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One-pot fabrication of pectin-based biopolymer nanoparticles with tailorable versatility through aqueous solvent/non-solvent switching-induced nanoprecipitation is reported in this paper.

The relation between ischemia and heart failure is well demonstrated, and several studies suggested that realizing the physiological role of autophagy will be of great importance. Luteoloside (Lut) is one of the main components of Lonicera japonica flos and exhibits antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and cardioprotective properties. To determine if Lut pretreatment enhanced autophagy by 14-3-3η expression and the AMPKα-mTOR/ULK1 pathway and protected the neonatal rat cardiomyocytes (NRCMs) against anoxia damage, NRCMs were treated using 20 μM Lut for 36 h, and the anoxia damage model was established using NRCMs. The indexes reflecting the condition of NRCMs, oxidative stress level, and mitochondrial function were evaluated. In addition, the expression and phosphorylation of 14-3-3η and AMPKα/mTOR/ULK1, and autophagy markers (LC3II, P62) and the abundance of autophagy lysosomes were detected. Results revealed that Lut pretreatment alleviated anoxia- induced damage in NRCMs, that is, Lut pretreatment could increase cell viability, decrease LDH activity and apoptosis, suppressed ROS generation and oxidative stress, restored intracellular ATP levels, stabilized MMP levels, and inhibited mPTP opening. Furthermore, Lut pretreatment could enhance autophagy via upregulating 14-3-3η, LC3II expression and increasing p-AMPKα/AMPKα and p-ULK1/ULK1 level, whereas P62 expression and p-mTOR/mTOR level decreased; the fluorescence intensity of autolysosomes also increased. However, in the NRCMs treated with pAD/14-3-3η RNAi or incubated with 3-MA (an autophagy inhibitor), the abovementioned effects of Lut pretreatment were reduced. Taken together, Lut pretreatment could enhance autophagy by upregulating 14-3-3η expression to influence the AMPKα-mTOR/ ULK1 pathway against anoxia-induced damage in NRCMs.

Since the emergence of convolutional neural networks (CNNs), and later vision transformers (ViTs), the common paradigm for model development has always been using a set of identical block types with varying parameters/hyper-parameters. To leverage the benefits of different architectural designs (e.g. CNNs and ViTs), we propose to alternate structurally different types of blocks to generate a new architecture, mimicking how Lego blocks can be assembled together. Using two CNN-based and one SwinViT-based blocks, we investigate three variations to the so-called LegoNet that applies the new concept of block alternation for the segmentation task in medical imaging. We also study a new clinical problem which has not been investigated before, namely the right internal mammary artery (RIMA) and perivascular space segmentation from computed tomography angiography (CTA) which has demonstrated a prognostic value to major cardiovascular outcomes. We compare the model performance against popular CNN and ViT architectures using two large datasets (e.g. achieving 0.749 dice similarity coefficient (DSC) on the larger dataset). We evaluate the performance of the model on three external testing cohorts as well, where an expert clinician made corrections to the model segmented results (DSC>0.90 for the three cohorts). To assess our proposed model for suitability in clinical use, we perform intra- and inter-observer variability analysis. Finally, we investigate a joint self-supervised learning approach to assess its impact on model performance. The code and the pretrained model weights will be available upon acceptance., 12 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables

Purpose: To investigate the influence of elemene on growth and apoptotic changes in bladder cancer cells, and the involvement of the phosphatase and tensin homologous protein (PTEN)-serine/threonine kinase (Akt) signal pathway in the process. Methods: Human bladder cell line SV-HUC-1 and human bladder cancer cell line T24 were randomly assigned to blank control group and elemene groups. Protein expression levels of apoptosis-related factors (Bcl-2, Bax, and caspase-3] and PTEN, Akt, and p-Akt in both cells were determined using western blot assay. Results: In T24 cells, the protein level of Bcl-2 was significantly higher in elemene group than in blank control, while the protein expression levels of Bax and caspase-3 in elemene group were significantly lower than the corresponding levels in blank control group (p < 0.05). The protein expression of PTEN level in T24 cells was significantly higher in elemene group than in blank control group, while protein expression level of p-Akt was significantly lower in elemene group than in blank control (p < 0.05). The Akt protein expression was comparable in elemene and blank control groups. Conclusion: Elemene inhibits the growth and enhances apoptosis of bladder cancer cells through a mechanism involving up-regulation of the expression of PTEN and suppression of the expression of pAkt.

