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Paper mill effluent has been characterized as recalcitrant because of containing lignin and its derivatives. Since biofilm system exhibits a notable potential for the removal of recalcitrant contaminants, a sequencing batch biofilm reactor (SBBR) was employed to treat coagulated recycled paper mill effluent in this study. The results indicated that the SBBR removed 91.3 % of chemical oxygen demand (COD), whilst total suspended solid (TSS) and color removal reached 83.1 % and 71.0 %, respectively. The microbial analysis suggested that three typical heterotrophic phyla, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes and Acidobacteria are dominant bacteria and reflected the removal of recalcitrant contaminants. The COD removal rate of SBBR is evidently superior to conventional activated sludge process due to high sludge concentration as well as long sludge retention time (SRT). Whilst the problem of sludge bulking can be successfully avoided, the blockage of reactor caused by TSS accumulation and microbial growth deserve further investigation.

Background Observational studies have suggested that intake of nuts is associated with lower risk of cardiometabolic diseases, whereas refined grain consumption has been linked to higher risk. Little is known about whether substituting white rice, a refined grain, with nuts may confer benefit among adults at high risk of cardiometabolic diseases. Objectives We aimed to evaluate isocaloric substitution of peanuts for white rice bars as snacks on changes in fasting glucose, lipid profile, body weight, as well as changes in metabolic syndrome (MetS) status among participants with MetS or at risk of MetS. Methods This parallel-arm randomized controlled trial included 224 participants either with MetS (according to the International Diabetes Federation criteria for Chinese adults, n = 163) or at risk of MetS (central obesity plus 1 additional MetS risk factor, n = 61). Participants were randomly assigned to either the peanut arm (56 g/d as snacks, n = 113) or the control arm (isocaloric white rice bars, n = 111) for 12 wk. Results A total of 209 participants (93.3%) completed the 12-wk intervention with a compliance rate > 85% among all participants. No between-group differences were found for improvements in fasting glucose, HDL cholesterol, waist circumference, and body weight. Participants in the peanut group had a significantly higher MetS reversion rate (no longer meeting MetS criteria after the 12-wk trial) than those in the control group (RR: 2.33; 95% CI: 1.10, 4.89; P = 0.026). Conclusions Including peanuts as a snack in the habitual diet in place of a refined-grain snack did not significantly change glycemic or lipid parameters, but improved overall MetS risk without promoting weight gain among Chinese adults at high risk of cardiometabolic diseases. Further larger-scale trials are needed to confirm these findings and elucidate underlying biological mechanisms.This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT03194152.

Purpose Early detection of ocular abnormalities in newborns is essential for timely diagnosis and treatment. This study aimed to assess the 1‐year result of a multicentre prospective neonatal eye examination programme with wide‐field digital imaging system in China. Methods A multicentre collaborative prospective study group for neonatal eye screening was established in nine hospitals, including eight Maternal and Children's Hospitals, and one general hospital across China from July 2016 to June 2017. Ocular examinations were performed on newborns within 28 days after birth using a wide‐field digital imaging system. Data were reviewed and analysed. The primary outcome was the prevalence of ocular abnormalities in neonates. Results We detected 13 514 (20.91%) abnormal cases in 64 632 newborns. The most frequent abnormality was retinal haemorrhage (RH; 11.83%). Most of mild RH resolved spontaneously. Among those who were beyond retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) screening criteria of China (gestational age ≥32 w and birthweight ≥2000 g), the total number of neonates with ocular abnormality was 12 218/62 799(19.45%). 59.44% of neonatal ocular abnormalities detected (accounting for 11.56% of all the screened population) needed further interference or observation. Among them, 258 patients (0.41% of all the screened population) needed immediate or timely intervention, including congenital cataract, retinal detachment, retinoblastoma and other ocular abnormalities. One thousand and ninety‐eight patients (1.75% of all the screened neonates) should be followed up closely and needed further diagnosis or intervention if necessary, such as ROP or ROP‐like retinopathy, familial exudative vitreoretinopathy and persistent hyperplasia of primary vitreous. Five thousand nine hundred and six patients (9.4%) with minor clinical significance needed short‐term follow‐up. Conclusions This prospective multicentre study of newborn ocular examination showed a relatively high prevalence of ocular abnormalities. There are a relatively high percentage of congenital eye pathology that required further referral and treatment in those neonates who were not screened routinely. According to the benefits and risks associated with neonatal eye examinations, neonatal ocular screening programme can detect ocular abnormalities at the very early stage and may play a positive role in promoting paediatric eye health.

