Search

Fog-to-cloud computing has now become a new cutting-edge technique along with the rapid popularity of Internet of Things (IoT). Unlike traditional cloud computing, fog-to-cloud computing needs more entities to participate in, including mobile sinks and fog nodes except for cloud service provider (CSP). Hence, the integrity auditing in fog-to-cloud storage will also be different from that of traditional cloud storage. In the recent work of Tian et al., they took the first step to design public auditing system for fog-to-cloud computing. However, their scheme becomes very inefficient since they uses intricate public key cryptographic techniques, including bilinear mapping, proof of knowledge etc. In this paper, we design a general and more efficient auditing system based on MAC and HMAC, both of which are popular private key cryptographic techniques. By implementing MAC and HMAC, we give a concrete instantiation of our auditing system. Finally, the theoretical analysis and experiment results show that our proposed system has more efficiency in terms of communication and computational costs.

BACKGROUND: Mitochondrial transcription elongation factor (TEFM) is an essential molecule that regulates the replication-transcription switch of mitochondrial DNA. TEFM modulates both transcription elongation and RNA processing in mitochondria. The purpose of the present study was to determine the association of TEFM with tumor progression and prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. METHODS: The different protein expression level of TEFM among HCC cell lines was detected by Western blotting. The gene expression profiling interactive analysis (GEPIA) was used to dynamically analyze the mRNA expression of TEFM gene in different stages of HCC. The protein and mRNA expression levels of TEFM were detected by immunohistochemistry, Western blotting and qRT-PCR. The mRNA-SeqV2 expression of TEFM and clinical information of HCC patients were downloaded from the TCGA database by using R3.6.3 software. Next, the relationships between the expression level of TEFM and clinicopathological characteristics and the prognostic value of TEFM were analyzed. A Cox regression model was used for multivariate analysis of the factors that affected the prognosis of HCC. Finally, the association between the expression levels of TEFM and other mitochondrial regulatory genes and HCC biomarker genes was analyzed by GEPIA. RESULTS: TEFM is upregulated in HCC cell lines compared to noncancerous liver cell line. TEFM protein and mRNA expression levels in HCC tissues were significantly upregulated compared with those in noncancerous liver tissues. In addition, the mRNA expression level of TEFM was significantly correlated with sex, serum AFP level, and vascular invasion (P0). CONCLUSIONS: Our findings reveal that TEFM may play an important role in the progression of HCC. More importantly, the elevated expression of TEFM may potentially predict poor overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in patients with HCC.

PurposeChina has experienced a fast economic growth and shown a significant rise in income inequality in the past decades. During the same period, fluid milk consumption in urban areas has rapidly expanded. The objective of this paper is to analyze and simulate the influence of income distribution changes on fluid milk consumption of households in urban China.Design/methodology/approachThis study applies an inverse hyperbolic sine (IHS) double-hurdle model to modeling at-home fluid milk consumption of households across different income strata based on a sample of 11,861 urban households in five provinces in China, and simulating the impact of changing income distribution, including five income growth patterns, on fluid milk consumption of total households as well as specific household groups.FindingsThe fluid milk consumption in urban China will continue to increase, with the unconditional income elasticity being 0.334 for the full sample and 0.347, 0.335 and 0.162 for the low-, middle-, and high-income groups, respectively. The simulation results show an evidence that, compared with distribution-neutral and disparity-enlarging income growth patterns, a rising income equality would lead to a more significant increase in fluid milk consumption. And the inequality-reducing income growth pattern has a larger impact on fluid milk consumption of households with seniors and no children, as well as households having no local urban household registration (hukou).Practical implicationsThe government should strengthen the supply measures of fluid milk in urban areas, enlarge domestic dairy production, and diversify the sources of milk imports. It is also necessary to subsidize low-income families, especially households with seniors or households migrated from other areas without getting local urban hukou, which could simultaneously improve nutritional benefits and alleviate financial pressures.Originality/valueA simulation considering the evolution of income distribution as well as different household groups is conducted. Widely distributed data with a large sample size and detailed demographic information are used. The problems of zero consumption and non-normal distribution are addressed by the IHS double-hurdle model.

Igneous gas reservoir in Nanpu No. 5 structure which located in the east coast of China is one of the important areas for deep natural gas exploration. Compared with conventional sandstone reservoi...

PurposeThe purposes of this paper are to review the impact on food and nutrition security of several pandemic emergencies and the 2018 food price crisis from a global perspective, examine the Chinese experiences and lessons in ensuring food and nutrition security for its citizen and propose policy actions to prevent a global food and nutrition security crisis.Design/methodology/approachThe authors utilize a noncomprehensive review of peer-reviewed and nonpeer-reviewed literature, as well as a case study approach.FindingsUnder the ongoing COVID-19, China's food and nutrition are relatively secure in short run largely due to governmental proactive policies but may face uncertainties in livestock production and imports of soybean in the medium and long terms. Given that the disease has spread to almost all countries in the world, global cooperation and coordination are needed to prevent systemic risks to global food and nutrition security.Practical implicationsThe review and analysis of this paper will help policymakers in China and other countries to design strategies and actions to prevent food and nutrition security crisis under the ongoing COVID-19 emergency and other similar threats in the future.Originality/valueThis paper provides recommendations to prevent food and nutrition security crisis based on data, evidence and case studies.

