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Cross-silo federated learning (FL) enables multiple clients to collaboratively train a machine learning model without sharing training data, but privacy in FL remains a major challenge. Techniques using homomorphic encryption (HE) have been designed to solve this but bring their own challenges. Many techniques using single-key HE (SKHE) require clients to fully trust each other to prevent privacy disclosure between clients. However, fully trusted clients are hard to ensure in practice. Other techniques using multi-key HE (MKHE) aim to protect privacy from untrusted clients but lead to the disclosure of training results in public channels by untrusted third parties, e.g., the public cloud server. Besides, MKHE has higher computation and communication complexity compared with SKHE. We present a new FL protocol ESAFL that leverages a novel efficient and secure additively HE (ESHE) based on the hard problem of ring learning with errors. ESAFL can ensure the security of training data between untrusted clients and protect the training results against untrusted third parties. In addition, theoretical analyses present that ESAFL outperforms current techniques using MKHE in computation and communication, and intensive experiments show that ESAFL achieves approximate 204 times-953 times and 11 times-14 times training speedup while reducing the communication burden by 77 times-109 times and 1.25 times-2 times compared with the state-of-the-art FL models using SKHE.

Schr\"odinger's equation serves as a fundamental component in characterizing quantum systems, wherein both quantum state tomography and Hamiltonian learning are instrumental in comprehending and interpreting quantum systems. While numerous techniques exist for carrying out state tomography and learning Hamiltonians individually, no method has been developed to combine these two aspects. In this study, we introduce a new approach that employs the attention mechanism in transformer models to effectively merge quantum state tomography and Hamiltonian learning. By carefully choosing and preparing the training data, our method integrates both tasks without altering the model's architecture, allowing the model to effectively learn the intricate relationships between quantum states and Hamiltonian. We also demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach across various quantum systems, ranging from simple 2-qubit cases to more involved 2D antiferromagnetic Heisenberg structures. The data collection process is streamlined, as it only necessitates a one-way generation process beginning with state tomography. Furthermore, the scalability and few-shot learning capabilities of our method could potentially minimize the resources required for characterizing and optimizing quantum systems. Our research provides valuable insights into the relationship between Hamiltonian structure and quantum system behavior, fostering opportunities for additional studies on quantum systems and the advancement of quantum computation and associated technologies., Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures

Four new zinc(II) complexes, [ZnL2] (1), [ZnL(μ2-η1:η1-OAc)]n (2), [Zn2L2(μ1,1-N3)(μ1,3-N3)]n (3) and [ZnL(μ2-1,5-dca)]n (4), and a new nickel(II) complex, [Ni2L2(MeOH)2(μ1,1-N3)2] (5), where L is the deprotonated form of 5-bromo-(((2-(phenylamino)ethyl)imino)methyl)phenol (HL), OAc is acetate and dca is dicyanamide, were synthesized and characterized by elemental analyses, infrared and electronic spectroscopy, and single crystal X-ray determination. Complex 1 is a mononuclear zinc(II) compound, with the Zn(II) in tetrahedral coordination. Complexes 2, 3 and 4 are acetate, azide and dicyanamide bridged polymeric zinc(II) compounds, respectively, with the Zn(II) in distorted trigonal bipyramidal coordination. Complex 5 is an azide bridged dinuclear nickel(II) compound, with the Ni(II) ion having octahedral coordination. The compounds were evaluated for their antibacterial activities on Bacillus subtilis, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas fluorescens and antifungal activities on Candida albicans and Aspergillus niger. Complexes 1 and 2 showed the most effective activity against B. subtilis and E. coli, with MIC values of 1.2–4.7 μM.

With the increasing disclosure of vulnerabilities in open-source software, software composition analysis (SCA) has been widely applied to reveal third-party libraries and the associated vulnerabilities in software projects. Beyond the revelation, SCA tools adopt various remediation strategies to fix vulnerabilities, the quality of which varies substantially. However, ineffective remediation could induce side effects, such as compilation failures, which impede acceptance by users. According to our studies, existing SCA tools could not correctly handle the concerns of users regarding the compatibility of remediated projects. To this end, we propose Compatible Remediation of Third-party libraries (CORAL) for Maven projects to fix vulnerabilities without breaking the projects. The evaluation proved that CORAL not only fixed 87.56% of vulnerabilities which outperformed other tools (best 75.32%) and achieved a 98.67% successful compilation rate and a 92.96% successful unit test rate. Furthermore, we found that 78.45% of vulnerabilities in popular Maven projects could be fixed without breaking the compilation, and the rest of the vulnerabilities (21.55%) could either be fixed by upgrades that break the compilations or even be impossible to fix by upgrading., Comment: 11 pages, conference

The doubly-fed induction generator (DFIG) with virtual inertia control and reactive damping control gives a renewable energy generation system inertia and damping characteristics similar to those of a thermal power plant, and the parameters of the control strategy have a direct impact on the small-signal stability of the system. This paper firstly introduces the operating characteristics and control strategies of DFIG-based damping control and virtual inertia control, establishes a small-signal model of the control-based DFIG integrated interconnected system, and investigates the effects of virtual inertia and reactive damping values on the small-signal stability of the system; then, the maximum damping ratio of the interval oscillation mode in small disturbance analysis is taken as the optimization objective, and the control parameters are the optimization variables. An optimization method of inertia and damping parameters is established for improving the small disturbance stability of the system. The results show that the optimization procedure could improve the damping ratio of the interval oscillation mode while ensuring the system frequency. The effects of virtual inertia and reactive damping values on the small signal stability of the system are investigated, and an optimal allocation model and method for virtual inertia used to improve the small disturbance stability of the system is proposed.

