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AimsThe optimal procedure for the treatment of ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) remains controversial. The aim of this study was to compare the outcome of anterior cervical ossified posterior longitudinal ligament en bloc resection (ACOE) with posterior laminectomy and fusion with bone graft and internal fixation (PTLF) for the surgical management of patients with this condition.MethodsBetween July 2017 and July 2019, 40 patients with cervical OPLL were equally randomized to undergo surgery with an ACOE or a PTLF. The clinical and radiological results were compared between the two groups.ResultsThe Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) score and recovery rate in the ACOE group were significantly higher than those in the PTLF group during two years postoperatively, provided that the canal occupying ratio (COR) was > 50%, or the K-line was negative. There was no significant difference in JOA scores and rate of recovery between the two groups in those in whom the COR was < 50%, or the K-line was positive. There was no significant difference in the Cobb angle between C2 and C7, sagittal vertical axis, cervical range of motion (ROM), and complications between the two groups.ConclusionCompared with PTLF, ACOE is a preferred surgical approach for the surgical management of patients with cervical OPLL in that it offers a better therapeutic outcome when the COR is > 50%, or the K-line is negative, and it also preserves better cervical curvature and sagittal balance. The prognosis of ACOE is similar to that of PTLE when the COR is < 50%, or the K-line is positive.Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2023;105-B(4):412–421.

Keyu Chen,1,&ast; Bin Xu,2,&ast; Yifan Tang,3 Juan Cao,1 Rong Wang,3 Yali Tian,3 Chunhong Gao,3 Ming Chu4 1Department of Thoracic Surgery, Jiangsu Province Hospital and The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 210029, People’s Republic of China; 2Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit, Jiangsu Province Hospital and The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 210029, People’s Republic of China; 3Nursing Department, Jiangsu Province Hospital and The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 210029, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Nosocomial Infection, Jiangsu Province Hospital and The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, 210029, People’s Republic of China&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Chunhong Gao, Nursing Department, Jiangsu Province Hospital and The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, 300 Guangzhou Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China, Tel +862568305379, Email gao22095@163.com Ming Chu, Department of Nosocomial Infection, Jiangsu Province Hospital and The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, 300 Guangzhou Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China, Tel +862568306917, Email chuming@njmu.edu.cnBackground: Community screening for SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant plays a significant role in controlling the spread of infection. However, loopholes may exist in the current management of community screening in Shanghai, China. The objective of this study was to discover loopholes in the management of community screening for SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in Shanghai, China and provide targeted solutions.Methods: The cross-sectional study was carried out April 4 to April 30, 2021, among residential committee directors from the Putuo District, Pudong District, and Minhang District of Shanghai, China. Data were collected using a self-designed questionnaire about the management of nucleic acid testing (NAT) sampling in communities through the network platform powered by www.wjx.cn.Results: A total of 203 residential committee directors responded to the survey. Of them, 47.3% were not accepted training and 40.4% were not aware of cross-infection. Comparison among sampling sites and communities, high-risk group contained lower proportion of community training (P = 0.093~0.200), higher awareness of cross-infection (P = 0.039~0.777), more medical workers (P = 0.007~0.724) and more tests performed (P = 0.001~0.992). Larger communities had more medical workers, sampling sites, sampling tables (P = 0.000) and higher awareness of cross-infection (P = 0.009), but lower proportion of community training (P = 0.051).Conclusion: Overall, community training and awareness of infection control were inadequate. Government or institutions should organize the community training and raise the awareness of infection control. Significant differences exist in NAT management patterns between sampling sites, as well as communities of different sizes. Residential community directors minimize high-risk sampling point settings in the future. Special personnel designated by the government or institutions should tour to guide each sampling site.Keywords: community screening, SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, management, China

Photoresist refers to the corrosion-resistant film material whose solubility changes when irradiated or radiated by ultraviolet light, electron beam, ion beam, X-ray, etc. Engraving technology is a micromachining technology that uses the solubility change of photoresist under ultraviolet light or electron beam to transfer the pattern designed on the mask to the exposed substrate. With the continuous improvement of light sources for semiconductor processing, from G line and I line to KrF(248 nm) and then to ArF(193 nm), the matching photoresist is constantly changing to meet the requirements of sensitivity, transparency and etching resistance. Nowadays, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography has become recognized as the next-generation lithography technology. This paper mainly introduces the development history, classification and application of photoresists and the related characteristics, principles and process flow of photoresists in different periods and systems. At the same time, the market situation of photoresists at home and abroad is introduced and analyzed, and the prospect of domestic development is also discussed.

