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In pull-based development process, contributors submit their code to open-source projects by pull requests, which are accepted or rejected by reviewers. Contributors may modify their code, which causes several iterations of code review process, and makes code reviews time-consuming for both contributors and reviewers. In this article, we set out to study pull request modifications in a code review process. We collect nine projects on GitHub with 104 307 pull requests, and investigate pull request modifications through analyzing added commits after pull requests’ submission. By studying four research questions, we conclude our major findings as follow. First, 34.56% of collected pull requests have modifications. Pull requests with modifications have longer lifetime but higher pass rates. Second, we conclude eight modification types indicating why pull requests are modified. Third, we propose a novel method called MClassify to automatically classify pull request modifications, which achieves the accuracy of 0.807. Fourth, various modification types affect code review differently from the perspective of lifetime and pass rate. Pull requests with source control system management modifications have the longest lifetime. These findings enable developers and researchers to understand a pull-based code review process better and make improvements.

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) could facilitate communications among various road entities to improve the driver's safety and driving experience. These communications are called Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications that can be supported by LTE-V2X protocols. Due to frequent changes of network topology in V2X, the source node (e.g., a vehicle) may have to choose a Device-to-Device(D2D) relay node to forward its packet to the destination node. In this paper, we propose a new method for choosing an optimal D2D relay node. The proposed method considers Quality of Service (QoS) requirements for selecting D2D relay nodes. It employs an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for making decisions. The decision criteria are linked with channel capacity, link stability and end-to-end delay. A number of simulations were performed considering various network scenarios to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Simulation results show that the proposed method improves Packet Dropping Rate (PDR) by 30% and delivery ratio by 23% in comparison with the existing methods.

We study many-class few-shot (MCFS) problem in both supervised learning and meta-learning settings. Compared to the well-studied many-class many-shot and few-class few-shot problems, the MCFS problem commonly occurs in practical applications but has been rarely studied in previous literature. It brings new challenges of distinguishing between many classes given only a few training samples per class. In this paper, we leverage the class hierarchy as a prior knowledge to train a coarse-to-fine classifier that can produce accurate predictions for MCFS problem in both settings. The propose model, "memory-augmented hierarchical-classification network (MahiNet)", performs coarse-to-fine classification where each coarse class can cover multiple fine classes. Since it is challenging to directly distinguish a variety of fine classes given few-shot data per class, MahiNet starts from learning a classifier over coarse-classes with more training data whose labels are much cheaper to obtain. The coarse classifier reduces the searching range over the fine classes and thus alleviates the challenges from "many classes". On architecture, MahiNet firstly deploys a convolutional neural network (CNN) to extract features. It then integrates a memory-augmented attention module and a multi-layer perceptron (MLP) together to produce the probabilities over coarse and fine classes. While the MLP extends the linear classifier, the attention module extends the KNN classifier, both together targeting the "few-shot" problem. We design several training strategies of MahiNet for supervised learning and meta-learning. In addition, we propose two novel benchmark datasets "mcfsImageNet" and "mcfsOmniglot" specially designed for MCFS problem. In experiments, we show that MahiNet outperforms several state-of-the-art models on MCFS problems in both supervised learning and meta-learning.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Early determination of the prognosis of patients with hepatitis B virus-related acute-on-chronic liver failure (HBV-ACLF) is important to guide clinical management and decrease mortality. The aim of this study was to develop a new simplified prognostic score to accurately predict outcomes in patients with HBV-ACLF. METHODS Prospective clinical data from 2,409 hospitalized patients with acute deterioration of HBV-related chronic liver disease were used to develop a new prognostic score that was validated in an external group. RESULTS A total of 954 enrolled patients with HBV-ACLF were diagnosed based on the Chinese Group on the Study of Severe Hepatitis B-ACLF (COSSH-ACLF) criteria. Six predictive factors were significantly related to 28-day mortality and constituted a new prognostic score (=1.649×ln(international normalized ratio)+0.457×hepatic encephalopathy score+0.425×ln(neutrophil)+0.396×ln(total bilirubin)+0.576×ln(serum urea)+0.033×age). The C-indices of the new score for 28-/90-day mortality (0.826/0.809) were significantly higher than those of 4 other scores (COSSH-ACLF, 0.793/0.784; CLIF-C ACLF, 0.792/0.770; MELD, 0.731/0.727; MELD-Na, 0.730/0.726; all p

Han Zhang,1 Qinghui Niu,1 Kun Liang,2 Xuesen Li,3 Jing Jiang,2 Cheng Bian2 1Department of Liver Center, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Infectious Diseases, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Spine Surgery, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Qinghui NiuDepartment of Liver Center, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, No. 59 Haier Road, Qingdao, Shandong, 266100, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86-0532-82915998Email qinghuiniu@163.comPurpose: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is closely related to lipid metabolism and insulin resistance. The current research mainly attempted to verify the clinical value of LncRNA plasmacytoma variant translocation 1 (PVT1), and whether microRNA regulates lipid metabolism and insulin resistance to participate in NAFLD.Patients and Methods: 81 patients with NAFLD and 78 healthy individuals were enrolled in this study. In addition, C57BL/6 mice were fed a high-fat diet to establish NAFLD model in vivo. Serum PVT1 and miR-20a-5p expression in NAFLD patients and mice were assessed by RT-qPCR. ROC curves determine the diagnostic value of PVT1 and miR-20a-5p. NAFLD mice were subjected to IPGTT to detect changes in insulin sensitivity, and the common indicators of lipid metabolism and insulin resistance were also evaluated. Dual-luciferase reporter assay verified the regulation mechanism of PVT1 and miR-20a-5p.Results: PVT1 was upregulated in NAFLD patients and mice, while miR-20a-5p was decreased. Their expression trends were similar in patients with HOMA-IR ≥ 2.5. What’s more, miR-20a-5p, FBG, ALT, and HOMA-IR were independently correlated with PVT1. And PVT1 and miR-20a-5p show high clinical diagnostic value. Bodyweight, insulin sensitivity, lipid metabolism inductors were increased in NAFLD mice, but these increases were attenuated by PVT1 elimination. Finally, miR-20a-5p might function as the possible miRNA target of PVT1 via the binding sites at 3ʹ-UTR and negatively regulated by it.Conclusion: PVT1 and miR-20a-5p are potential clinical biomarkers of NAFLD, and PVT1 promotes the occurrence of NAFLD by regulating insulin sensitivity and lipid metabolism, which may be achieved by targeting miR-20a-5p.Keywords: PVT1, miR-20a-5p, NAFLD, insulin sensitivity, lipid metabolism

