Search

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) have the potential application in evaluating pathological structural change of the optic nerve. We aimed to evaluate the value of the OCT and OCTA parameters of the optic disk and macular in differentiating early chronic primary angle-closure glaucoma (CPACG) and early pituitary adenoma (PA) in case of mild visual field defects (the mean defect (MD) > 6 dB). The results showed that regarding OCTA parameters, CPACG patients had lower retinal blood flow density of most layers of the optic disk and macular than PA patients. Regarding OCT parameters, CPACG patients had thinner circumpapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (CP-RNFL) in all quadrants and average CP-RNFL, ganglion cell layer (GCL) and macular ganglion cell complex (GCC) in each quadrant of macular inner and outer rings, and inner plexus layer (IPL) of macular inner ring, superior-outer ring and temporal-outer ring than PA patients. The Z test indicated that OCTA parameters and OCT parameters had similar value in the diagnosis of disease. In conclusion, in the case of similar visual field damage, early CPACG patients have smaller blood flow density and thinner optic disk and macular than early PA. OCTA has similar performance to OCT in diagnosing CPACG and PA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In near-road neighborhoods, residents are more frequently exposed to traffic-related air pollution (TRAP), and they are increasingly aware of pollution levels. Given this consideration, this study adopted portable air pollutant sensors to conduct a mobile monitoring campaign in two near-road neighborhoods, one in an urban area and one in a suburban area of Shanghai, China. The campaign characterized spatiotemporal distributions of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and black carbon (BC) to help identify appropriate mitigation measures in these near-road micro-environments. The study identified higher mean TRAP concentrations (up to 4.7-fold and 1.7-fold higher for PM2.5 and BC, respectively), lower spatial variability, and a stronger inter-pollutant correlation in winter compared to summer. The temporal variations of TRAP between peak hour and off-peak hour were also investigated. It was identified that district-level PM2.5 increments occurred from off-peak to peak hours, with BC concentrations attributed more to traffic emissions. In addition, the spatiotemporal distribution of TRAP inside neighborhoods revealed that PM2.5 concentrations presented great temporal variability but almost remained invariant in space, while the BC concentrations showed notable spatiotemporal variability. These findings provide valuable insights into the unique spatiotemporal distributions of TRAP in different near-road neighborhoods, highlighting the important role of hyperlocal monitoring in urban micro-environments to support tailored designing and implementing appropriate mitigation measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the lower Wumishan Formation at the eastern edge of the Tai-hang Mountains in North China, a ~ 10 m stratigraphic interval contains alternately "bright and dark" laminites with enigmatic loop structures (2.5–27.5 cm in length and 0.6–12 cm in height), preserved in cross-sectional and named "loopites" in this study. The loopites are composed of cores and annulate laminations. Based on the different morphologies, they can be divided into three different types: type I, II and III. Although the loopites are similar to the loop beddings, the formation mechanisms are different. The former is possibly microbially induced sedimentary structures (MISS), while the loop beddings preserve evidence of soft-sediment deformation structures (SSDS) such as boudinage or chain structures, joints and small-scale tensional faults. All three types of loopites have cores. The type I core is made up of relicts of previous microbial mat and the microhighlands, while the type II and III loopites have cores defined by debris and rock fragments. The cores are completely wrapped by microbial mats of later generation. Thus, we can conclude that the formation of loopites is due to the growth, wrapping and deposition of microbial mats, while loop beddings are generated by external triggering mechanism such as earthquake. Furthermore, the discovery and possible formation of loopites may provide a new type of MISS and indicate a stable, anoxic and carbonate-supersaturated environment favorable for microbial mats to form annulate structures, which are controlled by illumination, microtopography and hydrodynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterogeneous computing has been developing continuously in the field of high-performance computing because of its high performance and energy efficiency. More and more accelerators have emerged, such as GPU, FPGA, DSP, AI accelerator, and so on. Usually, the accelerator is connected to the host CPU as a peripheral device to form a tightly coupled heterogeneous computing node, and then, a parallel system is constructed by multiple nodes. This organization is computationally efficient, but not flexible. When new accelerators appear, it is difficult to join the system that has been built. At the hardware level, we create an array of accelerators and connect them to the existing system through a high-speed network. At the software level, we dynamically organize computing resources from various arrays to build a virtual heterogeneous computing node. This approach also includes a standard programming environment. Therefore, it is a more flexible, elastic, and scalable heterogeneous computing organization. In this paper, a supernode OpenCL implementation is proposed for hybrid parallel computing systems, in which virtual supernodes can be dynamically constructed between different computing arrays, and a standard OpenCL environment is implemented based on RDMA communication of high-speed interconnection, which can be combined with the system-level MPI programming environment, thereby realizing the large-scale parallel computing of the hybrid array. SNCL is compatible with existing MPI/OpenCL programs without the need for additional modifications. Experiments show that the runtime overhead of the supernode OpenCL environment is very low, and it is suitable for deploying applications with high computing density and large data scale between different arrays to utilize their computing power without affecting scalability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides a detailed description of the topographical distribution characteristics, along-strike morphologic variations, and tectonic implications of the Kyushu-Palau Ridge (KPR) in the 13°–17° N regions. The description is based on multibeam bathymetric data that was recently collected in the mid-southern segment of KPR and its surrounding areas. The findings indicate that the KPR in the studied region comprises several discontinuous seamounts and seamount chains. Along the ridge running from east to west, there is significant variation in the topography of the seafloor. Visible on this ridge are numerous deep-sea depressions and apparent topographical