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To evaluate the prognosis and influencing factors of retinal vein occlusion (RVO) in patients with concomitant carotid artery disease receiving anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) treatment. Patients diagnosed with RVO and receiving anti-VEGF treatment were included. Eye and clinical data were collected. The patients were divided into a group with concomitant carotid artery disease (Group A) and a group without concomitant carotid artery disease (Group B). The risk factors affecting the visual prognosis of RVO patients with concomitant carotid artery disease were analyzed. Among 177 eligible patients with RVO, 101 had concomitant carotid artery disease (Group A), while 76 did not (Group B). Group A had a significantly lower treatment effectiveness rate than Group B (P < 0.001). The age and platelet distribution width of Group A were significantly higher than Group B (P < 0.001). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that baseline best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), disorganization of retinal inner layers (DRIL), external limiting membrane (ELM) disruption, and red blood cell distribution width (RDW) were significantly associated with the posttreatment visual prognosis of RVO patients with concomitant carotid artery disease(P < 0.05). RVO patients with concomitant carotid artery disease had a significantly lower treatment effectiveness rate than RVO patients without carotid artery disease. The poor baseline BCVA, DRIL, ELM disruption, and a greater RDW are risk factors for low anti-VEGF treatment efficacy among RVO patients with concomitant carotid artery disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Females are underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields all over the world. To encourage more girls to choose STEM majors and careers, it is critical to increase their interest in STEM careers. Many studies have investigated the factors that influence females' entry into STEM fields, but few studies have explored the gender differences in the relationships between these factors. Therefore, based on the Social Cognitive Career Theory, this study explored the gender differences in the effects of environmental factors (school education, informal education, social support, and media) on high school students' interest in STEM careers through the mediating roles of STEM self-efficacy and STEM careers perceptions. Results: A questionnaire survey was conducted among 1240 high school students in Hunan Province, China, and the results of t-test, regression analysis, and structural equation model multi-group comparison showed that: Firstly, the scores of male students in all the dimensions except for STEM career perception were significantly higher than those of female students. Secondly, the environmental factor that had the greatest effect on male and female students' interest in STEM careers was different. Finally, there were gender differences in the mediating roles of STEM self-efficacy and STEM careers perceptions between environmental factors and interest in STEM careers. Conclusions: This study revealed the influence mechanisms and gender differences in male and female students' interest in STEM careers in the context of Chinese Confucian culture, and the conclusions are as follows: (1) Male students' interest in STEM careers was significantly higher than that of female students; (2) The environmental factors that had the greatest effect on male and female students' interest in STEM careers were social support and media, respectively; and (3) Environmental factors could affect male students' interest in STEM careers through the mediating roles of STEM self-efficacy and STEM career perception, while environmental factors could affect female students' interest in STEM careers through the mediating role of STEM self-efficacy. Finally, the mediating mechanisms of STEM self-efficacy and STEM career perception between environmental factors and interest in STEM careers, and the importance of STEM self-efficacy for female students were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With computation offloading widely used in the computation-intensive vehicular applications, vehicular edge computing (VEC) faces the resource shortage of VEC servers. In this paper, the idle resources in the parked vehicles are aggregated to process the offloaded computing tasks, and the incentive schemes are proposed to encourage the parked vehicles to make the contribution to VEC. First, we propose a system architecture for task offloading, in which the edge crowdsourcing platform (ECP) is designed to manage and schedule the resources of parked vehicles for VEC, and a requesting vehicle can offload the computing tasks to the VEC server and the ECP simultaneously. Then, based on the Stackelberg game, we formulate the interactions between the participants of VEC as a task allocation optimization problem and establish a price model in which each participant can obtain their maximum utilities. Finally, we theoretically prove the existence and uniqueness of the Stackelberg equilibrium in this game, and a gradient iterative algorithm is proposed to determine the task allocation between the VEC server and the ECP, meanwhile achieving their best strategies. The simulation results demonstrate that the performance of the proposed scheme is better than that of traditional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fourier domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT) is a well-established imaging technique that provides high-resolution internal structure images of an object at a fast speed. Modern FD-OCT systems typically operate at speeds of 40,000–100,000 A-scans/s, but are priced at least tens of thousands of pounds. In this study, we demonstrate a line-field FD-OCT (LF-FD-OCT) system that achieves an OCT imaging speed of 100,000 A-scan/s at a hardware cost of thousands of pounds. We demonstrate the potential of LF-FD-OCT for biomedical and industrial imaging applications such as corneas, 3D printed electronics, and printed circuit boards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antioxidative and antiaging abilities of probiotic fermented ginseng (PG) were evaluated in Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans). Lifespan and effect on heat stress and acute oxidative stress in C. elegans were significantly enhanced by PG. Antioxidative enzymes such as T-SOD, GSH-PX, CAT were significantly up-regulated, and MDA, ROS and apoptosis levels were significantly down-regulated. At the same time, PG exerted antioxidant and anti-aging activities by reducing the expression of DAF-2 mRNA and increasing the expression of SKN-1 and SOD-3 mRNA in C. elegans. In addition, the mechanism of antioxidative and antiaging activities of PG was explored through gut microbiota sequencing and untargeted metabolomics. The results of gut microbiota indicated that PG could significantly improve the composition and