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Cerebrovascular disorder-induced brain blood flow interruption or intracranial hemorrhage pose a great threaten to health. Emerging roles of long-noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) in diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases have been recognized. However, whether and how lncRNAs modulate vascular homeostasis, especially network formation remain largely unknown. Here, we identified ECAL-1, a long non-coding RNA, as an important determinant for cerebrovascular homeostasis. Using the morpholino- and CRISPR /Cas9-based genetic modifications in combination with in vivo confocal imaging in zebrafish, we claimed that inactivation of ECAL-1 induced the apparent distortion of cerebral vascular pattern accompanied by intracranial hemorrhage. These cerebrovascular abnormalities were associated with decreased proliferation and anomalous interconnection of endothelial cells. Importantly, overexpression of Cldn5b, an endothelial cell-specific tight junction protein-encoding gene, could partially rescued the phenotype induced by ECAL-1 deficiency. Furthermore, bioinformatic analysis and experimental validation revealed that ECAL-1 sponged miR-23a, which targeted Cldn5b 3’UTR and modulated Cldn5b expression, to maintain cerebrovascular pattern formation and integrity. Our results presented here revealed that ECAL-1 specifically controls cerebrovascular network formation and integrity through targeting miR-23a-Cldn5b axis. These findings provide a new regulation modality for cerebrovascular patterning and the potential neurovascular disorders, and ECAL-1-miR-23a axis represents as an attractive therapeutic target for cerebrovascular diseases.

Background and objective Elevated pulse wave velocity (PWV) has been associated with higher mortality in the general population, chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients, and hemodialysis patients. However, in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients, this association has received little attention. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between baseline brachial-ankle PWV (baPWV) levels and total mortality in PD patients. Methods In this single-center retrospective cohort study, 254 incident PD patients with baseline baPWV were followed up from 1 January 2013 to 31 July 2016. Collected baseline data included demographic characteristics and clinical and laboratory measurements. The association of baseline baPWV levels with total mortality was assessed using multivariable-adjusted Cox models. Results Of 254 patients, mean age was 61.4 (±15.3) years, 61.4% of patients were men, and 22.4% of patients were diabetic. The mean baseline baPWV level was 17.6 (±5.84) m/s. During a mean 31.5 (±20.8) month follow-up period, 45 patients died, of which 13 deaths were caused by cardiovascular disease. After adjusting for sex, age, blood pressure (BP), body mass index (BMI), and hemoglobin, as well as serum albumin, calcium, phosphorus, intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH), uric acid, and medication use, the highest baPWV tertile was significantly associated with a hazard ratio (HR) for total mortality of 2.97 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.23 – 7.16; p = 0.02). Each 1 m/s higher baseline baPWV level was associated with a 7% (95% CI, 1.03 – 1.12; p = 0.001) higher risk of total mortality. In sensitivity analyses, individuals with baPWV > 21.0 m/s had the highest adjusted risk for total death (HR, 3.22; 95% CI, 1.71 – 6.08; p < 0.001). Conclusion Higher baseline baPWV levels at the commencement of PD were independently associated with total mortality, which suggests that clinicians could use baPWV as a predictor of higher risk of mortality in PD patients.

Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin (NGAL) has been identified as one of the most sensitive and specific biomarkers for predicting cardiac surgery-associated acute kidney injury (CSA-AKI); however, variable performance characteristics have been reported. We therefore performed a diagnostic meta-analysis to investigate the diagnostic accuracy of NGAL in early (within 12 h postoperatively) diagnosis of CSA-AKI using established guidelines. The search was carried out electronically with Medline (through PubMed interface), Embase, Cochrane library, ISI Web of Science, Scopus and ClinicalTrials.gov (up to 5 September 2014), and hand-searching was also done. Two reviewers conducted study inclusion, data extractions and quality assessment of the studies independently. The diagnostic capacity of NGAL for CSA-AKI was assessed using pooled sensitivity and specificity, diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Meta-Disc 1.4 and STATA 12.0 were used to investigate the source of heterogeneity and to perform the meta-analysis. Twenty-four studies (33 data sets of 4066 patients) were considered, which were all of good methodological quality. The overall pooled sensitivity of NGAL for the diagnosis of AKI was 0.68 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.65-0.70], and specificity was 0.79 (95% CI, 0.77-0.80). The overall pooled positive likelihood ratio and negative likelihood ratio were 3.98 (95% CI, 3.05-5.20) and 0.33 (95% CI, 0.24-0.45), respectively, with a DOR of 13.05 (95% CI, 7.85-21.70). The receiver operating characteristic analysis showed an AUC [standard error (SE)] of 0.86 (0.02) and with a Q*-value (SE) of 0.79 (0.02). Subgroup analysis showed that NGAL had better predictive ability in neonates/children compared with adults (DOR, 19.37; AUC, 0.89 vs DOR, 8.98; AUC, 0.83), and adults without pre-existing renal insufficiency (PRI) had higher diagnostic value than adults without PRI to predict CSA-AKI (DOR, 15.43; AUC, 0.87 vs DOR, 6.56; AUC, 0.81). Both plasma/serum and urine NGAL had the highly predictive nature for early diagnosis of CSA-AKI (DOR, 13.09; AUC, 0.85 vs DOR, 13.20; AUC, 0.88), while lower DOR and AUC values were shown (DOR, 8.31; AUC, 0.81) when measured using standardized clinical platforms, compared with research-based assays (DOR, 19.22; AUC, 0.89). I(2)-values showed substantial heterogeneity, which mainly stems from characteristics of patient population (P = 0.037). NGAL diagnostic accuracy in early detection of CSA-AKI is high, especially in neonates/children or adults with normal baseline renal function.