Background Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is a common and potentially life-threatening complication for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. However, there is a lack of clear prognostic factors in rheumatoid arthritis-associated interstitial lung disease (RA-ILD) patients. The purpose of this study was to complete a systematic review and meta-analysis of the factors associated with mortality in RA-ILD patients. Methods Medline, EMBASE and the Cochrane Library were searched up to September 1, 2020. The Newcastle–Ottawa Scale (NOS) was applied to assess the methodological quality of the eligible studies. Study characteristics and magnitude of effect sizes were extracted. Then, pooled hazard ratios (HRs) with the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and pooled risk ratios (RRs) with 95% CIs were calculated to assess the factors associated with mortality in RA-ILD. Results Twenty-three of 3463 articles were eligible, and ten factors associated with mortality for RA-ILD were evaluated in the meta-analysis. Older age (HRs = 1.04, 95% CI 1.03–1.05), male sex (HRs = 1.44, 95% CI 1.21–1.73), having a smoking history (HRs = 1.42, 95% CI 1.03–1.96), lower diffusing capacity of the lung for carbon monoxide (DLCO)% predicted (HRs = 0.98, 95% CI 0.97–1.00), forced vital capacity (FVC)% predicted (HRs = 0.99, 95% CI 0.98–1.00), composite physiological index (CPI) (HRs = 1.04, 95% CI 1.02–1.06), usual interstitial pneumonia (UIP) pattern on HRCT (HRs = 1.88, 95% CI 1.14–3.10 and RRs = 1.90, 95% CI 1.50–2.39), emphysema presence (HRs = 2.31, 95% CI 1.58–3.39), and acute exacerbation of ILD (HRs = 2.70, 95% CI 1.67–4.36) were associated with increased mortality in RA-ILD, whereas rheumatoid factor (RF) positive status was not associated. Conclusions Through this systematic review and meta-analysis, we found that older age, male sex, smoking history, higher CPI, lower DLCO% predicted, lower FVC% predicted, UIP pattern on HRCT, emphysema presence and acute exacerbation of ILD were associated with an increased risk of mortality in RA-ILD.

Purpose. To assess whether bone mineral density, indicated by the lumbar X-ray scan, is related to changes in choroid thickness in normal subjects. Methods. This study included 355 patients with decreased bone mineral density and 355 age- and sex-matched healthy subjects. Lumbar BMD was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Choroidal thickness was measured using swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT). Blood pressure (BP), cholesterol, triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) were recorded on the same day. Results. There was a significant difference in average choroidal thickness between low BMD subjects and normal subjects p = 0.003 . The BP, cholesterol, triglyceride, HDL, and LDL showed no significant difference between the two groups. The correlations showed that average choroidal thicknesses were associated with BMD in the entire population (r = 0.125, p = 0.001 ). Conclusion. The choroidal thickness is thinner in low BMD populations compared with normal individuals. There is a strong positive correlation of choroidal thickness with BMD, regardless of age, sex, and other demographic and clinical factors.

OBJECTIVE To explore the relationships between hepatitis B virus (HBV) DNA, HBV RNA and hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and to evaluate their predictive value for mother-to-child transmission of HBV. DESIGN An observational cohort study. SETTING First Hospital of Jilin University. POPULATION HBsAg-positive and hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) -positive pregnant women were recruited. METHODS Blood samples were collected from mothers before delivery, and HBV infection of infants was evaluated at 7 months of age. RESULTS Overall, 268 mothers and 271 infants were enrolled. HBV DNA and HBsAg levels were correlated (rs = 0.699; P

It had been suggested, after facilitating the hatching process, improved pregnancy outcomes could be attained in embryos with thick and hard zona. This study aimed to determine the effect of zona thinning on pregnancy outcomes in poor-quality frozen-thawed blastocysts. This retrospective study included 230 women (≤ 40 years) who underwent frozen embryo transfer of poor-quality blastocysts (scored 3BB). In total, 105 patients were in the assisted hatching group in which the zona was thinned by laser before transfer and 125 patients were in the control group in which the blastocysts were non-manipulated. Patients' demographics, cycle characteristics, and pregnancy outcomes were compared between the assisted hatching group and the control group. Further, regression analysis was applied to test the correlation between assisted hatching and live birth. All parameters in the patients' demographic characteristics and the cycle's characteristics were not significantly different between two groups. As for pregnancy outcomes, the second trimester pregnancy loss was significantly higher in the assisted hatching group (P = 0.035). Other pregnancy outcomes, including implantation rate, clinical pregnancy rate, biochemical miscarriage rate, the first trimester pregnancy loss, ongoing pregnancy rate, and live birth rate were comparable between two groups. The logistic regression analysis demonstrated no association between live birth and assisted hatching (univariate, OR = 0.787, P 0.05; multivariate, OR = 0.652, P 0.05), and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the regression model was almost 0.7. It suggested that zona thinning may not be supposed to perform on poor-quality, frozen-thawed blastocysts. The indications of assisted hatching were still needed to further investigate.

The future generation of wireless communication networks demands for high spectral efficiency to accommodate a large number of devices over the limited available frequency spectrum. Device to device (D2D) systems exploit channel reuse to offer high spectral efficiency and reduce the burden on the communication infrastructure by facilitating communication between devices without involving the base station. We can further enhance the efficiency of D2D systems by employing non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) for the transmission of the signals. In NOMA the signals of multiple users are transmitted on the same channel, simultaneously. Deployment of relays can assist the users that do not have a reliable link of communication. A combination of these advanced technologies may offer very high spectral efficiency and a robust communication system. This article aims to design efficient resource allocation techniques for the future communication systems. We consider sum rate maximization problem subject to limited power budget at different transmitting nodes and necessary transmit power gap among users for successful NOMA implementation. Under decode and forward relaying protocol, the problem turns out to be a unique joint uplink-downlink NOMA optimization. We then propose a deep neural networks (DNN) framework to acquire a joint power loading solution at source and relaying nodes. To obtain reliable data for DNN training and testing, we also derive an optimal solution of the problem through convex optimization paradigm, which is used later as a bench mark to verify the performance of proposed DNN based solution. It is observed that DNN provides promising results both in terms of sum rate and the computational complexity.

Liquid-like copper selenium compounds have attracted considerable interest in recent years for their excellent thermoelectric performance, abundant element reserves, and low toxicity. However, the related applications are still limited due to the phase transition and precipitation of Cu under an external field. Here, the cubic Cu1.85Se-based compounds with suppressed phase transition and improved critical voltage (Vc) are first studied. In particular, Li/Bi co-doping effectively optimizes hole concentration and the ZTs are substantially improved from 0.2 in Cu1.85Se to 0.7 in Li0.03Cu1.81Bi0.04Se at 760 K. Meanwhile, the latter shows an outstanding Vc above 0.22 V at 750 K, which is the highest value in Cu2-xSe thermoelectric compounds to date. Moreover, S is alloyed in Li0.03Cu1.81Bi0.04Se to greatly reduce the thermal conductivity and the ZT is further enhanced to 0.9 for Li0.03Cu1.81Bi0.04Se0.9S0.1 at 760 K. Our work sheds light on a new strategy to realize good stability and enhanced thermoelectric performance, which provides a new direction for further research.

