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BACKGROUND: Transarterial bland embolization (TABE) is widely used to treat the spontaneous rupture of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and can lead to ischemic necrosis of the tumor. In this study, we used the propensity-score matching (PSM) method to compare the initial responses of treatment-naïve HCC patients to TABE and drug-eluting beads-transarterial chemoembolization (DEB-TACE), and the safety of these treatments. METHODS: Patients with treatment-naïve HCC, who had been admitted to 2 medical centers from January 2016 to December 2020, were enrolled as the research subjects. The data of 26 patients treated with TABE for ruptured HCC and 52 patients treated with DEB-TACE for primary HCC were collected according to our inclusion and exclusion criteria, and a PSM analysis was conducted to assess the safety and effectiveness of these two interventional techniques 1 month postoperatively. RESULTS: In relation to ruptured HCC, TABE had a hemostatic success rate of 97.0%. Before PSM, the TABE group had a larger maximum tumor diameter (P0.05). The multivariate regression analysis showed that tumor size was an independent predictor of the objective response rate (ORR) [odds ratio (OR): 3.312; 95% CI: 0.152–5.944; P0.05). The incidences of post-embolization syndrome (PES) and 48-h hepatotoxicity were significantly lower in the TABE group than the DEB-TACE group (both P0.05). CONCLUSIONS: TABE is highly effective at managing hemorrhage from ruptured HCC. The initial therapeutic response of HCC to TABE is similar to that to DEB-TACE; however, TABE is associated with lower hepatotoxicity and fewer adverse effects, which paves the way for subsequent treatments and systemic therapies.

Integration of intriguing ferroelectric κ-Ga2O3 on other oxide semiconductors opens an exciting avenue to invoke emergent transport phenomena and enable rational design of advanced device architect...

BACKGROUND: Thoracoscopic resection of small pulmonary nodules (SPNs) is challenging. Accurate preoperative computed tomography-guided localization of SPNs is key to successful rection. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the clinical value of a novel localization needle and methylene blue staining combined with surgical glue (MBSG) and to explore the risk factors for post-localization complications. METHODS: This prospective, non-randomized controlled study was conducted on 110 patients who received either MBSG or novel needle localization prior to video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) from January 2019 to December 2019 at Shenzhen People’s Hospital. The primary endpoints were the safety and the success rates of the 2 localization techniques. The secondary endpoints were operative time and feasibility. RESULTS: The 110 patients were categorized into 2 groups: the MBSG group (n=84) and the pulmonary nodule localization needle group (n=26). The success rate of pre-VATS localization was 100% in both groups. No deaths or serious complications occurred during localization. The rates of pneumothorax, pulmonary hemorrhage, and localization-induced cough were 38.1%, 25%, and 7.14%, respectively, in the MBSG group, and 26.92%, 19.23%, and 0%, respectively, in the pulmonary nodule localization needle group. Differences between the 2 groups were not statistically significant (P>0.05). Total complication rate and the incidence of pain were significantly lower in the pulmonary nodule localization needle group (χ(2)=4.441 and 4.295, respectively; P0.05). Dye diffusion occurred in 2 patients in the MBSG group; however, it had no impact on VATS or on the pathological analysis. Neither displacement nor dislocation was observed in the pulmonary nodule localization needle group. Logistic regression analysis showed that the localization technique was an independent risk factor for total complications (odds ratio: 2.634, 95% confidence interval: 1.022–6.789, P

The use of radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology in supply chain has been a fairly mature application in recent years, which can be extended to the field of carrier management for the inventory and access control of sensitive files and mobile storage medium. To address the inherent defects of false readings of RFID, we present RF-AMOC, a tag movement identification system that leverages the signal variation patterns between the opposite antennas and the tag to accurately determine whether someone takes the sensitive carrier out of the room or just the normal carrier usage activity in the room. Particularly, we focus on two kinds of signal variation modes: Direct side models, where the RSSI is sensed by one antenna on the tag side, and obstruction side models, where the RSSI is sensed by the other antenna that was obstructed by the person. Then, Pearson Coefficient and crest comparison algorithms are adopted to match the theoretical and actual RF-signal curves on the two sides, respectively. Additionally, a starting point acquisition method is proposed to extract the meaningful time period. A prototype of RF-AMOC is realized in two different environments with various persons, and the results validate that it is superior in terms of sensitivity and specificity with strong robustness.

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) is an emerging infectious disease with high mortality (12%–30%). The mechanism by which the SFTS bunyavirus (SFTSV) causes severe illness remains unclear. To evaluate the phenotypic and functional characteristics of the NK cell subsets in SFTS patients, twenty-nine SFTS patients were sequentially sampled from admission until recovery. Phenotypic and functional characteristics of NK cell subsets in circulating blood were analysed via flow cytometry. Then, correlations between NK cell subset frequencies and the SFTS index (SFTSI) were evaluated in all SFTS patients (15 mild, 14 severe) upon admission. The frequencies of CD56dimCD16+ NK cells were greatly decreased in early SFTSV infection and were negatively correlated with disease severity. Additionally, higher Ki-67 and granzyme B expression and relatively lower NKG2A expression in CD56dimCD16+ NK cells were observed in acute infection. Moreover, the effector function of CD56dim NK cells was increased in the acute phase compared with the recovery phase in nine severe SFTS patients. Additionally, interleukin (IL)-15, interferon (IFN)-α, IL-18 and IFN-γ secretion was markedly increased during early infection. Collectively, despite depletion of CD56dimCD16+ NK cells, activation and functional enhancement of CD56dimCD16+ NK cells were still observed, suggesting their involvement in defence against early SFTSV infection.

The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) data acquisition rate used for monitoring is so high that the RFID data stream contains a large amount of redundant data, which increases the system overhead. To balance the accuracy and real-time performance of monitoring, it is necessary to filter out redundant RFID data. We propose an algorithm called Time-Distance Bloom Filter (TDBF) that takes into account the read time and read distance of RFID tags, which greatly reduces data redundancy. In addition, we have proposed a measurement of the filter performance evaluation indicators. In experiments, we found that the performance score of the TDBF algorithm was 5.2, while the Time Bloom Filter (TBF) score was only 0.03, which indicates that the TDBF algorithm can achieve a lower false negative rate, lower false positive rate, and higher data compression rate. Furthermore, in a dynamic scenario, the TDBF algorithm can filter out valid data according to the actual scenario requirements.

Most of the currently developed Ga2O3-based solar blind photodetectors exhibit unexpected high persistent photoconductive gain at the expense of low response speed, and thus, the suppression of carrier trapping remains challenging. In this work, we demonstrated amorphous gallium oxynitride (GaON) based ultraviolet photodetectors with tunable spectral response and enhanced response speed by in-situ anion engineering with reactive sputtering technique. The tunable spectral response from 4.95 to 4.37 eV is a result of bandgap narrowing effect, attributed to the elevation of the valence band maximum (VBM) by the hybridization of N 2p and O 2p states and the enhanced p-d repulsion. The constructed GaON PDs with a proper nitrogen composition exhibit remarkably reduced dark current and a fast response time of about 100 µs. Oxygen vacancies are deactivated by the lift-up of VBM so that slow carrier detrapping processes are suppressed, resulting in the reduced persistent photoconductivity and improved response spe...