discontinuities. Geological tectonic processes such as plate subduction and seafloor spreading largely determine the topography of the seafloor. During the beginning of the Parece Vela Basin (PVB) spreading, the pre-existing volcanic arcs fractured under east-west extensional stress, resulting in the development of prominent seamounts, sharp ridges, relief alternations, and rift basins in the KPR. The east-west stress was subsequently transmitted to the weak and inactive mid-ocean ridge in the West Philippine Basin (WPB), which was reactivated and resulted in an episode of magma-poor spreading during 30–26 Ma. This episode caused the KPR to move eastward, stretched, and destroyed its pre-existing structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ningdong coalfield has played a pivotal role in advancing local economic development and meeting national energy. Nevertheless, mining operations have engendered ecological challenges encompassing subterranean water depletion, land desertification, and ground subsidence, primarily stemming from the disruption of coal seam roof strata. Consequently, the local ecosystem has incurred substantial harm. Water-preserved coal mining presently constitutes the pivotal technology in mitigating this problem. The primary challenge of this technique lies in identifying critical aquifer layers and understanding the heights of water-conducting fracture zones. To obtain a precise comprehension of the seepage patterns within the upper coal seam aquifer during mining, delineate the extent of water-conducting fracture zones, non-invasive geophysical techniques such as time-lapse electrical resistivity tomography (TL-ERT), magnetic resonance sounding (MRS), and spontaneous potential (SP) have been employed to monitor alterations within the shallow coalfield's aquifer throughout the mining process in the Ningdong coalfield. By conducting meticulous examinations of fluctuations in resistivity, moisture content, and self-potential within the superjacent strata during coal seam extraction, the predominant underground water infiltration strata were ascertained, concurrently enabling the estimation of the development elevation of water-conducting fracture zones. This outcome furnishes a geophysical underpinning for endeavors concerning local water-preserved coal mining and ecological rehabilitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Frontiers of Information Technology & Electronic Engineering is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Current therapies for hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection can slow disease progression but cannot cure the infection, as it is difficult to eliminate or permanently silence HBV covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA). The interaction between host factors and cccDNA is essential for their formation, stability, and transcriptional activity. Here, we focused on the regulatory role of the host factor ENPP1 and its interacting transcription factor LMNB1 in HBV replication and transcription to better understand the network of host factors that regulate HBV, which may facilitate the development of new antiviral drugs. Overexpression of ectonucleotide pyrophosphatase/phosphodiesterase 1 (ENPP1) in Huh7 cells decreased HBV pregenomic RNA (pgRNA) and hepatitis B core antigen (HBcAg) expression levels, whereas knockdown of ENPP1 increased them. A series of HBV promoter and mutant plasmids were constructed, and a luciferase reporter assay showed that overexpression of ENPP1 caused inhibition of the HBV promoter and its mutants. A DNA pull-down assay showed that lamin B1 (LMNB1), but not ENPP1, interacts directly with the HBV enhancer II/ basic core promoter (EnhII/BCP). ZDOCK and PyMOL software were used to predict the interaction of ENPP1 with LMNB1. Overexpression of LMNB1 inhibited the activity of the HBV promoter and its mutant. The acetylation levels at the amino acids 111K, 261K, and 483K of LMNB1 were reduced compared to the control, and an LMNB1 acetylation mutant containing 111R, 261Q, 261R, 483Q, and 483R showed increased promoter activity. In summary, ENPP1 together with LMNB1 increased the acetylation level at 111K and 261K, and LMNB1 inhibited the activity of HBV promoter and downregulated the expression of pregenomic RNA and HBcAg. Our follow-up studies will investigate the expression, clinical significance, and relevance of ENPP1 and LMNB1 in HBV patient tissues, explore the effect of LMNB1 on post-transcriptional progression, and examine whether ENPP1 can reduce cccDNA levels in the nucleus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of multimedia technology, it is very important to improve the accuracy of sparse signal reconstruction for image or speech based on compressed sensing technology. In this work, a matching pursuit algorithm for sparse signal reconstruction based on Jaccard coefficient and backtracking strategy is proposed to improve the accurate reconstruction probability. Jaccard coefficient matching criterion and inner product matching criterion are combined to preserve more features of the original vector. A mean-based thresholding strategy is used to selects atoms adaptively, and the backtracking method is introduced to filter out the wrong atoms. Experimental results show that the reconstruction performance of the proposed algorithm is much better than other greedy algorithms when the sparsity K is large (K>35). For speech signals, the proposed algorithm has better reconstruction performance than other algorithms for both male and female voice signals. Under different compression ratios, the AFSNR and the PESQ scores of the reconstructed speech by the proposed algorithm are increased by at least 1.5348 dB and 0.5629, respectively, especially showing superior performance under larger compression ratio. The proposed algorithm has bright application prospect in intelligent speech interaction with accurate reconstruction of speech signal under large compression ratios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Central South University is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Water polyurethane (WPU) with flame retardant and hydrophobic properties was synthesized by in situ polymerization using 9,10-dihydro-9-oxa-10-[N, N-bis-(2- hydroxyethyl-amino-methyl)]-10-phosphaphenanthrene-10-oxide (DOPO-DAM) as flame retardant modifying agent, hydroxyl-terminated polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as hydrophobic modifying agent. FT-IR and TEM characterized the chemical structure and morphology of modified WPU. The effects of DOPO-DAM and PDMS dosage on the performance of modified WPU were investigated. The tensile strength for the modified WPU films first increased and then decreased with increasing of DOPO-DAM dosage. Incorporating DOPO-DAM and PDMS into WPU significantly enhanced flame retardancy, as evidenced by the reduction in peak heat release rate, total heat release rate, total smoke production, effective heat of combustion, and carbon dioxide production rate. The scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy confirmed that the good flame retardancy of modified WPU was due to the synergistic effect