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ContextThe melanocortin 3 receptor (MC3R) has recently emerged as a critical regulator of pubertal timing, linear growth and the acquisition of lean mass in humans and mice. In population-based studies, heterozygous carriers of deleterious variants in MC3R report a later onset of puberty than non-carriers. However, the frequency of such variants in patients who present with clinical disorders of pubertal development is currently unknown.ObjectiveTo determine whether deleterious MC3R variants are more frequently found in patients clinically presenting with constitutional delay of growth and puberty (CDGP) or normosmic idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (nIHH).Design, Setting and ParticipantsWe examined the sequence of MC3R in 362 adolescents with a clinical diagnosis of CDGP and 657 patients with nIHH, experimentally characterised the signalling properties of all non-synonymous variants found and compared their frequency to that in 5774 controls from a population-based cohort. Additionally, we established the relative frequency of predicted deleterious variants in individuals with self-reported delayed vs normally timed menarche/voice breaking in the UK Biobank cohort.ResultsMC3R loss-of-function variants were infrequent but overrepresented in patients with CDGP (8/362 (2.2%), OR = 4.17, p = 0.001). There was no strong evidence of overrepresentation in patients with nIHH (4/657 (0.6%), OR = 1.15, p = 0.779). In 246,328 women from UK Biobank, predicted deleterious variants were more frequently found in those self-reporting delayed (≥16 years) vs normal age at menarche (OR = 1.66, p = 3.90E-07).ConclusionsWe have found evidence that functionally damaging variants in MC3R are overrepresented in individuals with CDGP but are not a common cause of this phenotype.

Dividing ads ranking system into retrieval, early, and final stages is a common practice in large scale ads recommendation to balance the efficiency and accuracy. The early stage ranking often uses efficient models to generate candidates out of a set of retrieved ads. The candidates are then fed into a more computationally intensive but accurate final stage ranking system to produce the final ads recommendation. As the early and final stage ranking use different features and model architectures because of system constraints, a serious ranking consistency issue arises where the early stage has a low ads recall, i.e., top ads in the final stage are ranked low in the early stage. In order to pass better ads from the early to the final stage ranking, we propose a multi-task learning framework for early stage ranking to capture multiple final stage ranking components (i.e. ads clicks and ads quality events) and their task relations. With our multi-task learning framework, we can not only achieve serving cost saving from the model consolidation, but also improve the ads recall and ranking consistency. In the online A/B testing, our framework achieves significantly higher click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate (CVR), total value and better ads-quality (e.g. reduced ads cross-out rate) in a large scale industrial ads ranking system., Accepted by AdKDD 23

YiFu Tian,1 CaiXia Zhou,1 XiaoYang Bu,1 Qian Lv,1 Qin Huang1,2 1Department of Physiology of Basic Medical Sciences, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Key Laboratory of Longevity and Aging-Related Diseases of Chinese Ministry of Education & School of Basic Medical Sciences, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Qin Huang, Department of Physiology, Guangxi Medical University, Building 102, 22 Shuangyong Road, Nanning, Guangxi, 530021, People’s Republic of China, Email hqgxmu@163.comBackground: Inflammation plays a crucial role in the development of diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM), including inflammation caused by high-glucose and high-lipid (HGHL). Targeting inflammation may provide a useful strategy for preventing and treating DCM. Puerarin has been shown to reduce the inflammation, apoptosis and hypertrophy of cardiomyocytes induced by HGHL, in which this study aims to investigate the underlying mechanisms.Methods: H9c2 cardiomyocytes cultured with HGHL were used to establish a cell model of DCM. Puerarin was then placed to these cells for 24 hours. The effects of HGHL and puerarin on cell viability and apoptosis were investigated by the Cell Proliferation, Toxicity Assay Kit (CCK-8) and flow cytometry. Morphological changes of cardiomyocytes was observed by HE staining. CAV3 proteins in H9c2 cardiomyocytes were altered by transient transfection of CAV3 siRNA. IL-6 was detected by ELISA. The Western blot was performed to determine the CAV3, Bcl-2, Bax, pro-Caspase-3, cleaved-Caspase-3, NF-κB (p65) and p38MAPK proteins.Results: Puerarin treatment reversed the cells viability, hypertrophy in morphology, inflammation (showed by p-p38 and p-p65 and IL-6) and apoptosis-related damage (showed by cleaved-Caspase-3/pro-Caspase-3/Bax, Bcl-2 and flow cytometry) of the H9c2 cardiomyocyte caused by HGHL. Puerarin treatment also restored the decrease of CAV3 proteins of the H9c2 cardiomyocyte caused by HGHL. When silenced the expression of CAV3 proteins with SiRNA, puerarin failed to decreased p-p38 and p-p65 and IL-6, and could not reversed cell viability and morphological damage. In contrast to the simple CAV3 silenced group, the CAV3 silenced with NF-κB pathway or p38MAPK pathway inhibitors, significantly downregulated the p-p38, p-p65 and IL-6.Conclusion: Puerarin upregulated CAV3 protein expression in H9c2 cardiomyocytes and inhibited the NF-κB and p38MAPK pathways, thereby reducing HGHL-induced inflammation and may related to the apoptosis and hypertrophy of cardiomyocytes.Keywords: puerarin, cardiomyocyte, inflammation, caveolin-3, siRNA, NF-κB, p38MAPK

