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In today’s increasingly complex network environment, increasingly severe network attacks, and real-time dynamic changes in offensive and defensive scenarios, network security technology has also evolved from passive security to active security technology, and expanded from analyzing unilateral security elements to comprehensively analyzing overall network security. Aiming at the problem of inaccurate assessment results due to the lack of comprehensive analysis of threat information, protection information and environmental information in existing assessment methods, this paper proposes a defensive random game model. This model analyzes threat propagation and establishes a threat propagation access relationship network, and then establishes a random game model for the game process of threat action and protection strategy implementation to solve the mixed strategy Nash equilibrium. The model comprehensively analyzes the dynamic changes of the security situation elements, ignoring the short-term situation elements that will not change, such as topology structure, service information, etc., and mainly analyzes the dynamic changes of attack information, vulnerability information, and defense measures, and predicts from the host and network levels. The experimental verification shows that the prediction method in this paper can improve the prediction accuracy and is more in line with the offensive and defensive scenarios. &nbsp

Epilepsy is a common symptom in patients with frontal lobe glioma. Tumor-related epilepsy was recently considered a type of network disease. Glioma can severely influence the integrity of the white matter network. The association between white matter network changes and presurgical epilepsy remains unclear in glioma patients. This study aims to identify alterations to the subcortical brain networks caused by glioma and glioma-related epilepsy.Sixty-one patients with frontal lobe gliomas were enrolled and stratified into the epileptic and non-epileptic groups. Additionally, 14 healthy participants were enrolled after matching for age, sex, and education level. All participants underwent diffusion tensor imaging. Graph theoretical analysis was applied to reveal topological changes in their white matter networks. Regions affected by tumors were excluded from the analysis.Global efficiency was significantly decreased (p = 0.008), while the shortest path length increased (p = 0.02) in the left and right non-epileptic groups compared to the controls. A total of five edges exhibited decreased fiber count in the non-epileptic group (p 0.05, false discovery rate-corrected). The topological properties and connectional edges showed no significant differences when comparing the epileptic groups and the controls. Additionally, the degree centrality of several nodes connected to the alternated edges was also diminished.Compared to the controls, the epilepsy groups showed raletively intact WM networks, while the non-epileptsy groups had damaged network with lower efficiency and longer path length. These findings indicated that the occurrence of glioma related epilepsy have association with white matter network intergrity.

The graph convolution algorithm currently suffers from the drawback of not fusing point cloud information and point cloud topology structure information based on visual selectivity features and using absolute quantities like distance as features, resulting in the algorithm losing geometric invariance. This information serves as the foundation for the "Graph Convolution Algorithm Based on Visual Selectivity and Application of Point Cloud Analysis". In order to propose a graph convolutional kernel and its design method based on visual selectivity, the algorithm analyzes the global characteristics of the point cloud "close in the vicinity and sparse in the distance," the local selectivity of the point cloud topology structure in the neighborhood, and the consistency between features and visual selectivity of primates. By combining point cloud information with point cloud topology structure information features, a graph convolution computation method was built, and the algorithm's geometric invariance was confirmed. The recognition and semantic segmentation performances of the approach in this study were verified using the ModelNet40 and ShapeNetPart data sets in comparison to the PointNet, PointNet++, DGCNN, KPConv, and 3D-GCN algorithms. The experimental design demonstrates that the algorithm presented in this research is accurate and practical, has geometric invariance, and performs better at semantic segmentation and recognition than conventional algorithms.

Funding: Florida Gulf Coast University; University of St Andrews; UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council - EP/J018139/1, EP/L016419/1, EP/V051423/1; Leverhulme Trust - ECF-2014-005. The use of 2-carboxyphenylboronic acid (5 mol %) and oxalic acid (10 mol %) with 2-butanone as a solvent for the racemization of a range of enantiomerically pure secondary and tertiary alcohols is demonstrated. The process is postulated to proceed via reversible Brønsted acid-catalyzed C–O bond cleavage through an achiral carbocation intermediate. Publisher PDF