At present, it is feasible to deal with large-scale power outage in distribution network. However, there are still many problems in dealing with power outage, such as the huge workload of manual preparation of contingency plan, the changeable operation mode, the difficulty of emergency plan maintenance, the large number of remote control switches, and the long time-consuming. Through the study of large-area power failure treatment technology of distribution network, the improvement method is proposed to break the existing bottleneck.Only after the software that can treat large-area power failure of distribution network is developed, the large-area power failure treatment technology based on distribution network becomes practical.

The rapidly increasing world population and human activities accelerate the crisis of the limited freshwater resources. Water quality must be monitored for the sustainability of freshwater resources. Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-borne hyperspectral data can capture fine features of water bodies, which have been widely used for monitoring water quality. In this study, nine machine learning algorithms are systematically evaluated for the inversion of water quality parameters including chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) and suspended solids (SS) with UAV-borne hyperspectral data. In comparing the experimental results of the machine learning model on the water quality parameters, we can observe that the prediction performance of the Catboost regression (CBR) model is the best. However, the prediction performances of the Multi-layer Perceptron regression (MLPR) and Elastic net (EN) models are very unsatisfactory, indicating that the MLPR and EN models are not suitable for the inversion of water quality parameters. In addition, the water quality distribution map is generated, which can be used to identify polluted areas of water bodies.

Background Mitochondrial transcription termination factor 3 (MTERF3) is a negative regulator of mitochondrial transcription. It is a modular factor involves in mitochondrial ribosome biogenesis and protein synthesis. However, the association between MTERF3 and breast cancers remains largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of MTERF3 in breast carcinoma and to analyze its clinicopathological significance, and to examine the potential prognostic value of MTERF3 in breast cancer. Methods The protein expression levels of MTERF3 in MCF7 (Luminal A), BT-474 (Luminal B), SKBR3 (HER2 overexpression), MDA-MB-468 (Basal like) and MCF10A cell lines were detected by Western blotting. Immunohistochemistry (IHC), Western blotting, and semiquantitative RT-PCR were performed to analyze the protein and mRNA expression levels of MTERF3 in 58 breast cancer tissues and 58 noncancerous breast tissues. The MTERF3 expression data and clinical information from breast cancer patients were downloaded from the TCGA dataset by using the R3.6.1 software. Then the relationship between the expression level of MTERF3 and clinicopathological characteristics and the prognostic value was analyzed. A Cox regression model was performed for the multivariate analysis of the factors that affected the prognosis of breast cancer. The association between the expression levels of MTERF3 and other mitochondrial regulatory genes was analyzed with GEPIA. Results MTERF3 is upregulated in breast cancer cell lines compared to noncancerous breast cell line. The IHC results showed that the MTERF3 protein was located in the cytoplasm, and the rate of positive expression in breast cancer tissue was significantly upregulated compared with the adjacent normal tissue. The mRNA and protein expression levels of MTERF3 in breast cancer tissues were significantly higher than that in breast tissues. Moreover, the expression of MTERF3 was significantly correlated with ER status, PR status, breast cancer molecular typing, cancer type, histological diagnosis and primary site (P

In this paper, we evaluate the incentive role of a teacher performance‐based compensation reform in rural China. Using the value‐added model widely adopted in the education literature, we first estimated the teacher effects on student academic scores with panel data of a large number of students and teachers from rural and urban schools in one county in a south‐western province of China. The estimated teachers’ value‐add was then allowed us to examine the effectiveness of the 2009 teachers’ compensation reform. We find that despite the strong intent of the performance‐based compensation reform to improve student’s academic performance, teachers’ compensations are not closely tied to teachers’ value‐add to student academic achievement. This suggests that the performance‐based compensation reform is not able to provide strong incentives for teachers to raise students’ test scores and points towards the possible problems with the design and/or implementation of the reform.

BackgroundSecond primary malignancy (SPM) is becoming a threat for the health of cancer survivors. However, data on the features and results of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with SPMs are scarce. This study aimed to explore the characteristics of HCC patients with SPMs and to screen HCC patients who are at a high risk of developing SPMs.MethodHCC patients diagnosed between 2000 and 2014 in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database were retrospectively analyzed. Eligible patients were divided into the only one primary malignancy and SPM groups. The Fine-Gray proportional subdistribution hazards model was used to explore the risk factors of developing SPMs, and a competing-risk model was established to predict the probability of developing SPMs for HCC patients after initial diagnosis. The calibration curves, concordance index (C-index), and decision curve analysis (DCA) were used to evaluate the performance of the nomogram.ResultsA total of 40,314 HCC patients were identified, 1,593 (3.95%) of whom developed SPMs 2 months after the initial diagnosis with a maximum follow-up time of approximately 18 years. The 3-, 5-, and 10-year cumulative incidence of SPMs were 2.35%, 3.12%, and 4.51%, respectively. Age at initial diagnosis, extent of disease, tumor size, and treatment were identified as the independent risk factors of developing SPMs and integrated into the competing-risk nomogram. The C-index of the nomogram was 0.677 (95% confidence interval 0.676–0.678), and the calibration curves showed an excellent agreement between the nomogram prediction and the actual observations. Furthermore, DCA indicated that the nomogram had good net benefits in clinical scenarios.ConclusionsHCC survivors remain at a high risk of developing SPMs. The development of SPMs was associated with the clinical features and treatment strategies. A competing-risk nomogram was constructed to help surgeons identify the patients who are at a high risk of developing SPMs and contribute to the further management of SPMs.

