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To investigate the safety and efficacy of intravenous thrombolysis with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rt-PA) in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) and cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) and analyze the risk factors for hemorrhagic transformation (HT).The clinical data of 220 patients with CMB within the first 4.5 h after the onset of acute ischemic stroke treated in our hospital from September 2018 to December 2019 were retrospectively analyzed. Then, these patients were evenly assigned into two groups based on whether the intravenous thrombolysis with rt-PA was adopted or not. Next, the neurological deficit was scored using the National Institute of Health stroke scale (NIHSS) before and after treatment, the modified Rankin scale (mRs) score of patients was recorded at 90 d after treatment, and the incidence rate and death rate of intracranial hemorrhage (ICH) after treatment were recorded and evaluated. Additionally, the univariate and logistic regression analyses were employed for the risk factors for HT in patients after thrombolysis.The NIHSS score declined to (7.08±3.75) points and (7.83±4.22) points at 24 h after treatment and (3.67±3.63) points and (4.92±3.87) points at 7 d after treatment, respectively, in Thrombolysis group and Control group, which were significantly lower than those before treatment (p0.05). The NIHSS score displayed no statistically significant difference between the two groups at 24 h after treatment (p=0.165), whereas it was markedly lower in Thrombolysis group than that in Control group at 7 d after treatment (p=0.015). At 90 d after treatment, there were 98 (89.1%) and 79 (71.8%) cases of good prognosis in Thrombolysis group and Control group, respectively, and the difference was statistically significant between the two groups (p=0.002). Besides, the number of patients with SICH and aSICH was 3 and 2 (2.7% vs. 1.8%, p=0.651) and 9 and 4 (8.2% vs. 3.6%, p=0.152) in Thrombolysis group and Control group, respectively, and the number of deaths was 7 and 5 (6.4% vs. 4.5%, p=0.553) in the two groups, showing no statistically significant difference. The results of univariate and multivariate analyses revealed that the time from stroke onset to thrombolysis, baseline NIHSS score, and history of atrial fibrillation were independent risk factors affecting the HT of patients undergoing intravenous thrombolysis [odds ratio (OR) =1.330, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) =1.079-1.851, p=0.019; OR=1.592, 95% CI=1.025-2.767, p=0.010; OR=2.428, 95% CI=1.814-3.643, p=0.016].Compared with those undergoing no intravenous thrombolysis with rt-PA, patients with acute ischemic stroke and CMB who received intravenous thrombolysis with rt-PA exhibit significantly improved short-term neurological function recovery and long-term prognosis, but the incidence and mortality rates of ICH have no statistically significant differences. Moreover, the time from stroke onset to thrombolysis, baseline NIHSS score, and history of atrial fibrillation are independent risk factors affecting the HT of patients treated with intravenous thrombolysis.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the clinical efficacy of laparoscopic and open gastrectomy in enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) for gastric cancer. METHODS: We retrospectively collected the clinicopathological data of gastric cancer patients undergoing radical gastrectomy at 12 Chinese medical centers between January, 2015 and December, 2017. We analyzed the clinical outcomes of a total of 1569 patients, including 552 patients undergoing open surgery, 1004 receiving laparoscopic surgery, and 43 experiencing conversion of laparoscopic surgery to open surgery. The operative outcomes and postoperative complications of the patients in laparoscopic group and open surgery group were analyzed. The primary outcome was the short-term postoperative complications. The secondary outcomes included operation time, estimated blood loss, number of lymph node dissection, time to first liquid diet intake, time to first passage of flatus and defecation, time to ambulation, postoperative hospitalization days and occurrence of readmission within 30 days. RESULTS: Of the total of 1569 patients, 1037 (66.1%) were males and 532 (33.9%) were females, with a mean age at diagnosis of 58.4±11.3 years. A total of 105 patients (6.7%) underwent proximal gastrectomy, 877 (55.9%) underwent distal gastrectomy, and 587 (37.4%) underwent total gastrectomy. In the overall patients, the operation time was 274.7±80.7 mins, blood loss was 150 (20-1300) mL, and the number of lymph nodes dissected was 29.9±13.5. The time to first ambulation, flatus, defecation and liquid food intake were 2.3±1.2, 3.4±1.6, 4.8±1.8 and 5.5±3.1 days, respectively. The postoperative hospital stay was 11.4±5.0 days. The incidence of postoperative complications (Clavien-Dindo score ≥Ⅱ) was 6.5%, and the rate of readmission within 30 days after discharge was 1.1%. Subgroup analysis of the patients based on the surgical approach (conversion of laparoscopic surgery to open surgery was considered open surgery) showed no significant differences in the extent of gastrectomy between laparoscopic and open surgery groups (P > 0.05). Compared with those in the open surgery group, the patients having laparoscopic gastrectomy had a greater number of lymph nodes retrieved with earlier ambulation, first flatus, defecation and oral intake and a shorter postoperative hospital stay (P < 0.05). The laparoscopic group had a lower intraoperative blood loss but a longer operation time than the open surgery group (P < 0.05). The incidence of postoperative complications did not differ significantly between the two groups (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Compared with open surgery, laparoscopic surgery in ERAS can shorten the time to ambulation, first flatus, defecation, and oral intake and the length of hospital stay. Laparoscopic surgery can achieve the same oncological outcomes as open surgery without increasing postoperative complications.

