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Intelligent separation is a core technology in the transformation, upgradation, and high-quality development of coal. Realising the intelligent recognition and accurate classification of coal flotation froth is a key technology of intelligent separation. At present, the coal flotation process relies on artificial recognition of froth features for adjusting the reagent dosage. However, owing to the low accuracy and subjectivity of artificial recognition, some problems arise, such as reagent wastage and unqualified product quality. Thus, this paper proposes a new froth image classification method based on the maximal-relevance-minimal-redundancy (MR MR)-semi-supervised Gaussian mixture model (SSGMM) hybrid model for recognition of reagent dosage condition in the coal flotation process. First, the features of morphology, colour, and texture are extracted, and the optimal froth image features are screened out using the maximal-relevance-minimal-redundancy (MRMR) feature selection algorithm based on class information. Second, the traditional GMM clusterer is improved, called SSGMM, by introducing a small number of marked samples, the traditional GMM’ problems of unclear training goals, invisible clustering results, and artificially judged clustering results are solved. Then a new hybrid classification model is proposed by combining the MRMR with the modified GMM (SSGMM) which can be named as (MRMR - SSGMM). The optimal froth image features are screened by MRMR to provide the SSGMM classifier. In the process of training and learning the feature samples, using the marked feature samples of froth images to guide the unmarked feature samples. The information of marked feature samples of froth images is mapped to the unmarked feature samples, the classification of the froth images were realised. Finally, the accuracy of the SSGMM classifier is used as the evaluation criterion for the screened features by MRMR. By automatically executing the entire learning process to find the best number of froth image features and the optimal image features, so that the classifier achieves the maximum classification accuracy. Experimental results show that the proposed classification method achieves the best results in accuracy and time, compared with other benchmark classification methods. Application results show that the method can provide reliable guidance for the adjustment of the reagent dosage, realize the accurate and timely control of the reagent dosage, reduce the consumption of the reagent and the incidence of production accidents, and stabilize the product quality in the coal flotation production process.

Semitransparent polymer solar cells (STPSCs) are a potential photostatic structure for building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) application. In order to realize the application practically, the balance between efficiency, transparency, and color property is a challenge in the field. In this paper, efficient semitransparent polymer solar cells utilizing P3HT:ICBA as active layers were demonstrated. By introducing ZnSe/LiF distributed Bragg Reflector (DBR) onto the device, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) has been increased to 6.19%. In addition, this approach can also improve the color render property by leveling the transmittance spectrum. The highest color-rendering index (CRI) is achieved using device with 1 pair of DBR. As a result, the high efficiency and fine CRI confirmed that the STPSC with DBR is an effective structure for BIPV application.

Accurate classification and recognition of coal flotation froth is one of the key technologies for intelligent coal separation. At present, the coal flotation process relies on artificial recognition of froth features for adjusting the reagent dosage, which cannot realize the optimal control of the quality of the clean coal product and the cost of the reagents. Therefore, in this paper, it is proposed a method of froth image clustering with feature semi-supervision through selection and label information. It is mainly divided into two stages: offline clustering and online recognition. The offline stage is to preprocess the froth image under various reagent conditions, extract the morphology, colour and texture features, and select the multi-dimensional optimal froth image features. A small number of marked samples are introduced to optimize the Gaussian mixture model. The selected optimal features are integrated into the optimized Gaussian mixture model to construct a froth image clusterer with multi-dimensional optimal features and class labels. In the online stage, the real-time froth image features are input clusterer and compared with the cluster feature samples to identify the current reagents conditions, which is used as feedback information to guide the abnormal reagent conditions during the production process. The effect of the amount of supervision information and the quality of feature on clustering results is analyzed and compared through experiments. The application results show that this method can provide key technical support for the accurate control of the dosage of reagents and the quality of clean coal product in the coal flotation production process, reduce the cost of reagents and the number of production accidents, improve the economic benefits, and promote the development of coal flotation intelligence to a higher level.

In the case of a suspected anthrax attack, the United States Food and Drug Administration has a plan to immediately distribute stockpiled antibiotics to the affected population. If performed on a l...

Coal seam mining is one of the most widely participated engineering activities in China. This study examined the failure process induced by underground thin coal seam mining of Wangxia perilous rock in Chongqing, China. Numerical simulation was conducted on the stress, displacement and plastic deformation with Fast Lagrangian Analysis of Continua 3D (FLAC3D). Results show that tensile stress is dominant and it keeps increasing during coal mining. The stability failure process experiences four stages from the perspective of crack propagation. A new simplified subsidence prediction method was proposed for quick engineering applications. The relationship between mining geometric parameters and rock mass stability was established and the ultimate mining dimensions were suggested. The simplified method was demonstrated to be reliable.

Background: Several revisions of the TNM classifications for colorectal cancer (CRC) have acknowledged that the oncological outcomes of stage IIB/IIC CRC are worse than those of stage IIIA. We aimed to develop a novel TNM (nTNM) classification based on the metro-ticket paradigm. Methods: We identified eligible CRC patients from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. The nTNM was developed using distance from the origin on a Cartesian plane incorporating the pN (x-axis) and pT (y-axis) stages, and was compared with the AJCC TNM classification. The areas under the curves (AUCs), calibration curves, and Akaike's information criterion (AIC) were used to evaluate the predictive performances of the two classifications. Clinical benefits were further estimated by decision curve analyses. The validation cohort was applied to validate these findings. Results: A total of 58,192 CRC patients (40,736 training cohort, 17,456 validation cohort) were finally included. In the training cohort, 18,476 patients (45.4%) experienced upstaging and 15,907 patients (39.0%) experienced downstaging in the nTNM classification compared with the TNM classification. Taking the prognosis of stage I as the reference, survival decreased with increasing nTNM stage. The nTNM classification showed better discrimination (AUC, 0.678 vs. 0.667, P

In person re-identification (Re-ID), increasing the diversity of pedestrian features can improve recognition accuracy. In standard convolutional neural networks (CNNs), the receptive fields of neurons in each layer are designed to have the same size. Therefore, in complex pedestrian re-identification tasks, the standard CNNs extract local features but are unable to obtain satisfactory results for global features extracted from the images. Local feature learning methods are helpful for obtaining more abundant features, which focus on the most significant local features and ignore the correlations between features of various parts of the human body. To solve the above problems, a new multiscale reference-aided attentive feature aggregation (MS-RAFA) mechanism is proposed, consisting of three main modules. First, to extract the most significant local features and strengthen the correlations between the features of various parts of the human body, an autoselect module (ASM) is designed, an attentional mechanism that can stack the structural information and spatial relations to form new features. Then, to realize multiscale feature fusion of the multiple output branches of the backbone network and increase feature diversity, we propose a multilayer feature fusion module (MFFM), which enables the model to mine the features hidden by salient features and to learn features better. Finally, to supervise the MFFM and make the network obtain better recognition features, we propose a multiple supervision mechanism. Finally, experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on three large-scale datasets.

