Search

Purpose White adipose tissue (WAT) has positive effects on peripheral metabolism parameters and liver energy metabolism. This study aimed to explain the pharmacological mechanism of Qushi Huayu (QSHY) granules in the treatment of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NALFD) mice based on branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) catabolism and WAT browning. Patients and Methods Thirty C57BL/6J mice were randomly divided into a (Ctrl) control group, fed with a control diet, a NAFLD model group, fed with a high-fat and high-sugar (HFHS) diet, and a QSHY granules treatment (HFHS+QSHY) group, administered with QSHY granules. After 14 weeks of feeding, HFHS+QSHY group mice were administered QSHY granules through oral gavage for 6 weeks. The metabolic parameters were assessed, the circular and fecal BCAA content was observed, and liver and epididymal WAT (eWAT) were collected for pathological, quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction, and Western blotting analyses. Results Compared with the HFHS group, mice in the HFHS+QSHY group demonstrated restored liver histological changes, ameliorated hepatocyte steatosis, and alleviated inflammatory cell infiltration. Consistent with the pathological changes, QSHY granules significantly reduced the elevated levels of liver triglycerides, and serum alanine aminotransferase, and it relieved hypercholesterolemia and insulin resistance in mice with HFHS-induced NAFLD. Furthermore, it corrected BCAA metabolic disorders in serum and feces and promoted the expression of BCAA catabolic genes in the eWAT of HFHS mice. QSHY granules also increased the expression of phosphorylated AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) protein, up-regulating the protein expression of the AMPK/SIRT1/UCP-1 pathway in the eWAT. Conclusion QSHY granules improved hepatic steatosis and corrected the BCAA disorder in NAFLD mice, and the related mechanisms regulated the AMPK/SIRT1/UCP-1 pathway and promoted WAT browning.

BACKGROUND: According to the global cancer burden data released in 2020, breast cancer (BC) has become the most common cancer in the world. Similar to those of other cancers, the present methods used in clinic for diagnosing early BC are invasive, inaccurate, and insensitive. Hence, new non-invasive methods capable of early diagnosis are needed. METHODS: We applied next-generation sequencing and analyzed the messenger RNA (mRNA) profiles of plasma extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from 14 BC patients and 6 patients with benign breast lesions. We used 3 regression models, namely support vector machine (SVM), linear discriminate analysis (LDA), and logistic regression (LR), to develop classifiers for use in making predictive BC diagnoses; and used 259 plasma samples, including those obtained from 144 patients with BC, 72 patients with benign breast lesions, and 43 healthy women, which were divided into training groups and validation groups to verify their performances as classifiers by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR). The area under the curve (AUC) and accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of the classifiers were cross-validated with the leave-1-out cross-validation (LOOCV) method. RESULTS: Among all combinations assessed with the 3 different regression models, an 8-mRNA combination, named EXOB(mRNA), exhibited high performance [accuracy =71.9% and AUC =0.718, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.652 to 0.784] in the training cohort after LOOCV was performed, showing the largest AUC in the SVM model. The mRNAs in EXOB(mRNA) were HLA-DRB1, HAVCR1, ENPEP, TIMP1, CD36, MARCKS, DAB2, and CXCL14. In the validation cohort, the AUC of EXOB(mRNA) was 0.737 (95% CI: 0.636 to 0.837). In addition, gene function and pathway analyses revealed that different levels of gene expression were associated with cancer. CONCLUSIONS: We developed a high-performing predictive classifiers including 8 mRNAs from plasma extracellular vesicles for diagnosing breast cancer.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has a long history in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) based on the syndrome identification. Previous studies reported CHB patients with damp-heat (DH) syndrome accompanied with a severe liver function damage, but lacked the medication analysis. In this study, we analyzed 999 CHB patients with unidentified individual-level data from database to explore clinical features of two common syndromes of CHB patients based on the real world. Compared with the spleen deficiency (SD) syndrome, the CHB patients with DH syndrome had a significantly higher level of alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST) ( P < 0.05 ) but took more immunomodulators and hepatoprotective drugs ( P < 0.1 ). Similarly, in the follow-up of 207 patients after 3 months, the improvement trend of ALT and AST of patients with sustained SD syndrome was significantly better than those whose TCM syndrome changed from SD to DH ( P < 0.05 ). The logistic model indicated DH syndrome was a significant negative factor for reducing ALT level in CHB patients (OR = 4.854, P = 0.032 ). This study suggests that CHB patients with DH syndrome have potentially more serious and sustained liver damage than the SD syndrome, which provides a reference for the personalized management of CHB patients from the perspective of TCM syndromes.

This study used hydrogen proton magnetic resonance imaging to detect the changes of white matter and the medial cortex in the prefrontal cortex of patients with type 2 diabetes, analyzed its relationship with cognitive function and blood glucose level, and discussed the recognition of patients with type 2 diabetes from the perspective of brain metabolism. We discuss the neural mechanisms affected by the disorder. The experiment recruited 65 volunteers, including 32 control subjects and 33 patients with type 2 diabetes. All volunteers underwent clinical cognitive function and psychological evaluation, including a simple intelligent mental state examination scale, digital breadth test, Raven intelligence test, Flanker paradigm experiment, connection test, auditory word learning test, depression self-evaluation scale, and anxiety self-rating scale. All subjects underwent multivoxel proton magnetic resonance scanning, and the spectral data were processed and metabolite concentration analysis was completed by Functool software. The detected regions of interest included the bilateral prefrontal white matter and bilateral prefrontal cortex. This study found that the N-acetylaspartate (NAA) and NAA/myo-inositol (MI) of the right prefrontal cortex were reduced, the right prefrontal white matter choline-containing compounds increased, and the MI of the bilateral prefrontal cortex increased in the type 2 diabetes group compared with the control group. The NAA value of the right prefrontal cortex in the type 2 diabetes group was negatively correlated with the glycated hemoglobin concentration. The study found that the right prefrontal cortex NAA value of patients with type 2 diabetes was negatively correlated with the glycated hemoglobin concentration, reflecting that recent blood glucose levels can affect the changes of brain metabolites, and reasonable control of blood glucose can effectively delay brain neurons caused by diabetes.

Renewable energy plays a significant role in climate change mitigation and energy transition. China has established demonstration cities for energy transition and renewable energy development. However, the assessment system for these implementations is relatively blank. This study develops an index system to guide the construction of energy transition demonstration project and optimize energy transition development at the city level. The genetic algorithm-based analytic hierarchy process is employed to form energy transition strategies in the cities of Guiyang, Tongren, Zhangjiakou, and Nanning. The priority values of different renewable energy technologies are given for the cities. The results show that resource endowment is not the only driver for the priority due to the unique combination of influence factors in decision. The assessment system can help avoid the problems of single operating mode and over-investment in the process of energy transition so as to find the benchmark for energy structure adjustment. Finally, some policy recommendations are made for city-scale energy transition.

