Search

Building end-to-end task bots and maintaining their integration with new functionalities using minimal human efforts is a long-standing challenge in dialog research. Recently large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated exceptional proficiency in conversational engagement and adherence to instructions across various downstream tasks. In this work, we introduce SGP-TOD, Schema-Guided Prompting for building Task-Oriented Dialog systems effortlessly based on LLMs. Utilizing the symbolic knowledge -- task schema, we instruct fixed LLMs to generate appropriate responses on novel tasks, circumventing the need for training data. Specifically, SGP-TOD comprises three components: a LLM for engaging with users, a DST Prompter to aid the LLM with dialog state tracking, which is then used to retrieve database items, and a Policy Prompter to elicit proper responses adhering to the provided dialog policy. Experimental results on Multiwoz, RADDLE and STAR datasets show that our training-free strategy SGP-TOD, without any task-specific data, yields state-of-the-art (SOTA) zero-shot performance, greatly surpasses the few-shot approaches. In a domain-extension setting, SGP-TOD aptly adapts to new functionalities by merely adding supplementary schema rules. We make our code and data publicly available., 21 pages, 13 figures

Recommendation systems aim to predict users' feedback on items not exposed to them. Confounding bias arises due to the presence of unmeasured variables (e.g., the socio-economic status of a user) that can affect both a user's exposure and feedback. Existing methods either (1) make untenable assumptions about these unmeasured variables or (2) directly infer latent confounders from users' exposure. However, they cannot guarantee the identification of counterfactual feedback, which can lead to biased predictions. In this work, we propose a novel method, i.e., identifiable deconfounder (iDCF), which leverages a set of proxy variables (e.g., observed user features) to resolve the aforementioned non-identification issue. The proposed iDCF is a general deconfounded recommendation framework that applies proximal causal inference to infer the unmeasured confounders and identify the counterfactual feedback with theoretical guarantees. Extensive experiments on various real-world and synthetic datasets verify the proposed method's effectiveness and robustness.

Additional file 1. Additional tables S1–S5 and additional figures S1–S5.

Food is the basic material basis for human survival. Sudden food safety event risks mainly derive from accidental or natural food safety risks, poor food storage environments, and inefficient government regulation policies. The factor identification of sudden food safety risks is the key to controlling such risks. Therefore, the efficient and scientific identification of risk sources and types will be very important in managing sudden food safety risks. In this study, 16 sudden food safety event risk factors were identified through a literature review, and their interactive relationships were clarified using an interpretive structural model (ISM). Then, the weights of influencing factors were calculated through the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and the combined weight of indices was determined. Results show that the 16 sudden food safety event risk factors can be divided into four levels. The quality standard for food safety (S5) and food storage (S14) is at the bottom layer of risks of sudden food safety events (the first-layer index weight is 36.899%). The judgment matrices at the four levels passed the consistency check. The influence weight of the factor "whether it contains transgenic raw materials" (S9) ranks second (the total weight is 18.151%). This index system for sudden food safety event risk factors is highly effective, with good operability for managing sudden food safety event risks. The obtained conclusions are important reference values for identifying the factors influencing food safety risk management, determining the emphasis of food safety supervision, realizing food risk prevention and control, and strengthening and guaranteeing the food safety level.

Off-policy learning, referring to the procedure of policy optimization with access only to logged feedback data, has shown importance in various real-world applications, such as search engines, recommender systems, and etc. While the ground-truth logging policy, which generates the logged data, is usually unknown, previous work simply takes its estimated value in off-policy learning, ignoring both high bias and high variance resulted from such an estimator, especially on samples with small and inaccurately estimated logging probabilities. In this work, we explicitly model the uncertainty in the estimated logging policy and propose a Uncertainty-aware Inverse Propensity Score estimator (UIPS) for improved off-policy learning. Experiment results on synthetic and three real-world recommendation datasets demonstrate the advantageous sample efficiency of the proposed UIPS estimator against an extensive list of state-of-the-art baselines.

Background Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have recently been shown as important regulators in the pathogenesis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The purpose of this work was to explore the precise parts played by circRNA SEC31 homolog A (circSEC31A, hsa_circ_0001421) in NSCLC malignant progression. Methods The expression levels of circSEC31A, miR-376a and SEC31 homolog A (SEC31A) were gauged by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) or Western blot. Subcellular fractionation assay was used to determine the subcellular localization of circSEC31A, and RNase R assay was performed to assess the stability of circSEC31A. Cell migration and invasion were detected by transwell assay, and cell apoptosis was evaluated using flow cytometry. Measurement of glucose consumption, lactate production and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) level were done using corresponding assay kits. The targeted interactions among circSEC31A, miR-376a and SEC31A were confirmed by the dual-luciferase reporter and RNA pull-down assays. Animal studies were performed to observe the role of circSEC31A in tumor growth in vivo. Results Our data indicated that circSEC31A and SEC31A were upregulated in NSCLC tissues and cells. CircSEC31A knockdown suppressed NSCLC cell migration, invasion, glycolysis and promoted apoptosis in vitro, as well as hindered tumor growth in vivo. Mechanistically, circSEC31A directly interacted with miR-376a, and circSEC31A depletion regulated NSCLC cell malignant progression by miR-376a. Moreover, SEC31A was a functional target of miR-376a, and it mediated the regulatory impact of miR-376a overexpression on NSCLC cell progression. Furthermore, circSEC31A controlled SEC31A expression through acting as a miR-376a sponge. Conclusion Our findings first identified that the knockdown of circSEC31A suppressed NSCLC malignant progression at least partly through modulating SEC31A expression by acting as a miR-376a sponge, providing a novel molecular target of NSCLC therapy.

