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Microplastics (MPs) pervade the environment and increasingly threaten both natural ecosystems and human health. In this study, we investigated MP particle concentrations in sediment samples collected from 54 sites along the banks of the Yangtze River and its major tributaries and on lakeshores. The main polymer types found in the samples were polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS) and polyethylene (PE). MP particle abundance in the various types of locations was 35-51,968 particles/kg dry weight (d.w.) on the banks of the main river, 52-1463 particles/kg (d.w.) on the banks of tributaries and 2574-23,685 particles/kg (d.w.) on lakeshores. Correlation between MP abundance and mean annual runoff of each upstream tributary was significant, which suggests that increased runoff brings more microplastic waste to streambank sediments. The most common shape of MP particles in all upstream samples was flake, and in downstream samples it was foam. Small microplastic particles ( 0.50 mm) were predominant at all sites in this study, and the minimum particle size in samples from the Yangtze river banks was 0.065 mm. Average abundance of MP particles on the shores of the source lake was 9069 particles/kg around the inlet but only 866 particles/kg around the outlet; the difference was due to interception associated with sedimentation and precipitation in the lake. Our study represents the large-scale study of MPs contamination in sediment along the Yangtze River and provides important data regarding the accumulation and distribution of MPs in shoreline sediments of the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, main tributaries and lakes in China.

Energy-efficient production scheduling research has received much attention because of the massive energy consumption of the manufacturing process. In this article, we study an energy-efficient job-shop scheduling problem with sequence-dependent setup time, aiming to minimize the makespan, total tardiness and total energy consumption simultaneously. To effectively evaluate and select solutions for a multiobjective optimization problem of this nature, a novel fitness evaluation mechanism (FEM) based on fuzzy relative entropy (FRE) is developed. FRE coefficients are calculated and used to evaluate the solutions. A multiobjective optimization framework is proposed based on the FEM and an adaptive local search strategy. A hybrid multiobjective genetic algorithm is then incorporated into the proposed framework to solve the problem at hand. Extensive experiments carried out confirm that our algorithm outperforms five other well-known multiobjective algorithms in solving the problem.

Owing to the complex nonlinear hysteresis of magnetorheological (MR) damper, the modeling of an MR damper is an issue. This paper examines a novel MR damper hysteresis model based on the grey theory, which can fully mine the internal laws for the data with small samples and poor information. To validate the model, the experiment is conducted in the MTS platform, and then the experimental results are compiled to identify the model parameters. Considering the complexity of the grey model and its inverse model solution, the grey model is simplified in two ways based on the grey relational analysis method. Furthermore, the simplified grey model compares to other models to prove the superiority of the grey model. The analysis suggests the fitting results correspond to the measured results, and the mean relative error (MRE) of grey model is within 2.04%. After the grey model is simplified, its accuracy is slightly reduced, while its inverse model is easier to solve and makes a unique solution. Finally, compared with the polynomial and Bouc-Wen model, the novel model with fewer identification parameters has high accuracy and predictive ability. This novel model has fabulous potential in designing the control strategy of MR damper.

Qiongjie Yu,* Xuedan Du,* Zhen Fang, Xiaolu Mao, Jinting Wu, Bin Wang, Wenfeng Li Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Wenfeng LiDepartment of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail lwf720325@126.comPurpose: Inflammatory biomarkers and clinical pathological factors have been reported to predict survival of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The goal of this study was to identify risk factors for early recurrence in patients with pIIIA-N2 NSCLC who had undergone radial resection.Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 238 patients with pIIIA-N2 NSCLC who underwent surgical treatment at the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University between December 2006 and August 2018. The early recurrence (ER) group included patients who recurred within one year of curative resection, while the non-early recurrence (NER) group included patients who did not recurrence or recurrence beyond one year. The univariate and multivariate Cox proportional risk analyses were used to identify prognostic factors associated with early recurrence, while the chi-square test was used for categorical data. Overall survival and recurrence-free survival were assessed by Kaplan–Meier estimates.Results: A total of 69 patients experienced an early recurrence, while the remaining 169 patients did not relapse within one year. ER patients had a much worse prognosis than NER patients, with median survival times of 20.6 and 83.1 months, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that smoking status, tumor size, metastatic lymph node ratio (LNR) and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) were independent risk factor of early recurrence. Patients with early recurrence were more likely to develop bone metastases.Conclusion: Smoking history, large tumour size, and elevated LNR and PLR values in pIIIA-N2 NSCLC patients after complete resection may have a significant risk of early recurrence. Based on these independent risk indicators, this prediction model may successfully predict early recurrence and advise individual treatment.Keywords: non-small cell lung cancer, early recurrence, risk factors, inflammatory biomarkers, prognosis

Background Ovarian cancer (OC) is the most lethal gynecological malignancy. The objective of this study was to establish and validate an individual aging‐related gene signature and a clinical nomogram that can powerfully predict independently the overall survival rate of patients with ovarian cancer. Methods Data on transcriptomic profile and relevant clinical information were retrieved from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database as a training group, and the same data from three public Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases as validation groups. Univariate Cox regression analysis, lasso regression analysis, and multiple multivariate Cox analysis were analyzed sequentially to select the genes to be included in the aging‐associated signature. A risk scoring model was established and verified, the predictive value of the model was evaluated, and a clinical nomogram was established. Results We found eight genes that were most relevant to prognosis and constructed an eight‐mRNA signature. Based on the model, each OC patient's risk score was able to be calculated and patients were split into groups of low and high risks with a distinct outcome. Survival analysis confirmed that the outcome of patients in the high‐risk group was dramatically shorter than that of those in the low‐risk group, and the eight‐mRNA signature can be considered as a powerful and independent predictor that could predict the outcome of OC patient. Additionally, the risk score and age can be used to construct a clinical nomogram as a simpler tool for predicting prognosis. We also explored the association between the risk score and immunity and drug sensitivity. Conclusion This study suggested that the aging‐related gene signature could be used as an intervention point and latent prognostic predictor in OC, which may provide new perceptions for postoperative treatment strategies., We constructed a prognostic signature of eight aging‐related genes and a clinical nomogram that provides potential biomarkers for predicting the prognosis of patients with OC, helps to understand the potential pathogenesis of OC, and can possibly be used to develop new approaches for the clinical treatment of ovarian cancer.