Recent years have witnessed substantial research efforts on computation offloading for mobile edge computing (MEC) systems. User mobility is an intrinsic trait of many MEC applications, which has posed significant challenges for realizing reliable computing. However, existing works studying this problem mainly focus on the movements of users while another high-dynamic behavior due to the randomness of computation task is largely ignored. To fill this gap, in this paper, we formulate the computation offloading decision problem in MEC system as a combinatorial optimization problem, and then we use Log-Sum-Exp function to approximate the optimal objective. Thereafter, we construct a Markov chain with steady-state distribution specifying to our problem in a distributed manner, such that the user mobility problem is transformed into the state transition problem. Moreover, this Markov chain is further extended to consider a dynamic scenario where the number of active users in the MEC system changes due to the random arrivals of new computation task or completions of old tasks. Numerical results show that our proposed computation offloading distributed algorithm can converge very fast to the optimal solution, and has a provable performance with a guaranteed loss bound. This work is supported by Natural Science Funds of Fujian (nos. 2021J011002, 2021J011004, 2020J01813) and Zhangzhou Municipal Natural Science Foundation (ZZ2021J23).

OBJECTIVE: To explore the association of methylation levels of C19orf57, MAP9, EMR3, NEK6 and PCOLCE2 genes in peripheral blood with breast cancer (BC) in Chinese women. METHODS: We collected peripheral blood samples from 258 early-stage BC patients and 272 healthy women. Agena matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS) was utilized to quantitatively measure the methylation levels of CpG sites in the genes. The association between DNA methylation and BC was analyzed using a logistic regression model adjusted for covariants. Spearman's correlation analysis was performed to analyze the association between the gene methylation levels and age. The methylation levels of the genes in the BC patients with different clinical characteristics were investigated using non-parametric tests. RESULTS: In stead of EMR3 gene hypermethylation as found in BC patients as found in the Caucasian population, EMR3 gene hypomethylation was found to correlate with BC in Chinese women, but this correlation was significant only in women beyond the age of 50 years (for every 10% reduction of the methylation level, EMR3_CpG_1: OR=1.40; EMR3_CpG_2: OR=2.31; EMR3_CpG_3: OR=2.76, P < 0.05). EMR3 methylation was not or was only weakly correlated with tumor stage, size, lymphatic metastasis, ER, PR, HER2, or Ki67. Our data did not show a correlation between C19orf57 methylation and BC. CONCLUSION: Peripheral blood EMR3 gene hypomethylation is associated with BC in Chinese women, especially in those at an old age and in postmenopausal women.

