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Intestinal ischemia-reperfusion (II/R) injury is a common type of tissue and organ injury, secondary to intestinal and mesenteric vascular diseases. II/R is characterized by a high incidence rate and mortality. In the II/R process, intestinal barrier function is impaired and bacterial translocation leads to excessive reactive oxygen species, inflammatory cytokine release, and even apoptosis. A large number of inflammatory mediators and oxidative factors are released into the circulation, leading to severe systemic inflammation and multiple organ failure of the lung, liver, and kidney. Acute lung injury (ALI) is the most common complication, which gradually develops into acute respiratory distress syndrome and is the main cause of its high mortality. This review summarizes the signal transduction pathways and key molecules in the pathophysiological process of ALI induced by II/R injury and provides a new therapeutic basis for further exploration of the molecular mechanisms of ALI induced by II/R injury. In particular, this article will focus on the biomarkers involved in II/R-induced ALI.

Objective To investigate the relationship between preoperative proteinuria and postoperative acute kidney injury (AKI). Methods We performed a search on databases included PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and Web of Science, from December 2009 to September 2020. Data extracted from eligible studies were synthesized to calculate the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI). A fixed or random effects model was applied to calculate the pooled OR based on heterogeneity through the included studies. Results This meta-analysis of 11 observational studies included 203,987 participants, of whom 21,621 patients suffered from postoperative AKI and 182,366 patients did not suffer from postoperative AKI. The combined results demonstrated that preoperative proteinuria is an independent risk factor for postoperative AKI (adjusted OR = 1.65, 95%CI:1.44–1.89, p

Primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most frequently occurring pernicious tumors in the world. It is typically very insidious in the early stages with no obvious symptoms. Its development and metastasis are very rapid. Upon diagnosis, most patients have already reached a local advanced stage or have established distant metastases. The treatment of HCC is limited, with poor prognosis and short natural survival time. In order to improve the efficiency of early diagnosis, it is particularly significant to choose economic and effective diagnosis methods. Ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, and computed tomography are usually used in the clinic, but these methods are extremely limited in the diagnosis of HCC. Tumor markers have become the main effective early clinical diagnosis method. Potential serum tumor markers include alpha fetoprotein heterogeneity, Golgi protein 73, phosphatidylinositol proteoglycan (GPC-3), osteopontin, abnormal prothrombin, and heat shock protein. These tumor markers provide new ideas and methods for the diagnosis of HCC. A combination of multiple markers can make up for the deficiency of single marker detection and provide a new strategy for the prognosis and auxiliary diagnosis of HCC. This review introduces protein tumor markers utilized over the past five years.

The detection of post-earthquake damage inside concrete dams has recently attracted great interest in academia and industry. A novel electromechanical impedance (EMI) method using embedded EMI sensors (EMISs) is proposed in this paper to detect earthquake-induced damage within concrete dams. The basic concept of the proposed EMI method is to use high-frequency excitations to monitor local changes in the monitored dams caused by damage. Based on the effective impedance, a three-dimensional (3D) EMI model for embedded EMISs is proposed. Then, a new damage-sensitive feature factor is derived based on the proposed 3D EMI model. A high arch dam model with embedded EMISs is studied experimentally. Moreover, shaking table tests are conducted on the dam model. The proposed 3D EMI method is used to monitor the evolution of earthquake-induced damage inside the dam model. The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and feasibility of the proposed EMI method for detecting earthquake-induced damage in concrete dams.

Background Cholecystectomy is a common elective procedure for cholecystic diseases, including cholecystitis and cholelithiasis. Common bile duct injury is a major complication in both open and laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC). The number of cholecystectomies performed has increased due to popularization and application of the laparoscopic technique, which has led to an increase in the number of bile duct injuries. Case summary A 65-year-old man presented to the General Surgery Department with a complaint of repeated right upper quadrant pain for 2 years that had worsened over the previous day. The patient had a history of gallstones and hypertension. A LC was performed; it was found that a biliary stricture of 53 h duration was caused by a ligature injury of the common bile duct during the LC. Another laparoscopic exploration was performed, and the stricture was released. Conclusion LC is a common surgical procedure, but if a complication occurs, it is important for the surgeon to consider another exploratory surgery.

Machine learning techniques are pervasive tools for emerging commercial applications and many dedicated machine learning computers on different scales have been deployed in embedded devices, servers, and data centers. Currently, most machine learning computer architectures still focus on optimizing performance and energy efficiency instead of programming productivity. However, with the fast development in silicon technology, programming productivity, including programming itself and software stack development, becomes the vital reason instead of performance and power efficiency that hinders the application of machine learning computers. In this article, we propose Cambricon-F , which is a series of homogeneous, sequential, multi-layer, layer-similar, and machine learning computers with same ISA. A Cambricon-F machine has a fractal von Neumann architecture to iteratively manage its components: it is with von Neumann architecture and its processing components (sub-nodes) are still Cambricon-F machines with von Neumann architecture and the same ISA. Since different Cambricon-F instances with different scales can share the same software stack on their common ISA, Cambricon-Fs can significantly improve the programming productivity. Moreover, we address four major challenges in Cambricon-F architecture design, which allow Cambricon-F to achieve a high efficiency. We implement two Cambricon-F instances at different scales, i.e., Cambricon-F100 and Cambricon-F1. Compared to GPU based machines (DGX-1 and 1080Ti), Cambricon-F instances achieve 2.82x, 5.14x better performance, 8.37x, 11.39x better efficiency on average, with 74.5, 93.8 percent smaller area costs, respectively. We further propose Cambricon-FR, which enhances the Cambricon-F machine learning computers to flexibly and efficiently support all the fractal operations with a reconfigurable fractal instruction set architecture. Compared to the Cambricon-F instances, Cambricon-FR machines achieve 1.96x, 2.49x better performance on average. Most importantly, Cambricon-FR computers are able to save the code length with a factor of 5.83, thus significantly improving the programming productivity.

