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The progression of osteoporosis (OP) can dramatically increase the risk of fractures, which seriously disturb the life of elderly individuals. Specific protein 1 (SP1) is involved in OP progression. However, the mechanism by which SP1 regulates OP progression remains unclear. This study investigated the mechanism underlying the function of SP1 in OP. SAMP6 mice were used to establish an in vivo model of age-dependent OP, and BALB/c mice were used as controls. BMSCs were extracted from two subtypes of mice. Hematoxylin and eosin staining were performed to mark the intramedullary trabecular bone structure to evaluate histological changes. ChIP assay was used to assess the targeted regulation between SP1 and miR-133a-3p. The binding sites between MAPK3 and miR-133a-3p were verified using a dual-luciferase reporter assay. The mRNA levels of miR-133a-3p and MAPK3 were detected using quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). The protein expression of SP1, MAPK3, Colla1, OCN, and Runx2 was examined using Western blotting. Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) kit and Alizarin Red S staining were used to investigate ALP activity and mineralized nodules, respectively. The levels of SP1 and miR-133a-3p were upregulated, whereas the expression of MAPK3 was downregulated in BMSCs from SAMP6 mice, and miR-133a-3p inhibitor accelerated osteogenic differentiation in BMSCs. SP1 directly targeted miR-133a-3p, and MAPK3 was the downstream mRNA of miR-133a-3p. Mechanically, SP1 accelerated osteogenic differentiation in BMSCs via transcriptional mediation of the miR-133a-3p/MAPK3 axis. SP1 regulates osteogenic differentiation by mediating the miR-133a-3p/MAPK3 axis, which would shed new light on strategies for treating senile OP.

Building occupants are continuously exposed to multiple indoor environmental stimuli, including thermal, visual, acoustic, and indoor air quality (IAQ) related factors. Historically, research into these stimuli has often addressed them in isolation. Thermal comfort studies, for example, extensively explored the effects of temperature and humidity on occupant satisfaction, while visual comfort research focused on lighting quality and glare related issues. Similarly, studies on acoustic comfort assessed noise levels and their impact on cognitive performance, and and investigations into IAQ emphasized the health risks associated with pollutants such as CO2‚ and VOCs. Contrasting with this single-domain focus, multi-domain IEQ research explores the interplay between at least two different environmental domains, such as visual and thermal factors. Recent findings indicate that interactions across multiple domains can significantly influence occupant perceptions and overall well-being. For instance, it has been demonstrated that warm lighting can create a perception of increased warmth, and that enhancements in IAQ coupled with increased noise from devices like portable air cleaner can lead to occupant dissatisfaction. Li and Ma's comprehensive understanding of the co-occurrence of IEQ problems and their collective impact on occupant dissatisfaction is still limited.

The conventional approach to post occupancy evaluation (POE) presents challenges in comprehensive exploration of the common or less common perspectives and dissatisfaction experiences with indoor environmental quality (IEQ) that go beyond the predefined survey questions. However, leveraging humans as effective sensors and their inclination to express their attitudes opens up new avenues for massive data collection across a vast array of buildings. This study takes advantage of the open-access, open-ended, and abundant online reviews on Booking.com to provide insight into how and what causes changes in IEQ dissatisfaction during different pandemic periods (i.e., before, during, and after the pandemic). With a set of 1.2 million open-ended Booking.com reviews (i.e., 71,665 IEQ-related reviews) of temporary residences (e.g., hotels), we made comparisons regarding occupant dissatisfaction levels, prevalence, causes, and the distribution of IEQ problems across different pandemic periods. Our analysis results found that indoor air quality (IAQ) complaints constitute the majority of negative ratings across all climate zones and different pandemic periods, with the worst sentiment scores among the different categories of IEQ dissatisfaction. The primary causes of dissatisfaction mainly and consistently center on \"smelly\" and \"dirty\", regardless of the pandemic situation. Building occupants often link these with the presence of smoke and concerns about bacteria or viruses, respectively. Our analysis also revealed a positive correlation between IEQ performance and higher rental costs when temporary residences offer satisfactory IEQ conditions. This study underscores the significance of IEQ satisfaction as a fundamental factor influencing design considerations and, consequently, emphasizes the importance of its incorporation in building design, management, and real estate finance.

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) tends to fall into local optima and has insufficient convergence when solving the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a multiple ant colony optimization (LDTACO) based on novel Long Short-Term Memory network and adaptive Tanimoto communication strategy. Firstly, we introduce an Artificial Bee Colony-based Ant Colony System (ABC-ACS), which along with the classic Ant Colony System (ACS) and Max-Min Ant System (MMAS), form the final proposed algorithm. These three types of subpopulations complement each other to improve overall optimization performance. Secondly, the evaluation reward mechanism is proposed to enhance the guiding role of the Recommended paths, which can effectively accelerate convergence speed. Besides, an adaptive Tanimoto communication strategy is put forward for interspecific communication. When the algorithm is stagnant, the homogenized information communication method is activated to help the algorithm jump out of the local optima, thus improving solution accuracy. Finally, the experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can lead to more accurate solution accuracy and faster convergence speed.