of P, N and Si elements. Afterward, modified WPU as a finishing agent was coated on polyester fabric. The experimental results of limiting oxygen index (LOI) and the vertical burning test indicated that when the dosage of DOPO-DAM was 6 wt% in modified WPU, after-flame time, after-glow time, damage length and LOI value of the coated polyester fabric were 7.0 s, 0.0 s, 8.5 cm and 26.2%, respectively. In addition, with the increase of PDMS dosage in modified WPU, the water contact angle of the coated fabrics showed an upward trend and remained stable. The addition of PDMS not only improved the flame retardancy of the coated fabric but also had a good effect on hydrophobicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiple dangerous sites often coexist in complex structures like aircraft turbine rotors, and its failure-correlated reliability evaluation usually occurs the thorny problems of high-efficacy computing and correlation quantification. In this paper, a novel unified reliability evaluation framework is proposed: to meet the high-efficacy computing demand of multi-site reliability evaluation, a new optimized Kriging surrogate-based improved importance sampling (OKS-IIS) method is first presented; furthermore, to quantify the failure correlation relationships among multiple dangerous sites, a novel failure correlation analysis (FCA) strategy is further developed. A typical reliability evaluation of high-pressure turbine rotor with multiple dangerous sites is selected, to validate the effectiveness of the proposed framework. Methods comparison show that the OKS-IIS method can improve computing efficiency while keeping computing accuracy, and the FCA strategy can accurately quantify the multi-site failure correlation. The current efforts would shed a light on the complex reliability evaluation problems involving failure correlation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Frontiers of Information Technology & Electronic Engineering is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Maleic acid polymer scale inhibitor is a new domestic seawater desalination scale inhibitor. This study tested the acute oral toxicity, sub-chronic toxicity and genotoxicity of this new inhibitor. The LD50 obtained from the acute oral toxicity test was 6810 and 9260 mg/kg·BW for male and female rats, as well as 1/5, 1/10 and 1/20 LD50 were as the dose for sub-chronic toxicity test. It showed the weight of male rats with high dose was significantly lower than the control group during the exposure period (p < 0.05), and the food consumption in the first 4 weeks was lower than the control group (p_week1 = 0.0261, p_week4 = 0.00222). The blood biochemical results showed the UREA in the medium- and high-dose groups were significantly higher than the control group (p_ female medium = 0.0047, p_high = 0.0037; p_male medium = 0.0026, p_high < 0.001), and increased as a dose dependence. Based on UREA results, the NOAEL and LOAEL were 1/20 LD50 and 1/10 LD50, respectively (males: 340.5 and 681 mg/kg·BW, females: 436 and 926 mg/kg·BW). Comet assay in vitro and Mammalian Erythrocyte Micronucleus Test were jointly to judge genotoxicity. This inhibitor did not cause chromosome aberrations in mouse bone marrow cells. However, the tail moment of CHO cell in all groups (p < 0.01) and the DNA% in tail in the 1/4 IC50 and IC50 groups were higher than the negative control (p < 0.001) in comet assay, suggesting the potential DNA damage in CHO cell. The oral LD50 and the NOAEL and LOAEL obtained in this study provides a theoretical basis for further toxicity research and risk assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radiotherapy is an important modality for the treatment of cancer, e.g., X-ray, Cs-137 γ-ray (peak energy: 662 keV). An important therapy pathway of radiation is to generate the double strand breaks of DNA to prohibit the proliferation of cancer cells. In addition, the excessive amount of reactive oxygen species (ROS) is induced to damage the organelles, which can cause cellular apoptosis or necrosis. Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) have been proven potential as a radiosensitizer due to the high biocompatibility, the low cytotoxicity and the high-Z property (Z = 79) of gold. The latter property may allow GNPs to induce more secondary electrons for generating ROS in cells as irradiated by high-energy photons. In this paper, the radiobiological effects on A431 cells with uptake of 55-nm GNPs were studied to investigate the GNPs-enhanced production of ROS on these cells as irradiated by Cs-137 γ-ray. The fluorescence-labeling image of laser scanning confocal microscopy (LSCM) shows the excessive expression of ROS in these GNPs-uptake cells after irradiation. And then, the follow-up disruption of cytoskeletons and dysfunction of mitochondria caused by the induced ROS are observed. From the curves of cell survival fraction versus the radiation dose, the radiosensitization enhancement factor of GNPs is 1.29 at a survival fraction of 30%. This demonstrates that the tumoricidal efficacy of Cs-137 radiation can be significantly raised by GNPs. Because of facilitating the production of excessive ROS to damage tumor cells, GNPs are proven to be a prospective radiosensitizer for radiotherapy, particularly for the treatment of certain radioresistant tumor cells. Through this pathway, the tumoricidal efficacy of radiotherapy can be raised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies in Arabidopsis reported that the PPR protein SOAR1 plays critical roles in plant response to salt stress. In this study, we reported that expression of the Arabidopsis SOAR1 (AtSOAR1) in rice significantly enhanced salt tolerance at seedling growth stage and promoted grain productivity under salt stress without affecting plant productivity under non-stressful conditions. The transgenic rice lines expressing AtSOAR1 exhibited increased ABA sensitivity in ABA-induced inhibition of seedling growth, and showed altered transcription and splicing of numerous genes associated with salt stress, which may explain salt tolerance of the transgenic plants. Further, we overexpressed the homologous gene of SOAR1 in rice, OsSOAR1, and showed that transgenic plants overexpressing OsSOAR1 enhanced salt tolerance at seedling growth stage. Five salt- and other abiotic stress-induced SOAR1-like PPRs were also identified. These data showed that the SOAR1-like PPR proteins are positively involved in plant response to salt stress and may be used for crop improvement in rice under salinity conditions through transgenic manipulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In practice, a vital challenge problem is how to accurately evaluate the failure probability of rare events with a minimum of samples. Although adaptive Kriging combined with truncated importance sampling (AK-TIS) provides a viable method to address this problem, unsatisfied samples are often added in Kriging modeling and thereby result in an unacceptable computing burden. To efficiently acquire best-desired samples and reduce the calls of real limit state function (LSF), a moving-zone renewal (MZR) strategy-based AK-TIS (MZR-AK-TIS) approach is