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A simple method for the synthesis of (Z)‐3‐benzylidene‐2‐(quinolin‐8‐yl)isoindolin‐1‐ones through C(sp2)−H bond activation, Sonogashira cross‐coupling and annulation tandem reactions using calcium carbide as a solid alkyne source, and benzamides as starting materials is described. The inexpensive and easy‐to‐handle calcium carbide is first employed as the coupling partner in non‐activated C(sp2)−H bond activation. The one‐pot three‐component reactions proceed efficiently with a broad range of substrates and good tolerance for a diversity of functional groups. The reaction routes can also be scaled up to gram scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The in situ and ex situ temperature dependence of dielectric and piezoelectric properties of 0.1(Bi0.5K0.5)TiO3-0.6BiFeO3-0.3PbTiO3 (BKT-BFPT) ceramics were characterized, and related mechanisms were studied. The tetragonal distortion, Curie temperature Tc, depoling temperature Td, and piezoelectric coefficient d33 of BKT-BFPT are 0.06, 545 °C, 520 °C, and 205 pC/N, respectively. The in situ piezoelectric coefficient variation of BKT-BFPT ceramics from room temperature to 280 °C is only 10%, being 1/5 and 1/10 those of 0.36BiScO3-0.34PbTiO3 and Pb(Zr0.52Ti0.48)O3 ceramics. The better dielectric and piezoelectric thermal stabilities are owing to the temperature insensitive domain texture of BFPT-BKT ceramics due to their large lattice distortion. Resistivity results reflected that the higher depoling temperature derived from the ex situ measurement than that from the in situ test results from the high-temperature conductivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate the etiology, pathogens, treatment, and prognosis of endogenous endophthalmitis (EE). Patients diagnosed with EE over three decades at Peking Union Medical College Hospital were retrospectively reviewed and analyzed. A total of 97 eyes from 81 patients were included. Diabetes was the most common predisposing medical condition (34.6%). Klebsiella pneumoniae (31.3%) and Candida albicans (32.8%) were the most common pathogens. Liver abscess (20.6%) was the predominant cause EE due to liver abscess had a worse initial visual acuity (P < 0.05). Patients who initially underwent pars plana vitrectomy (PPV)+silicone oil tamponade underwent fewer total treatments (P < 0.05). In the past 10 years, the proportion of Gram-positive cocci, Gram-negative bacilli, and Candida showed an upward trend. Over the past 15 years, EE after liver abscess and immunosuppression has increased, while EE from genitourinary systems has decreased. EE was a devastating intraocular disease with a poor visual prognosis. The initial condition and prognosis of EE after liver abscess were the worst. PPV+silicone oil tamponade as an initial treatment may reduce additional therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient method for the construction of 2,4‐diarylbenzo[4,5]thieno[3,2‐d]pyrimidines through the base‐promoted one‐pot three‐component tandem reactions of o‐nitrochalcones, benzamidine hydrochlorides, and elemental sulfur is described. The salient features of this protocol are the use of cheap and abundant sulfur source, readily available starting materials, transition‐metal‐free and mild conditions, satisfactory yield, and simple workup procedures. This transformation can also carry out on gram scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complete evolutionary process of orogenesis can be deciphered by studying metamorphic rocks at middle and lower crustal depths of orogens. Recent studies have suggested that granulite-facies metamorphic rocks in the Paleoproterozoic Jiao–Liao–Ji orogenic belt experienced clockwise pressure–temperature (p–T) paths. However, due to the effects of high temperature, the prograde metamorphic processes are poorly constrained. The question could be solved by studying the Barrovian series rocks, because some garnet growth zoning has been preserved in the lower grade rocks. A Barrovian series from garnet to kyanite-sillimanite zones has been recognized in the Liaodong Peninsula. Based on petrology and mineral chemistry, each metamorphic rocks in metamorphic zone are divided into prograde, peak, and retrograde metamorphic stages. Pseudosection modelling constrains the peak metamorphic conditions at ~568°C and ~5.8 kbar for the garnet zone, ~585°C and ~6 kbar for the staurolite zone, and ~670°C and ~8.2 kbar for the kyanite-sillimanite zone. All Barrovian series rocks have clockwise p–T paths, implying crustal thickening during prograde metamorphism. LA-ICP-MS monazite and zircon U–Pb dating suggest that peak Barrovian metamorphism occurred at ca. 1.92–1.91 Ga. Combining our results of the Barrovian series with studies on granulite-facies metamorphic rocks, we suggest that the Jiao–Liao–Ji belt experienced crustal thickening from 1.95 to 1.90 Ga, inducing Barrovian metamorphism and granulite-facies metamorphism in the middle and lower crust, respectively. Subsequently, rocks located at the different crustal levels were exhumed during post-orogenic extension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doxorubicin (DOX) is a potent chemotherapeutic agent known for its multi-organ toxicity, especially in the heart, which limits its clinical application. The toxic side effects of DOX, including DNA damage, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction and cell apoptosis, are intricately linked to the involvement of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+). To assess the effectiveness of the NAD+ precursor nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) in counteracting the multi-organ toxicity of DOX, a mouse model was established through DOX administration, which led to significant reductions in NAD+ in tissues with evident injury, including the heart, liver and lungs. NMN treatment alleviated both multi-organ fibrosis and mortality in mice. Mechanistically, tissue fibrosis, macrophage infiltration and DOX-related cellular damage, which are potentially implicated in the development of multi-organ fibrosis, could be attenuated by NAD+ restoration. Our findings provide compelling evidence for the benefits of NMN supplementation in mitigating the adverse effects of chemotherapeutic drugs on multiple organs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fall k-coloring of a graph G is a proper k-coloring of G such that each vertex has at least one neighbor in each of the other color classes. A graph G which has a fall k-coloring is equivalent to having a partition of the vertex set V (G) in k independent dominating sets. In this paper, we first prove that for any fall k-colorable graph G with order n, the number of edges of G is at least (n (k − 1) + r (k − r)) / 2 , where r ≡ n (mod k) and 0 ≤ r ≤ k − 1 , and the bound is tight. Then, we obtain that if G is k-colorable ( k ≥ 2 ) and the minimum degree of G is at least k − 2 k − 1 n , then G is fall k-colorable and this condition of minimum degree is the best possible. Moreover, we give a simple proof for an NP-hard result of determining whether a graph is fall k-colorable, where k ≥ 3 . Finally, we show that there exist an infinite family of fall k-colorable planar graphs for k ∈ { 5 , 6 } . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of facile‐synthesis and low‐cost X‐ray scintillators with high light yield, low detection limit and high X‐ray imaging resolution plays a vital role in medical and industrial imaging fields. However, the optimal balance between X‐ray absorption, decay lifetime and excitonic utilization efficiency of scintillators to achieve high‐resolution imaging is extremely difficult due to the inherent contradiction. Here two thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF)‐actived coinage‐metal clusters M6S6L6 (M=Ag or Cu) were synthesized by simple solvothermal reaction, where the cooperation of heavy atom‐rich character and TADF mechanism supports strong X‐ray absorption and rapid luminescent collection of excitons. Excitingly, Ag6S6L6 (SC‐Ag) displays a high photoluminescence quantum yield of 91.6 % and scintillating light yield of 17420 photons MeV−1, as well as a low detection limit of 208.65 nGy s−1 that is 26 times lower than the medical standard (5.5 μGy s−1). More importantly, a high X‐ray imaging resolution of 16 lp/mm based on SC‐Ag screen is demonstrated. Besides, rigid core skeleton reinforced by metallophilicity endows clusters M6S6L6 strong resistance to humidity and radiation. This work provides a new view