Conflicting reports about the role of neuropeptide S (NPS) in animal models of psychotic-like behavior and inconsistent results from human genetic studies seeking potential associations with schizophrenia prompted us to reevaluate the effects of NPS in the prepulse inhibition (PPI) paradigm in mice. Careful examination of NPS receptor (NPSR1) knockout mice at different ages revealed that PPI deficits are only expressed in young male knockout animals (&lt, 12 weeks of age), that can be replicated in NPS precursor knockout mice and appear strain-independent, but are absent in female mice. PPI deficits can be aggravated by MK-801 and alleviated by clozapine. Importantly, treatment of wildtype mice with a centrally-active NPSR1 antagonist was able to mimic PPI deficits. PPI impairment in young male NPSR1 and NPS knockout mice may be caused by attentional deficits that are enhanced by increasing interstimulus intervals. Our data reveal a substantial NPS-dependent developmental influence on PPI performance and confirm a significant role of attentional processes for sensory-motor gating. Through its influence on attention and arousal, NPS appears to positively modulate PPI in young animals, whereas compensatory mechanisms may alleviate NPS-dependent deficits in older mice.

Worldwide, overweight and obesity have become an important public health problem affecting the health of children and adolescents. In China, the prevalence of overweight and obesity has reached 19 percent among the 6–17-year-old age group. Although studies have shown that regular consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), especially sugar-sweetened carbonated beverages (SSCBs), is positively correlated with overweight and obesity among children, the research on ways to reduce SSBs consumption is scarce. This study fills this gap by analyzing data on nearly 4000 students aged between 9–15 from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in China, exploring possible influential pathways between subjective dietary knowledge, SSCBs consumption, and child obesity. The estimation results show that SSCBs consumption significantly mediates the relationship between dietary knowledge and the incidence of overweight and obesity, the mediated effects are different among subgroups. Therefore, improving dietary knowledge related to the lowing of SSBs consumption to reduce the obesity risk may be considered a possible way to reduce the prevalence of overweight and obesity among children.

A compact 64-channel (16x CWDM4) ROSA is demonstrated. The ROSA core with InP PD array vertically aligned to PLC chip provides a new solution to 3.2T/6.4T co-packaged optic transceivers. The performance is verified to be comparable to pluggable transceivers. © 2021 The Author(s)

Background: Alcohol use has been linked to a number of physical conditions, but the relationship between alcohol drinking and depression, one of the most common mental disorders that is a significant contributor to the global burden of disease, is still under debate. We aim to help fill the literature gap on the causal effect of alcohol use on depression by using genetic instruments of ALDH2 rs671 and ADH1B rs1229984 in the Mendelian randomization (MR) framework. Materials and Methods: We collected a sample of 476 middle-aged and older adults from mainland China. The 10-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CESD-10) was used to measure the status of depression. The frequency and intensity of alcohol consumption were measured by (1) a binary indicator of drinking or not, (2) the total number of drinking occasions during the past 30 days, and (3) the weekly ethanol consumption in grams. Results: MR estimates indicated that alcohol use was causally associated with a lower risk of depression. Parameter estimates of drinking or not (b = -0.127, p = 0.048), number of drinking occasions (b = -0.012, p = 0.040), and weekly ethanol consumption (b = -0.001, p = 0.039) were all negative and statistically significant. The results were robust after adjustments for potential confounders (e.g., income, smoking, and parental drinking behaviors), and the exclusion of heavy or former drinkers. Conclusions: This is one of the first study to investigate the causal relationship between alcohol use and mental health using an MR design in East Asian populations. Further studies are needed to clarify the mechanisms of this causal link.

With the emergence of connected and autonomous vehicles, sensors are increasingly deployed within cars to support new functionalities. Traffic generated by these sensors congest traditional intra-car networks, such as CAN buses. Furthermore, the large amount of wires needed to connect sensors makes it harder to design cars in a modular way. To alleviate these limitations, we propose, simulate, and implement a hybrid wired/wireless architecture, in which each node is connected to either a wired interface or a wireless interface or both. Specifically, we propose a new protocol, called Hybrid-Backpressure Collection Protocol (Hybrid-BCP) , to efficiently collect data from sensors in intra-car networks. Hybrid-BCP is backward-compatible with the CAN bus technology, and builds on the BCP protocol, designed for wireless sensor networks. We theoretically prove that an idealized version of Hybrid-BCP achieves optimal throughput. Our testbed implementation, based on CAN and ZigBee transceivers, demonstrates the load balancing and routing functionalities of Hybrid-BCP and its resilience to DoS attacks and wireless jamming attacks. We further provide simulation results, obtained with the ns-3 simulator and based on real intra-car RSSI traces, that compare between the performance of Hybrid-BCP and a tree-based data collection protocol. Notably, the simulations show that Hybrid-BCP outperforms the tree-based protocol on throughput by 12 percent. The results also show that Hybrid-BCP maintains high packet delivery rate and low packet delay for safety-critical sensors that are directly connected to the sink through wire.