The fault diagnosis of wind turbines is difficult because of the wind speed changing. To solve this problem, a method designated as Hilbert space feature entropy is proposed. The information entropy based on HHT is used to describe the wind turbine bearing vibration signal under different wind speeds. Using this method to analysis the fault of the D70 type wind turbine bearings, which proved that this method can effectively identify the fault of wind turbine bearing under different wind speed . Thus the method can be used as index and basis of the fault diagnosis of wind turbine bearing.

To reduce the noises in received RF signal and improve the performance of RFID system, a novelty denoising method of wavelet transform in RFID system was proposed in this paper. It analyzed wavelet transform method and FFT method,then introduced wavelet transform principle and wavelet coefficients threshold denoising method. According to the standard ISO18000-3,the RF signal at 13.56MHz was simulated using modulation toolbox in LabVIEW environment. At last, the RF signal with Gauss white noise together, was denoised by wavelet transform method and FFT method respectively. Simulation results showed that the wavelet transform denoising method has higher accuracy, better effect, compared with traditional FFT denoising method. The research on application of wavelet analysis in RF signal denoising is significant and practical. The wavelet analysis is applied to the field of virtual instrument, which can provide people with more accurate and convenient testing, and has good application prospects in engineering applications.

Ultra-wideband(UWB) communication is through sending and detecting extremely narrow pulse sequences to realize communication. Narrow nanosecond pulse generator is a prerequisite for UWB technology. The paper introduces fours kinds of methods to generate UWB narrow pulse, analyzes and compares the characteristics of various methods, and experiments the corresponding simulation. The complexity of the circuit and the pulse wave pattern shows that the pulse generator based on the digital clock manager (DCM) of the FPGA has simple structure, easy to integration, and generates the best pulse wave type. All kinds of pulse generators have its length, and in the circuit design, it should be specific analysis, according to the requirement of the circuit and the actual situation to choose the appropriate circuit, and further optimize the circuit so as to achieve the design requirements.

Background: Because of limited research on patient safety from a macrolevel perspective, our understanding of how to reduce the risk of system failures that impact patient safety outcomes in Taiwanese healthcare organizations is limited.Purpose: We conducted this study to explore the relationships between macrolevel factors and patient safety outcomes.Methods: Structural contingency theory was used as the framework for the study. A cross-sectional design was used, and data were collected from self-administered questionnaires. Head nurses and registered nurses working in 64 in-patient nursing units at three hospitals participated in the study. A tailored design method was used for data collation, and the data collection lasted 3 weeks during the winter of 2010. Data were aggregated from the individual to the unit level, and path analysis was used to examine the hypothesized model.Results: Sixty-two head nurses (96.8%) and 977 staff nurses (72%) completed and returned the questionnaire. Eta-squared coefficient (ŋ^2), interitem consistency (rwg), and F ratio results showed that data at the individual level are appropriate for aggregating to the unit level. These findings show that nursing units with high degrees of professional autonomy, comparatively higher proportions of nursing experts, and relatively large unit sizes tend to have higher rates of medication errors. In addition, we found high degrees of unit technology associated with higher rates of medication errors and patient falls.Conclusions/Implications for Practice: These findings suggest a link between macrolevel factors and patient safety outcomes. This study shows that redesigning continuing education programs encourages nurses to participate in patient safety training and understand the nursing unit characteristics that enhance patient safety outcomes to improve the patient safety of nursing units.

With the development of Internet, Mobile Internet and The Internet of things, no one can deny that the era of massive data has come. Hadoop distributed system provides reliable parallel computing service by cheap PC clustering. It has irreplaceable advantages in scalability, robustness, calculated performance and cost. In fact, it has been a mainstream analysis platform of big data. In this paper, the classification characteristics of big data analysis were enumerated, the Pig platform system architecture was explained mainly. The functions of Pig platform engine front and after were introduced exactly. When Pig platform processes Pig Latin script, logic plan, physical plan and MapReduce plan will be produced. The concrete process was illustrated combined with examples in paper.