Additional file 1: Table S1. The morphological characteristics information of ten Mantidis Ootheca representative. Table S2. Primer tag sequence. Table S3. Mantidis COI records from GenBank. Table S4. 54 ASVs and Blast-Megan results. Table S5. Number of reads available for each sample. Table S6. Taxonomic identification information of 37 ASVs. Table S7. Sequence readings of pest species*. Table S8. Sequence readings of mantis species before rarefied*. Table S9. Sequence readings of mantis species after rarefied*. Fig. S1. The phylogeny of Mantis COI sequences downloaded from NCBI. A. The neighbor-joining tree based on 232 bp fragment trimmed by LCO1490/HCO1777. B. The neighbor-joining tree based on 658 bp fragment trimmed by LCO1490/HCO2198. Fig. S2. The gel electrophoresis diagram of the PCR products of 18 samples. From left to right: DL500 marker, 01–18 were samples spx01-spx18 respectively, K and F were negative controls during the experiment. Fig. S3. Rarefaction curves of mantis ASVs in each of the 18 samples. Different colors indicate different samples. Solid lines indicate actual sampling, dashed lines indicate predicted sampling.

End-to-end task bots are typically learned over a static and usually limited-size corpus. However, when deployed in dynamic, changing, and open environments to interact with users, task bots tend to fail when confronted with data that deviate from the training corpus, i.e., out-of-distribution samples. In this paper, we study the problem of automatically adapting task bots to changing environments by learning from human-bot interactions with minimum or zero human annotations. We propose SL-AGENT, a novel self-learning framework for building end-to-end task bots. SL-AGENT consists of a dialog model and a pre-trained reward model to predict the quality of an agent response. It enables task bots to automatically adapt to changing environments by learning from the unlabeled human-bot dialog logs accumulated after deployment via reinforcement learning with the incorporated reward model. Experimental results on four well-studied dialog tasks show the effectiveness of SL-AGENT to automatically adapt to changing environments, using both automatic and human evaluations. We will release code and data for further research.

Background Parents play an important role in the management of their children’s illnesses, including in decisions concerning how and whether to use antibiotics. This study aims to assess the knowledge and attitude towards antibiotics usage among young parents from different areas in Shanghai and to identify contributing factors of antibiotics usage that are comprehensible for parents. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted at vaccination clinics of three community health centers from April to June 2017. Primary guardians who took children for vaccination under the national expanded immunization program were invited to participate. Results Of the 1368 young parents interviewed, 78.4% of them have taken their children for medical treatment, and 68.9% of their children have taken antibiotics. Parents with education level of senior high school (OR=1.850, 95% CI: 1.214–2.818), or university/college, or above (OR=3.950, 95% CI: 2.604–5.991), and parents with high-income (OR=1.360, 95% CI: 1.013–1.827) have better comprehension of antibiotics. It is found that parents who deny the existence of antibiotic abuse in China (OR=1.857, 95% CI: 1.100–3.135), who have lower income (OR=1.536, 95% CI: 1.074–2.197) and who have antibiotics prescribed by doctors (OR=1.473, 95% CI: 1.048–2.070) are associated with those incorrect practices. Conclusion Lack of knowledge and poor perception of antibiotics usage are found among young parents in Shanghai. Intervention should be conducted to publicize the rational use of antibiotics, reduce the rate of inappropriate behaviors and limit the sale of antibiotics.

Early diagnosis and treatment of parasitic diseases are indispensable to combat parasites mediated morbidity and mortality in humans and animals. Mammalian sourced antibodies are being successfully used in immunotherapy and immunoassays. However, their increased conservation amongst mammals, involves them in unnecessary interaction and immune mediated pathologies, obstructing their applications in certain approaches in immunoassays. Further, the high production cost and difficulty to achieve high and stable antibody titer hampers their utility for therapeutic purposes. In recent years, chicken egg yolk immunoglobulin, termed as immunoglobulin Y (IgY) has attracted noticeable consideration since it poses greater advantages than mammalian IgG including high yield, low cost and convenience. IgY has unique properties which are being exploited in different aspects for its applications in research, diagnosis and therapy. This review gives an overview of the research outcomes pertaining to chicken IgY as diagnostics and therapeutics in parasitology.