In recent years, the single-stage detectors have been developed rapidly; however, compared with the multi-stage detectors, their detection precision is still relatively low. Single-stage detectors and multi-stage detectors are analyzes and compared in detail in this paper, which reveals that single-stage detectors suffer from some problems, including feature loss and inaccurate feature extraction. Therefore, this paper proposes a novel detection model, dubbed Optimized Network (OptNet), to alleviate these deficiencies. OptNet consists of three modules: pyramid of attention features, feature alignment and consistency supervision (CS). The pyramid of attention features, based on feature pyramid networks (FPNs), introduces a novel branch named attention FPN (AtFPN), which aggregates the multi-layer features of the backbone network and optimizes the object features by using lightweight attention modules. AtFPN alleviates the loss of the feature pyramid information and the blocking of feature transmission between adjacent layers. Meanwhile, it provides global information for the model. The feature alignment module aligns the anchor box to the feature by using the object location information to guide the network to extract precise object features. Finally, CS accelerates network optimization and reduces semantic differences between the features on different layers. In the detection stage, OptNet optimizes the prediction of the model with the first detection result to improve the accuracy. Experiments on the MS COCO 2017 dataset demonstrate that OptNet yields significant improvement in the detection precision.

Unsupervised person re-identification (re-id) is an effective analysis for video surveillance in practice, which can train a pedestrian matching model without any annotations, and it is easy to deploy in unseen camera scenarios. The most challenging problem in unsupervised re-id task is the huge distribution-gap among different camera views, and the intrinsic correlations in unlabeled identities are also complicated to sufficiently explored. This paper proposes a Multi-order Cross-view Graph adversarial Network (MCGN) to bridge the cross-view distribution-gap, and mine the inherent discriminative information by multi-order triplet correlations. Specifically, MCGN firstly exploits graph representations by a cross-view graph convolutional network according to intra-view and inter-view graph structure, and then encodes each pedestrian image into a view-shared feature space, which is iteratively trained by a graph generative adversarial learning strategy to deeply bridge the distribution-gap. Finally, this paper proposes a multi-order discriminative learning module for composing reasonable triplet samples according to multi-order similarity correlations among unlabeled pedestrian images. Furthermore, sufficient experiments are conducted in two large scale person re-id datasets (Market-1501 and DukeMTMC-reID). The comparison to state-of-the-art methods and ablation study demonstrate the superiority of MCGN and the contribution of each module proposed in this paper.

A method for analysis of various biotoxins and biological modifiers based on electrospray ionization-ion mobility spectrometry (ESI-IMS) and Raman spectroscopy was established. A database of 26 kinds of white powders, including alkaloids such as aconitine and tetrodotoxin, biological modifiers such as bradykinin, substance P and their structural analogs, biotoxins such as conotoxins, α-bungarotoxin, ricin and common white powder such as salt, flour and bovine serum albumin was constructed. Six pattern recognition algorithms of linear discriminant analysis (LDA), quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA), k-nearest neighbor (kNN), naive bayesian (NB), classification tree (CT) and support vector machine (SVM) were used to classify the single spectrum and the fusion data based on this database. The results showed that the recognition accuracy of different methods was 76.0%–97.2%, among which the fusion recognition algorithm based on the SVM model achieved the highest recognition accuracy of 97.2%. Besides, the difference of recognition accuracy was analyzed in this study. This method could also distinguish multiple structural analogues of the two biological modifiers, and was suitable for the rapid identification of unknown white powder.

We sought to compare the clinical and radiologic outcomes after anterior cervical surgery between zero-profile (Zero-P) cage and plate-cage construct (PCC).One-hundred and sixteen patients with single-level cervical disk herniation who underwent anterior cervical diskectomy and fusion between May 2015 and March 2017 were enrolled. They were divided into a Zero-P group (61 cases) and a PCC group (55 cases). At 1, 6, 12, and 24 months after the operation, routine follow-up evaluation was recommended including visual analog scale score and Japanese Orthopaedic Association score. The lateral x-ray film was performed at 1 and 24 months postoperatively.All 116 patients successfully completed the operation and achieved bone fusion. While there was no significant difference in the amount of bleeding between the 2 groups, the operation time of the Zero-P group was significantly shorter than that of the PCC group with statistically difference. The visual analog scale score and Japanese Orthopaedic Association score of the 2 groups at each follow-up interval postoperatively were significantly improved compared with that before operation; the difference was statistically significant (P0.05, respectively). While all the C2-7 cervical curvature, segmental Cobb angle, and height of adjacent vertebral body were lost at the 24-month follow-up, the significant difference was observed in the Zero-P group (P0.05, respectively).Compared with the Zero-P system, the PCC system provides a comparable clinical outcome. Although it showed the disadvantages in controlling the operation time and surgical bleeding, the radiologic outcome was better at the 2-year follow-up.

Government subsidy promotes the development of green supply chain, and the influence of decision-makers’ behavioral preferences becomes increasingly prominent in green supply chain management. In order to further enrich the research content of green supply chain, we first use Stackelberg game theory to construct game models by taking the product green degree, wholesale price and retail price as the decision variables, then we work out the equilibrium strategies of the manufacturer and the retailer under four decision scenarios, and reveal the impact differences between the two parties’ fairness preference behaviors. Our research mainly has the following findings: Firstly, the government subsidy to the manufacturer can benefit these two parties and can have certain impact on the optimal decisions only by working with the green product market expansion efficiency. Secondly, these two parties’ fairness preference behaviors can cause serious damage to the other party’s profit and the overall profit of green supply chain, and increase the rate of their own profit in the overall profit of green supply chain, but the difference is that the retailer’s fairness preference behavior can cause a greater decline in product green degree and wholesale price, and when certain conditions are met, its own profit may rise compared to its fairness neutral, while the manufacturer’s fairness preference behavior can cause a greater damage to the overall profit of green supply chainand make its own profit always be lower than its fairness neutral. Thirdly, the government subsidy to the manufacturer and the fairness preference behaviors of both parties can cause a stack effect on the optimal solutions, which means that the subsidy government provides for the manufacturer can aggravate the negative influence caused by these two parties’ fairness preference behaviors.

One-stage object detectors are simple and efficient; however, they cannot extract sufficient object features due to simplistic structures. At the same time, the classification score cannot reflect the actual positioning of the candidate box. Therefore, it is not accurate to use classification score only as the candidate box position score in non-maximum suppression (NMS) stage. These two shortcomings degrade the detection accuracy. In this paper, a novel feature pyramid architecture named refined feature pyramid network (ReFPN) is introduced to obtain better object features. ReFPN designs a refined module which is parallel with feature pyramid network (FPN) to extract the semantic features of objects, and then the extraction of features are used to optimize the features of FPN by summation. In addition, we design the refined center-ness (RCenter-ness) branch that predicts the position score of each point on the feature map to improve the localization accuracy. The predicted position score is multiplied by the classification score to obtain the final position score that has a stronger correlation with localization accuracy. The final position score is inputted to the subsequent NMS, which improves localization accuracy. The proposed method in this paper is named ReFPN-FCOS. The sufficient experiments on COCO2017 datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of ReFPN-FCOS on improving classification accuracy and localization accuracy. The average precisions of this method achieve 1.1% and 1.3 % higher than those of FCOS, when using ResNet50 and ResNet101 as backbone respectively. Code download link: https://github.com/xjl-le/mmdete.