ContextThe melanocortin 3 receptor (MC3R) has recently emerged as a critical regulator of pubertal timing, linear growth and the acquisition of lean mass in humans and mice. In population-based studies, heterozygous carriers of deleterious variants in MC3R report a later onset of puberty than non-carriers. However, the frequency of such variants in patients who present with clinical disorders of pubertal development is currently unknown.ObjectiveTo determine whether deleterious MC3R variants are more frequently found in patients clinically presenting with constitutional delay of growth and puberty (CDGP) or normosmic idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism (nIHH).Design, Setting and ParticipantsWe examined the sequence of MC3R in 362 adolescents with a clinical diagnosis of CDGP and 657 patients with nIHH, experimentally characterised the signalling properties of all non-synonymous variants found and compared their frequency to that in 5774 controls from a population-based cohort. Additionally, we established the relative frequency of predicted deleterious variants in individuals with self-reported delayed vs normally timed menarche/voice breaking in the UK Biobank cohort.ResultsMC3R loss-of-function variants were infrequent but overrepresented in patients with CDGP (8/362 (2.2%), OR = 4.17, p = 0.001). There was no strong evidence of overrepresentation in patients with nIHH (4/657 (0.6%), OR = 1.15, p = 0.779). In 246,328 women from UK Biobank, predicted deleterious variants were more frequently found in those self-reporting delayed (≥16 years) vs normal age at menarche (OR = 1.66, p = 3.90E-07).ConclusionsWe have found evidence that functionally damaging variants in MC3R are overrepresented in individuals with CDGP but are not a common cause of this phenotype.

Coded distributed computing can alleviate the communication load by leveraging the redundant storage and computation resources with coding techniques in distributed computing. In this paper, we study a MapReduce-type distributed computing framework over star topological network, where all the workers exchange information through a common access point. The optimal tradeoff among the normalized number of the stored files (storage load), computed intermediate values (computation load) and transmitted bits in the uplink and downlink (communication loads) are characterized. A coded computing scheme is proposed to achieve the Pareto-optimal tradeoff surface, in which the access point only needs to perform simple chain coding between the signals it receives, and information-theretical bound matching the surface is also provided.

Data and codes

In this paper, we study the overdetermined problem for the $p$-Laplacian equation on complete noncompact Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature. We prove that the regularity results of weak solutions of the $p$-Laplacian equation and obtain some integral identities. As their applications, we give the proof of the $p$-Laplacian overdetermined problem and obtain some well known results such as the Heintze-Karcher inequality and the Soap Bubble Theorem.

Supplemental Material for Disrupted resting-state brain functional network properties in non-neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus patients Approach by Xiangliang Tan Xiaojin Liu Kai Han Ling Zhao Meiqi Niu Qiaoli Yao Qin Huang Miao Zhong Yingjie Mei Ruiwang Huang and Yikai Xu in Lupus

Supplementary Material 1

Triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells (TREM) like transcript-1 (TLT-1) is a membrane protein receptor found in α-granules of megakaryocytes and platelets. Upon platelet activation TLT-1 is rapidly relocated to the surface of platelets. In plasma, a soluble form of TLT-1 (sTLT-1) is present. Plasma levels of sTLT-1 are significantly elevated in thrombotic diseases. In the present study, we investigated to whether TLT-1 reflects platelet activation in pregnant women with preeclampsia. We studied 30 preeclamptic patients who were matched with 30 normotensive pregnant women and 30 non-pregnant controls. Basal TLT-1, P-selectin, and CD63 expressions on platelets were analyzed with the use of flow-cytometry (FCM). Platelet reactivity was induced by thrombin receptor activation peptide and determined by FCM. Plasma concentrations of sTLT-1 and soluble P-selectin (sP-selectin) were measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results show that basal platelet expression of TLT-1, P-selectin and CD63 were increased in women with preeclampsia (PE) compared with normotensive pregnant women (NP). Platelets from PE women and NP women were more responsive compared to from nonpregnant women controls (NC), and which was demonstrated by increased expression of TLT-1, P-selectin, and CD63 upon stimulation in vitro. Plasma concentration of sTLT-1 was greater in PE women compared to NP women and NC women. Plasma sP-selectin level was higher in pregnant women than in nonpregnant women, but there were no significant differences between PE and NP women. In summary, our results revealed that platelet activation is prominent in preeclampsia, TLT-1 reflects platelet activation and may be a useful indicator for preeclampsia.