The variability of the mixing state of refractory black carbon aerosol (rBC) and the corresponding complicated light absorption capacity imposes great uncertainty for its climate forcing assessment. In this study, field observations using a single-particle soot photometer (SP2) were conducted to investigate the mixing state of rBC under different meteorological conditions at a rural site on the North China Plain. The results showed that the hourly mass concentration of rBC during the observation periods was 2.6±1.5 µg m−3 on average, with a moderate increase (3.1±0.9) during fog episodes. The mass-equivalent size distribution of rBC exhibited an approximately lognormal distribution with a mass median diameter (MMD) of 213 nm. We found that the count median diameter (CMD) of rBC particles during snowfall episodes was larger than that before snowfall, and the number of rBC particles with Dc nm were reduced by 28.4 % after snow. This may indicate that rBC-containing particles with small core sizes (Dc) were much more effectively removed by snow with light snow intensity (0.23 mm h−1). Based on the Mie scattering theory simulation, the relative and absolute coating thicknesses of rBC-containing particles were estimated to be ∼1.6 and ∼52 nm for the rBC core with a mass-equivalent diameter (Dc) of 170 to 190 nm, respectively, which indicates that most of the rBC-containing particles were thinly coated. Furthermore, a moderate light absorption enhancement (Eabs=1.3) and relatively low absorption cross section (MAC = 5.5 m2 g−1) at 880 nm were observed at the Gucheng (GC) site in winter compared with other typical rural sites. The relationship between the microphysical properties of rBC and meteorological conditions was also studied. Relatively warm and high-RH environments (RH>50 %, -4∘C

OBJECTIVE: To study the response characteristics of the secondary auditory cortex (A2) to wriggling calls (WC) and the mechanism of response modulation in female mice. METHODS: We used patch-clamp and immunofluorescence labeling technique to mark and record the action potential and cell type of A2 neurons. Female C57 mice were stimulated with pure tone and white noise (control), 4.5 kHz, 9 kHz, or 13.5 kHz sound waves extracted from WC (single-frequency simulation group), the combinations of every two of the 3 single-frequency sound waves (two-tone frequency simulation group), or the combinations of 4.5 kHz+7.7 kHz+13.5 kHz and 4.5 kHz+9 kHz+13.5 kHz sound waves (three-frequency simulation group). The firing pattern, firing number, threshold, and latency of the action potential of the A2 neurons were recorded in response to the stimulations. RESULTS: By comparison of the spikes elicited by different sound stimulations, we identified 3 types of neurons with different sensitivities to WC. The WC-sensitive neurons had a significantly greater number of spikes in response to WC than to other sounds and noise (P < 0.001). Comparison of the latency and threshold revealed significantly longer latencies of the WC-sensitive neurons and WC-insensitive neurons in response to WC stimulation than to pure tone stimulation (P=0.002), but their latencies to WC and noise stimulation were similar (P=0.093). The WC-sensitive neurons also had lower threshold to WC than to pure tone and noise stimulations (P=0.02). Analysis of the firing patterns of action potentials showed that the WCsensitive neurons consisted mainly of parvalbumin interneurons. The results of immunofluorescence labeling indicated that inhibitory interneurons were present in the A2 neurons that responded to WC. CONCLUSION: A2 contains 3 types of neurons with different sensitivities to WC. Among them, the WC-sensitive neurons is mainly PV neurons, whose response characteristics to different types of sounds can help to explain the mechanism of communication sound recognition and response modification in A2.