structure of microbes in the gut of C. elegans, and the relative abundance of beneficial bacteria was up-regulated. Untargeted metabolomic results elucidated that PG modulated antioxidant and antiaging activities through neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction, Citrate cycle (TCA cycle), pyruvate metabolism, ascorbate and aldarate metabolism and D-Arginine and D-ornithine metabolism of C. elegans. These results indicated that PG had excellent antioxidant and anti-aging activities, providing research value for the development of functional foods and improvement of aging-related diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, the corrosion behavior and mechanism of X70 steel induced by soluble extracellular polymeric substances (s-EPS) extracted from Streptococcusmutans (S.mutans) and sodium molybdate as the mixed corrosion inhibitor in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution were investigated. Results of electrochemical measurements showed that the inhibition efficiency of single s-EPS or sodium molybdate increased with increase in concentration of inhibitor but the inhibition efficiency was not too high, while a synergistic effect existed when s-EPS and sodium molybdate were combined together to prevent X70 steel corrosion. The synergistic effect increased with increasing the concentration of s-EPS from 10 to 40 mg/L in the presence of 50 mg/L sodium molybdate, and the synergistic parameter can achieve 5.46. The mixed inhibitors simultaneously inhibited the anodic and cathodic corrosion of X70 steel clearly, which greatly promoted the activation energy of the corrosion reaction. Results from X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, and field emission scanning electron microscopy demonstrated that co-adsorption of s-EPS and [(OH)4OMo–O–MoO(OH)4]2− led to the formation of a more homogeneous and protective film on the surface of X70 steel. All the adsorption of single and mixed inhibitors followed the Langmuir adsorption model according to the thermodynamic analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bisphenol analogs (BPs) in livestock urine are important biomarkers to reflect the potential contaminants in food products derived from these animals. Nevertheless, little research has been done on their occurrence in farm animal urine. This work investigated ten BPs in swine and bovine urines collected from two Chinese farms. Results showed that all of these ten BPs were frequently detected in swine and bovine urines. The total mean concentration of the ten BPs (ΣBPs) in sow urines was 59.7 ng/mL, which was significantly higher than that of the boar urine with a mean concentration of 37.0 ng/mL (p < 0.05). On the other hand, the corresponding mean concentration of ΣBPs in dairy cattle urine was 59.6 ng/mL, which was significantly higher than that of the beef cattle urine with 37.0 ng/mL (p < 0.05). The respective mean concentration contribution ratios of BPA to ΣBPs in boar, sow, dairy, and beef cattle urines were only 14.9%, 21.4%, 9.0%, and 14.6%, which clearly indicated that BPA was no longer the dominant BP. The average daily urinary excretion rates of ΣBPs by boar, sow, dairy, and beef cattle were 37.0, 59.8, 167.0, and 36.8 times that of human, which suggested that swine and bovine likely encountered high dosage exposure of BPs in the two Chinese livestock farms. Our results showed that feeds and nutritional supplements as unintentionally added contaminants were the main sources of BPs to swine and bovine. As swine and bovine are important food sources for human being, part of BPs exposed to livestock eventually would enter human body via meat or milk. Therefore, quality controls of these feeds or nutritional supplements are quite important in order to guarantee welfare of livestock as well as protect health of our human beings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the skyrocketing need for low-latency services on the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) and elastic cross-layer resource provisioning, multi-access edge computing (MEC) is considered a high-potent solution, which evolves from cloud and grid computing to meet the above needs in IoV scenarios. Instead of considering single-point and monolithic IoV tasks, in this paper, we consider the IoV applications to be with structural properties and the supporting environment to be with a hybrid cloud-edge architecture. We develop a scheduling method that offloads tasks to the eNode or cloud according to their estimations of latest starting time. Simulative results clearly demonstrate that our method beat existing solutions in terms of average completion time, average waiting time, and in-time completion rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SARS-CoV-2 infection, which is the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, has expanded across various animal hosts, and the virus can be transmitted particularly efficiently in minks. It is still not clear how SARS-CoV-2 is selected and evolves in its hosts, or how mutations affect viral fitness. In this report, sequences of SARS-CoV-2 isolated from human and animal hosts were analyzed, and the binding energy and capacity of the spike protein to bind human ACE2 and the mink receptor were compared. Codon adaptation index (CAI) analysis indicated the optimization of viral codons in some animals such as bats and minks, and a neutrality plot demonstrated that natural selection had a greater influence on some SARS-CoV-2 sequences than mutational pressure. Molecular dynamics simulation results showed that the mutations Y453F and N501T in mink SARS-CoV-2 could enhance the binding of the viral spike to the mink receptor, indicating the involvement of these mutations in natural selection and viral fitness. Receptor binding analysis revealed that the mink SARS-CoV-2 spike interacted more strongly with the mink receptor than the human receptor. Tracking the variations and codon bias of SARS-CoV-2 is helpful for understanding the fitness of the virus in virus transmission, pathogenesis, and immune evasion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Acute liver injury is liver cell injury that occurs rapidly in a short period of time. Caffeine has been shown to maintain hepatoprotective effect with an unclear mechanism. Endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) has significant effects in acute liver injury. Induction of GRP78 is a hallmark of ERS. Whether or not caffeine's function is related to GRP78 remains to be explored. Methods: Acute liver injury model was established by LPS-treated L02 cells and in vivo administration of LPS/D-Gal in mice. Caffeine was pre-treated in L02 cells or mice. Gene levels was determined by real-time PCR and western blot. Cell viability was tested by CCK-8 assay and cell apoptosis was tested by flow cytometry. The interaction of GRP78 and NEDD4L was determined by Pull-down and co-immunoprecipitation (Co-IP) assay. The ubiquitination by NEDD4L on GRP78 was validated by in