Metallic group VIB transition metal dichalcogenides (1T-TMDs) have attracted great interest because of their outstanding performance in electrocatalysis, supercapacitors, batteries, and so on, whereas the strict fabrication conditions and thermodynamical metastability of 1T-TMDs greatly restrict their extensive applications. Therefore, it is significant to obtain stable and high-concentration 1T-TMDs in a simple and large-scale strategy. Herein, we report a facile and large-scale synthesis of high-concentration 1T-TMDs via an ionic liquid (IL) assisted hydrothermal strategy, including 1T-MoS

Abnormal uterine bleeding is a common benign gynecological complaint and is also the most common symptom of endometrial cancer (EC). Although many microRNAs have been reported in endometrial carcinoma, most of them were identified from tumor tissues obtained at surgery or from cell lines cultured in laboratories. The objective of this study was to develop a method to detect EC-specific microRNA biomarkers from liquid biopsy samples to improve the early diagnosis of EC in women. Endometrial fluid samples were collected during patient-scheduled in-office visits or in the operating room prior to surgery using the same technique performed for saline infusion sonohysterography (SIS). The total RNA was extracted from the endometrial fluid specimens, followed by quantification, reverse transcription, and real-time PCR arrays. The study was conducted in two phases: exploratory phase I and validation phase II. In total, endometrial fluid samples from 82 patients were collected and processed, with 60 matched non-cancer versus endometrial carcinoma patients used in phase I and 22 in phase II. The 14 microRNA biomarkers, out of 84 miRNA candidates, with the greatest variation in expression from phase I, were selected to enter phase II validation and statistical analysis. Among them, three microRNAs had a consistent and substantial fold-change in upregulation (miR-429, miR-183-5p, and miR-146a-5p). Furthermore, four miRNAs (miR-378c, miR-4705, miR-1321, and miR-362-3p) were uniquely detected. This research elucidated the feasibility of the collection, quantification, and detection of miRNA from endometrial fluid with a minimally invasive procedure performed during a patient in-office visit. The screening of a larger set of clinical samples was necessary to validate these early detection biomarkers for endometrial cancer.

The greater antihypertensive responses to initial therapy with calcium channel blockers (CCBs) or thiazide-type diuretics than renin-angiotensin system blockers as initial therapy in non-Hispanic Black (NHB) adults was recognized in the US High BP guidelines from 1988 to 2003. The 2014 Report from Panel Members Appointed to the Eighth Joint National Committee (2014 aJNC8 Report) and the 2017 American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association High Blood Pressure Guideline were the first to recommend CCBs or thiazide-type diuretics rather than renin-angiotensin system blockers as initial therapy in NHB. We assessed the temporal relationship of these recommendations on self-reported CCB or thiazide-type diuretics monotherapy by NHB and NHW adults with hypertension absent compelling indications for β-blockers or renin-angiotensin system blockers in National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys 2015 to 2018 versus 2007 to 2012 (after versus before 2014 aJNC8 Report). CCB or thiazide-type diuretics monotherapy was unchanged in NHW adults (17.1% versus 18.1%, P =0.711) and insignificantly higher after 2014 among NHB adults (43.7% versus 38.2%, P =0.204), although CCB monotherapy increased (29.5% versus 21.0%, P =0.021) and renin-angiotensin system blocker monotherapy fell (44.5% versus 31.0%, P =0.008). Although evidence-based CCB monotherapy increased among NHB adults in 2015 to 2018, hypertension control declined as untreated hypertension and monotherapy increased. While a gap between recommended and actual monotherapy persists, evidence-based monotherapy appears insufficient to improve hypertension control in NHB adults, especially given evidence for worsening therapeutic inertia. Initiating treatment with single-pill combinations and timely therapeutic intensification when required to control hypertension are evidence-based, race-neutral options for improving hypertension control among NHB adults.