The lack of understanding about the brain's reaction processes in perceiving touch and separation between skin and object surfaces is a barrier to the development of existing brain-computer interface technologies and virtual haptics. These technologies are limited in their ability to advance. It leaves prosthesis users with a limited amount of tactile information that they can feel. This study aims to determine whether distinct surface aspects of various items trigger different reactions from the brain when friction is removed from the surface.When friction is suddenly removed from the surface of an item, a technique called event-related potential,or ERP, is used to study the features of people's EEGs. It is done after the subject has actively explored the object's surface. A Neuroscan 64-conductor event-related potential device was utilized to acquire EEG data from the individuals. The event-related potentials for friction removal were generated using the Oddball paradigm, and the samples consisted of sandpaper with three distinct degrees of roughness. We utilized a total of 20 participants, 10 of whom were male, and 10 of whom were female, with a mean age of 21 years.It was discovered that the P3 component of event-related potentials, which is essential for cognition, was noticeably absent in the friction withdrawal response for various roughnesses. It was the case regardless of whether the surface was smooth or rough. Moreover, there was no statistically significant difference between the P1 andP2 components, which suggests that the brain could not recognize the surface properties of objects with varying roughness as the friction withdrawal was being performed.It has been demonstrated that tactile recognition does not occur after friction withdrawal. The findings of this paper could have significant repercussions for future research involving the study of haptic perception and brain-computer interaction in prosthetic hands. It is a step toward future research on the mechanisms underlying human tactile perception, so think of it as preparation.

This paper considers an affine frequency division multiplexing (AFDM)-based integrated sensing and communications (ISAC) system, where the AFDM waveform is used to simultaneously carry communications information and sense targets. To realize AFDM-based sensing functionality, two parameter estimation methods are designed to process echoes in the time domain and the discrete affine Fourier transform (DAFT) domain, respectively. It allows us to decouple delay and Doppler shift in the fast time axis and can maintain good sensing performance even in large Doppler shift scenarios. Numerical results verify the effectiveness of our proposed AFDM-based system in high mobility scenarios.

Gastric neuroendocrine carcinoma (NEC), including mixed neuroendocrine-non-neuroendocrine neoplasm (MiNEN), is uncommon and differences in clinicopathological features and outcomes of NEC arising in various gastric regions remain elusive. We investigated 56 consecutive NECs identified among 3961 gastrectomies performed at our center between 2005 and 2021. We then compared clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis between gastroesophageal junctional (GEJ) NECs (N=39) and gastric non-cardiac NECs (N=17). No significant difference was found between the two groups in age, gender, tumor size, mixed non-neuroendocrine carcinoma component, MiNEN, NEC type, metastatic NEC component in lymph nodes, tumor infiltrating lymphocyte, lymph node metastasis, lymphovascular or perineural invasion, intestinal metaplasia in adjacent non-neoplastic mucosa, and expression of P53, PD-L1, TTF-1, HER2, and Ki-67. However, compared to gastric non-cardiac NECs, GEJ NECs displayed a significantly higher frequency of prevalence (2.79% versus 0.66%), pT3-T4 (92.3% versus 64.7%), advanced pathological stage (IIb-IV) (76.9% versus 47.1%), and a significantly lower 5-year overall survival rate (46.1% versus 73.1%) (P

Metabolism-related genes (MRGs) have been confirmed to play an important role in the occurrence and development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). We obtained 88 differentially expressed MRGs according to ROC analysis. The prognostic risk score was then calculated based on 12 MRGs via LASSO regression, and patients were divided into high- and low-risk group. Furthermore, the survival prognostic value of this model was further confirmed in Kaplan–Meier and ROC analysis. Mutations in 12 MRGs were analyzed using cBioPortal. Further analysis showed that MRGs copy number variations (CNVs) in the model were correlated with immune checkpoints (LSECtin and PD-L1) and immune cells. Furthermore, this predictive model was found to be sensitive to immune infiltration and had good predictive value for the expression of immune checkpoints. In conclusion, an MRGs-based HCC prediction model for HCC was established and its effectiveness was verified.

This paper defines cyclic and minimal derivative descendants (DDs) of an extended cyclic code from the derivative of the Mattson-Solomon polynomials, respectively. First, it demonstrates that the cyclic DDs are the same extended cyclic code. It allows us to perform soft-decision decoding for extended cyclic codes based on their cyclic DDs. Then, it proves that the minimal DDs are equivalent codes. It also allows us to perform soft-decision decoding based on the minimal DDs with permutations. Simulation results show that our proposed derivative decoding can be close to the maximum likelihood decoding for certain extended cyclic codes, including some extended BCH codes.

We study the {\sc Rich Lines} problem, which is a fundamental point-line fitting problem in computational geometry. In this problem, the input is a set $S$ of points in the plane, and the goal is to compute the set of all lines that each covers at least $\lambda$ points from $S$, for a given integer parameter $\lambda \geq 2$; this problem subsumes the {\sc 3-Points-on-Line} problem and the {\sc Exact Fitting} problem, which---the latter---asks for a line containing the maximum number of points. The {\sc Rich Lines} problem has been extensively studied, and its solution serves as a building block for several algorithms in computational geometry. We present a randomized Monte Carlo algorithm for {\sc Rich Lines} that achieves a lower running time than the current-best algorithm of Guibas et al.~[{\it Computational Geometry} 1996], for a wide range of the parameter $\lambda$. We derive lower-bound results showing that, for $\lambda =\Omega(\sqrt{n \log n})$, the upper bound on the running time of this randomized algorithm matches the lower bound that we derive on the time complexity of {\sc Rich Lines} in the algebraic computation trees model., Journal of Computational Geometry, Vol. 13 No. 1 (2022)