Background Syringocystadenoma papilliferum (SCAP) represents a rare, noncancerous adnexal tumor predominantly presenting at birth or in early childhood. Case summary In this study, a 35-day-old girl was admitted to Kunming Children's Hospital in October 2019 due to a lesion in the right frontotemporal region since birth. The surface of the lesion was bright red, granular, and papillary and easily bled upon touch, with about 1.5 cm × 4 cm in size. A subcutaneous mass was felt at the base of the lesion, with a size of about 3 cm × 5 cm. Dermatoscopy showed that the skin lesion was lobular and crumby. The lesion center was reddish or white, while the edges were white or yellowish band-like. There were polymorphic vascular structures and white radial streaks in the lesion, with some vascular clusters scattered. Pathological examination showed papilloma-like hyperplasia of the epidermis, with the epidermis partly sinking into the dermis to form several cystic depressions. Combining clinical and histopathological features, the child was diagnosed with SCAP. Follow-up is ongoing, and surgical resection will be performed. Conclusion This was a special clinical manifestation of SCAP, which complements the clinical manifestations of the disease and provides new insights for the diagnosis and differentiation of neonatal skin tumors.

Mobile-edge computing (MEC) is considered as a promising technology to enable low latency applications while consuming less energy, and nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is regarded as a hopeful method of increasing spectrum efficiency and the wireless network capacity. In this article, we consider a NOMA-MEC-based Internet-of-Things (IoT) network, and propose a joint optimization framework to maximize the effective system capacity, i.e., the number of IoT devices whose tasks are processed successfully, and meanwhile to maximize the total energy saving. First, we concentrate on improving the effective system capacity from the wireless side by introducing NOMA, and from the IoT device side by task offloading decision optimization, where distributed optimization is conducted and closed-form solution is obtained. Then, we maximize the total energy saving also from two aspects, i.e., the device-side computation resource allocation, and the wireless side joint admission control, user clustering, orthogonal subcarrier assignment, and transmit power control, where we resort to graph theory and propose a low-complexity heuristic algorithm to solve it. Abundant simulation results demonstrate our proposed joint optimization algorithm performs well in both effective system capacity optimization and energy saving maximization.

This meta-analysis was performed to compare the efficacy and safety of dilatation and curettage (D&C) (simply D&C or combined with other treatments) and lesion resection for cesarean scar pregnancy (CSP). A search of English and Chinese databases from 2010 to 2019 was conducted. Thirty one studies were retrieved including sixteen random controlled and fifteen case controlled trials. Compared with abdominal resection surgery(ARS) and vaginal resection surgery(VRS), uterine artery embolization(UAE)+D&C has no obvious difference in curative effect and safety (UAE + D&C versus ARS: Cure rate(CR): P = 0.076, time for menstruation recovery/β-HCG normalization: P = 0.545/0.949,Blood loss: P = 0.005, adverse event: P = 0.420; versus VRS: CR: P = 0.085, time for menstruation recovery/β-HCG normalization: P

Eight liquid effluent samples from nuclear power plants (NPP) were analyzed for 63Ni, 131I, and gamma radionuclides using methods with low detection limits. The sum of the radionuclides activity concentrations of the effluent samples from NPPs A and B were closely lower than the operator’s results with a maximum of decreasing to 29%, while from NPP C were much lower with a maximum of decreasing to 5%. The unlisted radionuclides account for 5.0–889%. It was indicated that the statistics method of the discharge amount could be established based on a regular investigation of the radionuclide characteristics based on analytical methods with low limits of detection.

ObjectiveHepatitis B virus-related acute-on-chronic liver failure (HBV-ACLF) pathophysiology remains unclear. This study aims to characterise the molecular basis of HBV-ACLF using transcriptomics.MethodsFour hundred subjects with HBV-ACLF, acute-on-chronic hepatic dysfunction (ACHD), liver cirrhosis (LC) or chronic hepatitis B (CHB) and normal controls (NC) from a prospective multicentre cohort were studied, and 65 subjects (ACLF, 20; ACHD, 10; LC, 10; CHB, 10; NC, 15) among them underwent mRNA sequencing using peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs).ResultsThe functional synergy analysis focusing on seven bioprocesses related to the PBMC response and the top 500 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) showed that viral processes were associated with all disease stages. Immune dysregulation, as the most prominent change and disorder triggered by HBV exacerbation, drove CHB or LC to ACHD and ACLF. Metabolic disruption was significant in ACHD and severe in ACLF. The analysis of 62 overlapping DEGs further linked the HBV-based immune-metabolism disorder to ACLF progression. The signatures of interferon-related, neutrophil-related and monocyte-related pathways related to the innate immune response were significantly upregulated. Signatures linked to the adaptive immune response were downregulated. Disruptions of lipid and fatty acid metabolism were observed during ACLF development. External validation of four DEGs underlying the aforementioned molecular mechanism in patients and experimental rats confirmed their specificity and potential as biomarkers for HBV-ACLF pathogenesis.ConclusionsThis study highlights immune-metabolism disorder triggered by HBV exacerbation as a potential mechanism of HBV-ACLF and may indicate a novel diagnostic and treatment target to reduce HBV-ACLF-related mortality.

In this paper, the secrecy performance in internet of things (IoTs) networks with cooperative eavesdroppers has been investigated, where simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) nodes perform as relay nodes. The secrecy energy efficiency (SEE) maximization problem for single relay node has been introduced to extend the life-time for IoT nodes without power supply. The optimization problem is firstly transformed into two sub-problems, and then each sub-problem is solved by bisection method. Furthermore, the model has been extended into multiple relay nodes and a novel relay selection algorithm for SEE maximization has been proposed. Finally, the advantage of the proposed algorithm has been verified from simulations.

Objective The aim of the study was to evaluate the Cobas 4800 Assay and the SeqHPV Assay with self (S) and direct (D) cervical samples in the Chinese Multicenter Screening Trial (CHIMUST). Materials and methods The CHIMUST is a large population-based multicenter clinical trial, and 10,885 women aged 30-59 years from 15 sites in 7 provinces with no cervical cancer screening for 3 years were eligible. All participating women contributed one self-collected sample (S) and 1 physician-collected endocervical sample (DL). The self-collected sample was first applied to the solid media transport card (SS), and then, the brush placed in 6 mL of ThinPrepSolution (SL). All samples were tested with Cobas 4800 and SeqHPV high-risk HPV assays. Patients human papillomavirus positive (self or direct) were recalled for colposcopy and biopsies. Results A total of 10,399 women had complete data. The mean age was 43.9 years. A total of 1.4% (142/10,399) had cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) 2+ and 0.5% (54/10,339) had CIN 3+. In the liquid specimens, the overall HPV infection rates were 10.8% for Cobas and 10.9% for SeqHPV in D sample, and 13.7% for Cobas and 11.6% for SeqHPV in SL sample, respectively. The sensitivity of Cobas-DL, Cobas-SL, SeqHPV-DL, and SeqHPV-SL for CIN 2+ was 95.07%, 95.07%, 94.33%, and 96.48%, respectively. The specificity of Cobas-DL, Cobas-SL, SeqHPV-DL, and SeqHPV-SL for CIN 2+ was 90.38%, 87.35%, 90.21%, and 89.53%, respectively. There were no differences in sensitivity when applying the 2 assays to both self- and directly collected samples in liquid transport media (p > .05). Conclusions Both Cobas and SeqHPV screening assays using both self-collected and directly endocervical collected specimens demonstrate similar sensitivity for the detection of CIN 2+ and CIN 3+.

