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Objective To establish a method for detecting human immunoglobulin Fc function based on surface plasmon resonance technology. Methods Based on the characteristic that FcγRI can be binded to the Fc segment of IgG, the affinity constant of the sample was detected by surface plasmon resonance, and its Fc function was the KD ratio of the sample to the standard. The method was validated for specificity/specificity, precision and robustness. The method and the pharmacopoeia method were used to detect the Fc function of 30 human immunoglobulins, and the correlation and consistency of the detection results were analyzed. Results The method validation results showed that this method has strong specificity/specificity (t values were 0.15, 0.22, both P>0.05), good precision (CV value 5.37%~10.69%) and good robustness (CV value 10.06%). The detection results of this method and the pharmacopoeia method have high correlation (r=0.96, P

In this paper, the parameters of a prototype runner of an axial flow pump are optimized by using the immersion boundary–lattice Boltzmann numerical method based on a large-eddy simulation (LES-IB-LBM). A fish-friendly axial flow pump with a leading-edge thickness of 11.4 mm and blade cutting angle of 18° is proposed. Through experiments, the living conditions of many kinds of fish in extremely positive and negative pressure environments are explored, and the probability of damage caused by pump to fish is analyzed by taking −40 kPa as the low-pressure damage threshold. The flow passage of the fish-friendly axial flow pump effectively guides the fish to low-risk areas, reducing the risk of friction, shear, and impact damage to the fish. The total impact mortality ratio of runners before and after the axial flow pump optimization is close to 7:1.

Abstract Besides a typical high‐density plasma source, electrical explosion of conductors is also indispensable in switches, nanomaterial synthesis, shock‐wave sources, etc. In this paper, an experimental study regarding plasma dynamics of electrical wire explosions (μs‐timescale) is presented, with spatiotemporal resolved diagnostics. Pure Cu/Ni wire and Cu‐Ni alloy wire were used and compared. The alloy wire usually has a higher resistivity, resulting in a higher initial energy deposition (heating) rate. Abel inverse transformation indicated that the plasma radiation focussed on the outer region of the discharge channel for the alloy wire. In addition, the metallic vapour determined by the material properties had a considerable influence on the plasma process and resulting nanomaterials. In particular, both transverse and axial‐layered structures were observed in alloy wire vapour. In addition, for the first time, the expanding arc‐like plasma of explosion products was understood and examined from aspects of material properties and energy relaxation. The later stage of wire explosion resembled the state of regular metal vapour arcs under 1 MPa pressure. Finally, the core factor for the fast energy deposition stage of wire explosion was ascertained. Correlations between pre‐exposition circuit parameters and post‐explosion dynamic effects were found, which is significant for practical applications.

The power flow of the distributed network (DN) with high penetration of distributed PV changes significantly, such as bidirectional power flow and larger deviation of voltage magnitude, under the variation of PV power output, and the number and the position of critical nodes would change accordingly. Hence, a data-driven nodes clustering and critical node identification method is proposed in this paper. Since the relationship between different nodes are nonlinear, the autoencoder method is firstly applied to obtain the unified features of the nodes connected with different number of branches. Using the unified features, the Frechet distance is calculated to demonstrate the similarity between any two nodes. The improved affinity propagation (AP) clustering algorithm is also proposed to classify the nodes into different clusters, and the number the clusters and the critical nodes in different clusters could be obtained automatically. The electrical distance is considered in the improved AP clustering algorithm, so that nodes in different branches with similar features are avoided to be classified into one cluster. The simulations are carried out on the IEEE 123-bus system and an actual DN system, the effectiveness and efficiency of proposed critical node identification method are verified.

Objectives: The birth of a new grandchild may lead to role enhancement, positively affecting the wellbeing of grandparents. It may also lead to role overload and role conflict, resulting in negative effects. We examine how the transition to grandparenthood influences the health and well-being of older people in China. Methods: Employing longitudinal data from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, we estimate individual fixed-effects models to examine the impact of transitioning to grandparenthood on functional limitations, life satisfaction and depression. Results: Transitioning to grandmotherhood was associated with a higher probability of reporting one or more functional limitations of daily living, but transitioning to grandparenthood was associated with higher life satisfaction. Effects were similar for grandparents with a rural or urban hukou status. Discussion: Findings suggest that the combination of role enhancement and role strain may generate mixed impacts of transitioning to grandparenthood on older adults’ health and well-being.

As a novel form of human machine interaction (HMI), hand gesture recognition (HGR) has garnered extensive attention and research. The majority of HGR studies are based on visual systems, inevitably encountering challenges such as depth and occlusion. On the contrary, data gloves can facilitate data collection with minimal interference in complex environments, thus becoming a research focus in fields such as medical simulation and virtual reality. To explore the application of data gloves in dynamic gesture recognition, this paper proposes a data glove-based dynamic gesture recognition model called the Attention-based CNN-BiLSTM Network (A-CBLN). In A-CBLN, the convolutional neural network (CNN) is employed to capture local features, while the bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) is used to extract contextual temporal features of gesture data. By utilizing attention mechanisms to allocate weights to gesture features, the model enhances its understanding of different gesture meanings, thereby improving recognition accuracy. We selected seven dynamic gestures as research targets and recruited 32 subjects for participation. Experimental results demonstrate that A-CBLN effectively addresses the challenge of dynamic gesture recognition, outperforming existing models and achieving optimal gesture recognition performance, with the accuracy of 95.05% and precision of 95.43% on the test dataset.

Human-land coordination represents urbanization and is a key component of urban modernization. In this study, the theory of system dynamics was introduced, in which a "production-living-ecological" complex system was used based on the human-land coordination concept. Moreover, the characteristics of system dynamics of causal cycle, dynamic and sustainable development, man-land synergy, integrity and openness, and self-organization and adaptability were analyzed by dividing it into three subsystems: urban production, urban living, and urban ecological subsystems. Here, causal feedback and system structure flow diagrams were designed using causal loop diagrams and system structure flow diagrams to evaluate the causal relationships between variables and quantitatively analyzing their interactions between variables and predicting the future development of variables. Changsha City, China was selected as the case study area, where we constructed system dynamics practice equation model was then constructed to determine the interaction between the subsystems. Our findings indicate that by the year 2035 in the future, the overall trend of factors influencing the function of the subsystems such as population, GDP and built-up area are positively correlated with an increasing trend, and there are interactions between. Furthermore, these factors interact with each other, and a mutual correlation was found among the production-living-ecological functions system, Therefore, this study provides a novel perspective and exploratory practice for the study of the synergistic coupling of ecological, production, and living functions of cities and evaluating high-quality development of cities. Thus, the coupling and coordination of urban production, living and ecological functions reflects the coupling and coordination of the "people-land" relationship, which is the key to high-quality urban development.

Summary: Systemic metabolites serving as danger-associated molecular patterns play crucial roles in modulating the development, differentiation, and activity of innate immune cells. Yet, it is unclear how innate immune cells detect systemic metabolites for signal transmission. Here, we show that bile acids function as endogenous mitofusin 2 (MFN2) ligands and differentially modulate innate immune response to bacterial infection under cholestatic and physiological conditions. Bile acids at high concentrations promote mitochondrial tethering to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), leading to calcium overload in the mitochondrion, which activates NLRP3 inflammasome and pyroptosis. By contrast, at physiologically relevant low concentrations, bile acids promote mitochondrial fusion, leading to enhanced oxidative phosphorylation and thereby strengthening infiltrated macrophages mediated phagocytotic clearance of bacteria. These findings support that bile acids, as endogenous activators of MFN2, are vital for tuning innate immune responses against infections, representing a causal link that connects systemic metabolism with mitochondrial dynamics in shaping innate immunity.

