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In recent years, tensor computation has become a promising tool for solving big data analysis, machine learning, medical image and EDA problems. To ease the memory and computation intensity of tensor processing, decomposition techniques, especially Tensor-train Decomposition(TTD), are widely adopted to compress the extremely high-dimensional tensor data. Despite TTD’s potential to break the curse of dimensionality, researchers have not yet leveraged its full computational potential, mainly because of two reasons:(1) Executing TTD itself is time-and energy-consuming due to the singular value decomposition(SVD) operation inside each of TTD’s iteration; (2) Additional software/hardware optimizations are often required to process the obtained TT-format data in certain applications such as deep learning inference. In this paper, we address these challenges with two approaches. Firstly, we propose an algorithm-hardware co-design with customized architecture namely TTD Engine to accelerate TTD. We use MRI image compression as a demo application to illustrate the efficacy of the proposed accelerator. Secondly, we present a case study demonstrating the benefit of TT-format data processing and the efficacy of using TTD Engine. In the case study, we use TT approach to realize convolution operation, which is difficult and nontrivial for TT-format data. Experimental results show that, TTD Engine achieves, on average, 14.9×∼36.9× speedup over CPU implementations and 4.1×∼9.9× speedup compared to the GPU baseline. The energy efficiency is also improved by at least 14.4× and 5.4× over CPU and GPU, respectively. Moreover, our hardware-enabled TT-format data processing further leads to more efficient implementations of complicated operations and applications.

Background Isthmus-originating papillary thyroid carcinoma has unique clinicopathological characteristics. There are no specific guidelines regarding the extent of surgery for isthmic papillary thyroid carcinoma. We aimed to evaluate the characteristics of clinically lymph node–negative patients with solitary isthmic papillary thyroid carcinoma and to determine the best surgical protocol for these patients. Methods A total of 904 patients diagnosed with solitary papillary thyroid carcinoma who underwent surgery were retrospectively reviewed. These patients were divided into the isthmic group (246 patients) or lobar group (658 patients). We compared the 2 groups and conducted a multivariate analysis to assess risk factors for ipsilateral and contralateral central lymph node metastasis in isthmic papillary thyroid carcinoma patients. Nomograms for predicting central lymph node metastasis in isthmic papillary thyroid carcinoma patients were developed and internal calibration was performed for these models. Results Isthmic papillary thyroid carcinoma patients have a significantly higher incidence of extrathyroidal extension and central lymph node metastasis than do lobar papillary thyroid carcinoma patients. For isthmic papillary thyroid carcinoma patients, sex, BRAF V600E mutation, chronic lymphocytic thyroiditis, tumor size, margin, and extrathyroidal extension were independent risk factors of ipsilateral central lymph node metastasis. Body mass index, BRAF V600E mutation, tumor size, location, and extrathyroidal extension were independent risk factors of contralateral central lymph node metastasis. All the above factors were incorporated into nomograms, which showed the perfect discriminative ability. Conclusion Based on the predictive nomograms, we proposed a risk stratification scheme and corresponding individualized surgical treatment based on different nomogram scores. In the debate about prophylactic central neck dissection among clinically lymph node-negative patients with solitary isthmic papillary thyroid carcinoma, our nomograms provide the balance to avoid overtreatment and undertreatment through personal risk assessment.

This letter introduces GARMI, a service robotics platform conceptualized with a focus on assisting elderly at home. GARMI is designed to provide support with household tasks, as an avatar for tactile-enabled communication and as an interface for telemedicine and emergency assistance. Its unique humanoid design features a sensor-equipped multi-modal head designed for natural human-machine communication as well as a whole-body torque-control interface for safe physical human-machine interaction. GARMI's modular software architecture and distinctive whole-body control scheme allows multimodal dynamic coupling. Additionally, every system component can actively produce as well as sense forces and can thus serve as a haptic feedback interface when interacting with its environment and users. Furthermore, GARMI is the first mobile humanoid designed with specialized use-inspired avatar stations: PARTI for dual-arm-based exoskeleton-like remote-control with force-feedback and MUCKI for transparent remote doctor-patient interaction with both audiovisual and safe haptic feedback. The specialized software architecture allows for rapid prototyping and field-testing of new behaviors for telemedicine, multi-modal interaction and autonomous physical and service assistance. Our first results reveal the potential of our use-driven force-based whole-body control mobile humanoid for daily living and telemedicine scenarios in an elderly care research facility.

