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Objective: Single factor experiment and response surface methodology were used to optimize the ultrasonic extraction of oridonin from Rabdosiaru bescens and the antitumor effect in vitro was studied. Methods: Three key factors including solid-liquid ratio, ultrasonic time, ultrasonic power were selected by one-factor-at-a-time experiments. HepG2 cells were cultured in vitro. The antitumor activity of oridonin was investigated by studying the survival rate of HepG2 cells and the expression of apoptotic proteins caspase-3 and caspase-9. Results: The optimum conditions of ultrasonic extraction of oridonin from Rabdosiaru bescens were as follows: Solid-liquid ratio was 1:18 g/mL, ultrasonic time was 1.5 h at 190 W ultrasonic power, the extraction yield of oridonin reached 4.122%±0.102%. In vitro, oridonin could significantly reduced the survival rate of HepG2 cells and increased the expression of caspase-3 and caspase-9. And when the concentration of oridonin exceeds 8 μmol/L, the survival rate and apoptotic protein of hepatoma cells were significantly affected (P

Abstract Purpose To investigate the status of astigmatism in preschool children in Wuxi City, and explore the risk factors related to astigmatism. The risk factors related to astigmatism development as predictors can help us identify preschool children who need vision screening at an early stage to ensure good visual quality. Methods The cross-sectional study was conducted in 10 kindergartens randomly selected in five districts of Wuxi City in November 2018. All preschool children were measured by objective refractometry under non-cycloplegic refraction. The basic information of preschool children was collected. The relevant factors of astigmatism in the questionnaire were completed by parents. Spss 26. 0 software was used for univariate and multivariate correlation analysis. Results A total of 889 preschool children participated in the study, 864 were finally included in the study. The prevalence of astigmatism was 36.0%. The risk of astigmatism in premature children was higher than that in non-premature children (adjusted odds ratio = 1.841). The prevalence of astigmatism with parents’ astigmatism history was higher, compared with preschool children without parents’ astigmatism history (adjusted odds ratio = 2.037). When maternal age at childbirth was older (≥ 35 years old), the risk of astigmatism increased in preschool children (adjusted odds ratio = 2.181). Compared with bottle feeding, the risk of astigmatism for mixed feeding and breastfeeding reduced in preschool children. Compared with preschool children exposed to electronic screen for less than 2 h every day, preschool children exposed to electronic screen for more than 2 h had an increased risk of astigmatism (P = 0.004). Conclusion The prevalence of astigmatism among preschool children in Wuxi City was high. Some risk factors such as premature birth, parents’ astigmatism history, maternal age at childbirth, feeding pattern, and electronic screen exposure time were closely related to the occurrence of astigmatism among preschool children. For preschool children with significant risk factors, their eyesight should be checked regularly to ensure their visual quality.

Abstract Mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (MSCs) possess multi-lineage differentiation and self-renewal potentials. MSCs-based therapies have been widely utilized for the treatment of diverse inflammatory diseases, due to the potent immunoregulatory functions of MSCs. An increasing body of evidence indicates that MSCs exert their therapeutic effects largely through their paracrine actions. Growth factors, cytokines, chemokines, extracellular matrix components, and metabolic products were all found to be functional molecules of MSCs in various therapeutic paradigms. These secretory factors contribute to immune modulation, tissue remodeling, and cellular homeostasis during regeneration. In this review, we summarize and discuss recent advances in our understanding of the secretory behavior of MSCs and the intracellular communication that accounts for their potential in treating human diseases.

This research investigated student interpreters’ strategies in dealing with unfamiliar words in the source texts during English-to-Mandarin (B-to-A) sight translation. The study examined and compared different strategies adopted by 10 first-year beginner student interpreters who had not yet attained NAATI Professional Interpreter accreditation and 10 advanced student interpreters who, after studying for a year and a half, had achieved a credential as NAATI Professional Interpreter in Australia. The data collection involved an English vocabulary test, three English-to-Mandarin sight translation tasks and retrospective interviews. Results showed that both groups of student interpreters tended to omit the unfamiliar English words. The advanced student interpreters made more strategic omissions of unfamiliar words in the source texts than the beginner student interpreters, whose work showed more passive involuntary omissions of unfamiliar English words than that of the advanced student interpreters. Both groups also made attempts to infer the meaning of unfamiliar words. The predominant types of inference strategies were based on participants’ experience, reading-based contextual knowledge and collocation knowledge. As there has been little research on sight translation, this small-scale empirical study attempts to bridge this gap and inspire other researchers to further explore this area by carrying out larger-scale projects.

Based on the resonance fluorescence scattering mechanism, a narrowband sodium (Na) lidar can measure temperature and wind in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region. By using a narrowband spectral filter, background light noise during the day can be suppressed, allowing for continuous observations. To obtain full-diurnal-cycle temperature and wind measurement results, a complex and precise retrieval process is required, along with necessary corrections to minimize measurement errors. This paper introduces the design of a data acquisition unit for three frequencies in three directions of the Na lidar system in the Chinese Meridian Project (Phase II) and investigates the calibration and retrieval methods for obtaining diurnal temperature and horizontal wind in the MLT region, using a Na Doppler lidar with Faraday anomalous dispersion optical filter (FADOF). Furthermore, these methods are applied to observations conducted by a Na lidar in Beijing, China. The wind and temperature results over full diurnal cycles obtained from the all-solid-state Na Doppler lidar are reported for the first time and compared with temperature measurements from satellite, as well as wind observations from a meteor radar. The comparison demonstrates a reasonable agreement between the results, indicating the rationality of the lidar-retrieved results and the feasibility and effectiveness of the data correction and retrieval method.

This study presents a novel degradation pathway of a human immunoglobulin G (IgG) molecule featuring a light chain N-terminal asparagine. We thoroughly characterize this pathway and investigate its charge profiles using cation exchange chromatography (CEX) and capillary isoelectric focusing (cIEF). Beyond the well-documented asparagine deamidation into isoaspartic acid, aspartic acid, and succinimide intermediate, a previously unreported clipping degradation pathway is uncovered. This newly identified clipped N-terminal IgG variant exhibits a delayed elution in CEX, categorized as a “basic variant”, while retaining the same main peak isoelectric point (pI) in cIEF. The influence of temperature and pH on N-terminal asparagine stability is assessed across various stressed conditions. A notable correlation between deamidation percentage and clipped products is established, suggesting a potential hydrolytic chemical reaction underlying the clipping process. Furthermore, the impact of N-terminal asparagine modifications on potency is evaluated through ELISA binding assays, revealing minimal effects on binding affinity. Sequence alignment reveals homology to a human IgG with the germline gene from Immunoglobulin Lambda Variable 6-57 (IGLV6-57), which has implications for amyloid light-chain (AL) amyloidosis. This discovery of the N-terminal clipping degradation pathway contributes to our understanding of immunoglobulin light chain misfolding and amyloid fibril deposition under physiological conditions.