A multiphase flowmeter (MPFM) is used in the upstream oil and gas industry for continuous, in-line, real-time, oil-gas-water flow measurement without fluid separation. An MPFM typically consists of phase-fraction (holdup) and velocity (or flow rate) measurements. It is desirable to have homogeneous flow at the measurement location so that the phase-fraction measurement is representative. A horizontal blind-tee pipe-section is often installed to homogenize flow in the downstream vertical Venturi-based flowmeters; however, little information is available on the effect of horizontal blind-tee depth (HBD) on flow homogeneity. In addition, the Venturi vertical entrance length (VEL) leading to the Venturi inlet from the horizontal blind-tee outlet is another design parameter that may potentially affect the downstream phase distribution. The phase-fraction measurement principle requires liquid properties (e.g. water salinity). The local liquid richness makes the horizontal blind-tee an ideal location for measuring liquid properties; however, an excessive HBD may affect the reliability of the measurements of liquid properties, because local vortices may degrade liquid measurement representativeness if the local liquid velocity is too low. This study uses a computational fluid dynamics approach to evaluate the effect of HBD and VEL on multiphase flow measurement, including the Venturi differential-pressure, the Venturi inlet and the throat phase-fraction, and the local liquid-property at the end of a horizontal blind-tee. The computational results are validated with experimental data collected in a multiphase flow facility. Appropriate HBD and VEL are recommended. Economic Development Board (EDB) Ministry of Education (MOE) Published version This work was supported by Singapore Economic Develop-ment Board and Singapore Ministry of Education AcademicResearch Fund Tier 1 (04MNP002133C160).

In this study, Perilla frutescens essential oil (PEO) loaded microcapsules (PEOM) were successfully prepared and their thermal stability, temperature-responsive releasing effect, antioxidant activity, antibacterial activity, and preservation of peach were systematically investigated. PEOM showed excellent encapsulation efficiency (91.5%) with a core-shell ratio of 1.4:1 and exhibited high thermal stability, indicating that PEOM could effectively maintain PEO release rate. In vitro assays indicated that the optimal kinetic model for PEO release fitted well with first order with a diffusion mechanism. A high level of antioxidant and antibacterial activity of PEOM was maintained. In addition, owing to its sustained release, PEOM could prolong the shelf life of peaches significantly. Therefore, PEOM has potential application and development prospects in the field of food preservation.

Introduction: Aortic aneurysm is a life-threatening disease resulted from progressive dilatation of the aorta, which can be subdivided into thoracic and abdominal aortic aneurysms. Sustained subcutaneous angiotensin II infusion can induce aortic aneurysms in mice. However, the relevance of using angiotensin II induction model to study aneurysm disease and the degree of commonality between species remain elusive.Methods: We utilized scRNA-seq to infer aortic cell sub-structures and transcriptional profiles in clinical patient TAAs and AAAs, as well as mouse models of corresponding diseases (Ang II induction) and in healthy mouse aorta. Unbiased comparison between mice and humans explored the possible reasonability and utility of mouse Ang II-induced aortic aneurysm as a model for human aortic aneurysm diseases. Meanwhile, we performed comparative analysis of aortic aneurysms between TAA and AAA in both organisms.Results and Discussion: We demonstrated similarities and differences of changes in the components of human and mouse cell types, and our unbiased comparison between mouse and human identified well conserved subpopulations of SMCs and macrophages. Furthermore, the results of our comparative analyses suggested different biological functions and distinct potential pathogenic genes for thoracic and abdominal aortic aneurysms. MIF and SPP1 signaling networks participated in aortic aneurysm in both organisms. This study maps aortic aneurysm and offers opportunities for future researches to investigate the potential of subpopulations or marker genes as therapy targets.

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Inhibitors targeting the antiapoptotic molecule BCL-2 have therapeutic potential for the treatment of acute myeloid leukaemia (AML); however, BCL-2 inhibitors such as venetoclax exhibit limited monotherapy efficacy in relapsed or refractory human AML. PI3Kδ/AKT signalling has been shown to be constitutively active in AML patients. Here, we demonstrate that the combination of BCL-2 and PI3Kδ inhibitors exerts synergistic antitumour effects both in vitro and in vivo in AML. Cotreatment with venetoclax and the specific PI3Kδ inhibitor idelalisib significantly enhanced antiproliferative effects and induced caspase-dependent apoptosis in a panel of AML cell lines. The synergistic effects were mechanistically based on the inactivation of AKT/4E-BP-1 signalling and the reduction of MCL-1 expression, which diminished the binding of Bim to MCL-1. Notably, compared with the parental FLT3-ITD-positive MV-4-11, the acquired FLT3 inhibitor quizartinib-resistant xenograft model carrying the F691L mutation, exhibited a markedly higher sensitivity to venetoclax. Furthermore, venetoclax combined with idelalisib led to tumour regression in all animals in this quizartinib-resistant AML model. Thus, these data indicate that combined inhibition of BCL-2 and PI3Kδ may be a promising strategy in AML, especially for patients with FLT3-ITD and/or FLT3-TKD mutations.