Current management for spinal cord injury aims to reduce secondary damage and recover sensation and movement. Acute spinal cord injury is often accompanied by spinal cord compartment syndrome. Decompression by durotomy and/or myelotomy attempts to relieve secondary damage by completelyrelieving the compression of the spinal cord, removing the necrotic tissue, decreasing edema, reducing hemorrhage, and improving blood circulation in the spinal cord. However, it is controversial whether durotomy and/or myelotomy after spinal cord injury are beneficial to neurological recovery. This review compares the clinical effects of durotomy with those of myelotomy in the treatment of spinal cord injury. We found that durotomy has been performed more than myelotomy in the clinic, and that durotomy may be safer and more effective than myelotomy. Durotomy performed in humans had positive effects on neurological function in 92.3% of studies in this review, while durotomy in animals had positive effects on neurological function in 83.3% of studies. Myelotomy procedures were effective in 80% of animal studies, but only one clinical study of myelotomy has reported positive results, of motor and sensory improvement, in humans. However, a number of new animal studies have reported that durotomy and myelotomy are ineffective for spinal cord injury. More clinical data, in the form of a randomized controlled study, are needed to understand the effectiveness of durotomy and myelotomy.

The scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) algorithm is still one of the most reliable image feature extraction methods. Despite its excellent robustness on various image transformations, SIFT’s intensive computational burden has been severely preventing it from being used in real-time and energy-efficient embedded machine vision systems. To reduce processing time and energy cost while executing SIFT, an analog signal processing architecture, analog signal processing (ASP)-SIFT, is proposed in this article. In ASP-SIFT, the Gaussian pyramid construction, difference-of-Gaussian (DoG) pyramid construction and keypoint locating, which are the primary steps of the keypoint detection part of the SIFT algorithm, are done directly with analog circuit networks. Thus, by completing keypoint detection in the analog domain, the total processing time is approximately equal to the settling time of the circuit network. Besides, by adopting a current-mode circuit network operating in the subthreshold region, the power dissipation would be very low. Simulation results show that the total processing speed for a typical video graphics array (VGA)-format ( $640\times480$ ) image is up to 2.3 kframes per second, which is at least $3.26\times $ faster than the state-of-the-art digital hardware accelerators, while the system power is 94.5 mW and the energy consumption is only $40~\mu \text{J}$ per frame.

Extreme classification (XC) is the essential component of large-scale Deep Learning Systems for a wide range of application domains, including image recognition, language modeling, and recommendation. As classification categories keep scaling in real-world applications, the classifier’s parameters could reach several thousands of Gigabytes, way exceed the on-chip memory capacity. With the advent of near-memory processing (NMP) architectures, offloading the XC component onto NMP units could alleviate the memory-intensive problem. However, naive NMP design with limited area and power budget cannot afford the computational complexity of full classification. To tackle the problem, we first propose a novel screening method to reduce the computation and memory consumption by efficiently approximating the classification output and identifying a small portion of key candidates that require accurate results. Then, we design a new extreme-classification-tailored NMP architecture, namely ENMC, to support both screening and candidates-only classification. Overall, our approximate screening method achieves 7.3 × speedup over the CPU baseline, and ENMC further improves the performance by 7.4 × and demonstrates 2.7 × speedup compared with the state-of-the-art NMP baseline.