ObjectivesRenin-angiotensin-aldosterone system plays important roles in the development of diabetic nephropathy (DN), and angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) is the key factor in the process from angiotensin I to angiotensin II, but the variation and roles of serum ACE in DN patients are still unclear.MethodsForty-four type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients, 75 DN patients, and 36 age-gender-matched healthy volunteers were recruited who attended Xiangya Hospital of Central South University in this case control study. Serum ACE levels and other indexes were tested with commercial kit.ResultsACE levels in DN were significantly higher than T2DM and controls (F = 9.66, P < 0.001). Serum ACE levels significantly correlated with UmALB (r = 0.3650, P < 0.001), BUN (r = 0.3102, P < 0.001), HbA1c (r = 0.2046, P = 0.0221), ACR (r = 0.4187, P < 0.001), ALB (r = -0.1885, P = 0.0192), and eGFR (r = -0.3955, P < 0.001), and we got an equation that Y = 2.839 + 0.648X1 + 2.001X2 + 0.003X3 - 6.637X4 +0.416X5 - 0.134X6 (Y: ACE; X1: BUN; X2: HbA1C; X3: UmALB; X4: gender; X5: ALB; X6: eGFR, R2 = 0.655). When DN patients were divided into advanced-stage and early-stage with or without DR, ACE levels would increase when early-stage DN develops into advanced-stage or companied with DR.ConclusionElevated serum ACE levels may hint DN progression or retina impaired of DN patients.

To solve the problem of feature selection and error correction after mode decomposition and improve the ability of power load forecasting models to capture complex time series information, a two-stage short-term power load forecasting method based on recursive feature elimination with a cross validation (RFECV) algorithm and time convolution network–efficient channel attention mechanism–long short-term memory network (TCN–ECA–LSTM) is presented. First, the load sequence is decomposed into a relatively stable set of modal components using variational mode decomposition. Then, the RFECV-based method filters the feature set of each modal component to construct the best feature set. Finally, a two-stage prediction model based on TCN–ECA–LSTM is established. The first stage predicts each modal component and the second stage reconstructs the load forecast based on the predicted value of the previous stage. This paper takes actual data from New South Wales, Australia, as an example, and the results show that the method proposed in this paper can build the feature set reliably and efficiently and has a higher accuracy than the conventional prediction model.

BackgroundsDiabetic retinopathy (DR) is one of the most severe microvascular complications of diabetes mellitus (DM). Secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC) has been found to play an important role in many diseases, but its role and mechanism in DR remain unknown.MethodsWe studied the role of SPARC and integrin β1 in vascular pathophysiology and identified potential therapeutic translation. The SPARC levels were tested in human serum and vitreous by ELISA assay, and then the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) dataset was used to understand the key role of the target gene in DR. In human retinal capillary endothelial cells (HRCECs), we analyzed the mRNA and protein level by RT-PCR, immunohistochemistry, and Western blotting. The cell apoptosis, cell viability, and angiogenesis were analyzed by flow cytometry, CCK-8, and tube formation.ResultsIn this study, we investigated the role of SPARC in the development and progression of human DR and high glucose-induced HRCEC cells and found that the SPARC-ITGB1 signaling pathway mimics early molecular and advanced neurovascular pathophysiology complications of DR. The result revealed that DR patients have a high-level SPARC expression in serum and vitreous. Knockdown of SPARC could decrease the expressions of inflammatory factors and VEGFR, inhibit cell apoptosis and angiogenesis, and increase cell viability by regulating integrin β1 in HRCECs.ConclusionSPARC promotes diabetic retinopathy via the regulation of integrin β1. The results of this study can provide a potential therapeutic application for the treatment of DR.

