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With rapid development of technology and improvement of living standards, the per capita holding of automobiles greatly increases, and the amount of end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) becomes larger and larger such that it is valuable to investigate an effective strategy for recycling ELVs from the viewpoints of environmental protection and resource utilization. In this paper, an optimization model with fuzzy and stochastic parameters is built to formulate the transportation planning problems of recycling ELVs in polymorphic uncertain environment, where the unit processing and transportation costs, the selling price of reused items, and the fixed cost are all fuzzy, while the demand in secondary market and the production capacity are random owing to features underlying the practical data. For this complicated polymorphic uncertain optimization model, a unified compromising approach is proposed to hedge the uncertainty of this model such that some powerful optimization algorithms can be applied to make an optimal recycling plan. Then, an interactive algorithm is developed to find a compromising solution of the uncertain model. Numerical results show efficiency of the algorithm and a number of important managerial insights are revealed from the proposed model by scenario analysis and sensitivity analysis., 1. Introduction 1.1. Background. With rapid development of technology and improvement of living standards, the per capita holding of automobiles greatly increases. In China, as the largest developing country with [...]

With the recent international economic and social changes, the development of innovation theories, the changes in the global industrial structure, and the transformation of old and new kinetic energy, many countries have advanced from innovation paradigm 1.0 to 3.0, integrating a variety of disciplines and theories, and using this concept to enhance their innovation capabilities. In such an environment, how to combine scientific and technological innovation with ecological environment construction, practice the integration and symbiosis of ecology and innovation, and promote the development of green innovation is the current focus of academic research. The scientific and technological innovation ecological chain is an organizational model that realizes the goal of scientific and technological innovation and the value-added spiral through the orderly connection and synergistic interaction between the main bodies or elements of innovation, such as basic research, technical research, achievement transformation, talent support, and technological finance. This paper takes Shanxi Province's scientific and technological innovation ecological chain as a typical example, collects relevant text data through web crawler technology, then deconstructs the system of scientific and technological innovation ecological chain based on media integration, understands the composition of its main chain, supporting chain, and the interaction between the chains mechanism, and finally puts forward policy suggestions for the deepening of the future regional scientific and technological innovation ecological chain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To analyze the safety of geological engineering, experimental research on the mechanical properties of the rock joint plane is critical. In this paper, triaxial compression tests are carried out on rock specimens with the different prefabricated joint planes, including different dip angles, roughness, confining pressure and surrounding rock strength, and the strength characteristics, failure modes, stress evolution laws, and crack propagation laws are revealed. The test results show that when the specimen is damaged, the strain, peak stress, and residual strength all increase with the increase of roughness, confining pressure, and strength of surrounding rock but decrease significantly with the increase of joint plane angle. With the increase of stress, the stress-strain curve shows multiple fluctuations, indicating that the specimen occurs multiple slip-stable phenomena during the loading process. With the increase of the angle, the multiple cracks of the specimen gradually merge, and the cracks are always vertical to the joint plane, showing splitting failure. As the roughness of the joint plane increases, the possibility of the joint plane sliding becomes smaller, and the splitting mode of the specimen develops from multiple fractures to a single fracture. As the strength of the surrounding rock increases, the slope of the stress-strain curve gradually increases, and the splitting mode develops from a small number of single splits to multiple splitting penetration failures. The increase of the confining pressure significantly improves the failure strength of the specimen, and the crack number of the damaged specimen also increases significantly. The research results provide theoretical support for scientific analysis of the stability of underground engineering under the disturbance of fissures or faults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insulators identification and their missing defect detection are of paramount importance for the intelligent inspection of high-voltage transmission lines. As the backgrounds are complex, some insulators may be occluded, and the missing defect of the insulator is so small that it is not easily detected from aerial images with different backgrounds. To address the above issues, in this study, a cascaded You Only Look Once (YOLO) models are mainly