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Objective: Bleeding from gastroesophageal varices (GEV) is a medical emergency associated with high mortality. We aim to construct an artificial intelligence-based model of two-dimensional shear wave elastography (2D-SWE) of the liver and spleen to precisely assess the risk of GEV and high-risk gastroesophageal varices (HRV). Design: A prospective multicenter study was conducted in patients with compensated advanced chronic liver disease. 305 patients were enrolled from 12 hospitals, and finally 265 patients were included, with 1136 liver stiffness measurement (LSM) images and 1042 spleen stiffness measurement (SSM) images generated by 2D-SWE. We leveraged deep learning methods to uncover associations between image features and patient risk, and thus conducted models to predict GEV and HRV. Results: A multi-modality Deep Learning Risk Prediction model (DLRP) was constructed to assess GEV and HRV, based on LSM and SSM images, and clinical information. Validation analysis revealed that the AUCs of DLRP were 0.91 for GEV (95% CI 0.90 to 0.93, p < 0.05) and 0.88 for HRV (95% CI 0.86 to 0.89, p < 0.01), which were significantly and robustly better than canonical risk indicators, including the value of LSM and SSM. Moreover, DLPR was better than the model using individual parameters, including LSM and SSM images. In HRV prediction, the 2D-SWE images of SSM outperform LSM (p < 0.01). Conclusion: DLRP shows excellent performance in predicting GEV and HRV over canonical risk indicators LSM and SSM. Additionally, the 2D-SWE images of SSM provided more information for better accuracy in predicting HRV than the LSM.

Most common diseases are characterized by metabolic changes, among which lipid metabolism is a hotspot. Numerous studies have demonstrated a strong correlation between epigenetics and lipid metabolism. This study of publications on the epigenetics of lipid metabolism searched in the Web of Science Core Collection from 2012 to 2022, and a total of 3685 publications were retrieved. Much of our work focused on collecting the data of annual outputs, high-yielding countries and authors, vital journals, keywords and citations for qualitative and quantitative analysis. In the past decade, the overall number of publications has shown an upward trend. China (1382, 26.69%), the United States (1049, 20.26%) and Italy (206, 3.98%) were the main contributors of outputs. The Chinese Academy of Sciences and Yale University were significant potential cooperation institutions. Articles were mainly published in the “International Journal of Molecular Sciences”. In addition to typical liver-related diseases, “ferroptosis”, “diabetes” and “atherosclerosis” were identified as potential research topics. “NF-κB” and “oxidative stress” were referred to frequently in publications. METTL3 and ALKBH5 were the most discussed m6A-related enzymes in 2022. Our study revealed research hotspots and new trends in the epigenetics of lipid metabolism, hoping to provide significant information and inspiration for researchers to further explore new directions.

The development of the characteristic town is a new type of urbanization combining industry, city and country, which emphasizes the integration of industry, culture, habitability, environment and other factors. In the meantime, characteristic town demonstrates high investment and long period. Therefore, social capital has to be introduced. The quality resources could be integrated by PPP mode to get rid of the bottleneck of operational ability and capital shortage. In this paper, the current situation of domestic and foreign researches is sorted out, and the needed concepts and theories are discussed at first. On this basis, subjects sharing risks in characteristic town are marked off, and the arrangements of risk factors and risk sharing in the project are clarified. The optimal risk sharing scheme of the project is analyzed by establishing a game model. The result proves that the previous arrangement is basically in line with the game model, which provides a certain reference for the development of PPP project in characteristic town.

The hazards of the spread of fire smoke in a channel have been recognized. This paper relates to the potential use of a water mist curtain (WMC) for preventing the spread of fire smoke, focusing particularly on smoke control at the early stage of a fire, with the aim of reducing the harm of fire smoke and allowing time for people to escape. Fatal factors for occupant evacuation in a fire, such as carbon monoxide concentration, smoke temperature, and visibility, were measured in the section controlled by the WMC. The results indicate that the WMC can be effective in preventing fire smoke from spreading at the early stage, and may provide a useful reference for developing a novel method of smoke control. Furthermore, the effects of nozzles with different spray characteristics were investigated and an optimal working pressure was suggested. In addition, a mathematical model was simplified and used to analyze the interaction between the fire-induced smoke layer and WMC spray.