Combination therapy is a burgeoning research field due to the advantages of the synergistic contributions from incorporating drugs and promising potentials in the therapy of aggressive tumors with multidrug resistance (MDR). Given the great efforts, it is extremely difficult to coordinate pharmacokinetics between drugs and elucidate the mechanism of synergistic effects. Additionally, limited by the inherent solubility of anticancer drugs, a common strategy for simultaneously delivering various drugs is yet a challenging target. To overcome these, we develop a drug self-framed delivery system (DSFDS) via treating multiple drugs as monomers to constructing cyclomatrix polyphosphazene nanoparticles (CPPZ NPs). Notably, it is a superflexible common platform to realize the rational design of combination therapy, which is verified by delivering doxorubicin (DOX) with mitoxantrone (Mit), resveratrol (RES), curcumin (Cur), and porphyrin (TPP). As a proof of concept, DOX-RES-CysM-CPPZ NP was selected to evaluate the therapeutic feasibility of DSFDSs. Obvious improvement in killing MDR tumors indicated an efficient combination therapy. The corresponding synergistic mechanism of DOX and RES was also addressed in this work. Throughout cutting-edge research, the drug self-framed delivery system is drawing promising blueprint for combination therapy.

Despite the burgeoning development and extensive commercialization of sunscreens, challenges remain regarding the biocompatibility and efficacy of commercial sunscreens. Direct exposure to UV filte...

For the purpose of applying information technology to the creation of ink style painting, the algorithm of ink painting rendering based on the deep learning framework and convolutional neural network model is designed and improved. Firstly, the ink style rendering program is written in Python. Secondly, VGG under Caffe architecture and Illustration 2Vec models are transplanted to TensorFlow architecture, and the image is rendered in ink style based on deep learning framework and convolutional neural network model. Finally, based on Node.js, the server-side program for image ink style rendering is built. Among them, Express is adopted as the Web-side framework, and the front-end page effect is completed. The results show that the ink rendering logic program is applicable, and the expected purpose is achieved.

Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common and serious complication in critically ill patients. Patients who require renal replacement therapy (RRT) face a high mortality rate. Questions concerning the intensity of RRT in AKI patients led us to integrate direct and indirect evidence using a network meta-analysis to determine the optimal intensity and mode. Materials and Methods: We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, and Web of Science databases from 1990 to 2017 that included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing different intensities of RRT to treat AKI in adults (18 years or older). Data regarding study characteristics, methods, and outcomes were extracted. We assessed the studies for eligibility, extracted the data, pooled the data, and used the GeMTC package in R to combine direct comparisons with indirect evidence. Results: Ten RCTs including 3354 participants were included in the network meta-analysis. The higher intensity continuous renal replacement treatment (CRRT) (to exceed 35 mL/kg/h) and the higher intensity IRRT (to exceed six times per week) both showed no statistical significance. Further analysis for higher intensity CRRT, lower intensity CRRT, higher intensity IRRT, and lower intensity IRRT also revealed no significance. Conclusions: This meta-analysis showed that increasing the intensity of CRRT to exceed 35 mL/kg/h and six times per week for intermittent RRT (IRRT) did not reduce mortality or the rate of dependence on dialysis among AKI patients.

Glycerophospholipid (GPL) perturbance was linked to the pathogenesis of diabetes in animal studies but prospective studies in humans are rare, particularly in Asians. We aimed to investigate the associations between plasma GPLs and incident diabetes and to explore effects of lifestyle on the associations in a Chinese population. The study included 1877 community-dwelling Chinese individuals aged 50–70 years (751 men and 1126 women), free of diabetes at baseline and followed for 6 years. A total of 160 GPL species were quantified in plasma at baseline by using high-throughput targeted lipidomics. Log-Poisson regression was used to assess the associations between GPLs and incidence of diabetes. Over the 6 years of follow-up, 499 participants (26.6%) developed diabetes. After multivariable adjustment, eight GPLs were positively associated with incident diabetes (RRper SD 1.13–1.25; all false-discovery rate [FDR]-corrected p