State estimation of active distribution network (ADN) plays an important role in distribution energy management system. The increase penetration of distributed generations, especially the distributed photovoltaic (PV), in ADN leads to high uncertainty of ADN’s operation and the state of the ADN varies with the variation of the PV output power. For the uncertainty of PV power output, an interval dynamic state estimation (IDSE) method, which estimates the interval of ADN state variables is proposed in this paper. Firstly, considering the slow computation speed of the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF), the square root UKF is used to predict the real-time operating level of the state variables. Secondly, since the power output of PV has features of the variation randomly, the neural network-based prediction intervals is employed to predict the power output interval of PV. Finally, the normal fluctuation range of ADN state is modelled as a bilevel non-linear programming problem to perform IDSE, which in turn monitors the operating state of ADN. The proposed method is evaluated on the IEEE 33-node and IEEE 123-node systems, respectively. The test results demonstrate that the dynamic status of the ADN can be tracked accurately using the proposed method.

Time series forecasting has attracted wide attention in recent decades. However, some time series are imbalanced and show different patterns between special and normal periods, leading to the prediction accuracy degradation of special periods. In this paper, we aim to develop a unified model to alleviate the imbalance and thus improving the prediction accuracy for special periods. This task is challenging because of two reasons: (1) the temporal dependency of series, and (2) the tradeoff between mining similar patterns and distinguishing different distributions between different periods. To tackle these issues, we propose a self-attention-based time-varying prediction model with a two-stage training strategy. First, we use an encoder-decoder module with the multi-head self-attention mechanism to extract common patterns of time series. Then, we propose a time-varying optimization module to optimize the results of special periods and eliminate the imbalance. Moreover, we propose reverse distance attention in place of traditional dot attention to highlight the importance of similar historical values to forecast results. Finally, extensive experiments show that our model performs better than other baselines in terms of mean absolute error and mean absolute percentage error.

Abstract Background The liver is an important organ that undertakes the metabolic function of the human body. Liver cancer has become one of the cancers with the highest mortality. In clinic, it is an important work to extract the liver region accurately before the diagnosis and treatment of liver lesions. However, manual liver segmentation is a time-consuming and boring process. Not only that, but the segmentation results usually varies from person to person due to different work experience. In order to assist in clinical automatic liver segmentation, this paper proposes a U-shaped network with multi-scale attention mechanism for liver organ segmentation in CT images, which is called MSA-UNet. Our method makes a new design of U-Net encoder, decoder, skip connection, and context transition structure. These structures greatly enhance the feature extraction ability of encoder and the efficiency of decoder to recover spatial location information. We have designed many experiments on publicly available datasets to show the effectiveness of MSA-UNet. Compared with some other advanced segmentation methods, MSA-UNet finally achieved the best segmentation effect, reaching 98.00% dice similarity coefficient (DSC) and 96.08% intersection over union (IOU).

With the increasing severity of environmental problems, many countries have set energy transition targets to promote the realization of the Paris Agreement. There has been a global consensus on utilizing solar energy resources as alternatives to conventional sources to support this energy transition. In this regard, analyzing the “location,” “quantity,” and “quality” of global solar energy resources will not only assist an individual country to efficiently utilize these resources but also promote the realization of large-scale intercontinental resource utilization and complementation. This study established the basic database, model methods, and platform tools for global solar energy assessment, Then, a global solar energy resource assessment was conducted, which included the theoretical reserves (TRs), technical installed potential capacity (TPIC), and average development cost (ADC). A comparative analysis of the assessment results for all continents was also performed. After that, based on big data analysis and geographic information system (GIS) calculations, the distribution characteristics of the global solar power TPIC were calculated with the two core indicators, namely the capacity factor and ADC. Furthermore, a data-driven quantitative evaluation of the refined development potential of solar energy resources was performed. Finally, the reasonableness and coincidence analysis of the resource assessment results were verified using data from global and specifically Chinese photovoltaic (PV) bases.

Construction land expansion and use efficiency are tied to the promotion of sustainable cities and communities. This article explores how and why the spatiotemporal variation of construction land use efficiency (CLUE) evolved in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), China between 2000 and 2020. Our descriptive results show that county-level regions with higher CLUE are concentrated in major cities in the core YRD, as well as ecologically sensitive regions in the peripheral YRD. Although CLUE improvement in peripheral regions has been more remarkable since the early 2010s, the efficiency gap in construction land use between the core YRD (central cities) and the peripheral YRD (suburban counties) has doubled. The modeling results indicate the temporally and spatially heterogeneous impacts of various factors related to economic incentives and eco-environmental constraints on the uneven CLUE. Economic level and ecological sensitivity are positively associated with regional CLUE. The continuing growth of service industries and the spatial agglomeration of knowledge-intensive and foreign-invested firms are increasingly vital for CLUE improvement in the core YRD, while the prosperity of manufacturing industries is more important for the peripheral YRD. The “crowding out effect” of environmental pollution on CLUE could be proved in the peripheral rather than the core YRD. Our findings suggest that proper policies should be tailored to specific places to coordinate construction land use, economic growth, and eco-environmental sustainability.

Medical image segmentation has made significant progress when a large amount of labeled data are available. However, annotating medical image segmentation datasets is expensive due to the requirement of professional skills. Additionally, classes are often unevenly distributed in medical images, which severely affects the classification performance on minority classes. To address these problems, this paper proposes Co-Distribution Alignment (Co-DA) for semi-supervised medical image segmentation. Specifically, Co-DA aligns marginal predictions on unlabeled data to marginal predictions on labeled data in a class-wise manner with two differently initialized models before using the pseudo-labels generated by one model to supervise the other. Besides, we design an over-expectation cross-entropy loss for filtering the unlabeled pixels to reduce noise in their pseudo-labels. Quantitative and qualitative experiments on three public datasets demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms existing state-of-the-art semi-supervised medical image segmentation methods on both the 2D CaDIS dataset and the 3D LGE-MRI and ACDC datasets, achieving an mIoU of 0.8515 with only 24% labeled data on CaDIS, and a Dice score of 0.8824 and 0.8773 with only 20% data on LGE-MRI and ACDC, respectively.

Background: Tumours are among the most lethal diseases that heavily endanger human health globally. Xuefu Zhuyu Decoction (XFZYD) is a prescription used to treat blood-activating stasis. Although XFZYD has been shown to suppress migration and invasion of tumour cells, the active ingredients, potential targets, and underlying mechanism remain largely elusive.Purpose: To identify the prospective ingredients and major targets of XFZYD against tumours, and evaluate the efficacy and potential molecular mechanisms of XFZYD extract on tumour growth and invasion.Methods: We predicted that XFZYD might act on 80 targets through 128 active components using the network pharmacology analysis method. In addition, we prepared an XFZYD aqueous extract and employed the RasV12/lgl−/−-induced Drosophila tumour model to carry out experimental verification.Results: XFZYD did not exhibit any side effects on development, viability, and fertility. Furthermore, XFZYD significantly impeded tumour size and invasion at moderate concentrations and suppressed the increased phosphorylation of JNK but strongly enhanced the expression of Caspase 3 in the RasV12/lgl−/− model. Finally, the mRNA level of the transcription complex AP-1 component c-FOS was remarkably reduced. In contrast, the transcription of three pro-apoptotic genes was significantly increased when XFZYD was used to treat the tumour model.Conclusion: The study findings suggest that XFZYD may promote tumour cell apoptosis by activating caspase signalling to control primary growth and hinder tumour cell invasion by suppressing JNK/AP-1 signalling activity, thus providing a potential therapeutic strategy for XFZYD in the clinical treatment of cancer and other related diseases.

