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Data on anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis (AAV) are limited in children. This study is to determine the clinical features and outcomes of childhood-onset AAV. A retrospective study was performed on patients who were diagnosed with AAV before 18 years old in Xiangya Hospital. Their medical records were analyzed by retrospective review. Sixteen patients were diagnosed with AAV before 18 years old in the past 9 years, with an average age of 13.3 ± 3.3 years and 13 of them were female. There were 15 patients with microscopic polyangiitis (MPA) and 1 with Wegener’s granulomatosis. The interval between onset of disease and diagnosis of AAV was 2 (1.5–3) months. Most patients (15/16, 93.8%) had multi-organ involvement, and all patients had renal involvement with 7 (43.8%) patients requiring dialysis at presentation. Eleven patients underwent a renal biopsy, of which mixed class and sclerotic class were the most two common histological types. All patients received immunosuppressive therapy for induction therapy including intravenous administrations of methylprednisolone (MP) pulse therapy for 8 patients. 8 patients (50%) achieved remission after induction therapy. After a median follow-up of 46.3 ± 36.1 months, nine (56.3%) patients progressed to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and 5 (31.3%) patients died. Childhood-onset AAV showed similar clinical and pathological features compared to those of adults, except that it usually occurs in girls. The most commonly involved organ was the kidney, and it had a high risk of progression to ESRD. Early diagnosis and initiation of appropriate immunomodulatory therapy would be important to improve outcomes.

Anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody-associated vasculitis (AAV) is predominantly a disease of the elderly, and the incidence increases with age. However, there are few data focusing on the clinical features in elderly onset AAV, especially in very elderly onset AAV in China. The aim of this study was to explore whether elderly onset AAV shows any specific clinical features and outcomes in Chinese patients. We performed a retrospective study in Xiangya Hospital, a mixed tertiary medical center in south China. A total of 177 patients presenting with AAV were included between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2017. Patients were divided into younger group (age

Promoting the sustainable intensification of cultivated land use (SICL) has become crucial for ensuring a sufficient supply of grain and important agricultural products, as well as for the sustainable use of resources. Taking widely used areas of Shandong Province in China as examples, an analytical scale and level framework for SICL is constructed in this study. It measures the level of SICL through material flow analysis, constructs Tobit models to analyze the influencing factors of SICL at the farming household scale, and analyzes the transition mechanisms of SICL. The results show that the overall level of SICL in Shandong Province is low, and the spatial distribution is uneven. There are relatively more farmers participating in unsustainable intensification than in medium or low levels of SICL, with farmers working at a high level of SICL making up the smallest proportion. The factors that determine the level of SICL at which farmers work vary significantly. More male farmers operate at a low SICL level than female farmers, while females outnumber males at a high SICL level. This is mainly related to the regional distribution of age and population. Meanwhile, with larger cultivated land areas, there is a lower degree of land fragmentation, with a higher level of SICL corresponding to a smaller distance to the nearest town closer within 1–5 km from the town center. We can see the level of SICL and its processes themselves are closely related to time and space scales. Based on the above analysis, it is necessary to clarify the standard processes of SICL to adapt them to local conditions. This includes instructing managers on how to improve resource utilization, increase the sustainable development of cultivated land and establish a comprehensively efficient and functional SICL mechanism. The sustainable intensification of cultivated land use and its specific application in the new era are conducive to enriching the frontier theories and methodology of sustainable development, and are of great significance to the advancement of green agriculture and the decision-making of rural high-quality development.

Objective: To analyze the role of serum sortilin in coronary artery calcification (CAC) and cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (CCE) in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients. Methods: One hundred eleven patients with MHD ≥3 months were included in this study. The general data, clinical features, hematological data, and medication history of the patients were recorded. Eighty-five cases were examined by vascular color Doppler ultrasound, cardiac color Doppler ultrasound, lateral lumbar radiography, and coronary artery calcification score. The patients were followed up for a median time of 45 months. The primary endpoint was CCE or death from a vascular event, and the role of sortilin in this process was analyzed. Results: Among 85 MHD patients, 51 cases (60.00%) had different degrees of CAC. There were significant differences in diabetes, dialysis time, serum phosphorus, calcium-phosphorus product, medical history of phosphate binders, sortilin, and carotid artery plaque between 4 different degrees of calcification groups (p < 0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that diabetes (OR = 5.475; 95% CI: 1.794–16.71, p = 0.003), calcium-phosphorus product (OR = 2.953; 95% CI: 1.198–7.279, p = 0.019), and sortilin (OR = 1.475 per 100 pg/mL; 95% CI: 1.170–1.858, p = 0.001) were independent risk factors for CAC. During the follow-up, 28 cases of 111 patients (25.23%) suffered from CCE. There were significant differences in CCE between mild, moderate, and severe CAC groups and noncalcification groups (p < 0.05). Cox regression analysis showed that diabetes mellitus (HR 3.424; 95% CI: 1.348–8.701, p = 0.010), CAC (HR 5.210; 95% CI: 1.093–24.83, p = 0.038), and serum sortilin (HR = 8.588; 95% CI: 1.919–38.43, p = 0.005) were independent risk factors for CCE. Besides, we proposed a cutoff value of 418 pg/mL for serum sortilin level, which was able to predict the occurrence of CCE with 75.0% sensitivity and 71.9% specificity. The area under the curve was 0.778 (95% CI: 0.673–0.883). Conclusion: Sortilin is newly found to be independently associated with CAC and CCE in MHD patients.

