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The Communication Based Train Control (CBTC) system ensures the high efficiency and orderliness of trains and is widely used in urban rail transit networks. The adoption of wireless communication and network techniques makes the CBTC systems more vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Identity authentication is an effective approach to improve system security. The existing identity authentication mechanisms in CBTC adopt a centralized key management system sensitive to single-point failures. To improve system security, in this paper, we deploy a blockchain in CBTC systems. The client that runs the blockchain program not only acts as blockchain nodes to provide distributed key management for the CBTC system, they also work as a relay node to authenticate the communication between train control nodes in CBTC systems. Based on the blockchain empowered distributed security scheme, the block producer selection, and onboard blockchain client handoff decision problem are studied. With the objective to minimize the impact of key updating process on CBTC system performance and keep the system security under a reasonable level, we formulate the block producer selection and onboard blockchain client handoff decision problem using the deep reinforcement learning approach. Extensive simulation results illustrate that the proposed blockchain empowered security scheme can significantly improve the CBTC system security, and CBTC systems need to sacrifice part performance to ensure system security.

Background Chest radiograph (CXR) is still one of the most commonly used diagnostic tools for chest diseases. In this cohort study, we attempted to investigate the magnitude and temporal pattern of lung cancer risk following abnormal CXR findings. Methods We conducted an extended follow‐up of an occupational screening cohort in Yunnan, China. The associations between abnormal CXR results from baseline screening, the first four consecutive rounds of CXR screening, all previous rounds of screening and lung cancer risk were analyzed using time‐varying coefficient Cox regression model. The associations of lung cancer risk and previous CXR‐screening results according to histology were also considered. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to assess the robustness of the previous abnormal CXR findings on subsequent lung cancer risk. Results Abnormal CXR findings were associated with a significantly increased lung cancer risk. This relative hazard significantly decreased over time. Compared to negative screening results, the adjusted hazard ratios (HR) of baseline abnormal CXR results, and at least one abnormal result in the first four consecutive screening rounds during the first 5 years of follow‐up were 17.06 (95% CI: 11.74–24.79) and 13.77 (95%: 9.58–17.79), respectively. This significantly increased lung cancer risk continued over the next 5 years. These associations were stronger for persistent abnormal findings, and abnormal findings identified in recent screening rounds. Conclusions The increased risk was significant for both squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma. Although decreased over time, an increased lung cancer risk relative to abnormal CXR findings can continue for 10 years., Abnormal imaging results might be useful to lung cancer risk stratification. We investigated the long‐term lung cancer risk following abnormal CXR findings based on the extended follow‐up of an occupational screening cohort in Yunnan, China. Although decreased over time, an increased lung cancer risk relative to abnormal CXR findings can continue for 10 years.

Stevens-Johnson syndrome/toxic epidermal necrolysis (SJS/TEN) is a rare adverse cutaneous reaction with a low incidence and high mortality. Despite posing a serious threat to patients’ health and lives, there is no high-quality evidence for a standard treatment regimen. Here we report the case of a 62-year-old man with stage IV pancreatic cancer who experienced immunotherapy-induced SJS/TEN. After consensus-based regular treatments at a local hospital, his symptoms became worse. Thus, he consented to receive Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) therapy. The affected parts of the patient were treated with the CHM Pi-Yan-Ning which was applied externally for 20 min twice a day. After 7 days of treatment, the dead skin began peeling away from the former lesions that had covered his hands, feet, and lips, indicating that skin had regenerated. After 12 days of treatment, the patient’s skin was completely recovered. In this case, SJS/TEN was successfully treated with Pi-Yan-Ning, suggesting that there might be tremendous potential for the use of Pi-Yan-Ning in the treatment of severe skin reactions to drug treatments. Further basic investigations and clinical trials to explore the mechanism and efficacy are needed.

Corporate customers are an important stakeholder in global supply chains. We employ several unique international databases to test whether socially responsible corporate customers can infuse similar socially responsible business behavior in suppliers. Our findings suggest a unilateral effect on corporate social responsibility (CSR) only from customers to suppliers, an evidence further supported by exogenous variation in customers’ close-call CSR proposals and by product scandals. Customers exert influence on suppliers’ CSR through positive assortative matching and their decision-making process. Enhanced collaborative CSR efforts help improve operational efficiency and firm valuation of both customers and suppliers but increase only the customers’ future sales growth.

The occurrence of ureteral metastasis from distant primary tumors is uncommon, and appears to be especially rare when it originates from the lungs. In the case presented here, a patient with lumbago and left hydronephrosis was diagnosed with left ureteral metastasis of pulmonary adenocarcinoma after a CT‐guided percutaneous transthoracic needle biopsy of the lung and retroperitoneal laparoscopic left nephroureterectomy. He accepted the targeted therapy because the lung tumor epidermal growth factor receptor mutation (exon19 deletion) was positive, and preoperative staging of lung adenocarcinoma was stage IVA. After an 8‐month follow‐up, he is still alive and well, with no local recurrence or distant metastases. The therapy outcome assessment is stable disease. Although rare, our case has demonstrated that pulmonary adenocarcinoma has the possibility of metastasizing to the ureter, a risk that should be considered in some lung cancer patients., A patient with lumbago and left hydronephrosis was diagnosed with left ureteral metastasis of pulmonary adenocarcinoma after a CT‐guided percutaneous transthoracic needle biopsy of the lung and retroperitoneal laparoscopic left nephroureterectomy. Although rare, our case has demonstrated that pulmonary adenocarcinoma has the possibility of metastasizing to the ureter, a risk that should be considered in some lung cancer patients.

Oral cancers are the seventh most common cancer globally. While progresses in oral cancer treatment has been made, not all patients respond to these therapies in the same way. To overcome this difficulty, numerous studies have been devoted to identifying biomarkers, which enable early identification of patients who may benefit from a particular treatment modality or at risk for poor prognosis. Biomarkers are protein molecules, gene expression, DNA variants, or metabolites that are derived from tumors, adjacent normal tissue or bodily fluids, which can be acquired prior to treatment and during follow-up, thus extending their use to the evaluation of cancer progression and prediction of treatment outcome. In this review, we employed a basic significance level (< 0.05) as the minimal requirement for candidate biomarkers. Effect sizes of the biomarkers in terms of odds ratio, hazard ratio and area under the receiver operating characteristic curves were subsequently used to evaluate the potential of their clinical use. We identified the CCND1 from the tumor, human papillomavirus, HSP70, and IL-17 from the peripheral blood, and high density of CD45RO+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes as the clinically relevant biomarkers for oral cancers.

