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The development of miniature mass spectrometry (MS) systems with simple analysis procedures is important for the transition of applying MS analysis outside traditional analytical laboratories. Here, we present Mini 14, a handheld MS instrument with disposable sample cartridges designed based on the ambient ionization concept for intrasurgical tissue analysis and surface analysis. The instrumentation architecture consists of a single-stage vacuum chamber with a discontinuous atmospheric interface and a linear ion trap. A major effort in this study for technical advancement is on making handheld MS systems capable of automatically adapting to complex conditions for in-field analysis. Machine learning is used to establish the model for autocorrecting the mass offsets in the mass scale due to temperature variations and a new strategy is developed to extend the dynamic concentration range for analysis. Mini 14 weighs 12 kg and can operate on battery power for more than 3 h. The mass range exceeds m/z 2000, and the full peak width at half-maximum is Δm/z 0.4 at a scanning speed of 700 Th/s. The direct analysis of human brain tissue for identifying glioma associated with isocitrate dehydrogenase mutations has been achieved and a limit of detection of 5 ng/mL has been obtained for analyzing illicit drugs in blood.

Objectives Pyroptosis has been found implicated in several diseases, however, whether it was involved in gouty arthritis remained unclear. Our study was performed to uncover the role of pyroptosis in gouty arthritis based on a mice model. Methods Mouse gouty arthritis model was established by injections of potassium oxonate (PO), monosodium urate (MSU) and pyroptosis suppressor disulfiram. The diameter of the ankle joints was measured, and ankle joints morphology was observed with hematoxylin–eosin (H&E) staining. Uric acid, creatinine and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) concentrations were measured, while cytokines level and xanthine oxidase (XOD) activity were quantified. Relative pyroptosis markers expressions were determined using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and Western blot as needed. Results In mouse model, PO and MSU injections cause damage to right ankle, increase the root thickness ratio and uric acid, creatinine and BUN levels in serum and decrease the uric acid and creatinine levels in urine. Also, under PO and MSU treatment, up-regulated XOD activity, inflammatory cytokines levels and pyroptosis markers expressions are observed. Negative regulation of mice injury by disulfiram treatment is also observed. Conclusion Pyroptosis inhibition might alleviate PO- and MSU-induced gouty arthritis, providing possible therapeutic strategies for gouty arthritis.

Background GAS5 contains a hormone response element that can induce cell apoptosis in breast cancer. It is known that cell apoptosis and hormone response play crucial roles in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), indicating the potential involvement of GAS5 in PCOS. This study was performed to investigate the potential involvement of GAS5 and IL-6 (a critical player in PCOS) in PCOS. Methods Research subjects of this study included 60 PCOS patients and 60 healthy controls. The expression levels of GAS5 and IL-6 in plasma of both patients and controls were measured by qPCR and ELISA, respectively. Cell transfections were performed to analyze the interaction between GAS5 and IL-6. Cell apoptosis was analyzed by cell apoptosis assay. Results GAS5 was upregulated in plasma of PCOS patients. The expression levels of GAS5 were positively correlated with the expression levels of IL-6. Altered expression levels of GAS5 and IL-6 distinguished PCOS patients from healthy controls. In cells of a granulosa-like tumor cell line (KGN), overexpression of GAS5 led to upregulated IL-6, while silencing of GAS5 played an opposite role. Cell apoptosis analysis showed that overexpression of GAS5 significantly decreased apoptosis rate of KGN cells. Silencing of GAS5 increased the rate of KGN cell apoptosis. Conclusions GAS5 is upregulated in PCOS and regulates cell apoptosis and the expression of IL-6.

As its name implies, ARAIM is an evolution of Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (RAIM) which has been used by aircraft for many years to support horizontal navigation [1, 2, 3]. RAIM is limited to GPS-only, L1-only measurements. It was developed in the 1990’s before the Satellite Based Augmentations Systems (SBASs) and the Ground Based Augmentations Systems (GBASs). These later augmentations developed much more detailed descriptions of potential threats to satellite ranging accuracy as well as more sophisticated analysis techniques for describing and bounding errors. ARAIM harmonizes the threat models with these augmentation systems and leverages their advanced techniques to analyze and mitigate the threats. ARAIM also supports the combination of signals on multiple frequencies and from other constellations in addition to GPS. A significant part of the ARAIM concept is to provide a transparent method to validate key integrity parameters and to transmit their numerical values to users through an Integrity Support Message (ISM). The parameters in this ISM convey the level of performance and trust that can be put into the system. In this paper, we describe the methodology used to evaluate these ISM parameters and to ensure that they conform to requirements [4, 5, 6]. The ISM parameters include 5 key elements. These are: P_sat – The probability that an individual satellite is in a faulted state at any given time P_const – The probability that multiple satellites are in a faulted state at any given time Alpha_URA – A multiplier to obtain the integrity overbound of the uncertainty on the SIS error b_nom – An overbound on the magnitude of the SIS long-term/deterministic bias error MFD – The Mean Fault Duration or average time that a satellite stays in a faulted state The paper will develop the following points: Signal-In-Space Range Error Estimation. The estimated instantaneous SISREs must accurately represent the effects of satellite orbit and clock errors (as well as other random components of other SISRE error sources) affecting the user’s pseudorange errors [7]. This could fail to happen in four primary ways: - Incorrect broadcast clock and ephemeris data - Incorrect precise clock and ephemeris data - Missing data (particularly during anomalous event) - Data is processed incorrectly We will briefly go over the methods to address these issues, as well as the use of precise orbits, and clock estimates. Long-Term System Behavior. The purpose of the ISM parameters is to describe expectations on future performance. Therefore, it is imperative to establish that operational behaviors will be maintained and not become worse than described. We will describe a set of analyses to measure the long term behavior. For GPS, these analyses confirm that the performance has steadily improved. Specific Risk Evaluation. It is important to identify predictable and/or repeatable behavior so that risk may be properly characterized. Averaging risk across different conditions is not safe to do if those conditions have significantly different levels of risk. The events associated with higher risk will be erroneously assessed to have better integrity than they actually do. We therefore consider the question of how to aggregate the data for this evaluation, and propose a set of partitions including: - Individual satellites - Satellite block type (including clock type) - Time (by year, by season, by month, or by day) - Satellite age - Age of navigation data Probability Overbounding. We will go over the steps involved in the overbounding process, as well as the different techniques and tools available to determine gaussian overbounds (symmetrical unimodal gaussian bounding and paired bounding) [8, 9, 10, 11]. Error Correlation. The overbounding results in the range domain depend on an assumption of independence. However, there are mechanisms that can impact the clock and ephemeris estimates such the errors are correlated, as, for example, the time transfer across the monitoring receivers, correlated errors at the monitoring stations etc. We therefore need to ensure that the errors can be treated as if they were independent and still end up with conservative error bounds. To demonstrate that the errors can be treated as if they were independent, we will examine the statistics of the sum of square normalized residuals for each vector errors affecting a user. Fault Rate Estimation. We will review methods to estimate upper limits of the fault rates (from which the probabilities Psat and Pconst can be derived) [12]. This will include the identification of faults (based on the definition of a fault for each constellation), their validation, and the estimation of the rate based on Poisson distributions. For each of these points we present the corresponding results for GPS and Galileo (whenever possible). REFERENCES [1] Working Group C, ARAIM Technical Subgroup, Milestone 3 Report, February 26, 2016. Available at: http://www.gps.gov/policy/cooperation/europe/2016/working-group-c/ http://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/newsroom/cf/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=8690 [2] Working Group C, ARAIM Technical Subgroup, Milestone 2 Report, Issue 1.0, February 11, 2015. Available at: http://www.gps.gov/policy/cooperation/europe/2015/working-group-c/ http://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/newsroom/cf/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=8191 [3] Working Group C, ARAIM Technical Subgroup, Interim Report, Issue 1.0, December 19, 2012. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/newsroom/cf/_getdocument.cfm?doc_id=7793 http://www.gps.gov/policy/cooperation/europe/2013/working-group-c/ARAIM-report-1.0.pdf [4] ICAO, Annex 10 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, Aeronautical Telecommunications, Volume I Radio Navigation Aids, Seventh Edition, July 2018 [5] GPS Standard Positioning Service (SPS) Performance Standard. 5th Edition, April 2020. [6] “Proposed amendments to Annex 10, Volume I: Galileo system provisions” ICAO working paper presented at the sixth meeting of the Navigation Systems Panel, 2-13 November 2020 [7] Walter, Todd, Gunning, Kazuma, Phelts, R. Eric, Blanch, Juan, "Validation of the Unfaulted Error Bounds for ARAIM", NAVIGATION, Journal of The Institute of Navigation, Vol. 65, No. 1, Spring 2018, pp. 117-133. [8] Perea, S., Meurer, M., Rippl, M., Belabbas, B., and Joerger, M. (2017) URA/SISA Analysis for GPS and Galileo to Support ARAIM. J Inst Navig, 64: 237– 254. doi: 10.1002/navi.199. [9] Blanch J., Walter, T., and Enge, P., “Gaussian Bounds of Sample Distributions for Integrity Analysis”. IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.” PP. 1-1. 10.1109/TAES.2018.2876583. [10] DeCleene, B. “Defining Pseudorange Integrity - Overbounding,” Proceedings of the 13th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 2000), Salt Lake City, UT, September 2000, pp. 1916-1924 [11] J. Rife, T. Walter, and J. Blanch, “Overbounding SBAS and GBAS error distributions with excess-mass functions,” Proceedings of the 2004 International Symposium on GPS/GNSS, Sydney, Australia, 6-8 December, 2004. [12] Walter, T., Blanch, J., Gunning, K., Joerger, M., & Pervan, B. (2019). Determination of Fault Probabilities for ARAIM. IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems, 55(6), 3505-3516. [8684918]. https://doi.org/10.1109/TAES.2019.2909727