explored to perform insulators and their defect detection in aerial images. Firstly, the datasets used for insulators location and missing defect detection are created. Secondly, a new model is proposed to locate the position of insulators, which is improved in the feature extraction network and multisacle prediction network based on previous YOLOv3-dense model. An improved YOLOv4-tiny model is used to conduct missing defect detection on the detected insulators. And then, the proposed YOLO models are trained and tested on the built datasets, respectively. Finally, the final models are cascaded for insulators identification and their missing defect detection. The average precision of missing defect detection can reach 98.4%, which is 5.2% higher than that of faster RCNN and 10.2% higher than that of SSD. The running time of the cascaded YOLO models for missing defect detection can reach 106 frames per second. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed deep learning models achieve good performance in insulator identification and its missing defect detection from the inspection of high-voltage transmission lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primary breast lymphoma (PBL) is a rare subtype of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) with rapid progression and high risk of central nervous system metastasis. We have investigated 40 PBL patients retrospectively, and 16 of them were sequenced by a target panel of 112 genes related with lymphoma. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) identified 203 mutations spanning 35 genes and revealed seven potential protein-changing genes (PIM1, MYD88, DTX1, CD79B, KMT2D, TNFAIP3, and ITPKB) with high frequency, referring crucial roles in lymphomagenesis. Our result suggested that PIM1 mutation is correlated with the age and pathological type of PBL patients. Gene TNFAIP3 and KMT2D mutation is only related to the pathological type and primary site, respectively. These high-mutant genes detected in PBL indicated a tendency to shorten overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS), which may lead to poor prognosis. Furthermore, the nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB) pathway and related regulatory factors are essential for the development of targeted therapy as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To evaluate the effects of He's Yangchao Recipe (HSYC) on ameliorating ovarian oxidative stress of aging mice under consecutive superovulation. Methods. An 8-month-old C57BL/6 female mouse was chosen to establish an aging model under ovarian hyperstimulation. Mice were randomly separated into four groups: R1 as the control group, R4 as the model group, NR4 with N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) administration, and TR4 with HSYC administration. Oocyte collection, in vitro fertilization, and embryo culture were performed. The serum hormone levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA); the reactive oxygen species (ROS) level of oocytes, the number of growing follicles, corpus luteum, ovulated oocytes, and developing embryos at each stage, along with the proportions of fragmented oocytes and abnormal mitochondria in granulosa cells (GCs) and the apoptosis rate of GCs were calculated; the mRNA and protein levels of JNK, P53, BAX were detected by real-time PCR and the Simple Western System. Results. HSYC enhanced estradiol, progesterone, and inhibin-B levels and increased growing follicle and corpus luteum and ovulated egg counts compared to the R4 group (P < 0.05), whereas it decreased the proportions of fragmented oocytes (P < 0.01); Meanwhile, embryos from mice subjected to four superovulation cycles with HSYC treated had a higher hatching potential. The ROS level of oocytes is downregulated by HSYC (P < 0.01) and the percentage of abnormal mitochondrial in ovaries of the TR4 group was also significantly declined compared to the R4 group (P < 0.05); the most TUNEL-positive cells proportion was detected in the R4 group; nevertheless, HSYC effectively attenuated this detrimental effect (P < 0.05). The mRNA and protein expressions of JNK and P53 in ovary tissues were reduced in the TR4 group while these genes were upregulated by repeated superovulation (P < 0.05). Conclusions. HSYC exerted promising effects on promoting the diminished ovarian reserve and decreased oocyte quality induced by both aging and consecutive ovarian superovulation, potentially via the ROS/JNK/p53 pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sandy cobble ground has loose structure, uneven particle size, and random distribution characteristics, which may lead to the local collapse of ground. This paper carried out field tests based on the project of Luoyang urban rail transit. For this, the surface settlement, pore water pressure, and earth pressure in the test section were measured. The excavation disturbance and influence range on the soil layer in each stage of earth pressure balance shield tunneling were studied. Meanwhile, based on the key construction elements in sandy cobble ground, a numerical simulation method was proposed based on shield construction parameters. The disturbance characteristics of deformation, seepage action, and stress state of the sandy cobble ground during shield construction were obtained through numerical calculation. The rationality of the simulation results was verified by the measured tests. The results showed that the measured data were in good agreement with the simulation results. The research results provide a calculation method for predicting the