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How to design an optimal wearable device for human movement recognition is vital to reliable and accurate human-machine collaboration. Previous works mainly fabricate wearable devices heuristically. Instead, this paper raises an academic question: can we design an optimization algorithm to optimize the fabrication of wearable devices such as figuring out the best sensor arrangement automatically? Specifically, this work focuses on optimizing the placement of Forcemyography (FMG) sensors for FMG armbands in the application of arm movement recognition. Firstly, based on graph theory, the armband is modeled considering sensors' signals and connectivity. Then, a Graph-based Armband Modeling Network (GAM-Net) is introduced for arm movement recognition. Afterward, the sensor placement optimization for FMG armbands is formulated and an optimization algorithm with greedy local search is proposed. To study the effectiveness of our optimization algorithm, a dataset for mechanical maintenance tasks using FMG armbands with 16 sensors is collected. Our experiments show that using only 4 sensors optimized with our algorithm can help maintain a comparable recognition accuracy to using all sensors. Finally, the optimized sensor placement result is verified from a physiological view. This work would like to shed light on the automatic fabrication of wearable devices considering downstream tasks, such as human biological signal collection and movement recognition. Our code and dataset are available at https://github.com/JerryX1110/IROS22-FMG-Sensor-Optimization, 6 pages, 10 figures, Accepted by IROS22 (The 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)

Hypersplenism (HS) is a concomitant symptom of liver or blood disease. Not only does the treatment of HS face challenges, but the transcriptome of individual cells is also unknown. Here, the transcriptional profiles of 43,037 cells from four HS tissues and one control tissue were generated by the single-cell RNA sequencing and nine major cell types, including T-cells, B-cells, NK cells, hematopoietic stem cells, neutrophil cells, mast cells, endothelial cells, erythrocytes, and dendritic cells were identified. Strikingly, the main features were the lack of CCL5+ B-cells in HS and the presence of SESN1+ B cells in HS with hepatocellular carcinoma (HS-HCC). In cell-cell interaction analysis, CD74-COPA and CD94-HLA-E in HS were found to be up-regulated. We further explored HS-specifically enriched genes (such as FKBP5, ADAR, and RPS4Y1) and found that FKBP5 was highly expressed in HCC-HS, leading to immunosuppression. Taken together, this research provides new insights into the genetic characteristics of HS via comprehensive single-cell transcriptome analysis.

Renming Chen, Qin Huang, Lihua Chen Department of Nephropathy and Rheumatology,The Central Hospital of Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Enshi, 445000, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Lihua Chen, Department of Nephropathy and Rheumatology,The Central Hospital of Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, 158 Wuyang County Street, Enshi, Hubei, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 0718-8263471, Email clh133374920762022@163.comObjective: Fracture is a critical unfavorable prognostic factor in patients with rheumatoid arthritis(RA) and osteoporosis. At present, models involving clinical indices that accurately predict fracture are still uncommon. We addressed this gap by developing machine learning (ML)-based predictive models to individualize the risk of fracture in elderly patients with RA and osteoporosis and to identify a high-risk group for fracture.Methods: 487 patients diagnosed with RA and osteoporosis at the Central Hospital of Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture were randomly divided into a training cohort (used for building the model) and a validation cohort (used for validating the model). Five ML-assisted models were developed from candidate clinical features using two-step estimation methods. The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC), decision curve analysis (DCA), and clinical impact curve (CIC) were performed to evaluate the robustness and clinical practicability of each model.Results: A total of twenty-two candidate variables were included, and the prediction model was established by an ML-based algorithm. The areas under the ROC curve (AUCs) of the random forest classifier (RFC) model, artificial neural network (ANN), support vector machine (SVM), eXtreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), decision tree (DT), probability of major osteoporotic fractures (PMOF), and probability of hip fracture (PHF) ranged from 0.695 to 0.878. Among them, RFC obtained the optimal prediction efficiency via adding serum selenium and clinical indices, that is, glucocorticoid, and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR).Conclusion: Based on the classic clinical parameters, the fracture risk of RA patients with osteoporosis can be accurately predicted. In particular, RFC prediction model shows good discrimination ability in identifying high-risk patients with fracture.Keywords: rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, fracture, machine learning algorithm, risk factor, predictive model