Doxorubicin (Dox)-induced cardiotoxicity (DIC) seriously threatens the health of related patients. Studies have confirmed that 14-3-3γ and protein kinase C epsilon (PKCε) are the endogenous protective proteins. Puerarin (Pue) is a bioactive ingredient isolated from the root of Pueraria lobata. It possesses many pharmacological properties, which have been widely used in treating and adjuvant therapy of cardiovascular diseases. In the study, we intended to explore the effects and mechanism of Pue pretreatment to protect the myocardium against DIC injury. Adult mice and H9c2 cells were pretreated with Pue, and the injury model was made with Dox. Results showed that Pue pretreatment alleviated DIC injury, as revealed by increased cell viability, decreased LDH activity and apoptosis, inhibited excess oxidative stress, maintained mitochondrial function and energy metabolism, and improved myocardial function. Furthermore, Pue pretreatment upregulated 14-3-3γ expression, interacted with PKCε, phosphorylated and impelled migration to mitochondria, activated adaptive autophagy, and protected the myocardium. However, pAD/14-3-3γ-shRNA or εV1-2 (a PKCε activity inhibitor) or 3-methyladenine (an autophagy inhibitor) could weaken the above effects of Pue pretreatment. Together, Pue pretreatment could activate adaptive autophagy by the 14-3-3γ/PKCε pathway and protect the myocardium against DIC injury.

The study of the offsetting mechanism for coastal wetlands based on physical parameters is of significance because it would promote the practice of ecological offsetting in coastal wetlands, the sustainable utilization of resources, and biodiversity conservation. The theoretical framework and system of ecological offsetting based on physical parameters was discussed, including the definition, principle and characteristics, main offsetting methods, and offsetting subjects and objects, and the difference between ecological offsetting and ecological restoration was clarified. Concepts such as offset baseline and offset ratio were described in detail. We propose that an ecological offsetting mode should take into consideration Chinese characteristics, and the damaged coastal wetland should be included as the main offset object. We propose strategies for improvement in China's coastal wetlands ecological offsetting, which mainly comprise clarifying the property rights of coastal wetlands, promoting the marketing of ecological offsetting for coastal wetlands, improving the in-kind ecological offsetting mechanism, increasing funding, improving coastal wetland monitoring and management systems, improving ecological offsetting legislation for coastal wetlands, and strengthening coastal wetland education and training for the public. It is extremely important to promote the practice of ecological offsetting based on the physical parameters of coastal wetlands, the sustainable use of resources, and biodiversity protection. It is also necessary to develop the theory of ecological offsetting for coastal wetlands to improve the effectiveness of ecological offsetting measures in the future.

Although coastal areas account for less than 4% of the earth's land area, coastal habitats are one of the world's most valuable natural resources. Over one-third of the human population lives within 100 km of the coastline. Climate change and human activities exacerbate the global threat of coastal erosion and storm surges. Coastal protection is effective against coastal erosion, storm risk, and sea level rise. This paper summarized the coastal hardening conducted in major coastal regions of the world (EU, USA, and China) and the main ecological effects of coastal hardening. Ten percent of Europe's coastline was hardened by 2006, approximately 14% of the total US coastline had been armored by 2015, and nearly 60% of China's coastline was hardened by 2014. Shoreline hardening can lead to a series of changes in coastal wetlands, such as obstruction of important physical, chemical, and biological processes, habitat loss and fragmentation; and changes in biological connectivity. Increasing the structural complexity of hardening facilities and replacing traditional hardened defense with a hybrid coastal defense can reduce the threat of coastal hardening to coastal wetland ecosystems. However, the assessment of ecological service function and storm resistance of hardening defenses and hybrid coastal defenses is still lacking and needs to be further studied.

Background Levodopa-carbidopa intestinal gel (LCIG) is a new type of administration that results in steadier levodopa plasma concentrations in advanced Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients and effectively reduces poor mobility and dyskinesia. Methods Electronic databases were searched up to January 1, 2018. The inclusion criteria for this review were as follows: LCIG vs oral medication in advanced PD patients. Results Five trials, with a total of 198 patients, met all the inclusion criteria. The quality score of these studies ranged from 3 to 5. Two clinical trials showed that compared with oral medication, LCIG had a better treatment effect on on-time with troublesome dyskinesia (TSD) (p = 0.02) and on-time without TSD (p < 0.00001) in advanced PD patients. In addition, four of the 5 studies showed that the LCIG may have better efficacy than oral medication for improving the scores of the UPDRS, and two studies found that LCIG demonstrated better efficacy for improving the PDQ-39 scores. The video recording results indicated a potential decline in both dyskinesia and the “off” state in LCIG-treated patients. The incidence of adverse events was not significantly different between the LCIG and oral medication groups. Conclusion Compared with oral treatment, LCIG exerts its effectiveness, mostly by reducing the time of on-time with TSD, increasing the time of on-time without TSD and scores of UPDRS and PDQ-39. It is suggesting that LCIG was likely to be a new type of administration used in clinical applications. However, due to methodological flaws, these findings should be viewed with caution, and more RCTs are needed in the field to complement our findings.

Additional file 1: Table 1. Alpha diversity indices of all oropharyngeal samples. Fig. 1. Multiple rarefaction curves of the richness and Rank Abundance. Fig. 2 NMDS based on the Bray-Curtis distances at the OTU level at 97% identity. Fig. 3 All significantly different phyla and genera detected by LefSe.

Steel corrugated shear walls (SCSWs) are an alternative to ordinary steel plate shear walls (SPSWs) with flat infill plates. This paper deals with the shear resistance design of corrugated ...

