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We carried out the polarimetric observation of the white-light inner corona during the 2017 total solar eclipse in the United States. Degree of linear polarization (DLP) of the inner corona is obtained by the modulated polarized data. The electron density is inferred from the normalized white-light polarization brightness data. According to the observational results, we find that: (1) The DLP of the white-light corona increases with the height, peaking at approximately |$1.3 \sim 1.35\, {\rm R}_{\odot }$| and then slightly decreases. In the coronal streamer region, DLP peaks at approximately 1.35 R ⊙ and its value is about 40  per cent, whereas in the coronal hole region, DLP peaks at approximately 1.3 R ⊙ and its value is about 35  per cent. (2) The azimuth angle of polarization sin (2χ) is symmetrical around the solar disk center. It can be easily found that the gradients of the angle of polarization, representing the direction of oscillations of the electric vector E , are tangential. Above the active region, the DLP distribution changes significantly, whereas the azimuth distribution is stable. This proves that the polarization of white-light corona is mainly caused by scattering polarization. (3) The electron density and the K-corona have similar distributions of properties. Electron density decreases from 6 × 107cm−3 to 2 × 106cm−3, whereas the height increases from |$1.1\, {\rm R}_{\odot }$| to |$1.85\, {\rm R}_{\odot }$|⁠. (4) An interesting finding is that, in the cavity region, there may be other polarization-induced mechanisms besides scattering, which can affect the value of the white-light DLP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Giant cell tumor of bone is a highly invasive benign tumor with a high postoperative recurrence rate. Objective: This study aims to analyze the research hotspots and trends of global research on giant cell tumor of bone in the past 20 years, to provide a reference for relevant personnel in this field to carry out academic research. Methods: The literature related to giant cell tumor of bone from 2001 to 2021 was retrieved from the Web of Science. The bibliometrics research method and VOS Viewer were used to extract and analyze the keywords of the journal authors' research institutions, and the research status and development direction in the recent 20 years were visualized. Results: A total of 2063 articles were included. The number of global publications is increasing every year. The United States contributes the most to global research, with the most citations and the highest H-index. The journal Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research published the most articles on this issue. "Denosumab" and "h3f3a" will get more attention and be the next popular hotspot in the future. Conclusion: The study of giant cell tumor of bone is a hot spot of continuous development and has an important contribution to human health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Peach (Prunus persica (L.) Batsch) is one of the most important model fruits in the Rosaceae family. Native to the west of China, where peach has been domesticated for more than 4,000 years, its cultivation spread from China to Persia, Mediterranean countries and to America. Chinese peach has had a major impact on international peach breeding programs due to its high genetic diversity. In this research, we used 48 highly polymorphic SSRs, distributed over the peach genome, to investigate the difference in genetic diversity, and linkage disequilibrium (LD) among Chinese cultivars, and North American and European cultivars, and the evolution of current peach cultivars. Results: In total, 588 alleles were obtained with 48 SSRs on 653 peach accessions, giving an average of 12.25 alleles per locus. In general, the average value of observed heterozygosity (0.47) was lower than the expected heterozygosity (0.60). The separate analysis of groups of accessions according to their origin or reproductive strategies showed greater variability in Oriental cultivars, mainly due to the high level of heterozygosity in Chinese landraces. Genetic distance analysis clustered the cultivars into two main groups: one included four wild related Prunus, and the other included most of the Oriental and Occidental landraces and breeding cultivars. STRUCTURE analysis assigned 469 accessions to three subpopulations: Oriental (234), Occidental (174), and Landraces (61). Nested STRUCTURE analysis divided the Oriental subpopulation into two different subpopulations: 'Yu Lu' and 'Hakuho'. The Occidental breeding subpopulation was also subdivided into nectarine and peach subpopulations. Linkage disequilibrium (LD) analysis in each of these subpopulations showed that the percentage of linked (r2 > 0.1) intra-chromosome comparisons ranged between 14% and 47%. LD decayed faster in Oriental (1,196 Kbp) than in Occidental (2,687 Kbp) samples. In the 'Yu Lu' subpopulation there was considerable LD extension while no variation of LD with physical distance was observed in the landraces. From the first STRUCTURE result, LG1 had the greatest proportion of alleles in LD within all three subpopulations. Conclusions: Our study demonstrates a high level of genetic diversity and relatively fast decay of LD in the Oriental peach breeding program. Inclusion of Chinese landraces will have a greater effect on increasing genetic diversity in Occidental breeding programs. Fingerprinting with genotype data for all 658 cultivars will be used for accession management in different germplasms. A higher density of markers are needed for association mapping in Oriental germplasm due to the low extension of LD. Population structure and evaluation of LD provides valuable information for GWAS experiment design in peach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Since American Airlines successfully applied revenue management (RM) to raise its revenue, RM has become a common technique in the airline industry. Due to the current hub-and-spoke operation of the airline industry, the focus of RM research has shifted from the traditional single-leg problem to the network-type problem. The mainstream approaches, bid price and virtual nesting, are faced with some limitations such as inaccuracy due to their suboptimal nature and operation interruption caused by the required updates. This study developed an algorithm to generate a seat control policy by approximating the expected revenue function in a dynamic programming (DP) model. In order to deal with the issue of dimensionality for the DP model in a network context, this study used a suitable parameterized function and a sampling concept to achieve the approximation. In the numerical experiment, the objective function value of the developed algorithm was very close to the one achieved by the optimal control. We believe that this approach can serve as an alternative to the current mainstream approaches for the network RM problem for airlines and will provide an inspiring concept for other types of multi-resource RM problems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Fish occurrence data to support high-resolution distribution models and test various community and macroecological hypotheses have not been