Sound insulation under ventilation conditions is an important issue in acoustic fields that has significant applications in various practical scenarios. The emergence of acoustic metasurfaces breaks the limitation of manipulating large-scale waves at subwavelength scales and enables a better ventilating capability, while there is still a problem that the bandwidth of previous studies is usually smaller than half an octave. Here, we design and experimentally implement a ventilated meta-barrier with subwavelength thickness capable of realizing broadband sound insulation while maintaining efficient ventilation. The underlying mechanism is the synergy of the consecutive Fano resonances and superposition of equal-strength monopolar mode of the gradient helical structure and dipolar mode of the central orifice, leading to an efficient blocking of approximately 90% of sound waves coming from various directions in the range from 1145 to 1815 Hz while preserving high-efficiency ventilation. The experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the resulting device, which is in good agreement with the simulated results and theoretical predictions. Our design with functionality and flexibility opens up possibilities for the design of broadband ventilated acoustic devices and may find important application prospects in diverse fields such as noise control and architectural acoustics.

The constantly expanding losses caused by frequent natural disasters pose many challenges to the traditional catastrophe insurance market. The purpose of this paper is to develop an innovative framework for pricing catastrophic bonds triggered by multiple events with extreme dependence structure. Due to the bond's low cash flow contingencies and the CAT bond's high return, the multiple-event CAT bond may successfully transfer the catastrophe risk to the huge financial markets to meet the diversification of capital allocations for most potential investors. The designed hybrid trigger mechanism helps reduce moral hazard and improve bond attractiveness with CIR stochastic rate, displaying the co-movement of the wiped-off coupon and principal, the magnitude and intensity of the natural disaster events involved. As the trigger indicators resulted from the potential catastrophic disaster might be associated with heavy tailed margins, nested Archimedean copulas are introduced with marginal distributions modeled by POT-GP distribution for excess data and common parametric models for moderate risks. To illustrate our theoretical pricing framework, we conduct a statistical analysis of pricing a three-event rainstorm CAT bond based on the resulted losses of rainstorms in China during 2006--2020. Monte Carlo simulations are carried out to analyse the sensitivity of the rainstorm CAT bond price in trigger attachment levels, maturity date, catastrophe intensity, and numbers of trigger indicators.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of food retailer's Approaching the Expiration Date (AED) labelling on consumers' retailer-related response. Specifically, the main effect of food retailer's AED labelling on consumers' patronage intention, the mediation effect of food retailer's concern for consumers and the boundary condition of this effect are explored. The selected context of research is that food retailers are reluctant to stick an AED label on nearly expired food due to negative effect on selling them.Design/methodology/approachTwo separate pretests and two separate experiments have been conducted to investigate the influence of food retailer's AED labelling on patronage intention. Pretest 1 develops the stimulus material of food retailer's AED labelling. Study 1 investigates the influence of AED labelling on patronage intention and mediation effect of consumers' perception of retailer's concern for consumers. Pretest 2 develops the stimulus material of government regulation on food retailer's AED labelling. Study 2 explores the boundary condition of the positive effect, namely the moderation effect of whether retailer's AED labelling is voluntary or mandatory.FindingsThe main findings of this research highlight the positive influence of food retailer's AED labelling on consumers' patronage intention. In addition, the current research reveals the underlying mechanism food retailer's concern for consumers and the boundary condition whether the AED labelling is voluntary or mandatory.Originality/valueAlthough previous researches has explored the effect of food retailer's AED labelling on consumers' response, most of them focus on consumer purchase intention of the nearly expired food and neglect its effect on consumers' food retailer-related response. It is a need for food retailer to explore the potential positive influence of food retailer's AED labelling on consumers' patronage intention.