A 128-channel positron detection system will be constructed at Experimental Muon Source (EMuS) of China Spallation Neutron Source (CSNS) to conduct muon spin rotation/relaxation/resonance ( $\mu $ SR) measurements. Each detector channel consists of a scintillator, a light guide, and a photomultiplier tube (PMT). The long light guide is bent to an “L” shape to propagate optical photons from the scintillator to the PMT. A series of Geant4 simulations and experiments has been performed to optimize the light collection performance of the L-bent detector. Geometry deformation induced by the bending process has been well modeled. Simulation results agree with the experimental tests. Accordingly, a novel hybrid wrapping method (scintillator with polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and light guide with aluminum tape) has been developed to improve the amplitude of detector signals greatly. Compared to wrapping the detector with merely PTFE tapes or aluminum tapes, this method leads to an enhancement in light collection efficiency of 73% or 14%, respectively. Two optimally manufactured prototype detectors using the novel wrapping method have been tested at the ISIS Muon Facility. The beam tests demonstrated that the L-bent detectors can precisely measure the behavior of muon spins inside samples. Therefore, the L-bent detector design is competent for $\mu $ SR applications at CSNS/EMuS.

Background:Sputum cytologic atypia is associated with increased lung cancer risk. However, little is known about the long-term magnitude and temporal trend of this risk.Methods:An extended follow-up was conducted in a prospective screening cohort among occupational tin miners in Yunnan, China. Sputum samples were collected prospectively at baseline and 7 annual screenings since enrollment. The associations between sputum cytologic results from baseline screening, the first 4 consecutive rounds of sputum screening, and lung cancer risk were analyzed by time-varying covariate Cox regression model.Results:A moderate or worse cytologic result was associated with a significantly increased lung cancer risk. This relative hazard significantly decreased over time. Compared with negative screening results, the adjusted hazard ratios of baseline-moderate or worse atypia, at least one moderate or worse atypia in the first 4 consecutive screening rounds during the first 10 years of follow-up were 3.11 [95% confidence interval (CI): 2.37–4.07], 3.25 (95% CI: 2.33–4.54) respectively. This association was stronger for persistent atypia (adjusted hazard ratio = 17.55, 95% CI: 8.32–37.03); atypia identified in the recent screening rounds (adjusted HR = 4.14, 95% CI: 2.70–6.35), and those were old in age, had higher level of smoking, occupational radon, and arsenic exposure. In terms of histology, this increased risk was significant for squamous cell carcinoma and small cell lung cancer.Conclusions:Although decreasing over time, an increased lung cancer risk concerning moderate or worse sputum atypia can continue at least for 10 years.Impact:Sputum atypia might be helpful for identifying high-risk individuals for screening, surveillance, or chemoprevention of lung cancer.

Adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) is a prerequisite to improve immunity and reduce the morbidity and mortality of people living with HIV (PLWH). To describe ART adherence and associated factors among PLWH, patients who initiated ART in Liuzhou between 1998 and 2013 were recruited. Socio-demographic characteristics, HIV infection-related characteristics and clinical tests were analyzed. Both descriptive and multi-level analyses were used to explore factors related to ART adherence of PLWH who initiated ART in Liuzhou. A total of 8433 patients were recruited in this study. The rate of adherence to ART was 84.9% in PLWH who initiated ART in Liuzhou between 1998 and 2013. The female sex, WHO clinical stage III or IV before ART initiation, longer treatment duration and higher triglyceride were positively associated with ART adherence. Meanwhile, HIV acquired by intravenous drug use, co-infection with tuberculosis and other opportunistic infections were negatively associated with ART adherence. Measures should be adopted to improve the ART adherence of PLWH who are male, acquired HIV by intravenous drug use, and are co-infected with tuberculosis and other opportunistic infections.

There is a dilemma for omnidirectional antennas between a narrow beam on the elevation plane and a low-profile antenna configuration. In this communication, an annular loading of parasitic elements mechanism is proposed to circumvent the difficulty. A study for the proposed analytical model shows that the radiation from the parasitic elements can sufficiently cancel the original one in unwanted directions and thus reduce the beamwidth sufficiently. This array-based mechanism is validated for an omnidirectional circular patch antenna. With a proper design of the coplanar parasitic elements, a beamwidth reduction of 50° for the maximum radiation toward the ground plane and 73° for the maximum radiation toward the direction of 45° above the ground plane has been achieved, respectively. Both antennas have a simple configuration, and the total antenna thicknesses are only 0.06 and 0.01 guide wavelength, respectively.

Background In the era of anti-retroviral therapy (ART), the plasma HIV viral load (VL) is an important primary indicator for monitoring the HIV treatment response. To optimize the clinical management of HIV/AIDS patients, we investigated VL high-risk events related to virological failure (VF) and further explored the preventive factors of VL high-risk events. Methods The data were derived from China’s HIV/AIDS Comprehensive Response Information Management System. HIV infected patients who initiated or received ART in Guangxi between 2003 and 2019 were included. The contributions of VL after 6 months of ART to VF and AIDS-related death were analysed by Kaplan-Meier curves, log-rank tests and Cox regression analyses. Both descriptive analyses and bivariate logistic regression were employed to further explore the preventive factors related to VL high-risk events of VF. Results The cumulative rates of VF in the high low-level viremia group (high LLV) (χ2 = 18.45; P χ2 = 82.99; P 200 copies/ml after 6 months of ART. Compared with the VS group, the adjusted hazard risk was 7.221 (95% CI: 2.668; 19.547) in the high LLV group and 8.351 (95% CI: 4.253; 16.398) in the non-suppressed group. Compared with single patients, married or cohabiting (AOR = 0.591; 95% CI: 0.408, 0.856) and divorced or separated (AOR = 0.425, 95% CI: 0.207, 0.873) patients were negatively associated with VL high-risk events. So were patients acquired HIV homosexually (AOR = 0.572; 95% CI: 0.335, 0.978). However, patients who had ART modification were 1.728 times (95% CI: 1.093, 2.732) more likely to have VL high-risk events, and patients who used cotrimoxazole during ART were 1.843 times (95% CI: 1.271, 2.672) more likely to have VL high-risk events. Conclusions A VL greater than 200 copies/ml is a VL high-risk event for VF. Intervention measurements should be adopted to optimize the surveillance of ART in patients who are single or widowed, who have ART modification, and who use cotrimoxazole during ART.