Purpose Postmastectomy radiation therapy is an important component of the multimodality approach to later-stage breast cancers. Unfortunately, despite its proven survival benefits, postmastectomy radiation therapy is deleterious to the skin and soft tissue, causing increased complications and worse aesthetic outcomes after breast reconstruction.There is currently no effective pharmaceutical agent to mitigate the soft tissue fibrosis and hypovascularity associated with soft tissue radiation. We hypothesized that a novel topical formulation of deferoxamine (DFX) will result in improved cutaneous vascularity and soft tissue pliability in an animal model of irradiated tissue expander-based breast reconstruction. Methods This study consisted of 16 hairless rats divided into 4 equal groups: a control group (expander only), a tissue expanded and irradiated group, a tissue expanded + DFX group, and a tissue expanded/irradiated/DFX group. A novel topical formulation of DFX consisted of reconstituted drug dissolved in agents designed to enhance dermal penetrance. Vessels per high-power field (vHPF) were quantified histologically; micro-computed tomography angiography was used to assess vessel volume fraction (VVF) and vessel length density. Results Irradiated skin had less vascularity compared with control (3.81 vHPF vs 8.25 vHPF, P = 0.03; 0.79% VVF vs 1.53% VVF, P = 0.06). Treatment of irradiated skin with topical DFX reversed these effects, resulting in vascular findings similar to the control group histologically (7.94 vHPF vs 8.25 HPF, P = 0.985) and via micro-computed tomography angiography (1.05% VVF vs 1.53% VVF, P = 0.272). Similarly, radiation resulted in less volume expansion compared with controls (0.72 vs 0.8 mL, P = 0.04), whereas treatment with topical DFX reversed this effect, allowing for an expansion volume similar to the control group (0.81 vs 0.80 mL, P = 0.999). Conclusions In an animal model of irradiated tissue expander-based breast reconstruction, treatment with topical DFX improved the cutaneous vascularity and tissue pliability, resulting in vascular density and final tissue expansion volumes similar to those found in the nonirradiated control group. Topical DFX may be an effective agent for the treatment of soft tissue radiation injury; future studies are indicated to further characterize this novel drug formulation.

Chinese materia medica decoction pieces (CMMDPs), one of the three pillars of the Chinese materia medica industry, are a key link in the Chinese materia medica industrial chain. Industrialization is the only way for the modernization of CMMDPs. This review mainly summarizes the characteristics, history, current situation and prospect of CMMDPs industry, providing a new reference for promoting the flourishing development of the industrialization of CMMDPs and for serving massive health industry. The literature was collected from databases including Web of Science, PubMed, Elsevier and CNKI (Chinese). CMMDPs industry has the characteristics of regionalism, resource dependency, customer diversity and low industrial concentration. Deeply processed products include traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula granules, small-packed decoction pieces, ultrafine decoction pieces, puffed decoction pieces, compressed decoction pieces and instant decoction pieces. Integration of treatment and processing at the place of origin is emerging. However, there is still room for improvement, for example, the manufacturing technologies of CMMDPs industry need to be continually improved. The management of CMMDPs' normalized production also needs to be strengthened. The quality of CMMDPs should be strengthened supervision and it should establish the objective and feasible quality evaluation system for CMMDPs. At present, China has attached unprecedented importance to the development of TCM, and issued a number of supporting policies, sparing no effort to support its development.

Aim To profile molecular changes in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)‐induced experimental pulpitis in a rat model and explore the feasibility of a molecular‐based diagnostic strategy for pulpitis. Methodology Seventy‐three maxillary incisors of Sprague‐Dawley rats were used to establish pulpitis models with LPS. Inflammatory grading was performed in four equal sections of the pulp divided from the injured site to the root apex. An antibody array was used to compare the expression of 67 molecules between control pulp and inflamed pulp 12 and 72 h after LPS application. The levels of differentially expressed molecules in the control and inflamed pulp (collected at 3, 6, 9, 12, 24 and 72 h after LPS treatment) were examined via ELISA, and correlations between inflammatory scores and molecule expression were assessed. The molecule distributions in the pulp were investigated by immunofluorescence staining. Data were analysed with paired t‐test, one‐way anova, Kruskal–Wallis tests, and Spearman’s and Pearson’s correlations with significance set at P

The omega transition process was firstly analyzed combined with martensitic transformation in this investigation. In order to avoid the influence of auto-tempering on metastable omega phase, martensitic transformation process was inspired by deformation at room temperature. Omega phase was found only exist within twinned martensite with single variant, and the results indicate that omega phase formed by the lattice invariant twin shear during the dynamic transformation of twinned martensite. Besides, the nature poor ductility of twinned martensite was discussed.