This study aimed to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of CT-guided percutaneous cryoablation for treatment of painful osteolytic bone metastases. A total of 26 patients (36 bone metastases) treated with CT-guided percutaneous cryoablation between May 2012 and June 2016 were enrolled in this retrospective study. All procedures were performed under local anesthesia. A visual analog scale (VAS) was used to evaluate pain before the procedure and at 1 day, 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months after the procedure. Complications during and after the procedure were recorded and graded by the Clavien-Dindo classification. The mean VAS pain score was 7.1 ± 1.1 (range, 4-10) before cryoablation. It was significantly lower at all timepoints after treatment: 2.1 ± 1.7 (P 0.0001) at 1 day after treatment, 1.3 ± 1.8 (P 0.0001) at 1 month, 1.6 ± 1.7 (P 0.0001) at 3 months, and 1.8 ± 1.3 (P 0.0001) at 6 months. The response rates were 91.7%, 94.4%, 91.7%, and 94.4%, respectively, at 1 day, 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months after cryoablation; the complete response rates were 22.2%, 41.7%, 36.1%, and 22.2%, respectively. Adverse events (skin frostbite, nerve injury, pathologic fracture) occurred in 3 patients. CT-guided percutaneous cryoablation under local anesthesia appears to be a safe and effective treatment for painful osteolytic bone metastases. Prospective clinical trials on large samples needed to confirm this conclusion.

Background: Kikuchi-Fujimoto disease (KFD), also named Histiocytic necrotizing lymphadenitis (HNL), is a rare and self-limited necrotizing lymphadenitis, most commonly affects young Asian female. KFD is characterized by lymphadenopathy, cytopenia, fever, rashes, and weight loss, however, hemophagocytic syndrome and pleural effusion are rarely reported. Case Presentation: We present the case of a 61-year-old man with clinical features including fever, lymphadenopathy, purpura, arthralgia, pleural effusion and pulmonary infection. He had cervical lymphnodebiopsy and the pathology is consistent with KFD, laboratory tests and clinical manifestations were consistent with hemophagocytic syndrome (HLH). After initial treatment including corticosteroid and anti-infection drugs, the patient showed improvement but soon deteriorated. Conclusion: KFD is a self-limited disease with spontaneous resolution. However, the cases of KFD with HLH may have a fatal course. Early appropriate intensive immunosuppressive therapy and strong anti-infection therapy could be beneficial for the treatment outcome.

This paper focuses on the influences of minimum quality standards (MQS) on entry decisions for two firms located in different countries. More precisely, when each firm sells its product only in its domestic market, there is no restriction on its product’s quality. However, when choosing to enter its foreign market, the quality is required to be no less than a specified MQS. A multi-stage game is established to examine the effects of such MQS on firms’ strategic choices of entry into their respective foreign markets. It shows that strategic choices cause the emergence of heterogeneous equilibria in which both firms make different entry decisions and thus produce products with distinct qualities provided that the MQS lies in an intermediate range. If the MQS is relatively low, both firms are willing to enter their respective foreign markets so that they coexist in each market. A relatively high MQS induces each firm to stay only in its domestic market. Furthermore, firms never have more incentive to open a new foreign market compared to the socially efficient configuration. Compared to strong competition, weak competition causes that the equilibrium behavior privately by firms is too far from the allocation that is efficient for society.

© 2019 World Scientific Publishing Company. Cutting the overcapacity in coal industry is a current critical issue in China and is a matter for the world. However, inappropriate capacity cut policies may induce huge fluctuations of energy price, creating a threat to energy security and even economic stability. This paper designs a capacity permit trading scheme to minimize the compliance cost of production capacity cut, and proposes the operational details of capacity permit trading scheme using China's coal industry as an example. We also construct a simple partial equilibrium model to examine the benefits and firm behaviors when adopting the permit trading scheme. The results demonstrate that the permit trading scheme will generate an overall positive social welfare as well as reduce firms' cheating incentives. The results confirm that the more heterogeneous the firms are in terms of compliance costs, the higher will be the social welfare gains and the trade volume. Our findings show that the proposed permit trading scheme is feasible and beneficial in achieving the capacity cut target in China.

Background/Aims Microvascular invasion (MVI) is an established risk factor for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, prediction models that specifically focus on the individual prognoses of HCC patients with MVI is lacking. Methods A total of 385 HCC patients with MVI were randomly assigned to training and validation cohorts in a 2:1 ratio. The outcomes were disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). Prognostic nomograms were established based on the results of multivariate analyses. The concordance index (C-index), calibration plots and Kaplan-Meier curves were employed to evaluate the accuracy, calibration and discriminatory ability of the models. Results The independent risk factors for both DFS and OS included age, tumor size, tumor number, the presence of gross vascular invasion, and the presence of Glisson’s capsule invasion. The platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio was another risk factor for OS. On the basis of these predictors, two nomograms for DFS and OS were constructed. The C-index values of the nomograms for DFS and OS were 0.712 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.679 to 0.745; p

A previous study reported that histone methyltransferase SETD3 is up-regulated in tumor tissues of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and is associated with the growth of HCC. However, the clinical significance and the effect of SETD3 on HCC metastasis remain unclear. In the present study, both the protein and mRNA expression levels of SETD3 were measured in a larger cohort of HCC patients. The results showed that the protein level of SETD3 in HCC tissues was significantly higher than that in non-tumorous tissues, which was inconsistent with the mRNA expression level of SETD3. The high protein level of SETD3 in HCC tissues was significantly associated with male gender, poor pathological differentiation, liver cirrhosis and unfavorable prognosis of HCC patients. Subsequently, we demonstrated that SETD3 could be regulated at post-transcriptional step by a couple of miRNAs (miR-16, miR-195 and miR-497). Additionally, in vitro and in vivo experiments revealed that SETD3 played opposing roles in proliferation and metastasis of HCC: promoting proliferation but inhibiting metastasis. Mechanistic experiments revealed that doublecortin-like kinase 1 (DCLK1) was a downstream target of SETD3. SETD3 could increase the DNA methylation level of DCLK1 promoter to inhibit the transcription of DCLK1. Further study revealed that DCLK1/PI3K/matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) 2 (MMP-2) was an important pathway that mediated the effect of SETD3 on HCC metastasis. In conclusion, the present study revealed that SETD3 is associated with tumorigenesis and is a promising biomarker for predicting the prognosis of HCC patients after surgical resection. In addition, SETD3 plays inhibitory role in HCC metastasis partly through DCLK1/PI3K/MMP-2 pathway.