In this paper, the stochastic energy management of electric bus charging stations (EBCSs) is investigated, where the photovoltaic (PV) with integrated battery energy storage systems (BESS) and bus-to-grid (B2G) capabilities of electric buses (EBs) are included for cost-effective charging of EBs. Also, the day-ahead dynamic prices are derived to mitigate charging impacts on power distribution systems. This problem is formulated as a distributionally robust Markov decision process (DRMDP) with uncertain transition probabilities and costs to address the impacts of random bus loads with inaccurate probability density function estimation. An event-based ambiguity set with combined statistical distance and moment information is developed to achieve minimax-regret criteria for less-conservative and robust solutions. To facilitate practical applications with reduced computational complexity, a heuristic regret function is proposed, based on which the dynamic prices are derived. Case studies based on EB data from St. Albert Transit and IEEE test feeders indicate that the proposed method can minimize EB charging cost with mitigated impacts on power distribution systems.

Jiaxiu Liu,1,2 Ruibin Deng,1 Bing Lin,1 Hong Pan,1 Yuwen Gao,1 Jianghong Dai,3 Hao Liang,4 Ailong Huang,5 Xiaoni Zhong1 1School of Public Health and Management, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, 400016, People’s Republic of China; 2School of Medical Information, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, School of Public Health, Xinjiang Medical University, Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, School of Public Health, Guangxi Medical University, Nanning, People’s Republic of China; 5Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology on Infectious Diseases, Ministry of Education, Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xiaoni ZhongSchool of Public Health and Management, Chongqing Medical University, 1 Yixue Road, Chongqing, 400016, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 13308368059Email zhongxiaoni@cqmu.edu.cnBackground: Men who have sex with multiple men (MSMM) belong to a high-risk group for HIV infection, and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is an effective measure to prevent the infection. However, few studies on PrEP adherence by MSMM in China exist. We aimed to explore the protective motivation-related factors for PrEP adherence in an HIV-negative MSMM population in Western China and to provide a reference for future risk management and effective prevention strategies.Methods: Data were collected from a 2-year follow-up cohort study of PrEP in MSM in China. Rogers’ protective motivation theory (PMT) was used to study the PrEP adherence of MSMM, and logistic regression was performed to analyze the influencing factors of PrEP adherence.Results: A total of 496 MSMM were included in the study: 299 (60.28%) of them in the good adherence group and 197 (39.72%) in the poor adherence group. The threat assessment scores of the good and poor adherence groups were 2.15 ± 0.59 and 2.06 ± 0.47, respectively, and the response assessment scores were 2.81 ± 0.62 and 2.74 ± 0.62, respectively. Poor PrEP adherence was associated with on-demand PrEP medication (OR=0.670), students at school (OR=1.837), occasional condom use (OR=1.621), and good HIV knowledge (OR= 0.659). The higher the threat assessment score, the higher the susceptibility; and the lower the response cost, the stronger the protection motivation and the less likely MSMM were to have poor adherence.Conclusion: On-demand PrEP medication is more conducive to adherence. Preventive management should focus on MSMMs who are students at school, those who occasionally use condoms, and those with poor HIV knowledge. Improving threat perception and susceptibility, and controlling and reducing the response cost can effectively improve PrEP adherence, and the subsequent application of PMT during intervention research can provide a reference for HIV prevention in MSMM.Keywords: MSM, multiple sexual partners, PrEP, adherence, protective motivation theory, Western China

Trivalent praseodymium (Pr3+)-doped materials have been extensively used in high-resolution laser spectroscopy, owing to their outstanding conversion efficiencies of plentiful transitions in the visible laser region. However, to clarify the microstructure and energy transfer mechanism of Pr3+-doped host crystals is a challenging topic. In this work, the stable structures of Pr3+-doped yttrium orthoaluminate (YAlO3) have been widely searched based on the CALYPSO method. A novel monoclinic structure with the Pm group symmetry is successfully identified. The Pr3+ impurity can precisely occupy the Y3+ position and get incorporated into the YAlO3 (YAP) host crystal with a Pr3+ concentration of 6.25%. The result of the electronic band structure reveals a 3.62 eV band gap, which suggests a semiconductor character of YAP:Pr. Using our developed well-established parametrization matrix diagonalization (WEPMD) method, we have systematically analyzed the energy level scheme and proposed a set of newly improved parameters. Additionally, the energy transfer mechanism of YAP:Pr is clarified by deciphering the numerical electric dipole and magnetic dipole transitions. The popular red emission at 653 nm is assigned to the transition 3P0 → 3F2, while the transition 3P0 → 3H4 with a large branching ratio is predicted to be a good laser channel. Many promising emission lines for laser actions are also obtained in the visible light region. Our results not only provide important insights into the energy transfer mechanisms of rare-earth ion-doped materials but also pave the way for the implementation of new types of laser devices.

Periodontitis is an autoimmune disease of periodontal tissues initiated by plaque. It is known that there is a close connection between periodontitis and CKD with hypertension, but the underlying mechanisms are unknown. STAT1 has been reported to play a regulatory role in hypertension and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Here, we investigated whether STAT1 regulates periodontitis‐mediated aggravation of kidney injury with accompanying hypertension. A hypertensive renal injury mouse model was established with Nos3 knockout mice, and a periodontitis model was established by implantation with the oral bacteria Porphyromonas gingivalis. The mice were intraperitoneally injected with a STAT1 inhibitor. Periodontitis aggravated kidney injury in hypertensive mice, and upregulation of STAT1 was observed when both periodontitis and hypertension were present; furthermore, STAT1 inhibitor moderated this effect. Moreover, we observed that periodontitis promoted the upregulation of inflammatory and fibrosis gene expression in the kidneys of hypertensive mice. In addition, STAT1 inhibition decreased the expression of pro‐inflammatory and pro‐fibrotic cytokines in the kidney lesion area. Periodontitis augmented the expression of inflammatory and fibrosis genes by upregulating the expression of STAT1, thereby aggravating kidney injury in the hypertensive mouse model., Here, we report that STAT1 expression is augmented in a mouse model of periodontitis with hypertension, and this results in upregulation of inflammatory and fibrosis genes, which aggravate hypertensive renal injuries. Injection of fludarabine alleviates kidney injury in this model. Our findings suggest a new target for the treatment of periodontitis in patients with CKD.