available at the national scale. We presentIchthyMaps, a high-resolution database of historical freshwater fish occurrences throughout the conterminous United States. Designed on the principles of metacommunity ecology,IchthyMapsis a large compilation of fish presence records collected through approximately 1990, digitized from regional atlases, appended to 1:100,000 National Hydrography Dataset plus version 2 (NHDPlusV2) interconfluence stream segments, and readily aggregated within hierarchically coarser units (e.g., 8-digit and 12-digit U. S. Geological Survey [USGS] hydrologic units).IchthyMapscontains 606,550 presence records for 1,038 species and subspecies, spatially joined to 224,305 NHDPlusV2 interconfluence stream segments, representing more than 10% average sampling intensity considering all the NHDPlusV2 segments as the sampling frame.IchthyMapsis freely and publicly accessible through the USGS ScienceBase web portal. It offers new opportunities for both basic and applied research and conservation programs in areas such as modeling species distributions, community ecology, gap analysis, and assessments of impacts of land use, species invasions, climate change, conservation biogeography, and fisheries management. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Network meta-analyses (NMAs) are statistical techniques used to synthesize data from multiple studies and compare the effectiveness of different interventions for a particular disease or condition. They have gained popularity in recent years as a tool for evidence-based decision making in healthcare. Whether publications in NMAs have an increasing trend is still unclear. This study aimed to investigate the trends in the number of NMA articles over the past 10 years when compared to non-NMA articles., Methods: The study utilized data from the Web of Science database, specifically searching for articles containing the term "meta-analysis" published between 2013 and 2022. The analysis examined the annual number of articles, as well as the countries, institutions, departments, and authors associated with the articles and the journals in which they were published. Ten different visualization techniques, including line charts, choropleth maps, chord diagrams, circle packing charts, forest plots, temporal heatmaps, impact beam plots, pyramid plots, 4-quadrant radar plots, and scatter plots, were employed to support the hypothesis that the number of NMA-related articles has increased (or declined) over the past decade when compared to non-NMA articles., Results: Our findings indicate that there was no difference in mean citations or publication trends between NMA and non-NMA; the United States, McMaster University (Canada), medical schools, Dan Jackson from the United Kingdom, and the Journal of Medicine (Baltimore) were among the leading entities; NMA ranked highest on the coword analysis, followed by heterogeneity, quality, and protocol, with weighted centrality degrees of 32.51, 30.84, 29.43, and 24.26, respectively; and the number of NMA-related articles had increased prior to 2020 but experienced a decline in the past 3 years, potentially due to being overshadowed by the intense academic focus on COVID-19., Conclusion: It is evident that the number of NMA articles increased rapidly between 2013 and 2019 before leveling off in the years following. For researchers, policymakers, and healthcare professionals who are interested in evidence-based decision making, the visualizations used in this study may be useful., Competing Interests: The authors have no funding and conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2023 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.)

Objectives: This study explored the clinical efficacy of VitalStim electrical stimulation combined with swallowing function training for patients with dysphagia following an acute stroke., Methods: Seventy-two patients with dysphagia following an acute stroke were admitted to our hospital and were further divided into two groups using prospective research methods. There were 36 cases in each group according to the random number table method. The control group received conventional medical treatment and swallowing function training while the experimental group received conventional medical treatment and VitalStim electrical stimulation combined with swallowing function training., Results: The overall response rate of the experimental group (94.44%) was higher than that of the control group (77.78%), and the difference was statistically significant (p<0.05). Compared with before treatment, the upward and forward movement speeds of the hyoid bone, anterior movement speed, the grading score of the Kubota drinking water test, Caiteng's grading score, serum superoxide dismutase, 5-hydroxytryptamine, and norepinephrine levels, Fugl-Meyer Assessment score, and multiple quality of life scores of the two groups showed improvement after treatment. While the standard swallowing assessment score, serum malondialdehyde level, and National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score decreased, the aforementioned indices showed a significant improvement in the experimental group (p<0.05)., Conclusion: The results of this study indicate that VitalStim electrical stimulation combined with swallowing function is effective for treating dysphagia following an acute stroke. It can effectively improve swallowing, neurological, and limb motor functions, reduce complications, promote physical recovery, and improve overall quality of life of patients.

Globalization has attracted much attention to universities over the past decade. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of the United States-China international pharmacy education programs (IPEP) in China.Kirkpatrick's model of evaluation was used to evaluate IPEP from reaction and learning levels. In the reaction level, a questionnaire survey with a Likert scale was used. In the learning level, data from "Assessment Record of Advanced Clinical Pharmacy Practice of Peking University" were collected. Cronbach' α coefficient of reliability was calculated, principal component analysis and independent t-test were conducted.All of the students who attended IPEP (n = 36) completed the questionnaire survey. The scores of benefits were increased in 4 categories, including "Clinical practice competency improvement" (mean ranking [MR] = 3.11 points), "Understanding of doctor of Pharmacy education mode" (MR = 3.48 points), "English competency improvement" (MR = 3.64 points) and "International collaboration" (MR = 3.92 points). Meanwhile, the overall satisfaction was relatively high with the IPEP (MR = 4.22 points). In the learning level, a total of 22 records was obtained. Students who attended (n = 5) the IPEP achieved higher scores than those did not attend (n = 17) in the assessment records, although no statistical significant differences were observed. Personal in-depth interviews further supported the overall benefit of IPEP.The Kirkpatrick model of evaluation can be used for IPEP. The benefit and satisfaction of students attended the IPEP were high in the reaction level; even though no statistically significant difference was shown in the learning level, higher scores were still demonstrated.