Radiotherapy is the mainstay for treating brain metastasis (BM). The objective of this study is to evaluate the overall survival (OS) of patients with BM of lung cancer treated with different radiotherapy modalities. Patients with BM of lung cancer who underwent radiotherapy between July 2007 and November 2017 were collected, and their baseline demographics, clinicopathological characteristics and treatments were recorded. Survival was estimated by the Kaplan–Meier method and compared by using the log-rank test. Univariate and multivariate analysis of the prognostic factors were performed using the Cox proportional hazard regression model. A total of 144 patients were enrolled, of whom 77 underwent whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT), 39 underwent whole brain radiotherapy with consecutive boost (WBRT + boost), and 28 underwent integrated simultaneous integrated boost intensity-modulated radiotherapy (SIB-IMRT). The OS in SIB-IMRT group was significantly longer than that in WBRT group (median OS 14 (95% confidence interval [CI] 8.8–19.1) vs.7 (95% CI 5.5–8.5) months, log-rank p

Nonhuman primate experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is a valuable model for multiple sclerosis, an inflammatory demyelinating disease in the central nervous system (CNS). Human embryonic stem cell-derived mesenchymal stem cells (EMSC) are effective in treating murine EAE. Yet, it remains unknown whether the EMSC efficacy is translatable to humans. Here we induced a primate EAE model in cynomolgus monkeys and delivered EMSC in spheres (EMSCsp) to preserve the cell viability during long-distance transportation. EMSCsp intrathecally injected into the CNS, remarkably reduced the clinical symptoms, brain lesions, and neuronal demyelination in the EAE monkeys during a 3-month observation. Whereas, symptoms in the vehicle control-injected EAE monkey remained and reduced slowly and MRI lesions in brain expanded. Moreover, EMSC could transdifferentiate into neural cells in vivo in the CNS of the treated animals. Supporting evidence demonstrated that EMSCsp cells cultured in cerebrospinal fluid from the EAE monkeys largely converted to neural cells with elevated expression of genes for neuronal markers, neurotrophic factors, and neuronal myelination. Thus, this study demonstrates that EMSCsp injected directly into the CNS, can attenuate the disease progression in the primate EAE model, highly encouraging for clinical translation.

Temperature changes of pavement structure have significant influence on the internal stress, strain, and deformation characteristics of the pavement structure. For example, rutting occurs in high temperature range and pavement cracks when its temperature is low. This yields failure and reduces the service life of the pavement structure. Phase change material, PCM, which is a new type of additive for pavement engineering, has been studied for regulating the working temperature of pavement structure. By storing or releasing thermal energy via phase change process, the PCM is able to maintain the temperature of pavement structure in a relatively narrow range. In the present study, outdoor asphalt mixture model constructed with and without PCM were established. The outdoor model was directly exposed to the environment and the temperature distribution inside the outdoor model was measured by using temperature sensors. The specific heat capacities of asphalt mixture mixed with and without PCM were determined by calorimetric method, which is simple and reliable. Based on the outdoor asphalt mixture model, the corresponding finite element model was established by using ANSYS, and the temperature distribution inside the finite element model was determined according to the measured specific heat capacity, density, thermal conductivity of the asphalt mixture, and the meteorological data which were used for determining the boundary conditions. Comparison between the calculated and actual measured temperature values was made. The results show that the calculated temperature values had good agreement with the measure ones, based on which the accuracy of material parameters and boundary conditions were validated. The results of the present study can lay the foundation for calculating the temperature field of pavement structure constructed with PCM and investigating the application of PCM in road engineering.

The climate change impacts on maize yields are quantified in this paper using statistical models with panel data from 3731 farmers' observations across nine sample villages in Hebei Province of China. The marginal impacts of climate change and the simulated impacts on maize yields based on scenarios of Representative Concentration Pathways 2.6, 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5 from the global climate models of Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate version 5 (MIROC5) and Meteorological Research Institute Coupled General Circulation Model version 3 (MRI-CGCM3) were then calculated, analyzed, and explained. The results indicate that, first, the most important finding was that climate change impacts on maize yields were significant and a 1°C warming or a 1mm decrease in precipitation resulted in a 150.255kg or a 1.941kg loss in maize yields per hectare, respectively. Second, villages with latitudes of less than 39.832 and longitudes of more than 114.839 in Hebei province suffered losses due to warm weather. Third, the simulated impacts for the full sample are all negative based on scenarios from MIROC5, and their magnitudes are more than those of MRI-CGCM3 are. Based on scenarios in the 2050s, the biggest loss for maize yields per hectare for the full sample accounts for about one-tenth of the mean maize yield from 2004 to 2010, and all of the villages are impacted. Hence, it is important to help farms adopt an adaptation strategy to tackle the risk of loss for maize yields from climate change, and it is necessary to develop agricultural synthesis services as a public adaptation policy at the village level to interact with the adaptation strategy at the farm level.

As important participants in the construction of "double first-rate" universities and important contributors to the powerful country of science and technology and the powerful country of network, the growth and development of university graduate students is particularly important. The Party branch of Postgraduates in Colleges and universities is an important position for the education, training and management of postgraduates, and an important carrier for the ideological and political education of postgraduates. Under the background of the new era, strengthening the construction of graduate Party branch is not only the objective demand of national and social development, but also the realistic demand of college education management and personal growth. This paper analyzes and discusses the problems in the construction and operation of the Party branch of graduate students in the new era, and makes countermeasures from the aspects of concept innovation, carrier innovation and mechanism innovation, so as to enhance the cohesion, creativity and combat effectiveness of the Party branch of graduate students.