Background Lactational breast abscess, a complication from lactational mastitis, is a common cause of breastfeeding discontinuation. No consensus has been reached regarding the necessity of antibiotics in this disease. The purpose of this trial is to determine if surgical drainage is non-inferior to drainage together with a standard course of antibiotics, in the treatment of lactational breast abscess. Methods Breastfeeding females with breast abscess from 18 to 50 years old are eligible for study inclusion. An expected number of 306 patients will be randomly allocated in parallel to the intervention arm (simple drainage without antibiotics) or the control arm (abscess drainage with standard 5-day-course of antibiotics). The primary outcomes include the time to resolution of breast abscess and disease recurrence rate. Secondary outcomes of interests are 3-day-improvement proportion, rate of continuing breastfeeding, treatment failure rate, procedural-related complications, and length of hospital stay. An expected non-inferiority margin for the difference in the primary outcome of interest is set at 1 day, on the basis of a one-sided 97.5% confidence interval. Discussion This trial will provide first-hand evidence on whether simple abscess drainage is non-inferior to drainage together with a standard course of antibiotics, in lactational mothers with breast abscess. The indication of antibiotic prophylaxis could be revised if non-inferiority is set up, and guidelines for lactational breast abscess require amendments correspondingly. Trial registration This study has been registered in the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, and the trial registration number is ChiCTR1900024008.

Acute pancreatitis (AP) is a common acute abdominal disease with a mortality rate of about 30%. Acute lung injury (ALI) is a common systemic complication of acute pancreatitis, with progressive hypoxemia and respiratory distress as the main manifestations, which can develop into acute respiratory distress syndrome or even multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) in severe cases, endangering human health. In the model of AP, pathophysiological process of the lung can be summarized as oxidative stress injury, inflammatory factor infiltration, and alveolar cell apoptosis. However, the intrinsic mechanisms underlying AP and how it leads to ALI are not fully understood. In this paper, we summarize recent articles related to AP leading to ALI, including the signal transduction pathways and biomarkers of AP-ALI. There are factors or pathway aggravating ALI, the JAK2-STAT3 signaling pathway, NLRP3/NF-κB pathway, mitogen-activated protein kinase, PKC pathway, neutrophil protease (NP)-LAMC2-neutrophil pathway, and the P2X7 pathway, and there are important transcription factors in the NRF2 signal transduction pathway which could give researchers better understanding of the underlying mechanisms controlling AP and ALI and lay the foundation for finally curing ALI induced by AP.

BackgroundCombined hepatocellular carcinoma and cholangiocarcinoma (CHC) is an uncommon subtype of primary liver cancer. Because of limited epidemiological data, prognostic risk factors and therapeutic strategies for patients with CHC tend to be individualized. This study aimed to identify independent prognostic factors and develop a nomogram-based model for predicting the overall survival (OS) of patients with CHC.MethodsWe recruited eligible individuals from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database between 2004 and 2015 and randomly divided them into the training or verification cohort. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify independent variables associated with OS. Based on multivariate analysis, the nomogram was established, and its prediction performance was evaluated using the consistency index (C-index) and calibration curve.ResultsIn total, 271 patients with CHC were included in our study. The median OS was 14 months, and the 1-, 3-, and 5-year OS rates were 52.3%, 27.1%, and 23.3%, respectively. In the training cohort, multivariate analysis showed that the pathological grade (hazard ratio [HR], 1.26; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.96–1.66), TNM stage (HR, 1.21; 95% CI: 1.02 - 1.44), and surgery (HR, 0.26; 95% CI: 0.17 - 0.40) were independent indicators of OS. The nomogram-based model related C-indexes were 0.76 (95% CI: 0.72 - 0.81) and 0.72 (95% CI: 0.66 - 0.79) in the training and validation cohorts, respectively. The calibration of the nomogram showed good consistency of 1-, 3-, and 5-year OS rates between the actual observed survival and predicted survival in both cohorts. The TNM stage (HR, 1.23; 95% CI: 1.01 - 1.49), and M stage (HR, 1.87; 95% CI: 1.14 3.05) were risk factors in the surgical treatment group. Surgical resection and liver transplantation could significantly prolong the survival, with no statistical difference observed.ConclusionsThe pathological grade, TNM stage, and surgery were independent prognostic factors for patients with CHC. We developed a nomogram model, in the form of a static nomogram or an online calculator, for predicting the OS of patients with CHC, with a good predictive performance.