In offshore engineering long slender risers are simultaneously subjected to both axial and transverse excitations. The\ud axial load is the fluctuating top tension which is induced by the floater's heave motion, while the transverse excitation\ud comes from environmental loads such as waves. As the time-varying axial load may trigger classical parametric\ud resonance, dynamic analysis of a deepwater riser with combined axial and transverse excitations becomes more\ud complex. In this study, to fully capture the coupling effect between the planar axial and transverse vibrations, the\ud nonlinear coupled equations of a riser's dynamic motion are formulated and then solved by the central difference\ud method in the time domain. For comparison, numerical simulations are carried out for both linear and nonlinear\ud models. The results show that the transverse displacements predicted by both models are similar to each other when\ud only the random transverse excitation is applied. However, when the combined axial dynamic tension and transverse\ud wave forces are both considered, the linear model underestimates the response because it ignores the coupling effect.\ud Thus the coupled model is more appropriate for deep water. It is also found that the axial excitation can significantly\ud increase the riser's transverse response and hence the bending stress, especially for cases when the time-varying\ud tension is located at the classical parametric resonance region. Such time-varying effects should be taken into account\ud in fatigue safety assessment.

Eliminating the influence of environment temperature is critical for high-accuracy carbon nanotube polymer nanocomposites sensors. In this work, the temperature effects on the nanocomposite are studied by both experiment investigation and simulation calculation. Nearly constant resistance values were found at a CNT loading around 3 wt%. By considering the temperature effect and CNT structural distortion in the developed percolation network model, simulation results agree well with experimental data. On this basis, results show that the thermally assisted tunneling on CNT junctions and thermal expansion of polymer matrix are the two core mechanisms, relaxed CNT junctions in CNT/polymer nanocomposite depressed the temperature effect, and the influence of environment temperature could be significantly reduced by adjusting CNT loadings and choosing a matching polymer matrix. All of these findings will benefit for the design of high-accuracy sensors.

Adipocyte sizes from adipose tissue of mature animals form a bimodal distribution, thus reporting mean cell size is misleading. The objectives of this study were to develop a robust method for testing bimodality of porcine adipocytes, describe the size distribution with an informative metric, and statistically test hypertrophy and appearance of new small adipocytes, possibly resulting from hyperplasia or lipid filling of previously divided fibroblastic cells. Ninety-three percent of adipose samples measured were bimodal (P < 0.0001); therefore, we describe and propose a method of testing hyperplasia or lipid filling of previously divided fibroblastic cells based upon the probability of an adipocyte falling into 2 chosen competing “bins” as adiposity increases. We also conclude that increased adiposity is correlated positively with an adipocyte being found in the minor mode (r = 0.46) and correlated negatively with an adipocyte being found in the major mode (r = −0.22), providing evidence of either hyperplasia or lipid filling of previously divided fibroblastic cells. We additionally conclude that as adiposity increases, the mode of the major distribution of cells occurs at a larger diameter of adipocyte, indicating hypertrophy.

As conventional energy sources are non-renewable, the world's major countries are investing heavily in renewable energy research. Wind power represents the development trend of future energy, but the intermittent and volatility of wind energy are the main reasons that leads to the poor accuracy of wind power prediction. However, by analyzing the error level at different time points, it can be found that the errors of adjacent time are often approximately the same, the least square support vector machine (LS-SVM) model with error correction is used to predict the wind power in this paper. According to the simulation of wind power data of two wind farms, the proposed method can effectively improve the prediction accuracy of wind power, and the error distribution is concentrated almost without deviation. The improved method proposed in this paper takes into account the error correction process of the model, which improved the prediction accuracy of the traditional model (RBF, Elman, LS-SVM). Compared with the single LS-SVM prediction model in this paper, the mean absolute error of the proposed method had decreased by 52 percent. The research work in this paper will be helpful to the reasonable arrangement of dispatching operation plan, the normal operation of the wind farm and the large-scale development as well as fully utilization of renewable energy resources.

Due to the sustainable and pollution-free characteristics, wind energy has been one of the fastest growing renewable energy sources. However, the intermittent and random fluctuation of wind speed presents many challenges for reliable wind power integration and normal operation of wind farm. Accurate wind speed prediction is the key to ensure the safe operation of power system and to develop wind energy resources. Therefore, this paper has presented a wavelet time series wind speed prediction model based on Lorenz disturbance. Therefore, in this paper, combined with the atmospheric dynamical system, a wavelet-time series improved wind speed prediction model based on Lorenz disturbance is proposed and the wind turbines of different climate types in Spain and China are used to simulate the disturbances of Lorenz equations with different initial values. The prediction results show that the improved model can effectively correct the preliminary prediction of wind speed, improving the prediction. In a word, the research work in this paper will be helpful to arrange the electric power dispatching plan and ensure the normal operation of the wind farm.