BACKGROUND Animal studies have highlighted critical roles of glycerophospholipid (GP) metabolism in various metabolic syndrome (MetS)-related features such as dyslipidemia, obesity, and insulin resistance. However, human prospective studies of associations between circulating GPs and risks of MetS are scarce. OBJECTIVES We aimed to investigate whether GPs are associated with incidence of MetS in a well-established cohort. METHODS A total of 1243 community-dwelling Chinese aged 50-70 y without MetS at baseline and followed up for 6 y were included in current analyses. A total of 145 plasma GPs were quantified by high-throughput targeted lipidomics. MetS was defined using the updated National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III criteria for Asian Americans. RESULTS After 6 y, 429 participants developed MetS. Eleven GPs, especially those with long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (LCPUFAs) or very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (VLCPUFAs) at the sn-2 position, including 1 phosphatidylcholine (PC) [PC(18:0/22:6)], 9 phosphatidylethanolamines (PEs) [PE(16:0/22:6), PE(18:0/14:0), PE(18:0/18:1), PE(18:0/18:2), PE(18:0/20:3), PE(18:0/22:5), PE(18:0/22:6), PE(18:1/22:6), and PE(18:2/22:6)], and 1 phosphatidylserine (PS) [PS(18:0/18:0)], were positively associated with incident MetS (RRs: 1.16-1.30 per SD change; Bonferroni-corrected P

Jun Hu,1,2 Shuangshuang Chen,3 Mudan Zhu,3 Yun Wu,1,2 Ping Wang,3 Jinbao Chen,3 Ye Zhang1,2 1Department of Anesthesiology, The Second Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, People’s Republic of China; 2Key Laboratory of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine of Anhui Higher Education Institutes, Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Anesthesiology, Tongling People’s Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Tongling, Anhui, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Ye ZhangDepartment of Anesthesiology, The Second Hospital of Anhui Medical University, 678 Furong Road, Hefei 230601, People’s Republic of China, Tel +86-551-63869625 Email zhangye_hassan@sina.comBackground: Remifentanil-induced hyperalgesia (RIH) is a paradoxical phenomenon that may increase sensitivity to painful stimuli. Nalbuphine, which is both a μ-receptor antagonist and κ-receptor agonist, may affect RIH. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of nalbuphine on RIH during laparoscopic cholecystectomy.Methods: A total of 96 patients were divided into the following four groups: 0.4 μg/kg/min of remifentanil with 0.2 mg/kg of nalbuphine (HRNA), 0.4 μg/kg/min of remifentanil with saline (HRSA), 0.1 μg/kg/min of remifentanil with 0.2 mg/kg of nalbuphine (LRNA), and 0.1 μg/kg/min of remifentanil with saline (LRSA). The pain thresholds of postoperative mechanical hyperalgesia were measured with von Frey filaments. Pain intensity and analgesic consumption were recorded up to 48 h after surgery.Results: Pain thresholds on the inner forearm decreased in the HRSA group compared with the HRNA (P = 0.0167), LRNA (P = 0.0027), and LRSA (P = 0.0318) groups at 24 h after surgery. Pain thresholds on the peri-incisional area decreased in the HRSA group compared with HRNA, LRNA, and LRSA (all P < 0.0001) groups at 24 h after surgery. Patients in the HRNA group showed lower numeric rating scale scores at 1 h (P = 0.0159), 3 h (P = 0.0118), 6 h (P = 0.0213), and 12 h (P = 0.0118) than those in the HRSA group. Postoperative requirement for sufentanil was greater in the HRSA group than the HRNA group during the first 3 h (P = 0.0321) and second 3 h (P = 0.0040). Postoperative sufentanil consumption was also greater in the LRSA group than in the LRNA group during the first 3 h (P = 0.0321) and second 3 h (P = 0.0416).Conclusion: Preemptive nalbuphine can ameliorate postoperative hyperalgesia induced by high-dose remifentanil in patients undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy.Keywords: hyperalgesia, nalbuphine, remifentanil, pain threshold

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: To describe peripheral retinal vascular abnormalities in the contralateral eyes of patients with unilateral persistent fetal vasculature (PFV). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Retrospective medical record review of fluorescein angiography (FA) findings of patients with unilateral PFV. Width of the temporal peripheral avascular retina in contralateral eyes was measured in disc diameters (DD). Vascular abnormalities were described. RESULTS: In 45 included patients, mean width of temporal peripheral avascular areas in contralateral eyes was 1.87 ± 0.71 DD. Forty-three patients (95.6%) had temporal peripheral avascular areas of 1 DD or greater in contralateral eyes, with 16 having temporal peripheral avascular areas of 2 DD or greater. Vessel shunts, vascular tortuosity and dilatation, circumferential vessels, and abnormal capillary beds in the peripheral retina were observed in 23 (51.1%) contralateral eyes of patients with unilateral PFV. CONCLUSION: PFV patients should undergo careful evaluations of both eyes, preferably with FA, to identify vascular changes that are not visible clinically. [ Ophthalmic Surg Lasers Imaging Retina. 2020;51:506–511.]