Background: Tetanus is a serious disease resulting in muscle spasm, and even death. Methods: A retrospective, single-center study was conducted by analyzing demographic and clinical parameters. Results: The study included 12 males (70.6%) and 5 females (29.4%). The mean age of the patients was 56.71±9.05 years. Patient occupations included farming (47.0%), retired (23.5), homebound (23.5), and workers (6.0%). The causes of patient injuries were as follows: metal injury (52.9%), deep injury (29.4%), electrical injury (5.9%), maxillofacial region and knee injury (5.9%), and skin ulceration (5.9%). The disease duration ranged from 3 to 36 days, and the mean incubation period was 12.65±10.17 days. Four patients had co-morbidities. The infected patients were given tetanus antitoxin (TAT) and antibiotics treatment. One patient was given continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) and only one patient died. Conclusions: In our department, although tetanus is a serious disease, with effective treatment, patients have reasonable cure and low death rates.

COVID‐19 has a worldwide distribution; however, there is no effective diagnosis marker, especially for the mild‐type COVID‐19. The purpose of the current study was to identify parameters for mild‐type COVID‐19. We retrospectively analyzed a single‐center data of patients with mild COVID‐19. Forty patients diagnosed with COVID‐19 were enrolled. Peripheral blood indices between the admission and discharge times were collected and analyzed. The platelet distribution width (PDW) was shown to be an indicator of significant change. The receiver operating characteristic curve for PDW was 0.7; the sensitivity and specificity for PDW were 82.5% and 55.0%, respectively. Therefore, a potential diagnostic value of PDW for mild‐type COVID‐19 was demonstrated.

The BeiDou satellite navigation system (BDS) is the core of China’s future civil aviation CNS/ATM system. In order to accelerate the application and innovative development of BDS in the international civil aviation, it is necessary to establish an international standard system for the BDS civil aviation industry. A framework recommendation of the BDS civil aviation international industrial standards is proposed according to the existing and planned international civil aviation standards of GNSS. At this stage, it is urgent to push forward the BDS core system industrial standard, including the core system airborne equipment industrial standard, focusing on the development procedures and technical content of RTCA DO-368 GLONASS/GPS airborne equipment industrial standard, which will provide a reference to develop a minimum operational performance standards (MOPS) for airborne equipment compatible with BDS. This paper will also give some consideration on the promotion of industrial standards for dual-frequency multi-constellation (DFMC) airborne equipment.

Constructing knowledge graph (KG) is the basic condition to realize the application of knowledge graph such as semantic search and intelligent question and answer. In this paper, the principle of knowledge graph construction is introduced in detail from three aspects: structure, construction method and construction process, and the knowledge graph architecture including data source, knowledge extraction, knowledge fusion, knowledge processing, knowledge representation, knowledge storage and knowledge base is proposed. Then, the current flow chart of knowledge graph construction is analyzed, and three specific problems are put forward. Finally, according to the principle of knowledge graph construction, aiming at the existing problems, the specific optimization scheme is put forward, and the flow chart of knowledge graph construction after optimization is drawn. The flow chart of knowledge graph construction before and after optimization is compared and analyzed from five aspects: accuracy, intuition, complexity, representation adequacy and application scope.

Precast concrete segmental bridges (PCSBs) have been widely used in bridge engineering due to their numerous competitive advantages. The structural behavior and health status of PCSBs largely depend on the performance of the joint between the assembled segments. However, due to construction errors and dynamic loading conditions, some cracks and leakages have been found at the epoxy joints of PCSBs during the construction or operation stage. These defects will affect the joint quality, negatively impacting the safety and durability of the bridge. A structural health monitoring (SHM) method using active sensing with a piezoceramic-based smart aggregate (SA) to detect the crack and leakage in the epoxy joint of PCSBs was proposed and the feasibility was studied by experiment in the present work. Two concrete prisms were prefabricated with installed SAs and assembled with epoxy joint. An initial defect was simulated by leaving a 3-cm crack at the center of the joint without epoxy. With a total of 13 test cases and the different lengths of cracks without water and filled with water were simulated and tested. Time-domain analysis, frequency-domain analysis and wavelet-packet-based energy index (WPEI) analysis were conducted to evaluate the health condition of the structure. By comparing the collected voltage signals, Power Spectrum Density (PSD) energy and WPEIs under different healthy states, it is shown that the test results are closely related to the length of the crack and the leakage in the epoxy joint. It is demonstrated that the devised approach has certain application value in detecting the crack and leakage in the joint of PCSBs.

In this work, we have systematically investigated the effect of cyclic deformation on the strength and rate sensitivity of Cu/Ru multilayers with different individual layer thickness ( h ) by nanoindentation tests. It was found that cyclic deformation remarkably enhances the hardness of Cu/Ru multilayers comparing with the specimens by monotonic loading. The rate sensitivity ( m ) of multilayer exhibits an anomalous size dependence after nanoscale cyclic deformation. When h > 10 nm, the m linearly increases with increasing cycle number of loading-unloading ( s ). However, the m sharply decreases with increasing s when h m . An obvious Bauschinger effect is observed during cyclic loading, where the evolution of effective stress is consistent with the m . Cyclic deformation induced dislocation accumulation and arrays at the heterogeneous interface are the intrinsic plastic mechanism for the enhanced rate sensitivity. The formation of amorphous layers at the critical h is mainly responsible for the inverse size m .