Malto-oligosaccharides (MOSs) from starch conversion is advantageous for food and pharmaceutical applications. In this study, an efficient malto-oligosaccharide-forming α-amylase AmyCf was identified from myxobacter Cystobacter sp. strain CF23. AmyCf is composed of 417 amino acids with N-terminal 41 amino acids as the signal peptide, and conserved glycoside hydrolase family 13 (GH13) catalytic module and predicted C-terminal domain with β-sheet structure are also identified. Phylogenetic and functional analysis demonstrated that AmyCf is a novel member of GH13_6 subfamily. The special activity of AmyCf toward soluble starch and raw wheat starch is 9249 U/mg and 11 U/mg, respectively. AmyCf has broad substrate specificity toward different types of starches without requiring Ca2+. Under ideal circumstances of 60 °C and pH 7.0, AmyCf hydrolyzes gelatinized starch into maltose and maltotriose and maltotetraose as the main hydrolytic products with more than 80% purity, while maltose and maltotriose are mainly produced from the hydrolysis of raw wheat starch with more than 95% purity. The potential applicability of AmyCf in starch processing is highlighted by its capacity to convert gelatinized starch and raw starch granules into MOSs. This enzymatic conversion technique shows promise for the low-temperature enzymatic conversion of raw starch.

To exploit hyperspectral image's (HSI) spectral–spatial information and reduce network complexity, a triple-path convolution neural network with an interleave-attention mechanism is constructed for high-precision classification. A hybrid branch is proposed to capture joint features, which are later utilized as complementary information for purely spectral and spatial features. Furthermore, the interleave-attention mechanism is elaborately designed to increase the interaction of data from spectral, spatial, and joint branches as they propagate through the network for feature integration. Meanwhile, two attention modules are adopted in the corresponding branch to optimize extracted features for better feature representation. We utilize several real HSI datasets to evaluate network performance, which demonstrates that the proposed triple-path network can obtain very satisfactory performance with fewer parameters and low computational complexity.

The mitigation and prevention of acute immune stress are essential for livestock production. Clostridium butyricum (C. butyricum) has shown positive effects in stabilizing intestinal microbiota disorders, improving immune function and inhibiting disease development, but its effects on ruminants are unclear. Therefore, the current trial hypothesized that C. butyricum could improve goats’ immune function and antioxidant capacity by regulating bacterial communities and blood metabolism and effectively alleviating the acute immune stress induced by Lipopolysaccharides (LPS). Sixteen healthy goats were fed C. butyricum for 70 days, and the goats were challenged with LPS on day 71. Blood and feces were collected at 0 h and 6 h after the challenge to evaluate the effects of C. butyricum on their intestinal microbiota, immune function, antioxidant function, and plasma metabolites. The results showed that C. butyricum had no significant effect on plasma biochemical parameters at the beginning of the LPS challenge. However, supplementation with C. butyricum increased plasma levels of IgA, IgG, T-SOD, and T-AOC (P < 0.05), but TNF-α, IL-6, and MDA were decreased (P < 0.05). In contrast, IL-10 showed an increasing trend (P < 0.10). Rectal microbiota analysis showed that C. butyricum significantly increased the relative abundance of Epsilonbacteraeota at the phylum level of goats; at the genus level, the relative abundances of Campylobacter and Anaerorhabdus]_furcosa_group were also significantly increased (P < 0.05). Christensenellaceae_R-7_group as the dominant microbiota also showed a significant increase in their abundance values, while Clostridium and Lachnospiraceae_UCG-001 were significantly lower (P < 0.05). When the LPS challenge continued up to 6 h, dietary supplementation with C. butyricum still resulted in significantly higher plasma concentrations of IgA, IL-10, and T-SOD in goats than in the control group, reducing TNF-α levels (P < 0.05). In addition, plasma levels of T-CHOL and LDL were significantly reduced, and the expression of d-proline was significantly upregulated according to metabolomic analysis (P < 0.05). In conclusion, dietary supplementation with C. butyricum helped optimize the expression of bacterial communities and plasma metabolites to enhance the ability of goats to alleviate acute immune stress.

Abstract The soil-borne disease caused by Fusarium graminearum seriously affects the corn quality. Straw can greatly improve soil quality, but the effect is limited by its nature and environmental factors. This study explored the impact of straw-JF-1(biocontrol bacteria) combination on soil environment and soil disease resistance. The results showed that the combined treatment increased the proportion of soil large and small macro-aggregates by 22.50 and 3.84%, with soil organic carbon (SOC) content by 16.18 and 16.95%, respectively. Compared to treatment with returning straw to the field alone, the straw-JF-1 combination increased the soil content of humic acid, fulvic acid, and humin by 14.06, 5.50, and 4.37%, respectively. Moreover, A metagenomics showed that returning straw to the field alone increased the abundance of disease-causing fungi (Fusarium and Plectosphaerella), however, the straw-JF-1 combination significantly suppressed this phenomenon as well as improved the abundance of probiotic microorganisms such as Sphingomonas, Mortierella, Bacillus, and Pseudomonas. Functional analysis indicated that the combination of straw and JF-1 improved some bacterial functions, including inorganic ion transport and metabolism, post-translational modification/protein turnover/chaperones and function unknown, fungal functions associated with plant and animal pathogens were effectively inhibited. Pot experiments showed that the straw-JF-1 combination effectively inhibited the Fusarium graminearum induced damage to maize seedlings. Therefore, the combination of straw and JF-1 could be a practical method for soil management.

Background and Purpose: Conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) poses challenges in quantitative analysis because voxel intensity values lack physical meaning. While intensity standardization methods exist, their effects on head and neck MRI have not been investigated. We developed a workflow based on healthy tissue region of interest (ROI) analysis to determine intensity consistency within a patient cohort. Through this workflow, we systematically evaluated intensity standardization methods for MRI of head and neck cancer (HNC) patients. Materials and Methods: Two HNC cohorts (30 patients total) were retrospectively analyzed. One cohort was imaged with heterogenous acquisition parameters (HET cohort), whereas the other was imaged with homogenous acquisition parameters (HOM cohort). The standard deviation of cohort-level normalized mean intensity (SD NMIc), a metric of intensity consistency, was calculated across ROIs to determine the effect of five intensity standardization methods on T2-weighted images. For each cohort, a Friedman test followed by a post-hoc Bonferroni-corrected Wilcoxon signed-rank test was conducted to compare SD NMIc among methods. Results: Consistency (SD NMIc across ROIs) between unstandardized images was substantially more impaired in the HET cohort (0.29 ± 0.08) than in the HOM cohort (0.15 ± 0.03). Consequently, corrected p-values for intensity standardization methods with lower SD NMIc compared to unstandardized images were significant in the HET cohort (p 0.05). In both cohorts, differences between methods were often minimal and nonsignificant. Conclusions: Our findings stress the importance of intensity standardization, either through the utilization of uniform acquisition parameters or specific intensity standardization methods, and the need for testing intensity consistency before performing quantitative analysis of HNC MRI.