vitro ubiquitination assay. Results: Caffeine protected liver cells against acute injury induced cell apoptosis and ERS both in vitro and in vivo. Suppression of GRP78 could block the LPS-induced cell apoptosis and ERS. NEDD4L was found to interact with GRP78 and ubiquitinate its lysine of 324 site directly. Caffeine treatment induced the expression of NEDD4L, resulting in the ubiquitination and inhibition of GRP78. Conclusion: Caffeine mitigated the acute liver injury by stimulating NEDD4L expression, which inhibited GRP78 expression via ubiquitination at its K324 site. Low dose of caffeine could be a promising therapeutic treatment for acute liver injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study was conducted to investigate the effect of biosurfactant and nutrient amendment on the bioremediation of heavy oily sludge. The biosurfactants exhibit characteristics of amphiphilicity, emulsifying activity, and biodegradability. The application of biosurfactant, appropriate water and nutrition, combined with mechanical stirring effectively enhanced bioremediation, providing a promising scheme for sustainable development of the ecosystem. Methods: Here, biosurfactant was produced by strain Pseudomonas sp. CH1. Biosurfactant (80 mg L−1) was periodically added to heavy oily sludge for 10 weeks. The effects of biosurfactants on petroleum hydrocarbon content, catalase activity, and microbial community composition were characterized. Results: Compared with the control (water addition only), treatment supplemented with biosurfactants exhibited better performance in degrading total petroleum hydrocarbons and n-alkanes, while regular cumulative addition of biosurfactants inhibited biodegradation. Moreover, the analysis of microbial community structure showed that the biosurfactant selectively enriched microorganisms that are capable of degrading petroleum hydrocarbons. Conclusion: The results demonstrate the potential of biosurfactants for heavy oily sludge bioremediation. The application of biosurfactants can improve catalase activity and enrich the degrading populations, thereby promoting the biodegradation of total petroleum hydrocarbons, especially the aliphatic fractions, whereas high biosurfactant content inhibited the biodegradation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the present study was to investigate the anti-diabetic effect of CGSGCG and its beneficial effects on gut microbiota in type 2 diabetes (T2D) mice induced by streptozotocin and high sucrose and high fat diet. The results showed that treatment with CGSGCG reduced fasting blood glucose, improved oral glucose tolerance test, protected the liver from injury, and reduced inflammation in T2D mice. The contents of acetic acid, propionic acid, butyric acid, isobutyric acid, valeric acid and isovaleric acid in CGSGCG group were 2.49-, 1.74-, 3.31-, 1.93-, 1.36- and 1.30-fold than that of the model group. Moreover, administration of CGSGCG up-regulated the expression of INSR/IRS-1/PI3K/AKT/GLUT4 and mTOR but down-regulated the P38MAPK expression. Furthermore, the abundance of beneficial bacteria such as Verrucomicrobia, Proteobacteria, Osillibacter, Dubosiella and Lactococcus in intestinal tract increased, indicating that CGSCGG regulated and improved the bacterial community structure of T2D mice, which were closely related to glycometabolism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microplastics (MPs), act as vectors of heavy metal pollutants in the environment, is of practical significance to study the adsorption process and mechanism on heavy metals. In this study, polystyrene microplastics (PSMPs) were used as model MPs to study the adsorption of Pb2+ on PSMPs and the effects of humic acid (HA) on the adsorption process. The results showed that HA promoted the adsorption of Pb2+ on PSMPs, and the higher the concentration of HA, the greater the adsorption of Pb2+. With the increase of pH value and decrease of ionic strength, the adsorption capacity of PSMPs for Pb2+ increased. The scanning electron microscope equipped with the energy dispersive spectroscope (SEM–EDS), fourier transform-infrared spectra (FT-IR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis showed that Pb2+ could be adsorbed directly onto PSMPs and also indirectly by HA. The higher KSV values in the PSMPs-HA-Pb2+ system than PSMPs-HA system by fluorescence analysis of HA suggested that HA acted as a bridging role in the adsorption of Pb2+ on PSMPs. The site energy distribution analysis further revealed that HA increased the average site energy μ(E*) and its standard deviation σe* of PSMPs by introducing more adsorption sites, thus enhanced the adsorption affinity of PSMPs. This study provided more thoughts and insights into the adsorption behavior and mechanism of MPs for Pb2+ in aquatic environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: N-acetylglucosaminidase (NAGase) could liberate N-acetylglucosamine (GlcNAc) from GlcNAc-containing oligosaccharides. Trichoderma spp. is an important source of chitinase, particularly NAGase for industrial use. nag1 and nag2 genes encoding NAGase, are found in the genome in Trichoderma spp. The deduced Nag1 and Nag2 shares ~ 55% homology in Trichoderma virens. Most studies were focus on Nag1 and nag1 previously. Results: The native NAGase (TvmNAG2) was purified to homogeneity with molecular mass of ~ 68 kDa on SDS-PAGE analysis, and identified as Nag2 by MALDI/MS analysis from an isolate T. virens strain mango. RT-PCR analyses revealed that only nag2 gene was expressed in liquid culture of T. virens, while both of nag1 and nag2 were expressed in T. virens cultured on the plates. TvmNAG2 was thermally stable up to 60 °C for 2 h, and the optimal pH and temperature were 5.0 and 60–65 °C, respectively, using p-nitrophenyl-N-acetyl-β-D-glucosaminide (pNP-NAG) as substrate. The hydrolytic product of colloidal chitin by TvmNAG2 was suggested to be GlcNAc based on TLC analyses. Moreover, TvmNAG2 possesses antifungal activity, inhibiting the mycelium growth of Sclerotium rolfsii. And it was resistant to the proteolysis by papain and trypsin. Conclusions: The native Nag2, TvmNAG2 was purified and identified from T. virens strain mango, as well as enzymatic properties. To our knowledge, it is the first report with the properties of native Trichoderma Nag2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bisphenol analogues (BPs) including bisphenol a (BPA) have been broadly utilized as industrial feedstocks and unavoidably discharged into water bodies. However, there is little published data on the occurrence, distribution, and environmental risks of other BPs in surface water. In this study, ten BPs besides BPA were analyzed in surface water from the Pearl River, South China. Among these detected BPs, BPA, bisphenol F (BPF), bisphenol AF (BPAF), and bisphenol S (BPS) were the most frequently detected compounds. The median concentrations of the measured BPs were ranked in the order of BPA (34.9 ng/L) > BPS (24.8 ng/L) > BPAF (10.1 ng/L) > bisphenol