Streaming graphs are ubiquitous in today’s big data era. Prior work has improved the performance of streaming graph workloads without taking input characteristics into account. In this work, we demonstrate that input knowledge-driven software and hardware co-design is critical to optimize the performance of streaming graph processing. To improve graph update efficiency, we first characterize the performance trade-offs of input-oblivious batch reordering. Guided by our findings, we propose input-aware batch reordering to adaptively reorder input batches based on their degree distributions. To complement adaptive batch reordering, we propose updating graphs dynamically, based on their input characteristics, either in software (via update search coalescing) or in hardware (via acceleration support). To improve graph computation efficiency, we present input-aware work aggregation which adaptively modulates the computation granularity based on inter-batch locality characteristics. Evaluated across 260 workloads, our input-aware techniques provide on average 4.55 × and 2.6 × improvement in graph update performance for different input types (on top of eliminating the performance degradation from input-oblivious batch reordering). The graph compute performance is improved by 1.26 × (up to 2.7 ×).

BACKGROUND: Noninvasive methods for the early diagnosis and staging of hepatic fibrosis are needed. The present study aimed to investigate the alteration of magnetic susceptibility in the liver of patients with various fibrosis stages and to evaluate the feasibility of using susceptibility to stage hepatic fibrosis. METHODS: A total of 30 consecutive patients with chronic liver diseases (CLDs) underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and liver biopsy evaluation of hepatic fibrosis, necroinflammatory activity, iron load, and steatosis. Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM), R2* and proton density fat fraction (PDFF) images were postprocessed from the same gradient-echo data for quantitative tissue characterization using region of interest (ROI) analysis. The differences for MRI measurements between cohorts of non-significant (Ishak-F

As the ultimate protection of a pressure system, pressure safety valves (PSV) can respond in an unstable manner in the form of flutter and chatter, which will affect service life, reliability, and performance. In order to study the dynamic instability caused by multisource forces including the flow force, the spring compression force, and the pressure wave forces, a high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model of the system is proposed. A complete CFD model, incorporating the PSV, connected pipes, and the pressure vessel, is developed, in which advanced techniques in Fluent using User Defined Function (UDF) and Dynamic Layering method are combined to allow the PSV to be coupled to the system dynamics. Based on this model, the valve's opening and reclosing process is monitored to examine the influence of design parameters on the dynamic instability of the PSV. Specifically, the propagation of pressure waves along the connecting pipes is successfully captured, helping to assess the instability mechanism and provide the ability to optimize the design and setup of pressure relief systems.

The concept of minimally invasive cardiac surgery has been put forward for more than decades and continued to develop. Recently, minimally invasive aortic valve surgery is established as a safe and effective treatment for various aortic valvular heart diseases and ascending aorta disorders. This study is aimed at analyzing the safety and effectiveness of aortic valve replacement (AVR) through right anterior minithoracotomy for the treatment of patients with low left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). Retrospective analyses of 43 cases with low LVEF undergoing AVR through median sternotomy and 43 cases with low LVEF undergoing AVR through right anterior minithoracotomy were performed. Extracorporeal circulation time and aortic cross-clamping time were longer in patients undergoing AVR through right anterior minithoracotomy than those in patients undergoing AVR through median sternotomy ( P < 0.05 ). Patients undergoing AVR through right anterior minithoracotomy exhibited declines in the cardiac surgery intensive care unit (CSICU) stay, duration of mechanical ventilation, and the length of hospital stay than those undergoing AVR through median sternotomy ( P < 0.05 ). The volumes of 24 h chest drainage were reduced in patients undergoing AVR through right anterior minithoracotomy compared with those undergoing AVR through median sternotomy ( P < 0.05 ). The incidence rates of blood transfusion within 24 h and postoperative atrial fibrillation were lower in patients undergoing AVR through right anterior minithoracotomy than those in patients undergoing AVR through median sternotomy ( P < 0.05 ). As for cardiac function, patients with right anterior minithoracotomy had decreased left ventricular end diastolic diameter (LVEDD) but increased LVEF and left ventricular fractional shortening (LVFS) when compared to median sternotomy ( P < 0.05 ). With regard to inflammatory response, the serum levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-8 (IL-8), and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in patients with right anterior minithoracotomy were much lower than those in median sternotomy ( P < 0.05 ). All these results indicate that right anterior minithoracotomy is an alternative, less invasive approach to median sternotomy during AVR for patients with low LVEF.