The large-scale centralized development of wind and PV power resources is the key to China’s dual carbon targets and clean energy transition. The vast desert–Gobi–wilderness areas in northern and western China will be the best choice for renewable energy development under multiple considerations of resources endowment, land use constraints, technical conditions, and economic level. It is urgent to carry out a quantitative wind and PV resource assessment study in desert–Gobi–wilderness areas. This paper proposed a multi-dimensional assessment method considering the influence of the power grid and transportation infrastructure distributions, which includes three research levels, namely, the technical installed capacity, the development potential, and the development cost. Nine main desert–Gobi–wilderness areas were assessed. The wind and PV technical installed capacities were 0.6 TW and 10.7 TW, and the total development potentials were over 0.12 TW and 1.2 TW, with the full load hours of 2513 and 1759 and the average development costs of 0.28 CNY/kWh and 0.20 CNY/kWh. Finally, this paper proposed the meteorological–electrical division distribution. A case study in the Kubuqi and Qaidam Deserts was carried out on wind–wind and wind–PV collaborative development across different meteorological–electrical divisions, which can reduce by 58% the long-term energy storage capacity and decrease the total system LCOE from 0.488 CNY/kWh to 0.445 CNY/kWh.

The primary objective of this study is to investigate maritime collision avoidance and trajectory planning in the presence of dynamic and static obstacles during navigation. Adhering to safety regulations is crucial when executing ship collision avoidance tasks. To address this issue, we propose an optimized APF-ACO algorithm for collision avoidance and path planning. First, a ship collision avoidance constraint model is constructed based on COLREGs to enhance the safety and applicability of the algorithm. Then, by introducing factors such as velocity, position, and shape parameters, the traditional APF method is optimized, creating a dynamic APF gradient for collision avoidance decision making in the face of dynamic obstacles. Furthermore, the optimized APF method is integrated with the ant colony optimization algorithm, the latter modified to overcome the inherent local optimality issues in the APF method. Ultimately, validations are conducted in three areas: static avoidance and planning in restricted sea areas, avoidance under conditions of mixed static and dynamic obstacles, and avoidance in situations of multiple ship encounters. These serve to illustrate the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed algorithm in achieving dynamic ship collision avoidance while simultaneously completing path-planning tasks.

High-frequency vibration of motion platform leads to paired echo for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging, especially in terahertz band due to its shorter wave length. Different from most existing parameters estimation methods only considering single component high-frequency vibration, in this paper a novel method considering multi-components vibration model is proposed based on fractional Fourier transform (FrFT) with combination of quasi-maximum likelihood (QML) and random sample consensus (RANSAC). Based on the model establishment of high-frequency vibration error in the echo, its instantaneous chirp rate (ICR) is firstly estimated by FrFT in sliding sub-aperture, followed which the vibration parameters are coarsely obtained through spectrum analysis and least square (LS) regression. To further refine the parameters estimates, QML is developed for compensating the deviation both caused by the frequency spectrum leakage and the error propagation effects by one-dimensional search over the vibration frequency. Meanwhile, RANSAC is adopted for avoiding the outlier of the ICR estimates in LS regression, especially at low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Thus, the refinement strategy based on the combination of QML and RANSAC is developed, whose utilization improves the estimation accuracy of vibration parameters. Finally, the paired echo in terahertz SAR (THz-SAR) imaging is effectively suppressed by the proposed method, and the high-quality THz-SAR imaging results are achieved. Both simulations of single component and multi-components high-frequency vibration are used to verify the validity of the proposed method. The simulation results show that the proposed method has higher estimation accuracy even at low SNR.

Abstract Background Cinnamyl alcohol is not only a kind of flavoring agent and fragrance, but also a versatile chemical applied in the production of various compounds. At present, the preparation of cinnamyl alcohol depends on plant extraction and chemical synthesis, which have several drawbacks, including limited scalability, productivity and environmental impact. It is therefore necessary to develop an efficient, green and sustainable biosynthesis method. Results Herein, we constructed a recombinant Escherichia coli BLCS coexpressing carboxylic acid reductase from Nocardia iowensis and phosphopantetheine transferase from Bacillus subtilis. The strain could convert cinnamic acid into cinnamyl alcohol without overexpressing alcohol dehydrogenase or aldo–keto reductase. Severe product inhibition was found to be the key limiting factor for cinnamyl alcohol biosynthesis. Thus, a biphasic system was proposed to overcome the inhibition of cinnamyl alcohol via in situ product removal. With the use of a dibutyl phthalate/water biphasic system, not only was product inhibition removed, but also the simultaneous separation and concentration of cinnamyl alcohol was achieved. Up to 17.4 mM cinnamic acid in the aqueous phase was totally reduced to cinnamyl alcohol with a yield of 88.2%, and the synthesized cinnamyl alcohol was concentrated to 37.4 mM in the organic phase. This process also demonstrated robust performance when it was integrated with the production of cinnamic acid from l-phenylalanine. Conclusion We developed an efficient one-pot two-step biosynthesis system for cinnamyl alcohol production, which opens up possibilities for the practical biosynthesis of natural cinnamyl alcohol at an industrial scale.

Power transmission across the sea is an important part of global energy interconnection (GEI). To support the construction of GEI and to serve the needs of future clean energy trans-sea transportation and offshore wind power development, this study a) analyzes the requirements of the GEI backbone network pertaining to direct current (DC) submarine cable technology, and b) defines the key technical and economic indices of ultrahigh-voltage direct current (UHVDC) submarine cable based on theoretical computations. The research is based on the thermoelectric coupling model and the finite element method. It is shown that the dielectric strength of the insulating materials of the ±800 kV~±1100 kV/ 4000 MW~12000 MW UHVDC submarine cable (extrusion insulation) should be not less than 43~65 kV/mm, while the heat resistance is not less than 110 °C. As the cost of submarine cable is 5~10 times higher than that of the overhead line, the project investment need to be decreased to a level within the economical carrying capacity to guarantee extensive applicability of the HVDC submarine cable technology.

