Search

Studies have demonstrated that matrix metalloproteinase-3 (MMP-3) is involved in the development and progression of atherosclerosis. However, there is no information available on the association of MMP-3 5A/6A polymorphism with recurrent ischemic stroke (IS) in different IS subtypes. We investigated the potential associations between MMP-3 serum level and -1171 5A/6A polymorphism and the recurrence of IS in a Chinese population. Consecutive acute first-ever IS patients were enrolled between August 2008 and October 2013. The genotypes of MMP-3 5A/6A polymorphism were determined using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism. IS recurrence was monitored after the index event and multivariate Cox proportional hazards model was constructed to identify factors related to future IS recurrence. A total of 1282 eligible patients were enrolled. During a 2-year follow-up period, 157 (12.25%) patients had recurrent events. MMP-3 level was significantly higher in patients with 5A/6A or 5A/5A genotype (22.72±7.29ng/ul) than in patients with 6A/6A genotype (20.48±7.58ng/ul), P0.001. No interaction between MMP-3 5A/6A polymorphism and the risk of recurrence in total IS patients was found. The variant 5A/6A+5A/5A genotype and the 5A allele were significantly associated with a high risk of recurrence for large-artery atherosclerosis (LAA) (multivariate-adjusted, P=0.002, 0.001, respectively), but not for small-artery occlusion and cardioembolism. Our finding showed that MMP-3 5A/6A may be a useful biomarker for predicting recurrence for LAA stroke patients and 5A allele carrier may bear a higher risk of recurrence among patients with the subtype of LAA.

In this paper, a distributed token-based adaptive medium access control (TA-MAC) scheme is proposed for a two-hop Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled mobile ad hoc network. In the TA-MAC, nodes are partitioned into different one-hop node groups, and a time division multiple access (TDMA)-based superframe structure is proposed to allocate different TDMA time durations to different node groups to overcome the hidden terminal problem. A probabilistic token passing scheme is devised to distributedly allocate time slots to nodes in each group for packet transmissions, forming different token rings. The distributed time slot allocation is adaptive to variations of the number of nodes in each token ring due to node movement. To optimize the medium access control (MAC) design, performance analytical models are presented in closed-form functions of both MAC parameters and network traffic load. Then, an average end-to-end delay minimization framework is established to derive the optimal MAC parameters under a certain network load condition. Analytical and simulation results demonstrate that, by adapting the MAC parameters to the varying network condition, the TA-MAC achieves consistently minimal average end-to-end delay, bounded delay for local transmissions, and high aggregate throughput. Further, the performance comparison with other MAC schemes shows the scalability of the proposed MAC in an IoT-based two-hop environment with an increasing number of nodes.

Objective To investigate the polymerization kinetics, neutralization behavior, and mechanical properties of amine-functionalized dental adhesive cured in the presence of zwitterionic monomer, methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine (MPC). Methods The control adhesive was a mixture based on HEMA/BisGMA/2-N-morpholinoethyl methacrylate (MEMA) (40/30/30, w/w/w). The control and experimental formulations containing MPC were characterized with regard to water miscibility of liquid resins, photopolymerization kinetics, water sorption and solubility, dynamic mechanical properties and leachables from the polymers (aged in ethanol). The neutralization behavior of the adhesives was determined by monitoring the pH of lactic acid (LA) solution. Results The water miscibility decreased with increasing MPC amount. The water sorption of experimental copolymer specimen was greater than the control. The addition of 8 wt% water led to improved photo-polymerization efficiency for experimental formulations at MPC of 2.5 and 5 wt%, and significant reduction in the cumulative amounts of leached HEMA, BisGMA, and MEMA, i.e. 90, 60 and 50% reduction, respectively. The neutralization rate of MPC-containing adhesive was faster than control. The optimal MPC concentration in the formulations was 5 wt%. Significance Incompatibility between MEMA and MPC led to a decrease in water miscibility of the liquid resins. Water (at 8 wt%) in the MPC-containing formulations (2.5–5 wt% MPC) led to higher DC, faster R P max and significant reduction in leached HEMA, BisGMA, and MEMA. The neutralization rate was enhanced with the addition of MPC in the amine-containing formulation. Promoting the neutralization capability of dentin adhesives could play an important role in reducing recurrent decay at the composite/tooth interface.

Carbon felts are widely used as flow through porous electrodes in great variety of electrochemical devices due to their superior electrochemical properties and low price. In plant-scale electrochemical reactors stacked with large carbon felt electrodes, uniformly and efficiently feeding liquid electrolytes to the entire area of individual electrode is frequently challenged by the complicated gas bubble evolution phenomena induced by dissolved gas exsolutions or/and gassing side reactions. To explore the hydraulic characteristics of this locally generated two-phase flow in fibrous porous media, thermally induced evolutions of dissolved air in water flowing through a carbon felt sample are experimentally studied. When 20 °C air-saturated water is started to be pumped through the felt and simultaneously heated up to 30 °C at the outlet, evolved gas bubbles are observed to emerge several minutes later and accumulate to considerable amount after a few hours. The correspondingly increasing average gas saturations in the felt are measured by a weighing method, maximum values of which fall in the range from 6% to 14% at different liquid velocities. The most surprising finding is that although the volume evolution rate of gas bubbles is only 0.36% of the liquid flow rate, the resulting liquid-phase relative permeability drops significantly and continuously for a couple of hours and down to 0.42 at the lowest liquid velocity.

