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In harsh environments, Fe-based amorphous coatings can provide effective protection for equipment. A method of thickness measurement of thin layer and quality evaluation based on high-frequency water-immersion ultrasonic testing and imaging is proposed here. In this paper, because of the interface echoes of the micron-scale coating in the aliasing of ultrasonic testing signals, wavepacket decomposition and extraction technology proposed according to the matching pursuit theory is used to separate the interface echoes. After using the narrow pulse replacement method, the coating structure imaged is reconstructed. The decomposed interface echoes will not be mixed again, thus reflecting the coating thickness information more accurately. Consequently it can be used to evaluate the coating quality. Finally, the experimental results show that the coating structure image can be reconstructed after the high-frequency water-immersion ultrasonic scanning signals are processed with the above method. The relative error of the coating thickness detection is only 3.13% compared with the scanning electron microscope (SEM) results. At the same time, the coating spraying quality can be evaluated effectively through the imaged results.

Vitamin D as a prohormone is converted into the active form in vivo and binds to vitamin D receptors, exercising a wide range of biological functions. Recent studies strongly support that vitamin D supplementation is associated with reduced cancer risk and a good prognosis. Gastrointestinal cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. The key role of vitamin D in the development of gastrointestinal cancer has been observed. Moreover, Vitamin D can also affect innate immunity and perform anti-inflammation and anti-infection actions. Given the intimate relationship between cancer and inflammation, we herein summarize epidemiological and preclinical studies of vitamin D and the underlying mechanism of its action in inflammation, gastric and colorectal cancer by our group and other researchers. A beneficial effect of vitamin D in cancer and inflammatory disease has been supported by different studies. More controlled and larger clinical trials are needed before a reliable conclusion and realization of vitamin D supplementation in the adjunct treatment of gastrointestinal inflammation and cancer.

Pharmacokinetic variability in disease state is common in clinical practice, but its underlying mechanism remains unclear. Recently, gut microbiota has been considered to be pharmacokinetically equivalent to the host liver. Although some studies have explored the roles of gut microbiota and host Cyp450s in drug pharmacokinetics, few have explored their effects on pharmacokinetic variability, especially in disease states.In this study, we aim to investigate the effects of gut microbiota and host Cyp450s on pharmacokinetic variability in mice with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and to elucidate the contribution of gut microbiota and host Cyp450s to pharmacokinetic variability in this setting.The pharmacokinetic variability of mice with NASH was explored under intragastric and intravenous administrations of a cocktail mixture of omeprazole, phenacetin, midazolam, tolbutamide, chlorzoxazone, and metoprolol, after which the results were compared with those obtained from the control group. Thereafter, the pharmacokinetic variabilities of all drugs and their relations to the changes in gut microbiota and host Cyp450s were compared and analyzed.The exposures of all drugs, except metoprolol, significantly increased in the NASH group under intragastric administration. However, no significant increase in the exposure of all drugs, except tolbutamide, was observed in the NASH group under intravenous administration. The pharmacokinetic variabilities of phenacetin, midazolam, omeprazole, and chlorzoxazone were mainly associated with decreased elimination activity in the gut microbiota. By contrast, the pharmacokinetic variability of tolbutamide was mainly related to the change in the host Cyp2c65. Notably, gut microbiota and host Cyp450s exerted minimal effects on the pharmacokinetic variability of metoprolol.Gut microbiota and host Cyp450s co-contribute to the pharmacokinetic variability in mice with NASH, and the degree of contribution varies from drug to drug. The present findings provide new insights into the explanation of pharmacokinetic variability in disease states.

Ultrasonography of the breast mass is an important imaging technology for diagnosing breast cancer. In China, ultrasound equipment is widely used in medical institutions. Patients obtain a report with highlighted ultrasonography images through an initial clinical screening. However, analyzing these images manually is highly subjective for the variation in the clinical competence of doctors, resulting in poor consistency and low sensitivity. In this study, an automated breast cancer diagnosis system is developed to increase diagnostic accuracy. The system is deployed on mobile phones, takes a photo of the ultrasound report as input and performs diagnosis on each image. The developed system consists of three subsystems. The first subsystem is to reduce noise in the taken photos, reconstructing high-quality images. We develop the first subsystem based on the frameworks of stacked denoising autoencoders and generative adversarial networks. The second subsystem is to classify images into malignant and non-malignant; to extract high-level features from the images, deep convolutional neural networks are employed. The third subsystem is to detect anomalies in model performances, reducing false negative rates. Generative adversarial networks are utilized to distinguish false negative samples from true negative samples. 18225 breast ultrasonography images and 2416 ultrasound reports are collected to train and evaluate the system. Experimental results show that the performance of our system is comparable to that of human experts. It is believed that this is the first system for breast cancer diagnosis deployed on mobile phones. The developed system is integrated with a cloud computing platform and accessible online to aid in the initial screening and diagnosis of breast cancer, thereby promoting earlier treatment, reducing the morbidity and mortality.

Interatomic potentials based on neural-network machine learning method have attracted considerable attention in recent years owing to their outstanding ability to balance the accuracy and efficiency in atomistic simulations. In this work, a neural-network potential (NNP) for carbon is generated to simulate the structural properties of various carbon structures. The potential is trained using a database consisting of crystalline and liquid structures obtained by the first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The developed potential accurately predicts the energies and forces in crystalline and liquid carbon structures, the energetic stability of defected graphene, and the structures of amorphous carbon as the function of density. The excellent accuracy and transferability of the NNP provide a promising tool for accurate atomistic simulations of various carbon materials with faster speed and much lower cost.

Background: An early trend in the mean age of pubertal onset appears in adolescents, but the association between body fat percentage (BF%) of children and precocious puberty is unclear. The aim of ...

A rail disruption may lead to rapid degradation of the public transportation system. In response to rail disruptions, this study focuses on bus bridging service design considering a routing strategy that combines express and short-turn routes. An integrated optimization framework is proposed to jointly optimize the bus bridging routes and timetables under time-varying demand. A brute-force search method is developed to identify all candidate bus bridging routes. A mixed integer linear programming model is then formulated to solve the route selection, bus deployment, and bus timetabling problem simultaneously. To handle the arising computational challenges in solving this large-scale problem, a tabu search-based heuristic with LP rounding is developed. Numerical studies based on Cranbourne Line, Melbourne, demonstrates the applicability of the proposed approach in practice. The results indicate that the proposed framework can generate high-quality bus bridging solutions in a reasonable time, which allows quick response to rail line disruptions. The bus bridging strategy with multiple routes outperforms the standard bridging route in terms of bus line capacity and passenger travel time.

Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic syndrome which cannot be cured. Recently, considerable interest has been focused on food ingredients to prevent and intervene in complications of diabetes. Polyphenolic compounds are one of the bioactive phytochemical constituents with various biological activities, which have drawn increasing interest in human health. Fruits are part of the polyphenol sources in daily food consumption. Fruit-derived polyphenols possess the anti-diabetic activity that has already been proved either from in vitro studies or in vivo studies. The mechanisms of fruit polyphenols in treating diabetes and related complications are under discussion. This is a comprehensive review on polyphenols from the edible parts of fruits, including those from citrus, berries, apples, cherries, mangoes, mangosteens, pomegranates, and other fruits regarding their potential benefits in preventing and treating diabetes mellitus. The signal pathways of characteristic polyphenols derived from fruits in reducing high blood glucose and intervening hyperglycemia-induced diabetic complications were summarized.

The electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) represents a viable alternative to help close the anthropogenic carbon cycle and convert intermittent electricity from renewable energy sources to...

In order to solve the problems of non-uniform gas concentration distribution and serious flooding in the parallel flow field of traditional PEMFC, a stepped flow field of PEMFC bipolar plate is proposed in this paper. The gas concentration distribution, velocity distribution, liquid water distribution and current density distribution of traditional parallel flow field and stepped flow fields are studied by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. The results suggest that the fuel cells with stepped flow field are superior than the traditional fuel cell with parallel flow field. Compared with fuel cell with parallel flow field, the net power of fuel cell with stepped flow field is increased by 21.5%. Moreover, the stepped flow fields can improve the uniformity of gas concentration and current density distribution, accelerate the discharge of liquid water, alleviate water flooding phenomenon.

BACKGROUND Dietary zinc deficiency has been shown to be associated with the development of esophageal cancer in humans, but the exact mechanism of action is not known AIM To observe the effects of dietary zinc deficiency on esophageal squamous cell proliferation. METHODS Thirty C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into three groups: A zinc-sufficient (ZS) group, zinc-deficient (ZD) group, and zinc-replenished (ZR) group. For weeks 1–10, zinc levels in the mice diets were 30.66–30.89 mg/kg in the ZS group and 0.66–0.89 mg/kg in the ZD and ZR groups. During weeks 10–12, the ZR group was switched to the ZS diet; the other two groups had no changes in their diets. Changes in body weight, serum, and esophageal tissue zinc concentrations were assessed as well as differences in the expression of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), mitogen-activated protein kinase p38 (p38MAPK), nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) p105, NF-κB p65, and cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 proteins in the esophageal mucosa. RESULTS The body weight and zinc concentration in the serum and esophageal mucosa were significantly lower in the ZD and ZR groups than in the ZS group (P < 0.05). In ZD mice, there was a marked proliferation of basal cells in the esophageal mucosa, resulting in a disturbance in the arrangement of basal cells in layers 2–4, a thickening of the squamous layer, and a significant increase in the expression of the above-mentioned five proteins involved in proliferation and inflammation in the esophageal mucosa. Two weeks after switching to the ZS diet, the serum zinc concentration in the ZR group increased, and the expression of PCNA, NF-κB p105, and COX-2 decreased, but the concentration of zinc in the esophageal mucosa and the structure of the esophageal mucosa did not display any significant changes CONCLUSION The ZD diet decreased the growth rate and promoted the proliferation of esophageal squamous cells in mice. The mechanism of proliferation was related to the induced overexpression of COX-2, P38, PCNA, and NF-κB (p105 and p65), and the ZR diet reduced the expression of PCNA, NF-κB p105, and COX-2, thereby reversing this process. ​

We constructed and investigated a high-speed broadband spectroscopic ellipsometric system with 12 polarization channels and a 2-D charge-coupled device. The system without any mechanically moving component completes the measurements of more than 10 000 polarization signals at 889 data points in a wavelength range of 400–800 nm within 150 ms, with a spectral resolution better than 1 nm. An integrated analyzer consisting of 12 subanalyzers was employed to obtain the light of different polarization states simultaneously. The spectral distribution of different polarization channels was acquired by the spectral data acquisition system in parallel mode. Two kinds of data processing methods were applied to analyze the light intensities of different channels to obtain the ellipsometric information and other physical parameters of the material over a broad spectral range. According to the analysis of measurement results of gold and silicon bulk, and tantalum pentoxide film, the reliability of the proposed instrument was verified, showing application prospects in the field where in situ spectral monitoring is required.

BACKGROUND Endothelium injury and coagulation dysfunction play an important role in the pathogenesis of sepsis. Soluble thrombomodulin (sTM), tissue plasminogen activator-inhibitor complex (t-PAIC), thrombin-antithrombin complex (TAT) and α2-plasmin inhibitor-plasmin complex (PIC) are biomarkers of endothelium injury and coagulation dysfunction. This study aimed to explore the prognostic values and diagnostic performance for septic shock and sepsis-induced disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) of endothelial biomarkers. METHODS We conducted an observational study on patients with sepsis admitted to intensive care unit (ICU) at a teaching hospital from January 2016 to December 2018. Levels of sTM, t-PAIC, TAT and PIC were measured at admission day and day 5-7 after admission and detected by qualitative chemiluminescence enzyme immunoassay performed on HISCL automated analyzers. RESULTS A total of 179 septic patients and 125 non-septic ICU controls were enrolled. The level of sTM was higher in septic patients compared to ICU controls (OR =1.093, 95% CI: 1.045-1.151, P