soil disturbance in the earth pressure balance shield construction in a sandy cobble ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laparoscopic adrenalectomy (RLA) is widely used for adrenal tumors, cancer, cortical hyperplasia, etc. Therefore, how to care for patients after surgery is a necessary means to speed up the rapid healing of surgical wounds and reduce the incidence of related complications. To solve the problem in traditional wound treatment, antibacterial dressings are used, and most of the auxiliary materials need to be replaced frequently, or there is serious adhesion to the wound, which causes secondary wound infection. The methods used to study in this work report a new long-acting antibacterial and breathable wound dressing based on nanoscale zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) in the care of adrenalectomy; the clinical effects of ZnO NP-based antibacterial dressings were systematically evaluated in terms of patients' wound healing rate (%), infection rate (%), healing time (d), and the number of dressing changes. The results revealed that the wound healing rate of patients with ZnO NP-based antibacterial dressing was as high as 16.67% and the incidence of adverse reactions was only 26.19%, which was 40.48% lower than traditional dressings. Such promising antibacterial dressings are expected to be greatly used in the medical field in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the thermodynamic and thermoelastic theory, the coupled governing equations of deformation, heat transfer, and moisture migration in unsaturated soils were given. The coupled calculation process was realized by the finite element method. The hydrothermal coupling characteristics of two cases of unsaturated kaolin clay were studied by using a self-developed test device, and the test results were compared with the numerical results. The results showed that when the initial saturation of the soil is high, the volumetric water content of the measured point increases, and then it is in a stable state during the heating process. When the initial saturation is low, the volumetric water content near the heat source increases firstly and then decreases during the heating process. The rise and fall of temperature make the volumetric water content of the soil irreversible. The volumetric water content of each measured point is lower than the initial state. The closer it is to the internal measured heat source, the more obvious this phenomenon is; the lower the initial saturation is, the more obvious it is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is important to have a clear understanding of the creep characteristics of water-rich soft rocks under a dynamic load and the evolution of cracks because soft rock roadways in deep mines are very sensitive to disturbances, and instability and damage can easily occur under the impact of disturbances such as mining and blasting. In this study, a self-developed disturbed creep test bench was used to conduct graded loading creep disturbance tests on mudstone specimens with different moisture contents. The results show that an increase in the moisture content leads to a significant increase in the creep failure strain of mudstone, and the accelerated creep rate is greatly accelerated. Moreover, as the moisture content increases, the type of mudstone creep disturbance failure gradually changes from accelerated creep failure to disturbance failure. By analyzing the acoustic emission (AE) characteristics of the mudstone creep disturbance tests, it was found that the increase in the moisture content greatly weakens the AE count and the accumulated energy. In each stage of disturbance, the AE signals jumped, and the stability was restored at the end of the disturbance. As the load increased, the specimen entered the accelerated creep stage, the AE signal increased exponentially, and the internal cracks expanded rapidly until failure occurred. It is of great significance to carry out creep disturbance experiments and to analyze the evolution of the internal cracks in specimens with different moisture contents to maintain the long-term stability of deep soft rocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chronic pain of knee osteoarthritis in the elderly is investigated in detail in this paper, as well as the complexity of chronic pain utilising neuroimaging recognition techniques. Chronic pain in knee osteoarthritis (KOA) has a major effect on patients' quality of life and functional activities; therefore, understanding the causes of KOA pain and the analgesic advantages of different therapies is important. In recent years, neuroimaging techniques have become increasingly important in basic and clinical pain research. Thanks to the application and development of neuroimaging techniques in the study of chronic pain in KOA, researchers have found that chronic pain in KOA contains both injury-receptive and neuropathic pain components. The neuropathic pain mechanism that causes KOA pain is complicated, and it may be produced by peripheral or central sensitization, but it has not gotten enough attention in clinical practice, and there is no agreement on how to treat combination neuropathic pain KOA. As a result, using neuroimaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), this review examines the changes in brain pathophysiology-related regions caused by KOA pain, compares the latest results in pain assessment and prediction, and clarifies the central brain analgesic mechanistic. The capsule network model is introduced in this paper from the perspective