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AIM: To investigate the clinical efficacy of intravenous immunoglobulin(IVIG)in the treatment of neuromyelitis optica related optic neuritis(NMO-ON)patients with recurrent and glucocorticoid resistance. METHODS: A total of 79 NMO-ON patients with recurrent and glucocorticoid resistance admitted to the ophthalmic inpatient department of our hospital from January 2016 to January 2018 were retrospectively selected and divided into two groups according to the treatment mode. Forty-two patients(57 eyes)in the IVIG group were treated with IVIG, and 37 patients(43 eyes)in the PE group were treated with plasmapheresis. The differences in efficacy, adverse reactions and recurrence rates between the two groups were compared, as well as the changes and differences in uncorrected visual acuity, aquaporin-4 immunoglobulin G antibody(AQP4-IgG), and myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody(MOG-IgG)antibody before and after treatment. RESULTS: The effective rates of IVIG group and PE group were 91% and 91% respectively(P>0.05). After treatment, the uncorrected visual acuity, photosensitive sense and number finger of the 2 groups were significantly improved(P0.05). The patients in the two groups were followed up for a median of 40(29-50)mo. By the last follow-up, the recurrence rates in IVIG group and PE group were 10% and 9%, respectively(P>0.05). The incidence of adverse reactions in IVIG group was lower than that in PE group(P

For item selection in cognitive diagnostic computerized adaptive testing (CD-CAT), ideally, a single item selection index should be created to simultaneously regulate precision, exposure status, and attribute balancing. For this purpose, in this study, we first proposed an attribute-balanced item selection criterion, namely, the standardized weighted deviation global discrimination index (SWDGDI), and subsequently formulated the constrained progressive index (CP_SWDGDI) by casting the SWDGDI in a progressive algorithm. A simulation study revealed that the SWDGDI method was effective in balancing attribute coverage and the CP_SWDGDI method was able to simultaneously balance attribute coverage and item pool usage while maintaining acceptable estimation precision. This research also demonstrates the advantage of a relatively low number of attributes in CD-CAT applications.

Urban land use provides essential information about how land is utilized within cities, which is critical for land planning, urban renewal, and early warnings for natural disasters. Although existing studies have utilized multi-source perception data to acquire land use information quickly and at low cost, and some have integrated urban morphological indicators to aid in land use identification, there is still a lack of systematic discussion in the literature regarding the potential of three-dimensional urban morphology to enhance identification effectiveness. Therefore, this paper aims to explore how urban three-dimensional morphology can be used to improve the identification of urban land use types. This study presents an innovative approach called the UMH–LUC model to enhance the accuracy of urban land use identification. The model first conducts a preliminary classification using points of interest (POI) data. It then improves the results with a dynamic reclassification based on floor area ratio (FAR) measurements and a variance reclassification using area and perimeter metrics. These methodologies leverage key urban morphological features to distinguish land use types more precisely. The model was validated in the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration using random sampling, comparative analysis and case studies. Results demonstrate that the UMH–LUC model achieved an identification accuracy of 81.7% and a Kappa coefficient of 77.6%, representing an 11.9% improvement over a non-morphology-based approach. Moreover, the overall disagreement for UMH–LUC is 0.183, a reduction of 0.099 compared to LUC without urban morphology and 0.19 compared to EULUC-China. The model performed particularly well in identifying residential land, mixed-use areas and marginal lands. This confirms urban morphology's value in supporting low-cost, efficient land use mapping with applications for sustainable planning and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One new cyclonerane sesquiterpene, 9,11-cycloneren-3,7-diol (1), along with four known ones, 11- cycloneren-3,7,10-triol (2), 9-cycloneren-3,7,11-triol (3), 11-methoxy-9-cycloneren-3,7-diol (4), and cyclonerodiol (5), were obtained from the extract of marine-derived fungus Trichoderma harzianum WH-22. The structure of 9,11-cycloneren-3,7-diol (1) was elucidated by comprehensive spectroscopic analysis, including 1D/2D NMR and HRESIMS data. 9,11-Cycloneren-3,7-diol (1) exhibited weak cytotoxicity against HeLa and HepG2 cancer cell lines with IC50 values of 68.2 and 59.7 μM, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the constant performance upgrades and regular price reductions of mobile devices in recent years, users are able to take advantage of the various devices to obtain digital content regardless of the limitations of time and place. The increasing use of e-books has stimulated new e-learning approaches. This research project developed an e-book hub service on a cloud computing platform in order to overcome the limitations of computing capability and storage capacity that are inherent in many mobile devices. The e-book hub service also allows users to automatically adjust the rendering of multimedia pages at different resolutions on terminal units such as smartphones, tablets, PCs, and so forth. We implemented an e-book hub service on OpenStack, which is a free and open-source cloud computing platform supported by multiple large firms. The OpenStack platform provides a large-scale distributed computing environment that allows users to build their own cloud systems in a public, private, or hybrid environment. Our e-book hub system offers content providers an easy-to-use cloud computing service with unlimited storage capacity, fluent playback, high usability and scalability, and high security characteristics to produce, convert, and manage their e-books. The integration of information and communication technologies has led the traditional publishing industry to new horizons with abundant digital content publications. Results from this study may help content providers create a new service model with increased profitability and enable mobile device users to easily get digital content, thereby achieving the goal of e-learning. (Contains 2 tables and 16 figures.)