Image-based relighting technologies enable us to recover the illumination effects of modeled scenes under new light conditions without complicated geometrical information. However, most of them are troubled by specialized devices and tedious sampling work. In this study, we propose an efficient and accurate image-based relighting method for the estimation of the light transport matrix of modeled scene, starting from a small number of images acquired with a fixed viewpoint and with lighting sampled over a uniform 2D grid. Especially, the image space is segmented based on the position and average color value of each pixel using K-means. The local coherence among the pixels can be considered to associate with pixel position and pixels’ albedo. The pixels of each cluster can be trained by several neural networks and the training scene datasets can be chosen using the bootstrap strategy. These tricks improve the regression performance. We validate our method with light transport data of several scenes containing complex lighting effects. The obtained results show that the proposed method is useful for practical applications and we can get more plausible rendered images with fewer input images in comparison to related techniques.

Background Catheter-related blood-stream infections (CRBSIs) are the most common complication when using central venous catheters (CVCs). Whether coating CVCs under bundles could further reduce the incidence of CRBSIs is unclear. We aimed to assess the effectiveness of implementing the use of bundles with antimicrobial-coated CVCs for preventing catheter-related blood-stream infections. Methods In this systematic review and network meta-analyses, we searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) in the Cochrane Library in addition to the EMBASE, MEDLINE, CINAHL, and Web of Science databases for studies published before July 2017. The primary outcome was the rate of CRBSIs per 1000 catheter-days, and the secondary outcome was the incidence of catheter colonization. Results Twenty-three studies revealed significant differences in the rate of CRBSIs per 1000 catheter-days between antimicrobial-impregnated and standard CVCs (RR 0.70, 95% CI 0.53–0.91, p = 0.008). Thirty-three trials were included containing 10,464 patients who received one of four types of CVCs. Compared with a standard catheter, chlorhexidine/silver sulfadiazine- and antibiotic-coated catheters were associated with lower numbers of CRBSIs per 1000 catheter-days (ORs and 95% CrIs: 0.64 (0.40–0.955) and 0.53 (0.25–0.95), respectively) and a lower incidence of catheter colonization (ORs and 95% CrIs: 0.44 (0.34–0.56) and 0.30 (0.20–0.46), respectively). Conclusions Outcomes are superior for catheters impregnated with chlorhexidine/silver sulfadiazine or other antibiotics than for standard catheters in preventing CRBSIs and catheter colonization under bundles. Compared with silver ion-impregnated CVCs, chlorhexidine/silver sulfadiazine antiseptic catheters resulted in fewer cases of microbial colonization of the catheter but did not reduce CRBSIs. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13613-018-0416-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Dihydromyricetin (DHM), a natural flavonoid compound extracted from the fruit Ampelopsis grossedentata, exerts various pharmacological effects. We explored the neuroprotective effects of DHM following cerebral ischemia. Male ICR mice were intraperitoneally injected with DHM for 7 days. Post-ischemic neurological deficits were evaluated with behavioral tests. Mice brain tissues were harvested for infarction analysis, immunohistochemistry. The production of pro-inflammatory mediators in microglial cells were assessed by qPCR and ELISA. Neuroprotective effects of DHM were assessed in HT22 neuronal cells subjected to oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD)/reoxygenation. DHM reduced the activation of microglia, protected HT22 neurons against OGD-induced injury and promoted functional recovery following middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Mechanistically, DHM reduced release of pro-inflammatory mediators from microglia. In addition, DHM suppressed caspase-3 cleavage and upregulated CREB, Bcl-2 and phosphorylation of ERK1/2 in HT22 cells. Our study suggested that DHM protects against cerebral ischemia by suppressing microglial neuroinflammation and activating neuronal ERK-CREB-Bcl-2 signaling pathway.

The objective of this work is image classification, whose purpose is to group images into corresponding semantic categories. Four contributions are made as follows: (i) For computational simplicity and efficiency, we directly adopt raw image patch vectors as local descriptors encoded by Fisher vector (FV) subsequently; (ii) For obtaining representative local features within the FV encoding framework, we compare and analyze three typical sampling strategies: random sampling, saliency-based sampling and dense sampling; (iii) In order to embed both global and local spatial information into local features, we construct an improved spatial geometry structure which shows good performance; (iv) For reducing the storage and CPU costs of high dimensional vectors, we adopt a new feature selection method based on supervised mutual information (MI), which chooses features by an importance sorting algorithm. We report experimental results on dataset STL-10. It shows very promising performance with this simple and efficient framework compared to conventional methods.