Abstract Radiomics is a promising technique for discovering image based biomarkers of therapy response in cancer. Reproducibility of radiomics features is a known issue that is addressed by the image biomarker standardisation initiative (IBSI), but it remains challenging to interpret previously published radiomics signatures. This study investigates the reproducibility of radiomics features calculated with two widely used radiomics software packages (IBEX, MaZda) in comparison to an IBSI compliant software package (PyRadiomics). Intensity histogram, shape and textural features were extracted from 334 diffusion weighted magnetic resonance images of 59 head and neck cancer (HNC) patients from the PREDICT-HN observational radiotherapy study. Based on name and linear correlation, PyRadiomics shares 83 features with IBEX and 49 features with MaZda, a sub-set of well correlated features are considered reproducible (IBEX: 15 features, MaZda: 18 features). We explore the impact of including non-reproducible radiomics features in a HNC radiotherapy response model. It is possible to classify equivalent patient groups using radiomic features from either software, but only when restricting the model to reliable features using a correlation threshold method. This is relevant for clinical biomarker validation trials as it provides a framework to assess the reproducibility of reported radiomic signatures from existing trials.

Skeletal muscle dysfunction is a systematic manifestation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which is manifested through the changes in the respiratory and peripheral muscle fiber types, reducing muscle strength and endurance, and muscle atrophy. Muscle dysfunction limits the daily mobility, negatively affects the quality of life, and may increase the patient’s risk of mortality. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) as the regulators of gene expression, plays an important role in modulating skeletal muscle dysfunction in COPD by regulating skeletal muscle development (proliferation, differentiation), protein synthesis and degradation, inflammatory response, and metabolism. In particular, muscle-specific miRNAs (myomiRs) may play an important role in this process, although the different expression levels of myomiRs in COPD and skeletal muscle dysfunction and the mechanisms underlying their role remain unclear. In this paper, we review the differential expression of the myomiRs in COPD to identify myomiRs that play a role in skeletal muscle dysfunction in COPD. We further explore their possible mechanisms and action in order to provide new ideas for the prevention and treatment of the skeletal muscle dysfunction in COPD.

Abstract We report a world record of lidar profiling of metallic Ca+ ions up to 300 km in the midlatitude nighttime ionosphere during geomagnetic quiet time. Ca+ measurements (∼80–300 km) were made over Beijing (40.42°N, 116.02°E) with an Optical‐Parametric‐Oscillator‐based lidar from March 2020 through June 2021. Main Ca+ layers (80–100 km) persist through all nights, and high‐density sporadic Ca+ layers (∼100–120 km) frequently occur in summer. Thermosphere‐ionosphere Ca+ (TICa+) layers (∼110–300 km) are likely formed via Ca+ uplifting from these sporadic layers. The lidar observations capture the complete evolution of TICa+ layers from onset to ending, revealing intriguing features. Concurrent ionosonde measurements show strong sporadic E layers developed before TICa+ and spread F onset. Neutral winds can partially account for observed vertical transport but enhanced electric fields are required to explain the results. Such lidar observations promise new insights into E‐ and F‐region coupling and plasma inhomogeneities.

Clostridium butyricum, as a probiotic with a variety of active products, has been widely used to improve the intestinal health of humans and animals. Previous studies had demonstrated that Clostridium butyricum exhibited potential protective and positive effects in human disease research and animal production by producing a variety of beneficial substances, such as intestinal inflammation, the intestinal epithelial barrier, metabolic diseases, and regulation of the gut microbiota. Therefore, we hypothesized that dietary Clostridium butyricum supplementation could improve gut health in fattening goats by modulating gut microbiota. However, it is unclear whether Clostridium butyricum can reach the intestine through the rumen, so 15 healthy Albas goats were selected and randomly divided into 3 treatments with 5 replicates in each group. The groups were divided as follows: control group (CON: basal diet), rumen-protected Clostridium butyricum group (RPCB: basal diet plus 1.0 × 109 CFU/kg Clostridium butyricum coated with hydrogenated fat), and Clostridium butyricum group (CB: basal diet plus 1.0 × 109 CFU/kg Clostridium butyricum). The experiment was slaughtered after a 70-day growth test, and the jejunal mucosa and intestinal contents of the goats were collected to determine tight junction proteins related genes expression and 16S rDNA microbial sequencing analysis to evaluate the intestine health. The results showed that dietary supplementation with Clostridium butyricum significantly increased the expression of the Claudin-4 gene of the jejunal mucosa (P < 0.05) and had a trend toward a significant increase in the Occludin gene (0.05 < P < 0.10). However, Clostridium butyricum had no significant effect on the expression of intestinal inflammatory factors (P > 0.10). In addition, the relative fractionation of Clostridium and Clostridiaceae_unclassified in the gut microbiota at the genus level decreased significantly compared with controls (P < 0.05). The results of the analysis of the level of Clostridium species showed that Clostridium butyricum only existed in the treatment group. And the correlation results showed that Occludin and Claudin-4 genes were positively correlated with Sharppea and Clostridium butyricum, and negatively correlated with Clostridium (P < 0.05). Supplementing Clostridium butyricum in the diet did not significantly affect the intestinal immune function of goats, while regulation of the intestinal microbiota was associated with improving the intestinal epithelial barrier.

Objective: To analyze the clinicopathological characteristics of skin basal cell carcinoma, so as to improve the coincidence rate of clinical diagnosis and provide basis for early diagnosis, treatment and prognosis. Methods: The clinical and pathological features of 611 patients with basal cell carcinoma diagnosed by primary biopsy in Dermatology Hospital, Southern Medical University from March 2014 to February 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. Results: There were 268 males and 343 females in 611 patients, the ratio of male to female was 1 ∶1.28; the onset age was 19~92 (64.18±13.90) years old. There were 296 cases (48.45%) with mass, nodule and tumor, 248 cases (40.59%) with patch and papule, and 67 cases (10.97%) with erosion or ulcer, scar and cyst. Pathological classification: nodular type 377 cases (61.71%), infiltrative type 85 cases (13.92%), superficial type 69 cases (11.30%), other types 80 cases (13.10%). Clinical misdiagnosis rate was 16.86%. Conclusions: The main clinical manifestation is mass, and the main pathological type is nodule. It is important to improve the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of BCC by improving the rate of skin biopsy and strengthening the understanding of easily misdiagnosed lesions.

Abstract Ginseng is an important cash crop. The long-term continuous cropping of ginseng causes the imbalance of soil environment and the exacerbation of soil-borne diseases, which affects the healthy development of ginseng industry. In this study, ginseng continuous cropping soil was treated with microbial inocula using broad-spectrum biocontrol microbial strain Frankia F1. Wheat straw, rice straw and corn straw were the best carrier materials for microbial inoculum. After treatment with microbial inoculum prepared with corn straw biochar, the soil pH value, organic matter, total nitrogen, available nitrogen, available phosphorus, and available potassium were increased by 11.18%, 55.43%, 33.07%, 26.70%, 16.40%, and 9.10%, the activities of soil urease, catalase and sucrase increased by 52.73%, 16.80% and 43.80%, respectively. A Metagenomics showed that after the application of microbial inoculum prepared with corn straw biochar, soil microbial OTUs, Chao1 index, Shannon index, and Simpson index increased by 19.86%, 16.05%, 28.83%, and 3.16%, respectively. Three classes (Alphaproteobacteria, Gammaproteobacteria and Sphingobacteria) were the dominant bacteria in ginseng soil, and their abundance increased by 7.87%, 9.81% and 1.24%, respectively, after treatment with microbial inoculum with corn straw biochar. Results indicated that the most effective treatment in ginseng soil would be the combined application of corn straw biochar and Frankia F1.