BACKGROUND The goal of this study was to observe the effect of the apoptosis of Kupffer cells (KCs) selectively induced by zoledronate liposomes following the hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI) in the rat liver transplantation model and to explore its mechanisms. MATERIAL AND METHODS The rat liver transplantation model was established using the improved Kamada method. Male Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into 3 groups: no liver transplantation or drug treatment (Group A); donor rats were injected with 1 mL normal saline through the tail vein for 3 continuous days before transplantation, and the donor liver was preserved in cold for 2 hours (Group B); donor rats were injected with 1 mL zoledronate liposomes (0.001 mg/mL) through the tail vein for 3 continuous days before transplantation, and the donor liver was preserved in cold for 2 hours (Group C). At 24 hours after transplantation, the receiving rats were sacrificed for sampling. RESULTS Compared with Group C and Group A, the bile secretion flow was dramatically decreased in Group B, whereas the serum liver function index [alanine aminotransferase (ALT), glutamate aminotransferase (AST), and γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (γ-GT)] was significantly increased (P

Purpose To assess the feasibility of ultrasound-guided (US-guided) radiofrequency ablation (RFA) for primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) and determine predictive factors for hypocalcemia and elevated serum intact parathyroid hormone(ePTH) with normocalcemia after ablation. Materials and Methods Between January 2015 and January 2021, data from 44 patients with PHPT who were treated with US-guided RFA were retrospectively evaluated. Serum intact parathyroid hormone(iPTH), total calcium (Ca), phosphorus, alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 (25(OH)D3) levels and the volume of the abnormal enlarged parathyroid glands were recorded before RFA. Changes in iPTH and Ca levels at 1 and 3 days, and, 1, 3, and 6 months after ablation were recorded. Results Overall, thirteen patients developed hypocalcemia 1–3 days after RFA. ePTH with normocalcemia developed in 17 patients 1 month after RFA. Thirty-two patients were followed up for more than 6 months, and 27 of these patients had sustained normalized values for both serum iPTH and Ca levels more than 6 months after RFA. There were significantly more patients who developed hypocalcaemia, when the baseline ALP was greater than 261.5 U/L (sensitivity 61.5%, specificity 100.0%). The risk of ePTH decreased by 21.7% for every 1 ng/mL increase in 25 (OH) D3. The risk of ePTH was increased when a patient's serum iPTH was higher than 172.4 pg/mL (sensitivity 88.2%, specificity 76.2%). Conclusions US-guided RFA is feasible for clinical management of PHPT patients. Hypocalcaemia following RFA was associated with higher pre-RFA serum ALP levels. Elevated iPTH levels with normocalcemia at 1 month after RFA were associated with pre-RFA vitamin D deficiency and higher baseline iPTH levels. Patients with higher serum ALP and iPTH and lower 25 (OH) D3 levels before RFA need to be managed carefully and monitored closely after RFA of PHPT.

Mild cognitive impairment affects 36% of people aged ≥65 years in China, around 50% of whom will develop dementia within 3 years. Early intervention can slow disease progression and delay the onset of dementia; however, whether a multicomponent intervention can decelerate the progression of mild cognitive impairment remains unknown.To evaluate the effects of a multicomponent intervention to slow mild cognitive impairment progression in Chinese patients.Randomized controlled trial.This study was conducted in two large regional communities in Guangzhou, China. Patients aged ≥ 65 years diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment were included.A total of 112 eligible participants were assigned to receive either a 6-month multicomponent intervention or usual care from September 2019 until January 2021. Data were collected at the beginning of the study and at 1, 3, and 6 months thereafter. The primary outcomes were cognitive function, comprehensive physical capacity, depression, and quality of life. Analysis followed the intention-to-treat principle. A generalized estimating equation was used to determine intervention effects.At baseline, clinical characteristics did not differ significantly between groups. Significant interaction effects between time and group were detected (p0.001), indicating that the scores of five outcomes (cognitive function, short physical performance battery, timed up and go test, quality of life, and depression) of intervention and control groups changed differently over time. Participants in the intervention group were found to have a significantly greater improvement in cognitive function, physical function, quality of life, and fewer depression symptoms compared with the control group at baseline and follow-up periods.This study demonstrates the beneficial effects of a multicomponent intervention on cognitive function, physical function, depression symptoms, and quality of life in people with mild cognitive impairment in the East Asia region. The effectiveness and feasibility of this intervention program suggest that its application should be promoted in community settings to delay the progression of disease in people with mild cognitive impairment. Registration number:ChiCTR1900026042 Tweetable abstract: The multicomponent intervention improves cognitive/physical function, depression, and quality of life, slowing cognitive impairment progression.

Individuals with type 2 diabetes have a heightened risk of developing serious complications post hospital discharge. Web-based transitional care is a promising intervention to improve the glycemic control and quality of life of this patient group; however, whether web-based transitional care can improve the glycemic control and quality of life of this group remains unknown. Further, the mechanisms underlying the relationships between the intervention and both glycemic control and quality of life have not been fully explored.The aims of this study were to develop a web-based transitional care program and evaluate its effects on the glycemic control and quality of life of Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes and to explore the mediating roles of self-efficacy and treatment adherence.Randomized controlled trial.This study was conducted in a large regional hospital in Guangzhou City, China. Patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes were included.A total of 116 eligible participants were randomly assigned to receive either the 3-month web-based transitional care program or usual care. Assessments of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), self-efficacy, treatment adherence, and quality of life were conducted at baseline and at 3 months. Analysis followed the intention-to-treat principle. A generalized estimating equation was used to determine intervention effects on HbA1c and quality of life. Path analysis was used to assess the mediation of these effects by changes in self-efficacy and treatment adherence during the intervention.Participants in the intervention group had significantly greater improvements in HbA1c (β = 2.87; p0.01) and quality of life (β = 7.69; p0.01) compared with the control group. The relationships between the intervention and both glycemic control and quality of life were significantly mediated by improved self-efficacy (indirect effect: β = 0.18, p0.05) and improved treatment adherence (indirect effect: β = 0.17, p0.05); overall, the model explained 52.5% of the variance in HbA1c and 34.2% of the variance in quality of life.Our study identified beneficial effects of a web-based transitional care program on glycemic control and quality of life post hospital discharge in people with type 2 diabetes, and the underlying mediating mechanisms. The effectiveness and feasibility of this web-based intervention program suggests that its application should be promoted in community settings to reduce poor outcomes in people with type 2 diabetes. Tweetable abstract: The web-based transitional care program can improve patients' glycemic control and quality of life. Registration number: ChiCTR2000035603.