Tactile sensors are of great significance for robotic perception improvement to realize stable object manipulation and accurate object identification. To date, developing a broad-range tactile sensor array with high sensitivity economically remains a critical challenge. In this study, a flexible capacitive tactile sensor array, consisting of a carbon nanotube (CNT)/polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film, parylene films, and two polyimide (PI) films patterned with electrodes, is facilely prepared. The CNT/PDMS film, acting as a giant dielectric permittivity material, is utilized to improve the sensitivity, while the parylene film serves as the scaffold architecture to extend the working range of the tactile sensor array. Also, it is promising to realize mass production for this sensor array due to the scalable fabrication procedure. The as-prepared sensor exhibits excellent sensing performance with a high sensitivity of 1.61% kPa−1 (

Fibrous supercapacitors have garnered great interest from researchers because of their large electrode/electrolyte interface area, short ion transport path, and high flexibility. However, obtaining a thin gel electrolyte interlayer with a high ion transport rate and uniform thickness is still challenging. Here, we proposed an efficient wet-spinning technique to fabricate uniform polyvinyl-montmorillonite tubular layers for the preparation of a high-performance coaxial asymmetry fibrous supercapacitor (AFSC). The coaxial AFSC shows ultrahigh energy densities in the range of 2.86-4.04 μW h cm-2 at power densities of 0.16-1.61 mW cm-2 while maintaining a long cycling life (94% retention even after 20 000 cycles). After charging at a constant voltage of 2.4 V for 30 s, the flexible watchband which is composed of three series-connected AFSCs could power a commercial electronic watch for more than 2 min. This work provides a universal strategy to fabricate high-performance and wearable energy storage devices.

To reveal the evolution law of coal skeleton deformation during the process of CO2 flooding and displacing CH4 in coal seam, a fluid-solid coupling mathematical model of CO2 injection enhanced CH4 drainage was established based on Fick’s law, Darcy’s law, ideal gas state equation, and Langmuir equation. Meanwhile, numerical simulations were carried out by implementing the mathematical model in the COMSOL Multiphysics. Results show that the CH4 content of both regular gas drainage and CO2 enhanced gas drainage gradually decreases with time, and the decreasing rate is high between 10 and 60 days. Compared with regular gas drainage, the efficiency of CO2 enhanced gas drainage is more obvious with greater amount of CH4 extracted out. When coal seam gas is extracted for 10, 60, 120, and 180 days, CH4 content in coal seam is reduced by 5.2, 17.2, 23.6, and 26.7%, respectively. For regular gas drainage, the deformation of coal skeleton is dominated by the shrink of coal matrix induced by gas desorption, and the strain curve shows a continuous downward trend. For CO2 enhanced gas drainage, the strain curve of coal skeleton showed a decrease—rapid increase—slow increase trend. The evolution of permeability is opposite to the evolution of coal skeleton strain. Higher gas injection pressure will lead to a greater coal skeleton strain. The pumping pressure affects the deformation of coal skeleton slightly compared with that of initial water saturation and initial temperature. Greater initial water saturation leads to larger deformation of coal skeleton in the early stage. The strain value of coal skeleton gradually tends to be consistent as gas injection prolongs. Higher initial temperature leads to greater reduction in coal skeleton strain when the gas injection continues. Research achievements provide a basis for the field application of CO2 injection enhanced CH4 drainage in underground coal mines.

Objective. To explore the effect of continuous lumbar plexus block guided by the “Shamrock method” on postoperative analgesia and hemodynamics in elderly patients after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). Methods. From January 2020 to December 2020 in our hospital, 98 patients who underwent TKA were selected. Using the random number table method, the patients were divided into two groups: a continuous lumbar plexus block group (group L), with 49 patients, and a continuous femoral nerve block group (group F), with 49 patients. The onset time and maintenance time of motor and sensory nerve blocks in patients were recorded. A visual analogue scale (VAS) was applied to assess the pain severity at 6, 12, 24, and 48 h after the operation. The VAS score (FVAS) was applied to evaluate the pain severity of the patients during 24 and 48 h after the operation and knee joint functional exercise. The levels of hemodynamic indexes such as heart rate, mean arterial pressure, and oxyhemoglobin saturation and the levels of hemorheological indexes such as plasma viscosity, high and low whole blood shear viscosity, fibrinogen, and hematocrit were detected and compared between the two groups immediately after the operation and at 12 h and 48 h after the operation, respectively. The incidence of adverse reactions induced by anesthesia was counted. Results. The onset time of motor and sensory nerve blocks in group L was lower than that in group F, and the maintenance time was higher than that in group F ( P < 0.05 ). The VAS scores of 6, 12, 24, and 48 h after operation in group L were significantly lower than those in group F ( P < 0.05 ). The FVAS scores of group L at 24 and 48 h after operation were significantly lower than those of group F ( P < 0.05 ). The heart rates of the patients in the two groups were higher at 12 h and 48 h after operation than those immediately after operation ( P < 0.05 ). The heart rates at 12 h and 48 h after operation in group L were lower than those in group F ( P < 0.05 ). The plasma viscosity, high whole blood shear viscosity, and low whole blood shear viscosity in the group L at 12 h and 48 h after operation were lower than those in group F ( P < 0.05 ). There was no significant difference in the incidence of local anesthetic poisoning, nausea, vomiting, urinary retention, pruritus, and other adverse reactions between the two groups ( P > 0.05 ). Conclusion. The “Shamrock method” ultrasound-guided continuous lumbar plexus block in elderly patients after TKA has good analgesic effect, stable hemodynamics, little influence on hemorheology, and good safety. It is of great value to enhance the surgical effect and promote postoperative rehabilitation.

Review question / Objective: This systematic review aims to comprehensively assess the efficacy and safety of full-endoscopic cervical laminectomy and decompression versus anterior cervical decompression with fusion in treating cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) patients. Condition being studied: Cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) is a degenerative disease associated with cervical cord compression, which has increased significant health-related social costs and derived disabilities. Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) is the "gold standard" for the treatment of CSM. However, the application of ACDF may cause some complications. Recently, full-endoscopic cervical laminectomy and decompression have shown potential therapeutic effects for CSM. However, no systematic review or meta-analysis has focused on the effects of full-endoscopic cervical laminectomy and decompression in the treatment of CSM. This systematic review aims to comprehensively assess the efficacy and safety of full-endoscopic cervical laminectomy and decompression versus anterior cervical decompression with fusion in treating CSM patients.

Speech instruction recognition is an important research direction in the field of human and intelligent machine interaction. With the development of deep learning, more and more researchers pay attention to the automatic speech recognition technology based on convolutional neural network. By establishing an end-to-end speech recognition model based on deep neural network, taking logarithmic amplitude spectrum features as the network input, using connectionist temporal classifiers to carry out time sequence classification, and using convolutional neural network to deal with the correlation between frames, an end-to-end speech recognition system is implemented. On this basis, taking the speech interaction scene of intelligent home appliances in the living room as an example, the speech control instruction database of smart home appliances is constructed, and the application research of speech instruction recognition and data instruction generation is carried out. The method of transfer learning is adopted. We train a pre-training model with open source data set firstly, and then re-train the model with self-recorded speech control instruction database. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm achieves 12.31% WER on public AISHELL-1 dataset and 2.1% WER on our self-recorded speech control instruction database. The speech instruction recognition system realized in this paper can quickly recognize speech instructions and convert them into formatted data instructions that can drive intelligent home appliances, thus improving the communication efficiency between human and machine.

