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The ventilation methods during therapeutic flexible bronchoscopy vary among anesthesiologists and institutions, but each method has its own pitfalls. Therefore, improvement of the airway equipment is important. Here, we present a case in which a new tracheal inducer (Safe Easy Endotracheal Kit-flexible, SEEK(flex)) was applied in bronchoscopic balloon dilation under general anesthesia for airway management. This technology utilizes a flexible bronchoscope to reveal the glottis for tracheal placement of the SEEK(flex) to allow subglottic jet ventilation, illustrating the prominent function of performing SEEK(flex)-guided tracheal intubation in case of rapid sequence intubation. The SEEK(flex) can be easily inserted into the trachea transnasally without the aid of other devices, without significant kink and displacement during the jet ventilation. The SEEK(flex) could provide good airway control by facilitating sufficient ventilation, optimizing surgical access and guiding tracheal intubation when necessary.

The worldwide outbreak of the monkeypox virus (MPXV) has become a “Public Health Emergency of International Concern” (PHEIC). Severe monkeypox virus infection can be fatal, however, effective therapeutic methods are yet to be developed. Mice were immunized with A35R protein and A29L protein of MPXV, and the binding and neutralizing activities of the immune sera against poxvirus-associated antigens and viruses were identified. A29L protein and A35R protein-specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) were generated and their antiviral activities of these mAbs were characterized in vitro and in vivo. Immunization with the MPXV A29L protein and A35R protein induced neutralizing antibodies against the orthopoxvirus in mice. None of the mAbs screened in this study against A35R could effectively neutralize the vaccinia virus (VACV), while three mAbs against A29L protein, 9F8, 3A1 and 2D1 were confirmed to have strong broad binding and neutralizing activities against orthopoxvirus, among which 9F8 showed the best neutralizing activity. 9F8, 3A1, and 2D1 recognized different epitopes on MPXV A29L protein, showing synergistic antiviral activity in vitro against the VACV Tian Tan and WR strains; the best activity was observed when the three antibodies were combined. In the vivo antiviral prophylactic and therapeutic experiments, 9F8 showed complete protective activity, whereas 3A1 and 2D1 showed partial protective activity. Similarly, the three antibodies showed synergistic antiviral protective activity against the two VACVs. In conclusion, three mAbs recognized different epitopes on MPXV A29L protein were developed and showed synergistic effects against orthopoxvirus.

Serious health risks associated with the consumption of food products contaminated with aflatoxins (AFs) are worldwide recognized and depend predominantly on consumed AF concentration by diet. A low concentration of aflatoxins in cereals and related food commodities is unavoidable, especially in subtropic and tropic regions. Accordingly, risk assessment guidelines established by regulatory bodies in different countries help in the prevention of aflatoxin intoxication and the protection of public health. By assessing the maximal levels of aflatoxins in food products which are a potential risk to human health, it's possible to establish appropriate risk management strategies. Regarding, a few factors are crucial for making a rational risk management decision, such as toxicological profile, adequate information concerning the exposure duration, availability of routine and some novel analytical techniques, socioeconomic factors, food intake patterns, and maximal allowed levels of each aflatoxin in different food products which may be varied between countries.

[Introduction] Cable damage and power failure caused by anchoring damage will cause serious economic loss and social impact. In order to reduce the risk of anchor damage accident of submarine cable, a risk assessment method of high-voltage submarine cable anchoring accident is proposed. [Method] According to the cause of the accident, this paper divided the anchor damage accident into two cases: anchor dropping accident and anchor dragging accident, and modeling and calculation were carried out for these two cases respectively Based on the research of single cable anchor damage risk, the anchor damage risk of multiple cables was studied. [Result] According to the model calculation results, it is concluded that the number of cables, warning distance and ship speed are the important influencing factors of anchor damage accident. Meanwhile, with the decrease of cable number, the increase of warning distance and the increase of ship speed, the risk of high-voltage submarine cable anchoring accident will be effectively reduced. [Conclusion] The proposed model can effectively evaluate the risk of high voltage submarine cable anchor damage accident, and provide theoretical guidance for the protection and optimization design of submarine cable.