Metal additive manufacturing (AM) has recently attracted attention due to its potential for batch/mass production of metal parts. This process, however, currently suffers from problems including low productivity, inconsistency in the properties of the printed parts, and defects such as lack of fusion, keyholing, and un-melted powders. Finite Element (FE) modeling cannot accurately model the metal AM process and has a high computational cost. Empirical models based on experiments are time-consuming and expensive. This paper improves a previously developed framework that takes advantages of both empirical and FE models. The validity and accuracy of the metamodel developed in the previous framework depend on the initial assumption of parameter uncertainties. This causes a problem when the assumed uncertainties are far from the actual values. The proposed framework introduces an iterative calibration process to overcome this limitation. In addition, the u_pooling metric used as the calibration metric in the previous framework is found not as good as the second-order statistical moment-based metric (SMM), after comparing several calibration metrics. The proposed framework is then applied to a four-variable porosity modeling problem. The obtained model is more accurate than using other approaches with only 10 available experimental data points for calibration and validation.

Mestrado Bolonha em Finanças Este é um projeto que visa fornecer recomendações de investimento informadas sobre a YONGHUI SUPERSTORES CO., LTD., uma rede de supermercados chinesa por meio de previsões abrangentes de perspetivas comportamentais. Esta pesquisa de patrimônio investiga o desempenho financeiro da YONGHUI SUPERSTORES CO., LTD. no contexto das perspetivas do setor retalho alimentar chinês. Esta equivalência patrimonial obedece ao formato recomendado pelo CFA Instituto. Há dois motivos para selecionar esta empresa chinesa. O primeiro motivo é meu interesse pessoal no retalho alimentar e a minha vantagem como falante nativa de chinês, o que me permite ter uma visão mais profunda da empresa. O segundo motivo é a tipicidade da YONGHUI como uma tradicional rede de supermercados da China em transição. Esta equivalência patrimonial é elaborada com base em informações públicas divulgadas até 19 de setembro de 2022. Os principais métodos utilizados na avaliação são o Fluxo de Caixa Descontado bem como o método de avaliação relativa. Recomenda-se a manter as ações da empresa com preço-alvo de 2022YE de CNY 3,39 por ação, prevendo um potencial de valorização de 1.51% a partir de 19 de setembro de 2022, ao preço de fechamento de CNY 3,34 por ação, alto nível associado. Enquanto isso, com base no Modelo de Avaliação Relativa, meta de preço de 2022YE varia de CNY 6,58 a CNY 7,35. This is a project that aims to provide informed investment recommendations regarding YONGHUI SUPERSTORES CO., LTD., a Chinese supermarket chain company through comprehensive forecasts of behavioral outlook. This equity research investigates the financial performance of YONGHUI SUPERSTORES CO., LTD. in the context of the Chinese food retail industry outlook. This equity research complies with the format recommended by the CFA Institute. There are two motives to select this Chinese food retailor. The first motive is my personal interest in food retailing, and my advantage as a native speaker of Chinese, which enables me to have deeper insights of the company. The second motive is the typicality of YONGHUI as a traditional supermarket chain of China in transition. This equity research is elaborated based on public information disclosed until the 19th of September 2022. The principal methods used in the valuation are Discounted Cash Flow as well as Relative Valuation method. It is recommended to hold the stock of the company with a 2022YE price target of CNY 3.39 per share, forecasting a 1.51% upside potential from the September 19th, 2022, at closing price of CNY 3.34 per share, associated high level. Meanwhile, based on Relative Valuation Model, 2022YE price target ranges from CNY 6.58 to CNY 7.35. info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

The process-structure-property modeling of additive manufacturing (AM) products plays an important role in process and quality control. In practice however, only limited data are available for each product due to its expensive material and time-consuming fabricating process, which becomes an obstacle to achieve high quality models. Transfer learning (TL) is a new and promising approach that the model of one product (source) may be reused for another product (target) with limited new data on the target. This paper focuses on reviewing applications of TL in AM modeling in order to help further research in this area. To clarify the specific topic, the problem definition is presented, as well as the differences between TL, multi-fidelity modeling, and multi-task learning. Then current applications of TL in AM modeling are summarized according to different TL approaches. To better understand the performances of different TL approaches, several representative TL-assisted AM modeling methods are reproduced and tested on an open-source dataset. Based on the test results, their effectiveness and limitations are discussed in detail. Finally, future research directions about TL in AM modeling are discussed in hope to explore more potential of TL in boosting the AM model performance.

