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Background: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a malignant tumor of the nasopharynx. Objective: Here, we aimed to understand better the molecular basis for arctigenin (ARG)’s ability to promote NPC 5-8F cell invasion. Methods: We tested the effects of several doses of ARG on 5-8F cells that had been cultured in vitro. We estimated the metabolic activity of cells by The MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) tetrazolium assay. We examined the influence on cell invasion, and migration using Transwell Evaluation. Real-time polymerase chain reaction analysis was used to determine the relative amounts of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), Janus kinase 2 (JAK2) , and transcriptional activator 3 (STAT 3) mRNA expression. Using western blotting, we looked at the level of phosphorylation of specific proteins like EGFR, phosphorylated EGFR, JAK2, and STAT 3. Results: Our findings revealed that ARG inhibited NPC 5-8F cell development in a dose-and time-dependent manner. The invasiveness and mobility of 5-8F cells were significantly suppressed when ARG was overexpressed in a tumor development model. Expression levels of EGFR, JAK2, and STAT 3 mRNA were considerably low in the experimental group. As a consequence of being treated with ARG, lower levels of EGFR, p-EGFR, p-JAK2, and p-STAT3 expression were observed. Conclusion: These results suggest that ARG may prevent NPC 5-8F cells from proliferating, migrating, and invading other tissues. There are a few potential molecular pathways, two of which are the inhibition of EGFR phosphorylation and the reduction of levels of phospho-JAK2 and phospho-STAT3.

Heavy metals are commonly found in a wide range of environmental settings metals, but the potential toxicity associated with heavy metal exposure represents a major threat to global public health. It is thus vital that approaches to efficiently, reliably, and effectively detecting heavy metals in a range of sample types be established. Carbon nanomaterials offer many advantageous properties that make them well-suited to the design of sensitive, selective, easy-to-operate electrochemical biosensors ideal for detecting heavy metal ions. The present review offers an overview of recent progress in the development of carbon nanomaterial-based electrochemical sensors used to detect heavy metals. In addition to providing a detailed discussion of certain carbon nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes, graphene, carbon fibers, carbon quantum dots, carbon nanospheres, mesoporous carbon, and Graphdiyne, we survey the challenges and future directions for this field. Overall, the studies discussed herein suggest that the further development of carbon nanomaterial-modified electrochemical sensors will support the integration of increasingly advanced sensor platforms to aid in detecting heavy metals in foods, environmental samples, and other settings, thereby benefitting human health and society as a whole.

Asthma is a common chronic respiratory disease characterized by wheezing and shortness of breath. Its risk factors include genetic and acquired factors. The acquired factors are closely related to the environment, especially cold conditions. Autophagy plays a regulatory role in asthma. Therefore, we hypothesized that asthma can be controlled by drug intervention at the autophagy level under cold conditions. The Xiaoqinglong decoction (XQLT) was freeze-dried. The compounds in the freeze-dried powder were identified and quantified using reference standards via the high-performance liquid chromatography method. Ovalbumin (OVA)-sensitized rats were subjected to cold stimulation. The effect of cold stimulation on autophagy levels was determined, and it was confirmed that cold stimulation affected autophagy. The effects and mechanisms of XQLT in an asthmatic rat model (OVA-sensitized rats stimulated with cold) were explored. The concentrations of paeoniflorin, liquiritin, trans-cinnamic acid, glycyrrhizic acid, 6-gingerol, schisandrol A, and asarinin in XQLT freeze-dried powder were 14.45, 3.85, 1.03, 3.93, 0.59, 0.24, and 0.091 mg/g, respectively. Cold stimulation is an important cause of asthma. The inflammatory factors in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and serum were increased in the model group, accompanied by a decline in autophagy level. The treatment with XQLT increased the expression of autophagy genes and decreased the expression of inflammatory factors. Histological studies showed that XQLT improved inflammatory infiltration and collagen fiber deposition in the lungs of rats. XQLT intervention increased autophagy in asthmatic rats. Autophagy plays a role in phagocytosis and reduces the accumulation of abnormal metabolites in the body to reduce airway inflammation and promote asthma recovery.

In industrial production, the effective and reliable performance of hydraulic systems is closely associated with product quality, personal safety, economic efficiency, etc. It is of utmost significance to perform the health status evaluation of systems. In this paper, a least-squares recursive parameter identification algorithm is proposed to realize the graded evaluation of the health status of the hydraulic system under variable operating conditions. First, a nonlinear model of the hydraulic system is established based on a mechanism analysis. Based on the system identifiable model obtained by parameter linearization, the least squares recursive algorithm is used to get the system parameters. Second, the system measurable data are graded and labeled under the same operating condition, and the variable parameter ranges under different health states are obtained by the parameter identification algorithm. Finally, under variable operating conditions, the estimates of variable parameters are compared with the range of health state parameters to complete the system health state graded evaluation. The feasibility of the proposed evaluation method is verified by MATLAB simulation software.

Target detection in high-frequency surface-wave radar (HFSWR) systems is a challenging task due to various sources of interference. In this paper, we propose a robust constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detector to solve the problem of target detection for HFSWR by exploiting the prior information on the detection environment. Clutter amplitudes in HFSWR are commonly assumed to follow the Weibull distribution. Additionally, distribution parameters of the clutter have nonlocal self-similarity, and targets have sparsity as well as a certain geometric structure. We design an objective function based on the Bayesian framework which consists of a data fidelity term and some regularization terms. Specifically, we use the nonlocal low-rank (NLR) regularization to represent the prior information regarding distribution parameters of clutter, and we adopt the combination of the sparsity and Laplacian regularization to represent the prior information regarding targets. The proposed objective function inherits advantages of the NLR, sparsity, and Laplacian regularization, thereby improving the performance of the proposed detector in nonhomogeneous clutter. By optimizing the proposed objective function, we obtain estimates of clutter statistics for every cell under test and perform the CFAR detection. Experiments on both simulated data and experimental HFSWR data demonstrate that the proposed detector has a good false alarm regulation property and detection performance in nonhomogeneous clutter.