While the retirement of fossil fuel capacity is an inevitable consequence of the energy transition to carbon neutrality, policymakers face challenges in setting the pace in order that the energy transition policies do not significantly damage the economy. This paper designs a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model to examine the macroeconomic effects of coal capacity cut policy (CCP) shocks on the Chinese economy. The results show that: firstly, an energy policy shock can distort the transmission effect of coal supply and demand and other factors on coal prices. Secondly, the impact of different policy tools is significantly different on the macroeconomic system, in which the economic effect of advanced capacity replacement is the weakest. Thirdly, in the short term, no matter which policy tool is adopted, the CCP will inevitably lead to a reduction in social welfare levels. The study suggests that in the short term, the Chinese government can further release more replacement quotas of capacity with advanced production efficiency, and innovate other policy tools for coal industrial structural optimization and synergistic effects with environmental regulation. In addition, the results highlight the need for market mechanisms to further accelerate the energy transition over the long run.

This study aimed to assess the clinicopathological significance of serum levels and endometrium tissue expression of visfatin in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) patients. A total of 80 PCOS patients and 80 matching controls were included in this study. We analyzed the relationship between the expression of visfatin in endometrium and clinicopathological characteristics in PCOS patients. The correlation between the expression of visfatin and p-Akt, Akt, p-ERK1/2, and ERK1/2 in PCOS tissues was evaluated as well. Visfatin expression in PCOS endometrial tissues were significantly higher than those in controls (

Due to the dominance of coal in China’s energy mix, coal prices have always been a challenging part of pricing reform. The recent frequent government interventions raise the key research questions: what is the actual impact of price policies on coal price fluctuations, and how can forward-looking pricing policies be made. By proposing a novel classification of coal pricing policies and introducing an expectation and forward-looking coefficient, the paper examines the relationship between coal price fluctuations and pricing policies using the generalized method of moments (GMM) method. It shows that the lagging coal price and coal demand play a positive role in regulating coal prices, while coal supply and marketization have significantly negative effects on coal price fluctuations. The heterogeneous impacts of price policies are due to differences in market players’ expectations, policy instruments and the methods of policy release. In addition, China’s coal pricing policy portfolio from 2013 to 2016 exerted synergy effects on the restraint of coal price fluctuations. As the forward-looking coefficient was considerably low, the government's intervention behaviors were obviously biased towards ex post facto responses. The paper suggests short run and long run policies to advance marketization of coal prices amid the energy transition.

ObjectivesAccumulated evidence implies that night shift work may trigger liver dysfunction. Non-alcoholic fatty liver (NAFL) is suggested to be a necessary mediator in this process. This study aimed to examine the relationship between night shift work and elevated level of alanine transaminase (e-ALT) of workers and investigate the potential mediation effect of NAFL.MethodsThis study included all male workers from the baseline survey of a cohort of night shift workers. Information on demographics, lifestyle and lifetime working schedule was collected by face-to-face interview. Liver sonography was used to identify NAFL cases. Serum ALT level was detected by an automatic biochemical analyser. e-ALT was defined as ALT >40 U/L. Logistic regression models were used to evaluate ORs, and mediation analysis was employed to examine the mediation effect.ResultsAmong 4740 male workers, 39.5% were night shift workers. Night shift workers had an increased risk of e-ALT (OR, 1.19, 95% CI 1.00 to 1.42). With the increase in night shift years, the OR of e-ALT increased from 1.03 (95% CI 0.77 to 1.36) to 1.60 (95% CI 1.08 to 2.39) among workers without NAFL. A similar trend was not found among workers with NAFL. In addition, no significant mediation effect of NAFL in the association between night shift work and e-ALT was found.ConclusionsNight shift work is positively associated with abnormal liver function, in particular among workers without NAFL. Shift work involving circadian disruption is likely to exert a direct effect on liver dysfunction rather than rely on the mediation effect of NAFL.

Chronic benzene poisoning (CBP) is one of the most common chronic occupational poisoning which is associated with mitochondrial oxidative damage, and lead to increasing risk of respiratory diseases such as lung cancer. Cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) is one of the key enzymes that plays an important role in oxidative damage regulation by eliminating reactive oxygen species (ROS). This study investigated the relationship between COI gene variants and the risk of CBP.We investigated 44 non-smoking patients who were diagnosed with CBP and 57 unexposed non-smoking controls between the ages of 23 and 60 with their background including work experience, lifestyle and medical records. Peripheral blood (2 mL) was collected in EDTA tube and the platelet was purified from the collected blood. Variants of COI were analyzed by PCR and sequencing. Multivariable linear regression analysis was used to assess the association between CBP exposure and variants.The frequency of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) T6392C, G6962 variants were 10, 7 out of 44 CBP group patients, which was higher when compared to that of 4, 2 out of 57 in the control group, suggesting these variants could be the risk factor for CBP [odds ratio (OR) 3.897, 95% CI: 1.131-13.425, P=0.023; OR 5.203, 95% CI: 1.024-26.442, P=0.034]. There was a significant difference (P0.05) of COI variants, including T6392C and G6962A, in platelet mtDNA between patients and control samples. Meanwhile, the frequency of the mtDNA C7196A variant were 13 out of 44 control group, which was higher when compared to that of 2 of 57 in the CBP group patients, suggesting this variant could be the protective factor for CBP (OR 6.205, 95% CI: 1.320-29.162, P=0.010).Our study suggests that T6392C, G6962A and C7196A from platelet mtDNA variants play a significant role in the etiology of CBP and facilitate the development of molecular biomarker on CBP diagnosis.

Background: To evaluate the effects of body weight loss on pregnancy and livebirth outcomes in young women with early-stage endometrial cancer (EC) and atypical hyperplasia (AH) with fertility-sparing therapy. Thus, improve the management of this patient group.Method: Patients with AH (n=36) and well-differentiated EC (n=8, FIGO stage IA) who achieved complete regression after conservative treatment were included in this retrospective study. A weight loss group (n=25) and a non-weight loss group (n=19) were divided; while subgroup analysis according to body mass index and stratification analysis according to weight loss proportion were performed to investigate the effect of weight loss on pregnancy and livebirth outcomes. A univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis were undertaken to analysis the factors associated with pregnancy.Results: The mean body weight and body mass index at pretreatment of progestin and initiation of fertility treatment was 70.63±12.03 and 67.08±8.18 kg, respectively, and 27.06±4.44 and 25.73±3.15 kg/m2, respectively. 25 patients (56.82%) had weight loss; the median weight loss amount is 5.00kg (1.00-34.50), median weigh loss proportion was 6.70% (1.00-36.00) during median time interval of 12months (5.00-97.00). An impressive favorable pregnancy rate (65.91%) and live birth rate (50.00%) were achieved. The pregnancy and livebirth rate were meaningfully higher in the weight loss group than the non-weight loss group (88.00% vs.36.84%,P=0.000; 64.00% vs.31.58%,P=0.033, respectively); weight loss≥5% significantly increased pregnancy and live birth rate in patients with BMI≥25. The risk ratios of weight loss≥5% in multivariate logistic analysis for pregnancy was 0.096(0.010, 0.907).Conclusions: Weight loss could have a positive effect on pregnancy rates and seem to be useful for improving live birth rates in overweight or obese women with early-stage endometrial cancer and atypical hyperplasia during/after fertility-sparing therapy. weight loss≥5% was protective factors of pregnancy in fertility-sparing patients with early-stage endometrial cancer and atypical hyperplasia.