Abstract. Objective:. A sequencing panel consisting of 50 genes was customized to reveal the potential molecular land-scapes of essential thrombocytosis, polycythemia vera, and primary myelofibrosis in Chinese patients with myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN). Methods:. Sixty-five MPN patients (38 with essential thrombocytosis, 21 with polycythemia vera, and 6 with primary myelofibrosis), including 12 triple-negative patients, were recruited and were screened for their mutational spectrum using next-generation sequencing technology in this retrospective observational study. This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Changhai Hospital, Naval Military Medical University, China. Results:. In addition to the typical driver mutations in JAK2, CALR, and MPL, pathogenic mutations in 15 other genes were frequently detected among the 65 patients with MPN. The 15 mutated genes were TET2, EZH2, ASXL1, MIR662, MLH1, MLH3, SF3B1, MSH6, BARD1, DNMT3A, KIT, MSH2, RUNX1, TP53, and NRAS in this order according to the mutational frequency detected. The average number of mutated genes was 1.2 genes per patient, while in the 12 triple-negative patients with MPN (ie, patients that lack the JAK2, CALR, or MPL mutations), at least one of the 15 pathogenic mutations was detected for each patient. Interestingly, 4 single nucleotide polymorphisms (rs4858647, rs9376092, rs58270997, rs621940) that might be correlated to individual susceptibility to myeloproliferative neoplasm were identified among the 65 patients. We also found that single nucleotide polymorphism and/or single nucleotide variation mutations occurred in multiple loci of mismatch repair-related genes, which might contribute to the development of MPN. Conclusion:. Our study confirms the importance of the previously known MPN relative genes and, more importantly, provides some new and potentially valuable information about mutations associated with MPNs.

The traditional optical fiberchannel-based key distribution method is limited by the optical fiber resources and construction cost,and it is difficult to meet the security enhancement requirements of the access side massive power service terminals,especially the mobile terminals.In this respect,a wireless channel-based quantum key distribution system was proposed,which was suitable for mass service terminals of power systems.Based on the wireless access requirements of mass service terminals in power system,the overall design of power quantum key distribution system based on wireless channel was given.The functional modules and execution flow of the power quantum key distribution system based on wireless channel were analyzed in detail from three aspects:quantum security service control platform,quantum key storage management platform and massive power service terminal platform.On this basis,combined with the typical power service such as electricity information collection and mobile office,the advantages and prospects of the quantum channel distribution system based on wireless channel applied to the terminal scenario of massive power service were comprehensively analyzed.

Image dehazing on a hazy image aims to remove the haze and make the image scene clear, which attracts more and more research interests in recent years. Most existing image dehazing methods use a classic atmospheric scattering model and natural image priors to remove the image haze. In this paper, we propose an end-to-end image dehazing model termed as DRHNet (Deep Residual Haze Network), which restores the haze-free image by subtracting the learned negative residual map from the hazy image. Specifically, DRHNet proposes a context-aware feature extraction module to aggregate the contextual information effectively. Furthermore, it proposes a novel nonlinear activation function termed as RPReLU (Reverse Parametric Rectified Linear Unit) to improve its representation ability and to accelerate its convergence. Extensive experiments demonstrate that DRHNet outperforms state-of-the-art methods both quantitatively and qualitatively. In addition, experiments on image deraining task show that DRHNet can also serve for image deraining.

Background: Some studies have shown that the base excision repair (BER) pathway has an effect on HIV-1 replication. APEX1 and XRCC1 as key BER genes may affect DNA repair capacity. However, the roles of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in APEX1 and XRCC1 and their impact on HIV-1 infection and AIDS progression remain unclear.Methods: A custom-designed 48-Plex SNPscan Kit was used for detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms. 601 HIV-1-infected men who have sex with men (MSM) and 624 age-matched healthy individuals were recruited in northern China. Four SNPs (rs1130409, rs1760944, rs2307486 and rs3136817) in APEX1 gene and three SNPs (rs1001581, rs25487 and rs25489) in XRCC1 gene were genotyped. The generalized multifactor dimension reduction (GMDR) method was used to identify the SNP-SNP interactions.Results: In this study, rs1130409 G allele, rs1001581 C allele and rs25487 C allele were associated with a higher risk of HIV-1 infection susceptibility (p = 0.020, p = 0.007 and p = 0.032, respectively). The frequencies of APEX1 haplotype TT and XRCC1 haplotype CT showed significant differences between cases and controls (p = 0.0372 and p = 0.0189, respectively). Interestingly, stratified analysis showed that the frequency of rs1001581 C allele was significantly higher in AIDS patients with the CD4+ T-lymphocyte count 200 cells/μl (p = 0.022). Moreover, significant gene-gene interactions among rs1130409, rs1001581 and rs25487 were identified by GMDR (p = 0.0107). Specially, individuals with five to six risk alleles have a higher susceptibility to HIV-1 infection than those with zero to two risk alleles (p < 0.001).Conclusion:APEX1 and XRCC1 gene polymorphisms were associated with the susceptibility to HIV-1 infection and AIDS progression in MSM populations in northern China.

Understanding the interactions between the human sphere and the natural sphere in key places and regions of the world is crucial for promoting sustainability science and achieving sustainable development. As one of the emerging global city-regions in China and the Global South, the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) plays an increasingly nonnegligible role in the globalized economy and telecoupling social-ecological systems (SESs). Considering the well-known importance and representativeness, the YRD has been regarded as an appropriate experimental site of integrated research on geographical and sustainability science at the subnational scale. This paper tries to establish theoretical and practical linkages between regional integration and sustainable development at the subnational scale based on the sustainable development goals (SDGs), the Chinese contexts, and a literature review of relevant researches. We argue that future research should pay more attention to the interdisciplinary, transregional, and multi-scale attributes of issues related to regional integrated and sustainable development in the YRD. The following research agendas, such as linking SDGs to regional integrative development, analyzing the sustainability of regional SESs, assessing the integrated region at the subnational scale, investigating the YRD at different geographical scales, exploring applicable governance structures and institutions, as well as applying multi-source data and interdisciplinary methodologies, call for more scholarly attention. We hope that this paper could be an initial motion to expand and enrich relevant research.

Background: The aim of the present study was to investigate whether intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP) support was associated with better outcomes after rotational atherectomy (RA) in patients with multivessel disease and low left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). Methods: Between January 2015 and December 2021, 596 consecutive patients with severely calcified coronary lesions who underwent elective RA were retrospectively enrolled. Of these, a total of 156 patients were included in this study based on the propensity score matching and divided into two groups according to elective IABP insertion (IABP group, n = 80) or no insertion (non-IABP group, n = 76) before the RA procedure. The primary endpoints were procedural success and major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) before discharge. The secondary endpoints were mortality and readmission due to heart failure (HF) during 90-day and 180-day follow-up. Results: 77 of patients (96.3%) in the IABP group and 72 of patients (94.7%) in the non-IABP group got procedural success (p = 0.714), separately. We had not observed significant differences in periprocedural complications except for less frequent hypotension in the IABP group (p < 0.001). In-hospital MACE occurred in 7.5% of patients who received IABP support, which was significantly lower compared to the non-IABP group (p = 0.002). In addition, the cumulative incidence of readmission due to HF was also significantly lower in the IABP group during the 90-day (p < 0.001) and 180-day (p = 0.004) follow-up. However, there were no significant differences between groups regarding the incidence of all-cause mortality. Conclusions: The present study suggests the important role of IABP support in improving the outcomes of patients after RA if multivessel disease and low LVEF are anticipated. Prophylactic IABP implantation was related to a lower incidence of in-hospital MACE, and readmission due to HF within 90-day and 180-day follow-up without significant impact on the procedural success and all-cause mortality.

