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Autoimmune diabetes is a disorder of immune homeostasis that leads to targeted insulin-secreting islet β cell destruction characterized by insulitis. Human amylin (hA) is an important neuroendocrine hormone co-secreted with insulin by pancreatic β cells. Here, we report hA immune-modulatory action through inducing regulatory T cells. We ex vivo-treated human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (hPBMCs) with hA for 24 h and counted CD4+Foxp3+ regulatory T cells (Treg) using flow cytometry. Diabetic status was monitored and splenic Treg were measured in non-obese diabetic (NOD) male mice. NOD mice were intraperitoneally injected once daily with hA (n = 25) or solvent for control (n = 25) for 7 months continuously. Spleen tissues were collected at the end of intervention and processed for flow cytometry and Western blot. We found a 2.9-fold (p

In contrast to the conventional safety management principle, namely, safety-I, which focuses on “what goes wrong”, a new-born safety philosophy (safety-II) inspires people to investigate “how and why things go right”. In the present study, the cognitive difference and correlation between safety-I and safety-II in the maritime shipping industry are explored and investigated. For this purpose, a questionnaire is administered to survey seafarers and maritime experts, and semi-structured interviews are conducted to collect original data associated with safety-I and safety-II. Then, the data from seafarers and maritime experts are further processed by empirical statistical methods and fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology. The results show that impacting factors associated with individual aspects are usually accepted as dominant with respect to views of safety-I, while organizational factors are more influential for safety-II, which is essential to developing an organizational resilience capacity. Based on the findings and discussions, potential safety countermeasures that integrate safety-I and safety-II are proposed in this article. The present study discusses the new-born safety-II perspective to elucidate the safety issues associated with maritime shipping operations, which can be seen as the main innovation of this work.

Congenital clubfoot is a common deformity in children with cerebral palsy. It results in child's foot inversion with horseshoe shape, which seriously affects the basic function of normal walking. For the evaluation of the effect of treatment, in addition to clinical testing, the previous study used the three-dimensional gait analysis system to verify the effect of the treatment. These evaluations can only evaluate the results after the treatment but not predict the effect of the operation. Therefore, this paper adopts OpenSim modeling software to establish a personalized human body model by manually scaling and importing the joint angle. Changes in tendon moment and moment arm before and after transfer are examined in this experiment. The maximum dorsal flexion moment of the tibialis anterior muscle is changed from 15 N · m (before transfer) to 18 N · m (after transfer), and the average moment arm is changed from 24 mm to 29 mm. The maximum inversion moment of the tibialis anterior muscle is changed from 18 N · m (before transfer) to 1 N · m (after transfer), and the average moment arm is changed from 19 mm to -3 mm, which becomes eversion moment. It can be seen the tibialis anterior muscle transfer surgery increases the dorsal flexion moment, reduces the inversion moment, and also increases the eversion moment, which has significant effects in the treatment of clubfoot. By taking these effect into consideration, we can help the doctor to determine a better surgical plan.

Surface electromyography (sEMG) signal is one of major neural control signal sources for powered prostheses and rehabilitation robots. We focus on exploring the performance of the classification of surface electromyography signals based on different speeds for assisting control of lower limb prosthesis. In order to get the most representative feature of the sEMG signals, several features are extracted based on the integrated electromyography; root mean square; median frequency; mean power frequency and fractal domains. The surface electromyography signals are acquired from thirteen volunteers with three different speeds. The back-propagation neural network and support vector machine are used to recognize movement pattern of the different speeds. The results presented that the features in time-domain have a better representativeness of the surface electromyography signal and the back-propagation neural network have a higher rate of the identification.

Objectives: This meta-analysis evaluated the impact of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) added to chemotherapy on treatment outcomes including survival and disease recurrence in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Methods: Medline, Cochrane, EMBASE, and Google Scholar databases were searched until 19 September 2016 using search terms. Studies that investigated patients with AML who underwent stem-cell transplantation were included. Results: The overall analysis revealed a significant improvement in overall survival (OS) (P = .019) and disease-free survival (DFS) (P = .002) for patients receiving G-CSF with chemotherapy. Among patients without prior AML treatment, there was a significant improvement in DFS (P = .014) and reduction in incidence of relapse (P = .015) for those who received G-CSF. However, subgroup analyses found no significant difference between G-CSF (+) and G-CSF (−) treatments in rates of OS (P = .104) and complete remission (CR) (P = .572) for patients without prior AML treatment. Among patients with relapsed/refractory AML, there was no significant difference found between G-CSF (+) and G-CSF (−) groups for OS (P = .225), DFS (P = .209), and CR (P = .208). Discussion: Treatment with chemotherapy plus G-CSF appears to provide better survival and treatment responses compared with chemotherapy alone, particularly for patients with previously untreated AML. Abbreviations: AML, acute myeloid leukemia; CI, confidence interval; CR, complete remission; DFS, disease-free survival; G-CSF, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor; GM-CSF, granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor; HR, hazard ratio; MDS, myelodysplastic syndrome; OR, odds ratio; OS, overall survival; RCTs, randomized control trials; RR, relative risk