BACKGROUND: Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is highly prevalent in British South Asians, yet they are underrepresented in research. Genes & Health (G&H) is a large, population study of British Pakistanis and Bangladeshis (BPB) comprising genomic and routine health data. We assessed the extent to which genetic risk for T2D is shared between BPB and European populations (EUR). We then investigated whether the integration of a polygenic risk score (PRS) for T2D with an existing risk tool (QDiabetes) could improve prediction of incident disease and the characterisation of disease subtypes. METHODS AND FINDINGS: In this observational cohort study, we assessed whether common genetic loci associated with T2D in EUR individuals were replicated in 22,490 BPB individuals in G&H. We replicated fewer loci in G&H (n = 76/338, 22%) than would be expected given power if all EUR-ascertained loci were transferable (n = 101, 30%; p = 0.001). Of the 27 transferable loci that were powered to interrogate this, only 9 showed evidence of shared causal variants. We constructed a T2D PRS and combined it with a clinical risk instrument (QDiabetes) in a novel, integrated risk tool (IRT) to assess risk of incident diabetes. To assess model performance, we compared categorical net reclassification index (NRI) versus QDiabetes alone. In 13,648 patients free from T2D followed up for 10 years, NRI was 3.2% for IRT versus QDiabetes (95% confidence interval (CI): 2.0% to 4.4%). IRT performed best in reclassification of individuals aged less than 40 years deemed low risk by QDiabetes alone (NRI 5.6%, 95% CI 3.6% to 7.6%), who tended to be free from comorbidities and slim. After adjustment for QDiabetes score, PRS was independently associated with progression to T2D after gestational diabetes (hazard ratio (HR) per SD of PRS 1.23, 95% CI 1.05 to 1.42, p = 0.028). Using cluster analysis of clinical features at diabetes diagnosis, we replicated previously reported disease subgroups, including Mild Age-Related, Mild Obesity-related, and Insulin-Resistant Diabetes, and showed that PRS distribution differs between subgroups (p = 0.002). Integrating PRS in this cluster analysis revealed a Probable Severe Insulin Deficient Diabetes (pSIDD) subgroup, despite the absence of clinical measures of insulin secretion or resistance. We also observed differences in rates of progression to micro- and macrovascular complications between subgroups after adjustment for confounders. Study limitations include the absence of an external replication cohort and the potential biases arising from missing or incorrect routine health data. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis of the transferability of T2D loci between EUR and BPB indicates the need for larger, multiancestry studies to better characterise the genetic contribution to disease and its varied aetiology. We show that a T2D PRS optimised for this high-risk BPB population has potential clinical application in BPB, improving the identification of T2D risk (especially in the young) on top of an established clinical risk algorithm and aiding identification of subgroups at diagnosis, which may help future efforts to stratify care and treatment of the disease.

Starch nanoparticles (SNPs) was produced from type-A, B and C native starches (corn, potato and Trichosanthes kirilowii pulp starches respectively), via the nanoprecipitation method. The SNPs showed different amylose contents, water contact angles, surface morphologies and urea clearance performances. In this work, to examine the parameters of SNPs that may change the urea adsorption capacity, urea adsorption performance in adsorption environments with different pH values, urea concentrations, and adsorption times was examined. Thereafter, the characteristics of SNPs were tested by water contact angle measurements (WCA), transmission electron microscopy, specific surface area measurements, gel permeation chromatography, and zeta potential analysis. The results showed that the Trichosanthes kirilowii pulp (C) SNPs show better adsorption than the corn (A) and potato (B) SNPs. The hydrophobicity of SNPs promotes the urea adsorption of the SNPs. Using grey relational analysis, it was found that WCA and Mn are the critical parameter affecting the adsorption performance, with WCA and Mn within the ranges of 31-33° and 1900-2100 kDa, respectively, were found to be the conditions for optimal urea adsorption.

This article reports, for the first time, the application of Nb4C3Tx in the MXene series satisfying the formula of M4C3Tx in the field of hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). New etching parameters are proposed to obtain Nb4C3Tx with the largest c-lattice constant (3.165 nm) to date. Notably, Nb4C3Tx shows higher catalytic activity under the alkaline condition. Consequently, Nb4C3Tx has an overpotential of 398 mV at a current density of 10 mA cm−2, which is considerably less than that of other reported MXenes. Moreover, Nb4C3Tx has superior cycling performance and long-term stability in both acidic and alkaline environments. After 1000 cycles of CV, the overpotential of Nb4C3Tx clearly decreased by approximately 30 mV, and the current density significantly increased after the timing current test up to 50 h. This work demonstrates the excellent electrochemical performance that Nb4C3Tx can provide to benefit broad application prospects in energy fields.

Lung cancer remains the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of death from cancer. Recent research shows that the human eye can provide useful information about one’s health status, but few studies have revealed that the eye’s features are associated with the risk of cancer. The aims of this paper are to explore the association between scleral features and lung neoplasms and develop a non-invasive artificial intelligence (AI) method for detecting lung neoplasms based on scleral images. A novel instrument was specially developed to take the reflection-free scleral images. Then, various algorithms and different strategies were applied to find the most effective deep learning algorithm. Ultimately, the detection method based on scleral images and the multi-instance learning (MIL) model was developed to predict benign or malignant lung neoplasms. From March 2017 to January 2019, 3923 subjects were recruited for the experiment. Using the pathological diagnosis of bronchoscopy as the gold standard, 95 participants were enrolled to take scleral image screens, and 950 scleral images were fed to AI analysis. Our non-invasive AI method had an AUC of 0.897 ± 0.041(95% CI), a sensitivity of 0.836 ± 0.048 (95% CI), and a specificity of 0.828 ± 0.095 (95% CI) for distinguishing between benign and malignant lung nodules. This study suggested that scleral features such as blood vessels may be associated with lung cancer, and the non-invasive AI method based on scleral images can assist in lung neoplasm detection. This technique may hold promise for evaluating the risk of lung cancer in an asymptomatic population in areas with a shortage of medical resources and as a cost-effective adjunctive tool for LDCT screening at hospitals.