It is important to identify novel biomarkers to improve hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) diagnosis and treatment. Herein, we reported the role of karyopherin α4 (KPNA4) in HCC patients through public data mining and examined the results using clinical samples in our center. Our results revealed that KPNA4 expression level was positively correlated with the infiltration of CD8+ T cells, B cells, dendritic cells, CD4+ T cells, neutrophils and macrophages. In addition, KPNA4 expression was significantly associated with T cell exhaustion. KPNA4 mRNA and protein expression levels were significantly higher in cancerous tissue than in normal tissue. Besides, the increased expression of KPNA4 indicated poor overall survival. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses showed KPNA4 could be viewed as an independent risk factor for HCC patients. Moreover, our experimental results were consistent with those obtained from bioinformatic results. These findings revealed KPNA4 may serve as a novel prognostic biomarker and a potential therapeutic target for HCC.

Oxide-based near infrared (IR)-shielding coatings consisting of quarter‐wave stacks of oxygen-deficient tantalum oxide (Ta2O5−x) and silicon oxide (SiO2) multilayers and tin-doped indium oxide (In2O3) (ITO) films with the thicknesses of 200–600 nm can block the passage of IR-A (wavelength: 760–1400 nm) and IR-B (wavelength: 1400–3000 nm) radiation, respectively. In this study, the optical properties and microstructure of these oxide-based IR-shielding coatings were investigated. Transmission electron microscopy images indicated that amorphous Ta2O5−x/amorphous SiO2 multilayers were uniform and dense. ITO films were found to be highly crystalline and show carrier concentrations of up to 7.1 × 1020 cm−3, resulting in the strong IR-B optical absorption due to the plasma excitation of the free carriers. Oxide-based IR-shielding coatings with an ITO thickness of 420 nm were found to have near-IR shielding rates of >90% and an average visible light transmittance of >70%. The effects of IR on human keratinocytes were studied to evaluate the IR-induced photoaging in human skin. It was found that the downregulation of cellular proliferation and the enhancement of senescence-associated β-galactosidase activity induced by IR irradiation were significantly inhibited by oxide-based IR-shielding coatings. Thus, this study provides a facile method for the development of coatings for smart windows with high IR-shielding ability and high visible light transmittance.

Background Intraparenchymal meningiomas without dural attachment are extremely rare, especially in female children. To our knowledge, fibrous intraparenchymal meningioma located in the temporal lobe has never been reported in female children. The significance in the differential diagnosis of lesions in the temporal lobe should be emphasized. Case presentation A 12-year-old girl was admitted to our hospital, complaining of recurrent generalized seizures for 2 months. Magnetic resonance imaging demonstrated a solid lesion located in the temporal lobe. The lesion underwent gross total resection. Histopathological examination indicated that the lesion was a fibrous meningioma. Postoperative rehabilitation was uneventful. Conclusion This case report presents an extremely unusual intraparenchymal fibrous meningioma of the temporal lobe with peritumoral edema and reviewed 21 intraparenchymal meningioma cases in children and to discuss the clinical presentation and treatment, differential diagnosis, and radiological features.

Hao Liang,1,2,* Xinru Zhang,3,* Zhuo Ma,4,* Yan Sun,1,2 Chang Shu,1 Yihua Zhu,5,6 Yanwei Zhang,6 Songnian Hu,1,2 Xiujuan Fu,3 Lihong Liu4 1State Key Laboratory of Microbial Resources, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Pharmacy, The Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Pharmacy, Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 5College of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China; 6E-Seq Medical Technology Co. Ltd., Beijing, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Songnian HuState Key Laboratory of Microbial Resources, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86-1064806939Email husn@im.ac.cnLihong LiuDepartment of Pharmacy, Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86-1085231000Email liulihong@bjcyh.comBackground: Amlodipine is one of the most used members of calcium channel blockers (CCB), available to treat hypertension. It is mainly metabolized by the Cytochrome P450 3A4/5 (CYP3A4/5) in the liver. Peripheral edema emerges as the major adverse drug reaction to amlodipine and is the primary reason for discontinuation of amlodipine therapy. However, genetic changes in CYP3A5 may lead to changes in the tolerability of amlodipine.Purpose: In this study, we were interested whether variants in CYP3A5 have a role to play in amlodipine-induced peripheral edema.Methods: A total number of 240 Chinese Han patients that have experienced hypertension were included in the study. Sixty-four patients had experienced amlodipine-induced peripheral edema, while the remaining 176 patients with no history of edema formed the control group. Twenty-four single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of CYP3A5 gene were sequenced by targeted region sequencing method. The relationship of these genetic variants with amlodipine-induced peripheral edema risk was assessed using logistic regression.Results: The allele frequencies of CYP3A5*1D (rs15524), CYP3A5*1E (rs4646453) and CYP3A5*3 (rs776746) were significantly different between cases and controls (P< 0.05). The CYP3A5 *3/*3 (CC) or CYP3A5 *1D/*1D (AA) carriers showed an increased risk of amlodipine-induced peripheral edema in dominant model. Meanwhile, patients carrying CYP3A5 *1E (AC/AA) showed a reduced risk of peripheral edema. Furthermore, we found a strong linkage disequilibrium among rs15524, rs4646453 and rs776746.Conclusion: Our study reveals for the first time that CYP3A5 *1D, *1E and *3 were associated with amlodipine-induced peripheral edema in Chinese Han patients with hypertension. However, further studies comprising larger number of samples, more related genes and other factors are wanted.Keywords: pharmacogenomics, amlodipine, edema, CYP3A5, SNP

This paper investigates whether tactile texture patterns on the wrists can be interpreted as particular emotions. A prototype watch-back tactile display, MOTUS, was implemented to press different texture patterns in various frequencies onto a wrist to convey emotions. We conducted a preliminary guessability study with the prototype. The result reveals the wearers' agreement in interpreting the emotional states from the tactile texture patterns.