The new coronavirus epidemic (COVID-19) has received widespread attention, causing the health crisis across the world. Massive information about the COVID-19 has emerged on social networks. However, not all information disseminated on social networks is true and reliable. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, only real information is valuable to the authorities and the public. Therefore, it is an essential task to detect rumors of the COVID-19 on social networks. In this paper, we attempt to solve this problem by using an approach of machine learning on the platform of Weibo. First, we extract text characteristics, user-related features, interaction-based features, and emotion-based features from the spread messages of the COVID-19. Second, by combining these four types of features, we design an intelligent rumor detection model with the technique of ensemble learning. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments on the collected data from Weibo. Experimental results indicate that our model can significantly improve the accuracy of rumor detection, with an accuracy rate of 91% and an AUC value of 0.96.

The dynamical transmission of intermediate-energy protons through a polycarbonate (PC) conical capillary with taper angle from 0.48° to 2° are simulated. The results show that for small taper angle of 0.48°, the transmission of 100 keV protons is dominated by the deposited-charge-assisted specular reflection. This reflection effect decreases with the increase of the taper angle. When the taper angle is increased to 2°, the transmission of the protons is mainly influenced by small angle scattering, which is consistent with the experimental data. The asymptotic transmission rate decreases with the increase of the capillary taper angle. These results suggest that the deposited-charge-assisted specular reflection is significant in focusing several-hundred-keV protons.

In a relief system, the pressure variation in the system is often caused by the operations of the pressure control elements such as the pressure relief valve and ball valve, in addition to the pressure fluctuations in the pressure resources. This pressure variation couples with the acoustics or the motion of passive pressure control elements, which may result in system malfunction. To investigate the principles of the pressure variation in a relief system including a reservoir, a pipeline and a spring-loaded pressure relief valve, a multifidelity hybrid model combining the method of characteristics (MOC) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method is proposed. In the multifidelity hybrid model, the characteristics of the pressure resources are modeled using their performance curves, the compressible gas transmitted in the pipe is calculated by one-dimensional MOC, and the air flow in the valve as well as the valve motion is simulated by a two-dimensional CFD model. To validate the model, analyses are conducted with a 1:1 scale test rig and a full CFD model. The comparison of the results shows that both the multifidelity hybrid model and the full CFD model can accurately capture the pressure fluctuations in straight pipelines induced by valve closure and predict the forms of valve motion, but the calculation speed of the multifidelity hybrid model is four times faster than that of the full CFD model.

As one essential component of a pressurized system, a relief valve is used to guarantee the pressure within a prescribed range. But in practical engineering, pressure fluctuation caused by the operation of a relief valve will travel along the pipeline and couple with the motion of the valve, which might result in malfunction of the valve and the system. In order to investigate the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) phenomenon, a hybrid model combining the method of characteristics (MOC) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method is proposed. In the hybrid FSI model, the characteristics of pressure resource is modeled using the performance curves, the compressible gas transmitting in the pipe is calculated by one-dimensional MOC, and the air flow in the valve as well as the valve motion is simulated by a two-dimensional CFD model. To validate the hybrid model, 1:1 scaled test rig is conducted. The compared results show that the hybrid model not only can accurately capture the pressure fluctuation in straight pipeline induced by the closure of the valve but also can accurately predict the forms of the valve motion.