Even though the internet has become an essential infrastructure of modern society, the centralized domain name system (DNS) is unable to provide high-quality services and secure management and controlling. To face this challenge, we have proposed a reconfigurable multi-identifier network architecture and have developed a prototype of the multi-identifier system. We optimized network security using consortium blockchain, improved forwarding speed using HPT for FIB, and enhanced scalability through a tunnel algorithm. Experiments and tests of this prototype on the network of the two largest telecommunication service providers in China demonstrate that the system is considerably robust to support real-world traffic. Moreover, it can be applied to sovereign networks and other private networks with multiple identifiers, which may become a Chinese solution of network security to the world.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs or miRs) serve essential roles in the pathogenic process of spinal cord injury (SCI). The present study investigated the role of miR-378-3p and autophagy-related 12 (ATG12) in SCI. RT-qPCR was used to detect the mRNA expression levels of miR-378-3p and ATG12. Cell viability and membrane integrity were evaluated using CCK-8 and LDH assays. For the analysis of the interaction between miR-378-3p and ATG12, a dual-luciferase reporter assay was conducted. The hindlimb function of rats was detected with the Basso, Beattie and Bresnahan score, and the motor deficit index score was used to evaluate nerve function. Using these approaches, it was identified that miR-378-3p expression was downregulated, while that of ATG12 was upregulated in SCI tissues and in cells exposed to hypoxia. Hypoxia repressed the expression of miR-378-3p via hypoxia-inducible factor 1-α. The overexpression of miR-378-3p exerted anti-apoptotic effects on nerve cells by directly repressing ATG12. The infusion of miR-378-3p improved hindlimb motor function and the neurological functions of rats with contusion SCI, which contributed to amelioration of functional deficits and the relief of contusion SCI. Therefore, it was concluded that upregulated expression of miR-378-3p in PC12 or N2A cells repressed the apoptosis of nerve cells, and the administration of miR-378-3p in model rats with contusion SCI improved neurological and motor functions.

We describe a method to determine symmetric and unimodal pair overbounding distributions that are key to the determination of strict Gaussian bounds used in GNSS integrity. The method works by casting the search of the symmetric and unimodal bounding distribution as a linear program. We then use the proposed method to compute a set of Gaussian bounds with varying bias (for a given sample distribution) and to determine the approximate optimal choice for a given application. As an application, we apply the method to determine optimal Gaussian bounds for GPS clock and ephemeris errors.

Objective To discuss how the sequence of spinal surgery and hip replacement is determined for patients with both degenerative scoliosis and hip disease. Methods Twenty-six patients treated for both degenerative scoliosis and hip disease from June 2012 to June 2015 were retrospectively studied. Eleven patients underwent hip replacement followed by lumbar surgery (Group A), and 15 patients underwent lumbar surgery followed by hip replacement (Group B). The average follow-up duration was 1.5 years. Related indicators were assessed preoperatively and postoperatively. Results The parameters showing significant differences between Groups A and B after surgery were acetabular anteversion, the Oswestry functional disability score, and the Harris hip score. Postoperatively, five patients in Group A had unequal shoulder heights and inclination of the trunk to one side. After lumbar surgery and before total hip arthroplasty in Group B, eight patients could not walk, and the limitation was more severe than that preoperatively. Conclusion Spinal surgery may be performed first to resolve lumbar nerve symptoms and restore sagittal balance of the spine; hip replacement may then be performed to simplify hip replacement difficulties and resolve the imbalance after spinal surgery. Severely limited range of motion exists after lumbar surgery and before total hip arthroplasty.

