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Road detection is widely used in driving assistance and automotive driving. However, many state-of-the-art road de-tection methods are time-consuming and memory-consuming. In this paper, we propose an FPGA-based deep learning accelerator using the binary SegNet (BSegNet) with computing-near-memory (CNM) architecture for road detection at edges. The accelerator has optimized CNM architecture with massive bit-level parallel processing elements (PEs) and pipeline for low latency of the crit-ical path. The training model size of BSegNet with binary param-eters is only 2.1MB, and the BSegNet can achieve training accu-racy over 85% on KITTI and Cityscapes datasets. The RTL-level realized FPGA-accelerator can process the road detection with an energy-efficiency of 351.7 GOPs/W and only 18.70 W on-chip power.

Background Osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture (OVCF) is one of the most common fragile fractures, and percutaneous vertebroplasty provides considerable long-term benefits. At the same time, there are many reports of postoperative complications, among which fracture after percutaneous vertebroplasty is one of the complications after vertebroplasty (PVP). Although there are many reports on the risk factors of secondary fracture after PVP at home and abroad, there is no systematic analysis on the related factors of secondary fracture after PVP. Methods The databases, such as CNKI, Wan Fang Database and PubMed, were searched for documents on secondary fractures after percutaneous vertebroplasty published at home and abroad from January 2011 to March 2021. After strictly evaluating the quality of the included studies and extracting data, a meta-analysis was conducted by using Revman 5.3 software. Results A total of 9 articles were included, involving a total of 1882 patients, 340 of them diagnosed as secondary fractures after percutaneous vertebroplasty. Conclusion The additional history of fracture, age, bone mineral density (BMD), bone cement leakage, intravertebral fracture clefts and Cobb Angle might be risk factors related to secondary fractures after percutaneous vertebroplasty for osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures. The height of vertebral anterior and body mass index (BMI) were not correlated.

Background: The effect of early vasopressin initiation on clinical outcomes in patients with septic shock is uncertain. A systematic review and meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the impact of early start of vasopressin support within 6 hours after the diagnosis on clinical outcomes in septic shock patients.Methods: We searched the PubMed, Cochrane, and Embase databases for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and cohort studies from inception to the 1st of October 2020. We included studies involving adult patients (> 16 years)with septic shock. All authors reported our primary outcome of short-term mortality and in the experimental group patients in the studies receiving vasopressin infusion within 6 hours after diagnosis of septic shock and in the control group patients in the studies receiving no vasopressin infusion or vasopressin infusion 6 hours after diagnosis of septic shock, clearly comparing with clinically relevant secondary outcomes(use of renal replacement therapy(RRT),new onset arrhythmias, ICU length of stay and length of hospitalization). Results were expressed as odds ratio (OR) and mean difference (MD) with accompanying 95% confidence interval (CI).Results: Five studies including 788 patients were included. The primary outcome of this meta-analysis showed that short-term mortality between the two groups was no difference (odds ratio [OR] = 1.09; 95% CI, 0.8 to 1.48; P =0.6; χ2 =0.83; I2 = 0%). Secondary outcomes demonstrated that the use of RRT was less in the experimental group than that of the control group (OR =0.63; 95% CI, 0.44 to 0.88; P =0.007; χ2 =3.15; I2 =36%).The new onset arrhythmias between the two groups was no statistically significant difference (OR =0.59; 95% CI, 0.31 to 1.1; P =0.10; χ2 =4.7; I2 =36%). There was no statistically significant difference in the ICU length of stay(mean difference = 0.16; 95% CI, - 0.91 to 1.22; P = 0.77; χ2 = 6.08; I2 =34%) and length of hospitalization (mean difference = -2.41; 95% CI, -6.61 to 1.78; P = 0.26; χ2 = 8.57; I2 =53%) between the two groups.Conclusions: Early initiation of vasopressin in patients within 6 hours of septic shock onset was not associated with decreased short-term mortality, new onset arrhythmias, shorter ICU length of stay and length of hospitalization, but can reduce the use of RRT. Further large-scale RCTs are still needed to evaluate the benefit of starting vasopressin in the early phase of septic shock.

A monolithic bidirectional switch based on anti-paralleled two reverse blocking p-GaN HEMTs has been proposed and demonstrated in this work. The recessed Schottky drain technique is utilized to effectively reduce the on-state voltage and thus lowering the power loss of bidirectional switches. A significant reduction in parasitic elements and switch area is obtained by monolithic integration. The fabricated bidirectional switch exhibits a threshold voltage of ~1.85 V, on-state voltage of ~0.63 V, and the forward and reverse off-state breakdown voltages of ~650 V at ${I}_{{\text {S1}-\text {S2}}} = 1\,\,\mu \text{A}$ /mm. In addition, the function of proposed bidirectional switch as an AC power chopper has been successfully verified.

In this article, the Au-free complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) transistor compatible AlGaN-channel high-electron-mobility transistors (HEMTs) on silicon substrate with 2-kV forward and reverse blocking voltages have been reported. Due to the designed AlGaN epitaxial layers, breakdown voltages (BVs) of the conventional AlGaN-channel HEMTs with $L_{GD} =5$ /10/15/ 20/ $25~\mu \text{m}$ are 420/1070/1590/1920/2000 V respectively, and the values are increased to 760/1420/1980/1990/2000 V by using Schottky-drain technique. The reverse-blocking HEMTs demonstrate reverse blocking voltages of −790/−1300/−1810/−2000 V for ${L}_{GD}=5$ /10/15/ $20~\mu \text{m}$ . Meanwhile, the conventional HEMT power figure-of-merit (FOM) of 397 MW/cm2 is the highest FOM for AlGaN-channel HEMTs on silicon, and the Schottky-drain HEMT forward FOM of 384 MW/cm2 and reverse FOM of 321 MW/cm2 are the highest FOM values for all GaN-based reverse-blocking HEMTs on silicon.

PurposeThis paper aims to establish the relationship between crosswind speed and pantograph-catenary lateral deviation, as well as quantify the influence of crosswind speed and rod size uncertainty on pantograph-catenary contact reliability.Design/methodology/approachThe closed vector method is used to establish the pantograph-catenary kinematics formula. A new prediction model is proposed by using the bird swarm algorithm to optimize the grey model. The lateral deviation of the pantograph and catenary is predicted via the new model. Then the relationship between the effective length of the rod and operating mileage is inferred by combining the effective length theory with the Gamma process, as well as the pantograph-catenary contact reliability model is established according to reliability theory.FindingsThe results obtained show the impacts of uncertainty design parameters of pantograph rods on pantograph-catenary contact reliability index, and the results at crosswind speed of 0 ms−1 and 5 ms−1 are 5.0630 and 4.1442, respectively. The reliability decreases with the increasing crosswind speed, and can be greater than the reliability calculated for rod size degradation due to long-term use.Originality/valueMost preceding works on pantograph-catenary contact reliability were based on principles of dynamics, without considering the pantograph-catenary relative motion. This research reveals the law of pantograph-catenary relative motion for uncertainty design parameters and crosswind, and quantifies the reliability from the angle of kinematics.