Nine cross-cutting issues which could foster or impede food and nutrition security are discussed. These are the concept of the right to food; gendering food security; land tenure; population growth pressure on land and water resources; empowerment and resilience through access to factors of production; food security governance; government capacity to formulate, implement, and institutionalize change and reform; food sovereignty; and climate change.

Objective: To develop a mouse cell biosensor system for the high-throughput genotoxicity detection of chemicals, such as environmental pollutants. Method: We developed a novel reporter vector pGL4-GFP, wherein the firefly luciferase reporter gene in the pGL4.82 vector was replaced by the green fluorescent protein (GFP) gene from the pAcGFP1-N1 vector. To construct the reporter pGL4-p53-GFP (p53 promoter linked to GFP), a fragment containing the p53 gene promoter was generated by amplifying a region from −481 to +180 of mouse genomic DNA isolated from mouse tail tissue. We developed a mouse cell biosensor system for the high-throughput genotoxicity detection of new drugs by stably integrating the reporter plasmid of pGL4-p53-GFP into the mouse embryonic fibroblast cells. Various genotoxic agents were used to treat this biosensor system. The resulting fluorescence was directly observed under a fluorescence microscope, and the GFP protein level was measured through Western blot analysis. Result: The biosensor system was treated with genotoxic agents, such as doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, and benzo(a)pyrene. The GFP protein expression was significantly increased in cells exposed to genotoxic agents but negatively responded to the non-genotoxic agent dimethyl sulfoxide, thereby proving the specificity and sensitivity of the biosensor system. Conclusion: This novel in vitro biosensor system can be especially useful in genotoxicity detection.

The random distribution of single-fibre tensile strength has been commonly characterized by the two-parameter Weibull statistics. However, the calibrated Weibull model from one set of strength data at a given gauge length cannot accurately predicts the strength variation of the fibre at different gauge lengths. Instead of presuming the two-parameter Weibull distribution or any other specific statistical distribution for the single-fibre strength to begin with, this work proposes an approach to incorporating the appropriate spatial flaw distribution within a fibre and synchronizing multiple sets of tensile strength data to evaluate the single-fibre strength distribution. The approach is examined and validated by published single-fibre strength data sets of glass, ceramic and synthetic and natural carbon fibres. It is shown that the single-fibre strength statistics does not necessarily always follow the two-parameter Weibull distribution.

Heat stress (HS) negatively impacts several swine production variables, including carcass fat quality and quantity. Pigs reared in HS have more adipose tissue than energetically predicted, explainable, in part, by HS-induced hyperinsulinemia. Study objectives were to evaluate insulin’s role in altering fat characteristics during HS via feeding insulin-sensitizing compounds. Forty crossbred barrows (113 ± 9 kg BW) were randomly assigned to one of five environment by diet treatments: 1) thermoneutral (TN) fed ad libitum (TNAL), 2) TN and pair-fed (TNPF), 3) HS fed ad libitum (HSAL), 4) HS fed ad libitum with sterculic oil (SO) supplementation (HSSO; 13 g/d), and 5) HS fed ad libitum with dietary chromium (Cr) supplementation (HSCr; 0.5 mg/d; Kemin Industries, Des Moines, IA). The study consisted of three experimental periods (P). During P0 (2 d), all pigs were exposed to TN conditions (23 ± 3 °C, 68 ± 10% RH) and fed ad libitum. During P1 (7 d), all pigs received their respective dietary supplements, were maintained in TN conditions, and fed ad libitum. During P2 (21 d), HSAL, HSSO, and HSCr pigs were fed ad libitum and exposed to cyclical HS conditions (28 to 33 °C, 58 ± 10% RH). The TNAL and TNPF pigs remained in TN conditions and were fed ad libitum or pair-fed to their HSAL counterparts. Rectal temperature (T(R)), respiration rate (RR), and skin temperature (T(S)) were obtained daily at 0600 and 1800 h. At 1800 h, HS exposed pigs had increased T(R), RR, and T(S) relative to TNAL controls (1.13 °C, 48 bpm, and 3.51 °C, respectively; P < 0.01). During wk 2 and 3 of P2, HSSO pigs had increased 1800 h T(R) relative to HSAL and HSCr (~0.40 and ~0.42 °C, respectively; P ≤ 0.05). Heat stress decreased ADFI and ADG compared to TNAL pigs (2.24 vs. 3.28 and 0.63 vs. 1.09 kg/d, respectively; P < 0.01) and neither variable was affected by SO or Cr supplementation. Heat stress increased or tended to increase moisture content of abdominal (7.7 vs. 5.9%; P = 0.07) and inner s.c. (11.4 vs. 9.8%; P < 0.05) adipose depots compared to TNAL controls. Interestingly, TNPF pigs also had increased adipose tissue moisture content and this was most pronounced in the outer s.c. depot (15.0 vs. 12.2%; P < 0.01) compared to TNAL pigs. Heat stress had little or no effect on fatty acid composition of abdominal, inner, and outer s.c. adipose tissue depots. In summary, the negative effects of HS on fat quality do not appear to be fatty acid composition related, but may be explained by increased adipose tissue moisture content.