This paper describes the development and validation of an automated method for the dissolution testing of metformin hydrochloride for use in the quality assurance program. Automation could provide significant improvements in the consistency of results compared with existing manual methods. Care and consideration were given to the automation of preparation of samples and standards in line with current manual procedures. Reproducibility and sample preparation accuracy were quantified, and results obtained were compared against tests performed manually. The system was validated in accordance with the Chinese (1), European (2), and United States pharmacopeias (3) using salicylic acid. Salicylic acid testing for bath calibration also required dilution, which provided a direct comparison to the automated system used to test metformin hydrochloride tablets.

Musk deer are an important economic wildlife resource, and long-term over-use has resulted in a sharp population decrease in the wild. Farming of musk deer is important to prevent the shrinking wild population from being hunted for their musk. Musk deer farming has a history of more than 60 years in China, but many problems persist. Musk deer are alert, timid and solitary in the wild, and the captive environment cannot satisfy their natural needs, leading to problems in musk deer farming. Understanding the biological characteristics of musk deer may help to identify ways for improving the welfare of farmed musk deer. In addition to gaining musk, musk deer farming can play a role in the reintroduction of musk deer, which complicates things as musk production requires tame domesticated musk deer whereas successful reintroduction requires untamed and less domesticated ones. In this article, we compare captive musk deer and wild musk deer for morphology, behavior, physiology, genetics, and nutrition, and discuss how to organize farming environment and management to satisfy biological needs of musk deer in order to improve their welfare and increase the population of farmed musk deer.

Blast furnace tapping is one of the most important aspects of BF iron-making, a process during which the ideal state is for the molten iron to remain the invariant and the level of liquid to remain stable. However, due to the viscosity of molten iron, the liquid level will tilt to one side near the tap-hole, causing the iron flow field during blast furnace tapping to change with time. This research simulated two cases of horizontal and inclined molten iron liquid levels in the process of blast furnace tapping. This study also discusses different hearth erosion situations and explains the rationality of blast furnace large-scale trends from the perspective of molten iron liquid level stability.

Objective. The aim of this study was to investigate the changes of regulatory T cells (Treg), interleukin-6 (IL-6), IL-10, transforming growth factor-β(TGF-β), and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).Methods. We performed a comprehensive search up to July 2016 for all clinical studies about the changes of Treg, IL-6, IL-10, IL-17, TGF-β, and TNF-αin T2DM patients versus healthy controls.Results. A total of 91 articles (5642 cases and 7378 controls) were included for this meta-analysis. Compared with the controls (allp<0.001), the patients had increased serum levels of IL-6, TGF-β, and TNF-αbut decreased the percentage of peripheral CD4+CD25+Foxp3+Treg and serum IL-10 level. Furthermore, the percentage of peripheral CD4+CD25+Foxp3+Treg (p<0.001) and serum IL-10 level (p=0.033) were significantly lower in the patients with complication and in the patients without complication, respectively. No significant changes about the percentage of CD4+CD25+Treg (p=0.360) and serum IL-17 level (p=0.459) were found in T2DM patients.Conclusions. T2DM patients have decreased the percentage of peripheral CD4+CD25+Foxp3+Treg and levels of serum IL-10 but elevated serum levels of IL-6, TGF-β, and TNF-α. Presence of diabetic complications further lowers the peripheral CD4+CD25+Foxp3+Treg number.