F (BPF) (9.0 ng/L) > bisphenol B (BPB) (7.6 ng/L) > bisphenol C (BPC) (1.2 ng/L). Among them, BPA and BPS were predominant BPs, contributing 68% of the total ten BPs in surface water of the Pearl River. These results demonstrated that BPA and BPS were the most extensively utilized and manufactured BPs in this region. The source analysis of BPs suggested that the BPs may be originated from domestic wastewater, wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent, and the leaching of microplastic in surface water of the Pearl River. The calculated BP-derived estrogenic activity exhibited low to medium risks in surface water, but their combined estrogenic effects with other endocrine disrupting compounds should not be ignored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biosurfactants (BSs) are known for their remarkable properties, however, their commercial applications are hampered partly by the high production cost. To overcome this issue, a biosurfactant producing strain, Rhodotorula sp.CC01 was isolated using landfill leachate as nitrogen source, while olive oil was determined as the best sole carbon source. The BS produced by Rhodotorula sp.CC01 had oil displacement diameter of 19.90 ± 0.10 cm and could reduce the surface tension of water to 34.77 ± 0.63 mN/m. It was characterized as glycolipids by thin layer chromatography, FTIR spectra, and GC–MS analysis, with the critical micelle concentration of 70 mg/L. Meanwhile, the BS showed stability over a wide range of pH (2–12), salinity (0–100 g/L), and temperature (20–100 °C). During the cultivation process, BS was produced with a maximum rate of 163.33 mg L−1 h−1 and a maximum yield of 1360 mg/L at 50 h. In addition, the removal efficiency of NH4+–N reached 84.2% after 75 h cultivation with a maximum NH4+–N removal rate of 3.92 mg L−1 h−1. Moreover, Rhodotorula sp.CC01 has proven to be of great potential in remediating petroleum hydrocarbons, as revealed by chromogenic assays. Furthermore, genes related to nitrogen metabolism and glycolipid metabolism were found in this strain CC01 after annotating the genome data with KEGG database, such as narB, glycoprotein glucosyltransferase, acetyl-CoA C-acetyltransferase, LRA1, LRA3, and LRA4. The findings of this study prove a cost-effective strategy for the production of BS by yeast through the utilization of landfill leachate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To assess the value of procalcitonin (PCT) as an early biomarker for predicting urosepsis caused by Gram-negative (GN) bacteria, Gram-positive (GP) bacteria and fungi following mini-percutaneous nephrolithotomy (mPCNL) and flexible ureteroscopy (FURS). Methods: A total number of 356 patients with positive preoperative UC (urine cultures) who underwent mPCNL and FURS between June 2017 and January 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. Univariable analysis and multivariable logistic regression analysis were conducted to compare the predictors for urosepsis caused by different organisms. Furthermore, the nomogram was established as a predicted model for urosepsis. Results: Among 356 positive UC, 265 (74.4%) were positive for GN bacteria, 77 (21.4%) for GP bacteria and 14 (3.9%) for fungal pathogens. Escherichia coli (48.9%) were the predominant pathogens and Enterococcus (54/77) were the most common GP bacteria. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that positive nitrite (OR 3.31, 95% CI 1.20–9.14; P = 0.021), operative time > 90 min (OR 3.10, 95% CI 1.10–8.75, P = 0.033) and postoperative PCT > 0.1 ng/mL (OR 56.18, 95% CI 15.20–207.64, P < 0.001) were associated with postoperative urosepsis originated in GN infections, while urosepsis caused by GP bacteria and fungi was not associated with PCT > 0.1 ng/mL (P = 0.198), only stone burden > 800 mm2 (OR 3.69, 95% CI 1.01–13.53, P = 0.049) was an independent risk factor. Conclusions: For patients with positive preoperative UC, postoperative PCT > 0.1 ng/mL was an independent risk factor of post-PCNL and post-FURS urosepsis caused by GN bacteria rather than GP bacteria and fungi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Randall's plaques (RP) are well established as precursor lesions of idiopathic calcium oxalate (CaOx) stones, and the process of biomineralization driven by osteogenic-like cells has been highlighted in RP formation, but the mechanism is poorly understood. Given the inhibitory role of α-Klotho (KL), an aging suppressor protein with high expression in kidneys, in ectopic calcification and the close association between KL gene polymorphisms and urolithiasis susceptibility, we determined the potential role of KL in RP formation. This study found that both soluble KL (s-KL) and transmembrane KL (m-KL) were downregulated, and that s-KL but not m-KL was inversely correlated with upregulation of osteogenic markers in RP tissues. Additionally, s-KL expression was markedly suppressed in human renal interstitial fibroblasts (hRIFs) and slightly suppressed in HK-2 cells after osteogenic induction, intriguingly, which was echoed to the greater osteogenic capability of hRIFs than HK-2 cells. Further investigations showed the inhibitory effect of s-KL on hRIF osteogenic differentiation in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, coculture with recombinant human KL (r-KL) or HK-2 cells suppressed osteogenic differentiation of hRIFs, and this effect was abolished by coculture with KL-silenced HK-2 cells or the β-catenin agonist SKL2001. Mechanistically, s-KL inactivated the Wnt–β-catenin pathway by directly binding to Wnt2 and upregulating SFRP1. Further investigations identified activation of the Wnt–β-catenin pathway and downregulation of SFRP1 and DKK1 in RP tissues. In summary, this study identified s-KL deficiency as a pathological feature of RP and revealed that s-KL released from HK-2 cells inhibited osteogenic differentiation of hRIFs by inactivating the Wnt–β-catenin pathway, not only providing in-depth insight into the role of s-KL in renal interstitial biomineralization but also shedding new light on the interaction of renal tubular epithelial cells with interstitial cells to clarify RP formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate how to administrate antibiotics for negative midstream urine culture (UC-) patients prior to percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL), we retrospectively analyzed UC-patients receiving 0 or 3 days of cefuroxime prior to PCNL between July 2017 and May 2020. Patients were further divided into four groups (Group1A = urine with positive both nitrite and white blood cell (N + WBC +) and 0-day pre-operative cefuroxime; Group1B = N + WBC + and 3-day cefuroxime; Group2A = N − WBC + and 0-day cefuroxime; Group2B = N − WBC + and 3-day cefuroxime). All patients routinely received a dose of cefuroxime 30 min prior to the surgery. In addition, Group1B were matched to the Group1A; Group2B were matched to the Group2A at a 1:1 ratio regarding stone burden, the degree of hydronephrosis, stone