To preliminarily develop physiologically based population models for Chinese renal impairment patients and to evaluate the prediction performance of new population models by renally cleared antibacterial drugs. First, demographic data and physiological parameters of Chinese renal impairment patients were collected, and then the coefficients of the relative demographic and physiological equation were recalibrated to construct the new population models. Second, drug‐independent parameters of ceftazidime, cefodizime, vancomycin, and cefuroxime were collected and verified by Chinese healthy volunteers, Caucasian healthy volunteers, and Caucasian renal impairment population models built in Simcyp. Finally, the newly developed population models were applied to predict the plasma concentration of four antibacterial drugs in Chinese renal impairment patients. The new physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) population models can predict the main pharmacokinetic parameters, including area under the plasma concentration–time curve extrapolated to infinity (AUCinf), renal clearance (CLr), and peak concentration (C max), of ceftazidime, cefodizime, vancomycin, and cefuroxime following intravenous administrations with less than twofold error in mild, moderate, and severe Chinese renal impairment patients. The accuracy and precision of the predictions were improved compared with the Chinese healthy volunteers and Caucasian renal impairment population models. The PBPK population models were preliminarily developed and the first‐step validation results of four antibacterial drugs following intravenous administration showed acceptable accuracy and precision. The population models still need more systematic validation by using more drugs and scenarios in future studies to support their applications on dosage recommendation for Chinese renal impairment patients., The PBPK population models of Chinese renal impaired patients were preliminarily developed by employing demographic and physiological parameters of Chinese patients and results of first steps towards verification by four antibacterial drugs following IV administration showed acceptable accuracy and precision in Chinese patients with mild, moderate, and severe renal impairment.

In recent years, aiming to reduce the metropolitan air pollution caused by fossil fuel-powered vehicles, the electrification of transportation, such as electric vehicles (EVs) and electric buses (EBs), has attracted great attention from the automobile industry, academia, and public transportation. EBs, driven by decarbonized electricity, can reduce the air pollution and noise level. Besides, they can also recover electricity from regenerative braking. Recent years have witnessed continuous works on the topics of EB energy storage, power management, and charging scheduling. In this review, we have comprehensively surveyed three primary parts: important components; existing research topics; and open issues of EBs. Specifically, we first introduce the important components of EBs, including energy storage systems, powertrains, interleaving elements and electric motors, and driving cycles. Then, we review the existing research topics of EBs, including the energy storage system sizing, power/energy management, range remedy methods, charging design/scheduling, and trial projects. At last, extending from existing literatures, we further propose the future research opportunities and ongoing challenges, such as extending EV related research to EBs, EB charging demand modeling, and EB impact on power systems.

With the development of cloud computing technologies, more and more scientific workflows have been executed in clouds. However, cloud-based scientific workflows face many threats due to the resource sharing. Adversaries in clouds can directly or indirectly destroy them by means of side channels, virtual machine escape, and so on, which will cause interruption or produce incorrect outputs. Cloud-based scientific workflows are often applied in important scientific research fields, their failures will bring huge losses. Therefore, we propose an Intrusion toleraNt scHeduling algorIthm in cloud-Based scIenTific wORkflow system (INHIBITOR) to enhance the security. This algorithm constructs three replicas for each sub-task and designs a voting mechanism to realize the result verification. Based on this framework, INHIBITOR studies how to schedule these sub-task replicas and deduces the constraints which should be satisfied for intrusion tolerant scheduling. Furthermore, an elastic resource provisioning strategy is presented to improve resource utilization. To verify the effectiveness of INHIBITOR, we conduct experiments with WorkflowSim toolkit and use success rate, task completion rate and execution costs to evaluate it. Experimental results demonstrate that, compared with existing methods, INHIBITOR can not only increase the success rate by around 12.54%, but also improve the efficiency by about 4.7% and reduce execution costs by around 11.29%.

Recently, Autonomous Ground Vehicles (AGV) and mobile robots have been rapidly developed in various engineering applications, such as Industry 4.0 factory and smart manufacturing. Indoor navigation was one of the most important tasks for the mobile systems as they were often designed to move from one location to another location autonomously without contacting the surrounding objects along the moving path in a usually dynamic and complex indoor environment. There were two key steps to achieve Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). First, indoor positioning of the mobile system based on some measurements was done. The second step was to navigate itself inside the indoor map. This was a very challenging problem because there always existed uncertainties in the measurements. It was desired to estimate the positioning errors and determine a safe moving path with high reliability. This paper presented the methodologies for wireless indoor positioning and navigation of AGV with measurement uncertainties. Two kinds of AGV moving trajectories with various design parameters were simulated: a linear trajectory and a curved one. It was found that both greater number of sensors being used for wireless measurements and greater number of measurement trials for multilateration could effectively improve the accuracy of AGV positioning.

BACKGROUND Chemotherapy is the main treatment strategy for gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN). Surgical resection is crucial to deal with chemoresistance and recurrence following chemotherapy. The aim of this study was to explore if high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) can be used as a complementary technique to surgical procedures in the management of GTN. CASE REPORT This case report described two females who previously developed chemoresistance or recurrence during chemotherapy and then underwent HIFU as an adjuvant surgical salvage procedure. For high-risk GTN patients with chemoresistance, HIFU treatment decreased the risk of chemoresistance and shortened the course of chemotherapy. It also reduced the dosage of chemotherapeutic agents used for the patient who suffered a recurrence. CONCLUSION For patients with GTN who desire to preserve their uterus, HIFU may be used as a complementary technique to surgical resection in the management of GTN.

The integration of Lattice Boltzmann (LB) and adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference system was utilised to simulate mesoscale fluid interface in a multiphase fluid system. This method uses data ge...

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) X gene (HBx) mutants can develop during the natural course of chronic HBV infection. However, little is known about whether the emergence of HBx mutants during long-term antiviral therapy is an adaptation of HBV to antiviral stress. This study was to identify HBx mutants that emerged in patients experiencing Lamivudine resistance or suboptimal treatment. Forty-six Lamivudine-resistant patients and 46 patients with suboptimal treatment responses to Entecavir were enrolled in this study. HBx mutants were identified by sequence analysis and their roles in the HBV replication cycle were characterized. We show that deletion/truncation/insertion mutations were only detected in the Lamivudine resistance group, while synonymous mutations were found in both groups. Follow-up analyses revealed that five patients in the Lamivudine group developed hepatocellular carcinoma, while patients in the Entecavir group did not. These mutants were characterized by a significant decrease in transactivation of the pre-S1 promoter, and varying effects on transactivation of the X promoter. Co-transfection of HBx-mutant plasmid and HBV replication-competent clone into HepG2 cells resulted in increased nuclear-to-cytoplamic HBV core antigen, HBV-DNA ratios, and nuclear covalently closed circular DNA (cccDNA). Antiviral drug sensitivity assays revealed that these mutants exhibited a compensatory effect to counteract antiviral drug suppression, resulting in elevated secretory HBV-DNA levels. Our study demonstrates that HBx mutants can emerge during Lamivudine or Entecavir therapy. These mutants exhibit altered transactivation of the HBV pre-S1 and X promoters, leading to increased cccDNA levels to compensate for replication suppression.

