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Weifeng Zou,1 Xiaoqian Wang,2 Wei Hong,3 Fang He,4 Jinxing Hu,1 Qing Sheng,1 Tao Zhu,1 Pixin Ran5 1State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Chest Hospital, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China; 2State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Disease, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China; 3GMU-GIBH Joint School of Life Sciences, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China; 4The Research Center of Experiment Medicine, Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of China; 5State Key Laboratory of Respiratory Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Pixin RanState Key Laboratory of Respiratory Diseases, National Clinical Research Center for Respiratory Diseases, Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, 151 Yanjiang Road, Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510120, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86 13922765811Email pxran@gzhmu.edu.cnBackground and Purpose: Recently, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) was identified as the main exposure risk for COPD, and inflammation is central to the development of COPD. In this study, we investigated whether PM2.5 can induce the secretion of interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-8 and IL-1β in human bronchial epithelial cells (HBECs) in vitro via the wingless-related integration site 5A (Wnt5a)/receptor tyrosine kinase-like orphan receptor 2 (Ror2) signaling.Methods: The expression of Wnt5a and Ror2 was assessed by immunohistochemistry in motor vehicle exhaust (MVE)-induced Sprague-Dawley rats. HBECs were transfected with small interfering RNA (siRNA) targeting Wnt5a or Ror2 and subsequently stimulated with PM2.5.The secretion of IL-6, IL-8 and IL-1β was assessed by ELISAs, and the expression of Wnt5a/Ror2 signaling were assessed by RT-PCR and Western blotting.Results: Both Wnt5a and Ror2 protein were increased in the lung of MVE-induced rats. HBECs exposed to PM2.5 for 24 h significantly upregulated Wnt5a and Ror2 expression and subsequently promoted the nuclear translocation of NF-κB, which increased the production of IL-1β, IL-6 and IL-8. Wnt5a siRNA prevented these outcomes. Wnt5a antagonist (BOX5) also prevented inflammatory effects. Furthermore, Ror2 siRNA blocked the NF-κB activity and inhibited the release of IL-6, IL-8 and IL-1β from PM2.5-exposed HBECs.Conclusion: PM2.5 induces the secretion of IL-6, IL-8 and IL-1β in HBECs via the Wnt5a/Ror2 signaling, demonstrating a novel mechanism for PM2.5-associated airway inflammation.Key words: COPD, PM2.5, Wnt5a/ROR2, inflammatory cytokines, HBECs

The coordinated rehabilitation of the upper limb is important for the recovery of the daily living abilities of stroke patients. However, the guidance of the joint coordination model is generally lacking in the current robot-assisted rehabilitation. Modular robots with soft joints can assist patients to perform coordinated training with safety and compliance. In this study, a novel coordinated path planning and impedance control method is proposed for the modular exoskeleton elbow–wrist rehabilitation robot driven by pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs). A convolutional neural network-long short-term memory (CNN-LSTM) model is established to describe the coordination relationship of the upper limb joints, so as to generate adaptive trajectories conformed to the coordination laws. Guided by the planned trajectory, an impedance adjustment strategy is proposed to realize active training within a virtual coordinated tunnel to achieve the robot-assisted upper limb coordinated training. The experimental results showed that the CNN-LSTM hybrid neural network can effectively quantify the coordinated relationship between the upper limb joints, and the impedance control method ensures that the robotic assistance path is always in the virtual coordination tunnel, which can improve the movement coordination of the patient and enhance the rehabilitation effectiveness.

