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Let Q be the affine quiver of type A ˜ 2 n − 1 , 1 and A q ( Q ) be the quantum cluster algebra associated to the valued quiver ( Q , ( 2 , 2 , … , 2 ) ) . We prove some cluster multiplication formulas, and deduce that the cluster variables associated with vertices of Q satisfy a quantum analogue of the constant coefficient linear relations. We then construct two bar-invariant Z [ q ± 1 2 ] -bases B and S of A q ( Q ) consisting of positive elements, and prove that B is an atomic basis.

We prove Hu-Zhang's conjecture stated in [5] that the characteristic polynomial of a finite dimensional irreducible representation of sl ( 2 , F ) can be explicitly expressed as a product of some irreducible polynomials.

The objective of the present paper is to prove cluster multiplication theorem in the quantum cluster algebra of type A 2 ( 2 ) . As corollaries, we obtain bar-invariant Z [ q ± 1 2 ] -bases established in [6] , and naturally deduce the positivity of the elements in these bases. One bar-invariant basis as the triangular basis of this quantum cluster algebra is also explicitly described.

Objective The purpose of this study was to investigate the development of speech skills in young children with Mondini dysplasia and age-matched deaf children with radiologically normal inner ears over a period of 5 years after cochlear implantation (CI). Methods In total, 700 congenitally severely to profoundly deaf children (281 girls and 419 boys) participated in this study. All of the participants had undergone unilateral CI surgery before 36 months of age. The participants were categorized into two groups based on the absence or presence of Mondini dysplasia in the implanted ear, as assessed via high-resolution, thin-slice computerized tomography or magnetic resonance imaging: group A comprised 592 children with radiologically normal inner ears and group B comprised 108 children with Mondini dysplasia. The Meaningful Use of Speech Scale (MUSS) and Speech Intelligibility Rating (SIR) were used to evaluate the speech performance of all young children at various time points: pre-surgery and at 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, 36, 48, and 60 months after switch-on programming. Results The mean scores of SIR and MUSS in children from both group A and group B showed significant improvements over time. No significant differences were found in the mean scores of SIR between the two groups at any time interval during the 5-year follow-up. The mean score of MUSS was significantly different between group A and group B at 12, 24, and 36 months after implantation, whereas no obvious differences were noted pre-surgery, and at 1, 3, 6, 48, and 60 months post-operation. Conclusions Young children with Mondini dysplasia develop their speech skills at a fast rate and achieve similar speech acquisition compared to age-matched children with radiologically normal inner ears 5 years post-operation. Therefore, CI is an effective intervention method for young children with Mondini dysplasia.

The genus Curcuma is widely recognized for its diversity of medicinal and culinary uses yet metabolomic differences among Curcuma species are largely unknown, due to the lack of broadly targeted analytical studies. Here, Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry/Mass Spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) analysis was employed to interrogate the metabolomes of five Curcuma species which are commonly used in Chinese herbal medicine (C. aromatica, C. elata, C. longa, C. caesia and C. phaeocaulis). By processing these results through a pathway enrichment analysis, 432 metabolites (some associated with the curcumin pathway) were identified that varied by species. The quantity of curcuminoids in C. longa were found to be higher than that in the other four Curcuma species analyzed in this study. In addition, C. longa was found to have a greater diversity of phenolic acids, amino acid derivatives, and flavonoids associated with the curcumin biosynthesis pathway. However, medicinal compounds such as 6-gingerol were found in lower quantities in C. longa compared to all other species in this study. This study provides new insights into Curcuma phytochemical pathways and allows for the development of functional foods tailored to specific needs from these species.

Objective The aim of this study is to investigate the development of auditory skills in Mandarin-speaking children with normal hearing using CAP-II, and to establish the baseline data for evaluating the auditory performance of children with hearing loss on which designs of appropriate hearing rehabilitation programs can be based. Materials and methods A total of 223 children participated in this study of which 200 children aged from 1 to 60 months were finally included. Their normal hearing was confirmed by examination of hearing history and high-risk registers for hearing loss, as well as by hearing screening. All children were divided into 10 groups with 20 children in each group based on age. The CAP-II scale was administered to evaluate their development of auditory skills. Results The categories of auditory performance scores of children with normal hearing improved with their age, the best-fit regression function for prediction of scores from age was Score = 0.94 × ln(age) + 0.08 × (age) + 1.16 and prediction of age from score was Age = 0.65 × (score)2–0.14 × (score)–0.23. The overall CAP-II scale exhibited good reliability and validity. Conclusions and Significance: An improvement in auditory skill with age in children with normal hearing was observed. Ceiling performance in auditory skills was found at the age of 51 months for normal children. A conversion table between age and scores obtained from the data of this study can be used as a reference for the assessment of clinical hearing ability in children.