Pedestrian detection is one of hot topics in the field of computer vision and pattern recognition, which is of great value to video surveillance, intelligent traffic and human-computer interaction, etc. and how to improve detection rate and speed is the key. Most traditional pedestrian detection methods are based on the pyramid sliding window scanning method, and for images in which the majority of the region does not contain a body, the detection is inefficient. This study presents a body window sampling algorithm based on binarised normed gradients, which can quickly and effectively extract the window of the image that most likely contains human body to be identified, thus greatly improving the detection speed and obtaining a lower false alarm rate. The authors employ the histogram of oriented gradient feature and the linear support vector machine to train the classifier. For the same false test case in comparison with the pyramid scanning method, when the authors used 2,000 sampling windows for detection, they observed a detection rate increase of 11%, the detection speed increased 19.6 times. For 5,000 sampling windows, the detection rate increased by 20% and the detection speed increased 7.8 times.

A compact fiber-optic magnetic field sensor is proposed by packaging an orthogonal dual-frequency fiber grating laser and a copper wire with alternating electrical current together inside epoxy resin. The alternating current generates Ampere force in a magnetic field, which changes the birefringence of the fiber laser and hence tunes the frequency of the beat signal after photodetection. The magnetic field magnitude can then be detected by measuring the frequency change of the beat signal. The sensitivity of the sensor can be tuned with a maximum response of 35.21 kHz/kGs demonstrated. Moreover, the sensor shows good immunity to environment interference.

SNPs, combined with massively parallel sequencing technology, have proven applicability in noninvasive prenatal paternity testing (NIPPT) for singleton pregnancies in our previous research, using circulating cell-free DNA in maternal plasma. However, the feasibility of NIPPT in twin pregnancies has remained uncertain. As a pilot study, we developed a practical method to noninvasively determine the paternity of twin pregnancies by maternal plasma DNA sequencing based on a massively parallel sequencing platform. Blood samples were collected from 15 pregnant women (twin pregnancies at 9-18 weeks of gestation). Parental DNA and maternal plasma cell-free DNA were analyzed with custom-designed probes covering 5226 polymorphic SNP loci. A mathematical model for data interpretation was established, including the zygosity determination and paternity index calculations. Each plasma sample was independently tested against the alleged father and 90 unrelated males. As a result, the zygosity in each twin case was correctly determined, prior to paternity analysis. Further, the correct biological father was successfully identified, and the paternity of all 90 unrelated males was excluded in each case. Our study demonstrates that NIPPT can be performed for twin pregnancies. This finding may contribute to development in NIPPT and diagnosis of certain genetic diseases.

The current investigation assessed the nickel and zinc contents of the soil, and the vegetables grown in wastewater irrigated areas. Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AA-6300 Shimadzu Japan) assessed the metal profile of the samples. The mean concentrations of metals in soil samples varied from O.O85 to 1.611 mg/kg for Ni and O.453 ~ O.9O8 mg/kg for Zn. In vegetables, the maximum Ni concentration was observed in Capsicum baccatum consequent to wastewater irrigation, while its minimum concentrations were noticed in Capsicum frutescens after canal water irrigation. Sewage water irrigation resulted in the highest Zn contents in Solanum lycopersicum and the lowest Zn contents were noticed in Capsicum baccatum after canal water irrigation. The daily intake values of Ni and Zn were higher caused by sewage water irrigation as compared to the canal water irrigation in all tested vegetable samples. Health risk index (HRI) values for Ni and Zn accumulation in vegetables fell within the permissible limit in Pakistan and these were regarded as appropriate for human intake.

Objective To analyze the status of government health expenditure in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region since the first 10 years from the new medical reform, and find the existing problems in order to provide evidence for the government to formulate medical and health policies. Methods Based on the health expenditure monitoring data of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region government from Urumqi Central Sub-branch of the People's Bank of China, combined with the relevant data in Xinjiang statistical yearbook, Excel2013 and SPSS19.0 were used to conduct a comparative analysis of government expenditure data from 2009 to 2018. Results The average annual growth rate of the government's health expenditure in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was 12.25%, which was similar to the national level. The proportion of government health expenditure in gross domestic product increased from 0.97% to 1.07%, while the proportion in the total fiscal expenditure decreased from 3.06% to 2.63%, which led to far behind the national and even western area level. The Gini Coefficient of per capita government health expenditure in every city (state) of the autonomous region fell from 0.46 to 0.32 between 2014 and 2018. In the past decade, the ratio between public health expenditure and medical institution expenditure has decreased from 1.01 to 0.42, led to insufficient proportion of public health expenditure. The health expenditure level of the four prefectures especially Kashgar and Hotan in Southern Xinjiang was still far lower than the whole autonomous region and the national average level. Conclusion The government of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region should continuously strengthen the financial expenditure in health, maintain the current situation of preferential policy implementation for rural and grassroots expenditure, constantly optimize the proportion of various financial expenditures, and strive for the transfer payment from the central and autonomous regional governments to the four prefectures in Southern Xinjiang.

Infantile hemangioma is one of the most common vascular tumors, which might result in morbidity and mortality without timely intervention. Propranolol is currently the first-line therapy for hemangiomas, but its potential side effects and high frequency of administration make it urgent to develop a suitable drug delivery system for propranolol. In the present study, we formulated a propranolol delivery system based on mesoporous silica nanoparticles (PRN@MSN) and investigated the interplay between autophagic activities mediated by nanoparticles and improved therapeutic efficacy of PRN@MSN. The results showed that PRN@MSN nanoparticles exhibited higher cytotoxicity compared with free propranolol in vitro and in vivo, which could induce excessive autophagosome accumulation through increased autophagosome formation and impaired autophagic degradation. Inhibition of autophagy in the early stage could attenuate the cytotoxicity of PRN@MSN. ROS generation was essential for nanoparticle-mediated autophagy and cytotoxicity, and PRN@MSN-induced autophagy dysfunction could enhance endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress in hemangioma stem cells. Our study revealed a promising PRN delivery system based on a mesoporous silica nanoplatform that could induce autophagy dysfunction with excessive autophagosome accumulation to promote the therapeutic efficacy of PRN therapy. PRN@MSN drug delivery system combined with autophagy modulation may act as a promising treatment pattern in the treatment of hemangiomas.

