Pan-cancer analysis of NUP155 and validation of its role in breast cancer cell proliferation, migration, and apoptosis.

NUP155 is reported to be correlated with tumor development. However, the role of NUP155 in tumor physiology and the tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) has not been previously examined. This study comprehensively investigated the expression, immunological function, and prognostic significance of NUP155 in different cancer types. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that NUP155 was upregulated in 26 types of cancer. Additionally, NUP155 upregulation was strongly correlated with advanced pathological or clinical stages and poor prognosis in several cancers. Furthermore, NUP155 was significantly and positively correlated with DNA methylation, tumor mutational burden, microsatellite instability, and stemness score in most cancers. Additionally, NUP155 was also found to be involved in TIME and closely associated with tumor infiltrating immune cells and immunoregulation-related genes. Functional enrichment analysis revealed a strong correlation between NUP155 and immunomodulatory pathways, especially antigen processing and presentation. The role of NUP155 in breast cancer has not been examined. This study, for the first time, demonstrated that NUP155 was upregulated in breast invasive carcinoma (BRCA) cells and revealed its oncogenic role in BRCA using molecular biology experiments. Thus, our study highlights the potential value of NUP155 as a biomarker in the assessment of prognostic prediction, tumor microenvironment and immunotherapeutic response in pan-cancer.

Improving optoelectronic performance and modulation bandwidth of green µ-LEDs via a compound pre-strained strategy.

A composite strain-modulation strategy to achieve high-performing green µ-LED devices for visible light communication is proposed. Compared with the conventional pre-well structure, introducing a pre-layer to enlarge the lateral lattice constant of the underlayer decreased the strain in the overall strain-modulated layer and MQW. This improved the crystal quality and suppressed the quantum confinement Stark effect. Using this modulation strategy, the green µ-LED array with the compound pre-strained structure exhibited a light output power of 20.5 mW and modulation bandwidth of 366 MHz, corresponding to improvements of 61% and 78%, respectively, compared with those of µ-LEDs with a pre-well structure.

An analysis of nonlinear thickness vibration frequencies of multi-layered film bulk acoustic resonators.

The fast reduction of the physical size of film bulk acoustic wave resonators as a layered structure implies the intensification of the electric field which can induce large deformation in the functioning state of devices as a circuit element. Consequently, the nonlinear behavior of the resonator and accompanying properties are to be included and evaluated in the development and optimization for performance improvement. With this objective, the nonlinear formulation of a multilayered film bulk acoustic resonator is presented for the analysis of vibration frequencies and mode shapes with the consideration of larger mechanical deformation. The dominantly linear relationship between the voltage or deformation and frequency is obtained to understand the nonlinear behavior and properties which have been subjected to extensive research analytically and experimentally to satisfy the application needs in all modes of communications and network technology.

Clinical Value of Surgery and Establishment a Predictive Model for Breast Cancer Patients with Bone-Only Metastasis.

BACKGROUND: Whether to perform surgery on breast cancer with initial bone metastasis is heatedly debated. The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of surgery to prolong survival time towards breast cancer patients with bone-only metastasis, and create a prognostic nomogram to predict long-term survival. METHODS: Patients diagnosed with bone-only metastatic breast cancer from 2010 to 2015 were included in this study. National Cancer Database (NCDB) was used to obtain patients' data. RESULTS: A total of 7751 patients were included for final analysis, among which 3114 (40.2%) patients had received specialized breast surgery and 4637 (59.8%) had not. Patients who had undergone surgery showed a superior overall survival (OS) compared to patients without surgery (multivariate: HR (hazard ratios) = 0.58; 95% CI (confidence interval) [0.54-0.62]; p < 0.001). Moreover, survival benefit from surgery was also true in almost all subgroups. Prognostic nomogram to individually predict patients' long-term survival rate exhibited an acceptable predictive capability, with a C-index around 0.7 both in training and validation cohorts. Clinicopathological factors included in the nomogram could discriminate patients into subgroup with different prognoses. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggests that surgery may enhance OS in patients with initial bone-only metastatic breast cancer. Additionally, the created nomogram showed an acceptable could predict patients' long term survival.