Combining the anomalies and environmental monitoring data of the early stage Beidou satellites, the space radiation environment spatial/temporal distribution and space radiation effect risk characteristics are analyzed, and the dynamic characteristics of space environmental factors, such as hot plasma, high-energy electron and solar proton are summarized. The systematic joint monitoring for surface charging, internal charging, single event effect and total dose effect with corresponding space environment factors is proposed. The detector types, measurement parameters range and engineering constraints are allocated, and the engineering application and scientific research of detection data are prospected.

Based on the typical dielectric materials and devices of satellite, a surface charging and dose monitor (SCAD) was developed to measure the surface charging voltage, current, and dose under different shielding depths. The SCAD has been successfully launched into orbit on June 23, 2020. The measurement results on orbit show that the SCAD works normally, and the data of SCAD are reasonable. The results show that the radiation dose rate on geosynchronous orbit is about 0.4 mrad(Si)/s, and the maximum charging voltage is about −800 V during the initial measuring period. The charging voltage is consistent with the trends of geomagnetic disturbance Kp index. The on-orbit data provide basic data on surface charging and discharging effect and total dose effect, supporting the safe and reliable operation of the satellite.

In China, the duck industry has been severely impacted by the newly emerging duck Tembusu virus (DTMUV). For DTMUV to successfully infect host cells, it employs several strategies that subvert the host's innate immune response. It has been found that several viral proteins encoded by DTMUV have strategically targeted the crucial molecules of the RIG-I-like Receptor (RLR) signaling pathway to antagonize host antiviral responses. However, it is not well known how the host proteins manipulated by DTMUV contribute to innate immune evasion. The present study reports that duck TRIM35 (duTRIM35) antagonizes DTMUV-induced innate immune responses by targeting duck RIG-I (duRIG-I) in duck embryo fibroblasts. A significant increase in duTRIM35 expression occurred during DTMUV infection. DuTRIM35 overexpression suppressed DTMUV-triggered expression of interferon beta (IFN-β) and interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs), promoting viral replication, whereas knockdown of duTRIM35 augments the innate immune response, reducing viral replication. Furthermore, duTRIM35 significantly impaired the IFN-β expression mediated by duRIG-I but not by other RLR signaling molecules. Mechanistically, duTRIM35 interfered with duRIG-I-duTRIM25 interaction and impeded duTRIM25-mediated duRIG-I ubiquitination by interacting with both duRIG-I and duTRIM25. Our findings indicate that duTRIM35 expression induced by DTMUV infection interfered with the duRIG-I-mediated antiviral response, illustrating a novel strategy in which DTMUV can evade the host's innate immunity.

Surgical treatment of vertigo is performed with in-depth study of inner ear diseases. Achieving an effective control of vertigo symptoms while reducing damage to hearing and reducing surgical complications is the principle followed by scholars studying surgical modalities. Semicircular canal occlusion is aimed at treatment of partial peripheral vertigo disease and has attracted the attention of scholars because of the above advantages. This article provides a review of the origins of semicircular canal occlusion, related basic research, clinical applications, and the effects of surgery on vestibular and hearing function.

With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization in China, energy and vehicle consumption have continued to increase in recent years and air pollution has become serious. In early 2020, Corona Virus Disease 2019 broke out in Wuhan, China. From January 29, 2020, several sources of the air pollution almost all stopped working, including gasoline burning vehicles, dust producing building sites, coal-fired factories, etc. Five indicators of the atmospheric environmental quality were observed from December 19, 2019 to April 30, 2020 in nine cities and 1-h average concentrations, 24-h average concentrations and Air Quality Index were assessed. The 1-h average concentrations of the nitrogen dioxide, the ozone and the sulfur dioxide showed obvious difference though the closure did not change the sequence of the five pollutants’ concentrations in the air at diverse sampling moments. The changing of the 24-h average concentrations of the five pollutants indicated the amount of pollutants in the air were greatly affected by human activities. The nitrogen dioxide, the sulfur dioxide and the particulate matters decreased obviously in the closure. The air in the metropolis and the south-east cities were relatively clean and the pollutants’ concentrations decreased slightly during the closure period. The northern and the heavy industrial cities showed significant drop on air pollution indicators and the air quality of the two city groups could be greatly improved if some effective measures could be taken of environmental management and regional development.