Surface covalent organic frameworks (surface COFs) are a novel class of materials formed by condensation reactions of organic molecules on surface. The formation of defect-free continuous surface COFs requires for reactions that can form a covalent bond reversibly so that self-healing and error correction can be possible. Recently, the Schiff-base coupling has been successfully used for the synthesis of well-defined surface COFs. In this review, we highlight recent development in the design and functionality of surface COFs based on Schiff-base chemistry, with special attention paid to the factors which control the formation of well-defined Schiff-base surface COFs.

The structure of the CMS inner tracking system has been studied using nuclear interactions of hadrons striking its material. Data from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV recorded in 2015 at the LHC are used to reconstruct millions of secondary vertices from these nuclear interactions. Precise positions of the beam pipe and the inner tracking system elements, such as the pixel detector support tube, and barrel pixel detector inner shield and support rails, are determined using these vertices. These measurements are important for detector simulations, detector upgrades, and to identify any changes in the positions of inactive elements. © 2018 CERN for the benefit of the CMS collaboration.

Recent studies have shown that the human colostrum and milk are a continuous supply of commensal, mutualistic and/or potentially probiotic bacteria to the infant gut. The diversity of complex bacterial communities in human milk can be used for the screening of novel bacteria with a potential interest for industry. Here, a protease-producing strain R75E was isolated from human colostrum and identified as Bacillus cereus based on its morphological, physiological and biochemical properties and molecular characterization. B. cereus R75E was found to produce 2 types of proteases with molecular weights of 106 and 95 kDa. Tandem mass spectrometry analysis has shown that both of these proteases belong to the 965-aa collagenase (GenBank accession no. KDB42252.1) of B. cereus. By PCR, the B. cereus R75E collagenase was identified just in the same DNA sequence as 965-aa collagenase. Its high sensitivity to EDTA verified that the enzyme is metalloprotease as expected by protein domain analysis. The present collagenase demonstrated high efficiency for the degradation of the native type I collagen, suggesting its potential applications to the degradation of animal organisms.

We report the intermediate results on a novel slotted waveguide antenna for point-to-point communications at Ka band. The antenna adopts an aperiodic layout with uniformly-excited elements capable of meeting the ETSI class II radiation pattern envelop in all planes with high aperture efficiency. A total of 16 regular waveguide subarrays with an aperiodic inter-column spacing along the E-plane are fed by a corporate feed network located underneath. The prototype was milled in three layers of aluminum and bonded by vacuum brazing. Measurements confirm a 15% impedance bandwidth. The simulated patterns satisfy the radiation pattern envelop and have a gain above 28.5 dBi over 29–31 GHz, corresponding to an efficiency better than 80%.