Purpose: To investigate the potential of diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) for the assessment of renal fibrosis in chronic kidney disease (CKD), using histopathology as the reference standard. Methods: Eighty-nine CKD patients and twenty healthy volunteers were recruited in this study. DKI was performed in all participants and all CKD patients received renal biopsy. The values of mean diffusivity (MD) and mean kurtosis (MK) in the renal cortex and medulla were compared between CKD patients and healthy volunteers. The Spearman correlation coefficient was calculated to assess the relationship between MD, MK values and the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), serum creatinine (SCr), 24 h urinary protein (24 h-UPRO), histopathological fibrosis score. Results: The medullary MD values were significantly lower than cortex, while the cortical MK values were significantly lower than medulla for all participants. Renal parenchymal MD values were significantly lower in the CKD patients than healthy controls, whereas MK values were significantly higher in the CKD patients than healthy controls. In the CKD patients, the significantly negative correlation was observed between the renal parenchymal MD values and the 24 h-UPRO, SCr, histopathological fibrosis score, as well as between the renal parenchymal MK values and the eGFR, while the significantly positive correlation was found between the renal parenchymal MD values and the eGFR, as well as between the renal parenchymal MK values and the 24 h-UPRO, SCr, histopathological fibrosis score. Conclusion: DKI shows great potential in the noninvasive assessment of renal fibrosis in CKD.

The use of increasingly popularized information technology to improve education poverty and then promote the balanced development of education has become the development trend of world education. On the road to poverty alleviation, China has firmly grasped information technology to encourage school reform in areas with scarce educational resources. Among them, “Triple Classroom” was the accurate result of the deep integration of education, teaching, and information technology. Driven by the “Triple Classroom” project, the Shi Shi Middle School in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, built the online open course with the “Shi Shi Xiang Yun (SSXY)” online school as a platform. Thus, they send high-quality educational resources to areas with scarce educational resources and effectively promote education quality improvement in marginal areas.

BACKGROUND Vesical Imaging-Reporting and Data System (VI-RADS) has been shown to be effective in diagnosing muscle invasion of bladder cancer (BC) in primary patients. PURPOSE To evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of VI-RADS in a BC target population which included post-treatment patients, and to determine the repeatability. STUDY TYPE Prospective. POPULATION Seventy-three patients (42 with primary BC, 31 with post-treatment BC). FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE 3.0 T MRI with propeller fast spin-echo T2 WI, echo planer imaging diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), and dynamic contrast-enhanced imaging (DCEI). ASSESSMENT VI-RADS scores were independently assessed by five radiologists with different levels of experience. The diagnostic efficiency in each group (primary and post-treatment) and of each radiologist was assessed. STATISTICAL TESTS Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV), and area under the curve (AUC) in receiver operating characteristic curve analysis were calculated to evaluate VI-RADS diagnostic performance. Interobserver agreement was assessed using weighted Kappa statistics. A P value

Automatic segmentation of the liver and hepatic lesions from abdominal 3D computed tomography (CT) images is fundamental tasks in computer-assisted liver surgery planning. However, due to complex backgrounds, ambiguous boundaries, heterogeneous appearances and highly varied shapes of the liver, accurate liver segmentation and tumor detection are still challenging problems. To address these difficulties, we propose an automatic segmentation framework based on 3D U-net with dense connections and globally optimized refinement. Firstly, a deep U-net architecture with dense connections is trained to learn the probability map of the liver. Then the probability map goes into the following refinement step as the initial surface and prior shape. The segmentation of liver tumor is based on the similar network architecture with the help of segmentation results of liver. In order to reduce the influence of the surrounding tissues with the similar intensity and texture behavior with the tumor region, during the training procedure, I × liverlabel is the input of the network for the segmentation of liver tumor. By doing this, the accuracy of segmentation can be improved. The proposed method is fully automatic without any user interaction. Both qualitative and quantitative results reveal that the proposed approach is efficient and accurate for liver volume estimation in clinical application. The high correlation between the automatic and manual references shows that the proposed method can be good enough to replace the time-consuming and non-reproducible manual segmentation method.

PURPOSE Automatic liver segmentation from abdominal computed tomography (CT) images is a fundamental task in computer-assisted liver surgery programs. Many liver segmentation algorithms are very sensitive to fuzzy boundaries and heterogeneous pathologies, especially when the data are scarce. To solve these problems, we propose an automatic liver segmentation framework based on three-dimensional (3D) convolutional neural networks with a hybrid loss function. METHODS Two networks are incorporated in our method with the first being a liver shape autoencoder that is trained to obtain compressed codes of liver shapes, and the second being a liver segmentation network that is trained with a hybrid loss function. The design of the hybrid loss function is comprised of three parts. The first part is an adaptively weighted cross-entropy loss, which pays more attention to misclassified pixels. The second part is an edge-preserving smoothness loss, which guarantees that the adjacent pixels with the same label have similar outputs, while dissimilar for pixels with different labels. The third part of the loss is a shape constraint to model high-level structural differences based on the learned shape codes. Both networks use 3D operations for data processing. In our experiments, data augmentation is performed at both the training and the test stage. RESULTS We extensively evaluated our method on two datasets: the Segmentation of the Liver Competition 2007 (Sliver07), and the Combined (CT-MR) Healthy Abdominal Organ Segmentation (CHAOS) Challenge. Finally, with only 20 training scans, we achieved the best score of 82.55 on the Sliver07 challenge, and a score of 83.02 on the CHAOS challenge. CONCLUSIONS In this study, we proposed a novel hybrid loss to overcome the difficulties in liver segmentation. The quantitative and qualitative results demonstrate that our method is highly suited for pathological liver segmentation, even when trained with a small dataset.

Fabricating single-molecule junctions with asymmetric metal electrodes is significant for realizing single-molecule diodes, but it remains a big challenge. Herein, we develop a z-piezo pulse-modulated scanning tunneling microscopy break junction (STM-BJ) technique to construct a robust asymmetric junction with different metal electrodes. The asymmetric Ag/BPY-EE/Au single-molecule junctions exhibit a middle conductance value in between those of the two individual symmetric metal electrode junctions, which is consistent with the order of calculated energy-dependent transmission coefficient T(E) of the asymmetric junctions at EF. Furthermore, the single-molecule conductance of Ag/BPY-EE/Au decreases by about 70% when reversing the bias voltage from 100 to -100 mV, and a clear asymmetric I-V feature at the single-molecule level is observed for these junctions. This rectifying behavior could be ascribed to a different interfacial coupling of molecules at the two end electrodes, which is confirmed by the different displacement of T(E) at the two bias voltages. Other asymmetric junctions exhibit similar rectifying behavior. The current work provides a feasible way to fabricate hybrid junctions based on asymmetric metal electrodes and investigate their electron transport toward the design of molecular rectifiers.

The effect of gamma ( $\gamma $ )-irradiation on AlGaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in the short-wavelength ultraviolet (UVC, 210–280 nm) spectral range under electrical stress is characterized by electroluminescence and current–voltage measurement. Different from previous reports that $\gamma $ -irradiation can hardly damage nitride devices, we observe that the optical power decreases and leakage current increases obviously after electrical stress under $\gamma $ -irradiation. To delve into the nature of degradation, variation of defects is studied using temperature-dependent low-frequency noise measurement. After stress, the ~0.78-eV defects attributed to N antisite are generated and lead to device degradation, which is accompanied by a reduction of the intrinsic Ga vacancy with an energy level of ~0.38 eV. The variation of defects after stress in $\gamma $ -irradiated environment is more evident than that in nonirradiated environment, which is well corresponding to the performance degradation behavior. In conclusion, $\gamma $ -irradiation is found to accelerate degradation induced by electrical stress, and the study can help improve irradiation resistance in AlGaN-based UVC LEDs.

