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OBJECTIVE To describe the baseline characteristics and two-year outcomes of patients with Child-Pugh grades A and B cirrhosis; and evaluate the predictive value of liver stiffness for the development of adverse outcomes (AOs) in this patient population. STUDY DESIGN A prospective cohort study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY The Second Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, China between September 2018 and March 2021. METHODOLOGY The present study consecutively included patients with Child-Pugh grades A and B cirrhosis. Patients were followed up every six months until two years. Baseline demographic characteristics and laboratory indexes were collected. Liver stiffness and controlled attenuation parameter were measured at baseline, month 6 and month 12. The observational endpoint was AOs, including liver-related patient death and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). RESULTS A total of 174 patients were included in the final cohort. Hepatitis B virus (HBV)-induced liver cirrhosis accounted for the vast majority of enrolled cases (82.2%). AOs were observed in six patients. Multivariate logistic regression model was performed and liver stiffness was considered as the only independent predictor for AOs (OR 1.071, p = 0.006). Liver stiffness was also significantly improved at 12 months compared with the baseline data (median 10.6 vs. 13.3 kPa, p

Background Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is one of the most common cancers with high morbidity and mortality worldwide. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) serve as tumor promoters or suppressors in the development of various human malignancies, including LUAD. Although long intergenic non-protein coding RNA 1089 (LINC01089) suppresses the progression of breast cancer, its mechanism in LUAD requires further exploration. Thus, we aimed to investigate the underlying function and mechanism of LINC01089 in LUAD. Methods The expression of LINC01089 in LUAD and normal cell lines was detected. Functional assays were applied to measure cell proliferation, apoptosis and migration. Besides, mechanism experiments were employed for assessing the interplay among LINC01089, miR-301b-3p and StAR related lipid transfer domain containing 13 (STARD13). Data achieved in this study was statistically analyzed with Student’s t test or one-way analysis of variance. Results LINC01089 expression was significantly down-regulated in LUAD tissues and cells and its overexpression could reduce cell proliferation and migration. Moreover, LINC01089 could regulate STARD13 expression through competitively binding to miR-301b-3p in LUAD. Additionally, rescue assays uncovered that STARD13 depletion or miR-301b-3p overexpression could countervail the restraining effect of LINC01089 knockdown on the phenotypes of LUAD cells. Conclusion LINC01089 served as a tumor-inhibitor in LUAD by targeting miR-301b-3p/STARD13 axis, providing an innovative insight into LUAD therapies. Trial registration Not applicable.

Background G protein‐coupled receptor 12 (GPR12) is an orphan receptor with no confirmed endogenous ligands. It plays important roles in both physiological and pathological conditions such as neurogenesis and neural inflammation. However, it remains unclear whether GPR12 regulates carcinogenesis and progression in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), such as esophageal cancer (EC) and hypopharyngeal cancer (HC). Methods The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database was applied to explore the expression of GPR12. Quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction (qRT‐PCR) was used to detect the expression of GPR12 in cancer tissues. Wound healing and transwell assays were carried out to verify the effect of GPR12 on cell migration. Flow cytometric analysis and caspase‐Glo 3/7 assay were carried out to verify the influence of GPR12 on cell apoptosis. Western blotting was used to measure the expression of proteins related to migration and apoptosis. Result The qRT‐PCR analyses showed that the expression of GPR12 decreased in EC and HC than that in their paired adjacent normal tissues. Wound healing assay and transwell assay demonstrated that GPR12 inhibited tumor cell migration. Flow cytometry analysis and Caspase‐Glo 3/7 Assay suggested that GPR12 promoted apoptosis. The mechanism of GPR12 may function via modulating caspase‐7, E‐cadherin, and α‐catenin in EC and HC cells. Conclusion In conclusion, GPR12 induced apoptosis by activating caspase‐7 and inhibited migration through epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) in EC and HC. Our findings demonstrated that GPR12 as a potential tumor suppressor mediated cell migration and apoptosis in EC and HC., GPR12 induced apoptosis by activating caspase‐7 and inhibited migration through epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) in EC and HC. Our findings demonstrated that GPR12 as a potential tumor suppressor mediated cell migration and apoptosis in EC and HC

Background Conservative surgery has proven advantageous in controlling hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (HSCC) and preserving speech and swallowing function in carefully selected patients, typically with early T-stages diseases. A variety of modified surgical procedures or techniques have been proposed. Methods In this study, we present a novel surgical approach for hypopharyngeal carcinoma resection utilizing the paraglottic space. Results The paraglottic space approach can help expose neoplasms under direct vision and save mucosa during surgery while sufficiently preserving laryngeal function, thus benefiting postoperative swallowing and reducing complications. A large cohort of 426 patients with HSCC underwent surgical treatment at our institution using this approach, demonstrating an overall survival (OS) rate of 52.3% and low incidences of postoperative complications. Conclusions This surgical approach can be applied in patients with the lesions that do not involve the paraglottic space.