To evaluate safety and efficacy of one- vs. two-session radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of parathyroid hyperplasia for patients with secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) and to compare the outcome of both methods on hypocalcemia. Patients with secondary hyperparathyroidism underwent ultrasound guided RFA of parathyroid hyperplasia. Patients were alternately assigned to either group 1 (n = 28) with RFA of all 4 glands in one session or group 2 (n = 28) with RFA of 2 glands in a first session and other 2 glands in a second session. Serum parathyroid hormone (PTH), calcium, phosphorus and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) values were measured at a series of time points after RFA. RFA parameters, including operation duration and ablation time and hospitalization length and cost, were compared between the two groups. Mean PTH decreased in group 1 from 1865.18 ± 828.93 pg/ml to 145.72 ± 119.27 pg/ml at 1 day after RFA and in group 2 from 2256.64 ± 1021.72 pg/ml to 1388.13 ± 890.15 pg/ml at 1 day after first RFA and to 137.26 ± 107.12 pg/ml at 1 day after second RFA. Group 1’s calcium level decreased to 1.79 ± 0.31 mmol/L at day 1 after RFA and group 2 decreased to 1.89 ± 0.26 mmol/L at day 1 after second session RFA (P

With increasing importance of protecting sensitive data, it is necessary to monitoring the transmission of sensitive data. Most recent methods detect the network packet based on the analyzing IP, port, size characteristics and payload of the network traffic packets, which can not be used for detecting sensitive document transmitted via network. Hence, this paper propose asensitive information detection method based on network traffic restore solution to fix the problem. This method firstly use TCP reassembling to restore documents from network traffic, and then use TF-IDF model to judge the similarity with those documents marked with sensitive flag, which is very simple and efficient

When carrying out engineering constructions in a mountainous area with complex geological conditions, high fill slopes commonly need to be strengthened. At present, several of the main supporting structures have unique defects and shortcomings when used in the reinforcement of high fill slopes. Therefore, this paper proposes to apply a prestressed anchor cable‐pile‐slab wall structure to high fill slope support engineering, relying on the long‐term monitoring results of an actual project and using the finite difference finite element software FLAC3D to model the supporting structure. The displacement of the slope, the earth pressure behind the pile, the internal force of the supporting structure and the distribution of the anchor cable force are analyzed comprehensively and systematically. The analysis and study show that the prestressed anchor cable‐pile‐slab wall supporting structure can effectively strengthen a filled slope and control its horizontal displacement to improve its overall stability. The analysis results are used to optimize and improve this approach, which provides a new direction for the reinforcement of high fill slopes, and the results can provide a better reference for the reinforcement and design of fill slopes.

Many surveillance systems of infectious diseases are syndrome-based, capturing patients by clinical manifestation. Only a fraction of patients, mostly severe cases, undergo laboratory validation to identify the underlying pathogen. Motivated by the need to understand transmission dynamics and associate risk factors of enteroviruses causing the hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) in China, we developed a Bayesian spatio-temporal modeling framework for surveillance data of infectious diseases with small validation sets. A novel approach was proposed to sample unobserved pathogen-specific patient counts over space and time and was compared to an existing sampling approach. The practical utility of this framework in identifying key parameters was assessed in simulations for a range of realistic sizes of the validation set. Several designs of sampling patients for laboratory validation were compared with and without aggregation of sparse validation data. The methodology was applied to the 2009 HFMD epidemic in southern China to evaluate transmissibility and the effects of climatic conditions for the leading pathogens of the disease, enterovirus 71 and Coxsackie A16.

Internet hosted websites are big threats to power grid enterprises because they may contain sensitive user data and business secrete while its information security is unregulated. Traditional technique to find Internet hosted websites is to set up web crawler and match key words in webpages, which is expensive and inefficient. In this paper, an Internet hosted website detection method based on network behavior analysis is introduced. Instead of parsing whole webpages, this method only analyzes network packet head information to get visit behavior features such as degree dispersion of source IP addresses and source departments visiting an Internet website. All behavior features of a destination website are integrated to get its probability of being an Internet hosted website. According to testing results on real data, Internet hosted websites are found in over 93 percent of the conducted tests.

// Zeng Zeng 1 , Chun Jie Hou 1 , Qiao Hong Hu 1 , Ying Liu 1 , Ceng Wang 1 , Ran Wei 1 and Xiao Ming Fan 1 1 Department of Ultrasound, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China Correspondence to: Xiao Ming Fan, email: fan-xiaoming@163.com Keywords: triple negative breast cancer, ultrasound, mammography Received: December 20, 2016 Accepted: June 26, 2017 Published: July 06, 2017 ABSTRACT The aim of our study was to find effective features of mammography and ultrasound in differentiating Basal-like breast cancer (BBC) and Normal-like breast cancer (NBC), two subtypes of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). From January 2014 to March 2017, we retrospectively reviewed 91 patients who were pathologically confirmed as TNBC. According to immunohistochemical cytokeratin 5/6 (CK5/6) and Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR), TNBCs were classified into BBCs group and NBCs group. Both CK5/6 and EGFR were negative defined to be NBC, whereas if any of CK5/6 or EGFR was positive then defined as BBC. BBCs group concluded 65 (71.4%) cases and NBCs group concluded26 (28.6%) cases. Ultrasound images and mammograms were reevaluated by breast imaging experts according to the breast imaging reporting and data system (BI-RADS) 4th edition. On mammography, masses margins had significant differences between BBCs group and NBCs group ( P = 0.024). Most BBCs margins exhibited microlobulated (30/64, 46.9%) or spiculated (25/64, 39.0%), whereas most NBCs margins exhibited microlobulated (17/23, 73.9%). On ultrasound, BBCs were more frequently to present as larger than 20mm lesions (52/65, 80.0%) and more likely to have angular or spiculated margins (35/65, 53.8%), additionally, compared with NBCs, BBCs were less likely to have calcification (1/65, 1.5%). Other mammography and ultrasound features showed no significant differences between the two groups. In conclusion, we have found some effective features of mammography and ultrasound that could be helpful in differentiating BBC and NBC, which will provide some useful references for clinical diagnosis and treatment.