Background: Rotational atherectomy (RA) is an important technique for the management of severe coronary calcification. However, optimal rotational speed is yet to be defined. Methods: A total of 372 coronary heart disease (CHD) patients were retrospectively analyzed between February 2017 and January 2022. The patients were divided into four groups based on the maximum RA speed: group 1 (

According to emerging studies, the excessive activation of microglia and the subsequent release of pro-inflammatory cytokines play important roles in the pathogenesis and progression of Parkinson’s disease (PD). However, the exact mechanisms governing chronic neuroinflammation remain elusive. Findings demonstrate an elevated level of NLRP3 inflammasome in activated microglia in the substantia nigra of PD patients. Activated NLRP3 inflammasome aggravates the pathology and accelerates the progression of neurodegenerative diseases. Abnormal protein aggregation of α-synuclein (α-syn), a pathologically relevant protein of PD, were reported to activate the NLRP3 inflammasome of microglia through interaction with toll-like receptors (TLRs). This eventually releases pro-inflammatory cytokines through the translocation of nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB) and causes an impairment of mitochondria, thus damaging the dopaminergic neurons. Currently, therapeutic drugs for PD are primarily aimed at providing relief from its clinical symptoms, and there are no well-established strategies to halt or reverse this disease. In this review, we aimed to update existing knowledge on the role of the α-syn/TLRs/NF-κB/NLRP3 inflammasome axis and microglial activation in PD. In addition, this review summarizes recent progress on the α-syn/TLRs/NF-κB/NLRP3 inflammasome axis of microglia as a potential target for PD treatment by inhibiting microglial activation.

As for metal matrix composites (MMCs), the selection and application of reinforcements play a vital role in their comprehensive properties. In this work, the CrCoNi medium entropy alloy (MEA) was selected as reinforcement for Al matrix composites, and the effects of the content of the CrCoNi MEA on the mechanical properties and friction resistance were systematically investigated. It was found that the CrCoNi MEA can effectively improve the mechanical properties of the Al matrix composites, especially the 5 wt.% CrCoNi/Al composite can achieve a high strength without the sacrifice of ductility, due to the strengthened interfacial bonding between the Al matrix and the CrCoNi reinforcements caused by the element interdiffusion and the high mechanical performance of the CrCoNi MEA itself. In addition, the wear resistance of the composites can be enhanced by the inclusion of the CrCoNi MEA reinforcement, because the CrCoNi MEA can substantially improve the hardness of the composites and promote the formation of the oxidative protection film during the friction process. This work paves a new route for preparing Al matrix composites with high mechanical properties and friction resistance.

The pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is currently unclear. Recent studies have suggested a correlation between vitamin D and PD. Vitamin D and its analogs have protective effects in animal models of PD, but these studies have not clarified the mechanism. Parthanatos is a distinct type of cell death caused by excessive activation of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP1), and the activation of PARP1 in PD models suggests that parthanatos may exist in PD pathophysiology. 1,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3 (calcitriol) is a potential inhibitor of PARP1 in macrophages. This study aimed to investigate whether calcitriol treatment improves PD models and its effects on the parthanatos pathway. A 1-methyl-4-phenylpyridinium (MPP+)-induced cell model and 1-methyl-4-phenyl-1,2,3,6-tetrahydropyridine (MPTP) subacute animal model were selected as the in vitro and in vivo PD models, and calcitriol was applied in these models. Results showed that parthanatos existed in the MPP+-induced cell model and pretreatment with calcitriol improved cell viability, reduced the excessive activation of PARP1, and relieved parthanatos. The application of calcitriol in the MPTP subacute animal model also improved behavioral tests, restored the damage to dopamine neurons, and reduced the activation of PARP1-related signaling pathways. To verify whether calcitriol interacts with PARP1 through its vitamin D receptor (VDR), siRNA, and overexpression plasmids were used to downregulate or overexpress VDR. Following the downregulation of VDR, the expression and activation of PARP1 increased and PARP1 was inhibited when VDR was overexpressed. Coimmunoprecipitation verified the combination of VDR and PARP1. In short, calcitriol can substantially improve parthanatos in the MPP+-induced cell model and MPTP model, and the protective effect might be partly through the VDR/PARP1 pathway, which provides a new possibility for the treatment of PD.

Abstract Background Our previous study showed that knockdown of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) attenuated myocardial apoptosis in mouse acute myocardial infarction (AMI). This study aims to explore whether MALAT1 enhanced cardiomyocyte apoptosis via autophagy regulation and the underlying mechanisms of MALAT1 regulating autophagy. Methods Cardiomyocytes were isolated from neonatal mice and then stimulated with hypoxia/reoxygenation (H/R) injury to mimic AMI. The autophagy level was assessed using GFP-LC3 immunofluorescence and western blot analysis of autophagy-related proteins. RNA pull-down and RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) was performed to analyze the binding of MALAT1 and EZH2. Chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assay was performed to analyze the binding of TSC2 promoter and EZH2. The cell apoptosis was evaluated using TUNEL staining and western blot analysis of apoptosis-related proteins. Results H/R injury increased MALAT1 expression in cardiomyocytes. Furthermore, MALAT1 overexpression inhibited, whereas MALAT1 knockdown enhanced the autophagy of cardiomyocytes. Moreover, MALAT1 overexpression recruited EZH2 to TSC2 promoter regions to elevate H3K27me3 and epigenetically inhibited TSC2 transcription. Importantly, TSC2 overexpression suppressed mTOR signaling and then activated the autophagy. Further results showed that MALAT1 inhibited proliferation and enhanced apoptosis of cardiomyocytes through inhibiting TSC2 and autophagy. Conclusion These findings demonstrate that the increased MALAT1 expression induced by H/R injury enhances cardiomyocyte apoptosis through autophagy inhibition by regulating TSC2-mTOR signaling.

Electrically assisted manufacturing (EAM) is a promising and rapidly developing metal processing method. The power supply is a key sub-system for EAM, which needs to be designed properly. This paper proposes the model-based design of a low-voltage high-current pulse power supply used for EAM based on converter-level electro-thermal modeling. The thermal stress of key components is obtained by converter-level finite element simulations. A simplified thermal modeling method is proposed to reduce the computation burden of the FEM simulation to obtain the dynamic thermal profile under pulse current operation. The impact of the duration of the current pulse on the maximum temperature and temperature variations of MOSFETs is investigated based on the thermal model. A case study of a 10V/500A pulse power supply is presented to demonstrate the theoretical analyses and verification. The outcomes contribute to the design optimization and virtual prototyping of pulse power supplies for EAM applications.

In multi-sensor cooperative detection systems, to reduce target threat risk caused by attack tasks and target loss risk induced by uncertain environmental factors, this paper proposes a multi-sensor scheduling method based on joint risk assessment with variable weight. Firstly, considering the target state and prior expert experience of sensor scheduling, this paper gives a new scheme of target threat risk. Then, by combining the given target threat risk and the target loss risk, this paper constructs a joint risk model to meet the diversity of risk assessment. Secondly, a variable-weighted joint risk assessment model is given based on the adaptive weight of target loss risk and target threat risk, and the optimization problem of multi-sensor scheduling is described to minimize the multi-step prediction of the variable-weighted joint risk model. Finally, this paper relaxes above the non-convex optimization problem as a subconvex problem and designs the scheme of multi-sensor scheduling, improving the rapidity and optimization of the sensor scheduling solution. The simulation results show that the proposed method can adaptively schedule sensors and accurately track targets by using minimum sensor resources.