Many real world applications are of time-varying nature and an online learning algorithm is preferred in tracking the real-time changes of the time-varying system. Online sequential extreme learning machine (OSELM) is an excellent online learning algorithm, and some improved OSELM algorithms incorporating forgetting mechanism have been developed to model and predict the time-varying system. But the existing algorithms suffer from a potential risk of instability due to the intrinsic ill-posed problem; besides, the adaptive tracking ability of these algorithms for complex time-varying system is still very weak. In order to overcome the above two problems, this paper proposes a novel OSELM algorithm with generalized regularization and adaptive forgetting factor (AFGR-OSELM). In the AFGR-OSELM, a new generalized regularization approach is employed to replace the traditional exponential forgetting regularization to make the algorithm have a constant regularization effect; consequently the potential ill-posed problem of the algorithm can be completely avoided and a persistent stability can be guaranteed. Moreover, the AFGR-OSELM adopts an adaptive scheme to adjust the forgetting factor dynamically and automatically in the online learning process so as to better track the dynamic changes of the time-varying system and reduce the adverse effects of the outdated data in time; thus it tends to provide desirable prediction results in time-varying environment. Detailed performance comparisons of AFGR-OSELM with other representative algorithms are carried out using artificial and real world data sets. The experimental results show that the proposed AFGR-OSELM has higher prediction accuracy with better stability than its counterparts for predicting time-varying system.

The present study was designed to reveal the potential role of let-7c-5p, a highly conserved miRNA in stroke. We found that the content of let-7c-5p was significantly decreased in the plasma of patients with ischemic stroke as well as in experimental animals. Moreover, we also observed a significant decrease of let-7c-5p in ipsilateral cortex and striatum in mice that were subjected to middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) at 24h reperfusion. Overexpression of let-7c-5p via ICV injection decreased the infarction volume and attenuated the neurological deficits, and most interestingly, inhibited microglial activation. To further explore the mechanism, we checked let-7c-5p expression in BV2 cells and primary microglia in an OGD condition and in LPS-induced microglial activation. The results indicated that decreased let-7c-5p was evidenced in the activated microglia. Overexpression of let-7c-5p in BV2 cells remarkably inhibited the microglial activation. The inhibition of microglial activation by overexpression of let-7c-5p was also observed in mice with experimental stroke, which is in line with the decreased infarction volume and improved neurological deficits. We identified that let-7c-5p directly targeted to the 3'-untranslated region of the caspase 3 mRNA to reduce caspase 3 levels, which may underline the miRNA - modulated microglial activity. The present study revealed that suppression of microglia activation by let-7c-5p overexpression may be involved in the protection effects of ischemic damage. The mechanism may include the miRNA-mediated caspase 3 pathway.

Efficient Si/organic hybrid solar cells were fabricated with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and surfactant-doped poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): polystyrene (PEDOT:PSS). A post-treatment on PEDOT:PSS films with polar solvent was performed to increase the device performance. We found that the performance of hybrid solar cells increase with the polarity of solvent. A high conductivity of 1105 S cm− 1 of PEDOT:PSS was achieved by adopting methanol treatment, and the best efficiency of corresponding hybrid solar cells reaches 12.22%. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and RAMAN spectroscopy were utilized to conform to component changes of PEDOT:PSS films after solvent treatment. It was found that the removal of the insulator PSS from the film and the conformational changes are the determinants for the device performance enhancement. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was used to investigate the recombination resistance and capacitance of methanol-treated and untreated hybrid solar cells, indicating that methanol-treated devices had a larger recombination resistance and capacitance. Our findings bring a simple and efficient way for improving the performance of hybrid solar cell. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s11671-017-2276-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