This paper constructs a model of collaborative innovation among technology, institution and financeto measure the synergy degree of 29 provinces and cities. Official provincial-level panel data from 2011-2017for 29 provinces are utilized. We find that there is a great difference in the synergy degree among differentregions because of the uneven distribution of financial resources in the region. Then the synergy degree of 29provinces and cities in China is regarded as an important variable in the fixed-effects model. The primaryfinding is that the degree of collaborative innovation among technology, institution and finance can positivelyaffect China’s economic growth. If the degree of collaborative innovation increase by 1%, and the GDP percapita will also increase by about 0.009%-0.016%. However, the domestic loan index of real estate enterpriseshas a negative impact on the per capita GDP. Then we get the conclusion that collaborative innovation will beeffective for China’s high-quality economic growth and suggest that government should use macro control toreduce capital’s preference for real estate investment especially by strengthening direct financial innovation tosupport technological innovation.

Background. The association between free triiodothyronine (FT3) and long-term prognosis in dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patients has not been evaluated. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the level of FT3 could provide prognostic value in patients with DCM. Methods. Data of consecutive patients diagnosed with DCM were collected from October 2009 to December 2014. FT3 was measured by fluoroimmunoassay. Other biochemical markers, such as free thyroxin (FT4), thyroid-stimulating hormone, red blood cell, hemoglobin, blood urea nitrogen, and serum creatinine, were tested at the same time. Follow-up was performed every 3 months. The primary endpoint was all-cause mortality. Pearson analysis was used to evaluate the correlation of FT3 and other lab metrics with DCM patients’ prognosis. The association of long-term mortality in DCM and FT3 was compared using Cox hazards model. Results. Data of 176 patients diagnosed with DCM were collected. Of them, 24 patients missed FT3 values and six patients were lost to follow-up. Altogether, data of 146 patients were analyzed. During the median follow-up time of 79.9 (53.5–159.6) months, nine patients lost, 61 patients died (non-survival group), and 85 patients survived (survival group). FT3 was significantly lower in non-survival group than that in survival group (3.65 ± 0.83 pmol/L vs. 4.36 ± 1.91 pmol/L; P = 0.003). FT3 also showed a significantly positive correlation with red blood cell and hemoglobin, negatively correlated with age, blood urea nitrogen and serum creatinine (P

Purpose: To reviewed our measures and other experiences associated with the treatment of glaucoma patients during the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak . Methods: Measures consistent with the clinical situation and the type of glaucoma were implemented in each case. Results: Consultation for treatment was provided through a WeChat glaucoma patient group. In our survey, 58.5%patients indicated an increase in negative emotions during the outbreak, and psychological counseling was provided frequently. Difficulties in purchasing eye drops were reported by 79.2% of glaucoma patients, so an online medicine supply system was set up and eyedrops from the pharmacy or hospital pharmacy were mailed to the patients. Phacoemulsification with goniosynechialysis was performed in7acute primary angle-closure glaucomapatients (11eyes) who experienced sustained high IOP(onset time, 12-65d). The IOP decreased significantly after the operation(t=7.895，PConclusion: Effective measures can relieve thepsychological pressure and intraocular symptoms in glaucoma patientsin epidemic outbreak areas.

BackgroundPapillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) concurrent with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) was associated with a better clinical prognosis. This study aimed to investigate a potential mRNA gene that affects the development of PTC, which helps PTC concurrent with HT patients have a better prognosis.Material/MethodsPTC data were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. And the validation data of tissue specimens were collected from Guangzhou First People’s Hospital. The thyroid tissue sections were hybridized with deleted in malignant brain tumor 1 (DMBT1) probes by situ hybridization. Survival rates were analyzed using Kaplan-Meier curves, and the log-rank test was used to compare group survival rates. Prognosis clinicopathological factors were analyzed by Cox regression. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Gene and Genomic Encyclopedia (KEGG) pathway enrichment analyses were performed using single-sample gene set enrichment analysis (ssGSEA). Finally, the correlation of deletion in DMBT1 expression with overall immune status, tumor purity, and human leukocyte antigen (HLA) gene expression profile was analyzed.ResultsHT was significantly associated with sex, tumor foci, extrathyroidal extension (ETE), residual tumor, and tumor stage (T stage). Moreover, PTC concurrent with HT had a lower risk of recurrence versus non-HT groups. A total of 136 differentially expressed mRNAs (DEMs) were identified between HT and non-HT groups. Among them, the expression level of DMBT1 in HT groups was statistically higher than that in non-HT groups. A significant association with ETE and recurrence was revealed in the high expression and the low expression of DMBT1. Furthermore, DMBT1 was an independent predictor of survival. The overall immune activity of high expression of DMBT1 was higher than that of the low-expression group.ConclusionsThe PTC patients with HT had better behavior features and prognosis than those with simple PTC. DMBT1 in PTC-HT patients was a potential possible factor that inhibits tumors. High expression of DMBT1 may improve PTC prognosis by immune-related pathways.