Monitoring network traffic is an efficient way to find out the potential information security threats of a company. The implementation of a malicious network traffic detection system is introduced in this paper. The introduced system applies different analysis strategies according to different network connection directions. By implement the proposed system, all unauthorized open ports within a company's network can be found without adding any net-work load, and 97% of Remote Access Trojan connections of the dataset are successfully detected.

Remote Access Trojan (RAT)reverse connections are secret and malicious, which are established to steal private data or be operated under hacker's command. To detect reverse RAT effectively, a network behavior-based method is introduced in this paper. We first conclude a typical network communication pattern. Then four uncorrelated network behavior features are extracted from every TCP session as the detection model input. Six supervised classification algorithms are applied on real network traffic data set to distinguish RAT and legitimate sessions. Besides detection accuracy, AUC is also used because the amount of RAT sessions is much less than normal sessions and AUC is suitable to evaluate the performance of such imbalanced problem. Detection accuracies of all test algorithms are higher than 0.92. AUC of Random Forest, SVM and Logistic Regression are higher than 0.94, which shows their ability to handle imbalanced data set. Compared to related work, the proposed method is effective on connection encrypted RAT detection, and can distinguish RAT sessions from similar normal sessions, like P2P or cloud application sessions.

Esophageal cancer is one of the cancers that seriously threaten the lives and health of patients around the world. Squamous cell carcinoma accounts for a higher proportion of esophageal cancer cases. At the same time, the number of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients also has an increasing trend year by year. Therefore, it is important to identify the prognostic factors of ESCC to improve the survival and prognosis of patients. As an important sociodemographic factor, gender has an important influence on the occurrence, development and prognosis of certain diseases. However, it has not been clear from existing studies whether gender affects the prognosis of ESCC patients. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of sex on overall survival (OS) in patients with ESCC. Methods: This study analyzed 6890 patients with ESCC diagnosed from 2007 to 2015 who were identified in the SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results) database. Kaplan-Meier method and Cox Proportional Hazards model were used to conduct survival analysis and regression analysis to evaluate the association between gender and OS. Results: We found that the OS differed with sex in patients with ESCC, with the 5-year OS rate being higher in females (19.2%) than in males (12.9%). A Cox multivariate analysis showed that sex was an independent prognostic factor for ESCC, with the OS being significantly better in female patients than in male patients (P

The term "flavonoids" is created for a large class of polyphenolic compounds featuring two aromatic rings (A and B) and a central heterocyclic ring C. More than 4,000 flavonoids have already been obtained throughout the plant kingdom. An inverse correlation between the intake of dietary flavonoids and the incidence of prostate cancer can be generally well-observed from several epidemiological studies worldwide, which encouraged several research groups to examine both in vitro and in vivo the potential of whole extracts of flavonoidenriched dietary plants and purified flavonoids in preventing and treating prostate cancer. Nine subclasses of naturally occurring dietary flavonoids have so far been explored and identified to possess clinical potential in preventing and treating prostate cancer. We review herein the antiprostate cancer potential (including in vitro potency, in vivo efficacy, and clinical studies), structure-activity relationships, and the mechanism of actions of the nine subclasses of naturally occurring flavonoids.

ObjectiveTo explore the effect of okra extract on gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) rats and its probable molecular mechanism.MethodsA total of 30 female SD rats were caged with male rats for pregnancy, 27 pregnant rats were obtained and weighed. The pregnant rats were equally randomized into the control group, GDM group and intervention group. Once the pregnancy was verified, GDM group and intervention group were given 45 mg/kg streptozotocin by peritoneal injection for inducing GDM, control group was given equal volume of citrate buffer. Once the model was established successfully, intervention group was administered orally the solution containing 200 mg/kg/d okra extract, the other groups were given the diet and water only. On the 19th day of pregnancy, the blood samples and fetal rats of all groups were collected, fetal rats weight and placental weight was recorded and the serum glucose, lipids, serum insulin and C-peptide of pregnant rats before the delivery were determined.ResultsThe pregnant rats weight before the delivery, fetal rats weight and placental weight of GDM group were lower than control group and intervention group (P 0.05). Antioxidant enzymes levels of GDM group in liver and pancreas tissues were lower than the other groups, and after treatment of okra extract, antioxidant enzymes levels in liver and pancreas tissues were equivalent to control group (P > 0.05).ConclusionsOkra extract, rich in antioxidant substances, could avoid the excessive consuming of antioxidant enzymes, then, suppresses the oxidative stress and insulin resistance, thereby improving blood glucose level of GDM rats.

Enzalutamide is the first second-generation nonsteroidal androgen receptor (AR) antagonist with a strong binding affinity to AR. Most significantly, enzalutamide can prolong not only overall survival time and metastatic free survival time for patients with lethal castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), but also castration-resistant free survival time for patients with castration-sensitive prostate cancer (CSPC). Enzalutamide has thus been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of both metastatic (in 2012) and non-metastatic (in 2018) CRPC, as well as CSPC (2019). This is an inspiring drug discovery story created by an amazing interdisciplinary collaboration. Equally important, the successful clinical use of enzalutamide proves the notion that the second-generation AR antagonists can serve as hormonal therapeutics for three forms of advanced prostate cancer. This has been further verified by the recent FDA approval of the other two second-generation AR antagonists, apalutamide and darolutamide, for the treatment of prostate cancer. This review focuses on the rational design and discovery of these three second-generation AR antagonists, and then highlights their syntheses, clinical studies, and use. Strategies to overcome the resistance to the second-generation AR antagonists are also reviewed.

Aim To elucidate tongue coating microbiota and metabolic differences in chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients with yellow or white tongue coatings. Methods Tongue coating samples were collected from 53 CHB patients (28 CHB yellow tongue coating patients and 25 CHB white tongue coating patients) and 22 healthy controls. Microbial DNA was extracted from the tongue samples, and the bacterial 16S ribosomal RNA gene V3 region was amplified from all samples and sequenced with the Ion Torrent PGM™ sequencing platform according to the standard protocols. The metabolites in the tongue coatings were evaluated using a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) platform. Statistical analyses were then performed. Results The relative compositions of the tongue coating microbiotas and metabolites in the CHB patients were significantly different from those of the healthy controls, but the tongue coating microbiota abundances and diversity levels were not significantly different. Compared with the CHB white tongue coating patients, the CHB yellow tongue coating patients had higher hepatitis B viral DNA (HBV-DNA) titers (median 21210 vs 500, respectively, P = 0.03) and a significantly lower level of Bacteroidetes (20.14% vs 27.93%, respectively, P = 0.013) and higher level of Proteobacteria (25.99% vs 18.17%, respectively, P = 0.045) in the microbial compositions at the phylum level. The inferred metagenomic pathways enriched in the CHB yellow tongue coating patients were mainly those involved in amino acid metabolism, which was consistent with the metabolic disorder. The abundances of bacteria from Bacteroidales at the order level were higher in the CHB white tongue coating patients (19.2% vs 27.22%, respectively, P = 0.011), whereas Neisseriales were enriched in the yellow tongue coating patients (21.85% vs 13.83%, respectively, P = 0.029). At the family level, the abundance of Neisseriaceae in the yellow tongue patients was positively correlated with the HBV-DNA level but negatively correlated with the S-adenosyl-L-methionine level. Conclusion This research illustrates specific clinical features and bacterial structures in CHB patients with different tongue coatings, which facilitates understanding of the traditional tongue diagnosis.