MicroRNAs play an essential role in stroke pathology. Here, we investigated the role of a newly identified microRNA, miR-3473b, in stroke pathology. The expression of miR-3473b was upregulated in the cortex and striatum in mice following transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO). Intracerebroventricular injection of the miR-3473b antagomir prior to MCAO remarkably attenuated ischemia-induced expression of miR-3473b and pro-inflammatory factors in the ischemic brain and decreased infarct volumes in mice following MCAO. Using in vitro approaches, we showed that the miR-3473b antagomir reduced the mRNA and protein levels of pro-inflammatory factors (iNOS, COX-2, TNF-α, and IL-6) in BV2 microglial cells subjected to LPS stimulation. The miR-3473b antagomir also decreased the expression of pro-inflammatory factors in BV2 cells activated with conditioned medium collected from oxygen-glucose deprivation (OGD)-treated neurons. Suppressor of cytokine signaling 3 (SOCS3), a physiological regulator of innate and adaptive immunity, was predicted to be a potential target of miR-3473b. We verified that the miR-3473b mimic decreased SOCS3 expression in BV2 cells. Meanwhile, the miR-3473b antagomir significantly increased both SOCS3 mRNA and protein levels in the BV2 cells treated with LPS as well as in the ischemic brain. By using the dual luciferase assay, we further showed that the 3′-untranslational region of SOCS3 was directly targeted by miR-3473b. In conclusion, induction of miR-3473b, which is likely targeted to SOCS3, contributes to stroke pathogenesis by enhancing post-stroke neuroinflammation injury.

Image classification aims to group images into corresponding semantic categories. Due to the difficulties of interclass similarity and intraclass variability, it is a challenging issue in computer vision. In this paper, an unsupervised feature learning approach called convolutional denoising sparse autoencoder (CDSAE) is proposed based on the theory of visual attention mechanism and deep learning methods. Firstly, saliency detection method is utilized to get training samples for unsupervised feature learning. Next, these samples are sent to the denoising sparse autoencoder (DSAE), followed by convolutional layer and local contrast normalization layer. Generally, prior in a specific task is helpful for the task solution. Therefore, a new pooling strategy—spatial pyramid pooling (SPP) fused with center-bias prior—is introduced into our approach. Experimental results on the common two image datasets (STL-10 and CIFAR-10) demonstrate that our approach is effective in image classification. They also demonstrate that none of these three components: local contrast normalization, SPP fused with center-prior, and l2 vector normalization can be excluded from our proposed approach. They jointly improve image representation and classification performance.

It is known that the Chinese painting has changed with the passage of time—some pigment has been darker and blacker, such as minimum and vermilion. So simulating the effects of aging and rejuvenating of paintings has great significance. This paper proposes a knowledge-based approach to simulate the fading states by physical experiment, by the aging phenomena of pigment and substrate caused by ultraviolet light. The exponent fading model was established by the spectral reflectance of color pigment ink and rice paper at different aging process, then the color was simulated by color mapping algorithm. The experiment shows that the work was effective and reflected the color fading rules, and it is of great significance for the precious heritage of the original color reproduction.

Background The aim of the study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of cervical elastography in predicting preterm delivery (PTD). Methods We searched the PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane databases to identify relevant studies that applied ultrasound (US) elastography to assess cervical stiffness and predict PTD. All the studies were published before December 11, 2018, and only studies published in English were collected. The cervical length (CL) was considered a comparator, and the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-2 (QUADAS-2) tool was applied to assess the quality of the included studies. Summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) modeling was performed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of cervical elastography in predicting PTD. Subgroup analyses were also performed. Results Seven studies, including 1488 pregnant women, were included in this meta-analysis. Cervical elastography showed a summary sensitivity of 0.84 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.68, 0.93], a specificity of 0.82 (95% CI: 0.63, 0.93), a diagnostic odds ratio of 25 (95% CI: 7, 93), and an area under the curve (AUC) of SROC of 0.90 (95% CI: 0.87-0.93). CL measurement showed that the AUC of SROC was 0.60 (95% CI: 0.56-0.64). The results of subgroup analysis showed that the summary sensitivity and specificity were different in the QUADAS-2 score subgroups. Conclusion Cervical elastography is a promising and reliable method to predict PTD. Cervical elastography showed better diagnostic performance to predict PTD than CL measurement.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the effect of peanut consumption, as part of the diet on cardiometabolic risk factors and Metabolic Syndrome (MetS) in a Chinese population at risk for developing type 2 diabetes. METHODS: We recruited 224 participants (men and women, ages 46 ± 10 y, BMI 28.0 ± 3.1 kg/m(2)) with central obesity plus at least one additional MetS risk factor. In this randomized, parallel-arm, controlled study, participants were supplemented with either lightly salted peanuts, 2oz (56 g) per day or a calorie-matched control snack (refined grains) for 12 weeks. Peanuts and control snacks were consumed between meals. Anthropometric and metabolic measurements were assessed at baseline, week 6 and week 12. We used paired Student's t-tests to examine within-treatment differences and multivariable linear regression for between-treatment differences with the models adjusted for age, sex and baseline BMI (with the exception of analysis on waist circumference [WC], body weight and BMI). Multivariate logistic regression was used to calculate the reversion rate of MetS. RESULTS: The peanut group and the control group had similar energy intake (peanut: 1872 ± 433 kcal, control: 1906 ± 400 kcal). There were no differences observed between the two groups on WC, body weight, and BMI. Compared to baseline, the peanut group had small but significant reductions in WC (–0.88 ± 0.32 cm, P = 0.006), body weight (–0.41 ± 0.16 kg, P = 0.01), and BMI (–0.14 ± 0.06 kg/m(2), P = 0.01) at week 12. Both groups decreased fasting glucose levels (peanut: 0.32 ± 0.06 mmol/L, P