proposed. By dividing the whole large candidate sampling pool into several small sub-candidate sampling pools, the MZR strategy can ceaselessly find desired samples and update the Kriging model as the moving of the sub-sampling pool. MZR-AK-TIS not only inherits the advantages of AK-TIS but also reduces its computing time in two aspects. One is the size reduction of the candidate sampling pool in each sub-zone, and the other is the reduction of the call number of real LSF since the samples outside the sub-sampling pool do not need to participate in Kriging updating. The proposed method is verified by several numerical cases and applied to the aeroengine variable stator vane mechanism. The analysis results demonstrate that MZR-AK-TIS holds the potential to reduce the computing cost while ensuring accuracy in rare event analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graph neural networks (GNNs) have achieved significant success in graph representation learning. Nevertheless, the recent work indicates that current GNNs are vulnerable to adversarial perturbations, in particular structural perturbations. This, therefore, narrows the application of GNN models in real-world scenarios. Such vulnerability can be attributed to the model's excessive reliance on incomplete data views (e.g., graph convolutional networks (GCNs) heavily rely on graph structures to make predictions). By integrating the information from multiple perspectives, this problem can be effectively addressed, and typical views of graphs include the node feature view and the graph structure view. In this paper, we propose C2oG, which combines these two typical views to train sub-models and fuses their knowledge through co-training. Due to the orthogonality of the views, sub-models in the feature view tend to be robust against the perturbations targeted at sub-models in the structure view. C2oG allows sub-models to correct one another mutually and thus enhance the robustness of their ensembles. In our evaluations, C2oG significantly improves the robustness of graph models against adversarial attacks without sacrificing their performance on clean datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Ultrasound and multi-slice spiral computed tomography (CT) are frequently used to assist the diagnosis of acute appendicitis (AA), and the examination results may vary among different demographics. This study aimed to compare the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound and CT for AA.We performed a retrospective analysis of patients diagnosed with AA who underwent emergency surgery at our hospital from March 2021 to August 2023, with postoperative pathological results as the gold standard. Differences in the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound and CT for different types of AA, age groups, and body mass index (BMI) values were then analyzed.The overall sample comprised 279 confirmed cases of AA, with 64 cases of simple appendicitis, 127 cases of suppurative appendicitis, and 88 cases of gangrenous appendicitis. For these three pathological classifications, the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound was 68.75% (44/64), 73.22% (93/127), and 81.81% (72/88), respectively, while the diagnostic accuracy of CT was 71.87% (46/64), 82.67% (105/127), and 90.90% (80/88), respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in the overall diagnostic accuracy between the two methods (P > 0.05). Subgroup analysis showed no difference in diagnostic accuracy between the two methods for patients with normal BMI (P > 0.05). However, for overweight, obese, and elderly patients, CT provided significantly better diagnostic accuracy than ultrasound (P < 0.05).While ultrasound and CT have similar diagnostic accuracy for different pathological types of AA, CT is more accurate for overweight, obese, and elderly patients.Methods: Ultrasound and multi-slice spiral computed tomography (CT) are frequently used to assist the diagnosis of acute appendicitis (AA), and the examination results may vary among different demographics. This study aimed to compare the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound and CT for AA.We performed a retrospective analysis of patients diagnosed with AA who underwent emergency surgery at our hospital from March 2021 to August 2023, with postoperative pathological results as the gold standard. Differences in the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound and CT for different types of AA, age groups, and body mass index (BMI) values were then analyzed.The overall sample comprised 279 confirmed cases of AA, with 64 cases of simple appendicitis, 127 cases of suppurative appendicitis, and 88 cases of gangrenous appendicitis. For these three pathological classifications, the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound was 68.75% (44/64), 73.22% (93/127), and 81.81% (72/88), respectively, while the diagnostic accuracy of CT was 71.87% (46/64), 82.67% (105/127), and 90.90% (80/88), respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in the overall diagnostic accuracy between the two methods (P > 0.05). Subgroup analysis showed no difference in diagnostic accuracy between the two methods for patients with normal BMI (P > 0.05). However, for overweight, obese, and elderly patients, CT provided significantly better diagnostic accuracy than ultrasound (P < 0.05).While ultrasound and CT have similar diagnostic accuracy for different pathological types of AA, CT is more accurate for overweight, obese, and elderly patients.Results: Ultrasound and multi-slice spiral computed tomography (CT) are frequently used to assist the diagnosis of acute appendicitis (AA), and the examination results may vary among different demographics. This study aimed to compare the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound and CT for AA.We performed a retrospective analysis of patients diagnosed with AA who underwent emergency surgery at our hospital from March 2021 to August 2023, with postoperative pathological results as the gold standard. Differences in the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound and CT for different types of AA, age groups, and body mass index (BMI) values were then analyzed.The overall sample comprised 279 confirmed cases of AA, with 64 cases of simple appendicitis, 127 cases of suppurative appendicitis, and 88 cases of gangrenous appendicitis. For these three pathological classifications, the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound was 68.75% (44/64), 73.22% (93/127), and 81.81% (72/88), respectively, while the diagnostic accuracy of CT was 71.87% (46/64), 82.67% (105/127), and 90.90% (80/88), respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in the overall diagnostic accuracy between the two methods (P > 0.05). Subgroup analysis showed no difference in diagnostic accuracy between the two methods for patients with normal BMI (P > 0.05). However, for overweight, obese, and elderly patients, CT provided significantly better diagnostic accuracy than ultrasound (P < 0.05).While ultrasound and CT have similar diagnostic accuracy for different pathological types of AA, CT is more accurate for