The thermal field effect effectively boosts water splitting electrocatalysis by lowering activation energy barriers and accelerating sluggish kinetics. Solar-powered light-to-heat conversion of photothermal materials enabling desirable surface heat localization satisfies the integration of in situ heating to supply an additional energy source to promote electrocatalytic reactions. Based on these concepts, we herein report a robust photothermal–electrocatalytic water splitting system based on broadband solar harvesting nickel phosphide (Ni2P) within a heat-insulating quasi-Ni-BDC-MOF. Benefiting from the controllable thermal treatment for partial deligandation and synchronous phosphorization, the highly dispersed ultrafine Ni2P nanoparticles are spatially confined within quasi-Ni-BDC-MOF nanosheets, ensuring the effective utilization of local heat assisted by heat-insulating quasi-Ni-BDC-MOF to suppress heat loss. The resulting black Ni2P@quasi-Ni-BDC exhibits an ultrasensitive and stable light-to-heat response under simulated solar light illumination. By coupling with this excellent photothermal performance, Ni2P@quasi-Ni-BDC under full spectrum light illumination demonstrates the ultralow overpotentials of 246 and 218 mV to deliver 100 mA cm−2 current density for oxygen and hydrogen evolution reactions and shows negligible degradation over operating for 50 h and excellent recyclability under several repeated on–off cycles. This performance compares favorably with those of previously reported electrocatalysts working at large currents and outperforms those of most of the photothermal electrocatalysts for water splitting.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is one kind of human head and neck cancers with high incidence in Southern China, Southeast Asia and North Africa. In spite of great innovations in radiation and chemotherapy treatments, the 5-year survival rate is not satisfactory. One of the main reasons is resistance to radiotherapy which leads to therapy failure and recurrence of NPC. The mechanism underlying remains to be fully elucidated. Aldo-keto reductase B10 (AKR1B10) plays a role in the formation and development of carcinomas. However, its role in resistance to radiotherapy of NPC is not clear. In this research, the relationships between AKR1B10 expression and the treatment effect of NPC patients, NPC cell survival, cell apoptosis, and DNA damage repair, as well as the effect and mechanism of AKR1B10 expression on NPC radioresistance were explored. A total of 58 paraffin tissues of NPC patients received radiotherapy were collected including 30 patients with radiosensitivity and 28 patients with radioresistance. The relationships between AKR1B10 expression and the treatment effect as well as clinical characteristics were analyzed by immuno-histochemical experiments, and the roles of AKR1B10 in cell survival, apoptosis and DNA damage repair were detected using the AKR1B10 overexpressed cell models. Furthermore the mechanism of AKR1B10 in NPC radioresistance was explored. Finally, the radioresistance effect of AKR1B10 expression was evaluated by the tumor xenograft model of nude mice and the method of radiotherapy. The results showed AKR1B10 expression level was correlated with radiotherapy resistance, and AKR1B10 overexpression promoted proliferation of NPC cells, reduced apoptosis and decreased cellular DNA damage after radiotherapy. The probable molecular mechanism is that AKR1B10 expression activated FFA/TLR4/NF-κB axis in NPC cells. This was validated by using the TLR4 inhibitor TAK242 to treat NPC cells with AKR1B10 expression, which reduced the phosphorylation of NF-κB. This study suggests that AKR1B10 can induce radiotherapy resistance and promote cell survival via FFA/TLR4/NF-κB axis in NPC, which may provide a novel target to fight against radiotherapy resistance of NPC.

Cholelithiasis with chronic cholecystitis is prevalent and threatens human health. Most cholecystitis caused by bacterial infection or biofilms is accompanied by gallstones in the clinic, making gallbladder removal the only effective solution. Here, we provide a strategy to eliminate gallstone biofilms and dissolve gallstones by oral administration of a supernatant derived from nanoscale iron sulfide (nFeS supernatant). First, by using gallstones obtained from the clinic, we simulated biofilm formation on gallstones and tested the antibacterial activity of a nFeS supernatant

In 1889 the sinologist Herbert A. Giles published his English translation Chuang Tzŭ: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer. The following year, Oscar Wilde wrote his long book review ‘A Chinese Sage’. This article analyses Wilde’s review and explores how Giles’ translation influences Wilde’s understanding of Zhuangzi. The article also considers the influence of Aubrey Moore, who provided some of the notes for Giles’ translations, on Wilde’s reception of Zhuangzi. Because Wilde is neither a sinologist nor a researcher of Taoism, his interpretation of Zhuangzi in ‘A Chinese Sage’ is mediated by Giles and Moore, and might be seen as a ‘misunderstanding of a misunderstanding’. Yet the influence of Zhuangzi can still be seen in Wilde’s review, and the episode raises interesting questions about the reception of Taoism in late 19th-century Britain.

The vibration properties of a side-placed high-temperature superconducting (HTS) bulk and permanent magnet (PM) system have been investigated theoretically and experimentally. In this system, an HTS pendulum (HTSP) is introduced to laterally arrange the HTS bulks beside a PM with a high pinning force. The resonant frequency nearly linearly decreases when increasing both the mass of HTSP and the gap between superconductors and a magnet. The results indicate that the resonant frequency is dependent on HSTP mass and stiffness. This may be helpful for the future application on close-proximity spacecraft operations and maglev system.

To explore the relationship between CD177 and the vasculogenic mimicry (VM), clinicopathological parameters, and prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer.Tumor tissue samples and clinicopathological data were collected from 98 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer. The expression of CD177 in tumor tissues was detected by immunohistochemical streptavidin-peroxidase conjugate (SP) method, while the VM structure in tumor tissues was identified by CD31/periodic acid-Schiff (PAS) double staining in order to analyze the relationship between CD177, VM, clinicopathological parameters, and the prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer.The proportion of the positive expression of CD177 (CD177+) in 98 ovarian cancer tissues was higher than that of the negative expression of CD177 (CD177-) (65.31% vs. 34.69%, P0.05). Univariate analysis showed that CD177+ was associated with VM formation, tumor differentiation degree, tumor diameter, tumor stages, and platinum sensitivity (P0.05), and was not associated with age, tumor types, or lymph node metastasis (P0.05). Correlation analysis showed that CD177+ was positively correlated with VM formation, tumor differentiation degree, tumor diameter, and tumor stages (P0.05), and was negatively correlated with platinum sensitivity (P0.05). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that the survival time of CD177+ patients was significantly shorter than that of CD177- patients (P0.05).CD177+ is associated with the tumor malignancy of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer, and may participate in the formation of VM structure in epithelial ovarian cancer tissues. It can thus serve as important indicator for the prognosis of patients.