Photooxidation of methionine (Met) and tryptophan (Trp) residues is common and includes major degradation pathways that often pose a serious threat to the success of therapeutic proteins. Oxidation impacts all steps of protein production, manufacturing, and shelf life. Prediction of oxidation liability as early as possible in development is important because many more candidate drugs are discovered than can be tested experimentally. Undetected oxidation liabilities necessitate expensive and time-consuming remediation strategies in development and may lead to good drugs reaching patients slowly. Conversely, sites mischaracterized as oxidation liabilities could result in overengineering and lead to good drugs never reaching patients. To our knowledge, no predictive model for photooxidation of Met or Trp is currently available. We applied the random forest machine learning algorithm to in-house liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) datasets (Met, n = 421; Trp, n = 342) of tryptic therapeutic protein peptides to create computational models for Met and Trp photooxidation. We show that our machine learning models predict Met and Trp photooxidation likelihood with 0.926 and 0.860 area under the curve (AUC), respectively, and Met photooxidation rate with a correlation coefficient (Q2) of 0.511 and root-mean-square error (RMSE) of 10.9%. We further identify important physical, chemical, and formulation parameters that influence photooxidation. Improvement of biopharmaceutical liability predictions will result in better, more stable drugs, increasing development throughput, product quality, and likelihood of clinical success.

To achieve the non-destructive detection of peanut defects, a multi-target identification method based on the multispectral system and improved Faster RCNN is proposed in this paper. In terms of the system, the root-mean-square contrast method was employed to select the characteristic wavelengths for defects, such as mildew spots, mechanical damage, and the germ of peanuts. Then, a multispectral light source system based on a symmetric integrating sphere was designed with 2% nonuniformity illumination. In terms of Faster RCNN improvement, a texture-based attention and a feature enhancement module were designed to enhance the performance of its backbone. In the experiments, a peanut-deficient multispectral dataset with 1300 sets was collected to verify the detection performance. The results show that the evaluation metrics of all improved compared with the original network, especially in the VGG16 backbone network, where the mean average precision (mAP) reached 99.97%. In addition, the ablation experiments also verify the effectiveness of the proposed texture module and texture enhancement module in peanut defects detection. In conclusion, texture imaging enhancement and efficient extraction are effective methods to improve the network performance for multi-target peanut defect detection.

Flavin mononucleotides (FMNs) and flavin adenine nucleotide (FAD) play vital roles in the electron-transfer processes in diverse enzymatic reactions. Owing to the isoalloxazine chromophore, flavins are easily detectable by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), a surface-sensitive technique. However, the details of the adsorption of flavins on SERS-active materials have never been investigated. In this study, a comprehensive SERS analysis of flavins containing lumichrome and lumiflavin on silver nanoparticles was conducted. With the aid of density-functional-theory calculations, our results suggested that the flavin molecules were adsorbed on the silver nanoparticles via the N3 site of the isoalloxazine moiety, which had a stronger adsorption ability than the adenine moiety in the FAD. The SERS spectra of the flavins at different pH values also supported this conclusion. This study demonstrated the feasibility of SERS for the structural characterization of flavins, paving the way for the functional exploration of flavin-labeled detection sensors and flavoprotein researches.

Abstract Radiomics involves high-throughput extraction of large numbers of quantitative features from medical images and analysis of these features to predict patients’ outcome and support clinical decision-making. However, radiomics features are sensitive to several factors, including scanning protocols. The purpose of this study was to investigate the robustness of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) radiomics features with various MRI scanning protocol parameters and scanners using an MRI radiomics phantom. The variability of the radiomics features with different scanning parameters and repeatability measured using a test–retest scheme were evaluated using the coefficient of variation and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for both T1- and T2-weighted images. For variability measures, the features were categorized into three groups: large, intermediate, and small variation. For repeatability measures, the average T1- and T2-weighted image ICCs for the phantom (0.963 and 0.959, respectively) were higher than those for a healthy volunteer (0.856 and 0.849, respectively). Our results demonstrated that various radiomics features are dependent on different scanning parameters and scanners. The radiomics features with a low coefficient of variation and high ICC for both the phantom and volunteer can be considered good candidates for MRI radiomics studies. The results of this study will assist current and future MRI radiomics studies.

Recent advances in integrating 1.5 Tesla magnetic resonance (MR) imaging with a linear accelerator (MR-Linac) allow MR-guided stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) for prostate cancer. Choosing an optimal strategy for daily online plan adaptation is particularly important for MR-guided radiotherapy. We analyzed deformable dose accumulation on scans from four patients and found that daily anatomy changes had little impact on the delivered dose, with the dose to the prostate within 0.5% and dose to the rectum/bladder mostly less than 0.5 Gy. These findings could help in the choice of an optimal strategy for online plan adaptation for MR-guided prostate SBRT.

Abstract Historically USPIO has been used to help with nodal staging but not in primary tumors. The ability to concentrate USPIO may help to differentiate BMT from other types of parotid tumors.

Clostridium butyricum (C. butyricum) is currently widely used to improve the body health and productive performance of monogastric animals. However, there have been few reports on the effects and specific mechanism of action of Clostridium butyricum in ruminants. This study aimed to investigate the effects of Clostridium butyricum supplementation on the growth performance and digestive microbiota of fattening goats. Twenty-four healthy male Albas goats (body weight = 22 ± 2.03 kg) were randomly divided into 3 treatment groups with eight goats in each group. The treatments were as follows: control group (CON) (basal diet, concentrate to forage ratio = 65:35); low-dose Clostridium butyricum (LCB) (basal diet plus 2.0 × 108 CFU/kg Clostridium butyricum); and high-dose Clostridium butyricum (HCB) (basal diet plus 1.0 × 109 CFU/kg Clostridium butyricum). The experiment lasted for 8 weeks after a 2-week adaptation period. Therefore, growth performance and rumen and rectum microbiota were evaluated in goats supplemented with Clostridium butyricum and its metabolites. The results showed that dietary supplementation with Clostridium butyricum significantly increased the pH (P < 0.05), but had no significant effect on growth performance (P > 0.05). Compared with the control group, dietary Clostridium butyricum supplementation significantly increased the relative abundance of Prevotella_1, Christensenellaceae AE_R-7_Group and Prevotellaceae AE_UCG-003 (P < 0.05), and significantly decreased Succiniclasticum and Muribaculaceae_unclassified (P < 0.05). The relative abundance of Clostridium in the rumen was

We, the Publisher, have retracted the following article: Haiyan Yu, Jihong Wang (2022). Modified dark channel prior based on multi-scale Retinex for power image defogging. EAI Endorsed Scal Inf Syst. http://dx.doi.org/10.4108/eai.7-12-2021.172363 The authors submitted the article to the Special Issue on “Real-time image information processing with deep neural networks and data mining technologies”, edited by the Guest Editors Dr Prof. Hang Li (Northeastern University, China) and Dr Prof. Jochen Schiewe, HafenCity Universität Hamburg, Germany. From our Research Integrity Team, we performed auditing of the editorial process of this Special Issue, and we identified misconduct during the review process. The generated reviews were simple, generalistic, without rigour, and the same for every submission. Following the COPE guidelines, we decided to RETRACT this article because “Peer review manipulation suspected after publication”. We informed the authors about this decision. The retracted article will remain, and it has been watermarked as “RETRACTED”.