Background The performance of lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography (CT) (LDCT) in China is uncertain. This study aimed to evaluate the performance of LDCT lung cancer screening in the Chinese setting. Methods In 2014, a screening cohort of lung cancer with LDCT was established in Gejiu, Yunnan Province, a screening center of the Lung Cancer Screening Program in Rural China (LungSPRC). Participants received a baseline screening and four rounds of annual screening with LDCT in two local hospitals until June 2019. We analyzed the rates of participation, detection, early detection, and the clinical characteristics of lung cancer. Results A total of 2006 participants had complete baseline screening results with a compliance rate of 98.4%. Of these, 1411 were high-risk and 558 were nonhigh-risk participants. During this period, 40 lung cancer cases were confirmed, of these, 35 were screen-detected, four were post-screening and one was an interval case. The positive rate of baseline and annual screening was 9.7% and 9.0%, while the lung cancer detection rate was 0.4% and 0.6%, respectively. The proportion of early lung cancer increased from 37.5% in T0 to 75.0% in T4. Adenocarcinoma was the most common histological subtype. Lung cancer incidence according to the criteria of LungSPRC and National Lung Cancer Screening Trial (NLST) was 513.31 and 877.41 per 100 000 person-years, respectively. Conclusions The program of lung cancer screening with LDCT showed a successful performance in Gejiu, Yunnan. However, further studies are warranted to refine a high-risk population who will benefit most from LDCT screening and reduce the high false positive results. Key points This study reports the results of lung cancer screening with LDCT in Gejiu, Yunnan, a high-risk area of lung cancer, and it demonstrates that lung cancer screening with LDCT is effective in detecting early-stage lung cancer. Our program provides an opportunity to explore the performance of LDCT lung cancer screening in the Chinese context.

Community detection is one of the most important issues in modern network science. Although numerous community detection algorithms have been proposed during the past decades, how to assess the statistical significance of one single community analytically and exactly still remains an open problem. In this paper, we present an analytical solution to calculate the exact p-value of a single community with the Erdos–Renyi model. Meanwhile, we propose a local search method for finding statistically significant communities based on the p-value minimization. Experimental results on both real networks and simulated networks demonstrate that our method is able to effectively detect true communities from different types of networks.

The prevalence of HIV in Guangxi was very high, and there were many children living with HIV (CLHIV) because of larger baseline of pregnant women infected by HIV. It is necessary for children to explore the status of antiretroviral therapy (ART) on different initial CD4 counts in children with HIV infected by mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) in Guangxi and to evaluate the progress towards the 90-90-90 targets proposed by UNAIDS/WHO. Based on a retrospective observational cohort of children with HIV infected from the Guangxi Center for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), the variables of all patients included viral loads, CD4 counts, laboratory results and WHO clinical staging of HIV/AIDS were collected. Several indicators were defined before analyzed: (1) diagnosis of MTCT: infants born to HIV-positive mothers who tested positive for HIV twice before 18 months; (2) ART initiation: the children who were enrolled in the treatment cohort and were still having HIV monitoring as of 6 months before date censored and (3) viral suppression: a recently viral load measurement that was less than 1000 copies per milliliter. The number of CLHIV in Guangxi was projected by using the estimates of the national HIV/AIDS prevalence from China CDC. An Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model and the Holt Exponential Smoothing (ES) model were used to predict the number of CLHIV, the diagnosed CLHIV, the diagnosed CLHIV receiving ART and the number of them achieving viral suppression, in 2019 and 2021, respectively. In this 14-year HIV/AIDS treatment cohort, 807 children who were HIV infected by MTCT were enrolled. The ARIMA and Holt ES models showed that by the end of 2019, 82.71% of all CLHIV in Guangxi knew their HIV status, 84.50% of those diagnosed had initiated ART, and 85.68% of those on ART had durable viral suppression. By the end of 2021, 93.51% of all CLHIV in Guangxi will know their HIV status, 84.28% of those diagnosed will have initiated antiretroviral therapy, and 85.83% of those on ART will have durable viral suppression. Therefore, in 2021, Guangxi fails to achieve the WHO/UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets for CLHIV, and there is still a wide time interval between the first HIV-positive diagnosis and ART initiation. National free antiretroviral treatment program (NFATP) requires strong enforcement to reduce the prevalence of later chronic diseases and complications.

Objectives For migrant female sex workers (FSWs) at the Sino-Vietnamese border, the impact of work time in their current location on the spread of HIV/AIDS is not clear. Methods Data were collected from the Sino-Vietnamese border cities of Guangxi, China. Migrant FSWs working in these cities were studied. FSWs who worked less than 6 months in their current location were assigned to the short-term work group (ST FSWs), and FSWs who worked equal to or longer than 6 months in their current location were assigned to the long-term work group (LT FSWs). Logistic regression was performed to examine the impact of work time in the current location and factors associated with HIV infection. Results Among the 1667 migrant FSWs, 586 (35.2%) and 1081 (64.9%) were assigned to the ST FSW and LT FSW groups, respectively. Compared to LT FSWs, ST FSWs were more likely to be of Vietnamese nationality, be less than 18 years old when they first engaged in commercial sex work, and have a low-level of HIV-related knowledge and had higher odds of using condoms inconsistently, having more male clients, having no regular male clients, and having a history of male clients who used aphrodisiacs but lower odds of receiving free condoms distribution and education/HIV counselling and testing programme. The analysis of factors associated with HIV infection revealed that Vietnamese FSWs, less than 18 years old when they first engaged in commercial sex work, having no regular male clients, and having lower average charge per sex transaction were correlated with HIV infection. Conclusion FSWs with short-term work at the Sino-Vietnamese border had a higher risk of risky sex and were correlated with HIV risk factors. Vietnamese FSWs were at higher risk of HIV infection, and they were more likely to have short-term work. More targeted HIV prevention should be designed for new FSWs who recently began working in a locality to further control the spread of HIV, particularly cross-border FSWs.