Wenguang Luo,1,2 Wei Liu,2 Jie Yao,3 Wenjing Zhu,4 Hongyan Zhang,2 Qi Sheng,2 Lin Wang,2 Lei Lv,5 Liting Qian61School of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250100, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Radiation Oncology, Anhui Provincial Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230031, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Oncology, The 161 Hospital of PLA, Wuhan, Hubei Province 430010, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Geriatric Medicine, Anhui Provincial Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230031, People’s Republic of China; 5Cancer Epigenetics Program, Anhui Cancer Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230031, People’s Republic of China; 6Department of Radiation Oncology, Anhui Provincial Cancer Hospital, Anhui Provincial Hospital, The First Affiliated Hospital of University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230031, People’s Republic of ChinaBackground: Radiotherapy is one of the most common treatments for esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Radioresistance is a major obstacle that limits the efficacy of radiotherapy. H19 has been considered as a factor affecting radioresistance, whereas the specific mechanism of H19 in ESCC radioresistance remains to be further elucidated.Purpose: The objective of this study was to identify the relationship between H19 and radioresistance. The findings are expected to provide new insights into the treatment of radioresistant ESCC.Methods: The expression levels of H19 in ESCC was analyzed using the online database starBase. The Oncomine database was used to further verify the association between H19 expression and patient age, gender, and tumor stage. The overall survival rates of ESCC patients were analyzed using the KM plotter database. Clonogenic survival was conducted to identify the value of survival fraction. The optical density values were obtained via MTS assays. Cells migration and stemness were observed through Transwell and sphere formation assays. The expression levels of H19, miR-22-3p and WNT1 were analyzed using qPCR.Results: In our study, we firstly screened the H19 according to the online database starBase, and then the Oncomine database and KM plotter database showed that H19 expression was significantly upregulated in the ESCC tissues and associated with poor prognosis. Secondly, an ESCC radioresistant cell line, KYSE150R was established. Clonogenic survival showed that radiation decreased the value of survival fraction. MTS assays suggested that optical density values in KYSE150R cells were significantly higher than that in KYSE150 cells. Transwell and sphere formation assays showed radiation enhanced cell migration and stemness in ESCC cells. In addition, qPCR showed that H19 was upregulated in KYSE150R cells, and survival fraction assays showed that knockdown of H19 decreased the survival fraction values. MTS assays, migration and invasion assays suggested that H19 inhibited cells proliferation, migration and stemness in radioresistant KYSE150 cells. Moreover, qPCR assay showed that miR-22-3p expression levels was downregulated, but WNT1 was upregulated in KYSE150R cells as well as protein levels. Luciferase activity assay further showed that miR-22-3p inhibits the WNT1 expression.Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that H19 knockdown downregulates the WNT1 via upregulating miR-22-3p expression, which leads to the inhibition of cells proliferation, migration and stemness in the radioresistant ESCC cells.Keywords: ESCC, radioresistance, KYSE150R, H19, miR-22-3p, WNT1

Qingfeng Sheng,1 Weijue Xu,1 Jiangbin Liu,1 Baiyong Shen,2 Xiaxing Deng,2 Yibo Wu,1 Wei Wu,1 Shenghua Yu,1 Xueli Wang,3 Zhibao Lv1 1Department of General Surgery, Shanghai Children’s Hospital, 2Department of General Surgery, Rui Jin Hospital, 3Department of Pathology, Shanghai Children’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China Abstract: Solitary fibrous tumor (SFT) of the pancreas is rare, with 15 adult cases reported in the English literature. We described a 14-month-old boy who presented with obstructive jaundice. Dominantly elevated serum CA19-9 was detected. Imaging studies revealed a well-circumscribed, solid mass in the pancreatic head. A pancreaticoduodenectomy (child procedure) was performed using Shen’s anastomosis technique. After resection of the tumor, liver function and serum tumor markers normalized and clinical signs receded. The boy was disease free after a follow-up of 12 months. Histological examination showed the tumor consisted of “patternless pattern” arranged spindle tumor cells and keloid-like hyalinized collagen. Immunohistochemical staining was positive for CD34 and vimentin. Mutation analysis of CTNNB1 was negative. To the best of our knowledge, our patient was the first case of pancreatic SFT in a pediatric population. SFT should be considered in differential diagnosis when confronted with a pancreatic tumor in children. Complete resection should be meticulously pursued. Keywords: pancreas, rare tumors, children, rare pediatric tumors

Traditional compliance control of a rehabilitation robot is implemented in task space by using impedance or admittance control algorithms. The soft robot actuated by pneumatic muscle actuators (PMAs) is becoming prominent for patients as it enables the compliance being adjusted in each active link, which, however, has not been reported in the literature. This paper proposes a new compliance control method of a soft ankle rehabilitation robot that is driven by four PMAs configured in parallel to enable three degrees of freedom movement of the ankle joint. A new hierarchical compliance control structure, including a low-level compliance adjustment controller in joint space and a high-level admittance controller in task space, is designed. An adaptive compliance control paradigm is further developed by taking into account patient’s active contribution and movement ability during a previous period of time, in order to provide robot assistance only when it is necessarily required. Experiments on healthy and impaired human subjects were conducted to verify the adaptive hierarchical compliance control scheme. The results show that the robot hierarchical compliance can be online adjusted according to the participant’s assessment. The robot reduces its assistance output when participants contribute more and vice versa, thus providing a potentially feasible solution to the patient-in-loop cooperative training strategy.