Yu Xiong, Cheng-Rong Xie, Sheng Zhang, Jin Chen, Zhen-Yu YinDepartment of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Zhongshan Hospital, Xiamen University, Fujian Provincial Key Laboratory of Chronic Liver Disease and Hepatocellular Carcinoma, Xiamen 361004, Fujian, People’s Republic of ChinaBackground/aims: Circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) contains tumor-specific alterations and could potentially serve as “liquid biopsy”. The study was to identify a novel panel of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)-specific mutations in plasma cfDNA and to assess its value in the diagnosis of HCC.Materials and methods: 33 HCC tissue, 37 blood, and 37 swab specimens were collected from HCC patients and control individuals. Genomic DNA was subjected to next-generation sequencing. The selected mutations in the plasma cfDNA in the HCC versus control groups were compared, and the diagnostic performance of cfDNA mutations was evaluated.Results: A majority of selected mutations in the HCC tissue DNA, ranging from 52% to 84%, was detected in the matched plasma cfDNA. For the selected mutations, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis revealed an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.92, sensitivity of 65%, and specificity of 100% for the diagnosis of HCC regardless of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) status. Detection of the selected mutations in cfDNA in combination with AFP exhibited better diagnosis performance, with AUC of 0.96, sensitivity of 73%, and specificity of 100% for AFP-negative patients, whereas the AUC was 0.86 with sensitivity of 53% and specificity of 100% for AFP-positive patients. Furthermore, the rates of the selected mutations were significantly greater in recurrent HCC than in non-recurrent HCC (P

Chengkuan Cai, Yunlai Zhi, Kunpeng Wang, Pengcheng Zhang, Zhenshuai Ji, Cheng Xie, Fanghu SunDepartment of Urology, The Affiliated Lianyungang Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, Lianyungang 222061, People’s Republic of ChinaObjective: Circular RNA is a type of endogenous RNA molecule with a stable closed-loop structure which is ubiquitous in mammals. Circular RNA HIPK3 (circHIPK3) is highly expressed in hepatocellular carcinoma and promotes the growth of hepatoma cells. However, its role in prostate cancer (PCa) has not been reported. This study aims to explore whether circHIPK3 could affect the proliferative and invasive potentials of PCa cells by regulating miRNA-338-3p.Methods: Expression levels of circHIPK3 and miRNA-338-3p in PCa tissues and cells were determined by RT-qPCR. The regulatory effects of circHIPK3 and miRNA-338-3p on proliferative and invasive potentials of PCa cells were evaluated by CCK-8 and transwell assay, respectively. We verified the binding between miRNA-338-3p and ADAM17, as well as miRNA-338-3p and circHIPK3 through dual-luciferase reporter gene assay. Rescue experiments were conducted to clarify whether circHIPK3 affected the proliferative and invasive potentials of PCa cells by regulating miRNA-338-3p.Results: Expression level of circHIPK3 in PCa tissues was remarkably higher than that of paracancerous tissues. Knockdown of circHIPK3 inhibited the proliferative and invasive rates of PC-3 and DU145 cells. Dual-luciferase reporter gene assay indicated that circHIPK3 could bind to miRNA-338-3p. Moreover, miRNA-338-3p expression was downregulated in PCa tissues. miRNA-338-3p expression was negatively correlated with lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis. miRNA-338-3p overexpression markedly reduced proliferative and invasive abilities of PC-3 and DU145 cells. Furthermore, ADAM17 was confirmed to be the target gene of miRNA-338-3p. Overexpression of ADAM17 enhanced proliferative and invasive abilities of PC-3 and DU145 cells. Finally, rescue experiments indicated that miRNA-338-3p knockdown in PC-3 and DU145 cells partially reversed the regulatory effects of circHIPK3 on proliferative and invasive potentials.Conclusion: Overexpression of circHIPK3 promotes the proliferative and invasive potentials of PCa cells through sponging miRNA-338-3p to regulate ADAM17 expression, thus accelerating the malignant progression of PCa.Keywords: CircHIPK3, miRNA-338-3p, ADAM17, prostate cancer

Background: Gastric ulcer (GU) is a common digestive system disease, and the main clinical manifestations are nausea and epigastric pain. In recent years, due to increased life pressure, unhealthy eating habits and environment, the incidence of gastric ulcer has increased year by year. Because the disease has a long treatment cycle and is prone to relapse, if it cannot be controlled in time, it can cause the disease to prolong, affect the daily life and health of the patient, and even cause complications such as upper gastrointestinal bleeding, ulcer perforation, and pyloric obstruction. Helicobacter pylori infection is one of the main causes of GU. Clinically, the curative effect of western medicine or traditional Chinese medicine cannot reach the ideal level, so in recent years, the combination of traditional Chinese and western medicine has been highly praised. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of Chinese medicine combined with omeprazole for GU. Methods: The data and information will be retrieved from the databases of PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, CNKI, VIP, and Wanfang data. Literature search is limited to Chinese and English. The search time range is from the establishment of the database to April 7, 2021. The search strategy uses a combination of subject terms and free words to search. In order to avoid omissions, the search scope includes subject terms, keywords, or full text. Two reviewers will independently exclude substandard articles and extract eligible data. The risk of bias will be assessed using the Cochrane Handbook 5.1.0 for Systematic Reviews of Interventions. RevMan 5.3 will be used for systematic review and meta-analysis. This protocol will be reported according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Protocols (PRISMA-P) statement, and the systematic review will be reported with the PRISMA statement. Results and conclusion: The efficacy and safety of Chinese medicine combined with omeprazole for the treatment of GU will be evaluated, and the conclusion will be published to provide medical evidence for a better clinical decision of patients with GU.