Particulate matter in the air seriously affects human health and has been a hot topic of discussion. Because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) lockdown in cities in China, sources of particulate matter, including gasoline‐burning vehicles, dust‐producing building sites, and coal‐fired factories, almost all ceased at the end of January 2020. It was not until early April that outdoor activities recovered. Ten cities were selected as observation sites during the period from 19 December 2019 to 30 April 2020, covering the periods of preclosure, closure, and gradual resumption. A total of 11 720 groups of data were obtained, and 4 indicators were used to assess the characteristics of the particle pollution in the period. The quality of the atmospheric environment was visibly influenced by human activities in those 5 mo. The concentrations of particulate matter with particle sizes below 10 µm (PM10) decreased slightly in February and March and then began to increase slowly after April with the gradual recovery of production. The concentrations of particulate matter with particle sizes below 2.5 µm (PM2.5) decreased greatly in most regions, especially in northern cities, during closure and maintained a relatively stable level in the following 3 mo. The trends of PM10 and PM2.5 indicated that the reduced human activities during the COVID‐19 lockdown decreased the concentrations of particulate matter in the air, and the difference between the PM10 and PM2.5 trends might be due to the different sources of the 2 particles and their different aerodynamics. However, during closure, the particulate matter pollution in the cities remained at a high level, which indicated that some ignored factors other than outdoor production activities, automobile exhaust, and construction site dust might have contributed greatly to the PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations, and the tracing of the particulate matter should be given further attention in environmental management. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2021;00:1–11. © 2021 SETAC, KEY POINTS To assess the changes of the particle pollution in the coronavirus 2019 (COVID‐19) closure of China, 11 720 groups of data were obtained and 4 indicators were applied. The concentrations of particulate matter with particle sizes below 2.5 µm (PM2.5) began falling from the beginning of the COVID‐19 closure in February 2000 and maintained a relatively stable level in the following 3 mo. The difference between the particulate matter with particle sizes below 10 µm (PM10) and PM2.5 trends might be due to the different sources of the 2 particles and their different aerodynamics. The PM2.5 concentrations, especially in northern cities, reduced greatly in most regions during the closure period, compared with the uncontrolled months.

Tembusu virus (TMUV) is a newly emerged avian flavivirus that has caused severe egg-drop syndrome and fatal encephalitis in domestic ducks. It has spread widely throughout the main duck-producing areas in Asia, resulting in substantial economic losses to the duck industry. Previous studies have reported that TMUV has evolved several strategies to counteract the duck's innate immune responses to successfully establish infection in its host cells. However, the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon have not been elucidated. Here, we discovered that TMUV-encoded NS2B is a negative regulator of poly(I:C)-induced duck interferon-β (IFN-β) expression. Mechanistically, TMUV NS2B was found to interact specifically with the mitochondrial antiviral-signaling protein (duMAVS). Consequently, duMAVS was degraded through the K48-linked ubiquitination and proteasomal pathway, leading to the interruption of the RIG-I-like receptor (RLR) signaling. Further analyses also identified K321, K354, K398, and K411 as crucial residues for NS2B-mediated ubiquitination and degradation of duMAVS. Additionally, we demonstrated that NS2B functions by recruiting the E3 ubiquitin ligase duck membrane-associated RING-CH-type finger 5 (duMARCH5) to modify duMAVS via polyubiquitination, blocking the duMAVS-mediated innate immune response and promoting TMUV replication. Taken together, our findings revealed a novel mechanism by which TMUV evades the duck's antiviral innate immune responses. IMPORTANCE Tembusu virus (TMUV), an emerging pathogenic flavivirus, has spread to most duck farming areas in Asia since 2010, causing significant economic losses to the duck industry. Recently, TMUV has expanded its host range and may pose a potential threat to mammals, including humans. Understanding the interaction between TMUV and its host is essential for the development of effective vaccines and therapeutics. Here, we show that NS2B encoded by TMUV inhibits IFN production by interacting with duck MAVS (duMAVS) to mediate ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation. Further studies suggest that the E3 ubiquitin ligase duck membrane-associated RING-CH-type finger 5 (duMARCH5) is recruited by NS2B to mediate proteasomal degradation of duMAVS. As a result, the innate immune response triggered by the RIG-I-like receptor (RLR) is disrupted, facilitating viral replication. Overall, our results reveal a novel mechanism by which TMUV evades host innate immunity and provide new therapeutic strategies to prevent TMUV infection.

The ecological footprint value (abbreviated as EF) is the quantitative indicator on evaluating the sustainable development status of a region. How to simulate the EF’s trend with a long-time data series has been heatedly discussed. The economic development of Suzhou, one of the most developed cities in Yangtze Delta, China, has been accelerated in the past 20 years, and it is necessary to evaluate the influence of the socioeconomic growth on local natural resources. The EF values of Suzhou from 1999 to 2018 were calculated and simulated using both the ARIMA model and the GM(1,1) model. The ARIMA model has been used in the prediction of EF values in several cases. However, the EF data series of the city consisted of white noise and could not be fitted by the ARIMA model. The GM(1,1) model, an approach forecasting nonlinear data series, was not found in the studies of the EF simulation. Through the model precision test, the GM(1,1) model introduced fit the EF data series well and was considered to be appropriate to simulate the EF values for Suzhou. The fitting performance was accurate, and the EF values of the city could be forecasted by the model in short term. With the proposed model, the ecological sustainability status of the city was analyzed.

Management of early stage glottic carcinoma involving the anterior commissure is challenging.This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a thyroid cartilage window (TCW) technique for transoral laser resection of early glottic cancer with involvement of the anterior commissure.Twenty-one patient who underwent a TCW technique for transoral resection early glottic carcinoma involving the anterior commissure, were retrospectively analyzed. The technical nuances, organ preservation rate and voice outcomes, local and regional recurrence, and perioperative comorbidities, were assessed.All 21 patients underwent a TCW technique for resection, both the organ preservation rate and negative margin achieved 100%. The local control rate achieved 100%, and the 5 years recurrence free survival was 90.5%. For two patients with subglottic involvement (9.5%), regional recurrence with confirmation of a positive pre-laryngeal lymph node was observed. Postoperative granuloma was detected in all 21 patients, 13 of whom spontaneously disappeared (61.9%); whereas the remaining 8 patients (38.1%) demonstrated a consistent presence of granuloma more than 12 weeks, and they accepted surgical extirpation of granuloma under surface anesthesia. The laryngeal web developed in all 21 patients, while no dyspnea and local recurrence were present. By comparison with preoperative baseline, postoperative self-assessment voice demonstrated a significant improvement (TCW technique is a valuable means for transoral resection of early glottic laryngeal cancer involving the anterior commissure, with acceptable voice quality and seemingly low comorbidities.