Objective In second-stage percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PCNL), because the hydronephrosis has been decompressed, the dilated renal pelvis has resolved and the space is small. Consequently, introduction of the tip of the Amplatz dilator can cause injury to the opposite side of the renal-pelvic mucosa. In this study, we report the experimental and initial clinical performance of a spherical-headed fascial dilator developed specifically for second-stage PCNL. Methods The novel spherical-headed dilator was compared with existing tapered-headed dilators in configuration and in puncture resistance utilizing a static puncture test. Subsequently, a pilot clinical study was conducted during which patients scheduled to undergo second-stage PCNL from June 2019 to October 2019 in our center were enrolled. A typical ultrasound guided PCNL procedure was performed with the exception that the new spherical-headed fascial dilator was substituted for a tapered-headed one. Results Experimentally, stab resistance against polyethylene film was significantly increased using the novel spherical-headed dilator compared to the traditional tapered-headed dilators (p

In the context of new retail and personalized, small-batch, distributed collaborative production, orders arrive in real time, and each workshop needs to organize production lines based on suborders in real time under the constraints of smart contracts. However, the existing cloud centralized scheduling method has very high calculation and communication costs when inserting orders in real time, and the fully reactive edge scheduling method is difficult to meet the various order-level requirements of customers. Therefore, this article proposes a real-time edge scheduling model that considers real-time trial insertion of orders based on order-level requirements. Further, a real-time edge adjustment method to eliminate fluctuations is proposed. The proposed strategies were implemented using the lightest methods, avoiding cascading effects, to apply to the edge. Experimental results show that proposed strategies have significant advantages in order-level indicators such as customer satisfaction and have slightly better performance in workshop-level indicators such as resource utilization, energy consumption, and makespan.

Purpose Mutation-specific T-cell response to epithelial cancers and T-cell-based immunotherapy has been successfully used to treat several human solid cancers. We aimed to investigate the anti-tumour effect of neo-antigen-reactive T(NRT) cells induced by RNA mutanome vaccine, which may serve as a feasible and effective therapeutic approach for lung cancer. Methods We predicted candidate neo-antigens according to the mutant gene analysis by sequencing the mouse Lewis cells and C57BL/6 mouse tail tissue. RNA vaccine was prepared with the neo-antigens as the template. We assessed antitumor efficacy, cytokine secretion and pathological changes after adoptive transfer of NRT cells in vitro and vivo experiments. Results We identified 10 non-synonymous somatic mutations and successfully generated NRT cells. The percentage of T-cell activation proportion was increased from 0.072% in conventional T cells to 9.96% in NRT cells. Interferon-γ secretion augmented from 17.8 to 24.2% as well. As an in vivo model, adoptive NRT cell infusion could promote active T-cell infiltration into the tumour tissue and could delay tumour progression. Conclusion NRT cells induced by RNA mutanome vaccine exert a significant anti-tumour effect in mouse lung cancer, and adoptive NRT cell therapy might be considered a feasible, effective therapeutic approach for lung cancer.

Background: Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is a heterogeneous disease characterized by high mortality and poor prognosis. Ferroptosis, a newly discovered iron-dependent type of cell death, has been found to play a crucial role in the development of cancers. However, little is known about the prognostic value of ferroptosis-related genes (FRGs) in LUAD. Methods: In the present study, RNA-seq transcriptome data of LUAD patients were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Cox regression analysis was used to construct a multigene signature. Kaplan–Meier survival and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were utilized to assess the prognostic prediction efficiency of the constructed survival model. LUAD patients from the {"type":"entrez-geo","attrs":{"text":"GSE30219","term_id":"30219"}}GSE30219 dataset were used for validation. Results: We found 46 differentially expressed FRGs between LUAD and adjacent normal tissues. Via univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses, 5 differentially expressed FRGs were identified as being highly correlated with LUAD. Patients were divided into low- and high-risk groups according to the risk score. We found that the overall survival (OS) of patients in the high-risk group was significantly worse than that of their low-risk counterparts. (P < 0.0001 in the TCGA dataset and P = 0.044 in the {"type":"entrez-geo","attrs":{"text":"GSE30219","term_id":"30219"}}GSE30219 cohort). In addition, gene set variation analysis (GSVA) of the tumor microenvironment of the two groups may explain the different survival of LUAD patients. Conclusions: Our study identified a novel FRG signature that could be used to evaluate and predict the prognosis of LUAD patients, which might provide a new therapeutic target for the treatment of LUAD patients.

In practical wireless sensor networks (WSNs), routing schemes determine the message-forwarding direction of sensor nodes, which have a significant impact on the cascading process of WSNs. However, the existing cascading failure models fail to consider the impact of routing schemes. Therefore, in this work, we propose an actual cascading failure model for WSNs considering routing factors. In this model, a sink-oriented load metric is proposed to characterize the actual load distribution of WSNs, and four load redistribution mechanisms ( i.e., latency-sensitive global routing, congestion-sensitive global routing, capacity-sensitive local routing and latency-sensitive local routing) are proposed to mimic the most commonly used routing schemes. Through extensive simulations, we have obtained some meaningful results: 1) there is a critical threshold for node capacity. When the node capacity is greater than the threshold, the lifting effects of capacity expansion are saturated; 2) there is a cascade interval for the attack range. Cascading failures occur only if the attack range is within this interval; 3) among the four routing schemes, congestion-sensitive global routing has the strongest cascading robustness; 4) flat-structured topology is the most robust, followed by clustering topology, and finally scale-free topology. The obtained results can provide theoretical support for improving the cascading robustness of WSNs.

In this research effort, an innovative magneto-rheological variable stiffness and damping torsional vibration absorber (MR-VSDTVB) is proposed, and independent variable damping control and independent variable stiffness control are adopted to suppress the torsional vibration of the transmission system. MR-VSDTVB, based on semi-active control principle, exhibits a compact structure and integrates with magneto-rheological technology. First, the concept of MR-VSDTVB is discussed, and the output torque characteristic of MR-VSDTVB is analytically developed. Then, a prototype is fabricated and tested. A transmission system with MR-VSDTVB is proposed to verify the MR-VSDTVB's effectiveness. The structure and inherent characteristics of the transmission system are analyzed theoretically. Finally, an experimental setup of transmission system with MR-VSDTVB is built. Experimental results indicate that when torsional stiffness of MR-VSDTVB changes, a frequency shift phenomenon occurs; moreover, when torsional damping of MR-VSDTVB changes, the response amplitude of the experimental setup changes regularly; And finally, the on-off control test validates the effectiveness of semi-active control on the torsional vibration suppression of the transmission system. The above results verify the effectiveness of MR-VSDTVB in suppressing the torsional vibration of the transmission system. These findings are expected to expand the application of magneto-rheological technology and variable stiffness and variable damping technology in torsional vibration of transmission systems.