Since the beginning of the outbreak in late December, food prices have remained stable in Wuhan, in Hubei province — and in fact, all over China. Supplies of staples, fruits, vegetables, and meats have been adequate despite sporadic reports of price hikes and shortages in isolated locations. But there is no room for complacency. Media reports indicate that the poultry industry is already under stress due to a lack of adequate feed supply and interruptions in the timely marketing of its products. If nothing is done, the poultry supply could begin tightening, and these problems could spread to other industries — creating a food supply hiccup and a threat to food and nutrition security for many.

With the reduction of intergenerational temporal transfers, financial transfers from adult offspring to their elderly parents are prevailing in rural China. Although much has been done, little is known about the association between the expansion of intergenerational transfers and rural old people’s physical health in China. The purpose of this paper was to examine the effect of intergenerational financial transfers on the elders’ physical health in rural China. Using data collected from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), panel data fixed effect model and threshold model are employed to estimate the impact of intergenerational financial transfers on the old people’s physical health in rural areas. Results showed that; although, the intergenerational financial transfers have a positive effect on the old people’s physical health, no linear relationship exists between them. Intergenerational financial transfers are clearly less effective for low-income old people’s physical health than those of middle-income, while the effect on high-income old people’s health is the most insignificant. Studies concerning the effect of intergenerational financial transfers on the elders’ health in developing countries remain limited. Findings of this paper provided great insights into how intergenerational transfers, such as intergenerational financial transfers, may affect the well-beings of old residents in rural areas. Additionally, this study can offer inspiration to policy makers regarding what measures they should take to enhance rural old residents’ well-beings. RESUMO: Com a redução de transferências temporais intergeracionais, as transferências financeiras da prole adulta a seus pais idosos estão prevalecendo em China rural. Embora muito tenha sido feito, pouco se sabe sobre a associação entre a expansão das transferências intergeracionais e a saúde física dos idosos rurais na China. O objetivo deste artigo é examinar o efeito das transferências financeiras intergeracionais sobre a saúde física dos anciãos na China rural. Usando dados coletados do estudo longitudinal de saúde e aposentadoria da China (CHARLS), o modelo de efeito fixo de dados do painel e o modelo de limiar são empregados para estimar o impacto das transferências financeiras intergeracionais na saúde física dos idosos em áreas rurais. Os resultados mostram que, embora as transferências financeiras intergeracionais tenham um efeito positivo na saúde física dos idosos, não existe relação linear entre eles. As transferências financeiras intergeracionais são claramente menos eficazes para a saúde física de idosos de baixa renda do que as de renda média, enquanto o efeito sobre a saúde de idosos de alta renda é o mais insignificante. Os estudos sobre o efeito das transferências financeiras intergeracionais sobre a saúde dos anciãos nos países em desenvolvimento permanecem limitados. Os achados deste artigo fornecem grandes insights sobre como as transferências intergeracionais, e as transferências financeiras intergeracionais podem afetar o bem-estar de idosos residentes em áreas rurais. Além disso, este estudo pode oferecer inspiração para os decisores políticos sobre as medidas que devem tomar para melhorar o bem-estar dos residentes rurais.

In determining the nature of the offsetting debt with property agreement upon the expiration of the debt satisfaction period, if it is not clearly specified, the offsetting debt with property agreement shall generally be regarded as a consensual new debt satisfaction agreement. When performing the agreement, the creditor should first exercise the right to claim for the fulfillment of new debt, and, if non-performance of the new debt when it becomes due renders the purpose of the offsetting debt with property agreement not fulfilled, the creditor has the right to request the debtor to continue to perform the old debt.

Background and aim of the study Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common atrial arrhythmia. Our aim was to compare the outcomes of atrial fibrillation treatment with original modified minimally invasive MAZE using monopolar radiofrequency ablation (mi-MAZE) and open surgery MAZE using bipolar radiofrequency ablation (os-MAZE). Methods We searched the associated patients’ information on the medical record system of the First Affiliated Hospital, School of Medicine, Zhejiang University. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyse the data. The primary outcome is the atrial fibrillation ablation rate 3 months, 6 months, 12 months after operation. And secondary outcome is the postoperative quality of life. Results The mi-MAZE group included 42 patients and the os-MAZE group had 65 patients. Three months after surgery, we found that 31 patients (77.5%) in the mi-MAZE group were sinus rhythm and 44 (71.0%) recovered sinus rhythm in the os-MAZE group. We followed up these patients on the phone or in person and scored them on the SF-36 scale. The results were found to be 120.2 ± 8.10 vs 110.6 ± 6.58 (mi-MAZE vs os-MAZE, P Conclusions There was no significant difference of atrial fibrillation ablation rate (sinus rhythm recovery rate) between the mi-MAZE group and the os-MAZE group. The postoperative quality of life in mi-MAZE group was higher than that in os-MAZE group.