With the universal existence of mixed data with numerical and categorical attributes in real world, a variety of clustering algorithms have been developed to discover the potential information hidden in mixed data. Most existing clustering algorithms often compute the distances or similarities between data objects based on original data, which may cause the instability of clustering results because of noise. In this paper, a clustering framework is proposed to explore the grouping structure of the mixed data. First, the transformed categorical attributes by one-hot encoding technique and normalized numerical attributes are input to a stacked denoising autoencoders to learn the internal feature representations. Secondly, based on these feature representations, all the distances between data objects in feature space can be calculated and the local density and relative distance of each data object can be also computed. Thirdly, the density peaks clustering algorithm is improved and employed to allocate all the data objects into different clusters. Finally, experiments conducted on some UCI datasets have demonstrated that our proposed algorithm for clustering mixed data outperforms three baseline algorithms in terms of the clustering accuracy and the rand index.

The paper deduced the electrical penetration potential equation of measuring point in point-source current field from the case study of conductive sphere, and proposed the question of the relationship between the response characteristics of electrical penetration curve and spatial location of anomalous body. Comparing the response characteristics of electrical penetration curves at different spatial position anomalies shows anomalous body at shallow electrical penetration curve showed opposite electrical characteristics, its abnormal response is strongest when close to the measuring point and is weakest near the middle of the working face. The results of 3-D resistivity inversion and numerical calculation show that the effective exploration depth of electrical penetration is 30%-40% of working face width, there exist exploration weakness in the middle of the working face.

Background Oxygen therapy has been widely used for RAO (retinal artery occlusion) patients; however, inconsistent results have been reported. Methods PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, Medline (OvidSP), Cochrane, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang Database were examined. The primary endpoint was visual acuity (VA), and RevMan software 5.3 was used to statistically analyze the outcomes. Results Seven randomized controlled trials (RCTs) met the inclusion criteria. Patients who received oxygen therapy exhibited probability of visual improvement about 5.61 times compared with the control group who did not receive oxygen therapy (OR = 5.61; 95% CI, 3.60–8.73; p < 0.01). No statistically significant difference was observed between oxygen inhalation methods (Chi2 = 0.18, df = 1, p = 0.67), combined therapy (Chi2 = 0.21, df = 1, p = 0.64), or RAO type (Chi2 = 0.06, df = 1, p = 0.81). Conversely, 100% oxygen (Chi2 = 4.55, df = 1, p < 0.05) and hyperbaric oxygen (Chi2 = 4.55, df = 1, p < 0.05) significantly improved VA in RAO patients. Better effect was showed in period within 3 months (Chi2 = 5.76, df = 1, p < 0.05). The most effective treatment length was over 9 hours (Chi2 = 6.58, df = 1, p < 0.05). Conclusion Oxygen therapy demonstrated beneficial effects in improving VA in RAO patients, particularly when patients were treated with 100% hyperbaric oxygen and for over 9 hours.

Lili Jiang,1 Yili Lu,1 Jiahui Jin,1 Lili Dong,1 Fengli Xu,1 Shuangshuang Chen,1 Zhanyue Wang,2 Guang Liang,2 Xiaoou Shan11Department of Pediatrics, The Second Affiliated Hospital, 2Chemical Biology Research Center at The School of Pharmacy, Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of ChinaAbstract: Sepsis, which is caused by severe infection, is an important cause of mortality, but effective clinical treatment against sepsis is extremely limited. As the main component of the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria, lipopolysaccharide (LPS) plays a major role in inflammatory responses. Studies have shown beneficial pharmacological effects for Folium isatidis. The present study further illuminated the effects of n-butanol extract from Folium isatidis in LPS-induced septic shock and identified the main active chemical components. Our study showed that pretreatment with n-butanol extract from Folium isatidis not only significantly inhibited LPS-induced tumor necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 production but also markedly and dose dependently enhanced the recruitment of MyD88, the phosphorylation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase, and the degradation of IκB-α. Additionally, the extract exhibited dramatic protective effects against lung injury and death in mice with septic shock. Eight main active compounds were identified, including organic acids, glycoside, indolinones, and flavonoids. These findings provide a perspective on the respiratory protection offered by n-butanol extract from Folium isatidis in LPS-induced sepsis and outline a novel therapeutic strategy for the treatment of sepsis.Keywords: Folium isatidis, sepsis, inflammatory cytokine