Background: Maternal near miss (MNM) is one of the most vital health indicators reflecting the quality of obstetric care. The aim of this study was to explore the causes and change patterns in the maternal near miss ratio (MNMR) during the era of the two-child policy in Jiangsu Province, China. Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study of 247,261 women who were pregnant in 11 hospitals in Jiangsu Province between January 2012 and December 2018 was conducted. The study period was divided into 3 stages: baseline, from January 2012 to June 2014; stage 1, from July 2014 (time of selective two-child policy begins to take effect) to June 2016; and stage 2, from July 2016 (time of universal two-child policy begins to take effect) to December 2018. Findings: Over seven years, a total of 883 mothers were identified as maternal near miss (MNM), yielding an overall MNMR of 3·70/1000 live births (LBs) (95% CI, 3·52-4·01). The MNMR slightly fluctuated around a mean of 2·75/1000 LBs at baseline and stage 1, and leveled at an additional 2·67/1000 LBs (95% CI 1·08-4·25, P = 0·001) at stage 2. We further investigated what conventional factors were the main determinants of the increase in the MNMR. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to identify the MNM-related risk factors: advanced maternal age (OR=1·55 and 1·82 for aged 30~35 and aged ≥35), multipara (OR=1·24), cesarean section (OR=3·22), abortion (OR=4·42), no antenatal visits (OR=1·99) and multiple births (OR=7·05). Among the identified MNM-related risk factors, the monthly percentage of multiparity pregnancy, advanced maternal age (≥35) and multiple births accumulated over time were positively related to the increasing monthly MNMR (r=0·54, 0·61, 0·31, respectively). We further evaluated that the accumulation of multiparas and mothers with advanced maternal age accounted for 71·75% of the increase in the MNMR. We then revealed that haemorrhagic disorder was the leading cause of MNM (n = 613, 69·42%). The heamorrhage-caused MNMR increased over seven years (Ptrend < 0·001), and the accumulation of multiparas and mothers with advanced maternal age were also main determinants of the increase (75·62%). Interpretation: Overall, the MNMR considerably increased from 2012 to 2018, which was largely driven by the increase of multiparas and advanced age. More attention needs to be paid to the health of mothers with advanced age and multiple pregnancies, including improving the referral system for pregnant women and raising the quality and standard of obstetric care. Funding Statement: This work was supported by grants from the National Key Research and Development Program of China, the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province, the State Key Program of National Natural Science of China, the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the China Medical Board, WHO, UNICEF, and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation. Declaration of Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Ethics Approval Statement: The study was approved by the ethics committee of the West China Second University Hospital (protocol ID, 2012008). Informed consent was obtained for each participant.

In the 21st century, global environmental changes and rapid changes in social structures have led to a variety of social issues. To solve these global issues, new mechanisms need to be created. In the creation of new value, a lot of attention is being paid to design. This is evident from the fact that many workshops are conducted using the ‘design process ‘. The design process is the process of finding a solution to a problem or issue that has arisen, using a design approach and method of 5 stages: (1) understanding, (2) problem identification, (3) idea development, (4) testing (prototype production), and (5) proposal presentation. Due to the widespread of the new coronavirus that has threatened people around the world, online workshops have become very common. In addition, digital communication tools such as Zoom and Miro have been widely used for online workshops. Face-to-face workshops and online workshops have very different communication methods. For the online workshop, digital tools can create communication barriers that can affect the output of the workshop. Even though there are a lot of online workshops based on the design process, conducted in various location, there has been no research focusing on communication methods. The purpose of this study is to propose a method of communication for online participatory workshops that use the design process. The differences in communication methods between face-to-face and online participatory workshops are studied to identify factors that inhibit communication in online workshops that could not occur in face-to-face workshops, and the differences in output and quality are also clarified. This study is based on the SMRC model proposed by David Berlo, and this study was conducted using a quantitative and qualitative approach. The object of the study was the participants of the face-to-face workshops from 2012 to 2019 and online workshops in 2020. Video recording of the participants in the workshops and questionnaires for participants were conducted. The response of the participants in terms of their body language and conversation and the quality of prototypes were noted for each stage in the design process. Then the data was organized to identify the communication issues faced in the online workshops and the difference in the output and its quality. This study is a proposal for design workshop instructors. Based on the findings, a new communication method is proposed to solve the problems identified. The proposed communication method enable online participatory workshops with diverse participants to be conducted with increased chances of success from a communicative perspective. Thus, enabling the workshop organizers who focus on elements of the workshop that are more critical for the qualitative outcome of these. In the dawn of massive vaccination programs currently under implementation, the world will eventually regain some semblance of similarity analogous to a pre-pandemic condition. However, even with a ‘solution’ at hand, online activities, including workshops, are mostly expected to increase and diversify, the significance of this research is a direct contribution to this new era.

Various pharmacological agents and protective methods have been shown to reverse pneumoperitoneum-related lung injury, but identifying the best strategy is challenging. Herein, we employed lung tissues and blood samples from C57BL/6 mice with pneumoperitoneum-induced lung injury and blood samples from patients who received laparoscopic gynecological surgery to investigate the therapeutic role of hydromorphone in pneumoperitoneum-induced lung injury along with the underlying mechanism. We found that pretreatment with hydromorphone alleviated lung injury in mice that underwent CO2 insufflation, decreased the levels of myeloperoxidase (MPO), total oxidant status (TOS), and oxidative stress index (OSI), and increased total antioxidant status (TAS). In addition, after pretreatment with hydromorphone, upregulated HO-1 protein expression, reduced mitochondrial DNA content, and improved mitochondrial morphology and dynamics were observed in mice subjected to pneumoperitoneum. Immunohistochemical staining also verified that hydromorphone could increase the expression of HO-1 in lung tissues in mice subjected to CO2 pneumoperitoneum. Notably, in mice treated with HO-1-siRNA, the protective effects of hydromorphone against pneumoperitoneum-induced lung injury were abolished, and hydromorphone did not have additional protective effects on mitochondria. Additionally, in clinical patients who received laparoscopic gynecological surgery, pretreatment with hydromorphone resulted in lower serum levels of club cell secretory protein-16 (CC-16) and intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1), a lower prooxidant-antioxidant balance (PAB), and higher heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) activity than morphine pretreatment. Collectively, our results suggest that hydromorphone protects against CO2 pneumoperitoneum-induced lung injury via HO-1-regulated mitochondrial dynamics and may be a promising strategy to treat CO2 pneumoperitoneum-induced lung injury.

Nowadays, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has become one of the most deployed Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. The security threats it facing are gaining more and more attention. In this paper, we focus on the intrusion based on unauthorized (malicious) readers by catching the information of tags and modifying the tags via a standard protocol. We design URTracker to realize the detection and localization of unauthorized readers. This system has two parts: For detection, we analyze the features of reader interference and the RFID signal channel model and propose a throughput-based method. For localization, we use the relationship between throughput and the position as fingerprints, model the localization process into a Markov Decision Process (MDP) for training via deep reinforcement learning (DRL). Experiment results show that URTracker can achieve high accuracy to detect unauthorized readers and low location error for tracking the trajectories.

Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) has become a widely used technology that can accurately detect individual pathogens. This prospective study was performed between February 2019 and September 2019 in one of the largest clinical neurosurgery centers in China. The study aimed to evaluate the performance of mNGS on cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) from neurosurgical patients for the diagnosis of external ventricular and lumbar drainage (EVD/LD)-associated ventriculitis and meningitis (VM). We collected CSF specimens from neurosurgical patients with EVD/LD for more than 24 h to perform conventional microbiological studies and mNGS analyses in a pairwise manner. We also investigated the usefulness of mNGS of CSF for the diagnosis of EVD/LD-associated VM. In total, 102 patients were enrolled in this study and divided into three groups, including confirmed VM (cVM) (39), suspected VM (sVM) (49), and non-VM (nVM) (14) groups. Of all the patients, mNGS detected 21 Gram-positive bacteria, 20 Gram-negative bacteria, and five fungi. The three primary bacteria detected were Staphylococcus epidermidis (9), Acinetobacter baumannii (5), and Staphylococcus aureus (3). The mNGS-positive coincidence rate of confirmed EVD/LD-associated VM was 61.54% (24/39), and the negative coincidence rate of the nVM group was 100% (14/14). Of 15 VM pathogens not identified by mNGS in the cVM group, eight were negative with mNGS and seven were inconsistent with the conventional microbiological identification results. In addition, mNGS identified pathogens in 22 cases that were negative using conventional methods; of them, 10 patients received a favorable clinical treatment; thus, showing the benefit of mNGS-guided therapy.

Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) is a serious complication of ovarian stimulation. Herein, we report a rare case of strangulated internal hernia in a woman with severe OHSS following ovulation induction. A delay in the diagnosis and management of acute abdominal pain can lead to serious problems. The aim of this case report was to highlight the diagnostic difficulties of abdominal pain in women with OHSS, and emphasize the positive effects of imaging and a timely differential diagnosis in clinical practice.

Background Trichloroethylene (TCE) hypersensitivity syndrome (THS) is a dose-independent and potentially life-threatening disease. In this study, we sought to identify THS-related miRNAs and evaluate its potential clinical value. Methods Serum samples of five patients and five matched TCE contacts were used for screening differential miRNAs. Another 34 patients and 34 matched TCE contacts were used for verifying significantly differential miRNAs with SYBR™ Green PCR and MGB PCR. The diagnostic model based on these miRNAs was established via the support vector machine (SVM) algorithm. Correlation between differential miRNAs and liver function was analyzed via the Spearman correlation test. Results A total of 69 miRNAs was found to be differentially expressed. MiR-21-5p and miR-339-5p were verified to have significant higher expressions in patients. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of disease model were 100, 75 and 86%, respectively. The two miRNAs showed significant correlations with liver function. Conclusion These findings suggested that miRNAs profiles in serum of THS patients had changed significantly, and miR-21-5p and miR-339-5p were associated with THS.

Thecoronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) pandemic caused by thesevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2) affects millions of people and killed hundred-thousands of individuals. While acute and intermediate interactions between SARS-CoV-2 and the immune system have been studied extensively, long-term impacts on the cellular immune system remained to be analyzed. Here, we comprehensively characterized immunological changes in peripheral blood mononuclear cells in 49 COVID-19 convalescent individuals (CI) in comparison to 27 matched SARS-CoV-2 unexposed individuals (UI). Despite recovery from the disease for more than 2 months, CI showed significant decreases in frequencies of invariant NKT and NKT-like cells compared to UI. Concomitant with the decrease in NKT-like cells, an increase in the percentage of Annexin V and 7-AAD double positive NKT-like cells was detected, suggesting that the reduction in NKT-like cells results from cell death months after recovery. Significant increases in regulatory T cell frequencies, TIM-3 expression on CD4 and CD8 T cells, as well as PD-L1 expression on B cells were also observed in CI, while the cytotoxic potential of T cells and NKT-like cells, defined by GzmB expression, was significantly diminished. However, both CD4 and CD8 T cells of CI showed increased Ki67 expression and were fully capable to proliferate and produce effector cytokines upon TCR stimulation. Collectively, we provide the first comprehensive characterization of immune signatures in patients recovering from SARS-CoV-2 infection, suggesting that the cellular immune system of COVID-19 patients is still under a sustained influence even months after the recovery from disease.

Human activity recognition has a wide range of applications, especially for the care of elderly people living alone and the monitoring of abnormal behaviors of key personnel. Although conventional video surveillance technology has made many research advances in this field, this technology destroys people’s privacy. Activity recognition technology based on RFID avoids damage to people’s privacy, and is being widely studied and applied. This paper uses RFID Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) to identify and classify human behaviors. Predecessors employed CNN and LSTM for human activity identification, but there were still some shortcomings: 1) The 2D convolution loses the temporal information of continuous actions and reduces the classification accuracy. 2) LSTM network has a series of training difficulties. 3) No available public dataset for the current mission.To solve these problems, this paper proposes a convolutional neural network called temporal spatial convolutional neural network (TSCNN). Taking the continuous frame sequence as input, the network is designed using 3D convolution to realize realtime activities recognition. The average classification accuracy of our network is 94.6%, 15.6% higher than the state-of-the- art ——Tagfree. Our lowest accuracy is 81.8%, and Tagfree is 35.4%. Besides, the ablation experiment proves the necessity of the design in the TSCNN network. Furthermore, we collect more than 60000 RFID signal data and transform them into corresponding pixel maps to form a new dataset. We present and expose the dataset called RF-men.

Highlights • Pediatric healthcare workers are at risk for SARS-CoV-2 transmission from children and aerosols increase SARS-CoV-2 infection rate. • ELISA and dual-target fluorescence accurately detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies indicated that antibody detection should be considered as an auxiliary diagnosis of COVID-19. • Antibody positive subjects tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies and SARS-CoV-2 antibodies diminish to near undetectable levels within two months.

Background: The outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is threatening a surging number of populations worldwide, including women in breastfeeding period. Limited evidence is available concerning breastfeeding in women with COVID-19. Methods: Twenty-three pregnant women and puerperae were enrolled in the study. To evaluate the effect of breastfeeding on SARS-CoV-2 transmission, the presence of SARS-CoV-2, IgG and IgM in breast milk, maternal blood and infant blood were assessed. Feeding patterns were also recorded in follow-up. Results: No positive detection for SARS-CoV-2 of neonates was found. All breast milk samples were negative for the detection of SARS-CoV-2. The presence of IgM ofSARS-CoV-2 in breast milk was correlated with maternal blood. The results of IgG detection for SARS-CoV-2 were negative in all breast milk samples. All the infants were in healthy condition while six of them were fed with whole or partial breast milk. Eight infants received antibody test for SARS-CoV-2 in one month after birth and the results were all negative. Conclusion: Findings from this small number of cases suggest that there is currently no evidence for mother-to-child transmission via breast feeding in women with COVID-19 in the third trimester and puerperium.