Background The solid transport media is a small size card that allows fast, easy DNA extraction from a variety of biological samples. In 2016 we developed a solid media transport card; for that pilot study to control the self-collection we used a pseudo-self-collection technique. The current study expands this prior work using true self-collections and only the POI card, and aims to evaluate the solid media transport card to detect HR-HPV in self-samples compared to liquid transport media. Methods Ten thousand eight hundred eighty-five women between the ages of 30–59 with no screening for 3 years were enrolled. The self-collected sample was first applied to a new solid media transport card (Labeled as SC) then the brush placed in 6 ml ThinPrep liquid (Labeled as SL). Then a physician collected a direct endocervical specimen into ThinPrep liquid (Labeled as DL). Samples were tested with Cobas 4800 and the SeqHPV NGS assay for HR-HPV. Patients positive on any test were recalled for colposcopy and biopsy. Results Ten thousand three hundred thirty-nine participants had complete data. The mean age was 43.9 years. CIN 2+ rates were 1.4% (142/10339). The agreement in HPV detection between the two different self-sample collection media was also good (Cobas HPV kappa = 0.86; SeqHPV kappa = 0.98). Tested with Cobas, the sensitivity of Cobas-SL and Cobas-SC for CIN 2+ was95.07 and 94.37%; and for CIN3+ was 96.30, 96.30% respectively. The specificity of Cobas-SC, and Cobas-SL for CIN2+ was 88.74 and 87.35%; for CIN3 was 88.04and 86.65% respectively. Tested with SeqHPV, the sensitivity for CIN2+ of Seq-SC and Seq-SL was 95.77 and 96.48%; for CIN3+, both the SC and SL specimens had a sensitivity of 100%. The specificity for CIN2+ of Seq-SC and Seq-SL was 89.54 and 89.53%; for CIN3+ was 88.84,88.82% respectively. For both HR-HPV assays, the sensitivities were similar for the two self-sample media (SC vs SL, p = 1.00). Conclusions The solid transport card for collecting vaginal self-samples as accurate as liquid transport media assayed by two different PCR based HR-HPV tests. The solid transport media is a suitable medium for collecting and storing vaginal self-samples.

Background Research on prostate cancer survivorship patients has largely been on oncological outcome, incontinence and erectile dysfunction, with less data on the relationship between prostate cancer, bladder function and mental health. This study aims to elucidate the prevalence of lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), overactive bladder (OAB), sexual dysfunction, depression and anxiety in Canadian men with newly diagnosed localised prostate cancer. Methods This is a single-centre prospective cross-sectional study of men with newly diagnosed localized prostate cancer recruited from June 2017 to July 2018. The patient-reported outcomes (PRO) instruments used in this study included the international prostate symptoms score (IPSS), OAB-V8, EQ-5D™, and the Expanded Prostate Cancer Index Composite short form (EPIC-26). Clinico-pathological data were extracted from medical records. The prevalence of LUTS, OAB, sexual dysfunction, depression and anxiety were determined from the PROs. Results A total of 83 patients were included in this study. The median age was 63. Based on IPSS scores, 55.3% of men had mild LUTS, 36.8% had moderate LUTS and 7.9% had severe LUTS. Based on OAB-V8 scores, 55.8% of men had a score of 8 or higher, suggestive of OAB. Only 55.8% of men reported erections adequate for intercourse. 23.1% of men reported to have a moderate to big problem with depression, and 28.8% of men reported to have a degree of anxiety or depression. Conclusions OAB is a significant problem in men with newly diagnosed localized prostate cancer, with a prevalence of 55.8% based on this study. Baseline sexual dysfunction, anxiety and depression are also prevalent in this population.

Immersive virtual reality (VR) video is becoming increasingly popular owing to its enhanced immersive experience. To enjoy ultrahigh resolution immersive VR video with wireless user equipments, such as head-mounted displays (HMDs), ultralow-latency viewport rendering, and data transmission are the core prerequisites, which could not be achieved without a huge bandwidth and superior processing capabilities. Besides, potentially very high energy consumption at the HMD may impede the rapid development of wireless panoramic VR video. Multiaccess edge computing (MEC) has emerged as a promising technology to reduce both the task processing latency and the energy consumption for HMD, while bandwidth-rich terahertz (THz) communication is expected to enable ultrahigh-speed wireless data transmission. In this article, we propose to minimize the long-term energy consumption of a THz wireless access-based MEC system for high quality immersive VR video services support by jointly optimizing the viewport rendering offloading and downlink transmit power control. Considering the time-varying nature of wireless channel conditions, we propose a deep reinforcement learning-based approach to learn the optimal viewport rendering offloading and transmit power control policies and an asynchronous advantage actor–critic (A3C)-based joint optimization algorithm is proposed. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm converges fast under different learning rates, and outperforms existing algorithms in terms of minimized energy consumption and maximized reward.

Recently, backscatter communication (BC) has been introduced as a green paradigm for Internet of Things (IoT). Meanwhile, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can serve as aerial base stations (BSs) to enhance the performance of BC system thanks to their high mobility and flexibility. In this paper, we investigate the problem of energy efficiency (EE) for an energy-limited backscatter communication (BC) network, where backscatter devices (BDs) on the ground harvest energy from the wireless signal of a flying rotary-wing quadrotor. Specifically, we first reformulate the EE optimization problem as a Markov decision process (MDP) and then propose a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithm to design the UAV trajectory with the constraints of the BD scheduling, the power reflection coefficients, the transmission power, and the fairness among BDs. Simulation results show the proposed DRL algorithm achieves close-to-optimal performance and significant EE gains compared to the benchmark schemes.

Background Breast cancer (BC) is a heterogeneous malignant tumor that threatens the health of women worldwide. Hsa_circRNA_0000518 (circ_0000518) has been revealed to be upregulated in BC tissues. However, the role and mechanism of circ_0000518 in BC are indistinct. Methods Quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction (qRT‐PCR) was implemented to detect the levels of circ_0000518, microRNA (miR)‐326, and fibroblast growth factor receptor 1 (FGFR1) mRNA in BC tissues and cells. Cell counting kit‐8 (CCK‐8), colony formation, flow cytometry, and transwell assays were executed to estimate BC cell proliferation, cell cycle progression, apoptosis, migration, and invasion. The relationship between circ_0000518 or FGFR1 and miR‐326 was verified by dual‐luciferase reporter and/or RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) assays. The role of circ_0000518 in vivo was confirmed by xenograft assay. Results Circ_0000518 and FGFR1 were upregulated while miR‐326 was downregulated in BC tissues and cells. Circ_0000518 silencing impeded tumor growth in vivo and induced cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, cured proliferation, colony formation, migration, and invasion of BC cells in vitro. Circ_0000518 regulated FGFR1 expression via competitively binding to miR‐326 in BC cells. MiR‐326 inhibitor reversed the inhibitory influence of circ_0000518 knockdown on the malignant behaviors of BC cells. FGFR1 overexpression abolished miR‐326 mimic‐mediated influence on the malignant behaviors of BC cells. Conclusions Circ_0000518 facilitated BC development via regulation of the miR‐326/FGFR1 axis, suggesting that circ_0000518 might be a promising target for BC treatment., The research exhibited the critical role of circ_0000518 in BC. Circ_0000518 accelerated BC progression via elevating FGFR1 expression by sponging miR‐326. The findings highlighted the prospect of circ_0000518 as a new target for BC treatment.