Interferometric inverse synthetic aperture radar (InISAR) imaging has been proved to be a powerful means for obtaining three-dimensional (3-D) space shape of noncooperative targets. Frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) InISAR (FMCW-InISAR) has unique advantages of low power, low cost, and small volume compared with traditional coherent pulsed InISAR. However, FMCW-InISAR imaging has two additional issues to consider, the one is the invalidation of the assumption of stopg the other is the isolation of the transmitting and receiving antennas, which is the inherent issue of the transmitter-receiver community radar systems. To solve these two problems, a bistatic FMCW-InISAR imaging algorithm for high-speed targets is proposed in this paper. For improving the isolation of the transmitting and receiving antennas, a bistatic configuration based FMCW-InISAR system is designed. According to the characteristics of bistatic, a bistatic equivalent motion model and corresponding signal model are established. Since the assumption of stop&go is invalid in the case of FMCW, indicating that the target cannot be viewed as motionless during a sweep repetition interval (SRI), a parametric estimation based quadratic phase factor (QPF) compensation method is investigated to eliminate the range walk caused by the radial motion of the target during the SRI. In addition, considering the far-field trait of the target and combining the traditional InISAR imaging process, a combined QPF compensation technique is proposed to reduce the computational burden of the algorithm. Finally, the effectiveness and the robustness of the proposed algorithm are evaluated by some simulations.

The maneuverability of targets cannot be neglected in many circumstances for Inverse Synthetic Aperture Radar (ISAR) imaging procedure. For these circumstances, the Range Instantaneous Doppler (RID) algorithm is required to form the well-focused ISAR images. Simultaneously, as the inevitable means of obtaining the target’s cross-range size, the cross-range scaling approach for the RID images also needs to be considered consequently. Since there are few cross-range scaling methods focused on the RID images, we propose a novel method in this paper based on the phase coefficients estimation and scatterers pairing process to solve the problem. Without the special requirements for the scatterers or complicated optimization process, the proposed approach is widely adaptive and efficient. Otherwise, besides the novel estimation method for the rotation parameters, we also propose the novel technique for calculating the cross-range scaling factor of the RID images, which is quite different from that of the Range Doppler (RD) images. Finally, by using the recommended RID imaging algorithm and the proposed cross-range scaling approach, the results of ISAR imaging and cross-range scaling experiments on the simulation and real-data experiment are represented, which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in this paper.

Background and ObjectivesAsthma is a severe public health issue since it causes a progressive decline of pulmonary function and a lot of unnecessary deaths. Traditional Chinese medicine has played a great role in the prevention and treatment of asthma, Wenyang-Huayin (WYHY) formulation is one of the useful prescriptions in clinical, which the pharmacological mechanism has not yet been revealed. In this study, we explored its anti-airway inflammation and pulmonary protection effects in the treatment of asthma induced by ovalbumin (OVA), to provide support for its deeply clinical applications.MethodsAsthma model with the syndrome of accumulation of cold fluid in the lung in chronic bronchitis (a common type of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) syndrome) was induced in SPF male Wistar rats by sensitizing and challenging with OVA, followed by drink, body cold and fatigue stimulation. WYHY was orally administered at 9.82142857 g·(kg·d)−1 body weight for 21 days, Rapamycin and the other two traditional Chinese medicines (Xiaoqinglong decoction and Astragalus granules) were used as positive controls. After intervention, the pulmonary function was measured by AniRes 2005 Animal pulmonary function Analysis system, the pathological features of pulmonary alveolus and bronchus were observed after Hematoxylin-Eosin (H&E) staining, and serum interleukin-13 (IL-13), transforming growth factor -β1 (TGF-β1), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and interferon-γ (IFN-γ) levels were determined by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) assay.ResultsThe model rats showed heavy signs of airway inflammation and remodeling like chronic asthma, evidenced by the damaged pulmonary alveolus structure, increased inflammatory cell infiltration, declined pulmonary function, and abnormal changes of cytokines. All treatment methods could slow down the damage caused by molding factors, and WYHY might have an advantage in pulmonary protection effects than the others.ConcludeWYHY has a good effect on anti-airway inflammation and protecting pulmonary function in the treatment of OVA-Induced asthma rats, and its mechanism is worth of in-depth study.

To explore the correlation between detection results of pepsin in vocal fold polyp tissues and the postoperative efficacy.The clinical data of 112 patients with vocal fold polyp who received surgical procedures in our hospital from June 2019 to March 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. The vocal fold morphology and vocal acoustic function were assessed at postoperative week 12. Using binary logistic regression, we explored whether the factors, ie, detection result of pepsin in vocal fold polyp tissue, microscopic suturing, the use of COPepsin in vocal fold polyps is a clinically significant indicator affecting the postoperative morphological recovery and acoustic efficacy, and patients with negative pepsin are superior to those with positive pepsin in the postoperative recovery of vocal fold morphology and function.