Effects of post annealing on the physical and electrical properties of solar-blind polycrystalline gallium oxide (Ga2O3) ultraviolet photodetectors on the sapphire substrate are investigated. The grain size of poly-Ga2O3 becomes larger with the post annealing temperature (PAT) increasing from 800 °C to 1000 °C, but it gets smaller with further raising PAT to 1100 °C. A blue shift is observed at the absorption edge of the transmittance spectra of Ga2O3 on sapphire as increasing PAT, due to the incorporation of Al from the sapphire substrate into Ga2O3 to form (AlxGa1–x)2O3. The high-resolution X-ray diffraction and transmittance spectra measurement indicate that the substitutional Al composition and bandgap of (AlxGa1–x)2O3 annealed at 1100 °C can be above 0.30 and 5.10 eV, respectively. The Rmax of the sample annealed at 1000 °C increases about 500% compared to the as-deposited device, and the sample annealed at 1000 °C has short rise time and decay time of 0.148 s and 0.067 s, respectively. This work may pave a way for the fabrication of poly-Ga2O3 ultraviolet photodetector and find a method to improve responsivity and speed of response.

With the rapid development of the internet of things, radio frequency identification (RFID) technology plays an important role in various fields. However, RFID systems are vulnerable to cloning attacks. This is the fabrication of one or more replicas of a genuine tag, which behave exactly as a genuine tag and fool the reader to gain legal authorization, leading to potential financial loss or reputation damage. Many advanced solutions have been proposed to combat cloning attacks, but they require extra hardware resources, or they cannot detect a clone tag in time. In this article, we make a fresh attempt to counterattack tag cloning based on spatiotemporal collisions. We propose adaptable clone detection (ACD), which can intuitively and accurately display the positions of abnormal tags in real time. It uses commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) RFID devices without extra hardware resources. We evaluate its performance in practice, and the results confirm its success at detecting cloning attacks. The average accuracy can reach 98.7%, and the recall rate can reach 96%. Extensive experiments show that it can adapt to a variety of RFID application scenarios.

Background Cancer‐associated myositis (CAM) has poor prognosis and causes higher mortality. In general, myositis‐specific autoantibodies (MSAs) and myositis‐associated autoantibodies (MAAs) have been shown to be useful biomarkers for its diagnosis. Methods In the present study, focus was given in assessing the presence, prevalence, and diagnostic values of myositis autoantibodies in Chinese patients diagnosed with CAM. The sera collected from 49 CAM patients, 108 dermatomyositis/polymyositis (DM/PM) patients without cancer, 105 disease controls, and 60 healthy controls were detected for the presence of 16 autoantigens (Jo‐1, OJ, EJ, PL‐7, PL‐12, MDA5, TIF1γ, Mi‐2α, Mi‐2β, SAE1, NXP2, SRP, Ku, PM‐Scl75, PM‐Scl100, and Ro‐52) using a commercial Euroline assay. Results The frequency of anti‐TIF1γ was significantly higher in CAM patients than in DM/PM patients without cancer (46.9% vs 14.8%, P

Passive human detection and localization is the basis for a broad range of intelligent scenarios including unmanned supermarket, health monitoring, etc. Existing computer vision or wearable sensor based methods though can obtain high precision, they still face some inherent defects, such as privacy issues, battery power limitations. Based on the human movement induced backscattered signal changes, we propose a device-free human detection and localization system on radio-frequency identification (RFID) devices. The system extracts environment-independent features from both RSSI and phase for dynamic monitoring in the first stage, then the target is further located if the moving human is detected. In particular, an overcomplete dictionary is learned when creating the fingerprint library, which helps to make the representation of the location more compact and computationally simple. Moreover, PCA based dimensionality reduction method is then adopted to acquire valid features to determine the final position. Extensive experiments conducted in real-life office and bedroom demonstrate that the proposed system provides high accuracy for human detection and achieves the average distance error of less than 1 m.

With the increasingly growing demand for indoor location-based services(LBS) in the field of wireless sensing, Wi-Fi have been the mainstream method in indoor localization for the reasons of easy deployment and the popularity of signal. Channel State Information (CSI) is extracted from the physical layer of WiFi network interface cards and includes more fine-grained signal characteristics than received signal strength index (RSSI) which is commonly used in the literature. In this paper, we propose CSI selective dictionary (CS-Dict), an accurate model-free indoor localization algorithm using only one access point simultaneously. CS-Dict mainly contains two parts: CSI feature enhancement and over-complete dictionary learning. In the feature enhancement, CSI features with high reliability are selected as the input for dictionary learning. In the over-complete dictionary learning, we utilize the regularized K-SVD to perform a dictionary representation of selective CSI features in each reference point. Finally, a similarity measurement between the real-time measured CSI and the learned dictionary is performed to find the best match for position estimation. An extensive experiment is deployed in two typical indoor environments, the results show that the mean error are 0.12 m and 0.23 m respectively.

Background Papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) is the most common epithelial thyroid tumor, accounting for more than 80% of all thyroid cancers. Though the fine needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) represents as the golden standard for the diagnostics of thyroid nodules, there is a ∼25% risk of indeterminate cytological features. TMPRSS4 is a newly found transmembrane serine protease which was overexpressed in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). Aims The aim of this study was to determine its potential as a diagnostic marker to improve the diagnostic accuracy of thyroid cancer. Methods We used pyrosequencing and quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCT) approaches to examine BRAFV600E mutation and TMPRSS4 mRNA level in FNAB specimens of thyroid nodules. The detection and analysis were respectively applied to training group with 91, and test group with 88 samples. Results We demonstrated that PTC patients had an increased TMPRSS4 mRNA level as compared with benign subjects. The diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of TMPRSS4 were 93.33, 100, and 96.70%, respectively. Notably, compared with BRAFV600E mutation testing alone, combining with TMPRSS4 mRNA level significantly increased the diagnostic sensitivity and accuracy. Conclusions Our findings indicated BRAFV600E mutation combination with TMPRSS4 mRNA analysis can dramatically improve the sensitivity and accuracy of preoperative diagnosis of thyroid nodules.

Background & Aims Recently, the variant rs72613567:TA in the 17‐beta‐hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 13 (HSD17B13) has been associated with reduced levels of ALT and AST and a reduced risk of alcohol‐related liver disease (ALD) in the European population. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the association between the polymorphisms of HSD17B13 and ALD, liver serum markers and patatin‐like phospholipase domain‐containing protein 3 (PNPLA3) p.I148M in the Chinese Han population. Methods A case‐control study was performed from five centres and included 769 ALD patients and 767 healthy controls. Two SNPs (rs72613567 and rs6834314) in HSD17B13 were genotyped using the Sequenom MassArray system and allele association analysis was performed using PLINK 1.90 software. Results HSD17B13 rs72613567:TA allele was associated with a reduced risk of ALD by 19% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.05‐0.31, P = .01), uniformly, the G allele in the rs6834314 reduced the risk of ALD by 19% (95% CI: 0.05‐0.31, P = 8.28 × 10−3). And the genotypes of two SNPs were associated with reducing the risk of ALD in three genetic model analysis. In addition, we found that TA allele was associated with lower levels of serum ALT, AST and GGT (P = .005, .007 and .02, respectively), higher level of serum ALB (P = .02), but not associated with ALP. In this cohort, the interaction between HSD17B13 rs72613567 and the steatogenic allele PNPLA3 rs738409 was not validated. Conclusion The present study revealed that HSD17B13 rs72613567 was significantly associated with a reduced risk of ALD in Chinese Han population.