(1) Background: many rare cystic fibrosistransmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) mutations remain poorly characterized with regard to functional consequences of the mutation. We present the clinical features of two pediatric cystic fibrosis (CF) subjects who are heterozygous for F1099L (c.3297C&gt, G), one with G551D (a class III mutation) and one with 3849 + 10kbC-&gt, T (a class V mutation). We also identified the molecular defect(s) that are associated with F1099L mutation to correlate with the clinical features that we observed, (2) Methods: clinical findings and history were extracted from the electronic medical record and de-identified. F1099L-CFTR protein expression level and maturation status, channel function, and the effects of CFTR modulation on these characteristics were investigated using western blotting and iodide efflux assay, (3) Results: these two subjects have mild CF phenotypes when F1099L is combined with two known disease-causing mutations. F1099L-CFTR has a moderate defect in processing and maturation, causing fewer CFTR channels at the cell surface and, therefore, impaired channel activities. These defects could be effectively corrected using VX-809 (lumacaftor), and, (4) Conclusions: our biochemical data correlate with the disease manifestations and suggest that F1099L is potentially a CF-causing mutation. The study expands our knowledge of rare CFTR mutations and may help in developing effective therapies for subjects with F1099L mutation.

Dialog systems enriched with external knowledge can handle user queries that are outside the scope of the supporting databases/APIs. In this paper, we follow the baseline provided in DSTC9 Track 1 and propose three subsystems, KDEAK, KnowleDgEFactor, and Ens-GPT, which form the pipeline for a task-oriented dialog system capable of accessing unstructured knowledge. Specifically, KDEAK performs knowledge-seeking turn detection by formulating the problem as natural language inference using knowledge from dialogs, databases and FAQs. KnowleDgEFactor accomplishes the knowledge selection task by formulating a factorized knowledge/document retrieval problem with three modules performing domain, entity and knowledge level analyses. Ens-GPT generates a response by first processing multiple knowledge snippets, followed by an ensemble algorithm that decides if the response should be solely derived from a GPT2-XL model, or regenerated in combination with the top-ranking knowledge snippet. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed pipeline system outperforms the baseline and generates high-quality responses, achieving at least 58.77% improvement on BLEU-4 score.

Additional file 2: Table S1. Difference of CD4 T subsets between SLE patients with and without renal disease.

Additional file 1.

With the development of Internet technology in modern society, universities and colleges have begun the construction of digital library. With the digitalization of the university library, the original service mode can not adapt to the modern university library service, so the innovation of the service mode has become very necessary, this paper will discuss the disadvantages of the original service mode, the innovation of the service mode and so on.

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

Fengfeng Cheng, Jing Yu, Xiaoying Zhang, Zongyan Dai, Aiju Fang Department of Pathology, Shandong Provincial Third Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250031, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Aiju FangDepartment of Pathology, Shandong Provincial Third Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, 11 Wuyingshan Zhong Road, Tianqiao District, Jinan, Shandong 250031, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86-15550024278Email chengff1978@126.comBackground: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) have recently been shown as important regulators in the pathogenesis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The purpose of this work was to explore the precise parts played by circRNA SEC31 homolog A (circSEC31A, hsa_circ_0001421) in NSCLC malignant progression.Methods: The expression levels of circSEC31A, miR-376a and SEC31 homolog A (SEC31A) were gauged by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) or Western blot. Subcellular fractionation assay was used to determine the subcellular localization of circSEC31A, and RNase R assay was performed to assess the stability of circSEC31A. Cell migration and invasion were detected by transwell assay, and cell apoptosis was evaluated using flow cytometry. Measurement of glucose consumption, lactate production and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) level were done using corresponding assay kits. The targeted interactions among circSEC31A, miR-376a and SEC31A were confirmed by the dual-luciferase reporter and RNA pull-down assays. Animal studies were performed to observe the role of circSEC31A in tumor growth in vivo.Results: Our data indicated that circSEC31A and SEC31A were upregulated in NSCLC tissues and cells. CircSEC31A knockdown suppressed NSCLC cell migration, invasion, glycolysis and promoted apoptosis in vitro, as well as hindered tumor growth in vivo. Mechanistically, circSEC31A directly interacted with miR-376a, and circSEC31A depletion regulated NSCLC cell malignant progression by miR-376a. Moreover, SEC31A was a functional target of miR-376a, and it mediated the regulatory impact of miR-376a overexpression on NSCLC cell progression. Furthermore, circSEC31A controlled SEC31A expression through acting as a miR-376a sponge.Conclusion: Our findings first identified that the knockdown of circSEC31A suppressed NSCLC malignant progression at least partly through modulating SEC31A expression by acting as a miR-376a sponge, providing a novel molecular target of NSCLC therapy.Keywords: NSCLC, circSEC31A, miR-376a, SEC31A, malignant progression

Social network sites (SNSs) allow young people to experiment with and present different aspects of themselves during important periods of self-concept development. Interestingly, whether SNSs have negative or positive effects on self-concept clarity (SCC) is inconclusive. We propose that SNS use may simultaneously produce negative and positive effects on SCC, depending on how people use it and the social connection quality created on-line. Specifically, the suppressing mediation model reveals that the direct effect of SNS use intensity on SCC is negative, whereas the indirect effects via perceived social support and self-esteem are positive, suggesting these variables may suppress the negative effect of SNS use on SCC. Our framework helps to explain how SNS contexts influence identity development in young people.