for the design of efficient scintillators and opens the research door for silver clusters in scintillation application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of facile‐synthesis and low‐cost X‐ray scintillators with high light yield, low detection limit and high X‐ray imaging resolution plays a vital role in medical and industrial imaging fields. However, the optimal balance between X‐ray absorption, decay lifetime and excitonic utilization efficiency of scintillators to achieve high‐resolution imaging is extremely difficult due to the inherent contradiction. Here two thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF)‐actived coinage‐metal clusters M6S6L6 (M=Ag or Cu) were synthesized by simple solvothermal reaction, where the cooperation of heavy atom‐rich character and TADF mechanism supports strong X‐ray absorption and rapid luminescent collection of excitons. Excitingly, Ag6S6L6 (SC‐Ag) displays a high photoluminescence quantum yield of 91.6 % and scintillating light yield of 17420 photons MeV−1, as well as a low detection limit of 208.65 nGy s−1 that is 26 times lower than the medical standard (5.5 μGy s−1). More importantly, a high X‐ray imaging resolution of 16 lp/mm based on SC‐Ag screen is demonstrated. Besides, rigid core skeleton reinforced by metallophilicity endows clusters M6S6L6 strong resistance to humidity and radiation. This work provides a new view for the design of efficient scintillators and opens the research door for silver clusters in scintillation application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accuracy of the current buried pipeline management geographic information system (GIS) is not adequate to serve as base information for road digging control and permit in Taiwan. The existing positioning system for buried pipelines does not offer satisfactorily accurate surveying results for all the scenarios because the positioning accurateness decreases with an increase in the pipeline depth. The costly excavation and direct survey of the exposed pipeline method can provide precise measurement at the designed arbitrary interval and then the discrete point is interpolated into the continuous track. The required traffic controls and excavation permits for roads are the most critical drawback of this technology. The method of in-pipe inertial navigation system (INS) can record the complete, continuous pipe tracks, but such measurement drifts with an increase in the survey length. We proposed a pipeline positioning system by radiating an extremely low-frequency (ELF) magnetic field from the electrical coil placed on the ground to constrain the locating measurement of in-pipe INS. The proposed system could easily expand the diameters or increasing turns of a ground-based coil device to enhance the magnetic field intensity for accurately positioning the deeper buried pipes. The field tests were performed using a ductile cast iron pipe (DIP), and the corresponding results revealed that for the overburden depth of 3.4–4.2 m, the average positioning errors were 0.12 and 1.6 m in the horizontal and vertical directions, respectively. This approach is only plausible for an empty pipeline, and access to both ends of the pipe is required. A four-person crew handled the proposed system to locate the track of a 5-km-long buried pipeline in an 8-h-long working day when the pipeline was unfilled. Any pipeline with diameter larger than 10 cm (4 in.) could apply this system to locate the continuous track with the requirement of accessibility at both ends of the empty pipe. With 1.45-m coil, the maximum detectable buried depth is 15 m, and locating error is less than 20 cm at both directions for the cases with buried depth less than 5 m. Two people need to move and operate the magnetic coil at the ground and another two people must hoist the in-pipe unit at each end of the pipe simultaneously. With this arrangement, the continuous track of buried empty pipe could surveyed for 5 km in length within an 8-h working day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wearable technologies face challenges due to signal instability, hindering their usage. Thus, it is crucial to comprehend the connection between dynamic patterns in photoplethysmography (PPG) signals and cardiovascular health. In our study, we collected 401 multimodal recordings from two public databases, evaluating hemodynamic conditions like blood pressure (BP), cardiac output (CO), vascular compliance (C), and peripheral resistance (R). Using irregular-resampling auto-spectral analysis (IRASA), we quantified chaotic components in PPG signals and employed different methods to measure the fractal dimension (FD) and entropy. Our findings revealed that in surgery patients, the power of chaotic components increased with vascular stiffness. As the intensity of CO fluctuations increased, there was a notable strengthening in the correlation between most complexity measures of PPG and these parameters. Interestingly, some conventional morphological features displayed a significant decrease in correlation, indicating a shift from a static to dynamic scenario. Healthy subjects exhibited a higher percentage of chaotic components, and the correlation between complexity measures and hemodynamics in this group tended to be more pronounced. Causal analysis showed that hemodynamic fluctuations are main influencers for FD changes, with observed feedback in most cases. In conclusion, understanding chaotic patterns in PPG signals is vital for assessing cardiovascular health, especially in individuals with unstable hemodynamics or during ambulatory testing. These insights can help overcome the challenges faced by wearable technologies and enhance their usage in real-world scenarios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Endothelial-mesenchymal transition (EndoMT) is an emerging adaptive process that modulates lymphatic endothelial function to drive aberrant lymphatic vascularization in the tumour microenvironment (TME); however, the molecular determinants that govern the functional role of EndoMT remain unclear. Here, we show that cancer-associated fibroblast (CAF)-derived PAI-1 promoted the EndoMT of lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs) in cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC). Methods: Immunofluorescent staining of α-SMA, LYVE-1 and DAPI were examined in primary tumour samples obtained from 57 CSCC patients. Assessment of cytokines secreted by CAFs and normal fibroblasts (NFs) was performed using human cytokine antibody arrays. The phenotype of EndoMT in lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs), gene expression levels, protein secretion and activity of signaling pathways were measured by real-time RT-PCR, ELISA or western blotting. The function of lymphatic endothelial monolayers was examined by transwell, tube formation assay, transendothelial migration assay in vitro. Lymphatic metastasis was measured using popliteal lymph node metastasis model. Furthermore, association between PAI-1 expression and EndoMT in CSCC was analyzed by immunohistochemistry. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) databases was used to assess the association of PAI-1 with survival rate in CSCC. Results: CAF-derived PAI-1 promoted the EndoMT of LECs in CSCC. LECs undergoing EndoMT could initiate tumour neolymphangiogenesis that facilitated cancer cell intravasation/extravasation, which in turn promoted lymphatic metastasis in CSCC. Mechanistically, PAI-1 activated the AKT/ERK1/2 pathways by directly interacting with low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein (LRP1), thereby leading to elevated EndoMT activity in LECs. Blockade of PAI-1 or inhibition of LRP1/AKT/ERK1/2 abrogated EndoMT and consequently attenuated CAF-induced tumour neolymphangiogenesis. Furthermore, clinical data revealed that increased PAI-1 levels positively correlated with EndoMT activity and poor prognosis in CSCC patients. Conclusion: Our data indicate that CAF-derived PAI-1 acts as an important neolymphangiogenesis-initiating molecular during CSCC progression through modulating the EndoMT of LECs, resulting in promotion of metastasis ability in primary site. PAI-1 could serve as an effective prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target for CSCC metastasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) genotype and haplotype frequencies have been reported to vary distinctly between populations, which in turn contributes to variation in the alloreactivity of natural killer (NK) cells. Utilizing the diverse