Objective To examine effects of percutaneous endoscopic debridement and allograft via the transforaminal approach combined with percutaneous pedicle screw fixation as treatment for single-level thoracic tuberculosis. Methods This multicenter retrospective analysis included 75 patients with single-level thoracic tuberculosis who underwent percutaneous endoscopic debridement and allograft via the transforaminal approach combined with percutaneous pedicle screw fixation and were followed for >36 months between January 2012 and December 2014. Results Follow-up was 36–48 months (average 41.1 ± 2.2 months). Intraoperative blood loss was low (average 30.5 ± 7.9 mL), and bed rest time was short (average 1.5 ± 0.3 days). No recurrence was observed in all 75 patients. Except for 3 patients, almost all patients (96%) achieved grade I or II fusion in interbody bone grafting. Segmental Cobb angle was 13.5° ± 4.1° before surgery, 10.5° ± 3.7° immediately after surgery, and 11.7° ± 3.9° at 36 months of follow-up. All patients achieved complete recovery of neurologic function (American Spinal Injury Association grade E), including 15 patients with spinal cord injury (American Spinal Injury Association grade D) before surgery. The visual analog scale and 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey scores significantly improved at 1, 3, 12, and 36 months of follow-up. No complications related to internal fixation occurred within the follow-up period; complication rate was 9.0%. Conclusions Median follow-up clinical experience with percutaneous endoscopic debridement and allograft via the transforaminal approach combined with percutaneous pedicle screw fixation indicates that the technique is safe, effective, feasible, and minimally invasive.

Conflict-resolution methods have been applied to water resources management to balance conflicting interests of stakeholders. Due to the climate change impacts on hydrologic processes, the strategy selections of conflict-resolution methods can be influenced, resulting in different selection rules for historical and future periods. This study aims to quantify the impacts of climate change on the strategy-selection rules of the conflict-resolution methods for better long-term strategic decision-making. The methodology of this study consists of climatic, hydrological, environmental and multi-objective optimization models, two fuzzy social choice methods (FSCMs) and four game-theoretical bargaining methods (GTBMs). The hydro-environmental conflict-resolution management in the Yangtze River of China is selected as the case study. The results show that the strategy selection of GTBMs is more stable and results in a better balance between hydropower and environmental objectives, compared to that of FSCMs. Moreover, considering climate change, under the appropriate environmental flow pattern, the stabilities of the strategy selections of FSCMs and GTBMs are slightly influenced, and the average satisfied degrees of both objectives obtained by FSCMs and GTBMs in the future period (2021-2080) are lower than those in the base period (1950-2012). The findings from this study provide guidance for hydro-environmental conflict-resolution management from a sustainable development perspective.

The object shape recognition of nonrigid transformations and local deformations is a difficult problem. In this paper, a shape recognition algorithm based on the curvature bag of words (CBoW) model is proposed to solve that problem. First, an approximate polygon of the object contour is obtained by using the discrete contour evolution algorithm. Next, based on the polygon vertices, the shape contour is decomposed into contour fragments. Then, the CBoW model is used to represent the contour fragments. Finally, a linear support vector machine is applied to classify the shape feature descriptors. Our main innovations are as follows: 1) A multi-scale curvature integral descriptor is proposed to extend the representativeness of the local descriptor; 2) The curvature descriptor is encoded to break through the limitation of the correspondence relationship of the sampling points for shape matching, and accordingly it forms the feature of middle-level semantic description; 3) The equal-curvature integral ranking pooling is employed to enhance the feature discrimination, and also improves the performance of the middle-level descriptor. The experimental results show that the recognition rate of the proposed algorithm in the MPEG-7 database can reach 98.21%. The highest recognition rates of the Swedish Leaf and the Tools databases are 97.23% and 97.14%, respectively. The proposed algorithm achieves a high recognition rate and has good robustness, which can be applied to the target shape recognition field for nonrigid transformations and local deformations.

Objective. To compare the clinical efficacy and complications which obtained foraminoplasty at the tip or base of the superior articular process (SAP) for the patients with lateral recess stenosis treated by percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy (PELD). Methods. Between January 2015 and January 2016, 156 patients of lumbar disc herniation accompanying with lateral recess stenosis were treated with PELD in five tertiary hospitals and fulfilled the 2-year follow-up. Among them, 78 patients obtained a foraminoplasty at the tip of SAP (group A), and foraminoplasty at the base of SAP was performed in the other 78 cases (group B). Clinical efficacy was evaluated using the visual analog scale (VAS) score for back and leg pain, Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), and 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) score. The intervals of follow-up were scheduled at 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years after surgery. Results. Mean operative duration is shorter in group B (55 versus 61 min, P = 0.047). Only one case belonged to group A could not tolerate the neural irritation and required conversion to an open procedure. During the surgery, no dura tears, cauda equina syndrome, or infections were observed. 5 patients experienced transient dysesthesia located at the exiting nerve in group A, while no cases complained dysesthesia in group B. 2 cases who suffered temporary motor weakness all belonged to group A. A total of 5 cases obtained a revision surgery after recurrence in the follow-up, in which 3 patients belonged to group A. Compared to the preoperative data, significant improvements in VAS scores of low back pain and sciatica, ODI, and SF-36 PCS and MC were observed in the follow-up, respectively (P < 0.05, respectively). However, no statistical difference was observed at all time-points after surgery between these two groups (P > 0.05, respectively). Conclusions. For the patients of LDH accompanying with lateral recess stenosis, compared with the routine foraminoplasty at the tip of SAP, our modified foraminoplastic technique does not only change place of foraminoplasty to the base of SAP but also simplified puncture process in transforaminal PELD. Although there was no significant difference in symptom relief, the modified foraminoplasty showed the advantages in decreasing the incidence of postoperative neural dysfunction and reducing operation time.

