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Peer-to-peer (P2P) businesses in the hospitality and tourism industry pose a regulatory challenge that has disrupted traditional regulatory schemes. This article proposes peer regulation as a form of regulation that complements and supplements command-and-control regulation and platform self-regulation in a P2P business model. Using the polycentric coregulation framework and impression management theory as a theoretical basis, this study systematically explores peer regulation at intrapeer (i.e., self-monitoring and prosocial behaviors), interpeer (i.e., trust-enforcing mechanism and belongingness-enhancing mechanism), and platform (i.e., peer-centric platform self-regulation and de-individualization) levels. The article also discusses critical peer regulation issues such as P2P evaluation and reputation systems in a multifarious regulatory environment, P2P employment, and leveraging platform self-regulation and jurisdictional regulation. This article offers a theoretical account of multilevel peer regulation as a form of P2P regulation and provides future research directions on the topic.

Objective The aim of the present study was to retrospectively evaluate the toxicity and efficacy of post-operative small pelvic intensity-modulated radiotherapy in early-stage cervical cancer patients with intermediate-risk factors. Methods Between 2012 and 2016, 151 patients who had cervical cancer (International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage I–IIA) with intermediate-risk factors were treated with post-operative small pelvic intensity-modulated radiotherapy. The median dose of 50.4 Gy in 28 fractions with small pelvic intensity-modulated radiotherapy was prescribed to the planning target volume. The intensity-modulated radiotherapy technique used was conventional fixed-field intensity-modulated radiotherapy or helical tomotherapy. Results The median follow-up was 37 months. The 3-year disease-free survival and overall survival rates were 89 and 96%, respectively. A total of 144 patients (95.3%) were alive at the last follow-up. In total, 6 patients (3.9%) had recurrence: locoregional recurrence in 3 patients (2%), distant metastasis in 2 (1.3%), and both in 1 (0.6%). Diarrhoea was the most common acute toxicity. There were no patients suffering from acute or late grade ≥ 3 toxicity. Only 4 patients (2.6%) had late grade 2 toxicities. Conclusions For early-stage cervical cancer patients with intermediate-risk factors, post-operative small pelvic intensity-modulated radiotherapy was safe and well tolerated. The rates of acute and late toxicities were quite satisfactory.

Objective It has been found that both serum homocysteine (Hcy) and serum creatinine levels were increased in hypothyroidism patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between serum Hcy and kidney function in patients with subclinical hypothyroidism or hypothyroidism. Methods A total of 448 subjects were enrolled and divided into three groups: hypothyroidism (n = 129), subclinical hypothyroidism (n = 141), and control group (n = 168). Anthropometric information, metabolic parameters, serum Hcy and creatinine levels, and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) were analyzed. Results Compared with healthy subjects, patients with subclinical hypothyroidism or hypothyroidism had significantly higher serum Hcy and creatinine levels and lower eGFR level (all P < 0.001). Serum Hcy was negatively correlated with eGFR in subclinical hypothyroidism patients (r = −0.220, P = 0.009), and in hypothyroidism patients (r = −0.422, P < 0.001). After adjusting for age, sex and BMI, eGFR was still significantly correlated with serum Hcy in subclinical hypothyroidism or hypothyroidism patients (both P < 0.05). Levothyroxine treatment resulted in significantly decreased Hcy and increased eGFR in hypothyroidism patients (both P < 0.001). The decrease in Hcy was correlated with the increased eGFR after treatment (P = 0.001). Conclusion Serum Hcy was negatively correlated with eGFR in subclinical hypothyroidism or hypothyroidism patients. After levothyroxine treatment, a correlation was found between the decrease in serum Hcy and the increase in eGFR in hypothyroidism patients.

Our field needs research simultaneously driven by theory and context that is both rigorous and relevant. This commentary has sought to propose a viable road map to explore the interplay between context and concept toward theory building in an applied area of research such as ours. This commentary discusses a three-step approach of conceptualizing the context, contextualizing the concept, and cross-fertilizing the context and concept to systematically explore the interaction between context and concept in the interest of theory building. Specific steps at each stage of the process are also discussed.

In this article, a novel planar InAs/GaSb heterojunction face-tunneling FET (HFTFET) is proposed for device performance improvement. As is known in previous studies, the entire tunneling junction of HFTFET can be controlled by gate effectively and uniformly, and therefore, the large effective tunneling area and extremely steep turn on/off switch would be achieved. However, the leakage current between source and drain degrades the OFF-state characteristics and turn on/off switch greatly. Hence, an implanted drain is introduced in the proposed InAs/GaSb HFTFET for reducing the leakage to optimize the performance, which also makes the fabrication process compatible with the standard CMOS process platform. Consequently, large tunneling current, steep subthreshold swing, and small leakage current can be obtained simultaneously, which would further promote the development of tunnel field-effect transistors (TFETs) and their ultralow-power applications.

Based on the Chinese Children Genetic Kidney Disease Database (CCGKDD), we established a pediatric Gitelman syndrome (GS) cohort to explore the phenotype and genotype characteristics. Thirty-two patients with SLC12A3 gene variants were collected. Five cases (16%) were homozygous, 16 (50%) were compound heterozygous, 10 (31%) carried only a single variant, and the other one harbored two de novo variants beyond classification. p.(T60M) was found in eight patients. The average diagnosis age was 7.79 ± 3.54 years. A total of 31% of the patients were asymptomatic. Muscle weakness was the most common symptom, accounting for 50%. Earlier age of onset (4.06 ± 1.17 yr vs. 8.10 ± 3.46 yr vs. 8.61 ± 3.56 yr, p< 0.05) and lower urinary calcium-creatinine ratio (p = 0.024) were found in the homozygous group than those in the heterozygous and compound heterozygous group. Patients with p.(T60M) variant had an earlier age of onset (4.01 ± 2.83 yr vs. 6.92 ± 3.07 yr, p = 0.025) and lower urinary calcium-creatinine ratio (p = 0.056). Thus, more than 30% of GS children have no clinical symptoms. Homozygous variant and the p.(T60M) variant may be associated with earlier onset and lower urinary calcium excretion in Chinese pediatric GS.