After the Fukushima accident, the risk of hydrogen shall be considered by most countries in nuclear power plants. China national nuclear safety Administration has required that nuclear power plants shall install the hydrogen monitoring measurement equipment for severe accident in containment. There were some equipment used for hydrogen monitoring at severe accident, but some equipment cannot solve the leakage problem, some equipment cannot measure the hypoxic environment, and some have slower response time or long startup time. In this study, we developed a based on Pd–Ag​ alloy hydrogen monitoring equipment, Pd–Ag alloy is selected as hydrogen sensitive material, alumina ceramic is used as substrate, and Pd–Ag alloy film hydrogen core measurement component is prepared by magnetron sputtering technology. Heating​ treatment in sensor is adopted to maintain the environment in which the sensor is located at a constant 198°C environment, and protective and filtering measures are taken to ensure that hydrogen detection is not affected by aerosol and water vapor. Then, study the characterization of hydrogen monitoring equipment. Testing results indicated that the hydrogen measuring component (Pd–Ag) working at a constant temperature does not affect the measurement results and this equipment has the constant line relationship between hydrogen concentration and resistant. The response time of hydrogen decrease is longer than that of hydrogen increase, but it is within 50 s. It also has the high accuracy keeping within 1 vol% at normal anoxic environment and harsh environment. If it is applied to severe accidents in NPPs, it is necessary to study the performance under irradiation conditions in the future.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a clinical spectrum of neurodevelopment disorder characterized by deficits in social communication and social interaction along with repetitive/stereotyped behaviors. The current diagnosis for autism relies entirely on clinical evaluation and has many limitations. In this study, we aim to elucidate the potential mechanism behind autism and establish a series of potential biomarkers for diagnosis. Here, we established an ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry- (UHPLC-QTOF/MS-) based metabonomic approach to discriminate the metabolic modifications between the cohort of autism patients and the healthy subjects. UHPLC-QTOF/MS analysis revealed that 24 of the identified potential biomarkers were primarily involved in amino acid or lipid metabolism and the tryptophan kynurenine pathway. The combination of nicotinamide, anthranilic acid, D-neopterin, and 7,8-dihydroneopterin allows for discrimination between ASD patients and controls, which were validated in an independent autism case-control cohort. The results indicated that UHPLC-QTOF/MS-based metabolomics is capable of rapidly profiling autism metabolites and is a promising technique for the discovery of potential biomarkers related to autism.

Identification of risk factors for treatment resistance and relapse would be crucial to personalization therapy in patients with myeloperoxidase (MPO)-anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (MPO-AAV). Current evidence with regard to the risk factors for treatment resistance and relapse remains limited and inconclusive. We aimed to assess the predictors for treatment resistance and relapse in a single-center cohort of Chinese patients with MPO-AAV in this study. In total, 184 patients with MPO-AAV were included. Treatment resistance occurred in 64 (34.9%) of 184 patients and was positively associated with lung involvement (odds ratio [OR] 3.581, 95% CI 1.137-11.278, p = 0.029) and the initial serum creatinine level (OR 1.004, 95% CI 1.001-1.007, p = 0.010) and was negatively associated with platelet (OR 0.992, 95% CI 0.987-0.998, p = 0.007) and serum C3 levels (OR 0.998, 95% CI 0.996-0.999, p = 0.004). Relapse occurred in 29 (24.17%) of 120 patients in whom remission was achieved and was independently associated with lung involvement (hazard ratio [HR] 4.595, 95% CI 1.272-16.599, p = 0.020) and cardiovascular involvement (HR 3.689, 95% CI 1.237-11, p = 0.019,). The serum globulin was demonstrated to be negatively associated with relapse independently (HR 0.876; 95% CI 0.806-0.953; p = 0.002). This retrospective study of MPO-AAV patients in a single Chinese center suggests that treatment resistance was positively associated with lung involvement and the initial serum creatinine level and was negatively associated with platelet and serum C3 levels. Lung involvement and cardiovascular involvement were associated with an increased risk of relapse, while the higher serum globulin was demonstrated to be in association with a decreased risk of relapse.

Lung ultrasound (LUS) is now widely used in the diagnosis and monitor of neonatal lung diseases. Nevertheless, in the published literatures, the LUS images may display a significant variation in technical execution, while scanning parameters may influence diagnostic accuracy. The inter- and intra-observer reliabilities of ultrasound exam have been extensively studied in general and in LUS. As expected, the reliability declines in the hands of novices when they perform the point-of-care ultrasound (POC US). Consequently, having appropriate guidelines regarding to technical aspects of neonatal LUS exam is very important especially because diagnosis is mainly based on interpretation of artifacts produced by the pleural line and the lungs. The present work aimed to create an instrument operation specification and parameter setting guidelines for neonatal LUS. Technical aspects and scanning parameter settings that allow for standardization in obtaining LUS images include (1) select a high-end equipment with high-frequency linear array transducer (12-14 MHz). (2) Choose preset suitable for lung examination or small organs. (3) Keep the probe perpendicular to the ribs or parallel to the intercostal space. (4) Set the scanning depth at 4-5 cm. (5) Set 1-2 focal zones and adjust them close to the pleural line. (6) Use fundamental frequency with speckle reduction 2-3 or similar techniques. (7) Turn off spatial compounding imaging. (8) Adjust the time-gain compensation to get uniform image from the near-to far-field.