KIR genes to identify suitable transplant donors would prove challenging in multi-ethnic countries, even more in resource-limited countries where KIR genotyping has not been established. In this study, we determined the KIR genotypes from 124 unrelated Malaysians consisting of the Malays, Chinese, Indians, and aboriginal people through polymerase chain reaction sequence-specific primer (PCR-SSP) genotyping and employing an expectation–maximization (EM) algorithm to assign haplotypes based on pre-established reference haplotypes. A total of 27 distinct KIR haplotypes were discerned with higher frequencies of haplotype A (55.2%) than haplotype B (44.8%). The most frequent haplotypes were cA01:tA01 (55.2%), cB01:tB01 (18.1%), and cB02:tA01 (13.3%), while the least frequent haplotypes were cB03:tB01 (1.2%), cB04:tB03 (0.4%), and cB03:tA01 (0.4%). Several haplotypes were identified to be unique to a specific ethnic group. The genotype with the highest frequency was genotype AB (71.8%), followed by AA (19.4%), and BB (8.9%). The Indians exhibited the lowest genotype AA but the highest genotype BB, whereas genotype BB was absent in the aboriginal people. Despite the limitations, the genotype and haplotypes in the Malaysian population were successfully highlighted. The identification of ethnic-specific KIR genotypes and haplotypes provides the first step to utilizing KIR in identifying suitable transplant donors to further improve the transplant outcome in the Malaysian population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the J / ψ → ϕ K K ¯ decay, looking for differences in the production rates of K + K - or K 0 K ¯ 0 in the region of 1700–1800 MeV, where two resonances appear dynamically generated from the vector-vector interaction. Two resonances are known experimentally in that region, the f 0 (1710) and a new resonance reported by the BABAR and BESIII collaborations. The K K ¯ should be produced with I = 0 in that reaction, but due to the different K ∗ 0 and K ∗ + masses some isospin violation appears. Yet, due to the large width of the K ∗ , the violation obtained is very small and the rates of K + K - or K 0 K ¯ 0 production are equal within 5 % . However, we also find that due to the step needed to convert two vectors into K K ¯ , a shape can appear in the K K ¯ mass distribution that can mimic the a 0 production around the K ∗ K ¯ ∗ threshold, and is simply a threshold effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geopolymer can be used as a novel additive for warm mix asphalt without compromising the quality of the resulting pavement. To analyze the applicability of geopolymer towards typical paving operations and environmental protection, the present work reports a laboratory investigation on the pavement performance and emissions inhibition effect of geopolymer additives. Based on the experimental results, the addition of geopolymer (i.e., 0.3 wt% and 3.0 wt% of asphalt mixture) to asphalt mixture lowers the measured air voids with the same optimal asphalt content. The moisture sensitivity is similar, the rutting potential decreases, and the crack resistance at low temperature improves. Moreover, it was found that the addition of geopolymer at 3.0 wt% dosage was effective for the inhibition of particulate matter emissions and postponed the pollution time during asphalt production. Overall, 3.0 wt% dosage of geopolymer is a good additive for reducing mixing and compacting temperatures which can be easily added to hot mix asphalt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient selective monoethynylation of 2‐oxoacetamides using calcium carbide as a concise solid alkyne source is described. A series of multifunctional compounds, 2‐hydroxybut‐3‐ynamides, are synthesized by this strategy. The salient features of this protocol are the use of inexpensive and easy‐to‐handle solid alkyne source as a surrogate of inflammable and explosive gaseous acetylene, transition‐metal‐free and mild condition, wide scope of substrates, high selectivity, high yield, and simple work‐up procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A -vertex-distinguishing total coloring of a graph is a proper total coloring such that no pair of vertices, within distance two, has the same set of colors, and the minimum number of colors required for such a coloring is called -vertex-distinguishing total chromatic number of , and denoted by . In this paper, we prove that for any graph with . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient method for the selective N‐monovinylation of primary aromatic amides using calcium carbide as an alkyne source is described. A series of N‐vinylbenzamides (enamides) were readily synthesized by this strategy. The salient features for this protocol are the use of inexpensive, easy‐to‐handle solid alkyne source, high chemoselectivity, transition metal catalyst‐free, good functional group tolerance, and simple work‐up procedures. These reactions can also be extended to the gram‐scale level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A new sandwich structure was designed to explore the optimal combination of BNNS and NBT-SBT fillers in different layers. • The highest energy density of 15 J/cm3 was achieved with an efficiency of 89 % at 120 °C, and exhibited excellent cycling reliability (106 cycles) and thermal stability. • The local polarization moment and Joule heating-induced temperature variation of the nanocomposites and the dielectric breakdown process at high electric field were simulated by the phase field method. Dielectric film capacitors are fundamental components in advanced electrical fields such as smart grids and hybrid electric vehicle. The commercial film capacitors made by biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP) have high energy efficiency, but low energy density of only 2.0-3.0 J/cm3, while the inferior thermal stability restricts their high temperature applications. In this work, hybrid assembly engineering is proposed to design composite films with a new polymer of poly(acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) (ABS) as the matrix, boron nitride nanosheets (BNNS) and Na 0.5 Bi 0.5 TiO 3 -Sr 0.7 Bi 0.2 TiO 3 (NBT-SBT) as two different fillers to improve high-temperature performance. The optimized composites SBS (NBT-SBT/ABS composites layer in the outside and BNNS/ABS composites layer in the middle) exhibit excellent high temperature energy storage characteristics, and its underlying mechanism is also understood by phase-field simulations. In particular, the maximum energy density at 120 °C can reach 15.0 J/cm3 at 575 MV/m, which is 8 times that of BOPP, while the efficiency is maintained at 89 %, far exceeding the performance of BOPP (<70 % at 120 °C). Together with their excellent cycling reliability (106 cycles) and thermal stability, this strategy shows a great potential for high-temperature and high-power energy storage capacitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Three phases of deformation (D 1 -D 3) are recognized in the Langzishan Barrovian metamorphic series. • The kyanite zone rocks record a clockwise P-T-D path in the Paleoproterozoic. • Metamorphic and deformational characteristics documented by Barrovian metamorphic series in the Paleoproterozoic and Phanerozoic are comparable, possibly indicating a similar orogenic mechanism. Orogenesis always involves multiple tectonic events accompanied by metamorphic cycles. The Barrovian metamorphic series often records complicated prograde metamorphism and deformational features, which are crucial for understanding the related orogenic evolution. While Barrovian metamorphism have been widely documented in the Phanerozoic orogenic belts, limited stuides have been conducted on Paleoproterozoic Barrovian metamorphic series. In this contribution, Barrovian metamorphic series extending from biotite to kyanite zones in the middle of Jiao-Liao-Ji Orogenic Belt (JLJOB) from eastern part of North China Craton (NCC) was investigated. The current studies identified the occurrence of polyphase deformation and metamorphism within the Langzishan Barrovian metamorphic series. D 1 fabrics are characterized by the development of S 1 foliation and L 1 lineation in association with greenschist facies metamorphism (M 1) that occurrs at ca. 490 ℃ and ca. 5.7 kbar. D 2 fabrics that include different folds (F 2), S 2 crenulation cleavage, S 2 foliation and L 2 lineation, accompanied by the low amphibolite metamorphism (M 2) that occurrs at ca. 670 ℃ and 8.2–8.6 kbar. D 3 fabrics involving kink band