Lysine acetylation is a post-translational modification that regulates a diversity of biological processes. However, its implication in spinal cord injury (SCI) remains unclear. Here we investigated the acetylation events in injured spinal cords on a proteomic scale for the first time. Additionally, whether promoting acetylation could mitigate SCI was evaluated. A total of 268 differentially acetylated peptides were identified. Among them, 2 peptides were up-acetylated and 141 peptides were down-acetylated in the injured spinal cord tissues (Fold change2 and P 0.05). There were also 116 unique acetylated peptides in the sham group and 9 unique acetylated peptides in the SCI group. Functional enrichment analysis revealed that differently acetylated proteins were involved in multiple cellular processes and metabolic processes. Kyoto Encyclopaedia of Genes and Genomes analysis showed that several pathways, including cGMP-PKG signaling pathway and hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) signaling pathway, were predominantly presented. Moreover, promoting acetylation using glycerol triacetate (GTA) showed a therapeutic effect on SCI, with improved Basso-Beattie-Bresnahan scores and histologic morphology, and decreased neuronal apoptosis and inflammation. In conclusion, our data indicated that protein deacetylation might play crucial roles in the development of secondary injury of SCI, and promoting acetylation by GTA effectively mitigated SCI. Our data not only enhance our understanding on acetylproteome dataset in the spinal cord tissues, but also provide novel insights for the treatment of SCI.

Potato starch serves as an excellent raw material or food additive in the food industry. With the advancement of the potato staple food strategy in China, improving the potato starch yield and quality has attracted more and more attention. Potassium is an essential nutrient for potato due to its direct effects on the yield and quality of potato tubers. Here, the effects of three different potassium levels on potato starch physicochemical properties were evaluated by field experiments. With increasing potassium fertilization rates, the amylose content, phosphorus content and particle size decreased, thereby resulting in low gelatinization temperature, breakdown and setback viscosity, and high swelling power, relative crystallinity and transparency. Our study indicated that enhanced potassium fertilization improved the resistance to heat and shear stress and decreased the retrogradation of starch, and the 270 kg/ha potassium fertilization rate could obtain the highest tuber and starch production with desirable starch physicochemical properties. The integrated results also provide some novel insights into the management of the fertilization conditions to obtain native starches with special properties.

Purpose: An association between catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) 158G/A polymorphism and endometriosis/adenomyosis susceptibility has been reported in the previous studies, but the results were inconsistent. This study was conducted to explore this association in the Chinese population using meta-analysis. Materials and Methods: PubMed, Springer Link, Ovid, Chinese Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform, Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Chinese Biology Medicine were searched for all relevant studies published up to December 2015. The odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to estimate the strength of the associations. Results: A total of 7 case–control studies including 782 cases and 700 controls were included in this meta-analysis. Overall, COMT 158G/A polymorphism was found to be significantly associated with endometriosis and adenomyosis risk in the Chinese population (A vs. G, OR = 1.21, 95% CI: 1.02–1.42; AA vs. GG, OR = 1.47, 95% CI: 1.01–2.14; AA vs. GG + GA, OR = 1.42, 95% CI: 0.99–2.03; AA + GA vs. GG, OR = 1.20, 95% CI: 0.97–1.49). In subgroup analyses stratified by ethnicity, source of controls and disease groups, the significant risk was found in Chinese not mentioned the ethnicity, in population-based studies and adenomyosis. Conclusions: COMT 158G/A polymorphism may contribute to the risk of endometriosis and adenomyosis in Chinese, particularly for adenomyosis.

Objective: To explore the clinical effects upon gap nonunion of antibiotic-loaded bone cement spacer combined with membrane induction on infected bone defects. Methods: The data of 16 patients with infected bone defects admitted in General Hospital of Shenyang Military Area Command from January 2009 to January 2011 were analyzed retrospectively. There were 12 males and 4 females aged between 24-63 years age (average 43.1 ± 9.7) who had received antibiotic laiden bone cement spacer treatment. Stage-1, debridement and anti-biotic treatment with intraoperative preparation of customized bone cement spacers (antibiotics and bone cement spacer) with or without internal or external fixation Stage-2, removal of spacer and repair of bone defects using membrane-induced technique and internal fixation at bone defects site. Results: Sixteen patients were followed up for 39-98 months, (67.2 ± 20.4) on average. All patients with infected bone defects were healed. X-ray showed that fractures had healed and the new bone formed at graft site was more radio opaque than that of adjacent bone segments. The healing time was 6 to 10 months, (7.4 ± 1.1) on average. There was no recurrence of infection or deformity. Conclusion: The antibiotic-loaded cement spacer can control the local infection while maintaining the limb length and increasing the stability, reducing the contracture of bone and soft tissue, creating conditions for subsequent repair and reducing the infection rate of bone defects.

// Dongxu Pei 1 , Yongwei Li 1 , Xinwei Liu 1 , Sha Yan 1 , Xiaolan Guo 1 , Xiaona Xu 1 , Xiaoxia Guo 2 1 Department of Clinical Laboratory, Hennan Province Hospital of TCM, Zhengzhou, Henan, China 2 Department of Clinical Laboratory, Anyang Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine Correspondence to: Yongwei Li, email: liyw99@126.com Keywords: fibulin-3, malignant pleural mesothelioma, diagnosis, prognosis, biomarker Received: September 26, 2016 Accepted: January 08, 2017 Published: January 18, 2017 ABSTRACT Fibulin-3 has emerged as a promising novel biomarker in conforming or monitoring malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). This study sought to evaluate the diagnostic and prognostic efficacies of humoral fibulin-3 for MPM. Seven eligible publications comprising 468 MPM cases for diagnosis, and 138 for prognosis were identified. Results manifested that humoral fibulin-3 sustained a pooled sensitivity of 0.62 (95% CI: 0.45–0.77) and specificity of 0.82 (95% CI: 0.73–0.89) in discriminating MPM patients from cancer-free individuals, corresponding to an AUC (area under the curve) of 0.81. For the survival analysis, fibulin-3 expression was not markedly associated with overall survival (OS) time of the MPM patients [HR (hazard ratio): 1.84, 95% CI: 0.75–4.56, P = 0.185]. In the subgroup analyses stratified by test matrix and ethnicity, data revealed that serum-based fibulin-3 examination achieved superior accuracy than plasma-based analysis (sensitivity: 0.77 versus 0.54; specificity: 0.85 versus 0.77; AUC: 0.92 versus 0.69); additionally, testing of fibulin-3 in Europeans retained higher efficacy than those in Americans and Australians. Taken together, fibulin-3 confers a relatively high diagnostic efficacy and is acceptable to be an auxiliary biomarker to aid in MPM identification.