overweight, obese, and elderly patients.Conclusion: Ultrasound and multi-slice spiral computed tomography (CT) are frequently used to assist the diagnosis of acute appendicitis (AA), and the examination results may vary among different demographics. This study aimed to compare the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound and CT for AA.We performed a retrospective analysis of patients diagnosed with AA who underwent emergency surgery at our hospital from March 2021 to August 2023, with postoperative pathological results as the gold standard. Differences in the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound and CT for different types of AA, age groups, and body mass index (BMI) values were then analyzed.The overall sample comprised 279 confirmed cases of AA, with 64 cases of simple appendicitis, 127 cases of suppurative appendicitis, and 88 cases of gangrenous appendicitis. For these three pathological classifications, the diagnostic accuracy of ultrasound was 68.75% (44/64), 73.22% (93/127), and 81.81% (72/88), respectively, while the diagnostic accuracy of CT was 71.87% (46/64), 82.67% (105/127), and 90.90% (80/88), respectively. There was no statistically significant difference in the overall diagnostic accuracy between the two methods (P > 0.05). Subgroup analysis showed no difference in diagnostic accuracy between the two methods for patients with normal BMI (P > 0.05). However, for overweight, obese, and elderly patients, CT provided significantly better diagnostic accuracy than ultrasound (P < 0.05).While ultrasound and CT have similar diagnostic accuracy for different pathological types of AA, CT is more accurate for overweight, obese, and elderly patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yingcheng (Hubei Province, China) has been a famous salt mining area since the Qing Dynasty. The underground salt mines are of high quality and high yield and have made great contributions to local economic development. However, due to the influence of mining technology and management, geological disasters related to mining have affected the local government and residents. Since the 1970s, the ground in Yingcheng has collapsed numerous times, which has seriously affected the property and safety of residents. In April 2019, another ground collapse event occurred in the Dongmafang salt mine, resulting in a sinkhole covering an area of approximately 960 m2. Although no one was killed or injured during the event, the impact of the sinkhole prompted local authorities to investigate potential collapse threats in the area. The formation mechanism and characteristics of such collapses constitute the basis of regional collapse assessments. Regional geological data, collapse site investigation, borehole sampling analyses, and electrical resistivity tomography surveys can be applied to analyze the formation mechanisms of these collapses. The results of field tests show that electrical resistivity tomography has great advantages in the identification of potential threat areas, thereby providing a theoretical basis and effective means for the exploration of potential subsidence areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cast Al-Cu-Mg-Mn alloy, prepared by differential pressure casting method, was quenched at 530 °C and aged at 170 °C. The effect of aging time on the corrosion resistance of the Al alloy was investigated in 3.5 wt.% NaCl solution by potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy tests. The results indicated that the aging time had great influence on the distribution of the Al2Cu phase. A small amount of fine second phase had precipitated along grain boundaries to strengthen the alloy when the aging time was 6 h. Extended aging time led to the rapid growth of the second phase. Pitting corrosion occurred at the interface between the Al2Cu phase and α-Al matrix in 3.5wt.% NaCl solution. The Al2Cu phase with a small size easily fell off to form corrosion pits during the corrosion process, leading to more serious pitting corrosion. However, a network-like Al2Cu phase prevented its falling off, improving pitting corrosion resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Frontiers of Information Technology & Electronic Engineering is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Epigenetic complex NuRD (nucleosome remodeling and deacetylase) engages in a range of basic cellular processes, including chromatin modification. Changes in the activity of NuRD complex can influence gastric cancer progression. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to estimate the association between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and gastric cancer risk. Expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) analysis was used to analyze the relationship between the genotypes and gene expression levels using data from the genotype tissue expression project (GTEx). Gene expression was calculated using databases from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Kaplan–Meier plotter was used to evaluate the association between gene expression and survival. SNP rs11064275 T allele in CHD4, rs892022 A allele and rs2033481 A allele in GATAD2A were found to contribute to the decreased risk of gastric cancer. The increase in the number of favorable alleles of these three SNPs was associated with a lower risk of gastric cancer. rs2033481 and rs892022 were substantially correlated with GATAD2A mRNA expression levels. Meanwhile, we detected that the CHD4 and GATAD2A mRNA expression was increased in gastric cancer tissues compared with the adjacent normal tissues. Furthermore, we found that patients with higher CHD4 or GATAD2A mRNA expression level had more advantageous overall survival. Our findings indicated that genetic variants in NuRD complex subunits encoding genes may be promising predictors of gastric cancer risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cu-Zn-Al particles reinforced 6061Al composites were fabricated by friction stir processing (FSP). The microstructure and mechanical properties of the composites under the FSP and T6 heat treatment were investigated. Microstructure observation showed that Cu-Zn-Al particles were homogeneously distributed in the Al matrix. FSP resulted in grain refinement and the reduction of the number of β-Mg2Si, and T6 heat treatment promoted the precipitation of fine particles (β"-Mg2Si). The introduced Cu-Zn-Al particles in the FSPed composites still exhibited reversible phase transformation between martensite and austenite. The tensile strength of the FSPed composites was inferior to that of base metal, while the elongation of composites was obviously enhanced. The tensile strengths of composites after T6 heat treatment increased greatly. The results indicated that FSP is an effective way to produce Cu-Zn-Al particles/Al composites with good mechanical properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grey-box fuzzing is an effective technology to detect software vulnerabilities, such as memory corruption. Previous fuzzers in detecting memory corruption bugs either use heavy-weight analysis, or use techniques which are not customized for memory corruption detection. In this