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Emerging evidence indicates that circular RNA (circRNA) is implicated in the development of atherosclerosis (AS). This study investigated the effect of circ_0003204 on endothelial cell function and explored the functional mechanism of circ_0003204 in AS progression. AS cell models were constructed by treating human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVEC) with oxidized low-density lipoprotein (ox-LDL). The expression of circ_0003204 was detected by quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR). The releases of pro-inflammatory factors were determined by ELISA. Cell viability was checked by CCK-8 assay. Cell apoptosis was monitored by flow cytometry assay. The ability of angiogenesis was assessed by tube formation assay. The protein levels of cell development- and apoptosis-related markers were measured by western blot. The binding relationship between miR-491-5p and circ_0003204 or intercellular adhesion molecule 1 (ICAM1) was verified by dual-luciferase reporter assay or RIP assay. The expression of circ_0003204 was strengthened in ox-LDL-treated HUVECs. Circ_0003204 knockdown inhibited ox-LDL-induced inflammation and cell apoptosis, and promoted ox-LDL-depleted cell viability and tube formation ability in HUVECs. MiR-491-5p was a target of circ_0003204, and miR-491-5p directly bound to ICAM1 3'UTR. Accordingly, circ_0003204 positively regulated ICAM1 expression by targeting miR-491-5p. Rescue experiments presented that miR-491-5p inhibition reversed the effects of circ_0003204 knockdown, and ICAM1 overexpression abolished the effects of miR-491-5p restoration. Circ_0003204 knockdown protects HUVECs against ox-LDL-induced injuries by targeting the miR-491-5p-ICAM1 pathway, hinting that circ_0003204 inhibition might prevent AS development.

Background As the coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic evolves, the need for recognizing the structural pulmonary changes of the disease during early convalescence has emerged. Most studies focus on parenchymal destruction of the disease; but little is known about whether the disease affects the airway. This study was conducted to investigate the changes in airway dimensions and explore the associated factors during early convalescence in patients with COVID-19. Methods We retrospectively analyzed quantitative computed tomography (CT)-based airway measures of 69 patients with COVID-19 from 5 February to 17 March 2020, and 32 non-COVID-19 participants from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2019 from Guangzhou, China. The well-established measures of wall area fraction and the square root of the wall area of a hypothetical bronchus with an inner perimeter of 10 mm, were used to describe airway wall dimensions. We described the characteristics of the dimensions and inner area of airways in 66 patients with COVID-19 at the initial and convalescent stages of the disease, and compared them with the non-COVID-19 group. Linear regression models were constructed to investigate the association of airway dimensions with duration of hospitalization or disease severity after recovery. Partial correlation coefficients were calculated to investigate whether inflammatory markers were related to airway dimensions. Results Among 66 patients with COVID-19, airway dimensions were greater during disease initiation than early convalescence, which was significantly greater than in non-COVID-19 participants. No significant difference was found between the patients with COVID-19 at the initial stage and the non-COVID-19 controls regarding the first to eighth generations of the inner area. In adjusted regression models, duration of hospitalization was negatively associated with wall area fraction of the first to the sixth generation of airways. No significant associations exist between airway dimensions and disease severity, or airway dimensions with inflammatory markers. Conclusions Airway dimensions in patients with COVID-19 during disease initiation are greater than those in non-COVID-19 participants. Such structural airway changes continue to remain significantly greater during early convalescence. No evidence shows that disease severity or inflammatory markers are associated with airway dimensions, implying that the primary lesion attacked by COVID-19 might not be the airways.

Background In December 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, Hubei, China. Moreover, it has become a global pandemic. This is of great value in describing the clinical symptoms of COVID-19 patients in detail and looking for markers which are significant to predict the prognosis of COVID-19 patients. Methods In this multicenter, retrospective study, 476 patients with COVID-19 were enrolled from a consecutive series. After screening, a total of 395 patients were included in this study. All-cause death was the primary endpoint. All patients were followed up from admission till discharge or death. Results The main symptoms observed in the study included fever on admission, cough, fatigue, and shortness of breath. The most common comorbidities were hypertension and diabetes mellitus. Patients with lower CD4+T cell level were older and more often male compared to those with higher CD4+T cell level. Reduced CD8+T cell level was an indicator of the severity of COVID-19. Both decreased CD4+T [HR:13.659; 95%CI: 3.235–57.671] and CD8+T [HR: 10.883; 95%CI: 3.277–36.145] cell levels were associated with in-hospital death in COVID-19 patients, but only the decrease of CD4+T cell level was an independent predictor of in-hospital death in COVID-19 patients. Conclusions Reductions in lymphocytes and lymphocyte subsets were common in COVID-19 patients, especially in severe cases of COVID-19. It was the CD8+T cell level, not the CD4+T cell level, that reflected the severity of the patient’s disease. Only reduced CD4+T cell level was independently associated with increased in-hospital death in COVID-19 patients. Trial registration Prognostic Factors of Patients With COVID-19, NCT04292964. Registered 03 March 2020. Retrospectively registered.

Grid connection of intermittent renewable energy, such as wind power and photovoltaic, results in challenges of keeping power balance for power system operation. In order to solve this problem, this article proposed a multitime scale coordinated scheduling model for the combined system of wind power–photovoltaic–thermal generator–hydro pumped storage–battery (WPTHB) by taking advantages of their complementary operation characteristics. The scheduling model is composed of three time scales: the day-ahead scheduling, the 1-h ahead scheduling, and 15-min ahead scheduling. 1) In the day-ahead scheduling, based on the 24-h ahead forecast data of wind–photovoltaic power and load demand (WPL), the optimal power outputs of thermal power units are solved from a mixed-integer linear programming model to achieve the minimal operation cost of thermal units. 2) In the 1-h ahead scheduling, based on power output of thermal units optimized in the day-ahead scheduling and the hourly forecasted WPL, the hydro-pumped unit power outputs are optimally dispatched to minimize their operation cost. 3) In the 15-min ahead scheduling, based on day-ahead optimal power outputs of thermal units and the 1-h ahead optimal outputs of pumped storage, the battery optimal power generation is obtained from an ac optimal power flow model solved by MATPOWER. The simulation of the New England system has validated that the proposed multitime scale coordinated scheduling model could fully explore the distinguished power regulation speed and capacities of thermal power units, hydro-pumped storage, and batteries to effectively track WPL variations and achieve system economic operation simultaneously.

With the continuous development of power system, the scale of power data has increased greatly compared with before. Traditional data processing methods are difficult to meet today's needs. Since the emergence of knowledge graph, it has very significant advantages in data storage and processing, and has been used in many other fields. However, at present, the application of knowledge graph in power field is still few. Therefore, This paper discusses the possible application direction of knowledge graph in power system. For example, the question answering system based on knowledge graph can greatly improve the search efficiency and reply effect. The power grid auxiliary decision system based on knowledge graph can provide decision-making process for reference and enhance the reliability of decision while providing results.