Crime imposes significant costs on society. Reported crime data is important in quantifying the severity of crimes, based on which decision-makers would allocate resources for crime interventions. Human mobility big data has triggered the interest in various fields to study the relationship between urban crimes and mobility at a large scale, especially the predictive power of mobility for urban crimes. This research direction can enrich our understanding of crimes and better inform crime-related decision-making. One concern about reported crime data is the bias issue. The bias could be produced by different levels of residents’ willingness to report potential crime incidents and police activity in neighborhoods. While lots of studies about crime prediction are aware of biases in reported crimes, few of them propose solutions to address or mitigate this issue or to evaluate how this issue would affect prediction models in terms of accuracy or fairness. My dissertation research aims to explore the potential of human mobility big data for crime prediction. Specifically, my dissertation will advance the state-of-the-art by addressing three challenges in mobility-based crime prediction: 1) Constructing mobility features might be sensitive to different methodological choices. Without careful examination of these choices, there might be conflicting findings. One critical area of mobility analysis to predict crime is the identification of urban hotspots. Therefore, my work performs a systematic spatial sensitivity analysis on the impact of these choices and provides guidelines to identify the most stable ones. 2) Under-reporting generates biases in reported crime data. To address such bias, I develop a Bayesian model for long-term crime prediction that infers the unobserved true number of crime incidents. Comprehensive experiments show how the accuracy and fairness of long-term crime prediction would be affected by modeling the under-reporting of crimes. 3) Although empirical studies show promising results about the relationship between human mobility and long-term crime prediction, the effects of mobility features on short-term crime prediction have yet to be explored. Therefore, my work conducts a series of experiments to explore how incorporating mobility features into short-term crime prediction models affects their performance in terms of accuracy and fairness.

In order to construct a multi-node leadless cardiac pacemaker system based on galvanic coupled intra-body communication, the intracardiac communication channel should be analyzed. In this paper, an equivalent heart model is proposed to estimate the characteristics of intracardiac communication channels in the frequency range of 10kHz-10MHz. The model contains only two layers of tissue: blood and heart muscle, and four chambers are divided inside. Then the model is combined with the circuits, which are equivalent to the input and output impedance of the measuring equipment. The finite element method is used to calculate the model. The simulation results show that the attenuation fluctuation of intracardiac communication channel is very small, and the attenuation is almost independent of frequency. The measurement results are in good agreement with the simulation results. This work provides a new idea of heart modeling.

Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) possess a wide range of biological function in all organisms, however the specific functions of most IDPs are still unknown. Soybean LOC protein, LOC for short, is a heat-stable protein, which is more abundant in the stress-resistant radicles. Sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis showed that LOC is a functionally unknown protein and conserved in Fabaceae. LOC, being enriched in most disorder-promoting residues and depleted in most order-promoting residues, was predicted to contain high levels of intrinsic disorder by several commonly used computational tools. However, it was also predicted to contain two disorder-based protein-protein binding sites and two short α-helical segments. The circular dichroism spectroscopic analysis showed that this protein is mostly disordered in water, but can form more α-helical structure in the presence of SDS and TFE. Functional in vitro studies showed that the LOC protein is able to prevent lactate dehydrogenase inactivation by freeze-thaw at a molar ratio of 10:1. Furthermore, in vivo analyses revealed the survival rate of Escherichia coli over-expressing LOC protein under the conditions of osmotic stress was noticeably increased in comparison with the control. These observations suggest that the intrinsically disordered protein LOC might serve as a chaperone and/or cell protector.

The galvanic-coupled human body communication (HBC) has come out as an alternative to radio frequency communication for connecting miniaturized wearable, implantable devices in, on the human body. The existed researches focused on the channel characteristics measurement, less on transceiver. The analog front-end (AFE) circuit is the significant part of the transceiver. In this paper, a wearable AFE circuit for human body communication is proposed, which can be utilized for subsequent signal recovery or demodulation. Differential input and filter hold circuits are used to get rid of interference from the environment and the human body. The variable gain amplifier module is applied as the final stage amplifier to reduce the influence of the change caused by the contact instability of the output electrodes. The performance index of the front-end circuit is obtained by analyzing the experimental results. The results show that the circuit has a high gain flatness. When the circuit gain is 40 dB, the gain error is within ± 0.5 dB in the frequency range of 10kHz-1MHz. The common-mode rejection ratio of the circuit can reach 112 dB, and the voltage equivalent input noise is only 3 nV/√Hz, which can guarantee the stability of HBC in complex situations. In the end, the effectiveness of the analog front-end circuit is verified by in vivo experiments.

In order to evaluate the influence of rock asphalt on the self-healing behavior of asphalt mastics, this study carried out the frequency sweep test, fatigue-healing test and complete process monitoring test of self-healing behavior for four different asphalt mastics. In addition, this study examined a proposed mechanism of self-healing from literatures. The results show that the optimum self-healing temperature of control asphalt mastic is identified as its near-Newtonian fluid transition temperature (slightly higher than softening point), while the optimum self-healing temperature of rock asphalt mastic is lower than its near-Newtonian fluid transition temperature and softening point, which indicates that rock asphalt mastic maximizes its self-healing potential before the near-Newtonian fluid state. This study models the self-healing behavior of the asphalt mastic considering the effect of healing temperature and time to verify the applicability of the capillary diffusion theory that explains the self-healing in asphalt mastics. The proposed model determined the rest times for full healing of asphalt mastics, and results indicate that the self-healing rate of asphalt mastic can be significantly increased by rock asphalt. The results of the self-healing behavior monitoring test and the parameters obtained from the proposed model both indicate that rock asphalt has some adverse effects on the self-healing behavior in the initial stage, but will promote the development of self-healing after a period of time. Overall, the addition of rock asphalt can improve the self-healing properties of asphalt mastic. Based on the aforementioned macroscopic results and the capillary diffusion theory, it can be concluded that the addition of rock asphalt negatively affects the wetting mechanism of self-healing, but positively influences the strength and efficiency of diffusive cohesive healing, thus effectively enhancing the self-healing behavior of asphalt mastic.