paper, we propose a novel memory bug guided fuzzer, ovAFLow. To begin with, we broaden the memory corruption targets where we frequently identify bugs. Next, ovAFLow utilizes light-weight and effective methods to build connections between the fuzzing inputs and these corruption targets. Based on the connection results, ovAFLow uses customized techniques to direct the fuzzing process closer to memory corruption. We evaluate ovAFLow against state-of-the-art fuzzers, including AFL (american fuzzy lop), AFLFast, FairFuzz, QSYM, Angora, TIFF, and TortoiseFuzz. The evaluation results show better vulnerability detection ability of ovAFLow, and the performance overhead is acceptable. Moreover, we identify 12 new memory corruption bugs and two CVEs (common vulnerability exposures) with the help of ovAFLow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Maternal smoking during pregnancy may be associated with low birth weight (LBW) in offspring and global risk estimates have not been summarized previously. We aimed to systematically explore evidence regarding maternal smoking and the LBW risk in offspring globally and examine possible causes of heterogeneity across relevant studies. Methods: Comprehensive search of PubMed, Ovid Embase, Ovid Medline (R), and Web of science from inception until October 2021 was carried out. A random-effects meta-analysis was used to estimate the pooled odds ratio (OR) and corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI). Restricted cubic spline analysis with three knots was used to further examine the dose–response relationship. Results: Literature searches yielded 4940 articles, of which 53 met inclusion criteria (comprising 55 independent studies). Maternal smoking during pregnancy was significantly associated with the risk of LBW in offspring (OR = 1.89, 95% CI = 1.80–1.98). Furthermore, an obvious dose–response relationship between the amount of cigarettes daily smoked in pregnancy and the risk of LBW in offspring was observed. The results of subgroup analyses indicated that the risk of maternal smoking on LBW was larger in more recently conducted studies (P = 0.020) and longer period of active smoking during pregnancy (P = 0.002). No evidence of publication bias was found. Conclusions: In summary, maternal smoking in pregnancy was significantly associated with a higher risk of LBW in offspring on a global scale. The risk of maternal smoking on infant LBW seems to be increasing over time, and was higher with longer smoking duration throughout pregnancy and more cigarettes smoked daily. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Role embedding aims to embed role-similar nodes into similar representations. Role embedding is significant in graph mining, providing a key bridge between traditional role analysis and machine learning. However, current methods suffer from information loss due to the inherent drawbacks, thus failing to capture role information comprehensively from both global and local perspectives. This paper proposes RED (Role Embedding via Discrete-time quantum walk) to address the above issue via quantum walks, whose characters are naturally applicable to role embedding. Based on the superposition, RED simultaneously learns global role representations by evolving features in a global evolution. Besides, RED uses the quasi-periodicity to capture long-term evolving features within steps. To represent local role information, RED simulates a wave-like diffusion by biased walks, where it learns the closeness from accumulated probabilities for local role representations. To the best of our knowledge, RED is the first to apply quantum walks to the role embedding. Substantial experiments demonstrate that RED significantly outperforms state-of-the-art methods by up to 2300.00% in role detection, 90.93% in equivalency identification, and is overwhelmingly superior in robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collision of ships poses a great threat to the piers in navigable waters. The kinetic energy of the moving ship can be consumed not only with the structural deformation, but also with tensile force from the proposed Floating Two-stage Buffer Collision-Prevention System (FTBCPS). The actual anti-collision effect of the current designed FTBCPS can be evaluated by the dynamic simulation. The construction method of 3D model is introduced, and the system initial state is defined. The transformation matrix and the basic kinematics vector are given, and the system basic dynamics equation is then created. The mechanical analysis on each component is carried out, and the detailed process of numerical simulation is also given. The simulation results indicate that collision direction and collision position have a great influence on the system kinematic response. Bridge pier faces the greatest threat when a ship hits the floater on the front beam in a nearly vertical direction, or on the side beam in a larger course angle. The study shows that the current designed FTBCPS can make full use of the fracture tensile property of polyester ropes and keep the tensile force acted on pier within its bearable range at the same time. The collision direction has a significant effect on the dynamic response of the colliding bodies, but no failure appeared in the simulations, which indicates that the current designed FTBCPS can protect bridge piers of all cases for the 5000-t ship with a velocity smaller than 5 m/s in navigable waters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Allocation, dereferencing, and freeing of memory data in kernels are coherently linked. There widely exist real cases where the correctness of memory is compromised. This incorrectness in kernel memory brings about significant security issues, e.g., information leaking. Though memory allocation, dereferencing, and freeing are closely related, previous work failed to realize they are closely related. In this paper, we study the life-cycle of kernel memory, which consists of allocation, dereferencing, and freeing. Errors in them are called memory life-cycle (MLC) bugs. We propose an in-depth study of MLC bugs and implement a memory life-cycle bug sanitizer (MEBS) for MLC bug detection. Utilizing an inter-procedural global call graph and novel identification approaches, MEBS can reveal memory allocation, dereferencing, and freeing sites in kernels. By constructing a modified define-use chain and examining the errors in the life-cycle, MLC bugs can be identified. Moreover, the experimental results on the latest kernels demonstrate that MEBS can effectively detect MLC bugs, and MEBS can be scaled to different kernels. More than 100 new bugs are exposed in Linux and FreeBSD, and 12 common vulnerabilities and exposures (CVE) are assigned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oxygen isotope ratios in mantle-derived magmas that differ from typical mantle values are generally attributed to crustal contamination, deeply subducted crustal material in the mantle source or primordial heterogeneities. Here we provide an alternative view for the origin of light oxygen-isotope signatures in mantle-derived magmas using kimberlites, carbonate-rich magmas that assimilate mantle debris during ascent. Olivine grains in kimberlites are commonly zoned between a mantle-derived core and a magmatic rim, thus constraining the compositions of both mantle wall-rocks and melt phase. Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) analyses of olivine in worldwide kimberlites show a remarkable correlation between mean oxygen-isotope compositions of cores and rims from mantle-like 18O/16O to lower 'crustal' values. This observation indicates that kimberlites entraining low-18O/16O olivine xenocrysts are modified by assimilation of low-18O/16O sub-continental lithospheric mantle material. Interaction with geochemically-enriched domains of the sub-continental lithospheric mantle can therefore be an important source of apparently 'crustal' signatures in mantle-derived magmas. Isotopically light oxygen in mantle derived magmas is generally attributed to the occurrence of deeply subducted crustal material in the mantle. New analyses of olivine in kimberlites worldwide suggest that assimilation of lithospheric mantle during magma ascent is the source of isotopically light oxygen in these, and, potentially other continental magmas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the chaotic dynamics of partial differential equation (PDE) system has become the focus of dynamical system. While important progress has been made for the research of chaos theory of one-dimensional wave PDE, the understanding of chaotic vibrations for two-dimensional (2D) hyperbolic PDE is still incomplete. This paper is concerned with a 2D hyperbolic PDE system governed by a linear equation with two suplinear boundary conditions. Based on the chaotic mapping theory and method of characteristics, sufficient conditions for the existence of nonisotropic chaotic vibrations are obtained for such system under three different system parameters. In addition, three numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of our theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TcpC is a multifunctional virulence factor of uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC). Neutrophil extracellular trap formation (NETosis) is a crucial anti-infection mechanism of neutrophils. Here we show the influence of TcpC on NETosis and related mechanisms. We show NETosis in the context of a pyelonephritis mouse model induced by TcpC-secreting wild-type E. coli CFT073 (CFT073wt) and LPS-induced in vitro NETosis with CFT073wt or recombinant TcpC (rTcpC)-treated neutrophils are inhibited. rTcpC enters neutrophils through caveolin-mediated endocytosis and inhibits LPS-induced production of ROS, proinflammatory cytokines and protein but not mRNA levels of peptidylarginine deiminase 4 (PAD4). rTcpC treatment enhances PAD4 ubiquitination and accumulation in proteasomes. Moreover, in vitro ubiquitination kit analyses show that TcpC is a PAD4-targetd E3 ubiquitin-ligase. These data suggest that TcpC inhibits NETosis primarily by serving as an E3 ligase that promotes degradation of PAD4. Our findings provide a novel mechanism underlying TcpC-mediated innate immune evasion. TcpC is a well characterised multifunctional virulence factor expressed by uropathogenic Eschericia coli. Here the authors show that TcpC also targets neutrophil NETosis via its E3 ligase functionality promoting the degradation of PAD4, and represents an additional immune evasion function of this bacterially derived virulence factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growth and shear properties of intermetallic compound (IMC) in Cu/In-48Sn/Cu solder joints at different bonding times have been studied, and the growth kinetics of interfacial Cu3(In,Sn) phase at different bonding temperatures investigated. The results show that the IMC of the Cu/In-48Sn/Cu joint is composed of Cu6(In,Sn)5 and Cu3(In,Sn) but transforms to Cu3(In,Sn) after 120 min of bonding at 260°C and pressure of 3 MPa. The morphology of the Cu6(In,Sn)5 layer changed from flat to scallop, and the growth rate of Cu3(In,Sn) located directly below the convex part of the Cu6(In,Sn)5 sector was significantly higher than that of Cu3(In,Sn) located directly below the concave part of the Cu6(In,Sn)5 sector. The shear strength of the solder joints first increased then slowly decreased, reaching 21.8 MPa when increasing the bonding time to 60 min. The shear strength of the solder joints was improved by the formation of Cu6(In,Sn)5 and Cu3(In,Sn), and Cu3(In,Sn) phase played a greater role in improving the shear strength of the solder joints than did Cu6(In,Sn)5 phase. The growth kinetics index n of Cu3(In,Sn) was 0.478 to 0.495, and the growth mechanism of Cu3(In,Sn) was controlled by diffusion at bonding temperatures of 250°C to 280°C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Node proximity estimation studies structural similarity between nodes and is the key issue of network analysis. It can exist as the node recommendation task and is a fundamental basis of other graph mining techniques. Although Discrete-time quantum walk (DTQW), a promising new technique with distinctive characters, is widely used in many graph mining problems such as graph isomorphism and graph kernel, there are only a few works estimating proximity via DTQW, limiting the further application of DTQW in graph mining. In this paper, we study the capability of DTQW for proximity estimation and propose QSIM to estimate node proximity by DTQW. By analyzing the diffusion process of biased walks, we discover two influential effects that are beneficial to proximity estimation. The Diminishing Effect shows that a node close to the starting node can generally have a high average probability during the diffusion process, which serves as the basis of QSIM. The Returning Effect shows the probability has a tendency to stay around the starting node during the diffusion, which enhances the capability for mining local information especially in densely-connected structures. Benefited from the two effects, QSIM faithfully reveals node proximity and comprehensively unifies different kinds of node proximity. QSIM is the first mature quantum-walk-based method for proximity estimation. Extensive experiments validate the effectiveness of QSIM and show that QSIM outperforms state-of-the-art methods in the node recommendation task, significantly surpassing Refex, Node2vec, and Role2vec, by up to 1094.2% in the first-order node proximity and 18.8% in the second-order node proximity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim here is to study complex dynamical behavior in a new kind of non-smooth systems with two discontinuous boundaries in space R 3 . This paper provides an applicable method for accurately detecting coexistence of singular cycles, including (a) homoclinic and homoclinic cycles, (b) homoclinic and heteroclinic cycles, (c) heteroclinic and heteroclinic cycles. It is further proposed some criteria for guaranteeing three types of coexistence in the considered system. Moreover, existence conditions of chaos induced by such coexistence are established. Finally, three numerical examples are provided to verify the validity of theoretical results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National ocean