Background: Fusion of RET with several partner genes has been detected in papillary thyroid, lung, colorectal, pancreatic and breast cancers. FDA has approved Retevmo (Selpercatinib) for lung and thyroid cancers with RET gene mutations or fusions. Here we focused on the prevalence of RET fusions in a Multi-cancer cohort (besides lung and thyroid cancers) for patients (pts) whom might benefit from RET inhibitors in clinical development. Methods: Genomic profiling was performed on 12,888 lung cancer pts, 2,848 colorectal cancer pts, 1,785 liver cancer pts, 1,169 Gastric cancer pts and 232 thyroid cancer pts from Jan. 2017 to Dec. 2019 using next-generation sequencing (NGS), which covers all exons of RET and specific intron 7-11 containing the break points of fusions. The fusion patterns of RET were analyzed. Results: A total of 165 RET fusions were identified in approximately 0.86% (163/18,922) of this Chinese multi-cancer cohort. The RET fusion-positive rates were 1.05% (135/12,888) in lung cancer pts, 0.39% (11/2,848) in the colorectal cancer pts, 0.06% (1/1,785) in liver cancer pts, 0.09% (1/1,169) in the 1169 Gastric cancer pts and 6.03% (15/232) in the 232 thyroid cancer pts tested. The most common partners were KIF5B (62.04%) and CCDC6 (21.17%) in lung cancer, NCOA4 (45.45%) and CCDC6 (27.27%) in colorectal cancer, and CCDC6 (93.33%) and NCOA4 (6.67%) in thyroid cancer. The most frequent regions of RET fusions were intron 11 (140/165) and intron 10 (15/165). The common fusion partners detected in different cancers are variable, indicating that the same oncogene has different carcinogenic mechanisms in cancers, and the sensitivity of these fusions to RET inhibitors in different cancers needs to be further studied. Conclusions: This study revealed the molecular features of RET rearrangement in Chinese cancer pts, which might result in more effective personalized diagnoses and therapies. Citation Format: Ting Lei, Weiran Wang, Danhua Wang, Junfeng Fu, Yu Wang, Ze Wang, Zhe Fan, Zhenyang Lv, Tonghui Ma. Landscape of RET fusion identified by next-generation sequencing in a Chinese multi-cancer retrospective analysis [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2021; 2021 Apr 10-15 and May 17-21. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2021;81(13_Suppl):Abstract nr 2215.

Purpose We examined the expression, clinical correlation and functional mechanisms of endogenous microRNA-424 (miR-424) in human non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods Expression pattern of endogenous miR-424 was examined by qRT-PCR in clinical samples obtained from 233 NSCLC patients. Correlations between differential miR-424 expression level (low vs. high) and NSCLC patients’ clinicopathological parameters or survival were statistically examined. In in vitro NSCLC H596 and SW900 cells, miR-424 was either upregulated or downregulation by lentiviral transduction. Their effects on cancer cell viability, proliferation, and cell-cycle transition were also examined. Results MiR-424 expression was not different between NSCLC tumors and healthy lung tissues. However, it is much upregulated in NSCLC tumors associated with patients at advanced clinical stages. Statistical analyses demonstrated that high endogenous miR-424 expression in NSCLC tumors was significantly correlated with patients’ advanced clinical stages, aggressive tumor metastasis, and short survival. In addition, Cox regression model predicted that endogenous miR-424 might be an independent prognostic marker in NSCLC. In in vitro NSCLC cell lines, miR-424 downregulation had a significant suppressing effect on cancer proliferation and G1 to S phase cell-cycle transition. On the other hand, miR-424 upregulation had no effect on NSCLC in vitro. Conclusion High endogenous miR-424 expression in tumors may predict poor prognosis of patients with NSCLC. Inhibiting endogenous miR-424 may also serve an effective cancer suppressor in NSCLC.

Accumulating evidence reveals that inflammation plays a vital part in the development of diabetic nephropathy (DN), little information is available about the TGF-β-activated kinase 1 (TAK1) signal pathway activating inflammatory response in DN. We used bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMMs) and db/db mice to investigate the potential protective effects and mechanisms of TAK1 inhibitor (5Z-7-oxozeaenol) on diabetic kidney disease. The study showed that pretreatment with 5Z-7-oxozeaenol not only remarkably decreased high glucose (HG) stimulated excessive release of MCP-1 and TNF-α, but also significantly down-regulated ERK1/2, p38MAPK phosphorylation, and NF-κB activation in macrophages. In consistent, 5Z-7-oxozeaenol markedly reduced diabetes-induced albuminuria, histological changes, macrophage infiltration, and renal inflammatory cytokines expression and exerted its function through down-regulating ERK1/2, p38MAPK, NF-κB activation in the kidneys of db/db mice. Our findings may provide a novel direction to study the molecular mechanism and a perspective intervention to halt the progression of DN.