Background. Acute coronary syndrome (ACS) has a high incidence and mortality rate. Early detection and intervention would provide clinical benefits. This study aimed to reveal hub genes, transcription factors (TFs), and microRNAs (miRNAs) that affect plaque stability and provide the possibility for the early diagnosis and treatment of ACS. Methods. We obtained gene expression matrix GSE19339 for ACS patients and healthy subjects from public database. The differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened using Limma package in R software. The biological functions of DEGs were shown by Gene Ontology (GO), Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA). Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was mapped in Cytoscape, followed by screening of hub genes based on the Molecular Complex Detection (MCODE) plug-in. Functional Enrichment analysis tool (FunRich) and Database for Annotation, Visualization and Integrated Discovery (DAVID) were used to predict miRNAs and TFs, respectively. Finally, GSE60993 expression matrix was chosen to plot receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves with the aim of further assessing the reliability of our findings. Results. We obtained 176 DEGs and further identified 16 hub genes by MCODE. The results of functional enrichment analysis showed that DEGs mediated inflammatory response and immune-related pathways. Among the predicted miRNAs, hsa-miR-4770, hsa-miR-5195, and hsa-miR-6088 all possessed two target genes, which might be closely related to the development of ACS. Moreover, we identified 11 TFs regulating hub gene transcriptional processes. Finally, ROC curves confirmed three genes with high confidence (area under the curve > 0.9), including VEGFA, SPP1, and VCAM1. Conclusion. This study suggests that three genes (VEGFA, SPP1, and VCAM1) were involved in the molecular mechanisms of ACS pathogenesis and could serve as biomarkers of disease progression.

Point-by-point radiofrequency (RF) ablation has been the cornerstone of pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) for patients with atrial fibrillation (AF); however, it remains a complex and time-consuming procedure. Many novel AF catheter ablation (CA) techniques have been introduced, but whether they represent valuable alternatives remains controversial. Thus, we conducted a network meta-analysis to comprehensively evaluate the efficacy and safety of different CA interventions. We systematically searched several databases (Embase, PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov ) from inception to March, 2020. The primary outcomes of interest were freedom from atrial tachyarrhythmia (AT) and procedure-related complications; secondary outcomes included procedure time and fluoroscopy time. Finally, 33 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) with a total of 4801 patients were enrolled. No significant differences were found among the different interventions in terms of primary efficacy or safety outcomes. PVAC was most likely to have the shortest procedure time (Prbest = 61.5%) and nMARQ the shortest fluoroscopy time (Prbest = 60.6%); compared with conventional irrigated RF (IRF) ablation, cryoballoon ablation (CBA) showed comparable clinical efficacy and safety; CBA with second-generation CB (CB2) had a significantly shorter procedure time than IRF with contact force technology (CF-IRF) (WMD = − 20.75; p = 0.00). There is insufficient evidence to suggest that one CA technique is superior to another. However, PVAC may be associated with a shorter procedural duration, and the CB2 catheters also seemed to reduce the procedure time compared with that of CF-IRF. Further large-scale studies are warranted to compare the available CA techniques and provide an up-to-date optimum recommendation.

Background The molecular mechanisms of ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) remain to be elucidated. The aim of the present study was to investigate the autophagy of spinal ligament fibroblasts derived from patients with OPLL and to examine whether autophagy-associated gene expression was correlated with the expression of osteogenic differentiation genes. Methods Expression of autophagy-associated genes was detected in 37 samples from 21 OPLL patients and 16 non-OPLL patients. The correlation of autophagy-associated gene expression and the expression of osteogenic differentiation genes was analyzed by Pearson’s correlation. The expression of autophagy-associated genes of ligament fibroblasts was assessed by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR), western blotting, and immunofluorescence. The incidence of autophagy was assessed by flow cytometry. After knockdown using small interfering RNA targeting Beclin1, the expression of osteogenic differentiation genes were compared in spinal ligament fibroblasts. Results In clinical specimens, mRNA expression levels of microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3 and Beclin1 were higher in the OPLL group compared with the non-OPLL group. Pearson correlation analysis demonstrated that Beclin1 expression was positively correlated with expression of osteocalcin (OCN) (r = 0.8233, P < 0.001), alkaline phosphatase, biomineralization associated (ALP) (r = 0.7821, P < 0.001), and collagen type 1 (COL 1) (r = 0.6078, P = 0.001). Consistently, the upregulation of autophagy-associated genes in ligament fibroblasts from patients with OPLL were further confirmed by western blotting and immunofluorescence. The incidence of autophagy was also increased in ligament fibroblasts from patients with OPLL. Furthermore, knockdown of Beclin1 led to a decrease in the expression of OCN, ALP, and COL 1 by 63.2% (P < 0.01), 52% (P < 0.01), and 53.2% (P < 0.01) in ligament fibroblasts from patients with OPLL, respectively. Conclusions Beclin1-mediated autophagy was involved in the osteogenic differentiation of ligament fibroblasts and promoted the development of OPLL.

IntroductionAnlotinib (AL3818) is a novel multi-target tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) targeting vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) and suppressing tumor growth. Modulation of tumor suppressive immune microenvironment via the inhibition of vascular endothelial growth factor may augment the activity of immune checkpoint inhibitors. Here we described the results of safety, and clinical efficacy of anlotinib combined with immunotherapy in patients with advanced solid tumors, the serum cytokine levels, and peripheral blood T lymphocyte populations were detected simultaneously.MethodsTwenty six cases with advanced late-stage cancers including lung, gallbladder, endometrial, gastric, pancreatic, penile cancers and melanoma were treated since January 2019. Patients received a combination of anlotinib (12mg) once daily on day 1 to day 14 (21 days as a course) plus anti-PD-1 antibodies every 3 weeks until progression or intolerable toxicity. Imaging was performed every 6 weeks for the first year of therapy. Blood samples were collected from patients prospectively. Serum interleukin (IL)-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interferon-γ (IFN-γ) and circulating immune cell subsets were measured at baseline and after two cycles of treatment via flow cytometry.ResultsThere were ten tumor types enrolled with lung, gallbladder, cholangiocarcinoma and soft tissue sarcoma being the most common. Most patients had received front line treatments for metastatic disease (80.8%). The objective response rate (ORR) was 23.1%, including one complete response (CR) (3.8%) and five partial responses (PR) (19.2%) and a disease control rate (DCR=CR+PR+SD) of 80.8% (21 of 26). The median PFS was 4.77 months (95% CI: 4.10-5.44 months). Three patients (11.5%) had grade 3 treatment-related adverse events. There were no grade 4 or 5 treatment-related adverse events. Grades 3 toxicities included hand-foot syndrome (n=2) and hypertension (n=1). Higher serum IL-2, IL-4, IL-10, TNF-α, IFN-γ levels and lower ratios of CD4/CD8 T cells were found in the responders compared with non-responders.ConclusionsThe preliminary data showed that the combination of anlotinib and anti-PD-1 antibodies demonstrated promising durable antitumor efficacy with acceptable toxicity in patients with various advance tumors, and promoted favorable changes in serum IL-2, IL-4, IL-10, TNF-α, IFN-γ levels and circulating immune cell subsets in clinical responders. It is worth to further validate the efficacy in a randomized prospective trial.