A series of H3PW12O40 (HPW)-modified Fe2O3 catalysts for the selective catalytic reduction of NOx by NH3 (NH3-SCR) were synthesized via impregnation of HPW on Fe2O3 micro-flowers followed calcination. The optimum HPW/Fe2O3-350-0.5 catalyst exhibits nearly 100% of NO conversion at 240–460 °C as well as excellent SO2 resistance. The number of Bronsted acid sites and Lewis acid sites increases significantly after HPW modification, which promotes the adsorption of NH3. Moreover, the incorporation of HPW decreases the oxidation ability of Fe2O3 catalysts, which effectively inhibits the overoxidization of NH3, resulting in excellent catalytic activity and N2 selectivity. In-situ DRIFTS results indicate that the NH3-SCR reaction on HPW/Fe2O3-350-0.5 catalyst mainly follows Eley–Rideal (E-R) mechanism, in addition, the adsorption and oxidization of SO2 on the surface of HPW/Fe2O3-350-0.5 catalyst are suppressed due to high surface acidity and the decrease of oxidation ability, leading to the enhancement of SO2 tolerance of HPW-modified Fe2O3 catalysts.

Se construyeron cinco difusores con diferentes anchos axiales basandose en el principio de proporcion de area, para resolver el problema de que los errores de dimension axial de rodete y difusor afecten fuertemente al funcionamiento externo y al flujo interno de una bomba centrifuga cantilever multietapa. Se realizaron calculos de campo en una bomba centrifuga de dos etapas utilizando el modelo de turbulencia RNG k-e mediante el programa informatico ANSYS-Fluid X. Tambien se realizaron experimentos externos para contrastar el calculo numerico. Se determinaron el rendimiento externo y la distribucion de velocidad en diferentes modelos de bomba. Los resultados muestran que cuando la anchura de entrada del difusor es menor que el ancho de la toma del rodete, un aumento en la anchura de entrada del difusor siempre causa una reduccion en la altura de presion de la bomba y la eficiencia de la bomba aumenta con un caudal pequeno pero disminuye con un gran caudal. Cuando el ancho de entrada del difusor es mayor que el ancho de salida del rodete, la altura de presion de la bomba y la eficiencia disminuyen constantemente y la tasa de disminucion aumenta gradualmente. En la cavidad frontal de la bomba coexiste una zona interna y una periferica turbulenta. Con un aumento en la anchura de entrada del difusor, la velocidad del componente circunferencial adimensional en la zona interna se reduce gradualmente, el efecto de la periferia turbulenta en el flujo donde la zona interna disminuye poco a poco y la velocidad del componente radial adimensional siempre se aproxima a cero. Este estudio proporciona una nueva referencia para el diseno equilibrado entre rodete y difusor. Palabras clave: Bomba centrifuga multietapa, ancho de entrada, difusor, cavidad frontal de bomba

This paper evaluates application feasibility of a Hybrid Multi-terminal HVDC system and wind-thermal-bundled plants simulated in DIgSLIENT PowerFactory environment. The proposed hybrid MTDC system consists of two line-communicated converters (LCC), which are connected to both wind farms and thermal power plants, and one voltage source converter (VSC) at the grid side. Control strategies for each converter are designed to handle this system under different disturbance conditions. Simulation results show that the wind power fluctuation can be compensated by the thermal-generated power. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategies of the hybrid MTDC system compared to a conventional MTDC system. The proposed scheme combines advantages of both LCC and VSC HVDC systems and provides a new way to transmit wind power over long distances to the main grid.