Rectal cancer is the most common malignant tumor in the digestive system with rapidly metastasis and highly recurrence. Agrin (AGRN) is a proteoglycan involving in a large number of human cancers. However, how AGRN regulates the progression of rectal cancer remains largely unknown. We aimed to determine the biological role of AGRN and its mechanism in rectal cancer. AGRN expression in rectal cancer tissues was detected based on TCGA. The survival curve was plotted using the Kaplan-Meier method. qRT-PCR and western blot were utilized to examine the expression level of AGRN in cells. Cell proliferation, clonogenic ability, invasion, and migration of rectal cancer cells were analyzed by CCK-8, colony formation and transwell experiments. GSEA was employed for the analysis of the potential pathways-related with AGRN in rectal cancer. The activity of WNT pathway was determined by western blot. AGRN expression was dramatically increased in rectal cancer, and its up-regulation was associated with poorer prognosis of rectal cancer patients. AGRN expression was an independent factor for the prognosis of rectal cancer. AGRN inhibition suppressed rectal cancer cell growth, invasion, and migration, whereas AGRN overexpression facilitated these behaviors of rectal cancer cells

The chaotic systems have been used in the construction of the substitution boxes (S-boxes) which play a key role in modern block cipher. In this paper, we propose a method for constructing the chaotic S-boxes using the composition of transpositions. The proposed method includes three steps, i.e., generate a trajectory of a given chaotic system, quantify this trajectory, and generate S-box using quantified trajectory. The prominent advantage of the proposed method is that it is easy to implement. The results of security analysis show that the preferred S-box constructed by the proposed method has good cryptographic properties.

In the present study, the clinical and long-term effects of accelerated transepithelial corneal collagen crosslinking (ATE-CXL) and accelerated epithelial-off corneal collagen crosslinking (A-CXL) for the treatment of different types of progressive keratoconus were compared. A total of 70 patients, including 96 eyes with advanced keratoconus, were enrolled in the study. ATE-CXL or A-CXL was performed on one or two eyes of each subject according to corneal thickness, keratoconus type and surgical approach. Patients were divided into the following four groups: Group A, ATE-CXL for central keratoconus; group B, A-CXL for central keratoconus; group C, ATE-CXL for peripheral keratoconus; and group D, A-CXL for peripheral keratoconus. Uncorrected distant visual acuity (UDVA), best-corrected distant (BD)VA and corneal astigmatism (CA) were evaluated in all patients by routine ophthalmology pre-operatively and 3 years post-operatively. Topographical features, including maximum corneal curvature (Kmax), thinnest corneal thickness (TCT), anterior corneal elevation (ACE) and corneal endothelial cell density (ECD) were also compared across groups. The results suggested that pre- and post-operative UDVA, BDVA, Kmax, CA and ACE values differed in all four groups (P0.05). Concordant results were obtained between groups A and C and groups B and D. ATE-CXL achieved better control of central keratoconus UDVA, Kmax and CA as compared with A-CXL. The difference between pre- and post-operative UDVA, Kmax and CA as compared with A-CXL was highly correlated with the change in intraocular pressure and treatment effectiveness. There was a statistically significant improvement in BDVA with ATE-CXL for treatment of central keratoconus compared with that after A-CXL treatment (P=0.032). There were statistically significant improvements in BDVA (P=0.047), CA (P=0.045) and ACE (P=0.012) with A-CXL treatment of peripheral keratoconus when compared with ATE-CXL treatment. Central, and to a lesser extent, peripheral, keratoconus may be effectively controlled by either approach, with disease stabilization 3 years later. ATE-CXL is suggested to be the most suitable treatment for keratoconus of 400 µm; however, A-CXL yields superior long-term outcomes.

To date, pricing and revenue management literature has mostly concerned itself with how firms can maximize revenue growth and minimize opportunity cost. Rarely has the ethical and legal nature of the field been subjected to substantial comment and discussion. This viewpoint article draws attention to some inherent ethical concerns and legal challenges that may come with future developments in pricing, in particular online personalized pricing, thereby seeking to initiate a broader discussion about issues such as dishonesty, unfairness, injustice, and misconduct in pricing and revenue management practices. Reflecting on how legislators and regulators in Europe seek to limit recent developments in personalized pricing, we argue that not much is to be expected from the legal system, at least not in the short run, with regard to guiding the pricing and revenue field in setting and implementing minimum standards of behavior. Scholarly attention should however not only be directed to the legal challenges of new forms of direct price discrimination, such as algorithmic personalized dynamic pricing, but also to the ethical and legal implications of more granular forms of indirect price discrimination, through which consumers will be allowed to ‘freely’ sort themselves into different microsegments, especially when the ‘self-selection’ is enticed by deceptive personalized applications of psychological pricing and neuromarketing.

Edge computing paradigm extends the cloud service to the edge of networks and reduces service latency to edge users. Meanwhile, the characteristics of edge computing, such as mobility and heterogeneity, arise new privacy security challenges. Current research on privacy security relies on information security techniques like encryption and anonymization. In this paper, we present an application of mean field game theory for privacy leakage with large scale edge devices in edge computing because the edge devices are resource constrained. The contributions are threefold: first, we construct an individual cost function with a mean field term and discuss the evolution of the state if the number of devices is large enough. Subsequently, we elaborate the Nash equilibrium of the mean field game models which are coupled through the Hamiltonian–Jacobi–Bellman (HJB) backward and Fokker–Planck–Kolmogorov (FPK) forward equations. In addition, an approximate method is introduced to analyze the stable solution of the state. Finally, numerical examples are provided to illustrate the stability of the state and the presented strategy.