of deep learning network structure to construct an information-complete and reversible image low-level feature bridge using isotropic representation, predict the corresponding capsule features from MRI voxel responses, and then, complete the accurate reconstruction of simple images using inverse transformation. The proposed model improves the structural similarity index by about 10%, improves the reconstruction performance of low-level feature content in simple images by about 10%, and achieves feature interpretation and analysis of low-level visual cortical fMRI voxels by visualising capsule features, according to the experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we establish global conservative solutions of the two-component μ -Hunter–Saxton system by the methods developed in "A. Bressan, A. Constantin, Global Conservative Solutions of the Camassa-Holm Equation, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 183 (2), 215–239 (2007)" and "H. Holden, X. Raynaud, Periodic Conservative Solutions of the Camassa-Holm Equation, Ann. Inst. Fourier (Grenoble) 58(3), 945–988 (2008)." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of existing research, this paper analyzes the algorithms and technologies of 3D image-based sports models in depth and proposes a fusion depth map in view of some of the shortcomings of the current hot spot sports model methods based on 3D images. We use the 3D space to collect the depth image, remove the background from the depth map, recover the 3D motion model from it, and then build the 3D model database. In this paper, based on the characteristics of continuity in space and smoothness in time of a rigid body moving target, a reasonable rigid body target motion hypothesis is proposed, and a three-dimensional motion model of a rigid body target based on the center of rotation of the moving target and corresponding motion is designed to solve the equation with parameters. In the case of unknown motion law, shape, structure, and size of the moving target, this algorithm can achieve accurate measurement of the three-dimensional rigid body motion target's self-rotation center and related motion parameters. In the process of motion parameter calculation, the least square algorithm is used to process the feature point data, thereby reducing the influence of noise interference on the motion detection result and correctly completing the motion detection task. The paper gives the measurement uncertainty of the stereo vision motion measurement system through simulated and real experiments. We extract the human body motion trajectory according to the depth map and establish a motion trajectory database. For using the recognition algorithm of the sports model based on the 3D image, we input a set of depth map action sequences. After the above process, the 3D motion model is obtained and matched with the model in the 3D motion model database, and the sequence with the smallest distance is calculated. The corresponding motion trajectory is taken as the result of motion capture, and the efficiency of this system is verified through experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of a college students' psychological management system has become an essential indicator to monitor and prevent the psychological crisis. University student management databases accumulate massive data, but the conventional data processing tasks are restricted to simple statistical analysis, storage, and query management. This paper discusses the application of big data technology for the current psychological management system by investigating psychological crisis screening indicators. Data mining techniques are used to realize the dynamic management of psychological early warning data, real-time monitoring of high-risk groups' psychology, and improvement of the accuracy and effectiveness of early identification and warning of students' psychological crisis. Based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis, we conduct a series of studies on three typical types of network public opinions, i.e., Internet rumors, online public opinions of college students, and emergent public health incidents in terms of the transmission mechanism, early warning, and decision-making mechanism, as well as the evolution mechanism of the network public opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning the knowledge hidden in the manifold-geometric distribution of the dataset is essential for many machine learning algorithms. However, geometric distribution is usually corrupted by noise, especially in the high-dimensional dataset. In this paper, we propose a denoising method to capture the "true" geometric structure of a high-dimensional nonrigid point cloud dataset by a variational approach. Firstly, we improve the Tikhonov model by adding a local structure term to make variational diffusion on the tangent space of the manifold. Then, we define the discrete Laplacian operator by graph theory and get an optimal solution by the Euler–Lagrange equation. Experiments show that our method could remove noise effectively on both synthetic scatter point cloud dataset and real image dataset. Furthermore, as a preprocessing step, our method could improve the robustness of manifold learning and increase the accuracy rate in the classification problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim of the Study. This study is aimed at exploring the effects and pharmacological mechanisms of the extracts from the Heritiera littoralis fruit (EFH) on dextran sulfate sodium- (DSS-) induced ulcerative colitis (UC) in