Background: Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and deadly brain tumor. The clinical significance of necroptosis (NCPS) genes in GBM is unclear. The goal of this study is to reveal the potential prognostic NCPS genes associated with GBM, elucidate their functions, and establish an effective prognostic model for GBM patients. Methods: Firstly, the NCPS genes in GBM were identified by single-cell analysis of the GSE182109 dataset in the GEO database and weighted co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) data. Three machine learning algorithms (Lasso, SVM-RFE, Boruta) combined with COX regression were used to build prognostic models. The subsequent analysis included survival, immune microenvironments, and mutations. Finally, the clinical significance of NCPS in GBM was explored by constructing nomograms. Results: We constructed a GBM prognostic model composed of NCPS-related genes, including CTSD, AP1S1, YWHAG, and IER3, which were validated to have good performance. According to the above prognostic model, GBM patients in the TCGA and CGGA groups could be divided into two groups according to NCPS, with significant differences in survival analysis between the two groups and a markedly worse prognostic status in the high NCPS group (p < 0.001). In addition, the high NCPS group had higher levels of immune checkpoint-related gene expression, suggesting that they may be more likely to benefit from immunotherapy. Conclusions: Four genes (CTSD, AP1S1, YWHAG, and IER3) were screened through three machine learning algorithms to construct a prognostic model for GBM. These key and novel diagnostic markers may become new targets for diagnosing and treating patients with GBM.

Group sparse coding (GSC) uses the non-local similarity of images as constraints, which can fully exploit the structure and group sparse features of images. However, it only imposes the sparsity on the group coefficients, which limits the effectiveness of reconstructing real images. Low-rank regularized group sparse coding (LR-GSC) reduces this gap by imposing low-rankness on the group sparse coefficients. However, due to the use of non-local similarity, the edges and details of the images are over-smoothed, resulting in the blocking artifact of the images. In this paper, we propose a low-rank matrix restoration model based on sparse coding and dual weighting. In addition, total variation (TV) regularization is integrated into the proposed model to maintain local structure smoothness and edge features. Finally, to solve the problem of the proposed optimization, an optimization method is developed based on the alternating direction method. Extensive experimental results show that the proposed SDWLR-GSC algorithm outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms for image restoration when the images have large and sparse noise, such as salt and pepper noise.

The COVID-19 disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus is a health crisis worldwide. While developing novel drugs and vaccines is long, repurposing existing drugs against COVID-19 can yield treatments with known preclinical, pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, and toxicity profiles, which can rapidly enter clinical trials. In this study, we present a novel network-based drug repurposing platform to identify candidates for the treatment of COVID-19. At the time of the initial outbreak, knowledge about SARS-CoV-2 was lacking, but based on its similarity with other viruses, we sought to identify repurposing candidates to be tested rapidly at the clinical or preclinical levels. We first analyzed the genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 and confirmed SARS as the closest virus by genome similarity, followed by MERS and other human coronaviruses. Using text mining and database searches, we obtained 34 COVID-19-related genes to seed the construction of a molecular network where our module detection and drug prioritization algorithms identified 24 disease-related human pathways, five modules, and 78 drugs to repurpose. Based on clinical knowledge, we re-prioritized 30 potentially repurposable drugs against COVID-19 (including pseudoephedrine, andrographolide, chloroquine, abacavir, and thalidomide). Our work shows how in silico repurposing analyses can yield testable candidates to accelerate the response to novel disease outbreaks.

Background: Age-related cognitive decline is a pervasive problem in the ageing population. Baduanjin training is a mind-body exercise with the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine, and increasing numbers of studies have reported its usefulness in modulating the cognitive performance of various populations. However, no systematic review has evaluated the effect of Baduanjin training on cognition in middle-aged and older adults. Objective: To systematically evaluate the effects of Baduanjin on the global cognitive function and specific cognitive domains of middle-aged and elderly people. Methods: Four literature databases (PubMed, Cochrane library, EMBASE, and Web of Science) and four Chinese databases (Wanfang, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Chinese Science and Technology Periodical and China Biology Medicine) were searched from inception through May 2020. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) examining the effect of Baduanjin exercise on the cognitive function of middle-aged and elderly people were included. Assessment of the risk of bias for the included studies and data synthesis were conducted using the software Review Manager 5.3 based on the methods given in the Cochrane Handbook. Results: Baduanjin training showed significant benefit for global cognitive function and parts of specific domains of cognition, including general memory and its sub-domains (i.e., immediate memory and delayed memory), executive function, and processing speed, but no significant difference was found in attention function, visual-spatial ability or long-term memory (a sub-domain of memory). No related adverse events were reported in the included studies. Conclusions: The findings of this review suggest that Baduanjin is safe and effective in enhancing global cognitive function and memory in middle-aged and older adults and potentially beneficial to parts of the other specific domains of cognition, including executive function and processing speed. However, additional trials with larger sample sizes and a more rigorous design are needed before more definitive conclusions can be drawn.

Objective: Pediatric diffuse gliomas (pDGs) are relatively rare and molecularly distinct from pediatric pilocytic astrocytoma and adult DGs. Immunotherapy is a promising therapeutic strategy, requiring a deep understanding of tumor immune profiles. The spatial locations of brain tumors might be related to the molecular profiles. We aimed to analyze the relationship between the immune checkpoint molecules with the locations of DGs comparing pediatric with adult patients.Method: We studied 20 pDGs patients (age ≤ 21 years old), and 20 paired adult patients according to gender and histological types selected from 641 adult patients with DGs. Immune checkpoint molecules including B7-H3, CD47, and PD-L1, as well as tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs), were manifested by immunohistochemical staining. Expression difference analyses and Spearman's correlation were performed. MRI data were voxel-wise normalized, segmented, and analyzed by Fisher's exact test to construct the tumor frequency and p value heatmaps. Survival analyses were conducted by Log-rank tests.Result: The median age of pediatric patients was 16 years. 55% and 30% of patients were WHO II and III grades, respectively. The left frontal lobe and right cerebellum were the statistically significant locations for pDGs, while the anterior horn of ventricles for adult DGs. A potential association between the expression of PD-L1 and TAMs was found in pDGs (p = 0.002, R = 0.670). The right posterior external capsule and the lateral side of the anterior horn of the left ventricle were predominant locations for the adult patients with high expression of B7-H3 and low expression of PD-L1 compared to pediatric ones, respectively. Pediatric patients showed significantly improved overall survival compared with adults. The prognostic roles of immune checkpoint molecules and TILs/TAMs were not significantly different between the two groups.Conclusion: Immune checkpoint-associated locations of diffuse gliomas comparing pediatric with adult patients could be helpful for the immunotherapy decisions and design of clinical trials.

BackgroundAtherosclerosis is a risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. However, the roles of Circular RNAs (circRNAs) in atherosclerosis is unknown. Our study aimed to explore the effects of circ_0065149 in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis.MethodsThe expression of circ_0065149 ox-LDL-induced in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) was assessed by RT-PCR. Cell viability, lactate dehydrogenase leakage, apoptosis, invasion, and migration were assessed in HUVECs. Dual luciferase reporter system was carried out to determine the interaction between miR-330-5p and circ_0065149.ResultsOur results showed that circ_0065149 was significantly lower in the ox-LDL-induced HUVECs. Overexpression of circ_0065149 promoted the cell viability and inhibited the apoptosis of ox-LDL-induced HUVECs. Overexpression of circ_0065149 also promoted the migration and invasion of ox-LDL-induced HUVECs. The expression of miR-330-5p was inhibited by overexpression of circ_0065149. Furthermore, circ_0065149 overexpression significantly inhibited the expressions of nuclear NF-κBp65 and suppressed the production of TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1β in ox-LDL-induced HUVECs, which was rescued by the miR-330-5p mimic.ConclusionThese findings suggest that circ_0065149 plays an important role in the proliferation, apoptosis, and inflammatory response of HUVECs via targeting miR-330-5p.