parks are important resources of China's ecological civilization and environmental planning for sustainable development. In order to properly examine the protection and sustainable development of national ocean parks, an index of various elements (area, location, resources, economy, and environment) was created to evaluate the sustainable development conditions of 16 national ocean parks in the East China Sea coast between 2011 and 2017. Using the principle component analysis and cluster methods, this study comprehensively investigated the different characteristics and attributes of these parks. The results showed that a three-level classification system for national ocean parks is proposed based on the evaluation indicator system, which classifies these parks into three categories: ecosystem protection, tourism, and sustainable fisheries. Each category of park is featured by its own particular characteristics. Last, suggestions are given for future ecological protection and appropriate development of national ocean parks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicle-bridge coupling analysis has always been a hot issue in bridge structure research. Model polycondensation technology is an effective calculation method for solving large-scale structural dynamic analysis. In this paper, three different model polycondensation theory was described, and based on the model polycondensation theory, a new vehicle-bridge coupling calculation idea is proposed, the corresponding calculation program is compiled by adopting MATLAB. In order to verify the theory and program, a vehicle-bridge model test was designed, and the 3-D numerical model of the vehicle and the bridge was established respectively. Modal analysis and the vehicle-bridge coupled transient analysis were carried out. The correctness of the calculation theory and program was verified by comparing the experimental values with the numerical simulation values, and the advantages and disadvantages of different methods are discussed by the comparation of the solving accuracy and time consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transient liquid phase (TLP) bonding is a promising interconnection technology for high-temperature electronic packaging. In this paper, the effect of Cu particles on the microstructure and shear property of Cu/In-xCu/Cu TLP joints was investigated. The results show that Cu/In-xCu/Cu joint is mainly composed of an In and Cu11In9 phase after bonded for 60 min. A small amount of Cu2In phase forms at the interface of Cu/Cu11In9 with bonding time exceeding 300 min. The bonding efficiency and shear property of In-Cu mixed particle solder joint are superior to that of the In foil solder joint, because the bonding time was reduced and the shear strength of the solder joint was improved. The phase composition of Cu11In9 and Cu2In in the joint increased, the porosity decreased and the shear strength increased with increasing Cu content. When the Cu content of the In-xCu solder was 45 wt.%, the shear strength of the Cu/In-45Cu/Cu joint reached the peak value of 15.7 MPa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tazarotene-induced gene 1 (TIG1) is a retinoid acid receptor-responsive gene involved in cell differentiation and tumorigenesis. Aberrant methylation of CpG islands in the TIG1 promoter is found in multiple cancers. Currently, the exact mechanism underlying the anticancer effect of TIG1 is unknown. Here, we show that TIG1 interacts with cathepsin V (CTSV), which reduces CTSV stability and subsequently affects the production of activated urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA), an epithelial–mesenchymal transition-associated protein. Ectopic expression of CTSV increased the expression of activated uPA and the number of migrated and invaded cells, whereas ectopic TIG1 expression reversed the effects of CTSV on the uPA signaling pathway. Similar patterns in the production of activated uPA and number of migrated and invaded cells were also observed in TIG1-expressing and CTSV-knockdown cells. The results suggest that CTSV may participate in TIG1-regulated uPA activity and the associated downstream signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stringent COVID-19 control measures were imposed in Wuhan between January 23 and April 8, 2020. Estimates of the prevalence of infection following the release of restrictions could inform post-lockdown pandemic management. Here, we describe a city-wide SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening programme between May 14 and June 1, 2020 in Wuhan. All city residents aged six years or older were eligible and 9,899,828 (92.9%) participated. No new symptomatic cases and 300 asymptomatic cases (detection rate 0.303/10,000, 95% CI 0.270–0.339/10,000) were identified. There were no positive tests amongst 1,174 close contacts of asymptomatic cases. 107 of 34,424 previously recovered COVID-19 patients tested positive again (re-positive rate 0.31%, 95% CI 0.423–0.574%). The prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Wuhan was therefore very low five to eight weeks after the end of lockdown. Large-scale population screening can provide insights to levels of ongoing SARS-CoV-2 transmission. Here, the authors report a citywide screening of ~10,000,000 residents of Wuhan and show that SARS-CoV-2 infection prevalence was very low five to eight weeks after the end of lockdown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an averaging principle for fractional stochastic differential equations in ℝn with fractional order 0 < α < 1. We obtain a time-averaged equation under suitable conditions, such that the solutions to original fractional equation can be approximated by solutions to simpler averaged equation. By mathematical manipulations, we show that the mild solution of two equations before and after averaging are equivalent in the sense of mean square, which means the classical Khasminskii approach for the integer order systems can be extended to fractional systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starch-based hydrogels have attracted increasingly attention for application in controlled release fertilizers. However, there is currently a lack of knowledge on ways to characterize this system. In this work, we employed a hot-compression vulcanizer to in-situ synthesize monolithic urea-embedded grafted starch hydrogels with a slab geometry, which facilitates the subsequent measurement of gel strength and urea release kinetics. The results revealed that the greater the gel strength induced by a decreased urea load, an increased graft content, and an increased cross-linking density of starch-based hydrogels, the less the initial burst release of embedded urea. The unavoidable burst release could be ascribed to the heterogeneous network structure of starch-based hydrogels. The network of the hydrogels also afforded an zero-order, or at least time-independent, release kinetics of urea at intermediate stable stage, regardless of their microstructural parameters. Our results could provide a guideline to the design of hydrogel-based fertilizer delivery systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]