Caching on the edge has been recognized as an effective solution to tackle the backhaul constraint of network densification. However, most related works ignored user mobility in wireless networks, which is unreasonable under the background of network densification. For a more flexible and context-aware caching decision, the concept of caching on the edge can be extended to mobile edge computing (MEC) that enables computation and storage resources at mobile edge networks. With MEC servers deployed on base stations, a huge amount of collected radio access network context data can be analyzed and utilized to render a caching scheme adaptive to user’s context-aware information. In this regard, a novel mobility-aware coded probabilistic caching scheme is proposed for MEC-enabled small cell networks (SCNs). Different from previous mobility-aware caching schemes, user mobility and distributed storage are incorporated into a conventional probabilistic caching scheme, with the aim of throughput maximization. Based on stochastic geometry theory and a modified mobility model of discrete random jumps, the explicit expression of throughput is derived. Due to the complexity of the expression, two light-weight heuristic algorithms are provided to numerically obtain the optimal solutions. Moreover, a significant trade-off among the gains of mobility diversity, content diversity, and channel selection diversity is discussed, and we further numerically analyze how such a trade-off is influenced by user mobility, content popularity, and backhaul capacity, with some fundamental insights into the application of the proposed scheme in MEC-enabled SCNs. The superiority of our proposed scheme is demonstrated by the comparisons with the classical M most popular caching scheme and the conventional probabilistic caching scheme. Numerical results show that our proposed caching scheme achieves higher throughput than those of the other two, especially when users of intense mobility request contents, of which the popularity profile is not skewed, in MEC-enabled SCNs with poor backhaul capacity, indicating that the proposed caching scheme is a promising solution for network densification.

In practical application scenarios, direct attacking on a target system to test the impact of attack methods may expose an attacker's intent and result in the difficulty in evaluating the attack method. Therefore, it is essential to design a controllable target range for testing and evaluating the attack impact. In this paper, we construct an attack test platform in order to evaluate the attack impact from different attack tools or the combinations of these attack tools. According to “vulnerability–asset–service–mission” (VASM) relationship, we design a multilayered evaluation model VASM, which includes a four-layer information structure: vulnerability layer, asset layer, service layer, and mission layer, from bottom to top. Considering that each asset may have one or more vulnerabilities, we score the attack impact on each asset based on attack probability and vulnerability and calculate the operational capacity of an asset after an attack. Since services may be provided jointly by one or more assets, we calculate the attack impact on services utilizing the dependencies among assets. The attack impact can be transmitted layer by layer from bottom to top through the dependencies among nodes. Finally, we can obtain the attack impact on missions. We use an actual logistics management and tracking system as the target range and verify the effectiveness and validity of our evaluation model, i.e., VASM, on goods delivery. Experimental results show that VASM cannot only assess the attack impact directly but also conform to the actual situations accurately.

High-density and reliable electronic synapses with bipolar resistive switching behavior are the building blocks for the hardware implementation of artificial neural network. However, the power consumption and reliability of resistance states are major challenges for commercialization of electronic synapses. Here, a fully complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS)-compatible resistance switching device and its crossbar arrays with the introduction of a novel two-dimensional transition metal carbides MXene (Ti 3 C 2 ) has been investigated. Comparing with TiN/Cu/SiO 2 /TiN device, low operation voltage has been achieved as well as reliable resistance states in MXene/SiO 2 structure. In addition, long retention exceeding 3.5 × 103 seconds has been measured. Furthermore, the fitting results demonstrate that the conduction mechanisms of HRS and LRS show space charge limited conduction (SCLC) and ohmic characteristics, respectively. The controllability of conductive filament growth is proposed to be responsible for the performance improvement of reliability.

Stable and high-density electronic synapses are the most critical units for the hardware implementation of artificial neural network. However, the power consumption and stability of resistance states of electronic synapses still need to be further improved. In this work, we investigate synaptic resistance switching (RS) devices and its crossbar arrays with the addition of a novel two-dimensional material MXene (Ti 3 C 2 ) using a silicon compatible process. As a result, stable OFF resistance states have been achieved as well as low operation voltage. In addition, data retention of TiN/Cu/SiO 2 TiN devices has been measured for (2×10)4 seconds. Furthermore, the conduction mechanism of TiN/Cu/SiO 2 TiN devices has been analyzed in details revealing that ohmic conduction and space-charge-limited-conduction (SCLC) dominate at the low and high resistance state, respectively. It discloses that the reliability of OFF resistance states can be improved significantly by using MXene in the RS layer.

International audience; The accuracy of Visible Wavelength (VW) iris recognition systems is significantly affected by the quality of iris sample images. Using degraded VW iris sample images can significantly decrease the performance of iris recognition systems. There are not many iris quality enhancement methods in the research field. Therefore, it is interesting to investigate whether existing image quality enhancement methods can improve the performance ofbiometric systems for degraded VW iris images. In this paper, we apply nine image enhancement methods to a VW iris database, which contains high quality and degraded iris sample images. The experimental results show that some of selected enhancement methods can improve VW irisrecognition system performance.

Recent advances in big data processing and mobile edge computing (MEC) have demonstrated the feasibility of further performance improvement on wireless caching via exploiting contextual information, like mobility-aware caching. However, most related works either focus on the utilization of single contextual information or ignore the impact of social network on reshaping a user's behavior when integrating various context data. In this work, a context-aware caching scheme with social behavior that integrates various contextual information is proposed for MEC-enabled small cell networks (SCNs), with a novel model provided to characterize how social networks influence and reshape behaviors. Based on a multi-armed bandit algorithm, a user's behavior patterns such as its mobility pattern, preference towards different files and the amount of traffic it may consume in each time slot are learned under the impact of social relationships. Numerical results and comparisons show that the proposed caching scheme outperforms normal context-aware caching schemes by more than 30% in terms of backhaul data offloading ratio.

International audience; The accuracy of face recognition systems is significantly affected by the quality of face sample images.There are many existing no-reference image quality metrics (IQMs) that are able to assess natural imagequality by taking into account similar image-based quality attributes. Previous study showed that IQMscan assess face sample quality according to the biometric system performance. In addition, re-trainingan IQM can improve its performance for face biometric images. However, only one database was used inthe previous study, and it contains only image-based distortions. In this paper, we propose to extend theprevious study by use multiple face database including FERET color face database and apply multiplesetups for the re-training process in order to investigate how the re-training process affect theperformance of no-reference image quality metric for face biometric images. The experimental resultsshow that the performance of the appropriate IQM can be improved for multiple databases, anddifferent re-training setups can influence the IQM's performance