We determined the influence of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GERD) on quality of life (QOL) before and after functional-endoscopic-sinus-surgery (FESS) for chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS).Medically-recalcitrant CRS patients were recruited prior to FESS. GERD was diagnosed endoscopically. QOL was compared between patients withOf 187 CRS patients receiving FESS, 40 had GERD. Pre-operative QOL was significantly worse in CRS patients withCompared to CRS patients without GERD, those with GERD experienced poorer pre-operative QOL and greater QOL improvement after FESS.Associazione della malattia da reflusso gastroesofageo e la qualità di vita dei pazienti affetti da rinosinusite cronica.Abbiamo determinato l’impatto della malattia da reflusso gastroesofageo (GERD) sulla qualità della vita (QOL) prima e dopo chirurgia endoscopica funzionale nasosinusale (FESS) nel trattamento della rinosinusite cronica (CRS).I pazienti con CRS refrattari alle terapie mediche sono stati reclutati prima della FESS. La diagnosi di GERD è stata raggiunta endoscopicamente. La qualità della vita è stata confrontata tra pazienti con e senza GERD al basale e a un anno dopo la FESS.Dei 187 pazienti con CRS sottoposti a FESS, 40 erano affetti da GERD. La qualità della vita prima dell’intervento era significativamente peggiore nei pazienti affetti da CRS e con GERD rispetto a quelli senza GERD. I punteggi preoperatori della qualità della vita in relazione alla GERD (GERD-HRQL) e dell’indice dei sintomi da reflusso (RSI) sono stati correlati ciascuno con i punteggi SNOT-22 preoperatori. Rispetto ai pazienti con CRS senza GERD, i pazienti con GERD hanno dimostrato miglioramenti della SNOT-22 più significativi dopo trattamento FESS, i valori SNOT-22 postoperatori non erano più significativamente differenti tra i gruppi con GERD e senza GERD. Tuttavia, dopo la FESS, nei pazienti con CRS senza poliposi nasale (a differenza di quelli con poliposi nasale), il gruppo GERD (contro non-GERD) ha avuto una maggiore disfunzione del sonno e sintomi otologici/facciali.Rispetto ai pazienti con CRS senza GERD, quelli con GERD hanno beneficiato di un miglioramento della QOL maggiore dopo trattamento FESS.

Although the literature is abundant with the experimental methods to characterize mechanical behavior of parts made by fused filament fabrication 3D printing, less attention has been paid in using computational models to predict the mechanical properties of these parts. In the present paper, a numerical homogenization technique is developed to predict the effect of printing process parameters on the elastic response of 3D printed parts with cellular lattice structures. The development of finite element computational models of printed parts is based on a multi scale approach. Initially, at the micro scale level, the analysis of micro-mechanical models of a representative volume element is used to calculate the effective orthotropic properties. The finite element models include different infill densities and building/raster orientation maintaining the bonded region between the adjacent fibers and layers. The elastic constants obtained by this method are then used as an input for the creation of macro scale finite element models enabling the simulation of the mechanical response of printed samples subjected to the bending, shear, and tensile loads. Finally, the results obtained by the homogenization technique are validated against more realistic finite element explicit microstructural models and experimental measurements. The results show that, providing an accurate characterization of the properties to be fed into the macro scale model, the use of the homogenization technique is a reliable tool to predict the elastic response of 3D printed parts. The outlined approach provides faster iterative design of 3D printed parts, contributing to reducing the number of experimental replicates and fabrication costs.

Congenital anomalies are the main causes of infant death and disability. Previous studies have suggested that maternal exposure to particulate matter is related to congenital malformation. However, the conclusions of this study remain controversial. Hence, meta-analyses were performed to assess the relationship between maternal exposure to particulate matter and the risk of congenital anomalies. The Medline, Embase, and Web of Science databases were systemically searched from inception until August 2020 to find articles related to birth defects and particulate matter. The pooled risk estimated for the combination of pollution outcomes was calculated for each study by performing fixed effects or random effects models. The existence of heterogeneity and publication bias in relevant studies was also examined. Thirty studies were included in the analysis. A statistically increased summary risk valuation was found. PM10 exposure was associated with an increased risk of congenital heart disease, neural tube defects, and cleft lip with or without cleft palate (OR per 10 μg/m3 = 1.05, 95% CI, 1.03–1.07; OR per 10 μg/m3 = 1.04, 95% CI, 1.01–1.06; OR per 10 μg/m3 = 1.03, 95% CI, 1.01–1.06). Maternal exposure to particulate matter might be associated with an increased risk of congenital anomalies. Our results indicate the dangers of particulate matter exposure on fetal development and the importance of protection against exposure to such particles during pregnancy.

Background: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a serious threat to human health worldwide, with a high genetic susceptibility. Rs2302685, a functional germline variant of LRP6, has been recently found to associate with NAFLD risk. This study was aimed to clarify the underlying mechanism associated with rs2302685 risk and its impact on pharmacotherapy in treatment of NAFLD. Methods: Venous blood samples were collected from NAFLD and non-NAFLD patients for SNP genotyping by using mass spectrometry. The Lrp6-floxdel mouse (Lrp6 (+/-)) was generated to model the partial function associated with human rs2302685. The liver injury and therapeutic effects of silibinin were compared between Lrp6 (+/-) and Lrp6 (+/+) mice received a methionine-choline deficient (MCD) diet or normal diet. The effect of Lrp6 functional alteration on Wnt/β-catenin-Cyp2e1 signaling activities was evaluated by a series of cellular and molecular assays. Results: The T allele of LRP6 rs2302685 was confirmed to associate with a higher risk of NAFLD in human subjects. The carriers of rs2302685 had reduced level of AST and ALT as compared with the noncarriers. The Lrp6 (+/-) mice exhibited a less severe liver injury induced by MCD but a reduced response to the treatment of silibinin in comparison to the Lrp6 (+/+) mice, suggesting Lrp6 as a target of silibinin. Wnt/β-catenin-Cyp2e1 signaling together with ROS generation could be exacerbated by the overexpression of Lrp6, while decreased in response to Lrp6 siRNA or silibinin treatment under NAFLD modeling. Conclusions: The Lrp6 function affects individual susceptibility to NAFLD and the therapeutic effect of silibinin through the Wnt/β-catenin-Cyp2e1 signaling pathway. The present work has provided an underlying mechanism for human individual susceptibility to NAFLD associated with Lrp6 polymorphisms as well as a rationale for the effective use of silibinin in NAFLD patients.