Background Adult intussusception is less common than paediatric intussusception. The aim of this study was to explore the clinical presentation, aetiology, diagnosis and treatment of adult intussusception. Methods Adults (>18 years) with intussusception treated by surgical or conservative measures were included from January 2005 to January 2018, and the manifestation, types, diagnosis and treatment of adult intussusception in our centre were reviewed. Results A total of 150 patients with adult intussusception were included in this study. The clinical manifestations included 111 cases (74%) of abdominal pain, 38 cases (25.3%) of bloody stool, 37 cases (24.7%) of bowel obstructions, 33 cases (22%) of abdominal distension, 29 cases (19.3%) of nausea and vomiting, 19 cases (12.7%) of an abdominal mass, and 12 cases (8.0%) of diarrhoea. The types of intussusception were classified into 36 cases (24%) of enteric intussusception, 87 cases (58%) of intestine-colon intussusception and 27 cases (18%) of colonic intussusception. Surgical intervention was applied in 139 cases (92.7%), including 115 patients who underwent open surgery, and laparoscopy-assisted surgery was performed in 24 patients. The main pathogenesis of intussusception was malignant tumors in 51 cases (36.7%) and benign tumors and polyps in 49 cases (35.3%). Conclusion Malignant and benign tumors are the main causes of adult intussusception. Abdominal CT is the preferred evaluation method for the preoperative diagnosis of this condition. The choice of surgical procedure depends on the location and type of intussusception.

Purpose: To assess the safety of pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) in patients undergoing systemic treatment with aspirin. Methods: This prospective study enrolled consecutive patients undergoing PPV under percutaneous retrobulbar anesthesia between February 2016 and July 2018. Sixty-seven eyes from 67 patients on regular aspirin therapy were randomized into two groups: the continuation group (33 eyes), with aspirin continued during the perioperative period; and the discontinuation group (34 eyes), with aspirin discontinued for 3 to 7 days before surgery. Forty-three eyes from 43 patients who had no antiplatelet/anticoagulant therapy were used as a control group. Results: There was no significant difference in the incidence of hemorrhagic complications or the need for additional operations due to hemorrhagic complications among the three groups ( p = 0.740 and p = 0.324, respectively). None of the patients in these three groups suffered from thromboembolic events during the follow-up period. Except for one case (3.0%) of lid ecchymosis in the continuation group, no eye experienced bleeding complications associated with the retrobulbar local anesthesia. In the continuation group, three eyes (9.1%) demonstrated postoperative hyphema that resolved spontaneously. In the discontinuation group, two eyes (5.9%) suffered from postoperative vitreous hemorrhage, of which one eye required secondary surgery and the other cleared spontaneously. One eye (2.9%) in the discontinuation group demonstrated postoperative hyphema that absorbed spontaneously. Three eyes (7.0%) in the control group experienced hyphema that absorbed spontaneously. Conclusion: The outcomes of our study indicate that PPV under retrobulbar anesthesia can be safely performed without discontinuing systemic aspirin therapy.

Background The purpose of this study was to explore the efficacy and tolerability of poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitors in patients with ovarian cancer. Methods The meta-analysis searched the PubMed, Web of Science, EBSCO, and Cochrane libraries from inception to February 2020 to identify relevant studies. And the main results of this study were long-term prognosis and treatment-related adverse events. Results The results showed that the addition of PARP inhibitors could significantly prolong progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) for patients with ovarian cancer (HR 0.44, 95% CI 0.34–0.53, p < 0.001; HR, 0.79, 95% CI 0.65–0.94, p < 0.001, respectively). In the BRCA 1/2 mutation patients, the HR of PFS was 0.29 (p < 0.001), and the HR was 0.51 (p < 0.001) in the no BRCA 1/2 mutation patients. The HR of PFS was 0.40 (p < 0.001) in the homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) mutation patients, while the HR was 0.80 (p < 0.001) in the no HRD mutation patients. Moreover, the analysis found that the use of PARP inhibitors did not significantly increase the risk of all grade adverse events (AEs) (RR = 1.04, p = 0.16). But the incidence of grade 3 or higher AEs was increased (RR = 1.87, p = 0.002). In general, the AEs were mainly manifested in the blood system. Conclusions PARP inhibitors can improve the prognosis of ovarian cancer patients with and without genetic mutations (BRCA 1/2 or HRD). Furthermore, PARP inhibitors were tolerable to patients when added to their current therapy, although it inevitably adds the grade 3 and higher AEs.

The n-type filled and doped skutterudites GaxCo4Sb12.3 and Ga0.2Co4Sb11.3Te composites with the well-distributed GaSb nanoinclusions are synthesized through the manipulating of metastable Ga fillers and enrichment of Sb by an in-situ method with a proper annealing procedure. Ga atoms can fill the icosahedron cages of skutterudite at high temperature, but at low temperature, they are driven out from the lattice voids and form the second phase of GaSb at grain boundaries. The presence of GaSb second phases reduces the thermal conductivity effectively. Te doping leads to a significant increase in carrier concentration of Ga0.2Co4Sb11.3Te, thus largely suppresses the bipolar effect of GaxCo4Sb12.3, resulting in a great enhancement in power factor. Moreover, Te doping induces mass and strain fluctuation, which decreases the lattice thermal conductivity further. Consequently, the maximum ZT is increased from 0.56 for Ga0.2Co4Sb12.3 at 573 K to 1.48 for Ga0.2Co4Sb11.3Te at 873 K, which is advantageous to improve the thermoelectric conversion efficiency for commercial application. Keywords: Thermoelectric, Skutterudite, Second phase, Bipolar effect

The study aimed to assess whether caesarean section and nonbreastfeeding can prevent mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) in HBsAg- and HBeAg-positive mothers via a cohort study and a meta-analysis. (1) Pregnant women who were positive for HBsAg and HBeAg and did not receive antiviral treatment during pregnancy were recruited from the First Hospital of Jilin University, Maternal and Child Health Care Center of Jiangsu and Henan from August 2009 to June 2015. Infants received active and passive immunity. (2) In addition, a systematic literature search was performed in the PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Wanfang Chinese databases. The retrieval strategy was [("HBV" or "hepatitis b" or "hepatitis b virus") and ("mother-to-infant transmission" or "vertical transmission")]. Studies were screened, and data were extracted. The fixed-effect model was used to analyse the studies. A total of 852 mothers and 857 newborns were enrolled. At the age of 7 months, 41 infants (4.78%) were positive for HBsAg. Multivariate analysis showed that mothers with higher HBV DNA levels (>108 IU/mL; RR = 3.03, 95% CI: 1.41-6.52) were associated with an increased risk of infection. Although there was no statistical significance, caesarean section (RR = 0.61) and nonbreastfeeding (RR = 0.88) showed a tendency to reduce the risk of infection. (2) A total of 5726 studies were identified. Together with our study, 13 were included in the analysis of delivery mode, and 12 were included in the analysis of feeding mode. The risk of infection in the caesarean section group was lower than that in the vaginal delivery group (RR = 0.58, 95% CI: 0.46-0.74). In the analysis of feeding mode, the risk in the nonbreastfeeding group was significantly lower (RR = 0.74, 95% CI: 0.56-0.98). In conclusion, caesarean section and nonbreastfeeding reduced the risk of MTCT in infants of HBsAg- and HBeAg-positive mothers who did not receive antiviral therapy during pregnancy.

