supercritical antisolvent (SAS) process for enhancing its water-solubility and curative anti-depressant effects. Initially, the optimal experimental conditions (ARI/PVMMA mass ratio of 1:6, pressure of 10 MPa, and solution flow rate of 0.75 ml min-1) were determined by a 23 factorial experimental design, resulting in the PA NPs with an excellent particle morphology. In vitro cell experiments showed that PA NPs significantly inhibited the inflammatory response caused by the microglia activation induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Similarly, mice behavioral tests demonstrated that PA NPs significantly improved LPS-induced depression-like behavior. Importantly, compared with free ARI, the LPS-induced activation of microglia in the mouse brain and the expression of inflammatory factors in serum were significantly reduced after treatment with PA NPs. Together, the innovative PA NPs designed by SAS process might provide a candidate for developing new ARI-based nano-formulations.

Plaintext attack on joint transform correlation encryption system by convolutional neural network.

The image encryption system based on joint transform correlation has attracted much attention because its ciphertext does not contain complex value and can avoid strict pixel alignment of ciphertext when decryption occurs. This paper proves that the joint transform correlation architecture is vulnerable to the attack of the deep learning method-convolutional neural network. By giving the convolutional neural network a large amount of ciphertext and its corresponding plaintext, it can simulate the key of the encryption system. Unlike the traditional method which uses the phase recovery algorithm to retrieve or estimate optical encryption key, the key model trained in this paper can directly convert the ciphertext to the corresponding plaintext. Compared with the existing neural network systems, this paper uses the sigmoid activation function and adds dropout layers to make the calculation of the neural network more rapid and accurate, and the equivalent key trained by the neural network has certain robustness. Computer simulations prove the feasibility and effectiveness of this method.

High-Yield Production of Lignin-Derived Functional Carbon Nanosheet for Dye Adsorption.

In this article, we report the preparation of lignin-derived carbon nanosheet (L-CNS) by direct thermal treatment of lignin without activation operation and the functions of the L-CNS as an adsorbent for rhodamine dye. The L-CNSs are fabricated by freeze-drying (FD) methods of lignin followed by high-temperature carbonization. It is found that lower frozen temperature in FD or lower concentration of lignin aqueous solution renders L-CNSs' more porous morphology and higher specific surface area (SSA), allowing a promising application of the L-CNSs as an efficient adsorbent for organic pollutants. In particular, the alkaline hydroxide catalyst helps to increase the SSA of carbon products, leading to a further improved adsorption capacity. On the other hand, p-toluenesulfonic acid (TsOH) catalyzed pyrolysis, which dramatically increased the L-CNS product yield, and provided a high-yield approach for the production of pollutant absorbent.

Fabrication of Supercritical Antisolvent (SAS) Process-Assisted Fisetin-Encapsulated Poly (Vinyl Pyrrolidone) (PVP) Nanocomposites for Improved Anticancer Therapy.

Due to its hydrophobicity, fisetin (FIS) often suffers from several limitations in terms of its applicability during the fabrication of pharmaceutical formulations. To overcome this intrinsic limitation of hydrophobicity, we demonstrate here the generation of poly (vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP)-encapsulated FIS nanoparticles (FIS-PVP NPs) utilizing a supercritical antisolvent (SAS) method to enhance its aqueous solubility and substantial therapeutic effects. In this context, the effects of various processing and formulation parameters, including the solvent/antisolvent ratio, drug/polymer (FIS/PVP) mass ratio, and solution flow rate, on the eventual particle size as well as on distribution were investigated using a 23 factorial experimental design. Notably, the FIS/PVP mass ratio significantly affected the morphological attributes of the resultant particles. Initially, the designed constructs were characterized systematically using various techniques (e.g., chemical functionalities were examined with Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and physical states were examined with X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) techniques). In addition, drug release as well as cytotoxicity evaluations in vitro indicated that the nanosized polymer-coated particles showed augmented performance efficiency compared to the free drug, which was attributable to the improvement in the dissolution rate of the FIS-PVP NPs due to their small size, facilitating a higher surface area over the raw form of FIS. Our findings show that the designed SAS process-assisted nanoconstructs with augmented bioavailability, have great potential for applications in pharmaceutics.

Self-steering partially coherent vector beams.