Objectives This study aimed to assess the health utility of leukemia patients in China using the EQ-5D-5L, compare it with the population norms, and identify the potential factors associated with health utility. Methods A hospital based cross-sectional survey was conducted in three tertiary hospitals from July 2015 to February 2016. A total of 186 patients with leukemia completed the EQ-5D-5L and their health utility scores were calculated using the Chinese value set. EQ-5D-5L utility and dimensions scores of leukemia patients were compared with China’s population norms using Kruskal–Wallis test and chi square test. Potential factors associated with health utility were identified using Tobit regression. Results The mean EQ-5D-5L utility scores of patients with leukemia, grouped by either gender or age, were significantly lower than those of the general population (p p Conclusion This study indicated that leukemia patients have worse health status compared to the general population of China and that multiple factors affect the health utility of the patients. The utility scores reported in this study could be useful in future cost-utility analysis.

To avoid the limitation of conventional vehicle magnetorheological (MR) suspension, a variable damping and inertia device is applied in the vehicle suspension with MR technology. A semi-active adaptive MR inerter (AMRI) is discussed. A quarter car suspension model with an AMRI installed in parallel with a double-ended MR damper (D-MRD) is considered. First, the vehicle suspension with variable damping and inertia is analyzed. The prototype of D-MRD and MR variable inertia flywheel (MRVIF) are fabricated and tested respectively. Then, the control model of D-MRD and MRVIF is developed on the basis of test data. An improved Fuzzy PID controller for the semi-active suspension with D-MRD and AMRI is formulated. Numerical simulation is investigated to validate the proposed variable damping and inertia device. The results demonstrate that the performance of the semi-active suspension with D-MRD and AMRI can achieve much better ride comfort than the semi-active suspension with only D-MRD or AMRI.

Type 2 diabetes (T2D)-related neurological complication is the risk factor for neurodegenerative disorders. The pathological changes from T2D-caused blood–brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction plays a critical role in developing neurodegeneration. The hyper-activation of the Angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT1R) in the brain is associated with neurovascular impairment. The AT1R antagonist Valsartan is commonly prescribed to control high blood pressure, heart failure, and diabetic kidney diseases. In this study, we investigated the beneficial effects of Valsartan in db/db diabetic mice and isolated brain endothelial cells. We showed that 2 weeks of Valsartan administration (30 mg/Kg body weight) mitigated the increased permeability of the brain-blood barrier and the reduction of gap junction proteins VE-Cadherin and Claudin 2. In human brain microvascular cells (HBMVECs), we found that Valsartan treatment ameliorated high glucose-induced hyperpermeability by measuring Dextran uptake and transendothelial electrical resistance (TEER). Furthermore, Valsartan treatment recovered high glucose-repressed endothelial VE-Cadherin and Claudin 2 expression. Moreover, Valsartan significantly suppressed the expressions of pro-inflammatory cytokines such as macrophage chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) against high glucose. Mechanistically, Valsartan ameliorated high glucose-repressed endothelial cAMP-responsive element-binding protein (CREB) signaling activation. The blockage of CREB activation by PKA inhibitor H89 abolished the action of Valsartan, suggesting its dependence on CREB signaling. In conclusion, Valsartan shows a neuroprotective effect in diabetic mice by ameliorating BBB dysfunction. These effects of Valsartan require cellular CREB signaling in brain endothelial cells.

The purpose of our study was to assess organ function in 102 patients with severe COVID-19 infections, using retrospective clinical analysis.A retrospective analysis was conducted on 102 patients with severe COVID-19 infections. The patients were divided into a survival group (AST, BUN, CR, CK-MB, LDH, and CK in the non-survival group were higher than those in the survival group, and the differences were statistically significant (The results showed that there were different degrees of damage to the liver, kidneys, blood coagulation, and heart function in the non-survival group. In addition, PLT, AST, BUN, CR, D-Dimer, PT, FIB, F VIII:C, CK-MB, CK, and LDH had value in evaluating disease prognosis.Nuestro estudio tiene como objetivo evaluar la función del órgano en 102 pacientes con infección grave COVID-19 mediante análisis clínicos retrospectivos.Análisis retrospectivo de 102 pacientes con infección grave COVID-19. Los pacientes se dividieron en grupo de supervivencia (n = 73) y grupo de no supervivencia (n = 29) según la pre-fase. Edad, género, enfermedades subyacentes, datos de laboratorio clínico dentro de las 48 h (prueba de sangre de rutina, ALT, AST, TBIL, ALB, BUN, CR, dímero D, PT, APTT, FIB, F VIII: C, CK-MB, CK y LDH), y el estado de ventilación. Al comparar las diferencias entre los 2 grupos, se evaluó la función orgánica de estos pacientes graves con COVID-19.AST, BUN, CR, CK-MB, LDH y CK fueron todos más altos que el grupo de supervivencia en el grupo no sobreviviente, con una diferencia estadísticamente significativa (p 0,05). Dímero D, PT, FIB y F VIII: C fueron mayores que el grupo de supervivencia en el grupo de no supervivencia, y la diferencia fue estadísticamente significativa (p 0,05). PLT, AST, BUN, CR, dímero D, PT, FIB, F VIII: C, CK-MB, CK y LDH predijeron el área de curva inferior ROC (AUC) del evento final COVID-19, a 0,721, 0,854, 0,867, 0,757, 0,699, 0,679, 0,715, 0,811, 0,935 y 0,802, respectivamente.Los resultados mostraron que el grupo de no supervivencia tenía diferentes grados de daño al hígado, riñón, coagulación y función cardíaca. Además, PLT, AST, BUN, CR, dímero D, PT, FIB, F VIII:C, CK-MB, CK y LDH tienen valor en la evaluación del pronóstico de la enfermedad.