In a retrospective analysis, the authors investigated day-by-day blood pressure variability (BPV) and its association with clinical outcomes (critical vs. severe and discharged) in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. The study participants were hospitalized in Tongji Hospital, Guanggu Branch, Wuhan, China, between February 1 and April 1, 2020. BPV was assessed as standard derivation (SD), coefficient of variation (CV), and variability independent of mean (VIM). The 79 participants included 60 (75.9%) severe patients discharged from the hospital after up to 47 days of hospitalization, and 19 (24.1%) critically ill patients transferred to other hospitals for further treatment (n = 13), admitted to ICU (n = 3) or died (n=3). Despite similar use of antihypertensive medication (47.4% vs. 41.7%) and mean levels of systolic/diastolic blood pressure (131.3/75.2 vs. 125.4/77.3 mmHg), critically ill patients, compared with severe and discharged patients, had a significantly (p ≤ .04) greater variability of systolic (SD 14.92 vs. 10.84 mmHg, CV 11.39% vs. 8.56%, and VIM 15.15 vs. 10.75 units) and diastolic blood pressure (SD 9.38 vs. 7.50 mmHg, CV 12.66% vs. 9.80%, and VIM 9.33 vs. 7.50 units). After adjustment for confounding factors, the odds ratios for critical versus severe and discharged patients for systolic BPV were 3.41 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.20-9.66, p = .02), 4.09 (95% CI 1.14-14.67, p = .03), and 2.81 (95% CI 1.12-7.05, p = .03) for each 5-mmHg increment in SD, 5% increment in CV, and 5-unit increment in VIM, respectively. Similar trends were observed for diastolic BPV indices (p ≤ .08). In conclusion, in patients with COVID-19, BPV was greater and associated with worse clinical outcomes.

3D printing is a novel construction method, which utilizes sequential deposition of printable material to build structures. It contributes to the automation in civil engineering and offers advantages of design, greenness and efficiency. Similarities between conventional spray technology and 3D printing indicate the feasibility of spray-based 3D printing, which could enhance the automation in vertical and overhead construction. However, low dimensional accuracy of sprayed profiles with conventional materials greatly affects the quality of spray-based 3D printing. This study contributes to the development of cementitious material to improve the dimensional accuracy of spray-based 3D printing. In this study, fly ash cenosphere and air entraining agent were introduced to obtain the optimal mixture design considering the delivery and deposition requirements. Subsequent spray tests show that the optimal mixture has the smallest splash width and most uniform material distribution among all the designed mixtures. Analysis of deposition process reveals that the distribution of sprayed material is closely related with its rheological properties, which could guide the future research work on spray-based printing of cementitious materials. Accepted version

3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is a technology which adopts layer-by-layer additive deposition process to build three-dimensional objects. Over the past decade, 3D printing has been attracting more and more attention in the building and construction industry. Compared with conventional concrete casting techniques, 3D printing contributes to higher efficiency with freeform construction, greatly reduced labor and much less construction waste. However, 3D printable cementitious materials are different from conventional concrete in terms of rheology, printability, and mechanical performances. This paper aims to systematically bridge the gap between the requirement and research and development of 3D printable cementitious materials to date. Guided by 3D printing process and multi-level design of cementitious materials, the requirements for 3D printable cementitious material at different material development levels are discussed. This paper provides insights for the future development of 3D printable cementitious materials for building and construction by controlling the basic inputs of materials to obtain desired structural performance. Accepted version

The disposal of post-consumer glass has been a major issue due to its inert properties that may cause environmental effects, while recycling of these glasses is only feasible if the waste glass recovered is sorted into its different colour to prevent chemical incompatibility in the manufacturing process. 3D printing in building and construction has gain increasing attention in the past decade and provides a potential to sustainably utilize the recycled unsorted glasses. This paper examines the use of recycled glass as the fine aggregates for 3D concrete printing applications. Despite the several studies done on the use of recycled glass in concrete, there is a lack of focus on the rheology of the material which is essential to the performance of the material in 3D concrete printing. Although results have shown that the mechanical strength for the recycled glass concrete is lower than the sand aggregates concrete, yet the flow properties of the former is better than the latter. Nonetheless, a balance between the mechanical strength and flowability of the mix design should be studied. The future work revolves around the optimization of the mix design using a combination of sand and recycled glass, adjusting the gradation of recycled glass particles and addition of accelerators to improve its buildability and mechanical strengths. Accepted version