In this paper, we investigate the optimal location of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations. As one of the crucial infrastructures of EV, electric charging stations must be widely deployed to meet the growing needs of EV. In this study, we propose a locating method of charging station when considering economics, capacity, coverage and convenience. In order to solve the locating problem, an optimization model for charging stations location is established first, which minimizes the investment cost and transportation cost, meanwhile, the constraints of capacity, coverage and convenience should be satisfied simultaneously. Then, an improved genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed to solve the optimization problem. The simulation results indicate that the proposed locating method is effective and practical.

Liver cancer is a common cancer and a leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Among all types of primary liver cancers, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the major histological subtype, and hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is the leading cause of HCC. Treatments for hepatitis B related HCC include hepatectomy, liver transplantation, transarterial chemoembolization (TACE), ablative therapy, and Sorafenib treatment. However, HBV reactivation can occur in patients who receive these treatments, resulting in poor clinical outcomes. However, prophylactic antiviral treatment in patients with hepatitis B-related HCC, can reduce the copies of HBV DNA, prevent HBV reactivation, reduce hepatic inflammation, reverse liver fibrosis, decrease tumor recurrence and metastasis, and extend survival time. Prophylactic antiviral treatment should be routinely performed as an important adjuvant therapy in HBV-related HCC patients.

There is an urgent need for new immunodominant antigens to improve the diagnosis of tuberculosis (TB) and the efficacy of the TB vaccine to control the disease worldwide. In this study, we evaluated the diagnostic potential of a novel Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB)-specific antigen, Rv2351c, from region of difference (RD) 7 of the MTB genome, and investigated the potency of the vaccine by identifying its immunological function in human and animal immunological experiments. Twenty T-cell epitopes were identified using TEpredict and prediction tools from the Immune Epitope Database and Analysis Resource. A total of 159 subjects, including 61 patients with pulmonary TB, 38 patients with no TB and 55 healthy donors, were recruited and analyzed with an enzyme-linked immunospot (ELISpot) assay. The ELISpot assay using Rv2351c to detect TB infection, as compared with bacteriological tests as the gold standard, had a sensitivity and specificity of 61.4% (35/57) and 91.4% (85/93), respectively. The ELISpot assay using Rv2351c had a good conformance (κ=0.554) as compared with the bacteriological test. Rv2351c also elicited a potent cellular immune response with a high expression of cytokines (IFN-γ (4978±596.7 μg/mL) and IL-4 (68.3±15.5 μg/mL)) and a potent humoral immune response with a high concentration of IgG (1:2.2 × 106), IgG1 (1:4.5 × 105) and IgG2a (1:1.6 × 106) in immunized BALB/c mice. In addition, the ratio of IgG2a/IgG1 indicated that Rv2351c induced cellular immunity in the mice. The results of this study indicated that Rv2351c is an antigen with good immunogenicity that may potentially be used to develop diagnostic techniques and new TB vaccines.

Automatic seizure detection is of great significance for epilepsy long-term monitoring, diagnosis, and rehabilitation, and it is the key to closed-loop brain stimulation. This paper presents a novel wavelet-based automatic seizure detection method with high sensitivity. The proposed method first conducts wavelet decomposition of multi-channel intracranial EEG (iEEG) with five scales, and selects three frequency bands of them for subsequent processing. Effective features are extracted, such as relative energy, relative amplitude, coefficient of variation and fluctuation index at the selected scales, and then these features are sent into the support vector machine for training and classification. Afterwards a postprocessing is applied on the raw classification results to obtain more accurate and stable results. Postprocessing includes smoothing, multi-channel decision fusion and collar technique. Its performance is evaluated on a large dataset of 509 h from 21 epileptic patients. Experiments show that the proposed method could achieve a sensitivity of 94.46% and a specificity of 95.26% with a false detection rate of 0.58/h for seizure detection in long-term iEEG.