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Ovarian reserve is an important determinant of a woman’s reproductive potential, and women with diminished ovarian reserve (DOR) often seek in vitro fertilization (IVF). The underlying etiology of DOR is unknown, but follicular fluid cytokine concentrations likely play a role in follicular development and maturation. The present study seeks to investigate the expression of cytokines in follicular fluid (FF) of women with DOR undergoing IVF and explore correlated functional pathways. One hundred ninety-four women undergoing ovarian stimulation were recruited at the time of oocyte retrieval. Women were classified as having DOR if they met one or more of the following criteria: AMH 10 mIU/ml, and/or AFC

We propose and demonstrate a high fidelity narrowband picosecond pulse two-stage fiber amplification scheme with inter-stage filtering technique using fiber Bragg grating. This technique can not only narrow the bandwidth of the pulses broadened by self phase modulation in the first-stage fiber amplifier, but also reshape the pulse temporal profile to near Gaussian shape, which reduces the spectral broadening slope of the pulses in the second-stage fiber amplifier and improves the narrowband fiber amplification ability. Using this technique, pulse energy of 10 nJ is achieved from a 0.2-nJ initial pulse by only using standard single mode fiber amplifiers while retaining 10 ps pulse width and 0.4 nm root mean square bandwidth. This technique may provide a simple and effective solution for high fidelity fiber amplification of low-energy ps seed pulse from fiber oscillators.

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is a complete or partial airway obstruction that causes significant physiologic disturbance with various clinical impacts. The aim of the study was to determine the risk factors associated with the severity of OSAS. 303 patients with OSAS and 199 patients without OSAS enrolled in the sleep disorder center from 2017 to 2019 were included in the study. All patients completed physical examination, Epworth sleepiness scale, and polysomnography. By apnea–hypopnea index (AHI), patients were separated into four subsets: AHI P

Background: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive disease. Nomograms can predict prognosis of patients with TNBC. Methods: A total of 745 eligible TNBC patients were recruited and randomly divided into training and validation groups. Endpoints were disease-free survival and overall survival. Concordance index, area under the curve and calibration curves were used to analyze the predictive accuracy and discriminative ability of nomograms. Results: Based on the training cohort, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, positive lymph nodes, tumor size and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes were used to construct a nomogram for disease-free survival. In addition, age was added to the overall survival nomogram. Conclusion: The current study developed and validated well-calibrated nomograms for predicting disease-free survival and overall survival in patients with TNBC.

Atmospheric pressure mass spectrometry imaging (AP-MSI) is a powerful tool in many fields; however, there are still some difficulties to achieve high spatial resolution for AP-MSI, one of them being the need for a small ablation crater. Here, a fiber probe laser ablation (FPLA) system is introduced that uses an etched optical fiber with a sharp tip (o.d. 200 nm) to deliver ablation laser pulses to a sample surface to ablate materials with high spatial resolution. The tip-to-sample distance was adjusted to ∼10 μm using a micro-actuator having a stepping motor with submicron accuracy. The laser-ablated neutrals were post-ionized using a home-built in-line dielectric barrier discharge source, which can be interfaced to any mass spectrometer with an AP interface. Using MSI on a standard sample with a striped pattern and sections of fingernails treated with the drug methyl green zinc chloride salt, a FPLA-DBDI-MSI spatial resolution of ≈5 μm was demonstrated.

In this paper, we study the limitations of decreasing the repetition rate for the narrowband dissipative soliton picosecond (ps) pulsed Figure-9 fiber laser with periodically saturable absorber (SA), and demonstrate how to decrease the repetition rate of this kind of fiber laser. By asymmetrically increasing the passive fiber length of nonlinear amplifying loop mirror (NALM) to lower SA saturation power, Q-switching instability can be avoided, thus effectively reducing the repetition rate of ps pulses. To combat noise-like pulse caused by excessive reduction of SA saturation power, we invoke the non-reciprocal output characteristics of periodic SA, and combined with increasing the intracavity fiber length outside the SA, we further reduce the laser repetition rate. Repetition rates for ∼10 and ∼20 ps pulses are reduced to 1.7 MHz and 848 kHz, respectively, which are, to the best of our knowledge, the lowest repetition rates of Figure-9 lasers reported thus far.

A scheme for fiber-type infrared optical comb based on the difference frequency generation (DFG) method is proposed and demonstrated. All-polarization-maintaining nonlinear pulse fiber amplifications are used to generate the nearly transform-limited two-color fundamental pulses, such that precise temporal synchronization for the broadband spectra between the fundamental pulses can be stably achieved. The 3-dB bandwidth of the DFG comb achieved is $2.05~\mu \text{m}$ near $9~\mu \text{m}$ . The DFG comb can be widely tuned from 7 to $10.5~\mu \text{m}$ , where the bandwidth for any tuning position is close to the theoretical limit. Moreover, we show that it is essential to suppress the amount of the fundamental pump pulse chirp and narrow the transform-limited fundamental signal pulse for achieving the broadband and efficient DFG comb.

The aim of the study was to assess the factors associated with periodic limb movements during sleep (PLMS) among obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) patients and identify the role of PLMS in patients with OSAS. 303 adult patients with OSAS were included in the study. All patients completed physical examination, Epworth sleepiness scale (ESS), and polysomnography. Diagnosis of PLMS was made if the periodic leg movements index (PLMI) was ≥ 15. Chi-square test, ANOVA, univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify factors associated with PLMS among OSAS patients. Statistical analyses were performed with SPSS 26.0 for mac. Statistically significant difference was considered if P value P

Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is underdiagnosed in females and gender differences in clinical and polysomnographic findings have not been widely investigated in China. We examined clinical and polysomnographic differences between males and females with OSAS in order to determine the influence of gender on clinical presentation and polysomnographic features. Data were collected from 303 adult patients diagnosed with OSAS (237 males and 66 females) from 2017 to 2019. All the patients completed physical examination, Epworth sleepiness scale, and whole night polysomnography. AVONA, univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess gender differences of clinical and polysomnographic findings with OSAS. P