In this paper, a new deep learning and machine learning combined model is proposed for malware behavior analysis. One part of it analyzes the dependency relation in API (Application Programming Interface) call sequence at the functional level, and extracts features for random forest to learn and classify. The other part employs a bidirectional residual neural network to study the API sequence and discover malware with redundant information preprocessing. In the API call sequence, future information is much more important for conjecturing the semantic of the current API call. We conducted experiments on a malware dataset. The experiment results show that both methods can effectively detect malwares. However, the combined framework has better classification performance. The classification accuracy of the combined malware detection architecture is 0.967.

In antineutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitides (AAV), the two major target antigens of ANCA are proteinase 3 (PR3) and myeloperoxidase (MPO). Evidence is accumulating that there are distinct differences between patients with PR3-AAV and those with MPO-AAV. In the present study, the clinicopathological features and prognosis of patients with PR3-AAV and MPO-AAV from a single center in China were retrospectively analyzed. A total of 212 Chinese patients with AAV were recruited in the present study; 189/212 (89.15%) patients were classified as having MPO-AAV and 23/212 (10.85%) patients as having PR3-AAV. Compared with those in the PR3-AAV group, patients in the MPO-AAV group were older and less frequently had ear, nose and throat or ophthalmic involvement. MPO-AAV patients had higher levels of serum creatinine and proteinuria at baseline. No significant difference was observed with regard to the pathological changes of the glomeruli and tubulointerstitium between the two groups. The probability of developing end-stage renal disease was significantly higher in patients with MPO-AAV compared with that in patients with PR3-AAV. There was no significant difference in the one-year patient survival rate between the two groups. However, differences in certain clinical characteristics and outcomes were observed between MPO-AAV and PR3-AAV patients. A large national investigation of AAV is required to confirm the concept that PR3-AAV and MPO-AAV are distinct disease entities.

Objective To investigate the clinical effect of mouse nerve growth factor (mNGF) and methylcobalamin (MeCbl) for the treatment of lumbar disk herniation (LDH) with foot drop. Methods A total of 46 patients suffering from LDH with foot drop who underwent transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (TLIF) surgery in our department from January 2015 to December 2017 were retrospectively analyzed. We divided these patients into two groups according to the different postoperative treatment which independently selected by patients after signing informed consent form: one group of 25 patients was treated with MeCbl alone (Group MeCbl), the other group of 21 patients was treated with a combination of mNGF and MeCbl (Group MeCbl+mNGF). Patient demographics, the visual analogue scale (VAS) scores, sensory and muscular strength improvement statistics at 1 week, 4 weeks, 12 weeks, and 12 months postoperatively were recorded. Motor/sensory deficits, sciatica and overall neurological outcome after treatment of MeCbl alone and combination of mNGF and MeCbl were retrospectively analyzed. Results The follow‐up ranged between 12 and 42 months (mean 20.8 months). There were no significant differences between these two groups of patients with respect to sex ratio, age, smoking, diabetes, disease course, section of protruding disc(s), muscular strength of foot dorsiflexion or preoperative visual analogue scale (VAS) score (P > 0.05). The VAS scores of Group MeCbl+mNGF were significantly lower than Group MeCbl at 1 week, 4 weeks, 12 weeks, and 12 months postoperatively (4.32 ± 0.75 vs 5.25 ± 0.79,2.65 ± 0.48 vs 3.42 ± 0.52, 1.72 ± 0.36 vs 2.45 ± 0.39, 1.12 ± 0.22 vs 1.52 ± 0.24, P < 0.05). The effective rates of sensory improvement were significantly higher in Group MeCbl+mNGF compared with Group MeCbl at 12‐week/12‐month follow‐up time point (90.48% vs 52.00%,95.24% vs 68.00%, P, Application of mNGF in combination with MeCbl had clinical effects on promoting the recovery of neurological function in patients suffering from LDH with foot drop.

Humidity regulation and control of ventilation system in nuclear power plant plays an increasingly important role in the third generation nuclear power plant. Humidity meter is an important equipment to realize this function. In this paper, the measuring principle of humidity instrument and the application requirements of the third generation nuclear power humidity instrument are compared and analyzed in detail. Combined with the application of humidity instruments in nuclear power plants, two kinds of humidity instruments, capacitive and optical fiber, are proposed to meet the application requirements of the third generation of nuclear power plants.

With the rapid development of modern computer technology, control technology and communication technology, it has become a practical problem to optimize the monitoring mode of BOP sub-items, to seek more reasonable and effective, more economical and convenient, more stable and reliable engineering application solutions that reflect the mature automation technology today and to uniformly monitor and design these sub-items. In particular, it has been mature in thermal power plant applying auxiliary control network technology in auxiliary workshops, and the technology has been widely used in chemical industry, metallurgy and other industries. BOP sub-items are networked on the basis of the current monitoring mode, and without affecting the project progress. Realizing of moderate centralized control will improve the level of automatic operation and management of nuclear power plant, and meet the requirements of informatization management of the plant.