It is demonstrated that carboxylic acid-functionalized titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) NPs produce significantly higher levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) after visible light irradiation (400–800 nm, 1600 mW/cm 2 ) in comparison to nonfunctionalized TiO 2 NPs. The level of ROS produced under these irradiation conditions was not capable of generating oxidatively induced DNA damage in a cell-free system for TiO 2 concentrations of 0.5 mg/L or 5 mg/L. In addition, specific incorporation of the acrylic acid-functionalized TiO 2 NPs into dental composites allowed us to utilize the generated ROS to enhance photopolymerization (curing and degree of vinyl conversion (DC)) of resin adhesives and create mechanically superior and biocompatible materials for dental applications. Incorporation of the TiO 2 NPs into selected dental composites increased the mean DC values by ≈7%. The modified TiO 2 materials and dental composite materials were extensively characterized using thermogravimetric analysis, electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, and electron paramagnetic resonance. Notably, dental adhesives incorporated with acrylic acid-functionalized TiO 2 NPs produced stronger bonds to human teeth following visible light curing in comparison to traditional dental adhesives not containing NPs with an increase in the shear bond strength of ≈29%. In addition, no leaching of the incorporated NPs was detectable from the dental adhesives after 2500 thermal cycles using inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy, indicating that biocompatibility of the adhesives was not compromised after extensive aging. These findings suggest that NP-induced ROS may be useful to produce enhanced nanocomposite materials for selected applications in the medical device field. Statement of Significance Titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO 2 NPs) have unique photocatalytic, antibacterial and UV-absorbing properties that make them beneficial additives in adhesives and composites. However, there is concern that the reactive oxygen species (ROS) produced by photoactivated TiO 2 NPs might pose toxicological risks. We demonstrate that it is possible to incorporate acid-functionalized TiO 2 NPs into dental resins which can be applied as dental adhesives to human teeth. The ROS generated by these NPs through visible-light irradiation may be utilized to increase the degree of vinyl conversion of resins, leading to adhesives that have an enhanced shear-bond strength to human teeth. Investigation into the potential genotoxicity of the NPs and their potential for release from dental composites indicated a low risk of genotoxic effects.

In this paper, we propose a distributed and adaptive hybrid medium access control (DAH-MAC) scheme for a single-hop Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled mobile ad hoc network supporting voice and data services. A hybrid superframe structure is designed to accommodate packet transmissions from a varying number of mobile nodes generating either delay-sensitive voice traffic or best-effort data traffic. Within each superframe, voice nodes with packets to transmit access the channel in a contention-free period (CFP) using distributed time division multiple access, while data nodes contend for channel access in a contention period (CP) using truncated carrier sense multiple access with collision avoidance. In the CFP, by adaptively allocating time slots according to instantaneous voice traffic load, the MAC exploits voice traffic multiplexing to increase the voice capacity. In the CP, a throughput optimization framework is proposed for the DAH-MAC, which maximizes the aggregate data throughput by adjusting the optimal contention window size according to voice and data traffic load variations. Numerical results show that the proposed MAC scheme outperforms existing quality-of-service-aware MAC schemes for voice and data traffic in the presence of heterogeneous traffic load dynamics.

A new denoising algorithm based on low-rank matrix approximation (LRMA) with regularization of weighted nuclear norm minimization (WNNM) is proposed to remove Rician noise of magnetic resonance (MR) images. This technique simply groups similar non-local cubic blocks from noisy 3D MR data into a patch matrix with each block lexicographically vectorizing to be as a column, calculates the singular value decomposition (SVD) on this matrix, then the closed-form solution of LRMA is achieved by hard-thresholding different singular values with a different threshold. The denoised blocks are obtained from this estimate of the low-rank matrix, and the final estimate of the whole noise-free MR data is built up by aggregating all the denoised exemplar blocks that are overlapped each other. To further improve the denoising performance of the WNNM algorithm, we first realize the above denoising procedure in a two-iteration regularization framework, and then a simple non local means (NLM) filter based on single-pixel patch is utilized to reduce the intensity jumping at the homogeneous area. The proposed denoising algorithm was compared with related state-of-the-art methods and produced very competitive results over synthetic and real 3D MR data.

Dental adhesive resin undergoes phase separation during its infiltration through the wet demineralized dentin and it has been observed previously that the hydrophilic-rich phase is a vulnerable region for failure due to the lack of photo-polymerization and crosslinking density. The lack of photo-polymerization is mostly due to the partitioning of photo-initiators in low concentrations within this phase. Here, a computational approach has been employed to design candidate water compatible visible light photosensitizers which could improve the photo-polymerization of the hydrophilic-rich phase. This study is an extension of our previous work. QSPRs were developed for properties related to the photo-polymerization reaction of the adhesive monomers and hydrophilicity of the photosensitizer using connectivity indices as descriptors. QSPRs and structural constraints were formulated into an optimization problem which was solved stochastically via Tabu Search. Four candidate photosensitizer molecules have been proposed here which have the iminium ion as a common feature.

This article provides a comprehensive analysis on an explosion of welded insulted cylinder for liquid oxygen during unloading occurred in a company in 2014. The possible causes of the accidents are deduced through analysis on the operating principles of welded insulated cylinders, explosion energy estimation and related performance tests. On the basis of the accident analysis, this article presents that great importance should be attached to the safety in filling of welded insulated cylinders, replacement prior to filling and regular inspections, and also indicates the gap in currently existing rules on periodic examinations of welded insulated cylinders in China.

Seller Reputation in online platform plays a vital role in consumer purchasing decisions. Many researchers explore the impact of reputation on sales; however, the majority of them consider sales as continuous variable. We in this paper will treat it as count data and focus on how reputation influence sales volume. Taking into account excess zeros and over-dispersion characteristics of sales, we build a zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB) model to address the issue. We find that reputation will have two types of influences. The results show that reputation will influence both the amount of sales and the probability that sellers always have no sales.