Hypopharyngeal cancer (HC) is the most common subset of head and neck cancers. These tumors often have an aggressive clinical outcome characterized by local invasion and regional nodal metastasis. Upregulated miRNAs might be useful as biomarkers for prognosis and molecular targets for these tumors. We determined tumor expression of candidate miRNAs using microarray in 8 HC patients and validated in 372 HC patients. We also used paired tumorous and mucosal tissue to verify the miRNA expression. Log-rank test and Cox model were used to evaluate the survival; and Harrell's C-index was used to compare concordance of Cox models. Our results indicated 7 miRNAs aberrantly expressed in HC. Three of these candidate miRNAs (miRNA-4415, miRNA-200a, and miRNA-30b) were selected for further qRT-PCR validation and all of them were frequently found upregulated in HC tumors; with miR-4451 being the most differentially expressed. Moreover, high expression of miR-4451 was positively correlated with advanced tumor stage and increased mortality risk (HR: 1.6, 95% CI: 1.2-2.3; adjusted HR: 1.5, adjusted 95% CI: 1.1-2.1). Finally, significantly higher expression of miR-4451 in tumors compared to in fresh adjacent normal tissues indicates an oncogenic role of miR-4451 in this tumor. Upregulated miR-4451 in HC samples were frequently found and is significantly associated with advanced stage and poor survival of HC, which may indicate an association of this miRNA with the carcinogenesis process in this tumor site; and they could serve as a prognostic biomarker as well as help develop potential new targets for therapy.

The metal defect detection and identification technology have been successfully applied in actual industrial production. But there are still some problems in the steel strip defect detection task, such as the difficulty in data collection and the poor identification effect caused by the small defect target. Aiming at these problems, this paper presents an algorithm based on convolutional neural network for the detection of steel strip small target defects. First, the original image is clipped by the way that moving the slider. At the same time, the feature pyramid structure is increased to conduct feature fusion for the output of the feature extraction part and Group Normalization is used to accelerate the convergence of the model, so that the model can better adapt to the target task, effectively solve the problem of small defect object information loss on the surface of the target steel strip, and enhance the generalization of the model. In order to evaluate and test the validity of the model, a steel strip defect dataset (BS5-DET) is constructed. The experimental results show that the mAP of the model reaches 54.50% on the defect data set of the BS5-DET steel belt, which has a certain application value.

Scene text in the video is usually vulnerable to various blurs like those caused by camera or text motions, which brings additional difficulty to reliably extract them from the video for content-based video applications. In this paper, we propose a novel fully convolutional deep neural network for deblurring and detecting text in the video. Specifically, to cope with blur of video text, we propose an effective deblurring subnetwork that is composed of multi-level convolutional blocks with both cross-block (long) and within-block (short) skip connections for progressively learning residual deblurred image details as well as a spatial attention mechanism to pay more attention on blurred regions, which generates the sharper image for current frame by fusing multiple surrounding adjacent frames. To further localize text in the frames, we enhance the EAST text detection model by introducing deformable convolution layers and deconvolution layers, which better capture widely varied appearances of video text. Experiments on the public scene text video dataset demonstrate the state-of-the-art performance of the proposed video text deblurring and detection model.

BACKGROUND Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are standard therapies for patients with advanced lung adenocarcinoma and significantly improve treatment outcomes. The effect of tobacco smoking on the response of immune checkpoint inhibitors is somewhat diverging. Here, we assessed the impact of tobacco exposure on the tumor microenvironment and developed a feasible tool for predicting prognosis. METHODS Whole exon sequence data and the corresponding clinical information were downloaded from the Cancer Genome Atlas. The signature was developed by the Random Forest algorithm. CIBERSORTx online tool was used to estimate immune infiltration. Functional assays were performed to assess the roles of tobacco exposure in cancer cells. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was performed to identify and validate the immune activation status. RESULTS The TMB of lifelong non-smoker, current reformed smoker for over 15 years, current reformed smoker

During steel strip production, mechanical forces and environmental factors cause surface defects of the steel strip. Therefore, detection of such defects is key to the production of high quality products. Moreover, surface defects of the steel strip cause great economic losses to the high-tech industry. So far, few studies have explored methods of identifying the defects, and most of the currently available algorithms are not sufficiently effective. Therefore, we developed an end-to-end defect detection model based on YOLO-V3. Briefly, the anchor-free feature selection mechanism was utilized to select an ideal feature scale for model training, replace the anchor-based structure, and shorten the computing time. Next, specially designed dense convolution blocks were introduced into the model to extract rich feature information, which effectively improves feature reuse, feature propagation, and enhances the characterization ability of the network. The experimental results show that, compared with other comparison models, the improved model proposed in this study has higher performance. For instance, the proposed model yielded 71.3% mAP on the GC10-DET dataset, and 72.2% mAP on the NEU-DET dataset.

To improve the measurement accuracy of an absolute imaging position encoder, a novel edge detection method is developed to accurately detect the edges of grating lines based on empirical mode decomposition (EMD). First, according to the characteristics of the absolute position coding image (APCI), the vertical projection of the grey-level APCI is achieved by conventional grey-level transformation. Then, the vertical projection contour is decomposed by an EMD method and a finite number of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) are achieved. Next, the last two IMFs are used to describe the trend of the projection contour. The trend is used as adaptive thresholds to divide the vertical projection contour into different intervals. Finally, the second derivate of the vertical projection contour is applied to obtain the accurate edges in each interval. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method is more robust to heavy noise, bad illumination and a slope compared with the existing methods with respect to edge detection. Also, the proposed method achieves better measurement accuracy than the existing methods.