Atherosclerosis is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide. Growing evidence suggested that miRNAs contributed to the progression of atherosclerosis. miR-30-5p was found involved in various diseases. However, the role of miR-30-5p in regulation of atherosclerosis is not known. Here, we aim to investigate the effects of miR-30-5p on regulating the progression of atherosclerosis. The expression levels of miR-30-5p in serum collected from atherosclerosis patients and normal healthy people were analyzed by qRT-PCR. Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway bioinformatics were carried out to reveal the possible signaling pathways involved in the mode of action of miR-30-5p. A potential target gene of miRNA-30-5p was searched and examined by a luciferase reporter assay. ELISA, Western blot, proliferation, and flow cytometry assays were performed to assess the biological functional role of miR-30-5p

With the increase in wind power penetration, wind power ramping events have increasingly influenced tie line power control in the power grid. Large power changes during ramping events make it difficult to accurately track the scheduling plans of tie lines and can even lead to overrun. Determining how to evaluate the control performance of automatic generation control (AGC) for wind power ramping has become an urgent problem. In this context, this paper studies the control performance of AGC for wind power ramping based on deep reinforcement learning. First, a tie line power control model of a power system with an AGC module is established. Then, measured data, which include thermal power, wind power, hydropower output and tie line power data, and a deep reinforcement learning method are combined for AGC parameter estimation based on the deep Q-network (DQN) algorithm. Next, the AGC parameter in different scenarios are fit by using measured phasor measurement unit (PMU) data, and on the basis of the fitted model, AGC performance evaluation is performed for wind power ramping events. Finally, the simulation results verify the feasibility and effectiveness of analysing the relationship between wind power ramping and AGC performance based on the AGC parameter fitting model.

To assess the efficacy and safety of catheter-based renal denervation (RDN) for the treatment of uncontrolled hypertension by conducting a systematic review and a meta-analysis.The Medline, Cochrane Library, and Embase databases were searched for clinical studies between January 1, 2009, and July 16, 2018. Studies that evaluated the effect of RDN on uncontrolled hypertension were identified. The primary endpoints were changes in 24-hour ambulatory systolic blood pressure (BP) and office systolic BP. The secondary endpoints included changes in 24-hour ambulatory diastolic BP, office diastolic BP, and major adverse events.After a literature search and detailed evaluation, 12 randomized controlled trials with a total of 1539 individuals were included in the quantitative analysis. Pooled analyses indicated that RDN was associated with a significantly greater reduction of 24-hour systolic BP (mean difference [MD], -4.02 mm Hg; 95% CI, -5.49 to -2.56; P.001) and office systolic BP (MD, -8.93 mm Hg; 95% CI, -14.03 to -3.83; P.001) than controls. Similarly, RDN significantly reduced 24-hour diastolic BP (MD, -2.05 mm Hg; 95% CI, -3.05 to -1.05; P.001) and office diastolic BP (MD, -4.49 mm Hg; 95% CI, -6.46 to -2.52; P.001). RDN was not associated with an increased risk of major adverse events (relative risk, 1.06; 95% CI, 0.72 to 1.57; P=.76).Catheter-based RDN was associated with a significant BP-lowering benefit without increasing major adverse events.

Little is known about the diagnostic value of DNA methylation and hydroxymethylation for coronary atherosclerosis. Carotid plaque is a common marker for coronary atherosclerosis. Our aim is to determine whether DNA methylation and hydroxymethylation combined with carotid plaques can be useful to the diagnosis of coronary atherosclerosis. The 5-methylcytosine (5-mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC) levels from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were measured in 113 enrolled patients. Crouse score and Gensini score were used to evaluate the severity of carotid and coronary atherosclerosis, respectively. With the increasing of severity of carotid plaque, a stepwise upward trend was observed in 5-mC and 5-hmC levels from PBMCs, which were significantly correlated with the risk factors, Crouse score and Gensini score. Crouse score and 5-hmC, not 5-mC, were the risk factors for coronary atherosclerosis after adjustment for the risk factors (the history of diabetes, FPG and HbA1c). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis indicated that 5-hmC combined with Crouse score was the diagnostic biomarker for coronary atherosclerosis, with the highest areas under the curve (AUC) for 0.980 (0.933–0.997), valuable sensitivity for 96.23% and specificity for 91.67%. These findings suggest 5-hmC level combined with Crouse score may provide the meaningful information for coronary atherosclerosis diagnosis.

Objective To investigate the relationship between ST-segment resolution (STR) and myocardial scar thickness after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Methods Forty-two STEMI patients with single-branch coronary artery stenosis or occlusion were enrolled. ST-segment elevations were measured at emergency admission and at 24 h after PCI. Late gadolinium-enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR-LGE) was performed 7 days after PCI to evaluate myocardial scars. Statistical analyses were performed to assess the utility of STR to predict the development of transmural (> 75%) or non-transmural ( Results The sensitivity and specificity of STR for predicting transmural scars were 96% and 88%, respectively, at an STR cut-off value of 40.15%. The area under the curve was 0.925. Multivariate logistic proportional hazards regression analysis disclosed that patients with STR Conclusion STR

Because of low efficiency and accuracy in the domain in the’ oposed an evaluation model based on the method of deep learning and designed a optimal RBM training algorithm. The comparative experimental model in this paper mainly adopts naive Bayesian model algorithm, restricted Boltzmann machine model algorithm and perceptron model algorithm, respectively based on the training data of the algorithm model in this paper. The algorithm proposed in this paper can obtain high calculation accuracy under the condition of given training sample data, and also has good calculation accuracy in terms of running time. In the process of model training, the model proposed in this paper can obtain high accuracy in less training time, and the model has the least calculation time. The results have a good capacity of extracting features and can reflect the essential features by comparing the result with other different modern optimization algorithms.

Objective: To investigate the relationship between ST-segment resolution (STR) and myocardial scar thickness after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI).Methods: Forty-two STEMI patients with single-branch coronary artery stenosis or occlusion were enrolled. ST-segment elevations were measured at emergency admission and at 24 h after PCI. Late gadolinium-enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMR-LGE) was performed 7 days after PCI to evaluate myocardial scars. Statistical analyses were performed to assess the utility of STR to predict the development of transmural (>75%) or non-transmural (Results: The sensitivity and specificity of STR for predicting transmural scars were 96% and 88%, respectively, at an STR cut-off value of 40.15%. The area under the curve was 0.92. Multivariate logistic proportional hazards regression analysis disclosed that patients with STRPPConclusion: STR

Background. Ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) induced lethal tissue injury in myocardium. FoxM1 (Forkhead Box M1), expressed in proliferating cardiac progenitor cells, could regulate myocardial development. However, the role of FoxM1 in I/R-induced myocardial injury has not been reported yet. Methods. Rats were conducted with regional ischemia followed by reperfusion in myocardium through ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery. Triphenyl-tetrazolium chloride staining was utilized to assess the infarct size. ELISA was performed to detect activities of creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH). Protein expression of FoxM1 in heart tissues and H9c2 were determined by western blot. H9c2 cells were used to establish a hypoxia/reoxygenation cell model, and the cell viability, proliferation and apoptosis were evaluated by MTT, EdU (5-ethynyl-2’-deoxyuridine) staining and TUNEL (terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling) staining, respectively. Adenovirus (Ad)-mediated over-expression of FoxM1 was injected into the anterior wall of the left ventricle of rats to evaluate the role of FoxM1 on in vivo I/R-induced myocardial injury. Results. FoxM1 was reduced in heart tissues isolated from rats post myocardial I/R injury. Forced FoxM1 expression increased cell viability and proliferation of hypoxia/reoxygenation-induced H9c2, while repressed the cell apoptosis with increased Bcl-2 and decreased Bax and cleaved caspase-3. Injection of Ad-FoxM1 suppressed infarct size of the heart and decreased activities of CK-MB and LDH. Conclusion. FoxM1 attenuated I/R-induced myocardial injury, providing potential therapeutic target for the disease.