Abstract Background There are inconsistent interpretations of the interrelationship of adiposity, anthropometric indices, and blood pressure (BP) in hypertensive patients. Additionally, whether these relationships differ between sexes is unknown. We aimed to elucidate the associations of adiposity indices measured using quantitative computed tomography (QCT) with BP and hypertension and to determine the effect of sex on the interrelationship of these parameters in a Chinese population. Methods Abdominal adipose fat, including the visceral adipose tissue (VAT) area and subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) area, was measured by QCT in 1488 patients (514 men, 974 women). Body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC), and systolic (SBP) and diastolic BP (DBP) were measured. Pearson correlation coefficients, multivariate analyses, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to assess the relationship and potential of adiposity indices to BP and risk of hypertension within sex groups. Results Men had significantly greater VAT area but less SAT area than women in hypertensive group. VAT, SAT, and WC were more highly correlated with SBP in men than in women. After controlling for body weight, height, and age, VAT area and WC were positively associated with SBP (VAT: β = 0.309, p < 0.001; WC: β = 0.148, p = 0.001) and DBP (VAT: β = 0.099, p = 0.034; WC: β = 0.198, p = 0.001) in women. VAT area was positively associated with SBP (β = 0.444, p < 0.001) and DBP (β = 0.146, p = 0.021) in men. WC had a significant correlation with an increased risk of hypertension in women but a borderline association in men (p = 0.059) when adjusted for VAT area and SAT area. Conclusions The association of abdominal adiposity with hypertension differs qualitatively by sex. WC may be an important determinant of hypertension and may be used for risk stratification for hypertension among Chinese individuals.

Abstract Background To test the hypothesis that intraventricular ADC values can be used to determine the presence of neoplastic leptomeningeal disease (LMD). Materials and methods ADC values were measured at multiple sites in the ventricular system in 32 patients with cytologically-proven LMD and 40 control subjects. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine the mean difference of ADCs between the LMD and control groups after adjusting for ventricle size and tumor type. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis was performed and optimal ADC value cut-off point for predicting the presence of LMD. ADC was compared to T1 enhancement and FLAIR signal hyperintensity for determining the presence of LMD. Results After adjusting for ventricular volume and tumor type, the mid body of lateral ventricles showed no significant difference in ventricular volume and a significant difference in ADC values between the control and LMD groups (p > 0.05). In the mid-body of the right lateral ventricle the AUC was 0.69 (95% CI 0.57–0.81) with an optimal ADC cut off point of 3.22 × 10− 9 m2/s (sensitivity, specificity; 0.72, 0.68). In the mid-body of left lateral ventricle the AUC was 0.7 (95% CI 0.58–0.82) with an optimal cut-off point of 3.23 × 10− 9 m2/s (0.81, 0.62). Using an average value of HU measurements in the lateral ventricles the AUC was 0.73 (95% CI 0.61–0.84) with an optimal cut off point was 3.11 × 10− 9 m2/s (0.78, 0.65). Compared to the T1 post-contrast series, ADC was predictive of the presence of LMD in the mid-body of the left lateral ventricle (p = 0.036). Conclusion Complex interactions affect ADC measurements in patients with LMD. ADC values in the lateral ventricles may provide non-invasive clues to the presence of LMD.

Cognitive radio sensor network (CRSN) is an intelligent and reasonable combination of cognitive radio and wireless sensor networks. Clustering is an effective method to manage the network topology of CRSN. In order to solve the optimal cluster head selection problem in clustering which is proved to be NP-hard, inspired by ions motion optimization (IMO) algorithm, a novel centralized clustering routing protocol, i.e., IMO-based clustering routing protocol (IMOCRP) which can adapt to the dynamic characteristics of CRSN is presented in this paper. Optimal number of clusters and identity of cluster heads are automatically determined by combining the excellent characteristics of IMO algorithm and the rich resource, comprehensive information at the sink together. Thanks to its centralized structure, IMOCRP proposed in this paper avoids excessive overhead in cluster head selection and cluster formation, which in turn helps conserve energy. Available channel list at each living node is taken into consideration to perform reasonable channel allocation for clusters, and the probability of collisions with primary users can be reduced, which promotes more successful information delivery. Simulation results have shown that IMOCRP can balance network lifetime and effective information collection capability, and it is superior to other competing protocols.

Sports facilities have been acknowledged as one of the crucial environmental factors for children’s physical education, physical fitness, and participation in physical activity. Finding a solution for the effective and objective evaluation of the condition of sports facilities in schools (SSFs) with the responding quantitative magnitude is an uncertain task. This paper describes the utilization of an unsupervised machine learning method to objectively evaluate the condition of sports facilities in primary school (PSSFC). The statistical data of 845 samples with nine PSSFC indicators (indoor and outdoor included) were collected from the Sixth National Sports Facility Census in mainland China (NSFC), an official nationwide quinquennial census. The Fuzzy C-means (FCM) algorithm was applied to cluster the samples in accordance with the similarity of PSSFC. The clustered data were visualized by using t-stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE). The statistics results showed that the application of t-SNE and FCM led to the acceptable performance of clustering SSFs data into three types with differences in PSSFC. The effects of school category, location factors, and the interaction on PSSFC were analyzed by two-way analysis of covariance, which indicated that regional PSSFC has geographical and typological characteristics: schools in the suburbs are superior to those in the inner city, schools with more grades of students are configured with better variety and larger size of sports facilities. In conclusion, we have developed a combinatorial machine learning clustering approach that is suitable for objective evaluation on PSSFC and indicates its characteristics.

In cognitive radio sensor networks, single clustering protocol cannot simultaneously satisfy the various requirements of time-triggered and event-driven traffic, as a result, different kinds of clustering protocols are designed to serve them separately. In addition, for event-driven traffic, the long delay incurred by clustering and searching for available routes after events results in poor timeliness of information transmission. In order to solve above problems, a traffic-driven ions motion optimization-based clustering routing protocol (TD-IMOCRP) is proposed in this paper. For the first time, time-triggered and event-driven traffic can be served by a single clustering protocol. To be specific, ions motion optimization algorithm is leveraged to automatically determine the optimal number of clusters and form basic clustering structure. In this case, time-triggered traffic can be periodically served. Priority-based schedule and corresponding frame structure are designed to ensure priority delivery of event-driven information. The clustering architecture built for time-triggered traffic is leveraged, and there is no cluster construction and route selection after emergent events. Only the CRSNs nodes which discover emergent events and corresponding CHs participate in data transmission, which means that TD-IMOCRP covers fewer nodes, especially when the sink is located at the corner. Therefore, it can help reduce node energy consumption and delay. Simulation results demonstrate that compared with representative event-driven clustering protocols, TD-IMOCRP can decrease the average number of covered nodes and the total energy consumption by more than 66.3% and 25%, respectively. In addition, when serving time-triggered traffic, TD-IMOCRP can achieve almost the same performance as its basic version IMOCRP which is better than majority of current time-triggered clustering protocols. In a word, TD-IMOCRP can guarantee in-time delivery of event-driven information while guaranteeing its performance of serving time-triggered traffic.