Background Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a multifactorial condition associated with aging, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, genetic factors and more. Although genetic traits are among the most important risks factors for NAFLD, the understanding of their influence is still quite limited. The present study aimed at identifying novel single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that may confer a risk for NAFLD in the Han Chinese population. Methods Based on the “two-hit hypothesis”, candidate SNPs, including Sirtuin3 rs28365927, were genotyped by MassARRAY in B-type ultrasonography-proven NAFLD patients (n = 292) and healthy controls (n = 387). Results In a model analysis of individuals matched based on gender and age that compared 223 NAFLD and 223 non-NAFLD patients, the rs28365927 GA + AA genotype was a significant risk factor for the development of NAFLD in a dominant model. Rs28365927 was significantly associated with a higher NAFLD risk in both an additive model (A vs G) and genotypic model (GA vs GG). Among the NAFLD patients, serum levels of total bilirubin (TBIL), DBIL direct bilirubin (DBIL) and glutamic-pyruvic transaminase (ALT) in rs28365927 A allele carriers (GA + AA) were 11.1, 14.7 and 41.5% higher, respectively, than in non-carriers (GG). Furthermore, among the NAFLD patients, the carriers of Rs28365927 allele A were positively correlated with higher ALT levels. Conclusion Sirtuin3 rs28365927 functional variant confers to the high risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in Chinese Han population. The rs28365927 A allele significantly increased the ALT levels of NAFLD patients.

Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is a common infection of the gastrointestinal tract. Typically, 20%-30% of CDI patients experience recurrent C. difficile infection (RCDI). Although the role of Th17 in infectious and inflammatory diseases including CDI has gained attention, reports on the correlation between Th17 and RCDI are scarce. In this study, CDI and RCDI mice models were challenged with C. difficile. Serum lactic acid dehydrogenase, inflammatory factor levels, reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction, western blot analysis, hematoxylin and eosin staining, immunohistochemistry, flow cytometry analysis, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay were performed on the CDI, RCDI, and control group mice. The results showed more serious clinical manifestations in the RCDI group compared with those in the CDI group. More severe gut barrier disruption and higher degree of microbiota translocation were observed in the RCDI group compared with those in the CDI group. Moreover, extremely severe apoptosis was observed in HCT-116 cells incubated with the serum from RCDI mice model. In addition, higher levels of Th17 and IL-17 were detected in the blood or serum from the RCDI mouse model. Treatment with RORγt small molecule inhibitor SR1001 increased the expression of occludin, decreased the apoptotic rate of HCT-116 cells, and decreased the concentrations of Th17 and IL-17. Concisely, Th17 and IL-17 are potential indicators of RCDI and may serve as therapeutic targets for RCDI treatment. This study lays the foundation for future research on RCDI diagnosis and treatment.

Backgrounds:. Cancer is one of the main causes of death worldwide, seriously threatening human health and life expectancy. We aimed to analyze the cancer incidence and mortality rates during 2016 in Zhejiang Province, Southeast China. Methods:. Data were collected from 14 population-based cancer registries across Zhejiang Province of China. Cancer incidence and mortality rates stratified by sex and region were analyzed. The crude rate, age-standardized rate, age-specific and region-specific rate, and cumulative rate were calculated. The proportions of 10 common cancers in different groups and the incidence and mortality rates of the top five cancers in different age groups were also calculated. The Chinese national census of 2000 and the world Segi population was used for calculating the age-standardized incidence and mortality rates. Results:. The 14 cancer registries covered a population of 14,250,844 individuals, accounting for 29.13% of the population of Zhejiang Province. The total reported cancer cases and deaths were 55,835 and 27,013, respectively. The proportion of morphological verification (MV%) was 78.95% of the population, and percentage of incident cases identified through death certificates only (DCO%) was 1.23% with a mortality-to-incidence ratio (M/I ratio) of 0.48. The crude incidence rate in Zhejiang cancer registration areas was 391.80/105; the age-standardized incidence rate of the Chinese standard population (ASIRC) and the age-standardized incidence rate of the world standard population (ASIRW) were 229.76/105 and 220.96/105, respectively. The incidence rate in men was higher than that in women. The incidence rate increased rapidly after 45 years of age and peaked in individuals aged 80 to 84 years. The top 10 incidence rates of cancers were lung cancer, female breast cancer, thyroid cancer, colorectal cancer, stomach cancer, liver cancer, prostate cancer, cervical cancer, esophageal cancer, and pancreatic cancer (from highest to lowest). The crude mortality rate in Zhejiang cancer registration areas was 189.55/105; the age-standardized mortality rate of the Chinese standard population (ASMRC) and the age-standardized mortality rate of the world standard population (ASMRW) were 94.46/105 and 93.42/105, respectively. The mortality rate in men was higher than that in women, and the male population in rural areas was higher than that in urban areas. The cancer mortality rate increased rapidly after 50 years of age and peaked in individuals aged 85+ years. The top 10 mortality rates of cancers were lung cancer, liver cancer, stomach cancer, colorectal cancer, pancreatic cancer, esophageal cancer, female breast cancer, prostate cancer, lymphoma, and leukemia (from highest to lowest). Conclusions:. Lung cancer, female breast cancer, thyroid cancer, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, liver cancer, and stomach cancer were the most common cancers in Zhejiang Province. Effective prevention and control measures should be established after considering the different characteristics of cancers in urban and rural areas.

Infantile hemangioma (IH), the most common benign tumor in infancy, mostly arises and has rapid growth before 3 months of age. Because irreversible skin changes occur in the early proliferative stage, early medical treatment is essential to reduce the permanent sequelae caused by IH. Yet there are still no early screening biomarkers for IH before its visible emergence. This study aimed to explore prediction biomarkers using noninvasive umbilical cord blood (UCB). A prospective study of the metabolic profiling approach was performed on UCB sera from 28 infants with IH and 132 matched healthy controls from a UCB population comprising over 1500 infants (PeptideAtlas: PASS01675) using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. The metabolic profiling results exhibited the characteristic metabolic aberrance of IH. Machine learning suggested a panel of biomarkers to predict the occurrence of IH, with the area under curve (AUC) values in the receiver operating characteristic analysis all >0.943. Phenylacetic acid had potential to predict infants with large IH (diameter >2 cm) from those with small IH (diameter

Mechanical instabilities in soft materials have led to the formation of unique surface patterns such as wrinkles and cracks for a wide range of applications that are related to surface morphologies and their dynamic tuning. Here, we report a simple yet effective strategy to fabricate strain-tunable crack and wrinkle microvalves with dimensions responding to the applied tensile strain. The crack microvalves initially closed before stretching are opened as the tensile strain is applied, whereas the wrinkle microvalves exhibit the opposite trend. Next, the performance of crack and wrinkle microvalves is characterized. The design predictions on the bursting pressure of microvalves and others from the theory agree reasonably well with the experimental measurements. The microfluidic devices with strain-tunable crack and wrinkle microvalves have then been demonstrated for microsphere screening and programmable microfluidic logic devices. The demonstrated microfluidic devices complement the prior studies to open up opportunities in microparticle/cell manipulations, fluidic operations, and biomedicine.