Affected by electric field generated in power transmission line, live worker on the high-voltage transmission line is in dangerous working environment. In this paper, posture perception, numerical simulation, and risk assessment are adopted to realize the deep fusion of physical trajectory and spatial virtual electric field distribution of live worker, and digital twin bodies of live worker in different live working scenarios are constructed. Firstly, posture trajectories and 3D model of living worker in typical operation conditions are captured and reconstructed by full-body inertial action capture technology and this technology use motion capture unit which include 3-aixs accelerometer/gyroscope/magnetic field sensors. The length of complex gap and body workspace under various live work scenes are also calculated. By static electrical field finite element (FE) numerical modeling, surface electrical field distributions of live worker under different posture trajectories are then calculated. Finally, interactive mechanism between “body-information-physical environment-virtual environment” is introduced, and potential risk of live worker is on-line assessed by live work guide rules. This work develops a new assessment and protection method for virtual training and field operations of high-voltage live worker. Which is of great significance for enhancing operation level and ensuring living workers’ safety.

Airport gate assignment is an important decision problem that airport professionals mustface every day. The problem involves in assigning each aircraft to an available gate to meet op-erational requirements while maximizing the convenience for passengers and airport operationefficiency. In this work, we study the passenger-oriented gate assignment problem (GAP) thataims to minimize the total walking distance

In multi-speaker speech synthesis, data from a number of speakers usually tend to have great diversity due to the fact that the speakers may differ largely in ages, speaking styles, emotions, and so on. It is important but challenging to improve the modeling capabilities for multi-speaker speech synthesis. To address the issue, this paper proposes a high-capability speech synthesis system, called Msdtron, in which 1) a representation of the harmonic structure of speech, called excitation spectrogram, is designed to directly guide the learning of harmonics in mel-spectrogram. 2) conditional gated LSTM (CGLSTM) is proposed to control the flow of text content information through the network by re-weighting the gates of LSTM using speaker information. The experiments show a significant reduction in reconstruction error of mel-spectrogram in the training of the multi-speaker model, and a great improvement is observed in the subjective evaluation of speaker adapted model., Accepted by ICASSP-2022

A microgrid helps to reduce the consumption of fossil fuel by utilising distributed renewable energies (DREs). However, the stochastic nature of renewable energy makes it a big challenge for the microgrid operators to maximise the consumption of DREs while ensuring the balance between supply and demand. In order to improve the consumption of DREs and the profit of a microgrid efficiently, an operating mechanism consisting of two stages is proposed to dispatch DREs, responsive loads and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) in a smart microgrid. In the first stage, we formulate the optimal unit commitment and the day-ahead time of use, which the operator concerns as a decentralised model. To address the model, the particle swarm optimisation algorithm and the interior point method are used, respectively, to minimise the operating cost and the electricity import. In the second stage, a dynamic incentive signal-based demand response for PHEVs is proposed to maximise the electricity export in the intra-day. Simulation studies are conducted on a smart microgrid, and the results have demonstrated that the proposed operating mechanism improves the consumption of DREs while satisfying the demand, meanwhile improves the average daily profit of the smart microgrid.

The Clustered Traveling Salesman Problem (CTSP) is a variant of the popular Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) arising from a number of real-life applications. In this work, we explore a transformation approach that solves the CTSP by converting it to the well-studied TSP. For this purpose, we first investigate a technique to convert a CTSP instance to a TSP and then apply powerful TSP solvers (including exact and heuristic solvers) to solve the resulting TSP instance. We want to answer the following questions: How do state-of-the-art TSP solvers perform on clustered instances converted from the CTSP? Do state-of-the-art TSP solvers compete well with the best performing methods specifically designed for the CTSP? For this purpose, we present intensive computational experiments on various benchmark instances to draw conclusions., Comment: 26 pages, 6 figures

MPTCP is a new transport protocol that enables mobile devices to use multiple physical paths simultaneously through several network interfaces, such as WiFi and Cellular. However, wireless path capacities change frequently in the mobile environments, causing challenges for path selection. For example, WiFi associated paths often become poor as devices walk away, since WiFi has intermittent connectivity caused by the short signal coverage and stochastic interference. MPTCP's native decision based on hysteretic TCP-layer estimation will miss the real switching point of wireless quality, which may cumulate packets on the broken path and causes serious packets reinjection. Through analyzing a unique dataset in the wild, we quantitatively study the impact of MAC-layer factors on the aggregated performance of MPTCP. We then propose a decision tree approach for cross-layer path selection that decides which path to carry the incoming packets dynamically according to the prior learned schemes. A prototype of the path selection system named SmartPS, which proactively probes the wireless environments, is realized and deployed in Linux and Android. Evaluation results demonstrate that our SmartPS can efficiently utilize the faster path, with goodput improvements of up to 29%., Comment: ICNP under review