Defect inspection of integrated circuits (ICs) solder joints is a long-standing task. This paper proposes a novel IC solder joint inspection method based on the idea of robust principle component analysis (RPCA), which is a celebrated optimization technique. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time IC solder joint inspection is formulated as an optimization problem. In particular, we model an IC solder joint image as observed data corrupted by gross errors. According to the RPCA theory, the observed data can be approximately decomposed into a low-rank component and an error component. In this paper, an appearance model of qualified IC solder joints is defined for IC solder joint inspection based on RPCA. Then, a defect score is defined based on the appearance model and is used to evaluate the quality of IC solder joints. Meanwhile, location prior knowledge related to human perception is incorporated in the defect score to further evaluate the defects of IC solder joints. Finally, a simple discrimination scheme is proposed to inspect IC solder joints. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method is superior to the existing methods in inspection performance.

We propose an automatic parametric human body reconstruction algorithm which can efficiently construct a model using a single Kinect sensor. A user needs to stand still in front of the sensor for a couple of seconds to measure the range data. The user's body shape and pose will then be automatically constructed in several seconds. Traditional methods optimize dense correspondences between range data and meshes. In contrast, our proposed scheme relies on sparse key points for the reconstruction. It employs regression to find the corresponding key points between the scanned range data and some annotated training data. We design two kinds of feature descriptors as well as corresponding regression stages to make the regression robust and accurate. Our scheme follows with dense refinement where a pre-factorization method is applied to improve the computational efficiency. Compared with other methods, our scheme achieves similar reconstruction accuracy but significantly reduces runtime.

In the pulse laser ranging system based on time-of-flight measurement, since different targets have different reflection characteristics, the echo light intensity will affect the leading edge moment received by the range finder, which results in the deviation of the ranging result. In order to address this problem, this paper proposes a leading edge time correction model based on pulse width. The pulse width of the echo is positively correlated with the light intensity, so the pulse intensity can be used to characterize the light intensity and correct the leading edge time. According to Marius law, the leading edge moment acquisition experiments are carried out under different echo intensities produced by polarization state generator (PSG). It has been demonstrated that the presented model is consistent with experimental data. From the analysis and discussion, it is shown that the correction model can effectively correct the error caused by the echo light intensity of the pulsed laser ranging system, thus improving the accuracy of ranging.

Camera’s internal parameter calibration is an important problem in computer vision. The moment, a precise targets like checkboard is required when camera calibration is performed. But this method is not suitable for a telephoto lens. In order to overcome this problem, a new camera calibration model is constructed by installing the debugged telephoto camera on an accurate two-dimensional rotating platform. Let the camera move around the rotating axis of the rotating platform. The camera takes pictures of distant objects directly. Then, the next picture is get by rotating the two-dimensional platform. The image coordinates , of the same point in space, in different images are obtained by image matching. The motion matrix of the camera is calculated from the readings of the two-dimensional rotating platform. Last, the optimization equation can be enumerated to solve the internal parameters. The experimental results show that the internal parameters obtained by the algorithm can satisfy the calculation accuracy.

Rheological studies are important for successful 3D concrete printing. The main challenge for successful 3D concrete printing is the complex characteristic the materials should possess. It should be flowable enough to be pumped and extruded through the hose, as well as gaining sufficient strength and stiffness for buildability after the layer by layer deposition. Existing literature has various mixtures proposed for successful 3D concrete printing. Most of these studies used rheometers to measure the dynamic yield stress and plastic viscosity. As the measurement with rheometer is sensitive to the protocols and is controlled by the rheologists, as well as data processing if non-standardized measuring geometries are used, results could vary significantly. This study used standardized field-friendly protocols to measure the slump and slump-flow of the mortars. The pumpability and buildability are evaluated in terms of the pumpability index and maximum height printed before collapsing. These result together with the slump and slump-flow values are used to define the printable region. Accepted version

Since the reform and opening up, China’s social economy has achieved rapid development, the economic level has been significantly improved, but also, because in the process of development too much emphasis on the speed of development, ignoring the quality of improvement, so there are a lot of uncertainty in the economic development, seriously affect the economic development. For example, the supply of resources is becoming increasingly tight, the market is becoming more and more binding, and the gap between the rich and the poor is becoming larger and larger, all of which have a certain impact on China’s economic development. The rural area occupies the proportion very big in our country, our country is the biggest agriculture country, the rural area economy has the important function to our country economy. As a result of the above factors, rural economic development is faced with severe challenges; we must strengthen the attention to rural infrastructure construction, in order to promote economic development.