Toughest-ever clean air actions in China have been implemented nationwide to improve air quality. However, it was unexpected that from 2014 to 2018, the observed wintertime PM

Background Ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL) is a disabling disease, of which the pathogenesis is still unclear, and there are no effective cure or prevention methods. Exosomal miRNA play an important role in osteogenesis of the ectopic bone. Therefore, we focused on the down-regulation miR-140-5p from OPLL cell-derived exosomes in order to explore the mechanism of exosomal miR-140-5p in inhibiting osteogenesis in OPLL. Results Exosomes were isolated by differential centrifugation and identified by transmission electron microscopy, nanoparticle tracking analysis, and exosomal markers. Exosomal RNA was extracted to perform miRNA sequencing and disclose the differentially expressed miRNAs, among which miR-140-5p was significantly down-regulated. The confocal microscopy was used to trace the exosomal miR-140-5p delivered from OPLL cells to human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs). In vitro, we verified exosomal miR-140-5p inhibited osteoblast differentiation of hMSCs by targeting IGF1R and suppressing the phosphorylation of IRS1/PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway. In vivo, we verified that exosomal miR-140-5p inhibited the ectopic bone formation in mice assessed by micro-CT and immunohistochemistry. Conclusions We found that exosomal miR-140-5p could inhibit the osteogenic differentiation of hMSCs by targeting IGF1R and regulating the mTOR pathway, prompting a further potential means of drug treatment and a possible target for molecular therapy of OPLL.

Somatotroph adenomas are obviously heterogeneous in clinical characteristics, imaging performance, pathological diagnosis and therapeutic effect. The heterogeneity of the tumors, especially for SG and DG type adenomas, have attracted great interest in identifying the specific pathological markers and therapeutic targets of them. However, previous analyses of the molecular characteristics of the subtypes of somatotroph adenomas were performed at genomic and transcriptome level. The proteomic differences between the two subtypes of somatotroph adenomas are still unknown. Tumor samples were surgically removed from 10 sporadic pituitary somatotroph adenoma patients and grouped according to the pathological type. Tandem mass tag (TMT)-based quantitative proteomic analysis was employed to analyze the proteomic differences between SG and DG tumors. In total, 228 differentially expressed proteins were identified between SG adenomas and DG adenomas. They were enriched mainly in extracellular matrix (ECM)-receptor interaction, leukocyte transendothelial migration, arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy and DNA replication pathways. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis indicated that Cadherin-1 and Catenin beta-1 were the most important key proteins in the differences between SG and DG adenomas. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) confirmed the expression levels of the key proteins. This study provides large-scale proteome molecular characteristics of distinct granulation subtypes of somatotroph adenomas. Compared with DG adenomas, The differential protein of SG adenomas mostly enrich in invasive and proliferative functions and pathways at the proteomic level. Cadherin-1 and Catenin beta-1 play key roles in the different biological characteristics of the two tumor subtypes.

Study design Western blot, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), radiological, and histological analyses of the rat ossification of ligamentum flavum (OLF) induced by cyclic tensile stress. Objective The aim of this study was to induce the OLF using cyclic tensile stress to rat thoracolumbar ligamentum flavum, and to investigate the possible molecular mechanism of tension-induced OLF. Summary of background data Tensile stress has been considered as an important factor leading to the OLF. So far, however, no OLF induced by tension has been reported. Methods Forty rats were randomly divided into five equal groups. For control groups, the blank and anesthesia groups were not subjected to tension. For experimental groups, the 4-, 8-, and 12-week groups were subjected to cyclic tensile stress of ligamentum flavum after abdominal anesthesia for 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks, respectively, using an original stress apparatus for rats. The radiological and morphological changes of rat spine, as well as the protein and mRNA expressions of CD44, bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2), integrin β3, collagen protein type I (COL1), osteopontin (OPN), runt-related transcription factor 2 (RUNX-2), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), were concerned. Results The micro-CT showed OLF in the 4-, 8-, and 12-week group. The axial maximum occupied area of ossifications was 1.42 mm2, 3.35 mm2, and 7.28 mm2, respectively. In histopathology, chondrocytes proliferated in the experimental model; woven bone arose in the 8- and 12-week groups, and was more noticeable in the 12-week group. According to western blot and RT-PCR, the expressions of seven osteogenesis-related molecules were all increased in three experimental groups. Conclusion Cyclic tensile stress to the ligamentum flavum in rats can induce the OLF, and the longer the duration, the more visible the osteogenesis. The upregulation and synergism of osteogenesis-related molecules may contribute to the OLF induced by tensile stress.Level of Evidence: N/A.