In order to improve accuracy of short-term load forecasting and solve low precision of the traditional single load-forecasting model and the shortcoming of common intelligent algorithms are easy to fall into local minimization in solving high-dimensional complex problems. In this paper, a short-term load-forecasting model based on the GA-PSO optimized extreme learning machine(ELM)is established. ELM connection weight and the hidden layer threshold are optimized with GA-PSO algorithm to avoid local optimal solution due to random initialization during the learning process, thus enhancing ELM forecasting performance. Finally, the practical example shows effectiveness of the proposed model.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the expression of corneal epithelial basement membrane (EBM) components in different corneal stromal cell types. In vitro model systems were used to explore the expression of EBM components nidogen-1, nidogen-2, and perlecan that are the primary components in the lamina lucida and the lamina densa that defectively regenerate in corneas with stromal opacity after in −9.0 D photorefractive keratectomy (PRK). Methods Primary rabbit corneal stromal cells were cultured using varying serum concentrations and exogenous growth factors, including fibroblast growth factor (FGF)-2 and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1, to optimize the growth of each cell type of interest. The expression of the keratocyte-specific marker keratocan and the myofibroblast-specific marker α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) were analyzed with real-time PCR, western blot, and immunocytochemical staining to evaluate the specificity of the cell types and select optimal conditions (high keratocan and low α-SMA for keratocytes; low keratocan and high α-SMA for myofibroblasts; low keratocan and low α-SMA for corneal fibroblasts). The expression of the EBM components nidogen-1, nidogen-2, and perlecan was evaluated in each corneal cell type using real-time PCR, immunostaining, and western blotting. In agreement with previous studies, serum-free DMEM was found to be optimal for keratocytes, DMEM with 10% serum and 40 ng/ml FGF-2 yielded the best marker profile for corneal fibroblasts, and DMEM with 1% serum and 2 ng/ml TGF-β1 was found to be optimal for myofibroblasts. Results Nidogen-1 and nidogen-2 mRNAs were highly expressed in keratocytes, whereas perlecan was highly expressed in myofibroblasts. In keratocytes, nidogen-2 and perlecan proteins were expressed predominantly in intracellular compartments, whereas in myofibroblasts expression of both EBM components was observed diffusely throughout the cell. Although the perlecan mRNA levels were high in the myofibroblasts, the qualitative protein expression was different from that of the keratocytes. Corneal fibroblasts produced a low amount of each EBM component. Conclusions We have demonstrated qualitative and quantitative differences in the expression of nidogen-1, nidogen-2, and perlecan by keratocytes compared to myofibroblasts that may contribute to defective regeneration of the lamina lucida and the lamina densa of the EBM associated with late stromal haze after high-correction PRK.

The influence of the oxidation degree of graphene oxide (GO) on its deoxygenation efficiency via hybrid microwave heating (HWH) method by using graphite powder as the external susceptor was investigated, and the response behavior was compared with the situation when GO is directly submitted to microwave irradiation. In addition, the deoxygenation behavior of mildly reduced GO (VRGO) that was obtained via chemical reduction by Vitamin C was compared with that of GO during above two microwave heating processes. No response of GO to microwave irradiation when GO samples are exposed directly to microwave, no matter how the oxidation degree is. However, the VRGO sample can be heated when it is solely submitted to microwave irradiation. The partial reduction of GO leads to enhancement of the dielectric parameters, and the residual defects and oxygen-containing functional groups not only can improve the impedance matching characteristics, but also produce defects polarization relaxation and dipole polarization relaxation, which are all beneficial to the microwave penetration and absorption. The deoxygenation efficiency of VRGO is lower in comparison with GO under the HWH condition, which should be attributed to higher amount of epoxides in GO samples that can be easily reduced in a mixed heating mode.

With the increasing use of surgical robots, robust and accurate segmentation techniques for brain tissue in the brain magnetic resonance image are needed to be embedded in the robot vision module. However, the brain magnetic resonance image segmentation results are often unsatisfactory because of noise and intensity inhomogeneity. To obtain accurate segmentation of brain tissue, one new multiphase active contour model, which is based on multiple descriptors mean, variance, and the local entropy, is proposed in this study. The model can bring about a more full description of local intensity distribution. Also, the entropy is introduced to improve the performance of robustness to noise of the algorithm. The segmentation and bias correction for brain magnetic resonance image can be simultaneously incorporated by introducing the bias factor in the proposed approach. At last, three experiments are carried out to test the performance of the method. The results in the experiments show that method proposed in this study performed better than most current methods in regard to accuracy and robustness. In addition, the bias-corrected images obtained by proposed method have better visual effect.

With the continuous improvement of social life, people have more stringent noise requirements for home air conditioners. As the kernel of an air conditioner, compressor provides power for the whole system, inevitably generating vibration and noise. Therefore, Reducing the vibration and noise of the compressor is great significance for the noise reduction of the air conditioner. Generally, vibration is mainly transferred through the suction and exhaust pipes to the air conditioning pipe system. However, due to the complicated configuration, there are intensive modals for the pipe system, especially those in low frequency range, which may lead to resonance and large acoustic radiation. This paper studies the generation and transmission mechanism of triple frequency vibration of compressor, the compressor exhaust pressure fluctuation stimulates the exhaust pipe to vibrate, and then results in vibration of the air conditioning pipe systems, and vibration generated by the rotor is transferred to intake pipe via the accumulator, and cause the pipe systems to vibrate. Based on this research, we find some main factors which influence the triple frequency vibration and noise of the compressor, which are the exhaust pressure pulsation, the natural frequency of the rotor-crankshaft system swing, the natural frequency of the accumulator swing. Then, above factors which affect the compressor vibration and noise are analyzed and improved separately, and conducted noise tests on the improved compressor at 90Hz. The results show that the compressor noise are reduced by 29.8% around 250Hz .

In this paper, the equivalent circuit model of UTC-HPT is established to simplify the microwave optical amplifier and mixer design. Based on the equivalent circuit model of HBTs, the photo-generated current in UTC-HPT is introduced reasonably as part of base current. The influence of photogenerated carriers on several equivalent circuit components such as trans-conductance, barrier capacitor, diffusion capacitor and junction resistor are considered carefully in the model. Finally, the collector output current is checked to verify the model validity and the photo-current gain and the photo-characteristic frequency are analyzed with the established model.

Intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) play a variety of important physiological roles in all living organisms. However, there is no comprehensive analysis of the abundance of IDPs associated with environmental stress in plants. Here, we show that a set of heat-stable proteins (i.e., proteins that do not denature after boiling at 100 °C for 10 min) was present in R0mm and R15mm radicles (i.e., before radicle emergence and 15 mm long radicles) of soybean (Glycine max) seeds. This set of 795 iTRAQ-quantified heat-stable proteins contained a high proportion of wholly or highly disordered proteins (15%), which was significantly higher than that estimated for the whole soybean proteome containing 55,787 proteins (9%). The heat-stable proteome of soybean radicles that contain many IDPs could protect lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) during freeze–thaw cycles. Comparison of the 795 heat-stable proteins in the R0mm and R15mm soybean radicles revealed that many of these proteins changed abundance during seedling growt...

Age‐related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of central vision loss worldwide. Loss of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is a major pathological hallmark in AMD with or without pathological neovascularization. Although activation of the immune system is implicated in disease progression, pathological pathways remain diverse and unclear. Here, we report an unexpected protective role of a pro‐inflammatory cytokine, interleukin‐33 (IL‐33), in ocular angiogenesis. IL‐33 and its receptor (ST2) are expressed constitutively in human and murine retina and choroid. When RPE was activated, IL‐33 expression was markedly elevated in vitro. We found that IL‐33 regulated tissue remodelling by attenuating wound‐healing responses, including reduction in the migration of choroidal fibroblasts and retinal microvascular endothelial cells, and inhibition of collagen gel contraction. In vivo, local administration of recombinant IL‐33 inhibited murine choroidal neovascularization (CNV) formation, a surrogate of human neovascular AMD, and this effect was ST2‐dependent. Collectively, these data demonstrate IL‐33 as a potential immunotherapy and distinguishes pathways for subverting AMD pathology. © 2016 The Authors. The Journal of Pathology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

The deoxygenation efficiency of graphene oxide (GO) under solid-state microwave irradiation was improved via chemical pre-reduction using different reductants (Vitamin C, hydrazine hydrate and sodium borohydride). The reduced graphene oxide (RGO) samples obtained by reduction of GO via Vitamin C were denoted as VRGO-x (x = 0.33, 1.5 and 5), where x indicates the mass ratio of VC to GO (RVC/GO). And the products fabricated via reduction of GO by hydrazine hydrate and sodium borohydride are recorded as HRGO and SRGO, respectively. It is found that deoxygenation efficiency of RGO samples at the similar initial oxygen concentrations via further microwave irradiation is different. For instance, the oxygen concentration of VRGO-0.33 and SRGO decreases to 10.75% and 19.19%, and the oxygen concentration of VRGO-5 and HRGO decreases to 10.66% and 13.78%, respectively. The real part of complex permittivity (e′) of GO increases from 2.25 to 2.4–2.5 and 2.7–2.8 for VRGO-0.33 and SRGO, VRGO-5 and HRGO, demonstrating the absorption ability of VRGO-0.33 and SRGO, VRGO-5 and HRGO is very close, respectively. Compared with SRGO, the deoxygenation efficiency is higher for VRGO-0.33 that with higher content of carbonyls. This can be explained by that the lower energy is required to remove carbonyls relative to that for the other functional groups. Moreover, because HRGO contains high content of stable oxygen functional groups and some amount of nitrogen-containing groups, which are relatively stable at high temperature, especially for pyrrolic N and graphitic N, the reduction efficiency of HRGO is lower than that of VRGO-5.

To explore if CHA2DS2 VASc score can predict substrate for persistent atrial fibrillation ( AF) and outcome post catheter ablation of AF.From January 2011 to December 2012,116 patients underwent catheter ablation of persistent AF in our department and were enrolled in this study. CHA2DS2VASc score was calculated as follows: two points were assigned for a history of stroke or transient ischemic attack and age ≥ 75 and 1 point each was assigned for age ≥ 65, a history of hypertension, diabetes,recent cardiac failure, vessel disease, female. Left atrial geometry ( LA) was reconstructed with a 3.5 mm tip ablation catheter with fill-in threshold 10 in CARTO system. The mapping catheter was stabled at each endocardial location for at least 3 seconds for recording. The electrogram recordings at each endocardial location were analyzed with a custom software embedded in the CARTO mapping system. Interval confidence level (ICL) was used to characterize complex fractionated atrial electrograms (CFAEs) . As the default setting of the software, ICL more than or equal to 7 was considered sites with a highly repetitive CFAEs complex. CFAEs index was defined as the fraction of area of ICL more than or equal to 7 to the left atrial surface. The CFAEs index and outcome of catheter ablation among different CHA2DS2VASc groups were compared.Of the 116 patients, CHA2DS2VASc was 0 in 33 patients, 1 in 31 patients and ≥ 2 in 52 patients. Left atrial surface ((121.2 ± 18.9) cm2, (133.6 ± 23.8) cm2, (133.9 ± 16.1) cm2, P = 0.008), left atrial volume ((103.6 ± 24.8) ml, (118.3 ± 27.8) ml, (120.9 ± 20.9) ml, P = 0.005) and CFAEs index (44.6% ± 22.4%, 54.2% ± 22.2%, 58.7% ± 23.1%, P = 0.023) increased in proportion with increasing CHA2DS2VASc. ICLmax, ICLmin and CFAEs spatial distribution were similar among the three groups. During the mean follow-up of (13 ± 8) months, the recurrence rate were 36.4%, 35.5%, 55.8% among the three groups (P = 0.025).A high CHA2DS2VASc score is associated with extensive AF substrate and higher recurrence rate post catheter ablation of persistent AF.