Aiming at the problems of reactive power surplus and main network voltage rise caused by light load operation period, this paper focuses on the reactive power distribution strategy of multi units coordinated leading phase operation. In order to maximize the overall safety margin of multi units leading phase and the similar safety margin of each unit, a multi units coordinated leading phase reactive power distribution model is established, and a filled function particle swarm optimization algorithm is designed. Firstly, a local minimum solution is obtained by using particle swarm optimization algorithm, and then the global optimal solution is obtained by constructing a filling function. Finally, the method is applied to a practical 220 kV district power grid to verify the feasibility of the model and method.

Finding and constructing a unit as a black-start source for megacity power grid plays an important role in improving the recovery speed of grid after extreme failures. In this paper, different types of black start sources, such as hydropower, pumped storage, gas-fired, coal-fired, wind and waste-to-energy plant, are first analyzed and compared, which provides reference standards for choosing proper black start sources in specific scenario. Secondly, taking a zonal grid of a megacity as an example, analyze the black start capability of a waste-to-energy plant in this zone, especially the black start process and obtain the black start output curve. Thirdly, based on the BPA simulation platform, a black start plan was developed that used the waste-to-energy plant as a black start source to restart nearby gas units and then recover the entire zonal grid. In this process, the overvoltage verification was carried out. After that, a strategy for continuous charging of multi-voltage lines was proposed and its feasibility are verified through simulation; Finally, it is concluded that the waste power plant is suitable as a black-start power source to participate in the black start of the power grid, and suggestions are given for the waste power plant to make better use of the black-start function.

Background Autoimmunity plays a role in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, the autoantibody responses and their clinical correlation patterns in COPD patients with and without airway eosinophilic inflammation are unknown. The aim of this study was to compare the autoantibody profiles and their clinical associations in stable COPD patients, stratified by airway inflammatory phenotypes. Methods Matched sputum and serum, obtained from 62 stable COPD patients and 14 age-matched controls, were assayed for the presence of IgG and IgM antibodies against 13 autoantigens using protein array. A sputum eosinophil count ≥3% was used as cut-off value to stratify COPD patients into eosinophilic and non-eosinophilic groups. Correlation network analysis was used to evaluate the correlation patterns among autoantibody and clinical variables in each group. Results There were no significant differences of clinical parameters and autoantibody levels between the two COPD groups. In non-eosinophilic COPD, sputum anti-CytochromeC_IgG and anti-Aggrecan_IgM were significantly higher than those in healthy controls, and prior exacerbation was positively associated with lung function and sputum anti-Collagen-IV_IgG. While in eosinophilic COPD, sputum/serum anti-heat shock protein (HSP)47_IgG, serum anti-HSP70_IgG and serum anti-Amyloid-beta_IgG were significantly lower than those in healthy controls, and no significant correlation between prior exacerbations and lung function was found. Differences were also observed in network hubs, with the network for non-eosinophilic COPD possessing 9 hubs comprising two lung function parameters and seven autoantibodies, compared with eosinophilic COPD possessing 12 hubs all comprising autoantibodies. Conclusions Autoantibody responses were heterogeneous and differentially correlated with the exacerbation risk and other clinical parameters in COPD patients of different inflammatory phenotypes. These findings provide useful insight into the need for personalized management for preventing COPD exacerbations.

The aim of this study is to investigate clinical characteristics and fatal outcomes of hypertension as well as the role of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors/angiotensin receptor blockers (ACEI/ARB) use in patients with severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). A total of 220 (female: 51.8%) patients with severe COVID-19 were included. The mean age of included patients was 59.5 years and 70 (31.8%) patients had a history of hypertension. There were 23 patients (32.9%) receiving ACEI/ARB therapy. Patients with hypertension were older and had more comorbidities, and were more likely to suffer from severe inflammatory response and acute cardiac injury. Moreover, patients with hypertension were associated with significantly higher risk of in-hospital mortality than patients without hypertension. After adjustment of potential confounders, the independent correlation was still observed. In addition, ACEI/ARB users were associated with lower level of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin I and creatinine kinase-myocardial band, and lower risk of acute cardiac injury than ACEI/ARB non-users. In conclusion, patients with hypertension were more likely to suffer from severe inflammatory response, acute cardiac injury and had high risk of in-hospital mortality in severe COVID-19. The use of ACEI/ARB may protect patients with COVID-19 from acute cardiac injury.

Background In December 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in Wuhan, Hubei, China. Finding markers that predict the prognosis of patients with severe COVID-19 are of great value. Methods In this single-center，retrospective study, 157 patients with severe COVID-19 were recruited from a consecutive series. After screening, a total of 105 patients were included in this study. All-cause death was the primary endpoint. All patients were followed up from admission till discharge or death. Results The dominant symptoms observed in the study included fever on admission, cough, fatigue and shortness of breath. The most frequent comorbidities were hypertension and diabetes. Compared with patients with higher CD4+T cells level, patients with lower CD4+T cells level were older and were more frequently male. In terms of laboratory findings, lymphocyte percentage, lymphocyte absolute value, CD3+T cell count, CD4+T cell count, CD8+T cell count were significantly lower in low group than in high group. The case in-hospital death rate was significant higher in patients with lower CD4+T level than in those with higher CD4+T level. After adjusting for potential confounding factors, CD4+T cells count below normal values showed independent prognostic value for all-cause in-hospital death in patients with severe COVID-19. Conclusions In patients with severe COVID-19, lower CD4+T cells count are independently associated with an increased rate of in-hospital death.