Chemotherapy is a standard treatment for pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), which sometimes relapses with chemoresistant features. However, whether acquired drug-resistance mutations in relapsed ALL pre-exist or are induced by treatment remains unknown. Here we provide direct evidence of a specific mechanism by which chemotherapy induces drug-resistance-associated mutations leading to relapse. Using genomic and functional analysis of relapsed ALL we show that thiopurine treatment in mismatch repair (MMR)-deficient leukemias induces hotspot TP53 R248Q mutations through a specific mutational signature (thio-dMMR). Clonal evolution analysis reveals sequential MMR inactivation followed by TP53 mutation in some patients with ALL. Acquired TP53 R248Q mutations are associated with on-treatment relapse, poor treatment response and resistance to multiple chemotherapeutic agents, which could be reversed by pharmacological p53 reactivation. Our findings indicate that TP53 R248Q in relapsed ALL originates through synergistic mutagenesis from thiopurine treatment and MMR deficiency and suggest strategies to prevent or treat TP53-mutant relapse. Zhou and colleagues demonstrate that thiopurine chemotherapy in mismatch repair-deficient ALL cells leads to R248Q TP53 mutations and clonal selection that favors on-treatment ALL relapse and chemoresistance.

The local microenvironment is essential to stem cell-based therapy for ischemic stroke, and spatiotemporal changes of the microenvironment in the pathological process provide vital clues for understanding the therapeutic mechanisms. However, relevant studies on microenvironmental changes were mainly confined in the acute phase of stroke, and long-term changes remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate the microenvironmental changes in the subacute and chronic phases of ischemic stroke after stem cell transplantation. Herein, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and neural stem cells (NSCs) were transplanted into the ischemic brain established by middle cerebral artery occlusion surgery. Positron emission tomography imaging and neurological tests were applied to evaluate the metabolic and neurofunctional alterations of rats transplanted with stem cells. Quantitative proteomics was employed to investigate the protein expression profiles in iPSCs-transplanted brain in the subacute and chronic phases of stroke. Compared with NSCs-transplanted rats, significantly increased glucose metabolism and neurofunctional scores were observed in iPSCs-transplanted rats. Subsequent proteomic data of iPSCs-transplanted rats identified a total of 39 differentially expressed proteins in the subacute and chronic phases, which are involved in various ischemic stroke-related biological processes, including neuronal survival, axonal remodeling, antioxidative stress, and mitochondrial function restoration. Taken together, our study indicated that iPSCs have a positive therapeutic effect in ischemic stroke and emphasized the wide-ranging microenvironmental changes in the subacute and chronic phases.

Background and Objective: The use of electronic health record (EHR) data can facilitate efficient research and quality initiatives. The imprecision of ICD-10 codes for kidney diagnoses has been an obstacle to discrete data-defined diagnoses in the EHR. This manuscript describes the Kidney Research Network (KRN) registry and database that provide an example of a prospective, real-world data glomerular disease registry for research and quality initiatives. Methods: KRN is a multicenter collaboration of patients, physicians, and scientists across diverse health-care settings with a focus on improving treatment options and outcomes for patients with glomerular disease. The registry and data warehouse amasses retrospective and prospective data including EHR, active research study, completed clinical trials, patient reported outcomes, and other relevant data. Following consent, participating sites enter the patient into KRN and provide a physician-confirmed primary kidney diagnosis. Kidney biopsy reports are redacted and uploaded. Site programmers extract local EHR data including demographics, insurance type, zip code, diagnoses, encounters, laboratories, procedures, medications, dialysis/transplant status, vitals, and vital status monthly. Participating sites transform data to conform to a common data model prior to submitting to the Data Analysis and Coordinating Center (DACC). The DACC stores and reviews each site’s EHR data for quality before loading into the KRN database. Results: As of January 2021, 1,192 patients have enrolled in the registry. The database has been utilized for research, clinical trial design, clinical trial end point validation, and supported quality initiatives. The data also support a dashboard allowing enrolling sites to assist with clinical trial enrollment and population health initiatives. Conclusion: A multicenter registry using EHR data, following physician- and biopsy-confirmed glomerular disease diagnosis, can be established and used effectively for research and quality initiatives. This design provides an example which may be readily replicated for other rare or common disease endeavors.

Control and communication technologies are key building blocks of cyber-physical systems (CPSes) that can improve the efficiency of the physical processes. However, they also make a CPS vulnerable to cyberattacks that can cause disruptions or even severe damage. This article focuses on one particular type of CPS cyberattack, namely the time delay attack (TDA), which exploits vulnerabilities in the communication channels to cause potentially serious harm to the system. Much work proposed for TDA detection is tested offline only and under strong assumptions. In order to construct a practical solution to deal with real-world scenarios, we propose a deep learning-based method to detect and characterize TDA. Specifically, we design a hierarchical long short-term memory model to process raw data streams from relevant CPS sensors online and continually monitor embedded signals in the data to detect and characterize the attack. Moreover, various strategies of interpreting the outputs of the model are proposed, which allow the user to tune the performance based on different objectives. We evaluate our model on two representative types of CPS, namely power plant control system (PPCS) and automatic generation control (AGC).Code and dataset can be found at: https://github.com/prakharg24/tda For TDA detection, our solution achieves an accuracy of 92% in PPCS, compared with 81% by random forests (RFs) and 72% by k-nearest neighbours (kNNs). For AGC, our solution achieves 98% accuracy, compared with 74% by RFs and 71% by kNNs. It also reduces the mean absolute error in the delay value characterization from about six to two seconds in the PPCS, and from about three seconds to half a second in the AGC, with about 3x to 4x shorter reaction latency in both systems.