OBJECTIVE: To study the application value of humidified high flow nasal cannula (HHFNC) combined with visual laryngoscopy in the arytenoid cartilage dislocation. METHODS: Twenty-nine patients with arytenoid cartilage dislocation were randomly double-blind into HHFNC group and general nasal catheter oxygen suction group, and the intraoperative and postoperative evaluation indicators, anesthesia-related indicators and postoperative vocal cord were compared. RESULTS: There were statistically significant differences in intraoperative blood oxygen saturation, microstream end-tidal carbon dioxide partial pressure EtCO(2), respiratory rate and respiratory intervention times between the two groups (P < 0.05), and statistically significant differences in postoperative heart rate, oxygen saturation and respiratory rate (P < 0.05). After reduction, the voice disturbance index, the degree of voice abnormality, rough voice, breath sound, powerless pronunciation and catatonic pronunciation changed significantly after operation. CONCLUSION: HHFNC combined with visual laryngoscopy in the arytenoid cartilage dislocation has high anesthetic safety, good cooperation of patients, and good surgical effect.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of tissue pepsin expression of vocal polyps on the postoperative curative effect. METHODS: Retrospectively analyze the data of 112 patients diagnosed with vocal cord polyps and undergone surgery from June 2019 to March 2021. The cases were divided into positive group and negative group according to the immunohistochemical pepsin expression. The preoperative reflux symptom index (RSI) and the reflux finding score (RFS) were compared, and the recovery of the voice acoustic function and postoperative vocal cord morphology were analyzed. RESULTS: Among the postoperative specimens of 112 patients, 76 cases were positive for pepsin staining, accounting for 67.9%, and 36 cases were negative, accounting for 32.1%. In the pepsin-positive group, 48 cases of vocal cord morphology returned to normal, and 20 cases remained scar or edema in the operation area, 8 cases of polyps relapsed; in the pepsin-negative group, a total of 32 cases of vocal cord morphology returned to normal, 4 cases of remained scar or edema in the operation area, no relapsed cases, the difference in vocal cord morphology recovery was significant (χ(2)=8.689, P=0.013). The symptoms of hoarseness improved after 12 weeks. The differences between pre and post operative of G grade, VHI, MPT, fundamental frequency perturbation and amplitude perturbation assessed by GRBAS were significant (P < 0.05); postoperative G grade, VHI, MPT, fundamental frequency perturbation and amplitude perturbation were compared between the pepsin-positive group and the pepsin-negative group, and the differences were significant (all P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: The expression of pepsin in vocal polyps is a significant clinical indicator that affects the acoustic effect and morphological recovery of vocal cords after surgery. For patients with positive expression, acid suppression treatment should be strengthened after surgery.

The matching and fusing of local maps generated by multiple robots can greatly enhance the performance of relative localization and collaborative mapping. Currently, existing semantic matching methods are partly based on classical iterative closet point (ICP), which typically fail in cases with large initial error. What’s more, current semantic matching algorithms have high computation complexity in optimizing the transformation matrix. To address the challenge of map matching with large initial error, this paper proposes a novel semantic map matching algorithm with large convergence region. The key novelty of this work is the designing of the initial transformation optimization algorithm and the probabilistic registration model to increase the convergence region. To reduce the initial error before the iteration process, the initial transformation matrix is optimized by estimating the credibility of the data association. At the same time, a factor reflecting the uncertainty of the initial error is calculated and introduced to the formulation of the probabilistic registration model, thereby accelerating the convergence process. The proposed algorithm is performed on public datasets and compared with existing methods, demonstrating the significant improvement in terms of matching accuracy and robustness.

Background: Computed tomography (CT) is the preferred noninvasive method for the evaluation of osteitis in chronic sinusitis. Some scholars believe that the bone changes associated with chronic sinusitis always show high attenuation (high density) and are positively correlated with the severity of the disease. However, sinus bone remodeling is a complex process that may cause high or low attenuation. There have been few reports on the spread of osteitis. Therefore, additional research on sinus CT is necessary. Objective: To observe bony changes in chronic maxillary sinusitis (CMS) by CT and reveal the mechanism. Methods: A retrospective study was conducted in 45 patients with unilateral CMS with bony changes in the sinus walls. The patients’ clinical data and CT results were analyzed and compared between the affected and normal sides. We propose the location, involvement, attenuation, and thickness method to evaluate CMS with osteitis. Results: Of the 45 patients, 40 (88.9%), 2, 12, and 7 had posterior external, medial, anterior, and superior lesions, respectively. The nasal region, sphenoid bone, palatine bone, and zygomatic arch were involved in 3, 12, 8, and 18 (40%) patients, respectively. Computed tomography indicated high attenuation in 30 (75.0%) and low attenuation in 10 (25.0%) patients; 6 (15.0%) showed new bone marrow cavities. The bone thickness was significantly different between the affected and normal sides in 40 patients ( P < .001), including members of both the high- and low-attenuation groups (high-attenuation group: P < .001; low-attenuation group: P < .01). However, there was no significant difference in the thickness of the affected side between the high- and low-attenuation groups ( P > .05). Conclusions: Chronic rhinosinusitis with bony changes may occur in the maxillary sinus walls and spread to adjacent bones. Both increased and decreased attenuation may occur in these circumstances. Analyzing the CT features of bone changes in unilateral CMS can improve the accuracy of disease diagnosis.