Myocardial infarction (MI) is a cardiovascular disease with high morbidity and mortality. In this study, we focused on exploring the roles and underlying regulatory mechanisms of Hox transcript antisense intergenic RNA (HOTAIR) and miR-519d-3p in myocardial infarction. To comprehensively understand the role of microRNA in MI rat, we construct MI rat model by permanent ligation of the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery. Cardiac troponin I and creatine kinase-MB concentration measured by ELISA and infract size of heart section analyzed by TTC staining were served as evaluation indicators to confirmed the established model. Based on the bioinformatics assay and qRT-PCR, we found that the expression of miR-519d-3p was upregulated remarkably. Dual-luciferase reporter assays were performed to investigate the interaction of lncRNA HOTAIR and miR-519d-3p. In order to investigate the potential mechanism of lncRNA HOTAIR and miR-519d-3p, flow cytometry was applied to measure apoptotic cardiomyocytes and western blot was used to detect expressions of apoptotic related protein Bax, Bcl-2, and caspase-3 in cardiomyocytes in vitro and myocardial infraction in vivo. Downregulating miR-519d-3p or overexpressing HOTAIR alleviated MI or hypoxia-induced cardiomyocytes apoptosis. Taken together, our results showed that the interaction of miR-519d-3p and HOTAIR can protect MI and hypoxia-induced cardiomyocytes apoptosis, providing the potential therapeutic target for MI treatment.

To assess the efficacy and short-term outcomes of adherence to statin therapy among coronary heart disease (CHD) patients following their hospital discharge, we enrolled 615 CHD patients who were prescribed statins from The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University in China between February 1st and October 31st of 2013. Statin adherence was evaluated by identifying the proportion of patients who remained adherent or became non-adherent to statin therapy over 4–8 months post-discharge from the hospital. The composite outcomes included all-cause mortality and re-hospitalization with cardiovascular disease. We found that 15.9% patients were non-adherent to their statin therapies and that coronary artery stenosis

Centrifugal microfluidics or lab-on-a-disc (LOAD) is a promising branch of lab-on-a-chip or microfluidics. Besides effective fluid transportation and inherently available density-based sample separation in centrifugal microfluidics, uniform actuation of flow on the disc makes the platform compact and scalable. However, the natural radially outward centrifugal force in a LOAD system limits its capacity to perform complex fluid manipulation steps. In order to increase the fluid manipulation freedom and integration capacity of the LOAD system, we propose a binary centrifugal microfluidics platform. With the help of Euler force, our platform allows free switching of both left and right states based on a rather simple mechanical structure. The periodical switching of state would provide a "clock" signal for a sequence of droplet binary logic operations. With the binary state platform and the "clock" signal, we can accurately handle the droplet separately in each time step with a maximum main frequency of about 10 S s-1 (switching per second). Apart from droplet manipulations such as droplet generation and metering, we also demonstrate a series of droplet logic operations, such as binary valving, droplet routing and digital addressable droplet storage. Furthermore, complex bioassays such as the Bradford assay and DNA purification assay are demonstrated on a binary platform, which is totally impossible for a traditional LOAD system. Our binary platform largely improves the capability for logic operation on the LOAD platform, and it is a simple and promising approach for microfluidic lab-on-a-disc large-scale integration.

Background The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in China has been declared a public health emergency of international concern. The cardiac injury is a common condition among the hospitalized patients with COVID-19. However, whether N terminal pro B type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) predicted outcome of severe COVID-19 patients was unknown. Methods The study initially enrolled 102 patients with severe COVID-19 from a continuous sample. After screening out the ineligible cases, 54 patients were analyzed in this study. The primary outcome was in-hospital death defined as the case fatality rate. Research information and following-up data were obtained from their medical records. Results The best cut-off value of NT-proBNP for predicting in-hospital death was 88.64 pg/mL with the sensitivity for 100% and the specificity for 66.67%. Patients with high NT-proBNP values (> 88.64 pg/mL) had a significantly increased risk of death during the days of following-up compared with those with low values (≤88.64 pg/mL). After adjustment for potential risk factors, NT-proBNP was independently correlated with in-hospital death. Conclusion NT-proBNP might be an independent risk factor for in-hospital death in patients with severe COVID-19. Trial registration ClinicalTrials, NCT04292964. Registered 03 March 2020

With the large-scale wind power connected to the power grid, the volatility and uncertainty of wind power output will cause fluctuations in the power of the tie line between the interconnected regional power grids, resulting in the limit of the power of the tie line, affecting the assessment of the power system and even threatening system security. Therefore, this paper proposes an evaluation index prediction method of tie line power control based on LSTM. Use historical data of a grid tie line as input, and establish a prediction model and predict the tie line power in advance. The CPS standard for the tie line control performance evaluation index is introduced, and the CPS indicator is predicted based on the tie line power prediction. The results of the example show that the power of the tie line predicted by LSTM is basically the same as the actual power, and the CPS indicator is more reliable. Comparing the prediction method with the results of other prediction methods, the error is small, and the feasibility and effectiveness of the above prediction method for the evaluation of tie line control performance are verified.

Tissue nonspecific alkaline phosphatase (TNAP) is expressed widely in different tissues, modulating functions of metabolism and inflammation. However, the effect of TNAP on cardiac fibrosis remains controversial and needs to be further studied. The present study aims to investigate the role of TNAP on myocardial infarction (MI)-induced fibrosis and its mechanism. TNAP was upregulated in patients with MI, both in serum and injured hearts, and predicted in-hospital mortality. TNAP was also significantly upregulated after MI in rats, mostly in the border zone of the infarcted hearts combined with collagen synthesis. Administration of TNAP inhibitor, tetramisole, markedly improved cardiac function and fibrosis after MI. In the primary cultures of neonatal rat cardiac fibroblasts (CFs), TNAP inhibition significantly attenuated migration, differentiation, and expression of collagen-related genes. The TGF-β1/Smads signaling suppression, and p-AMPK and p53 upregulation were involved in the process. When p53 inhibitor was administered, the antifibrotic effect of TNAP inhibition can be blocked. This study provides a direct evidence that inhibition of TNAP might be a novel regulator in cardiac fibrosis and exert an antifibrotic effect mainly through AMPK-TGF-β1/Smads and p53 signals.

Grid connection of random renewable energy such as wind power and photovoltaic results in difficulties of keeping power balance for power system operation. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposed a multi-time scale coordinated scheduling model for the combined system of Wind power-Photovoltaic-Thermal generator-Hydro pumped storage-Battery (WPTHB) by taking advantages of their complementary operation characteristics. The scheduling model is composed of three time scales: the day-ahead scheduling, the 1-hour ahead scheduling and 15-minute ahead scheduling. 1) in the day-ahead scheduling, based on the day-ahead forecast data of Wind-Photovoltaic power and Load demand (WPL), the optimal power outputs of thermal power units in 24 hours are solved from a mix integer linear programing (MILP) model to achieve the minimal operation cost of thermal units. 2) In the 1-hour ahead scheduling, based on power outputs of thermal units solved in the day-ahead scheduling and the 1-hour-ahead forecasted WPL, the hydro pumped storage power output is optimized to achieve its minimal operation cost. 3) In the 15-minute ahead scheduling, based on the day-ahead optimal power outputs of thermal units and the 1-hour ahead optimal outputs of pumped storages, the battery optimal power generation is obtained from a AC optimal power flow model solved by MATPOWER. Simulations of New England system validate that the proposed multi-time scale coordinated scheduling model could fully explore the different power regulation speeds and capacity of hydro pumped storages, thermal power generators and batteries to effectively alleviate WPL variations and achieve economic operation for multi-source generation systems.