It has been demonstrated that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) differentiated from human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), name EMSCs, can treat a variety of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, with similar efficacies to those achieved with MSCs derived from somatic tissues such as bone marrow (BMSCs). The chance increases even higher for EMSCs, than somatic tissue derived MSCs​, to become a cell drug as the former can be produced in large scale from an unlimited hESC line with easier quality control and less biosafety concern. We have further demonstrated that both human ESCs and EMSCs, after aggregation to form spheroids, can tolerate hypoxic and ambient conditions (AC) for over 4 and 10 days, respectively, without loss of their viability and alteration of their functions. Based on these advantages, we decided to test whether EMSC spheroids, made in large quantity and delivered through a long-term distance at AC, can treat osteoarthritis spontaneously developed in rhesus macaques (M. mulatta) monkeys as well as the allogenic MSCs. Methods: Xenogeneic AC-transported EMSC spheroids or allogenic BMSCs were injected into the articular cavity of both knees of the monkeys at 3 animals per group. Another two macaques were injected the same way with saline as controls. Results: Both EMSCs and BMSCs groups showed significant amelioration indicated by the reduction of swelling joint size and amplification of keen flare angle post-treatment, compared to the control group. Examinations via X-ray and MRI also indicated the decrease of inflammation and osteophyma, and recovery of the synovium and cartilage in both treated groups. No sign of allergy or graft versus host disease was observed in the animals. Conclusion: Our results demonstrate that human EMSC spheroids can prevent the osteoarthtitis progression and ameliorate osteoarthritis in the rhesus macaques as well as allogenic BMSCs, and this study shall help advance the clinical application of EMSCs.

The main objective of this paper is to analysis the influence of mixing approaches on the properties of the conventional concrete (CC) and interlocking-dense concrete (IDC). Compared with the normal mixing approach (NMA), the two-stage mixing approaches (TSMA, including mortar mixed first (MMF), coarse aggregate wrapped with paste (CAWP), aggregate wrapped with cement (AWC)) were employed. The mixing homogeneity tests were conducted to evaluate the uniform of the fresh concrete with different mixing approaches. Moreover, compressive strength, flexible-tensile strength, flexible modulus and abrasion resistance tests were designed to evaluate the performance of the hardened concrete. Pearson correlation analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was also involved to illustrate the correlation and differences between NMA and TSMA. The repercussion in the mixing homogeneity test shows that Δ G is a reasonable index to evaluate the uniformity of fresh concrete. This also reveals that the uniformity can be improved by TSMA for CC, while the MMF is the most effective approach to enhance the uniformity for IDC. The results help to find out that the most appropriate mixing approaches for CC and IDC are CAWP and MMF, respectively.

YAG and Yb:YAG transparent ceramic nanopowders for laser crystal were synthesized by microwave-assisted alkoxide hydrolysis precipitation method. The YAG and Yb:YAG nanopowders were characterized by differential thermal analysis and thermo gravimetric analysis (DTA-TG), infrared spectrum (IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) and photoluminescence (PL) spectrum. The results show that the crystallizing temperature of the precursor of YAG and Yb:YAG is about 930 °C. The pure phase YAG and Yb:YAG nanopowders can be obtained at microwave radiation power of 385 W, microwave radiation time of 30 min and sintering temperature of 1100 °C. The average particle size of YAG is about 120 nm. Yb:YAG is uniform sphere and the average sizes is about 100 nm. The intensity of luminescence of Yb:YAG nanopowders decreased with the increasing of microware time. The maximum luminous intensity of the Yb:YAG nanopowders can be obtained when the microwave radiation is 30 min.

Background Rocuronium-induced pain upon injection is very common in the clinical setting. Using the antecubital rather than the hand vein can avoid pain due to propofol injection. We aimed to investigate whether the use of the antecubital vein for injection would alleviate rocuronium-induced pain in a similar fashion. Methods Sixty patients (ASA classes I and II) scheduled for gynaecologic laparoscopy were randomised into two groups. Rocuronium (0.6 mg/kg) was injected either into the vein on the dorsum of the hand (group D) or a large vein in the antecubital fossa (group A). Pain was assessed and recorded using a four-point scale. Results Compared with group D, the incidence of pain and severe pain was lower in group A patients. The rate of no pain was also higher in group A patients. Conclusion The incidence and severity of rocuronium-induced injection pain were significantly alleviated via use of a large vein for rocuronium injection.

Phase change material, PCM, which is a new type of additive for pavement engineering, has been studied for regulating the working temperature of pavement structure. By storing and releasing thermal energy via phase change, PCM is able to maintain the temperature of pavement structure in a relatively narrow range. Current researches on PCM mainly focus on its preparation, mechanism, and testing, while few researches have been conducted on the evaluation of PCM’s temperature regulation effect. This research however, established an asphalt pavement model with and without PCM respectively by applying finite element method (FEM), and compared the two patterns’ thermal regulation ability in a detailed way. Influence factors of asphalt pavement temperature field were classified into external and internal factors. The boundary conditions were determined based on in-situ meteorological data. The effects of PCM on temperature of asphalt pavement were evaluated. Latent heat accumulated temperature value (LHATV) and latent heat thermoregulation index (LHTI) were selected to evaluate the latent heat effect. Results showed that different layers of surface course constructed with PCM had different thermal regulation ability. Other factors like temperature difference in a day and whether to add PCM can also make a difference. The proposed LHATV and LHTI were good indices and assessment for PCM’s function. The results of the present study can lay the foundation for calculating the temperature field of pavement structure constructed with PCM and for investigating the application of PCM in pavement engineering.