Seismic damage detection of concrete dams has always attracted much attention in hydraulic structure community. In this article, a novel seismic damage detection system was developed to perform seismic damage monitoring in concrete dams. As its importance in achieving the dam damage detection, the arrangement of a distributed lead zirconate titanate sensor network was introduced in detail. A dam model system with a distributed lead zirconate titanate sensor network was used as an object for verification. A shaking table was used to simulate the earthquake ground motion for the object to be tested. The seismic damage detection system could be used in not only the seismic damage process monitoring by measuring the dynamic stress history but also the distributed detecting of the dam damaged region. By analyzing the sensor signals, the emergence and development of the structural damages could be monitored timely. A damage index matrix was presented to evaluate the damage status of the dam in different paths. The experimental results verified the timeliness and the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Grey Turner's and Cullen's signs are rare clinical signs, which most appear in patients with severe acute pancreatitis. The present patient complained of abdominal pain after coughing. However, contrast-enhanced CT revealed a hemorrhage of the abdominal wall. Therefore, spontaneous hemorrhage of the abdominal wall was diagnosed. The patient recovered through immobilization and hemostasis therapy. This case report and literature review aims to remind clinicians of manifestations and treatment of spontaneous hemorrhage.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the use of shortened contrast injection with late triggering in coronary CT angiography (CCTA) for decreasing contrast dose and maintaining image quality. METHODS: 106 patients for CCTA on a 16-cm wide-detector CT were prospectively enrolled into groups A (n = 50) and B (n = 56) randomly. Patient weight-dependent contrast medium (Iopamiro, 370 mgI ml(−1)) at dose rate of 25 mgI/kg/s was used with 8 s and the standard 10 s injection time in groups A and B, respectively. CT values of the aortic sinus (AS), right coronary artery, left anterior descending and left circumflex at the proximal, middle and distal segments were measured and compared. Subjective image quality was evaluated and analyzed with Fisher exact test. Contrast dose, injection rate and enhancement duration (between the start of enhancement in AS and scan finish) were also compared. RESULTS: There was no difference in the injection rate and enhancement duration between the two groups (p > 0.05), while the total contrast dose in group A (36.2 ± 5.7 ml) was significantly lower than in group B (46.4 ± 6.3 ml) (p < 0.001). There was no difference for CT values in all major coronary vessels between the two groups and no difference in subjective image quality scores (all p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: It is feasible to shorten contrast injection to 8 s in CCTA on wide-detector CT systems to significantly reduce contrast dosage, maintain adequate enhancement and reduce contrast-related artifacts. ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE: (1) Coronary CT angiography (CCTA) scans with shortened contrast medium injection duration and late triggering are feasible with a 16-cm wide-detector CT system (2) Compared with the conventional CCTA with 10 s contrast injection duration, the new contrast injection protocol of using shortened injection duration (to 8 s) and late triggering reduces contrast dose to 36.2 ml, while maintaining adequate enhancement in vessels and reducing contrast-related artifacts.

Traffic speed meters are important legal measuring instruments specially used for traffic speed enforcement and must be tested and verified in the field every year using a vehicular mobile standard speed-measuring instrument to ensure speed-measuring performances. The non-contact optical speed sensor and the GPS speed sensor are the two most common types of standard speed-measuring instruments. The non-contact optical speed sensor requires extremely high installation accuracy, and its speed-measuring error is nonlinear and uncorrectable. The speed-measuring accuracy of the GPS speed sensor is rapidly reduced if the amount of received satellites is insufficient enough, which often occurs in urban high-rise regions, tunnels, and mountainous regions. In this paper, a new standard speed-measuring instrument using a dual-antenna Doppler radar sensor is proposed based on a tradeoff between the installation accuracy requirement and the usage region limitation, which has no specified requirements for its mounting distance and no limitation on usage regions and can automatically compensate for the effect of an inclined installation angle on its speed-measuring accuracy. Theoretical model analysis, simulated speed measurement results, and field experimental results compared with a GPS speed sensor with high accuracy showed that the dual-antenna Doppler radar sensor is effective and reliable as a new standard speed-measuring instrument.

Nanoscale metamaterials exhibit extraordinary optical properties and are proposed for various technological applications. Here, a new class of novel nanoscale two‐phase hybrid metamaterials is achieved by combining two major classes of traditional plasmonic materials, metals (e.g., Au) and transition metal nitrides (e.g., TaN, TiN, and ZrN) in an epitaxial thin film form via the vertically aligned nanocomposite platform. By properly controlling the nucleation of the two phases, the nanoscale artificial plasmonic lattices (APLs) consisting of highly ordered hexagonal close packed Au nanopillars in a TaN matrix are demonstrated. More specifically, uniform Au nanopillars with an average diameter of 3 nm are embedded in epitaxial TaN platform and thus form highly 3D ordered APL nanoscale metamaterials. Novel optical properties include highly anisotropic reflectance, obvious nonlinear optical properties indicating inversion symmetry breaking of the hybrid material, large permittivity tuning and negative permittivity response over a broad wavelength regime, and superior mechanical strength and ductility. The study demonstrates the novelty of the new hybrid plasmonic scheme with great potentials in versatile material selection, and, tunable APL spacing and pillar dimension, all important steps toward future designable hybrid plasmonic materials.

Motion classification system based on surface Electromyography (sEMG) pattern recognition has achieved good results in experimental condition. But it is still a challenge for clinical implement and practical application. Many factors contribute to the difficulty of clinical use of the EMG based dexterous control. The most obvious and important is the noise in the EMG signal caused by electrode shift, muscle fatigue, motion artifact, inherent instability of signal and biological signals such as Electrocardiogram. In this paper, a novel method based on Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) was developed to eliminate the reduction of classification accuracy caused by electrode shift. The average classification accuracy of our method were above 95% for the healthy subjects. In the process, we validated the influence of electrode shift on motion classification accuracy and discovered the strong correlation with correlation coefficient of >0.9 between shift position data and normal position data.

The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the outcome of a tissue-selecting therapy stapler (TST) for prolapsing hemorrhoids in HIV-infected patients. Sixty-two patients with stage III-IV hemorrhoidal prolapse were treated with TST by a single surgeon between June and November 2014. The TST group comprised 32 patients (4 females), and the TST + HIV group comprised 30 HIV-infected patients (3 females). Age, gender, and preoperative examination as well as intraoperative and postoperative features were assessed. There was no marked difference in hemorrhoidal prolapse between the TST and HIV + TST groups, except for patient satisfaction at 12 months. TST is an effective and safe technique for treatment of prolapsing hemorrhoids in HIV-infected patients.