Purpose This paper aims to inspect solder joint defects of integrated circuit (IC) components on printed circuit boards. Here, an IC solder joint inspection algorithm is developed based on a Gaussian mixture model (GMM). Design/methodology/approach First, the authors train a GMM using numerous qualified IC solder joints. Then, the authors compare the IC solder joint images with the trained model to inspect the potential defects. Finally, the authors introduce a frequency map and define a metric termed as normalized defect degree to evaluate qualities of the tested IC solder joints. Findings Experimental results indicate that the proposed method is superior to the state-of-the-art methods on IC solder joint inspection. Originality/value The approach is a promising method for IC solder joint inspection, which is quite different from the traditional classifier-based methods.

In the field of automatic optical inspection (AOI), defect recognition for an integrated circuit (IC) solder joint is a long-standing task. Inspired by a visual background extraction (ViBe) algorithm, an object detection method in computer vision, we propose a new inspection method for IC solder joints with an improved ViBe algorithm. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to consider the defect inspection problem as an object detection problem. We build a solder joint model using the ViBe model updating scheme. Then, we compare the solder joint image with the well-trained model to detect potential defects. Finally, we introduce a frequency map method and define a metric named defect degree to evaluate the qualities of the solder joints. Experimental results show that our method is universal, accurate, and easily debugged compared with the other existing methods.

The aims of the present study were to review the experience of different surgical reconstruction methods for hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (HSCC) and compared the survival of patients with and without laryngeal function (LF) preservation. The clinical characteristics of 580 patients were retrospectively obtained and analyzed. Survival curves were analyzed using the Kaplan‑Meier method for survival and Cox models for hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). LF was preserved in 403 cases and not preserved in 177 cases. The 3‑ and 5‑year survival rates were 70.9 and 52.7%, respectively, in the LF preservation group and 48.4 and 30.5%, respectively, in the no LF preservation group. Compared with the patients without LF preservation, patients with LF preservation had a significantly reduced risk of overall death (HR=0.63, 95% CI: 0.50-0.80). LF preservation positively affects the prognosis of patients with HSCC.

Parking charges is a widely used and effective means to improve parking demand management. Based on the structural equation theory, the model about the influence factors related to the acceptability of parking charges was established. Eight factors were selected for the modeling, including problem perception, willingness, perceived effectiveness, perceived benefits, perceived freedom, perceived fairness, social norms and accountability. And a survey of two charging schemes was undertaken in Nanjing concerning influence factors of the acceptability. Model verification and path coefficient test were conducted based on the established structural equation model by AMOS. It is indicated that the most significant factors affecting the acceptability of parking charges measure are perceived effectiveness and willingness. Finally, according to the conclusions, the suggestions of improving acceptability of parking charges were presented.

The aim of this study is to evaluate grape wine quality more objectively by reducing the error of traditional grape-wine-quality evaluation. On combining grape wine quality and physicochemical index of grapevine, we provided a grape-wine-quality evaluation model by grapevine's physicochemical index in this study. Firstly, evaluations of the tasters are analyzed, for eliminating the disturbance caused by their individual difference. Then, relationship between grape wine and grapevines are analyzed. Inherent mechanism which affects the grape wine quality was figured out based on description of grape wine quality by physicochemical index of grapevine. Finally, we evaluated the grape wine quality by physicochemical index of grapevine. Additionally, rationality of the model is verified by statistical test while the accuracy of the results is verified by comparison with the evaluating results made by tasters.

We report a nc-Si nonvolatile memory (NVM) device with nitrided nc-Si dots embedded in a floating gate. LPCVD was used to deposit a layer of nc-Si on the tunnel oxide layer at the pressure of 350 mTorr. Subsequently as-deposited nc-Si dots were nitrided at 780 °C in NH 3 ambient. The role of the nitridation of nc-Si dots for improving performance of nc-Si NVM was investigated. First of all, enlarged memory windows have been observed from nitrided nc-Si NVM compared with that of un-nitrided nc-Si NVM because of the reduction of the surface defect states of nc-Si. Secondly, a faster program speed is achieved because the effective gate bias is increased in nitrided nc-Si NVM. Furthermore, the Si nitride cover layer also acts as a potential barrier which enhanced the memory retention time. The mechanism of improving performance of nitrided nc-Si NVM has been discussed.