With the further development of the Deep Space Networking (DSN), more and more satellites and space probes will be put into space which makes the DSN more diverse and complex. We argued that Information Centric Networking (ICN) may be a suitable architecture for the DSN. In this paper, a publish-subscribe networking architecture based on ICN is proposed for future manned deep space exploration network. It adopts the publish-subscribe mechanism and decouples the control plane and data plane logically. In the proposed architecture, the improvement of routing is made to tolerant the long propagation delay and frequent link disruptions of deep space. And the multi-source transmission is considered to deal with the large amount of data in the future manned deep space exploration network. We evaluated the feasibility of the architecture and the performance of the protocol stack, the improved routing mechanism and the multi-source transmission. The results indicate that Publish-Subscribe Networking (PSN) can cope with the harsh transmission conditions, and the multi-source transmission can reduce the delivery time of data. It enables the network to allocate and share resources more efficiently and keeps the network well managed.

The effect of distant metastasis on prognosis in patients with Siewert type II adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction (AEG) remains elusive. Patients diagnosed as metastatic Siewert type II AEG were identified using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and a Cox proportional hazards analysis were performed to assess the effect of distant metastases sites. We analyzed 1616 eligible patients. Liver was the most frequent metastatic site. For patients with isolated distant metastasis, the median survival time was 8, 7, 8, 10, and 11 months for patients with liver, bone, brain, lung, and distant lymph nodal metastasis, respectively (p = 0.011). The number of metastatic sites and the site of distant metastasis were independent prognostic factors for cancer-specific survival (CSS). In patients with isolated distant metastasis, using bone metastasis as reference, lung (p = 0.011) or distant lymph node metastasis (p = 0.030) was associated with better CSS, while patients with liver (p = 0.051) or brain (p = 0.488) metastasis had similar CSS compared to patients with bone metastasis. CSS in metastatic Siewert type II AEG is dependent on the metastatic site and the number of metastatic sites.

Filamin A is the most widely expressed isoform of filamin in mammalian tissues. It can be hydrolyzed by Calpain, producing a 90-kDa carboxyl-terminal fragment (ABP90). Calpeptin is a chemical inhibitor of Calpain, which can inhibit this effect. It has been shown that ABP90 acts as a transcription factor which is involved in mediating cell signaling. However, the significance of ABP90 and its clinical signature with underlying mechanisms have not been well studied in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). ABP90 protein was measured in 36 glioma patients by Western blot. Human GBM cell lines U87 and A172 were used to clarify the precise role of ABP90. CCK-8 assay was used to analyze the cell viability. Transwell invasion assay and wound healing assay were used to analyze the migration and invasion. Expression of matrix metalloproteinase 2/tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinase 2 (MMP2/TIMP2) protein was analyzed by Western blot. ABP90 protein expression was lower in GBM tissues. The patients with low ABP90 protein expression had a shorter OS time (p = 0.046). After being treated with Calpain, the expression of ABP90 was upregulated, which led to a decline of cell viability, enhanced the efficacy of temozolomide and restrained the cell invasion. Calpeptin could inhibit the effect. The mechanism might be involved in the balance of MMP2/TIMP2. Our present data suggest that ABP90 expression is a significant prognostic factor and may play an important role in cell viability, chemotherapeutic sensitivity and invasion of GBM.

Next generation global navigation satellite systems (GNSSs) will embrace intersatellite links capability as an enabler of navigation and data transfer. However, platform restrictions will require of suitable contact plan design (CPD) schemes, which have been traditionally assumed centralized . After discussing the requirements of distributed CPD, we propose a first scheme in this class. Simulation results on the BeiDou GNSS prove that satisfactory metrics can be obtained enabling valuable and real autonomy for future GNSSs.

Background Primary tracheal small cell carcinoma (SCC) is an uncommon malignancy; therefore, its clinical features and prognosis are still unclear. Methods We used the population-based Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database to elucidate the clinical features and prognosis of primary tracheal SCC. The clinical features were assessed by using the chi-square test. Overall survival (OS) was computed using the Kaplan-Meier method, and a Cox proportional hazards analysis was performed to evaluate the prognostic factors. Results From 1973 to 2015, 1,392 primary tracheal tumor cases were reported in the SEER database, 75 (5.4%) of which were SCC. Age, sex, race, extent of disease, lymph node involvement, surgery and radiation treatment were similar between patients with SCC and those with squamous cell carcinoma (SQC), but patients with SCC were more likely to receive chemotherapy (65.8% vs. 28.2%, respectively; P

The incessant diffusion of smart wearable devices and Body Area Networks (BANs) systems is pushing more and more researches on human activity recognition. Previous studies usually adopted fixed time window or chose an optimal window size depending on the characteristics of the activity. In this paper, we propose an adaptive time window-based algorithm of activity recognition, which addresses the problem of different types of activities having different time duration that usually causes poor recognition results. Multivariate Gaussian Distribution (MGD) method was used to detect the signal difference between each determined time window and the defined activity characteristics, and we more accurately define the time window size for each activity. To evaluate the proposed algorithm, we focused on the activities performed by wheelchair users in their daily life, so as to provide them with better healthcare services. We construct two different datasets, respectively considering static and dynamic wheelchair user activities on different ground surfaces. Then, we use time window expansion and contraction method to determine and dynamically adjust the window size for each activity. Different comparison criteria such as recognition precision and F-score were used to evaluate our algorithm. Experiment results revealed that, according to F-score, the proposed algorithm performs 15.3% better than traditional methods in static conditions. In dynamic scenarios we observed 6.4% and 24.5% improvements on flat and rough floors, respectively.

In most cases, wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are deployed in unattended scenarios and are featured by energy sensitivity and low cost, thus making the performance of WSNs prone to the impact of external environment and internal energy. Existing routing protocols attempted to optimize the energy efficiency and routing reliability from the perspective of the network itself and failed to take into consideration the environmental impact from outside, causing them cannot make prompt reactions to the dynamic changes of the environments (e.g., wildfire). Thus, in these routing protocols the routing survivability under harsh environments is questionable. To tackle this issue, the paper proposes an environment-fusion multipath routing protocol (EFMRP) to provide sustainable message forwarding service under harsh environments. In EFMRP, routing decisions are made according to a mixed potential field in terms of depth, residual energy and environment. The basic idea of this approach is to instruct data packets to select routes with the best trade-off among latency, energy conservation and routing survivability. As the environmental field is constructed and updated using the sensing capability of WSN itself, constructed routes can avoid crossing through the danger zones to keep the paths safe. To enhance the performance of EFMRP, specific maintenance, traffic allocation and retreat mechanisms are proposed. We investigate the impact of configuration parameters and paths number on the routing performance respectively and compare EFMRP with respect to commonly used routing protocols. The experimental results show that EFMRP can obtain significant improvements in packet delivery ratio and network lifetime under harsh environments.