Network virtualization (NV) is emerged as a key enabler for the success of the future virtualized networks (e.g. 5G networks and smart Internet of Things (IoT)). Virtual Network Embedding (VNE) that addresses the embedding problems of heterogeneous virtual networks (VNs) onto a physical infrastructure is a main challenge in NV. Network topology attributes and network resource-considered (NTANRC) algorithm is a virtual node mapping mechanism that considers essential network features and global network resources for ranking both substrate and virtual nodes prior to embedding each given virtual network request (VNR). In this paper, we propose NTANRC combined with a distributed parallel Genetic Algorithm (GA) for virtual link mapping, namely NTANRC-GA, to solve online VNE problem. Extensive evaluation results show that our proposed solution not only achieves better performance compared to state-of-the-art VNE algorithms, but also challenges the rapid speed of shortest path (SP) method. NTANRC algorithm and the parallel GA-based algorithm are reverse compliments of each other to achieve an efficient VNE solution.

With the development of Internet finance, customer behavior and consumption habits have transformed and brought new challenges to commercial banks' traditional branches in China. Bank branches face the pressure of rising operating costs, declining profits, and being gradually replaced by online services. Under the smart economic trend, bank branches are facing significant transforming and upgrading. Branches will gradually transform their roles from traditional business transaction centers to product marketing and customer experience centers. The intelligent upgrading and transformation of branches play an essential role in accelerating the process. In this paper, our research focuses on user experience in the smart branch and adjust with the smart society development trend. We study smart diversions' pre-processing at smart branches, establish smart queuing models, and mobile appointment systems to control the queue. We compare the smart model with the traditional under the bank's virtual simulation system. Use customer waiting time for service and employee work intensity as essential indicators of the queuing model. The simulation results show that the branch uses intelligent distribution is much more efficient than the traditional one. Customer experience and service efficiency are greatly improved.

Network virtualization recognized as an enabling technology for the forthcoming networks is utterly popular. One of the main challenges of network virtualization is called the virtual network embedding problem. Virtual network embedding (VNE) aims to allocate a set of virtual machines onto a set of interconnected physical hardware in the cloud computing environment. Traditional exact solutions, considered as a time-consuming process to achieve a global optimal solution, have been proofed to be $\mathcal{N}\mathcal{P}$-hard. On the other hand, some existing heuristic solutions tend to decouple VNE problems into two stages: virtual node mapping (VNoM) and virtual link mapping (VLiM). Undoubtedly, these kinds of decomposition would result in low acceptance ratio and inefficient substrate resource utilization. In this paper, we propose a distributed parallel Genetic Algorithm combined with graph theory for solving VNE in one-stage. Our proposed algorithm achieves better performance than previous baseline solutions while meeting the stringent time requirements for online VNE problems.

A long-term stable single-longitudinal-mode (SLM) all polarization-maintaining (PM) compound-ring cavity fiber laser is reported. The results show that the PM fiber's strong ability to resist the environment disturbance allows finely designing the length of each secondary cavity in real time according to the main cavity under the laboratory environment, and then the effective longitudinal mode spacing can be sufficiently increased by accurately using the Vernier effect, so that the mode-hopping can be effectively suppressed. Furthermore, the temperature compensation is used for asynchronously fine-adjusting each cavity length to follow the Vernier effect requirement more strictly. The mode-hopping-free SLM operation time of the packaged laser reaches 11 h. As far as we know, this is the longest SLM free running time of ring cavity fiber laser to date. The optical signal to noise ratio of the laser reaches 77 dB and the linewidth is less than 850 Hz with up to 50 mW maximum output power.

Survival and outcome of cardiac arrest (CA) are dismal despite improvements in cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Salvianolic acid B (Sal B), extracted from Salvia miltiorrhiza, has been investigated for its cardioprotective properties in cardiac remodeling and ischemic heart disease, but less is known about its role in CA. The aim of this study was to learn whether Sal B improves cardiac and neurologic outcomes after CA/CPR in mice. Female C57BL/6 mice were subjected to eight minutes of CA induced by an intravenous injection of potassium chloride (KCl), followed by CPR. After 30 seconds of CPR, mice were blindly randomized to receive either Sal B (20 mg/kg) or vehicle (normal saline) intravenously. Hemodynamic variables and indices of left ventricular function were determined before CA and within three hours after CPR, the early postresuscitation period. Sal B administration resulted in a remarkable decrease in the time required for the return of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) in animals that successfully resuscitated compared to the vehicle-treated mice. Myocardial performance, including cardiac output and left ventricular systolic (dp/dtmax) and diastolic (dp/dtmin) function, was clearly ameliorated within three hours of ROSC in the Sal B-treated mice. Moreover, Sal B inhibited CA/CPR-induced cardiomyocyte apoptosis and preserved mitochondrial morphology and function. Mechanistically, Sal B dramatically promoted Nrf2 nuclear translocation through the downregulation of Keap1, which resulted in the expression of antioxidant enzymes, including HO-1 and NQO1, thereby counteracted the oxidative damage in response to CA/CPR. The aforementioned antiapoptotic and antioxidant effects of Sal B were impaired in the setting of gene silencing of Nrf2 with siRNA in vitro model. These improvements were associated with better neurological function and increased survival rate (75% vs. 40%, p<0.05) up to 72 hours postresuscitation. Our findings suggest that the administration of Sal B improved cardiac function and neurological outcomes in a murine model of CA via activating the Nrf2 antioxidant signaling pathway, which may represent a novel therapeutic strategy for the treatment of CA.