Traditional secret sharing (SS) schemes can reconstruct the secret precisely, but have high computation complexity. Visual secret sharing (VSS) schemes use human visual system to reconstruct the secret without cryptographic computation, but have pixel expansion and loss of contrast. Wang et al. proposed a (2, n )-SS scheme for binary images based on Boolean operation, which has low computation complexity, no pixel expansion and the contrast is 1/2. In this paper, we first construct an r runs (2, n )-SS scheme to improve the contrast of Wang et al.’s binary (2, n )-SS scheme. Then we present two approaches to construct r runs (2, n )-SS schemes for grayscale image and color image. The two approaches are both based on Boolean operation, while one approach uses halftone technology and the other uses bit level processing. These proposed schemes have low computation complexity and almost ideal contrast.

Background The progression of osteoporosis (OP) can dramatically increase the risk of fractures, which seriously disturb the life of elderly individuals. Specific protein 1 (SP1) is involved in OP progression. However, the mechanism by which SP1 regulates OP progression remains unclear. Objective This study investigated the mechanism underlying the function of SP1 in OP. Methods SAMP6 mice were used to establish an in vivo model of age-dependent OP, and BALB/c mice were used as controls. BMSCs were extracted from two subtypes of mice. Hematoxylin and eosin staining were performed to mark the intramedullary trabecular bone structure to evaluate histological changes. ChIP assay was used to assess the targeted regulation between SP1 and miR-133a-3p. The binding sites between MAPK3 and miR-133a-3p were verified using a dual-luciferase reporter assay. The mRNA levels of miR-133a-3p and MAPK3 were detected using quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). The protein expression of SP1, MAPK3, Colla1, OCN, and Runx2 was examined using Western blotting. Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) kit and Alizarin Red S staining were used to investigate ALP activity and mineralized nodules, respectively. Results The levels of SP1 and miR-133a-3p were upregulated, whereas the expression of MAPK3 was downregulated in BMSCs from SAMP6 mice, and miR-133a-3p inhibitor accelerated osteogenic differentiation in BMSCs. SP1 directly targeted miR-133a-3p, and MAPK3 was the downstream mRNA of miR-133a-3p. Mechanically, SP1 accelerated osteogenic differentiation in BMSCs via transcriptional mediation of the miR-133a-3p/MAPK3 axis. Conclusion SP1 regulates osteogenic differentiation by mediating the miR-133a-3p/MAPK3 axis, which would shed new light on strategies for treating senile OP.

Spread Transform Dither Modulation (STDM) has good performance in robustness against Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) and re-quantization, so it has been widely used in image watermarking algorithms. However, STDM cannot resist Fixed Gain Attack (FGA). In the paper, we introduce an adaptive function into the traditional STDM algorithm, so that it can automatically adjust the amount of distortion according to the text line spacing in the document. Then we give an improved adaptive function to make our algorithm robust to FGA. Analysis and experimental results show that the algorithm proposed in this paper has good invisibility and high robustness against AWGN and FGA.

Yao’s millionaires’ problem is a fundamental problem in secure multiparty computation, and its solutions have become building blocks of many secure multiparty computation solutions. Unfortunately, most protocols for millionaires’ problem are constructed based on public cryptography, and thus are inefficient. Furthermore, all protocols are designed to solve the basic millionaires’ problem, that is, to privately determine which of two natural numbers is greater. If the numbers are real, existing solutions do not directly work. These features limit the extensive application of the existing protocols. This study introduces and refines the first symmetric cryptographic protocol for the basic millionaires’ problem, and then extends the symmetric cryptographic protocol to privately determining which of two real numbers is greater, which are called the extended millionaires’ problem, and proposes corresponding protocols. We further prove, by a well accepted simulation paradigm, that these protocols are private. Constructed based on symmetric cryptography, these protocols are very efficient.

Homomorphic cryptosystems are fundamental and highly effective cryptographic primitives for addressing security problems arising in information processing, data analysis and data applications, particularly in secure cloud computing and secure multiparty computation. To privately compute functions such as E ( x 1 ∧ ⋯ ∧ x t ), E ( x 1 ∨ ⋯ ∨ x t ) and E ( x 11 ∧ ⋯ ∧ x m 1 ) ∨ ⋯ ∨ ( x 1 n ∧ ⋯ ∧ x mn )] ( m disjunctive normal form ( m DNF)) on E ( x 1 ), …, E ( x t ) and E ( x 11 ), …, E ( x mn ) without knowing the decryption key, Boolean homomorphic cryptosystems are necessary. Exploring new homomorphic cryptosystems to solve these problems is appealing, and is of high theoretical and practical significance. To solve problems such as these, we propose a polynomial AND homomorphic cryptosystem based on the ideal theory of abstract algebra; the scheme can be obtained from available multiplicatively homomorphic cryptosystems such as the ElGamal. We prove that the cryptosystem is semantically secure. This polynomial AND homomorphic cryptosystem is a highly effective tool for designing various cryptographic protocols. As examples, we demonstrate its applications to privately compute any DNF (i.e., P ( X 1 , …, X m ) = E [( x 11 ∧ ⋯ ∧ x m 1 ) ∨ ⋯ ∨ ( x 1 n ∧ ⋯ ∧ x mn )] on ciphertexts E ( x ij ) of x ij without knowing the decryption key) and the intersection and union of certain private sets.

Secure multiparty computation has become a central research focus in the international cryptographic community. Secure comparing two sets is an important problem in secure multiparty computation. The research on privately determining whether two sets are equal has not been investigated. This study solves the problem by mapping these sets into natural numbers and then comparing corresponding numbers. We propose two secure multiparty computation protocols for comparing two sets. It is proved by well-accepted simulation paradigm that these solutions are private in semi-honest model. These solutions have important significance in constructing other secure multiparty computation protocols.