The gas characteristics of an air vessel is one of the key parameters that determines the protective effect on water hammer pressure. Because of the limitation of the ideal gas state equation applied for a small-volume vessel, the Van der Waals (VDW) equation and Redlich&ndash, Kwong (R&ndash, K) equation are proposed to numerically simulate the pressure oscillation. The R&ndash, K polytropic equation is derived under the assumption that the volume occupied by the air molecules themselves could be ignored. The effects of cohesion pressure under real gas equations are analyzed by using the method of characteristics under different vessel diameters. The results show that cohesion pressure has a significant effect on the small volume vessel. During the first phase of the transient period, the minimum pressure and water depth calculated by a real gas model are obviously lower than that calculated by an ideal gas model. Because VDW cohesion pressure has a stronger influence on the air vessel pressure compared to R&ndash, K air cohesion pressure, the amplitude of head oscillation in the vessel calculated by the R&ndash, K equation becomes larger. The numerical results of real gas equations can provide a higher safe-depth margin of the water depth required in the small-volume vessel, resulting in the safe operation of the practical pumping pipeline system.

Jian Wang,1,* Yuchao Sheng,2,3,* Jun Ni,4 Jianyu Zhu,5 Zhigang Zhou,5 Tianwei Liu,5 Xiaoying Zhang,6 Qi Zhao2,3 1Department of General Practice, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 3The Key Laboratory of Public Health Safety of Ministry of Education, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 4Vaccination Clinics, Gangyan Community Health Service Center, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 5Vaccination Clinics, Tangqiao Community Health Service Center, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China; 6Vaccination Clinics, Huacao Community Health Service Center, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Qi ZhaoDepartment of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Fudan University, 130 Dongan Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai 200032, People’s Republic of ChinaTel/fax +86 21 5423 7335Email zhaoqi@shmu.edu.cnBackground: Parents play an important role in the management of their children’s illnesses, including in decisions concerning how and whether to use antibiotics. This study aims to assess the knowledge and attitude towards antibiotics usage among young parents from different areas in Shanghai and to identify contributing factors of antibiotics usage that are comprehensible for parents.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at vaccination clinics of three community health centers from April to June 2017. Primary guardians who took children for vaccination under the national expanded immunization program were invited to participate.Results: Of the 1368 young parents interviewed, 78.4% of them have taken their children for medical treatment, and 68.9% of their children have taken antibiotics. Parents with education level of senior high school (OR=1.850, 95% CI: 1.214–2.818), or university/college, or above (OR=3.950, 95% CI: 2.604–5.991), and parents with high-income (OR=1.360, 95% CI: 1.013–1.827) have better comprehension of antibiotics. It is found that parents who deny the existence of antibiotic abuse in China (OR=1.857, 95% CI: 1.100–3.135), who have lower income (OR=1.536, 95% CI: 1.074–2.197) and who have antibiotics prescribed by doctors (OR=1.473, 95% CI: 1.048–2.070) are associated with those incorrect practices.Conclusion: Lack of knowledge and poor perception of antibiotics usage are found among young parents in Shanghai. Intervention should be conducted to publicize the rational use of antibiotics, reduce the rate of inappropriate behaviors and limit the sale of antibiotics.Keywords: antimicrobial resistance, KAP, China, urban area

In recent years, scholars at home and abroad have mostly considered the coordination and scheduling optimization of wind power, photovoltaic and conventional thermal power units, but rarely considered the photothermal units in the research on the coordination and scheduling strategy of a high proportion of new energy grid connection. With the large-scale rise of photovoltaic power stations, how to coordinate and optimize the scheduling of wind-photovoltaic, solar-thermal and thermal power has become a key problem for the grid integration of high proportion of new energy at present. This paper mainly considers the economy of the grid-connected system, takes the maximization of grid-connected benefit as the goal, and based on the optimized constraint conditions, constructs a mixed integer programming model suitable for the scheduling strategy of this paper to coordinate and control the output power of thermal power, wind power, photovoltaic and photothermal power. In addition, the simplex method and interior point method are combined in MATLAB for programming solution and simulation analysis. Simulation results show that the proposed strategy can maximize the grid-connection benefit.

By analyzing the randomness and intermittentity of wind power output and PV power plant output and the schedulability of CSP (Concentrating Solar Power) power generation, a coordinated optimal scheduling strategy for wind power, photovoltaic, photothermal and hydropower is proposed. Based on the system integration benefit maximization, the target optimization function is constructed, and the fast non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) with elite strategy is used to optimize the objective function. The simulation results show that the wind power, photovoltaic and hydropower output are matched with the photothermal peaking characteristics, and the coordinated operation of wind power, photovoltaic, photothermal and hydropower coordination improves the economics of wind power, photovoltaic, photothermal and hydropower generation systems. Abandoning the wind and reducing the light, effectively improving the efficiency of grid connection. This verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) is a new energy generation technology, which has received extensive attention in recent years. The research on the field level of Concentrating Solar power station is a difficult and hot topic in the research of Concentrating Solar power station at present, In this paper, the energy transfer process and heat transfer. Their basic operation models and economic models are established respectively. The results show that the efficiency and stability of CSP power station can be improved by improving the concentrating ability of the concentrating solar field, the utilization ratio of the heat storage tank and the thermal conversion efficiency.