Tumor-infiltrating B cells and tertiary lymphoid structures have been identified to predict the responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in cancer immunotherapy. Considering the feasibility of sample collection, whether peripheral B cell signatures are associated with the responses to ICI therapy remains unclear. Herein, we have defined peripheral B cell signatures in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients receiving anti-PD-1 monotherapy and investigated their associations with clinical efficacy. It was found that the percentages of B cells before the treatment (baseline) were significantly higher (P = 0.004) in responder (R, n = 17) than those in non-responder (NonR, n = 33) NSCLC patients in a discovery cohort. Moreover, the percentages of baseline IgM+ memory B cells were higher (P < 0.001) in R group than those in NonR group, and associated with a longer progression free survival (PFS) (P = 0.003). By logistic regression analysis peripheral baseline IgM+ memory B cells were identified as an independent prognostic factor (P = 0.002) for the prediction of the responses to anti-PD-1 monotherapy with the AUC value of 0.791, which was further validated in another anti-PD-1 monotherapy cohort (P = 0.011, n = 70) whereas no significance was observed in patients receiving anti-PD-L1 monotherapy (P = 0.135, n = 30). Therefore, our data suggest the roles of peripheral IgM+ memory B cells in predicting the responses to anti-PD-1 treatment in Chinese advanced NSCLC patients.

Lixiao Liu,1,&ast; Xuedan Du,2,&ast; Jintao Fang,3,&ast; Jinduo Zhao,1 Yong Guo,3 Ye Zhao,1 Chengyang Zou,1 Xiaojian Yan,1 Wenfeng Li2 1Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Chemoradiation Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Urinary Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Wenfeng Li; Xiaojian Yan Email liwenfeng@wmu.edu.cn; yxjbetter2016@hotmail.comBackground: Interferon plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis and progression of tumors. Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) represents a prevalent malignant urinary system tumor. An effective predictive model is required to evaluate the prognosis of patients to optimize treatment.Materials and Methods: RNA-sequencing data and clinicopathological data from TCGA were involved in this retrospective study. The IFN-γ response genes with significantly different gene expression were screened out. Univariate Cox regression, LASSO regression and multivariate Cox regression were used to establish a new prognostic scoring model for the training group. Survival curves and ROC curves were drawn, and nomogram was constructed. At the same time, we conducted subgroup analysis and experimental verification using our own samples. Finally, we evaluated the relatedness between the prognostic signature and immune infiltration landscapes. In addition, the sensitivity of different risk groups to six drugs and immune checkpoint inhibitors was calculated.Results: The IFN-γ response-related signature included 7 genes: C1S, IFI44, ST3GAL5, NUP93, TDRD7, DDX60, and ST8SIA4. The survival curves of the training and testing groups showed the model’s effectiveness (P = 4.372e-11 and P = 1.08e-08, respectively), the ROC curves showed that the signature was stable, and subgroup analyses showed the wide applicability of the model (P< 0.001). Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that the risk model was an independent prognostic factor of ccRCC. A high-risk score may represent an immunosuppressive microenvironment, while the high-risk group exhibited poor sensitivity to drugs.Conclusion: Our findings strongly indicate that the IFN-γ response-related signature can be used as an effective prognostic indicator of ccRCC.Keywords: interferon gamma, nomogram, prognostic signature, drug sensitivity, qPCR

High performance analysis and processing technology of load data is an important basic of situation awareness technology in the context of power Internet of things. Under this background, a high performance deep learning load classification method for the massive class imbalanced load data is presented. Firstly, the mogrifier long short-term memory (Mogrifier-LSTM) network is presented as the basic classification algorithm to solve the deficiency of information interaction between input layer and hidden layer in traditional LSTM. In addition, attention mechanism and bidirectional feature fusion mechanism are introduced to further improve the ability of learning the association characteristics of time series data. Secondly, the Spark distributed computing framework is employed to realize the parallel processing of massive load data, which can improve the efficiency of classification task. And then, ensemble learning is introduced to improve the classification accuracy of the parallel processing. At last, the ADASYN method is employed to balance the load data, which can solve the potential class imbalance issue. The experiments show that the presented load classification method has advantages in terms of classification accuracy and efficiency.

Bad weather conditions (such as fog, haze) seriously affect the visual quality of images. According to the scene depth information, physical model-based methods are used to improve image visibility for further image restoration. However, the unstable acquisition of the scene depth information seriously affects the defogging performance of physical model-based methods. Additionally, most of image enhancement-based methods focus on the global adjustment of image contrast and saturation, and lack the local details for image restoration. So, this paper proposes a single image defogging method based on image patch decomposition and multi-exposure fusion. First, a single foggy image is processed by gamma correction to obtain a set of underexposed images. Then the saturation of the obtained underexposed and original images is enhanced. Next, each image in the multi-exposure image set (including the set of underexposed images and the original image) is decomposed into the base and detail layers by a guided filter. The base layers are first decomposed into image patches, and then the fusion weight maps of the image patches are constructed. For detail layers, the exposure features are first extracted from the luminance components of images, and then the extracted exposure features are evaluated by constructing gaussian functions. Finally, both base and detail layers are combined to obtain the defogged image. The proposed method is compared with the state-of-the-art methods. The comparative experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method and its superiority over the state-of-the-art methods.