Objective A prospective randomized control study investigated the feasibility and efficacy of adjuvant radiotherapy on patients with central hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after narrow-margin hepatectomy (

A history of recurrent benign mucous membrane pemphigoid episodes had plagued patients. Major treatments include immunosuppressant or systemic glucocorticoid drugs, but all of them have side effects. Therefore, we tried to find a way to minimize side effects by using traditional Chinese medicine, and speeding up the healing process.

Objective: The goal of this study was to confirm the clinical value of pretreatment serum squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC-Ag) in the administration of consolidation chemotherapy in patients with cervical cancers undergoing postoperative extended-field radiotherapy (EFRT) and concurrent chemotherapy (CCRT). Methods: Between 2007 and 2018, a total of 113 patients were treated with postoperative extended-field intensity-modulated radiotherapy (EF-IMRT) and CCRT. There were 63 patients receiving extended-field concurrent chemoradiotherapy (EF-CCRT) and consolidation chemotherapy, while another 50 patients underwent EF-CCRT alone. For the planning target volume, the prescribed dose was 45 to 50.4Gy/25 to 28 fractions. The consolidation chemotherapy regimen contained docetaxel and cisplatin. Results: For the patients with high pretreatment SCC-Ag, the addition of consolidation chemotherapy significantly improved their treatment outcomes and they had better 5-year overall survival (OS) (81.02% vs 63.44%, P = .018) and disease-free survival (DFS) (76.95% vs 61.12%, P = .007) than those without it. Meanwhile, the patients with consolidation chemotherapy had a lower rate of distant metastasis (8.8% vs 34.8%, P = .001). For the patients with low pretreatment SCC-Ag, there was no difference in prognosis between patients receiving consolidation chemotherapy and those not receiving consolidation. In multivariate analysis, consolidation chemotherapy was found to be a factor significantly associated with DFS ( P = .035, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.304-0.977) and distant metastasis ( P = .009, 95% CI: 0.125-0.841). Conclusion: The patients who received consolidation chemotherapy showed significantly better DFS. Furthermore, pretreatment serum SCC-Ag > 6.5 ng/mL may be a predictive factor for the use of consolidation chemotherapy in cervical cancer patients treated with postoperative EF-CCRT.

IntroductionOx-LDL (oxidized low densitylipoprotein)-induced endothelial cell injury and dysfunction of vascular smooth muscle cell played critical roles in the development of atherosclerosis (AS). Tropomyosin 2 (TPM2) was indicated to be implicated in cardiac diseases, but its critical role and regulation mechanism in AS progression had not yet been elucidated.Material and methodsThe expression of TPM2 was investigated in AS tissues. Ox-LDL was used to construct an AS in vitro model based on endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cells (HAEC and VSMC). Overexpression assay was performed to evaluate the role of TPM2 in AS. Meanwhile, Narciclasine treatment analysed the involvement of RhoA pathway.ResultsTPM2 was dramatically upregulated both in AS tissues and ox-LDL-induced HAEC cells. The overexpression of TPM2 attenuated ox-LDL-stimulated cell growth depression, inflammatory and adhesive responses in HAEC, as well as oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. Besides, VSMC, impacted by TPM2-overexpressed HAEC, showed alleviated cellular processes which was abnormally activation induced by ox-LDL. Furthermore, the depressed activation of RhoA pathway was found in TPM2-overexpressed HAEC and activating the signaling rescued these effects of TPM2 exerted on ox-LDL-stimulated HAEC and VSMC.ConclusionsTPM2 had an advantageous impact on ox-LDL-induced AS progression in vitro via mediating RhoA pathway. This evidence might be contributed to the therapy of AS.

This study aimed to examine the complaint and resolution process in a peer-to-peer (P2P) business model, in the case of Airbnb, and to uncover the underlying attributions of responsibility in the process. A total of 52 complaint episodes posted by hosts and guests of Airbnb were retrieved from a third-party website and analyzed using content analysis. The findings reveal the dynamic involvement patterns among multiple parties at dyadic, triadic, and quadratic levels in the P2P context. The findings also show when managing complaints between hosts and guests, the platform provider follows some prescriptive mechanisms that emphasize resolution over recovery, a drastic departure from that in the conventional business-to-customer (B2C) context. Paradoxically, responsibility is attributed to the platform provider not only when it directly causes the complaints (commission) but also when it is indirectly related to them (association). The platform, particularly, holds diffused responsibilities for consequential negative events.

Given the increasing presence of humanoid service robots at airports, hotels and restaurants, the current study investigates how consumers’ interdependent self-construal and technology self-efficac...

Background: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a progressive and irreversible eye disease. The anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) therapy has revolutionized the treatment of neovascular AMD. However, the expense for such treatment is quite high. Methods: We used a traditional Chinese medicine ZQMT as an alternative therapeutic regimen for AMD. We employed two in vivo animal models mimicking dry and wet AMD respectively to assess the therapeutic efficacy of ZQMT on treating AMD-related retinopathy. AMD-related retinopathy in Crb1rd8 mice was evaluated from week 1 to 8 by fundus photography. Laser-induced choroidal neovascularization (CNV) was evaluated by fluorescein angiography and histopathology. Results: ZQMT increased CX3CR1 expression in murine CD4+ T cells either cultured in vitro or directly isolated from animals treated with ZQMT. We also performed both in vitro and in vivo studies to confirm that ZQMT has no apparent toxic effects. ZQMT alleviated AMD-related retinopathy in both Crb1rd8 and CNV models. Depletion of CCL2 and CX3CR1 in Crb1rd8 mice abolished the efficacy of ZQMT, suggesting that CCL2 and/or CX3CR1 may underlie the mechanisms of ZQMT in treating AMD-related retinopathy in mice. Conclusion: In summary, our study supports the protective roles of a traditional Chinese medicine ZQMT in AMD.