Electricity load prediction is an essential tool for power system planning, operation and management. The critical information it provides can be used by energy providers to maximise power system operation efficiency and minimise system operation costs. Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) are two suitable methods that have been successfully used for analysing time series problems. In this paper, the two algorithms are explored further for load prediction; two load prediction algorithms are developed and verified by using the half-hourly load data from the University of Warwick campus energy centre with four different prediction time horizons. The novelty lies in comparing and analysing the prediction accuracy of two intelligent algorithms with multiple time scales and in exploring better scenarios for their prediction applications. High-resolution load forecasting over a long range of time is also conducted in this paper. The MAPE values for the LSTM are 2.501%, 3.577%, 25.073% and 69.947% for four prediction time horizons delineated. For the SVM, the MAPE values are 2.531%, 5.039%, 7.819% and 10.841%, respectively. It is found that both methods are suitable for shorter time horizon predictions. The results show that LSTM is more capable of ultra-short and short-term forecasting, while SVM has a higher prediction accuracy in medium-term and long-term forecasts. Further investigation is performed via blind tests and the test results are consistent.

The spontaneous conversion of asparagine residues to aspartic acid or iso-aspartic acid, via deamidation, is a major pathway of protein degradation and is often seriously disruptive to biological systems. Deamidation has been shown to negatively affect both in vitro stability and in vivo biological function of diverse classes of proteins. During protein therapeutics development, deamidation liabilities that are overlooked necessitate expensive and time-consuming remediation strategies, sometimes leading to termination of the project. In this paper, we apply machine learning to a large (n = 776) liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) dataset of monoclonal antibody peptides to create computational models for the post-translational modification asparagine deamidation, using the random decision forest method. We show that our categorical model predicts antibody deamidation with nearly 5% increased accuracy and 0.2 MCC over the best currently available models. Surprisingly, our model also paces or outperforms advanced and conventional models on an independent non-antibody dataset. In addition to deamidation probability, we are able to accurately predict deamidation rate (R2 = 0.963 and Q2 = 0.822), a capability with no peer in current models. This method should enable significant improvement in protein candidate selection, especially in biopharmaceutical development, and can be applied with similar accuracy to enzymes, monoclonal antibodies, next-generation formats, vaccine component antigens, and gene therapy vectors such as adeno-associated virus. Keywords: deamidation, machine learning, prediction, developability, stability, drug development, therapeutic protein, antibody, mab, IgG

We, the Publisher, have retracted the following article: Haiyan Yu, Jihong Wang (2022). Modified dark channel prior based on multi-scale Retinex for power image defogging. EAI Endorsed Scal Inf Syst. http://dx.doi.org/10.4108/eai.7-12-2021.172363 At present, defogging technologies can be roughly divided into two categories: the first category is the method of defogging based on image enhancement non-physical model. This method does not start from the essence of optical imaging, but only improves the visual effect of the image by improving the contrast and color of the image, so as to achieve the purpose of defogging. The commonly used methods include histogram equalization, contrast enhancement and automatic color levels, Retinex theory and wavelet transform, etc. The second type is based on atmospheric scattering physical model. This method analyzes the degradation mechanism in the process of imaging, establishes the degradation model of foggy image, and restores the real scene without fog by using the prior knowledge in the degradation process. This method needs to obtain prior conditions as model parameters, but the prior conditions are often difficult to obtain. In this paper, an adaptive power image defogging algorithm based on multi-scale Retinex and modified dark channel is proposed. Sobel operator is used to detect the edges of luminance components and multi-scale Retinex algorithm is used to eliminate luminance components. A priori theory of dark channel optimization by guided filtering is used to obtain rough estimated transmittance. The global atmospheric light value is selected by quadtree subspace search method. In order to eliminate the phenomenon that the restored image is dark as a whole and cannot display details, the brightness value is corrected by two-dimensional gamma function, and finally the restored defogging image is obtained. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can effectively restore the details of foggy images, completely remove foggy images, have good color brightness, and the images are clear and natural.

At present, visible light imaging sensor and infrared imaging sensor are two commonly used sensors, which are widely used in aviation, navigation and other military fields of detection, monitoring and tracking. Due to their different working principles, their performance is different. The infrared imaging sensor records the infrared radiation information of the target itself by acquiring the infrared radiation of the ground target. It identifies the target by detecting the thermal radiation difference between the target and the background, so it has special recognition and camouflage ability, such as finding people, vehicles and artillery hidden in the woods and grass. Although the infrared imaging sensor has a good detection performance for thermal targets, it is insensitive to the brightness changes of the scene and has low imaging resolution, which is not conducive to human eyes interpretation. Visible light imaging sensor is sensitive to the reflection of the target scene and has nothing to do with the thermal contrast of the target scene. The obtained image has high clarity and can provide the details of the target scene. Therefore, the fusion of infrared and visible images will be beneficial to the combination of infrared image's better target indication characteristics and visible image's scene clearing information. In this paper, we propose a double-channel cascade-based generative adversarial network for power equipment infrared and visible image fusion. The experimental results show that the fusion image not only retains the target information of the infrared image, but also retains more details of the visible image, and achieves better performance in both subjective and objective evaluation

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the changes of carbohydrate composition in fermented total mixed diet and its effects on rumen fermentation, methane production, and rumen microbiome in vitro. The concentrate-to-forage ratio of the total mixed ration (TMR) was 4:6, and TMR was ensiled with lactic acid bacteria and fibrolytic enzymes. The results showed that different TMRs had different carbohydrate compositions and subfractions, fermentation characteristics, and bacterial community diversity. After fermentation, the fermented total mixed ration (FTMR) group had lower contents of neutral detergent fiber, acid detergent fiber, starch, non-fibrous carbohydrates, and carbohydrates. In addition, lactic acid content and relative abundance of Lactobacillus in the FTMR group were higher. Compared with the TMR group, the in vitro ammonia nitrogen and total volatile fatty acid concentrations and the molar proportion of propionate and butyrate were increased in the FTMR group. However, the ruminal pH, molar proportion of acetate, and methane production were significantly decreased in the FTMR group. Notably, we found that the relative abundance of ruminal bacteria was higher in FTMR than in TMR samples, including Prevotella, Coprococcus, and Oscillospira. At the same time, we found that the diversity of methanogens in the FTMR group was lower than that in the TMR group. The relative abundance of Methanobrevibacter significantly decreased, while the relative abundances of Methanoplanus and vadinCA11 increased. The relative abundances of Entodinium and Pichia significantly decreased in the FTMR group compared with the TMR group. These results suggest that FTMR can be used as an environmentally cleaner technology in animal farming due to its ability to improve ruminal fermentation, modulate the rumen microbiome, and reduce methane emissions.

Current power systems are still highly reliant on dispatchable fossil fuels to meet variable electrical demand. As fossil fuel generation is progressively replaced with intermittent and less predictable renewable energy generation to decarbonize the power system, Electrical energy storage (EES) technologies are increasingly required to address the supply-demand balance challenge over a wide range of timescales. However, the current use of EES technologies in power systems is significantly below the estimated capacity required for power decarbonization. This paper presents a comprehensive review of EES technologies and investigates how to accelerate the uptake of EES in power systems by reviewing and discussing techno-economic requirements for EES. Individual EES technologies and power system applications are described, which provides guidance for the appraisal of specific EES technologies for specific power system services. Plausibly required scales and technology types of EES over different regions are then reviewed, followed by discussions on storage cost modelling and predictions for different EES technologies. Opportunities and challenges in developing scalable, economically viable and socio-environmental EES technologies are discussed. The paper explores EES's evolving roles and challenges in power system decarbonization and provides useful information and guidance on EES for further R&D, storage market building and policy making in the transition to zero-carbon power systems.