Metals are mainly transported with suspended sediments in tidal rivers, and it is difficult to describe the transformation process of metals. Freely dissolved metals and suspended metals (including acid-soluble, reducible, oxidizable, and residual metals) were separately analyzed according to a sequential extraction scheme. The regression of the observed suspended metals and total suspended solids (TSS) concentrations allowed us to couple the two pollutant types. TSS is a highly dynamic parameter, and a model can be developed to simulate TSS transport. Thus, a method including the following five steps was proposed to estimate the loadings of metals entering the sea using TSS concentrations and water quality models: (1) collecting and observing basic information on the hydrological conditions, pollution sources, and water quality of the studied river; (2) obtaining a regression model between the suspended metals and TSS and analyzing the potential of establishing a suspended metal flux model; (3) introducing a model describing the fluxes of water-soluble metals into the sea; (4) establishing a calculation model to determine the fluxes of suspended metals into the sea; and (5) characterizing the fluxes of metals into the sea. The method was programmed, and metal concentrations and fluxes could be characterized quickly when the basic river data were sufficient. In addition, if regional development scenarios could be set, metal loadings in all scenarios could be predicted through the procedure developed herein, and some effective suggestions on regional sustainable development might be proposed for decision makers. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;18:198-208. © 2021 SETAC.

To investigate the therapeutic effect of the stromal vascular fraction gel (SVF gel) in unilateral vocal fold paralysis.A retrospective study was performed on 22 patients who underwent SVF gel autotransplantation for unilateral vocal fold paralysis between June 2017 and December 2018. Fat was removed from the medial thigh under anesthesia and the SVF gel was prepared using standard techniques and injected using a suspension microlaryngoscopy. The SVF gel was transplanted into the vocal fold muscle and the paraglottic space, and subjective and perceptual assessments, aerodynamic and acoustic assessments, and a videostroboscopic assessment were evaluated pre- and postoperatively at 1day, 12 months and 18 months.The GRBAS evaluation results showed that the voice quality of the patients at 12 and 18 months after the operation was significantly improved, and voice analysis showed that in males maximum speech time (MPT) increased and the normalized noise energy decreased 1 day after surgery. The voice quality parameters at 12 months and 18 months after surgery improved significantly compared to preoperatively (P0.05), except for the fundamental frequency (F0), at 12 months, which was similar to the values before surgery. In females, the MPT and amplitude (shimmer) at 1 day after the surgery were significantly different from before the surgery, and the MPT, fundamental frequency (jitter), shimmer, and normalized noise energy at 12 months and 18 months after the surgery were significantly improved compared to before the surgery while the F0 was not significant.SVF gel autotransplantation can effectively improve the voice quality in unilateral vocal fold paralysis, and the long-term effect is stable.

Recent Transformer-based methods have achieved advanced performance in point cloud registration by utilizing advantages of the Transformer in order-invariance and modeling dependency to aggregate information. However, they still suffer from indistinct feature extraction, sensitivity to noise, and outliers. The reasons are: (1) the adoption of CNNs fails to model global relations due to their local receptive fields, resulting in extracted features susceptible to noise; (2) the shallow-wide architecture of Transformers and lack of positional encoding lead to indistinct feature extraction due to inefficient information interaction; (3) the omission of geometrical compatibility leads to inaccurate classification between inliers and outliers. To address above limitations, a novel full Transformer network for point cloud registration is proposed, named the Deep Interaction Transformer (DIT), which incorporates: (1) a Point Cloud Structure Extractor (PSE) to model global relations and retrieve structural information with Transformer encoders; (2) a deep-narrow Point Feature Transformer (PFT) to facilitate deep information interaction across two point clouds with positional encoding, such that Transformers can establish comprehensive associations and directly learn relative position between points; (3) a Geometric Matching-based Correspondence Confidence Evaluation (GMCCE) method to measure spatial consistency and estimate inlier confidence by designing the triangulated descriptor. Extensive experiments on clean, noisy, partially overlapping point cloud registration demonstrate that our method outperforms state-of-the-art methods., Comment: 10pages, 7figures

OBJECTIVE: To establish the murine models of allergic airway inflammation, and to investigate the biological rhythm expression of substance P in it. METHOD: Eighty-four BALB/c mice were divided into 14 groups, which were airway inflammation groups(0: 00 group, 04: 00 group, 08: 00 group, 12: 00 group, 16: 00 group, 20: 00 group, 24: 00 group) and normal control groups(0: 00 group, 04: 00 group, 08: 00 group, 12: 00 group, 16: 00 group, 20: 00 group, 24: 00 group). The allergic airway inflammation models of mice were established by intraperitoneal injection of ovalbumin(OVA), nasal challenge and aerosol inhalation with OVA. The plasma substance P levels were measured by ELISA. The expression of substance P in nasal mucosa, left lung tissue and left bronchial tissue during different time periods was obversed with RT-PCR and immunohistochemical technique. RESULT: In allergic airway inflammation groups, the plasma substance P levels were higher than in normal control groups(P < 0.05), and 0: 00 group(321.99±28.93) pg/mL, 04: 00 group(310.76±25.31) pg/mL and 24: 00 group(335.62±28.29) pg/mL were higher than other experimental groups(P < 0.05). The expression of substance P mRNA in nasal mucosa, left lung tissue and left bronchial tissue was higher than control groups(P < 0.01). By observing immunohistochemical sections, the expression of substance P in allergic airway inflammation groups was higer than control groups. CONCLUSION: The expression of substance P is high in allergic airway inflammation mice and the peaks are during 04: 00-08: 00 in the early morning, which may provide new basis for treating allergic airway inflammation.