// Bing-Qin Guo 1 and Wen-Qiao Lu 2 1 Department of Pathology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Bengbu Medical College, Anhui 233003, China 2 The Interventional Diagnosis and Treatment Ward, Thoracic Hospital in Shandong Province, Shandong 250013, China Correspondence to: Wen-Qiao Lu, email: gbq22@qq.com Keywords: VEGF; ovarian cancer; prognosis Received: January 19, 2018 Accepted: May 21, 2018 Published: July 17, 2018 ABSTRACT Background & aim: At present, numerous reports have shown that high/positive expression of tissue vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) may be associated with the prognosis of patients with ovarian cancer. However, their results still remained controversy. Thus, this meta-analysis was designed to analyze and assess the prognostic value of tissue VEGF expression in patients with ovarian cancer. Method: We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library and Web of Science to October, 2017. Hazard Ratio (HR) with its 95% confidence intervals (CIs) was used to evaluate the association between high/positive expression of tissue VEGF and the prognosis of ovarian cancer patients. All statistical analyses were performed using standard statistical procedures provided in RevMan 5.2. Result: A total of 18 studies (including 1145 patients) were included for this meta-analysis. The positive/high expression of tissue VEGF had an obvious association with overall survival (OS) (HR 2.24, 95% CI 1.36–3.70; P =0.002), progression-free survival (PFS) (HR 1.60, 95% CI 1.11–2.31; P =0.01) and disease-free survival (DFS) (HR 3.49, 95% CI 1.27–9.56; P =0.02) of patients with ovarian cancer respectively. Conclusion: The present meta-analysis indicated that positive/high expression of tissue VEGF may have a close association with survival of ovarian cancer.

Shape memory alloys (SMAs) are two-phase polycrystal smart materials with hysteretic energy dissipation capacity. Under a mechanically applied strain, SMAs can transform their phases and recover large deformations in a superelastic fashion. Both the hysteretic damping and the deformation recovery are key features for new type of maintenance-free vibration control devices. Various factors influence the energy dissipation process of SMAs. Particularly rates and amplitudes of the applied deformation pattern are crucial for the damping. The studies have focused so far on the interaction between structures and SMAs. This paper goes one step further and seeks to consider the soil-structure interaction (SSI) in the treatment of the SMA control performance as well. A real-time hybrid simulation based cyber-physical methodology is developed for this purpose. Using finite-element modeling technique, a semi-infinite boundary definition is realized for the soil and the soil-foundation interaction is replicated for SMA-controlled structures. The proposed approach is applied to a shear frame structure equipped with SMA wires. The responses of the structure to historic earthquake records are assessed from a macroscopic perspective of the SMA behavior. The study shows that the material and radiation damping of the soil-foundation interaction have a significant influence on the vibration control performance of SMAs.

In the original version of [this article][1] ([1][2]), author Miguel F. Sanmamed's name was spelled incorrectly. The error has been corrected in the latest online HTML and PDF versions of the article. The authors regret this error. 1. 1.[↵][3]1. Sun J, 2. Lu Q, 3. Sanmamed MF

The dysregulation of myeloid cell responses is increasingly demonstrated to be a major mechanism of pathogenesis for COVID-19. The pathological cellular and cytokine signatures associated with this disease point to a critical role of a hyperactivated innate immune response in driving pathology. Unique immunopathological features of COVID-19 include myeloid-cell dominant inflammation and cytokine release syndrome (CRS) alongside lymphopenia and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), all of which correlate with severe disease. Studies suggest a range of causes mediating myeloid hyperactivation, such as aberrant innate sensing, asynchronized immune cellular responses, as well as direct viral protein/host interactions. These include the recent identification of new myeloid cell receptors that bind SARS-CoV-2, which drive myeloid cell hyperinflammatory responses independently of lung epithelial cell infection via the canonical receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). The spectrum and nature of myeloid cell dysregulation in COVID-19 also differs from, at least to some extent, what is observed in other infectious diseases involving myeloid cell activation. While much of the therapeutic effort has focused on preventative measures with vaccines or neutralizing antibodies that block viral infection, recent clinical trials have also targeted myeloid cells and the associated cytokines as a means to resolve CRS and severe disease, with promising but thus far modest effects. In this review, we critically examine potential mechanisms driving myeloid cell dysregulation, leading to immunopathology and severe disease, and discuss potential therapeutic strategies targeting myeloid cells as a new paradigm for COVID-19 treatment.

As the flow structure in the centrifugal pump is complicated, it always causes serious noises, which has become an important problem in environmental protections. Some works have been completed for optimizing and reducing radiated noises of centrifugal pumps, but optimized algorithms are traditional and easily fall into local extreme values, so that final results are not always the optimal. For overcoming disadvantages of traditional algorithms, this paper proposed a novel MLGA-PSO (Multi-layer Genetic Algorithm-Particle Swarm Optimization) algorithm to make an optimization for noises and hydraulic performance of centrifugal pumps. This algorithm starts from the organizational structure of individuals and separates the global search from the local search, which can not only accelerate the convergence speed, but also avoid reducing the global search ability. The algorithm could effectively overcome the contradiction between global search ability and convergence speed. Inlet diameter, impeller blade outlet width, blade outlet angle and amount of blades are as designed variables. In order to verify advantages of the proposed MLGA-PSO algorithm in global search ability, optimizing speed and stability, GA (Genetic Algorithm), PSO (Particle Swarm Optimization) and GA-PSO (Genetic Algorithm-Particle Swarm Optimization) algorithms are chosen to carry out the compared experiment. Results show that the proposed MLGA-PSO algorithm has higher efficiency and accuracy. Finally, total noises of the optimized noise in the near-field and far-field using MLGA-PSO algorithm are 181 dB and 74 dB, respectively. Total noises in the near-field are reduced by 4.7 %, while those in the far-field are reduced by 16.9 %. It is clearly that the optimized centrifugal pump presents an obvious noise reduction effect.