Background Platelet parameters have been studied in many diseases. This study explored the changes of mean platelet volume (MPV) and platelet count (PLT) in subacute thyroiditis (SAT). Methods We retrospectively studied 44 patients with SAT and 45 healthy individuals. Diagnosis was confirmed by pathologic examination of surgical specimens. Results There were no significant differences in age and gender between the SAT group and the control group. We compared the above indexes between the two groups. WBC and PLT were significantly higher and MPV was obviously lower in the SAT group. PLT had high sensitivity for diagnosis of SAT. Conclusions PLT was elevated and MPV was decreased in SAT patients. A negative correlation between PLT and MPV was found.

This paper presents an accurate calibration method for drift of fiber optic gyroscope (FOG) in multi-position north-seeking phase. To avoid the effect of the rate of change of accelerometer bias on the drift estimate of FOG, north-seeking by coarse-alignment is performed in multi positions and the north-seeking results are used to compute the drift of FOG. The laboratory test results prove that the proposed method can not only achieve multi-position north-seeking, but also accurately calibrate the drift of FOG. The comparison with the traditional method highlights the superior performance of the proposed method.

A novel concept of transmissibility based on a wavelet transform for structural damage detection is presented in this paper. The main objective of the research was the development of a method for detecting slight damage at the incipient stage. As a vibration-based approach, the concept of transmissibility has attracted considerable interest because of its advantages and effectiveness in damage detection. However, like other vibration-based methods, transmissibility-based approaches suffer from insensitivity to slight local damage because of the regularity of the traditional Fourier transform. Therefore, the powerful signal processing techniques must be found to solve this problem. Wavelet transform that is able to capture subtle information in measured signals has received extensive attention in the field of damage detection in recent decades. In this paper, we first propose a novel transmissibility concept based on the wavelet transform. Outlier analysis was adopted to construct a damage detection algorithm with wavelet-based transmissibility. The feasibility of the proposed method was numerically investigated with a typical six-degrees-of-freedom spring-mass system, and comparative investigations were performed with a conventional transmissibility approach. The results demonstrate that the proposed transmissibility is more sensitive than conventional transmissibility, and the former is a promising tool for structural damage detection at the incipient stage.

Based on performance comparison of PDM equidistant and conventional elastomer lining, the impacts on the PDM performance were presented with different equidistant lining thickness. According to the Mooney-Rivlin two-parameter model and the Poisson radio equaling to 0.5, the elastomer is incompressible during the calculation and its relational material parameters such as elastic modulus and shear modulus were determined. The PDM stator and rotor curve equations were established according to hypocycloid theory. The lobe configuration is 3:4, the performance comparisons were investigated including deformation and Mises stress between conventional and equidistant elastomer lining of PDM with contact model. The test data pointed out torque, rotation speed, volumetric and overall efficiency variation results with the motor pressure difference changing from 1.93MPa to 5.90MPa. The presented results could be used for PDM design optimization and performance improvement.

Online learning is used in a wide range of real applications, e.g., predicting ad click-through rates (CTR) and personalized recommendations. Based on the analysis of users' behaviors in Video-On-Demand (VoD) recommender systems,we discover that the most recent users' actions can better reflect users' current intentions and preferences. Under this observation, we thereby propose a novel time-decaying online learning algorithm derived from the state-of-the-art FTRL-proximal algorithm, called Time-Decaying Adaptive Prediction (TDAP) algorithm. To scale Big Data, we further parallelize our algorithm following the data parallel scheme under both BSP and SSP consistency model. We experimentally evaluate our TDAP algorithm on real IPTV VoD datasets using two state-of-the-art distributed computing platforms, TDAP achieves good accuracy: it improves at least 5.6% in terms of prediction accuracy, compared to FTRL-proximal algorithm; and TDAP scales well: it runs 4 times faster when the number of machines increases from 2 to 10.

The energy consumption of the enterprise is subject to various factors. To solve the problem, a new grey-neural model is proposed which effectively combines the grey system and Bayesian-regularization neural network and avoids the disadvantages of each other. The case study indicates that the prediction method is not only reasonable in theory but also owns good application value in the energy consumption prediction. Meanwhile, results also exhibit that G-BRNN model has the automated regularization parameter selection capability and may ensure the excellent adaptability and robustness.

Surface flow velocity is a key parameter of glacier kinetic theories study. With the help of GPS, glacier surface flow velocity research improved convenient and accurate. Therefore, this paper is committed to acquire the condition of surface flow velocity of Qiyi Glacier during 2009 to 2010 based on GPS data, optical remote sensing images and topographic maps. And it is concluded that during this time, the average surface flow velocity of Qiyi Glacier is decreasing while distributed relatively fast on central and slowly on both sides, and area retreated about 0.06km2 compared with that of 1965, whose value is consistent with motion mode of mountain glacier and the tendency of changes in Qiyi Glacier according to ELA data and Mass balance.