Through an analysis of the head loss of the gas&ndash, liquid two-phase flow in a siphon pipe, this paper measures the bubble velocity, pressure drop, and gas fraction under various conditions. The influence of varied head, gradient, and installation heights of the pipe on the air mass movement, head loss, and resistance coefficient of the gas&ndash, liquid two-phrase flow is analyzed on the basis of the test results. The results show that the bubble velocity reaches its minimum on the flat slope, and the velocity on the positive slope is higher than that on the reverse slope. The head loss of pipelines in both the positive slope and reverse slope increases as the gradient increases, while the head loss on the reverse slope is larger than that on the positive slope under the same gradient. When the gas fraction &alpha, is between 8% and 30%, the resistance coefficient &lambda, m is related to the gradient, gas fraction, and the Reynolds number Re. Furthermore, &lambda, m is proportionate to &alpha, and inversely proportionate to i of the bottom slope and the Re number. The calculation formula of the resistance coefficient &lambda, m under various gradients within the scope of the above gas fraction is derived on the basis of the test data, while the relative error is controlled within the allowable range.

Our study compared the Ivor-Lewis and Sweet procedures used for treating middle and lower thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and assessed the associated perioperative complications and long-term survival rates of the patients. This retrospective study involved 624 middle and lower thoracic esophageal squamous carcinoma patients who received either Ivor-Lewis (n = 325) or Sweet (n = 299) procedures at our hospital. Further, the perioperative conditions and long-term survival rates were analyzed for both groups. Relative to the Sweet group, the Ivor-Lewis group showed lower volume of drainage within 24 hours after operation (400 (300–500) ml vs 550 (400–658) ml, P = .031). Although we found no significant differences in major postoperative complications between the groups (72 (22.2) vs 65 (21.7), P = .90), there were significant differences observed in minor postoperative complications between the Ivor-Lewis and Sweet groups (59 (18.2) vs 32 (10.7), P = .008). Perioperative death rates remained comparable for the 2 groups (2 (0.6) vs 2 (0.7), P > .99). Further, comparison of the 2 groups revealed that the Ivor-Lewis group had increased number of dissected lymph nodes, (20 (4–42) vs 16 (3–31), P

In the linear minimum mean square error (LMMSE) estimation for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems, the problem about the determination of the algorithm's parameters, especially those related with channel frequency response (CFR) correlation, has not been readily solved yet. Although many approaches have been proposed to determine the statistic parameters, it is hard to choose the best one within those approaches in the design phase, since every approach has its own most suitable application conditions and the real channel condition is unpredictable. In this paper, we propose an enhance LMMSE estimation capable of selecting parameters by itself. To this end, sampled noise MSE is first proposed to evaluate the practical performance of interpolation. Based on this evaluation index, a novel parameter comparison scheme is proposed to determine the parameters which can endow LMMSE estimation best performance within a parameter set. After that, the structure of the enhanced LMMSE is illustrated, and it is applied in OFDM systems. Besides, the issues about theoretical analysis on accuracy of the parameter comparison scheme, the parameter set design and algorithm complexity are explained in detail. At last, our analyses and performance of the proposed estimation method are demonstrated by simulation experiments.

Building a high power spallation target is one of the critical issues in Accelerator Driven System (ADS). The control system which was built based on the real-time distributed control software of experimental physics and industrial control system (EPICS) was attempted for the experimental target prototype. There are several sub-systems in the target system, e.g. the elevating system, the vacuum system, the heat-exchanging system. As an IOC, each sub-system was finally integrated into the control system of the target by different drivers and methods because different hardware devices were used for each sub-system. The ’SLS s7 driver’ which was devel-oped based on the Ethernet Interface was used for the communication between the Siemens PLCs and the Hu-man Machine Interface (HMI). The interfaces between Labview and EPICS were used for the NI (Nation-al Instruments) DAQs systems. In addition, the driver developed by ourselves was used for devices with serial ports, e.g. RS-232 or RS-485/422. The control system was finally proved stable and could basically meet the ele-mentary requirements of the spallation target system., Proceedings of the 12th Int. Workshop on Emerging Technologies and Scientific Facilities Controls, PCaPAC2018, Hsinchu, Taiwan

As more and more machine learning based systems are being deployed in industry, monitoring of these systems is needed to ensure they perform in the expected way. In this article we present a framework for such a monitoring system. The proposed system is designed and deployed at Mastercard. This system monitors other machine learning systems that are deployed for use in production. The monitoring system performs concept drift detection by tracking the machine learning system’s inputs and outputs independently. Anomaly detection techniques are employed in the system to provide automatic alerts. We also present results that demonstrate the value of the framework. The monitoring system framework and the results are the main contributions in this article.