Pulmonary artery sarcoma (PAS) is an extremely rare and highly malignant tumor that originates in the pulmonary artery. The majority of reported cases of PAS are confirmed by pathological examination subsequent to surgery or by autopsy. The present study reports the clinicopathological characteristics and immunohistochemical phenotypes of three cases of PAS, and aims to facilitate the identification of this lethal disease. In the present study, the data from clinical, histopathological and immunohistochemical examinations of three patients with PAS, whose diagnoses were confirmed by surgical biopsy conducted at the Beijing Anzhen Hospital (Beijing, China) between 2008 and 2012, were retrospectively analyzed. The patients (two women and one man; average age, 41.3 years old) presented with dyspnea on exertion. In addition, two of the patients experienced chest tightness, and one patient experienced intermittent syncope. Computed tomography pulmonary angiography revealed that two of the patients possessed a filling defect in the main, left and right pulmonary arteries, and one patient possessed a filling defect in the right upper pulmonary artery. Macroscopically, the PAS appeared as a mucoid intraluminal or nodular sessile mass spreading along the pulmonary artery. Microscopically, the tumor consisted of spindle cells with fascicular and storiform patterns, and was accompanied by necrosis and stromal myxoid changes. Immunohistochemically, vimentin, desmin and cluster of differentiation 34 were highly expressed in the patient that was diagnosed with intimal sarcoma, while vimentin and α-smooth muscle actin were highly expressed in the other two patients, who were diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma. PAS is often misdiagnosed due to nonspecific clinical manifestations and radiological features. Therefore, the diagnosis of PAS should be based on typical morphological features and immunohistochemical analysis of the tumor tissue.

As the ultimate protection of a pressure system, pressure safety valves (PSV) can respond in an instable manner such as flutter and chatter which will affect service life, reliability and performance. In order to study the dynamic instability caused by multi-source forces including the flow force, the spring compressing force and the pressure wave force, a more realistic CFD model containing a PSV and different connected pipes as well as the pressure vessel is developed, in which advanced techniques in Fluent such as User Defined Function (UDF) and Dynamic Layering method are combined to allow the PSV to operate. Based on this model, the process of the valve’s opening and reclosing is monitored to examine the influence of design parameters on the dynamic instability of the PSV. Specifically, the propagation of pressure waves along the connecting pipes is successfully captured, which is of great help to explain the instability mechanism and optimize the design and setup of pressure relief systems.

HLA (High Level Architecture) is a standard to promote the interoperation and the reuse of the simulation models. In the simulation federation development based on HLA/RTI, how to simplify the process of creating federate is an urgent job. This paper proposes an equipment support simulation federate automatically generation tool in order to solve equipment support concept evaluation on diverse level concept. The federate automatically generation tool can automatically generate federate in different number different function different interaction depending on universal federate code and federate initialization data. The tool not only automatically generates federate framework code, but also automatically generates federation inside function code. It can reduce the difficulties of federate development and increase the efficiency of equipment support concept evaluation. The application of joint operations equipment support concept evaluation is illustrated. It testifies the available and feasible of federate automatically generation tool in equipment support simulation.

Maintenance task scheduling during mission break is described as flexible resource constraint project scheduling problem, and flexible resource constraint maintenance task scheduling model is established. Since capability level of flexible resource is different, the thesis establishes maintenance task scheduling model considering capability difference. To resolve the model, a particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm based on activity list is presented. At last, a case study is present.

The viscoelastic surfactant diverting-acidification technology is a new intelligent matrix acidizing technology.Based on the theoretical analysis，viscosity-variable diverting-acid main agent is selected out.Both the rthogonal design and the grey relational analysis are used to determine synthesis conditions and influence of reaction factors.The production structure is verified by the infrared spectra.Then coreflooding experiments are designed to check the diversion effect,and it shows that the system satisfies the need of diverting-acidification in the carbonate formation.

A dominant presence of parametric model uncertainties motivates an adaptive approach for control of very flexible aircraft (VFA). This paper proposes an adaptive controller that includes a baseline design based on observers and parameter adaptation based on a closed-loop reference model (CRM), and is applicable for a class of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) plants where number of outputs exceeds number of inputs. In particular, the proposed controller allows the plant to have first-order actuator dynamics and parametric uncertainties in both plant and actuator dynamics. Conditions are delineated under which this controller can guarantee stability and asymptotic reference tracking, and the overall design is validated on a nonlinear VFA model.