In order to overcome the limitations of computer- aided English translation system, this paper proposes a novel computer-aided English translation system based on artificial intelligence technology. The system fully combines the advantages of artificial intelligence technology, can simulate human intelligence, according to the needs of users to carry out a series of work. Based on this, the system can also achieve innovation on the basis of the existing computer-aided translation system, and improve the quality of translation from terms management and quality management. The results show that the system can strengthen the combination of artificial intelligence technology and computer-aided translation system, and give full play to the advantages of artificial intelligence technology and computer-aided translation technology.

The microstructure is an essential part of materials, storing the genes of materials and having a decisive influence on materials' physical and chemical properties. The material genetic engineering program aims to establish the relationship between material composition/process, organization, and performance to realize the reverse design of materials, thereby accelerating the research and development of new materials. However, tissue analysis methods of materials science, such as metallographic analysis, XRD analysis, and EBSD analysis, cannot directly establish a complete quantitative relationship between tissue structure and performance. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel data-knowledge-driven organization representation and performance prediction method to obtain a quantitative structure-performance relationship. First, a knowledge graph based on EBSD is constructed to describe the material's mesoscopic microstructure. Then a graph representation learning network based on graph attention is constructed, and the EBSD organizational knowledge graph is input into the network to obtain graph-level feature embedding. Finally, the graph-level feature embedding is input to a graph feature mapping network to obtain the material's mechanical properties. The experimental results show that our method is superior to traditional machine learning and machine vision methods.

Suffering from the semantic insufficiency and domain-shift problems, most of existing state-of-the-art methods fail to achieve satisfactory results for Zero-Shot Learning (ZSL). In order to alleviate these problems, we propose a novel generative ZSL method to learn more generalized features from multi-knowledge with continuously generated new semantics in semantic-to-visual embedding. In our approach, the proposed Multi-Knowledge Fusion Network (MKFNet) takes different semantic features from multi-knowledge as input, which enables more relevant semantic features to be trained for semantic-to-visual embedding, and finally generates more generalized visual features by adaptively fusing visual features from different knowledge domain. The proposed New Feature Generator (NFG) with adaptive genetic strategy is used to enrich semantic information on the one hand, and on the other hand it greatly improves the intersection of visual feature generated by MKFNet and unseen visual faetures. Empirically, we show that our approach can achieve significantly better performance compared to existing state-of-the-art methods on a large number of benchmarks for several ZSL tasks, including traditional ZSL, generalized ZSL and zero-shot retrieval.

Limited permeability in solid tumors significantly restricts the anticancer efficacy of nanomedicines. Light-driven nanomotors powered by photothermal converting engines are appealing carriers for directional drug delivery and simultaneous phototherapy. Nowadays, it is still a great challenge to construct metal-free photothermal nanomotors for a programmable anticancer treatment. Herein, one kind of photoactivated organic nanomachines is reported with asymmetric geometry assembled by light-to-heat converting semiconducting polymer engine and macromolecular anticancer payload through a straightforward nanoprecipitation process. The NIR-fueled polymer engine can be remotely controlled to power the nanomachines for light-driven thermophoresis in the liquid media and simultaneously thermal ablating the cancer cells. The great manipulability of the nanomachines allows for programming of their self-propulsion in the tumor microenvironment for effectively improving cellular uptake and tumor penetration of the anticancer payload. Taking the benefit from this behavior, a programmed treatment process is established at a low drug dose and a low photothermal temperature for significantly enhancing the antitumor efficacy.

With 20 years of operations, multiphase flowmeters (MPFMs) using a combination of venturi and multi-energy gamma-ray absorption have gained acceptance in the oil and gas industry by demonstrating reliable measurement and operational robustness. Nonetheless, some challenging operating scenarios are encountered such as significant water salinity changes in multiphase and wet-gas flows and rapid detection of small water quantities during production. Although MPFMs are not affected by small water salinity changes, inaccurate flow rates can be calculated when water salinity significantly departs from the initial properties. To maintain measurement metrology as per specifications, the water-point should be manually modified to track variations; however, this operation is time consuming and may incur nonproductive time. Interpreting the multiphase mixture's dielectric constant and electrical conductivity simultaneously measured by a new microwave water salinity sensor at a high data acquisition rate shows that water salinity can be tracked online in the presence of oil, gas, and sand, and small water quantities can be detected rapidly in multiphase and wet-gas flows. The detection of the first produced water is of paramount importance in many applications, such as for fields with high H2S production, where existing processing plants usually have limitations in treating produced water with dissolved H2S. Early detection of produced water in oil is required, enabling operators to take informed decisions about the oil production strategy as well as water treatment and corrosion protection plans. Extensive analyses in flow loops and field operations with the new microwave water salinity sensor demonstrate that the water detection limit is lowered from the typical ∼1000-ppm water volume fraction (WVF) for the MPFM to a remarkably low 50 ppm. This paper describes the working principles of a new sensor and method, that enable additional capabilities to maintain accurate water-liquid ratio (WLR) measurement in situations where significant water salinity changes occur and to provide a rapid, much lower WVF detection level. Successful cases demonstrating first-water detection in flow loop tests and in field operations are also presented.