Purpose: The purpose of this work is to further develop and to validate a prototype three-dimensional ultrasound (3DUS) system for permanent breast seed implant (PBSI) planning procedure. PBSI is a novel brachytherapy technique for early-stage breast cancer patients. Palladium-103 seeds are planned around the seroma cavity and implanted through the guidance of a needle implant template. Currently, PBSI plans are made based on computed tomography (CT) images, while the delivery is guided under freehand 2D ultrasound (US) images in the operating room. The difference on seroma visualization on CT and US complicates the interpretation of the plan during the delivery. A prototype PBSI 3DUS system has been developed and 3DUS images are desired for improved visualization in PBSI treatment planning. Materials and Methods: The PBSI 3DUS system includes a motorized scanner that drives a 2D US probe during scanning. An encoded mechanical arm is mounted on the scanner and tracks the location of the needle implant template, and the template can be then registered into the 3DUS imaging volume for visual guidance. A method was developed to rigidly register 3DUS images with CT images through a point-based registration. A 3D-printed model was made to provide visible landmarks in both imaging volumes. Gel breast phantoms were constructed to test the registration feasibility and accuracy. Results: A 3D-printed model with eight landmarks ranging over 6 cm in three dimensions was adopted for 3DUS-CT rigid registration process. The registration was performed on gel breast phantoms, with the 3DUS scanner oriented in a 40 range of lateral orientation. The average registration error was (1.9 ± 0.8) mm. The maximum error in 25 3DUS-CT registration trials was 4.6 mm, and 19 out of 25 (76%) trials had a registration error less than 2 mm. Conclusions: This work facilitated the clinical implementation of the PBSI 3DUS system. The 3DUS system was commissioned and a clinical quality assurance (QA) procedure with baseline data was made to monitor the system performance. A method was developed to achieve 3DUS-CT rigid registration and the registration was tested on gel breast phantoms.

In this letter, a novel synchronization method for MIMO-OFDM systems is proposed. The new approach has an accurate estimate of both symbol timing and large frequency offest. Simulation results show the excellent robustness of our method in double-selective channel even if the strongest multipath component arrives behind the first path., 2 pages letter with 4 figures

Purpose: To purify and characterize a novel antimicrobial protein from the Gastrodia elata Blume (Bl.) plant, which has long been used in herbal medicine.Methods: The procedure for isolation and purification of Gastrodia elata protein (GEP) involved phosphate buffer extraction, ammonium sulfate precipitation, ion-exchange chromatography, and gelfiltration chromatography. Sodium dodecyl sulfate - polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis was employed to detect the apparent molecular mass and determine homogeneity, while paper disc diffusion was used to measure the antibacterial activity of GEP. A hemolytic assay was performed on rabbit red blood cells. The effect of pH, salt concentration, and temperature on the antibacterial activity of GEP was evaluated by minimum inhibitory concentration assay.Results: GEP was a 14-kDa monomer and displayed antimicrobial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans, with 8.0-mm and 9.4-mm zones of inhibition, respectively, but no antibacterial activity was observed against Escherichia coli. GEP had little hemolytic activity on red blood cells even at a concentrations of up to 200 mg/ml. GEP was thermally stable at temperatures below 70 °C for 30 min, and displayed higher antibacterial activity in the pH range 5.0 to 7.0.Conclusion: GEP protein is relatively thermostable and possesses antimicrobial activity. The results suggest that GEP protein has potential agricultural and industrial applications, such as in transgenic plants.Keywords: Antimicrobial protein, Gastrodia elata, Protein characterization

Based on the household survey data from 242 cities at and above the prefecture level during 2005-2016. This study evaluates changes in the upgrading of China’s consumption structure, and investigates the overall and regional impacts of Internet development and spatial spillover on the upgrading of China’s consumption structure using the spatial Durbin model (SDM) with time fixed effects. The results suggest that China’s consumption structure remains basically stable in peiiodic changes, and there is a positive spatial correlation: China’s Internet development exerts significantly promoting effects on the upgrading of residents* consumption structure, and there is a regional heterogeneity, namely, such effects in Eastern China and Central China are more remarkable than those in Western China; Internet development in neighboring cities has indirect effects on the upgrading of urban residents* consumption structure through spatial spillover effects, and there are regional differences in such effects. This study provides enlightenment for promotion of the upgrading of residents* consumption structure and the high-quality economic development in China.

Hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) induces oxidative stress and eventually leads to vascular injury.The aim of this study was to examine the effect of melatonin on HUVECs injured by H/R and explore the underlying mechanisms.A model of HUVECs under hypoxia/reoxygenation was established. Cell migration and adhesive ability was measured by wound healing and adhesion assays. Cell proliferation was measured by EdU assay. Production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) was evaluated by CM-HH/R inhibited HUVEC proliferation, cell migratory and adhesive capacities, whereas melatonin (1~100 μM) inhibited these effects in a dose-dependent manner. Melatonin alone did not affect HUVEC viability, however, it inhibited the increase in ROS production and cytoskeleton disruption elicited by H/R, and it dose-dependently prevented H/R-induced upregulation of P38 and HSP27 phosphorylation. In addition, the ROS scavenger N-acetyl-L-cysteine markedly inhibited increased phosphorylation levels of P38 and HSP27 under H/R.Melatonin may have a potential clinical effect in trials of H/R-induced vascular injury through its antioxidant property.