Kernel moisture content is an important factor in mechanized corn harvesting. However, the rapid and nondestructive in situ detection of the kernel moisture content within an intact corn ear in the field remains challenging. In this work, we designed a novel handheld device with a double-ring sensing probe for nondestructive and convenient kernel moisture detection in intact corn ears based on an active reflection bridge operating in the radio frequency range. By proposing an equivalent first-order resistor–capacitor impedance model for a load composed of a corn ear and the double-ring sensing probe, we found that the reflection coefficient’s phase angle $\theta $ was monotonic with the moisture content and also found that the measurement signal frequency affected the corn grain moisture measurement sensitivity. Before using the handheld device in the field, we investigated its optimal signal frequency range and the effects of temperature variations on the measurement results. In the frequency range of 140–165 MHz, the measured voltages from the device showed a good linear relationship and high sensitivity with respect to both the dielectric constants and the corn ear temperature (9 °C–22 °C). Using this device at a signal frequency of 160 MHz, we conducted corn ear moisture measurements in a total of 73 samples and then established a linear model. The results showed that, for corn ear moisture contents in the range of 15.7%–31.5%, the R values of the training set and the prediction set were 0.7027 and 0.8317, respectively, with a prediction error of 3.54% at the 95% confidence interval.

The occurrence of cirrus clouds in the tropics (24 °S–24 °N) is analyzed using the 2007–2015 monthly data from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) and the fifth generation reanalysis product (ERA5) of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. In most cirrus clouds, the specific humidity (SPH) is larger than in cloud-free air and/or the temperature is smaller than in cloud-free air. Both positive SPH perturbations and negative temperature perturbations increase the relative humidity, resulting in favorable conditions for the formation and maintenance of clouds. The clouds in which there are positive SPH perturbations are considered to originate from convection. This is because, in the free troposphere, positive SPH anomalies are largely produced by the upward transport of moisture by convection followed by detrainment of the convective plumes. The remaining clouds that are not directly influenced by convection are driven by negative temperature perturbations. These temperature-driven clouds are formed and maintained in the cold phases of gravity waves and/or by the adiabatic cooling associated with the upwelling branch of the Brewer–Dobson circulation. Averaged over all altitudes of the tropical atmosphere, there are about three times more convective cirrus than non-convective ones. The level of maximum convective cirrus occurrence is at 14 km, i.e., the bottom of the tropical tropopause layer (TTL). Non-convective cirrus obtain their maximum frequency of occurrence at about 16 km, which is below the cold point tropopause (CPT). The seasonal cycle of convective cirrus is consistent with that of tropical convection, while the seasonal cycle of non-convective cirrus in the TTL is consistent with that of the CPT. There are two maxima in the frequency of occurrence of convective cirrus, one at around 10 °S in the austral summer, and the other at around 10 °N in the boreal summer. In contrast, non-convective cirrus occur most frequently near the equator in the boreal winter. The ice water content (IWC) in both convective and non-convective cirrus increases with increasing temperature (decreasing altitude). Thus, non-convective cirrus—which on average occur at lower temperatures (higher altitudes)—tend to have lower IWCs than convective cirrus.

Ovarian pregnancy (OP) coupled with tubal ectopic pregnancy is rare. We present a case of coexistent ovarian and tubal ectopic pregnancies in the same adnexa resulting from in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer (IVF-ET) for tubal occlusion. The patient presented with mild vaginal bleeding without abdominal pain. OP was diagnosed via sonographic findings of an ectopic gestational sac (GS) and yolk sac that seemed to be inside her left ovary. Laparoscopic exploration confirmed this diagnosis, and ipsilateral tubal ectopic pregnancy was suspected during surgery. The patient underwent left salpingectomy and resection of the ovarian lesion. A subsequent histopathological examination verified the diagnosis of coexistent ovarian and tubal ectopic pregnancy. Though the mechanism underlying concurrent OP and tubal ectopic pregnancy is still unclear, clinicians should be cautious of potential combined ectopic pregnancy when dealing with patients who have received more than one embryo transfer.

Supplemental Material for Association between serum uric acid level and systemic lupus erythematosus kidney outcome: An observational study in Southern Chinese population and a meta-analysis by Yipeng Han, Xiaoxi Lu, Shibai Xiao, Jiayu Qin, Lijuan Zheng, Yi Feng, Yujie Cai, Rong Qiu, Qin Huang, and Min Yang in Lupus

Data and codes

Supplemental Material, sj-pdf-1-lup-10.1177_09612033211069853 for Elevated serum free IL-18 in neuropsychiatric systemic lupus erythematosus patients with seizure disorders by Renge Liang, Lijuan Zheng, Tingting Ji, Jiaman Zheng, Jiayi Liu, Chao Yuan, Qin Huang, and Min Yang in Lupus

This paper examines inverse Cauchy problems that are governed by a kind of elliptic partial differential equation. The inverse problems involve recovering the missing data on an inaccessible boundary from the measured data on an accessible boundary, which is severely ill-posed. By using the coupled complex boundary method (CCBM), which integrates both Dirichlet and Neumann data into a single Robin boundary condition, we reformulate the underlying problem into an operator equation. Based on this new formulation, we study the solution existence issue of the reduced problem with noisy data. A Golub-Kahan bidiagonalization (GKB) process together with Givens rotation is employed for iteratively solving the proposed operator equation. The regularizing property of the developed method, called CCBM-GKB, and its convergence rate results are proved under a posteriori stopping rule. Finally, a linear finite element method is used for the numerical realization of CCBM-GKB. Various numerical experiments demonstrate that CCBM-GKB is a kind of accelerated iterative regularization method, as it is much faster than the classic Landweber method.