mice. Materials and Methods. The chemical compositions of EFH were identified using LC-ESI-MS. The mice with 3% DSS-induced UC were administered EFH (200, 400, and 800 mg/kg), sulfasalazine (SASP, 200 mg/kg), and azathioprine (AZA, 13 mg/kg) for 10 days via daily gavage. The colonic inflammation was evaluated by the disease activity index (DAI), colonic length, histological scores, and levels of inflammatory mediators. The gut microbiota was characterized by 16S rRNA gene sequencing and analysis. Results. LC-ESI-MS analysis showed that EFH was rich in alkaloids and flavones. The results indicated that EFH significantly improved the DAI score, relieved colon shortening, and repaired pathological colonic variations in colitis. In addition, proteins in the NF-κB pathway were significantly inhibited by EFH. Furthermore, EFH recovered the diversity and balance of the gut microbiota. Conclusions. EFH has protective effects against DSS-induced colitis by keeping the balance of the gut microbiota and suppressing the NF-κB pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Angiosperm leaf venation is based on two major patterns, typically dicotyledonous branching and monocotyledonous parallel veins. The influence of these patterns on deformation and fracture properties is poorly understood. In this paper, three species of dicotyledons with netted venation and three species of monocots with parallel venation were selected, and the effect of vein distribution of leaves on their mechanical properties and deformation behavior was investigated. Whole images of leaves were captured using a digital camera, and their vein traits were measured using the image processing software Digimizer. A self-developed mechanical testing apparatus with high precision and low load was used to measure the tensile properties of leaves. The deformation behavior of the leaf was captured using a digital microscope during the tensile test. Results showed that the vein architecture of monocots and dicots is different, which had a remarkable effect on their mechanical properties, deformation behavior, and crack propagation behavior. The greater the diameter and the more the number of veins parallel to the tensile direction, the higher the tensile force, tensile strength, and elastic modulus of the leaves. The netted venation leaves evinced the elastic-plastic fracture type, and the hierarchy venation provided resistance to fracture propagation of cracks in the leaves by lengthening the crack path. The leaves with parallel venation behaved in a predominantly brittle manner or elastic fracture type, and the parallel venation inhibited the initiation of cracks in the leaves by increasing the load at complete fracture of the leaves. The investigation provides reference for a stiffened plate/shell structure and bionic anticrack design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unbalanced inflammatory reactions and oxidative stress are inseparably interconnected, and both may play crucial roles in the pathophysiological mechanisms of preeclampsia (PE). In the published previous studies, we have genotyped for SNPs that related to inflammation (rs2227485, rs153109, rs17855750, rs2027432, rs2275913, rs763780, rs4819554, and rs13015714) and oxidative stress (rs1695, rs4680, rs1800566, rs4807542, rs713041, rs7579, rs230813, rs1004467, rs3824755, and rs9932581) to investigate whether these polymorphisms were associated with susceptibility to PE in a Chinese Han population. In this present study, we collected these data of experimental and clinical from above studies for haplotype analysis of inflammation-related SNPs in 631 PE patients and 720 normal pregnancy and oxidative stress-related SNPs in 342 PE patients and 457 normal pregnancies for susceptibility to PE. The data of genotype distribution and allele frequency comparisons after correction for multiple comparisons (P/8 or P/10) showed 2 among the 8 candidate inflammation-related SNPs have significant differences (rs2027432 genotype χ2 = 407.377, p < 0.001, p < 0.00625). Moreover, the minor alleles of rs2027432 T (minor allele χ2 = 450.923, p < 0.001, p < 0.00625; OR = 21.439, 95%CI = 15.181-30.278) and rs4819554 G (minor allele χ2 = 163.465, p < 0.001, p < 0.00625; OR = 5.814, 95%CI = 4.380-7.719) were confirmed as risk allele of PE, respectively. Our analysis revealed rs2027432 (TT) of NLRP3 and rs4819554 (GG) of IL-17RA are risk factors for PE. However, no significant difference was found at the oxidative stress-related SNPs. In the candidate loci for oxidative stress, we also identified 3 SNP matches (rs4807542 and rs713041, rs230813 and rs75799, rs1004467 and rs3824755) that had high linkage disequilibrium (LD) with each other and were selected as a block (r2 = 0.98, r2 = 0.97, r2 = 0.97, r2 > 0.9), and the GT and GC haplotypes of rs4807542 and rs713041 in GPX4 showed significant differences between the PE and control groups (χ2 = 5.143, p = 0.0233, p < 0.05; χ2 = 6.373, p = 0.0116, p < 0.05). So, we inferred that polymorphisms of NLRP3 rs2027432 and IL-17RA rs4819554, which are related to inflammation, and the rs713041 variant of GPX4, which is related to oxidative stress, were associated with susceptibility to PE. The GT and GC haplotypes of rs4807542 and rs713041 in GPX4 may increase the risk of PE in the Chinese Han population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carbonation behavior of lime-stabilized expansive soil is important for assessing the stabilization efficiency from the perspective of durability. In this study, the accelerated carbonation tests, measurement of pH value