Sonodynamic therapy (SDT) is an emerging approach that involves a combination of low-intensity ultrasound and specialized chemical agents known as sonosensitizers. Ultrasound can penetrate deeply into tissues and can be focused into a small region of a tumor to activate a sonosensitizer which offers the possibility of non-invasively eradicating solid tumors in a site-directed manner. In this article, we critically reviewed the currently accepted mechanisms of sonodynamic action and summarized the classification of sonosensitizers. At the same time, the breath of evidence from SDT-based studies suggests that SDT is promising for cancer treatment.

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Spo0J (stage 0 sporulation protein J, a member of the ParB superfamily) is an essential component of the ParABS (partition system of ParA, ParB, and parS)-related bacterial chromosome segregation system. ParB (partition protein B) and its regulatory protein, ParA, act cooperatively through parS (partition S) DNA to facilitate chromosome segregation. ParB binds to chromosomal DNA at specific parS sites as well as the neighboring nonspecific DNA sites. Various ParB molecules can associate together and spread along the chromosomal DNA. ParB oligomer and parS DNA interact together to form a high-order nucleoprotein that is required for the loading of the structural maintenance of chromosomes proteins onto the chromosome for chromosomal DNA condensation. In this report, we characterized the binding of parS and Spo0J from Helicobacter pylori (HpSpo0J) and solved the crystal structure of the C-terminal domain truncated protein (Ct-HpSpo0J)-parS complex. Ct-HpSpo0J folds into an elongated structure that includes a flexible N-terminal domain for protein-protein interaction and a conserved DNA-binding domain for parS binding. Two Ct-HpSpo0J molecules bind with one parS. Ct-HpSpo0J interacts vertically and horizontally with its neighbors through the N-terminal domain to form an oligomer. These adjacent and transverse interactions are accomplished via a highly conserved arginine patch: RRLR. These interactions might be needed for molecular assembly of a highorder nucleoprotein complex and for ParB spreading. A structural model for ParB spreading and chromosomal DNA condensation that lead to chromosome segregation is proposed.arginine patch | chromosome segregation | ParABS | ParB spreading | parS T he integrity of chromosomes and plasmids relies on precise DNA replication and segregation (1, 2). The initiation of DNA replication has to synchronize with the cell cycle to ensure precise chromosome segregation (3). In bacteria, the chromosomeencoded plasmid-partitioning system (Par) (4) and the structural maintenance of chromosomes (SMC) condensation complex (5) are two highly conserved systems associate with chromosome segregation and organization. SMC contributes to the overall stability and organization of genome (6-8). The partition system denoted ParABS is comprised of two proteins (ParA and ParB) and a centromere-like DNA element (parS) (9). ParB binds specifically to parS to form a complex. After binding ATP, ParA can interact with the ParB-parS complex to form a nucleoidadaptor complex. ParB promotes the ATP hydrolysis activity of the complex to separate the chromosomes (9-13).In the bacterial chromosomal ParABS system, ParB has two functions: one is to regulate chromosome replication and sporulation (8,12,14) and the other is to participate in chromosome segregation (5,(15)(16)(17). ParB spreads along the chromosomal DNA by binding at specific parS and nonspecific DNA sites to form a high-order partition complex (18)(19)(20). This partition complex is required for the loading of SMC onto the chromosomal DNA (5). In ad...

A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a communication system that can help users interact with the outside environment by translating brain signals into machine commands. The use of electroencephalographic (EEG) signals has become the most common approach for a BCI because of their usability and strong reliability. Many EEG-based BCI devices have been developed with traditional wet- or micro-electro-mechanical-system (MEMS)-type EEG sensors. However, those traditional sensors have uncomfortable disadvantage and require conductive gel and skin preparation on the part of the user. Therefore, acquiring the EEG signals in a comfortable and convenient manner is an important factor that should be incorporated into a novel BCI device. In the present study, a wearable, wireless and portable EEG-based BCI device with dry foam-based EEG sensors was developed and was demonstrated using a gaming control application. The dry EEG sensors operated without conductive gel; however, they were able to provide good conductivity and were able to acquire EEG signals effectively by adapting to irregular skin surfaces and by maintaining proper skin-sensor impedance on the forehead site. We have also demonstrated a real-time cognitive stage detection application of gaming control using the proposed portable device. The results of the present study indicate that using this portable EEG-based BCI device to conveniently and effectively control the outside world provides an approach for researching rehabilitation engineering.

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This review reports details on the natural products isolated from Taiwan soft corals during the period 2008–2012 focusing on their in vitro and/or in vivo anti-inflammatory activities. Chemical structures, names, and literature references are also reported. This review provides useful and specific information on potent anti-inflammatory marine metabolites for future development of immune-modulatory therapeutics.

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Video summarization techniques have been proposed for years to offer people comprehensive understanding of the whole story in the video. Roughly speaking, existing approaches can be classified into the two types: one is static storyboard, and the other is dynamic skimming. However, despite that these traditional methods give brief summaries for users, they still do not provide with a concept-organized and systematic view. In this paper, we present a structural video content browsing system and a novel summarization method by utilizing the four kinds of entities: who, what, where, and when to establish the framework of the video contents. With the assistance of the above-mentioned indexed information, the structure of the story can be built up according to the characters, the things, the places, and the time. Therefore, users can not only browse the video efficiently but also focus on what they are interested in via the browsing interface. In order to construct the fundamental system, we employ maximum entropy criterion to integrate visual and text features extracted from video frames and speech transcripts, generating high-level concept entities. A novel concept expansion method is introduced to explore the associations among these entities. After constructing the relational graph, we exploit graph entropy model to detect meaningful shots and relations, which serve as the indices for users. The results demonstrate that our system can achieve better performance and information coverage.