This paper presents a multi-granularity Chinese word segmentation method based on semantic similarity for risk sources. Based on expert knowledge, a risk source root dictionary and a risk source extension dictionary were established, and the risk source extension dictionary was trained using the LDA model. Firstly, the sentence containing the root vocabulary was divided into two sentences using root dictionary. Two semantic segment Word next to the root vocabulary were combined into two new extension vocabulary, which were calculated semantic similarity by Latent Dirichlet Allocation model together with the root vocabulary. Finally, the word with the largest similarity was used as the extension risk word. Experiment show that the average success rate of our method reached 94.19%, and can be used for text segmentation of criminal cases.

In recent years, action recognition based on two-stream networks has developed rapidly. However, most existing methods describe incomplete and distorted video content due to cropped and warped frame or clip-level feature extraction. This paper proposed an approach based on deep learning that preserves the complete contextual relation of temporal human actions in videos. The proposed architecture follows the two-stream network with a novel 3D Convolutional Network (ConvNets) and pyramid pooling layer, to design an end-to-end behavioral feature learning method. The 3D ConvNets extract video-level, spatial-temporal features from two input streams, the RGB images and the corresponding optical flow. The multi-scale pyramid pooling layer fixed the generated feature maps into a unified size regardless of input video size. The final predictions are resulted from a fused softmax scores of two streams, and subject to the weighting factor of each stream. Our experimental results suggest spatial stream slightly higher than the temporal stream, and the performance of the trained model is conditionally optimized. The proposed method is experimented on two challenging video action datasets UCF101 and HMDB51, in which our method achieves the most advanced performance above 96.1% on UCF101 dataset.

Occupational cancer causes a large number of deaths every year, posing a great threat to public health in China and abroad. Occupational cancer surveillance can help to dynamically monitor and predict the trend of cancer occurrence and provide basic reference for the formulation of occupational cancer prevention and treatment measures. Occupational cancer surveillance started late in China relative to developed western countries, but formed its own characteristics through years of development of legislation and institutional reform, and large-scale epidemiological investigations and laboratory research. Occupational cancer surveillance is currently a part of cancer surveillance system of the National Cancer Center, as well as an integral part of occupational disease surveillance in China. It generally includes not only cancer incidence surveillance, but also cancer-related occupational risk factor surveillance, and surveillance of effects of occupational cancer prevention, treatment, and intervention. The methods of occupational cancer surveillance in China include passive monitoring, active monitoring, and sentinel monitoring. These methods have their respective advantages and disadvantages and would be best to be combined in practice. The rapid development of economy and technology, and continuous advancement of hospital informatization, especially the establishment and application of big data on occupational cancer, may point out directions for the development of occupational cancer surveillance in the future. Occupational cancer prevention and control in China still has a long way to go and the destination is to achieve primary prevention for occupational cancer.

As the regulation of coal capacity utilization (CU) is a vital step to implement the optimization of energy mix, this article intends to measure the coal CU during 1990–2014 to scientifically evaluate the resources allocation of China’s coal industry. Hicks-neutral and Solow-neutral models are established respectively to assess the coal capacity considering the technical progress, and the decoupling index is applied to analyze the effect of coal CU on China’s economic growth. The main results are as follows: (1) the Solow-neutral model is more suitable for evaluating CU compared to the Hicks-neutral. (2) China’s coal CU has a 10-year cyclical fluctuation with a reasonable range of 89%–105%, and the overcapacity cordon is 85%. (3) Most years in the study period saw the decoupling effect of the coal CU and China’s economic growth from the decoupling index and Johansen Cointegration test. (4) A predicted expansive or strong recoupling effect will occur in the following China’s 13th Five-Year Plan period. The government is expected to adopt more supportive measures to ensure the quality of supply-side reform and guide China’s coal CU back to a reasonable level.

Recently, flexible pressure sensors have attracted considerable interest in electronic skins, wearable devices, intelligent robots and biomedical diagnostics. However, the design of high sensitivity flexible pressure sensors often relies on expensive materials and complex process technology, which greatly limit their popularity and applications. Even worse, chemical-based sensors are poorly biocompatible and harmful to the environment. Here, we developed a flexible capacitive pressure sensor based on reduced graphene oxide cotton fiber by a simple and low-cost preparation process. The environmentally friendly sensor exhibited a comprehensive performance with not only ultra-high sensitivity (up to 15.84 kPa−1) and a broad sensing range (0–500 kPa), but also excellent repeatability (over 400 cycles), low hysteresis (⩽11.6%), low detection limit (−1, frequency from 100 Hz to 10 kHz). Based on its superior performance, the proposed sensor can detect various external stimuli (vertical stress, bending and airflow) and has been successfully applied for facial expression recognition, breathing detection, joint movement and walking detection, showing great potential for application in artificial electronic skin and wearable healthcare devices.

BiVO4 is regarded as a promising photoanode material because of its narrow band gap (∼ 2.4 eV). However, the poor bulk carrier transport capacity severely limits the actual performance of BiVO4 in photoelectrochemistry (PEC) water splitting. Here, we tried to synthesize two-dimensional (2D) morphology by adding structure-directing agents to hydrothermal solution and introduce oxygen vacancies by photoassisted self-reduction. In the scheme, the 2D morphology can shorten the carrier diffusion length and the construction of oxygen vacancies can increase the bulk carrier concentration. Through the combined effect of both, the inherent poor carrier transport capacity of BiVO4 has been improved, which has been proven by Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS), Intensity Modulated Photocurrent Spectroscopy (IMPS) and Mott-Schottky (M-S) plots. At 1.23 V vs. RHE, the photocurrent density increases from ∼1.60 mA/cm2 (2D BiVO4) to ∼2.30 mA/cm2 [2D BiVO4(Vox)], which is 8 times larger than that of bare BiVO4(0.3 mA/cm2). The incident photon-to-current efficiencies (IPCE) of 2D BiVO4(Vox) have reached the value of 46% (at 350 nm). The carrier separation efficiency (ƞsep) and carrier injection efficiency (ƞinj) have been improved up to 49% and 68%, respectively.

Transferable membranes were separated from the GaN epitaxial sheet with lift-off (LLO) technology. After the LLO process, the GaN membrane was removed onto various substrates, and then we can create different interfacial conditions, such as GaN attached with Si and GaN attached to Au. The substrate dependent photoluminescence (PL) properties of GaN membranes are studied by PL and time-resolution photoluminescence (TRPL) measurements in situ. Lasing oscillations are observed in the GaN membranes. The lasing features – which include the lasing spectra, Q factor, laser threshold, mode number, carrier dynamics and resonance mechanism – are systematically analyzed. We obtain, for GaN on a Si substrate, two series of ultraviolet lasing emissions with Fabry-Perot (F–P) mode at the same excitation position. Furthermore, lasing of the GaN membranes can be altered by Au film at the back end of it via the phenomenon of lasing mode merger and red shift. Comparing with the Si substrate, Au film on the back can balance the lasing oscillations through decreasing the threshold value, unifying the resonant modes, and increasing the carrier combination rate. This research provides a feasible method for the realization of flexible membrane lasers.