This study provides empirical evidence on the labor market effects of public health insurance using evidence from China. In 2007, China launched a national public health insurance program, Urban Resident Basic Medical Insurance (URBMI), targeting residents in urban areas who were not insured by employment-based health insurance. Using panel data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, I identify the impacts of the program based on its staggered implementation across cities. I find that URBMI did not have a significant average causal effect on labor force participation. However, it did increase employment mobility, as evidenced by the decrease in long-term employment and expansion of fixed-term contract jobs and self-employment. After the program was implemented, job lock declined and job flexibility increased, especially among women, the less educated, and individuals with good health status. The results also suggest increased employment for unhealthy workers, indicating a direct health improvement effect.

Empowering women and closing the gender gap are key issues for economic and social development. This paper explores whether higher education expansion could empower women by influencing gender norms and the level of gender equality in both the labor market and the marriage market. I evaluate the impact of China's higher education expansion since 1999. The results show that the reform significantly increases higher educational attainment for both women and men. However, women's gender-role attitudes tend to become less progressive after the expansion. The retreat in egalitarian gender views could be attributed to the findings that women's opportunities in the labor market become more disadvantaged relative to those of men. The results are significantly driven by married women and people who live in high sex ratio areas. The practical conditions that women confront in the labor market and households may shape their gender-role attitudes in the reverse direction.

The Catering takeaway provides fast and convenient services for people, while increasing the security cost of community or commercial buildings, and even brings uncertain security risks. Applying robots to distribution is the key to solving the problem of "last mile" in takeaway distribution. Based on this, a kind of intelligent takeoff robot based on the Internet of things is proposed, which simplifies the process of taking food and improves the efficiency of feeding, and uses Matlab software to design and simulate the trajectory of the robot.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the total-factor energy efficiency (TFEE) in China’s sugar manufacturing industry using firm-level data from 2002/2003 to 2012/2013 crushing seasons, and further explore the determinants of TFEE. Design/methodology/approach – Modified data envelopment analysis is used to measure the TFEE of each sugar mill during the crushing seasons. Then heteroskedastic fractional probit model is applied to estimate the determinants of TFEE because of the bounded nature of TFEE and heteroskedasticity of unbalanced panel. Findings – The results show that throughout the crushing seasons, the average TFEE is 0.57; there are spatial differences of TFEE in Guangxi sugar industry, highest in southern area; the TFEE of foreign-owned sugar mills is larger than that of private-owned and state-owned sugar mills; the larger the enterprise size, the higher the TFEE; private ownership, large size, raw material, safe productivity, total recovery rate as well as technical progress can improve TFEE significantly. Originality/value – This paper analyzes TFEE using a rich data set at firm level, allowing the existence of firm heterogeneity, as well as being complementary to the study of energy efficiency in China’s sugar industry. Moreover, ownership structure is involved in the determinants of TFEE, which is rarely done in literature. Lastly, heteroskedastic fractional probit model is employed to recognize the bounded nature of TFEE as well as selection bias of unbalanced panel to study the determinants of TFEE.

Asphalt concrete is one type of the temperature sensitive mixtures, which is the most and broadest used pavement material in the world. Asphalt pavement suffers from the impact of temperature due to the temperature variation in different districts and environments. Facing temperature sensitivity, this paper uses Indirect Tensile Test (IDT) to analyze the tensile characters of asphalt mixture under different temperatures (−20°C, −10°C, 0°C, 15°C, 20°C, 45°C, and 60°C). The influence factors of temperature, loading rate, asphalt content, asphalt types, and mixtures gradation are evaluated. Piecewise linear model, logarithm linear model and S-logistic nonlinear model are applied to simulate the variation of flexural tensile characters with temperature change. Results show that temperature has significant influence on flexural tensile properties. Loading rates also has obvious influence on flexural tensile characteristics. With temperature changes, asphalt types have evident influence on mixture’s tensile characteristics, SBR modified asphalt has better performance at the lower temperature environment. Mixtures’ gradation has important effect on tensile strength and tensile strain as well, while due the similarity between two gradations, it is hard to precisely recommend which one is better. Asphalt content has evident influence on mixtures properties at the same temperature condition. Research results provide suggestions and applications for construction and performance of asphalt pavement. The results also indicate that IDT would be a practical option to evaluate the properties of asphalt mixture in all temperature ranges.

We present TeaCP, a prototype toolkit for the evaluation and analysis of collection protocols in both simulation and experimental environments running on TinyOS. Our toolkit consists of a testing system, which runs a collection protocol of choice, and an optional SD card-based logging system, which stores the logs generated by the testing system. The SD card datalogger allows a wireless sensor network (WSN) to be deployed flexibly in various environments, especially where wired transfer of data is difficult. Using the saved logs, TeaCP evaluates a wide range of performance metrics, such as reliability, throughput, and delay. TeaCP further allows visualization of packet routes and the topology evolution of the network, under both static and dynamic conditions, even in the face of transient disconnections. Through simulation of an intra-car WSN and real lab experiments, we demonstrate the functionality of TeaCP for comparing the performance of two prominent collection protocols, the Collection Tree Protocol (CTP) and the Backpressure Collection Protocol (BCP). We also present the usage of TeaCP as a high level diagnosis tool, through which an inconsistency of the BCP implementation for the CC2420 radio chips is identified and resolved.

During March 25–May 5, 2014, we investigated 11 outbreaks of peste des petits ruminants in Heilongjiang Province, China. We found that the most likely source of the outbreaks was animals from livestock markets in Shandong. Peste des petits ruminants viruses belonging to lineages II and IV were detected in sick animals.