Risk stratification of young patients with hypertension remains challenging. Generally, machine learning (ML) is considered a promising alternative to traditional methods for clinical predictions because it is capable of processing large amounts of complex data. We, therefore, explored the feasibility of an ML approach for predicting outcomes in young patients with hypertension and compared its performance with that of approaches now commonly used in clinical practice. Baseline clinical data and a composite end point—comprising all-cause death, acute myocardial infarction, coronary artery revascularization, new-onset heart failure, new-onset atrial fibrillation/atrial flutter, sustained ventricular tachycardia/ventricular fibrillation, peripheral artery revascularization, new-onset stroke, end-stage renal disease—were evaluated in 508 young patients with hypertension (30.83±6.17 years) who had been treated at a tertiary hospital. Construction of the ML model, which consisted of recursive feature elimination, extreme gradient boosting, and 10-fold cross-validation, was performed at the 33-month follow-up evaluation, and the model’s performance was compared with that of the Cox regression and recalibrated Framingham Risk Score models. An 11-variable combination was considered most valuable for predicting outcomes using the ML approach. The C statistic for identifying patients with composite end points was 0.757 (95% CI, 0.660–0.854) for the ML model, whereas for Cox regression model and the recalibrated Framingham Risk Score model it was 0.723 (95% CI, 0.636–0.810) and 0.529 (95% CI, 0.403–0.655). The ML approach was comparable with Cox regression for determining the clinical prognosis of young patients with hypertension and was better than that of the recalibrated Framingham Risk Score model.

Several epidemiological studies have investigated the adverse health effects of air pollution, but studies reporting its effects on allergic rhinitis (AR) are limited, especially in developing countries having the most severe pollution. Limited studies have been conducted in China, but their results were inconsistent. So, we conducted a time-series study to evaluate the acute effect of six air pollutants (fine particulate matter [PM2.5], particulate matter with diameter less than 10 μm [PM10], sulfur dioxide [SO2], nitrogen dioxide [NO2], ozone [O3], and carbon monoxide [CO]) on hospital outpatient visits for AR in Xinxiang, China from January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2018. An over-dispersed Poisson generalized additive model adjusting for weather conditions, long-term trends, and day of the week was used. In total, 14,965 AR outpatient records were collected during the study period. Results found that each 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, O3, and CO corresponded to 0.70% (95% confidence interval 0.00–1.41%), 0.79% (0.35–1.23%), 3.43% (1.47–5.39%), 4.54% (3.01–6.08%), 0.97% (− 0.11–2.05%), and 0.07% (0.02–0.12%) increments in AR outpatients on the current day, respectively. In the stratification analyses, statistically stronger associations were observed with PM2.5, PM10, SO2, NO2, and CO for AR outpatients

Antidepressants are widely prescribed, but their efficacy relative to placebo is modest, in part because the clinical diagnosis of major depression encompasses biologically heterogeneous conditions. Here, we sought to identify a neurobiological signature of response to antidepressant treatment as compared to placebo. We designed a latent-space machine-learning algorithm tailored for resting-state electroencephalography (EEG) and applied it to data from the largest imaging-coupled, placebo-controlled antidepressant study (n = 309). Symptom improvement was robustly predicted in a manner both specific for the antidepressant sertraline (versus placebo) and generalizable across different study sites and EEG equipment. This sertraline-predictive EEG signature generalized to two depression samples, wherein it reflected general antidepressant medication responsivity and related differentially to a repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment outcome. Furthermore, we found that the sertraline resting-state EEG signature indexed prefrontal neural responsivity, as measured by concurrent transcranial magnetic stimulation and EEG. Our findings advance the neurobiological understanding of antidepressant treatment through an EEG-tailored computational model and provide a clinical avenue for personalized treatment of depression.

Percutaneous puncture ethanol sclerotherapy is a simple, effective, minimally invasive, and inexpensive procedure to manage symptomatic simple renal cysts. We modified specific technical aspects to balance certain potential intraprocedural factors for ensuring minimal procedural pain and duration as well as maximal clinical therapeutic effects and evaluated the safety and efficacy of this modified technique. A total of 84 eligible patients underwent computed tomography-guided single-session ethanol sclerotherapy using the conventional (group A) or modified (group B) technique. In group B, the puncture route was modified from tansparenchymal to direct for reducing renal injury, and preinjection of low-dose intracystic lidocaine was used to control distending pain caused by ethanol injections; therefore, greater ethanol volumes could be injected for improving the resistance and contact of ethanol with the cyst wall, precluding the need for patient repositioning multiple times to decrease procedural duration. Visual analog scale score for pain and procedural time were significantly higher in group A than in group B. The complication rate was slightly higher in group A than in group B, but the success rate was comparable between the two groups. These results suggest that the modified technique is painless, time-saving, and injury-reducing and can thus improve medical care.

Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection has a close association with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Although the mechanisms of insulin resistance in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients have been extensively studied, little attention has been given to the role of β-cell function in HCV-associated diabetes. Here, we analysed β-cell function in CHC patients and HCV-infected mouse model and found in addition to insulin resistance, impaired pancreatic β-cell function occurred in CHC patients and HCV-infected C/OTg mice, not only in diabetic individuals but also in individuals with impaired fasting glucose levels. Both first-phase and second-phase insulin secretion were impaired, at least partially due to the reduction of exocytosis of secretory insulin-containing granules following HCV infection. Up-regulated p38δ in HCV-infected β-cells resulted in inactivation of protein kinase D (PKD), which was responsible for impaired insulin secretory capacity of β-cells. Thus, impaired insulin secretion due to HCV infection in β-cells contributes to HCV-associated type 2 diabetes. These findings provided a new inspiration for the important prognostic and therapeutic implications in the management of CHC patients with impaired fasting glucose.