Background: Percutaneous kyphoplasty (PKP) has been reported to provide a favorable analgesic effect for pain caused by osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCFs). However, a systematic review demonstrated that pain relief was only reported for approximately 86% of kyphoplasty treatments. Objectives: To explore whether an additional facet joint block (FJB) can minimize pain and improve the clinical outcome of PKP in patients with acute OVCFs. Study Design: Prospective study. Setting: All data were from Honghui Hospital in Xi’an. Methods: According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 194 patients were eventually included in our study; they were randomly divided into 2 groups of 97 patients each and treated with either PKP + FJB or PKP alone. Follow-up consultations were scheduled 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, and 1 year postoperatively; the demographic characteristics, related surgical information, and complications observed within both groups were recorded. The clinical evaluation parameters included the intraoperative satisfaction score, the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) score, and the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI). Results: A total of 171 patients (61 men and 110 women; age range: 62–85 years) completed the full postoperative follow-up schedule, with 83 patients in the PKP + FJB group and 88 in the PKP group. No significant differences were observed in the genders, ages, preoperative bone mineral density, surgical levels, or volume of cement injected between the 2 groups (P > 0.05, respectively). The average duration of the surgeries in the PKP + FJB group was slightly longer than that in the PKP group (35.5 ± 4.8 min vs. 31.8 ± 4.3 min; P = 0.038), and in terms of the clinical outcomes, the average intraoperative satisfaction score was significantly higher in the PKP + FJB group (8.6 ± 1.1 vs. 6.3 ± 1.3; P < 0.001). Compared with the preoperative data, significant improvements in the VAS scores of back pain and ODI were observed at each follow-up interval (P < 0.05, respectively). These scores were significantly higher in the PKP + FJB group than in the PKP group; however, this was only observed within the first month after the procedure. Limitations: A single-center noncontrol study. Conclusions: The addition of an FJB (which in our study involved a unique combination of ropivacaine, prednisolone, and vitamin B12) improved the short-term clinical outcome of PKP for acute OVCFs. The local anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects on the facet joints resulted in higher intraoperative satisfaction and lower VAS and ODI scores for the first postoperative month when compared with the PKP group. Key words: Osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture, pain, posterior elements, percutaneous kyphoplasty, facet joint block, medial branch

Background: There are currently several minimally invasive techniques for lumbar spine interbody fusion that have been shown to minimize surgical and perioperative morbidity. We aimed to evaluate the curative efficacy of endoscopic transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (Endo-TLIF) by comparing perioperative characteristics and 1.5-year observational outcomes in 1-segment lumbar spondylolisthesis between the minimally invasive TLIF (MIS-TLIF) technique and the optimized Endo-TLIF technique. Methods: One hundred and two patients treated by MIS-TLIF (48 cases) or Endo-TLIF (54 cases) were included from March 2018 to April 2019. Perioperative parameters and clinical outcomes were evaluated. Inflammatory biomarkers were measured for postoperative traumatic stress and muscle injury. Fusion rates were determined at 18 months after surgery by CT.Results: The Endo-TLIF group had similar incision length, return to work time and rate (p>0.05). Blood loss, left bed time and analgesic ratio were significantly less in Endo-TLIF group (pConclusions: Endo-TLIF has comparable perioperative analysis and clinical outcomes in comparison to MIS-TLIF and manifests a greater improvement in less multifidus muscle damage, inflammation and faster patient recovery. Thus, Endo-TLIF should be considered as a feasible and effective technique for 1-segment lumbar spondylolisthesis patients with similar fusion rate.Trial registration: ChiCTR1800015197, 13 March 2018. Trial registry: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry. Registered 13 March 2018. http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=25865

BACKGROUND: Thrombospondins (THBSs) are glycoproteins expressed in the extracellular matrix (ECM) and have critical roles in tumor development and metastasis. However, the diverse expression patterns and prognostic roles of distinct THBS genes in gastric cancer have not been fully elucidated. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the expression patterns of THBSs in gastric cancer (GC) and determine whether they are prognostic markers for this malignancy. METHODS: mRNA expression status and genetic mutations of THBS family members were performed by using ONCOMINE, UCSC Xena browser, GEPIA, and cBioPortal databases. Prognostic values and function enrichment analysis of the members were assessed via Kaplan-Meier plotter and Metascape. RESULTS: we found that the mRNA expression of THBS1, THBS2, THBS4, and COMP were higher in patients with GC tissues than those in normal gastric mucosa and there was no difference in the mRNA expression of THBS3 between GC and normal tissue. Survival analysis revealed that mRNA levels of THBSs were strongly related to worse OS in GC patients (P

There is a layer of the unconsolidated confined aquifer (UCA) made of non-cemented sand and grit on the bed of Quaternary thick topsoil in many coal mines in east and north China. Existing on the bedrock of coal measures, it poses a serious threat to coal mine safety. Worse, it caused many supports crushing and water inrush disasters (SCWIDs) and resulted in significant economic losses. Aiming at the above problems, this paper adopts a simulation experiment, field measurement, engineering detection, and theoretical analysis to conduct the research. The research reveals the overburden’s destructive rules during mining under UCA. The results indicate that UCA plays an important role in the process of load transfer due to its mobility and replenishment in time. When mining close to the aquifer, the load transfer of aquifer leads to overburden breaking entirely and sliding instability of the bond-beam structure, then, the water flowing fractured zone develops rapidly and connects the aquifer, which is the fundamental reason for SCWID under the UCA. Based on the mechanism of SCWID, a prediction method of support crushing and water inrush hazard zones was put forward. Artificial pre-split blasting based on the location of a key stratum was applied to prevent SCWID. The proposed methods have been used in 7131 working face and safe mining was achieved.

Background: Brachial-Ankle Pulse Wave Velocity (baPWV) and Ankle-Brachial Index (ABI) are widely used in clinic for evaluating arterial stiffness and atherosclerosis separately. This study aimed to compare the sensitivity of baPWV and ABI for cardiovascular risk assessment in elderly Chinese. Methods: BaPWV, ABI and Carotid Intima-Media Thickness (cIMT) were assessed in 169 elderly Chinese with the mean age of 85.7 years. Results: Compared with normotensive participants, baPWV levels elevated in both limbs of hypertensive patients (2219 ± 90 cm/s vs. 1970 ± 66 cm/s, p = 0.090; 2141 ± 52 cm/s vs. 1932 ± 67 cm/s, p = 0.023, separately). Compared with non-diabetes Mellitus (DM) participants, ABI levels declined in both limbs of DM patients (0.96 ± 0.02 vs. 1.05 ± 0.02, p = 0.002 and 0.99 ± 0.03 vs. 1.03 ± 0.02, p = 0.071, separately). ABI of left limbs and ABI of right limbs were negatively correlated to cIMT (R = −0.136, p = 0.090; R = −0.196, p = 0.026, separately) after adjusted by age, systolic pressure, diastolic pressure, body mass index, triglycerides, total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein. The regression model for predicting Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) included the factors of gender, age, hypertension, baPWV of left limbs and baPWV of right limbs (OR = 6.701, 95% CI 0.911–49.310, p = 0.062; OR = 1.181, 95% CI 1.051–1.327, p = 0.005; OR = 0.214, 95% CI 0.066–0.688, p = 0.010; OR = 1.002, 95% CI 1.000–1.003, p = 0.065; OR = 0.998, 95% CI 0.996–0.999, p = 0.006, separately). Conclusion: In elderly Chinese, baPWV was elevated in hypertensive patients while ABI was lower in DM patients compared with healthy people. Compared with baPWV, ABI is better equivalent to cIMT. But for predicting the risk of CVD, baPWV is a better biomarker.