This paper explains the overall control strategy of nuclear island ventilation system in CPR1000 NPP (Nuclear Power Plant), and expounds the current situation of nuclear island ventilation system. It analyzes the problems to be solved and challenges to be faced. Based on the market products, this paper puts forward the new control strategy and idea. It is necessary to develop nuclear safety-class electrical heater power regulation control cabinet used for local temperature regulation control, and local control cabinet based on simple hardware or an integrated safety-class electrical heater with self-control. The safety-class local power regulation control cabinet and on-off local control cabinet were developed successfully in this study, but there are not products on the safety-class integrated electrical heater with self-control in market, which shall be developed in the future. Then, propose a control logic architecture, and introduce the control logic design idea how to implement from the equipment level to the plant level. At present, in new construction NPPs, nuclear island ventilation systems have basically realized the “system level” control level and completely realized the “sub-function level” control according to this study. Subsequently, the “system-level” and “plant-level” relationship can be sorted out to further realize “plant-level” control. More intelligent ventilation and air conditioning algorithms may be also introduced to improve the overall control level of nuclear island ventilation system in NPP.

Intensive use of near-Earth space, expressed in the creation of space systems consisting of dozens of spacecraft and leaving them in orbits, after accidents or the development of a working resource, leads to an increase in space debris. The destruction of spacecraft left in orbits, their collisions and explosions, the last stages of launch vehicles and booster blocks, leads to the formation of a huge number of small fragments of space debris (less than 100 mm in size) which are currently not possible to monitor, and therefore impossible to predict the trajectory of its flight. The only means of protection against small space debris are devices in the form of screens, or the manufacture of multilayer sheathing of the spacecraft body. The study conducted, using the ANSYS environment, a mathematical model of the breakdown of the screen, consisting of two and three layers, with a filler (Kevlar) and without a filler, in case of hyper-speed collision, with fragments of small space debris of various sizes.

Fukushima accident has caused serious damages to public health and environment. Licensees of nuclear power plants in China are required to take measures to prevent severe accident happening. Control and detection hydrogen in containment under severe accident is one of the improvement actions. This article has analyzed the requirements for hydrogen detection system and related tests requirements for this detection system. A comparison of IEC 61298 and IEC 61779 is made to find tests should be carried on a new developing detection system/equipment. Nuclear qualification tests also have been considered. One testing system frame has been put forward.

BackgroundRapidly progressive glomerulonephritis caused by antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (AAV) is typically characterized as pauci-immune glomerulonephritis. However, immune complex (IC) deposition in the glomerulus has been reported in a growing number of studies. Here, we assess the presence of glomerular immune deposits alongside renal outcome in myeloperoxidase (MPO)-ANCA associated glomerulonephritis (MPO-ANCA GN).MethodsClinical and histopathologic characteristics of 97 patients with MPO-ANCA GN classified by renal biopsy from January 2008 to December 2019 were extracted retrospectively from electronic medical records. The extent of immune deposits in the kidney (C3, C4, C1q, IgA, IgG, IgM) at diagnosis were analyzed by immunofluorescence (IF). Patients were followed up for a median period of 15 months. The response to treatment and outcomes of renal and histological lesion changes were also assessed.ResultsIn our study, 41% (40/97) of patients showed positive IF (≥2+) for at least one of the six immunoglobulin or complement components tested. Patients with IC deposits showed higher levels of serum creatinine (p=0.025), lower platelet counts (p=0.009), lower serum complement C3 (sC3) (≤790 ml/L) (p=0.013) and serum IgG (p=0.018) than patients with pauci-immune (PI) deposition at diagnosis. End-stage renal disease was negatively associated with eGFR (HR 0.885, 95% CI 0.837 to 0.935, pConclusionIn conclusion, patients with immune complex deposits in the kidney showed less platelet count, lower sC3 and sIgG levels, and higher serum creatinine levels. Patients with low sC3 at initial and with continued low sC3 during the treatment displayed a trend toward poorer kidney survival. Moreover, the IC group showed a worse renal outcome than the PI group, further enforcing the present strategy of introducing complement targeted therapies in AAV.

BACKGROUND Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complicated neuropsychiatric disease that displays significant heterogeneity. The diagnosis of ASD is currently primarily dependent upon descriptions of clinical symptoms, and it remains urgent to find biological markers for the detection and diagnosis of autism. The current study applied the urinary metabolic profiling approach to characterize metabolic phenotypes in ASD. MATERIAL AND METHODS Urine was obtained from children with ASD and their matched healthy siblings. Samples were analyzed using 1H NMR-based methods designed to measure a broad range of metabolites. Partial least-square-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was used to develop models to identify metabonomic variations that can be used to distinguish between individuals with ASD and their unaffected siblings. RESULTS A significant difference was observed between the metabolomic profiles of children with ASD and that of their healthy siblings. An increase in the levels of tryptophan, hippurate, glycine, and creatine, and a decrease in trigonelline, melatonin, pantothenate, serotonin, and taurine were observed compared to the control group. We conclude that several metabolic pathways are affected by autism, which suggests that a gut-brain link may be important in the pathophysiology of ASD. CONCLUSIONS 1H NMR-based metabonomic analysis of the urine can determine perturbations of specific metabolic pathways related to ASD and help identify a characteristic metabolic fingerprint to better understand the disease and its causes.