Objective Irisin is a myokine that greatly affects energy expenditure and systemic metabolism. While thyroid hormone is likely associated with irisin, a direct relationship remains to be fully elucidated. This study aimed to investigate plasma irisin levels in Chinese patients with hypothyroidism. Methods A total of 155 subjects were divided into the hypothyroidism group or the control group. Fifty-seven patients in the hypothyroidism group received levothyroxine treatment. Baseline irisin levels were measured in the two groups and post-treatment levels were measured in the hypothyroidism group. Results Irisin levels were significantly lower in the hypothyroidism group than in the control group. In the hypothyroidism group, irisin levels were positively associated with free triiodothyronine and free thyroxine levels, and negatively associated with thyrotropin levels. In the hypothyroidism group, irisin levels were significantly increased after levothyroxine treatment. Multiple linear regression models showed that total cholesterol and free thyroxine levels were the only significant predictors of serum irisin levels. Conclusions Irisin levels are decreased in patients with hypothyroidism. Our results suggest that decreased irisin levels are directly associated with reduced thyroid hormone levels. These values may be restored after levothyroxine treatment in Chinese patients with hypothyroidism.

In peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation settings such as Airbnb, social interactions between peers are distinctively different from those between guests and employees in conventional lodging establishments. This study focuses on a reciprocal aspect of social interactions in P2P accommodations and aims to: 1) explore how guests and hosts perceive online and face-to-face interactions between them and 2) investigate the association between P2P interactions and some outcome variables (encounter satisfaction, word-of-mouth intention, and continuous intention to use) based on the roles of guest and host. A total of 503 responses from an online research panel were analyzed. The results show that guests perceive overall interaction experiences more positively than do hosts. Moreover, guests and hosts place weight on different interaction factors that contribute to their satisfaction and behavioral intentions. This study sheds light on the reciprocal interactions between guests and hosts, providing important theoretical and practical implications for the P2P lodging experience.

The Internet of things have been widely used to improve our daily life. Public-key cryptosystem plays a central role in the security of IoT. However, classic public-key cryptosystems such as RSA and ECC are not suitable for IoT because of the complicated encryption and decryption operations. NTRU is an efficient public-key cryptosystem. In this paper, we first generalize NTRU and propose a group-based NTRU-like public-key cryptosystem, namely GTRU. Then, we construct high-performance GTRU for IoT. Finally, security analysis shows that our proposed GTRU for IoT is more secure than NTRU against lattice-based attacks.

Modern block ciphers can be used for designing security schemes to meet the security requirements in underwater acoustic sensor networks. The substitution boxes (S-boxes) used in block ciphers must have good cryptographic properties to resist various attacks. The difficulty in the design of S-boxes is that the cryptographic properties of S-boxes have no obvious distribution. In this paper, we investigate the certain subgraph of the Cayley graph of the symmetric group to get some information about the distribution of the cryptographic properties of S-boxes. Based on the information obtained, an algorithm for designing S-boxes with good cryptographic properties is proposed. The security analysis shows that the preferred S-box constructed by the proposed algorithm has good cryptographic properties.

Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) is an absorbing candidate for cell therapy in treating spinal cord injury (SCI) due to its great potential for multiple cell differentiation, mighty paracrine secretion as well as vigorous immunomodulatory effect, of which are beneficial to the improvement of functional recovery post SCI. However, the therapeutic effects of MSC on SCI have been limited because of the gradual loss of MSC stemness in the process of expanding culture. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to maintain those beneficial properties of MSC via three-dimensional spheroid cell culture and then compared them with conventionally-cultured MSCs in the treatment of SCI both in vitro and in vivo with the aid of two-photon microscope. We found that 3D human placenta-derived MSCs (3D-HPMSCs) demonstrated a significant increase in secretion of anti-inflammatory factors and trophic factors like VEGF, PDGF, FGF via QPCR and Bio-Plex assays, and showed great potentials on angiogenesis and neurite morphogenesis when co-cultured with HUVECs or DRGs in vitro. After transplantation into the injured spinal cord, 3D-HPMSCs managed to survive for the entire experiment and retained their advantageous properties in secretion, and exhibited remarkable effects on neuroprotection by minimizing the lesion cavity, inhibiting the inflammation and astrogliosis, and promoting angiogenesis. Further investigation of axonal dieback via two-photon microscope indicated that 3D-HPMSCs could effectively alleviate axonal dieback post injury. Further, mice only treated with 3D-HPMSCs obtained substantial improvement of functional recovery on electrophysiology, BMS score, and Catwalk analysis. RNA sequencing suggested that the 3D-HPMSCs structure organization-related gene was significantly changed, which was likely to potentiate the angiogenesis and inflammation regulation after SCI. These results suggest that 3D-HPMSCs may hold great potential for the treatment of SCI.

Background In mid-March 2020, the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 was to be characterised as a pandemic. The purpose of this article is to recommend emergency management procedures for dental clinics during this public health emergency. Materials and methods We have implemented a series of emergency management measures to prevent cross-infection in our dental clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic, including personnel scheduling, division of the clinic into functional areas, limitation or delay of non-emergency patients, staff protection and infection controls, clinical environmental disinfection, and the use of online consultation services, among others. Results Due to public health policy and dental emergency management, the number of dental visitors to our clinic dropped sharply, and no COVID-19 suspected cases or high-risk patients received treatment. There have been no reports of infection of dental staff or patients during dental treatment in China to date. Conclusion These public health policies and dental emergency management measures were effective in controlling cross-infection of COVID-19 in the dental clinic. Practical implications We share control measures for COVID-19, and hope that they will be helpful for dental professionals worldwide to continue to provide dental care in a safe and orderly manner.