Delay and lag deteriorate path tracking accuracy and system stability. If not properly compensated, they can cause instability or limit the driving speed of autonomous vehicles. This paper presents a preview steering control design considering both communication delay and steering lag to achieve accurate, smooth, and computationally efficient path tracking for highly automated vehicles. Two strategies are adopted for the delay: forward state predictor and delay augmentation. The steering lag is approximated by a first-order lag system. The path tracking problem with delay and lag is solved by the preview control theory. The resulted controller is in an analytical form and is computationally efficient for online implementation. We also analyze the system stability and closed-loop responses in both the time and frequency domain. The control is implemented on an automated vehicle platform and tested inside Mcity and on open roads. Experimental results showed lower tracking errors and significantly improved stability margin compared to the controls ignoring delay and lag.

Acellular tendon matrix is an ideal substitute for constructing tissue engineering ligaments, but using detergents causes damage to collagen and fibrin during the process of decellularization. In this study, fresh tendons were lyophilized and separated into fresh tendon fiber (FTF) bundles, and then the cellular components in FTF were removed to prepare acellular tendon fiber (ATF) without adding chemical detergent. H&E staining and DAPI fluorescence microscopy showed no nucleus and DNA residue. Compared with FTFs, the DNA content of ATFs was significantly lower without the collagen content change before and after decellularization. The microstructure of collagen fibrils in ATFs was intact under scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and the maximum tensile load and elastic modulus between FTFs and ATFs were not statistically different. The ATF bundles were cultured with SD rat tenocytes for 72 hr and cells attachment to fiber surfaces were observed under SEM. ATF bundles were then implanted into paraspinal muscles, and histological analysis showed fibroblast-like cells within the ATFs and was similar to the control group (fresh tendon autograft) in morphology. H&E staining showed that the number of lymphocytes and plasma cells in ATF was less than that in fresh tendon autograft. ATF bundles were twisted into linear fiber materials by hand, of which the maximum breaking strength was similar to silk with same diameter. These findings demonstrated that ATFs retain their original fibril structure and mechanical properties after decellularization by trypsin and pancreatic deoxyribonuclease without detergent. Lyophilized ATFs linear fiber material provides the possibility of preparing personalized ligament and other tissue engineering scaffolds.

A new parameter optimization and uncertainty assessment procedure using the Bayesian inference with an adaptive Metropolis–Hastings (AM-H) algorithm is presented for extreme rainfall frequency modeling. An efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler is adopted to explore the posterior distribution of parameters and calculate their uncertainty intervals associated with the magnitude of estimated rainfall depth quantiles. Also, the efficiency of AM-H and conventional maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) in parameter estimation and uncertainty quantification are compared. And the procedure was implemented and discussed for the case of Chaohu city, China. Results of our work reveal that: (i) the adaptive Bayesian method, especially for return level associated to large return period, shows better estimated effect when compared with MLE; it should be noted that the implementation of MLE often produces overy optimistic results in the case of Chaohu city; (ii) AM-H algorithm is more reliable than MLE in terms of uncertainty quantification, and yields relatively narrow credible intervals for the quantile estimates to be instrumental in risk assessment of urban storm drainage planning.