Ultrawideband synthetic aperture radar (SAR) (UWB SAR) is a sufficient approach to detecting land mines over large areas from a safe standoff distance. UWB SAR detection involves three steps: imaging, prescreening, and discrimination. Many studies have concentrated on imaging and discrimination, whereas few have highlighted prescreening. We propose a novel prescreening method for extracting the region of interest from an entire SAR image. The proposed method is based on feature point matching in contrast to traditional approaches, which are based on the constant false alarm rate (CFAR) technique. Our method incorporates knowledge on the electromagnetic scattering caused by land mines into the prescreening process and does not rely on clutter environments. Thus, the method more efficiently eliminates nonhomogeneous clutter than do CFAR-based methods and is more advantageous in processing large-area SAR images. The efficiency of the proposed method is validated by real data on an airship-mounted UWB SAR system.

For ultra-wideband synthetic aperture radar (UWB SAR), there often exist a lot of clutters in the image, and the weak targets are easy to be masked by them. However, using the prior scattering knowledge of targets, enhanced imaging can be realized and beneflcial improvements in image quality and detection performance can be expected. In this paper, an enhanced imaging method for body of revolution (BOR) has been researched. Since the BOR target has the unique feature of aspect-invariant characteristic, the aspect scattering entropy (ASE) is proposed to describe the diversity of aspect scattering and used in the BOR-enhanced imaging method. Then the application of the proposed method in landmine detection is discussed. The experimental results show that the BOR targets are efiectively enhanced and the clutters are surpressed and thus the probability of landmine detection increases under the same false alarm rate.

The Leadership Orientation Program is designed to provide new nurse managers with the experience and support that assures them of a smooth transition from their current roles to being managers. The main objective of this study was to gain an understanding of the relationship that exists between a nursing preceptorship and a new nurse manager's competencies; it also attempted to establish a predictive model of leader competencies to improve the program. A descriptive cross-sectional research design and rigorous questionnaires were used in this study. Fifteen new nurse managers, 101 staff nurses, and 20 nurse administrators were recruited from those engaged in ongoing preceptorship. Over the course of the study statistically significant improvements in preceptorship were noted in both new manager educational background and support from staff nurses. Eighty-five percent of new nurse managers had good or excellent performance ratings (Mean=84.25%). The significant predictive factors of nurse leader competencies were the educational background of new managers and the teaching resources available with regard to preceptorship (R(2)=88.5%, F=6.86, p

A photorefractive joint transform correlator using circular harmonic filters and the wavelet transform for high discriminant and rotationally invariant pattern recognition is reported. In the experimental implementation, a photorefractive crystal, BSO, is used as the dynamic holographic medium and a bank of wavelet functions, derived from a mother Mexican-hat wavelet have been selected to achieve a band-pass operation in the Fourier domain. The zero-order and second-order circular harmonic components are used in the investigation. It is shown that, with the proper dilation factors, there is a trade-off between peak correlation intensity and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) with the wavelet transform filters. With the second-order circular harmonic, an improvement of 63% in the SNR is achieved with only a 4% loss in the peak correlation intensity.

Holographic recording with orthogonally polarized beams in a cesium-doped KNSBN [(K0.5Na0.5)0.2(Sr0.75Ba0.25)0.9Nb2O6] crystal has been studied. It was found that this kind of photorefractive crystal possesses high linear dichroism, which makes it suitable for use in polarization holography. The diffraction efficiency as a function of the polarization orientation of the reference beam and as a function of the fringe modulation at the optimum polarization orientation of the reference beam is experimentally investigated. Theoretical fitting based on Kahmann models was performed and agrees well with the experimental data. In the experiments, both polarization holography and conventional holography are used to record a binary object. The reconstruction shows that polarization holography with Ce:KNSBN is highly effective, exhibiting high diffraction efficiency and reduced fanning noise.

We have improved the two-wave coupling amplification and the signal-to-noise ratio of an amplified signal with photorefractive cerium-doped potassium sodium strontium barium niobate (Ce:KNSBN) by employing optimum polarization orientation of the pump beam while the signal beam retains extraordinary polarization. The optimum polarization angle of the pump beam was found experimentally to be 30 degrees with respect to the extraordinary polarization direction in a symmetrically incident system. Nearly 1.9-times enhancement of the gain and nearly 3-times enhancement of the signal-to-noise ratio were achieved at a signal-to-pump beam intensity ratio of 1:40. At a beam intensity ratio of 1:2000, a two-wave coupling gain of nearly 500 was obtained, which is much higher than the gain previously reported. Modified coupled-wave equations that involve beam fanning with certain assumptions concerning the fanning parameters were used. The numerical solution is in good agreement with the experimental data. The results are compared with those obtained with a 45 degrees -cut BaTiO(3) crystal.

The nonlinear diffraction property of a volume grating written by two-wave mixing in a cerium-doped potassium sodium strontium barium niobate crystal is applied in a coherent image processing system to obtain real-time image edge enhancement as well as edge-enhanced optical correlation. The theoretical analysis of the correlator is given, and the experimental results of optical correlation are presented, which are compared with the computer-simulated results.