In this study, a series of cobalt-free Sn-doped cathode materials of Li1.15Ni0.27Mn0.58-xSnxO2 are prepared by the solvothermal method for the first time. The structural characterization of the material reveals that all the samples consist of hexagonal layered structural LiMO2 (M = Mn/Ni), monoclinic-layered structural Li2MnO3, and cubic spinel structural LiMn2O4. Moreover, the interplanar spacing of the layered structure increases in the material, and the electrochemical impedance of the material declines by Sn doping. As a result, all Sn-doped samples exhibit better electrochemical performance than pristine Li1.15Ni0.27Mn0.58O2 materials. Among them, Li1.15Ni0.27Mn0.56Sn0.02O2 delivers comprehensively improved electrochemical performance. The initial coulombic efficiency of the Li1.15Ni0.27Mn0.56Sn0.02O2 sample is 84.4%, which is nearly 10% higher than the pristine material, and Li1.15Ni0.27Mn0.56Sn0.02O2 exhibits an initial discharge specific capacity of 260.8 mAh/g at a current density of 0.1 C, and the capacity retention after first 100 cycles at 1 C reached 94.67%. Rate capability of Li1.15Ni0.27Mn0.58-xSnxO2 is significantly improved by Sn doping. The specific discharge capacity of the Li1.15Ni0.27Mn0.56Sn0.02O2 sample at 5 C is two times higher than that of Li1.15Ni0.27Mn0.58O2. Moreover, the Li1.15Ni0.27Mn0.56Sn0.02O2 material can still maintain a discharge capacity of 220 mAh/g when the current density returns to 0.1 C after a large current density cycling process. These results show that the proper amount of Sn doping can effectively improve the electrochemical performance of Li1.15Ni0.27Mn0.58O2, due to the fact that Sn ions have larger ionic radii than the transition metal (Mn/Ni) ions and Sn can partially replace the transition metal element ions in the layered structure, thereby expanding the lithium ion diffusion channel and inhibiting instability of the material structure during the cycle. However, an excessive amount of Sn (x > 0.03) generates a Li2SnO3 impurity in the material, resulting in deterioration of material properties.

Objective: This study explored and analyzed the effect of Internet-based self-management on pulmonary function rehabilitation and living quality in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Methods: Altogether, 106 stable-staged COPD patients admitted to our hospital from June 2018 to September 2019 were enrolled as the research subjects, and divided into the control group (n=51) and the observation group (n=55) according to the order of visit. The control group received conventional health education, and the observation group was treated with an educational model by Internet-based self-management. Afterwards, the changes of self-management ability, pulmonary function and living quality before and after intervention were compared between the two groups. Results: The scores of each dimension of self-management behavior in both groups of patients after intervention were critically higher than those prior to intervention (P

In this work, a Zr702 sheet was subjected to β air cooling and then rolled to 15% reduction at room temperature, with their detailed microstructural characteristics characterized by electron channeling contrast imaging and electron backscatter diffraction techniques. Results show that after the β air cooling, the prior equiaxed grains in the as-received material are completely transformed into Widmanstatten structures featured by coarse plates with typical phase transformation misorientations between them. The subsequent 15% rolling allows both slip and twinning (especially the {10–12} type) to be activated readily, leading to significant grain refinement and the appearance of misorientation angle peaks around 3°–5° and 85°. Analyses on kernel average misorientations reveal that there exist very low residual strains in the β-air-cooled specimen while they are markedly increased after the 15% rolling and preferably distributed near low-angle and twin boundaries. Hardness measurements show that the specimen hardness is evidently decreased from ~ 199 to ~ 170 HV after the β air cooling, which can be attributed to grain coarsening and the scattered orientations associated with the slow β → α transformation. For the 15%-rolled specimen, however, effective grain refinement by twinning and denser low-angle boundaries jointly lead to ~ 35% hardness increment to ~ 228 HV.