Four behavior subjects, including governments, enterprises, and public and environmental non-government organizations (abbreviated as ENGOs), all play vital roles in environmental protection. As an important component, the ENGOs of all the world focus on environmental improvement and provide services for the whole society. In developed countries, the ENGOs have been formed earlier, and all kinds of regulation, supervision, and maintenance systems on the organizations are relatively mature. The development of the ENGOs in China started late, but the development speed was very fast. Some issues, including the exploring on their existing situation and how to promote their role in environmental protection, should be concerned. In total, 2510 ENGOs’ information in China was collected and analyzed in the study. The ENGOs in the nation were not uniformly distributed, and there were great differences in the number of the ENGOs among the 34 provinces of China. With a few exceptions, the ENGOs in China were generally small in the scale and poor in the viability. They were mostly research-oriented and often less participating. The organizations’ development and improvement still needed a long-term arduous course. Many negative factors might influence the sustainable and healthy development of the ENGOs in China, and the legislation might be one cause. Several aspects-related norms, including the registration system, the financial support mechanism, and the identification on their plaintiff qualification, needed to be improved to encourage the development of these organizations and then promote the improvement of environmental quality better in China.

Objective: This study proposed a modified Blumgart anastomosis (m-BA) that uses a firm ligation of the main pancreatic duct with a supporting tube to replace the pancreatic duct-to-jejunum mucosa anastomosis, with the aim of simplifying the complicated steps of the conventional BA (c-BA). Thus, we observe if a difference in the risk of postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF) exists between the two methods. Methods: The m-BA anastomosis method has been used since 2010. From October 2011 to October 2015, 147 patients who underwent pancreatoduodenectomy (PD) using BA in Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital were enrolled in this study. According to the type of pancreatojejunostomy (PJ), 50 patients underwent m-BA and 97 received c-BA. The two patient cohorts were compared prospectively to some extent but not randomized, and the evaluated variables were operation time, the incidence rate of POPF, and other perioperative complications. Results: The operation time showed no significant difference (P > 0.05) between the two groups, but the time of duct-to-mucosa anastomosis in the m-BA group was much shorter than that in the c-BA group (P < 0.001). The incidence rate of clinically relevant POPF was 12.0% (6/50) in the modified group and 10.3% (10/97) in the conventional group (P > 0.05), which means that the modified anastomosis method did not cause additional pancreatic leakage. The mean length of postoperative hospital stay of the m-BA group was 23 days, and that of the c-BA group was 22 days (P > 0.05). Conclusions: Compared with the conventional BA, we suggest that the modified BA is a feasible, safe, and effective operation method for P J of PD with no sacrifice of surgical quality. In the multivariate analysis, we also found that body mass index (≥ 25 kg/m2) increased the risk of POPF.

Inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging of target with complex motion is very important in the radar signal processing domain. In this case, the received signal can be characterized as multi-component cubic phase signal (CPS), and the high quality instantaneous ISAR images can be obtained by the parameters estimation approach. The match Fourier transform (MFT) has been proposed for the parameters estimation of linear frequency modulated (LFM) signal, and it has been used successfully in the field of ISAR imaging. In this paper, the third-order match Fourier transform (TMFT) is proposed as an extension of the traditional MFT for the parameters estimation of cubic phase signal, and the asymptotic statistical performance is analyzed theoretically with the derivation of asymptotic statistical results for the estimated parameters. Finally, the TMFT algorithm is used as a tool for the improvement of inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) images quality of target with complex motion, and the results of simulated and real data validate the effectiveness of the TMFT algorithm.

Inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging of maneuvering target plays an important role in the field of national defense and surveillance. In this case, the conventional range Doppler algorithm is unsuitable to generate a well-focused ISAR image due to the time-varying property of the Doppler frequency during the integrated imaging interval. Furthermore, the dihedral or trihedral components of the imaging target or the phenomena of migration through resolution cell for the target's complex motion will induce the time-varying performance of the amplitude for the received signal. In this paper, the received signal in a range bin is depicted as multicomponent quadratic frequency-modulated signal with time-varying amplitude, and the generalized cubic phase function is used to estimate the parameters of it. Associated with the range instantaneous Doppler technique, the images quality can be enhanced distinctly compared with the conventional constant amplitude signal model. Results of simulated and read data demonstrate the effectiveness of the novel algorithm proposed in this paper.

ISAR imaging of dynamic target is very significant in real applications. Plenty of available outcomes have been acquired by the scholars in the near years. Considering the accuracy and the computational complexity, the radar echo can be described as multicomponent QFM signal after envelope alignment with initial phase calibration. Many parametric algorithms in this case have been developed recently. This paper provides a comprehensive summarization of the ISAR imaging approach with QFM signal model in recent years, with the aim to introduce the research progress of it to the researchers and interested readers.

Objective: To present a case report highlighting a severe, yet avoidable, complication following small needle-scalpel treatment for cervical spondylosis. Introduction: The small needle-scalpel is a miniature surgical instrument used to create intense and invasive punctures at certain acupoints with a small latch needle. It has been increasingly gaining popularity among clinicians and patients all over the world during the past years. However, severe complications after small needle-scalpel treatment have not previously been reported. Methods: Here we report a 54-year-old man who recently suffered from cervical spondylosis and underwent small needle-scalpel treatment, which was performed by a rural doctor. While there were no new neurologic deficits, the patient experienced delayed functional deterioration until the onset of quadriplegia within 1 month of treatment. Magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated a C2-C7 dorsally placed extradural hematoma with severe cord compression and subcutaneous soft tissue hemorrhage. Results: The patient refused urgent corrective surgery and later died due to respiratory failure. Conclusions: Although small needle-scalpel therapy has many benefits, such as reducing pain, shorter expenditure, shorter period of therapy and better recovery of function, there are also many potentially severe risks, such as cervical extradural bleeding, which requires clinicians to pay more attention to avoid the complications.