Objective: To assess the therapeutic effects of emergency laparoscopic appendectomy (LA) in treating complicated appendicitis (CA) for elderly patients (defined as age 65 years and above). Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of 115 elderly patients with CA who underwent surgical therapy in the Affiliated Huizhou Hospital of Sun Yat-Sun University, Huizhou, Guangdong Province, China between September 2014 and August 2016. Of these, 59 patients consented to open appendectomy (OA), and LA was performed in the other 56 patients. The perioperative and follow-up variables of the 2 groups were analyzed. Results: The operative time in the LA group was longer than the OA group (LA: 70.5±16.0 min versus [vs.] OA: 59.3±12.0 min, p greater than 0.001). The LA group had lower chances of incision infections (LA: 8.9% vs OA: 28.8 %, p =0.007) and shorter hospital stay (LA: 6.1± 2.5 days vs. OA: 9.6±3.5 days, p greater than 0.001). Return to soft diet (LA: 1.4 ± 0.8 days vs OA: 3.0 ± 1.6 days, p greater than 0.001) and time to out of bed (LA: 1.3±0.5 days vs OA: 2.5±0.9 days, p greater than 0.001) was faster in the LA group. The incidence of complications and 30-day readmission rate in the LA group was much lower than the OA group. Conclusion: Emergency LA in treating elderly patients with CA has the advantages of less trauma, definite curative effect, low complication rates, and fast recovery when compared with OA. Saudi Med J 2017; Vol. 38 (11): 1108-1112 doi: 10.15537/smj.2017.11.20469 How to cite this article: Wu TC, Lu Q, Huang ZY, Liang XH. Efficacy of emergency laparoscopic appendectomy in treating complicated appendicitis for elderly patients. Saudi Med J . 2017 Nov;38(11):1108-1112. doi: 10.15537/smj.2017.11.20469.

This paper aims to demonstrate the real performance of tuned liquid column dampers (TLCDs) in controlling seismic response of multi-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) structures based on the advantages of real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS). An RTHS framework is developed to carry out full-scale experiments of TLCD-structure-foundation system, and the application of multiple TLCDs to control single-order and multi-order modal responses of a nine-story benchmark building is investigated, respectively, as an example. Moreover, the effect of soil–structure interaction (SSI) on TLCD performance is examined, in which the finite and semi-infinite soil flexible foundations are simulated through a finite element model with 1160 DOFs embedding fixed and artificial boundaries, respectively. Results show that MTLCD is more effective than a single TLCD in suppressing structural responses; and the former is suggested to be used to control multi-order modal responses because of the uncertainty of the frequency content of earthquake excitations. The SSI effect significantly reduces TLCD performance, and the semi-infinite foundation may eliminate the control effect of TLCD due to the radiation damping effect. The parameters of the TLCD device should be regulated according to the characteristics of SSI-structure system when the SSI effect is unneglectable.

The flying cable-driven robot is composed of a four-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and a cable-driven parallel robot, whose aerodynamic characteristics is more complex than that of the conventional four-rotor UAV for adding a moving platform suspended by flexible cable. Fluent software is applied in this paper to analyze aerodynamic characteristics. Firstly, the moving platform lectotype is conducted by comparing Mach number distributions of the flying cable-driven robot with four kinds of moving platforms; then, the change rules of lift coefficient, drag coefficient, and pitching moment coefficient are compared at different attack angles and velocities; finally, the pressure distribution of the flying cable-driven robot flying at Mach 0.05 are studied. The results of this paper could provide theoretical basis for the following structural design and motion control.

Finite element and boundary element models of the standard wheel, damping wheels and S-type damping wheels were established and compared. The radial vibration and axial vibration of the standard wheel could be reduced to decrease the vibro-acoustic radiation. Regarding damping wheels and S-type damping wheels, the coupling between the radial vibration and axial vibrations of 1 pitch circle could be reduced to decrease the radiation noise. The vibration acceleration in the tread, rim and web plate was significantly improved after applying damping in the standard wheel. If the web plate was changed into S-type structure, the vibration acceleration of the wheel at three positions was further reduced. The radiation noise of S-type damping wheels was significantly improved. The radiation noise of the web plate was significantly greater than that of the tread, which was caused by the larger radiation area of the web plate.

This article presents real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS) in a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) steel frame incorporated with tuned liquid column damper (TLCD). The SDOF steel frame is numerically simulated, and the TLCD alone is physically experimented on a shaking table. The delay-dependent stability of RTHS system for TLCD investigation is first assessed; and the delay-dependent accuracy is verified by comparing the responses obtained through the RTHS, the conventional shaking table test, and an analytical solution. Then, RTHSs are carried out to evaluate the effects of mass ratio, structural damping ratio, structural stiffness, and peak ground acceleration on the reduction effectiveness of STLCD. The nonlinear behavior of the STLCD is experimentally captured. Finally, the structural responses under STLCD and multiple TLCDs (MTLCD) control are compared. It is found that the performance of STLCD strongly depends on structural parameters and properties of earthquakes; both MTLCD and STLCD induce approximat...

The phase-locking mechanism and results of a frequency comb based on a period-doubling mode-locked (PD-ML) fiber laser were investigated. A mode-locked fiber laser was designed to switch from fundamental mode locking (FML) to PD-ML with similar output pulses by simply changing the pump. Experimental results show that the new comb teeth generated in the PD-ML are strongly correlated with the original teeth and have a consistent carrier-envelope offset (CEO) frequency. Controlling the pump and cavity length is also suited for phase-locking the PD-ML laser. With the same f-to-2f heterodyne beat system and locking circuit, phase locking of both PD-ML and FML-based optical combs with two repetition rates, and switching between them, were obtained by changing the pump only.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease characterized by chronic inflammation in the joints and other tissues. Rheumatoid factor (RF) and anticyclic citrullinated peptides (anti-CCP) are biomarkers for the evaluation of RA although their functions in the pathogenesis of RA are poorly understood. CXC-chemokine receptor 5 (CXCR5)(+) T follicular helper (TFH) cells are essential for B cell maturation and antibody production. Recent studies have showed that dysregulated TFH cells are associated with the development of autoimmune diseases. This article reviews the characters and functions of TFH cells, such as their differentiation, expression, transcription factor, and B cell maturation. Meanwhile, we also discuss the possible mechanisms underlying the role of these cells in RA and potential treatments, including antibody-blocking agents, gene therapies, T cell vaccines, and T follicular regulatory (TFR) cells. Overall, we discuss the roles of TFH cells in the pathogenesis of RA and potential therapies for RA.

