ISSN 0253-2778

CN 34-1054/N

2022 Vol. 52, No. 6

2022-6 Contents
2022, 52(6): 1-2.
Abstract:
2022-6 Abstract
2022, 52(6): 1-2.
Abstract:
Life Sciences and Medicine
SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein: Importance in viral infection
H. M. Shifa ul Haq, Arnaud John KOMBE KOMBE, Ayesha Zahid, Momal Babar, Weihong Zeng, Hongliang He, Tengchuan Jin
2022, 52(6): 1. doi: 10.52396/JUSTC-2022-0020
Abstract:
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has caused millions of deaths worldwide. Therefore, it is critical to understand the biological basis of SARS-CoV-2 to develop novel approaches to control its spread. The SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid (N) protein is an important diagnostic and potent therapeutic target of the disease, as it is involved in numerous important functions in the viral life cycle. Several studies have explained the structural and functional aspects of the SARS-CoV-2 N protein. This review summarizes the currently available data on the evolutionarily conserved N protein of SARS-CoV-2 by providing detailed information on the structural and multifunctional characteristics of the N protein.
Diagnostic role of NPY methylation in patients with colorectal cancer
Jing Wang, Yuan He
2022, 52(6): 2. doi: 10.52396/JUSTC-2022-0027
Abstract:
Objectives: A growing number of studies have shown that methylation biomarkers play an important role in oncogenesis. This study aimed to explore the diagnostic role of neuropeptide Y (NPY) methylation in colorectal cancer (CRC).Methods: mRNA and protein expression, methylation, survival benefits, and immune cell infiltration were analyzed using bioinformatics tools across all tumors from The Cancer Genome Atlas. NPY methylation in CRC was further validated in CRC tissues, fecal samples, and cell lines. Analyses of NPY methylation were performed using Sequenome EpiTYPER and quantitative PCR. Retrieval of NPY expression in cell lines was tested using real-time PCR and western blotting.Results: Bioinformatic analysis showed that the methylation level of NPY increased in most carcinomas (P<0.05). Moreover, statistical correlations were observed between NPY transcriptional expression and CD4+ T cells, macrophages, and dendritic cells in colon cancer (P<0.05). Similar results were obtained for CD4+ T cells, neutrophils, and NPY in rectal cancer (P<0.05). Our results showed that NPY was hypermethylated in CRC tissues and fecal exfoliated cells (P<0.05). Fecal NPY methylation was observed in 82.5% sensitive for primary tumors, 46.3% for intestinal polyps (including adenomatous, serrated, and inflammatory polyps), and 23.4% of healthy controls. Overall, fecal NPY methylation was 76.6% specific. For cell lines, in vivo experiments demonstrated that 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine downregulated the methylation of NPY and restored its mRNA level (P<0.05).Conclusions: This study indicates that NPY is hypermethylated in CRC, and that NPY methylation in fecal DNA is a potential noninvasive diagnostic biomarker for Chinese patients with CRC.
Physics
Coherent photoproduction processes in hadronic heavy-ion collisions
Jiaxuan Luo, Xin Wu, Jian Zhou, Wangmei Zha, Zebo Tang
2022, 52(6): 3. doi: 10.52396/JUSTC-2021-0210
Abstract:
Recently, significant abnormal enhancements in J/ψ and dilepton production have been observed in peripheral heavy-ion collisions at very low transverse momentum by the STAR, ALICE and ATLAS Collaborations. The observed excesses cannot be explained by hadronic production combined with the cold and hot medium effects, though it can be well described by coherent photoproduction calculations with nuclear overlap. These experimental and theoretical results provide evidence of coherent photoproduction in hadronic heavy-ion collisions, which suggest novel probes for detecting the properties of quark-gluon plasma (QGP). In this work, we review recent experimental and theoretical progress regarding coherent photoproduction in hadronic heavy-ion collisions.
Physics/Astronomy
Unruh effect of multiparticle states and black hole radiation
Jianyu Wang
2022, 52(6): 4. doi: 10.52396/JUSTC-2022-0039
Abstract:
In this study, we investigated the field under the Unruh effect. The energy and entanglement properties of the single-mode $q$-particle states were discussed. We found that in the non-inertial reference frame $|q, 0\rangle_\alpha$ states exhibit a similar energy spectrum to vacuum $|0, 0\rangle_\alpha$, but with different entanglement properties. With respect to an application, we proposed a black hole radiation model, assuming that states near the horizon are constructed via $q$-particle states. We calculated the evolution of the entanglement entropy of radiation and proved that our model can reproduce the Page curve. Hence, this can be considered as an indication solution of the black hole information paradox.
Engineering& Materials/Info.& Intelligence
Application of a newly developed naive Bayes algorithm in fire alarm
Xiangyong He, Yong Jiang, Yong Hu
2022, 52(6): 5. doi: 10.52396/JUSTC-2021-0258
Abstract:
To address the problems of low recognition accuracy of traditional early fire warning systems in actual scenarios, a newly developed naive Bayes (NB) algorithm, namely, improved naive Bayes (INB), was proposed. An optimization method based on attribute weighting and an orthogonal matrix was used to improve the NB algorithm. Attribute weighting considers the influence of different values of each attribute on classification performance under every decision category; the orthogonal matrix weakens the linear relationship between the attributes reducing their correlations, which is more closely related to the conditional independence assumption. Data from the technology report of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) regarding fire research were used for the simulation, and eight datasets of different sizes were constructed for INB training and testing after filtering and normalization. A ten-fold cross-validation suggests that INB has been effectively trained and demonstrates the stable ability in fire alarms when the dataset contains 190 sets of samples; namely, the INB can be fully trained by using small datasets. A support vector machine (SVM), a back propagation (BP) neural network, and NB were selected for comparison. The results showed that the recognition accuracy, average precision, average recall, and average $\rm{F}_{1}$ measure of INB were 96.1%, 97.3%, 97.2%, and 97.3%, respectively, which is the highest among the four different algorithms. Additionally, INB has a better performance compared to NB, SVM, and BP neural networks when the training time is short . In conclusion, INB can be used as a core algorithm for fire alarm systems with excellent and stable fire alarm capabilities.
Engineering&Materials
Effect of speckle size on surface crack detection via digital image correlation
Milad Z. Aghdam, Nasser Soltani
2022, 52(6): 6. doi: 10.52396/JUSTC-2021-0160
Abstract:
Digital image correlation (DIC) is an experimental stress analysis technique used in nondestructive tests. The accuracy of DIC in crack detection depends on various factors such as the sizes of speckles and pixels. In the current study, a speckle pattern based on the spreading of nanoparticles with small speckles is compared with a conventional sprayed pattern to understand whether crack detection via DIC is improved by reducing the sizes of speckles and pixels. Owing to the small size of nanoparticles, an optical microscope is used for magnification. The spreading method for crack detection is first investigated experimentally. Results show that cracks can be detected easily when a 250 nm opening appears in the crack edges. Subsequently, the spreading method is compared with the conventional DIC, in which the spraying method is used for patterning, in terms of crack detection. Results show that by reducing the speckle size and closely analyzing the speckle pattern, the DIC technique is considerably better than the conventional technique in detecting small cracks. Moreover, the conventional method is more suitable for detecting large cracks.