A fiber optic bolometer (FOB) was demonstrated observing a fusion plasma for the first time at the DIII-D tokamak. A FOB uses a fiber optics-based interferometric technique that is designed to have a high sensitivity to temperature changes [75 mK/(W/m2) responsivity in high vacuum with 0.38 mK noise level] with a negligible susceptibility to electromagnetic interference (EMI) that can be problematic for resistive bolometers in a tokamak environment. A single-channel test apparatus was installed on DIII-D consisting of a measurement FOB and shielded reference FOB. The single-channel FOB showed a negligible increase in the noise level during typical plasma operations (0.39 mK) compared to the benchtop results (0.38 mK), confirming an insignificant EMI impact to the FOB. Comparisons to DIII-D resistive bolometers showed good agreement with the single-channel FOB, indicating that the FOB is comparable to a resistive bolometer when the impulse calibration is applied. The noise-equivalent power density of the calibrated FOB during a plasma operation was 0.55 W/m2 with an average sampling time of 20 ms. The major potential effect of ionizing radiation on the FOB would be the radiation-induced attenuation, which can be efficiently compensated for by adjusting the probing light power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A rehabilitation robot plays an important role in relieving the therapists’ burden and helping patients with ankle injuries to perform more accurate and effective rehabilitation training. However, a majority of current ankle rehabilitation robots are rigid and have drawbacks in terms of complex structure, poor flexibility and lack of safety. Taking advantages of pneumatic muscles’ good flexibility and light weight, we developed a novel two degrees of freedom (2-DOF) parallel compliant ankle rehabilitation robot actuated by pneumatic muscles (PMs). To solve the PM’s nonlinear characteristics during operation and to tackle the human-robot uncertainties in rehabilitation, an adaptive backstepping sliding mode control (ABS-SMC) method is proposed in this paper. The human-robot external disturbance can be estimated by an observer, who is then used to adjust the robot output to accommodate external changes. The system stability is guaranteed by the Lyapunov stability theorem. Experimental results on the compliant ankle rehabilitation robot show that the proposed ABS-SMC is able to estimate the external disturbance online and adjust the control output in real time during operation, resulting in a higher trajectory tracking accuracy and better response performance especially in dynamic conditions.

Background: Our aim was to summarize our experience with the diagnosis and surgical treatment of solid pseudopapillary neoplasm (SPN) of the pancreas to provide a reference for the management of this rare condition. Methods: We collected and analyzed retrospective data on the clinical presentation, laboratory investigations, radiologic imaging, pathology and operative details of patients with SPN of the pancreas diagnosed between February 2001 and December 2009. Results: In all, 23 of 24 patients were women, and the mean age of all patients was 31 years. The most common clinical presentation was vague abdominal pain. Abdominal imaging showed solid or solid cystic masses in the pancreas, mostly in the tail or head of the gland. All patients were treated surgically. There were no postoperative deaths. After follow-up ranging from 4 to 109 months (median 68 mo), 20 of 22 patients who underwent curative resection were alive with no evidence of disease recurrence. Of the 2 patients with R1 resections, 1 died 42 months after surgery, whereas the other underwent a second operation and was alive after 36 months' follow-up. Conclusion: Solid pseudopapillary neoplasm of the pancreas is a relatively indolent tumour. The initial diagnosis of SPN of the pancreas is suggested by radiologic imaging findings but should be considered in the context of clinical and histopathologic characteristics. We advocate for complete surgical resection once SPN is diagnosed. Contexte : Nous voulions resumer notre experience du diagnostic et du traitement chirurgical du neoplasme pseudo-papillaire solide (NPS) du pancreas afin d'etablir un point de reference pour la prise en charge de ce probleme rare. Methodes : Nous avons reuni et analyse des donnees retrospectives sur la manifestation clinique, les examens de laboratoire, l'imagerie radiologique, la pathologie et les details operatoires de patients atteints de NPS du pancreas diagnostique entre fevrier 2001 et decembre 2009. Resultats : Au total, 23 des 24 patients etaient des femmes et l'age moyen de tous les patients s'etablissait a 31 ans. La manifestation clinique la plus courante etait une vague douleur abdominale. L'imagerie abdominale a revele la presence de masses solides ou kystiques solides au pancreas, surtout a la queue ou a la tete de la glande. Tous les patients ont ete traites par chirurgie. Il n'y a pas eu de deces apres l'intervention. Apres un suivi echelonne sur 4 a 109 mois (mediane de 68 mois), 20 des 22 patients qui ont subi une resection curative etaient vivants et ne presentaient aucun signe de reapparition de la maladie. Des 2 patients qui ont subi une resection R1, 1 est decede 42 mois apres l'intervention tandis que l'autre a subi une deuxieme intervention et etait vivant apres un suivi de 36 mois. Conclusion : Le neoplasme pseudo-papillaire solide du pancreas est une tumeur relativement indolente. Le diagnostic initial de NPS du pancreas est indique par les resultats d'imagerie radiologique, mais il faudrait l'envisager en presence de caracteristiques cliniques et histopathologiques. Nous preconisons la resection chirurgicale complete apres le diagnostic., A solid pseudopapillary neoplasm (SPN) of the pancreas is a rare pancreatic tumour. It was first described by Dr. Frantz in 1959,1 and was defined by the World Health Organization [...]