Flowers of safflower (Carthamus tinctorius L.) have been widely used in traditional Chinese medicine because of their ability to improve cerebral blood flow. The major active ingredients in safflower are flavonoids. To date, few flavonoid biosynthesis genes have been cloned from this species. In our previous research, four isoform chalcone isomerase genes were screened. In this study, a new chalcone isomerase gene (designated as CtCHI-N) was cloned from a safflower cDNA library. A 696-bp cDNA for CtCHI-N was cloned, and its sequence was subsequently analyzed. The recombinant protein was successfully expressed in a prokaryotic expression system, and the expression of CtCHI-N in different tissues and at different stages of flowering was investigated. The results showed that CtCHI-N was expressed in a tissue-specific manner, and the greatest expression level occurred during early flowering. In addition, flavonoids at different stages of flowering were also measured, and the expression of CtCHI-N was found to correlate with flavonoid biosynthesis during flowering. CtCHI-N was successfully cloned in the experiment, and expression analysis revealed that CtCHI-N might influence flavonoid biosynthesis during flowering in safflower.

Recent studies have shown that hypertension is poorly controlled in many populations worldwide. Electrocardiographic left ventricular hypertrophy is a common manifestation of preclinical cardiovascular disease that strongly predicts cardiovascular disease morbidity and mortality. However, little information is available regarding the role of left ventricular hypertrophy in blood pressure (BP) control. We aimed to assess the relationship between electrocardiographic left ventricular hypertrophy and BP control in the China Stroke Primary Prevention Trial. The study population included 17,312 hypertensive patients who were selected from a group of 20,702 adults who had participated in the China Stroke Primary Prevention Trial and had undergone electrocardiography at baseline visit. Multivariate analysis identified left ventricular hypertrophy as a predictor of unsatisfactory BP control. The results revealed that 8.1% of hypertensive adults exhibit left ventricular hypertrophy and that the disease is more prevalent in males (12.8%) than in females. Multivariate regression analysis showed that the electrocardiographic left ventricular hypertrophy group had a significantly higher rate of unsatisfactory BP control [odds ratio (OR) 1.42, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.26–1.61, P

Aim. Echocardiography has become the main mean in detection of noncompaction cardiomyopathy (NCC). However, misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis were common. The aim of this paper was to analyze the misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis of NCC, improve the diagnostic accuracy of this disease.Material and methods. We retrospectively analyzed the data of 56 subjects who had been clinically diagnosed with NCC in our institution, which included patients’ total echocardiographic data since the disease onset. Echocardiographic data and cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) data were compared with each other.Results. 17 of the total subjects had been diagnosed with NCC after the first echocardiography at our institution. 39 subjects had not been diagnosed correctly until several times checking of echocardiography. 28 of them had been misdiagnosed as dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) in local hospitals. All but 2 subjects were inconsistent between echocardiography measurement and CMR. The ratio of N/C was 2,63±0,49 by CMR, and 2,55±0,43 by echocardiography.Conclusion. Echocardiography can be the first choice of NCC assessment for its advantages of being non-radiative, real-time, economic and characteristic. When the echocardiographic image is not typical in the early stage of NCC, a combination with CMR is necessary.