One of important method of equipment support concept evaluation is distributed simulation technology. In the simulation federation development based on HLA/RTI，how to simplify the process of creating federate is an urgent job. This paper proposes an equipment support simulation federate automatically generating framework in order to solve equipment support concept evaluation on diverse level concept. It can be divided into six parts that is federate definition tools, federate interaction modeling tools, federate deploy modeling tools, FED document automated create tools, federate time management tools and EXE document automated create tools. Equipment support simulation federate automatically generating framework can reduce the workload of simulation system exploitation based on HLA by separating high lever service from bottom detail. The application of joint operations equipment support concept evaluation is illustrated. It testify the available and feasible of equipment support simulation federate automatically generating framework.

In this paper, a new adaptive output-feedback controller for multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) linear plant models with relative degree two is developed. The adaptive controller includes a baseline design based on observers and parameter adaptation based on a closed-loop reference model (CRM). The overall design guarantees robust stability and tracking performance in the presence of parametric uncertainties that are commonly seen in aircraft applications.

Time management is an important component of HLA while Time Advance Mechanism is RTI (Run-Time infrastructure)’s critical technology in implementing time management. One of Time Advance Mechanism is Conservative Time Advance Mechanism. The based premise of Conservative Time Advance Mechanism is that physics system can settle for Realizability and Predictability. But Equipment Maintenance Federate can’t predict the next event time in Maintenance Support Simulation because of infection from other federate. So maintenance support simulation results in deadliness error of RTI. The paper proposes a Federate TimeList method for improves Conservative Event-driven Time Advance Mechanism in HLA. In the end, an example of the maintenance support simulation is particular researched. It is shows that this strategy satisfies the maintenance support simulation effectively.

Long-term activation of β-adrenergic signaling with alterations in calcium regulatory proteins is critical for cardiac dysfunction in chronic heart failure (CHF), and statins have been shown to have beneficial effects leading to the improvement of heart failure (HF). In this study, rabbits with HF treated with simvastatin exhibited an increased ejection fraction and left ventricular β1-adrenergic receptor density and cAMP levels, in addition to a decreased heart rate and plasma levels of brain natriuretic peptide and norepinephrine, compared to animals with HF induced by combined aortic insufficiency and aortic constriction. Moreover, the expression and activity of SERCA2a and PKA and the ratio of ser16-phosphorated PLB to total PLB were higher in rabbits with HF treated with simvastatin, whereas protein phosphatase 1 alpha expression was reduced compared to untreated animals with HF. These data suggest that simvastatin prevents decreased SERCA2a activity via the inhibition of β-adrenergic signaling in non-ischemic heart failure in rabbits.

3D model retrieval plays an important role in product design reuse. We present a local scale-based model retrieval methodology for 3D mechanical parts library. On the grounds that most of the mechanical parts have visible main planes, we firstly propose a novel approach, i.e., the plane comparison-based pose normalization. This approach was employed complementally with principal component analysis (PCA for short) on the normals of the model's face to perform rotation invariance. After pose normalization, the model is scaled locally along a certain axis so that the size of its local features can be adjusted reasonably. In this way, the feature vectors of the scaled model can represent all the local features. The feature vectors of the deformed model are extracted by the real spherical harmonics. Finally, the feature vectors and the scale factors are used in an experiment for similarity comparison. Experimental results showed that the proposed method outperformed five other methods on the National Design Repository dataset and our own complex mechanical parts dataset.