Web application is widely used in many enterprises, while providing convenience, the web application brings lots of the security risk. Password is the first line of defense in the web application, the weak password problem has always been a short board in web application security protection system. The existing weak password detection method based on dynamic intercept is of high complexity and low degree of automation, which cannot meet the needs of information security supervision. In this paper, a weak password detection method based on the static analysis of webpage is proposed, which automatically extract the key information of login process by identify and analyze the form of the login page. Based on this method, a system prototype which can automatically detect the weak password for Web application and supports captcha recognize of common digital and letter combinations is realized. The system has a high degree of automation, and has good practicability and application prospect.

Traditional information Security Risk Assessment algorithms are mainly used for evaluating small scale of information system, not suitable for massive information systems in Energy Internet. To solve the problem, this paper proposes an Information Security Risk Algorithm based on Dynamic Risk Propagation (ISRADRP). ISRADRP firstly divides information systems in the Energy Internet into different partitions according to their logical network location. Then, ISRADRP computes each partition's risk value without considering threat propagation effect via RM algorithm. Furthermore, ISRADRP calculates inside and outside propagation risk value for each partition according to Dependency Structure Matrix. Finally, the security bottleneck of systems will be identified and the overall risk value of information system will be obtained.

Traditional Information Security Risk Assessment method did not consider the dynamic characteristic and risk conduct effect among assets, which makes the assessment result inaccurately. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a novel Information Security Risk Assessment method based on Conduct effect and Dynamic threat (ISRACD). ISRACD adopts DTC (Dynamic Threat Calculation) method to calculate threat degree more objectively. Besides, ISRACD proposes ACEC (Asset Conduct Effect Calculation) method to describe the conduct effect among assets and quantify the conduct value. Based on the two methods, ISRACD can obtain the security level more precisely.

The major challenge for image denoising is how to effectively remove the noise and preserve the detail information to get better visual quality and higher peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). A new image denoising methods based on combination of multivariate shrinkage model in shiftable complex directional pyramid (PDTDFB) domain and principal neighborhood dictionary (PND) non-local means algorithm in spatial domain is proposed. In PDTDFB domain, the PDTDFB coefficients are modeled as multivariate non-Gaussian distribution taking into account the interscale and intrascale dependency correlation. Then a multivariate shrinkage function is derived by the maximum a posterior (MAP) estimator and the denoised coefficients are obtained. Although the PDTDFB-based algorithm achieves efficient denoising result, it is prone to producing salient artifacts which relate to the structure of the PDTDFB. Principal neighborhood dictionary (PND) is further employed to alleviate the artifacts with small computational load in spatial domain. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method is competitive with other excellent denoising methods in terms of PSNR value and visual quality.

To investigate the predictive value of minor salivary gland biopsy in clinically diagnosed early stage Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, and to provide more evidence of minor salivary gland biopsy as a pathological diagnostic biomarker of PD. Thirteen patients with early stage PD and 13 age-matched controls were recruited. Hoehn and Yahr stage and Unified Parkinson's disease Rating Scale Part III were employed to evaluate their severity of the disease. All the subjects underwent minor salivary gland biopsy and (11)C-methyl-N-2β-carbomethoxy-3β-(4-fluorophenyl) tropane ((11)C-CFT) DAT-PET scan. Immunohistochemical staining for Lewy-type alpha-synucleinopathy using antibody against alpha-synuclein (α-Syn) was performed in the tissues obtained from minor salivary gland. Abnormal accumulation of α-Syn was found around the gland cells in 9 of the 13 patients with PD, but in none of the control subjects. The α-Syn immunoreactive structures were located in the periacinar space. Twelve clinically diagnosed PD patients showed asymmetrical and relatively severe reduction of (11)C-CFT uptake in the posterior putamen compared with the control. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of minor salivary gland biopsy were 75, 100, 100 and 25%, respectively, when compared with the DAT-PET imaging. Our results suggest that minor salivary gland biopsy does not hold high diagnostic accuracy as DAT-PET, but still has the potential to be a useful pathologic biomarker for PD, which is worth more investigations.

Prostate cancer possesses the highest occurrence rate and is the second-paramount disease that causes cancer-affiliated death among men in the United States. Approximately 30,000 men die each year of castration-resistant prostate cancer due to the inevitable progression of resistance to first-line treatment with docetaxel. The safety profile of dietary curcumin in humans has been well-documented, and its therapeutic prospect in treating prostate cancer, especially for castration-resistant prostate cancer, has been evidenced in several cell culture systems and human xenograft mouse models. The critical disadvantage of curcumin as a drug candidate is its low bioavailability caused by poor water solubility and rapid in vivo metabolism. Curcumin is characteristic of regulating multiple targets, representing a good example for the philosophy to search for multitargeted drugs in the realm of drug design and drug development. This feature, together with its potential in treating castration-resistant prostate cancer and its safety profile, enables curcumin to serve as an ideal lead compound for the design and syntheses of curcumin-based agents with improved potential for the clinical therapies of prostate cancer. Several researches aiming to improve its bioavailability and potency resulted in the discovery and development of a wealth of curcumin-based compounds with an enhanced anticancer potential and/or an improved pharmacokinetic profile. This review starts with a brief summarization of the prospect of curcumin in treating prostate cancer and its mechanisms of action, then provides an in-depth overview of current development of curcumin-based anti-prostate cancer agents and their structure-activity relationships, and ends with the syntheses and pharmacokinetic studies of curcumin.