postdate sillimanite growth that occurrs at ca. 660 ℃ and ca. 6.5 kbar, and predate chlorite occurrence. Monazite U-Pb dating suggests the peak and retrograde metamorphic ages of ca. 1.93 Ga and 1.86 Ga, respectively. Thus, a clockwise pressure–temperature-time-deformation (P-T-t-D) path is established, possibly related to the crustal thickening process. These features are very similar to those documented in Phanerozoic Barrovian metamorphic series, suggesting that a comparable orogenesis mechanism could be shared in the Paleoproterozoic and Phanerozoic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. To quantify the long-term evaluation of optic chiasma (OC) and/or optic nerve(s) (ONs) and to develop predictive models for radiation-induced optic neuropathy (RION) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma after intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). Methods and Materials. A total of 3,662 patients' OC/ONs with full visual acuity and dosimetry data between 2010 and 2015 were identified. Critical dosimetry predictors of RION were chosen by machine learning and penalized regression for survival. A nomogram containing dosimetry and clinical variables was generated for predicting RION-free survival. Results. The median follow-up was 71.79 (2.63–120.9) months. Sixty-six eyes in 51 patients (1.39%) developed RION. Two patients were visual field deficient, and 49 patients had visual acuity of less than 0.1 (20/200). The median latency time was 36 (3–90) months. The 3-, 5-, and 8-year cumulative incidence of RION was 0.78%, 1.19%, and 1.97%, respectively. Dmax was the most critical dosimetry variable for RION (AUC: 0.9434, the optimal cutoff: 64.48 Gy). Patients with a Dmax ≥64.48 Gy had a significantly higher risk of RION (HR = 102.25; 95%CI, 24.86–420.59; P < 0.001). Age (>44 years) (HR = 2.234, 95% CI = 1.233–4.051, p = 0.008), advanced T stage (T3 vs. T1-2: HR = 7.516, 95% CI = 1.725–32.767, p = 0.007 ; T4 vs. T1-2: HR = 37.189, 95% CI = 8.796–157.266, P < 0.001), and tumor infiltration/compression of the OC/ONs (HR = 4.572, 95% CI = 1.316–15.874, p = 0.017) were significant clinical risk factors of RION. A nomogram comprising age, T stage, tumor infiltration/compression of the OC/ON, and Dmax significantly outperformed the model, with only Dmax predicting RION (C-index: 0.916 vs. 0.880, P < 0.001 in the training set; 0.899 vs. 0.874, P = 0.038 in the test set). The nomogram-defined high-risk group had a worse 8-year RION-free survival. Conclusions. In the IMRT era, Dmax <60 Gy is safe and represents an acceptable dose constraint for most NPC patients receiving IMRT. A reasonable trade-off for selected patients with unsatisfactory tumor coverage due to proximity to the optic apparatus would be Dmax <65 Gy. Caution should be exercised when treating elderly and advanced T-stage patients or those with tumor infiltration/compression of the OC/ON. Our nomogram shows strong efficacy in predicting RION. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To estimate the efficacy and safety of ocriplasmin for patients with vitreous macular traction (VMT). Methods: The PubMed, EMBASE and Ovid were searched up to May 2020 to identify related studies. Statistical analysis was conducted by R software version 3.6.3. Results in proportion with 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated by means of Freeman–Tukey variant of arcsine square transformation. Results: The pooling results indicated the overall complete release rate was 50% (95% CI [45%–54%]). For VMT patients younger than 65 years old, with smaller adhesion size of VMT (<1500 μm), phakic eyes, with macular hole (MH) and subretinal fluid (SRF), while without epiretinal membrane (ERM), ocriplasmin could achieve much higher complete release rates than those under opposite conditions. The general nonsurgical closure rate of MH was 34% (95% CI [30%–37%]), and it was positively correlated with the MH size. The visual improvement rate was 45% (95% CI [32%–59%]), and it was higher for patients with VMT resolution (59%, 95% CI [41%–75%]). The secondary pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) rate for patients without MH closure or VMT resolution was about 31% (95% CI [23%–39%]). The incidence of MH progression was 10% (95% CI [4%–18%]), and other severe adverse events such as endophthalmitis, retinal detachment and retinal tear were relatively rare. Conclusion: Ocriplasmin is an effective, reliable and relatively safe intervention for the treatment of VMT. The most suitable candidates were patients younger than 65 years old, with smaller adhesion size (<1500 μm), phakic eyes, with MH and SRF, while without ERM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An efficient method for the synthesis of indolo[2,1-a]isoquinolines using calcium carbide as an alkyne source, 2-(2-bromophenyl)-1H-indoles as starting materials, and copper as a catalyst is described. The target products are synthesized via Sonogashira cross-coupling/nucleophilic addition tandem reactions. The advantages of this protocol include the use of inexpensive and easy-to-handle solid alkyne source instead of flammable and explosive gaseous acetylene, cheap and readily available raw materials, wide range of substrates, and simple reaction procedure. The method can also be extended to gram scale. In addition, the desired product can also be obtained by one-pot three-component reaction of phenylhydrazine hydrochlorides, o-bromoacetophenones and calcium carbide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Blind image deblurring is a long standing challenging problem in image processing and low-level vision. Recently, sophisticated priors such as dark channel prior, extreme channel prior, and local maximum gradient prior, have shown promising effectiveness. However, these methods are computationally expensive. Meanwhile, since these priors involved subproblems cannot be solved explicitly, approximate solution is commonly used, which limits the best exploitation of their capability. To address these problems, this work firstly proposes a simplified sparsity prior of local minimal pixels, namely patch-wise minimal pixels (PMP). The PMP of clear images is much more sparse than that of blurred ones, and hence is very effective in discriminating between clear and blurred images. Then, a novel algorithm is designed to efficiently exploit the sparsity of PMP in deblurring. The new algorithm flexibly imposes sparsity inducing on the PMP under the maximum a posterior (MAP) framework rather than directly uses the half quadratic splitting algorithm. By this, it avoids non-rigorous approximation solution in existing algorithms, while being much more computationally efficient. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can achieve better practical stability compared with state-of-the-arts. In terms of deblurring quality, robustness and computational efficiency, the new algorithm is superior to state-of-the-arts. Code for reproducing the results of the new method is available at https://github.com/FWen/deblur-pmp.git. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deciphering the relationship between polyphase tectonic foliations and their associated mineral assemblages is significant in understanding the process from diagenesis to low‐/medium‐/high‐grade metamorphism. It can provide information related to strain, metamorphic conditions and overprinting relationships and so help reveal the tectonic evolution of orogenesis. In this study, we predominately focus on the formation of foliations and their related minerals, as developed in two separate basins. First of all, two stages of axial plane cleavages (S1 and S2) were recognized in the Hongyanjing inter‐arc basin, the formation of the S1 axial plane cleavage is associated with mica rotation and elongation in mudstones in the local area. The pencil structure of S2 formed during the refolding phase, the minerals in the sedimentary rocks not changing their shape and orientation. Secondly, in the Liao‐Ji backarc basin, foliations include diagenetic foliation (bedding parallel foliation), tectonic S1 foliation (secondary foliation or axial plane cleavage of S0 folding) and crenulation cleavage (S2). The formation mechanism of foliation changes from mineral rotation or elongation and mineral solution transfer in S1 to crystal‐plastic deformation, dynamic recrystallization and micro‐folding in S2. Many index metamorphic minerals formed from low‐grade to medium‐grade consist of biotites, garnets, staurolite and kyanite, constituting a