Glioblastoma (GBM), one of the deadliest primary brain malignancies, is characterized by a high recurrence rate due to its limited response to existing therapeutic strategies such as chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery. Several mechanisms and pathways have been identified to be responsible for GBM therapeutic resistance. Glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs) are known culprits of GBM resistance to therapy. GSCs are characterized by their unique self-renewal, differentiating capacity, and proliferative potential. They form a heterogeneous population of cancer stem cells within the tumor and are further divided into different subpopulations. Their distinct molecular, genetic, dynamic, and metabolic features distinguish them from neural stem cells (NSCs) and differentiated GBM cells. Novel therapeutic strategies targeting GSCs could effectively reduce the tumor-initiating potential, hence, a thorough understanding of mechanisms involved in maintaining GSCs’ stemness cannot be overemphasized. The mitochondrion, a regulator of cellular physiological processes such as autophagy, cellular respiration, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, apoptosis, DNA repair, and cell cycle control, has been implicated in various malignancies (for instance, breast, lung, and prostate cancer). Besides, the role of mitochondria in GBM has been extensively studied. For example, when stressors, such as irradiation and hypoxia are present, GSCs utilize specific cytoprotective mechanisms like the activation of mitochondrial stress pathways to survive the harsh environment. Proliferating GBM cells exhibit increased cytoplasmic glycolysis in comparison to terminally differentiated GBM cells and quiescent GSCs that rely more on oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS). Furthermore, the Warburg effect, which is characterized by increased tumor cell glycolysis and decreased mitochondrial metabolism in the presence of oxygen, has been observed in GBM. Herein, we highlight the importance of mitochondria in the maintenance of GSCs.

Puerarin was shown to exert anti-oxidative and anti-ferroptosis effects in multiple diseases. The goal of this study was to explore the neuroprotective effect of puerarin on early brain injury (EBI) after subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) in rats. A total of 177 adult male Sprague Dawley rats were used. SAH was included via endovascular perforation. Intranasal puerarin or intracerebroventricular dorsomorphin (AMPK inhibitor) and SR18292 (PGC1α inhibitor) were administered. The protein levels of pAMPK, PGC1α, Nrf2, 4HNE, HO1, MDA, ACSL4, GSSG, and iron concentration in the ipsilateral hemisphere were significantly increased, whereas SOD, GPX4, and GSH were decreased at 24 h after SAH. Moreover, puerarin treatment significantly increased the protein levels of pAMPK, PGC1α, Nrf2, HO1, SOD, GPX4, and GSH, but decreased the levels of 4HNE, MDA, ACSL4, GSSG, and iron concentration in the ipsilateral hemisphere at 24 h after SAH. Dorsomorphin or SR18292 partially abolished the beneficial effects of puerarin exerted on neurological dysfunction, oxidative stress injury, and ferroptosis. In conclusion, puerarin improved neurobehavioral impairments and attenuated oxidative-stress-induced brain ferroptosis after SAH in rats. The neuroprotection acted through the activation of the AMPK/PGC1α/Nrf2-signaling pathway. Thus, puerarin may serve as new therapeutics against EBI in SAH patients.

A new image-based robot visual servo control strategy based on a third-order sliding-mode observer (TOSM) model predictive control is proposed in this study. This new control strategy solves the problem of robot visual servo control with system constraints and time-varying disturbances when the camera and model of the robot manipulator are uncertain and the joint velocity is unknown. In the proposed method, the joint velocity and system centralized uncertainties are estimated simultaneously based on a third-order sliding-mode observer, and the image-based visual servoing problem is transformed into a nonlinear optimization problem based on a model predictive control method considering both visibility constraints and actuator constraints, which minimizes the predicted trajectory cost function to generate the control signal for each cycle. Simulations were carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.

Objective ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is the most serious type of acute coronary syndrome. This study aimed to investigate the efficacy and safety of bivalirudin application during primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI) in older patients with acute STEMI. Methods A total of 672 older patients with STEMI (>75 years) who underwent PPCI were studied. The primary endpoints were 30-day net adverse clinical events (NACEs) post-emergency percutaneous coronary intervention, including major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCEs) and Bleeding Academic Research Consortium grades 2 to 5 (BARC 2–5) bleeding events. Results The incidence of NACEs and BARC 2–5 bleeding events in the bivalirudin group was significantly lower than that in the unfractionated heparin group. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that bivalirudin significantly reduced 30-day NACEs (odds ratio: 0.700, 95% confidence interval: 0.492–0.995) and BARC 2–5 bleeding events (odds ratio: 0.561, 95% confidence interval: 0.343–0.918). At 1-year follow-up, these results were similar. Conclusions Bivalirudin can be safely and effectively used during PPCI in older patients with STEMI. Bivalirudin reduces the risks of NACEs and bleeding within 30 days after PPCI, without increasing the risks of MACCEs and stent thrombosis compared with heparin.

Objective: Meningiomas presented preferred intracranial distribution, which may reflect potential biological natures. This study aimed to analyze the preferred locations of meningioma according to different biological characteristics.Method: A total of 1,107 patients pathologically diagnosed with meningiomas between January 2012 and December 2016 were retrospectively analyzed. Preoperative MRI were normalized, and lesions were semiautomatically segmented. The stereospecific frequency and p value heatmaps were constructed to compare two biological phenotypes using two-tailed Fisher's exact test. Age, sex, WHO grades, extent of resection (EOR), recurrence, and immunohistochemical markers including p53, Ki67, epithelial membrane antigen (EMA), progesterone receptor (PR), and CD34 were statistically analyzed. Recurrence-free survival (RFS) were analyzed by Kaplan–Meier method.Result: Of 1,107 cases, convexity (20.8%), parasagittal (16.1%), and falx (11.4%) were the most predominant loci of meningiomas. The p-value heatmap suggested lesion predominance in the left frontal and occipital convexity among older patients while in the left sphenoid wing, and right falx, parasellar/cavernous sinus, and middle fossa among younger patients. Lesions located at anterior fossa and frontal structures were more frequently seen in the male while left parietal falx and tentorial regions, and right cerebellopontine angle in the female. Grades II and III lesions presented predominance in the frontal structures compared with grade I ones. Meningiomas at the left parasagittal sinus and falx, tentorium, intraventricular regions, and skull-base structures were significantly to receive subtotal resection. Lesions with p53 positivity were statistically located at the left frontal regions and parasellar/cavernous sinus, higher Ki67 index at the left frontal and bilateral parietal convexity and right parasellar/cavernous sinus, EMA negativity at the right olfactory groove and left middle fossa, and CD34 positivity at the sellar regions and right sphenoid wing. Tumor recurrence rates for grades I, II, and III were 2.8, 7.9, and 53.8%, respectively. Inferior RFS, higher Ki67 index, grades II and III, and a larger preoperative volume were observed in older patients. Recurrent meningiomas were more frequently found at the occipital convexity, tentorium, sellar regions, parasagittal sinus, and left sphenoid wing.Conclusion: The preferred locations of meningioma could be observed according to different biological characteristics, which might be helpful for clinical decisions.