With the power network expansion and the grid-connection of intermittent renewable energy, more and more non-convex optimization problems emerge in power system, which cannot be effectively solved by the derivative based traditional methods. As a powerful branch of optimization techniques, artificial intelligence method can well address these non-convex problems, providing a promising solution for power system engineering. In this paper, five typical artificial intelligence algorithms including the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm, Tabu Search, Genetic Algorithm, Simulated Annealing and Artificial Neural Network are investigated for their advantages and disadvantages, and the main application in power system for these artificial intelligence algorithms are also discussed 1

Remote sensing big data (RSBD) is generally characterized by huge volumes, diversity, and high dimensionality. Mining hidden information from RSBD for different applications imposes significant computational challenges. Clustering is an important data mining technique widely used in processing and analyzing remote sensing imagery. However, conventional clustering algorithms are designed for relatively small datasets. When applied to problems with RSBD, they are, in general, too slow or inefficient for practical use. In this paper, we proposed a parallel subsampling-based clustering (PARSUC) method for improving the performance of RSBD clustering in terms of both efficiency and accuracy. PARSUC leverages a novel subsampling-based data partitioning (SubDP) method to realize three-step parallel clustering, effectively solving the notable performance bottleneck of the existing parallel clustering algorithms, that is, they must cope with numerous repeated calculations to get a reasonable result. Furthermore, we propose a centroid filtering algorithm (CFA) to eliminate subsampling errors and to guarantee the accuracy of the clustering results. PARSUC was implemented on a Hadoop platform by using the MapReduce parallel model. Experiments conducted on massive remote sensing imageries with different sizes showed that PARSUC (1) provided much better accuracy than conventional remote sensing clustering algorithms in handling larger image data, (2) achieved notable scalability with increased computing nodes added, and (3) spent much less time than the existing parallel clustering algorithm in handling RSBD.

Background Cardiac fibrosis is the most important pathogenesis leading to cardiac remodeling and heart failure after myocardial infarction (MI). Tissue nonspecific alkaline phosphatase (TNAP) has recently been recognized as a potential prognostic factor for MI. Nevertheless, the role of TNAP in cardiac fibrosis after MI has not been explicitly delineated. Methods A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to assess the effect of serum TNAP levels on mortality in patients with ischemic heart disease (IHD). A correlation analysis was performed to investigate the relationship between serum levels of TNAP and biomarkers of fibrosis. Heart biopsies from patients with MI and a mouse model of MI were used to detect the expression and distribution of TNAP. Furthermore, we established adenovirus-mediated knockdown and overexpression of TNAP, using a combination of in vivo and in vitro studies in mice, to determine the role and mechanism of TNAP in cardiac fibrosis after MI. In the in vitro studies, cardiac fibroblasts were cultured on soft plates. Findings After searching the main databases and performing a detailed assessment of the full-text articles, eight studies with 14,816 individuals were included in the quantitative analysis. We found that a high serum TNAP level was associated with an increased risk of mortality in patients with IHD and MI. The correlation analysis revealed a positive correlation between serum TNAP levels and the concentration of fibrosis biomarkers (PICP/PIIINP). The expression of TNAP was upregulated in the myocardium of patients with MI and in a mouse model of MI, accompanied by fibroblast activation and the deposition of collagen fibers. In the in vivo study, TNAP knockdown ameliorated cardiac fibrosis and improved cardiac function in mice. TNAP overexpression aggravated cardiac fibrosis and worsened cardiac function. In the in vitro study, TNAP promoted cardiac fibroblast differentiation, migration and proliferation. Mechanistically, the pro-fibrotic effect of TNAP on cardiac fibroblasts was at least partially achieved by activating the TGF-β1/Smads and ERK1/2 signaling pathways. Interpretation Based on these findings, TNAP plays an important pro-fibrotic role in cardiac fibrosis after MI by activating TGF-β/Smads and ERK1/2 signaling, indicating that it functions as a potential regulator of and therapeutic target in cardiac fibrosis. Funding This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Remotely-sensed satellite image fusion is indispensable for the generation of long-term gap-free Earth observation data. While cloud computing (CC) provides the big picture for RS big data (RSBD), the fundamental question of the efficient fusion of RSBD on CC platforms has not yet been settled. To this end, we propose a lightweight cloud-native framework for the elastic processing of RSBD in this study. With the scaling mechanisms provided by both the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Services (PaaS) of CC, the Spark-on-Kubernetes operator model running in the framework can enhance the efficiency of Spark-based algorithms without considering bottlenecks such as task latency caused by an unbalanced workload, and can ease the burden to tune the performance parameters for their parallel algorithms. Internally, we propose a task scheduling mechanism (TSM) to dynamically change the Spark executor pods’ affinities to the computing hosts. The TSM learns the workload of a computing host. Learning from the ratio between the number of completed and failed tasks on a computing host, the TSM dispatches Spark executor pods to newer and less-overwhelmed computing hosts. In order to illustrate the advantage, we implement a parallel enhanced spatial and temporal adaptive reflectance fusion model (PESTARFM) to enable the efficient fusion of big RS images with a Spark aggregation function. We construct an OpenStack cloud computing environment to test the usability of the framework. According to the experiments, TSM can improve the performance of the PESTARFM using only PaaS scaling to about 11.7%. When using both the IaaS and PaaS scaling, the maximum performance gain with the TSM can be even greater than 13.6%. The fusion of such big Sentinel and PlanetScope images requires less than 4 min in the experimental environment.

MapReduce has been widely used in Hadoop for parallel processing larger-scale data for the last decade. However, remote-sensing (RS) algorithms based on the programming model are trapped in dense disk I/O operations and unconstrained network communication, and thus inappropriate for timely processing and analyzing massive, heterogeneous RS data. In this paper, a novel in-memory computing framework called Apache Spark (Spark) is introduced. Through its merits of transferring transformation to in-memory datasets of Spark, the shortages are eliminated. To facilitate implementation and assure high performance of Spark-based algorithms in a complex cloud computing environment, a strip-oriented parallel programming model is proposed. By incorporating strips of RS data with resilient distributed datasets (RDDs) of Spark, all-level parallel RS algorithms can be easily expressed with coarse-grained transformation primitives and BitTorrent-enabled broadcast variables. Additionally, a generic image partition method for Spark-based RS algorithms to efficiently generate differentiable key/value strips from a Hadoop distributed file system (HDFS) is implemented for concealing the heterogeneousness of RS data. Data-intensive multitasking algorithms and iteration-intensive algorithms were evaluated on a Hadoop yet another resource negotiator (YARN) platform. Experiments indicated that our Spark-based parallel algorithms are of great efficiency, a multitasking algorithm took less than 4 h to process more than half a terabyte of RS data on a small YARN cluster, and 9*9 convolution operations against a 909-MB image took less than 260 s. Further, the efficiency of iteration-intensive algorithms is insensitive to image size.