In a complex, compartmentalized cellular environment, in order to maintain the concentration gradient and the dynamic balance of the cell itself, many biochemical reactions will take place inside the cell all the time, releasing free energy to drive various cellular activities. During cellular activity, a lot of information reflecting the detailed characteristics of cell activity is transmitted to the outside world, among which temperature information has sparked the increasing interest of many researchers in the field of cell temperature measurement. In the last decade, a number of researchers have developed a variety of micro-nanometer temperature sensors that would pave the pathway for accurate measurement of temperature or temperature distribution within cells and further unravel the mechanism of heat generation in mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum, centrosome and other organelles or in the nucleus. Cell temperature sensors of micro-nano scale can be generally divided into cell temperature measurement by luminescence method and by pole probing method. Cell temperature measurement by luminescence method mainly includes organic compounds, quantum dots, polymers and biomolecules used as thermometers. Cell temperature measurement by pole probe method mainly includes thermocouple, platinum resistance and carbon nanotubes. This paper reviews the development of cell temperature measurement sensors at the micro- and nano-scale in recent years, and then focuses on the real-time cell temperature measurement technology of micro- and nano-thermocouple, and finally introduces the application of such sensors in the fields of drug screening, disease diagnosis and treatment, and foresees the prospect of the subsequent development of cell temperature measurement technology. This review lays emphasis on the importance of temperature in the physiological activities of cells and outlines the significance of temperature analysis and measurement at the single cell level. In biology, it is well known that temperature changes are susceptible to either cellular activity or responses to external stimuli, thus enabling the temperature and temperature gradient to determine the behavior of cells. Therefore, the kind of capability to monitor temperature with high spatial resolution (nm) and temporal resolution (μs) has become an essential tool for understanding specific biochemical processes and ideally designing target-specific diagnostic and therapeutic strategies such as hyperthermia and immunotherapy. To date, substances such as organic compounds, quantum dots, polymers and biomolecules that are particularly apt for making temperature measurement tools have made great progress, yet it is worth noting that problems still persist. For example, there is a dearth of consideration of the photo bleaching impact when it comes to the temperature measurement tools that are dependent on the fluorescence intensity; the quantum dot temperature measurement method itself also has enduring problems such as uneven luminescence and cytotoxicity; the process of introducing nano-diamonds into cells needs to take into account factors such as interference and complicated operational processes; biomolecules, issues surrounding its accuracy, must be addressed. The temperature measurement method, represented by the pole probe, is often limited by its preparation. The development of cell thermometers is dependent on cross-disciplinary efforts such as biology, microelectronics, materials science, thermodynamics, and nanotechnology. The concerted effort stands at the core of its future development of cell temperature measurement. Cell temperature measurement technology needs to fully explore its potential value, transforming the intracellular temperature signal into effective biological information, and applying it to drug screening, disease diagnosis and treatment, and bio-thermodynamic analysis. In the near future, cell temperature measurement technology will make tremendous contribution to the study of the principles of intracellular thermodynamics.

Increasing evidence shows a strong association between idiopathic REM sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) and α-synucleinopathies. Recent studies have indicated an inflammatory mechanism in the pathogenesis of α-synucleinopathies. Whether peripheral inflammatory cytokines are altered in iRBD and can be biomarkers for predicting phenoconversion remains unclear.We collected baseline plasma samples from 77 consecutive iRBD patients and 64 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Ten cytokines were measured: Interferon (IFN)-γ, interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12p70, IL-13, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α. All iRBD patients underwent clinical assessment tests at baseline, and 75 were prospectively followed and received assessments for parkinsonism or dementia. Cox regression analyses were used to evaluate the predictive value of plasma cytokines in a follow-up period of 6.0 years.TNF-α and IL-10 were significantly elevated in iRBD compared with controls (both p 0.001). IL-6/IL-10 and IL-8/IL-10 were significantly reduced in iRBD than in controls (p = 0.001, p 0.001, respectively). After a median follow-up of 3.7 years, 16 iRBD patients developed neurodegenerative synucleinopathies. iRBD patients with higher TNF-α/IL-10 levels were more likely to develop neurodegenerative diseases (adjusted HR 1.07, 95% CI 1.01-1.14). The coexistence of elevated TNF-α/IL-10 and possible mild cognitive impairment predicted an early conversion of iRBD to neurodegenerative synucleinopathies (adjusted HR 4.17, 95% CI 1.47-11.81).Our study supported the early involvement of peripheral inflammation in prodromal α-synucleinopathy. Plasma cytokines may be predictive of disease conversion in iRBD, while large-scale longitudinal studies are warranted to validate the assumption.

The progress of plasmon-based technologies relies on an understanding of the properties of the enhanced electromagnetic fields generated by the coupling nanostrucutres1–6. Plasmon-enhanced applications include advanced spectroscopies7–10, optomechanics11, optomagnetics12 and biosensing13–17. However, precise determination of plasmon field intensity distribution within a nanogap remains challenging. Here, we demonstrate a molecular ruler made from a set of viologen-based, self-assembly monolayers with which we precisely measures field distribution within a plasmon nanocavity with ~2-A spatial resolution. We observed an unusually large plasmon field intensity inhomogeneity that we attribute to the formation of a plasmonic comb in the nanocavity. As a consequence, we posit that the generally adopted continuous media approximation for molecular monolayers should be used carefully. The strength of the plasmonic field between a plasmonic particle and a Au surface can be measured at ~2-A resolution by following the Raman peaks of a suitably labelled self-assembly monolayer.

Through previous literature studies, we found that miR-124-3p may be associated with hypertension. Therefore, we investigated the relationship between miR-124-3p and hypertension in Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVECs) induced by angiotensin II (AngII). AngII-induced HUVECs model was constructed and the expression of miR-124-3p was detected by qRT-PCR. After transfected cells, apoptosis and ROS production were detected by flow cytometry, caspase-3 kit, and DCFH-DA staining. The target genes of miR-124-3p were predicted and verified by TargrtScan, Luciferase assay, qRT-PCR, and western blot. After silencing Early growth response factor 1 (siEGR1), its effects on apoptosis and ROS production were explored. Finally, the rescue experiments were conducted to explore the mechanism of miR-124-3p to reduce hypertension. MiR-124-3p was underexpressed in the cell model. In Ang II-induced HUVECs, the number of apoptosis increased, the content of caspase-3 was higher, and ROS production increased. However, these effects could be partially inhibited by miR-124-3p mimic. EGR1 was down-regulated by miR-124-3p, and siEGR1 was able to inhibit apoptosis and ROS production of cell model. In the final rescue experiments, miR-124-3p partially reversed the effect of Ang-II on the viability, migration, invasion and apoptosis and ROS production in HUVECs by down-regulating EGR1. MiR-124-3p inhibits Ang II-induced apoptosis and ROS production in HUVECs by down-regulating EGR1.

Background Increasing antibiotic resistance has motivated interest in non-antibiotic prophylaxis of recurrent urinary tract infections (rUTI). Objectives To conduct a systematic review of the current state of evidence of acupuncture for uncomplicated rUTI in women. Search strategy Nine databases (PubMed, Embase, CENTRAL, CINAHL, AMED, CBM, CNKI, CQVIP, Wanfang) were searched from inception to February 2019. Selection criteria Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the effects of acupuncture and related therapies for prophylaxis or treatment of uncomplicated rUTI in women were included. Data collection and analysis Risk of bias was assessed, and the quality and strength of evidence evaluated using the GRADE framework. Results were reported as risk ratios (RR) for dichotomous outcomes or mean differences (MD) for continuous outcomes, with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Main results Five RCTs involving 341 participants were included. Methodological quality of studies and strength of the evidence were low to moderate. The chance of achieving a composite cure with acupuncture therapies was greater than that with antibiotics (three studies, 170 participants, RR 1.92, 95% CI 1.31-2.81, I2 = 38%). The risk of UTI recurrence was lower with acupuncture than with no treatment (two studies, 135 participants, RR 0.39, 95% CI 0.26-0.58, I2 = 0%) and sham acupuncture (one study, 53 participants, RR 0.45, 95% CI 0.22-0.92). Conclusions Acupuncture appeared to be beneficial for treatment and prophylaxis of rUTIs, noting the limitations of the current evidence. Given the growing challenge of antibiotic resistance, there is a need for high-quality RCTs of non-pharmacological interventions such as acupuncture. Tweetable abstract This review found that acupuncture may improve treatment and prevent recurrence of urinary tract infection in women.