Temperature is one of the most important environmental factors that affect organisms, especially ectotherms, due to its effects on protein stability. Understanding the general rules that govern thermostability changes in proteins to adapt high-temperature environments is crucial. Here, we report the amino acid substitutions of phosphoglucose isomerase (PGI) related to thermostability in the Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia, Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae). The PGI encoded by the most common allele in M. cinxia in the Chinese population (G3-PGI), which is more thermal-tolerant, is more stable under heat stress than that in the Finnish population (D1-PGI). There are five amino acid substitutions between G3-PGI and D1-PGI. Site-directed mutagenesis revealed that the combination of amino acid substitutions of H35Q, M49T and I64V may increase PGI thermostability. These substitutions alter the 3D structure to increase the interaction between two monomers of PGI. Through molecular dynamics simulations, it was found that the amino acid at site 421 is more stable in G3-PGI, confining the motion of the α-helix 420-441 and stabilizing the interaction between two PGI monomers. The strategy for high-temperature adaptation through these three amino acid substitutions is also adopted by other butterfly species (Boloria eunomia, Aglais urticae, Colias erate and Polycaena lua) concurrent with M. cinxia in the Tianshan Mountains of China, i.e., convergent evolution in butterflies. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

A broadband, electrically controlled, reconfigurable, circularly polarized reflective metasurface is presented. The chirality of the metasurface structure is changed by switching active elements, which benefits from the tunable current distributions generated by the elaborately designed structure under x-polarized and y-polarized waves. Notably, the proposed metasurface unit cell maintains a good circular-polarization efficiency in a broadband range of 6.82-9.96 GHz (fractional bandwidth of 37%) with a phase difference of π between the two states. As a demonstration, a reconfigurable circularly polarized metasurface containing 8 × 8 elements was simulated and measured. The results verify that the proposed metasurface can flexibly control circularly polarized waves in a broadband, realizing beam splitting, mirror reflection, and other beam manipulations from 7.4 GHz to 9.9 GHz (fractional bandwidth of 28.9%) by simply adjusting the loaded active elements. The proposed reconfigurable metasurface may offer a promising approach to electromagnetic wave manipulation or communication systems.

In this communication, we propose a tunable radar absorber based on the combination of a graphene capacitor with a varactor-loaded active frequency-selective surface (FSS). The absorbing amplitude and frequency can be independently controlled by changing the effective sheet resistance of graphene and the capacitance of the varactor through different bias voltages, respectively. We fabricated the designed absorber and measured its tunable reflectivity. The measured results indicate that the absorber can tune its absorbing frequency ranging from 3.53 to 7.05 GHz under normal incidence when changing bias voltages applied to the varactors from 0.5 to 10 V. By further varying the graphene resistance through the bias voltage, the absorbing amplitude at each absorbing frequency can be dynamically modulated. In addition, it is found that the absorber achieves polarization-insensitive characteristics due to the symmetrical design of the active FSS. The physical mechanism of this absorber is discussed by providing the equivalent transmission-line (TL) model.

Diabetes is a costly chronic condition in the United States. The incremental increase in costs of the disease can begin and accelerate prior to first diagnosis. This study conducts a retrospective analysis of claims data from Truven Health MarketScan® Commercial Claims Database to track per capita annual medical expenditures among a single panel of commercially insured patients for 5 years preceding a new diabetes diagnosis. Case subjects, defined as individuals newly diagnosed with diabetes in 2014, are compared to control subjects, defined as individuals who do not have a diabetes diagnosis. Arithmetic means, compound annual growth rates, and propensity score matching models are used to track the differential in expenditures across health care sectors. This analysis finds that the incremental rise in costs of diabetes are shown to begin at least 5 years before diagnosis of the disease and accelerate immediately after diagnosis. Results of the matching model suggest that the newly diagnosed case subjects spent $8941 more than control subjects not diagnosed with diabetes over the span of 5 years, with approximately $4828 in the year of diagnosis. The compounded annual growth rate in per capita annual medical expenditures between 2010-2014 was almost 9% higher among case subjects at 14.3% in the matched models. Results show that the rise in medical spending associated with diabetes begins well in advance of the first diabetes diagnosis and support the need to encourage physicians to implement timely identification and prevention efforts to reduce the economic burden of the disease.

This paper is concerned with the long time behavior of a competition system with nonlocal dispersal. When the initial conditions of both unknown functions satisfy proper decay behavior, we obtain the rough spreading speed of one unknown function and show the upper and lower bounds of spreading speed of another unknown function. Moreover, a numerical example is given to illustrate our analytic results. Our conclusions imply that both the linear part and nonlinear part in reaction terms may affect the spreading speeds. Moreover, in such a competitive system with constant coefficients, we may observe the propagation terraces in some component.