distribution, and the free swell ratio tests were conducted to investigate the evolutions of carbonation depth, carbonation extent, and expansive potential of lime-stabilized expansive soil. XRD, MIP, and SEM techniques were adopted as supplements to reveal the carbonation mechanism. Results demonstrated that the carbonation depth of lime-stabilized expansive soil increased significantly as time elapsed; however, the rate of increase reduced when the carbonation time increased. Higher carbonation depth was obtained at higher temperature and CO2 concentration and lower relative humidity, which was described by an empirical model. Fully, partly, and noncarbonated zones were subsequently presented with an increase in the depth of the soil. The expansive potential of lime-stabilized expansive soil was partially recovered during carbonation. The obtained linear relationships between the free swell ratio and pH value were adopted to describe the evolution of expansive behavior with carbonation time and depth. In microstructural analysis, the conversion of portlandite into calcium carbonate was significant, which resulted in changes in microstructure and controlled the carbonation behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a fault detection and diagnosis (FDD) method, which uses one-dimensional convolutional neural network (1-D CNN) and WaveCluster clustering analysis to detect and diagnose sensor faults in the supply air temperature (Tsup) control loop of the air handling unit. In this approach, 1-D CNN is employed to extract man-guided features from raw data, and the extracted features are analyzed by WaveCluster clustering. The suspicious sensor faults are indicated and categorized by denoting clusters. Moreover, the Tc acquittal procedure is introduced to further improve the accuracy of FDD. In validation, false alarm ratio and missing diagnosis ratio are mainly used to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed FDD method. Results show that the abrupt sensor faults in Tsup control loop can be efficiently detected and diagnosed, and the proposed method is equipped with good robustness within the noise range of 6 dBm∼13 dBm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interventional therapies, such as percutaneous transluminal angioplasty and endovascular stent implantation, are used widely for the treatment of diabetic peripheral vascular complications. Reendothelialization is an essential process in vascular injury following interventional therapy, and hyperglycemia in diabetes mellitus (DM) plays an important role in damaging endothelial layer integrity, leading to the retardance of reendothelialization and excessive neointimal formation. Notoginsenoside Fc (Fc), a novel saponin isolated from Panax notoginseng, effectively counteracts platelet aggregation. Nevertheless, the potential effects and molecular mechanisms of Fc on reendothelialization have yet to be explored. In this study, we present novel findings that show the benefit of Fc in accelerating reendothelialization and alleviating excessive neointimal formation following carotid artery injury in diabetic Sprague–Dawley rats in vivo. Simultaneously, the decreased autophagy of the injured carotid artery in diabetic rats was restored by Fc treatment. Our in vitro results also demonstrated that Fc promoted endothelial cell proliferation and migration under high-glucose treatment by increasing autophagy. In summary, this study supported the notion that Fc could accelerate reendothelialization following vascular injury in diabetic rats by promoting autophagy, suggesting that Fc may exert therapeutic benefits for early endothelial injury and restenosis following intervention in diabetes-associated vascular diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acute liver injury is a common consequence of taking overdose of acetaminophen (APAP). The aim of this study was to evaluate the antioxidant activity and hepatoprotective effect of a mangrove plant Sonneratia apetala fruit extract (SAFE) on APAP-induced liver injury in mice. Mice were orally pretreated with SAFE (100, 200, and 400 mg/kg) daily for one week. The control and APAP groups were intragastrically administered with distilled water, and NAC group was treated with N-Acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) before APAP exposure. The results manifested that SAFE significantly improved survival rates, attenuated hepatic histological damage, and decreased the alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) levels in serum in APAP-exposed mice. SAFE treatment also increased glutathione (GSH) level and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activity, enhanced catalase (CAT), and total antioxidant capacity (T-AOC), as well as reducing malondialdehyde (MDA) level in liver. In addition, the formation of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), interleukin 6 (IL-6), and elevation of myeloperoxidase (MPO) in APAP-exposed mice were inhibited after SAFE treatment. And SAFE also displayed high DPPH radical scavenging activity and reducing power in vitro. The main bioactive components of SAFE such as total phenol, flavonoid, condensed tannin, and carbohydrate were determined. The current study proved that SAFE exerted potential protective effect against APAP-induced acute liver injury, which might be associated with the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities of SAFE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigated the role of MAP kinase phosphatase-1 (MKP-1) and rosiglitazone (RSG) in glucocorticoid resistance and