In order to locate short circuit fault in power cable systems accurately and in a timely manner, this paper proposes a novel traveling-wave-based fault location method improved by unsupervised learning. There are two main steps of the method: a) record the traveling-wave data and build a sheath current matrix; b) cluster the data and identify the arrival time by the characteristic cluster. The improvement mainly lies in that the high-dimensional data can be directly used for clustering. A PSCAD (Power System Computer Aided Design) simulation has been carried out for a selected HV (high voltage) cable circuit. Results indicate that the hierarchical structure of condensed cluster tree just corresponds to the positional relationship between the fault point and monitoring points. The clustering results can be used for the identification of the arrival time of the traveling wave. The potential problems of the method lie in the “noise” identification. Ordinary samples can be labeled as “noise” by HDBSCAN. The combined use of DBSCAN and HDBSCAN maybe a solution for the “noise” problem.

In recent years there has been growing evidence regarding the effect of microbiota on the skeletal growth and homeostasis. Here we present, for the first time, accelerated longitudinal and radial bone growth in young (7-week-old) germ-free male rats after short-term exposure to a newly established gut microbiota. Changes in bone mass and structure were analyzed after 10 days following the onset of colonization through cohousing with conventional rats and revealed unprecedented acceleration of bone accrual in cortical and trabecular compartments, increased bone tissue mineral density, improved proliferation and hypertrophy of growth plate chondrocytes, bone lengthening, and preferential deposition of periosteal bone in tibia diaphysis. In addition, the number of small-in-size adipocytes increased, while the number of megakaryocytes decreased, in the bone marrow of conventionalized germ-free rats. The observed changes in bone status were paralleled with a positive shift in microbiota composition towards short chain fatty acids (SCFA)-producing microbes, which reflected a dramatic increase in cecal concentration of SCFA, specifically butyrate. Further, reconstitution of the host holobiont increased hepatic expression of IGF-1 and its circulating levels, implicating an involvement of the somatotropic axis. Increased serum levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D and alkaline phosphatase pointed toward an active process of bone formation. The acute stimulatory effect on bone growth occurred independently of body mass increase and resembled reversal of dysbiosis in adolescence, which is marked by rapid skeletal expansion. These findings may help in developing microbiota-based therapeutics to combat bone related disorders resulting from hormonal defects and/or malnutrition in children and adolescence.

Background: miRNAs have been reported to be involved in multiple biological processes of gliomas. Here, we aimed to analyze miR-4310 and its correlation genes involved in the tumor progression of human glioma.Methods: miR-4310 expression levels were examined in glioma and non-tumor brain (NB) tissues. The molecular mechanisms of miR-4310 expression and its effects on cell proliferation, migration, and invasion were explored by 3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5 diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) , Transwell chamber, Boyden chamber, and western blot analyses, as well as in vivo tumorigenesis in nude mice. The relationships among miR-4310, SP1, and phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) were explored by chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP), agarose gel electrophoresis, electrophoresis mobility shift (EMSA), and dual luciferase reporter gene assays. Results: miR-4310 expression was upregulated in glioma tissues compared to NB. Overexpressed miR-4310 promoted glioma cell proliferation, migration, and invasion in vitro and tumorigenesis in vivo . Inhibition of miR-4310 was sufficient to reverse these results. Mechanistic analyses revealed that miR-4310 promoted glioma progression through the PI3K/AKT pathway by targeting PTEN. Additionally, SP1 induced the expression of miR-4310 by binding to its promoter region. Conclusion: miR-4310 promotes the progression of glioma by targeting PTEN and activating the PI3K/AKT pathway meanwhile the expression of miR-4310 is induced by SP1.

To date, most research on the characteristics of glacial debris flow along the Sichuan–Tibet railway has focused on numerical simulations and remote sensing, resulting in a lack of direct experimental data from debris flow samples. Therefore, in the present study, a field investigation was conducted along the Sichuan–Tibet railway, and 55 samples of glacial debris flow deposits were systematically analyzed to determine their grading and rheological properties. This is the first systematic experimental study on glacial debris flow deposits. The results showed that the proportion of coarse particles was high and the proportion of fine particles was low in the glacial debris flow along the Sichuan–Tibet railway. The average gravel and sand contents were 37.8% and 58%, respectively, and the average contents of silt and clay were 3.7% and 0.47%, respectively. The average fractal dimension was 2.1507, which is much greater than that of viscous debris flow. Under the same gravity and shear rate, the stress of typical glacial debris flow was significantly less than that of viscous debris flow, whereas the variability of the stress was more significant. These findings will contribute to revealing the movement rules and disaster risk of glacier debris flow along the Sichuan–Tibet railway and have considerable theoretical and practical significance for ensuring safety during both its construction and later operation.