Introduction: To some extent endostatin normalizes tumor vasculature. However, the optimum time window and optimum drug dose for tumor vascular normalization need to be explored. Here we investigate the effect of low-dose endostatin on the structure and function of tumor vasculature and the delivery and anti-tumor efficacy of cytotoxic drugs. Methods: A lung cancer xenograft murine model was treated with low-dose endostatin for 10 days. The structure and function of the tumor vasculature were evaluated using various techniques. Paclitaxel was added in different schedules. Results: Endostatin caused a significant reduction in microvessel density. Tumor vascular walls after endostatin treatment were better structured. Tumor blood perfusion was increased on day six after endostatin administration. On days three, six, and 10, Evans blue extravasation into the parenchyma of tumors was decreased. On days three and six, endostatin-treated mice had greater paclitaxel delivery. The time window of vascular normalization was approximately three to six days. On days one to three, and days four to six, combined therapy with paclitaxel significantly inhibited tumor growth. Conclusions: Low-dose endostatin aids normalization of tumor vasculature. This resulted in improved delivery of cytotoxic drugs to the tumor, which closely correlates with synergistic efficacy when combined with paclitaxel during the normalization window.

The advantages of hybrid HCR have not been fully displayed because recently planning and scheduling of hot strip mill seldom consider how to avoid slabs with extremely different temperatures charging into the same reheating furnace. In this paper, the method base on specific reheating furnaces is proposed and both ant colony algorithm and simulation method are designed to solve the problem. Production data from one steel company is used for model validation.

Focusing on the disadvantages of recent researches for roll planning that seldom consider the warm-up part and solution efficiency is low, in this paper, a parallel planning model and an improved ant colony algorithm were proposed to solve the problem. Firstly, the model considering constraints of both warm-up part and staple one was designed; Secondly, the improved ant colony algorithm was proposed where the slab cluster was used to decrease the searching scope and the local optimization to improve the efficiency of pheromone accumulation. Finally, with production data from hot strip mill, we proof the method can get the best results by comparing with other two ant colony algorithms.

The electromagnetic properties of one-dimensional plasma photonic crystals influenced by random perturbation of structure parameters are studied through transfer matrix method in the paper. The random perturbation of thicknesses of layers as well as plasma frequency of layers can influence the electromagnetic properties of one-dimensional plasma photonic crystal. The random perturbation of thicknesses of layers tremendously impacts the band structure of one-dimensional plasma photonic crystals in high frequency domain. The random perturbation of plasma frequency, however, contributes to the moving of a cutoff frequency in the low frequency domain. The position of the defect mode of one-dimensional plasma photonic crystal randomly moves due to the random perturbations. The effect of random perturbation of plasma frequency is more significant than that of random perturbation of thickness of layers, which alters not only the transmittance but also the position of the defect mode. An improved quality factor and a shortened moving distance of the defect mode are both acquired by increasing the period number. And then this work may provide a crude but useful instrument in analyzing disordered 1DPPCs.

This paper describes an elaborate study on obtaining Ag/PMMA (polymethyl methacrylate) leaky hollow waveguide which has a large aperture and low loss in transmitting solar energy. Through analyses and comparison, a quartz capillary with the inner diameter of 2 mm was chosen as hollow waveguide. We used the xenon light source, which has the similar spectrum as the sunlight to test and analyze the performance of the Ag/PMMA leakage hollow waveguide. The results are consistent with the transmitted theory of the dielectric/metal leaky type well. Meanwhile, the Ag/PMMA leaky-type hollow waveguide in this work had good qualities. Therefore, it will be a satisfactory medium for solar energy transmission.

This paper put forward a method to promote low-carbon development of electric power industry in China from the perspective of benchmarking circular economy efficiency of coal-fired power plants. The input-output index system that reflects reducing, reusing and recycling carbon dioxide, waste and pollution emissions for measuring the circular economy efficiency of coal-fired power plants is set up. With the survey data of 24 coal-fired power plants, the superefficiency data envelopment analysis (DEA) model is applied to ranking and improving the circular economy efficiency of these plants. And the benchmarking is carried out using the aforesaid DEA model. The benchmarking procedure proposed in this paper can be used to choose the best efficiency benchmark of circular economy in the environmental management of power plants and enhance the low-carbon development of coal-fired power industry.

Under certain conditions, the screen doors of the platform can affect smoke spread and evacuation in a subway fire. The physical model and mathematical model were established by taking a real subway station as an example. And the smoke spread in a train fire was simulated by using CFD method. Effect of four open ways of screen doors on fire smoke and evacuation were analyzed. The research can provide a theoretical basis and technical support for the emergency evacuation plan and performance-based design of the subway.

This paper, firstly, based on a research on the forming process of public fire safety quality, the requirements of public fire safety education are studied. Secondly, based on the investigation and analysis of present situation, a desired administrative system required for efficient implementation of public fire safety education together with the enforcement mechanism based on a developed information system of public fire safety education administration is proposed in this paper, following an exploration into the powers and functions of governmental and non-governmental institutions in the field of public administration and public fire safety education and an analysis of the long-term mechanism of public fire safety education. Lastly, an implementation program of public fire safety education is put forward based on all the above research results.