Background: The tumor-node-metastasis classification of the American Joint Committee on Cancer classified tumor deposits (TDs) in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) without lymph node (LN) metastasis as N1c, but the classification of TDs in patients with LN metastases remains controversial. This study investigated the probability of regarding TDs as positive LNs (pLNs) in pN stage and estimated its prognostic ability in CRC. Methods: We used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results program to analyze CRC patients who underwent surgical therapy (14,906 training cohort, 6,384 validation cohort). A modified pN stage (mpN) was identified using the number of pLNs plus TDs. Overall survival (OS) was analyzed using the Kaplan–Meier survival curves, and significant prognostic factors were identified by univariate and multivariate analyses. Prognostic ability was estimated using the area under the curve (AUC), calibration curve, and the Akaike's information criterion (AIC). Clinical benefit was measured by the decision curve analyses (DCA). The results were validated using the validation cohort. Results: Both the pN and mpN stages were independent prognostic factors in CRC according to univariate and multivariate analyses. The AUC analysis showed that the mpN stage had better prognostic discrimination for OS than the pN stage (0.612 vs. 0.605, P < 0.001). The AIC demonstrated that the mpN stage also showed superior model-fitting compared with the pN stage (49,756 vs. 49,841). The DCA further revealed that the mpN stage had better clinical benefits than the pN stage. The validation cohort showed similar findings. Conclusions: We concluded that counting TDs as pLNs may be superior to the pN stage when assessing the prognosis of CRC patients.

Background: to evaluate the safety and efficacy of Polymethylmethacrylate-augmented screw fixation (PASF) in the treatment of elderly patients with thoracolumbar spinal tuberculosis accompanied with severe osteoporosis.Methods: 34 elderly patients with thoracolumbar spinal tuberculosis accompanied with severe osteoporosis underwent PASF after anterior or posterior debridement and bone grafting in our hospital from January 2010 to January 2012. The follow-ups were performed at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months postoperatively and then annually thereafter. The segmental cobb angle was measured to evaluate kyphosis improvement. The laboratory examination including ESR and CRP was also monitored. The pre- and postoperative VAS score, ODI score, and neurological function of ASIA scale were also recorded.Results: The included 21 patients completed the operation successfully. In all patients with neurological dysfunction, the ASIA grade improved by at least 1 grade. One month postoperatively, the VAS score, ODI, segmental Cobb angle, ESR, and CRP were significantly improved compared with those preoperatively (PConclusion: For elderly patients with thoracolumbar spinal tuberculosis complicated with severe osteoporosis, after anterior or posterior debridement and bone grafting, together with postoperative systematic anti-tuberculosis and anti-osteoporosis treatments, PASF is safe and effective without catastrophic complications such as intraspinal cement leakage. During the 5-year follow-up, there was no tuberculosis recurrence or implant failure.

Primary intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a leading cause of long-term disability and death worldwide. Drug delivery vehicles to treat ICH are less than satisfactory because of their short circulation lives, lack of specific targeting to the hemorrhagic site, and poor control of drug release. To exploit the fact that metal ions such as Fe2+ are more abundant in peri-hematomal tissue than in healthy tissue because of red blood cell lysis, we developed a metal ion-responsive nanocarrier based on a phosphonated calix[4]arene derivative in order to deliver the neuroprotective agent dauricine (DRC) specifically to sites of primary and secondary brain injury. The potential of the dauricine-loaded nanocarriers for ICH therapy was systematically evaluated in vitro and in mouse models of autologous whole blood double infusion. The nanocarriers significantly reduced brain water content, restored blood-brain barrier integrity and attenuated neurological deficits by inhibiting the activation of glial cells, infiltration by neutrophils as well as production of pro-inflammatory factors (IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α) and matrix-metalloprotease-9. These results suggest that our dauricine-loaded nanocarriers can improve neurological outcomes in an animal model of ICH by reducing inflammatory injury and inhibiting apoptosis and ferroptosis.

Infrahepatic inferior vena cava (IVC) clamping is considered to be an effective method to reduce central venous pressure (CVP) and intraoperative bleeding in liver resection. However, its efficacy and safety during laparoscopic hepatectomy (LH) remain unclear. We perform this retrospective study to evaluate its efficacy and safety during LH. Consecutive patients scheduled for LH from September 2014 to August 2019 were retrospectively reviewed. The intraoperative parameters and postoperative outcomes were analyzed. All patients in the infrahepatic IVC clamping group were able to tolerate partial clamping of IVC. The CVP was significantly decreased after infrahepatic IVC clamping without hemodynamic instability (8.7 ± 1.4 cmH2O vs. 2.1 ± 1.3 cmH2O, P = 0.000). Infrahepatic IVC clamping did not significantly reduce total blood loss (287.3 ± 112.5 mL vs. 301.4 ± 127.6 mL, P = 0.133) and blood loss during parenchymal transection (273.2 ± 107.9 mL vs. 296.5 ± 118.1 mL, P = 0.618) compared with the non-clamping group. In subgroup analysis, total blood loss and blood loss during parenchymal transection were significantly reduced in patients with moderate to severe cirrhosis in the clamping group (363.6 ± 71.2 mL vs. 473.4 ± 95.6 mL, P = 0.021), (358.7 ± 70.9 mL vs. 466.9 ± 94.5 mL, P = 0.016), respectively. The complications and hospital stay were comparable. In conclusion, these data suggest that infrahepatic IVC clamping may be safe and effective.

Background Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) solution is commonly used to irrigate wounds because of its hemostatic and antiseptic properties. Previous studies suggest that H2O2 can result in toxicity to keratinocytes and fibroblasts, but complications after H2O2 application, including oxygen embolism, which is one of the most severe, have rarely been reported. Case description A 40-year-old woman was diagnosed with L4-5 lumbar spinal stenosis and subsequently underwent minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion treatment at another hospital. Hypotension, hypoxia, and a decrease in end-tidal carbon dioxide pressure occurred immediately after H2O2 irrigation. After the operation, she was able to be extubated but remained comatose. Postoperative computed tomography scan revealed intracranial air trapping in the right frontal lobe and multiple cerebral infarction foci. Conclusions When using a knee-prone surgical position or in cases of dural laceration, the application of undiluted H2O2 solution should be avoided, especially in a surgical wound within a closed cavity. When hypotension, hypoxia, and a decrease in end-tidal carbon dioxide pressure occur immediately after H2O2 irrigation, oxygen embolism should be strongly suspected.

Exosomes are key mediators of intercellular communication and play a role in the pathogenesis and progression of cancer. Exosomes in circulating body fluids serve as molecular markers for cancer diagnosis. This study aimed to investigate the role of exosomal microRNA (miR)-1910-3p in breast cancer and determine its clinical diagnostic value. MiR-1910-3p promoted proliferation and migration of breast cancer cells in vitro and in vivo. In vitro, exosomes enriched in miR-1910-3p transferred miR-1910-3p to mammary epithelial cells and breast cancer cells, promoting proliferation and migration, inhibiting apoptosis, and inducing autophagy. In vivo, exosomes enriched in miR-1910-3p promoted the proliferation and migration of breast cancer cells. MiR-1910-3p downregulated myotubularin-related protein 3, activated the NF-κB and wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway, and promoted breast cancer progression. Serum miR-1910-3p in exosomes was an effective diagnostic marker that improved the sensitivity of breast cancer diagnosis when used in combination with the traditional tumor marker CA153. In conclusion, breast cancer cell-derived exosomes promoted the growth, metastasis, and autophagy of breast cancer cells by transferring miR-1910-3p. MiR-1910-3p in serum exosomes may serve as a novel molecular marker for breast cancer diagnosis.