// Xinwei Liu 1, 2 , Lihui Wang 1, 2 , Wei Cui 1 , Xiangzhong Yuan 1 , Lulu Lin 1 , Qi Cao 1 , Nannan Wang 1, 2 , Yi Li 1, 2 , Wei Guo 1 , Xun Zhang 1 , Chunfu Wu 1, 2 , Jingyu Yang 1, 2 1 Department of Pharmacology, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang, P.R. China 2 Benxi Institute of Pharmaceutical Research, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Benxi, P.R. China Correspondence to: Chunfu Wu, email: wucf@syphu.edu.cn Jingyu Yang, email: yangjingyu2006@gmail.com Keywords: disulfiram/copper, ALDH1A1, cancer stem cell, NSCLC, recurrence Received: February 03, 2016 Accepted: July 26, 2016 Published: August 16, 2016 ABSTRACT The existence of cancer stem cells (CSCs) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has profound implications for cancer therapy. In this study, a disulfiram/copper (DSF/Cu) complex was evaluated in vitro and in vivo for its efficacy to inhibit CSCs, which drive recurrence of NSCLC. First, we investigated whether DSF/Cu could inhibit ALDH-positive NSCLC stem cells in vitro and tumors derived from sorted ALDH-positive CSCs in vivo . DSF/Cu (0.5/1 μmol/l) significantly inhibited the expression of stem cell transcription factors (Sox2, Oct-4 and Nanog) and reduced the capacities of NSCLC stem cells for self-renewal, proliferation and invasion in vitro . Regular injections with DSF/Cu (60/2.4 mg/kg) reduced the size of tumors derived from sorted ALDH-positive stem cells. Two other NOD/SCID xenograft models were used to determine whether DSF/Cu could target NSCLC stem cells and inhibit tumor recurrence in vivo . DSF/Cu treatment eliminated ALDH-positive cells and inhibited tumor recurrence, which was reflected by reduced tumor growth in recipient mice that were inoculated with tumor cells derived from DSF/Cu-treated cells or primary xenografts. RNA interference and overexpression of ALDH isozymes suggested that ALDH1A1, which plays a key role in ALDH-positive NSCLC stem cells, might be the target of the DSF/Cu complex. Collectively, our data demonstrate that DSF/Cu targets ALDH1A1 to inhibit NSCLC recurrence driven by ALDH-positive CSCs. Thus, the DSF/Cu complex may represent a potential therapeutic strategy for NSCLC patients.

As the emerging device for neuromorphic applications, memristive device is arguable regarded as the most promising candidate to emulate biological synapse due to its specific analog behaviors and various plasticities. Nevertheless, the stability of memristive device remains an extreme challenge limiting its practical applications. In this work, two-dimensional (2D) material MXene is introduced into TiN/Cu/SiO2/TiN device as an insertion layer. The existence of MXene leads the memristor to perform more stable resistance states. The dominant conduction mechanisms responsible for stable resistance states are consistent with space charge limited and Ohmic conductions. In addition, synaptic plasticities, including long-term potentiation and depression, have been successfully mimicked by MXene memristors.

The accuracy of face recognition systems is significantly affected by the quality of face sample images. Using degraded face sample images can significantly decrease the performance of face recognition systems. There are not many face quality enhancement methods in the research field. Therefore, it is interesting to investigate whether existing image quality enhancement methods can improve the performance of biometric systems for degraded face images. In this paper, we conduct an experiment to apply nine image enhancement methods to a face database, which contains high quality and degraded face sample images. The experimental results show that some of selected enhancement methods can improve face recognition system performance.

Image quality assessment plays an important role in iris recognition systems because the system performance is affected by low quality iris images. With the development of electronic color imaging, there are more and more researches about visible wavelength (VW) iris recognition. Compared to the near infrared iris images, using VW iris images acquired under unconstrained imaging conditions is a more challenging task for the iris recognition system. However, the number of quality assessment methods for VW iris images is limited. Therefore, it is interested to investigate whether existing no-reference image quality metrics (IQMs) which are designed for natural images can assess the quality of VW iris images. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of 15 selected no-reference IQMs on VW iris biometrics. The experimental results show that several IQMs can assess iris sample quality according to the system performance. © 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

BACKGROUND CONTEXT Spondylitis is a rare infection in bone requiring multiple diagnostic strategies for verification. PURPOSE This study aimed to compare the diagnostic values of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in detecting spondylitis. METHODS Online PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases were systematically searched through September 2017 for studies comparing the diagnostic values of 18F-FDG-PET and MRI. The summary sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR), and summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve were calculated using Stata software. The ratio of these indexes between 18F-FDG-PET and MRI was also determined. RESULTS The summary results for 18F-FDG-PET were as follows: sensitivity=0.96 [95% confidence intervals (CI), 0.84–0.99]; specificity=0.90 (95% CI, 0.79–0.96); PLR=9.83 (95% CI, 4.39–22.03); NLR=0.05 (95% CI, 0.01–0.19); DOR=124.08 (95% CI, 39.04–394.34); and area under the SROC=0.97 (95% CI, 0.95–0.98). The summary sensitivity, specificity, PLR, NLR, DOR, and area under the SROC for MRI were 0.76 (95% CI, 0.65–0.84), 0.62 (95% CI, 0.45–0.77), 2.01 (95% CI, 1.36–2.98), 0.39 (95% CI, 0.27–0.56), 5.08 (95% CI, 2.66–9.69), and 0.77 (95% CI, 0.73–0.80), respectively. The summary results of sensitivity (p=.034), specificity (p=.006), PLR (p CONCLUSIONS 18F-FDG-PET had a higher diagnostic value compared with MRI in detecting spondylitis.

Subsequent to the publication of the above paper, the authors realize that they did not acknowledge their funders in their paper. Consequently, the following information should have been included in the published article: "Funding: This study was supported by a grant from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 81401586)". The authors sincerely apologize for this mistake, and regret the inconvenience this omission has caused, including that to the funders of this study. [the original article was published in the Molecular Medicine Reports 16: 192-200, 2017; DOI: 10.3892/mmr.2017.6553].