To investigate the protecting effects of dexamethasone (DXM), baicalin and octreotide on brain injury of rats with severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) and explore their underlying mechanism.This experiment was divided into two different parts: (1) In the first part, 90 SAP rats were randomly divided into a model control group and a DXM treated group (n = 45, respectively). (2) In the second part, 135 SAP rats were randomly divided into a model control group, a baicalin treated group and an octreotide treated group (n = 45, respectively). In two different experiments, the same number of normal rats were considered as the sham-operated group (n = 45, respectively). At 3, 6 and 12 h after operation, the pathological changes in the brain were observed. The expression levels of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB), Bax and Bcl-2 proteins were detected and apoptosis indexes were calculated, using brain tissue microarray section.(1) First part: The expression levels of Bax and Bcl-2 were significantly higher in the DXM treated group than those in the model control group at different time points, while the content of NF-κB protein and pathological changes were significantly lower in the treated group than those in the model control group (P 0.05, P 0.01 or P 0.001). But the apoptotic indexes of brain tissue were not significantly different at different time points (P 0.05). (2) Second part: At all time points after operation, the expression levels of NF-κB in the brain of treated groups were, to varying degrees, significantly lower than those in the model control group while the expression levels of Bcl-2 protein in baicalin and octreotide group were significantly higher than those in model control group (P 0.01, P 0.01 and P 0.05, respectively). At 12 h after operation, the expression level of Bax protein in baicalin treated group was significantly higher than those in model control group and octreotide treated group (P 0.05 and P 0.01, respectively).Dexamethasone, baicalin and octreotide can exert protective effects against brain injury in SAP rats mainly through inhibiting the expression of NF-κB protein.

Self-similarity based nonlinear magnification on 3D surface texture can retain high degree reality of image. While the calculation of self-similarity is complex and needs long time. Parallel calculating is an ideal measure to solve this problem. The parallel way of Self-similarity calculating arithmetic is presented. At last the evaluation display that parallel processing can improve the efficiency of calculation obviously.

In this paper, a new isothermal tank test circuit composed of two tanks and a new data-processing algorithm called Cbm method are proposed to measure the flow-rate characteristics of some pneumatic valves. The double-tank circuit is used to test some solenoid valves such as inner pilot solenoid, which the traditional isothermal discharge method can not apply to. And Cbm method changes the identification procedure of multivariable unconstrained optimal algorithm, which evidently improves the identification precision of critical pressure ratio and subsonic index.

We investigated the effects of Baicalin and Octreotide on the levels of endotoxin and TNF-α in blood and the effects of apoptotic changes in multiple organs of SAP rats, and explored the underlying therapeutic mechanisms of Baicalin and Octreotide. In this study, 135 SAP rats were randomly divided into model control, Baicalin treated and Octreotide treated group (n = 45), respectively, the same number of normal rats were included in sham-operated group (n = 45). The above-mentioned groups were further subdivided into 3, 6 and 12 h subgroups, respectively (15 rats in each subgroup). At 3, 6 and 12 h after operation, the mortality rate of rats, endotoxin and TNF-α levels in blood as well as the pathological severity scores, expression levels of Bax protein and apoptosis indexes in multiple organs were determined. Compared to model control group (1),both drugs can relieve the pathological injuries of multiple organs and decrease significantly the levels of endotoxin and TNF-α in blood and the mortality rate of rats in treated groups (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01); (2) the expression of Bax protein was upregulated in pancreas, lung, intestinal mucosa (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01) but downregulated in spleen and lymph nodes (P < 0.001 and P < 0.05, respectively) in Baicalin treated group; The apoptosis indexes significantly increased in pancreas, intestinal mucosa, lymph nodes and spleen (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01). (3) the expression of Bax protein was upregulated in pancreas and lung but downregulated in spleen and lymph nodes (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01) in Octreotide treated group; The apoptosis indexes significantly increased in lymph nodes and spleen in Octreotide treated group (P < 0.05 or P < 0.01). Baicalin and Octreotide share a similar therapeutic efficacy in the treatment of SAP via a mechanism that is associated with inhibiting the levels of TNF-α in blood and induce apoptosis in multiple organs.

To study the efficacy and mechanism of Salvia miltiorrhizae injection in the treatment of severe acute pancreatitis. SAP rat models were prepared and randomly divided into model control group and treated group. The sham-operated group was also set. At 3, 6 and 12 h after operation, the mortality rate, ascitic volumes, pathological changes in the pancreas, contents of amylase and endotoxin in plasma as well as IL-6, IL-18, ET-1 and NO in serum, the staining intensity of Bax and NF-κB p56 proteins, and the changes in apoptosis index of pancreatic cells in rats in each group were observed. The pathological severity scores (at 3, 6 and 12 h after operation), contents of plasma endotoxin (at 6 and 12 h after operation) and serum IL-6 (at 6 and 12 h after operation) were significantly lower than those in model control group (P < 0.05, P < 0.01 and P < 0.01, respectively); the staining intensity and the product of the staining intensity and positive staining rate of Bax protein in the pancreas were significanly higher than those in model control group (P < 0.01). Salvia miltiorrhizae is able to reduce the contents of plasma endotoxin and serum IL-6, promote the expression of Bax protein in pancreas, improve the pathological changes in the pancreas, and decrease the mortality rate of rats, thereby showing therapeutic effect on rats with SAP.