Aim The aim of this study is to evaluate the role of Rho-kinase in the pathogenesis of lung injury induced by intestinal ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) and the preconditioning effects of fasudil hydrochloride. The novel therapeutic approach of using Rho-kinase inhibitors in the treatment of intestinal I/R is introduced. Methods Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats were divided into 4 groups: intestinal I/R group, two fasudil pretreatment groups (7.5 mg/kg and 15 mg/kg), and controls. Intestinal and lung histopathology was evaluated; myeloperoxidase (MPO) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) levels in lung parenchyma were determined. Serum tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) were measured. eNOS and P-ERM expression were measured by Western Blot. Results Lung and intestinal injury were induced by intestinal I/R, characterized by histological damage and a significant increase in BALF protein. Compared to controls, serum TNF-α, IL-6, and lung MPO activity increased significantly in the I/R group, while SOD activity decreased. A strongly positive P-ERM expression was observed, while eNOS expression was weak. After fasudil administration, injury was ameliorated. Serum TNF-α, IL-6, lung MPO and P-ERM expression decreased significantly as compared to the I/R group, while SOD activity and eNOS expression increased significantly. Significance Rho-kinase plays a key role in the pathogenesis of lung injury induced by intestinal I/R. The inhibition of the Rho-kinase pathway by fasudil hydrochloride may prevent lung injury.

Background A mammary-type myofibroblastoma is a rare soft tumor; extramammary myofibroblastomas are especially rare. Case presentation A 51-year-old woman presented to our department for evaluation of a mass on the right lower abdominal wall. The mass was then excised completely. Gross examination showed a huge, well-circumscribed soft tissue mass. The pathologic diagnosis was an extramammary myofibroblastoma. There was no recurrence after excision at the 6-month follow-up visit. Conclusions A mammary-type myofibroblastoma is a benign soft tissue neoplasm. No malignant behavior and/or recurrence of mammary-type myofibroblastomas after surgical resection have been described as a function of size and location. The present case aimed to provide a possible differential diagnosis for such abdominal masses.

Background This study was designed to evaluate the protective effects of thalidomide on paraquat (PQ)-induced lung injuries in a rat model and to explore the underlying mechanisms. Methods Rats were exposed to 50 mg/kg PQ by oral gavage, and treated with thalidomide through oral administration at 60 mg/kg once a day, 6 days/week for 2 weeks. Serum levels of IL-6, TNF-alpha, TGFbeta1 and COL1A1 were detected at different time points after paraquat exposure. At the end of the study, lung tissues were collected for pathological inspection as well as analyses of water content and expression levels of IL-6, TNF-alpha, TGFbeta1 and COL1A1 mRNA. Results The results showed that thalidomide treatment could significantly alleviate PQ-induced pathological changes in lung tissue and severity of lung edema. Thalidomide treatment after PQ exposure resulted in significantly reduced serum levels of IL-6, TNF-alpha, TGF-beta1 and COL1A1, as compared to PQ group. PCR analysis demonstrated that expression levels of IL-6, TNF-alpha, TGF-beta1 and COL1A1 in lung tissue were significantly increased after PQ exposure but reduced by thalidomide, which were confirmed by immunohistochemistry staining. Conclusions Our results indicated that inflammatory factors played important roles in PQ-induced lung injuries and thalidomide could protect rats from PQ-induced lung injuries by inhibiting the upregulation of inflammatory factors.

To assess whether diabetes alters the regulatory effects of μ-opioid receptor (MOR) agonists on the cholinergic bronchoconstriction, we investigated the inhibitory effects of endomorphins (EMs) on the electrical field stimulation (EFS)-induced cholinergic bronchoconstriction in type 1 diabetic rats. At 4 weeks after the onset of diabetes, both the EFS- and exogenous acetylcholine (ACh)-induced bronchoconstriction in diabetes in vitro were greater than those in non-diabetes rats. Furthermore, endomorphin 1 (EM1) and endomorphin 2 (EM2) inhibited the response to EFS in diabetic rat isolated bronchus in a concentration- and frequency-dependent manner, which is in agreement with that in non-diabetes. However, the inhibitory effects of EMs on the EFS-induced bronchoconstriction in diabetes were significantly weaker than those in non-diabetes. Both EM1 and EM2 (1 μM) had no effect on the contractile response to exogenous ACh, indicating a prejunctional effect. Furthermore, the inhibitory effect on the EFS-induced bronchoconstriction was blocked by naloxone (10 μM). Eight weeks after the induction of diabetes, both the EFS- and exogenous ACh-induced bronchoconstrictions in diabetes were further enhanced compared to those in short-time (4 weeks) diabetic rats. Moreover, the inhibitory effects of EMs on the EFS-induced bronchoconstriction were further attenuated. These results suggest that dysfunction of presynaptic inhibitory modulation through opioid receptor by EMs may take place in the bronchus of diabetic rats.

Endomorphins, the endogenous, potent and selective mu-opioid receptor agonists, have been shown to decrease systemic arterial pressure (SAP) in rats. In the present study, responses to endomorphins were investigated in systemic vascular bed of alloxan-induced diabetic rats and in non-diabetic rats. Diabetes was induced by alloxan (220 mg/kg, i.p.) in male Wistar rats. At 4-5 weeks after the onset of diabetes, intravenous injections of endomorphins (1-30 nmol/kg) led to an increase of SAP and heart rate (HR) consistently and dosed-dependently. SAP increased 7.68+/-3.73, 11.19+/-4.55, 21.19+/-2.94 and 27.48+/-6.21% from the baseline at the 1, 3, 10 and 30 nmol/kg dose, respectively, of endomorphin 1 (n=4; p0.05), and similar changes were observed in response to endomorphin 2. The hypertension could be antagonized markedly by i.p. 2 mg/kg of naloxone. On the other hand, bilateral vagotomy would attenuate the effects of hypertension and diminished the changes of HR in response to endomorphins. With diabetic rats, 6-10 weeks after the induction of diabetes, intravenous injections of endomorphins produced non-dose-related various changes in SAP, such as a single decrease, or a single increase, or biphasic changes characterized by an initial decrease followed by a secondary increase, or no change at all. These results suggest that diabetes may lead to the dysfunction of the cardiovascular system in response to endomorphins. Furthermore, the diabetic rats of 4-5 weeks after alloxan-treatment, the increase in SAP and HR caused by i.v. endomorphins might be explained by a changed effect of vagus and by a naloxone-sensitive mechanism.