Background: The application of synthetic ligaments for theanterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction was never untroubled. Their history was commented as "Periodic cycles of hope and disappointment." Currently, their long-term clinical outcome was still controversial despite satisfactory short and mid-term results. If we want to spare us from another disappointment, we have to clarify the long-term rate of adverse events and the fundamental reason for failure. Methods: The national multicenter research was backed by the China Artificial Ligament Study Group (CALSG). The ACL reconstruction using synthetic ligaments between July 2004 and December 2010 were screened. The adverse events consisted of cumulative failure and complications. For failure cases, the symptoms, the clinical outcomes, the reason for failure, and the activity level were investigated. Findings: A total of 1705 cases from 20 centers were screened with 1393 cases included. And 1146 cases fulfilled evaluation at meanly 87 months postoperative. Adverse events were confirmed in 83 cases with the rate of 7.2% (83/1146). Among them, the cumulative failure was confirmed in 36 cases; complications in 32 cases; cumulative failure combined with complications in 15 cases. Generally, the cumulative failure rate was 4.5% (51/1146), and the complication rate was 4.1% (47/1146). For failure cases, the bone tunnel position was evaluated in 49 of them. The bone tunnel malposition, an error caused by the surgeon, was confirmed in 32 cases with the constituent ratio of 65.3% (32/49); trauma in 25 cases with the constituent ratio of 49.0% (25/51); screw loosening in 8 cases with the constituent ratio of 15.7% (8/51). Conclusion: Currently, the failure rate of ACL reconstruction using synthetic ligament was 4.5% at meanly 87 months postoperative. Bone tunnel malposition was the primary cause of failure. We need to pay attention to the technique error when ACL reconstruction using synthetic ligaments failed, instead of merely blaming the graft. Funding Statement: China Artificial Ligament Study Group Declaration of Interests: The authors state no conflict reported. Ethics Approval Statement: KY2017-334 (Huashan Hospital Institutional Review Board)

Aim: To determine the anti-edema effects of melatonin on spinal cord injury (SCI) in rats. Methods: A total of 150 adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly allocated to the following three groups (n=50): a sham group which underwent laminectomy without dural compression; an SCI group, which underwent laminectomy followed by SCI and received saline i.p. immediately after injury and then daily for 2 days; an MT group, which underwent laminectomy followed by SCI and received a 100 mg/kg dose of melatonin i.p. immediately after SCI and then daily for 2 days. The cords were removed at 12, 24, 48 and 72 h after surgery in every group. Spinal cord edema was evaluated by determining the spinal cord water content. Expressions of AQP4 and GFAP positive cells in injured spinal cord were detected by immunohistochemical staining, and protein expressions of AQP4 and GFAP were detected by Western blotting. Results: Spinal cord water content was obviously increased after SCI, which was maintained almost unchanged by melatonin treatment (100 mg/kg) at 12 h after injury but was significantly reduced from 24 h to 72 h. The expressions of AQP4 and GFAP increased in the injured spinal cord segments, which were decreased by melatonin treatment (100 mg/kg) between 24 h and 72 h after SCI. Conclusions: Melatonin (100 mg/kg) had anti-edema effects after acute SCI probably by down-regulating the expression level of AQP4 protein, and it may eliminate astrocytic swelling after SCI through down-regulating the expression level of GFAP protein.

To study the effects of Wharton's jelly cells (WJCs) on acute spinal cord injury (SCI), 81 rats were divided into a sham surgery group, a model group, and a WJC transplantation group (n = 27). Motor functions of the model and WJC transplantation groups were partially recovered, and the recovery was better in the latter group. The WJC transplantation group had integral spinal cord tissues. Compared with the model group, the WJC transplantation group expressed significantly less interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and more nerve growth factor (NGF) (P < 0.05). WJC transplantation changed the microenvironment of the SCI site, inhibited IL-1β expression, increased NGF expression, promoted the recovery of neurological function, and relieved secondary SCI.

Device-to-device (D2D) caching network is proposed to cope with the explosively growing traffic of next-generation mobile networks. Given the limited mobile users' (MU) caching capacity, it is significant to decide which contents and how much proportion of each content should be cached. Based on the selfish nature and varied content preference of MUs, we propose a mobility aware caching incentive scheme, in which base stations (BS) reward MUs for sharing contents with others through D2D communication. By solving the problem of maximizing MU utility and minimizing BS cost at the same time, we obtain each MU's caching strategy and optimal unit reward provided by BS with adapted gradient projection algorithm. Comparisons are deliberated with several baseline caching schemes without incentive, in order to measure the performance of the proposed scheme. Simulation results show that under our settings, BS serving cost can be reduced by up to 45.6% when the optimal reward is selected compared with the fair caching scheme, the advantage is more obvious when MUs' mobility speed gets higher. Furthermore, the proposed scheme outperforms greedy caching, fair caching and random caching scheme in terms of MU utility under different distributions of content popularity.

The overall performance of iris recognition systems is affected by the quality of acquired iris sample images. Due to the development of imaging technologies, visible wavelength iris recognition gained a lot of attention in the past few years. However, iris sample quality of unconstrained imaging conditions is a more challenging issue compared to the traditional near infrared iris biometrics. Therefore, measuring the quality of such iris images is essential in order to have good quality samples for iris recognition. In this paper, we investigate whether general purpose no-reference image quality metrics can assess visible wavelength iris sample quality. © 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.

Objective This abstract profiles the comparison of correlations between previously validated Super Monkey Ball (SMB) and recently introduced Underground (U) video game on the Nintendo Wii U to multiple validated tasks used for developing basic and advanced laparoscopic skills.Methods Sixty-eight participants, 53 residents and 15 attending surgeons, performed the Top Gun Pea Drop, FLS Peg Pass, intracorporeal suturing, and two video games (SMB and U). SMB is an over-the-counter game, and U was formulated for laparoscopic skill training.Results Spearman's rank correlations were performed looking at performance comparing the three validated laparoscopic training tasks, and SMB/U. The SMB score had a moderate correlation with intracorporeal suturing (rho = 0.39, p Conclusion In this study, SMB had a very significant correlation with intracorporeal suturing. U demonstrated more of a correlation with basic skills. At this point, our conclusion would be that both are effective for laparoscopic skill training, and they should be used in tandem rather than alone.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has been implicated in various human degenerative diseases. However, the role of mtDNA in Osteoarthritis (OA) is less known. To investigate whether mtDNA haplogroups contribute to the prevalence of knee OA, we have carried out a comprehensive case-control study on 187 knee OA patients and 420 geographically matched controls in southern China. OA patients were classified on the Kellgren/Lawrence scale from two to four for the disease severity study and the data were analyzed by adjusting for age and sex. We found that patients with haplogroup G (OR = 3.834; 95% CI 1.139, 12.908; p = 0.03) and T16362C (OR = 1.715; 95% CI 1.174, 2.506; p = 0.005) exhibited an increased risk of OA occurrence. Furthermore, patients carrying haplogroup G had a higher severity progression of knee OA (OR = 10.870; 95% CI 1.307, 90.909; p = 0.007). On the other hand, people with haplogroup B/B4 (OR = 0.503; 95% CI 0.283, 0.893; p = 0.019)/(OR = 0.483; 95% CI 0.245, 0.954; p = 0.036) were less susceptible for OA occurrence. Interestingly, we found OA patients also exhibited a general increase in mtDNA content. Our study indicates that the mtDNA haplogroup plays a role in modulating OA development.