Paracrine effects of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have been suggested play an important role in the treatment of ischemic diseases. Dental pulp Stem cells (DPSCs) share many properties with MSCs. However, the beneficial effects of DPSCs on ischemic diseases remain to be elucidated. The present study, we found that DPSCs secreted higher levels angiogenic factors of VEGF, SDF-1, MCP-1 and PDGF-BB compared with AD-MSCs. We then investigated whether DP-CM can induce the migration of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) and human umbilical venous endothelial cells (HUVECs) in vitro. Under hypoxia, the apoptosis of HUVECs was inhibited while survival was improved by treatment of DP-CM. In a H2O2-induced cell death assay, DP-CM also significantly reduced HUVECs oxidative stress compare to control group. The tube formation assay demonstrated that the DP-CM group had a greater angiogenic potential than control medium. Results in the mouse model showed both the laser Doppler perfusion index and the relative number of CD31 positive microvessels to be significantly higher in the DP-CM group than in the control group [(77%±11%) vs. (45%±6%), and (6.2±1.1)/HPF vs. (2.3±0.3)/HPF]. In this way, the use of DP-CM may be a suitable means of treating ischemic diseases.

Background: Incarcerated obturator hernia (IOH) is a scarce type of acute surgical disease, but the mortality rate is the highest in abdominal hernias. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of emergency exploratory laparotomy (EEL) in treating incarcerated obturator hernia (IOH).Methods: We conducted a retrospective study of 12 female patients with IOH underwent EEL between January 2014 and March 2016. The variables which included patient characteristics, findings of CT, operative time, postoperative complications, length of hospital stay, ICU admission rate, 30-day readmission rate and mortality were analyzed.Results: The age of patients was 82.5 ± 4.2 years and the median body mass index (BMI) was 20.6 kg/m2 (IQR, 18.7–21.5 kg/m2). There were 10 patients (83.3%) underwent partial intestinal resection due to partial small bowel necrosis or perforation. The total operation time was 85.7 ± 8.7 min. The time to initiation of a soft diet was 3.9 ± 0.7 days and the median length of stay w...

Product configuration is the key to mass customization, which is based on configuration modeling and solutions. A customer-oriented optimal configuration model is built to achieve an optimal configuration for a product scheme. Based on a product platform and customer requirements, a dual-objective “performance-cost” optimization model for customized products is proposed. This model is based on the Pareto genetic algorithm for configuration optimization through which optimal solutions for customer requirements can be obtained, including multiple choices for selection as well as reference to schemes that can enable customers to participate in the product design. In this study, a case is studied to prove the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed model.

Corner detection is the basic link of camera calibration, and its detection accuracy will directly affect the accuracy of camera calibration. In order to improve the extraction precision of the corners of the board, this paper put forward a new checkerboard corner detection method. Two kinds of corner point prototype templates are constructed by using the characteristics of the checkerboard. The similarity between the pixel points and the corner points is calculated by convolution of the convolution kernel and the image. The degree of similarity is used to distinguish the corner points from the non-corner points. The non-maximum suppression algorithm and the gradient statistical algorithm further screen out the target corner points. The experimental results show that the method used in this paper can accurately and quickly detect the corner position and has strong anti-interference ability.

This paper proposes and demonstrates a method to reduce the repetition rate of all- polarization-maintaining (PM) linear-cavity picosecond dissipative soliton passively mode-locked fiber lasers. An optical coupler (OC) is inserted into the cavity to extract pulse energy, and the cavity length is increased using a low-nonlinear coefficient large-mode field fiber at the rear end of the OC, where the propagated pulse has lower energy. This enables the nonlinear phase shift to be within the tolerated value of the single pulse mode-locking even with a considerably increased cavity length; this allows reducing the laser repetition rate considerably without substantially changing the pulse characteristics. Using the proposed method, for a 0.3-nm filter bandwidth, the laser repetition rate is successfully reduced to 1.77 MHz with a nearly Fourier-transform limited pulse duration of 10 ps; it can be further reduced by optimizing the OC split ratio. The proposed method can be applied to reduce the repetition rate for a picosecond dissipative soliton passively mode-locked fiber laser with an arbitrary bandwidth filter.

Angiogenesis plays an important role in myocardial infarction. Apelin and its natural receptor (angiotensin II receptor-like 1, AGTRL-1 or APLNR) induce sprouting of endothelial cells in an autocrine or paracrine manner. The aim of this study is to investigate whether apelin can improve the cardiac function after myocardial infarction by increasing angiogenesis in infarcted myocardium. Left ventricular end-diastolic pressure (LVEDP), left ventricular end systolic pressure (LVESP), left ventricular developed pressure (LVDP), maximal left ventricular pressure development (±LVdp/dtmax), infarct size, and angiogenesis were evaluated to analyze the cardioprotective effects of apelin on ischemic myocardium. Assays of 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide, 5-bromo-2′-deoxyuridine incorporation, wound healing, transwells, and tube formation were used to detect the effects of apelin on proliferation, migration, and chemotaxis of cardiac microvascular endothelial cells. Fluorescein isothiocyanate-labeled bovine serum albumin penetrating through monolayered cardiac microvascular endothelial cells was measured to evaluate the effects of apelin on permeability of microvascular endothelial cells. In vivo results showed that apelin increased ±LV dp/dtmax and LVESP values, decreased LVEDP values (all p < 0.05), and promoted angiogenesis in rat heart after ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery. In vitro results showed that apelin dose-dependently enhanced proliferation, migration, chemotaxis, and tube formation, but not permeability of cardiac microvascular endothelial cells. Apelin also increased the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor receptors-2 (VEGFR2) and the endothelium-specific receptor tyrosine kinase (Tie-2) in cardiac microvascular endothelial cells. These results indicated that apelin played a protective role in myocardial infarction through promoting angiogenesis and decreasing permeability of microvascular endothelial cells via upregulating the expression of VEGFR2 and Tie-2 in cardiac microvascular endothelial cells.