At present, relevance feedback (RF) has been widely applied in content-based image retrieval (CBIR) system. Local Regression and Global Alignment (LRGA) is a novel ranking algorithm used in CBIR system which utilizes RF technique. However, there are some problems in LRGA: (1) for handling the problem of out-of-sample, dimension reduction is used after RF, but it is time-consuming; (2) feature space of images is often assumed to be linear. While, classical manifold learning methods are sensitive to the Gaussian bandwidth parameter of Laplacian matrix and cannot be combined with RF either. To address problems above, this paper proposes a novel CBIR system. Firstly, we calculate the local curvature parameter of manifold utilizing the angle information in subspace to avoid local high curvature problem and then we propose a Warp Linear Local Tangent Space Alignment (WLLTSA) algorithm; furthermore, we propose a U-Local Regression and Global Alignment (ULRGA) ranking algorithm to rank low-dimensional image features. Curvature parameter is used in both WLLTSA and ULRGA to enhance robustness. A large amount of experimental results demonstrate the efficiency of our CBIR system.

Background Caring for dying patients is stressful but an unavoidable responsibility of nurses. However, little is known about Chinese oncology nurses' experience of caring for dying cancer patients who are in their final days. Purpose To elucidate Chinese oncology nurses' experience of caring for dying cancer patients. Methods This is a qualitative descriptive study, semi-structured interviews was utilized to explore views of purposive sample of 28 nurses who have been taking care of terminally ill patients in a cancer hospital in Tianjin, mainland China. Transcripts were entered into NVivo. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyze the data for significant statements and phrases that in turn were organized into themes and sub-themes. Results Five themes were identified in the data: end-of-life care for dying cancer patients, end-of-life care for family members, cultural sensitivity and communication, moral distress and self-limitations, self-reflection and benefit-finding. Death is a taboo in traditional Chinese culture. This increases the difficulty of effective communication between nurses, patients and families. Although nurses suffered emotional distress when caring for dying cancer patients, these experiences helped them to reflect on the meaning of death and life, and positively influenced their daily lives, attitudes and behaviors toward caring for the dying. Chinese nurses had strong willingness to offer quality end-of-life care to patients and families, however, they suffered moral distress because of self-limitation, lack of knowledge and confidence and inexperience in psychological care. Conclusions End-of-life care in China reflects and has been influenced by the traditional Chinese culture. Chinese nurses reported suffering but also benefiting from their experiences. End-of-life cancer care training is needed by Chinese oncology nurses, especially for those who are younger and less experienced.

In order to improve the accuracy of Chinese micro-blog sentiment classification, a sentiment classification method based on a kind of improved recurrent neural network model was proposed. Firstly, for the extraction of the text intrinsic semantic features, a feature fusion method based on shallow and deep learning was adopted. Secondly, for the micro-blog text sentiment classification problem, an improved recurrent neural network model was adopted, which replaced the hidden layer of general recurrent neural network into LSTM structure. Finally, the classification accuracy rate was 85.04%, which was 3.17% higher than that of the traditional SVM with shallow learning features. The results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrine and metabolic disorder of women, with complex pathogenesis and heterogeneous manifestations. Professor Jin Yu recently wrote an article entitled "Proposal of Diagnosis and Diagnostic Classification of PCOS in Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine."From this, the Obstetrics and Gynecology branches of the Chinese Association of Integrative Medicine and the China Association of Chinese Medicine collaborated with the Gynecology branch of the Chinese Association for Research and Advancement of Chinese Medicine to draft a report on the consensus of criteria for the diagnosis and classification of PCOS in integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine. The diagnosis for PCOS includes all three features: (1) oligo-ovulation or anovulation; (2) clinical and/or laboratory evidence of hyperandrogenism;(3) PCOS is classified into four types: types Ia,Ib, IIa, and IIb. Syndrome differentiation types for PCOS in traditional Chinese medicine are as follows: Kidney deficiency with phlegm blockage syndrome, Kidney Yin deficiency with phlegm blockage and blood stasis syndrome, and Kidney deficiency with Liver Qi stagnation syndrome.

Early and correct diagnosis of Parkinson's disease (PD) is critical for patient counseling and therapeutic management. The diagnostic accuracy of transcranial sonography of substantia nigra (SN-TCS) for early stage PD patients remains controversial. Dopamine transporter (DAT) imaging is sensitive to detect presynaptic dopamine neuronal dysfunction, and has been studied as a diagnostic tool for degenerative Parkinsonism. To investigate the predictive value of SN-TCS for the DAT PET scans in clinically diagnosed early stage PD patients, we performed the SN-TCS and DAT Positron Emission Computed Tomography (PET) imaging examinations on 53 patients. Using the DAT PET results as clinical gold standard, the sensitivity and specificity of TCS was 68.75% and 40% respectively. The positive predictive value (PPV) of an abnormal TCS for an abnormal PET scan was 91.67%. However, the negative predictive value (NPV) for a normal PET scan was only 11.76%. The false negative rate was 31.25%. In 35 patients, the result of the SN-TCD was in accordance with the result of the DAT PET scan (Kappa=0.042, P>0.05). The consistency between SN-TCS and PET scans was poor. We conclude that SN-TCS would not be used as a diagnostic tool for early stage PD patients. Negative result of TCS could not exclude the diagnosis of PD. Further tests like DAT-PET is needed for validation. On the other hand, positive SN-TCS will reduce the added diagnostic value of a presynaptic neuronimaging scan.

The novel eye-based human-computer interaction (HCI) system aims to provide people, especially, disabled persons, a new way of communication with surroundings. It adopts a series of continual eye movements as input to perform simple control activities. Identification of eye movements is the crucial technology in these eye-based HCI systems. At present, researches on eye movement identification mainly focus on frontal face images. In fact, acquisition of non-frontal face images is more reasonable in real applications. In this paper, we discuss the identification process of eye movements from non-frontal face images. Firstly, the original head-shoulder images of 0°---±60° azimuths are sampled without any auxiliary light source. Secondly, the non-frontal face region is detected by using the Adaboost cascade classifiers. After that, we roughly extract eye windows by the integral projection function. Then, we propose a new method to calculate the x ? y coordinates of the pupil center point by searching the minimal intensity value in the eye windows. According to the trajectory of the pupil center points, different eye movements (eye moving left, right, up or down) are successfully identified. A set of experiments is presented.