Root endophytic bacterial community composition of Aconitum carmichaelii debx. from three main producing areas in China.

Aconitum carmichaelii Debx. is famous for the bioactive aconitum alkaloids as traditional Chinese medicine. Endophytic bacteria play vital roles in plant growth, health, and the production of secondary metabolites such as alkaloids. In this study, we employed 16 S rRNA amplicon high-throughput sequencing to determine the root endophytic bacterial community of A. carmichaelii Debx. collected from three main producing areas including the geo-authentic area in China, high performance liquid chromatography to measure the contents of six bioactive alkaloids and correlation analysis to explore the relationship among environmental factors, alkaloids contents, and endophytic bacterial community. The results indicated that the root core microbiota of A. carmichaelii Debx. was dominated by Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, and Actinobacteria. Root endophytic bacterial community in the geo-authentic area was distinct from the other two regions. Soil nitrogen contents, organic matter, and temperature were the main factors contributing to the endophytic bacterial community structure. Significant correlation was found between alkaloids contents and some bacterial genera. Particularly, the abundance of Lactobacillus was positively correlated with the contents of benzoyl-mesaconitine and benzoyl-aconine. This study provided the first insight into the root endophytic bacterial community composition of A. carmichaelii Debx., and can direct further isolation of functional bacterial strains.

Flexural Strength Prediction of Steel Fiber-Reinforced Concrete Using Artificial Intelligence.

Research has focused on creating new methodologies such as supervised machine learning algorithms that can easily calculate the mechanical properties of fiber-reinforced concrete. This research aims to forecast the flexural strength (FS) of steel fiber-reinforced concrete (SFRC) using computational approaches essential for quick and cost-effective analysis. For this purpose, the SFRC flexural data were collected from literature reviews to create a database. Three ensembled models, i.e., Gradient Boosting (GB), Random Forest (RF), and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGB) of machine learning techniques, were considered to predict the 28-day flexural strength of steel fiber-reinforced concrete. The efficiency of each method was assessed using the coefficient of determination (R2), statistical evaluation, and k-fold cross-validation. A sensitivity approach was also used to analyze the impact of factors on predicting results. The analysis showed that the GB and RF models performed well, and the XGB approach was in the acceptable range. Gradient Boosting showed the highest precision with an R2 of 0.96, compared to Random Forest (RF) and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGB), which had R2 values of 0.94 and 0.86, respectively. Moreover, statistical and k-fold cross-validation studies confirmed that Gradient Boosting was the best performer, followed by Random Forest (RF), based on reduced error levels. The Extreme Gradient Boosting model performance was satisfactory. These ensemble machine learning algorithms can benefit the construction sector by providing fast and better analysis of material properties, especially for fiber-reinforced concrete.

Biocontrol and plant growth promotion potential of endophytic Bacillus subtilis JY-7-2L on Aconitum carmichaelii Debx.

Aconitum carmichaelii Debx. is a famous medicinal plant rich in alkaloids and widely used to treat various human diseases in Asian countries. However, southern blight caused by Sclerotium rolfsii severely hampered the yield of A. carmichaelii. Beneficial microbe-based biological control is becoming a promising alternative and an environmentally friendly approach for the management of plant diseases. In this study, we evaluated the biocontrol potential of an endophytic bacterial strain JY-7-2L, which was isolated from the leaves of A. carmichaelii, against southern blight in vitro and by a series of field experiments. JY-7-2L was identified as Bacillus subtilis based on multi-locus sequence analysis. JY-7-2L showed strong antagonistic activity against S. rolfsii in vitro and on A. carmichaelii root slices by dual-culture assay. Cell-free culture filtrate of JY-7-2L significantly inhibited the hyphal growth, sclerotia formation, and germination of S. rolfsii. In addition, volatile compounds produced by JY-7-2L completely and directly inhibited the growth of S. rolfsii. Furthermore, JY-7-2L was proved to produce hydrolytic enzymes including glucanase, cellulase, protease, indole acetic acid, and siderophore. The presence of bacA, fenA, fenB, fenD, srfAA, and baeA genes by PCR amplification indicated that JY-7-2L was able to produce antifungal lipopeptides and polyketides. Field trials indicated that application of the JY-7-2L fermentation culture significantly reduced southern blight disease severity by up to 30% with a long-acting duration of up to 62 days. Meanwhile, JY-7-2L significantly promoted the fresh and dry weights of the stem, main root, and lateral roots of A. carmichaelii compared to non-inoculation and/or commercial B. subtilis product treatments. Taken together, JY-7-2L can be used as a promising biocontrol agent for the control of southern blight in A. carmichaelii.