Additional file 2: Figure S1. a–d Protein quantitative analysis for Fig. 1g, h. e Protein quantitative analysis for Fig. 3c. f–i Protein quantitative analysis for Fig. 4e, f. j–m Protein quantitative analysis for Fig. 5c, d.

Additional file 1: Table S1. The primers and sequence used in this study. Table S2. A list of antibodies used for Western blot, IHC staining, CHIP, EMSA.

Additional file 3: Figure S2. a, b Fluorescence analysis and qPCR assay to confirm the efficiency of U87 and LN229 after transfection with lentivirus. c-h Expression of SP1 and PTEN in each grade of glioma was shown, and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis based on SP1 and PTEN expression were performed in CGGA datasets. i-k Kaplan–Meier survival analysis of overall survival of 86 glioma patients on the basis of SP1, PTEN and miR-4310 expression levels were performed in Nanfang Hospital cohort. l The example diagram of high expression and low expression of miR-4310, PTEN and SP1 in ISH or IHC.

Hydrogen injections in the manifold and diffusion processes have an important influence on the formation of mixture and the preventing of backfire of hydrogen internal combustion engine. An experimental study on jet characteristics of injection hydrogen under high pressure was investigated in a constant volume chamber using high speed photograph. Acquiring the development process of hydrogen injection form, at the same time, the law of hydrogen injection penetration distance with time under various injection conditions was obtained. The test results show that: as injection pressure increases, the hydrogen penetration rate increases; as ambient pressure increases, the penetration rate decreases; as the injection pulse width increases, the injection rate has no significant change. When the ratio of injection pressure and ambient pressure is less than or equal to 2.5, the hydrogen injection column will be broken into two sections; when this ratio is larger than 2.5, the hydrogen injection is a consequent column. A 3D calculation model of PFI hydrogen engine was established based on the characteristics of hydrogen injection. Experimental results demonstrated the CFD calculation model under various engine speeds and loads. The complete calculation of these results permitted to obtain the optimum injection control strategy which meets the power demand and avoids backfire.

Since the ImageNet competition was held in 2012, the machine learning algorithm has performed very well on the image classification task. In object classification task, there are still some problems. For example, similar categories are difficult to be distinguished in images. In addition, with the increasing number of object categories, the background of scene has become another crucial issue in object classification. This paper focuses on image object recognition and makes two major contributions to tackle these issues. Firstly, we propose a semantic refinement method that analyzes the relationship among similar categories in images from the perspective of semantic knowledge. The knowledge of the relationship between semantics comes from a wide range of open knowledge. Secondly, we utilize the knowledge graph method to create the image knowledge graph with multiple categories in images. Our method exploits the knowledge from the adjacency matrix computed on train data to merge relevant classes into graph. We conduct extensive experiments on large-scale image datasets (ImageNet), demonstrating the effectiveness of our approach. Further, our method participates in ILSVRC 2012 challenges, and obtain the new state-of-the-art results on the ImageNet (82.43%).

Three dinuclear lanthanide complexes, [Ln2(L)2(μ3-OAc)4(H2O)2]⋅2H2O (Ln = La (1), Eu (2) and Dy (3), HL = N’-(2-hydroxybenzylidene) nicotinohydrazide), have been synthesized and characterized by IR, elemental analysis and X-ray single-crystal diffraction. Crystallographic study revealed that the representative complex 1 displays a discrete dinuclear structure with a distorted tricapped trigonal prismatic geometry around La(III) ion. The interaction of complexes 1–3 with CT-DNA was investigated by absorption spectra, fluorescence quenching and viscosity, which reveals that the complexes bind to CT-DNA with a moderate intercalative mode. The complexes exhibited obvious DNA cleavage activities in the presence of H2O2. All complexes could bind to human serum albumin (HSA) with medium affinity through static mode; thus, HSA could effectively transport complexes. Furthermore, three complexes exhibited specific cytotoxicity to A549 cancer cells in micromole magnitude than other cancer cells tested and less toxicity than cisplatin for normal human cells HUVEC, in which massive cell apoptosis was induced by complexes through producing DNA damage and suppressing DNA synthesis. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma

Background. Prostate cancer (PCa) is the ninth most common cause of cancer death globally. Many studies have investigated aspirin exposure and mortality risk among PCa patients, returning inconsistent results. We conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis to explore the association between aspirin exposure and mortality risk among PCa patients and to investigate potential dose/duration/frequency-response relationships. Methods and Results. Studies published from 1980 to 2018 of PubMed and EMBASE databases were searched. We included 14 studies with 110,000 participants. Multivariate-adjusted odds ratios (ORs) were pooled using random-effect models. Potential dose/duration/frequency-response relationships were evaluated for aspirin exposure and prostate cancer-specific mortality (PCSM) risk. We did not detect an association between the highest aspirin exposure and mortality risk (PCSM of prediagnostic aspirin exposure, OR: 0.96, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.87-1. 07, I2 = 0%; PCSM of postdiagnostic aspirin exposure, OR:0.92, 95% CI: 0.77-1.10, I2 = 56.9%; all-cause mortality [ACM] of prediagnostic aspirin exposure, OR: 0.96, 95% CI: 0.88-1.04, I2 = 9.4%; ACM of postdiagnostic aspirin exposure, OR: 0.95, 95% CI: 0.73-1.23, I2 = 88.9%). There was no significant dose/frequency-response association observed for aspirin exposure and PCSM risk. On duration-response analysis, we found that short-term postdiagnostic aspirin exposure (shorter than 2.5 years) increased the risk of PCSM. Conclusions. Our meta-analysis suggests that there is no association between aspirin exposure and PCSM risk. Nor is there an association between the highest aspirin exposure and ACM risk among PCa patients. More studies are needed for a further dose/duration/frequency-response meta-analysis.

this paper discusses research and trial application of mobile sensing and interactive diagnostic technology for power cable lines. The comprehensive construction of intelligent operation and maintenance system combined with the modern information technology, intelligent technology and the traditional technique is an urgent demand. The mobile sensing and interactive diagnostic technology for power cable lines integrates technique of conventional statue detecting, on-line monitoring, tunnel monitoring and patrol robot, supported by the internet of things technology and combined with RFID technology, individual mobile terminal technology, multiple states sensing technology, patrol robot technology, the distributed diagnosis technology and data interactive technology. The whole system makes operation staffs conveniently acquire operation indicators and preliminary analysis of power cables lines and tunnels in the process of patrol and maintenance, master and update real-time operational information of power cables lines and tunnels, such as operating state, fault prediction, risk level and maintenance recommendation by communicating with control center platform. Further application of the technology will innovate maintenance mode and promote intelligent level, efficiency and effects of operating management and maintenance of power cable lines comprehensively.

In recent years, SGCC accelerate the establishment of distribution power networks. The quality management of distribution cables devices directly affects the reliability of power grid operation. This paper proposes a new system about the quality evaluation and management of distribution network cables and accessories based on life-cycle quality evaluation model, which includes access quality quantitative evaluation, operating performance quantitative evaluation and interact overall process quantitative evaluation. It aims to establish the quality evaluation and control platform based on data fusion analysis of life-cycle operation and maintenance data to provide solution of the interact operational process quality evaluation and control of distribution cables and accessories and improve the reliability of power grid operation.

Deep reinforcement learning has demonstrated increasing capabilities for continuous control problems, including agents that can move with skill and agility through their environment. An open problem in this setting is that of developing good strategies for integrating or merging policies for multiple skills, where each individual skill is a specialist in a specific skill and its associated state distribution. We extend policy distillation methods to the continuous action setting and leverage this technique to combine expert policies, as evaluated in the domain of simulated bipedal locomotion across different classes of terrain. We also introduce an input injection method for augmenting an existing policy network to exploit new input features. Lastly, our method uses transfer learning to assist in the efficient acquisition of new skills. The combination of these methods allows a policy to be incrementally augmented with new skills. We compare our progressive learning and integration via distillation (PLAID) method against three alternative baselines., Comment: 15 pages, Conference paper

Background. Acute Ischemic Stroke (AIS) is a common cause of death worldwide and the leading cause of long-term severe disability. Endovascular bridging therapies (EBT), including endovascular thrombectomy (ET) and intra-arterial thrombolytic (IAT), have been recommended to realize a favorable functional outcome for AIS patients. Methods. An overview of meta-analyses of primary randomized controlled trial (RCT) studies was performed evaluating EBT for AIS patients compared with usual care. Results. Ten meta-analyses were included in this overview. ET was associated with a higher incidence of achieving functional outcome improvement, defined as a modified Rankin scale of 0 to 1 (mRS, p=0.003), 0 to 2 (p

To study the potential impact of ABCA1 on the function of the placenta.Trophoblasts and macrophages were isolated from the placenta with enzymatic digestion; Immunofluorescence assay was used to detect the location of ABCA1 in cells; RT-PCR and Western-blot were used to detect the expression of ABCA1; The cholesterol efflux assays of primary trophoblasts was detected by Amplex Red cholesterol assay kit (Invitrogen);Inflammatory factor secretion from primary macrophages was detected by Elisa.ABCA1 was mainly located on trophoblast membranes. Decreased ABCA1 expression in trophoblasts reduced the cholesterol efflux of trophoblasts (P0.01). while increased ABCA1 expression in trophoblasts reduced the cholesterol efflux of trophoblasts (P0.05). ABCA1 was uniformly expressed on the cell membrane, cytoplasm, and nucleus of macrophages. Decreased ABCA1 expression in macrophages, increased inflammatory factors but reduced IL-10 (P0.01). While increased ABCA1 expression in macrophages, reduced inflammatory factors but increased IL-10 (P0.01).ABCA1 may be a potential target for the prevention of gestation diseases.