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes may be a manifestation of antitumor immunity. In the present study, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and pericancerous non-tumor liver tissues samples were obtained from 86 surgical patients who had not received preoperative treatment. The cellular expression levels of CD4 and CD8 were immunohistochemically examined in the two tissue groups using tissue microarrays, to evaluate their clinicopathological relevance. Immunohistochemically, CD4 and CD8 T cells were observed in the tumor parenchyma and tumor stroma, and the intensity of CD4 and CD8 immunoreactivity was homogeneous in all HCC samples examined. Morphometrically, the average numbers of CD4- and CD8-positive T cells were significantly increased in the tumor stroma, compared with those in the tumor parenchyma (tumor stroma versus tumor parenchyma: 22±3.6 versus 7.4±0.9 in CD4, 32.8±4.2 versus 16±2.5 in CD8; both P5 cm (diameter ≤5 cm versus diameter >5 cm: 18.1±3.3 versus 12.2±3.8 in tumor parenchyma, 36.5±4.8 versus 21.9±8.9 in tumor stroma; both P

The existing methods of attack traceback still have many defects, such as input debugging method requires the professional intervention; ICMP traceback message takes up the network bandwidth resources and so on, so a new collaborative network is picked up, based on ant source of ideological attack tracking method. This method is mainly used strategy from ICMP traceback message, that is, data packet attacked is backed-up on the network monitor, and then the scope of the query path information is reduced using the ant colony algorithm, enabling rapid construction of the attack path. Experiments show that the method improves the query speed of tracking information and the accuracy of positioning the source attack.

Purpose The objective of this study was to evaluate peri-implant bone formation and osseointegration at titanium implants coated with multiple layers of recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 (rhBMP-2) cDNA placed into canine mandibles. Materials and methods The rhBMP-2 plasmid was assembled on sandblasted/dual-acid-etched pure titanium implant surfaces using layer-by-layer assembly. The rhBMP-2 plasmid-coated implants were placed into the edentulous posterior mandibles of 12 adult beagle dogs. Implants without the rhBMP-2 plasmid coating served as controls. Treatments were randomized between jaw quadrants, and four implants were placed in each mandibular quadrant. After 4, 8, and 12 weeks in situ, mandibles were retrieved and prepared for removal torque testing and histomorphometric evaluation. Results Eight layers of rhBMP-2 plasmid were assembled onto the implant surfaces. Histomorphometric analysis showed that, after 4 and 8 weeks of healing, the intrathread bone area (BA) was slightly higher for test implants (54.21% and 59.56%) than for control implants (38.48% and 54.98%), respectively, but no statistically significant differences were seen at any time points. Mechanical tests showed that the mean removal torque values of the rhBMP-2 cDNA-coated implants were greater than those of the control implants after 8 weeks of healing (91 Ncm versus 61 Ncm; P = .31). Conclusion Coating implants with multiple layers of an rhBMP-2 plasmid did not promote peri-implant bone formation and osseointegration in this model.

Various exciting immunotherapies aiming to address immune deficiency induced by tumor and treatment hold promise in improving the quality of life and survival rate of cancer patients. It is thus becoming an important and rewarding arena to develop some appropriate immune modulators for cancer prevention and/or treatment. Exploitation of natural products-based immune modulators is of particular imperative because the potential of numerous traditional herbal medicines and edible mushrooms in boosting human immune system has long been verified by folklore practices. This review summarizes the immune modulations of various herbal medicines and edible mushrooms, their crude extracts, and/or key chemical components that have been, at least partly, associated with their cancer management. This article also tabulates the origin of species, key chemical components, and clinical studies of these herbal medicines and edible mushrooms.

Background The generic name "flavonolignan" was created in 1968 for a relatively small class of naturally occurring hybrid molecules biogenetically originated from ubiquitous flavonoids and lignans (phenylpropanoids). The first group of flavonolignans was extracted from Silybum marianum that has long been used for hepatoprotection. Recently, the medicinal merit of flavonolignans has been extended to the prostate cancer management. Methods Systematic interpretation and summarization of the relevant literature. Results Over forty naturally occurring flavonolignans have so far been obtained from various plants. Certain flavonolignans have been demonstrated by in vitro cell-based and in vivo animal-based experiments, and human clinical studies i) to possess effective chemopreventive function against various tumor promoters; ii) to show the anti-angiogenic efficacy; iii) to have potential in treating prostate cancer; iv) to sensitize prostate tumors to chemotherapeutic agents through down-regulation of P-glycoprotein and other mechanisms; and v) to be used by prostate cancer patients to protect or treat the hepatotoxicity caused by several chemotherapies. Certain flavonolignans can synergize with well-established chemotherapeutic agents for prostate cancer. Conclusion This review provides a systematic and in-depth overview of the promise and potential of flavonolignans in prostate cancer management, which covers their chemopreventive effect, chemotherapeutic treatment, mechanisms of actions, synthetic derivatives, structure-activity relationships, and the difference in inhibiting prostate cancer cell proliferation between certain flavonoligans and their respective flavonoid counterpart. This summarization aims to provide valuable insights into further and rational development of flavonolignans for prostate cancer management by interpreting the data reported in the literature.

With the development of the Internet, online advertising spreads across every corner of the world, the ads' click through rate (CTR) estimation is an important method to improve the online advertising revenue. Compared with the linear model, the nonlinear models can study much more complex relationships between a large number of nonlinear characteristics, so as to improve the accuracy of the estimation of the ads’ CTR. The recurrent neural network (RNN) based on Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) is an improved model of the feedback neural network with ring structure. The model overcomes the problem of the gradient of the general RNN. Experiments show that the RNN based on LSTM exceeds the linear models, and it can effectively improve the estimation effect of the ads’ click through rate.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effect of strontium-substituted hydroxyapatite (Sr-HA) on bone osseointegration of the implants using fluorescence microscopy. We allocated 20 implants to two groups: Sr-HA group and HA group. Electrochemically deposited HA and Sr-HA coatings were applied onto the implants separately. All the implants were inserted into femur bone of rabbits. Oxytetracycline hydrochloride, alizarin-complexon, and calcein green were respectively administered 7, 28, and 46 d after the implantation. After eight weeks, femurs were retrieved and prepared for the fluorescence microscopy observation. We analyzed the bone mineral apposition rates (MARs), bone area ratios (BARs), and bone to implant contact (BIC) of the two groups. Fluorescence microscopic observation showed that all groups exhibited extensive early peri-implant bone formation. The MAR of the Sr-HA group was greater than that for pure HA from 7 to 28 d after implantation, but no significant difference was found at later stage. And the BIC showed difference at 7 and 28 d compared with pure HA. We concluded that Sr-HA coating can improve the bone osseointegration of the implant in the early stage compared with the HA coating.