With the continuous development of new energy vehicles, the number of decommissioned lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) batteries has been constantly increasing. Therefore, it is necessary to recover metal from spent LiFePO4 batteries due to the high potential for environmental protection and high resource value. In this study, sodium persulfate (Na2S2O8) was selected as the oxidant to regulate and control the oxidation state and proton activity of the leaching solution through its high oxidizing ability. Selective recovery of lithium from LiFePO4 batteries was achieved by oxidizing LiFePO4 to iron phosphate (FePO4) during the leaching process. This paper reports an extensive investigation of the effects of various factors, including the acid concentration, initial volume fraction of the oxidant, reaction temperature, solid–liquid ratio, and reaction time, on lithium leaching. Li+ reached a high leaching rate of 93.3% within 5 minutes even at a low concentration of sulphuric acid (H2SO4), and high-purity lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) was obtained through impurity removal and precipitation reactions. In addition, the leaching mechanism was analysed by both X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy characterization. The results show that the obtained high lithium-ion (Li+) leaching efficiency and fast Li+ leaching time can be ascribed to the superior oxidizing properties of Na2S2O8 and the stability of the crystal structure of LiFePO4 during the oxidative leaching process. The adopted method has significant advantages in terms of safety, efficiency and environmental protection, which are conducive to the sustainable development of lithium batteries.

Objective The purpose of this study was to investigate the chest CT imaging features and clinical outcome of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Ningbo, China. Methods In this retrospective study, twenty-eight confirmed and seven highly suspected cases of COVID-19 were enrolled in Ningbo first hospital from January 26, 2020 to March 5, 2020. Cases were confirmed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The initial and follow-up chest CT imaging features, epidemiological history, and outcome were analyzed. Results The average age of the patients was 57.3 ± 15.3 years (range: 27–96 years), including 25 females and 10 males. On CT images, 89.3% (25/28) confirmed and 100% (7/7) suspected patients had ground-glass opacities (GGOs), and GGOs with mixed consolidations were observed in 35.7% (10/28) confirmed and 42.9% (3/7) suspected cases, most of these lesions were distributed under the peripheral of both lungs. 17 confirmed and 4 suspected cases had a history of participating in Ningbo Tian-tong Temple rituals and all had GGOs in their lungs during the initial CT scan. As of March 25, 2020, the lung lesions of our cases were significantly resolved and all patients have been discharged from the hospital. Conclusion The most common chest CT features are multiple bilateral and peripheral GGOs with mixed consolidations or not in the lungs of patients with COVID-19. Chest CT plays an important role in the diagnosis and monitoring treatment response of this disease. There was no reported death in our cases., Highlights • The most common chest CT features are bilateral and peripheral ground glass opacities with mixed consolidations or not in the lungs for patients with COVID-19. • The chest CT findings are similar for patients with COVID-19, although they come from different sources of infection. • Chest CT plays an important role in the diagnosis and monitoring treatment response of COVID-19. • The diagnosis of COVID-19 should integrate the epidemiology history, clinical symptoms, laboratory test and CT features when RT-PCR test was negative.

Recently, privacy issues in web services that rely on users' personal data have raised great attention. Unlike existing privacy-preserving technologies such as federated learning and differential privacy, we explore another way to mitigate users' privacy concerns, giving them control over their own data. For this goal, we propose a privacy aware recommendation framework that gives users delicate control over their personal data, including implicit behaviors, e.g., clicks and watches. In this new framework, users can proactively control which data to disclose based on the trade-off between anticipated privacy risks and potential utilities. Then we study users' privacy decision making under different data disclosure mechanisms and recommendation models, and how their data disclosure decisions affect the recommender system's performance. To avoid the high cost of real-world experiments, we apply simulations to study the effects of our proposed framework. Specifically, we propose a reinforcement learning algorithm to simulate users' decisions (with various sensitivities) under three proposed platform mechanisms on two datasets with three representative recommendation models. The simulation results show that the platform mechanisms with finer split granularity and more unrestrained disclosure strategy can bring better results for both end users and platforms than the "all or nothing" binary mechanism adopted by most real-world applications. It also shows that our proposed framework can effectively protect users' privacy since they can obtain comparable or even better results with much less disclosed data., Accepted by TOIS 2022

To accelerate self-driving technology developments, testing platforms modified from production passenger cars are widely used nowadays, but the powertrain models and control access to engine/motor are often not available, e.g., the popular hybrid Lincoln MKZ platform only opens brake/throttle pedal control protocol for longitudinal motion. These limitations motivate us to model the powertrain dynamics by experiments and to design new speed controls, differing from the conventional cruise control that manipulates engine/brake torque directly with accurate models. This article explores the powertrain modeling and speed control algorithm design of these testing platforms, by taking the MKZ as an example. Two computationally-efficient algorithms are designed, i.e., a PID+C control when future information (i.e., reference speed and road slope profiles) is unavailable, and a preview control if the information is provided a priori. To guarantee speed tracking errors within a given safe range, a barrier control is also designed to supervise the two controllers, which adds additional brake/throttle actions when the error is approaching the boundary. The algorithms are implemented and tested on the Mcity MKZ platform, experimental results show the speed-tracking performance and the bounded errors achieved by the barrier function.