Interleukin-10 (IL10), a pleiotropic cytokine secreted by type-2 helper (Th2) T cells, contributes to the oncogenic activation or inactivation of tumor-suppressor genes. The present study investigated whether hypomethylation of IL10 CpG island (CGI) was associated with the risk of developing gastric cancer (GC) and the prognosis of patients with GC. A fragment (hg18, chr1: 206945638-206945774) at the CGI of IL10 was selected for the present methylation assay. Quantitative methylation-specific PCR was used to evaluate the methylation of IL10 CGI in 117 tumor samples from patients with GC. The results demonstrated that IL10 CGI methylation was significantly lower in the tumor tissues compared with that in the paired adjacent non-tumor tissues (median percentage of methylated reference, 29.16 vs. 42.82%, respectively; P=4×10−8). Furthermore, results from receiver operating characteristic curve analysis identified a significant area under the curve of 0.706, with a sensitivity and a specificity of 77.8 and 58.1%, respectively, between cancer tissues and paired adjacent non-tumor tissues. Furthermore, the methylation of IL10 CGI was significantly associated with patients' age at diagnosis (r=−0.201; P=0.03). Subgroup analyses demonstrated that the association between IL10 CGI hypomethylation and the risk of GC was specific for patients with low differentiation (P=1×10−7) and Borrmann types III+IV (P=1×10−7). In addition, IL10 CGI hypomethylation was significantly associated with the risk of GC for patients without smoking history (P=3×10−7) or a family history of cancer (P=2×10−7). The results from Kaplan-Meier survival analysis demonstrated that IL10 CGI hypomethylation was associated with a significantly shorter overall survival of patients with GC (P=0.041). Similar results were identified for patients with GC who did not have smoking history (P=0.037) or a family history of cancer (P=0.049). The results from this study demonstrated that IL10 CGI hypomethylation may be considered as a potential biomarker for the diagnosis and prognosis of patients with GC in the Chinese population.

Profile measurement is a key technical enabler in the manufacturing of highly curved freeform surfaces due to their complex geometrical shape. A current optical probe was used to measure nearly rotary freeform surfaces with the help of one rotation axis, because the probe needs to measure along the normal vector of the surface under the limitation of the numerical aperture (NA). This kind of measuring system generally has a high cost due to the high-precision, multi-axis platform. In this paper, we propose a low-cost, dual-axis rotation scanning method for a highly curved freeform surface with an arbitrary shape. The optical probe can scan the surface profile while always keeping consistent with the normal vector of the measuring points with the help of the double rotation axis. This method can adapt to the changes in curvature in any direction for a highly curved freeform surface. In addition, the proposed method provides a system error calibration technique for the rotation axis errors. This technique can be used to avoid the dependence of the measuring system on the high-precision platform. The three key system errors that affect the measurement accuracy such as installation error of the B-axis, A-axis, and XZ perpendicularity error are first analyzed through establishing an error model. Then, the real error values are obtained by the optimal calculation in the calibration process. Finally, the feasibility of the measurement method is verified by measuring one cone mirror and an F-theta mirror and comparing the results to those obtained using commercial equipment. The maximum measurable angle of the system is &plusmn, 90&deg, the maximum measurable diameter is 100 mm, and the measurement accuracy of the system reaches the micron level in this paper.

For hospitality organizations, the need for compelling corporate narratives is particularly acute in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis due to the scope and severity of its threat to employees, customers, the general public, and the fundamental survival of the company itself. Thus, this study aims to identify corporate narrative strategies and examine how hospitality companies deploy such narrative strategies with impression management tactics during the COVID-19 pandemic. Anchored in the Aristotelian concept of persuasive rhetoric and impression management theory, this study content-analyzed 57 CEO letters published by hospitality companies during the COVID-19 outbreak and found the prevalent rhetoric appeals and patterns of rhetoric appeals with impression management tactics embedded in the letters.

Internet of Things (IoT) has played an important role in our daily life since its emergence. The applications of IoT cover from the traditional devices to intelligent equipment. With the great potential of IoT, there comes various kinds of security problems. In this paper, we study the malware propagation under the dynamic interaction between the attackers and defenders in edge computing-based IoT and propose an infinite-horizon stochastic differential game model to discuss the optimal strategies for the attackers and defenders. Considering the effect of stochastic fluctuations in the edge network on the malware propagation, we construct the Itô stochastic differential equations to describe the propagation of the malware in edge computing-based IoT. Subsequently, we analyze the feedback Nash equilibrium solutions for our proposed game model, which can be considered as the optimal strategies for the defenders and attackers. Finally, numerical simulations show the effectiveness of our proposed game model.

In the beam control system, the correction of optical axis is an essential process of the optical system. Adjusting the installation angle of the relay mirror is an effective way to change the optical axis direction. However, due to the forced deviation of the installation angle from the theoretical design value, the supporting structure will produce greater stress, which will affect the surface accuracy of the mirror. Therefore, we present an optimization method that can reduce the sensitivity of mirror surface. First, the surface sensitivity is introduced to measure the surface accuracy under the forced deflection angle. Second, the external response function of surface sensitivity is realized by combining dynamic link library and MATLAB. At last, the topological structure is optimized with the sum of the sensitivity weights of two cases as the objective function and the dynamic resonance frequency as the constraint. The optimized structure shows that the surface sensitivity around the x axis decreases from 2.58 nm / ± 1 ″ to 0.32 nm / ± 1 ″ , and the surface sensitivity around the y axis decreases from 3.75 nm / ± 1 ″ to 0.09 nm / ± 1 ″ .