Aims Abnormal expression of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) occurs in several diseases including renal fibrosis. Notably, growth arrest-specific 5 (Gas5) is a lncRNA, which functions as an essential modulator of cell proliferation and growth. However, the role and expression of lncRNA Gas5 associated with renal fibrosis remains controversial. Herein, we investigate the effect of lncRNA Gas5 deficiency in renal fibrosis induced by the operation of unilateral ureteric obstruction (UUO) in mice. Main methods Sera and urine of mice were used to detect markers of renal function. Further, Masson and immunohistochemical staining, western blotting as well as qRT-PCR were performed to observe the distribution and expression of fibrosis marker in the kidney tissue of the mice. Key findings Unlike the wild type mice, the obstructed kidney in Gas5+/− mice showed more severe renal fibrosis and collagen deposition. In the UUO-Gas5+/− group, the serum levels of uric acid, serum creatinine, and the urine levels of albumin-to-creatinine ratio were higher. Moreover, the expression of mRNA and protein of α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA), vimentin, collagen IV, fibronectin, and matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9) were higher, whereas that of phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) were lower with the difference being statistically significant (p Significance lncRNA Gas5 was up-regulated in renal fibrosis tissues, and its deficiency exacerbated renal fibrosis in the UUO mice model.

Background Autoimmune processes have been implicated in the pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, the relationship between airway and systemic autoantibody responses remains unclear. The aim of this study was to elucidate this relationship in patients with stable COPD by investigating the correlation patterns between sputum and serum autoantibodies. Methods In this cross-sectional study, sputum supernatant and serum obtained from 47 patients with stable COPD were assayed for the presence of IgG antibodies against ten autoantigens: Smith antigen (Sm), ribosomal phosphoprotein P0 (P0), Ro/Sjogren syndrome type A antigen (Ro/SSA), La/Sjogren syndrome type B antigen (La/SSB), DNA topoisomerase I (Scl-70), histidyl-tRNA synthetase (Jo-1), U1 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein (U1-SnRNP), thyroid peroxidase (TPO), proteinase-3 (PR3), and myeloperoxidase (MPO). A second cohort of 55 stable COPD patients was recruited for validation, and a group of 59 non-COPD controls and a group of 20 connective-tissue disease-associated interstitial lung disease (CTD-ILD) patients were also recruited for comparison. Hierarchical clustering and network analysis were used to evaluate the correlation patterns between sputum and serum autoantibody profiles. Results Both hierarchical clustering and network analysis showed that sputum and serum autoantibody profiles were distinct in either analytic COPD cohort or validation cohort. In contrast, the autoantibodies of the two compartments in non-COPD controls and CTD-ILD patients were inadequately distinguished using either hierarchical clustering or network analysis. Many autoantibodies in the sputum were found to have significant correlations with lung function, symptom score and frequency of prior exacerbations in COPD patients, but the antibodies in the serum were not. Conclusions We observed a dissociation between sputum autoantibodies and serum autoantibodies in patients with stable COPD, suggesting that airway and systemic immune status may play very different roles in the disease. Sputum autoantibodies are more clinically relevant than serum autoantibodies. Focusing on airway autoimmunity may help improve understanding of the immunopathological mechanism of COPD.

Aims The sex-related differences in the clinical outcomes of rhythm and safety after catheter ablation remain unclear. The purpose of this study was to compare the clinical outcomes of catheter ablation for atrial fibrillation (AF) in women and men. Methods and results The Medline and EMBASE databases were searched for published articles up to December 2018. Studies that met our predefined inclusion criteria were included. The primary endpoints were freedom from AF/atrial tachycardia (AT) recurrence, stroke/transient ischaemic attack (TIA), and all-cause mortality. After literature search and detailed assessment, 19 observational studies (151 370 patients; 34% women) were identified. Our analyses showed that the rate of freedom from AF/AT recurrence was lower in women than men at the 2.4-year follow-up [odds ratio (OR): 0.75, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.69–0.81; P Conclusions Women who underwent catheter ablation of AF might experience lower efficacy and a higher risk of stroke/TIA and major complications than men. The reasons for these sex-related differences need to be further studied.

Aims DNA methylation and hydroxymethylation are significantly related to the occurrence and development of coronary heart disease (CHD) and atherosclerosis (AS). 5-Methylcytosine (5-mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC) are used to assess DNA methylation and hydroxymethylation levels, respectively. However, 5-mC and 5-hmC levels associated with CHD remain controversial. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the association of the peripheral blood levels of 5-mC and 5-hmC and the degree of coronary atherosclerosis in elderly CHD patients. Main methods 5-mC and 5-hmC levels in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were measured in 44 CHD patients and 42 matched control subjects by ELISA and dot blot analysis. Immunohistochemical staining was used to observe 5-mC, 5-hmC and TET2 expression in human aortic tissue. Gensini score was used to evaluate the degree of coronary atherosclerosis. Key findings 5-mC and 5-hmC levels in PBMCs from CHD patients and in human aortic atherosclerosis plaque were both higher than those in control subjects and in tissue samples. TET2 expression was significantly upregulated in CHD patients compared with control subjects, while only an increasing trend in the expression of DNMT1, DNMT3A and all the other TET genes were found. Spearman correlation analysis demonstrated that 5-mC and 5-hmC levels were positively correlated with Gensini score. 5-mC and 5-hmC were considered as the risk factors for CHD after adjustment. Significance DNA methylation and hydroxymethylation levels in PBMCs from elderly CHD patients were significantly increased, showing a positive correlation with the degree of coronary atherosclerosis.

Background: Forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV 1 ) is widely used in grading the severity of the airflow limitation observed in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). However, the characteristics of COPD classified by forced vital capacity (FVC) remain unknown. Hence, the characteristics of pulmonary function test (PFT) and clinical features of COPD patients classified by FVC were investigated. Methods: COPD patients were classified into three groups by FVC: (I) large consistent FVC (LC-FVC): before bronchodilator (BBD) and after bronchodilator (ABD) FVC ≥80%pred; (II) inconsistent FVC (I-FVC): BBD FVC

Objective The aim of this meta-analysis was to compare the clinical outcomes of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) with those of surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Design Meta-analysis of 10 observational studies. Setting Hospital. Participants Patients with CKD (9,619) undergoing aortic valve replacement. Interventions None. Measurements and Main Results The Medline, Cochrane Library, and Embase databases were searched for clinical studies published from January 2000 to October 2018. Studies that fulfilled the predefined inclusion criteria were included. The primary clinical outcomes included early all-cause mortality and postoperative stroke. Random-effects modeling was used to calculate odds ratio (OR) and 95% CI. After a literature search of the major databases, 10 observational cohort studies with a total of 9,619 patients were identified. Pooled analysis indicated that, when compared with SAVR, TAVR was associated with a lower risk of early all-cause mortality (6.1% v 10.2%; OR: 0.71; 95% CI: 0.51-0.98) and stroke (1.1% v 2.2%; OR: 0.53; 95% CI: 0.37-0.75). Although TAVR increased the risk of pacemaker implantation (OR: 2.06; 95% CI: 1.16-3.66), it reduced the risk of blood transfusion (OR: 0.50; 95% CI: 0.39-0.65), infection (OR: 0.30; 95% CI: 0.13-0.70), acute kidney injury (AKI) (OR: 0.46; 95% CI: 0.38-0.55), and AKI requiring dialysis (OR: 0.66; 95% CI: 0.58-0.75). There were not significant differences in the incidence rates of cardiac tamponade (OR: 0.60; 95% CI: 0.26-1.36) and major vascular damage (OR: 1.12; 95% CI: 0.81-1.55) between the 2 groups. Conclusion Transcatheter aortic valve replacement might be a preferable approach to SAVR in patients with CKD. A large, prospective, randomized controlled trial is warranted.