Yang Liu,* Bin Wang,* Yongxiang Qian, Dongmei Di, Min Wang, Xiaoying Zhang Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Changzhou 213003, China *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: Cauda equine syndrome (CES) is a neurological condition caused by compression of the cauda equine. Here, we demonstrate a case of CES as the primary symptom of leptomeningeal metastases from non-small cell lung carcinoma without brain metastases. A 59-year-old male suffered progressive lower extremity motor dysfunction, urinary dysfunction, and lower extremity sensory dysfunction. He was clinically diagnosed with CES. Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated several vague nodules in the area of conus medullaris and cauda equine, without lumbar or thoracic herniated discs. The serum carcinoembryonic antigen concentration was 191.20 ng/mL. The conclusion following positron emission tomography–computed tomography was a right upper lung malignant tumor with mediastinal lymph node metastasis and cauda equina metastasis. Pathologic diagnosis was of primary adenocarcinoma of the lung by bronchoscopic biopsy. EML4–ALK fusion and EGFR mutations were absent, and thus the patient received chemotherapy. However, symptoms of intracranial hypertension arose 1 month later, and the patient died 3 months postadmission. Emerging CES may be a sign of metastasis of a malignant tumor, presenting an extremely challenging condition, especially for patients with lung cancer. Positron emission tomography–computed tomography is a fairly effective technique to make the diagnosis. Keywords: cauda equine syndrome, leptomeningeal carcinomatosis, positron emission tomography–computed tomography, lung cancer

To determine whether the white substance can act as an endoscopic marker for flat esophageal mucosal neoplastic lesions. Esophageal mucosal neoplastic lesions are mainly identified using white light endoscopy, because it is cost-effective; however, this method is limited for detecting early esophageal cancer and precancerous lesions, because these are typically flat mucosal neoplastic lesions. In our experience, a white substance surrounds or covers some flat esophageal mucosal lesions that are eventually diagnosed as neoplastic lesions by biopsy pathology. After retrospective analysis of pathological and clinical data of 20,390 patients, we identified 352 patients with flat esophageal mucosal lesions on endoscopic images. Images were re-evaluated by 2 experienced endoscopists and the prevalence of the white substance recorded. Patients were divided into non-neoplastic and neoplastic groups, based on pathology. The white substance was present in 3.5% (5/144) of non-neoplastic and 14.9% (31/208) of neoplastic cases (P .05). The white substance, which is easily detected by white light endoscopy, may be an endoscopic marker facilitating detection of flat esophageal mucosal neoplastic lesions, irrespective of sex, age, and lesion location.

In this study, we aimed to explore the effect of high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation on endometriosis of the abdominal wall. A total of 25 patients with abdominal wall endometriosis were selected after HIFU treatment, and their demographic characteristics were retrospectively analyzed. The blood perfusion of focus before operation and the focus ablation during or after operation were evaluated using ultrasound contrast, and follow-up for 24 months. Thirty lesions were ablated in 25 patients. Intermittent pain disappeared 1 month after the operation, and patients' pain score significantly decreased, while the shrink ratio of lesions significantly increased with prolonged follow-up time. No severe complications were noted. HIFU ablation of abdominal wall endometriosis is an effective and safe method, with obvious long-term effects, and showed a significant guiding effect on the treatment of abdominal wall adenomyosis in the clinical setting.

Δε διατίθεται περίληψη στα ελληνικά, Chicken IgY antibody has been extensively reported for various applications as an alternative to mammalian IgG. To evaluated the pharmacokinetics profile of chicken IgY in comparison with horse IgG. Chicken IgY antibody was prepared by immunizing the white leghorn chicken with tetanus toxoid (TT) and then extracted anti-TT-IgY from immune egg yolks by PEG-6000 extraction. The titer of anti-TT-IgY was determined by ELISA in order to select the hyper immune eggs for further extraction. Rabbits were injected with 300 μg/kg of Chicken IgY and horse IgG by intravenous (i.v.) and intramuscular (i.m.) administrations. Then, the concentrations of IgY and IgG in rabbit serum were determined using indirect ELISA. Pharmacokinetic parameters were estimated using non-compartmental analysis. IgY can reach higher concentration (Cmax= 4.54 mg/L after i.m. injection) within shorter time (Tmax= 0.12 h after i.m. injection) than IgG (Cmax= 3.99 ng/mL after i.m. injection; Tmax=0.11 h after i.m. injection), while the IgY lifespan (T1/2=26.98 h and 31.98 h after i.v. and i.m. administration, respectively) in the body was comparable with IgG (T1/2=27.94 h and 29.58 h after i.v. and i.m. administration, respectively). IgY might be a promising choice as an alternative to mammalian sourced antibodies.