Yao Chen,&ast; Jianping Zhao,&ast; Zhanguo Zhang, Zeyang Ding, Yifa Chen, Xiaoping Chen, Wanguang Zhang Hepatic Surgery Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, People’s Republic of China&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Yifa Chen; Wanguang ZhangHepatic Surgery Center, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, HUST, 1095 Jiefang Avenue, Wuhan, Hubei Province, 430030, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail yfchen4533@163.com; wgzhang@tjh.tjmu.edu.cnBackground: The incidence of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients after laparoscopic hepatectomy (LH) is unclear, and there is no effective method for DVT risk assessment in these patients.Methods: The data from the total of 355 consecutive HCC patients who underwent LH were included. A DVT risk algorithm was developed using a training set (TS) of 243 patients, and its predictive performance was evaluated in both the TS and a validation set (VS) of 112 patients. The model was then used to develop a DVT risk nomogram (TRN).Results: The incidence of DVT in the present study was 18.6%. Age, sex, body mass index (BMI), comorbidities and operative position were independent risk factors for DVT in the TS. The model based on these factors had a good predictive ability. In the TS, it had an area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUC) curve of 0.861, Hosmer-Lemeshow (H-L) goodness of fit p value of 0.626, sensitivity of 44.4%, specificity of 96.5%, positive predictive value (PPV) of 74.1%, negative predictive value (NPV) of 88.4%, and accuracy of 86.8%. In the VS, it had an AUC of 0.818, H-L p value of 0.259, sensitivity of 38.1%, specificity of 98.9%, PPV of 88.9%, NPV of 87.4%, and accuracy of 87.5%. The TRN performed well in both the internal and the external validation, indicating a good clinical application value. The TRN had a better predictive value of DVT than the Caprini score (p < 0.001).Conclusion: The incidence of DVT after LH was high, and should not be neglected in HCC patients. The TRN provides an efficacious method for DVT risk evaluation and individualized pharmacological thromboprophylaxis.Keywords: deep vein thrombosis, hepatocellular carcinoma, laparoscopic hepatectomy, nomogram

Entrepreneurship plays an important role in developing the agricultural sector and increasing opportunities for farmers to promote sustainable livelihoods. The study aims to enhance discussion and ...

This study investigates how venture capital (VC) investments flowing into an industry impact both the innovative opportunities and technological arbitrage opportunities presented in the industry. After examining 855 industry-year observations for 45 industries in the USA for 1997–2015, we found that VC investments moderate the effects of new venture entry rates on innovative opportunities and technological arbitrage opportunities at the industry level. Additionally, industry concentration and industry dynamism influence the moderating effects of VC investments on the relationships between new venture entry rates and both types of entrepreneurial opportunities. Our study not only contributes to the growing research on innovative opportunities and technological arbitrage opportunities, it also provides managerial implications for both entrepreneurial companies and policymakers. Three-way impacts of new venture entry, VC investments, and industry characteristics on entrepreneurial opportunities are examined. Innovative opportunities and technological arbitrage opportunities are two primary types of entrepreneurial opportunities that contribute to technological progress and eventually lead to economic growth. In this study, we investigate whether entrepreneurial activities, such as new venture entry into an industry, influence these two opportunities in 45 industries in the USA, and how the impacts of new venture entry may vary in different external conditions. Our findings show that the effects of new venture entry rates on innovative opportunities and technological arbitrage opportunities may be contingent upon the availability of resources such as VC investments flowing into the industry. Additionally, our findings reveal that the interaction effects of new venture entry rates and VC investments vary among industries with different characteristics. Thus, entrepreneurs and policymakers should carefully consider industry conditions such as concentration and dynamism when attempting to attract VC investments into their firms or industries, rather than the more the better.

Autonomous driving systems in internet of vehicles (IoV) applications usually adopt a cloud computing mode. In these systems, information got at the edge of the cloud computing center for data analysis and situation response. However, the conventional IoV face enormous challenges to meet the requirements in terms of storage, communication, and computing problems because of the considerable amount of information on the traffic environment. The environment perception during the nighttime is poorer than that during the daytime that this problem also requires addressing. To solve these problems, we propose a nighttime object detection scheme based on a lightweight deep learning model in the edge computing mode. First, the pedestrian detection and the vehicle detection algorithm that using the thermal images based on the YOLO architecture. We can implement the model on edge devices that can achieve real-time detection through the designed lightweight strategy. Next, a spatial prior information and temporal prior information into the detection algorithm and divide the frames into key and non-key frames to increase the performance and speed of the system simultaneously. Finally, we implemented the detection network for performance and feasibility verification on the Jetson TX2 edge device. The experimental results show that the proposed system can achieve real-time and high-accuracy object detection on edge devices.

Background: Sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve remodeling play an important role in cardiac function after myocardial ischemia (MI) injury. Increasing evidence indicates that electroacupuncture (EA) can regulate cardiac function by modulating the autonomic nervous system (ANS), but little is known about its effectiveness on neural remodeling post-MI. Objectives: To investigate the role of EA in ANS remodeling post-MI. Methods: Adult male C57/BL6 mice were equally divided into the Control (Ctrl), MI and EA groups after generating the MI model by ligating the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery. Echocardiography and 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium (TTC) staining were employed to evaluate cardiac function and infarct size after EA treatment for five consecutive days. Serum norepinephrine (NE) levels were measured by ELISA to quantify sympathetic activation. Then, ANS remodeling was detected by immunohistochemistry (IHC), RT-qPCR, and Western blotting. Results: Our preliminary findings showed that EA increased ejection fraction and fractional shortening and reduced infarct area after MI injury. Serum NE levels in the EA group were significantly decreased compared with those in the MI group. IHC staining results demonstrated that the density of growth associated protein (GAP)43 and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) positive nerve fibers in the EA group were decreased with increased choline acetyltransferase (CHAT) and vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VACHT). Meanwhile, the results verified that mRNA and protein expression of GAP43 and TH were significantly inhibited by EA treatment in the MI mice, accompanied by elevated CHAT and VACHT. Conclusions: EA treatment could improve cardiac function and reduce infarct size by modulating sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve remodeling post-MI, thus helping the cardiac ANS reach a new balance to try to protect the heart from further possible injury.

Code generation from graphical user interface images is a promising area of research. Recent progress on machine learning methods made it possible to transform user interface into the code using several methods. The encoder–decoder framework represents one of the possible ways to tackle code generation tasks. Our model implements the encoder–decoder framework with an attention mechanism that helps the decoder to focus on a subset of salient image features when needed. Our attention mechanism also helps the decoder to generate token sequences with higher accuracy. Experimental results show that our model outperforms previously proposed models on the pix2code benchmark dataset.