The University of Maryland's Digital Curation Innovation Center (DCIC) in the College of Information Studies promotes research and education in digital curation and fosters interdisciplinary partnerships using Big Records and archival analytics through public, industry, and government partnerships. In this session, technologists, archivists, and students from the DCIC will provide case studies involving archival records in a digital environment that focus on redlining in urban neighborhoods, the Japanese American experience in World War II internment camps, and navigating Holocaust-era digital data.

Background: The aim of the present study was to compare the effects of drug-eluting stents (DES) and coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) in patients suffering from chronic stable angina with multivessel disease, involving significant proximal stenosis in the left anterior descending artery (LAD). Methods and Results: All consecutive patients suffering from chronic stable angina with multivessel disease involving significant proximal LAD stenosis underwent DES implantation (n=600) or CABG (n=709) at our institution. At 2 years, the unadjusted mortality was significantly lower in the DES group than in the CABG group (2.2% vs 5.2%, P=0.004), but the adjusted risk of death was similar (odds ratio (OR) 0.74, 95%CI 0.28-1.97, P=0.555). Furthermore, both the adjusted rate of nonfatal myocardial infarction and cerebrovascular events was also comparable. However, the unadjusted and adjusted risk of major adverse cardiac cerebrovascular events in the DES was significantly higher than in the CABG (13.3% vs 9.6%, OR 2.71, 95%CI 1.56-4.74, P

Objective Various techniques have been used to acquire common femoral artery (CFA) access which was proved to be safe with lower risk of complications in percutaneous catheterisation. In order to increase the success rate of CFA puncture, a relatively simple, safe and reliable technique was developed. Methods We introduced a new inguinal ligament-guided technique and inguinal division. Clinical data were collected on 822 unselected patients undergoing transfemoral percutaneous coronary catheterisation between 2004 and 2009. Inguinal ligament was utilised as a reference to conduct artery puncture site. After palpating anterior superior iliac spine and pubic symphysis with caution to locate the inguinal ligament, medius pinpointed the intersection of inguinal ligament and femoral artery. Thereafter, place forefinger beside the medius, perform artery puncture at the inferior margin of forefinger with 45° modified seldinger technique. By femoral angiogram, we utilised the femoral head as a landmark, of which the midpoint, inferior and superior margin were referred to borderlines, to divide the inguinal region into zone A, B1, B2 and C so as to identify the location of femoral artery cannulation. Femoral head (zone B) was defined as the optimal area of femoral artery puncture. Results Successful CFA cannulation occurred in 82.8% (681/822) of cases. Arterial puncture over the femoral head (zone B) occurred in 96.8% (796/822) of patients, 36.0% (296/822) for zone B1 and 60.8% (500/822) for zone B2, respectively. When femoral artery puncture located on zone B, B1, B2 and C, CFA cannulation occurred in 83.9% (668/796), 91.6% (271/296), 79.4% (397/500) and 40% (8/20), respectively. Conclusions Inguinal ligament is a reliable reference for guiding the puncture of CFA in transfemoral percutaneous catheterisation.

Objective The aim of the study was to evaluate the in-hospital and long term safety performance of vascular closure devices (VCDs) in femoral artery access. Methods One thousand and seventy eight patients who undergoing transfemoral percutaneous cardiac catheterisations from June 2008 to October 2009 were enrolled. We compared the incidence of in-hospital vascular complications between manual compression group and VCDs group. Femoroiliac angiographic data were collected and analysed on 92 patients undergoing repeat catheterisation via ipsilateral femoral artery for which VCDs have been used for at least 3 month during index transfemoral catheterisation. The percent diameter stenosis (ΔDS%) was utilised to evaluate the long-term safety performance of vascular closure devices on femoral angiogram. Restenosis of femoral artery was defined as ΔDS% ≥50%. Results The overall in-hospital incidence of vascular complication was 0.74% (8/1078). Patients in VCDs group had relatively lower rate of in-hospital complications (p=0.039) compared with manual compression group. The median interval of femoral angiogram recheck was 232 days. Femoral restenosis at the site of vascular access occurred in 3.3% of 92 patients, but no one had complaints of limb ischemia. Conclusions VCDs demonstrated greater in-hospital and long-term safety performance compared with manual compression. Femoral restenosis at puncture site is very rare and usually asymptomatic.