Objective To prepare the new NGR-targeted shRNA-loaded liposome, and investigate its suppressing effect on orthotopic C6 glioma in rats. Methods (1) Liposome(lipo), the NGR-targeted liposome (lipo-NGR) and shBirc5-loaded lipo-NGR were prepared successively, and all kinds of products were characterized accordingly; (2) The targeting property of shBirc5-lipo-NGR was researched by immunohistochemical method in orthotopic C6 glioma rats model; (3) The tumor growth in treated rats was monitored longitudinally with MRI T2, and the survival time of each rat was recorded simultaneously. Results (1) We successfully prepared shBirc5-lipo-NGR whose size and zeta potential were (186.2±74.07)nm and (10.9±3.76)mV; (2) The Birc5 protein was significantly decreased in shBirc5-lipo-NGR group, compared with shBirc5-lipo group, shControl-lipo-NGR group and control group; (3) The control group exhibited an average tumor volume and growth rate 4.7 times greater than that in the shBirc5-lipo-NGR group on the 12th, 17th and 22th day(P < 0.05). The median survival times of the shBirc5-lipo-NGR, shBirc5-lipo, shControl-lipo-NGR and control groups were 30, 24, 22, 21 days, respectively. Conclusion We successfully prepare the new NGR-targeted shRNA-loaded liposome, and demonstrate its targeting property, obvious inhibitory effect on tumor growth and extending the survival time of orthotopic C6 glioma-bearing rats.

This paper reports a longitudinal study on the retrospective evaluation of perceived usability. We propose a retest method based on SUS questionnaires to reduce the multiple-observation effects typically present in longitudinal research. We designed different forms of the SUS questionnaire to eliminate memory effects and distributed duplicate SUS copies to subjects. We first measured the alternative-form reliability of duplicate in Experiment I ($\textbf{r =0.814}$). We then found that the duplicates we designed significantly reduce memory effects compared to the standard SUS questionnaire. Experiment II involved tests on the retrospective evaluation of perceived usability at five measurement points after initial use. The retrospective evaluation of perceived usability changes over time. After 5 min (at point ${\mathrm{T}}_2$), we found that each subject’s retrospective evaluation changed significantly regardless of whether the task had higher or lower usability levels. Moreover, the `directions’of this change tended to differ. This indicates that time is an important factor in perceived usability evaluation. Our results altogether indicate that time affects the retrospective evaluation of perceived usability as well as the accuracy of perceived usability evaluation, which suggests that the process of perceived usability assessment requires strict time constraints.

Background: Breast cancer is the most common malignant tumor that affects women with higher incidence. High-mobility group box 3 (HMGB3) plays critical functions in DNA repair, recombination, transcription and replication. This study aimed to investigate the effects of HMGB3 silence on mammosphere formation and tumor growth of breast cancer. Methods: LV5-HMGB3 and LV3-siHMGB3 vectors were transfected into MCF10A, MDA-MB-231, HCC1937, ZR-75-1 and MCF7 cells. Cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) assay was used to evaluate cell proliferation. Xenograft tumor mice model was established by injection of MDA-MB-231. qRT-PCR and western blot were used to examine the expression of Nanog, Sox2 and OCT-4. Mammosphere forming assay was employed to evaluate mammosphere formation both in vivo and in vitro. Dual luciferase assay was utilized to verify the interaction between HMGB3 and hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF1α). CD44+/CD24− was assessed with flow cytometry. Results: HMGB3 expression was higher significantly (p

Unlike animals, few vascular plants are known to spontaneously generate rhythmic electrical signals. In plants electrical signals triggered in response to external environmental changes are of physiological significance. However, plant electrical signals require experimental skill to measure, are stimulus-pattern dependent, and show poor quantitative reproducibility, thus their existence has been largely ignored by researchers. We developed a non-invasive and high-throughput light-induced in situ method to mine the information conveyed by reproducible bioelectrical activity in plants. Stable periodic electrical potential changes in wheat leaves induced by illumination–darkness cycles enabled selection of wave features and specific classification algorithms were used to enable rapid distinction of salt-tolerant and salt-sensitive cultivars. Chlorophyll fluorescence data also strongly supported the association of rhythmic electrical potential with salt sensitivity in wheat leaves. The results show that the electrophysiological phenotype represented by plant rhythmic electrical potential is a novel candidate for phenotypic analyses. The method will also enable rapid assessment of the response and resistance to abiotic stresses of crop seedlings.

Trichosanthin (root of Trichosanthes kirilowii Maxim.) has received much attention, but T. kirilowii has received little systematic analysis. A comprehensive evaluation of flavones and triterpenes in nine different parts of T. kirilowii would, thus, be of value to fully understand the potential medicinal properties of T. kirilowii. A hierarchical extraction—simultaneous determination method was established, which based on different types of components had different response on the MS detector. The hierarchical extraction method extracted 3, 29-dibenzoyl rarounitriol solely, which response lowly on the MS detector in the mixture of one step extract, in order to obtain accurate results in the next UHPLC-MS/MS assay. By this method, ten flavones, three tetracyclic triterpenoids, and one pentacyclic triterpenoid in the extracts of T. kirilowii were determined. The results showed the level of flavonoids in leaves was higher than those in the other samples, tetracyclic triterpenoids mainly existed in root and root bark, and pentacyclic triterpenoid, especially 3, 29-dibenzoyl rarounitriol was concentrated in the seed kernel. According to principal component analysis, the F values of the leaves of all varieties were generally greater than those in other parts. The leaves might provide a supplementary source of flavonoids, and the root and root bark could be a good choice for tetracyclic triterpenoids. The analysis results revealed the distribution of flavones and triterpenes in different parts of T. kirilowii and provided reference for the research and rational utilization of T. kirilowii.