glucocorticoid sensitivity, respectively, using a guinea pig model of lipopolysaccharide- (LPS-) induced sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSHL). The pigs were divided into control, LPS, LPS+dexamethasone (DEX), LPS+RSG, and LPS+DEX+RSG groups. Their hearing was screened by auditory brainstem response measurement. Immunofluorescence staining was used to identify the location of MKP-1 in the inner ear. The expression levels of MKP-1 and the related proteins in the inner ear were detected using western blotting. The morphological changes in the cochlea were observed via hematoxylin-eosin staining. Severe hearing loss was observed in the LPS group, as opposed to the protection from hearing loss observed in the LPS+DEX+RSG group. A positive correlation was observed between MKP-1 expression levels and protection from hearing loss. RSG and DEX synergistically influenced inner ear inflammation. In conclusion, resistance of LPS-induced SSHL guinea pig models to glucocorticoids may result from impaired MKP-1 function in inner ear tissues, induced by glucocorticoids, impairing the inhibition of inflammation. Our findings present novel targets to develop potential therapeutics to treat inflammatory diseases of the inner ear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Typha leaf has a structure of lightweight cantilever beam, exhibiting excellent mechanical properties with low density. Especially, the leaf blade evolved high strength and low density with high porosity. In this paper, the structure of Typha leaf was characterized by microcomputed tomography (Micro-CT) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the relationship with flexural properties was analyzed. The three-point bending test was performed on leaves to examine flexural properties, which indicated that the flexural properties vary from the base to the apex in gradient. The cross-sectional geometry shape of the leaf blade presented a strong influence on the optimized flexural stiffness. The load carrying capacity of the leaf depended on the development level of the epidermal tissue, the vascular bundle, the mechanical tissue, and the geometric properties. The investigation can be the basis for lightweight structure design and the application in the bionic engineering field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to reduce the feed rate fluctuation of interpolation, a novel approach for NURBS interpolation with minimal feed rate fluctuation based on improved Adams-Moulton (IAM) method is proposed. At first, the representation and calculation of NURBS curve interpolation are described. Then, the constraints of feeding step length are firstly given out to calculate the minimal hoping feeding step length and the detailed IAM method of NURBS curve interpolation is presented. Finally, simulations and experiments are carried out to verify the feasibility and applicability of proposed IAM method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The huge amount of gene expression data generated by microarray and next-generation sequencing technologies present challenges to exploit their biological meanings. When searching for the coexpression genes, the data mining process is largely affected by selection of algorithms. Thus, it is highly desirable to provide multiple options of algorithms in the user-friendly analytical toolkit to explore the gene expression signatures. For this purpose, we developed GESearch, an interactive graphical user interface (GUI) toolkit, which is written in MATLAB and supports a variety of gene expression data files. This analytical toolkit provides four models, including the mean, the regression, the delegate, and the ensemble models, to identify the coexpression genes, and enables the users to filter data and to select gene expression patterns by browsing the display window or by importing knowledge-based genes. Subsequently, the utility of this analytical toolkit is demonstrated by analyzing two sets of real-life microarray datasets from cell-cycle experiments. Overall, we have developed an interactive GUI toolkit that allows for choosing multiple algorithms for analyzing the gene expression signatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. Since the prognosis of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) patients with bone metastasis (BM) is poor, this study is aimed at using big data to build a machine learning (ML) model to predict the risk of BM in RCC patients. Methods. A retrospective study was conducted on 40,355 RCC patients in the SEER database from 2010 to 2017. LASSO regression and multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to determine independent risk factors of RCC-BM. Six ML algorithm models, including LR, GBM, XGB, RF, DT, and NBC, were used to establish risk models for predicting RCC-BM. The prediction performance of ML models was weighed by 10-fold cross-validation. Results. The study investigated 40,355 patients diagnosed with RCC in the SEER database, where 1,811 (4.5%) were BM patients. Independent risk factors for BM were tumor grade, T stage, N stage, liver metastasis, lung metastasis, and brain metastasis. Among the RCC-BM risk prediction models established by six ML algorithms, the XGB model showed the best prediction performance (AUC = 0.891). Therefore, a network calculator based on the XGB model was established to individually assess the risk of BM in patients with RCC. Conclusion. The XGB risk prediction model based on the ML algorithm performed a good prediction effect on BM in RCC patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]