Automated detection and recognition of human abnormal behavior is the key problem of monitoring systems. We construct a complete system that is able to alert the human operator when a knife in hand is visible in camera views. We use RealSense 3D camera to track hands, modified MPEG-7 EHD as feature vector and none-linear SVM as classifier. In this paper, we improve the feature extraction algorithm further by rotating feature vector and adding MGES feature methods, which are validated on the public knife detection database. Our hand knife detection algorithm achieves a considerable recognition accuracy of 92% and recall rate of 94.7%, increasing by 1% and 17% respectively, compared with similar studies. This improvement is pretty significant in strict security applications, which requires high recall and low false negative rate.

A series of monomethoxy poly(ethylene glycol)–poly(lactide) (mPEG–PLA) diblock copolymers were designed according to polymer–drug compatibility and synthesized, and mPEG–PLA micelle was fabricated and used as a nanocarrier for solubilization and oral delivery of Cyclosporine A (CyA). CyA was efficiently encapsulated into the micelles with nanoscaled diameter ranged from 60 to 96 nm with a narrow size distribution. The favorable stabilities of CyA-loaded polymeric micelles were observed in simulated gastric and intestinal fluids. The in vitro drug release investigation demonstrated that drug release was retarded by polymeric micelles. The enhanced intestinal absorption of CyA-loaded polymeric micelles, which was comparable to the commercial formulation of CyA (Sandimmun Neoral®), was found. These suggested that polymeric micelles might be an effective nanocarrier for solubilization of poorly soluble CyA and further improving oral absorption of the drug.

Krill meal (KM) is a potential feed ingredient that can replace fish meal (FM) in aquaculture. To better understand the efficacy of krill meal, a 200-day feeding trial was conducted with Russian sturgeons (Acipenser gueldenstaedtii). Four extruded diets in which KM replaced 0%, 10%, 20%, or 30% of FM in the formulation were fed to 481 g sturgeons for 200 d. Russian sturgeons that were fed diets containing KM grew as fast as or even better than fish fed with FM control diet. No differences were observed in terms of dorsal muscle composition in the fish fed with diets including KM and those fed with FM control diet. Meanwhile, the fluoride concentrations in the dorsal muscle, liver, and kidney, as well as swim bladder in all dietary groups were below detectable limit. In the gills, skin, vertebral bone and dorsal scutes, the fluoride content from the KM groups progressively increased with dietary fluoride concentration. In conclusion, KM can partially substitute for FM in the diets of Russian sturgeon without affecting normal growth performance.

Three wild populations of crucifix crab Charybdis feriatus were sampled and muscle was analyzed for proximate composition, amino acid and fatty acid composition, aimed to quantify and compare the nutritional quality from three different locations in China. Results showed that crude protein content in muscle of female crucifix crab C. feriatus from Zhoushan (ZS) and Xiapu (XP) (84.84%-88.35%) were significantly higher than that of crucifix crab C. feriatus from Qionghai (QH) (74.33%), while there was no significant difference in terms of crude fat content (3.82%-4.07%). The highest content of ash was found in muscle of crucifix crab C. feriatus from QH (5.36%). The muscle of crucifix crab C. feriatus from ZS and XP had significantly higher contents of total amino acids, essential amino acids, non-essential amino acids and delicious amino acids than those of QH group (P < 0.05). The total saturated and unsaturated fatty acid content in the muscle of crucifix crab C. feriatus from three wild populations showed significant difference (P < 0.05). The ZS group had highest content of poly-unsaturated fatty acids (33.64%) and total content of EPA and DHA (22.85%) as well, followed by XP and QH group (P < 0.05). Overall, the differences in chemical composition in muscle of C. feriatus from different locations could be attributed to environmental variables and maturation stage.