Building climatic zoning is a prerequisite for implementing building energy efficiency technology, which can help code makers and architects have an accurate understanding of the local climatic conditions. It takes the extreme monthly average temperature as the zoning index in the existing climatic zoning of rural areas in China. There will be unreasonable design phenomena of insufficient or excessive thermal insulation for a building envelope in rural areas. Aiming at the above problems, this paper modifies the current zoning. This research established the cooling and heating degree-day indexes HDD14 and CDD30 based on the thermal comfort characteristics of rural occupants and used the threshold method to subdivide rural areas into eight sub-zones. The results show that the problem of insufficient or excessive thermal insulation in rural areas can be effectively solved by replacing the extreme monthly average temperature index with the degree day index and the annual cumulative building load can be reduced by 6.4% on average without increasing the insulation cost. After more detailed zoning, the variance within the group is reduced and it accurately describes climate diversity, which is conducive to implementing climate-responsive energy-saving design in each subzone. Practical application: The major purpose of this paper is to solve the problem of unreasonable climate zone boundaries specified in the existing Design Standard for Energy Efficiency of Rural Residential Buildings. The existing zoning has led to conflicts between the actual heating demand and the building envelope thermal parameter limits specified in the standard. This work redefines the boundaries of the existing map using more up-to-date weather data to provide the right guidance for architectural designers.

In China, pharmacists have started to manage cancer pain at outpatient clinics. This retrospective study performed at a tertiary teaching hospital was aimed to evaluate the effects of a physician-pharmacist joint clinic for cancer pain management. The study was performed between December 2016 and August 2019 and included 113 outpatients with moderate to severe cancer-related pain. Patients were divided into two groups according to the clinic each patient visited: the physician-pharmacist joint clinic (joint group, n=59) or physician-only clinic (usual group, n=54). Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) and Morisky Medication Adherence Measure (MMAM) were used to collect data on pain intensity, interference, and medication adherence. Pain Management Index (PMI) was also calculated. BPI, MMAM, and PMI were assessed at baseline (patients' first visit, week 0) and week-4 follow-up. The Chinese version of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-Core 30 (EORTC QLQ-C30) was used to assess patients' Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) at week 4. The primary outcomes were the improvement in pain intensity, adequacy of pain management, and medication adherence. The secondary outcome was the improvement in HRQoL. At week 4, compared to the usual group, the BPI pain intensity categories except the pain right now were significantly lower in the joint group: worst pain, 4 (3 - 7) versus 6 (4 - 8), P = 0.020; least pain, 1 (0 - 2) versus 2 (1 - 3), P = 0.010; average pain, 3 (2 - 4) versus 4 (2 - 5), P = 0.023; pain right now, 2 (1 - 3) versus 2 (0 - 4), P = 0.796. For the seven pain interference categories, there were no significant improvements in the joint group (P > 0.05). Significantly more patients achieved adequate pain control in the joint group than the usual group ((P = 0.002). There was also a significant difference in medication adherence between the two groups (P = 0.001). There were no significant differences in HRQoL between the two groups. The study suggests that pharmacist participation in outpatient cancer pain management is associated with improvement of patients' pain control and medication adherence.

OBJECTIVES Arterial stiffness (AS), one of the complications of diabetes, associated with many metabolic factors. This study aimed to investigate the association between 25-hydroxyvitamin D(25(OH)D) and AS in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). METHODS We identified 1335 diabetic patients from the Department of Endocrinology, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital. Finally, 603 T2DM patients were included in the study. They were divided into two groups: AS group (baPWV ≥ 15,500 cm/s) and the control group (baPWV

Heart sound segmentation (HSS) aims to detect the four stages (first sound, systole, second heart sound and diastole) from a heart cycle in a phonocardiogram (PCG), which is an essential step in automatic auscultation analysis. Traditional HSS methods need to manually extract the features before dealing with HSS tasks. These artificial features highly rely on extraction algorithms, which often result in poor performance due to the different operating environments. In addition, the high-dimension and frequency characteristics of audio also challenge the traditional methods in effectively addressing HSS tasks. This paper presents a novel end-to-end method based on convolutional long short-term memory (CLSTM), which directly uses audio recording as input to address HSS tasks. Particularly, the convolutional layers are designed to extract the meaningful features and perform the downsampling, and the LSTM layers are developed to conduct the sequence recognition. Both components collectively improve the robustness and adaptability in processing the HSS tasks. Furthermore, the proposed CLSTM algorithm is easily extended to other complex heart sound annotation tasks, as it does not need to extract the characteristics of corresponding tasks in advance. In addition, the proposed algorithm can also be regarded as a powerful feature extraction tool, which can be integrated into the existing models for HSS. Experimental results on real-world PCG datasets, through comparisons to peer competitors, demonstrate the outstanding performance of the proposed algorithm.

Objective Pregnancy-associated plasma protein-A2 (PAPP-A2) is the homolog of PAPP-A in the vertebrate genome and its role in protecting against salt-induced hypertension in salt-sensitive rats has been confirmed. We sought to examine the associations of plasma PAPP-A2 levels and its genetic variants with salt sensitivity, blood pressure (BP) changes and hypertension incidence in humans. Methods Eighty participants (18-65 years old) sequentially consuming a usual diet, a 7-day low-salt diet (3.0 g/day) and a 7-day high-salt diet (18 g/day). In addition, we studied participants of the original Baoji Salt-Sensitive Study, recruited from 124 families in Northern China in 2004 who received the same salt intake intervention, and evaluated them for the development of hypertension over 14 years. Results The plasma PAPPA2 levels significantly decreased with the change from baseline to a low-salt diet and decreased further when converting from the low-salt to high-salt diet. SNP rs12042763 in the PAPP-A2 gene was significantly associated with systolic BP responses to both low-salt and high-salt diet while SNP rs2861813 showed a significant association with the changes in SBP and pulse pressure at 14-year follow-up. Additionally, SNPs rs2294654 and rs718067 demonstrated a significant association with the incidence of hypertension over the 14-year follow-up. Finally, the gene-based analysis found that Pappa2 was significantly associated with longitudinal SBP changes and the incidence of hypertension over the 14-year follow-up. Conclusions This study shows that dietary salt intake affects plasma PAPP-A2 levels and that PAPP-A2 may play a role in salt sensitivity, BP progression and development of hypertension in the Chinese populations.

Alginate is a natural polysaccharide that is easily chemically modified or compounded with other components for various types of functionalities. The alginate derivatives are appealing not only because they are biocompatible so that they can be used in biomedicine or tissue engineering but also because of the prospering bioelectronics that require various biomaterials to interface between human tissues and electronics or to serve as electronic components themselves. The study of alginate-based materials, especially hydrogels, have repeatedly found new frontiers over recent years. In this Review, we document the basic properties of alginate, their chemical modification strategies, and the recent development of alginate-based functional composite materials. The newly thrived functions such as ionically conductive hydrogel or 3D or 4D cell culturing matrix are emphasized among other appealing potential applications. We expect that the documentation of relevant information will stimulate scientific efforts to further develop biocompatible electronics or smart materials and to help the research domain better address the medicine, energy, and environmental challenges faced by human societies.