Introduction: The growth rate of meningiomas varies greatly (0.01 to 2.58 cm3/year).An inappropriate ‘wait and see’ treatment strategy, such as a follow-up interval of MRI longer than 2 years, for rapid growing meningioma (RGM) may seriously increase the risk of subsequent surgery and may eliminate the opportunity for operation. Our purpose was to compare the MR imaging features of slow-growing meningiomas (SGMs) and RGMs and identify the factors that could predict RGM.Methods: We retrospectively collected SGM and RGM data between 2016 and 2021 in Beijing Tiantan Hospital and then used IBM SPSS software to analyze the clinical and MR imaging features between the two groups.Results: Eighty-seven SGM and 78 RGM were collected in our study. Male sex had a 2.896-fold risk of predicting RGM in multivariate analysis (P = 0.048). Patient age, tumor shape and location showed no significant difference between the two groups (P = 0.562, P = 0.514, P = 0.094, respectively). Meningiomas with diameters > 2.5 cm had a higher risk of growing rapidly (multivariate analysis, HR: 3.484, P = 0.006). The presence of peritumoral edema and absence of hypointensity on T2W-MRI were significantly associated with RGM (multivariate analysis; HR: 6.990, P < 0.001; HR: 3.753, P = 0.008;, respectively).Conclusions: Male sex, peritumoral edema, tumor size > 2.5 cm and absence of hypointensity on T2W-MRI may indicate the potential for rapid growth of meningiomas.

The mechanism of diabetes and cataracts is complicated. Considering our increasing acknowledge of exosomes, exosomal miRNAs isolated from aqueous humour (AH) may play an important role in the mechanism of diabetes and cataracts. Our study aimed to isolate exosomes from human aqueous humour and study the functions of exosomal miRNAs on human lens epithelial cells (HLECs).MiRNA sequencing revealed that 295 miRNAs were upregulated and 138 miRNAs were downregulated in exosomes of the diabetes and cataracts group (DMC) compared with the age-related cataracts group (ARC), among which miR-551b was highly expressed with a log2 fold change of 5.99. GO and KEGG analyses indicated that the predicted genes were mainly involved in cadherin binding, proteoglycans in cancer and AGE-RAGE signalling pathway in diabetic complications. We then examined the function of miR-551b and found that miR-551b reduced the viability and increased the apoptosis of HLECs by downregulating CRYAA expression.Exosomes isolated from human aqueous humour contained abundant miRNAs. A highly expressed miRNA, miR-551b, could regulate the functions of HLEC by targeting CRYAA.We pooled all the aqueous humour of each group into one sample and isolated exosomes from human aqueous humour by ultracentrifugation, measured the size and concentration of exosomes by nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA), observed the morphology of exosomes by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and sequenced exosomal miRNAs. We performed bioinformatic analysis of the sequencing results, including GO analysis and KEGG pathway enrichment. We then examined CRYAA mRNA expression levels and protein levels by quantitative real-time PCR and Western blot. Cell Counting Kit-8 and flow cytometry were applied to examine cell viability, proliferation and apoptosis.

β-AgVO3 has been considered as an ideal cathode material for lithium primary batteries for medical devices. Considering its tunnel structure and multiple reductions of both silver and vanadium, β-A...

In this letter, a broadband polarization-independent tunable absorber is proposed based on active frequency selective surface (AFSS). The AFSS consists of periodic patterns of four-patch array with four p-i-n diodes loaded among them, and a simple bias network is designed behind the ground plane through metalized via holes, which can effectively reduce the influence on the absorbing performance. By changing the bias voltage applied on the p-i-n diodes, the reflectivity of our absorber can be dynamically adjusted from near-unity reflection to less than −10 dB absorptivity under normal incidence over a wide frequency band ranging from 8.5 to 18.2 GHz. Due to the symmetrical structure of the AFSS, our absorber still has polarization insensitivity. We fabricated this AFSS absorber sample, and its measured results agree well with the simulated ones.