Free and forced vibrations of SC-cut quartz crystal rectangular plates with the first-order Mindlin plate equations.

Mindlin plate theory was used to provide accurate solutions to thickness-shear vibrations of plates, which have a much higher frequency than usual flexural vibrations and are the functioning modes of quartz crystal resonators. The vibration frequency solutions obtained with the Mindlin plate theory are proven being accurate along with mode shapes. In this paper, straight-crested wave solutions of free and forced vibrations of doubly rotated SC-cut of quartz crystal plates of rectangular shapes with four free edges are obtained with validated Mindlin plate equations. A procedure has been established for the calculation of dispersion relations, frequency spectra, mode shapes, and capacitance ratios of forced vibrations needed in resonator design.

Forced vibrations of SC-cut quartz crystal rectangular plates with partial electrodes by the Lee plate equations.

Lee plate equations for high frequency vibrations of piezoelectric plates have been established and perfected over decades with the sole objective of obtaining accurate predictions of frequency and mode shapes to aid the analysis and design of quartz crystal resonators. The latest improvement includes extra terms related to derivatives of the flexural displacement to provide much accurate solutions for vibrations of the thickness-shear mode, which is the functioning mode of resonators and has much higher frequency than the flexural mode. The improved Lee plate equations have been used in the analysis of high frequency vibrations of quartz crystal plates as an essential step for analysis of AT- and SC-cut quartz crystal resonators after validations with fully electrode quartz crystal piezoelectric plates. In this study, closed-form solutions of free and forced vibrations of SC-cut quartz plates with partial electrodes are obtained. A procedure has been established for the calculation of dispersion relations, frequency spectra, selected vibration modes, and capacitance ratios of forced vibrations. The vibration solutions obtained with the first-order Lee plate equations are proven to be close to solutions from the Mindlin plate equations. It is now clear that both the Mindlin and Lee plate equations can be used in the analysis and design of quartz crystal resonators.

An analysis of thickness-shear vibrations of doubly-rotated quartz crystal plates with the corrected first-order Mindlin plate equations.

The Mindlin plate equations have been widely used in the analysis of high-frequency vibrations of quartz crystal resonators with accurate solutions, as demonstrated by the design procedure based on analytical results in terms of frequency, mode shapes, and optimal parameters for the AT-cut quartz crystal plate, which is the core element in a resonator structure. Earlier studies have been focused on the AT-cut (which is one type of rotated Y-cut) quartz crystal plates because it is widely produced and has relatively simple couplings of vibration modes at thickness-shear frequencies of the fundamental and overtone modes. The simplified equations through the truncation, correction, and modification of the Mindlin plate equations have been widely accepted for practical applications, and further efforts to expand their applications to similar problems of other material types, such as doubly-rotated quartz crystals, with the SC-cut being a typical and popular one, are also naturally expected. We have found out that the Mindlin plate theory can be truncated and corrected for the SC-cut quartz crystal plates in a manner similar to the AT-cut plates. The analytical results show that the corrected Mindlin plate equations are equally accurate and convenient for obtaining essential design parameters of resonators for the thickness-shear vibrations of SC-cut quartz crystal plates.

Thickness-shear modes of an elliptical, contoured AT-cut quartz resonator.

