基于种群多样性的自适应PSO算法求解VRPSPD问题

为有效求解逆向物流车辆路径(VRPSPD)模型,本文提出一种基于种群多样性的自适应PSO算法(SDAPSO)。在SDAPSO运行时,根据种群多样性,自适应地对种群中运行较差的粒子进行扰动操作,提升这些粒子向最优解收敛的能力;同时,对全局最优粒子进行概率扰动,以增加种群的多样性。标准检测函数的仿真结果表明SDAPSO算法是对基本PSO算法的有效改进。在对VRPSPD模型求解中,通过与其它粒子群算法相比,表明SDAPSO是求解该类问题的一种有效方法。     

Dehydropeptide Supramolecular Hydrogels and Nanostructures as Potential Peptidomimetic Biomedical Materials

Supramolecular peptide hydrogels are gaining increased attention, owing to their potential in a variety of biomedical applications. Their physical properties are similar to those of the extracellular matrix (ECM), which is key to their applications in the cell culture of specialized cells, tissue engineering, skin regeneration, and wound healing. The structure of these hydrogels usually consists of a di- or tripeptide capped on the N-terminus with a hydrophobic aromatic group, such as Fmoc or naphthalene. Although these peptide conjugates can offer advantages over other types of gelators such as cross-linked polymers, they usually possess the limitation of being particularly sensitive to proteolysis by endogenous proteases. One of the strategies reported that can overcome this barrier is to use a peptidomimetic strategy, in which natural amino acids are switched for non-proteinogenic analogues, such as D-amino acids, β-amino acids, or dehydroamino acids. Such peptides usually possess much greater resistance to enzymatic hydrolysis. Peptides containing dehydroamino acids, i.e., dehydropeptides, are particularly interesting, as the presence of the double bond also introduces a conformational restraint to the peptide backbone, resulting in (often predictable) changes to the secondary structure of the peptide. This review focuses on peptide hydrogels and related nanostructures, where α,β-didehydro-α-amino acids have been successfully incorporated into the structure of peptide hydrogelators, and the resulting properties are discussed in terms of their potential biomedical applications. Where appropriate, their properties are compared with those of the corresponding peptide hydrogelator composed of canonical amino acids. In a wider context, we consider the presence of dehydroamino acids in natural compounds and medicinally important compounds as well as their limitations, and we consider some of the synthetic strategies for obtaining dehydropeptides. Finally, we consider the future direction for this research area.     

Functionalized Reduced Graphene Oxide as a Versatile Tool for Cancer Therapy

Cancer is one of the deadliest diseases in human history with extremely poor prognosis. Although many traditional therapeutic modalities—such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy—have proved to be successful in inhibiting the growth of tumor cells, their side effects may vastly limited the actual benefits and patient acceptance. In this context, a nanomedicine approach for cancer therapy using functionalized nanomaterial has been gaining ground recently. Considering the ability to carry various anticancer drugs and to act as a photothermal agent, the use of carbon-based nanomaterials for cancer therapy has advanced rapidly. Within those nanomaterials, reduced graphene oxide (rGO), a graphene family 2D carbon nanomaterial, emerged as a good candidate for cancer photothermal therapy due to its excellent photothermal conversion in the near infrared range, large specific surface area for drug loading, as well as functional groups for functionalization with molecules such as photosensitizers, siRNA, ligands, etc. By unique design, multifunctional nanosystems could be designed based on rGO, which are endowed with promising temperature/pH-dependent drug/gene delivery abilities for multimodal cancer therapy. This could be further augmented by additional advantages offered by functionalized rGO, such as high biocompatibility, targeted delivery, and enhanced photothermal effects. Herewith, we first provide an overview of the most effective reducing agents for rGO synthesis via chemical reduction. This was followed by in-depth review of application of functionalized rGO in different cancer treatment modalities such as chemotherapy, photothermal therapy and/or photodynamic therapy, gene therapy, chemotherapy/phototherapy, and photothermal/immunotherapy.     

Prediction of Functional Consequences of Missense Mutations in ANO4 Gene

The anoctamin (TMEM16) family of transmembrane protein consists of ten members in vertebrates, which act as Ca²⁺-dependent ion channels and/or Ca²⁺-dependent scramblases. ANO4 which is primarily expressed in the CNS and certain endocrine glands, has been associated with various neuronal disorders. Therefore, we focused our study on prioritizing missense mutations that are assumed to alter the structure and stability of ANO4 protein. We employed a wide array of evolution and structure based in silico prediction methods to identify potentially deleterious missense mutations in the ANO4 gene. Identified pathogenic mutations were then mapped to the modeled human ANO4 structure and the effects of missense mutations were studied on the atomic level using molecular dynamics simulations. Our data show that the G80A and A500T mutations significantly alter the stability of the mutant proteins, thus providing new perspective on the role of missense mutations in ANO4 gene. Results obtained in this study may help to identify disease associated mutations which affect ANO4 protein structure and function and might facilitate future functional characterization of ANO4.     

基于家族基因的网格信任模型

针对现有基于PKI (Public Key Infrastructure)的网格信任系统的不足,证书主体信息不明确, 认证过程复杂等缺陷提出了一种新颖的基于家族基因的网格信任模型。该模型解决了传统信任模型存在的问题,如采用将用户的全部身份信息放在用户的基因里方法解决了证书主体信息的不明确,用基因检测解决了认证过程的复杂,用基因指派解决了访问控制的繁琐,并且给出了网格家族、家族基因、基因指派、基因鉴别和信任等概念,并建立了模型的形式化描述,理论分析和实验结果表明这种模型是网格信任领域一种较好的解决方案。