Neural network-based sequence-to-sequence (seq2seq) models strongly suffer from the low-diversity problem when it comes to open-domain dialogue generation. As bland and generic utterances usually dominate the frequency distribution in our daily chitchat, avoiding them to generate more interesting responses requires complex data filtering, sampling techniques or modifying the training objective. In this paper, we propose a new perspective to diversify dialogue generation by leveraging non-conversational text. Compared with bilateral conversations, non-conversational text are easier to obtain, more diverse and cover a much broader range of topics. We collect a large-scale non-conversational corpus from multi sources including forum comments, idioms and book snippets. We further present a training paradigm to effectively incorporate these text via iterative back translation. The resulting model is tested on two conversational datasets and is shown to produce significantly more diverse responses without sacrificing the relevance with context., Accepted to ACL 2020 (long)

Unprecedented high-rise buildings pose new challenges for earthquake engineering. Full-field structural health monitoring (SHM) systems have flourished to address these challenges. In this ...

Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) has been recently reported to be a promising inflammatory marker to assess systemic inflammation in many disorders. However, there are only a few studies looking at NLR in patients with myeloperoxidase (MPO)-anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (AAV). This study was thus undertaken to explore the relationship between NLR at diagnosis with inflammatory response and disease activity among MPO-AAV patients in a single Chinese center. Furthermore, we evaluated whether NLR could predict the renal prognosis and patient outcome. 188 patients with MPO-AAV were included in this study. Baseline NLR was positively correlated with CRP (r = 0.404, P

Since December 2019, a novel coronavirus named 2019 coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has emerged in Wuhan of China and spread to several countries worldwide within just one month. Apart from fever and respiratory complications, acute kidney injury has been observed in some patients with 2019-nCoV. In a short period of time, angiotensin converting enzyme II (ACE2), have been proposed to serve as the receptor for the entry of 2019-nCoV, which is the same for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS). To investigate the possible cause of kidney damage in 2019-nCoV patients, we used both published kidney and bladder cell atlas data and an independent unpublished kidney single cell RNA-Seq data generated in-house to evaluate ACE2 gene expressions in all cell types in healthy kidneys and bladders.Our results showed the enriched expression of all subtypes of proximal tubule cells of kidney and low but detectable levels of expression in bladder epithelial cells. These results indicated the urinary system is a potential route for 2019-nCoV infection, along with the respiratory system and digestion system. Our findings suggested the kidney abnormalities of SARS and 2019-nCoV patients may be due to proximal tubule cells damage and subsequent systematic inflammatory response induced kidney injury. Beyond that, laboratory tests of viruses and related indicators in urine may be needed in some special patients of 2019-nCoV.

Being able to perform in-depth chat with humans in a closed domain is a precondition before an open-domain chatbot can be ever claimed. In this work, we take a close look at the movie domain and present a large-scale high-quality corpus with fine-grained annotations in hope of pushing the limit of movie-domain chatbots. We propose a unified, readily scalable neural approach which reconciles all subtasks like intent prediction and knowledge retrieval. The model is first pretrained on the huge general-domain data, then finetuned on our corpus. We show this simple neural approach trained on high-quality data is able to outperform commercial systems replying on complex rules. On both the static and interactive tests, we find responses generated by our system exhibits remarkably good engagement and sensibleness close to human-written ones. We further analyze the limits of our work and point out potential directions for future work

When a wellhead gas production tree in a certain oilfield block fracturing completed 12 layers and 22 layers and then the bottom-up discharge operation was performed, the Wellhead four-way suddenly suffered erosion failure. This is the seventh failure of this operation. In order to obtain the cause of failure, the chemical analysis, hardness testing, tensile property testing, and finite element structural dynamic analysis are used to analyze the failure of the cross connection. The results of physical and chemical analysis show that the chemical composition, hardness, and tensile properties of the failed parts meet the requirements of the standard, not the problem of the material of the work piece. Due to the high-frequency vibration generated by the three-phase fluid in the pipeline during the discharge process, different types of vibration and deformation of the four-way valve and the valve body occur. The dimensions of the on-site structural parts were measured, and the bolt sizes were found to be different. A finite element model was established based on the measured data for dynamic analysis. Through physical and chemical tests and theoretical calculations, it is found that the cause of failure is the unbalanced load and resonance of the bolt, and the nut undercuts under high-frequency vibration, which causes leakage at the flange connection and eventually causes erosion failure. It is recommended to regularly use an electronic torque wrench to test the pretightening force of each bolt to prevent vibration and failure due to inconsistent pretightening force of the bolts.

Purpose. To evaluate the effect of berberine (BBR) on polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) patients with insulin resistance (IR). Methods. PubMed (in English), Medline (in English), Embase (in English), CNKI (in Chinese), WanFang DATA (in Chinese), and VIP (in Chinese) were searched for randomized controlled trials in human beings with the search terms including “polycystic ovary syndrome /PCOS” and “berberine/BBR/Huang liansu (in Chinese)/ Xiao bojian (in Chinese)” till July 2018. Relevant indices were collected and analyzed by Stata 13.0. Results. A total of 9 randomized controlled trials were included. Limited data demonstrated the results as follows: No significant difference was found between berberine (BBR) and metformin (MET) on alleviating insulin resistance, improving glycolipid metabolism, or reproductive endocrine condition. MET combined with BBR was not superior to MET alone, but cyproterone acetate (CPA) combined with BBR was superior to CPA alone in improving some of the reproductive endocrine indices. The combination of BBR and Chinese herbs also showed positive effect. However there are insufficient data to make any conclusions on the effect of BBR on PCOS-IR. Conclusion. BBR showed a promising prospect in treating PCOS-IR. But its mechanisms are still unclear, and more properly designed, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials are needed to further confirm its effect and safety.