Abstract Objectives TORCH infections caused by Toxoplasma gondii (TOX), rubella virus (RV), cytomegalovirus (CMV) and herpes simplex virus 1,2 (HSV-1,2) are associated with congenital anomalies. The study aimed to analyze the characteristics of TORCH screening in reproductive age women. Methods A total of 18,104 women (2015–2017) from a teaching hospital in Xi’an, China, were enrolled in the study. The characteristics of TORCH screening, i.e., the application of TORCH test, the seroprevalence, the impact of age, periods of gestation and woman with bad obstetric history (BOH) on the serological data were investigated. Results In the study, 319 women (1.76%) performed dynamic TORCH test. 51.66, 20.44 and 3.83% of the population did the test in the pre-gestation period, the first and third trimester, respectively. Quite a few pre-gestation women (29.74%) ignored screening of IgG antibodies. The overall IgG/IgM seropositvity of TOX, RV, CMV, HSV-1 and HSV-2 was 4.35%/0.35, 90%/0.63, 96.79%/0.97, 81.11%/0.14 and 6.1%/0.19%, respectively. The age-specific distributions and periods of gestation had no significant effect on the seroprevalence of TORCH agents, p>0.05. However, BOH was significantly associated with higher seropositvity of IgM (RV, CMV, HSV-1 and HSV-2) and IgG (CMV and HSV-1) antibodies, p

Assembling equivalent test forms with minimal test overlap across forms is important in ensuring test security. Chen and Lei (2009) suggested a exposure control technique to control test overlap-ordered item pooling on the fly based on the essence that test overlap rate--ordered item pooling for the first t examinees is a function of test overlap rate-- ordered item pooling for the previous (t-1) examinees. The exposure control procedure to control test overlap-ordered item pooling on the fly appears to meet the needs of controlling test overlap rate for tests assembled sequentially. To develop a better understanding of how well the ordered-item-pooling control method function in automated assembly of multiple forms with the WDM heuristic, this study evaluated its performance under different conditions of test length and test-content outline by comparing the outcomes to those from the corresponding baseline automated-test-assembly (ATA) conditions, where test overlap controls were not considered. The evaluation criteria included (i) the conformity to the test-assembly constraints, (ii) test parallelism in terms of the resultant psychometric properties, (iii) average test overlap rate, and (iv) distribution of item exposure rate. The results showed that the ordered-item-pooling control procedure demonstrated its effectiveness in most experimental conditions by achieving an acceptable average test overlap rate across multiple forms without compromising the conformity to the test-assembly constraints and the test equity of the assembled forms. Moreover, test security might be ensured in less supportive contexts for ATA by imposing item exposure control together with test overlap control that would be less likely to compromise test quality. More research is needed to verify this anticipation. (Contains 9 tables and 21 figures.)

The automated assembly of alternate test forms for online delivery provides an alternative to computer-administered, fixed test forms, or computerized-adaptive tests when a testing program migrates from paper/pencil testing to computer-based testing. The weighted deviations model (WDM) heuristic particularly promising for automated test assembly (ATA) because it is computationally straightforward and produces tests with desired properties under realistic testing conditions. Unfortunately, research into the WDM heuristic has focused exclusively on the Item Response Theory (IRT) methods even though there are situations under which Classical Test Theory (CTT) item statistics are the only data available to test developers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the degree of parallelism of test forms assembled with the WDM heuristic using both CTT and IRT methods. Alternate forms of a 60-item test were assembled from a pool of 600 items. One CTT and two IRT approaches were used to generate content and psychometric constraints. The three methods were compared in terms of conformity to the test-assembly constraints, average test overlap rate, content parallelism, and statistical parallelism. The results led to a primary conclusion that the CTT approach performed at least as well as the IRT approaches. The possible reasons for the results of the comparability of the three test-assembly approaches were discussed and the suggestions for the future ATA applications were provided in this paper. (Contains 11 tables and 6 figures.)

GLUT4 is involved in rapid glucose uptake among various kinds of cells to contribute to glucose homeostasis. Prior data have reported that aberrant glucose metabolism by GLUT4 dysfunction in the uterus could be responsible for infertility and increased miscarriage. However, the expression and precise functions of GLUT4 in the endometrium under physiological conditions remain unknown or controversial. In this study, we observed that GLUT4 exhibits a spatiotemporal expression in mouse uterus on pregnant days 1–4; its expression especially increased on pregnant day 4 during the window of implantation. We also determined that estrogen, in conjunction with progesterone, promotes the expression of GLUT4 in the endometrial epithelium in vivo or in vitro. GLUT4 is an important transporter that mediates glucose transport in endometrial epithelial cells (EECs) in vitro or in vivo. In vitro, glucose uptake decreased in mouse EECs when the cells were treated with GLUT4 small interfering RNA (siRNA). In vivo, the injection of GLUT4-siRNA into one side of the mouse uterine horns resulted in an increased glucose concentration in the uterine fluid on pregnant day 4, although it was still lower than in blood, and impaired endometrial receptivity by inhibiting pinopode formation and the expressions of leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) and integrin ανβ3, finally affecting embryonic development and implantation. Overall, the obtained results indicate that GLUT4 in the endometrial epithelium affects embryo development by altering glucose concentration in the uterine fluid. It can also affect implantation by impairing endometrial receptivity due to dysfunction of GLUT4.