Development of Core-Shell Nanoparticle Drug Delivery Systems Based on Biomimetic Mineralization

Among various drug-delivery systems, core-shell nanoparticles have many advantages. Inspired by nature, biomimetic synthesis has emerged as a new strategy for making core-shell nanoparticles in recent years. Biomimetic mineralization is the process by which living organisms produce minerals based on biomolecule templating that leads to the formation of hierarchically structured organic–inorganic materials. In this minireview, we mainly focus on the synthesis of core-shell nanoparticle drug-delivery systems by biomimetic mineralization. We review various biomimetic mineralization methods for fabricating core-shell nanoparticles including silica-based, calcium-based and other nanoparticles, and their applications in drug delivery. We also summarize strategies for drug loading in the biomolecule-mineralized core-shell NPs. Current challenges and future directions are also discussed.     

Detecting Cysteine in Bioimaging with a Near-Infrared Probe Based on a Novel Fluorescence Quenching Mechanism

Near-infrared (NIR) fluorescent probes are very significant for detecting cysteine in biological systems. Herein, we report a highly selective and sensitive NIR turn-on fluorescent probe (BDP-NIR) based on BODIPY with large Stokes shift (105 nm) for detecting Cys. We clarified the sensing mechanism based on the different thiol-induced S_NAr substitution/rearrangement reaction of the probe with cysteine and homocysteine/glutathione, which leads to the corresponding amino- and thiol-BODIPY dyes with distinct photophysical properties. Moreover, a novel mechanism of fluorescence quenching was demonstrated by density functional theory calculation. The reason for the fluorescence quenching of the probe might be intersystem crossing (from singlet to triplet excited state). Moreover, BDP-NIR had a high linear dynamic range of 0–500 μM, which was promising for detecting cysteine quantificationally. Significantly, BDP-NIR was capable of sensing endogenous cysteine in living cells and in vivo.     

A Novel Beam Search to Improve Neural Machine Translation for English-Chinese

Neural Machine Translation (NMT) is an end-to-end learning approach for automated translation, overcoming the weaknesses of conventional phrase-based translation systems. Although NMT based systems have gained their popularity in commercial translation applications, there is still plenty of room for improvement. Being the most popular search algorithm in NMT, beam search is vital to the translation result. However, traditional beam search can produce duplicate or missing translation due to its target sequence selection strategy. Aiming to alleviate this problem, this paper proposed neural machine translation improvements based on a novel beam search evaluation function. And we use reinforcement learning to train a translation evaluation system to select better candidate words for generating translations. In the experiments, we conducted extensive experiments to evaluate our methods. CASIA corpus and the 1,000,000 pairs of bilingual corpora of NiuTrans are used in our experiments. The experiment results prove that the proposed methods can effectively improve the English to Chinese translation quality.     

视频侦查中人像智能分析应用及算法优化

人像智能分析指的是对视频或录像中的人像进行结构化和可视化分析,对目标人物进行性别、年龄、发型等特征的智能识别,这项技术在视频侦查中有极高的应用价值。人像识别早期的算法是通过人工提取特征,通过学习低级视觉特征来针对不同属性进行分类学习,这种基于传统方法的模型表现常常不尽如人意。在计算机视觉领域,通过海量图像数据学习的神经网络比传统方法有更丰富的信息量和特征可以被提取。文章尝试通过深度学习技术训练神经网络模型对行人进行检测和识别,对于衣着不同的行人进行智能识别,具有更好的鲁棒性,提升了视频人像识别的准确率,拓展了人工智能技术在身份识别领域的应用。     

D-limonene Inhibits Pentylenetetrazole-Induced Seizure via Adenosine A2A Receptor Modulation on GABAergic Neuronal Activity