Previous investigations showed that interleukin-11 (IL-11) and the IL-11 receptor (IL-11R) are correlated with regulation of tumor progression and may play significant roles in bone metastases. The nonapeptide structure c(CGRRAGGSC) is a phage-display-selected IL-11 mimic that binds to IL-11R. The aim of this study was to synthesize radiolabeled c(CGRRAGGSC) and to investigate the possible interaction between this radioactive probe and an IL-11R-positive bone metastasis model of PC-3 prostate cancer. The molecular probe 99mTc–DTPA–c(CGRRAGGSC) was radiolabeled with 99mTc using the diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) chelate. Counterstaining was performed with LSS670, a near-infrared dye. The binding sites of the molecular probe in PC-3 cells were observed under a fluorescence microscope. The binding characteristics of the labeled probe were analyzed using radioreceptor analysis. Single photon emission tomography imaging and biodistribution of the probe were investigated using xenografts of PC-3 cells into tibias of nude mice. The labeled product, 99mTc–DTPA–c(CGRRAGGSC), was obtained with high labeling efficiency, high radiochemical purity and good stability. The molecular probe was combined with the PC-3 cell membrane and cytoplasm through fluorescence tracing. In the saturation and competitive inhibition experiments performed in vitro, the Kd value was 0.32 ± 0.02 n m and the Bmax value was 754 ± 34 fmol mg−1 pro. The probe exhibited a high tumor uptake in vivo. The radioactive molecular probe 99mTc–DTPA–c(CGRRAGGSC) may be used as a specific molecular imaging agent for detecting IL-11R overexpression in tumors and bone metastasis, such as prostate cancers. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) is associated with a marked systemic inflammatory response. Although dexmedetomidine (Dex) is routinely used in cardiac surgery, the effect in reducing the inflammatory response in coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG) with CPB remains unclear. In this study, Dex was administered at a loading dose of 0.5 μg/kg for 10 min, followed by a continuous infusion of 0.5 μg/kg per hour until the completion of CABG with CPB. The levels of inflammatory cytokines in the serum, including tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFalpha), interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8 and IL-10, were measured to explore the inflammatory regulating function of Dex. In addition, troponin-I (cTnI) and creatine kinase (CK-MB) levels were studied to explore the myocardial protection provided by Dex. In this study, we showed Dex inhibited the increase in cTnI and CK-MB, attenuated the production of pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-alpha, IL-6 and IL-8, and promoted anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-10 production. These findings demonstrate that Dex regulates anti-inflammatory as well as myocardial protection potential in CABG with CPB.

Objective To study the development mechanism of kidney-Yang deficiency through the establishment of support vector machine models of relevant hormones of the pituitary-target gland axes in rats with kidney-Yang deficiency syndrome. Methods The kidney-Yang deficiency rat model was created by intramuscular injection of hydrocortisone, and contents of the hormones of the pituita- ry-thyroid axis: thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), 3,3',5-triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4); hormones of the pituitary-adrenal gland axis: adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol (CORT); and hormones of the pituitary-gonadal axis: luteinizing hormone (LH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), and testosterone (T), were determined in the early, middle, and advanced stages. Ten support vector regression (SVR) models of the hormones were established to analyze the mutual relationships among the hormones of the three axes. Results The feedback control action of the pituitary-adrenal axis began to lose efficacy from the middle stage of kidney-Yang deficiency. The contents all hormones of the three pituitary-target gland axes decreased in the advanced stage. Relative errors of the jackknife test of the SVR models all were less than 10%. Conclusion Imbalances in mutual regulation among the hormones of the pituitary-target gland axes, especially loss of effectiveness of the pituitary-adrenal axis, is one pathogenesis of kidney-Yang deficiency. The SVR model can accurately reflect the complicated non-linear relationships among pituitary-target gland axes in rats with of kidney-Yang deficiency.

Combined with the development of guiding systems in laser welding, a visual guidance based positioning method for coaxial installation with a laser welding head is researched. A system calibrating method has been researched and designed, which is to install calibration cylinder in the part fixing a machined part, and test the calibration cylinder center coordinates works calibration of the system. A localization method based on template matching and characteristics of the target image are extracted as target image for templates, guiding two localizations both coarse positioning and fine positioning. Coarse positioning can reduce the influence of other information on the target image. Fine positioning is the second location of targets on the basis of the coarse positioning, reducing the information and keeping effect information of target image characteristics. And the method of sub-pixel localization based on least square method is fixed the center position of the target.