typical Barrovian metamorphic belt. Accordingly, a new classification of foliation is presented in this study. The foliations can be divided into continuous and disjunctive foliations, based on the existence of microlithons, detectable with the aid of a microscope. Disjunctive foliation can be further sub‐divided into spaced foliation and crenulation cleavage, according to whether (or not) crenulation (micro‐folding) is present. The size of the mineral grains is also significant for classification of the foliations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To estimate the polyp regression rate and treatment prognosis of different interventions for polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV) and clarify its baseline characteristics. Methods: The PubMed, EMBASE, and Ovid were searched up to January 2020 to identify related studies. R software version 3.6.3 was used to perform the statistical analyses. Results in proportion with 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated by means of the Freeman-Tukey variant of arcsine square transformation. Chi-squared test and I2 statistics were used to evaluate the statistical heterogeneity. Sensitivity analysis and subgroup analyses were performed to identify the source of heterogeneity. Results: This meta-analysis included 104 studies with 5816 patients. The pooling results indicated the general rate of complete polyp regression at post-treatment 12 months was 64% (95% CI [57~71%]), 89% (95% CI [81~95%]) for photodynamic therapy (PDT) monotherapy, 78% (95% CI [68~86%]) for PDT plus anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF), and 42% (95% CI [35~49%]) for anti-VEGF monotherapy; PDT plus anti-VEGF showed the best efficacy in visual improvement and achieved the highest rate of dry macula (91%, 95% CI [78~99%]), while anti-VEGF monotherapy achieved the lowest polyp recurrence rate (14%, 95% CI [8~20%]); PDT monotherapy showed the best efficacy in pigment epithelial detachment regression (66%, 95% CI [58~83%]). Additionally, the baseline characteristics of PCV were also well described. Conclusion: PDT plus anti-VEGF is still valuable for the management of PCV; it could achieve not only satisfactory anatomical outcomes like dry macula rate and polyp regression rate but also ideal visual prognosis like BCVA improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] Nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase (NAMPT) is a key rate-limiting enzyme in the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) salvage pathway, primarily catalyzing the synthesis of nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) from nicotinamide (NAM), phosphoribosyl pyrophosphate (PRPP), and adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Metabolic diseases, aging-related diseases, inflammation, and cancers can lead to abnormal expression levels of NAMPT due to the pivotal role of NAD+ in redox metabolism, aging, the immune system, and DNA repair. In addition, NAMPT can be secreted by cells as a cytokine that binds to cell membrane receptors to regulate intracellular signaling pathways. Furthermore, NAMPT is able to reduce therapeutic efficacy by enhancing acquired resistance to chemotherapeutic agents. Recently, a few novel activators and inhibitors of NAMPT for neuroprotection and anti-tumor have been reported, respectively. However, NAMPT activators are still in preclinical studies, and only five NAMPT inhibitors have entered the clinical stage, unfortunately, three of which were terminated or withdrawn due to safety concerns. Novel drug design strategies such as proteolytic targeting chimera (PROTAC), antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), and dual-targeted inhibitors also provide new directions for the development of NAMPT inhibitors. In this perspective, we mainly discuss the structure, biological function, and role of NAMPT in diseases and the currently discovered activators and inhibitors. It is our hope that this work will provide some guidance for the future design and optimization of NAMPT activators and inhibitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The organization of the flow field in a scramjet is of great significance in achieving stable combustion in supersonic flow. Experimental investigation of the strut-induced flow in a scramjet is conducted with particle image velocimetry (PIV) measurement. The central wakes along with two outer free streams can be observed in the instantaneous velocity fields. Then the calculated vorticity shows a similar distribution with the mixing layers in the single-shot image, suggesting the mixing layers a preliminary assessment of the flow. Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) of snapshots reveals several features beneficial for flame stabilization in the strut-induced flow, including the reverse flow, central large-scale vortex structures and the vortex structures in the mixing layers. Moreover, by comparison it is found that a significant asymmetry of strut-induced flow would compress the low-speed region and weaken the large-scale vortex structure which would present a challenge to achieve flame establishment. The research contributes to a profound understanding of strut-induced flow which may be useful for engineering design and optimization. [Display omitted] • The strut-induced flow in a scramjet is investigated with PIV and POD. • 13 nm Al 2 O 3 particles are dispersed by shearing action of the facility Ma 3 nozzle. • Turbulent structure and mixing layers are visualized in single-shot images. • POD analysis reveals the flow structure of free stream, mixing layer and vortex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Platycodon grandiflorum (PG) has been widely applied as a conductant drug by ancient and modern traditional Chinese medicine practitioners during long-term clinical practice. However, determining how to guide other medicines to the targeted lungs in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) prescription remains unclear. An ethanol soluble fraction (Fr. B) was obtained by macroporous resin and 75 % ethanol precipitate. The components were unambiguously determined as fructooligosaccharides and small molecule weight (M w) fructans according to HILIC-ESI−-MS/MS, MS/MS and 1/2D NMR. We discovered that the Fr. B possesses the lung-oriented guidance and targetability by activating Golgi apparatus and endoplasmic reticulum (Golgi-ER) transport system. Rab21, a highly expressed transmembrane protein in the lungs, was found to be the core-affinity target of Fr. B which physically colocalized with the Golgi-ER and directly interacted with Rab21 to accelerate the uptake of extracellular therapeutic substances. The lung-oriented guidance and targetability of Fr. B was validated by the transient knockdown and overexpression of Rab21 considering dynamic observations of colocalization interactions among Fr. B, extracellular substances, and the Golgi-ER. Together, our results delineate a potential mechanism of Fr. B toward lung-oriented guidance and targetability via a direct targeting affinity of Rab21 and resulting collective stimulation of key Golgi-ER transport effectors for the acceleration of extracellular substances into the lungs. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glycinamide hydrochloride as an inexpensive and commercially available transient directing group for the C(sp3)−H arylation of 2-methylbenzaldehydes is described. A series of practical 2-benzylbenzaldehydes bearing various functional groups are efficiently synthesized in satisfactory yield by this strategy. This method can also be extended to gram scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current mobile applications have rapidly growing memory footprints, posing a great challenge for memory system design. Insufficient DRAM main memory will incur frequent data swaps between memory and storage, a process that hurts performance, consumes energy, and deteriorates the write endurance of typical flash storage devices. Alternately, a larger DRAM has higher leakage power and drains the battery faster. Furthermore, DRAM scaling trends make further growth of DRAM in the mobile space prohibitive due to cost. Emerging nonvolatile memory (NVM) has the potential to alleviate these issues due to its higher capacity per cost than DRAM and minimal static power. Recently, a wide spectrum of NVM technologies, including phase-change memories (PCMs), memristor, and 3-D XPoint has emerged. Despite the mentioned advantages, NVM has longer access latency compared to