To investigate the association between anxiety disorders and left ventricular hypertrophy in patients with essential hypertension.Left ventricular structure and function were assessed with echocardiography in 56 patients with essential hypertension and anxiety disorder (study group) and in 56 patients with hypertension only (control group). Serum adrenomedullin levels were also measured in these patients.There was no statistically significant difference in the left ventricular ejection fraction between the study and the control group (54.21 ± 88.81% versus 56.01 ± 7.85%, p0.05). The left ventricular mass index (LVMI) in study group was higher than in control group (137.05 ± 9.42 versus 123.57 ± 7.01 g/m(2), p=0.001). The plasma levels of adrenomedullin in study group was higher than in control group (25.97 ± 5.48 versus 18.32 ± 6.97 ng/L, p=0.001). Levels of plasma adrenomedullin were positively correlated with LVMI in the study (r=0.734, p0.05) and control group (r=0.592, p0.05).Anxiety disorders are associated with elevated plasma adrenomedullin levels and increased left ventricular hypertrophy in patients with essential hypertension. The clinical significance of these changes requires further investigation.

Preterm and small-for-gestational-age (SGA) neonates are vulnerable groups that are susceptible to various microbial infections. Vγ9Vδ2-T cells are critical components of the host immune system and have been demonstrated to play an important role in the defense against viral infection in adults. However, the characteristics of Vγ9Vδ2-T cells in children, especially the preterm and SGA populations, are poorly understood. Here, we examined the frequency and antiviral function of Vγ9Vδ2-T cells in neonates, including preterm, SGA and full-term babies. When compared to adults, neonates had a significantly lower percentage of Vγ9Vδ2-T cells in the blood. Upon influenza virus stimulation, neonatal Vγ9Vδ2-T cells, especially from preterm and SGA babies, showed markedly decreased and delayed antiviral cytokine responses than those of adults. In addition, the antiviral responses of neonatal Vγ9Vδ2-T cells were positively correlated with gestational age and birth weight. Finally, a weaker expansion of Vγ9Vδ2-T cells by isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP) was shown in neonates than the expansion in adults. Our data suggest that the depressed antiviral activity and decreased frequency of Vγ9Vδ2-T cells may likely account for the high susceptibility to microbial infection in neonates, particularly in preterm and SGA babies. Improving Vγ9Vδ2-T-cell function of neonates may provide a new way to defend against virus infection.

The application of the temper mill is mainly to improve the mechanical property of strip and to rectify the shape of strip. The working roll of a temper mill is often running with alternating load that prone to lead to faults such as wear, crack and spalling, which cause severe quality problems in the production of strip steel. In order to gain the information of crack's location and depth, the proposed method employs two circles of AE sensors along the direction of the roll body and use static pressure as external loads together with time-of-arrival localization method to detect the exact location of the roll cracks. The positioning results confirmed the validity of the proposed method with the post-repair grinding data. The advantage of this detection method is not requiring the full roll body scan point by point. With only one layout of the sensors, the method can detect the crack location with high efficiency and good real-time property.

Chinese energy structure is nowadays dominated by thermal power plants, while coal production and consumption are huge with large amount of water consumption and massive dust produce. Energy saving, water conservation and environmental protection have to be carried on. An intelligent dry dust removal equipment is developed, witch is driven by compressed air, jet Venturi tube is drawing air ash and coal dust on the ground, a cyclone separating filter is collecting the dust, second level collection is the cloth filter, SO2 and CO2 filtration and purification are from solid adsorbent filter at outlet. It realizes zero water consumption and emission for handling the dry dust. The intelligent dry dust removal device is more energy saving, flexibility and easy to use.

AIM To investigate the efficacy and safety of transcutaneous electroacupuncture (TEA) to alleviate postoperative ileus (POI) after gastrectomy. METHODS From April 2014 to February 2017, 63 gastric cancer patients were recruited from the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China. After gastrectomy, the patients were randomly allocated to the TEA (n = 33) or control (n = 30) group. The patients in the TEA group received 1 h TEA on Neiguan (ST36) and Zusanli (PC6) twice daily in the morning and afternoon until they passed flatus. The main outcomes were hours to the first flatus or bowel movement, time to nasogastric tube removal, time to liquid and semi-liquid diet, and hospital stay. The secondary outcomes included postoperative symptom assessment and complications. RESULTS Time to first flatus in the TEA group was significantly shorter than in the control group (73.19 ± 15.61 vs 82.82 ± 20.25 h, P = 0.038), especially for open gastrectomy (76.53 ± 14.29 vs 87.23 ± 20.75 h, P = 0.048). Bowel sounds on day 2 in the TEA group were significantly greater than in the control group (2.30 ± 2.61/min vs 1.05 ± 1.26/min, P = 0.017). Time to nasogastric tube removal in the TEA group was earlier than in the control group (4.22 ± 1.01 vs 4.97 ± 1.67 d, P = 0.049), as well as the time to liquid diet (5.0 ± 1.34 vs 5.83 ± 2.10 d, P = 0.039). Hospital stay in the TEA group was significantly shorter than in the control group (8.06 ± 1.75 vs 9.40 ± 3.09 d, P = 0.041). No significant differences in postoperative symptom assessment and complications were found between the groups. There was no severe adverse event related to TEA. CONCLUSION TEA accelerated bowel movements and alleviated POI after open gastrectomy and shortened hospital stay.