Smart audio devices are gated by an always-on lightweight keyword spotting program to reduce power consumption. It is however challenging to design models that have both high accuracy and low latency for accurate and fast responsiveness. Many efforts have been made to develop end-to-end neural networks, in which depthwise separable convolutions, temporal convolutions, and LSTMs are adopted as building units. Nonetheless, these networks designed with human expertise may not achieve an optimal trade-off in an expansive search space. In this paper, we propose to leverage recent advances in differentiable neural architecture search to discover more efficient networks. Our searched model attains 97.2% top-1 accuracy on Google Speech Command Dataset v1 with only nearly 100K parameters., Comment: ICASSP 2021

Wenfeng Li,&ast; Yuanshen Mao,&ast; Yufei Gu, Chao Lu, Xin Gu, Bao Hua, Weixin Pan, Qinghong Xi, Bin Xu Department of Urology, The Ninth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Bin Xu; Qinghong XiDepartment of Urology, The Ninth People’s Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +862156691101Email kuangfeng0612@126.com; 13611829161@163.comBackground: Effective pain management is limited for patients during prostate biopsy (PBx). Touch support, such as hand holding, has stress-buffering benefits and effective analgesic effects. We conducted a prospective, single-center randomized clinical trial to assess whether hand holding can reduce patient anxiety, pain, and dissatisfaction during PBx.Methods: Between April 2020 and October 2020, 120 male patients were randomized into three groups: a hand holding with relatives (HR) group, a hand holding with strangers (HS) group and a control group. A visual analog scale (VAS) was used for self-assessments of pain and satisfaction. Anxiety levels were quantified according to the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Hemodynamic changes were also measured.Results: The degree of pain and anxiety in the hand-holding groups was significantly better than that in the control group (P< 0.001), and the patients were more willing to undergo repeat PBx (P=0.017). The anxiety levels in the HR group were significantly lower than those in the HS group (P=0.019). During PBx, the changes in systolic blood pressure and heart rate in the hand-holding groups were more stable than those in the control group (P< 0.01), and the fluctuations in heart rate in the HR group were smaller than those in the HS group (P< 0.01).Conclusion: Hand holding, especially with relatives, can promote incremental reductions in anxiety, pain and dissatisfaction in patients during PBx. Hence, we recommend hand holding with relatives as an effective adjunct during PBx.Keywords: anxiety, transrectal prostate biopsy, hand holding, pain, satisfaction

One of the main problems of large-scale wind power access to the power system is the fault ride-through (FRT) ability of wind turbine generator (WTG) at present. A fast-reactive current control (FR...

Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) fusions have been recognized as a therapeutic target in non‐small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, molecular signatures and clinical characteristics of the Chinese population with ALK‐rearranged NSCLC are not well elucidated. In the present study, we carried out targeted next‐generation sequencing on tissue and plasma ctDNA samples in 1688 patients with NSCLC. Overall, ALK fusions were detected in 70 patients (4.1%), and the frequencies of ALK fusions detected in tissue and plasma samples were 5.1% and 3.3%, respectively. Additionally, the prevalence of breakpoint locations for EML4‐ALK fusions in ctDNA was significantly correlated with that in tumor tissues (R 2 = .91, P = .045). According to age, the incidence rates of ALK fusions among young (age 70 years) patients were significantly different (P

BackgroundSmall-cell lung cancer (SCLC) remains an aggressive cancer with short-term survival due to limited therapeutic options. Apatinib is a small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor that selectively inhibits vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2. This study aimed to investigate the efficacy and safety of apatinib in patients with extensive-stage (EC) SCLC who had progressed after two or three previous therapies.MethodsEligible patients were histologically confirmed ES-SCLC after two or three previous treatments, including a platinum-based regimen. Patients received apatinib at an initial dose of 500 mg once daily. The primary endpoint was the objective response rate.ResultsForty patients were enrolled. At the data cut-off time (November 15, 2018), the median follow-up was 7.4 months; no patients remained on treatment, and five were still in follow-up. An objective response was achieved in 7 of 40 patients (17.5%) in the intention-to-treat population, and 7 of 38 patients (18.4%) in the per-protocol population. The median progression-free survival and overall survival were 3.0 months and 5·8 months, respectively. The most commonly observed grade 3 or greater treatment-related adverse events were hypertension, hand–foot syndrome, increased L-gamma-glutamyltransferase.ConclusionsApatinib exhibited efficacy and an acceptable safety profile in previously heavily-treated ES-SCLC patients. Further exploration of apatinib in phase III trials is warranted.Trial registrationNCT02945852.

High brightness and precise adjustment of luminescence colour of phosphors are two main targets in the research of phosphor-converted white LEDs. However, few feasible strategy can be employed to achieve the multicolor-tunable luminescence under the premise of maintaining high quantum efficiency. Here, we demonstrate a high-efficiency energy-transfer process from Tb3+ to Eu3+ ions with a higher luminescent quantum efficiency (64.5% and 53.4%, respectively), and green-red multicolor emission in Lu2GeO5 host via varying the doping content of Tb3+ and Eu3+ ions. Besides, Lu2GeO5:Tb3+, Lu2GeO5: Eu3+ and Lu2GeO5: Tb3+, Eu3+ all exhibit weak thermal quenching which ensures the stable use of white LED device in the high temperature environment. This paper provides a novel multicolor-tunable phosphor with high brightness, efficient energy transfer and weak thermal quenching, which presents a potential application for UV-converted white LEDs.

Advanced gastric cancer (AGC) is difficult to treat with poor prognosis. Despite various possible treatments, the median survival time of such patients remains unsatisfactory. Therefore, new therapeutic approaches or combinations need to be further explored. We herein reported a case of a 54-year-old male patient who was initially diagnosed with HER2-negative advanced gastric cancer. Based on previous studies and patient’s desire, we made a therapeutic plan: the combination of concurrent radiochemotherapy and immune checkpoint blockade therapy. After about 4 months of combined therapy, the patient showed satisfactory complete response to tumor lesions even metastatic lesions (CR, disappearance of all target lesions). In summary, the combination of concurrent SOX regimen chemotherapy, stomach radiotherapy and PD-1 antibody immunotherapy is effective in the treatment of advanced gastric cancer.

A comprehensive learning particle swarm optimizer (CLPSO) embedded with local search (LS) is proposed to pursue higher optimization performance by taking the advantages of CLPSO’s strong global search capability and LS’s fast convergence ability. This paper proposes an adaptive LS starting strategy by utilizing our proposed quasi-entropy index to address its key issue, i.e., when to start LS. The changes of the index as the optimization proceeds are analyzed in theory and via numerical tests. The proposed algorithm is tested on multimodal benchmark functions. Parameter sensitivity analysis is performed to demonstrate its robustness. The comparison results reveal overall higher convergence rate and accuracy than those of CLPSO, state-of-the-art particle swarm optimization variants.