Lodging is one of the major constraints in attaining high yield in crop production. Major factors associated with stalk lodging involve morphological traits and anatomical features along with the chemical composition of the stem. However, little relevant research has been carried out in sorghum, particularly on the anatomical aspects. In this study, with a high-throughput procedure newly developed by our research group, the nine parameters related to stem regions and vascular bundles were generated in 58 sorghum germplasm accessions grown in two successive seasons. Correlation analysis and principal component analysis were conducted to investigate the relationship between anatomical aspects and stalk mechanical traits (breaking force, stalk strength and lodging index). It was found that most vascular parameters were positively associated with breaking force and lodging index with the correlation coefficient r varying from −0.46 to 0.64, whereas stalk strength was only associated with rind area with the r = 0.38. The germplasm resources can be divided into two contrasting categories (classes I with 23 accessions and II with 30 accessions). Compared to class II, the class I was characterized by a larger number (+40.7%) and bigger vascular bundle (+30%), thicker stem (+19.6%) and thicker rind (+36.0%) but shorter internode (plant) (−91.0%). This study provides the methodology and information for the studies of the stem anatomical parameters in crops and facilitates the selective breeding of sorghum.

Based on the established LIDAR chain along the 120°E meridian in China, the gravity wave (GW) activity between 80 and 105 km and the seasonal behavior of temporal and spatial spectra at Beijing, Hefei and Hainan were studied with three years of continued observations. The averaged GW-induced atmospheric density perturbations are near 6%, which in summer are obviously larger than in winter. The semiannual maxima occur near the solstice and the minimum emerges around the equinox at different latitudes. Besides, as a disparity, the density perturbation of GW is still active considerably in winter at low latitude at Hainan. The spectra of vertical wave number Fa(m) and observed frequency Fa(ω) show power law shapes, of which the average is near −3 and −1.7, respectively, and both spectra with special values all exhibit similar seasonal behavior as the atmospheric density perturbations shows. This behavior is explained by multiple effects possibly originating from Tibet plateau (TP) and the main GW source in China was roughly calculated by the LIDAR observation method for the first time located at the TP boundary.

Introduction Late dysphagia that develops or persists years after head and neck cancer (HNC) is a disabling survivorship issue. Fibrosis is thought to stiffen connective tissues and compress peripheral nerve tracts, thereby contributing to diminished strength, flexibility, and in some cases denervation of swallowing muscles. Manual therapy (MT) is used in cancer survivors for pain and other indications, but it is unknown if increasing blood flow, flexibility and cervical range of motion (CROM) in the head and neck may improve late dysphagia.Methods and analysis Manual Therapy for Fibrosis-Related Late Effect Dysphagia (MANTLE) is a National Cancer Institute-funded prospective single-arm pilot trial evaluating the feasibility, safety and therapeutic potential of MT in patients with late dysphagia after radiotherapy (RT) for HNC. Disease-free survivors ≥2 years after curative-intent RT for HNC with at least moderate dysphagia and grade ≥2 Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events version 4.0 fibrosis are eligible. The target sample size is 24 participants who begin the MANTLE programme. MANTLE is delivered in 10 MT sessions over 6 weeks with an accompanying home exercise programme (HEP). Patients then transition to a 6-week post-washout period during which they complete the HEP and then return for a final post-washout evaluation. Feasibility (primary endpoint) and safety will be examined. Serial assessments include CROM, modified barium swallow studies, quantitative MRI, electromyography (optional) and patient-reported outcomes as secondary, tertiary and exploratory endpoints.Ethics and dissemination The research protocol and informed consent document was approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publication that will be made publicly available on PubMed Central on acceptance for publication, in compliance with NIH public access policy.Trial registration number NCT03612531.

Purpose: To provide a series of suggestions for other Medical Physics practices to follow in order to provide effective radiation therapy treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods and Materials: We reviewed our entire Radiation Oncology infrastructure to identify a series of workflows and policy changes that we implemented during the pandemic that yielded more effective practices during this time. Results: We identified a structured list of several suggestions that can help other Medical Physics practices overcome the challenges involved in delivering high quality radiotherapy services during this pandemic. Conclusions: Our facility encompasses 4 smaller Houston Area Locations (HALs), a main campus with 8 distinct services based on treatment site (ie. Thoracic, Head and Neck, Breast, Gastrointestinal, Gynecology, Genitourinary, Hematologic Malignancies, Melanoma and Sarcoma and Central Nervous System/Pediatrics), a Proton Center facility, an MR-Linac, a Gamma Knife clinic and an array of brachytherapy services. Due to the scope of our services, we have gained experience in dealing with the rapidly changing pandemic effects on our clinical practice. Our paper provides a resource to other Medical Physics practices in search of workflows that have been resilient during these challenging times.

Background: MRI-guided radiotherapy planning (MRIgRT) may be superior to CT-guided planning in some instances owing to its improved soft tissue contrast. However, MR images do not communicate tissue electron density information necessary for dose calculation and therefore must either be co-registered to CT or algorithmically converted to synthetic CT. No robust quality assessment of commercially available MR-CT registration algorithms is yet available; thus we sought to quantify MR-CT registration formally. Methods: Head and neck non-contrast CT and T2 MRI scans acquired with standard treatment immobilization techniques were prospectively acquired from 15 patients. Per scan, 35 anatomic regions of interest (ROIs) were manually segmented. MRIs were registered to CT rigidly (RIR) and by three commercially available deformable registration algorithms (DIR). Dice similarity coefficient (DSC), Hausdorff distance mean (HD mean) and Hausdorff distance max (HD max) metrics were calculated to assess concordance between MRI and CT segmentations. Each DIR algorithm was compared to DIR using the nonparametric Steel test with control for individual ROIs (n = 105 tests) and for all ROIs in aggregate (n = 3 tests). The influence of tissue type on registration fidelity was assessed using nonparametric Wilcoxon pairwise tests between ROIs grouped by tissue type (n = 12 tests). Bonferroni corrections were applied for multiple comparisons. Results: No DIR algorithm improved the segmentation quality over RIR for any ROI nor all ROIs in aggregate (all p values >0.05). Muscle and gland ROIs were significantly more concordant than vessel and bone, but DIR remained non-different from RIR. Conclusions: For MR-CT co-registration, our results question the utility and applicability of commercially available DIR over RIR alone. The poor overall performance also questions the feasibility of translating tissue electron density information to MRI by CT registration, rather than addressing this need with synthetic CT generation or bulk-density assignment. Keywords: MRI-guided radiotherapy, CT-MRI image registration, Deformable image registration, Rigid image registration, Quality assessment