SMEs are the growth engine of the many countries economy and currently two thirds of the workforce work in this sector. They are also a good source of job creation, with positive hiring intentions. Intensive and supportive of SMEs and policy development remains the priority of the world’s economics. Development of SMEs plays an important role in economic growth while reducing poverty and unemployment. In addition, SME development contributes to a reduction in inequitable income distribution, support social stability, and private sector development. Today, small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) are middle-class societies, which are the basis of sustainable economic development of many countries. In developed countries 70-90 percent of the total industries account for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The present study sought to investigate the recruitment and selection practices of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Mongolia. The research contributes to indicate that an understanding and adoption of formal and context specific aspects of recruitment and selection practices by owner/managers will help position the SME’s at the forefront of socio-economic development. A major limitation of the study was a lack of current data on the addresses and locations of SMEs’ as well as inadequate information to enhance easy classification and access. The present research contributes to knowledge by bringing to the fore specific and contextual issues that may influence recruitment and selection practices of SMEs.

Dynamic analysis of malware sample is an important method in the malware detection. In this paper, a malware detection architecture is proposed that combines machine learning and deep learning. The combination classification architecture focuses on the dynamic behavior of a malware sample. A new feature extraction method is proposed for dynamic behavior analysis. In this paper, recurrent neural network model is used to extracts the abstract features. Several sequence data preprocessing methods are studied to remove the redundant data. Experiments show that the AUC of the combination architecture is 99.3%. The classification performance of the combination architecture is better than the separate machine learning or deep learning.

Defect Detection is one of the most important parts of Automatic Identification and Data transmission. Quick Response code (QRcode) is one of the most popular types of two-dimensional barcodes. It isachallenge to detect defect of various QRcode images efficiently and accurately. In this paper, we propose the procedure byaserial of carefully designed preprocessing methods. The defect detection procedure consists of QRcode identification, QRcode reconstruction, perspective transformation, image binarization, morphological operation, image matching, and Blob analysis. By these steps, we can detect defect of different types of QRcode images. The experiment results show that our method has stronger robustness and higher efficiency. Moreover, experiment results on QRcode images show that the prediction accuracy of proposed method reaches 99.07%with an average execution time of 6.592 ms. This method can detect defect of these images in real time.

Urban villages often lag behind the urban planning. Besides, illegal construction is quite concentrated on some certain areas, showing high housing density, poor ventilation as well as lighting conditions, whose dwellers live in harsh environment. First of all, this paper will simulate the physical environment of a urban village in Guangzhou, and analyze the problems in the physical environment of the village from the angle of wind speed distribution, temperature distribution and sunshine time. Secondly, three representative buildings are selected to analyze the indoor physical environment. Finally, some countermeasures are put forward to solve the problems found in the analysis, for example setting the natural ventilators, Wingwall and reflector, strengthening the air tightness of the doors and windows, enhancing the ventilation by the Solar chimney and greening the external wall. Through the above measures, to some extents, it could improve the living environment of the urban village, and provide some reference for the reconstruction of the urban village.

In recent years, there have been many signal interference events by lightning in the automatic instrument system of nuclear power plants at home and abroad, which affect the normal operation of nuclear power plants. Based on the specific lightning events in nuclear power plant, this paper analyses the causes of lightning impact on automatic instrument system, and puts forward the main measures of lightning protection for automatic instrument system in nuclear power plant from the aspects of lightning arrester, shielding, grounding and surge protection.

Chronic inflammation has been indicated to be important in the pathogenesis of anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody-associated vasculitis (AAV). The systemic immune-inflammation index (SII) is a novel marker of inflammation. The present study was thus performed to explore the association between the SII at diagnosis and inflammatory response and disease activity in Chinese patients with myeloperoxidase (MPO)-AAV. Furthermore, it was evaluated whether the SII is able to predict the progression to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) and patient survival. A total of 190 patients with MPO-AAV were included in the present study. The baseline SII was positively correlated with C-reactive protein (CRP; r=0.274, P

Background Pulse methylprednisolone (MP) was routinely used before commencing standard immunosuppressive therapy for induction of remission in patients with dialysis-dependent anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (AAV) in spite of the paucity of evidence of benefit. The aim of this study was thus to determine whether the addition of pulse MP to standard induction immunosuppressive therapy in severe myeloperoxidase (MPO) -AAV patients who were on dialysis at onset is associated with an improvement in kidney recovery and patient survival. Furthermore, we analyzed the factors associated with restoration of kidney function and mortality in a single Chinese cohort. Methods 69 MPO-AAV patients who were on dialysis at the time of diagnosis were included in this study. The MP group (n = 30) received pulse MP (5–10 mg/kg/day) for 3 days before the standard immunosuppressive therapy. The Non-MP group (n = 39) had no MP pulses. The outcomes and adverse events between the two groups were compared. In addition, the predictive value of the clinical and histological parameters for kidney and patient survival was assessed using univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis. Result There was no difference in patient survival, kidney recovery and the rates of adverse events between the two groups. A higher Birmingham Vasculitis Activity Score (BVAS) was shown to be a negative prognostic factor for kidney function restoration (p = 0.046, OR 0.811, 95% CI 0.660–0.997). BVAS was also demonstrated to be an independent predictor for both all-cause death (p = 0.007, OR 1.324, 95% CI 1.079–1.624) and therapy-related death (p = 0.003, OR 1.574, 95% CI 1.171–2.115). Patients' eGFR at the presentation of the disease was shown to be an independent predictor for therapy-related death (p = 0.027, OR 2.535, 95% CI 1.112–5.779). Conclusions This retrospective study of MPO-AAV patients who required dialysis at presentation in a single Chinese center suggests that the addition of pulse MP to standard immunosuppressive induction therapy for remission appears to confer no benefit in terms of improving patient outcomes. Further research is required to determine the role of pulse MP in severe MPO-AAV.