To satisfy the requirements of the oil and gas explorations in harsh conditions, an inclinometer based on dynamic tuning gyroscopes was developed. This inclinometer has remarkable temperature and pressure resistance which can be operated under with temperature higher than and pressure greater than . The azimuth angle error is less than and the error of elevation angle is less than . The results of in situ test indicated that this system is can meet the requirements of the oil and gas explorations which needs the azimuth error and slope angle error and is feasible for practical use.

Objective The objective of this study was to compare magnesium-substituted and pure hydroxyapatite coatings on the promotion of osteogenesis in vitro and on the osseointegration in vivo. Methods Electrochemically deposited pure hydroxyapatite (EDHA) or electrochemically deposited magnesium-substituted hydroxyapatite (EDMHA) coatings were formed on the surface of pure titanium disks or implants. MC3T3-E1 preosteoblasts were cultured in the EDHA and EDMHA coated disks, and cell growth, alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity, and osteocalcin secretion were measured at various time points. For studies on osseointegration, 30 roughened implants coated either with EDHA or EDMHA (n = 15 for each coating) were implanted in the femurs of 15 NZW rabbits. After 2, 4, and 8 weeks, femurs were retrieved and prepared for histomorphometric evaluation (n = 5 for each coating at each time point). Results MC3T3-E1 cells cultured on EDMHA coated disks showed increased cell number, ALP, and osteocalcin secretion compared with the EDHA coated disks at all time points (P

Thermogravimetric analyzer has been employed in this paper to test the combustion properties of four kinds of mixed biomass fuel with sludge, domestic waste, swill, coal and grass as major components. Combustion characteristic parameters were obtained through series of experiments, and burning activation energy was got by kinetic analysis. Research results show that ignition temperature of mixed biomass fuel was relatively low and the mixed biomass fuel could be burned easily. The calculated burnout characteristics index and combustion characteristic index showed that combustibility of sample A is the worst while sample D is the best among four materials. Combustion kinetics calculations about the four samples showed that average activation energies for A, B, C and D under the low and the high combustion temperature are 47.02 kJ/mol and 50.51 kJ/mol, 28.10 kJ/mol and 26.98 kJ/mol, 27.93 kJ/mol and 26.72 kJ/mol, and 23.26 kJ/mol and10.73 kJ/mol, respectively, which present the order of activity: D>C>B>A. Results indicated that sample D has the best component proportion which could easily break down and burn out. Furthermore, combustion characteristic index of mixed biomass depends on the proportion of components, where the lower proportion of domestic waste in mixture, the better combustion characteristic index of mixed biomass fuel.

Purifying efficiency and culture performance in a recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) combined with subsurface flow wetland (SFW) were investigated in this paper. The results showed that the wetland effectively removed total suspended solids (78.6%), chemical oxygen demand (49.2%), 5-day biochemical oxygen demand (70.4%), total ammonia (53.7%) and nitrite (64.7%) from the aquaculture effluents at a hydraulic loading rate of 344 mm/d. The channel catfish (Ictalurus punctatus) with initial length of 18.97±2.92 cm were reared for 223 days in three recycling ponds at different stocking densities (0.055, 0.109, and 0.164 kg/m3) and a control pond at stocking density 0.055 kg/m3. Fish were fed to satiation twice daily with a commercial diet and the amount fed was measured to determine feed efficiency (FE). In the recycling ponds, fish growth appeared to be negatively correlated with stocking density, in which total weight gain of fish ranged from 374.9% to 886.7%. Fish in the control pond had low survival rate (61.1%) and total weight gain (465.2%), comparing with the recycling pond which had same stocking density (0.055 kg/m3). Feed efficiency (0.34) of the control pond was also significantly lower than that of the 0.055 kg/m3 treatment (0.96). A logistic model of was employed to simulate the growth of channel catfish. The estimated parameters and predicted results showed that the growth rate of channel catfish reared in recycling pond is significantly higher than that in static pond.

Esophageal cancer consists of two distinct types, esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC) and squamous cell carcinoma, both of which differ significantly in their etiology. Freeze-dried black raspberry (BRB) has been consistent in its ability to modulate the biomarkers and reduce the incidence of carcinogen-induced squamous cell carcinoma in rats. In our previous studies in the esophagoduodenal anastomosis (EDA) model, we have shown that the early modulation of manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) significantly correlates with the development of reflux-induced EAC in rats. In this study we looked at the short-term effects of a BRB-supplemented diet on the modulation of antioxidant enzymes in reflux-induced esophagitis.Male SD rats (8 wk old; n = 3-5) were randomized into three groups--sham-operated, fed control AIN-93M diet (SH-CD), EDA operated and fed either control diet (EDA-CD) or 2.5% (w/w) BRB diet (EDA-BRB). The effect of both reflux and dietary supplementation was analyzed 2 and 4 wk after EDA surgery.Animals in the EDA groups had significantly lower weight gain and diet intake compared to SH-CD (P0.05). The sham-operated animals received an average esophagitis score of 0.1 ± 0.1; this increased significantly in EDA-CD animals to 1.8 ± 0.14 (P0.001 versus SH-CD) and in EDA-BRB group to 1.7 ± 0.06 (P0.001 versus SH-CD), with BE changes also present. However, dietary supplementation of BRB did not alter or ameliorate the grade of esophagitis or the induction of BE. BRB diet caused a 43% increase in MnSOD levels compared to EDA-CD (0.73 ± 0.16; P = 0.09); however, this effect was not statistically significant and at 4 wk, EDA-CD (0.58 ± 0.12) showed an increase in MnSOD expression compared to SH-CD (0.34 ± 0.01).In conclusion, our data suggest that dietary BRB does not increase the levels of cellular antioxidant enzymes or reduce the levels of lipid peroxidation compared to a control diet, in a short-term study of gastroesophageal reflux induction in the EDA animal model. However, it remains to be tested whether this is indicative of its ineffectiveness to inhibit reflux-induced EAC incidence over the long term.

The case of inundation rescuing in Quecreek Mine of U.S. is analyzed based on JTA (Job Task Analysis) method. The specialties of rescue tools such as instant drilling machine and crane are investigated. Rescuing equipment organization and arrangement are examined. The technical factors leading to successful rescue are also summed up. The rescue characteristic in Quecreek Mine is drawn at the end of this paper.

This paper studies the propagation effect in a closed lambda-type three-level atomic system with Doppler broadening. It is shown that, Doppler broadening due to atomic motion and propagation effect associated with driving field depletion along the active medium decreases obviously the gain and output of the lasing without inversion (LWI); the relative phase between the probe and driving fields has a remarkable modulation role to the propagation effect on LWI when Doppler broadening presents; by choosing suitable value of the relative phase, we can get the largest gain and output of LWI.