To compare the thoracic magnetic resonance imaging (TMRI) features between peripheral lung cancer (PLC) and progressive massive fibrosis (PMF) of coal silicosis (CS), and to excavate information of differential diagnostic value. 68 patients with PLC (68 lesions) were selected as lung cancer group (LCG), and 50 patients with PMF of CS (78 lesions) were selected as coal silicosis group (CSG). TMRI was performed in both groups, and T1-weighted imaging (T1WI), T2-weighted imaging (T2WI) and Spectral pre-saturated inversion recovery (SPIR) were used. The differences and characteristics of TMRI between the two groups were analyzed. 55 cases of pulmonary masses (PM) in LCG showed iso-signal intensity on T1WI (80.9%), and 63 cases showed high-signal intensity on T2WI and SPIR (92.6%); 65 cases of PMF in CSG showed iso-signal intensity on T1WI (83.5%), and high-signal intensity on T2WI and SPIR was found in 4 cases (5.1%), but 67 cases showed low-signal intensity (85.9%). PMF in CSG with high-signal intensity on T2WI and SPIR were significantly lower than PM in LCG(P < 0.1). Compared with TMRI of PLC showed high-signal intensity on T2WI and SPIR, PMF in CS showed low-signal intensity on T2WI and SPIR. This feature is of important significance in differential diagnosis.

To improve the current understanding of the reduction of tsunami-like solitary wave runup by the pile breakwater on a sloping beach, we developed a 3D numerical wave tank based on the CFD tool OpenFOAM® in this study. The Navier-Stokes equations were applied to solve the two-phase incompressible flow, combined with an LES model to solve the turbulence and a VOF method to capture the free surface. The adopted model was firstly validated with existing empirical formulas for solitary wave runup on the slope without the pile structure. It is then validated using our new laboratory observations of the free surface elevation, the velocity and the pressure around a row of vertical slotted piles subjected to solitary waves, as well as the wave runup on the slope behind the piles. Subsequently, a set of numerical simulations were implemented to analyze the wave reflection, the wave transmission, and the shoreline runup with various offshore wave heights, offshore water depths, adjacent pile spaces and beach slopes. Finally, an improved empirical equation accounting for the maximum wave runup on the slope was proposed by taking the presence of the pile breakwater into consideration.

Background Lung cancer is one of the most common malignancies around the world. The lack of early diagnosis and effective treatment strategies contributes to the poor prognosis of patients with lung cancer. Recent studies have implied the role of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in oncogenesis. The purpose of our study was to identify specific lncRNAs which were correlated with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and their potential functions. Materials and Methods The global plasma lncRNA profiling was performed using LncPathTM Human Cancer Array, and 11 lncRNAs were then selected for quantitative reverse transcription PCR (qRT-PCR) validation in 138 plasma samples from 69 NSCLC patients and 69 healthy controls (HCs). A noteworthy lncRNA, RP11-438N5.3, the function of which was previously unknown, was further explored on the aspect of the correlation of its expression level with clinicopathological factors. Results The results revealed that plasma level of RP11-438N5.3 was significantly lower in NSCLCs than that in HCs (p

Objectives Virus infection is underevaluated in older adults with severe acute respiratory infections (SARIs). We aimed to evaluate the clinical impact of combining point-of-care molecular viral test and serum procalcitonin (PCT) level for antibiotic stewardship in the emergency department (ED). Design A prospective twin-center cohort study was conducted between January 2017 and March 2018. Setting and Participants Older adult patients who presented to the ED with SARIs received a rapid molecular test for 17 respiratory viruses and a PCT test. Measures To evaluate the clinical impact, we compared the outcomes of SARI patients between the experimental cohort and a propensity score–matched historical cohort. The primary outcome was the proportion of antibiotics discontinuation or de-escalation in the ED. The secondary outcomes included duration of intravenous antibiotics, length of hospital stay, and mortality. Results A total of 676 patients were included, of which 169 patients were in the experimental group and 507 patients were in the control group. More than one-fourth (27.9%) of the patients in the experimental group tested positive for virus. Compared with controls, the experimental group had a significantly higher proportion of antibiotics discontinuation or de-escalation in the ED (26.0% vs 16.1%, P = .007), neuraminidase inhibitor uses (8.9% vs 0.6%, P

Background: Primary adenosquamous carcinoma (ASC) is a rare malignant tumor in the lung and its biological behavior has not yet been thoroughly described. In this study, we aimed to explore the clinical and biological role of CXCR4 in patients with resected lung ASC. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the clinical records of patients with histologically confirmed lung ASC who underwent surgical resection with systematic lymph node dissection. Immunohistochemical staining was performed to detect the expression of CXCR4 in tumor tissues. The correlation between CXCR4 expression and clinicopathological characteristics were evaluated. The association between CXCR4 expression and patients' prognosis was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression. Moreover, we performed in vitro studies including CCK8, transwell and cell apoptosis to explore the potential role of CXCR4 in lung ASC. Results: A total of 78 patients with resected lung ASC were reviewed. Seventy (89.7%) patient tumors expressed CXCR4, with high level of CXCR4 expression observed in 45 (57.7%) cases. In vitro, CXCR4 conferred no difference in proliferative capacity but increased invasive potential, enhanced chemoresistance and inhibited apoptosis of lung ASC. Clinically, high CXCR4 expression was significantly associated with solid ASC, lymph node metastasis and advanced TNM stage. Patients with high CXCR4 expression and solid ASC had decreased disease-free survival and overall survival.Conclusions: CXCR4 was commonly expressed in lung ASC tumors. High CXCR4 expression might be a novel marker in predicting a poor prognosis in resected lung ASC and might serve as a potential therapeutic target.

In the analysis of ECG data, it is necessary to first automatically classify the quality of ECG data to facilitate the subsequent processing. PhysioNet/Computing in Cardiology Challenge 2011 and existing researches involve the quality of the entire record of ECG, which fails to maximize utilization of ECG data. In fact, single-lead ECG has been widely used in many fields, such as wearable devices, sleep apnea monitoring, and deriving respiratory rate. However, the present methods for evaluating the data quality by each channel only divide them into two categories: acceptable and unacceptable, which is relatively coarse. This paper proposes a new method for the automatic classification of ECG data quality by channel. This method divides them into four categories: (1) electrode shedding, marked as C3; (2) serious noise interference, under which it is difficult to detect R wave, marked as C2; (3) partial noise interference, under which part of R waves may not be detected correctly, marked as C1; (4) high quality signal, marked as C0. The 2011 competition data was re-marked according to the channel with the help of our designed auxiliary program. This paper defined some features and designed a tree classifier using One-Class Support Vector Machine(OCSVM). The test results of our method show that the detection accuracy of electrode shedding is 93.22%, serious noise interference is 90%, partial noise interference is 89.22%, and high quality signal is 97.19%. It shows that the method has a broad prospect in the automatic preprocessing of ECG data.