In this communication, a broadband and tunable radar absorber is proposed by integrating graphene capacitor with resistive frequency-selective surfaces (RFSS). The microwave reflectivity can be dynamically controlled by changing the effective sheet resistance of graphene through an electrostatic field bias. The simulated results indicate that this structure can tune its reflectivity over a wide frequency band ranging from 2.9 to 15.9 GHz under the normal incidence, when the graphene resistance is varied from 120 to $700~\Omega $ /sq. The tuning range of the average reflectivity is from −4.6 to −15.3 dB. The physical mechanism of this tunable absorber is discussed by studying the electric field distribution and power loss density. We fabricated this absorber and measured its tunable reflectivity by applying different biasing voltages. The experimental results are in a good agreement with those of the simulation results. In addition, this absorber is also verified to have a good angular stability and polarization insensitivity, which will have broad prospects in the application of stealth technology.

Background This study is to determine the risk factors for metastasis of Ewing sarcoma (ES) patients in SEER database. Then explore clinicopathological factors associated with poor prognosis. Furthermore, develop the nomogram to predict the probability of overall survival and cancer-specific survival Methods Thus, we collected clinicopathological data of ES patients in SEER database, and then used chi-square test and logistic regression to determine risk factors associated to metastasis. We also did survival analysis including Kaplan-Meier curve and Cox proportional hazard model to explore the risk factors associated to overall survival and cancer-specific survival, and then developed the nomogram to visualize and quantify the probability of survival. Results After statistics, we find that patients with older ages (11–20 years old: OR = 1.517, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.033–2.228, p = 0.034; 21–30 years old: OR = 1.659. 95%CI 1.054–2.610, p = 0.029), larger tumor size (> 8 cm: OR = 1.914, 95%CI 1.251–2.928, p = 0.003), and pelvic lesions (OR = 2.492, 95%CI 1.829–3.395, p < 0.001) had a higher risk of metastasis. ROC curves showed higher AUC (0.65) of combined model which incorporate these three factors to predict the presence of metastasis at diagnosis. In survival analysis, patients with older ages (11–20 years: HR = 1.549, 95%CI 1.144–2.099, p = 0.005; 21–30 years: HR = 1.808, 95%CI 1.278–2.556, p = 0.001; 31–49 years: HR = 3.481, 95%CI 2.379–5.094, p < 0.001; ≥ 50 years: HR = 4.307, 95%CI 2.648–7.006, p < 0.001) , larger tumor size (5–8 cm: HR = 1.386, 95%CI 1.005–1.991, p = 0.046; > 8 cm: HR = 1.877, 95%CI 1.376–2.561, p < 0.001), black race (HR = 2.104, 95%CI 1.296–3.416, p = 0.003), and wider extension (regional: HR = 1.373, 95%CI 1.033–1.823, p = 0.029; metastatic: HR = 3.259, 95%CI 2.425–4.379, p < 0.001) were associated with worse prognosis. Chemotherapy was associated with better prognosis (HR = 0.466, 95%CI 0.290–0.685, p < 0.001). The nomogram which developed by training set and aimed to predict OS and CSS showed good consistency with actual observed outcomes internally and externally. Conclusion In conclusion, tumor size and primary site were associated with distant metastasis at diagnosis. Age, tumor size, primary site, tumor extent, and chemotherapy were associated with overall survival and cancer-specific survival. Nomogram could predict the probability of OS and CSS and showed good consistency with actual observed outcomes internally and externally.

A broadband reconfigurable metasurface consisting of perpendicular metallic gratings and a PIN diode-driven split circular ring for polarization and propagation modes control is demonstrated. The designed metasurface possesses tunable properties in two propagation modes. In the “OFF” state, it can convert incident linear-polarized waves into transmitted cross-polarized waves with full transmission. In the “ON” state, it can reflect incident linear-polarized waves into co-polarized waves with full reflection. Without the increasing number of active elements commonly utilized in chirality-type metasurface polarizers, the equivalent transformation of the split circular ring can be achieved by switching the single PIN diode, and high polarization-conversion efficiency is guaranteed. A metasurface array with 10 × 10 unit cells is fabricated and measured. The experimental results show that the tunable transmission, reflection, and polarization properties of the proposed reconfigurable metasurface can be achieved from 4.9 to 7 GHz.