The National Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering established in 1995 is affiliated with the Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and located in Zhong-guan-cun (Beijing, China). The National Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering is working towards developments in the fields of bio-reaction, bio-separation and bio-formulation, by chemical and material methods. Over the last 5 years, approximately 200 scientists and students have worked at the laboratory, and published over 400 articles. Numerous universities, companies and institutes have established cooperative relationships with this laboratory, and over 70 cooperative research programs with other researchers have been conducted in the past few years.

Schwannomas are slow-growing mesenchymal neoplasms that arise from Schwann cells with low malignant potential. These uncommon neoplasms are nerve sheath tumors that arise at almost any anatomical site. The majority of schwannomas are benign, and few are malignant. The current study presents the rare case of an anal schwannoma that was successfully treated by surgery; there are few such cases previously reported in the literature. The patient was admitted to hospital following the identification of a mass incidentally. The tumor was so large that it compressed the tissue around it, although no symptoms were caused. The pre-operative clinical diagnosis was inconclusive in this case, and a final diagnosis was established based on radiographic and histopathological examination. The current study aimed to provide a possible differential diagnosis for such anally-located masses.

Objective.In this study, we investigated the protective effect and mechanism of curcumin on a rat model of intestinal ischemia/reperfusion (I/R), which induces an acute liver lesion.Methods.Curcumin was injected into rats in the curcumin groups through left femoral vein. The same volume of vehicle (0.9% normal saline) was injected into sham and I/R groups. Blood and liver tissue were gathered for serological and histopathological determination.Results.Intestinal I/R led to severe liver injury manifested as a significant increase in serum AST and ALT levels; all of those were reduced by treatment with curcumin. Simultaneously, the activity of SOD in liver decreased after intestinal I/R, which was increased by curcumin treatment. On the other hand, curcumin reduced MPO activity of liver tissue, as well as serum IL-6 and TNF-αlevels observably. This is in parallel with the decreased level of liver intercellular cell adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) and nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) expression.Conclusion.Our findings suggest that curcumin treatment attenuates liver lesion induced by intestinal I/R, attributable to the antioxidative and anti-inflammatory effect via inhibition of the NF-κB pathway.

ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) is a set of best practice guidelines for IT service management generally used in the industry. It is best practices summed up from the management experience of a large number of enterprise IT operation and maintenance services. In this paper, based on the analysis of network characteristics, and prediction of development trends on the ITIL theory of service management mode, a new IT service management system is built for network. The proposed management system lines with the characteristics of network, provides safety process system, is suitable to the industry's development direction. In additional, the system construction status is introduced, which is under the guidance of ITIL concepts. The future direction of the IT service management system construction is analyzed.

The phase relation of harmonics in high-intensity focused ultrasound is investigated numerically and experimentally. The nonlinear Westervelt equation is solved to model nonlinear focused sound field by using the finite difference time domain method. Experimental waveforms are measured by a robust needle hydrophone. Then the relative phase quantity is introduced and obtained by using the zero-phase filter. The results show that the nth harmonic relative phase quantity is approximately (n — 1)π/3 at geometric center and increases along the axial direction. Moreover, the relative phase quantity decreases with the increase of source amplitude. This phase relation gives an explanation of some nonlinear phenomena such as the discrepancy of positive and negative pressure.

In CRRA (Constant Relative Risk Aversion) theory, we analysis factors influencing the optimal R&D investment. The theoretical model points out that the optimal R&D investment depends on three factors: the expected profits growth, the critical level of accumulated investment on R&D and the company's risk preference (the volatility of future cash flows). By the empirical analysis of 156 listed companies in Yangtze River Delta Region, we find that the increasing expected profits and the volatility of company’s cash flow are positively correlated with the optimal R&D investment, but have nothing to do with firm size.

According to the manufacturing management situation in the shop of aviation enterprise, work-in-process management and control as the inevitable result of the production process have become the key link of production plan. Due to the growing production requirements and the potential economical benefits of manufacturing process flow, aviation enterprises have been pushed to integrate work-in-process management with their manufacturing process. To solve the present problems based on modern enterprise management concept and advanced network database technologies work-in-process management information system was discussed in this paper. To improve the performance and security and build an open technology framework for aviation enterprise the system adopts the three layer distributed architecture constructed by client, application servers and database servers combining C / S with B / S mode. And in order to guarantee the database's security and integrity, the corresponding strategies were developed to deal with the various threats. System requirement analysis, system architecture and database design were introduced deeply. The system has been put into practice and has the function of progress control, quality control and cost control to provide an overall solution to work-in-process management problem. The results show the system is reliable and effective to be feasible in aviation enterprise.