DRAM and NVM writes can incur higher latencies and wear costs. Therefore, the integration of these new memory technologies in the memory hierarchy requires a fundamental rearchitecting of traditional system designs. In this work, we propose a hardware-accelerated memory manager (HMMU) that addresses in a flat address space, with a small partition of the DRAM reserved for subpage block-level management. We design a set of data placement and data migration policies within this memory manager such that we may exploit the advantages of each memory technology. By augmenting the system with this HMMU, we reduce the overall memory latency while also reducing writes to the NVM. The experimental results show that our design achieves a 39% reduction in energy consumption with only a 12% performance degradation versus an all-DRAM baseline that is likely untenable in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many phenolic compounds, derived from lignin during the pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass, could obviously inhibit the activity of cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic enzymes. Acetosyringone (AS) is one of the phenolic compounds produced from lignin degradation. In this study, we investigated the inhibitory effects of AS on xylanase activity through kinetic experiments. The results showed that AS could obviously inhibit the activity of xylanase in a reversible and noncompetitive binding manner (up to 50% activity loss). Inhibitory kinetics and constants of xylanase on AS were conducted by the HCH-1 model (β = 0.0090 ± 0.0009 mM−1). Furthermore, intrinsic and 8-anilino-1-naphthalenesulfonic (ANS)-binding fluorescence results showed that the tertiary structure of AS-mediated xylanase was altered. These findings provide new insights into the role of AS in xylanase activity. Our results also suggest that AS was an inhibitor of xylanase and targeting AS was a potential strategy to increase xylose production. Acetosyringone inhibited xylanase activity in a reversible and non-competitive binding manner, which might be related to the disruption of tertiary structure of xylanase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clarifying the spatial-temporal differentiation of urban eco-efficiency and its driving factors is the primary task of achieving green and sustainable development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Based on the urban panel data from 2003 to 2018, this paper used the MinDS model to measure the eco-efficiency of cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, revealed the specific sources of urban ecological inefficiency from the perspective of input-output, and further used the Theil Index and geographic detectors to empirically investigate the spatial-temporal differentiation characteristics and driving factors of its urban eco-efficiency. The study found that: (1) During the sample period, the overall eco-efficiency of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and the cities in the upper, middle and lower reaches showed a rising trend of fluctuation, and the downstream area was always higher than the middle and upstream areas. Insufficient expected output and undesired output redundancy were the root causes of urban ecological inefficiency. (2) Intra-regional differences were the main source of spatial differences in urban eco-efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Before 2011, the differences in internal eco-efficiency in the downstream regions had the greatest impact on the overall differences; after 2011, the differences in the downstream and upstream regions alternately ranked first and second in the contribution list. (3) The absolute difference in urban eco-efficiency in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River had decreased significantly, but the upstream area expanded slightly. Except for the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, urban eco-efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt demonstrated a certain gradient effect, and polarization in the downstream area was the most obvious. (4) The spatial differentiation of urban eco-efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt was affected by a variety of factors. From the perspective of structural factors, the difference in economic development had always been the most decisive factor for the spatial differences in the urban eco - efficiency of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The difference in energy input and pollution emissions had a relatively small effect; from the perspective of socioeconomic factors, the difference between population density and the spatial differentiation of urban eco-efficiency was significantly stronger than other factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A straightforward synthesis of benzonitriles is achieved via amino-catalyzed [3+3] benzannulation of α,β-unsaturated aldehydes and 4-arylsulfonyl-2-butenenitriles. Using pyrrolidine as an organocatalyst via iminium activation, a series of substituted benzonitriles were obtained in good to high yields in a regioselective manner. This reaction can proceed smoothly under mild reaction conditions and without the aid of any metals, additional oxidants, or strong bases, thus making this an efficient and environmentally friendly method to access benzonitriles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the robustification of principal component analysis (PCA) has attracted much research attention in numerous areas of science and engineering. The most popular and successful approach is to model the robust PCA problem as a low-rank matrix recovery problem in the presence of sparse corruption. With this model, the nuclear norm and $\ell _{1}$ -norm penalties are usually used for low-rank and sparsity promotion. Although the nuclear norm and $\ell _{1}$ -norm are favorable due to their convexity, they have a bias problem. In comparison, nonconvex penalties can be expected to yield better recovery performance. In this paper, we consider a formulation for robust PCA using generalized nonconvex penalties for low-rank and sparsity inducing. This nonconvex formulation is efficiently solved by a multi-block alternative direction method of multipliers (ADMM) algorithm. A sufficient condition for the convergence of this new ADMM algorithm has been derived. Furthermore, to address the important issue of nonconvex penalty selection, we have evaluated the new algorithm via numerical experiments in various low-rank and sparsity conditions. The results indicate that, “exact” recovery of the low-rank principle component can be achieved only by nonconvex regularization. MATLAB code is available at https://github.com/FWen/RPCA.git. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We aimed to evaluate the comparative efficacy and safety of drugs respectively for primary prevention and secondary prevention of osteoporotic fractures in postmenopausal women (PMW), and to further identify the optimal intervention(s) respectively for the two groups when efficacy and safety both considered. We searched three databases. Bayesian network meta-analyses were conducted for two efficacy outcomes (vertebral fractures and nonvertebral fractures) and two safety outcomes (tolerability and acceptability) respectively in primary prevention group and secondary prevention group. We synthesized hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for nonvertebral fractures, and risk ratios (RRs) for three others. Factor and cluster analyses on surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA) values were conducted to identify the best intervention(s) with efficacy and safety both considered. The study protocol has been registered in PROSPERO. We included 57 randomized trials involving fifteen anti-osteoporotic interventions and 106320 PMW. For primary prevention, only zoledronate (once per 18 months) reduced both vertebral (RR 0.46, 95% CI 0.28–0.74) and nonvertebral (HR 0.66, 95% CI 0.51–0.85) fractures. For secondary prevention, abaloparatide, alendronate, denosumab, lasofoxifene, risedronate, romosozumab, teriparatide, and zoledronate (once per 12 months) reduced both vertebral (RRs: from 0.17 to 0.62) and nonvertebral (HRs: from 0.54 to 0.81) fractures. PTH (1–84) and abaloparatide increased withdrawal risk. Romosozumab, teriparatide, denosumab and risedronate, with the greatest composite scores, constituted the optimal cluster having both superior efficacy and superior safety. Zoledronate used at 5 mg per 18 months, with the similar safety