Background Transmyocardial laser revascularization (TMLR) has been used in the treatment of patients with end-stage coronary artery disease (CAD) since 1990. The aim of this study was to evaluate the long-term effectiveness of TMLR in patients with diffuse CAD. Methods Ninety-four consecutive patients underwent TMLR in one center from July 1997 to December 2000. The follow-up data of these patients were obtained through face-to-face, mail questionnaires, or telephone interviews in July 2004 and December 2004. Four cases failed to respond. Mean follow-up time was (5.5±1.0) years. Results Mean Canadian Cardiovascular Society (CCS) angina scores of TMLR patients were 3.1±0.8 at baseline, 1.7±0.9 at 1 year (P

The design reuse of products is vital for mass customization. In small- and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises (SMMEs), employing design reuse is a challenging issue because of the limited level and scale of these enterprises. Previous studies have not considered this issue and have attempted to rebuild a complete novel system. In this study, we propose a design reuse approach based on an engineering semantic web (ESW) and implement a design reuse system. This system does not rebuild the current parts library in SMMEs. In our approach, we construct an ESW and a mapping relation to introduce engineering semantic information into the existing parts library. In addition, we employ ant colony optimization (ACO) for the retrieval of design information. A design reuse prototype system is implemented for solving the problem of design reuse in SMMEs.

Primary islet nonfunction due to an instant blood mediated inflammatory reaction (IBMIR) leads to an increase in donor islet mass required to achieve euglycemia. In the presence of thrombin, thrombomodulin generates activated protein C (APC), which limits procoagulant and proinflammatory responses. In this study, we postulated that liposomal formulations of thrombomodulin (lipo-TM), due to its propensity for preferential uptake in the liver, would enhance intraportal engraftment of allogeneic islets by inhibiting the IBMIR. Diabetic C57BL/6J mice underwent intraportal transplantation with B10.BR murine islets. In the absence of treatment, conversion to euglycemia was observed among 29% of mice receiving 250 allo-islets. In contrast, a single infusion of lipo-TM led to euglycemia in 83% of recipients (p = 0.0019). Fibrin deposition (p < 0.0001), neutrophil infiltration (p < 0.0001), as well as expression TNF-α and IL-β (p < 0.03) were significantly reduced. Significantly, thrombotic responses mediated by human islets in contact with human blood were also reduced by this approach. Lipo-TM improves the engraftment of allogeneic islets through a reduction in local thrombotic and inflammatory processes. As an enzyme-based pharmacotherapeutic, this strategy offers the potential for local generation of APC at the site of islet infusion, during the initial period of elevated thrombin production.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of mortality in the United States. The limited availability of healthy autologous vessels for bypass grafting procedures has led to the fabrication of prosthetic vascular conduits. Synthetic polymeric materials, while providing the appropriate mechanical strength, lack the compliance and biocompatibility that bioresorbable and naturally occurring protein polymers offer. Vascular tissue engineering approaches have emerged in order to meet the challenges of designing a vascular graft with long-term patency. In vitro culture techniques that have been explored with vascular cell seeding of polymeric scaffolds and the use of bioactive polymers for in situ arterial regeneration have yielded promising results. This review describes the development of polymeric materials in various tissue engineering strategies for the improvement in the mechanical and biological performance of an arterial substitute.

In this paper, an annotated survey of approaches to the transformation from a probability measure to a possibility measure or conversely is provided and noticeable properties of the transformations are described. The close relationship of possibility theory and probability theory on quantifying uncertainty is an interesting question which needs further theoretical research. Moreover, the transformations between them are vital for practical applications and attract more attention. The already- existing approaches considered less on discussions of the basis for such transformation. Hence, the compatibility of possibility and probability theory based on evidence theory is investigated first, and then detailed transformations are presented and their characteristics are proved to be a foundation of the transformations. From the systematic point of view, this paper also points out that information semantics inherent in possibility and probability measures may be an elementary factor worth considering. At last, application areas, technical difficulties and future work are stated.

