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Intelligent identification of black tea fermentation quality is becoming a bottleneck to industrial automation. This study presents at-line rapid detection of black tea fermentation quality at industrial scale based on low-cost micro-near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and laboratory-made computer vision system (CVS). High-performance liquid chromatography and a spectrophotometer were used for determining the content of catechins and theaflavins, and the color of tea samples, respectively. Hierarchical cluster analysis combined with sensory evaluation was used to group samples through different fermentation degrees. A principal component analysis–support vector machine (SVM) model was developed to discriminate the black tea fermentation degree using color, spectral, and data fusion information; high accuracy (calibration = 95.89%, prediction = 89.19%) was achieved using mid-level data fusion. In addition, SVM model for theaflavins content prediction was established. The results indicated that the micro-NIRS combined with CVS proved a portable and low-cost tool for evaluating the black tea fermentation quality.

Rationale: Sclerosing pneumocytoma accompanied with other type of tumor in one patient is very rare. Here, we report a case of a sclerosing pneumocytoma mixed with a typical carcinoid tumor in a same neoplasm. Patient concerns: A 55-year-old woman incidentally detected a space-occupying lesion of right lung in routine health examination. The patient was asymptomatic and there were no positive findings in routine laboratory examination, physical examination, and pulmonary function test. Computed tomography revealed a solitary round mass in the middle lobe of the right lung. Diagnosis: The lesion was diagnosed as a sclerosing pneumocytoma accompanied with a typical carcinoid tumor of the right lung. Intervention: The patient underwent thoracoscopic lobectomy in our hospital. Outcomes: The postoperative course was uneventful. Lessons: This case is rare and noteworthy for a lesion containing two different types of neoplasms, which may cause diagnostic difficulties.

Critical limb ischemia (CLI) is the most severe manifestation of peripheral artery disease, which is common but rarely diagnosed. Noninvasive biomarkers are urgently required to assist in the diagnosis of CLI. Accumulating evidence indicates that miRNAs play an important role in the development of various diseases. In this study, microarray profiling revealed 11 miRNAs with significantly altered expression in four T2DM patients with CLI compared with that in four sex- and age-matched T2DM patients without CLI. In independent cohorts, qRT-PCR validation confirmed the increased miRNA-4739 level in patients with CLI versus patients without CLI. miRNA-4739 levels increased with FPG and HbA1c (all P < 0.05). After adjusting for the risk factors, miRNA-4739 levels were found to be associated with an increased odds ratio (OR) of T2DM with CLI (OR =12.818, 95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.148 to 143.143, P = 0.038). ROC curve analysis revealed that the area under the curve (AUC) of miR-4739+confounding risk factors was 0.94 (95% CI 0.891 to 0.998, P < 0.001), which was higher than that of confounding risk factors (AUC 0.94 vs. 0.91, 95% CI -0.122 to 0.060, P > 0.05) and of miR-4739 (AUC 0.94 vs. 0.69, 95% CI -0.399 to -0.101, P < 0.001), respectively. We conclude that elevated plasma miRNA-4739 levels are independently associated with CLI in T2DM patients. miRNA-4739 is implicated as a novel diagnostic marker and a potential therapeutic target for CLI in diabetes.

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text, Chromosome 8 open reading frame 4 (C8orf4) is an activator of Wnt signaling pathway, and participates in the tumorigenesis and progression of many tumors. The expression levels of C8orf4 and β-catenin were assessed via immunohistochemical staining in 100 cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) tissues, 50 high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSILs), 50 low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSILs), and 50 normal cervical tissues. Bisulfite sequencing polymerase chain reaction analysis was used to examine the methylation status of the C8orf4 locus in CSCC and normal cervical tissues. The expression rates of C8orf4 and β-catenin were significantly higher in CSCCs or HSILs than in LSILs or normal cervical tissues (P

The probabilistic fuzzy set (PFS) is designed for handling the uncertainties with both stochastic and fuzzy nature. In this paper, the concept of the distance between probabilistic fuzzy sets is introduced and its metric definition is conducted, which may be finite or continuous. And some related distances are discussed. The proposed distance considers the random perturbation in progress by introducing the distance of probability distribution, thus it improves the ability to handle random uncertainties, and some inadequacy of the distance of probability distribution is remedied. Finally, a PFS-based distance classifier is proposed to discuss the classification problem, the numerical experiment shows the superiority of this proposed distance in fuzzy and stochastic circumstance.

The classical Montgomery ladder algorithm (MPL) is an effective way to improve the operational efficiency of elliptic curve cryptography. First, an improved MPL is proposed by loop unrolling, and then the Montgomery elliptic curve encryption and decryption process is realized using data parallel and task parallel. The experimental results show that the ratio of acceleration parallel processing efficiency can reach 70%, and the method can effectively improve the speed of elliptic curve encryption algorithm.

The probabilistic fuzzy set (PFS) is designed for handling the uncertainties with both stochastic and fuzzy features. In this paper, the fundamental analyses are conducted to study influences of random variations to the fuzzy membership degree and its convergence. The analysis clearly discloses that fuzzy membership degree will show Gaussian features. The work presented will improve the potential application of probabilistic fuzzy sets.

In railway transport, stochastic resonance (SR) and some phenomena may happen when multi-machine traction system is hauling a sequence of carriages. These phenomena may vary with the coupling coefficients among these traction machines. To work together fluently and produce the maximum output, energy changes and maximum output of this system can be worked out with the power spectrum of the coupling system. Genetic algorithm can be used to search for the best coupling matrix so as different traction machines can work fluently and efficiently as a whole.

A project was designed to enhance the ability of inspectors at fixed safety and weight stations (scales) to identify “out-of-service” (OOS) commercial vehicles and drivers by using advanced video-based license plate scanners linked to database software on a personal computer, the MOOSE system. In Wisconsin the results of safety inspections at the scales are stored in real time on a central computer database. This includes commercial vehicles and drivers placed OOS because of major safety violations. The primary goals were to increase the effectiveness of OOS enforcement efforts, establish a bistate enforcement program, and identify future applications. The technology was tested on a corridor involving three scales in Wisconsin and one in Minnesota on westbound I-90/I-94. The MOOSE system did identify a large number of OOS vehicles and drivers, but upon reinspection, almost no current OOS violations were found. The MOOSE system was successfully implemented at the Minnesota scale, but, as in Wisconsin, very few current OOS violations were identified. Because the Minnesota scale operates 24 hr/day, drivers coming from Wisconsin who are still OOS will probably use bypass routes. The greatest potential benefit from the MOOSE system is likely to be from linking the license plates to a new system that provides safety rating scores. Inspectors could then select vehicles for inspection that have a higher probability of being OOS or having other safety violations.

A vision-based lane-departure warning system which adapts the variation of brightness is developed in this paper. By sequentially applying the proposed processing techniques as lane strengthening, dichotomy, and smoothing filtering, an efficient decision rule is then applied to the processed image to realize the lane-departure warning system. Moreover, according to the variation of the brightness by reading the output of a photo-resistance sensor, the adaptive threshold for dichotomy is achieved. The present system effectively achieves real-time lane-departure warning with 10 decisions per second and 97.4% correct detection rate as driving angles varied larger than /spl plusmn/5/spl deg/ in the experiments.