The maximum clique problem (MCP) is an important combinatorial optimization problem with a wide range of practical applications in numerous fields, including information retrieval, signal transmission analysis, classification theory, economics, scheduling, and biomedical engineering. Moreover, a number of combinatorial optimization problems are tightly related to MCP, such as graph coloring, sum coloring, set packing and optimal winner determination. This thesis is devoted to developing effective heuristic approaches to tackle the maximum clique problem and its generalizations. To achieve this, we developed an adaptive multistart tabu search approach for the classic maximum clique problem, a multi-neighborhood tabu search algorithm for the maximum vertex weight clique and a hybrid metaheuristic method for the maximum edge weight clique problem. Moreover, we apply these developed heuristic approaches to solve these hard problems which are tightly related to the maximum clique problem. All algorithms are implemented and successfully tested on a number of benchmark instances from diverse application areas. The proposed methods favorably compete with other state-of-art approaches.; Le problème de la clique maximum (MCP) est un problème d'optimisation combinatoire important avec un large éventail d'applications pratiques dans de nombreux domaines, y compris la recherche d'information, l'analyse de la transmission du signal, la théorie de la classification, l'économie, la planification et l'ingénierie biomédicale. En outre, un certain nombre de problèmes d'optimisation combinatoire sont étroitement liés au MCP, tels que la coloration de graphe, la somme coloration, réglez détermination du gagnant emballage et optimale. Cette thèse est consacrée à l'élaboration d'approches heuristiques efficaces pour s'attaquer au problème de la clique maximum et ses généralisations. Pour atteindre cet objectif, nous avons développé une approche de recherche tabou adaptative multistart pour le problème de clique maximum classique, un algorithme recherche tabou multi-voisinage pour la clique maximum de sommets pondérés, et une méthode métaheuristique hybride pour le problème de la clique maximum d'arêtes pondérés. En outre, nous appliquons ces méthodes heuristiques développées pour résoudre ces problèmes difficiles qui sont étroitement liés au problème de la clique maximum. Tous les algorithmes sont mis en oeuvre et testés avec succès sur un certain nombre de cas de référence provenant de divers domaines d'application. Les méthodes proposées concurrencent favorablement les autres approches de l'état de l'art.

The maximum clique problem (MCP) is an important combinatorial optimization problem with a wide range of practical applications in numerous fields, including information retrieval, signal transmission analysis, classification theory, economics, scheduling, and biomedical engineering. Moreover, a number of combinatorial optimization problems are tightly related to MCP, such as graph coloring, sum coloring, set packing and optimal winner determination. This thesis is devoted to developing effective heuristic approaches to tackle the maximum clique problem and its generalizations. To achieve this, we developed an adaptive multistart tabu search approach for the classic maximum clique problem, a multi-neighborhood tabu search algorithm for the maximum vertex weight clique and a hybrid metaheuristic method for the maximum edge weight clique problem. Moreover, we apply these developed heuristic approaches to solve these hard problems which are tightly related to the maximum clique problem. All algorithms are implemented and successfully tested on a number of benchmark instances from diverse application areas. The proposed methods favorably compete with other state-of-art approaches., Le problème de la clique maximum (MCP) est un problème d'optimisation combinatoire important avec un large éventail d'applications pratiques dans de nombreux domaines, y compris la recherche d'information, l'analyse de la transmission du signal, la théorie de la classification, l'économie, la planification et l'ingénierie biomédicale. En outre, un certain nombre de problèmes d'optimisation combinatoire sont étroitement liés au MCP, tels que la coloration de graphe, la somme coloration, réglez détermination du gagnant emballage et optimale. Cette thèse est consacrée à l'élaboration d'approches heuristiques efficaces pour s'attaquer au problème de la clique maximum et ses généralisations. Pour atteindre cet objectif, nous avons développé une approche de recherche tabou adaptative multistart pour le problème de clique maximum classique, un algorithme recherche tabou multi-voisinage pour la clique maximum de sommets pondérés, et une méthode métaheuristique hybride pour le problème de la clique maximum d'arêtes pondérés. En outre, nous appliquons ces méthodes heuristiques développées pour résoudre ces problèmes difficiles qui sont étroitement liés au problème de la clique maximum. Tous les algorithmes sont mis en oeuvre et testés avec succès sur un certain nombre de cas de référence provenant de divers domaines d'application. Les méthodes proposées concurrencent favorablement les autres approches de l'état de l'art.

Previous investigations showed that interleukin-11 (IL-11) and the IL-11 receptor (IL-11R) are correlated with regulation of tumor progression and may play significant roles in bone metastases. The nonapeptide structure c(CGRRAGGSC) is a phage-display-selected IL-11 mimic that binds to IL-11R. The aim of this study was to synthesize radiolabeled c(CGRRAGGSC) and to investigate the possible interaction between this radioactive probe and an IL-11R-positive bone metastasis model of PC-3 prostate cancer. The molecular probe (99m)Tc-DTPA-c(CGRRAGGSC) was radiolabeled with (99m)Tc using the diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid (DTPA) chelate. Counterstaining was performed with LSS670, a near-infrared dye. The binding sites of the molecular probe in PC-3 cells were observed under a fluorescence microscope. The binding characteristics of the labeled probe were analyzed using radioreceptor analysis. Single photon emission tomography imaging and biodistribution of the probe were investigated using xenografts of PC-3 cells into tibias of nude mice. The labeled product, (99m) Tc-DTPA-c(CGRRAGGSC), was obtained with high labeling efficiency, high radiochemical purity and good stability. The molecular probe was combined with the PC-3 cell membrane and cytoplasm through fluorescence tracing. In the saturation and competitive inhibition experiments performed in vitro, the K(d) value was 0.32 ± 0.02 n m and the B(max) value was 754 ± 34 fmol mg(-1) pro. The probe exhibited a high tumor uptake in vivo. The radioactive molecular probe (99m) Tc-DTPA-c(CGRRAGGSC) may be used as a specific molecular imaging agent for detecting IL-11R overexpression in tumors and bone metastasis, such as prostate cancers.