Objective Common femoral artery (CFA) access has been proved to be safe with lower risk of complications in percutaneous catheterisation. The femoral head can be utilised as a reliable landmark to locate the level of femoral bifurcation and the common femoral artery. In the present study, we evaluated the site of femoral bifurcation in Chinese population on femoroiliac angiograms. Methods We enrolled 529 patients undergoing cardiac catheterisations via femoral artery from June 2008 to October 2009. Femoral angiograms were performed in all patients preparing to use vascular closure devices. Based on the femoral head and the midpoint of pubic symphysis as landmarks, the midpoint, inferior and superior margin of the femoral head were used as borderlines to divide the inguinal region into four zones (A, B1, B2 and C). Location of femoral bifurcation and CFA were evaluated on femoral angiogram. Results Femoral bifurcations located in the area of A, B1, B2 and C with 0.2% (1/529), 2.3% (12/529), 42.4% (223/529), 55.4% (293/529), respectively. When arterial puncture located on zone B, B1, B2 and C, CFA cannulation was obtained in 85.0% (436/513), 95.8% (160/167), 79.8% (276/346) and 38.5% (5/13), respectively. Conclusions We originally introduced a reliable method for inguinal vascular zone division. The majority of femoral bifurcations located below the midpoint of femoral head in Chinese population. It is an effective measure to puncture common femoral artery between the superior and inferior border of the femoral head, especially between the superior border and the midpoint of the femoral head.

Objectives We examined the association between glycaemic control determined by fasting glucose levels before elective PCI and the outcomes in diabetic patients undergoing elective revascularization. Background Patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) have a worse clinical outcome after PCI than patients without DM, but whether optimal glycaemic control before PCI could improve the prognosis is not clear. Methods The DESIRE-2 (Drug-Eluting Stent Impact on Revascularization-2) was a single-center registry of coronary revascularization in our institution between July 1st 2003 and Sep 30th 2005. A total of 434 diabetic patients undergoing elective PCI were enrolled in this study. Optimal glycaemic control was defined as fasting glucose =126 mg/dl. Median follow-up duration after the index intervention was 523 days. Results The average patient age was 61.0±9.8 years; 69.8% of the patients were men. The patients with optimal glycaemic control were older than the suboptimal control group (62.1±9.46 vs 59.6±10.41). Compared with diabetic patients with optimal glycaemic control, those with suboptimal glycaemic control had similar rates of total mortality (3.3% vs 3.9%, p=0.762) and major adverse cardiac and cerebral events (15.9% vs 12.4%, p=0.308). In a multiple Cox regression analysis, total cholesterol level (HR 1.009, 95% CI 1.002 to 1.016, p=0.013) and number of lesion (HR 2.070, 95% CI 1.340 to 3.199, p=0.001) were significant independent predictors of MACCE. Conclusions In diabetic patients undergoing elective PCI, optimal glycaemic control did not improve clinical prognosis. These data suggest that aggressive treatment of DM to achieve fasting glucose

Background Hypertension was an independent risk factor for affecting the prognosis of patients with ACS. But the effect of blood pressure levels at admission on prognosis in ACS patients without history of hypertension was not clear. Methods The DESIRE-2(Drug-Eluting Stent Impact on Revascularization-2) was a single-center registry of coronary revascularization in our institution between July 1 st 2003 and Sep 30 th 2005. The study excluded the patients with prior history of hypertension and myocardial infarction, the patients admitted to hospital with ST-segment elevated myocardial infarction and stable coronary artery disease, and the patients without detailed document record. Major adverse cardiac and cerebral events (MACCE) were the combination endpoint of all-cause death, non-fatal myocardial infarction, non-fatal stroke and revascularization. Results The study enrolled 982 patients and divided into three groups according to the first measurement of blood pressure levels at admission. The 207 patients with blood pressure less than 120/80 mm Hg defined as normal blood pressure group, 209 patients with blood pressure more than 140/90 mm Hg as hypertension group, other patients as prehypertension group. Among three groups, there was no difference in age, gender, prior history of diabetes mellitus, coronary revascularization and smoking, body mass index, left ventricular ejection fraction, the levels of glomerular filtration rate, haemoglobin, total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein cholesterin, fasting glucose, glycolated haemoglobin. Severity of coronary artery and utilisation ratio of aspirin, β blocker, calcium channel blocker were similar in three groups. More patients taken statins (67.7%, 55.3%, 58.3%, p=0.013) and ACEI (41.1%, 27.6%, 27.8%, p=0.002) during the hospitalisation in hypertension group. Duration of follow-up in the normal, prehypertension and hypertension group was 522 days, 539 days and 523 days respectively. The in-hospital MACCE rates was similar in three groups, but higher follow-up MACCE rates (11.0%, 5.7%, 9.5%, p=0.035) and follow-up mortality rates (2.6%, 0.8%, 0%, p=0.026) in hypertension group. Conclusion The higher blood pressure levels at admission in non ST-segment elevated ACS patients without prior history of hypertension had poorer prognosis, but the history and clinical features were similar to patients with normal blood pressure.