The improvement of intelligent appliances provides the basis for the demand response (DR) of residential loads. Thermostatically controlled loads (TCLs) are one of the most important DR resources and are characterized by a large load and a high degree of control. Due to its distribution characteristic, the aggregation of TCLs and their control are key issues in implementing the load control for the DR. In this study, we focus on air conditioning loads as an example of TCLs and propose a simple and transferable aggregate model by establishing a virtual house model, which accurately captures the aggregate flexibility. The deviation of the aggregate model is analyzed for the model evaluation. An air conditioning DR control scheme is proposed based on the aggregate model, it has the advantage of simple implementation and convenient control for the individual units. Simulations are performed in Gridlab-D to evaluate the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed model and control method.

The intensive use of near-Earth space and the lack of disposal measures for space objects of various purposes (spacecraft, launch vehicle stages, upper stages, upper stages, etc.) resulted in the formation of what is called debris, in this case space debris. Part of the space debris is observed and registered, these are objects over 100 mm in size and currently there are more than 18,000 objects registered. The bulk of space debris is small, unobserved fragments ranging in size from 100 mm to several microns. This fraction of space debris, which poses a serious risk, is the result of explosions left in orbit by space objects or the intentional destruction of a space object, but the bulk of the minor space debris is generated by collisions of existing debris with each other. If, from a collision with an observed fragment whose trajectory is known, an operational space object can manoeuvre and evade the collision, the trajectory of the small fragment is unknown and its collision cannot be predicted. It is not possible to assess the damage caused by space debris to operational space objects, as all of them remain in orbit and it is not possible to record the angle and impact velocity of the fragment with the object in a laboratory environment using spherical (usually) percussion launchers up to the velocities of hypersonic collisions. On the basis of these experiments, empirical dependencies are developed that describe the results obtained and are appropriate to the conditions in which the experiment was carried out. This work is devoted to the analysis of empirical equations obtained by different authors.The intensive use of near-Earth space and the lack of disposal measures for space objects of various purposes (spacecraft, launch vehicle stages, upper stages, upper stages, etc.) resulted in the formation of what is called debris, in this case space debris. Part of the space debris is observed and registered, these are objects over 100 mm in size and currently there are more than 18,000 objects registered. The bulk of space debris is small, unobserved fragments ranging in size from 100 mm to several microns. This fraction of space debris, which poses a serious risk, is the result of explosions left in orbit by space objects or the intentional destruction of a space object, but the bulk of the minor space debris is generated by collisions of existing debris with each other. If, from a collision with an observed fragment whose trajectory is known, an operational space object can manoeuvre and evade the collision, the trajectory of the small fragment is unknown and its collision cannot be predicted. It is n...

Yb-doped fiber laser is a very appealing technology to implement space communication, laser radar and nuclear facilities due to its reduced weight, size, high efficiency, high peak power combined with good beam quality. However, Yb-doped fiber materials will suffer a harsh ionizing radiation (such as neutron, proton and electron) under the condition of irradiation. The radiation-induced darkening effect can lead the fiber loss to increase obviously, the laser slope efficiency to decrease drastically, and even no laser output to be observed in severe cases. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct in-depth research on the performance changes of Yb-doped fiber materials subjected to the irradiation. In this paper, a series of Yb-doped optical fibers and optical fibers is prepared by the improved chemical vapor deposition method combined with rare-earth chelate-doped. And the optical properties of the optical fiber before and after being irradiated and annealed are tested. We mainly investigate the absorption spectrum of Yb-doped fiber material. The results show that the concentration of Al-related defects in the Yb-doped fiber material increases after neutron irradiation, and the absorption loss in the visible region increases. And the color center defects produced by the irradiation will significantly reduce the Yb ion fluorescence lifetime. The doping of Ce ions can reduce the Al-oxygen hole center (Al-OHC) color center defects, and can suppresse the radiation-induced darkening effect of Yb-doped fiber to a certain extent. Thermal annealing can reduce the absorption of fiber material by reducing the concentration of neutron radiation-induced color center defects, and thus eliminating the darkening effect to a certain extent. Finally, with our previous research, we find that neutron irradiation and ray irradiation have similar effects on the optical properties of Yb-doped fiber materials. The main reason is that the electron ionization effects occur due to both ray irradiation and neutron irradiation to generate free electron and hole pairs, which then combine with the original defects in the material to turn into color center defects. However, the color center defects caused by neutron irradiation are more stable and require thermal annealing to be eliminated. And the results obtained in this study provide theoretical basis and solution for developing the Yb-doped fibers with high laser performance and high radiation resistance.