We study free vibrations of an elliptical crystal resonator of AT-cut quartz with an optimal ratio between the semi-major and semi-minor axes as defined by Mindlin. The resonator is contoured with a quadratic thickness variation. The scalar equation for thickness-shear modes in an AT-cut quartz plate by Tiersten and Smythe is used. Analytical solutions for the frequencies and modes to the scalar equation are obtained using a power series expansion that converges rapidly. The frequencies and modes are exact in the sense that they can satisfy the scalar differential equation and the free edge condition to any desired accuracy. They are simple and can be used conveniently for further studies on other effects on frequencies and modes of contoured resonators.

The fifth-order overtone vibrations of quartz crystal plates with corrected higher-order Mindlin plate equations.

Higher-order overtone resonators have been widely used in various electronic products for their higher vibration frequencies, which are in the much-needed frequency range beyond the reach of the fundamental mode. However, the existing designs of higher-order overtone resonators and further improvement for meeting more precise requirements are largely based on empirical approaches. As an analytical effort, we have derived the corrected fifth-order Mindlin plate equations with the consideration of electric potential and overtone displacements. The elimination and truncation of the infinite two-dimensional equations has been done to ensure the exact cut-off frequencies of the fundamental, the third-order overtone, and fifth-order overtone thickness-shear modes in comparison with the three-dimensional equations. The frequency spectra are plotted in the vicinity of overtone thickness-shear modes for analysis of couplings and interactions with spurious modes, and the optimal design of quartz crystal blanks for overtone vibrations has been suggested. The equations, solutions, and method will be important in design of the higher-order overtone thickness-shear vibration resonators.

Correction factors of the Mindlin plate equations with the consideration of electrodes.

The Mindlin plate theory plays a vital role in the analysis of high-frequency vibrations of quartz crystal resonators in the thickness-shear mode. The coupled equations with an infinite number of vibration modes have been truncated to retain essential modes with strong couplings for simplified analysis, and correction factors have been introduced to ensure exact solutions at cut-off frequencies as part of the validation procedure. Starting from plates without complications, correction factors have also been modified to include electrodes for their mass effect. Such results have been important for higher-order correction factors to ensure accurate consideration of electrodes in AT-cut quartz crystal plates. The findings in this systematic study of correction factors are readily available for the analytical equations with selected modes with strong couplings, and equally convenient for the implementation of the finite element analysis with the Mindlin plate equations.

Five-mode frequency spectra of x3-dependent modes in AT-cut quartz resonators.

We study straight-crested waves and vibration modes with variations along the x(3) direction only in an AT-cut quartz plate resonator near the operating frequency of the fundamental thickness-shear mode. Mindlin's two-dimensional equations for anisotropic crystal plates are used. Dispersion relations and frequency spectra of the five relevant waves are obtained. It is found that, to avoid unwanted couplings between the resonator operating mode and other undesirable modes, in addition to certain known values of the plate length/thickness ratio that need to be avoided, an additional series of discrete values of the plate length/thickness ratio also must be excluded.

An analysis of nonlinear vibrations of coupled thickness-shear and flexural modes of quartz crystal plates with the homotopy analysis method.

We investigated the nonlinear vibrations of the coupled thickness-shear and flexural modes of quartz crystal plates with the nonlinear Mindlin plate equations, taking into consideration the kinematic and material nonlinearities. The nonlinear Mindlin plate equations for strongly coupled thickness- shear and flexural modes have been established by following Mindlin with the nonlinear constitutive relations and approximation procedures. Based on the long thickness-shear wave approximation and aided by corresponding linear solutions, the nonlinear equation of thickness-shear vibrations of quartz crystal plate has been solved by the combination of the Galerkin and homotopy analysis methods. The amplitude frequency relation we obtained showed that the nonlinear frequency of thickness-shear vibrations depends on the vibration amplitude, thickness, and length of plate, which is significantly different from the linear case. Numerical results from this study also indicated that neither kinematic nor material nonlinearities are the main factors in frequency shifts and performance fluctuation of the quartz crystal resonators we have observed. These efforts will result in applicable solution techniques for further studies of nonlinear effects of quartz plates under bias fields for the precise analysis and design of quartz crystal resonators.