Thermal rectification can help develop modern thermal manipulation devices but has been rarely engineered. Here, we validated the nanoscale bimaterial interface-induced thermal rectification experimentally for the first time and investigated its underlying mechanism via molecular dynamics simulations. The thermal diode consists of polyamide (PA) and silicon (Si) nanowires in contact with each other. The thermal rectification ratio measured by a high-precision nanoscale experiment reached 4% with an uncertainty of

The papers in this special section focus on edge computing for Internet of Things (IoT). The IoT is expected to improve the quality of human lives through billions of Internet-based devices that connect the physical and digital worlds. To satisfy the computation and storage requirements of IoT, cloud computing has served as the most important computing infrastructure. However, with the explosion of the number of devices in IoT and the resulting a large volume of raw data continuously generated by IoT devices, cloud computing has significant challenges to efficiently an efficiently and securely handle the data volume. In particular, cloud computing is limited in terms of network bandwidth, security and privacy protection in IoT. To address these challenges, many researchers have attempted to move data computation and service provisioning from the cloud to the edge, which results in the area of edge computing. Early-stage research has indicated that edge computing could potentially enable IoT applications to meet their latency/delay requirements, improve the scalability and energy efficiency of IoT systems, and facilitate contextual information processing. Nevertheless, a series of challenging problems needs to be addressed in order to fully utilize edge computing for IoT.

Search volume under different situations captures distinct attention level.Self-initiated (news-driven) search volume index (SVI) is more likely to generate buy (sell) pressure.The same amount of SVI is more powerful under lower media coverage.The findings can improve the Internet funds rating systems for selecting stocks. Big data benefits both Internet finance and behavioral finance research; Internet search frequency on stocks has been widely used to measure investor attention. In this study, we divide the search volume into news-driven and self-initiated by the online media coverage collected from Baidu Index. In a sample of CSI 300 stocks from 2009 to 2013, we find that self-initiated (news-driven) search volume is more likely to generate buy (sell) pressure, and media coverage can negatively moderate the impact of search volume on stock prices, suggesting that distinguishing search environment for investors can help improve the measure for investor attention.

Adjacent vertebral fractures are common in patients with osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCFs) after kyphoplasty. This finite element study was to examine whether short segment pedicle screw fixation (PSF) with kyphoplasty may decrease the fracture risk of the treated and adjacent non-treated vertebrae after kyphoplasty for OVCFs. By simulating cement augmentation with or without short segment pedicle screw fixation (PSF), two tridimensional, anatomically detailed finite element models of the T10-L2 functional spinal junction were developed. The insertion of pedicle screws into the intact vertebra apparently decreased the stress distribution of the treated vertebra in vertical compression and other load situations. The stress distribution in the bone structures of the intact vertebra adjacent to the intact-screwed vertebra was much less than that in the one adjacent to the treated vertebra. The insertion of pedicle screws into the intact vertebra greatly decreased the maximum displacement of the cortical bones and cancellous bones of the vertebrae. Our results indicated that short segment PSF with kyphoplasty may decrease the fracture risk of the treated and adjacent non-treated vertebrae in the management of OVCFs.

Since the promulgation of the 1982 Constitution 30 years ago, China has undergone tremendous social changes. The values of constitutionalism have taken root deeply in the hearts of the people, and the democracy and the rule of law have been gradually advanced. How to look at the 30-year changes of the Chinese society from the perspective of Constitution is a significant yet tough project.

Purpose: To investigate whether the Asp358Ala of interleukin 6 receptor related to the risk and outcome of large artery atherosclerotic (LAA) stroke in Han Chinese. Materials and methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted on 768 patients with LAA stroke and 686 non-stroke controls. The genotypes of Asp358Ala polymorphism were determined using SNPscan technology. Associations between genotypes and the risk of LAA stroke were analyzed with logistic regression model. Results: CC genotype (P < 0.001) and AC genotype (P = 0.023) decreased the risk of LAA stroke compared with AA genotype. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that CC genotype was significantly associated with the risk of LAA stroke (P = 0.002). In the subgroup analyses, polymorphisms of Asp358Ala were significantly associated with the risk of LAA stroke in additive model, dominant model and recessive model (P = 0.009, P = 0.017, P = 0.012, respectively) for male, but not for female. Further regression analysis showed that compared with participants with AA genotype and obesity, participants with CC genotype and non-obesity were less likely to suffer LAA stroke (P = 0.003). For male participants, these associations were still existed (additive model, P = 0.022). After 3-month follow-up, patients with C allele had good functional prognosis compared with patients with A allele (P = 0.009). Conclusion: The study demonstrated that the Asp358Ala polymorphism might be associated with susceptibility to the development and outcome of LAA stroke in Han Chines.

Background Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1)-mediated oncolytic therapy is a promising cancer treatment modality. However, viral tropism is considered to be one of the major stumbling blocks to the development of HSV-1 as an anticancer agent. Methods The surface of oncolytic HSV-1 G207 was covalently modified with folate-poly (ethylene glycol) conjugate (FA-PEG). The specificities and tumor targeting efficiencies of modified or unmodified G207 particles were analyzed by a real-time polymerase chain reaction at the level of cell attachment and entry. Immune responses were assessed by an interleukin-6 release assay from RAW264.7 macrophages. Biodistribution and in vivo antitumoral activity after intravenous delivery was evaluated in BALB/c nude mice bearing subcutaneous KB xenograft tumors. Results FA-PEG-HSV exhibited enhanced targeting specificity for folate receptor over-expressing tumor cells and had lower immunogenicity than the unmodified HSV. In vivo, the FA-PEG-HSV group revealed an increased anti-tumor efficiency and tumor targeting specificity compared to the naked HSV. Conclusions These results indicate that folate-conjugated HSV G207 presents a folate receptor-targeted oncolytic virus with a potential therapeutic value via retargeting to tumor cells.

The serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine) type 3 receptor is an important target in the control of digestive dysfunction such as anorexia and bulimia, and 5-HT

Many studies have demonstrated the association between facet tropism and disc herniation in the lumbar spine. Some of them found that lumbar disc herniation was on the side of the more sagittal facet joint interface. However, little is understood about the association of facet tropism with disc herniation in the cervical spine. As the relationship between the facet orientation and the side of cervical disc herniation (CDH) is unclear, the purpose of this study is to investigate that relationship. Ninety-six patients with single-level CDH (C4-C5, C5-C6 or C6-C7) were included in the CDH group of this study. Another 50 age-matched and gender-matched healthy participants who accepted physical examinations were enrolled as the control group. The cervical facet angles of two sides were measured using axial computed tomography (CT). The intersection angle of the midsagittal line of the vertebra to the facet line represents the facet angle. Facet tropism was defined as the angular difference of 7o between the left and the right sides. Facet tropism angle was recorded as the absolute value of the difference of facet angles between two sides. There were 20 herniations at C4-C5 level, 50 herniations at C5-C6 level and 26 herniations at C6-C7 level. The present study showed that more cases in the CDH group had facet tropism than did those in the control group at C4-C5, C5-C6 and C6-C7 level (p = .021, p = .001, p = .015, respectively). The facet tropism angles in the CDH group were significantly bigger than those in the control group at C4-C5, C5-C6 and C6-C7 level (p = .001, p = .002, p = .028, respectively). In the CDH group, the facet angles on the herniated side were found to be significantly bigger than those on the healthy side at C4-C5, C5-C6 and C6-C7 level (p = .000, p = .000, p = .037, respectively). The findings of this present study suggest that facet tropism is associated with the disc herniation in the cervical spine. We also found that cervical disc herniates towards the side of the bigger facet angle with respect to the sagittal plane. There is a need for future studies to verify the biomechanical impact of facet tropism on CDH.

The MSR Initiative, put forward by the Chinese government, aims to strengthen global cooperation through more substantial, convenient and profitable connectivity. The success of the Initiative depends much on the security of the SLOCs around the world. However, the SLOCs security in the South China Sea, which serves as the starting point of the MSR, still remains an issue in the sense that territorial and maritime disputes between/among multiple claimants, as well as the geopolitical competition between China and countries outside the region, may constitute threats to the safety of navigation in this region which is essential for world seaborne trade. Presently, the SLOCs security in the South China Sea face some positive factors and some negative ones, which may respectively enhance and hinder the Initiative. This chapter first introduces the significance of SLOCs security in the South China Sea to the Initiative; then examines the current situation in the South China Sea and identifies the major threats to SLOCs safety in this region. Legal framework of SLOCs security under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOS Convention) and China’s policy on this issue is also mentioned in this chapter.

Gastric cancer is an important cancer type worldwide, the anti‑angiogenic agent BC001 can target the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2), and significantly suppresses the growth of gastric cancer BGC823 cells in vitro and in vivo. However, numerous results indicated that antiangiogenic drugs could induce autophagy, and the inhibition of autophagy enhanced the anticancer effects of antiangiogenic agents. In the present study, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), an inhibitor of autophagy, enhanced the antiproliferative and proapoptotic effects of BC001 in vitro. Furthermore, HCQ enhanced the antitumor effects of BC001 on BGC823 xenograft tumors in vivo. Of note, BC001 neither induced nor inhibited autophagy. RNA‑sequencing results revealed that HCQ regulated autophagy or lysosomal‑associated genes, such as tumor protein p53‑inducible nuclear protein 1, interleukin (IL)1B, tumor necrosis factor (TNF), Mediterranean fever, ubiquitin specific peptidase 36, IL6, neuraminidase (NEU)1, ATP‑binding cassette subfamily A member 1, proprotein convertase subtilisin/kexin type 9, myelin basic protein and NEU3. Importantly, HCQ was determined to affect multiple pathways, including 'negative regulation of endothelial cell proliferation', 'blood vessel remodeling', 'cell surface receptor signaling pathways' and 'notch receptor processing' associated with 'signal transduction', 'cancers' and 'immune system', through regulating C‑X‑C motif chemokine ligand 8, TNF, IL6, intercellular adhesion molecule 1 and FOS genes. In summary, HCQ was proposed to enhance the anticancer effects of BC001 in gastric cancer via complex mechanisms.

Service-oriented virtual network deployment is based on statistical resource demands of different services, while data traffic from each service fluctuates over time. In this paper, a delay-aware flow migration problem for embedded services is studied to meet end-to-end (E2E) delay requirement with time-varying traffic. A non-convex multi-objective mixed integer optimization problem is formulated, addressing the trade-off between maximum load balancing and minimum reconfiguration overhead due to flow migrations, under processing and transmission resource constraints and QoS requirement constraints. Since the original problem is non-solvable in optimization solvers due to unsupported types of quadratic constraints, it is transformed to a tractable mixed integer quadratically constrained programming (MIQCP) problem. The optimality gap between the two problems is proved to be zero, so we can obtain the optimum of the original problem through solving the MIQCP problem with some post-processing. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the aforementioned trade-off, as well as the benefit from flow migration in terms of E2E delay performance guarantee.