Fusion power shutdown system (FPSS) is a safety system to stop plasma in case of accidents or incidents. The gas injection system for the FPSS presented in this work is designed to research the flow development in a closed system. As the efficiency of the system is a crucial property, plenty of experiments are executed to get optimum parameters. In this system, the flow is driven by the pressure difference between a gas storage tank and a vacuum vessel with a source pressure. The idea is based on a constant volume system without extra source gases to guarantee rapid response and high throughput. Among them, valves and gas species are studied because their properties could influence the velocity of the fluid field. Then source pressures and volumes are emphasized to investigate the volume flow rate of the injection. The source pressure has a considerable effect on the injected volume. From the data, proper parameters are extracted to achieve the best performance of the FPSS. Finally, experimental results are used as a quantitative benchmark for simulations which can add our understanding of the inner gas flow in the pipeline. In generally, there is a good consistency and the obtained correlations will be applied in further study and design for the FPSS. Keywords: FPSS, Gas injection, Transient experiment, Flow development, Prescribed time

We study the property of double sodium layer structures (DSLs) in the mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) by a lidar at the low-latitude location of Haikou (20.0° N, 110.1° E), China. From April 2010 to December 2013, 21 DSLs were observed within a total of 377 observation days. DSLs were recorded at middle latitudes of Beijing and Wuhan, China, but were rarely observed at low latitudes. We analyze and discuss characteristics of DSLs such as time of occurrence, peak altitude, FWHM, duration time, etc. At the same time, the critical frequency foEs and the virtual height h'Es of the sporadic E layer Es were observed by an ionosonde over Danzhou (19.0° N, 109.3° E). We discuss such their characteristics as differences of time, differences of altitude compared to DSLs. We used an Nd:YAG laser pumped dye laser to generate the probing beam. The wavelength of the dye laser was set to 589 nm by a sodium fluorescence cell. The backscattered fluorescence photons from the sodium layer were collected by a telescope with the Φ1000 mm primary mirror.

Purpose: This study aimed to report on the safety, feasibility, and workflow of using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) simulation, while immobilized in the treatment position, for radiation therapy treatment planning in the pediatric population. Methods and Materials: Between May and December 2017, 10 pediatric patients completed both MRI and computed tomography imaging simulation in treatment immobilization for radiation therapy planning for central nervous system disease. We report our initial institutional experience and workflow of the use of MRI simulation in immobilization for treatment planning in this population. Results: Ten pediatric patients successfully underwent MRI and computed tomography imaging simulation for CNS disease. Two patients required anesthesia for sedation during the simulations. From our initial experience, MRI simulation was tolerated by all 10 pediatric patients without any safety or clinical issues, including those who required anesthesia. Conclusions: Our initial experience supports the use of MRI simulation for radiation treatment planning in the pediatric population, with and without anesthetic sedation, as a safe and feasible image-guidance tool. This is particularly useful in the treatment of pediatric patients because MRI simulation enables superior, soft-tissue, anatomic imaging for a more robust delineation of organs at risk and target volumes without increasing radiation exposure.

Abstract In 2011, Chu et al. reported the observation of neutral Fe layers reaching 155 km. Since then, there are five additional reports of layers extending above 130 km to as high as 170 km, none from central middle latitudes (35°–55°), a large atmospheric region of considerable importance. Here we report the first concurrent observations of thermospheric Na layers from two nearby lidar stations so located, Yanqing (40.5°N, 116.0°E) and Pingquan (41.0°N, 118.7°E). From one‐year data set, we found four such layers, including an unprecedented one reaching 200 km with highest density of 35 cm−3 and fastest descending rate. While the main Na layers were comparable, in three nights, these thermospheric layers were observed only in one station (Yanqing), suggesting that these layers often occur locally with a horizontal scale less than ~250 km. We tabulate, compare, and discuss the principle characteristics of all the reported thermospheric layers.

Sugarcane is cultivated mainly for its high sucrose content but it can also produce many metabolites with promising antioxidant potential. However, very few studies have been reported on the biosynthesis of metabolites in sugarcane to date. In this study, we have identified a wide range of amino acids and organic acids in the rind of six sugarcane varieties by the LC-MS/MS method. A total number of 72 amino acids and 55 organic acid compounds were characterized; among these, 100 were reported for the first time. Moreover, 13 amino acids and seven organic acids were abundantly distributed in all varieties tested and considered major amino acids and organic acids in sugarcane. The variety Taitang134 (F134) showed the highest content of total amino acids, whereas the varieties ROC16 and Yuetang93/159 (YT93/159) had maximum content of organic acids. The amino acids of the rind extract presented higher antioxidant capacity than the organic acids of the rind extract. In addition, the transcriptomic and metabolic integrated analysis highlighted some candidate genes associated with amino acid biosynthesis in sugarcane. We selected a transcription factor gene, MYB(t), and over-expressed it in Arabidopsis. The transgenic plants showed a higher accumulation of amino acids with higher antiradical activity compared with the wild-type Arabidopsis plants. Thus, we characterize a wide range of amino acids and organic acids and their antiradical activities in different sugarcane varieties and present candidate genes that can be potentially valuable for the genetic improvement of metabolites in sugarcane bagasse

Objective To investigate the clinical characteristics and long-term mortality of patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) after orthopaedic surgery. Methods This retrospective, single-centre study enrolled patients that underwent inpatient orthopaedic surgery from 2009 to 2017 in Beijing Jishuitan Hospital. The patients were screened for a cardiac troponin I elevation and fulfilled the Fourth Universal Definition of Myocardial Infarction within 30 days of surgery. Results A total of 180 patients that developed perioperative myocardial infarction (MI) were included in the study. Among them, 14 patients (7.8%) were classified as STEMI, and 166 (92.2%) had NSTEMI. Compared with those with NSTEMI, STEMI patients had significantly higher 30-day and long-term mortality rates (50.0% versus 5.4%; 71.4% versus 22.3%; respectively). Multivariate Cox regression model analysis among the entire cohort demonstrated that STEMI (hazard ratio [HR] 5.78, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.50, 13.38) and prior MI (HR 2.35, 95% CI 1.02, 5.38) were the most significant independent predictors of long-term mortality. Conclusion Perioperative MI after orthopaedic surgery was associated with a high mortality rate. STEMI was independently associated with a significant increase in short- and long-term mortality.

T-cell-mediated immunotherapy has generated much excitement after the success of therapeutic biologics targeting immune checkpoint molecules. Bispecific antibodies (BsAbs) that recognize two antigen targets are a fast-growing class of biologics offering promising clinical benefits for cancer immunotherapy. Due to the complexity of the molecule structure and the potential mechanism of action (MOA) that involves more than one signaling pathway, it is critical to develop appropriate bioassays for measuring potency and characterizing the biological properties of BsAbs. Here, we present a dual target, cell-based reporter bioassay for a BsAb that binds human CTLA-4 and PD-1 and targets two subsequent signaling pathways that negatively regulate T-cell activation. This reporter bioassay is capable of measuring the potency of both antigen target arms in one assay, which would not be achievable using two single target bioassays. This dual target reporter bioassay demonstrates good performance characteristics suitable for lot release, stability testing, critical quality attribute assessment, and biological properties characterization of the CTLA-4/PD-1 BsAb. Furthermore, this assay can capture the synergistic effect of anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD-1 activity of the BsAb. Compared to single target assays, this dual target bioassay could better reflect the potential MOA of BsAbs and could be used for evaluation of other bispecific biologics, as well as antibody combination therapies.