The unremitting pursuit for quantum advantages gives rise to the discovery of a quantum-enhanced randomness processing named quantum Bernoulli factory (QBF). This quantum enhanced process can show its priority over the corresponding classical process through readily available experimental resources, thus in the near term it may be capable of accelerating the applications of classical Bernoulli factories, such as the widely used sampling algorithms. In this work, we provide the framework analysis of the QBF. We thoroughly analyze the quantum state evolution in this process, discovering the field structure of the constructible quantum states. Our framework analysis shows that naturally, the previous works can be described as specific instances of this framework. Then, as a proof of principle, we experimentally demonstrate this framework via an entangled two-photon source along with a reconfigurable photonic logic, and show the advantages of the QBF over the classical model through a classically infeasible instance. These results may stimulate the discovery of advantages of the quantum randomness processing in a wider range of tasks, as well as its potential applications., Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures

Objective. To compare the difference in clinical and radiographic outcomes between anterior transcorporeal and transdiscal percutaneous endoscopic cervical discectomy (ATc-PECD/ATd-PECD) approaches for treating patients with cervical intervertebral disc herniation (CIVDH). Method. We selected 77 patients with single-segment CIVDH and received ATc-PECD or ATd-PECD in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University between March 1, 2010, and July 1, 2015. 35 patients suffered from ATc-PECD, and there were 42 patients in the ATd-PECD group. Obtaining the data of 1, 3, 6, 12, and 24 months postoperatively, the VAS for neck and arm pain and the modified MacNab criteria were used to evaluate the clinical outcomes, comparing radiographic outcomes and complications of these two groups. Results. We found that the mean operative time was significantly longer in the ATc-PECD group (P<0.05). At the 2-year follow-up, the mean VAS score for neck and arm pain was significantly decreased in both two groups. There was no significant difference in the VAS score for arm pain and neck pain between the two groups at the 2-year follow-up (P=0.783 and P=0.785, respectively). For the ATc-PECD group, the difference in the height of IVS or vertebral body was significant between the preoperative and postoperative groups (P<0.05, respectively). For the ATd-PECD group, there was only a significant decrease in the height of the IVS (P<0.05); the decrease in the surgical vertebral body was not significant between the preoperative and postoperative groups (P>0.05). Conclusion. In the 2-year follow-up, there is no significant difference in the clinical outcomes between the 2 approaches. While the longer time was consumed in the ATc-PECD group, the lower rate of disc collapse and recurrence is notable. Additionally, when the center diameter of tunnel was limited to 6 mm, the bony defect can be healed without the occurrence of the collapse of the superior endplate, and ATc-PECD may be preferable in the endoscopic treatment of CIVDH.

Heavy-metal ions detection conventionally relies on standard instruments that are complicated, time-consuming and constrained to laboratories. To mitigate this problem, we developed a hand-held and cost-effective smartphone-integrated analysis platform that allows fast identification of heavy-metal ions pollution caused by industrial wastewater discharge. This portable platform integrates a colorimetric sensor array consisting of plasmonic nanocolorants and organic chromophores to detect typical heavy-metal ions at the ppm level within 15 s. The image of the colorimetric sensor array is transmitted to the Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) imager of the smartphone via 96 individual optical fibers, generating RGB differential fingerprints and quantitatively analyzed by pattern recognition algorithms. Facile identification of 13 common heavy-metal ions (Hg2+, Cd2+, Cr6+, Pb2+, Ni2+, Se4+, Mg2+, Ba2+, Zn2+, As3+, Mn6+, Fe3+, Cu2+) was demonstrated using several different multivariate analyses of the digital data library, including principal component and hierarchical cluster analysis. Furthermore, we demonstrated the multiplexed detection and classification of 4 typical industrial wastewater models (Electroplating, Battery, Metallurgical, Pesticide wastewater) and real water samples with this portable platform, and achieved good discrimination and reproducibility. Combined with edge computing of smartphones and Internet-of-Things (IoT) cloud infrastructure, the portable platform shows feasible potential for pollution traceability, environmental monitoring, and water quality analysis.

Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a severe stroke subtype with high disability and mortality, and no effective treatment is available. Previous research on intracerebral hemorrhage secondary brain injury drugs mainly targeted at cell apoptosis, inflammation and oxidative stress, but did not achieve good effects. In recent years, ferroptosis has become a focus concern in neurological diseases. Ferroptosis is a new type of programmed cell death caused by iron-dependent accumulation of lipid peroxides, in which glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) is a key protein affecting ferroptosis. In this study, we used the STRING protein database to predict the proteins that may be co-expressed with GPX4, and studied the ability of Dauricine(Dau) to up-regulate the expression of GPX4 against ferroptosis and neuroprotection after intracerebral hemorrhage in normal cells in vitro, glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) knockdown cells and collagenase injection in vivo in mouse models of intracerebral hemorrhage. The results showed that glutathione reductase (GSR) was a possible co-expression protein with GPX4. Dau could up-regulate the expression of glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) in intracerebral hemorrhage(ICH) model, normal cells and GPX4 knockdown cells in vitro, and simultaneously up-regulate the expression of GSR in ICH mice. Dau could also reduce the levels of iron and lipid peroxidation, and have a neuroprotective effect on intracerebral hemorrhage(ICH) mice. It was tesified that Dauricine(Dau) could inhibit ferroptosis of nerve cells and alleviate brain injury after intracerebral hemorrhage by upregulating glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) and glutathione reductase (GSR) co-expression. Therefore, Dau may be an effective drug for inhibiting ferroptosis and treating intracerebral hemorrhage.

Blockchain offers new ways to the data sharing-based collaboration among IoT devices when a centralized IT infrastructure is unavailable. As one of the critical elements in a Blockchain system, the existing consensus algorithms still have some weaknesses, such as energy-wasting, low throughput, high latency, and increased network communication requirements. In this paper, we focus on designing a highly efficient Blockchain consensus algorithm for data sharing among IoT devices. We present the detailed design of Teegraph, which is a Trusted Execution Environment (TEE) and Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG)-based consensus algorithm. A proof-of-concept implementation of Teegraph is presented. The simulation results demonstrate that TEE usage in Teegraph is more efficient than that of the existing state of the art TEE-based consensus algorithms such as MinBFT and MinZyzzyva. Moreover, Teegraph outperforms Hashgraph, one of the most popular DAG-based consensus algorithms in throughput and latency.