This article considers the bearing-only formation control problem, where the control of each agent only relies on relative bearings of their neighbors. A new control law is proposed to achieve target formations in finite time. Different from the existing results, the control law is based on a time-varying scaling gain. Hence, the convergence time can be arbitrarily chosen by users, and the derivative of the control input is continuous. Furthermore, sufficient conditions are given to guarantee almost global convergence and interagent collision avoidance. Then, a leader–follower control structure is proposed to achieve global convergence. By exploring the properties of the bearing Laplacian matrix, the collision avoidance and smooth control input are preserved. A multirobot hardware platform is designed to validate the theoretical results. Both simulation and experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coordinated rehabilitation of the upper limb is important for the recovery of the daily living abilities of stroke patients. However, the guidance of the joint coordination model is generally lacking in the current robot-assisted rehabilitation. Modular robots with soft joints can assist patients to perform coordinated training with safety and compliance. In this study, a novel coordinated path planning and impedance control method is proposed for the modular exoskeleton elbow–wrist rehabilitation robot driven by pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs). A convolutional neural network-long short-term memory (CNN-LSTM) model is established to describe the coordination relationship of the upper limb joints, so as to generate adaptive trajectories conformed to the coordination laws. Guided by the planned trajectory, an impedance adjustment strategy is proposed to realize active training within a virtual coordinated tunnel to achieve the robot-assisted upper limb coordinated training. The experimental results showed that the CNN-LSTM hybrid neural network can effectively quantify the coordinated relationship between the upper limb joints, and the impedance control method ensures that the robotic assistance path is always in the virtual coordination tunnel, which can improve the movement coordination of the patient and enhance the rehabilitation effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the correlations of Helicobacter pylori (HP) with liver function, inflammatory factors and serum levels of forkhead box P3 (FoxP3) and retinoic acid receptor-related orphan receptor gamma-t (RORγt) in patients with hepatitis B cirrhosis (HBC). PATIENTS AND METHODS: A total of 60 HBC patients were divided into HBC group (n=30) and HP-infected HBC group (HP&HBC group, n=30). QRT-PCR was conducted to determine the messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) levels of FoxP3 and RORγt in serum samples. ELISA was applied to measure the levels of relevant inflammatory factors. Besides, immunohistochemical staining was conducted to detect positive expressions of FoxP3 and RORγt in liver tissues of patients in the two groups. RESULTS: No significant differences in gender, drinking, smoking, diabetes and age were found between HBC group and HP&HBC group (p>0.05). Globulin and albumin levels were comparable between the two groups (p>0.05). Liver function indexes, including ALT, AST and TBIL were higher in HP&HBC group than those in HBC group (p<0.05). The HBV-DNA level was lower in HBC group in comparison with that in HP&HBC group. The interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) level was remarkably higher in HBC group than that in HP&HBC group (p<0.01), and the levels of interleukin (IL)-6, IL-10, IL-17 and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1 were notably lower in HBC group in comparison with those in HP&HBC group (p<0.01). Additionally, the mRNA levels of FoxP3 and RORγt in HBC group were distinctly lower than those in HP&HBC group (p<0.01). The mRNA levels of FoxP3 and RORγt were positively related to those of IL-6, IL-10, IL-17, and TGF-β1, and negatively associated with IFN-γ level. Immunohistochemical results indicated that positive expression rates of FoxP3 and RORγt in the liver tissues were approximately 50% in HP&HBC group, and were 15% in HBC group, and the difference was statistically significant (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Expression levels of FoxP3 and RORγt in serum and liver tissues are elevated in HP-infected HBC patients, and inflammatory factors are correlated with their expressions, suggesting the aggravated liver damage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]