Underwater shock waves generated by pulsed electrical discharges are an effective, economical, and environmentally friendly means of stimulating reservoirs, and this technology has received much attention and intensive research in the past few years. This paper reviews the main results of recent work on underwater electrical wire explosion (UEWE) for reservoir stimulation. A platform is developed for microsecond single-wire explosions in water, and diagnostics based on a voltage probe, current coil, pressure probe, photodiode, and spectrometer are used to characterize the UEWE process and accompanying shock waves. First, the UEWE characteristics under different discharge types are studied and general principles are clarified. Second, the shock-wave generation mechanism is investigated experimentally by interrupting the electrical energy injection into the wire at different stages of the wire-explosion process. It is found that the vaporization process is vital for the formation of shock waves, whereas the energy deposited after voltage collapse has only a limited effect. Furthermore, the relationships between the electrical-circuit and shock-wave parameters are investigated, and an empirical approach is developed for estimating the shock-wave parameters. Third, how the wire material and water state affect the wire-explosion process is studied. To adjust the shock-wave parameters, a promising method concerning energetic material load is proposed and tested. Finally, the fracturing effect of the pulsed-discharge shock waves is discussed, as briefly are some of the difficulties associated with UEWE-based reservoir stimulation.

The intersection collision warning system (ICWS) is an emerging technology designed to assist drivers in avoiding collisions at intersections. ICWS has an excellent performance in reducing the number of collisions and improving driving safety. Previous studies demonstrated that when visibility was low under fog conditions, ICWS could help drivers timely detect hazardous conflicting vehicles. However, the influences of ICWS on interactive driving behavior at unsignalized intersection between different vehicles have barely been discussed. This study aimed to investigate the patterns of drivers’ interactive behaviors with the assistance of a new kind of ICWS under fog conditions based on Multiuser Driving Simulation. The Multiuser Driving Simulation allowed multiple drivers to operate in the same simulation scenario at the same time, and it could capture drivers’ interactions preferably. Forty-eight licensed drivers completed the driving simulation experiment in three fog conditions (no fog, light fog, and heavy fog) and two warning conditions (warning and no warning), in which the drivers drove in a straight-moving situation at unsignalized intersection with potential collision risks caused by the encounter of two vehicles. The results verified that warning and fog conditions were significant factors that affected the interactive driving behavior in the unsignalized intersection collision avoidance process, including the driver’s decision, TTC of action point, average acceleration (deceleration) rate, and postencroachment time. Compared to conditions without ICWS, the ICWS could help drivers make collision avoidance actions earlier and change the speed more smoothly. In addition, with the help of Multiuser Driving Simulation, associations between decision driving behaviors of vehicles were discussed with caution. The results revealed the decision-making mechanism of drivers in the process of interaction with other drivers. Under the influence of fog, interactive driving processes were fraught with increased risk at unsignalized intersection. However, the ICWS helped drivers interact more harmoniously, safely, and efficiently. The findings shed some light on the further development of ICWS and the study on interactive driving behavior.

Concrete is a heterogeneous composite consisting of aggregate, cement paste, and void. Steel fibre reinforced concrete (SFRC) has been widely studied experimentally and numerically in recent decades. The fibre geometry model program generated by a secondary development ANSYS program was exported to midas FEA for analysis. The constitutive concrete model adopts the total strain crack model of concrete. A steel fibre bond slip is considered in an equivalent manner using the von Mises model. The results of the three-dimensional meso-scale numerical analysis method agree well with the experimental values of steel fibre concrete beams.

Ischemia reperfusion (IR) can lead to acute kidney injury and can be complicated by acute lung injury, which is one of the leading causes of acute kidney injury-related death. Peptidyl arginine deiminase-4 (PAD4) is a member of the PAD enzyme family and plays a critical role in inflammatory reactions and neutrophil extracellular trap formation in a variety of pathological conditions. It has been reported that PAD4 inhibition can protect certain organs from ischemic injury. In this study, we aimed to understand the mode of action of PAD4 in renal ischemia-reperfusion-mediated acute lung injury. Bilateral renal pedicle occlusion was induced for 30 min followed by reperfusion for 24 h. A specific inhibitor of PAD4, GSK484, was delivered via intraperitoneal injection to alter the PAD4 activity. The pulmonary PAD4 expression, pulmonary impairment, neutrophil infiltration, Cit-H3 expression, neutrophil extracellular trap formation, inflammatory cytokine secretion, and pulmonary apoptosis were analyzed. We found that renal ischemia reperfusion was associated with pulmonary pathological changes and increases in neutrophil infiltration, neutrophil extracellular trap formation, and inflammatory cytokine secretion in the lungs of the recipient animals. Suppression of PAD4 by GSK484 reduced remote lung injury by mitigating neutrophil infiltration, neutrophil extracellular trap formation, apoptosis, and inflammatory factor secretion. Our findings demonstrate that specific PAD4 inhibition by GSK484 may be an effective strategy to attenuate distant lung injury complicating renal ischemia-reperfusion injury.

Corporate investment strategies and decision-making processes are crucial for understanding the operation and evolution of socioeconomic systems. Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been the main mode of corporate investment, growth, and upgrading, deeply affecting corporate reorganization, regional industrial restructuring, and economic globalization. By building a database including 5543 M&A partnerings and 1.89 million M&A non-partnerings, this study aims to uncover the systematic dynamics of M&A partnering in regional China during different phases since the mid-1990s, with particular attention given to the effects of firm heterogeneities and multi-dimensional proximities. Although geographical, cognitive, organizational, and institutional proximity dimensions are significantly influential for M&A partnering, we find that the effects of multi-dimensional proximities differ across M&A types and involving firms. Specifically, organizational proximity matters more for large- and medium-sized acquirers, while institutional proximity plays a more vital role in the acquisition target selection of private-owned and small-sized acquirers. Cognitive proximity measured by industrial and technical relatedness is more crucial for horizontal, vertical, and conglomerate M&As that are tightly associated with the corporate product, technical, and functional upgrading. The results indicate that the benefits of cognitive proximity may offset the risks and costs resulting from long-distance M&As, demonstrating the interactive dynamics between proximity dimensions. Our findings suggest that firm heterogeneities, proximity dynamics, and contextual factors should be focused on when explaining the investment decision-making processes of individual corporations in emerging and transitional economies such as China.

Abstract Background The overall prevalence of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection in China is declining. The purpose of this study was to use a community-based epidemiological study to update the infection status of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in mountainous regions of China, and to evaluate the impact of the Expanded Program of Immunization (EPI) on HBV transmission. Methods In total, 10,383 participants were selected by multi-stage stratified random cluster sampling in two mountainous regions, Xianju and Anji, in Zhejiang province, China. Results The positive rates of hepatitis B virus surface antigen (HBsAg), anti-HBV core antigen (anti-HBc), and anti-HBV surface antigen (anti-HBs) were 9.5%, 33.9%, and 51.0%, respectively. Positive HBV markers were more frequently detected in males than in females (P 38 IU/L) in 15.3% of the HBsAg-positive and 6.3% of the HBsAg-negative subjects. The α-fetoprotein (AFP) level was elevated in 0.8% of the HBsAg-positive participants who were older than 30 years old. Conclusions The epidemiology of HBV infection is location dependent. The prevalence of HBV infection in the mountainous regions is higher than the national levels. Moreover, HBV infection in women of childbearing age is up to 10%, which represents a main factor for continuous HBV transmission.