Background Neoantigen-based personal vaccines and adoptive T cell immunotherapy have shown high efficacy as a cancer treatment in clinical trials. Algorithms for the accurate prediction of neoantigens have played a pivotal role in such studies. Some existing bioinformatics methods, such as MHCflurry and NetMHCpan, identify neoantigens mainly through the prediction of peptide-MHC binding affinity. However, the predictive accuracy of immunogenicity of these methods has been shown to be low. Thus, a ranking algorithm to select highly immunogenic neoantigens of patients is needed urgently in research and clinical practice. Results We develop TruNeo, an integrated computational pipeline to identify and select highly immunogenic neoantigens based on multiple biological processes. The performance of TruNeo and other algorithms were compared based on data from published literature as well as raw data from a lung cancer patient. Recall rate of immunogenic ones among the top 10-ranked neoantigens were compared based on the published combined data set. Recall rate of TruNeo was 52.63%, which was 2.5 times higher than that predicted by MHCflurry (21.05%), and 2 times higher than NetMHCpan 4 (26.32%). Furthermore, the positive rate of top 10-ranked neoantigens for the lung cancer patient were compared, showing a 50% positive rate identified by TruNeo, which was 2.5 times higher than that predicted by MHCflurry (20%). Conclusions TruNeo, which considers multiple biological processes rather than peptide-MHC binding affinity prediction only, provides prioritization of candidate neoantigens with high immunogenicity for neoantigen-targeting personalized immunotherapies.

Background This study aims to investigate clinical significance of HMGB1 in neonatal patients with necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). Methods This observational study enrolled a total of 106 stage II-III NEC neonatal patients, who were admitted in our hospital from March 2014 to March 2019. In addition, 99 suspected NEC patients and 200 healthy controls were included. The serum levels of HMGB1, I-FABP, and inflammatory factors CRP, IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Then, the demographic data and clinical characteristics of all patients were collected. Statistical analysis was conducted to determine the correlation between HMGB1 and the clinical characteristics. Results No significant difference was found in the basic characteristics of NEC patients and healthy controls, except for birth weight and gestational age. The expression levels of HMGB1, I-FABP, and inflammatory factors IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α were significantly higher in NEC patients, when compared to healthy controls. The serum levels of HMGB1, I-FABP, IL-1β and IL-6 markedly increased in stage II-III NEC patients, when compared to stage I NEC patients. The Pearson’s analysis revealed a positive correlation between HMGB1 and I-FABP, HMGB1 and IL-1β, and HMGB1 and IL-6. The ROC curve revealed that both HMGB1 and I-FABP can potentially be used as diagnostic factors for NEC. The logistic multivariate regression revealed that I-FABP, IL-1β and IL-6 are independent risk factors for mortality in neonatal NEC patients. Conclusions Serum HMGB1 levels are upregulated in neonatal NEC patients, and these are correlated with the patient’s prognosis.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic inflammatory syndrome designated by synovial joint inflammation leading to cartilage degradation and bone damage as well as progressive disability. Synovial inflammation is promoted through the infiltration of mononuclear immune cells, dominated by CD4+ T cells, macrophages and dendritic cells (DCs), together with fibroblast‐like synoviocytes (FLS), into the synovial compartment. Berberine is a bioactive isoquinoline alkaloid compound showing various pharmacological properties that are mainly attributed to immunomodulatory and anti‐inflammatory effects. Several lines of experimental study have recently investigated the therapeutic potential of berberine and its underlying mechanisms in treating RA condition. The present review aimed to clarify determinant cellular and molecular targets of berberine in RA and found that berberine through modulating several signalling pathways involved in the joint inflammation, including PI3K/Akt, Wnt1/β‐catenin, AMPK/lipogenesis and LPA/LPA1/ERK/p38 MAPK can inhibit inflammatory proliferation of FLS cells, suppress DC activation and modulate Th17/Treg balance and thus prevent cartilage and bone destruction. Importantly, these molecular targets may explore new therapeutic targets for RA treatment.

Substantial evidence manifests the occurrence of autoantibodies to tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) in the early stage of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and previous studies have mainly focused on known TAAs. In the present study, protein microarrays based on cancer driver genes were customized to screen TAAs. Subsequently, autoantibodies against selected TAAs in sera were tested by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) in 1175 subjects of three independent datasets (verification dataset, training dataset, and validation dataset). The verification dataset was used to verify the results from the microarrays. A logistic regression model was constructed within the training dataset, seven TAAs were included in the model and yielded an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.831. The validation dataset further evaluated the model, exhibiting an AUC of 0.789. Remarkably, as the aggravation of HCC increased, the prediction probability (PP) of the model tended to decrease, the trend of which was contrary to alpha-fetoprotein (AFP). For AFP-negative HCC patients, the positive rate of this model reached 67.3% in the training dataset and 50.9% in the validation dataset. Screening TAAs with protein microarrays based on cancer driver genes is the latest, fast, and effective method for finding indicators of HCC. The identified anti-TAA autoantibodies can be potential biomarkers in the early detection of HCC.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to evaluate the association between platelet (PLT) count and the risk and progression of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). METHODS: In total, 122 HFMD patients and 40 healthy controls were enrolled in the study. The differences between variables among the different subgroups were compared. Logistic regression analyses were performed to assess the relationship between various parameters and HFMD risk/progression. Sensitivity analysis was conducted by detecting the trend of the association between PLT count quartiles and HFMD risk/progression. A generalized additive model was used to identify the nonlinear relationship between PLT count and HFMD risk/progression. The relationship between gender and PLT count as well as the risk/progression of HFMD was detected using a stratified logistic regression model. RESULTS: Significant differences were observed in terms of age, male/female ratio, white blood cell (WBC) count, and PLT count between patients with stage I-II, III-IV HFMD and healthy controls. Moreover, the alanine aminotransferase and magnesium levels between patients with stage I-II and III-IV HFMD significantly differed. Moreover, a significant difference was noted in the male/female ratio among the different PLT groups. The group with a low PLT count had a lower risk of HFMD progression than the group with a high PLT count (Q4) (p=0.039). Lower age, male gender, and WBC count were found to be associated with HFMD risk. Meanwhile, PLT count was correlated to HFMD progression. The sensitivity analysis yielded a similar result using the minimally adjusted model (p for trend=0.037), and minimal changes were observed using the crude and fully adjusted model (p for trend=0.054; 0.090). A significant nonlinear relationship was observed between PLT count and HFMD progression after adjusting for age, gender, and WBC (p=0.039). CONCLUSIONS: PLT was independently associated with HFMD progression in a nonlinear manner.