Heating system is an important part of home life. Electrical heating system replaces the cogeneration heating system for the reason of new requirements for environment protection and new energy to be grid-connected. Although many old coal-fired boilers are replaced by electric boilers, but there are still many difficulties for all residents to use the centralized heating system. For those areas that do not have the conditions for deployment of central heating system, residents there can only use their household heating system. This paper will present and discuss a smart home heating model with consideration of the random fluctuating temperature in Xinjiang. The proposed model could control the peak load, improve the user's temperature effect and reduce the running electricity cost as well. Finally, the simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed cooperative optimal operation model.

With the rapid development of wind power industries in Xinjiang, the large-scale abandoned wind power caused by insufficient local consumption capacity has become increasingly prominent. In winter, the operation of traditional cogeneration units take up a lot of load space, which makes the wind aggravation phenomenon more serious. This paper adopts a new heating system based on wind power and regenerative electric boiler combined heating to solve this problem. Firstly, the feasibility of developing wind power for heating in Xinjiang is analyzed. Then, based on the characteristics of randomness and uncontrollability of wind power, the wind power coordinated with regenerative electric boiler for heating optimization scheduling is established with consideration of the robust constraints,. Finally, an example analysis of a new electric heating project in Xinjiang area is carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the model and the economic and environmental benefits of using electric heating in Xinjiang.

Background The insulin/insulin‐like growth factor/relaxin family represents a group of structurally related but functionally diverse proteins. The family member relaxin‐2 has been evaluated in clinical trials for its efficacy in the treatment of acute heart failure. In this study, we assessed the role of insulin‐like peptide 6 (INSL6), another member of this protein family, in murine heart failure models using genetic loss‐of‐function and protein delivery methods. Methods and Results Insl6‐deficient and wild‐type (C57 BL /6N) mice were administered angiotensin II or isoproterenol via continuous infusion with an osmotic pump or via intraperitoneal injection once a day, respectively, for 2 weeks. In both models, Insl6‐knockout mice exhibited greater cardiac systolic dysfunction and left ventricular dilatation. Cardiac dysfunction in the Insl6‐knockout mice was associated with more extensive cardiac fibrosis and greater expression of fibrosis‐associated genes. The continuous infusion of chemically synthesized INSL 6 significantly attenuated left ventricular systolic dysfunction and cardiac fibrosis induced by isoproterenol infusion. Gene expression profiling suggests liver X receptor/retinoid X receptor signaling is activated in the isoproterenol‐challenged hearts treated with INSL 6 protein. Conclusions Endogenous Insl6 protein inhibits cardiac systolic dysfunction and cardiac fibrosis in angiotensin II – and isoproterenol‐induced cardiac stress models. The administration of recombinant INSL 6 protein could have utility for the treatment of heart failure and cardiac fibrosis.

In this paper, voltage-source converter HVDC is used to incorporate the wind power into the power grid in order to overcome the randomness and volatility of wind energy. The traditional double closed loop PI controller has the disadvantages of slow dynamic response, coupling, complex structure and difficult to determine the PI parameters. In order to solve these shortcomings, this paper presents the model predictive control (MPC) under as coordinate system. The optimal control strategy is designed according to the rectifier stabilizing AC voltage and the inverter stabilizing DC voltage and reactive power. In the end, the simulation model of VSC-HVDC is built on the platform of Matlab/Simulink to verify the validity of the MPC method by observing the waveforms of MPC in the normal operation state and the three-phase short circuit. The result after the inspection is that the MPC algorithm responses fast and is easy to handle system nonlinearities and constraints with convenient control.

Background: Several lines of evidence support the clinical use of trimetazidine as an adjunctive therapy in cardioischemic patients. Therefore, we assessed here the efficacy and safety of adjunctive trimetazidine therapy in acute myocardial infarction (MI) patients by a systematic review and meta-analysis of the current literature. Methods: PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and the China National Knowledge Infrastructure databases were searched for clinical studies comparing adjunctive trimetazidine therapy against placebo in adult acute MI patients. Several clinical outcomes [early/short-term all-cause mortality, long-term all-cause mortality, total major adverse cardiac events (MACE), recurrent nonfatal MI, in-hospital adverse events, target vessel revascularization (TVR), and coronary artery bypass graft (CABG)] were analyzed by the intention-to-treat principle. Odds ratios (OR) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI) were derived from the number of outcome events in each study arm to estimate the association between adjuvant trimetazidine administration and the various clinical outcomes. A random-effects model was applied for all meta-analyses. Results: We found that adjunctive trimetazidine therapy showed a significant effect upon total MACE (OR = 0.33, 95% CI = 0.15-0.74; p = 0.007) but showed no significant effect upon early/short-term all-cause mortality, long-term all-cause mortality, recurrent nonfatal MI, in-hospital adverse events, TVR, or CABG (p > 0.05). Conclusions: This is the first meta-analysis to report that adjunctive trimetazidine therapy has a beneficial effect upon total MACE in acute MI patients. Clinical investigators should consider further trials on adjunctive trimetazidine therapy in order to better define its risks and benefits in acute MI patients.

User association and wireless backhaul allocation in a two-tier heterogeneous network (HetNet) operating in the millimeter wave (mmWave) band is investigated. The macro cell tier base station (BS) is assumed to be equipped with large-scale antenna arrays, while the small cell BSs only have single-antenna capability and they rely on the wireless link to the macro BS for backhaul. To balance the throughput and the fairness, the sum of logarithmic user rate is chosen as the network utility for the optimization problem. A distributed algorithm based on hierarchical primal and dual decomposition is proposed. Firstly, the primal decomposition transforms the original problem into two sub-problems, the wireless backhaul bandwidth allocation subproblem and the user association subproblem. Secondly, biasing on the received signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) is introduced to the small cell tier to achieve traffic offloading. Finally, the optimal solution X∗ for the user association subproblem can be obtained from the Lagrange dual function through the dual decomposition when the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker condition or the Slater's condition holds. While achieving the same optimal performance, the proposed distributed algorithm converges much faster than the exhaustive search method. Simulation results reveal that the system throughput is improved as we increase the large-scale antenna array size and the number of users. The impact of changing the number of small cell BSs is insignificant. In addition, the system throughput achieved by the distributed algorithm outperforms that of the conventional maximum SINR based user association strategy.