The correct identification of oil and gas reservoirs is very important in oil and gas field production. To solve the problem of oil and gas reservoir evaluation in low salinity and low porosity reservoirs, thermal neutron imaging system(TNIS) is introduced. The advantage of TNIS is that it can record a large number of formation information through multiple detectors to obtain imaging documents, allowing intuitive quantitative analysis of formation, and calculate oil and gas saturation through thermal neutron capture cross section, attenuation spectrum and capture spectrum, so as to obtain oil/gas/water distribution near wellbore. In the processing, interpretation and evaluation of thermal neutron imaging logging data, the interpretation model, parameters and criteria are established according to the geological characteristics of lithology and formation water salinity of the target block, which improves the interpretation coincidence rate. Field application shows that thermal neutron imaging logging has achieved sound effects in identifying watered-out zone, potential zone, gas reservoir and residual oil distribution monitoring.

Based on the fluidized roasting reduction technology of low-grade pyrolusite coupling with pretreatment of stone coal, the manganese reduction efficiency was investigated and technical conditions were optimized. It is found that the optimum manganese reduction efficiency can be up to 98.97% under the conditions that the mass ratio of stone coal to pyrolusite is 3: 1, the roasting temperature of stone coal is 1000 degrees C, the roasting temperature of pyrolusite is 800 degrees C, and the roasting time is 2 h. Other low-grade pyrolusite ores in China from Guangxi, Hunan, and Guizhou Provinces were tested and all these minerals responded well, giving similar to 99% manganese reduction efficiency. Meanwhile, the reduction kinetic model has been established. It is confirmed that the reduction process is controlled by the interface chemical reaction. The apparent activation energy is 36.397 kJ/mol.

Based on the novel technology of Co-recovery of manganese from low-grade pyrolusite and vanadium from stone coal using fluidized roasting coupling technology, the leaching effect of manganese and vanadium has been investigated and many technical conditions have also been optimized. The results indicated that the optimum leaching efficiency of 99.25% for manganese and 91.84% for vanadium could be attained under the conditions that the mass ratio of stone coal to pyrolusite was 3:1, the roasting temperature of stone coal was 1000 degrees C, the roasting temperature of pyrolusite was 800 degrees C, the roasting time was 2 h, the sulphuric acid concentration was 2 mol/L, the leaching temperature was 75 degrees C, and the leaching time was 2 h. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In this paper, we concluded that transient acidosis reperfusion conferred cardioprotection against myocardial ischemia reperfusion injury in isolated rat hearts through activating PI3K-Akt-eNOS pathway.

International audience; One of the main challenges facing biometric technologies is system performance decreasingcaused by low quality biometric samples. In fingerprint recognition, the system performance may be negatively affected by fingerprint image degradations, which are introduced by subject characteristic, image acquisition, subject behavior, or environment. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate how different fingerprint image degradations influence biometric system performance. In this paper, we will first study different fingerprint image degradations that affect system performance. Then review state-of-the-art fingerprint sample quality assessment methods and their evaluation approaches. Based on the survey, we select corresponding degradations and apply them to fingerprint samples. The system performance comparison between original and degraded fingerprints will be conducted in order to illustrated the impact of each degradation on biometric system performance. Finally, we use NFIQ fingerprint image quality metric to investigate its performance on selected degradations.

Patient care is of the utmost importance in the hospital setting. Bedrest and immobility during hospitalization, especially in the surgical and intensive care setting, place the patient at high risk for pressure ulcers. It is very important to prevent or notice a pressure ulcer forming due to the significant health care costs involved and patient health associated with them. Various measures are in place to prevent patients from getting pressure ulcers, but a newer material, silicone foam dressings, has been introduced as an alternative solution for the prevention of these ulcers. We review the current literature to examine whether the standard protocol or silicone material is superior to the prevention of pressure ulcer formation. We conclude that silicone foam dressings, when used as prophylactic treatment, seems very promising and may even be superior to the standard care of prevention. However, there were limitations to some studies and further research is needed to confirm the role of silicone foam dressings.

The quality of a biometric sample is one of the main criteria having a direct influence on the overall performance of a biometric system. There are many existing researches focusing on biometric sample quality assessment, but different evaluation approaches measure different quality attributes and most of them focus on measuring modality-based attributes. Meanwhile, different biometric modalities seem to be isolated from each other in the image quality evaluation process. Quality metrics that can evaluate multi-modality biometric sample quality is rarely considered. The link of sample quality evaluation between different modalities can be established by using image-based quality metrics, which are able to assess image-based quality attributes. This could be the solution of developing multi-modality biometric sample quality evaluation approaches especially when the fingerprint acquisition sensor becomes contactless. In order to investigate the common framework of biometric sample quality assessment between contactless fingerprint, face, and iris, we will first review the commonly used image-based quality attributes for three modalities by surveying existing literature. Based on the survey, we identify and categorize these attributes to propose a refined selection of important ones for the assessment of multi-modality biometric sample quality.

The applications of CT examination in the diagnosis of the acute Achilles tendon rupture (AATR) were investigated. A total of 36 patients with suspected acute Achilles tendon rupture were tested using physical examination, ultrasound, and 3DCT scanning, respectively. Then, surgery was performed for the patients who showed positive result in at least two of the three tests for AATR. 3DVR, MPR, and the other CT scan image processing and diagnosis were conducted in PACS (picture archiving and communication system). PACS was also used to measure the length of distal broken ends of the Achilles tendon (AT) to tendon calcaneal insertion. Our study indicated that CT has the highest accuracy in diagnosis of acute Achilles tendon complete rupture. The length measurement is matched between PACS and those actually measured in operation. CT not only demonstrates more details directly in three dimensions especially with the rupture involved calcaneal insertion flap but also locates the rupture region for percutaneous suture by measuring the length of distal stump in PACS without the effect of the position of ankle. The accuracy of CT diagnosis for Achilles tendon partial rupture is yet to be studied.

STUDY DESIGN Cross-cultural translation and psychometric testing of the functional rating index (FRI). OBJECTIVE To evaluate the reliability and validity of the adapted simplified Chinese FRI (SC-FRI) for patients with low back pain (LBP). SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA The FRI is a reliable and valid instrument to assess the perception of function and pain for patients with LBP. However, there is no culturally adapted, reliable, and validated FRI for use in mainland China. METHODS The translation and cross-cultural adaptation were performed following international guidelines. The SC-FRI was administered to 115 patients with LBP along with the simplified Chinese version of the Oswestry disability index, 36-item short form health survey, and the visual analogue scale. Psychometric testing included internal consistency, test-test reliability, concurrent criterion validity, and construct validity. RESULTS A high completion rate of 96% and no floor or ceiling effects were noted for the SC-FRI. The internal consistency was good (i.e., Cronbach α = 0.897 for the overall SC-FRI; range, 0.851-0.890, if an item was deleted). Test-retest reliability was excellent, with an intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.948 (95% confidence interval, 0.917-0.968). Concurrent criterion validity assessment demonstrated that the SC-FRI significantly correlated with the visual analogue scale (r = 0.852, P < 0.0001) and the simplified Chinese version of the Oswestry disability index (r = 0.958, P < 0.0001). Construct validity was confirmed by the significant Pearson correlation between the SC-FRI and physical functioning (r = -0.802, P < 0.0001), Bodily Pain (r = -0.698, P < 0.0001), social functioning (r = -0.573, P < 0.0001), role-physical (r = -0.503, P < 0.0001), and general health (r = -0.502, P < 0.0001) domains of the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey. CONCLUSION The SC-FRI showed excellent reliability and validity in the evaluation of pain and the functional health status of Chinese-speaking patients with LBP. It is simple and easy to use and can be recommended in clinical and research practice in mainland China.