Food safety events threaten not only consumers’ health, but also the value of associated firms. While previous studies examined the impact of food safety events on consumer demand for products, little attention has been paid to the impact on the market value of firms. Using the event study method (ESM), this study investigated abnormal returns (ARs) and cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) of firms associated with 40 food safety events over the past 25 years in the U.S. The results of this study demonstrated the magnitude and duration of the impact of food safety events on firm value. Moreover, firm-specific factors (past history and firm size) and situational factor (media attention) were found to influence the magnitude of the impact. This study contributes to the hospitality literature by extending the knowledge of the impact of food safety events and its practical implications for effective crisis management strategies for food-related firms.

Despite the enormous impact of food crises on restaurants, limited understanding of their long-term impacts and associated factors has undermined crisis managers’ ability to handle crisis situations effectively. This article investigated the long-term impact of food crises on the financial performance of restaurant firms and identified the factors that influenced this impact. This explanatory study examined the case of Jack in the Box, whose 1993 Escherichia coli scare was the first and largest restaurant-associated food crisis in modern times. An event study method was used to uncover stock price movements of Jack in the Box, in conjunction with 73 unrelated food crises that occurred from 1994 to 2010. Stock prices of Jack in the Box exhibited significantly negative responses to other firms’ food crises, moreover, the negative spillover effect was stronger if the crisis occurred closer in time, was similar in nature, and was accompanied with no recall execution. These findings shed light on the long-term financial impact of food crises and offer insights for crisis managers to develop more effective crisis management strategies.

An accurate interpretation of immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining results is crucial for precise disease diagnosis. In this study, we present a novel scoring method for interpreting and reporting of IHC staining assay results for the nuclear-type molecule. On the basis of the histologic characteristics, the samples were subdivided into 3 basic structural units and tissue subtypes including covered, mosaic, and mesenchymal subtypes. A cut-off of moderate-positive (2+) cells and 10% as the differential expression were applied to stratify the results into 11 grade scoring system (0 to X level). The observer can directly identify and count the number and percentage of positive cells from IHC staining data. Furthermore, Ki67 staining results in 88 carcinoma specimens were re-evaluated to determine the ease, reliability, reproducibility, and variance among different observers. The results indicated the consistency ratio of 68.0% for the mosaic subtype and 80% for the mesenchymal subtype, and 68.2% for the covered subtype by 5 experienced pathologists independently. Using 10% as the cut-off threshold, the consistency ratio of 92.5%, 96.8%, and 92.9% was noted for mosaic, mesenchymal, and covered subtypes, respectively. Besides, the correlation of counts revealed excellent agreement among the 5 independent pathologists. Overall, the proposed IHC scoring method is a novel, simple, reliable, and reproducible grading system for accurate interpretation of IHC staining data. Furthermore, the presented practical grading approach has the potential to improve the clinical evaluation of the IHC staining data for personalized therapy.

BackgroundPrevious studies had described the differences in clinical characteristics between ICU and non-ICU patients. However, seldom study focused on confirmed and unconfirmed groups. Our aim was to compare clinical and imaging characteristics of COVID-19 patients outside Hubei province between confirmed and unconfirmed group.MethodsWe retrospectively enrolled 163 consecutive adult patients with suspected COVID-19 from three tertiary hospitals in two provinces outside Hubei province from January 12, 2020 to February 13, 2020 and the differences in epidemiological, clinical, laboratory and imaging characteristics between the two groups were compared.ResultsThis study enrolled 163 patients with 62 confirmed cases and 101 unconfirmed cases. Most confirmed patients were clustered (31, 50.0%) and with definite epidemiological exposure. Symptoms of COVID-19 were nonspecific, largely fever and dry cough. Laboratory findings in confirmed group were characterized by normal or reduced white blood cell count, reduced the absolute value of lymphocytes, and elevated levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) and accelerated Erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR). The typical chest CT imaging features of patients with confirmed COVID-19 were peripherally distributed multifocal GGO with predominance in the lower lung lobe. Compared with unconfirmed patients, confirmed patients had significantly higher proportion of dry cough, leucopenia, lymphopenia and accelerated ESR (PP>0.05). Proportion of peripheral, bilateral or lower lung distribution and multi-lobe involvement, GGO, crazy-paving pattern, air bronchogram and pleural thickening in the confirmed group were also higher (PConclusionsSymptoms of COVID-19 were nonspecific. Leukopenia, lymphopenia and ESR, as well as chest CT could be used as a clue for clinical diagnosis of COVID-19.