Location-Based Service (LBS) has been widely deployed. One of the key components of LBS is the positioning algorithm. For outdoor environments, the Global Positioning System (GPS) has been used as the default positioning scheme. However, GPS requires the line of sight to the satellites. When the line of sight is blocked, GPS simply stops working. To tackle the problem with GPS, varied WiFi-based positioning schemes have been proposed. However, the positioning precision of the existing methods is not satisfactory. In this paper, we present a high-precision positioning scheme named Deep Learning based Positioning (DLP). Technically, DLP utilizes both Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) and Channel State Information (CSI) to improve the positioning precision. In detail, a deep neural network is used to model the received RSSI and CSI measurements, which leads to satisfactory positioning accuracy. Our experimental results acquired from a large-scale testbed indicate that DLP outperforms the existing positioning schemes in terms of positioning precision.

In this paper, a comprehensive software-defined networking (SDN) based transmission protocol (SDTP) is presented for fifth generation (5G) communication networks, where an SDN controller gathers network state information from the physical network to improve data transmission efficiency between end hosts, with in-path packet retransmission. In the SDTP, we first develop a new two-way handshake mechanism for connection establishment between a pair of end host. With the aid of SDN control module, signaling exchanges for establishing E2E connections are migrated to the control plane to improve resource utilization in the data plane. A new SDTP packet header format is designed to support efficient data transmission with in-path packet caching and packet retransmission. Based on the new data packet format, a novel in-path receiver-based packet loss detection and caching-based packet retransmission scheme is proposed to achieve in-path fast recovery of lost packets. Extensive simulation results are presented to validate the effectiveness of the proposed protocol in terms of low connection establishment delay and low end-to-end packet transmission delay.

Ultrasonic-assisted extraction (UAE) was optimized using response surface methodology (RSM) to maintain the cyto-protective activity of M.toringoides against oxidative stress. The optimal conditions for UAE were a 58 mL/g liquid-solid ratio, a 38 &deg, C extraction temperature, an 85% solvent concentration, and a 19-min extraction time, which resulted in a protection rate of 54.57% against hydrogen peroxide-induced oxidative stress in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). These results were comparable to the predicted value of 53.75%. The extracts showed excellent antioxidant activity, and phlorizin was detected in the dried leaves of Malus.toringoides. The highest yield of phlorizin (101.239 mg/g) was also obtained using these conditions. Taken together, these results showed that the method successfully integrated RSM and partial least squares regression methods to optimize M.toringoides extraction to yield the highest cyto-protective activity and effectively increase the yield of phlorizin from M.toringoides.

In order to update the BPM electronic in BEPCII, a high-performance digital BPM processor is designed, and the RF front-end electronic is the key part in the digital BPM processor system. According to the BEPCII physical parameters and ADC under-sampling theorem, the low-noise and high-dynamic-range RF front-end electronic module is designed. This article will introduce filter, RF amplifier, isolation, system test, etc. The experimental results showed that BPM position short-term resolution is better than 100 nm, and long-term resolution is better than 5 μm. It is the first domestic BPM processor that runs stably in the storage ring accelerator for a long time. Meanwhile, the study can help us to establish a solid foundation for the next work of BPM electronics development.

Diterpene alkaloids (DAs) have a broad spectrum of pharmacological activities, but exhibiting extremely serious cardiotoxicity to induce arrhythmia, heart arrest, even death. This study aimed to evaluate the cardiotoxicity of three diester diterpene alkaloids (DDAs) including aconitine (AC), mesaconitine (MAC), hypaconitine (HAC) and three monoester diterpene alkaloids (MDAs) including 14-α-benzoylaconine (BAC), 14-α-benzoylmesaconine (BMAC), 14-α-benzoylhypaconine (BHAC) on zebrafish. Firstly, the zebrafish embryos after a 72-hour post fertilization were treated with different doses of AC, MAC, HAC, and BAC, BMAC and BHAC for 2, 10 and 24 h, respectively. The heart rates of the treated embryos were calculated and the morphological images of body, together with heart fluorescence were obtained. Results demonstrated that AC, MAC, and HAC at low doses (15.6 and 31.3 μM) decreased the heart rates and increased them at high doses (62.5, 125, and 250 μM), while BAC, BMAC, and BHAC decreased the heart rates in the dose range of 31.3-250 μM, but the highest dose (500 μM) of BAC and BMAC increased the heart rates. In addition, AC, MAC, and HAC exhibited serious organic and functional toxicities, while BAC, BMAC, and BHAC did not. It could be induced that DDAs expressed stronger cardiotoxicities than MDAs, which might be due to that they were known as the Na+ channel activators and K+ channel inhibitors, respectively. The β-acetate at C-8 position, along with the protonated nitrogen on ring A of their chemical structures contributed more for their different cardiotoxicities. This is the first study on cardiotoxicity comparison of DAs, providing references for the rational and safe application of these compounds and some plant species containing them to reduce side effects while retaining therapeutic efficacy.