Objective: We compare the cardioprotective effects of anesthetic preconditioning by propofol and/or isoflurane in rats with ischemia-reperfusion injury. Methods: Male adult Wistar rats were subjected to 60 min of anterior descending coronary artery occlusion followed by 120 min of reperfusion. Before the long ischemia, anesthetics were administered twice for 10 min followed by 5 min washout. Isoflurane was inhaled at 1 MAC (0.016) in I group, whereas propofol was inhaled intravenously at 37.5 mg/(kg·h) in P group. A combination of isoflurane and propofol was administered simultaneously in I+P group. Results: In control (without anesthetic preconditioning, C group), remarkable myocardial infarction and apoptosis accompanied by an increased level of cardiac troponin T were noted 120 min after ischemia-reperfusion. As compared to those of control group, I and P groups had comparable cardioprotection. In addition, I+P group shares with I and P groups the comparable cardioprotective effects in terms of myocardial infarction and cardiac troponin T elevation. Conclusion: A combination of isoflurane and propofol produced no additional cardioprotection.

Apelin, the endogenous ligand of the G protein-coupled APJ receptor, is a peptide mediator with emerging regulatory actions in the heart. We aimed to determine whether the endogenous apelin/APJ system is an intrinsic protective pathway in ischemic/reperfusion injury. A Langendorff model of perfused isolated rat hearts and primary cultured myocardial cells from neonatal rats were used. Cardiac function was monitored and apelin/APJ expression was determined by real-time PCR and Western blot analysis. In rats under I/R, cardiac function was significantly decreased as compared with controls, and APJ was over-expressed at both the mRNA and protein levels (by 7-fold and 35%, respectively, both p

This paper describes an optimized design of setback generator based on the smart miniature initiator’s demand for physical power, Through the Hopkinson bar impact experiments, we conducted a comparative study of multiple sets of high overload experiments and concluded that axial magnetized permanent magnets with the homopolar opposite and distribution winding can improve generator’s power generation efficiency to certain degree. When axial magnetized permanent magnets with homopolar opposite and distribution winding are used to assemble the optimized setback generator, it can detonate ignition head consistently at 20000G acceleration.

Addressable initiation system was established by bus topology structure and information coding which owns the ability to safely and reliably control up to 256 initiators on a signal bus according to the communication protocol which is a robust two-way command response type protocol. Also, the two-way digital communication was achieved between intelligent bus controller and smart initiator by multiplexed serial data bus. The synchronous performance of addressable initiation system was researched. The result shows that each smart initiator will performance the built-in logic control, and arm electronic safe switch after receiving the synchronous signal sent by intelligent bus controller. Then they discharged the electrical energy of the firing capacitor as approximately synchronous, and were initiated synchronously at 4±0.2μs. It indicates that this initiation system has favorable synchronization.

This paper presents the results of a study in which type of line drawings intended to convey 3D faces by using the normal estimation method based on the face domain knowledge, including facial expressions, facial orientation and the regions of five senses. Estimated lines include occluding contours, suggestive contours, ridges and valleys, apparent ridges, and lines from shaded images. Our findings suggest that different style of line drawing has its own advantage in depicting different parts of human face, and that errors in depiction are localized in particular regions of human face. Our study also shows the result that which kind of lines can do better in depicting special parts of human face for different expressions, like eyes, nose, mouth and so on. Finally, we generate optimized line drawing results for different face models to illustrate the efficiency of our evaluation result.

Summary The use of tuned liquid dampers (TLDs) is an effective passive control technique to suppress structural vibration under wind and seismic loads. This paper investigates the size effect of TLDs on control efficiency. Given the advantages of real-time hybrid simulation, two issues affecting the control performance of TLD are addressed: (a) the geometric size and (b) the experimental model scale. A series of real-time hybrid simulations is performed, in which TLD devices with various sizes (including full-scale and small-scale) are experimentally modeled as physical substructures; the controlled structures are numerically simulated as numerical substructures. Results demonstrate that TLD performance is size dependent; a shallow liquid in TLD with lower relative liquid depth may be more efficient for both peak and root-mean-square response control. Scaled TLD models that are usually used in conventional shaking table tests generally overestimate the control performance of prototype TLD devices, indicating that full-scale TLD experiments should be pursued to ensure proper performance evaluation.

To determine whether contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) can improve the precision of breast imaging reporting and data system (BI-RADS) categorization.A total of 230 patients with 235 solid breast lesions classified as BI-RADS 4 on conventional ultrasound were evaluated. CEUS was performed within one week before core needle biopsy or surgical resection and a revised BI-RADS classification was assigned based on 10 CEUS imaging characteristics. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was then conducted to evaluate the diagnostic performance of CEUS-based BI-RADS assignment with pathological examination as reference criteria.The CEUS-based BI-RADS evaluation classified 116/235 (49.36%) lesions into category 3, 20 (8.51%), 13 (5.53%) and 12 (5.11%) lesions into categories 4A, 4B and 4C, respectively, and 74 (31.49%) into category 5. Selecting CEUS-based BI-RADS category 4A as an appropriate cut-off gave sensitivity and specificity values of 85.4% and 87.8%, respectively, for the diagnosis of malignant disease. The cancer-to-biopsy yield was 73.11% with CEUS-based BI-RADS 4A selected as the biopsy threshold compared with 40.85% otherwise, while the biopsy rate was only 42.13% compared with 100% otherwise. Overall, only 4.68% of invasive cancers were misdiagnosed.This pilot study suggests that evaluation of BI-RADS 4 breast lesions with CEUS results in reduced biopsy rates and increased cancer-to-biopsy yields.