To evaluate the curative efficacy by comparing perioperative characteristics and 1.5-year observational outcomes in 1-segment lumbar spondylolisthesis between traditional minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (MIS-TLIF) and optimized Endoscopic TLIF techniques.The study was a single-center, randomized controlled trial comparing two different treatment approaches for 1-segment lumbar spondylolisthesis. 102 patients treated by MIS-TLIF (48 cases) or Endo-TLIF (54 cases) were included from March 2018 to April 2019. Perioperative parameters and clinical outcomes were evaluated. Degree of slip were measured, and fusion rates were determined at 18 months after surgery.The Endo-TLIF group had similar return to work time and rate. Blood loss, left bed time, analgesic ratio were significantly less in Endo-TLIF group. The Endo-TLIF group had a significantly longer operative time. Significant postoperative reduction in %slip was showed in both groups. The VAS and ODI improved significantly in both groups after surgery. Significant decreases in low-back pain in Endo-TLIF group were found at postoperative day 1 and 3 months. The fusion rate in the two groups was similar.Endo-TLIF surgery with a C-shaped working tube and a visualization system may be regarded as an efficient alternative surgery for 1-segment lumbar spondylolisthesis. It is a safe and minimally invasive way to perform this surgery and has shown satisfactory clinical outcomes.ChiCTR1800015197, 13 March 2018.Chinese Clinical Trial Registry. Registered 13 March 2018. http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=25865.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the most common cause of chronic morbidity and mortality. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying COPD remain largely unknown. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the expression patterns of hypoxia-inducible factor 1α (HIF-1α), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and VEGF receptor 2 (R2) in regard to the HIF-1 signaling pathway in COPD. The expressions of HIF-1α, VEGF and VEGFR2 were examined and quantified in the human lung tissues of 102 subjects with a defined smoking status, with or without COPD. The expressions of HIF-1α, VEGF and VEGFR2 were observed to be increased in the lung tissues collected from smoking COPD subjects when compared with those tissues from smoking subjects without COPD and non-smoking subjects without COPD. The expression of HIF-1α was shown to be positively associated with the expression of VEGF and VEGFR2. In addition, increased expression of HIF-1α, VEGF and VEGFR2 reflected the disease severity of COPD. The key findings obtained from the present study indicated that high expression of HIF-1α, VEGF and VEGFR2 may be associated with decreased lung function and reduced quality of life, contributing to disease progression in COPD.

In the current open source ecosystem, developers rely on internal factors, such as ideology, interesting, and other external factors, such as reputation, learning, to participate in the contribution of open source software. However these things are not enough to support their continuous contribution. Meanwhile, for social coding communities, for example Github, collaborative developers, especially peripheral contributors, they do not receive any intellectual property after participating in the contribution. The lack of effective intellectual property protection and reasonable material incentives restrict developers’ participation in open source contributions to a certain extent, which therefore hinders the development of open source ecology. In this paper, we combine the Trustie open source community with blockchain technology by recording developers’ contributions and corresponding tokens on blockchain. We design and implement a blockchain based open source contribution protection system, and enhance the enthusiasm of contributors to continuously participate through the transformation of property rights to potential material incentives.

Ternary organic solar cells (OSCs) hold great promise in enabling the roll-to-roll printing of environmentally friendly, mechanically flexible, and cost-effective photovoltaic devices. Nevertheless, many ternary OSCs display the best power conversion efficiency (PCE) with a thin active layer at the thickness of about 100 nm, which can be hardly translated in to the roll-to-roll processing with high reproducibility. In this paper, the ternary OSCs with a high PCE and a thick active layer were reported, which was obtained by incorporating a dye small molecule named as 2’-(5,5’-(9,9-dioctyl-9H-fluorene-2,7-diyl)bis(thiophene-5,2-diyl))bis(methanylylidene))-bis(3-ethyl-2-thioxothizolidin-4-one) (FTR)) into a PTB7-Th:PC71BM binary system. Specifically, the addition of FTR into the PTB7-Th:PC71BM binary system was found to improve the hole mobility of the active layer, which resulted in faster charge transport, more efficient charge separation, and higher PCEs even in the presence of a thick active layer. The single-junction PTB7-Th:FTR:PC71BM ternary OSCs with the active layer thickness of 160 nm presented an outstanding PCE of 9.4%, which was much higher than that 7.5% of the PTB7-Th:PC71BM binary OSCs with the active layer thickness of 160 nm. Notably, the PTB7-Th:FTR:PC71BM ternary OSCs devices exhibited excellent thickness insensitivity. In other words, the PTB7-Th:FTR:PC71BM ternary OSCs device with a thick active layer (200 nm) could still demonstrate a high PCE of over 8.2%, which was well compatible to the requirement for future roll-to-roll printing.

The word-line (WL)-position dependence of memory cell's threshold-voltage fluctuation (ΔVth) in 3D charge trapping flash (CTF) caused by random telegraph noise (RTN) was studied. Contrary to planar NAND flash, test results show that WL0 has wider accumulative distributions of ΔVth than WL63 in 3D CTF NAND. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results show that grain size (GS) decreases by 14.6% from top WLs to bottom WLs. As a result, grain boundary density increases from top to bottom, which corresponds to a larger ΔVth. Moreover, despite the similar transconductance (Gm) trend in planar and 3D Flash memories, WL31's RTN hardly changed with altered RS and RD in CTF memory. These experimental results indicate that Gm is not the dominant factor of RTN in 3D CTF, but the physical properties of the polycrystalline silicon (poly-Si) channel.

Summary Background Ubiquitin-specific peptidase 9, X-linked (USP9X), a member of deubiquitylating enzymes family, has recently been reported to be associated with a variety of cancer progression. While it functions as either oncogene or tumor suppressor in a context-dependent manner, the expression and role of USP9X in gastric cancer is largely unknown. Methods Sixty-eight cases of patients with gastric cancer were enrolled in this study. The expression of USP9X and MCL1 were detected by immunohistochemistry. USP9X expression was further analyzed by Western blot. Furthermore, we analyzed the correlation between USP9X and MCL1 expression, as well as USP9X expression and clinicopathologic parameters of gastric cancer. Finally, the significance of USP9X expression in gastric cancer was analyzed by both Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analysis. Results USP9X expression significantly increased in gastric cancer tissues compared to matched normal tissues. Moreover, expression of USP9X was positive correlated with MCL1 expression ( P = 0.006) and significant associated with lymph node metastasis ( P = 0.016), distant metastasis ( P = 0.001) and tumor staging ( P = 0.013) in gastric cancer. Importantly, the increasing expression of USP9X in gastric cancer reduces overall survival rate and was an independent factor predicts poor prognosis in patients with gastric cancer. Conclusions In this study, deubiquitylating enzyme USP9X was overexpressed in gastric cancer, suggesting a potential implication as an oncogene, and was significantly associated with a poorer survival.

AlGaN-based deep ultraviolet (DUV) light emitting diodes (LEDs) are irradiated by fast neutrons, with optical and electrical properties analyzed in detail. Significant enhancement of output power is observed under neutron irradiation fluences of 6.0 × 1012 and 1.5 × 1013 cm−2. However, the device exhibits performance degradation as the fluence increases to 1.0 × 1014 cm−2. As previous observations are limited to degradation. Further analysis reveals that there exist two different competitive mechanisms of neutron radiation effect on DUV LEDs. The enhancement of the output power is attributed to the increased efficiency of the carriers injected into the irradiated multi-quantum wells (MQWs). Meanwhile, neutron irradiation-induced nitrogen vacancies in p-AlGaN electron blocking layer increase the leakage of the current dominating the device performance degradation, in contrast with results from former studies on longer wavelength GaN-based LEDs. Those findings are not only helpful to further enrich the degradation mechanism of neutron irradiated DUV LEDs, but also provide a fresh idea to improve their luminous characteristics.