We introduce a class of self-steering partially coherent vector optical beams with the aid of a generalized complex Gaussian representation. We show that such partially coherent vector beams have mobile guiding centers of their intensity and polarization state distributions on the beam free space propagation that could be employed to generate far-field polarization arrays. Further, we introduce theoretically and realize experimentally a class of vector beams with inhomogeneous statistical and nontrivial far-field angular distributions, which we term cylindrically correlated partially coherent (CCPC) vector beams. We find that such novel beams possess, in general, cylindrically polarized, far-field patterns of an adjustable degree of polarization. The steering control of the intensity and polarization of the self-steering CCPC vector beam is also demonstrated in experiment. Our findings can find important applications, such as trapping of neutral microparticles and excitation of novel surface waves.

Phase retrieval encryption in an enhanced optical interference by key phase constraint.

In this paper, we demonstrate a security system by using optical interference and phase retrieval algorithm (PRA) techniques. The modified PRA is proposed to encode the target image into random phase distribution. Optical and digital methods can be used for decryption. By using this method, silhouette elimination is realized. In addition, due to this simplified system design, the iterative rate is improved and the optical decryption realization is easier. Validity and performance of the proposed system are demonstrated by means of numerical simulations. The system encryption capacity as to both binary and gray images is numerically investigated. Then, the decryption procedure is demonstrated by optical experiment means and the decryption result is given.

Propagation of broadband gaussian Schell-model beams in the apertured fractional Fourier transformation systems.

On the basis of the fact that a hard-edged aperture function can be expressed as finite matrices with different weighting coefficients, we obtain the analytical formula for the propagation of the broadband gaussian Schell-model (BGSM) beam through the apertured fractional Fourier transformation (AFrFT) system. It is shown by numerical examples that the intensity distribution in the plane of a small fractional order is obviously influenced by the bandwidth when the BGSM beams propagate through the AFrFT system. Further extensions are also pointed out.

Color information processing (coding and synthesis) with fractional Fourier transforms and digital holography.

In this paper, we propose a new method for color image coding and synthesis based on fractional Fourier transforms and wavelength multiplexing with digital holography. A color image is divided into three channels and each channel, in which the information is encrypted with different wavelength, fractional orders and random phase masks, is independently encrypted or synthesized. The system parameters are additional keys and this method would improve the security of information encryption. The images are fused or subtracted by phase shifting technique. The possible optical implementations for color image encryption and synthesis are also proposed with some simulation results that show the possibility of the proposed idea.

Optical image encryption with Hartley transforms.

We propose a new method for image encryption based on Hartley transforms that is a real transform and can be realized by spatially incoherent or coherent illumination. The proposed optical implementation is based on a Michelson-type interferometer in which the pure random intensity is distributed at the Hartley plane in encryption. Computer simulations prove it is possible. A Hartley hologram method is also given and described to resolve the sign ambiguity problem that would be encountered in image reconstruction.

[Preparation and characterization of monoclonal antibodies against human secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor].

AIM: To prepare and identify monoclonal antibodies(mAbs) against human secretory leukocyte protease inhibitor (hSLPI). METHODS: BALB/c mice were immunized with hSLPI, and hybridoma cell lines were obtained by fusing mouse spleen cells with myeloma NS-1 cells. The specificity of mAbs were characterized by ELISA, Western blot, immunohistochemical staining, flow cytometry(FCM) and confocal laser scanning microscopy(CLSM). RESULTS: Four hybridoma cells which secreted the mAbs to hSLPI were obtained. 4 mAbs were IgM. Western blot analysis showed that the mAbs could recognize a target molecule with relative molecular mass of 12 000. Immunohistochemical staining revealed that the reactivities of 4 mAbs to the epithelial cells in lung and colon tissues, mast cell-like cells in lung, colon, tonsil and prepuce tissues were positive. The result of FCM showed that the 4 mAbs recognized SLPI expressed in A549 cells. CLSM examination confirmed that the fluorescent markers were mainly localized in the cytoplasm of A549 cells. CONCLUSION: The mAbs against hSLPI are prepared successfully, which provides valuable tool for studies on allergic and inflammatory diseases.

Optical color image encryption by wavelength multiplexing and lensless Fresnel transform holograms.

We propose what we believe is a new method for color image encryption by use of wavelength multiplexing based on lensless Fresnel transform holograms. An image is separated into three channels: red, green, and blue, and each channel is independently encrypted. The system parameters of Fresnel transforms and random phase masks in each channel are keys in image encryption and decryption. An optical color image coding configuration with multichannel implementation and an optoelectronic color image encryption architecture with single-channel implementation are presented. The keys can be added by iteratively employing the Fresnel transforms. Computer simulations are given to prove the possibility of the proposed idea.