Boiling heat transfer is widely involved in various energy conversion and utilization systems owing to its high heat transfer ecoefficiency even at low temperature differences. It is still a great challenge to control the boiling behaviors due to their multiple influencing factors and their randomness of bubble behaviors. The wettability greatly affects the boiling heat transfer. Hydrophobic surfaces can promote bubble nucleation and increase the heat transfer coefficient of nucleate boiling, while hydrophilic surfaces can promote bubble detachment, inhibiting film boiling, and hence increasing the critical heat flux. In order to meet such mixed requirements of wettability at different boiling stages, we propose a scalable and affordable method to fabricate the hydrophilic / hydrophobic mixed wettability surface. Compared with pure hydrophilic or superhydrophobic surfaces, the mixed surfaces exhibit higher heat transfer coefficient than the hydrophilic surface at low superheat degrees but larger critical heat flux than the hydrophobic surface at high superheat degrees. Therefore, the mixed wettability surfaces are more adaptable for a wider range of inputted heat flux. Such boiling heat transfer characteristics is the resultant of the unique bubble dynamics. The bubbles are likely to pinned on the hydrophobic spots but more easily detach from hydrophilic area. Tuning the hydrophilic / hydrophobic area ratio can manipulate the bubble dynamics. A numerical model is used to mimic the boiling on the hydrophilic / hydrophobic mixed surface, which agrees with the experimental results. And then the optimal area ratio is suggested by a boiling phase diagram based on a large number of simulations with various area ratios. Besides proposing a scalable and affordable way to fabricate the hydrophilic / hydrophobic mixed wettability surface, we also provide details of bubble dynamics on the pure or mixed wettability surfaces. Such details facilitate to understand the enhancement mechanisms of boiling heat transfer on mixed surface, which is still an open issue. The effects of the area ratios on the heat transfer coefficient are also discussed, which would provide a guideline to fabricate the mixed boiling enhancement surfaces.

CuO nanoparticles (CuO-NPs) toxicity in organisms is contributed mainly through the copper uptake by both the ionic and nanoparticle form. However, the relative uptake ratio and bioavailability of the two different forms is not well known due to a lack of sensitive and effective assessment systems. We developed a series of both copper resistant and hyper sensitive Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutants to investigate and compare the effects of CuO-NPs and dissolved copper (CuCl2), on the eukaryote with the purpose of quantitating the relative contributions of nanoparticles and dissolved species for Cu uptake. We observed the toxicity of 10 mM CuO-NPs for copper sensitive strains is equal to that of 0.5 mM CuCl2 and the main toxic effect is most likely generated from oxidative stress through reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. About 95% CuO-NPs exist in nanoparticle form under neutral environmental conditions. Assessing the cellular metal content of wild type and copper transporter 1(CTR1) knock out cells showed that endocytosis is the major absorption style for CuO-NPs. This study also found a similar toxicity of Ag for both 10 mM Ag-NPs and 0.2 mM AgNO3 in the copper super sensitive strains. Our study revealed the absorption mechanism of soluble metal based nanomaterials CuO-NPs and Ag-NPs as well as provided a sensitive and delicate system to precisely evaluate the toxicity and stability of nanoparticles.

Following Hubery's approach [15] , we prove a multiplication theorem of a quantum Caldero–Chapoton map associated to acyclic valued quivers which extends the results in [8,7] . As an application, some integral bases of the quantum cluster algebras for affine valued quivers can be constructed.

The main purpose of the current study was to assess the development of auditory and speech perception and the effects of the age at implantation in CI children after long-period follow up.Five hundred and forty-four young children participated in this study (339 males and 205 females). The age at implantation ranged from 6 months to 36 months. All subjects were prelingually bilateral profound sensorineural hearing loss. They were divided into 3 groups according to the implant ages: group 1 (age at implantation 12 months, n = 109); group 2 (12 months age at implantation 24 months, n = 284); and group 3 (24 months age at implantation 36 months, n = 151). The categorical auditory performance (CAP) was used to assess auditory abilities and the speech intelligibility rating (SIR) was used to assess the speech intelligibility of these CI children. The tests were administered at pre-surgery and 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, 36, 48- and 60-months post-surgery.All the subjects demonstrated improvements of auditory abilities and speech intelligibility after CI surgery. The auditory ability developed quickly in 12 months after implantation. However, the speech intelligibility scores show rapid improvement within 24 months post implantation. Significant difference was found between group 1 and group 3, group 2 and group 3 before 12 months post-implantation for CAP and SIR. The three groups of children showed similar development pattern for their auditory abilities and speech intelligibility.The results of this study suggested dramatic and continuous improvement of the auditory and speech abilities post implantation in these CI children. Furthermore, the age at implantation played a considerably smaller role in the improvement of hearing and speech abilities. However, earlier implantation still benefits the language development.