hardness, age and sex in a sequential order. A total of 560 patients were included (Group1A = 72; Group1B = 72; Group2A = 208; Group2B = 208). The baseline characteristics were equally distributed between the matched-pair groups. Compared to Group1B, Group1A had a significantly higher incidence of SIRS, fever, urosepsis requiring only additional antibiotics, and an increased postoperative hospitalization stay. Compared to Group2B, Group2A had similar rate of infectious complications. In addition, Group1B was associated with a significantly lower rate of positive pelvic urine culture (PUC +) than that of Group1A; whereas, there was similar rate of PUC + between Group2A and Group2B. UC-patients with N + WBC + should be treated with extended period of antibiotic administration, and a single dose of prophylactic antibiotic was sufficient for UC-patients with N − WBC + prior to PCNL. Despite UC, it is suggested to stratify pre-operative antibiotics tailored to individual patients to optimize its application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vehicular Edge Computing (VEC) is a new paradigm which improves the quality of service (QoS) of vehicular applications. However, in VEC networks, the computation resources of each VEC server are limited, and there are mismatches between the resources requested by vehicles and the resources that can be allocated by VEC servers, which increase the delays of completing computation tasks. To address the problem, in this paper, we jointly analyse the computation offloading and resource allocation based on the Walrasian equilibrium. Firstly, we analyze utilities of vehicles and VEC servers, and model the computation offloading and resource allocation as optimization problems considering delay constraints, respectively. Then, we convert the joint problem into a VEC networks welfare maximization problem. Based on the dual decomposition optimization method, we solve the problem and find the best strategies of vehicles and VEC servers, which means the state of Walrasian equilibrium. Moreover, we propose an algorithm with a fast convergence rate to find the solution of VEC Walrasian equilibrium. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed analytical method and algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To determine the incidence and risk factors of the venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients undergoing percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL). Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the records of 896 consecutive cases receiving PCNL between July 2018 and August 2020 in our institution. Univariate analysis was performed to identify the risk factors of VTE, and multivariate logistic regression analysis was further performed to determine the independent risk factors. Furthermore, the corresponding nomogram was conducted to establish a predicted model for VTE. Results: The overall incidence of VTE was 2.8%. The multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that discontinued anticoagulant or antiplatelet therapies (OR 4.505, 95% CI 1.410–14.401), increased postoperative 12-h d-dimer (OR 11.162, 95% CI 2.370–52.574), hydronephrosis (OR 3.303, 95% CI 1.303–8.375), higher Caprini risk assessment model (RAM) score (OR 3.233, 95% CI 1.207–8.659) and postoperative sepsis or septic shock (OR 3.784, 95% CI 1.163–12.306) were independent risk factors of VTE following PCNL. Moreover, the area under the curve of postoperative 12-h d-dimer, hydronephrosis and Caprini RAM score was 0.826, 0.621 and 0.660, respectively. Based on the identified independent risk factors, the well-calibrated nomogram showed a moderate discriminative ability with concordance index 0.731. Conclusions: 2.8% of patients developed VTE following PCNL. Regarding those patients who have independent risk factors in this study, due attention should be paid to the effective thromboprophylaxis and the early detection of VTE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ulcerative colitis (UC) can be classified as proctitis, left-sided colitis or pancolitis, usually with rectal involvement at the beginning. Mucosal carcinogenesis is one of the most severe complications of UC. Persistent inflammation of the rectal mucosa may be an essential cause of mucosal cancer, thus the detection of rectal inflammation is of great significance. In this paper, we propose a transfer learning model to classify enteroscopy images to achieve adequate detection of ulcerative proctitis. First, with the support of senior doctors, a dataset of ulcerative proctitis is created with 1450 endoscopic images. Then, with trained in the dataset, a new multi-model fusion network is proposed to classify ulcerative proctitis images. The proposed model combines three pre-trained models which are Xception, ResNet and DenseNet, and these pre-trained models are used to extract features from the images, then the extracted features are fed into a fully connected layer to predict the label of the input image. Experimental results show that, compared with other models, the proposed model has better performance, achieving the classification accuracy of 97.93%, the sensitivity of 99% and the specificity of 99%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Service caching can improve the QoS of computationally intensive vehicle applications by pre-storing the necessary application programs and related data for computing tasks on edge servers. In this paper, we propose a new vehicle edge computing framework based on software defined networks, which introduces the reputation to measure the contribution of each vehicle as the basis for providing different quality of services. The process is divided into two phases: in the first phase, the vehicle requests the offload application task from the edge server; and in the second phase, the edge server makes the service caching decision after processing the task. We design the whole interaction process as a kind of incentive mechanism based on reputation via using Stackelberg game modeling, and analyze the optimal strategy for both sides of the game by reverse induction. Furthermore, we also prove the existence and uniqueness of Stackelberg equilibrium in two-stage game, and a genetic optimization algorithm is designed to quickly obtain the optimal strategy for both sides of the game. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme not only brings more profits to the edge server side, but also reduces the average delay by 76 % compared with the ordinary mobile edge computing scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To identify early predictive factors for urosepsis secondary to mini-percutaneous nephrolithotomy (MPCNL) in patients with negative preoperative urine culture (UC). Methods: A total of 786 patients with baseline negative UC who underwent MPCNL between January 2017 and June 2019 were retrospectively analyzed. Urosepsis was defined according to the Sepsis-3 definition. Subsequently, perioperative potential risk factors were compared between non-urosepsis and urosepsis groups. Results: Despite negative UC in all patients, the rate of positive stone culture (SC) was 16.0%; the rate of pelvic urine culture (PUC) was 7.5%; 23 cases (2.9%) developed urosepsis after MPCNL. Univariate analysis showed that urosepsis was associated with the female gender, BMI, stone burden, diabetes mellitus and preoperative urine test. Multivariate logistic regression analysis suggested that urine test with positive nitrite and white blood cells and leukocyte esterase (N+WBC+LE+) (OR 17.51, 95% CI 6.75–45.38, P < 0.001) and operative time > 120 min (OR 3.53, 95% CI 1.41–8.85, P = 0.007) were independent risk factors for urosepsis. Additionally, receiver operating characteristic curve analysis of N+WBC+LE+ showed that the area under the curve was 0.785 for predicting the occurrence of urosepsis. Further analysis showed that N+WBC+LE+ provided an efficient prediction of SC+/PUC+ (SC+ or PUC+) with 61.7% sensitivity and 97.3% specificity. Conclusions: In spite of the baseline negative preoperative UC, 2.9% of patients developed urosepsis after MPCNL. N+WBC+LE + was determined to be an early and efficient prediction of intraoperative bacterial status and urosepsis following MPCNL. Nevertheless, further studies are needed to confirm the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) VIM Antisense RNA 1 (VIM-AS1) has been reported to be correlated with type 2 diabetes (T2D) susceptibility, while the roles of this lncRNA in T2D and its complications remain unclear. This study aimed to explore the role of VIM-AS1 in diabetic retinopathy (DR). Methods: Gene expression levels in both human specimens and in vitro cultivated cells were determined by qPCR and western blot. Overexpression experiments were performed to analyze gene interactions. Cell apoptosis after transfections was detected by cell apoptosis assay. Results: We found that VIM-AS1 was significantly downregulated in T2D patients in comparison with that in healthy controls. Specifically, the expression levels of VIM-AS1 were lowest among T2D patients complicated with DR. Bioinformatics analysis showed that VIM-AS1 can interact with microRNA 29 (miR-29), which is a critical player in high glucose-induced apoptosis of human retinal pigment epithelial cells (RPEs). Dual-luciferase assay also revealed the direct interaction between them. High glucose treatment led to upregulated miR-29 and downregulated VIM-AS1. However, overexpression of VIM-AS1 and miR-29 did not affect the expression of each other. Cell apoptosis analysis showed that overexpression of VIM-AS1 reduced the enhancing effects of miR-29 overexpression on RPEs cell proliferation. Conclusions: Therefore, VIM-AS1 may sponge miR-29 to participate in DR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to determine the levels of 8 microelements (Zn, Fe, Cu, Ca, Mn, Mg, Cd, Pb) and the health status test of 184 female nursing students at a college in Zhaoqing, China, and to get the relevant data of nursing students in a Zhaoqing University. The relationship between microelements and physical health status was investigated. There were significant differences in the levels of Ca, Mg, Mn, and Pb between grade 1 and grade 2 students (all, P < 0.01). In grade 1 students, Mn level was negatively correlated with height (P = 0.006, rs = − 0.283) and was significantly positively correlated with 1-min sit-ups (P = 0.010, rs = 0.268). Cd level was positively correlated with 50 m sprint time (P = 0.023, rs = 0.237). In grade 2 students, Mn level was negatively correlated with 1-min sit-ups (P = 0.016, rs = − 0.250), Fe level was positively correlated with 800 m running time (P = 0.036, rs = 0.219), Zn level was positively correlated with 50 m sprint time (P = 0.050, rs = 0.205), and Cd level was negatively correlated with sit and reach (P = 0.020, rs = − 0.239). Microelement levels have certain effects on the physical health status of female nursing students. Among them, Zn, Fe, and Mg have the most significant effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Randall's plaque (RP) serves as a nidus on which idiopathic calcium oxalate stones form. Renal interstitial mineralization may be the cause underlying RP, and recent studies demonstrated the similarities between the interstitial mineralization and ectopic calcification. The present study aimed to investigate whether human renal interstitial fibroblasts (hRIFs) could form calcification under osteogenic conditions, and whether long non-coding RNA H19 participated in regulating osteogenic differentiation of hRIFs through Wnt-β-catenin pathway. HRIFs were isolated and induced for osteogenic differentiation under osteogenic conditions. Runx2, OCN, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, and the mineralized nodule formation were used to assess the osteogenic phenotype. Molecule expressions were determined by qRT-PCR, immunofluorescence staining, and western blot. The mineralized nodules were assessed by Alizarin red staining. Compared to the normal renal papillary tissue, Runx2, OCN, and H19 were significantly upregulated in RP. After hRIFs were induced with osteogenic medium, osteogenic markers (Runx2, OCN and ALP), β‐catenin and H19 were significantly upregulated, and the mineralized nodules are formed. Additionally, overexpression of H19 promoted the osteogenic phenotype of hRIFs and increased the expression of β‐catenin, whereas knock-down of H19 or XAV939 (inhibitor of Wnt-β‐catenin signaling pathway) significantly repressed the osteogenic phenotype of hRIFs and decreased the β‐catenin. Moreover, XAV939 was shown to abolish the osteogenic differentiation of hRIFs promoted by H19. The study demonstrated that ectopic calcification partly participated in the formation of RP, and H19 promoted osteogenic differentiation of hRIFs by activating Wnt-β-catenin pathway, which shed new light on the molecular mechanism of the RP formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A one-pot synthesis of papaverine hydrochloride with 99.6% purity was performed using xylene as solvent for the entire process. The critical parameters of each step, as well as the impurities generated, were identified. The overall yield was improved to 63%. The proposed synthetic procedure is suitable for industrial production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Except conventional treatments, research on medical approach for radioiodine-refractory differentiated thyroid cancer (RR-DTC) was considered particularly challenging. Sorafenib, a novel biological agent, has been widely studied in the treatment of RR-DTC for years. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the efficiency and safety of treating RR-DTC patients with sorafenib. Methods: An electronic search on PubMed/Medline and Embase was carried out to search associated articles. Fixed-effects or random-effects models were chose according to the heterogeneity. Results: A total of 15 eligible studies (636 patients) were included. As shown by the only randomised clinical trial-DECISION, sorafenib significantly improved progression-free survival (PFS) compared with placebo in patients with progressive RR-DTC. The pooled analysis indicated that there were 26% patients (95% CI: 0.19–0.34) achieved partial response (PR), and 44% patients (98% CI: 0.39–0.48) achieved stable disease (SD). The most frequent adverse effects (AEs) observed included hand-foot syndrome (HFS), diarrhoea, fatigue, alopecia, weight loss (WS) and rash, the incidence of all grades AEs for which were 71%, 60%, 59%, 55%, 51% and 50%, respectively. There were 68% patients (252/368), who had a dose reduction because of the drug toxicities and AEs. Conclusions: Sorafenib could improve PFS in patients with progressive RR-DTC, comparing with placebo. Due to the resistance to conventional treatments, sorafenib is considered as a promising treatment for RR-DTC by most physicians specialised in this field. However, the use of sorafenib should be cautious due to a high incidence of AEs caused by the agent. More effective agents with less toxicities are warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Deficiency or silence of TP53 is an early event in breast tumorigenesis. Aberrant methylation and mutation in regulatory regions were considered as crucial regulators of gene expression. Methods: Using multiplex-PCR and next-generation sequencing technology, we analyzed TP53 mutation spectrum in its promoter region. Using PCR target sequence enrichment and next-generation bisulfite sequencing technology, we analyzed the methylation profile of the promoter and 3′-end regions of TP53 gene in paired breast tumor and normal tissues from 120 breast cancer patients. The expression of TP53 and the flanking gene ATP1B2 was explored with qPCR method in the same cohort. Results: No promoter mutation of TP53 gene was found in the cohort of the 120 breast cancer patients. The 3′-end of TP53 gene was hyper-methylated (average 78.71%) compared with the promoter region (average less than 1%) in breast tumor tissues. TP53 was significantly lower expressed (P = 1.68E−15) and hyper-methylated in 3′-end (P = 1.82E−18) in tumor. Negative cis correlation was found between the TP53 expression and its 3′-end methylation (P = 9.02E−8, R = 0.337). TP53 expression was significantly associated with PR status (P = 0.0128), Ki67 level (P = 0.0091), and breast cancer subtypes (P = 0.0109). TP53 3′-end methylation and expression showed a good performance in discriminating breast cancer and normal tissues with an AUC of 0.930. Conclusions: The 3′-end methylation of TP53 might be a crucial regulator for its expression in breast cancer, suggesting that TP53 3′-end hyper-methylation associated with its lower expression could be a potential biomarker for breast cancer diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relationships between tropical cyclone (TC) precipitation, wind, and storm damage are analyzed for China based on TCs over the period from 1984 to 2013. The analysis shows that the maximum daily areal precipitation from stations with daily precipitation of ⩾ 50 mm and the sum of wind gusts of ⩾ 13.9 m/s can be used to estimate the main damage caused by TCs, and an index combining the precipitation and wind gust of a TC (IPWT) is defined to assess the severity of the combined impact of precipitation and wind. The correlation coefficient between IPWT and the damage index for affecting TCs is 0.80, which is higher than that for only precipitation or wind. All TCs with precipitation and wind affecting China are divided into five categories, Category 0 to Category 4, based on IPWT, where higher categories refer to higher combined impacts of precipitation and wind. The combined impact category is closely related to damage category and it can be used to estimate the potential damage category in operational work. There are 87.7%, 72.9%, 69.8%, and 73.4% of cases that have the same or one category difference between damage category and combined impact category for Categories 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively. IPWT and its classification can be used to assess the severity of the TC impact and of combined precipitation and wind conveniently and accurately, and the potential damage caused by TCs. The result will be a good supplementary data for TC intensity, precipitation, wind, and damage. In addition, IPWT can be used as an index to judge the reliability of damage data. Further analysis of the annual frequency of combined precipitation-wind impact categories reveals no significant increasing or decreasing trend in impact over China over the past 30 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multicast communication is a key technology for wireless mesh networks. In order to reduce co-channel interference in multicast transmission, we jointly study multicast tree construction and channel assignment in this paper. First, interference in multicast is analyzed and measured with considerations of hidden node problem and user coverage. Then, an algorithm called CIOMT is proposed to construct multicast routing tree, In which we find the path with minimum interference to root and add it to the constructing multicast tree, give an upper limit to the source-to-destination distance for QoS consideration, and tree structure is optimized to relieve interference among multicast links. Moreover, we propose a channel assignment algorithm for the constructed multicast tree with the name CIOCA. In CIOCA algorithm, in order to provide good service to the users as much as possible, we take the user coverage of each destination as the top priority in channel assignment, and the nodes are assigned the sending channels by descending order of priority. In each step, we find the channel with minimum interference to the whole tree, and assign it to the related nodes. For making full use of spectrum resources, the non-overlapping and overlapping channels are both taken into consideration. At last, simulation is done, and the results show the effectivity of the proposed multicast routing scheme. As far as user satisfaction is concerned, the proposed scheme has much better performance than the other two classic algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Matrix factorization is widely used in collaborative filtering, especially when the data are extremely large and sparse. To deal with the scale and sparsity problem of data, several recommender models adopt users and items' side information to improve the recommendation results. However, some existing works do not perform well enough for they are not effectively use the side information. For example, using bag-of-words model, topic model to gain the latent representation of words or merely utilizing items or users' side information, leads to the result that the performance deteriorates, especially when rating dataset is extremely large and sparse. To overcome the data sparsity problem, we present a hybrid model named robust attention convolutional matrix factorization (RACMF) model, which