The High-accuracy Atmosphere Correction for Hyperspectral Data (HATCH) algorithm retrieves surface reflectance from imaging spectrometer data in the 350-2500nm wavelength region with resolutions of 5nm or greater. A key feature of HATCH is that it derives calibration for the sensor spectral response functions (band centers and FWHMs) from the data themselves. This is approached by utilizing known atmospheric absorption features (e.g. water vapor and oxygen bands) and the application of a new technique dubbed the© (2002) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

This paper reports the clinical experience in transmyocardial laser revascularization ( TMLR) with high power CO 2 laser and evaluates the preliminary results of TMLR. Methods: TMLR was performed on the beating heart in 50 cases underwent a left anterolateral thoracotomy in the fifth intercostal space. The laser energy of each discharge and the percentage of successful transmyocardial penetration in free walls of the left ventricle were studied. Myocardial enzymes were measured postoperatively by the enzyme dynamic method during a week. The follow-up ranged from 3 to 18 months was made to assess angina class and myocardial perfusion. Results Creatine phosphokinase isoenzyme (CPK-MB) had increased since 2 hours after TMLR, but the peak value of CPK-MB at 24 hours was less than 2-fold of the baseline(15 IU/L±10IU/L). The average laser energy used for making each channel was 35.6±12.3J. The percentage of successful penetration was 93.6%. The laser energy used in apex was the most (P

A radiometrically stable, commercially available spectroradiometer was used in conjunction with a simple, custom-designed telescope to make spectrally continuous measurements of solar spectral transmittance and directly transmitted solar spectral irradiance. The wavelength range of the instrument is 350-2500 nm and the resolution is 3-11.7 nm. Laboratory radiometric calibrations show the instrument to be stable to better than 1.0% over a nine-month period. The instrument and telescope are highly portable, can be set up in a matter of minutes, and can be operated by one person. A method of absolute radiometric calibration that can be tied to published top-of-the-atmosphere (TOA) solar spectra in valid Langley channels as well as regions of strong molecular absorption is also presented. High-altitude Langley plot calibration experiments indicate that this technique is limited ultimately by the current uncertainties in the TOA solar spectra, approximately 2-3%. Example comparisons of measured and modtran-modeled direct solar irradiance show that the model can be parameterized to agree with measurements over the large majority of the wavelength range to the 3% level for the two example cases shown. Side-by-side comparisons with a filter-based solar radiometer are in excellent agreement, with a mean absolute difference of tau = 0.0036 for eight overlapping wavelengths over three experiment days.

Background Single administration of intra-articular (IA) bupivacaine for pain relief after arthroscopic knee surgery is effective, but its active duration and dose–response relationship is unclear. We conducted this meta-analysis to summarize all published randomized controlled trials (RCTs), thus providing the most recent information on the safety and efficacy of single-administration IA bupivacaine for pain relief after arthroscopic knee surgery, and to determine whether a dose–response relationship exists. Methods A systematic electronic literature search (through April 2014) was conducted to identify those RCTs that addressed the safety and efficacy of a single administration of IA bupivacaine for pain management after arthroscopic knee surgery. Subgroup analysis was conducted to determine changes in visual analog scale (VAS) scores at seven postoperative time points. Meta-regression and subgroup analyses were carried out to assess the effects of various treatment factors on efficacy and to evaluate the dose–response relationship of bupivacaine. Weighted mean differences or relative risks were calculated and pooled using a random-effects model. Results Twenty-eight trials involving 1,560 patients who underwent arthroscopic knee surgery met the inclusion criteria. The trials were subject to medium risk of bias. VAS scores at 2, 4, 6, 12, and 24 h postoperatively were significantly lower, the number of patients requiring supplementary analgesia was smaller, and the time to first request for analgesia was longer in the IA bupivacaine group than in the placebo group. The analgesic effect of single-administration IA bupivacaine may be associated with the effect of concomitant administration of epinephrine and concentration of bupivacaine, and no dose–response relationship was identified. No significant difference in side effects was detected between groups. Conclusions Current evidence shows that the use of single-administration IA bupivacaine is effective for postoperative pain management in patients undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery, with satisfactory short-term safety. Low-dose administration of IA bupivacaine 0.5% combined with epinephrine adjuvant in clinical practice should be performed. Additional high-quality RCTs with longer follow-up periods are required to examine the safety of single-administration IA bupivacaine. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12891-015-0477-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.