Objectives The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the longitudinal speech performance over 3 years in pediatric users of the Nurotron ® cochlear implant system. The secondary purpose was to compare the speech performances of younger and older children with cochlear implants (CIs). Methods The Mandarin Early Speech Perception (MESP), Meaningful Use of Speech Scale (MUSS), and Putonghua Chinese Communicative Development Inventory (PCDI) were used to evaluate speech performance of 22 Mandarin-speaking pediatric CI users throughout the first 36 months post-implantation. The subjects were grouped according to the age at implantation, i.e., younger CI group ( 3 years). Results All the subjects demonstrated improvement in speech performance throughout the first 3 years of implant use with mean scores reaching the maximum performance at 36 months post-implantation. The median categories of MESP increased from 0.23 pre-implantation to 5.57 three years post-implantation. Likewise, the median percentage of MUSS was 5.57% to 73.75%; the median performance of PCDI was 55 to 400 for PCDI-comprehension and 32 to 384 for PCDI-production at the same interval. At nearly all test intervals, the older group performed better than the younger group except 24 months post-implantation, at which the MUSS score of the younger CI group was higher than that of the older CI group. Conclusion The children with Nurotron ® Venus™ CI system showed considerable gains in speech and language development including tone performance which improved with hearing age. Earlier implantations haven’t presented significantly positive performances until 24 months post-implantation in all the tests.

A transparent separation unit with an apertured baffle for liquid–gas separation was constructed using acrylic resin. The phase-separation characteristics were examined using air and water as working fluids. The drain limit, flooding limit, and liquid level in the header of the unit were determined under different inlet liquid and gas superficial velocities. The performances of the unit were evaluated by analyzing the effects of pressure, gravity, and capillary force. The liquid-separation efficiency of the separator was determined by the inlet flow patterns. The unit showed strong liquid–gas separation effects at optimal inlet conditions. The liquid-separation efficiency was higher than 45% for an annular flow inlet, higher than 80% for a slug flow inlet at low liquid inlet superficial velocities, and approached 100% for a stratified flow inlet. The flow distribution in the header was visually observed using a high-speed camera to determine the effects of the inlet flow patterns on the drain limit as well as on the liquid-separation efficiency.

Boron (B) has been widely used and contaminated the aquatic ecosystem. However, knowledge of the effects of sodium pentaborate pentahydrate (SPP) on algae remains limited. This study aimed to assess SPP toxicity using multiple endpoints, specially detecting the intracellular metal ion concentrations, malondialdehyde (MDA) content and extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) classes for the very first time during SPP exposure to Chlorella vulgaris (C. vulgaris). Our findings indicated that the inhibitory effects of SPP on C. vulgaris may be related to nutrient absorption and utilization. The changes in intracellular starch grains, MDA and the protein-like substances in EPS probably acted as a defense mechanism, helping to alleviate the toxic effects. This work may contribute to the understanding of the mechanism of SPP toxicity in algae. Further studies may focus on the effects of B on speciation of metallic ions and the interaction of B with metallic ions on aquatic organisms.

In [L. Peng, J. Xiao, Triangulated categories and Kac–Moody algebras, Invent. Math. 140 (3) (2000) 563–603], the authors proved a theorem for constructing Hall type Lie algebras associated to 2-periodic triangulated categories. In particular, this theorem gives a global realization of symmetrizable Kac–Moody algebras. The purpose of this paper is to provide a refinement (meanwhile, a new proof) of the theorem by applying the approach of derived Hall algebras arising in homologically finite triangulated categories appeared in [B. Toen, Derived Hall algebras, Duke Math. J. 135 (3) (2006) 587–615] and [J. Xiao, F. Xu, Hall algebras associated to triangulated categories, Duke Math. J. 143 (2) (2008) 357–373].

Three liquid–vapor separation condensers (LSC) were tested to evaluate their ability to automatically separate the liquid and vapor during condensation. Each was used in a split-type air conditioner to investigate the performance. The performance of the LSC system having the greatest cooling capacity and energy efficiency ratio (EER) was then compared with that of the system having a baseline fin-and-tube condenser for various ambient temperatures from 29 °C to 43 °C. The results showed that both the cooling capacity and EER of the two systems were almost the same at the three standard conditions in the Chinese standard GB/T 7725-2004, with the LSC having just 67% of the heat transfer area of the baseline condenser. In addition, the LSC system was charged with only 80% of the refrigerant in the baseline system.