Proliferation of ubiquitous mobile devices makes location based services prevalent. Mobile users are able to volunteer as providers of specific services and in the meanwhile to search these services. For example, drivers may be interested in tracking available nearby users who are willing to help with motor repair or are willing to provide travel directions or first aid. With the diffusion of mobile users, it is necessary to provide scalable means of enabling such users to connect with other nearby users so that they can help each other with specific services. Motivated by these observations, we design and implement a general location based system HelPal for mobile users to provide and enjoy instant service, which is called mobile crowd service. In this demo, we introduce a mobile crowd service system featured with several novel techniques. We sketch the system architecture and illustrate scenarios via several cases. Demonstration shows the user-friendly search interface for users to conveniently find skilled and qualified nearby service providers., 4 pages

For purpose of thermal hydraulic analysis in small nuclear reactors, a sub-channel code with an improved convergence has been developed based on the homogenous flowing model. A combined lateral momentum equation coupling with continuity and axial momentum equation has been used to substitute the original lateral momentum equation. The Gauss iteration method has been adopted to solve the Kirchhoff's transformation equation of nonlinear heat conduction of fuel rod, a temperature dependent conducting has been considered. The code has been validated by using experimental data from the NUPEC PWR Sub-channel and Bundle Tests (PSBT) and then applied to the “MUTSU” reactor. Results show that the code can predict the experimental data with acceptable accuracy and has ability to analyze the small PWR reactor.

The widespread use of electric vehicles (EVs) is becoming an imminent trend. Research has been done on the scheduling of EVs from the perspective of the charging characteristic. There is a lack of systematic studies considering EVs, the power grid, utilization of large scale wind energy, improvement in the safety and economy of the power grid, or the traffic jams in the transport system caused by a large number of EVs driven to charging stations all together. In this paper, the mathematical models are built for both smart charging and Vehicle-to-Grid operation with distribution grid constraints, the optimal solution of the model is obtained by using the glowworm swarm optimization algorithm. The simulation results verify the optimal control algorithm in coordinating distributed electric vehicle aggregations with the varying wind power and daily load.

The seed oil content in soybean is an important trait that drives successful soybean quality. A recombination of inbred lines derived from a cross between the ‘Charleston’ and ‘Dongnong594’ cultivars was planted in one location (HRB) across 13 years and two locations (HXL and JMS) across 6 years in China (25 environments in total), and the genetic effects were partitioned into additive main effects, epistatic main effects and their environmental interaction effects using composite interval mapping and inclusive composite interval mapping models based on a high-density genetic map. Twelve main-effect quantitative trait loci (QTLs) were identified on chromosomes Ch3, Ch4, Ch6, Ch13, Ch15, Ch17, Ch18,Ch19 and Ch20 and detected in more than two environments. Among the intervals of the main-effect QTLs, eleven candidate genes were screened for their involvement in seed oil content and/or fatty acid biosynthesis and metabolism processes based on gene ontology and annotation information, moreover, the main effect QTL were identified in a wild soybean chromosome segment substitution lines population, the phenotype and the QTL fragment showed the identity relationship significantly. Furthermore, an analysis of epistatic interactions showed that four epistatic QTL pairs were detected, and they could explain approximately 70% of the phenotypic variation interaction with environments in total. The additive main-effect QTLs and epistatic QTL pairs contributed to high phenotypic variation under multiple environments, and the results were also validated and corroborated with previous research, indicating that marker-assisted selection can be used to improve soybean oil content and that the candidate genes can also be used as a foundation data set for research on gene functions.

Wind power integration has made a new demand on the calculation of available transfer capability (ATC) in the power system operation. How to accurately decide ATC considering the volatility and stochastic variation of wind power as well as improve the calculation efficiency and precision has become an urgent problem to be solved. An improved method based on Reflective slice sampling (RSS) is proposed in this paper and applied to risk-based ATC decisions for wind farms integration system. The optimal modeling for probability model of wind farm outputs is firstly constructed. Then the sample space is obtained by RSS from the probabilistic model of wind farm outputs. Finally, the samples from the sample space are calculated by load flow and the statistical analysis of ATC decisions index is finished, the results of Gibbs sampling methods and RSS method are compared in IEEE30-bus system. It is shown that the proposed method can reduce the computation time and ensures its accuracy, and further improve system transmission efficiency.

The aim of this paper is to study regularity of weak solutions to second-order degenerate elliptic equations constructed by Hörmander' s vector fields. Under the assumptions of lower-order terms and the right-hand side of the equation belonging to different Morrey spaces, we establish weak Morrey estimates of weak solutions by using representation formula of very weak solutions, the reverse Hölder's inequality and proving several a priori estimates.

This paper introduced the composition of Airborne dispenser, utilizing Monte Carlo test and compatibility test to obtain Airborne dispenser's bombing ranges with equal precision. The Airborne dispenser's hit accuracy was assessed by using simulation. Interference model of mathematical simulation and calculation method of miss distance, and then set up mathematical simulation's test project. According to the Mathematic model, a computer program was developed and simulation results were obtained. Finally, it was found error difference between Simulation results and really test.

The information superiority of equipment support exercise examination is an important direction of equipment support drill and other military training examinations. Based on the analysis of content of equipment support drill examination based on information system, the examination and evaluation index system of equipment support is proposed and planed.

A novel benzimidazole-based spirobifluorene derivative SPF-BB was obtained from 4-bromotoluene.SPF-BB possess excellent spectral sensitivities to pH changes and can be used as optical pH sensor of a wide pH range.The recognition behavior of SPF-BB toward various metal ions has been evaluated in a acetonitrile/water(15∶1,v/v) solvent system.SPF-BB is highly selective in recognizing Ag+.