There is an increasing agreement that acromegaly caused by growth hormone (GH) cell adenoma has two distinct subtypes: densely granulated (DG) and sparsely granulated (SG). We hypothesized that differential molecular signatures may explain their behavior. Total transcriptome sequencing was performed on ten DG and seven SG adenomas. The differentially expressed RNAs were identified by bioinformatic analyses, and a candidate RNA was verified by quantitative real-time PCR. Immunohistochemical staining was also performed to detect the protein expression of the candidate. Clinical parameters were correlated with protein expression. Subsequently, cell proliferation, colony formation, and cell cycle progression were analyzed after knockdown of the candidate in pituitary GH3 cells. Activation of the cAMP pathway was assessed by ELISA and Western blot. We confirmed that there were obvious differentially expressed genes between the subtypes. Through gene profiling, we discovered that an orphan adhesion G protein-coupled receptor, GPR64, was overexpressed in more aggressive SG adenomas. Noticeably, GPR64 knockdown significantly inhibited the proliferation of GH3 tumor cells and decreased colony formation. The knockdown also induced cell cycle arrest in GH3 tumor cells. Further studies revealed that GPR64 knockdown decreased cAMP levels and the ratios of p-CREB/CREB, indicating that it suppressed the cAMP/CREB pathway. Our results indicated that GPR64 may promote aggressiveness in SG-type GH cell adenomas and that it is a key factor regulating the cAMP pathway to promote aggressiveness of GH cell adenomas.

Lane keeping control needs to achieve smooth steering operation while ensuring safety-no lane departures and maintain small lateral displacement. In this paper, we solve this challenge by developing a preview lane keeping control supervised by a safeguard controller. The preview control utilizes both tracking errors and future lane curvatures to generate the optimal steering commands. The safeguard controller is then designed to guarantee bounded tracking errors. It supervises the preview control and intervenes if and only if the tracking error is approaching the safety boundary. Both algorithms have analytical control laws and thus require little on-line computations. The integrated system is compared with a model predictive control (MPC) design in terms of both tracking performance and computing efficiency. We implemented the proposed controls on a self-driving vehicle platform and tested on open roads and in the Mcity test facility.

Multipartite entanglement plays an essential role in both quantum information science and many-body physics. Due to the exponentially large dimension and complex geometric structure of the state space, the detection of entanglement in many-body systems is extremely challenging in reality. Conventional means, like entanglement witness and entropy criterion, either highly depend on the prior knowledge of the studied systems or the detection capability is relatively weak. In this work, we propose a framework for designing multipartite entanglement criteria based on permutation moments, which have an effective implementation with either the generalized control-SWAP quantum circuits or the random unitary techniques. These criteria show strong detection capability in the multi-qubit Ising model with a long-range $XY$ Hamiltonian. The quantities associated with these criteria have clear physical meaning and can be used as entanglement quantifiers, with which we show the entanglement scaling transition in a quantum dynamical phase transition. Furthermore, our framework can also be generalized to detect the much more complicated entanglement structure in quantum many-body systems., Comment: 39 pages, 10 figures

Effectively predicting protein toxicity plays an essential step in the early stage of protein-based drug discovery, which is of great help to speed up novel drug screening and reduce costs. Recently, several relevant datasets have been designed, and then machine learning-based methods have been proposed to predict the toxicity of the protein and have shown satisfactory performance. However, previous studies generally directly concatenate different protein features, which may introduce irrelevant information and decrease model performance. In this study, we present a novel end-to-end deep learning-based method called ToxMVA, to predict protein toxicity. To be specific, we first build comprehensive feature profiles of proteins based on primary sequences, including sequential, physicochemical, and contextual semantic information. Next, an autoencoder network is introduced to integrate the multi-view information for obtaining a more concise and accurate feature representation. Extensive experimental results on three datasets demonstrate that ToxMVA has superior performance for protein toxicity prediction and shows better robustness among three different datasets.