CRYAB is a member of the small heat shock protein family, first discovered in the lens of the eye, and involved in various diseases, such as eye and heart diseases and even cancers, for example, breast cancer, lung cancer, prostate cancer, and ovarian cancer. In addition, CRYAB proteins are involved in a variety of signaling pathways including apoptosis, inflammation, and oxidative stress. This review summarizes the recent progress concerning the role of CRYAB in signaling pathways and diseases. Therefore, the role of CRYAB in signaling pathways and cancers is urgently needed. This article reviews the regulation of CRYAB in the apoptotic inflammatory signaling pathway and its role in cancers progression and as a key role in anti-cancer therapy targeting CRYAB in an effort to improve outcomes for patients with metastatic disease.

Forgotten ureteral stents (FUS) is a great threat to both patients and doctors. Applications on smartphones can significantly reduce the incidence of FUS. But existing applications do not have instant notification and consultation functions. To implement those function, we developed a ureteral stent tracking system embedded in a social networking service application, WeChat. "Ureteral Stent Tracking System" was developed on WeChat, a social media application using by 1.4 million active users. The study consecutively enrolled patients who underwent ureteral stent installation from April 2018 to July 2018. Each patient's information was recorded on the smartphone by the urologists to create a document immediately after the surgery. The system sends notifications twice a week to both patients and clinicians via the message function of WeChat. A total of 183 patients were enrolled. The most senior patient enrolled was 73 years old. 156 (85.2%) patients underwent stent extraction before the scheduled time. 22 did not undergo stent extraction before the scheduled time because of urinary tract infection or stone residue. They underwent stent extraction within 1 month after the scheduled time. Two patients did not come to the hospital until we had made a phone call to them, though they had received notification from the online system. During the study, no patient was lost-to-follow up. In bilateral stents cases, no stent was forgotten after extraction surgery. A total of 85 (46.4%) patients consulted 132 issues in the system. 52 (39.4%) patients complained about hematuria. 36 (27.3%) patients reported lower urinary tract symptoms. All the consultations were answered within 24 h. "Ureteral Stent Tracking System" implement instant notification and consultation functions via WeChat. It helps urologists to manage indwelling ureteral stents and to reduce the incidence of FUS efficiently.

How to shorten time delay and enhance delivery ratio in sparse settings is still an open issue in the study of opportunistic networks. Most proposals are trying to deal with this issue by introducing infrastructures; however, although related research has been proved to be useful in improving the routing performance of the network, there is still room for further improvement. In this paper, inspired by the powerful message synchronization capability of wireless sensor networks (WSNs), we propose a new opportunistic network framework called WON that introduces WSNs into the opportunistic network. With the support of WSNs, low latency delivery and high delivery ratio can be achieved. To make the best use of WSNs, we present a comprehensive routing mechanism that is able to cover all the message-forwarding activities (i.e., mobile-to-mobile, mobile-to-stationary, stationary-to-mobile and stationary-to-stationary) in WON. To tackle the challenging issues caused by constrained energy and storage space, we develop a storage management scheme and a message control scheme. The experimental results show that WON can improve the success ratio while lowering the latency compared with the existing architectures. Furthermore, it is shown that WON is a highly effective solution for the rapid deployment of a low-latency communication network in the disaster-relief scenarios.

Purpose: The induced death signals following oncogene inhibition underlie clinical efficacy of molecular targeted therapies against human cancer, and defects of intact cell apoptosis machinery often lead to therapeutic failure. Despite potential importance, other forms of regulated cell death triggered by pharmacologic intervention have not been systematically characterized. Experimental Design: Pyroptotic cell death was assessed by immunoblot analysis, phase-contrast imaging, scanning electron microscopy, and flow cytometry. Tumor tissues of patients with lung cancer were analyzed using IHC. Functional impact of pyroptosis on drug response was investigated in cell lines and xenograft models. Results: We showed that diverse small-molecule inhibitors specifically targeting KRAS-, EGFR-, or ALK-driven lung cancer uniformly elicited robust pyroptotic cell death, in addition to simultaneously invoking cellular apoptosis. Upon drug treatment, the mitochondrial intrinsic apoptotic pathway was engaged and the mobilized caspase-3 protease cleaved and activated gasdermin E (GSDME, encoded by DFNA5), which permeabilized cytoplasmic membrane and executed cell-lytic pyroptosis. GSDME displayed ubiquitous expression in various lung cancer cell lines and clinical specimens, including KRAS-mutant, EGFR-altered, and ALK-rearranged adenocarcinomas. As a result, cooccurrence and interplay of apoptosis and pyroptosis were widespread in lung cancer cells, succumbing to genotype-matched regimens. We further demonstrated that pyroptotic cell death partially contributed to the drug response in a subset of cancer models. Conclusions: These results pinpoint GSDME-dependent pyroptosis as a previously unrecognized mechanism of action for molecular targeted agents to eradicate oncogene-addicted neoplastic cells, which may have important implications for the clinical development and optimal application of anticancer therapeutics.

Delay/disruption tolerant networking (DTN) [1] is proposed as an internetworking architecture for reliable data delivery despite a long propagation delay and/or lengthy link disruptions. DTN targets challenging networking environments where traditional networking protocols such as the terrestrial Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) typically do not work effectively. The challenging problem of mission control and data delivery in space communications is a typical application scenario of the DTN technology. Reliable and highly efficient data delivery of DTN relies heavily on the bundle protocol (BP) [2]. BP is intended to establish an overlay network that is able to withstand intermittent data link connectivity in the delivery of DTN data units, termed bundles. BP adopts a store-and-forward mechanism and a custody transfer option for transmission reliability.

Wireless sensor networks have been widely used in industrial IoT contexts due to their useful support during the production monitoring and risk pre-warning. However, complicated and extremely variable industrial environments call for higher communication stability and reliability to guarantee timely transmission of monitored data. Considering mobile intelligences such as Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs), within industrial scenarios, we propose a solution based on hybrid (fixed and mobile) industrial wireless sensor networks featured with a task-oriented model. The proposal includes a heuristic modeling method adopted to assign tasks from definite orders which will be sent to the controller, and a collaborative routing algorithm exploiting the AGVs mobility on specific trajectories. Experiments have shown that, using mobility features of the AGVs, the integrated solution can promptly repair the network when a node and the relative link fail or the detected quality is low, significantly reducing the energy consumption of wireless nodes and data communication delay, thus improving the overall throughput and reliability of industrial IoT systems.