Objectives Different criteria for assessing the reduction quality of trochanteric fractures have been reported. The Baumgaertner reduction quality criteria (BRQC) are relatively common and the Chang reduction quality criteria (CRQC) are relatively new. The objectives of the current study were to compare the reliability of the BRQC and CRQC in predicting mechanical complications and to investigate the clinical implications of the CRQC. Methods A total of 168 patients were assessed in a retrospective observational study. Clinical information including age, sex, fracture side, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) classification, tip-apex distance (TAD), fracture classification, reduction quality, blade position, BRQC, CRQC, bone quality, and the occurrence of mechanical complications were used in the statistical analysis. Results A total of 127 patients were included in the full analysis, and mechanical complications were observed in 26 patients. The TAD, blade position, BRQC and CRQC were significantly associated with mechanical complications in the univariate analysis. Only the TAD (p = 0.025) and the CRQC (p < 0.001) showed significant results in the multivariate analysis. In the comparison of the receiver operating characteristic curves, the CRQC also performed better than the BRQC. Conclusion The CRQC are reliable in predicting mechanical complications and are more reliable than the BRQC. Future studies could use the CRQC to assess fracture reduction quality. Intraoperatively, the surgeon should refer to the CRQC to achieve good reduction in trochanteric fractures. Cite this article: Bone Joint Res 2019;8:502–508. DOI: 10.1302/2046-3758.810.BJR-2019-0032.R1.

Rationale It remains unknown whether long-term ozone exposure can impair lung function. Objectives To investigate the associations between long-term ozone exposure and adult lung function in China. Methods Lung function results and diagnosis of small airways dysfunction (SAD) were collected from a cross-sectional study, China Pulmonary Health Study (N=50,991). We used multivariate linear and logistic regression models to examine the associations of long-term ozone exposure with lung function parameters and SAD, respectively, adjusting for demographic characteristics, individual risk factors, and longitudinal trend. We then performed a stratification analysis by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Measurements and main results We observed each 1-standard deviation (SD, 4.9 ppb) increase in warm-season ozone concentrations was associated with a 14.2 mL/s [95% confidence interval (CI): 8.8, 19.6] decrease in forced expiratory flow at 75th percentile of vital capacity and a 29.5 mL/s (95% CI: 19.6, 39.5) decrease in mean forced expiratory flow between the 25th and 75th percentile of vital capacity. The odds ratio of SAD was 1.09 (95% CI: 1.06, 1.11) for a 1-SD increase in warm-season ozone concentrations. Meanwhile, we observed a significant association with a decreased ratio of expiratory volume in 1 second to forced vital capacity (FEV1/FVC) but not with FEV1 or FVC. The association estimates were greater in the COPD group than in the non-COPD group. Conclusion We found independent associations of long-term ozone exposure with impaired small airways function and higher SAD risks, while the associations with airflow obstruction were weak. COPD patients appear to be more vulnerable.

Background TanshinoneIIA (TanIIA) refers to one of the major lipophilic bioactive components of S. miltiorrhiza that exerts multiple pleiotropic effects (e.g., anti-inflammatory effects, antioxidant, and anti-tumor effects). Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is recognized as the sixth most common cancer worldwide. As indicated from existing studies, ferroptosis may be responsible for its progression. However, the underlying mechanisms have not been overall clarified. This study aimed to screen a functional therapeutic target in HNSCC to specifically analyze its correlation with HNSCC and whether TanIIA can act on it to exert a therapeutic effect. Methods Data originating from GEO series GSE6631 and GSE13398 datasets were analyzed with the limma R package on GEO2R to find differentially expressed genes between healthy people from HNSCC patients. The DEG-related PPI network was built with the STRING database, and then the visualization was conducted by Cytoscape. FTH1 expression and mapping were examined with Human Protein Atlas, and FTH1 protein analysis and Kaplan-Meier analysis were conducted to carry out survival analyses. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) and immunofluorescence (IF) were used to localize FTH1 in HNSCCs. The protein expressions were analyzed with Western-blot method. The cell survival and invasion ability were identified by employing CCK-8 and Transwell methods. Results A high FTH1 expression in the HNSCCs sample could indicate poor patient outcome. TanIIA at certain concentrations could significantly attenuate FTH1 expression and reduce HNSCCs survival and invasion. Conclusions As revealed from this study, FTH1 could act as a promising therapy target in HNSCC and can be inhibited by TanIIA, which was demonstrated to carry out anticancer activities with less side effect.

This paper proposes a neural stimulator silicon chip design with an improved charge balancing technology. The proposed neural stimulation integrated circuit (IC) uses two charge balancing modules including synchronous charge detection module and short-time pulse insertion module. The synchronous charge detection module is designed based on a current splitter with ultra-small output current and an integrator circuit for neural stimulation pulse width control, which greatly reduces the residual charge remained on the electrode-tissue interface. The short-time pulse insertion module is designed based on the electrode voltage detection and compensation current control, which further reduces the accumulated residual charge and keeps the electrode voltage within a safety range of ±25 mV during multiple stimulation cycles. Finally, this neural stimulator is implemented in TSMC 0.18-μm CMOS process technology, and the chip function is tested and verified in both experiments with the electrode-tissue RC model and the PBS saline solution environment. The measurement result shows the neural stimulator chip achieves improved charge balancing with the residual charge smaller than 0.95 nC, which is the lowest compared to the traditional neural stimulator chips.

Bone regeneration in osteoporosis and fragility fractures which are highly associated with age remains a great challenge in the orthopedic field, even though the bone is subjected to a continuous process of remodeling which persists throughout lifelong. Regulation of osteoblast and osteoclast differentiation is recognized as effective therapeutic targets to accelerate bone regeneration in osteopenic conditions. Anthocyanins (ACNs), a class of naturally occurring compounds obtained from colored plants, have received increasing attention recently because of their well-documented biological effects, such as antioxidant, anti-inflammation, and anti-apoptosis in chronic diseases, like osteoporosis. Here, we summarized the detailed research progress on ACNs on bone regeneration and their molecular mechanisms on promoting osteoblast differentiation as well as inhibiting osteoclast formation and differentiation to explore their promising therapeutic application in repressing bone loss and helping fragility fracture healing. Better understanding the role and mechanisms of ACNs on bone regeneration is helpful for the prevention or treatment of osteoporosis and also for the exploration of new bone regenerative medicine.

Catheter ablation has been recommended for patients with symptomatic atrial fibrillation (AF), with pulmonary vein isolation being the cornerstone of the ablation procedure. Newly developed technologies, such as cryoballoon ablation with a second-generation cryoballoon (CB2) and the contact force radiofrequency (CF-RF) ablation, have been introduced in recent years to overcome the shortcomings of the widely used RF ablation approach. However, high-quality results comparing CB2 and CF-RF remain controversial. Thus, we conducted this meta-analysis to assess the efficacy and safety between CB2 and CF-RF using evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Databases including Embase, PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and ClinicalTrials.gov were systematically searched from their date of inception to January 2021. Only RCTs that met the inclusion criteria were included for analysis. The primary outcome of interest was freedom from atrial tachyarrhythmia (AT) during follow-up. Secondary outcomes included procedure-related complications, procedure time and fluoroscopy time. Six RCTs with a total of 987 patients were finally enrolled. No significant differences were found between CB2 and CF-RF in terms of freedom from AT (relative risk [RR] = 1.03, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.92–1.14, p = 0.616) or total procedural-related complications (RR = 1.25, 95% CI 0.69–2.27, p = 0.457). CB2 treatment was associated with a significantly higher risk of phrenic nerve palsy (PNP) than CF-RF (RR = 4.93, 95% CI 1.12–21.73, p = 0.035). The occurrences of pericardial effusion/tamponade and vascular complications were comparable between the CB2 and CF-RF treatments (RR = 0.41, p = 0.398; RR = 0.82, p = 0.632). In addition, CB2 treatment had a significantly shorter procedure time than CF-RF (weighted mean difference [WMD] = − 20.75 min, 95% CI − 25.44 ~ − 16.05 min, P p = 0.179). CB2 and CF-RF treatment are comparable for AF patients regarding freedom from AT and procedure-related complications. Compared to CF-RF, CB2 treatment was associated with a shorter procedure time but a higher incidence of PNP. Further large-scale studies are warranted to compare these two techniques and provide an up-to-date recommendation.