Combined cooling, heating, and power (CCHP) is an economic and eco-friendly technology to mitigate energy issues with remarkable energy efficiency improvement. This study formulates a mixed integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) model for a combined CCHP system coupled with renewable energy, i.e. RCCHP system, which is applied in five different buildings to evaluate the economic and environmental performance under two optimization modes. Net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and dynamic payback period (DPP) are introduced as economic indexes, while CO2 emission reduction rate (CER) is considered as the environmental indicator to determine the optimal combination, capacity, and operation strategies for energy technologies. Results indicate that a combination of electricity purchased at valley period during night with power generated by the combined heating and power (CHP) unit coupled with wind turbine in peak period during daytime is cost-optimal which also enables higher energy efficiency. Meanwhile, the feed-in tariff as well as the uncoordinated electrical and thermal loads both show a significant impact on real-time operation strategies. Compared with the reference separate production (SP) system, the combined system shows better performance when applied to shopping mall under both optimization modes, e.g., with NPV up to 67.65 and 46.61 million RMB, IRR up to 20.70% and 25.10%, and the minimum DPP is 5.49 and 4.82 years under NPV and IRR maximization, respectively.

A prenatal diagnosis of coarctation of the aorta (CoA) is challenging. This study aimed to develop a coarctation probability model incorporating prenatal cardiac sonographic markers to estimate the probability of an antenatal diagnosis of CoA.We reviewed 89 fetuses as an investigation cohort with prenatal suspicion for CoA and categorized them into three subgroups: severe CoA: symptomatic CoA and surgery within the first 3 months; mild CoA: surgery within 4 months to 1 year (29); and false-positive CoA: not requiring surgery (45). Logistic regression was used to create a multiparametric model, and a validation cohort of 86 fetuses with suspected CoA was used to validate the model.The prediction model had an optimal criterion0.25 (sensitivity of 97.7%; specificity of 59.1%), and the area under the receiver operator curve was 0.85. The parameters and their cut-off values were as follows: left common carotid artery to left subclavian artery distance/distal transverse arch (LCCA-LSCA)/DT Index1.77 (sensitivity 62%, specificity 88%, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.6-0.8), and z-score of AAo peak Doppler-1.7 (sensitivity 77%, specificity 56%, 95% CI: 0.6-0.8). The risk assessment demonstrated that fetuses with a model probability60% should have inpatient observation for a high risk of CoA, whereas fetuses with a model probability15% should not undergo clinical follow-up.The probability model performs well in predicting CoA outcomes postnatally and can also improve the accuracy of risk assessment. The objectivity of its parameters may allow its implementation in multicenter studies of fetal cardiology.

Medulloblastoma is the most common embryonic brain tumor in children. We investigated a cohort of 52 Asian medulloblastoma patients aged between 0 and 19 years old, who received surgical resections and post-resection treatments in the Taipei Medical University Hospital and the Taipei Veterans General Hospital. Genome-wide RNA sequencing was performed on fresh-frozen surgical tissues. These data were analyzed using the CIBERSORTx immune deconvolution software. Two external clinical and molecular datasets from United States (n = 62) and Canada (n = 763) were used to evaluate the transferability of the gene-signature scores across ethnic populations. The abundance of 13 genes, including DLL1, are significantly associated with overall survival (All Cox regression P

Quantum dot (QD) laser as a light source for silicon optical integration has attracted great research attention because of the strategic vision of optical interconnection. In this paper, the communication band InAs QD ridge waveguide lasers were fabricated on GaAs-on-insulator (GaAsOI) substrate by combining ion-slicing technique and molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) growth. On the foundation of optimizing surface treatment processes, the InAs/In0.13Ga0.87As/GaAs dot-in-well (DWELL) lasers monolithically grown on a GaAsOI substrate were realized under pulsed operation at 20 °C. The static device measurements reveal comparable performance in terms of threshold current density, slope efficiency and output power between the QD lasers on GaAsOI and GaAs substrates. This work shows great potential to fabricate highly integrated light source on Si for photonic integrated circuits.

Microgrids incorporated with distributed generation (DG) units and energy storage (ES) devices are expected to play more and more important roles in the future power systems. Yet, achieving efficient distributed economic dispatch in microgrids is a challenging issue due to the randomness and nonlinear characteristics of DG units and loads. This paper proposes a cooperative reinforcement learning algorithm for distributed economic dispatch in microgrids. Utilizing the learning algorithm can avoid the difficulty of stochastic modeling and high computational complexity. In the cooperative reinforcement learning algorithm, the function approximation is leveraged to deal with the large and continuous state spaces. And a diffusion strategy is incorporated to coordinate the actions of DG units and ES devices. Based on the proposed algorithm, each node in microgrids only needs to communicate with its local neighbors, without relying on any centralized controllers. Algorithm convergence is analyzed, and simulations based on real-world meteorological and load data are conducted to validate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Background: Due to the lack of new antibiotics in recent years, bacterial resistance has increasingly become a serious problem globally. The aim of this study is to construct an antibacterial compound predictor using machine learning methods to screen potential antibacterial drugs.Methods: Active and inactive antibacterial compounds were acquired from the ChEMBL and PubChem database, which were used to construct benchmark datasets. The antibacterial compound predictor is constructed using the support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), and multi-layer perception (MLP) methods. We predicted the antibacterial activity of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved drugs in the DrugBank database and screened novel antibacterial drugs through structural similarity analysis.Results: In the initial screen process, the results suggested that the benchmark dataset based on FP2 molecular fingerprints, along with the SVM, RF, and MLP methods showed excellent prediction performance (mean AUC > 0.9 for all models). Using the combination of these three models, a total of 957 potential antibacterial drugs were predicted. Most of the predicted drugs showed low structural similarities compared with the FDA approved antibacterial drugs. We finally screened 9 predicted antibacterial drugs with novel structures including 2 anti-tumor drugs (cyclophosphamide and ifosfamide), 2 ophthalmic drugs (apraclonidine and echothiophate) and 5 anesthetics (desflurane, enflurane, isoflurane, methoxyflurane, and sevoflurane).Conclusions: This study provides a new insight for predicting antibacterial compounds with novel structures by using FDA approved drugs. The predicted compounds with novel structures are worthy of further experimental verification in the future.

OpenNFCSense is an open-source library for NFCSense, a system for detecting the movements of near-field communication (NFC) tags using a commodity, low-cost RC522 NFC reader. With a user-defined tag profile, the users can use its application programming interface (API) to obtain the NFC tagged objects’ motion speed, motion frequency, and motion type while recognizing these tagged objects. Since NFC tags support straightforward augmentation to existed physical objects, such as modular building blocks and mechanical toys, OpenNFCSense offers an easy and safe method for rapid prototyping tangible user interfaces for designers.