Integrated photonics has the advantages of miniaturization, low cost, stability and easy manipulation in comparison with bulk optics. However, as the scale and complexity of the chip increase, the calibration of cascaded phase shifters on-chip will be almost impossible. The time needed to calibrate the cascaded phase shifters with using conventional method increases exponentially with the number of cascades, and the maximum number of cascades achieved so far is only 5. In this paper, we propose a high-speed calibration method by which the calibration time increases only linearly with the number of cascades increasing, achieving an exponential acceleration. For N-cascaded phase shifters, the number of points scanned by each shifter is m, our method only needs to scan \begin{document}$ ({m}^{2}+m+1)N-1 $\end{document} points instead of \begin{document}$ {m}^{n} $\end{document} with using the proposed method. The main idea of this method is that we can calibrate phase shifters one by one via two-dimensional (2D) scanning. For example, for N-cascaded phase shifter, the calibration of phase shifter N can be realized by calibrating the 2D scanning phase shifter \begin{document}$ N-1 $\end{document} and the 2D scanning phase shifter N, and the calibration of phase shifter \begin{document}$ N-1 $\end{document} can be achieved by calibrating the 2D scanning phase shifter \begin{document}$ N-2 $\end{document} and the 2D scanning phase shifter \begin{document}$ N-1 $\end{document}, and so on. The 2D scanning phase shifter \begin{document}$ N-1 $\end{document} and the 2D scanning phase shifter N scan the phase shifter N by m points and then the current of phase shifter \begin{document}$ N-1 $\end{document} is changed to scan the phase shifter N. Whenever changing the current of phase shifter \begin{document}$ N-1 $\end{document} once, we can plot a curve of current-transmission. The lowest point of the curve changes with the change of the current phase shifter \begin{document}$ N-1 $\end{document}. When the lowest point of the curve takes a maximum value, that point is the 0 or π phase of phase shifter N. Similarly, when the lowest point of the curve takes a maximum value, that point is the \begin{document}$ -0.5{\rm{\pi }} $\end{document} or \begin{document}$ 0.5{\rm{\pi }} $\end{document} phase of phase shifter \begin{document}$ N-1 $\end{document}. Then we can calibrate all phase shifters by using this method, but each phase shifter has two possibilities. Then we can set a specific current of all phase shifters to finish the calibration. The different parameters are verified to see their effect on fidelity. It is found that small experimental error has little effect on fidelity. When \begin{document}$ m > 20 $\end{document}, the fidelity becomes approximately a constant. For every 1760 increase in N, the fidelity decreases by about 0.01%. The fidelity of 20-cascaded phase shifters is 99.8%. The splitting ratio of MMI may is not 50∶50 as designed because of chip processing errors. So, different splitting ratios are simulated and it is found that the splitting ratio affects the fidelity more seriously than other parameters. But our method works still well even when the splitting ratio is 45∶55, whose fidelity is 99.95% if we know the splitting ratio. The method will greatly expand the application scope of integrated quantum photonics.

Elliptical vibration cutting (EVC), as one of the promising methods for ultra-precision machining, has aroused many scholars' attention. However, few studies focused on the basic mechanism of oblique EVC. In the present study, an analytical force model of oblique EVC has been developed, which only use the material properties, tool geometry and the physical laws of deformation. The transient thickness of cut and transient shear angle are considered in the proposed model. Based on the analysis of oblique EVC mechanism, the geometric parameters of oblique ultrasonic vibration assisted turning (UVAT) are predicted by this model, which are in good agreement with the experimental results available in the literature. The transient cutting force components of orthogonal EVC are also predicted, results of which are in accord with the experimental results. Thus this model is available to predict the geometry parameters and cutting force of the orthogonal EVC accurately. In addition, the proposed model can also be applied to predict geometric parameters and cutting force components of oblique EVC.

To investigate if urinary AQP5 serves as a new potential biomarker of diabetic nephropathy.Using an AQP5-specific enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, we measured serum and urine AQP5 first in a cohort consisting of normal controls (n=26) and patients with diabetes mellitus (n=25) or diabetic nephropathy (n=33) and then in a validation cohort possessing normal controls (n=10), patients with diabetes mellitus (n=10) or diabetic nephropathy (n=14), and patients with chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (n=10). We used various statistical methods including Pearson's correlation coefficient, ANOVA with Holm-Sidak test, Receiver Operator Curve, and multiple logistic regression to analyze the data.Urine AQP5/creatinine 1) is significantly higher in diabetic nephropathy than in other two groups, and in diabetic nephropathy stage V than in stage III; 2) correlates with serum creatinine, urine albumin, and multiple other known risk factors of the disease; and 3) improves the clinical models in distinguishing diabetic nephropathy from normal controls and diabetic mellitus.Our data suggest that urine AQP5/creatinine may possess diagnostic and prognostic values as a biomarker of diabetic nephropathy.

The aim of the present study was to assess the wound-healing efficiency of the Prunella vulgaris extract (PVE) on thermally injured rats. Sixty adult, female rats were divided into four groups, with group I serving as a sham control (without a burn injury). A burn was inflicted on the dorsum of all the rats in the second, third and fourth groups. Group II rats served as the burn-injury control group without any treatment. The burn-injured areas of the rats in the third and fourth groups were treated topically by 1% silver sulfadiazine (SSD) cream or 10% PVE-based cream, respectively. Biochemical (antioxidant, lipid peroxidation, hydroxyproline, mucopolysaccharide), morphological and histopathological evaluations showed the burn-healing efficiency of PVE to be better than that of the SSD group. In conclusion, topical application of PVE enhanced collagen synthesis and antioxidant levels by suppressing lipid peroxidation as well as increasing proliferation of keratinocytes, and thus positively influenced wound-healing.