STEP design intent feature recognition is an important way in the research field of STEP semantic exchange in the computer aided design and manufacturing. The paper proposes an improved NBA algorithm to optimize BP neural network algorithm for semantic feature recognition. At first, an improved AAG is put forward. It can extract the compound features by the aggregation of similar features factors which the traditional AAG method cannot do. Then the compound feature coding method is given. The neural network semantic feature recognition based on improved NBA Algorithm is proposed. At last, simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Yan-Rong Zhao,1 Hao Liu,2 Li-Miao Xiao,3 Can-Guang Jin,1 Zhi-Peng Zhang,1 Chun-Guang Yang4 1Department of General Surgery, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China; 2Department of General Surgery, The Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China; 3Department of Ultrasound, Hunan Children’s Hospital, Changsha, Hunan, China; 4Department of Anesthesiology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China Purpose: The identification and discovery of prognostic markers for colorectal cancer (CRC) are of great clinical significance. CCBE1 is expressed in various tumors and its expression correlates with lymphangiogenesis and angiogenesis. However, the association between CCBE1 expression and CRC outcome has not been reported. The aim of this study was to investigate clinical significance of CCBE1 expression in CRC. Patients and methods: CCBE1 expression was examined in 30 pairs of fresh CRC tissues and compared with adjacent normal (AN) tissues using quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR), Western blotting and immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining. Tissue microarray immunohistochemical staining was used to study the CCBE1 expression characteristics of 204 CRC patient samples collected from January 2002 to December 2007, and the relationship of CCBE1 with clinicopathological features and prognosis of CRC was analyzed. Results: CCBE1 was highly expressed in CRC tissues compared with matched AN tissues (P=0.001). Moreover, high expression of CCBE1 was significantly associated with tumor differentiation, lymph node metastasis, vascular invasion, liver metastasis and TNM stage in CRC patients (P≤0.01). Kaplan–Meier survival analysis revealed that high CCBE1 expression, poor tumor differentiation, lymph node metastasis and vascular invasion were significantly associated (allP

In this paper, we investigate the interactions between the intrusion prevention systems (IPSs) and attackers in wireless networks. We model this interactions as a non-cooperative differential game. In terms of model construction, each node is allowed to choose its optimal cost of resource consumption to contribute to the security problem depending on the state. We derive the optimal strategies for the attackers and the IPSs over time, respectively. Simulation analysis will be given to illustrate that the dynamic evolution of the defense strategy of the IPSs and the trajectory of the attackers based on the proposed scheme.

Item does not contain fulltext Penicillin remains one of the most frequently identified violative drug residues in food-producing animals. The predominant violations of penicillin were found in cull dairy cows. In the United States, procaine penicillin G is approved to be used in dairy cows through intramuscular (IM) and intramammary (IMM) administrations. Physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models are useful tools to predict withdrawal intervals and tissue residues of drugs in food animals to ensure food safety, especially for extralabel drug use due to the scarcity of experimental data after extralabel administrations. Currently, no PBPK model is available to predict penicillin concentrations in milk. A population PBPK model with a physiologically based compartment for the mammary gland was established for penicillin G in dairy cows. The model predicted the tissue and milk residues well based on comparison with data from previous pharmacokinetic studies. The predicted milk discard interval of procaine penicillin G administered at 10 times the label dose for 3 repeated IM administrations was 182 h, and 122 h at 4 times the label dose after 3 repeated IMM infusions. Predicted results showed that even 4 times label dose did not lead to violative tissue residues in healthy dairy cows with IMM infusions. The predominant violations found in cull dairy cows may be caused by altered pharmacokinetics due to mastitis, other diseases, and/or interactions with other drugs, which have impacts on penicillin distribution and elimination. The current PBPK model can help predict milk discard interval for penicillin following extralabel use through IM and IMM administrations.

Food packages have emerged as an important Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) communication tool. This study examined the effect of on-package CSR claims on consumers' health benefits perceptions, taste perception, attitude and behavioral intentions toward the food company. A 4 (CSR claims: none, food manufacturing, employee welfare, and eco-friendly packaging) by 2 (type of food: essential vs. indulgent) factorial experimental study was conducted to test the hypotheses. The findings demonstrate that consumer-oriented CSR claim (food manufacturing) is most strongly associated with consumers' health benefits perception, whereas employee-oriented CSR claim (employee welfare) is most strongly linked to taste perception and attitude toward the company. All CSR claims were found to positively influence consumers' intentions to purchase and willingness to pay premium. Additional content analysis of the textual data indicated that the employee welfare CSR was most positively perceived. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

This qualitative study represents one of the early attempts to uncover the lived experience of thriving of top female leaders in the tourism and hospitality industry in China. Based on the narratives of 21 women executives in the hospitality and tourism industry in China, this study reveals that upper echelon (top management) females thrive by taking a gendered approach to life and career in a cultural environment with a strong Confucian tradition. This research systematically explored the unique gendered orientations and strategies these women executives used to achieve optimal functioning, as manifested in their thriving in both life and career. They acknowledge gender differences, embrace female qualities rather than deny them, and leverage these qualities to their advantage. The study findings offer significant theoretical and practical implications by illuminating a thriving perspective of the career advancement of women.

Hollow TiO 2 spheres were fabricated by calcining the polystyrene-titania composite microspheres prepared via a sol-gel process of titanium tetrabutoxide (TBT) using cationic polystyrene (PS) spheres as template. The wall thickness of hollow TiO 2 spheres was finely tuned between 13 nm and 94 nm by varying the amount of titania precursor from 0.43 wt% to 1.25 wt% based on polystyrene latex during the coating process. The thermal insulation, UV-shielding, and mechanical properties of polyacrylate (PA) film were obviously enhanced by introducing hollow TiO 2 spheres via physical blending method. Moreover, these properties exhibit a trend of first good and then become worse with the wall thickness of hollow TiO 2 spheres increasing. When the wall thickness of hollow TiO 2 spheres is 43 nm, the properties of polyacrylate/hollow TiO 2 composite film are optimum.

As one part of our life, there are many different types of security threats in social network, and the virtual assets of social networking users has become the attack target. It is of great importance to use security patches in social network to offset the security threats. However, the dissemination of security patches will bring challenges to energy consumptions and network resources which are limited in social networks. In this paper, we will construct a novel optimal dissemination strategy based on differential game to get the desired equilibrium between security risks and resource consumption. The optimal dissemination rate is obtained from the Nash equilibrium solution. Simulation analysis will be given to illustrate that resource consumption and virtual assets loss can be reduced based on the proposed scheme.