A complementary DNA (cDNA) fragment library from SH-SY5Y cells is constructed using a restriction display polymerase chain reaction (RD-PCR) technique. Messenger RNA (mRNA) is extracted from SH-SY5Y cells and single-strand cDNA synthesised using an anchored oligo primer (dT18). The second strand is produced by nick translation. The double strands are cleaved with the restriction enzyme Sau3AI and the fragments ligated with universal linker. The products are amplified with universal primers and selected primers, ligated into the pMDI8-T vector, and then sequenced. The library constructed contained 136 subgroups, each comprising seven to 12 cDNA fragments. RD-PCR proved a simple, effective way to construct a cDNA library, and this will contribute to the investigation of gene expression in the neuron in future microarray studies.

Shallow geothermal energy is one of energies which are economic and clean. The paper shows that about 7.0×1011 kWh could be used for heating and cooling each year, evaluated by reservoir assessment method in 31 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions of China. According the energy conservation principle, the whole shallow geothermal energy is used for air-conditions, then the area of air-condition is about 0.4×104 km2/a for heating, which could be used for 1.3 × 104 persons if 30m2 per person, and about 1.3×104 km2/a for heating, which could be used for 4.3×104 persons if 30m2 per person. It could reduce about 2.3×108 tons standard coal used by human, about 6.1×108 tons CO 2 , 1.98×106 tons SO2 and 1.73×106 tons N x O y discharged, which could reduce the trend of global warming.

Solve the problem of study area of agricultural water is the key task for relieving fresh water resource lacking, and straw mulch is the main measure for agronomic water saving in mainland of China, the thesis researches the movement evolution law of soil water in condition of straw mulch on the basis of compared analysis the soil water testing data of mulch test points and non-mulch test points. The research shows that the effect on soil water movement of straw mulch mainly reflect on relative drought period and shallow soil layer, that is to say, soil moisture and soil water potential of mulch test points in drought period are both higher than that of contrast test points, and along with depth increasing, the straw mulch effect weakens. When evaporation mainly is surface inter-naked evaporation, straw mulch will effectively restrain the ineffective evaporation of soil water; when evaporation mainly is vegetation transpiration, the straw mulch obviously promote the transpiration of vegetation. In drought period, straw mulch is not profit for deep soil water infiltration, but advantage for soil water utilization of middle and shallow level (0∼−120cm), however the infiltration speed rate of straw mulch point in high water period is obviously higher than that of contrast point.

Many bearing manufacturers take traditional manual methods to inspect defects of bearings, which are in low efficiency, costly and unreliable. In this paper, a defects inspecting system for tapered roller bearing based on machine vision (DISTRB) is introduced. DISTRB is used to realize online automatic inspection, which includes mechanical parts, electrical parts, lighting equipments, a CCD, a computer and its software. DISTRB actualizes automatic online inspection by CCDs and defects recognizing algorithms and takes the place of workers' eyes. Some implementation devices are used to get high-quality images. Defects recognition algorithms of DISTRB are mainly elaborated. The defects of bearings include roller-missing in tapered roller bearings (RM) and some rollers being installed opposite to the direction of standard need (ROD). The key of DISTRB is to use practical image processing skills to improve the accuracy of the defects recognizing algorithms. The accuracy and stability of DISTRB mainly depends on the algorithms with a precondition of a fixed lighting part and imaging part. The DISTRB involves multi-domains such as mechatronic engineering, computer science, image-processing and pattern recognition. In this paper, taking image of type 32011X bearing as a research object, defects recognizing algorithms for RM and ROD defects are illustrated. After theoretical calculation and experiments in laboratory and practical applications in factories, the defects inspecting system is reliable, stable and effective.