Background The association between circulating folate concentrations and risk of coronary artery disease (CAD) has been evaluated in Western populations with inconsistent results; however, the observational and causal associations in Chinese populations with relatively low folate concentrations remain unclear. Objectives We aimed to examine the association of circulating folate concentrations with incident CAD in Chinese adults, and further evaluated the causal relation using Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis. Methods We measured baseline serum folate in 1605 incident CAD cases and 1605 age- and sex-matched controls nested within the Dongfeng-Tongji (DFTJ) cohort, which recruited 27,009 individuals with a mean age of 63.6 y in 2008-2010 and followed up until the end of 2013 (mean: 4.4 y). We quantified the observational association between folate and incident CAD using conditional logistic regression models. A 2-sample MR analysis was performed using summary statistics obtained for genetic variants identified from a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of circulating folate concentrations in participants of European ancestry (n = 37,341) and from the CardiogramplusC4D 1000 genomes-based GWAS meta-analysis (n = 184,305). We also conducted 1-sample MR among 1545 incident CAD cases and 1444 controls with genotyping data in the DFTJ cohort. Results In the DFTJ cohort, higher serum folate concentrations were associated with a lower risk of CAD: the OR (95% CI) across sex-specific quartiles of folate (from lowest to highest concentrations) was 1.00 (reference), 0.78 (0.63, 0.97), 0.77 (0.61, 0.97), and 0.75 (0.60, 0.95), respectively (P-trend = 0.01). In the MR analysis, the OR of CAD per SD increase in genetically predicted serum folate was 0.99 (0.82, 1.20) and 0.88 (0.59, 1.32) for European and Chinese populations, respectively. Conclusions We found an inverse association between circulating folate concentrations and incident CAD among Chinese populations. However, we confirmed that there was no genetic evidence to support the causal relation in both European and Chinese populations.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) will be extensively utilized in various Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios due to their flexible mobility and rapid on-demand deployment. It becomes necessary and urgent to investigate the secrecy performance of the UAV IoT communication systems because of the open characteristics of wireless channels. In this article, the physical layer security of UAV IoT communication systems is studied, in which a ground IoT device transmits some confidential messages to a UAV hovering in the air, while a random number of eavesdroppers are randomly positioned around the ground source. The ground-to-air channel is assumed to experience Rician fading for the case of line-of-sight propagation and Rayleigh fading for the case of nonline-of-sight propagation, respectively. In addition, in order to improve the security of the system, we also investigate the secrecy performance of the UAV IoT system with a friendly UAV that generates jamming signals to distract the eavesdroppers. Utilizing the stochastic geometry theory, the cumulative distribution functions for the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio of the main and eavesdropping links are derived, and then the analytical expressions of the secrecy outage probability and the average secrecy rate are obtained. Finally, the accuracy of the analytical results is verified by Monte Carlo simulation.

Chronic allograft rejection is the most common cause of long-term allograft failure. One reason is that current diagnostics and therapeutics for chronic allograft rejection are very limited. We here show that enhanced NFκB signaling in kidney grafts contributes to chronic active antibody-mediated rejection (CAAMR), which is a major pathology of chronic kidney allograft rejections. Moreover, we found that urinary orosomucoid 1 (ORM1) is a candidate marker molecule and therapeutic target for CAAMR. Indeed, urinary ORM1 concentration was significantly higher in kidney transplant recipients pathologically diagnosed with CAAMR than in kidney transplant recipients with normal histology, calcineurin inhibitor toxicity, or interstitial fibrosis and tubular atrophy. Additionally, we found that kidney biopsy samples with CAAMR expressed more ORM1 and had higher NFκB and STAT3 activation in tubular cells than samples from non-CAAMR samples. Consistently, ORM1 production was induced after cytokine-mediated NFκB and STAT3 activation in primary kidney tubular cells. The loss- and gain-of-function of ORM1 suppressed and promoted NFκB activation, respectively. Finally, ORM1-enhanced NFκB-mediated inflammation development in vivo. These results suggest that an enhanced NFκB-dependent pathway following NFκB and STAT3 activation in the grafts is involved in the development of chronic allograft rejection after kidney transplantation and that ORM1 is a non-invasive candidate biomarker and possible therapeutic target for chronic kidney allograft rejection.

This study aimed to examine how leader-member exchange (LMX) influences employee voice in the Chinese hospitality industry by drawing upon the conservation of resources theory (COR). Based on 231 s...

Convolutional dictionary learning (CDL) is an unsupervised learning method to seek a translation-invariant sparse representation for signals, and has gained a lot of interest in various image processing and computer vision applications. However, 3D hyperspectral images pose unique challenges due to their high dimensionality and complex structures, making optimization of the dictionary and its application to inverse problems difficult. This paper proposes an efficient CDL algorithm that neither explicit evaluation of the Hessians nor their inversion is required in the optimization process, which leads to substantial acceleration and memory savings. Furthermore, we exploit the learned kernels as the convolutional sparse coding (CSC) image prior for the compressive chromo-tomographic (CCT) reconstruction problem, and examine the usability and performances of the proposed method for CCT reconstruction. Numerical experiments show that, for CCT, 1) the proposed CSC can provide an efficient representation for HSI by using several tens of 3D filters; 2) the learned convolutional dictionary has reliable generalization capability; and 3) the proposed CSC-based method outperforms the classical reconstruction method using an analytic sparsifying basis.

Sustainability is necessary for improving the quality of the manufacturing industry, which is an important pillar of the economy. The existing studies can hardly realize a comprehensive reflection of the research status of sustainability in manufacturing. Thus, this study adopts science mapping as the main research method for the systematic and accurate mastery of the overall research status, development track, research hotspots, and trends within this field. Moreover, this work provides a systematic review of related studies. This study examines 6,591 articles (1999-2019), including in core journals on Web of Science as research samples, and deeply explores core journal, core author, core country, discipline distribution, keyword co-occurrence, and literature co-citation via CiteSpace software. According to results, authoritative journals regarding sustainability in manufacturing place particular emphasis on theory, method, or application in different degrees. The number of published articles in the U.S.A. tops the ranking, and the influence of Chinese research institutes and scholars is continuously enhanced, where the main research fields are engineering, environmental science, and so on. Sustainable innovativeness in the manufacturing industry is generally at a high level. Moreover, research hotspots have evolved from traditional to modern and undergone three phases: theory construction-industry or enterprise technology construction-the emergence of new problems and application of new technologies. This study further analyzes the four clusters with citation bursts, namely, additive manufacturing, power consumption, green supply chain, and green information system in terms of grasping the knowledge structures and probing the classical research results. Future research should emphasize 3D printing design and application in the information era, the business model integrating the manufacturing industry and service industry, optimization of production modeling, and so on. This study aims to provide a systematic, comprehensive, dynamic, and objective review of the literature on sustainability in manufacturing to deepen and perfect the research in this field.

Manufacturing is the engine of the world economy. Under complicated and volatile international situation, it is worth thinking about where the world manufacturing trade pattern will go. Therefore, it is necessary to sort out the trade-related research of manufacturing trade. This paper systematically reviewed the research on international trade in manufacturing through qualitative and quantitative research methods, which made up for the deficiency of the existing reviews in this field. This paper used CiteSpace software to carry out a bibliometric analysis of 1027 documents from the Web of Science (1996-2020). The study found that authoritative journals in this field are concentrated in the economic field and the quality of publications is high. The cooperation between scholars is not close, and papers are mainly distributed in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. The research focus has shifted from international trade, productivity and impact to performance, China, innovation, etc. International trade in manufacturing was subdivided into eight major research fields. According to the burst-detection, national trade markups, input and output analysis, improvement of quality, and export market will become future development trends.

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) is one of the main systems which have been developed to achieve safe traffic and efficient transportation. It enables the vehicles to establish connections with other road entities and infrastructure\ud units using Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications. As a consequence, all road entities become exposed to either internal or external attacks. Internal attacks cannot be detected by traditional security schemes. In this paper, a recommendation based trust model for V2X communications is proposed to defend against internal attacks. Four types of malicious attacks are analysed. In addition, we conduct various experiments with different percentage of malicious nodes to measure the performance of the proposed model. In comparison with the existing model, the proposed model shows an improvement in the network throughput and the detection rate for all types of considered malicious behaviors. Our model improves the Packet Dropping Rate (PDR) with 36% when the percentage of malicious nodes is around 87.5%.