Background: Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by the recurrence of seizures. One-third of patients with epilepsy may not respond to antiseizure drugs. Purpose: We aimed to examine whether D-limonene, a cyclic monoterpene, exhibited any antiseizure activity in the pentylenetetrazole (PTZ)-induced kindling mouse model and in vitro. Methods: PTZ kindling mouse model was established by administering PTZ (30 mg/kg) intraperitoneally to mice once every 48 h. We performed immunoblot blots, immunohistochemistry (IHC), and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis after the behavioral study. Results: An acute injection of PTZ (60 mg/kg) induced seizure in mice, while pretreatment with D-limonene inhibited PTZ-induced seizure. Repeated administration of PTZ (30 mg/kg) increased the seizure score gradually in mice, which was reduced in D-limonene (10 mg/kg)-pretreated group. In addition, D-limonene treatment increased glutamate decarboxylase-67 (GAD-67) expression in the hippocampus. Axonal sprouting of hippocampal neurons after kindling was inhibited by D-limonene pretreatment. Moreover, D-limonene reduced the expression levels of Neuronal PAS Domain Protein 4 (Npas4)-induced by PTZ. Furthermore, the adenosine A2A antagonist {"type":"entrez-protein","attrs":{"text":"SCH58261","term_id":"1052882304","term_text":"SCH58261"}}SCH58261 and ZM241385 inhibited anticonvulsant activity and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic neurotransmission-induced by D-limonene. Conclusion: These results suggest that D-limonene exhibits anticonvulsant activity through modulation of adenosine A2A receptors on GABAergic neuronal function.     

知竹,知足——浅谈紫砂壶“知竹”的文化意境

紫砂壶以造型为基本的载体,通过形神兼备的造型表现出深厚的文化情感,它将自然万物融汇其中,将各种不同的生命、思想和个性呈现其上,使人观壶如同与人交流,产生深刻的情感、精神共鸣,感受到内心的平静,这十分有益于舒缓当代人的精神心理压力,让人们通过泡茶品茗这种生活方式来获得暂时的悠闲,并通过对紫砂壶的把玩来感悟其中的文化内蕴,从而获得自由淡泊的心态,更好地面对生活。本文以紫砂壶“知竹”为例,浅谈其文化意境。     

The effect of optimized carbon source on the synthesis and composition of exopolysaccharides produced by Lactobacillus paracasei

This study aimed to predict the optimal carbon source for higher production of exopolysaccharides (EPS) by Lactobacillus paracasei TD 062, and to evaluate the effect of this carbon source on the production and monosaccharide composition of EPS. We evaluated the EPS production capacity of 20 strains of L. paracasei under the same conditions. We further investigated L. paracasei TD 062, which showed the highest EPS-producing activity (0.609 g/L), by examining the associated biosynthesis pathways for EPS. Genomics revealed that fructose, mannose, trehalose, glucose, galactose, and lactose were carbon sources that L. paracasei TD 062 could use to produce EPS. We identified an EPS synthesis gene cluster that could participate in transport, export, and sugar chain synthesis, and generate 6 sugar nucleotides. Experimental results showed that the sugar content of the EPS produced using fermentation with the optimized carbon source (fructose, mannose, trehalose, glucose, galactose, and lactose) increased by 115%. Furthermore, use of the optimized carbon source changed the monosaccharide content of the associated EPS. The results of enzyme activity measurements showed significant increases in the activity of 2 key enzymes involved in the glycoside synthesis pathway. Our study revealed that optimizing the carbon source provided for fermentation not only increased the production of EPS, but also affected the composition of the monosaccharides by increasing enzyme activity in the underlying synthesis pathways, suggesting an important role for carbon source in the production of EPS by L. paracasei TD 062.     

基于TRIZ理论滤咀排列鼓工装夹具优化设计

针对滤咀排列鼓工装夹具所存在的制造难度大,精度难于保证,效率低的问题。利用TRIZ理论进行分析,根据技术矛盾解决方法并结合问题的实际情况,获得了具体可行的解决方案。经过实践证明,此设计方案是可行的、可靠的,大大缩短了夹具的加工周期,提高了生产效率,节约了成本。