The Bangong-Nujiang suture zone lies in the central part of the Tibetan Plateau. It is not only an important plate suture zone, which has direct controlling effect on magmatic activities and tectonic evolution of South Qiangtang and North Gangdese, but it is also an important metallogenic belt. Its tectonic evolution is closely related to the evolution history of the whole Tibetan plateau. In this paper, zircon U-Pb dating of the acid intrusive rocks in Lhaguo Tso has been conducted. Chronologically, the rock types are medium-fine-grained granodiorite (γδaK1) → medium-grained granodiorite (γδbK1) → fine-grained biotite adamellite (ηγβaK1) → medium-fine-grained biotite adamellite (ηγβbK1). The formation time ranges from 113.7 to 100.3 Ma, and the magmatic activity is concentrated in Lower Cretaceous, coincided with the Lower Cretaceous magmatism of the Northern Gangdese terrane. The intrusive rocks in the research area are characterized by high silica (SiO2 = 59.96~78.03%), potassium-rich (K2O = 2.04~4.71%), alkali-rich (K2O + Na2O = 6.08~8.5%), peralkaline to peraluminous (A/CNK = 0.89~1.25), and high calc-alkaline to shoshonitic. The intrusive rocks in each stage are obviously enriched with LREE and high field elements (such as Th, Ta, Hf), and relatively depleted large ion lithophile elements (such as Ba, K, Sr). Total REE ranges from 82.53 × 10−6 to 203.91 × 10−6, with LREE/HREE of 82.53 × 10−6~203.91 × 10−6, (La/Sm)N of 1.68~14.77, (Gd/Yb)N of 0.92~1.84, and middle negative Eu anomalies (δEu = 0.07~0.94). Based on the above discussions, we propose that the geochemical characteristics of these intrusive rocks are consistent with those of arc-type magmas worldwide. Comprehensive research shows that Lhaguo Tso intrusive rocks in the Bangong-Nujiang Tethys ocean crust of southward subduction background, formed in a typical island arc tectonic background, suggesting that the Bangong-Nujiang ocean in the Lower Cretaceous (113~100 Ma) is still under the southward subduction of the Northern Gangdese terrane, may not have been closed.

Background Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common tumors globally, with varying prevalence based on endemic risk factors. Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) exhibits a broad spectrum of biological activities in various tissues including angiogenesis. Here, this study aimed to investigate the mechanism of BMP2 in HCC by mediating the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)/p38 signaling pathway. Methods BMP2 expression was quantified in HCC and adjacent tissues. BMP2 gain- and loss-of-function experiments were conducted by infection with lentivirus over-expressing BMP2 or expressing shRNA against BMP2. The angiogenesis was evaluated with HepG2 cells co-cultured with ECV304 cells. SB-239063 was applied to inhibit the activation of the MAPK/p38 signaling pathway so as to identify the significance of this pathway in HCC progression. Finally, in vivo experiments were conducted to identify the role of BMP2 and the MAPK/p38 signaling pathway in tumor growth and angiogenesis. Results BMP2 was highly expressed in HCC. Over-expression of BMP2 was found to accelerate cell proliferation, migration, invasion, microvascular density, and angiogenesis and decrease cell apoptosis in vitro and in vivo. BMP2 silencing exhibited inhibitory effects on HCC cell invasion and angiogenesis. The co-culture system illustrated that HepG2 cells secreted BMP2 in ECV304, and silenced BMP2 in HepG2 cells resulted in the inactivation of the MAPK/p38 signaling pathway, thus suppressing cancer progression, tumor growth, and angiogenesis in HCC. Conclusion Taken together, the key findings of this study propose that silencing of BMP2 inhibits angiogenesis and tumor growth in HCC, highlighting BMP2 silencing as a potential strategy for the treatment of HCC.

During insect larval-pupal metamorphosis, proteins in the hemolymph are absorbed by the fat body for the maintenance of intracellular homeostasis; however, the type of proteins and how these proteins are internalized into the fat body are unclear. In Bombyx mori, the developmental profiles of total proteins in the hemolymph and fat body showed that hemolymph-decreased protein bands (55-100 kDa) were in accordance with those protein bands that increased in the fat body. Inhibition of clathrin-dependent endocytosis predominantly blocked the transportation of 55-100 kDa proteins from the hemolymph into the fat body, which was further verified by RNA interference treatment of Bmclathrin. Six hexamerins were shown to comprise ∼90% of the total identified proteins in both the hemolymph and fat body by mass spectrum (MS) analysis. In addition, hemolymph-specific proteins were mainly involved in material transportation, while fat body-specific proteins particularly participated in metabolism. In this paper, four hexamerins were found for the first time, and potential proteins absorbed by the fat body from the hemolymph through clathrin-dependent endocytosis were identified. This study sheds light on the protein absorption mechanism during insect metamorphosis.

This test was designed to evaluate the effect of lower-limb dominance and non-dominance shuttle runs under load carriage during different exercise load at the same exercise intensity on the balance responses.Ten healthy young males were joined in this experiment, they were (20.80±2.04) years old and (173.99±2.87) cm tall. In a randomized cross-over design, they performed four times shuttle runs under unilateral load carriage:20 m×5 at dominant side, 20 m×5 at non-dominant side, 20 m×10 at dominant side, 20 m×10 at non-dominant side respectively. Balance abilities were evaluated immediately and 20 minute post-exercise respectively, and R-R interval was recorded.The HR, EPOC and TRIMP for all exercise load were increased significantly after shuttle runs compared to rest (The shuttle runs could impair the trunk control ability immediately post-exercise, the magnitude of mediolateral movement was increased as the exercise load increased. The changes of balance responses were similar between the dominant and the non-dominant side, the dominant and the non-dominant side might show cross-effects.

The most common cause for dental composite failures is secondary caries due to invasive bacterial colonization of the adhesive/dentin (a/d) interface. Innate material weakness often lead to an insufficient seal between the adhesive and dentin. Consequently, bacterial by-products invade the porous a/d interface leading to material degradation and dental caries. Current approaches to achieve antibacterial properties in these materials continue to raise concerns regarding hypersensitivity and antibiotic resistance. Herein, we have developed a multi-faceted, bio-functionalized approach to overcome the vulnerability of such interfaces. An antimicrobial adhesive formulation was designed using a combination of antimicrobial peptide and a &epsilon, polylysine resin system. Effector molecules boasting innate immunity are brought together with a biopolymer offering a two-fold biomimetic design approach. The selection of &epsilon, polylysine was inspired due to its non-toxic nature and common use as food preservative. Biomolecular characterization and functional activity of our engineered dental adhesive formulation were assessed and the combinatorial formulation demonstrated significant antimicrobial activity against Streptococcus mutans. Our antimicrobial peptide-hydrophilic adhesive hybrid system design offers advanced, biofunctional properties at the critical a/d interface.

The serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine) type 3 receptor is an important target in the control of digestive dysfunction such as anorexia and bulimia, and 5-HT3 receptor antagonists are effective against eating disorder and the early-phase chemotherapy and radiotherapy evoked vomiting. Our previous research of Valeriana jatamansi revealed the presence of iridoids, which showed potent antitumor activities. Here, we explored the effects of 10π aromatic iridoid desacylbaldrinal isolated from V. jatamansi on the 5-HT3 receptor current. We performed whole cell recordings of 5-HT3A receptor currents in the presence of the compound. The result indicated that desacylbaldrinal inhibited the 5-HT-mediated 5-HT3A receptor current.

Background. Microaspiration of secretions around the tracheal cuff is a multifactorial process. Tracheal cuff shape might take a major part in its occurrence. The rationale for producing a taper-shaped cuff is established on the assumption that compared to a conventional cuff with a single fixed diameter, a continuum of minimum-to-maximum diameter sections might better fit the tracheal walls. Objectives. The primary objective of this meta-analysis was to compare ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) between tapered-cuff intubation and conventional-cuff intubation. The secondary objective was to compare intensive care unit (ICU) mortality between tapered-cuff intubation and conventional-cuff intubation. Methods. We searched the Cochrane Library, Embase, MEDLINE database through the PubMed search engine, and CINAHL from inception to April 2018. Randomized trials comparing VAP and ICU mortality between tapered-cuff intubation and conventional-cuff intubation in intubated adults were included. Two review authors assessed study quality and abstracted databasing on prespecified criteria independently. Results. We pooled summary estimates from 5 trials evaluating tapered-cuff involving 774 participants. Compared to VAP, no statistically significant difference was observed between the tapered-cuff and conventional-cuff groups (OR 0.82, CI 0.61–1.12, z = 1.24, and p=0.21). No statistically significant difference was observed between the tapered-cuff and conventional-cuff groups with ICU mortality (OR 0.77, CI 0.55–1.08, z = 1.49, and p=0.14). Conclusions. In this meta-analysis, the tapered-cuff tracheal tube may not be superior to the standard-cuff tracheal tube in reducing VAP and ICU mortality.

Outlier detection is one of the most important data mining problems, which has attracted much attention over the past years. So far, there have been a variety of different schemes for outlier detection. However, most of the existing methods work with numeric data sets. And these methods cannot be directly applied to categorical data sets because it is not straightforward to define a practical similarity measure for categorical data. Furthermore, the existing outlier detection schemes that are tailored for categorical data tend to result in poor scalability, which makes them infeasible for large-scale data sets. In this paper, we propose a tree-based outlier detection algorithm for large-scale categorical data sets, Outlier Detection Forest (ODF). Our experimental results indicate that, compared with the state-of-the-art outlier detection schemes, ODF can achieve the same level of outlier detection precision and much better scalability.

The problem of determining which nucleotides of an RNA sequence are paired or unpaired in the secondary structure of an RNA, which we call RNA state inference, can be studied by different machine learning techniques. Successful state inference of RNA sequences can be used to generate auxiliary information for data-directed RNA secondary structure prediction. Bidirectional long short-term memory (LSTM) neural networks have emerged as a powerful tool that can model global nonlinear sequence dependencies and have achieved state-of-the-art performances on many different classification problems. This paper presents a practical approach to RNA secondary structure inference centered around a deep learning method for state inference. State predictions from a deep bidirectional LSTM are used to generate synthetic SHAPE data that can be incorporated into RNA secondary structure prediction via the Nearest Neighbor Thermodynamic Model (NNTM). This method produces predicted secondary structures for a diverse test set of 16S ribosomal RNA that are, on average, 25 percentage points more accurate than undirected MFE structures. These improvements range from several percentage points for some sequences to nearly 50 percentage points for others. Accuracy is highly dependent on the success of our state inference method, and investigating the global features of our state predictions reveals that accuracy of both our state inference and structure inference methods are highly dependent on the similarity of the sequence to the dataset. This paper presents a deep learning state inference tool, trained and tested on 16S ribosomal RNA. Converting these state predictions into synthetic SHAPE data with which to direct NNTM can result in large improvements in secondary structure prediction accuracy, as shown on a test set of 16S rRNA., Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, and 5 tables

Background: To develop and externally validate an MR-based radiomics nomogram from retrospective multicenter datasets for pretreatment prediction of early relapse (≤1 year) in osteosarcoma after surgical resection. Methods: This multicenter study retrospectively enrolled 93 patients (training cohort: 62 patients from four hospitals; validation cohort: 31 patients from two hospitals) with clinicopathologically confirmed osteosarcoma who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgical resection at six hospitals between January 2009 and October 2017. Radiomics feature was extracted from contrast-enhanced fat-suppressed T1-weighted (CE FS T1-w) images. A radiomics signature was constructed with least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression. The radiomics nomogram that incorporated the radiomics signature and subjective MRI-assessed risk factors was developed to predict early relapse with a multivariate logistic regression model in the training cohort and validated in the external validation cohort. The performance of the nomogram was assessed by its discrimination, calibration, and clinical usefulness. Findings: The radiomics nomogram, which incorporated a radiomics signature (consisted of six selected features) and subjective MRI-assessed risk factors (joint invasion and perivascular involvement) from the multicenter datasets, achieved good discrimination in the training cohort (C-index: 0.907, 95% CI: 0.838-0.977) and external validation cohort (C-index: 0.811, 95% CI: 0.653-0.970), and good calibration. Decision curve analysis suggested that the combined nomogram was clinically useful. Interpretation: The proposed MRI-based radiomics nomogram could provide a nonvasive tool to develop a model for pretreatment prediction of early relapse in osteosarcoma, which has potential to lead to improvement of personalized pretreatment management of osteosarcoma. Funding: This research is supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2017YFC1309100), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 81871510, 81771912). Declaration of Interest: No competing interest exists. Ethical Approval: This multicentric study was approved by the ethics committee of every participating hospital and was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