Background: To analyze risk factors of titanium mesh cage (TMC) subsidence in single-level anterior cervical corpectomy and fusion (ACCF) for cervical ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (OPLL). Methods: Patients with cervical OPLL who were treated with single-level ACCF between January 2019 to December 2019 were retrospectively analyzed in two groups: patients with TMC subsidence as Group S, and patients with no TMC subsidence as Group N during the one-year follow-up period. The degree of distraction between decompression of the vertebral bodies and correction of the cervical curvature was measured to analyze their relationship with TMC subsidence. Results: There was no significant difference in patient demographics and complications between the two groups. The degree of distraction in Group S was significantly higher than that in Group N. The change of C2 to C7 Cobb angle (α) in Group S was significantly greater than that in Group N, and the interspinous process distance (SPD) in Group S was also significantly greater than that in Group N. The JOA score and JOA recovery rate were not statistically different between the two groups.Conclusions: Intraoperative selection of overlength TMC in single-level ACCF for OPLL, over-distraction, and excessive correction of the cervical curvature may cause TMC subsidence after surgery. No significant impact of TMC subsidence on the surgical outcome was observed during the 1-year follow-up period.

This paper includes an investigation of the thermal conductivity of biocemented soils to better understanding the regimes of heat transmission through soils treated by microbially induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP). A series of thermal conductivity tests using the transient plane source method (TPS) was performed on biocemented silica sand specimens with different gradations, void ratios, and MICP treatment cycles. The results showed that MICP treatment greatly improved the thermal conductivity of sand specimens. An increase in uniformity coefficient or a decrease in void ratio of the sand resulted in an increase in the thermal conductivity of MICP-treated specimens for a given MICP treatment cycle. The increment of thermal conductivity of MICP-treated specimens with respect to that of untreated specimens was also affected by gradation, void ratio, and content of calcium carbonate. The greatest improvements in thermal conductivity were achieved for sands having an initial degree of saturation between 0.82 and 0.85. An empirical equation was established to predict the thermal conductivity of MICP-treated silica sand with different variables, which may be useful in designing energy piles in biocemented sand layers. The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from the National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41831282, 51922024, and 51678094).

Purpose. To investigate the factors associated with the prognosis of spinal cord injury without radiographic abnormality (SCIWORA) accompanied by cervical ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament (C-OPLL). Methods. We retrospectively investigated 287 patients with SCIWORA associated with C-OPLL, who were admitted within 30 days after trauma to our facility between August 2014 and August 2018. All patients were divided into the good or poor prognosis group. Patient demographics were analyzed. Besides, occupying ratio on CT and spinal cord high signal changes in MRI T2WI were measured and recorded. Multivariate linear regression was applied to analyze the correlation of prognosis with spinal cord high signal changes in MRI T2WI, cause of injury, and occupying ratio. Results. Occupying ratio of ossification mass was 43.5 ± 10.7 % in the poor prognosis group and 27.3 ± 7.7 % in the good prognosis group. The occurrence rate of high signal changes in MRI T2WI was 84.2% in the poor prognosis group and 41.3% in the good prognosis group. Poor prognosis was correlated with high occupying ratio and spinal cord high signal changes in MRI T2WI. In the patient with SCIWORA associated with C-OPLL, ROC curve of occupying ratio showed 30% as a predictor for the poor prognosis. Among the 92 patients with occupying ratio ≤ 30 %, poor prognosis was observed in 5 cases (5.4%), whereas in the 72 cases with occupying ratio > 30 %, poor prognosis was seen in 33 cases (45.8%). Postoperative AIS grade at final follow-up in occupying ratio > 30 % group was significantly worse. Conclusions. Patients suffering from SCIWORA with C-OPLL have poor prognosis when they have higher occupying ratio of ossification mass and spinal cord high signal changes in MRI T2WI. The cut-off value of occupying ratio for predicting the poor prognosis was 30% in patients with SCIWORA associated with C-OPLL.