In this paper, the runaway transient process in a bulb turbine has been investigated by adopting commercial CFD code ANSYS CFX, and transient characteristics in the process have been examined and analyzed in detail. The results show that the predicted maximal runaway rotational speed and flow rate of the turbine are in close agreement with experimental data. During transient process, both the flow rate and rotational speed are rising with time, leading to an increase in both axial and circumferential velocities at the runner outlet. The velocity ratio between them has been diminished greatly at the draft tube inlet, inducing a spiral vortex rope growing with time. The cavitation will shorten the duration and reduce the maximal rotational speed of the runaway process. The runner blade pressure surface is much more critical to cavitation than the suction surface. The amplitude of pressure fluctuation in the runaway process is increasing in the main flow direction. Furthermore, the amplitude of pressure fluctuation reaches up to over 100% of the working head in the draft tube, considerably threatening the safe operation of the turbine.

Recently, the emergence of immunotherapy has revolutionized traditional tumour treatment. However, effective treatments for patients exhibiting αPD-1 resistance are still lacking. In our study, a combination of cytosine–phosphate–guanine oligodeoxynucleotides (CpG-ODNs), anti-OX40 and cyclic guanosine monophosphate–adenosine monophosphate (cGAMP) injection in situ systematically generated a robust antitumour immune response in TC1 and B16 cells, which are αPD-1-resistant malignancies. More precisely, this method activates both adaptive and innate immunity. Additionally, in situ vaccination with CpG/αOX40/cGAMP fully activates the production of cytokines. However, the combination of αPD-1 does not improve the efficacy of triple therapy, prompting further questions. Collectively, the combination of CpG/αOX40/cGAMP causes the regression of various αPD-1-resistant tumours through the full mobilization of innate and adaptive immunity. In addition, we explored the therapeutic effect of triple therapy on the αPD-1-sensitive cell line CT26. The results showed that triple therapy could significantly enhance the therapeutic effect of αPD-1, and some mice even achieved complete tumour regression after the combined application of αPD-1 and triple treatment.

With the construction of interconnected power grid and the rapid development of clean energy, the frequency problem of power system is becoming increasingly prominent. The problem of ultra-low frequency oscillation affects the stability of system frequency. In order to analyze the frequency regulation characteristics of the system, it is necessary to study the local active power control link and stability calculation model of the hydropower plant computer monitoring system. In this paper, the influence of the local active power control link of the monitoring system on the system frequency small signal stability is studied, and the model is built in the simulation program. Through the simulation of 4-machine-2 regional power grid, the influence characteristics of local active power control on frequency dynamic damping level are verified. In the example of large power grid, the coordination between the local active power control of the monitoring system and the speed regulation system of hydropower units is comprehensively considered, the suggestion of coordination of multi-level frequency modulation resources to system frequency regulation is put forward.

Boarder Gateway Protocol (BGP) is mainly used for inter-domain routing in terrestrial internetworking. However, when the traditional BGP is used for space internetworking, inter-domain link interruption might occur more frequently and the time of routing convergence will tend to be long, which would greatly reduce the stability of the network. A new variant of border gateway protocol, N-BGP is proposed in this paper for space internetworking. Firstly, the existing NTD-BGP method are adopted in N-BGP to deal with predictable link changes caused by orbital dynamics of satellites. For the unpredictable link break, BGP finite state machine is modified and a new link break detection mechanism is also introduced. Considering the predictability of satellite motion, the backup routing mechanism is also used to maintain the stability of the network, which realizes the high stability of inter-domain routing. The experimental results show that the improved routing protocol N-BGP is superior to the traditional BGP in reducing the detection time of link interruption and maintaining the network stability.

With the continuous development of Space Information Networks (SIN), there is an increasing demand for a cost-effective and high-fidelity tool to carry out research on related networking technologies. Neither the real testbed which is expensive nor the simulators which lack realism can meet our requirements. Therefore, this paper introduces MininetE to emulate space networking allowing relatively high-fidelity experiments that can run on the constrained resources of a single laptop. MininetE enhances the well-known Mininet emulator with adequate isolation and implements dynamic topology control with the original SDN capabilities. The validity of MininetE is verified by results of a Delay-/Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN) experiment.

This paper presents a research on the performance of packet layer coding for space streaming, which integrates Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) Code into space streaming service. By implementing LDPC code into higher layers, such as bundle layer or transport layer, the space streaming service can achieve stronger error correction capability, which improves the quality of experience of space streaming service. To evaluate the performance of packet layer coding for space streaming, emulation of data streaming in space are conducted. The results of the experiments show that compared with the original transmission scheme, space streaming service with packet layer coding has obvious improvements.

Driven by lacking of a low-cost, large-scale, flexible and reconfigurable general purpose network emulation platform for space networking, ISTIN laboratory of Nanjing University designed a flexible and fully reconfigurable space network emulation platform supporting emulation of multiple network architectures and network protocols. We have carried out some space network protocol research based on the platform, such as DTN and IP. This paper constructs a spatial network scenario to evaluate OSPF and OSPF+ routing performance on this platform The emulation results indicate the emulation platform has the ability of IP routing emulation, which guarantees considerable reliability and provides a reference for subsequent emulation work of IP protocols.

The positioning of the apple growth cycle plays a very important role in predicting the development of apples and guiding fruit farmers in agricultural operations. The traditional method of manually positioning the apple growth cycle has problems such as low efficiency and poor accuracy. Pattern recognition provides support for continuous and rapid positioning during the apple growth process. Under the natural conditions of the orchard, due to the large differences in the individual colors of the apples during the growth process and the influence of factors such as light changes, the photographed apple images are more complex, which brings certain difficulties to the segmentation and recognition of the apples. In this paper, pattern recognition is used to automatically identify and extract the growth stages of apples, a hue intensity (HI) color segmentation algorithm based on a Gaussian distribution model based on prior knowledge is studied, and then an active shape model (ASM) is used to identify each period of apple growth based on pattern recognition. After a series of experimental verifications, the ASM-based automatic identification method proposed in this paper is feasible and can identify the various growth periods of apples, thereby serving the mechanized production of apples.