In this paper, we investigate the agency costs of government ownership and their impact on corporate governance and firm value. China is used as a laboratory because of the prevalent state shareholdings in exchange-listed firms. In this context, we specifically consider the trade-offs involved in the voluntary formation of an audit committee when the controlling shareholder is the state. The decision to improve corporate governance (in this case, introduce an audit committee) is shown to be value relevant and a function of existing agency relationships and non-trivial implementation costs. Our findings are robust to the level of pyramid groups, the ownership-control wedge, and financial leverage. The research adds to the debate regarding the effect of government shareholdings on corporate culture and performance - a topic that hastaken on renewed importance in recent times.

Objectives Our study was designed to investigate the role of microRNA-223 (miR-223) and its direct target gene, cardiac troponin I-interacting kinase (TNNI3K), in regulating cardiomyocyte hypertrophy. Methodology Neonatal rat cardiomyocytes (CMs) were cultured from one to two days old Sprague–Dawley rats. Cardiomyocyte hypertrophy was induced by endothelin-1 (ET-1). Expression of miR-223 in CMs was detected by real-time PCR. miR-223 mimics transfection was performed to achieve overexpression of miR-223 in CMs. Cell size was measured via surface area calculation under fluorescence microscopy after anti-α-actinin staining. Expression levels of ANP, α-actinin, Myh6, Myh7, as cardiac hypertrophy related marker genes, were detected by RT-PCR. The expression of TNNI3K protein was analysed by western blot. Luciferase assay was performed to confirm the direct binding of miR-223 to the 3′UTR of TNNI3K mRNA. Results In ET-1 induced hypertrophic CMs, expression of miR-223 was lower than that in normal CMs (Normal CMs: 1.00±0.08 vs Hypertrophic CMs: 0.62±0.16, p 2 vs ET-1 only group: 4680±1040 mm 2 , p Conclusion All these results suggest that TNNI3K, a novel cardiac-specific kinase gene, is a direct target of miR-223. miR-223 plays a important role as suppressor in cardiomyocyte hypertrophy and could be used in clinical treatment of hypertrophy in future.

Objectives The benefit of blocking the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) with conventional RAS blockers in cardiovascular diseases and nephropathy of patients with type 2 diabetes is now well established. Direct renin inhibitor (DRI) as a novel renin-angiotensin system inhibitor has been used in hypertensive patients. However, the efficacy of DRI in type 2 diabetes has not been fully established. In this study, we firstly investigated the protective effect of aliskiren in a mouse model of type 2 diabetes. Methods Groups of db/db mice (C57BLKS/J-leprdb/leprdb), a mouse model of obesity and type 2 diabetes, were treated with aliskiren (3, 6, 12 and 25 mg/kg/day) or hydralazine (80 mg/kg/day) for 6 weeks, and non-diabetic db/m mice (C57BLKS/J-leprdb/+) were used as control. The protective effects were extensively compared among groups. Results Except the lowest dose of aliskiren group, the other doses of aliskiren significantly decreased the blood pressure (BP) of db/db mice. All sub-pressor and hypotensive doses of aliskiren significantly attenuated cardiac fibrosis, cardiac macrophage infiltration, coronary remodelling, albuminuria, renal glomerulus sclerosis, renal macrophage infiltration and improved vascular endothelial function in db/db mice. These protective effects of aliskiren were attributed to the attenuation of cardiac p22 phox -related NADPH oxidase-induced superoxide and the restoration of vascular endothelial nitric oxide synthase production. Aliskiren at the highest dose partially reduced glucose intolerance in db/db mice. Furthermore, the highest dose significantly attenuated the decreases in pancreatic islet insulin content and beta cell mass, and prevented pancreatic islet fibrosis, being associated with the reduction of 8-hydroxy-2’-deoxyguanosine-positive cells and Nox2 expression in pancreatic islets. However, hydralazine showing the same antihypertensive effect as the highest dose of aliskiren did not exert the same protective effect as aliskiren in db/db mice. Conclusions Our work provides the first evidence that direct renin inhibition protects against cardiovascular and renal complications and pancreatic injury in type 2 diabetes, through the attenuation of oxidative stress.

Robot path planning is a NP problem. Traditionaloptimization methods are not very effective to solve it. Traditional genetic algorithm trapped into the local minimum easily. Therefore, based on a simple genetic algorithm and combine the base ideology of orthogonal design method then applied it to the population initialization, using the intergenerational elite mechanism, as well as the introduction of adaptive local search operator to prevent trapped into the local minimum and improvethe convergence speed to form a new genetic algorithm. Through the series of numerical experiments, the new algorithm has been proved to be efficiency.We also use the proposed algorithm to solve the robot path planning problem and the experiment results indicated that the new algorithm is efficiency for solving the robot path planning problems and the best path usually can be found.