as placebo, is the only drug intervention which has been shown to significantly reduce both vertebral and nonvertebral fractures for primary prevention of osteoporotic fractures in PMW; while romosozumab, teriparatide, denosumab, and risedronate are the optimal treatments for secondary prevention when efficacy and safety both considered. A limitation is that safety outcomes failed to consider the severity of adverse effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the contributions of the resonant states K 0 ∗ (1430) and K 0 ∗ (1950) in the three-body decays B → Kπh (with h = π, K) in the perturbative QCD approach. The crucial nonperturbative input FKπ(s) in the distribution amplitudes of the S-wave Kπ system is derived from the matrix element of vacuum to Kπ pair. The C P averaged branching fraction of the quasi-two-body decay process B → K 0 ∗ (1950) h → Kπh is about one order smaller than that of the corresponding decay B → K 0 ∗ (1430)h → Kπh. In view of the important contribution from the S-wave Kπ system for the B → Kπh decays, it is not appropriate to neglect the K 0 ∗ (1950) in the theoretical or experimental studies for the relevant three-body B meson decays. The predictions in this work for the relevant decays are consistent with the existing experimental data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maximum consensus robust fitting is a fundamental problem in many computer vision applications, such as vision-based robotic navigation and mapping. While exact search algorithms are computationally demanding, randomized algorithms are cheap but the solution quality is not guaranteed. Deterministic algorithms fill the gap between these two kinds of algorithms, which have better solution quality than randomized algorithms while being much faster than exact algorithms. In this article, we develop two highly efficient deterministic algorithms based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) and proximal block coordinate descent (BCD) frameworks. Particularly, the proposed BCD algorithm is guaranteed convergent. Furthermore, on the slack variable in the BCD algorithm, which indicates the inliers and outliers, we establish some meaningful properties, such as support convergence within finite iterations and convergence to restricted strictly local minimizer. Compared with state-of-the-art algorithms, the new algorithms with initialization from a randomized or convex relaxed algorithm can achieve improved solution quality while being much more efficient (e.g., more than an order of magnitude faster). An application of the new ADMM algorithm in simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) has also been provided to demonstrate its effectiveness. Code for reproducing the results is available online.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semicarbazide as an effective transient directing group for C(sp3)−H arylation of 2‐methylbenzaldehydes is described. Various substituted 2‐benzylbenzaldehydes are efficiently synthesized by this strategy. The salient features of this protocol are the use of inexpensive transient directing group, wide scope of substrates with good functional group compatibility, up to 98% yield, and applicability to gram scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work addresses the robust principal component analysis (PCA) problem using generalized nonoconvex regularization for low-rank and sparsity promotion. While the popular nuclear and $\ell _1$ -norm penalties have a bias problem, nonconvex regularization can alleviate the bias problem and can be expected to achieve better performance. In this paper, a proximal block coordinate descent (BCD) algorithm is used to efficiently solve the nonconvex regularized robust PCA problem. It is globally convergent under weak conditions. Further, for a popular class of penalties having discontinuous threshoding functions, we establish the convergence to a restricted strictly local minimizer and, also, a local linear convergence rate for the proximal BCD algorithm. Moreover, convergence to a local minimizer has been derived for hard-thresholding. Our result is the first on nonconvex robust PCA with established convergence to strictly local minimizer with local linear convergence rate. Numerical experiments have been provided to demonstrate the performance of the new algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although there are several treatments available for gastric cancer (GC), the prognosis of the disease is still poor due to many factors, such as late diagnosis and tumor heterogeneity. To identify potential therapeutic targets, bioinformatics techniques and clinical sample validation were employed and prostate transmembrane protein androgen induced 1 (PMEPA1) was selected for further study. In the present study, we found that elevated PMEPA1 expression correlates with a worse prognosis and weaker anti-tumor immunity in GC patients. Moreover, our study showed that PMEPA1 not only influences cell proliferation, clone formation, invasion, and migration in vitro , but also plays an important role in GC progression in vivo. Mechanically, PMEPA1 exerts its oncogenic effects through activating the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. Therefore, PMEPA1 is a potential target for treating GC effectively. • Elevated PMEPA1 expression correlates with a worse prognosis and weaker anti-tumor immunity in gastric cancer patients. • PMEPA1 contributes to gastric cancer cell proliferation, clone formation, invasion and migration. • PMEPA1 exerts its oncogenic effects through activating the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway. • PMEPA1 is a potential target for treating GC effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cauchy noise removal in multidimension visual data is a fundamental problem in image processing and data science communities. Recently, this problem can be effectively solved by resorting to an appropriate tensor recovery approach and has attracted increasing attention. However, it is not extensively reported whether tensor recovery approaches with multiple priors can achieve even better denosing performance. To address this issue, we propose a novel tensor recovery approach in this paper based on the maximum a posteriori estimation (MAP). Our approach is a nonconvex optimization model that includes a composite regularization term and a data fidelity term. The composite regularization term incorporates nonlocal self-similarity in the spatial and gradient domains of multidimensional visual data, preserving both local image details and non-local structures. The data fidelity term is obtained by computing the negative log-likelihood of Cauchy noise distribution. To solve this proposed tensor recovery model, we develop an effective denoising algorithm with a global convergence guarantee via the well-known nonconvex alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Finally, we conduct extensive numerical experiments to demonstrate that our proposed recovery approach can achieve superior denoising performance, both quantitatively and qualitatively, compared to existing common methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the precoding problem in massive multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MU-MIMO) systems equipped with low-resolution digital-to-analog converters. In previous literature on this topic, it is commonly assumed that the channel state information (CSI) is perfectly known. However, in practical applications the CSI is inevitably contaminated by noise. In this paper, we propose, for the first time, an eigen-inference (EI) precoding scheme to improve the error performance of the coarsely quantized massive MU-MIMO systems under imperfect CSI, which is mathematically modeled by a sum of two rectangular random matrices (RRMs): $\sqrt{1 - \eta } {{\bf H}} + \sqrt\eta {{\bf E}}$. Instead of performing analysis based on the RRM, using Girkoąŕs Hermitization trick, the proposed method leverages the block random matrix theory by augmenting the RRM into a block symmetric channel matrix (BSCA). Specially, we derive the empirical distribution of the eigenvalues of the BSCA and establish the limiting spectra distribution connection between the true BSCA and its noisy observation. Then, based on these theoretical results, we propose an EI-based moments matching method for CSI-related noise level ($\eta$) estimation and a rotation invariant estimation method for CSI reconstruction. Based on the cleaned CSI, the quantized precoding problem is