PurposeThis study examines whether consumer brand engagement (CBE) can mitigate the negative effects of economic animosity (EA) on purchase intention (PI) and strengthen the positive effect of country-of-origin (COO) on PI.Design/methodology/approachUsing questionnaires distributed to 372 young Chinese adults, the study collected PI data for US products in the Chinese market. Partial least square structural equation modeling was adopted.FindingsThis study found a positive relationship between COO and CBE and a negative relationship between EA and CBE. CBE exhibits a partial mediating effect in the relationship between COO and PI and a full suppression effect on EA toward PI.Research limitations/implicationsThis research is limited to China; future research could extend this framework to the United States.Practical implicationsThis study contributes to relationship marketing knowledge. Furthermore, it provides new tools for multinational corporations to deploy their marketing strategies and avoid negative consequences stemming from the EA effect in the Chinese market following the US–China trade war.Originality/valueThis study is the first to extend COO and EA research to CBE discipline.

Competition in global service markets is becoming very intense. Therefore, enhancing customer satisfaction has become a serious undertaking for service companies, especially for cross-nation providers, to exploit global business opportunities. However, few studies have compared customer satisfaction associated with apartment building management and maintenance services (abbreviated as BMMS) in different regions. Cross-region comparison of the customer satisfaction and service quality of the BMMS sector will give a better understanding of the strategies deployed by cross-nation service providers to improve and enhance service quality and customer satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to investigate service quality and resident satisfaction so as to explore strategies for efficiently enhancing resident satisfaction and identify the varying strategies applied in Southern Korea and Taiwan. Resident satisfaction models of the two regions derived according to the structural equation modeling approach were compared and discussed and the results of comparisons between the two models show that the complaints construct has the most significant effect on customer satisfaction. In addition, this study demonstrates a process for exploring appropriate actions to effectively improve residents’ satisfaction level.

Flow field structure can largely determine the output performance of Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell. Excellent channel configuration accelerates electrochemical reactions in the catalytic layer, effectively avoiding flooding on the cathode side. In present study, a three-dimensional, multi-phase model of PEMFC with a 3D wave flow channel is established. CFD method is applied to optimize the geometry constructions of three-dimensional wave flow channels. The results reveal that 3D wave flow channel is overall better than straight channel in promoting reactant gases transport, removing liquid water accumulated in microporous layer and avoiding thermal stress concentration in the membrane. Moreover, results show the optimal flow channel minimum depth and wave length of the 3D wave flow channel are 0.45 mm and 2 mm, respectively. Due to the periodic geometric characteristics of the wave channel, the convective mass transfer is introduced, improving gas flow rate in through-plane direction. Furthermore, when the cell output voltage is 0.4 V, the current density in the novel channel is 23.8% higher than that of conventional channel.

Low arousal threshold plays a part in the pathogenesis of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and may be improved by sedatives. Sedative antidepressants are frequently prescribed for stroke patients due to their high prevalence of insomnia and depression. However, the effect of sedative antidepressants on the severity of OSA in stroke patients has not been studied well. In a double-blinded randomized crossover pilot study, 22 post-acute ischemic stroke patients (mean age, 61.7 ± 10.6 y) with OSA received 100 mg of trazodone or a placebo just before polysomnography, with approximately 1 week between measures. The study also measured baseline heart rate variability and 24-h ambulatory blood pressure. Administration of trazodone significantly increased the percentage time of slow-wave sleep (31.5 ± 13.2 vs. 18.4 ± 8.7%; P 50%; n = 7/22) had predominant OSA during rapid-eye-movement sleep and decreased sympathetic tone, as reflected in significantly lower mean blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, and normalized low-frequency power. Obstructive sleep apnea with comorbid ischemic stroke may be a distinctive phenotype which responds quite well to trazodone, decreasing OSA severity without increasing nocturnal hypoxia. Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT04162743, 2019/11/10.

To investigate the prevalence of precocious puberty in school-based population in Zhongshan, Guangdong, China. We recruited a total of 4058 students in grades 1–3 using a multistage stratified cluster random sampling method in a population-based cross-sectional study. We evaluated height, weight, and development of breast and pubic hair in girls, breast development was evaluated by inspection and palpation combined with ultrasound detection for overweight and obese girls, and testicular volume and development of pubic hair in boys. We estimated overall, sex-, age, and district-specific prevalence of precocious puberty and examined the association between prevalence of precocious puberty and body mass index (BMI). The unadjusted and adjusted prevalence of precocious puberty by Tanner stage was 4.74% (girls:8.78%, boys:2.58%) and 6.19% (girls:11.47%, boys:3.26%), respectively. In both urban and suburban areas, the prevalence of precocious puberty was higher in the overweight and obese group than in the normal-weight group (p

We demonstrate a new variety of spoof surface plasmon polariton (SSPP) waveguides and notch filters with periodic arrays of ultra-thin metallic meander-strip units for high-efficiency and strong confinement microwave SSPPs transmission and notch rejection. Firstly, the dispersion characteristics of the proposed SSPPs waveguide based on meander-strip units are investigated. The dispersion curve of the proposed waveguide presents a unique negative group velocity characteristic, and the asymptotic frequency greatly reduces to near half as that of SSPP waveguide based on traditional rectangular-grooved units with the same transverse size. To validate the proposed design, an SSPP waveguide prototype is fabricated and tested, showing good lowpass filtering performances with a high transmission coefficient ( $\text {S}21 > {-}1$ dB) and a low reflection coefficient ( $\text {S}11 dB) below the asymptotic frequency of 5.2 GHz. Based on this waveguide structure, a notch filter is designed by loading a split ring resonator (SRR). The transmission coefficient (S21) of this filter is −18 dB at the notch frequency of 2.52 GHz. Furthermore, a PIN diode is integrated into the SRR of the notch filter to make the notch frequency switchable. As the PIN diode turns from the ON state to the OFF state, the notch frequency switches from 2.5 GHz to 3.5 GHz. The proposed waveguides and notch filters with electronically adjustable functionalities may have great potential applications in microwave integrated plasmon circuits and programmable systems.