The main objective of this study is to reduce the eccentric load's influence on the dynamic characteristics of a horizontally installed rotary actuator. The solution is drilling a hole into the rotary shaft of a rotary cylinder. With the rotation of the rotary actuator the hole will open and connect the two working chambers within a certain angular range, the back pressure will increase and the torque introduced by the back pressure partly compensates for the torque of the eccentric load. The design procedure for the connecting hole is as follows: First, experiments that study the effect of eccentric loads on the dynamic characteristics of a rotary actuator were carried out, and a stability index av was proposed; Second, a mathematical model including the connecting hole was built; Third, a real-coded GA optimization design for the connecting hole whose object is to minimize av was conducted. Simulations and test results show that the method worked efficiently.

Critical nodes of software systems are the nodes with the ability to transmit fault rapidly in the whole system. As a result, they have a significant impact on software reliability. To evaluate and identify the critical nodes, previous research focused on the static structure of software network which is inadequate since dynamic information affects the evaluation result as well. We propose a comprehensive method combining both static and dynamic information to evaluate critical nodes in our work. Static information consists of parameters measuring software structure. The importance of one node differs in different structures. In our evaluation model, we choose betweenness centrality to measure static structure because it can describe the importance of one node in static topological structure in complex network theory. For dynamic information, we focus on the execution frequency in specific software operation profile and user related operation. Combining the static and dynamic evaluating results, the comprehensive model is obtained. Using this evaluation model, we can obtain the critical nodes for one software system corresponding to different service states which indicate some sets of operating states. Protection strategy can be applied to these nodes pertinently to achieve efficient system reliability improvement.

Along with the mixed population, people lost their own dialect in the process of popularizing "Putonghua". In order to protect this kind of traditional culture, more and more researchers have entered into the protection of endangered languages. But some of the current protection work is carried out manually, with consuming a lot of manpower and resources. In order to solve this problem, a dialect translation software is designed. The using of the software will automatically convert the traditional Yi language of ShanSu (Su Yi) to the international phonetic sign. It greatly improves the efficiency of the protection work..

Service-oriented software system is facing a challenge to regulate itself promptly because of the evolving Internet environment and user requirements. In order to effectively control software of SOA dynamic evolution, by the formal tool Workflow-net, software of SOA model which is composed of four basic structure is put forward, on the basis of which, two types of software of SOA evolution is proposed.

Based on the single electron tunneling and storage in an uniform nc-Si single layer within a-SiN x (or a-SiO x ) / nc-Si/a-SiN x (or a-SiO x ) structures, the nc-Si floating gate nonvolatile memories (NVM) have been fabricated. The performance of the program and erase speed as well as the retention time have been improved by using the nitrogen plasma treatments. In order to increase the storage density, the double level charge storage has been realized in the stacked nc-Si layer based MIS structures. Considering the scaling limit of charge storage in nc-Si NVM, the Si high-rich SiO x based electrically switchable resistance random access memory (RRAM) has been investigated. The mechanism of electrically switchable resistance in Pt/SiO x /Pt structure has been also discussed.

In this paper, we construct a new type of mobile wireless data sinking platform for data collection based on unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology, which aims to address the increasing demand for wireless sensor network (WSN) distribution in different monitoring areas and enlarge the coverage for various application scenarios. A wireless environmental monitoring system is firstly studied, and then wireless communication capacity and data collection experiments are performed. The communication capacity test results show that when the RF modules operate with a transmission power above 1 dBm and a communication distance below 100 m, the UAV wireless sink node can maintain a high quality communication data link. Additionally, an outdoor data collection experiment is performed using this UAV platform within a mountainous area. In this outdoor experiment, the data analysis results show that the validity rate of the environmental data that is obtained from the WSN cluster head node on the ground is higher than 92%, and most of the missing data results from WSN communication failures. This experiment proves the feasibility of introducing UAV as a sink node in a clustering WSN. The overall contributions of this paper can provide guidance for building a UAV cooperative WSN system in future.

Centered around the model of ESDDM, a software evolution process model based on evolution behavior interface, and the knowledge of component classification and component retrieval evaluation, this paper furthered previous work by proposing a component reusability evaluation method based on fuzzy mathematics. The method provides an effective way of evaluating the reusable ability of a certain component during the process of software evolution.

Service-oriented software system is facing a challenge to regulate itself promptly because of the evolving Internet environment and user requirements In this paper, a new way that describe the dynamic evolution of services according to 3C mode(Will 1990) is proposed, and Extended workflow net is utilized to describe the abstract model of dynamic evolution of services from specific-functional-domain which is defined in this paper to the whole system.

Software evolution requirement, which is the cross point of software evolution and software requirement, is the source power of software evolution. In order to improve the efficiency and quality of software evolution, this paper modeled the software evolution requirement process. Based on the study of software evolution, software requirement and feedback mechanism, this paper proposed two different types of feedbacks in software evolution requirement process, which perfected the change control process of software evolution requirement. After bringing in colored dual-transitions Petri net (CDPN), process model of software evolution requirement (SERPM) based on feedback was formalized. SERPM can effectively manage the changing process of software evolution requirement and thus software can evolve with high efficiency and quality.