To implement the multi-directional test of WAMS application system, and to satisfy the requirement for the flexibility and reusability of WAMS application system, the test platform of WAMS application system is designed and built. Firstly, the basic functions, the platform components and software structure of the test platform of WAMS application system are described. Then, the realization of data model and multi-source data interface and other aspects are expounded in detail. Finally, by using the test platform developed completely, the test case aiming at the disturbance source location system based on the WAMS data is produced, and test work of the disturbance source location system based on WAMS data is finished. The test results verify the accuracy and practicability of WAMS application system. Moreover, it proves the use value of the test platform; the test platform of WAMS application system can not only reduce workload of the test work remarkably, but also enhance the standardization degree of the test program and the reusability of the test case, which plays an important role in reducing the research cost of the WAMS application system and speeding up the progress of the research.

High-speed railway ballastless track two-way pretensioning prestressed track slab by the unit serial method is a new type of track slab prestressed system developed in China. The research group developed the track slab production equipment and tooling and formed a 24 h production process. This is the first time in the world to achieve large-scale production of two-way pretensioning prestressed track slab through production lines. Also, this method has been tested and put into production in Shandong Linqu. Compared to the traditional matrix method of the track slab production process, this new method greatly improves the production efficiency and reduces the manufacturing cost of track slab. This can fulfill the high volume demand of track slab raised by “The Belt and Road Initiative” strategy.

In view of the practical application of battery's internal resistance test, a current source which meets the requirements of the AC impedance test is designed. The current source uses DDS (Direct Digital Synthesizer) technology to generate sinusoidal AC signals at each frequency band and inject them into the improved Howland circuit which is a kindle of voltage controlled current source circuit. After the power amplification of the Howland circuit, sinusoidal AC signals change into the stable sinusoidal AC current which meets the frequency and amplitude requirements. Then the AC current is injected into the battery to test the internal resistance. In this paper, the experimental results show that the designed current source system can produce the required AC current quickly and stably, and reduce the noise interference caused by the instability of the current source in the measurement of battery internal resistance.

In order to support the third generation DNA sequencing technique, a double layers nanopore consisting of silicon nitride (Si 3 N 4 ) and graphene is fabricated in this paper. Firstly, high yield Si 3 N 4 nanofilm chips were manufactured successfully after SisNt deposition, etching and release process. Then, focused ion beam (FIB) was used to manufacture SisNi nanopore on Si 3 N 4 nanofilm chips with optimized process. The graphene sheet was synthesized with chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method and transferred onto the Si 3 N 4 membrane milling area. We use transmission electron microscope (TEM) to fabricate the nanopore in the graphene membrane above the center of the Si 3 N 4 nanopore. The diameter of SisNt layer was characterized to be 28 nm and the diameter of graphene nanopore was 4 nm which is fabricated by FIB and electron beam respectively. This method provides a useful tool to nanopore-based DNA sequence.

An improved algorithm is proposed for the practical application of monocular vision ORB-SLAM algorithm. When the image FAST feature points are detected, the adaptive gray level threshold is designed to ensure the validity of the feature points detection when the image contrast is decreased due to the illumination changes in the environment, and the robustness of the SLAM algorithm is improved. Initialization of the environment for the plane of the situation, the design of the third frame image verification method to solve the problem of multiple solution affine model. Design hardware platform to validate the proposed method for improving monocular vision ORB-SLAM. The result show that the proposed method is practical and feasible, and it improves the robustness and self-adaptability of the ORB-SLAM algorithm, and has high practical value.

Modern vehicles incorporate dozens of sensors to provide vital sensor data to electronic control units, typically through physical wires, which increase the weight, maintenance, and cost of cars. Wireless sensor networks have been contemplated for replacing the current physical wires with wireless links, although existing networks are all single-hop, presumably because cars are small enough to be covered by lowpower communication, and multihop networking requires organizational overhead. In contradiction with previous works, we experimentally investigate the use of multihop wireless communication to support intra-car sensor networking. Extensive tests, run under various vehicular environments, indicate the potential for significant reliability, robustness, and energy usage improvements over existing single-hop approaches. Our implementation is based on the Collection Tree Protocol, a state-of-the-art multihop data collection protocol.

To investigate the relationship between serum phospholipid omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (ω-3 PUFAs) and insulin resistance (IR) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).51 patients with T2DM and NAFLD (T2DM+NAFLD group), 50 with T2DM alone (T2DM group), 45 with NAFLD alone (NAFLD group), and 42 healthy control subjects (NC group) were studied. Serum ω-3 PUFA profiles were analyzed by gas chromatography, and alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), γ-glutamyltransferase (GGT), and serum lipid concentrations were measured. Insulin resistance was assessed by the homeostasis model assessment method (HOMA-IR).HOMA-IR levels were higher in the T2DM+NAFLD group than in the T2DM, NAFLD and NC groups (p0.05), as were ALT, AST, GGT, total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and triglyceride (TG) concentrations (p0.05). Conversely, serum ω-3 PUFA levels were significantly lower in the T2DM+NAFLD group than in the other groups (p0.05). The ω-3 PUFA level was negatively correlated with HOMA-IR, TC, LDL-C and TG.Serum phospholipid ω-3 PUFA levels were significantly decreased in patients with T2DM and NAFLD, and were negatively related with insulin resistance. Thus, reduced ω-3 PUFAs may play an important role in the development of T2DM and NAFLD.