To build and evaluate predictive models for contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) of the breast to distinguish between benign and malignant lesions.A total of 235 breast imaging reporting and data system (BI-RADS) 4 solid breast lesions were imaged via CEUS before core needle biopsy or surgical resection. CEUS results were analyzed on 10 enhancing patterns to evaluate diagnostic performance of three benign and three malignant CEUS models, with pathological results used as the gold standard. A logistic regression model was developed basing on the CEUS results, and then evaluated with receiver operating curve (ROC).Except in cases of enhanced homogeneity, the rest of the 9 enhancement appearances were statistically significant (P0.05). These 9 enhancement patterns were selected in the final step of the logistic regression analysis, with diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of 84.4% and 82.7%, respectively, and the area under the ROC curve of 0.911. Diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of the malignant vs benign CEUS models were 84.38%, 87.77%, 86.38% and 86.46%, 81.29% and 83.40%, respectively.The breast CEUS models can predict risk of malignant breast lesions more accurately, decrease false-positive biopsy, and provide accurate BI-RADS classification.

Background Extracellular matrix protein 1 (ECM1) and vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) are secretory glycoproteins that are associated with lymphangiogenesis; these proteins could, therefore, play important roles in the lymphatic dissemination of tumors. However, very little is known about their potential roles in lymphangiogenesis. The aim of this study was to investigate whether correlations exist between ECM1 and VEGF-C in human breast cancer, lymphangiogenesis, and the clinicopathological characteristics of the disease. Methods ECM1 and VEGF-C mRNA and protein expression levels in 41 patients were investigated using real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), or immunohistochemical (IHC) staining of breast cancer tissue, matched noncancerous breast epithelial tissues, and suspicious metastatic axillary lymph nodes. D2-40 labelled lymph vessels and lymphatic microvessel density (LMVD) were counted. Correlations between ECM1 or VEGF-C protein expression levels, LMVD, and clinicopathological parameters were statistically tested. Results The rate of ECM1 positive staining in breast cancer tissues was higher (31/41, 75.6%) than that in the corresponding epithelial tissues (4/41, 9.8%, P < 0.001) and lymph nodes (13/41, 31.7%, P < 0.001). Similarly, the VEGF-C expression rate in cancer specimens was higher (33/41, 80.5%) than in epithelial tissues (19/41, 46.3%, P < 0.01) or lymph nodes (15/41, 36.6%, P < 0.01). Higher ECM1 and VEGF-C mRNA expression levels were also detected in the tumor tissues, compared to the non-cancerous tissue types or lymph nodes (P < 0.05). ECM1 protein expression was positively correlated with the estrogen receptor status (P < 0.05) and LMVD (P < 0.05). LMVD in the ECM1- and VEGF-C-positive tumor specimens was higher than that in the tissue types with negative staining (P < 0.05). Conclusions Both ECM1 and VEGF-C were overexpressed in breast cancer tissue samples. ECM1 expression was positively correlated with estrogen responsiveness and the metastatic properties of breast cancer. We conclude, therefore, that ECM1 and VEGF-C may have a synergistic effect on lymphangiogenesis to facilitate lymphatic metastasis of breast cancer.

Background Many Chinese herbs, especially herbal injections, have been shown to have anti-tumor effects in recent years. However, since most reports focus on the clinical effectiveness of these herbs, their mechanisms of action are not well understood. In this study, we assessed apoptosis in the hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell line HepG2 induced by an injectable extract from the seed of Coix lacryma-jobi (Semen coicis, SC), and monitored the expression of Bcl-2 and caspase-8. Methods Injectable SC was applied to HepG2 cells at different concentrations and the cells were collected 12, 24 and 48 hours later. 5-fluorouracil was used as a positive control group, and fluorescence-activated cell-sorting cytometry was used to measure the apoptosis rate of HepG2 cells and the expression of Bcl-2 and caspase-8 proteins. Results SC induced apoptosis in HepG2 cells in a concentration-and time-dependent manner, and the expression of caspase-8 was elevated and prolonged. However, it did not significantly influence the expression of Bcl-2. Conclusion Injectable SC may induce apoptosis in HCC cells by regulating the expression of caspase-8.

Active network is a new framework where network nodes not only forward packets, but also perform customized computation on the packet flowing through them. It provides a programmable interface to the user where users dynamically inject services into the intermediate nodes. This paper bring forwards a structure of active router based on IP network, analyses the extended definition field of IP datagram and the format of the active IP datagram, researches the module structure, the logic flow chart and the arithmetic of active router, thereby realizes the active networks technology in IP network and extends the service in existence network.

Aim: To investigate the possible association of the CYP2D6 gene C100T polymorphism and the CYP1A2 gene C163A polymorphism with tardive dyskinesia (TD) in Chinese patients with schizophrenia. Methods: The recruited schizophrenic patients were assessed with the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale (AIMS), and divided into groups with TD (n=91) and without TD (n=91) according to the AIMS score. Polymorphisms of the CYP2D6 and CYP1A2 genes were determined by polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). Results: No allele frequencies deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. No significant differences in genotypes frequencies of the CYP2D6 C100T polymorphism were observed between patients with TD and without TD (χ 2 =4.078, P >0.05), but patients with TD had a significant excess of the T allele compared with those without TD (χ 2 =4.28, P CYP1A2 C allele in patients with TD was significantly higher than that in those without TD (χ 2 =6.38, P CYP2D6 100T and CYP1A2 163C alleles was observed. Additionally, there were no differences in the mean AIMS scores among different genotypes in TD patients as a group or in smokers. The results of logistic regression analysis demonstrated that mean age and duration of illness were risk factors for TD, but not sex, cumulative exposure to neuroleptic drugs in years, CYP2D6 or CYP1A2 genotype. Conclusion: The C100T polymorphism of the CYP2D6 gene and the C163A polymorphism of the CYP1A2 gene may be associated with neuroleptic drug-induced tardive dyskinesia in Chinese patients with schizophrenia. However, genetic factors have a weaker association with susceptibility to TD compared with mean age and duration of illness.