Millimeter-wave(mmWave) Beamforming(BF) for high speed trains(HSTs) scenario has been investigated in this paper. Throughout the paper, We have designed a patch antenna array and BF Scenario for HSTs, the analysis of path loss, received power and Rician k-factor are obtained with ray tracing simulator at 60GHz band. In summary, we have gained valuable results in adaptive BF based HSTs communication.

Internet addiction (IA) among adolescents is a serious public health problem around the world. However, there have been few studies that examine the association between IA and stressful life events and psychological symptoms among Chinese adolescent internet users. We examined the association between IA and stressful life events and psychological symptoms among a random sample of school students who were internet users (N=755) in Wuhan, China. Internet addiction, stressful life events, coping style and psychological symptoms were measured by self-rated scales. The prevalence rate of internet addiction was 6.0% among adolescent internet users. Logistic regression analyses indicated that stressors from interpersonal problem and school related problem and anxiety symptoms were significantly associated with IA after controlling for demographic characteristics. Analyses examining the coping style with the IA revealed that negative coping style may mediate the effects of stressful life events to increase the risk of IA. However, no significant interaction of stressful life events and psychological symptoms was found. These findings of the current study indicate a high prevalence of internet addiction among Chinese adolescent internet users and highlight the importance of stressors from interpersonal problem and school related problem as a risk factor for IA which mainly mediated through negative coping style.

DNA methylation (5-mC) and hydroxymethylation (5-hmC) levels associated to coronary heart disease (CHD) remain controversial. The peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) levels of 5-mC and 5-hmC and plasma levels of cytokines were measured in 44 CHD patients and 42 matched controls undergoing

Comparison of the prognostic value of red cell distribution width (RDW) and N-terminal pro B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) for short-term clinical outcomes in acute heart failure (AHF) patients has not been fully investigated.A total of 128 patients with AHF were enrolled and followed for 3 months. Primary endpoints were cardiovascular (CV) events, defined as cardiac death and/or readmission for HF. Baseline RDW and NT-proBNP were measured at admission.The 30-day and 90-day CV event rates were 16.4% and 35.9%, respectively. NT-proBNP was higher in people with cardiovascular events at both time points, while RDW was significantly higher only at the 90-day time point. The area under the ROC curve of RDW (area under the ROC curve = 0.695) for the prediction of CV events was higher than that of NT-proBNP (area under the ROC curve = 0.610) at the 90-day time point, but lower at the 30-day time point. Cox hazard analysis revealed RDW and NT-proBNP were independent predictive factors of a 90-day CV event (RDW, hazard ratio, 4.610, 95% confidence interval 1.935-10.981, P = 0.001; NT-proBNP, hazard ratio, 3.661, 95% confi dence interval 1.125-11.907, P = 0.031). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that patients with an RDW level > 14.5% and NT-proBNP > 1471.5 pg/mL were at highest risk for a CV event (P < 0.001).RDW and NT-proBNP are strong independent predictors of 90-day cardiovascular events in patients hospitalized with AHF. RDW can add prognostic value to NT-proBNP for predicting early cardiovascular events.

Oxidative low-density lipoprotein (Ox-LDL) is a key risk factor for the development of atherosclerosis, and it can stimulate the expression of a variety of inflammatory signals. As a new and highly sensitive inflammation index, OX40L may be a key to understanding the mechanisms that regulate interactions between cells within the vessel wall and inflammatory mediators during the development of atherosclerosis. To investigate whether Ox-LDL regulates OX40L expression through an oxidized LDL-1 receptor (LOX-1)-mediated mechanism, we investigated the effect of different concentrations of Ox-LDL (50, 100, 150 µg/mL) on endothelial cell proliferation and apoptosis. Stimulation with Ox-LDL increased OX40L protein 1.44-fold and mRNA 4.0-fold in endothelial cells, and these effects were inhibited by blocking LOX-1. These results indicate that LOX-1 plays an important role in the chronic inflammatory process in blood vessel walls. Inhibiting LOX-1 may reduce blood vessel inflammation and provide a therapeutic option to limit atherosclerosis progression.

In this paper, an in-line, low-cost, miniature and portable spectrophotometric detection system is presented and used for fast protein determination and calibration in centrifugal microfluidics. Our portable detection system is configured with paired emitter and detector diodes (PEDD), where the light beam between both LEDs is collimated with enhanced system tolerance. It is the first time that a physical model of PEDD is clearly presented, which could be modelled as a photosensitive RC oscillator. A portable centrifugal microfluidic system that contains a wireless port in real-time communication with a smartphone has been built to show that PEDD is an effective strategy for conducting rapid protein bioassays with detection performance comparable to that of a UV-vis spectrophotometer. The choice of centrifugal microfluidics offers the unique benefits of highly parallel fluidic actuation at high accuracy while there is no need for a pump, as inertial forces are present within the entire spinning disc and accurately controlled by varying the spinning speed. As a demonstration experiment, we have conducted the Bradford assay for bovine serum albumin (BSA) concentration calibration from 0 to 2 mg mL(-1). Moreover, a novel centrifugal disc with a spiral microchannel is proposed for automatic distribution and metering of the sample to all the parallel reactions at one time. The reported lab-on-a-disc scheme with PEDD detection may offer a solution for high-throughput assays, such as protein density calibration, drug screening and drug solubility measurement that require the handling of a large number of reactions in parallel.

It is reported that glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) has direct cardioprotective effects. We hypothesise that Exenatide, a long half-life analog of GLP-1, might protect the heart against ischaemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury. In this study, the role and mechanism of Exenatide in I/R was investigated.Two p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) isoforms p38α or p38γ, were knocked down by recombinant adeno-associated virus (rAAV) in male Sprague-Dawley rats. Then, rats were randomly treated with Exenatide or phosphate buffered saline (PBS) before I/R. Left ventricular function was measured. The translocation of glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4), GLUT1 and fatty acid transporter (FAT)/CD36 was assessed.Exenatide treatment increased the p38γ expression, but not p38α, in I/R rats. Exenatide significantly improved post-ischaemic cardiac function of I/R rats. The administration of Exenatide stimulated the translocation of GLUT4 and GLUT1, while it also increased the GLUT1 expression in the cytoplasm. Meanwhile, it reduced the translocation of FAT/CD36 (p0.05). However, cardiac down-regulation of p38γ mediated by rAAV abolished not only the Exenatide-induced cardioprotective effects but also the GLUT4, GLUT1 and FAT/CD36 translocation.These results demonstrated that Exenatide improved cardiac function, increased translocation of GLUTs, and suppressed translocation of FAT/CD36 after myocardial I/R injury. This protective effect was mediated, at least in part, through modulation of the cardiac p38γ MAPK.