Premature intracellular activation of the digestive enzyme trypsinogen is considered to be the initiating event in pancreatitis. However, the direct consequences of intracellular trypsin activity have not previously been examined. In the current study, a mutant trypsinogen (paired basic amino acid cleaving enzyme (PACE)-trypsinogen), which is activated intracellularly by the endogenous protease PACE, was developed. This new construct allowed for the first time direct examination of the effects of intracellular trypsin on pancreatic acinar cells. We found that PACE-trypsinogen was expressed in the secretory pathway and was activated within acinar cells. Expression of PACE-trypsinogen induced apoptosis of HEK293 cells and pancreatic acinar cells, as indicated by histology, DNA laddering, PARP cleavage, and caspase-3 activation. Cell death was blocked by the trypsin inhibitor Pefabloc but not by the pancaspase inhibitor benzyloxycarbonyl-VAD, indicating that caspase-independent pathways were also involved. However, intracellular trypsin had no significant effect on the activity of the proinflammatory transcription factor NF-kappaB. In contrast, extracellular trypsin caused cell damage and dramatically increased NF-kappaB activity. These data indicate that localization of active trypsin determines its effects on pancreatic acinar cells. This new model will greatly improve our understanding of the role of active trypsin in pancreatitis and its associated inflammatory response.

In analogy to a previous result of Dlab–Heath–Marko on quasi-hereditary algebras, the paper provides sufficient and necessary conditions for particular endomorphism algebras to be properly stratified.

Background & Aims: The role of nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) activation in acute pancreatitis is uncertain. The transcription factor NF-κB is activated early in acute pancreatitis, and NF-κB is widely considered a key element in inflammatory responses based on its ability to regulate the expression of inflammatory mediators in vitro. However, its role in vivo in specific diseases remains unclear, and the current data on the role of NF-κB in acute pancreatitis is primarily correlative. Methods: In this study, NF-κB was directly activated within the pancreas using adenoviral-mediated transfer of an active subunit, RelA/p65 (Adp65), delivered by intraductal injection. Results: Administration of Adp65 led to the infection of a population of acinar cells within the pancreas, the activation of NF-κB, the expression of NF-κB target genes, and an inflammatory response. Administration of Adp65 increased the infiltration of neutrophils to the pancreas and lung and caused widespread damage to pancreatic acinar cells. In contrast, at the same titer, control adenovirus (AdGFP) had no effect on these parameters. The level of NF-κB activation and the severity of inflammation were reduced when an adenovirus bearing the inhibitory subunit IκB-α was coadministered with Adp65. Conclusions: Thus, activation of NF-κB within the pancreas was sufficient for the initiation of an inflammatory response in this model. These results help define the specific role of NF-κB activation in acute pancreatitis. GASTROENTEROLOGY 2002;122:448-457

Recently a huge amount of fluoride in coal has been released into indoor environments by the combustion of coal and fluoride pollution seems to be increasing in some rural areas in China. Combustion of coal and coal bricks is the primary source of gaseous and aerosol fluoride and these forms of fluoride can easily enter exposed food products and the human respiratory tract. Major human fluoride exposure was caused by consumption of fluoride contaminated food, such as corn, chilies and potatoes. For each diagnostic syndrome of dental fluorosis, a log-normal distribution was observed on the logarithm of urinary fluoride concentration in students in China. Urinary fluoride content was found to be a primary health indicator of the prevalence of dental fluorosis in the community. In the fluorosis areas, osteosclerosis in skeletal fluorosis patients was observed with a high prevalence. A biochemical marker of bone resorption, urinary deoxypyridinoline content was much higher in residents in China than in residents in Japan. It was suggested that bone resorption was stimulated to a greater extent in residents in China and fluoride may stimulate both bone resorption and bone formation. Renal function especially glomerular filtration rate was very sensitive to fluoride exposure. Inorganic phosphate concentrations in urine were significantly lower in the residents in fluorosis areas in China than in non-fluorosis area in China and Japan. Since airborne fluoride from the combustion of coal pollutes extensively both the living environment and food, it is necessary to reduce fluoride pollution caused by coal burning.

The 1996 research report by Hoener et al. [M.C. Hoener, E. Hewitt, J. M. Conner, J.W. Costello, S. Varon, Nerve growth factor (NGF) content in adult rat brain tissue is several-fold higher than generally reported and is largely associated with sedimentable fractions, Brain Res. 728 (1996) 47-56.] compares levels of nerve growth factor (NGF) found in rat brain by assaying both supernatant and pellet to previously reported data. However, Hoener et al. miscalculated when converting values previously reported in the literature to units of picogram per milliliter. Regardless of this mistake, the method of tissue extraction does affect the extent of release of NGF, which must be maximized in order to accurately determine NGF levels in the central nervous system. We now report that accurate measurement of NGF levels is not only affected by the incomplete release of NGF from receptors, but also the medium in which the standard curve is run. It is the combination of these two variables that has led to the underestimation of NGF levels in previous research.