OBJECTIVE Detection rate and isolation yield of circulating tumor cell (CTC) are low in squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck (SCCHN) with in vitro approaches due to limited sample volumes. In this study, we applied the CellCollector to capture CTC in vivo from peripheral blood. METHODS In total, the study included 22 cases with 37 times of detection. All of the patients were newly diagnosed with locally advanced or metastatic SCCHN, including laryngocarcinoma (40.9%, 9/22) and hypopharyngeal carcinoma (59.1%, 13/22). All patients received CTC analysis before treatment. Three patients received induction chemotherapy. Sixteen patients received surgical therapy, of which 13 patients received postoperative detection. Two patients received both induction chemotherapy and surgery treatment. Patients underwent two successive CellCollector applications 24 h before and 7 d after surgical therapy. Nine healthy volunteers were enrolled as the control group. Epidermal growth factor receptor variant type III (EGFRVIII) expression was analyzed with fluorescent dye labeled antibody. RESULTS With CellCollector isolation, 72.7% (16/22) of the patients were positive for ≥1 CTC (CTC; range, 1-17 cells) before treatments and 46.7% (7/15) of patients were CTC positive for ≥1 CTC (CTC; range, 1-29 cells) after surgical therapy. Moreover, the detection rate of CellCollector (82.4%, 14/17; CTC count range, 0-17) in advanced SCCHN (stage III-IV) was much higher than that in early stages (stage I-II, 40.0%, 2/5; CTC count range, 0-2) (P

This study presents a novel algorithm for radar imaging of high-speed manoeuvering target. It is based on the fact that the azimuth part of the echo is modelled as the superposition of multiple quadratic frequency modulated (QFM) signals, and the range-Doppler algorithm is inappropriate to generate a focused radar image in this case. In this study, the improved version of product high-order ambiguity function (IPHAF) is proposed to estimate the parameters of multiple QFM signals. This estimator requires only one-dimensional (1D) maximisations without the scaling operation compared with the traditional product high-order ambiguity function. The radar image quality can be improved by the IPHAF technique, and the experimental results validate the effectiveness of the method presented in this study.

Aims Neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSD) is an inflammatory demyelinating autoimmune disorder in the central nervous system (CNS), which is mainly mediated by aquaporin 4 antibodies (AQP4-Ab). Interleukin (IL)-39 is a new pro-inflammatory cytokine which belongs to the IL-12 cytokine family. However, the role of IL-39 in patients with NMOSD is not completely understood. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the possible implication of IL-39 in the pathogenesis of NMOSD. Methods In this study, 50 patients with NMOSD, 20 patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), 30 patients with non-inflammatory neurological disorders (NND) and 78 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. The levels of serum IL-39 were measured using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results Our study showed serum IL-39 levels in patients with NMOSD were significantly higher than that in RRMS patients, NND patients and HCs, and positively correlated with Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) score. Conclusion These findings suggested that IL-39 may play a pro-inflammatory role in the pathogenesis of NMOSD and correlate with disease severity.

The frequency diverse array radar has a linear increasing frequency offset between the array elements, which produces a range-angle dependent beampattern. And it overcomes the disadvantages of the phased-array providing range-independent beampattern and offers many promising advantages for radar applications. Fast Fourier Transform was considered on beamforming to improve the efficiency of algorithm. Due to the linear frequency offset between the array elements, each element carry out Phase compensation. Then beamforming using FFT algorithm. As the array element increasing heavily, this algorithm can reduce the operation and improve the running speed effectively as data show. In addition, this algorithm reduces the requirement of hardware and can be realized easily.

In this paper, the influence of the channel errors on the Frequency Diverse Array is analyzed. The conclusion is different from phased array antenna. The channel error has a great influence on the beam pointing, but has little influence on the mainlobe gain of the beam pattern. And the sidelobe level is reduced and the main lobe is widened. Firstly, the channel error is modeled. The channel errors are modeled and the antenna pattern formulas with channel errors are derived. Finally, this conclusion is verified by Matlab.

The objective of this study is to investigate the interaction ofPanax quinquefoliussaponin (PQS) and dual antiplatelets (aspirin and clopidogrel) on antiplatelet activity and vascular endothelial function in rats with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Forty-eight male SD rats were randomly designed into sham group, model group, dual antiplatelet group, and PQS plus dual antiplatelet group. AMI rats were induced by ligation of left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) and dual antiplatelet agents and additional PQS to dual antiplatelets were intragastrically administered for 28 days, respectively. The ventricular cavity area and cardiac transverse area ratio in PQS + dual antiplatelet group showed a decreased tendency. PAgT(%) decreased significantly in both dual antiplatelet group and PQS + dual antiplatelet group. TXB2concentration significantly decreased in dual antiplatelet and PQS + dual antiplatelet groups, whereas 6-keto-PGF1αconcentration significantly increased in PQS + dual antiplatelet group. Rats in PQS + dual antiplatelet group demonstrated a significant decrease in plasma ET-1 concentration and an increase in serum NO concentration compared with dual antiplatelet group. The combination therapy of PQS and dual antiplatelets showed some beneficial effects on vascular endothelial function and ventricular remodeling in rats with AMI.