Objective: To explore the relationship between Shen deficiency and blood stasis.Methods: Using consecutive intramuscular injection of hydrocortisone to build Shen-yang deficiency model rats, and detect their hemorheological and biochemical parameters.Results: Comparison between the model group and control group showed that the in vitro thrombus significantly lengthened in the model group (P

The properties of absorption of infrared light for collagen, hemoglobin, bivine serum albumen (BSA) protein molecules with α- helix structure and water in the living systems as well as the infrared transmission spectra for person’s skins and finger hands of human body in the region of 400–4000 cm−1 (i.e., wavelengths of 2–20 μm) have been collected and determined by using a Nicolet Nexus 670 FT-IR Spectrometer, a Perkin Elmer GX FT-IR spectrometer, an OMA (optical multichannel analysis) and an infrared probe systems, respectively. The experimental results obtained show that the protein molecules and water can all absorb the infrared lights in the ranges of 600–1900 cm−1 and 2900–3900 cm−l, but their properties of absorption are somewhat different due to distinctions of their structure and conformation and molecular weight. We know from the transmission spectra of person’s finger hands and skin that the infrared lights with wavelengths of 2 μm–7 μm can not only transmit over the person’s skin and finger hands, but also be absorbed by the above proteins and water in the living systems. Thus, we can conclude from this study that the human beings and animals can absorb the infrared lights with wavelengths of 2 μm–7 μm.

Udgivelsesdato: 2009-Sep Fabry disease is an X-linked inherited lysosomal disorder with dysfunction of the lysosomal enzyme alpha-galactosidase A causing accumulation of glycolipids in multiple organs including the nervous system. Pain and somatosensory disturbances are prominent manifestations of this disease. Until recently disease manifestations in female carriers of Fabry disease have been questioned. To explore the frequency of symptoms and the functional and structural involvement of the nervous system in female patients we examined the presence of pain, manifestations of peripheral neuropathy and nerve density in skin biopsies in 19 female patients with Fabry disease and 19 sex- and age-matched controls. Diaries, quantitative sensory testing, neurophysiologic tests and skin biopsies were performed. Daily pain was present in 63% of patients, with a median VAS score of 4.0. Tactile detection threshold and pressure pain threshold were lower and cold detection thresholds increased in patients. Sensory nerve action potential amplitude and maximal sensory conduction velocity were not different, whereas there was a highly significant reduction in intraepidermal nerve fiber density. We found no correlation between pain VAS score, quantitative sensory testing and intraepidermal nerve fiber density. Our study demonstrates that careful evaluation of symptoms in female Fabry patients is important as small fiber disease manifestations are present, which in some cases is only detected by skin biopsy.

Fuzzy clustering is a technique which adopts the fuzzy mathematics method to build up faintness relations of the characteristic on the basis of characteristic, close degree and comparability of the objective item. In this chapter, based on a lot of correlative literature, we first adopt a fuzzy hierarchical clustering method and a fuzzy equivalent matrix method to distinguish the partial discharge signals of a transformer, in order to research into a more effective method of partial discharge pattern recognition.

Many drug delivery systems (DDSs) have been investigated for local targeting of malignant disease with the intention of increasing anti-tumor activity and minimizing systemic toxicity. An injectable thermosensitive hydrogel was applied to prevent locoregional recurrence of 4T1 breast cancer in a mouse model. The presented hydrogel, which is based on poly(ethyleneglycol)-poly(ε-caprolactone)-poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG-PCL-PEG, PECE), flows freely at normal temperature, forms a gel within seconds in situ at body temperature, and eventually releases the drug in a consistent and sustained fashion as it gradually biodegrades. Locoregional recurrence after primary tumor removal was significantly inhibited in mice treated with the paclitaxel (PTX)-loaded PECE hydrogel subcutaneously (9.1%) administered, compared with the blank hydrogel (80.0%), systemic (77.8%) and locally (75.0%) administered PTX, and the control group (100%) (P0.01). In addition, tensile strength measurements of the surgical incisions showed that the PECE hydrogel accelerates wound healing at postoperative day 7 (P0.05), and days 4 and 14 (P0.05), in agreement with histopathological examinations. This novel DDSs represents a promising approach for local adjuvant therapy in malignant disease.