is composed of attention convolutional neural network (ACNN) and additional stacked denoising autoencoder (aSDAE); ACNN and aSDAE are used to extract the items' and users' latent factors, respectively. The experimental results show that our RACMF model has good prediction ability, even when the rating data are sparse or the scale of rating data is large. What's more, compared with the state-of-the-art model PHD, the present model RACMF increased the accuracy rate on ML-100k, ML-1m, ML-10m and AIV-6 datasets by 4.80%, 0.57%, 1.98% and 3.67%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To compare the efficiency and safety of suctioning ureteral access sheath (UAS) and traditional UAS during flexible ureteroscopy (FURS) for treatment of renal stones. Methods: Between January 2015 and December 2017, 165 patients who had renal stones successfully underwent FURS with suctioning UAS created by connecting a channel on the tail of the suctioning UAS to a vacuum device. The outcomes of these patients were compared with those of 165 patients undergoing FURS with traditional UAS using a 1:1 scenario matched-pair analysis. The matching parameters were age, gender and stone burden. Results: The baseline characteristics were homogeneous between the two groups. The suctioning UAS group had significantly higher SFR one day postoperatively (82.4% vs. 71.5%; P = 0.02), but SFR 1 month postoperatively was comparable in the two groups (P = 0.13). The incidence of overall complications was significantly higher in the traditional UAS group (24.8% vs 11.5%; P < 0.001). Regarding individual complications, the traditional UAS group was associated with a significantly higher incidence of fever (13.9% vs 5.5%; P = 0.009) and urosepsis requiring only additional antibiotics (6.7% vs 1.8%; P = 0.029). No significant difference was noted in the incidence of septic shock, hematuria, steinstrasse or ureteral stricture. The suctioning UAS group had significantly shorter operative time (49.7 + 16.3 min vs. 57.0 ± 14.0 min; P < 0.001). Conclusions: Compared to traditional UAS during FURS for treating renal stones, suctioning UAS had the advantages of higher SFR 1 day postoperatively, a lower incidence of infectious complications and a shorter operative time. Further well-designed studies are required to confirm the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the original article, Fig. 2c was published incorrectly. The correct version of Fig. 2c is provided in this correction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To evaluate and compare flexible ureteroscopy (f-URS) and mini-percutaneous nephrolithotomy (mPNL) for 20-30 mm renal stones in obese patients regarding efficacy and safety.Methods: Between May 2011 and June 2017, 254 obese patients who had 20-30 mm kidney stone were consecutively included in the study; 106 patients underwent mPNL and 148 underwent f-URS by the same surgeon. The following parameters were retrospectively assessed: patient and stone characteristics, surgical details, perioperative outcomes, and stone-free rates (SFR).Results: F-URS group was similar to mPNL group in terms of the mean duration of surgery (92.8 ± 26.1 vs 87.4 ± 31.5 min, P = 0.137) and the final SFR (89.1 vs 92.5%, P = 0.381). The f-URS group had significantly shorter postoperative stay (1.0 ± 0.8 vs 4.3 ± 1.7 days, P < 0.001) and lower postoperative complications (11.5 vs 26.4%, P = 0.002). However, the f-URS group had a lower SFR after first session (67.2 vs 87.4%, P < 0.001) and needed more number of procedures (1.5 ± 0.4 vs 1.3 ± 0.4, P < 0.001) than the mPNL group.Conclusions: MPNL has a higher efficacy (higher SFR after first session and lower number of procedures); however, f-URS offers advantages regarding safety (lower complication rate). Therefore, both options can be offered to obese patients with renal stones from 20 to 30 mm in size. Nevertheless, these results must be confirmed by further prospective randomized trials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resistant starches (RS) were prepared from purple yam by dual autoclaving-retrogradation (DAS), and pullulanase debranching treatment (PDS). DAS and PDS were then hydrolyzed by α-amylase and amyloglucosidase to obtain DAS.H and PDS.H. Differences in structural characteristics and in vitro digestibility among the four samples were investigated. The results showed that granules of RS had a rough surface and irregular shape. DAS had the lowest amylose content (29.52%), whereas PDS.H had the highest amylose content (41.96%). The order of crystallinity of the RS was: PDS.H (31.23%) > DAS.H (30.16%) > PDS (21.23%) > DAS (15.30%). Analysis by in vitro digestibility indicated a decreased hydrolysis index and glycemic index due to lower swelling power and water-binding capacity, and a well-ordered double helix structure and more crystallization in PDS.H than in the other RS samples. These results suggest that pullulanase debranching combined with α-amylase and amyloglucosidase hydrolysis may produce better RS with improved crystalline structure and higher digestion resistibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the strategies in feature selection with sparse support vector machine (SVM). Recently, the socalled L -SVM (0 < p < 1) has attracted much attention because it can encourage better sparsity than the widely used L -SVM. However, L -SVM is a non-convex and non-Lipschitz optimization problem. Solving this problem numerically is challenging. In this paper, we reformulate the L -SVM into an optimization model with linear objective function and smooth constraints (LOSC-SVM) so that it can be solved by numerical methods for smooth constrained optimization. Our numerical experiments on artificial datasets show that LOSC-SVM (0 < p < 1) can improve the classification performance in both feature selection and classification by choosing a suitable parameter p. We also apply it to some real-life datasets and experimental results show that it is superior to L -SVM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sugarcane molasses is a wealthy source of health beneficial phenolic compounds and exhibited significant biological properties. Present study was designed to assess the inhibitory effect of sugarcane molasses on α-glucosidase and α-amylase. Hypoglycemic fractions were extracted using macro-porous and ion exchange resins. The total phenolics content was 0.179 ± 0.003 mg GAE per milligram of extract. Four phenolic acids which include caffeic acid (11.64 mg/g), ferulic acid (10.49 mg/g), chlorogenic acid (1.77 mg/g), and gallic acid (0.87 mg/g) were identified and quantified by high-performance liquid chromatography. The inhibitory activities of sugarcane molasses were 4.693 mg/mL (K = 1.099 mL/mg) and 4.254 mg/mL (K 0.238 mL/mg) for α-glucosidase and α-amylase, respectively, which revealed that sugarcane molasses could be a useful addition in medicinal preparations as nutraceutical and functional food for diabetic patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]