As one of the important measures for China's power system reform, the electricity bidding pricing (EBP) is helpful to realize the effective allocation of power resources. Based on price conduction theory and complex network modeling technology, we construct the price transmission network for the 76 economic sectors in China, identify the critical path of electricity price transmission, and empirically simulate and analyze the economic impact of EBP in different scenarios from the two aspects of whether the CEPL mechanism is implemented or not. The results indicate that the electricity price will be decreased directly by the EBP, and the electricity industry will significantly reduce the impact on other related industries. Particularly, affected by regulatory policies such as electricity price cap, the electricity price caused by EBP cannot be effectively transmitted to the upstream industries. Secondly, with the simultaneous implementation of the coal-electricity price linkage (CEPL) and the EBP, the coal-electricity price transmission will change from one-way conduction style to two-way interaction style, and the impact of electricity price fluctuations on its related industries will be more significant, while the comprehensive impact of the coal industry on its associated industries will be significantly reduced. Thirdly, there are obvious scenario differences in the impact of different intensity of EBP on the macro-economy. The results show that under the mechanism of CEPL, the EBP with 20% of the total power used for bidding pilot has minimal impact on the Chinese economy. Based on the above conclusions, we propose that China should scientifically determine the scale and the pilot regions of electricity bidding under the CEPL, develop more diversified bidding forms and improve more robust supervision system.

Clinical trials of olanzapine combined with fluoxetine (Olanzapine/Fluoxetine Combination, OFC) in the treatment of refractory depression have shown significant efficacy, but the drug-drug interaction (DDI) between them remains unclear. In this report, the pharmacokinetic interaction between olanzapine and fluoxetine was studied in wild-type (WT) and Mdr1a/b gene knockout (KO) rats. By analyzing the pharmacokinetics and tissue distribution of olanzapine in single dose and combination, the potential DDI mediated by P-gp was explored. The results showed that in WT rats, the combination of fluoxetine increased the peak concentration (Cmax, 44.1 ± 5.1 ng/mL in the combination group vs 9.0 ± 1.5 ng/mL in the monotherapy group) and the exposure (AUC0-t, 235.8 ± 22.7 h × ng/mL in the combination group vs 47.5 ± 8.4 h × ng/mL in monotherapy group) of olanzapine, and decreased the clearance (CL, 8119.0 ± 677.9 mL/h/kg in the combination group vs 49,469.0 ± 10,306.0 mL/h/kg in monotherapy group). At the same time, fluoxetine significantly increased the in vivo exposure of olanzapine in brain, liver, kidney and ileum of WT rats, indicating the occurrence of DDI. The same phenomenon was observed in Caco-2 cells in vitro as well. However, in KO rats, there was no significant difference in pharmacokinetic parameters between the monotherapy group and the combination group. In conclusion, P-gp plays an important role in the pharmacokinetic interaction between olanzapine and fluoxetine in rats. This study may provide a reference for the clinical safety of olanzapine combined with fluoxetine.

Background Transrenal DNA can potentially be useful in the disease management of colorectal cancer (CRC) and has potential diagnostic utility. Our study aimed to conduct preoperative and postoperative analysis of KRAS-positive patients, using transrenal DNA compared with plasma DNA. This is critically needed for disease diagnostics and treatment response monitoring. Methods CRC patients at different stages of the disease and with different molecular profiles were recruited for serial time-point analysis. Preoperative and postoperative urine specimens were extracted and compared with tumor tissues and plasma DNA. Results Our analysis demonstrated that transrenal DNA offered comparable sensitivity and specificity to plasma DNA analysis. Collection of transrenal DNA, being noninvasive, is an attractive assay and easily allows serial monitoring of the disease. Results from preoperative detection showed a close correlation to tumor tissue profiling and demonstrated close associations to the disease. We also observed significant decreases in mutant KRAS DNA concentration after surgery, which confirmed transrenal DNA's sensitivity to treatment response. Conclusions The use of transrenal DNA offers a possible alternative method of disease profiling, detection and tracking. Our study is one of the first to systematically analyze a relatively large number of different CRC patients using transrenal DNA. The positive correlation with disease demonstrates the assay's viability in the clinical setting, and our method further opens up the possibility to use transrenal DNA for clinical intervention investigations.

Spatially varying motion deblurring has recently witnessed substantial progress due to the development of deep neural network. However, most existing CNN-based methods involve two major shortcomings: (1) The CNN weights are space-sharing, and these methods thus ignore the properties of complex spatially variant blurs which vary from pixel to pixel in natural blurry images. (2) Stacked convolution layers with a large kernel or recurrent neural networks (RNNs) cannot capture the global contextual dependence of features, they thus cannot exploit the relationship between different blur pixels at a distance. To solve these problems, we propose a new dual attention per-pixel filter network (DAPFN). First, we develop a multiscale per-pixel filter network (MSPFN) to learn a specific deblurring mapping for different blur pixels, which predicts the per-pixel spatially adaptive convolution kernel for each blur pixel in the input blurry image of different scales and restores the clean pixel by performing channel-wise spatially adaptive convolution with the local neighborhood pixels. Second, we develop a dual attention enhanced residual network (DAERN) to capture the global contextual dependence of the blurry images, which introduces a dual attention (DA) module consisting of the spatial self-attention module (SSA) and channel self-attention module (CSA). The fusion of the two attention modules helps to further improve the deblurring performance. Third, we propose a new receptive field selection (RFS) block to learn the nonlinear characteristics of spatially variant blurs, which enables the adaptive fusing of the features with different receptive fields and effectively enhances the network nonlinear representation ability. The experimental results on GOPRO dataset indicate that the average PSNR and SSIM of the proposed method reached 31.8455 and 0.9231, respectively. The results of extensive experiments pertaining to spatially varying image deblurring demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art image deblurring methods.

With the rapid development of the internet of things (IoT), radio frequency identification (RFID) technology plays an important role in various fields. However, tags are vulnerable to cloning attacks because they are limited by size and production costs. A cloning attack fabricates one or more replicas of a genuine tag, which behave exactly the same as the genuine tag and can deceive the reader to obtain legitimate authorization, leading to potential economic loss or reputation damage. Many advanced solutions have been proposed to combat cloning attacks. Existing trajectory-based RFID clone detection methods use historical trajectories for model training. However, the environment of the RFID monitoring area is complex and diverse and changes in real time. The features trained based on historical trajectories cannot effectively adapt to the complex environment. In this article, we make a novel attempt to counterattack tag cloning based on real-time trajectories. We propose the clone attack detection approach (deClone), which can intuitively and accurately display the positions of abnormal tags in real time. It requires only commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) RFID devices, unlike methods based on radio frequency (RF) fingerprints and synchronization keys, which require additional hardware devices or software redesign. According to the experimental results, our scheme improves the detection precision by 16.71% compared with that of the existing trajectory-based detection methods.