tackled via the Bussgang theorem and the Lagrangian multiplier method. The prosed methods are finally verified by numerical simulations and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed precoder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clouds and accompanying shadows, which exist in optical remote sensing images with high possibility, can degrade or even completely occlude certain ground-cover information in images, limiting their applicabilities for Earth observation, change detection, or land-cover classification. In this paper, we aim to deal with cloud contamination problems with the objective of generating cloud-removed remote sensing images. Inspired by low-rank representation together with sparsity constraints, we propose a coarse-to-fine framework for cloud removal in the remote sensing image sequence. Leveraging on group-sparsity constraint, we first decompose the observed cloud image sequence of the same area into the low-rank component, group-sparse outliers, and sparse noise, corresponding to cloud-free land-covers, clouds (and accompanying shadows), and noise respectively. Subsequently, a discriminative robust principal component analysis (RPCA) algorithm is utilized to assign aggressive penalizing weights to the initially detected cloud pixels to facilitate cloud removal and scene restoration. Moreover, we incorporate geometrical transformation into a low-rank model to address the misalignment of the image sequence. Significantly superior to conventional cloud-removal methods, neither cloud-free reference image(s) nor additional operations of cloud and shadow detection are required in our method. Extensive experiments on both simulated data and real data demonstrate that our method works effectively, outperforming many state-of-the-art approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reflectometry system on experimental advanced superconducting tokamak (EAST) is undergoing an upgrade for more comprehensive measurement of plasma density profile and fluctuation. The data acquisition and control system (DACS) has been redeveloped to satisfy the upgraded requirements. The profile reflectometry works in 30–110 GHz (X-mode) and 40–90 GHz (O-mode), when the fluctuation reflectometry operates at 20 fixed frequency points in 50–110 GHz (X-mode) and 20–60 GHz (O-mode). The PXIe-based DACS includes two 8-channel 14-bit 250 MSPS digitizers and ten 8-channel 12-bit 60 MSPS digitizers. A self-developed five-channel 250 MSPS arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) is used to control voltage control oscillators for frequency sweeping. A trigger and clock manager and a timing module receive the trigger and clock signal from the central controller and synchronize all the digitizers and the AWG. The total data rate from digitizers is 2515 MB/s. The data from digitizers is streamed to a disk array (RAID 0) with the data throughput capacity of 3000 MB/s. Meanwhile, the selected data are transported to an FPGA-based real-time data processing module, which utilize a pretrained neural network to calculate the plasma density profile. Now, the new reflectometry is being installed on EAST, and its performance is tested preliminarily in the 2018 experimental campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Previous studies have shown that miR-373 functions as either a tumor suppressor or an oncogene depending on which type of cancer it's operating in. However, the functional role of miR-373 in neuroblastoma (NB) remains largely unclear.  Methods: Expression of miR-373 and SRC kinase signaling inhibitor 1 (SRCIN1) in 20 metastatic and 20 primary NB tissues was detected by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) and Western blotting. MTT assay, flow cytometry analysis and transwell migration and invasion assays were performed to evaluate the influence of miR-373 inhibition on the growth, migration and invasion of NB cells, respectively. In vivo experiment was applied to determine the effect of miR-373 inhibition on tumor growth. Dual-luciferase reporter assay was used to confirm the interaction between miR-373 and SRCIN1. Results: We observed a significant increase in the expression of miR-373 in metastatic NB samples compared with primary NB samples, and this was inversely correlated with SRCIN1 expression. Functional studies revealed that depletion of miR-373 inhibited in vitro NB cell growth, migration and invasion, and also suppressed tumor growth in an in vivo mouse model. Moreover, we identified that SRCIN1 was a direct and functional target gene of miR-373. Silencing of SRCIN1 partially rescued the antimiR-373-mediated inhibition of cell growth, migration and invasion. Conclusion: The data from our study verified a potential oncogenic role of miR-373 in NB cells that occurs through direct targeting SRCIN1. The newly identified miR-373/SRCIN1 axis represents a new potential candidate for therapeutic intervention of malignant NB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Because of the similarity of intestinal tuberculosis and Crohn's disease in disease phenotype, differential diagnosis has always been a clinical problem. Arachidonic acid metabolites play an important role in the inflammatory response of intestinal tuberculosis and Crohn's disease. Recent studies have shown that the polymorphism locus in the promoter region of LTA4H gene affects LTB4 expression level and the susceptibility to extrapulmonary tuberculosis. Thus, we identified a total of 148 patients with intestinal tuberculosis, 145 with Crohn's disease, and 700 normal controls in this study. Methods. All the study participants were local Han people from Jiangxi Province in the past eleven years. DNA was extracted from the paraffin-embedded specimens or the whole blood. The LTA4H promoter SNP (rs17525495) was genotyped with TaqMan assay. Results. The T-alleles frequency was not significantly increased in patients with intestinal tuberculosis compared with healthy control group (p=0.630; OR=1.07; 95%CI=0.81-1.41), while patients with Crohn's disease have significantly increased T allele frequency compared with healthy population (p=0.032; OR=1.34; 95%CI=1.03-1.75). During treatment, the presence of the T allele significantly increased the proportion of Crohn's patients requiring glucocorticoids (p<0.05). Conclusions. The T allele of LTA4H gene SNP (rs17525495) is a risk factor for Crohn's disease instead of intestinal tuberculosis. More importantly, there may be a potential association of the different genotypes of rs17525495 with the treatment efficacy of 5-ASA and glucocorticoids in patients with Crohn's disease. The association between LTA4H polymorphism and drugs therapeutic effects might contribute to the practice of precision medicine and the prediction of clinical outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We study the quasi-two-body decays B → D ⁎ h → D π h with h = (π , K) in the perturbative QCD approach and focus on the virtual contributions from the off-shell D ⁎ (2007) 0 and D ⁎ (2010) ± in the four measured decays B ¯ 0 → D 0 π + π − , B ¯ 0 → D 0 π + K − , B − → D + π − π − and B − → D + π − K −. For the B ¯ 0 → D ⁎ + π − → D 0 π + π − and B ¯ 0 → D ⁎ + K − → D 0 π + K − decays, their branching fractions concentrate in a very small region of m D 0 π + near D ⁎ + pole mass, and the virtual contributions from D ⁎ + , in the region m D 0 π + > 2.1 GeV, are about 5% of the corresponding quasi-two-body results. We define two ratios R D ⁎ + and R D ⁎ 0 , from which we conclude that the flavor- S U (3) symmetry will be maintained for the B → D ⁎ h → D π h decays with very small breaking at any physical value of the m D π. The B − → D ⁎ 0 π − → D 0 π 0 π − and B − → D ⁎ 0 K − → D 0 π 0 K − decays can be employed as a constraint for the D ⁎ 0 decay width, with preferred values consistent with previous theoretical predictions for this quantity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract An organocatalyzed asymmetric sulfa-Michael addition of thiocarboxylic acids to β -trifluoromethyl- α , β -unsaturated ketones with a chiral bifunctional amine-squaramide as the catalyst is presented. A wide range of chiral ketone compounds bearing a sulfur atom and a trifluoromethyl group at the stereogenic carbon center could be obtained with excellent results (up to 99% yield, 97% ee) under mild conditions. The developed catalytic system is well-tolerated to both (E)-and (Z)- β -trifluoromethylated- α , β -unsaturated ketones. Graphical abstract Image 1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]