Objective To perform high-salt hypertension model in SD rats and observe effects and oxidative stress and gender differences in SD rats, and then evaluate mechanism that blood pressure is affected by oxidative stress induced by cold environment. Methods The male and female SD rats were randomly divided into four groups (n=8): male control group (MC), female control group (FC), male high-salt group (MS), female high-salt group (FS), MC and FC were fed regularly, MS and FS were fed with diet composed of 8% salt. Feeding period was 8 weeks. Four groups were fed regularly in ninth week; in the first 10 weeks, four groups were put into a 4°C artificial climate box in tenth, 1 h per day. Systolic blood pressure (SBP) in SD rats was measured every other day from 1st week to in first 4 days 9th week with tail cuff. Systolic blood pressure in SD rats was measured daily with tail cuff in late 3 days of 9th week and 10th weeks.24-h urine in each group was collected by biological metabolism, calculated accurately. Results 1. High-salt diet for 8 weeks, MS group and FS group blood pressure was significantly higher than the control group the same sex (p Conclusion 1. High-salt diet increased blood pressure, and high-salt diet on blood pressure after high salt gender differences emerged; resume normal diet of high salt hypertensive rats have a certain recovery of renal function, blood pressure, but high salt blood pressure, gender differences still exist in blood pressure. Control group with the same sex, short-term acute cold exposure for high-salt hypertensive rats blood pressure increased significantly; 2. Cold high-salt hypertensive rats after exposure, oxidative stress increased; but male and female rats after exposure to cold and oxidative stress between the gender differences are not shown.

Purpose It is well known that apoptosis of endothelial cell (EC) involves the development of atherosclerosis. Down-regulation of SOCS1 (Suppressor of cytokine signalling-1) could induce apoptosis of a variety of cells. However, it has not been reported whether there is any similar phenomenon in EC. Here, we investigated the effect of SOCS1 silencing on Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cell (HUVEC) apoptosis induced by hypoxia/reoxygenation and its association with atherosclerosis. Methods 1. SOCS1 expression in Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cell (HUVEC) was determined by RT-PCR and Western Blot. 2. Four different pairs of siRNA (siRNA-1, siRNA-2, siRNA−3, siRNA-4) were designed. 3. The negative control siRNAs with fluorescence were divided into four groups according to different concentrations (25 nmol/l, 50 nmol/l, 75 nmol/l, 100 nmol/l) and transfected into HUVEC with liposome. Fluorescent microscope was employed to determine the concentration at which siRNAs were transfected most effectively. 4. HUVEC were divided into eight groups: four groups transfected by the different siRNAs already designed, GAPDH positive control group (GAPDH-siRNA-PC), negative control group (siRNA-NC), mock control group (Mock) and blank control group (Blank). These siRNAs were transfected at the optimal concentration. After 48 h, the one that most extremely silenced SOCS1 was selected by RT-PCR and Western Blot. 5. The selected siRNA as well as siRNA-NC was transfected at the optimal concentration. After 24 h, HUVEC were divided into four groups: a. siRNA-NC; b. siRNA-NC+hypoxia/reoxygenation; c. SOCS1 siRNA; d. SOCS1 siRNA+hypoxia/reoxygenation. Then, the expressions of Caspase−3 and Bax were detected by Western Blot, and the apoptosis rates were assessed by flow cytometry. Results 1. It was 50 nmol/l at which siRNAs were transfected most effectively. 2. The expressions of SOCS1 in siRNA-1, siRNA-2, siRNA−3 and siRNA-4 groups declined compared to four control groups (p 0.05). Bax in SOCS1 siRNA group was higher than that in siRNA-NC group (p 0.05). Conclusion 1. The expression of SOCS1 in EC could be inhibited effectively by RNAi. 2. SOCS1 silencing could exacerbate EC apoptosis induced by hypoxia/reoxygenation.

To report experiences of transcatheter occlusion of ventricular septum residual leakage after Fallot 's tetralogy repair. Chose 9 inpatients (average age was 15.68±5.20 year old) who were diagnosed with ventricular septum residual leakage after Fallot’s tetralogy repair according to history and