The application of vacuum preloading to prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs) with different lengths is widely used in practical engineering to investigate their consolidation at the same depths of even and multilayer subsoils from the seabed. In a laboratory, model experiment was conducted using even subsoil and embedded PVDs with lengths of 0.6 and 1.2 m. The obtained results showed that in the even subsoil, the 1.2 m PVDs maintained a higher vacuum pressure in the shallow layer and demonstrated better consolidation behavior as compared to those of the 0.6 m PVDs. In the upper subsoil layer, the average vane shear strengths of these two systems increased to 18.2 and 22.6 kPa, respectively. The degree of consolidation of the upper subsoil layers in the two model experiments calculated from the pore water pressures under boundary drainage conditions were 51% and 68%, respectively. For practical verification purposes, similar experiments were conducted for multilayer subsoil by inserting PVDs with lengths of 6 and 15 m into different test sites. As a result, the vane shear strengths of the upper 6 m subsoil layers increased to 26.3 and 33 kPa, while the degree of consolidation were 72.1% and 80.9%, respectively, although some irregularities were observed at different depths.

Introduction: In online medical-consulting platforms, physicians answer medical questions and share health care knowledge with patients, which will bring them both economic returns and soc...

Owing to their significant medicinal and edible values, the natural Dendrobium species have underdone over-collection and habitat destruction, and cultivated species emerged for candidates. However, these Dendrobium plants are similar in shape to be easily confused, leading to extreme difficulties for identification based on their morphological and chemical features. In this study, the rDNA ITS region sequence analysis was developed for rapid and accurate identification of thirteen wild and cultivated Dendrobium species belonging to two sections Formosae and Chrysotoxae. By cloning and sequencing the rDNA ITS region genes from 13 Dendrobium species, the phylogenetic relationships among them were analyzed. Results showed that the variation of the ITS region, together with the lengths and Guanine and Cytosine contents of ITS, 5.8s rDNA, ITS1 and ITS2 sequences occurred in the tested Dendrobium species, and which from section Chrysotoxae was higher than that from section Formsae. Phylogenetic analysis based on neighbor-joining and maximum p-arsimony trees indicated that the Dendrobium species of sections Formosae and Chrysotoxae could be well divided into two groups. A majority of Dendrobium species exhibited distinctive ITS2 secondary structures, while for those with close genetic relationships were similar. Therefore, the ITS2 region sequence analysis is simple, quick, and highly reliable that can be used as an effective tool for molecular identification and classification, as well as the reconstruction of the phylogeny of wild and cultivated Dendrobium species belonging to different sections.

To facilitate the private deployment of industrial Internet-of-Things (IoT), applying LTE in unlicensed spectrum (LTE-U) is a promising approach, which both tackles the problem of lacking licensed spectrum and leverages an LTE protocol to meet stringent quality-of- service (QoS) requirements via centralized control. In this paper, we investigate the computing offloading problem in an LTE-U-enabled network, where the task on an IoT device is carried out either locally or is offloaded to the LTE-U base station (BS). The offloading policy is formulated as an optimization problem to maximize the long term discounted reward, considering both task completion profit and the task completion delay. Due to the stochastic task arrival process at each device and the Wi-Fi's contention-based random access, we reformulate the computing offloading problem into a Q-learning problem and solve it by a deep learning network-based approximation method. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme considerably enhances the system performance.

Network function virtualization (NFV) is one of the enabling technologies for fifth generation (5G) networks. How to allocate physical resources to customized network services both fairly and efficiently remains a challenging research issue in NFV. This paper proposes a two-stage approach to jointly optimize the chaining and embedding of virtual network functions (VNFs), to obtain feasible composition and embedding results with low complexity, while the average embedding cost is minimized and the total revenue is increased. In the first stage, the VNF chaining order is optimized based on the location and functionality of substrate nodes, and the ratio of outgoing data rate over incoming data rate for each required VNF. In the second stage, we allocate the physical resources based on the preliminary VNF ordering under the resource capacity constraints. A node splitting mechanism is also employed to improve the resource allocation fairness and increase the service acceptance ratio for the substrate network. Simulation results are presented to validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach.

The software defined networking (SDN) enabled network function virtualization (NFV) architecture emerges as a cost-effective solution for service customization in fifth generation (5G) networks. In this paper, a joint traffic routing and virtual network function (VNF) placement problem is studied for a multicast service request accommodated over a physical substrate network, where the multipath traffic routing is considered between embedded VNFs. The joint problem is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem to minimize the provisioning cost of both VNFs and links, under the physical network resource constraints, flow conservation constraints, and VNF placement rules. Since the problem is NP-hard, low complexity heuristic algorithms, with the consideration of both the single-path and multipath routing cases, are proposed to determine an efficient solution. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and accuracy of the proposed heuristic algorithms especially for a large-size network.

Multicasting is an important task in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). The minimum energy multicasting problem has been studied intensively. In duty-cycled WSNs, switching between the active and sleep state makes this problem more complicated. In this paper, the problem of minimum energy multicasting with adjustable transmission power in duty-cycled WSNs is studied. Specifically, we propose a novel algorithm named ATPM, with which an extended graph is first constructed, then a multicast tree and the transmission schedule are generated. Our experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-art algorithms in terms of energy cost.