With the continuous development of target recognition technology, people pay more and more attention to the cost of sample generation, tag addition and network training. Active learning can choose as few samples as possible to achieve a better recognition effect. In this paper, a small number of the simulation generated radar cross-section time series are selected as the training data, combined with the least confidence and edge sampling, a sample selection method based on few-shot learning is proposed. The effectiveness of the method is verified by the target type recognition test in multi time radar cross-section time series. Using the algorithm in this paper, 10 kinds of trajectory data are selected from all 19 kinds of trajectory data, and the training model is tested, which can achieve similar results with 19 kinds of trajectory data training model. Compared with the random selection method, the accuracy is improved by 4–10% in different time lengths.

Classic computer vision algorithms, instance segmentation, and semantic segmentation can not provide a holistic understanding of the surroundings for the visually impaired. In this paper, we utilize panoptic segmentation to assist the navigation of visually impaired people by offering both things and stuff awareness in the proximity of the visually impaired efficiently. To this end, we propose an efficient Attention module -- Lintention which can model long-range interactions in linear time using linear space. Based on Lintention, we then devise a novel panoptic segmentation model which we term Panoptic Lintention Net. Experiments on the COCO dataset indicate that the Panoptic Lintention Net raises the Panoptic Quality (PQ) from 39.39 to 41.42 with 4.6\% performance gain while only requiring 10\% fewer GFLOPs and 25\% fewer parameters in the semantic branch. Furthermore, a real-world test via our designed compact wearable panoptic segmentation system, indicates that our system based on the Panoptic Lintention Net accomplishes a relatively stable and exceptionally remarkable panoptic segmentation in real-world scenes., Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables

Human motion prediction aims to forecast future human poses given a historical motion. Whether based on recurrent or feed-forward neural networks, existing learning based methods fail to model the observation that human motion tends to repeat itself, even for complex sports actions and cooking activities. Here, we introduce an attention based feed-forward network that explicitly leverages this observation. In particular, instead of modeling frame-wise attention via pose similarity, we propose to extract motion attention to capture the similarity between the current motion context and the historical motion sub-sequences. In this context, we study the use of different types of attention, computed at joint, body part, and full pose levels. Aggregating the relevant past motions and processing the result with a graph convolutional network allows us to effectively exploit motion patterns from the long-term history to predict the future poses. Our experiments on Human3.6M, AMASS and 3DPW validate the benefits of our approach for both periodical and non-periodical actions. Thanks to our attention model, it yields state-of-the-art results on all three datasets. Our code is available at https://github.com/wei-mao-2019/HisRepItself., Accepted by IJCV. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2007.11755

In the computational process of the convolutional neural network (CNN) and high-performance computing, the convolution operation dominates the hardware costs and performance of the overall system. To improve the hardware efficiency, the dot-product units (DPU) have been used for convolution computation. Besides, multiple-precision floating-point (FP) support is essential for the accuracy requirement of various applications. In this work, multiple-precision FP many-term DPU is designed with single instruction multiple data (SIMD) structure. The proposed design also supports multiple-precision operations with configurable multiplier and alignment shifter. FP16 twenty-term, FP32 five-term or FP64 one-term dot product operations can be executed in two successive clock cycles without idle multiplication resources. To speed up the summation process, a carry-select adder (CSLA) is designed with excellent area-delay product (ADP) and power-delay product (PDP) performance. The proposed design is realized in UMC 55-nm process with experiment results. Compared with the state-of-the-art multiple-precision work, the proposed design achieves maximum 3.76 times power performance improvement for FP16 operations. Compared with previous CSLA designs, the proposed work improves ADP and PDP performance by 4.7% and 3.91%, respectively.

The high propagation losses and sensitivity to link blockage naturally require dense deployments of millimeter-wave (mmWave) 5G New Radio (NR) systems. One of the inherent challenges in these deployments is cost-efficient backhauling. Addressing this issue, 3GPP has recently proposed the concept of integrated access and backhaul (IAB) to reduce the deployment costs by enabling wireless backhaul. The efficient utilization of spectrum in these systems is conditional on the ability of IAB nodes to simultaneously receive signals on their sectoral antennas. In this paper, we investigate the interference caused by this functionality and identify countermeasures including angular and spatial diversities. Our numerical results demonstrate that the angular distance of 25° between the user equipment (UE) served by adjacent sectoral antennas is sufficient to efficiently mitigate interference. A comparable reduction in the interference level can also be achieved by utilizing spatial diversity with antenna separation of at least 20 m. By combining these methods, one can identify the target levels of angular and spatial diversities suitable for the particular deployment restrictions. acceptedVersion

Near-zero index (NZI) media has the characteristics of local field enhancement, local tunneling and tunneling effect. Here a humidity sensor based on near-zero permittivity (ENZ) media is proposed, which uses the substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) technology. The tunnel height of the designed sensor is much smaller than the height of the SIW structure. It can be observed that there exist strong electric fields in the ENZ tunnel. Placing humidity-sensitive materials in the structure can realize a high-sensitivity humidity sensor. When the humidity changes, it is observed that the frequency of the sensor has changed, and its sensitivity is 1.07 MHz/RH, which proves that the sensor can effectively measure the changes in environmental humidity.

We propose a cost volume-based neural network for depth inference from multi-view images. We demonstrate that building a cost volume pyramid in a coarse-to-fine manner instead of constructing a cost volume at a fixed resolution leads to a compact, lightweight network and allows us inferring high resolution depth maps to achieve better reconstruction results. To this end, we first build a cost volume based on uniform sampling of fronto-parallel planes across the entire depth range at the coarsest resolution of an image. Then, given current depth estimate, we construct new cost volumes iteratively on the pixelwise depth residual to perform depth map refinement. While sharing similar insight with Point-MVSNet as predicting and refining depth iteratively, we show that working on cost volume pyramid can lead to a more compact, yet efficient network structure compared with the Point-MVSNet on 3D points. We further provide detailed analyses of the relation between (residual) depth sampling and image resolution, which serves as a principle for building compact cost volume pyramid. Experimental results on benchmark datasets show that our model can perform 6x faster and has similar performance as state-of-the-art methods. Code is available at https://github.com/JiayuYANG/CVP-MVSNet, Comment: CVPR 2020 oral

With the increasing demand for vehicle handling comfort in the market, the development of gear shifting performance test systems for automobile transmission has become one of the keys to improving the competitiveness of automobile products. In order to continuously improve the shifting quality of the automobile gearshift control, this research focuses on the study of shifting quality, uses GSA (gear shift analysis) test technology to test and verify the shifting performance of a domestic automobile gearbox, establishes the subjective and objective evaluation criteria for the shifting performance of automobile gearbox, provides a reliable theoretical basis for product optimization design and shifting performance evaluation, and formulates shifting control pertinently. Strategies and optimization measures to ensure that the power, ride, and transmission of the whole vehicle system meet the technical requirements and can shift quickly and smoothly. Not only does this allows to reduce the driver's fatigue strength, but also increases the comfort of the whole shifting process, so as to provide direction to improve the quality of the vehicle's shifting performance and effectively reduce the impact on the driver's health.