Our preliminary study retrospectively assessed outcomes after the use of autogenous iliac bone grafts combined with internal fixation to repair refractory bone nonunions and bone defects associated with supracondylar or intracondylar humeral fractures, or both.We identified 22 patients (14 men and 8 women) with a mean age of 33.8 years (range, 17-60 years) with bone nonunion and severe bone defects associated with supracondylar or intercondylar humerus fractures, or both. The humeral condyle in each patient was anatomically reconstructed using autologous iliac bone grafts and internal fixation. Active functional exercise was initiated 3 to 4 weeks after surgery. The following variables were assessed: preoperative and postoperative elbow range of motion, Mayo Elbow Performance Score (MEPS), and postoperative complications.Mean follow-up was 38.6 months. Mean duration until bone union was 5.6 months. Preoperatively, 16 patients had a fair or poor MEPS (75). At final follow-up MEPS was excellent (90) in 8, good (75-90) in 9, fair (60-74) in 4, and poor (60) in 1 patient. Postoperative heterotopic ossification anterior to the elbow joint occurred in 2 patients.Our preliminary results suggest that anatomic reconstruction of the humeral condyle using autogenous iliac bone grafting with internal fixation can improve elbow joint function in patients with bone nonunion and bone defects associated with supracondylar or intracondylar humeral fractures, or both. Larger scale studies are warranted to confirm our findings and compare the efficacy of this vs other surgical approaches.

The aim of this study is to systematically review the published literature from East Asia on the clinical, pathological, and epidemiological characteristics of primary clavicle tumor and tumorous lesions. A computerized search based on keywords “clavicle,” “tumor,” and “tumorous lesion” (both in Chinese and in English) was performed on literature published from 1980 to 2011 in East Asian countries, including China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, and Mongolia. An analysis was carried out with unified inclusion and exclusion criteria. Two hundred and six cases were identified. The age of onset ranged from 1.5 to 70, with an average age of 29.4, and a male/female ratio of 1.53:1. Lesion locations included 28.9% in medial third, 18.8% in the middle third, and 33.6% in the lateral third of the clavicle. Another 7.4% involved both the medial and middle thirds, 7.4% involved both the middle and lateral thirds, and 4.0% involved the entire length of the clavicle. Major pathological types included 18.5% eosinophilic granuloma, 10.2% plasmocytoma, 7.8% Ewing sarcoma, 8.7% osteosarcoma, 8.7% osteochondroma, and 5.3% chondrosarcoma. The age of onset was found to be strongly correlated with the benign/malignant ratio. Clavicle malignancy was rarely found in patients younger than 10 years, while the incidence of malignancy greatly increased among patients over 40 years old. Total or subtotal claviculectomy was the most common treatment in cases for which treatment information was available. Of these, 40.8% of patients received reconstruction with allograft or autograft. Clavicle tumors and tumorous lesions in East Asia had an inclined occurrence in respect to age and gender. The most common tumors were eosinophilic granuloma and tumors derived from the bone marrow hematopoietic system. Age of onset was found to be a risk factor for malignancy. These characteristics may be related to the special tissue structures and mode of development in the clavicle as well as to the genetic traits of the typical Mongoloids in East Asia.

Comminuted and displaced fractures of the inferior pole of the patella are not easy to reduce and it is difficult to fix the fragments soundly enough to allow early movement of the knee. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of the internal fixation technique with Patellar Shape-Memory Fixator (PSMF) in acute comminuted fractures of the inferior pole of the patella. We retrospectively studied 25 patients with comminuted fractures of the inferior pole of the patella who were treated with PSMF and followed up for a mean period of 26 months (14 to 60). All the fractures healed at a mean of 6 weeks (5 to 7). The mean grading at the final follow-up was 29.5 points (27 to 30) using the Bostman score, with no observable restriction of movement. No breakage of the PSMF or infection occurred. No delayed union, nonunion, and infection were seen. This technique preserved the length of the patella, reduced the comminuted fragments of the inferior pole and avoided long-term immobilization of the knee.

The accuracy of face recognition systems is significantly affected by the quality of face sample images. The recent established standardization proposed several important aspects for the assessment of face sample quality. There are many existing no-reference image quality metrics (IQMs) that are able to assess natural image quality by taking into account similar image-based quality attributes as introduced in the standardization. However, whether such metrics can assess face sample quality is rarely considered. We evaluate the performance of 13 selected no-reference IQMs on face biometrics. The experimental results show that several of them can assess face sample quality according to the system performance. We also analyze the strengths and weaknesses of different IQMs as well as why some of them failed to assess face sample quality. Retraining an original IQM by using face database can improve the performance of such a metric. In addition, the contribution of this paper can be used for the evaluation of IQMs on other biometric modalities; furthermore, it can be used for the development of multimodality biometric IQMs. © The Authors. Published by SPIE under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Color provides important information and features for face recognition. Different color spaces possess different characteristics and are suitable for different applications. In this paper, we propose to investigate how different color space components influence the performance of degraded face recognition. Towards this goal, nine color space components are selected for the evaluation. In addition, four different types of image-based degradations are applied to face image samples in order to discover the impact on the performance of face recognition. The experimental results show that, all selected color components have similar influence to the performance of face recognition system depend on the acquisition devices and the experimental setups.

From August 1990 to December 2007, 156 patients with humeral shaft nonunion were treated with our patented Ni-Ti shape memory alloy swan-like memory pressure connector (SMC). The SMC device cooled with ice before implantation was warmed to 40-50 degrees C after implantation to produce balanced axial and compression forces to stabilise the fracture three-dimensionally. This combined with autologous bone grafting achieved bone tissue regeneration in the fracture and promoted smooth recovery of joint function, with a nonunion healing rate of 98.7% after a single SMC implantation. Failure of nonunion healing occurred in only two cases but was successfully managed by a further operation. Complications were not found in any of these patients apart from four with pre-existing radial nerve injuries. These results demonstrate the effectiveness of the SMC device for the management of humeral shaft nonunion. The device provides continuous compression of the fracture with minimal trauma to the local blood supply.