Our objectives were to investigate fatty acid composition variation amongst adipose tissue sites, breed effects on fat quality, and the relationship of pork fat quality to fresh pork quality. Barrows and gilts (n = 347) of five purebred and one commercial crossbred line were fed commercial swine diets with DDGS inclusion at 30% (as fed) from 31.8 kg body weight until 30-d prior to harvest at 111.4 kg. Immediately after harvest, hot carcass weight was determined, adipose tissue was collected from the back, belly, and jowl, and meat samples were taken from the longissimus muscle for evaluation of pork quality. Iodine values (IV) varied between anatomical site and breed. Jowl fat IV were correlated to back and belly fat IV. Minor but significant correlations were observed between IV and meat quality characteristics. These results support our hypotheses that minor relationships exist between fat and fresh pork quality and that IV vary by anatomical location.

This study investigated the transport properties of nanoscale zero-valent iron (Fe(0)) (nZVI) carried by three vehicles: water, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) solution, and SDS foam. Batch experiments were conducted to assess the sedimentation capability of nZVI particles in these three vehicles. Column experiments were conducted to investigate the transport properties of nZVI in porous media formed with different sizes of sand (0.25 mm to 0.5 mm, 0.5 mm to 0.9 mm, and 0.9 mm to 1.4 mm). Three main results were obtained. First, the batch experiments revealed that the stabilities of nZVI particles in SDS solution and SDS foam were improved, compared with that of nZVI particles in water. Moreover, the sedimentation of nZVI in foam was closely associated with the foam drainage volume. The nZVI content in foam was similar to that in the original foaming suspension, and the nZVI particle distribution in foam became significantly more uniform at a stirring speed of 3000 r/min. Second, the transport of nZVI was enhanced by foam compared with water and SDS solution for 0.25 mm to 0.5 mm diameter sand. For sand with diameters of 0.5 mm to 0.9 mm and 0.9 mm to 1.4 mm, the mobility of nZVI carried by SDS solution was optimal, followed by that of nZVI carried by foam and water. Thus, the mobility of nZVI in finer sand was significantly enhanced by foam, compared with that in coarse sand. In contrast, compared with the bare nZVI suspension and nZVI-laden foam, the spatial distribution of nZVI particles carried by SDS solution was significantly uniform along the column length. Third, the SDS concentration significantly influenced the migration of nZVI in porous media. The enhancement in the migration of nZVI carried by SDS solution was greater at an SDS dose of 0.25% compared with that at the other three doses (0.2%, 0.5%, and 1%) for sand with a 0.25 mm to 0.5 mm diameter. Increased SDS concentrations positively affected the transport of nZVI by foam for sand with a 0.25 mm to 0.5 mm diameter, and the SDS concentrations for enhancing the mobility of nZVI carried by SDS foam satisfied the following order: 1%0.5%0.25%0.2%. Thus, SDS solution and SDS foam were better vehicles than water for delivering nZVI particles to porous media for contamination remediation.

To analyze clinical feature and evaluate long-term outcome of patients with thallium poisoning.An observational series of cases with acute thallium poisoning was analyzed retrospectively in West China Hospital of Sichuan University between 2000 and 2010. The clinical data including symptom, determination of thallium level, treatment, neurophysiological examination, and neuropsychological evaluation were analyzed. The patients were followed up until December 2012.Seven men and six women were enrolled in the study. The median patient age was 37 years (range: 15-53 years). The median duration of hospitalization was 44 days (range: 7-72). All the patients were misdiagnosed initially. One patient died in the hospital. The other 12 patients were followed for a median of 7 years (range: 1-12 years) after discharge from hospital. One patient died from leukemia in the first year of follow-up. Long-term outcome results showed peripheral neuropathy improved substantially. However, many patients have mild or moderate sequelae in sensory nerve fibers of distal lower extremity. A sural nerve biopsy in one patient revealed shrunken axons, distorted myelin sheath, and myelinated fibers loss. During follow-up period, problem of intelligence (4/12 patients, 33%), memory impairment (4/12, 33%), anxiety (6/12, 50%), and depression (5/12, 42%) were demonstrated.Neurological symptoms may lead to misdiagnosis of thallium poisoning. Mild or moderate neurological sequelae may last for a long time after thallium poisoning.