Organic–inorganic halide perovskites are emerging materials for photovoltaic applications with certified power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) over 25%. Generally, the microstructures of the perovskite materials are critical to the performances of PCEs. However, the role of the nanometer-sized grain boundaries (GBs) that universally existing in polycrystalline perovskite films could be benign or detrimental to solar cell performance, still remains controversial. Thus, nanometer-resolved quantification of charge carrier distribution to elucidate the role of GBs is highly desirable. Here, we employ correlative infrared-spectroscopic nanoimaging by the scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy with 20 nm spatial resolution and Kelvin probe force microscopy to quantify the density of electrons accumulated at the GBs in perovskite polycrystalline thin films. It is found that the electron accumulations are enhanced at the GBs and the electron density is increased from 6 × 1019 cm−3 in the dark to 8 × 1019 cm−3 under 10 min illumination with 532 nm light. Our results reveal that the electron accumulations are enhanced at the GBs especially under light illumination, featuring downward band bending toward the GBs, which would assist in electron-hole separation and thus be benign to the solar cell performance. Correlative infrared-spectroscopic nanoimaging by the scattering-type scanning near-field optical microscopy and Kelvin probe force microscopy quantitatively reveal the accumulated electrons at GBs in perovskite polycrystalline thin films.

Background This study aimed to examine the inflow and outflow vascular system of the caudate lobe and determine its relevance to hepatobiliary surgery. Methods A total of 41 cadaveric liver specimens were dissected in 2019 to evaluate the inflow and outflow vascular system of the caudate lobe. Results The Glisson's pedicles of the paracaval portion were mainly from the right pedicle in 14 cases (34.15%), mainly from the left pedicle in 22 cases (53.66%), and equally from the left and right pedicle in 5 cases (12.19%). Many thick branches of the portal vein were found behind the plane consisting of the hilar plate and Arantius ligament, but none of them were thicker than 1 mm in front of the plane. All of the veins of the caudate lobe drained into the inferior vena cava (IVC) via the anterior face. There was an avascular zone without short hepatic veins (SHVs) consisting of loose connective tissue between the retrohepatic IVC and caudate lobe, with its length and width being 45-97 mm and 6-15 mm, respectively. Conclusions The plane consisting of the hilar plate and Arantius ligament can be regarded as the boundary between the caudate lobe and the other lobes. There is an avascular zone without SHVs consisting of loose connective tissue between the retrohepatic IVC and caudate lobe.

Background: Accumulating evidence suggests a connection between the gut microbiota and neonatal diseases. Hypoxia may play an important role in the intestinal lesions in neonates.Objective: This study aims to determine whether the gut microbiota differs between intrauterine hypoxic rats and healthy controls and to identify the factors that influence the changes in the gut microbiota.Methods: We constructed an intrauterine hypoxia model in rats and collected the intestinal contents of intrauterine hypoxic newborn rats and normal newborn rats within 4 h and on the seventh day after birth. They were divided them into the intrauterine hypoxia first-day group (INH1), intrauterine hypoxia seventh-day group (INH7), normal first-day group (NOR1), and normal seventh-day group (NOR7). The contents of the intestines were sequenced with 16S rRNA sequencing, the sequencing results were analyzed for biological information, and the differences in the diversity, richness, and individual taxa among the groups were analyzed.Results: The abundance of the gut microbiota of neonatal rats with intrauterine hypoxia was higher than that of the control group rats. Intrauterine hypoxia altered the structural composition of the gut microbiota in neonatal rats. The INH1 group showed increased species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and β-diversity, and altered relative abundance in several taxa compared to those in the control group. The differences in the microbiota among the four groups were significantly higher than those within the group, and the differences in the abundance and diversity of the INH7 and NOR7 groups decreased after 7 days of suckling. Functional analysis based on the Cluster of Orthologous Groups (COG) suggested that 23 functional COG categories. There was no significant difference in the functional categories between the hypoxia group and the normal group.Conclusion: Intrauterine hypoxia changed the initial colonization of the gut microbiota in neonatal rats. It could increase the species richness and β-diversity of the gut microbiota, and altered relative abundances of several taxa.

Packet dispatching forwards arrival traffic from the network interface card (NIC) to the virtual network functions (VNFs) in each server in network function vir-tualization (NFV) platforms and has been recognized as a fundamental problem. Traditionally, the dispatching has been CPU-intensive, while existing offloading approaches rely on expensive software-defined network (SDN) switches or Smart-NICs. Our paper proposes FDispatcher, an NFV framework that leverages the Flow Director (FDir) feature on the inexpensive off-the-shelf NICs, to bind flows with destination VNFs for CPU-bypassed packet dispatching. However, the number of bindings that FDir supports is far less than the flow concurrency that an NFV middlebox handles. We divide packet dispatching into FDir-assisted fast path and software-based slow path, and then enable fast-path flows monitoring, reduce FDir reconfiguration overhead, and eliminate potential heavy I/O during scaling. FDispatcher improves packet dispatching throughput by 1.6x~2.8x with a 38x driver efficiency and costs no more than 2 ms for load balancing during scaling.

Patients with idiopathic rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (iRBD) are at high risk for conversion to synucleinopathy and Parkinson disease (PD). This can potentially be monitored by measuring gait characteristics of iRBD patients, although quantitative data are scarce and previous studies have reported inconsistent findings. This study investigated subclinical gait changes in polysomnography-proven iRBD patients compared to healthy controls (HCs) during 3 different walking conditions using wearable motor sensors in order to determine whether gait changes can be detected in iRBD patients that could reflect early symptoms of movement disorder. A total 31 iRBD patients and 20 HCs were asked to walk in a 10-m corridor at their usual pace, their fastest pace, and a normal pace while performing an arithmetic operation (dual-task condition) for 1 min each while using a wearable gait analysis system. General gait measurements including stride length, stride velocity, stride time, gait length asymmetry, and gait variability did not differ between iRBD patients and HCs; however, the patients showed decreases in range of motion (P = 0.004) and peak angular velocity of the trunk (P = 0.001) that were significant in all 3 walking conditions. iRBD patients also had a longer step time before turning compared to HCs (P = 0.035), and the difference between groups remained significant after adjusting for age, sex, and height. The decreased trunk motion while walking and increased step time before turning observed in iRBD may be early manifestations of body rigidity and freezing of gait and are possible prodromal symptoms of PD.

Objective: Cerebral microbleeds (CMBs), which appear as small dot-like hypointense lesions, are strongly associated with cerebrovascular disease. Recently, numerous investigations have suggested th...

Aim and Objective: Cardiovascular disease is a serious threat to human health because of its high mortality and morbidity rates. At present, there is no effective treatment. In Southeast Asia, traditional Chinese medicine is widely used in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Quercetin is a flavonoid extract of Ginkgo biloba leaves. Basic experiments and clinical studies have shown that quercetin has a significant effect on the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. However, its precise mechanism is still unclear. Therefore, it is necessary to exploit the network pharmacological potential effects of quercetin on cardiovascular disease. Materials and Methods: In the present study, a novel network pharmacology strategy based on pharmacokinetic filtering, target fishing, Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis, compound-target-pathway network structured was performed to explore the anti- cardiovascular disease mechanism of quercetin. Results:: The outcomes showed that quercetin possesses favorable pharmacokinetic profiles, which have interactions with 47 cardiovascular disease-related targets and 12 KEGG signaling pathways to provide potential synergistic therapeutic effects. Following the construction of Compound-Target-Pathway (C-T-P) network, and the network topological feature calculation, we obtained top 10 core genes in this network which were AKT1, IL1B, TNF, IL6, JUN, CCL2, FOS, VEGFA, CXCL8, and ICAM1. KEGG pathway enrichment analysis. These indicated that quercetin produced the therapeutic effects against cardiovascular disease by systemically and holistically regulating many signaling pathways, including Fluid shear stress and atherosclerosis, AGE-RAGE signaling pathway in diabetic complications, TNF signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway, IL-17 signaling pathway and PI3K-Akt signaling pathway.