Search

This study to analyze the clinical characteristics of patients with invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) following influenza A (H1N1) infection. We retrospectively analyzed 10 cases with IPA following H1N1 infection. The clinical manifestations, laboratory examination results, chest computed tomography, and treatments were analyzed. Clinical manifestations: all 10 cases had typical flu-like symptoms at the onset of the disease, among which 7 patients developed dyspnea in the late stage, and 8 patients had hemoptysis. Laboratory examination: the absolute and percentage of peripheral blood lymphocytes in all 10 patients were declined, among which 5 cases were with decreased CD3+ CD4+ T cells/lymphocytes; 9 cases with increased bronchoalveolar lavage fluid galactomannan; 6 cases with increased serum galactomannan; 1 case with bronchoalveolar lavage fluid cultured aspergillus fumigatus; and 2 cases with aspergillus by second-generation sequencing. Chest computed tomography: all patients showed multiple diffused ground-glass opacities at the beginning, along with linear or reticular interstitial changes. Two cases had multiple subarachnoid nodules with halo signs, 3 cases had consolidation in multiple segments of both lungs, 2 cases had cavities, and 4 cases were with pleural effusion. Treatment: 10 patients were treated with antiviral and anti-Aspergillus drugs after admission. Four patients received respiratory support. All 10 cases were cured and discharged. Early diagnosis of IPA in influenza A (H1N1) patients is the key to successful treatment.

Objective To identify male infertility-related long non-coding (lnc)RNAs and an lncRNA-related competing endogenous (ce)RNA network. Methods Expression data including 13 normospermic and eight teratozoospermic samples from postmortem donors were downloaded from the GEO database (GSE6872). The limma R package was used to discriminate dysregulated lncRNA and micro (m)RNA profiles. Gene ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analyses of differentially expressed (DE) mRNAs were performed using the clusterProfiler R package. The ceRNA network of dysregulated genes was visualized by Cytoscape. Results A total of 101 DE lncRNAs and 1722 mRNAs were identified as male infertility-specific RNAs with thresholds of |log2FoldChange| >2.0 and adjusted P-value Conclusion This provides a novel perspective to study lncRNA-related ceRNA networks in male infertility and assist in identifying new potential biomarkers for diagnostic purposes.

Altered microRNA expression has been found to be a common feature of several cancers, including lung carcinomas. However, the possible roles of miR-768-3p in the pathological changes of lung carcinomas are still unknown. The aim of the present study was to investigate the expression and possible effects of miR-768-3p in human non-small cell lung carcinomas (NSCLC). Eighty-three NSCLC patients attending the clinic of Kunming Hospital were invited to participate in the study. Their tumor samples were obtained for qRT-PCR analysis. Human NSCLC cell lines, A549 and HCC4006, were employed and transfected with either miR-768-3p mimics or miR-768-3p antagomir. Following transfection, the in vitro and in vivo proliferation, apoptosis fractions, migration and invasion of NSCLC cells were evaluated. The data revealed that: i) upregulated miR-768-3p in tumors were associated with the clinicopathological features of NSCLC patients; ii) inhibiting miR-768-3p function by miR-768-3p antagomir induced distinctly apoptosis and Fas/FasL expressional alteration of NSCLC cells; iii) miR-768-3p antagomir transduction also decreased the viability, migration and invasion, as well as MMP-2 and MMP-9 activities in A549 and HCC4006 cells; and iv) miR-768-3p antagomir transfection also inhibited the growth and proliferation of NSCLC xenografts in nude mice. The present results suggested that abnormal elevated miR-768-3p in NSCLC tumors and cell lines played important roles in NSCLC carcinogenic progression, and the targeting of miR-768-3p might be a potential therapeutic strategy for the treatment of NSCLC.

It is of great significance to analyze habitable suitability of genuine medicinal materials for Chinese herbal medicine planting according to local environment,for medicinal resources protecting and for reasonable planning introduction. Based on GIS technology,the analytic hierarchy process was applied to analyze the spatial differentiation of habitat suitability of Angelica dahurica in Yanting county of Sichuan province. The evaluation combined local geographical environment characteristics and habitat requirements for A. dahurica planting and adopted the expert experience method to screen out the evaluation index for establishing evaluation system.With the established evaluation system,the index weight of evaluating index was determined by analytic hierarchy process and their grouping values were assigned by Delphi method. The all evaluating index were translated into index distribution maps using Arc GIS software. Using the comprehensive factor weighted evaluating model and spatial index distribution map,the evaluation was obtained by means of the overlay analysis function of Arc GIS 10. 3 software. RESULTS:: showed that A. dahurica had a wide range of suitable planting areas in Yanting county. Highly suitable areas amounted to 165. 01 km2,and mainly distributed in the low hilly area with moderate elevation and fertile soil. Moderately suitable areas amounted to 798. 92 km2 which had extensive distribution in middle and west part of the county. Marginally suitable areas amounted to 0. 33 km2,where the soil was highly viscous with high altitude and low temperature that was not conducive to the growth and development of A. dahurica. Adapting to local conditions and scientific planning plays an important role in the development of local characteristic planting industry of genuine medicinal materials.

Surface engineering of polymeric membranes can induce subtle changes in membrane properties and enhance their performance. Numerous membrane surface modification methods have been developed to improve the material performance. However, these methods can be complex, thus limiting their practical applications. Herein, we present a simple method for fabricating membranes with honeycomb surfaces by controlling the polymer molecular weight (Mw). Spirobisindane-based intrinsically microporous poly(ether-ether-ketone) (iPEEK-SBI) homopolymers with low and high Mws were synthesized and used to prepare organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) membranes. The significant effects of polymer Mw on its physical properties, membrane morphology, and OSN performance were systematically investigated. iPEEK showed excellent solution processability, high Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area, and remarkable thermal stability. Three mechanically flexible OSN membranes exhibiting honeycomb surfaces with different honeycomb cell sizes were prepared using iPEEK-SBI homopolymers with low Mws at concentrations of 27–39 wt% in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone. By contrast, the use of iPEEK-SBI homopolymers with high Mws yielded membranes with flat surfaces. The Mw cutoffs of the membranes were fine-tuned in the range of 408–772 g mol−1 by adjusting the dope solution concentration. Although the Mw cutoffs were unaffected by polymer Mw, the membranes derived from the polymer with low Mw exhibited substantially higher solvent permeance (18%–26%) than that of the high Mw membrane prepared at the same dope solution concentration. Stable performance was demonstrated over seven days of continuous cross-flow filtration and a six-month aging of the membranes. This work shows the importance of surface engineering for OSN membranes by adjusting polymer Mw. These findings open a new avenue for fine-tuning the properties of OSN membranes.

Creating membranes with engineered surface features has been shown to reduce membrane fouling and increase flux. Surface feature patterns can be created by several means, such as thermal embossing with hard stamps, template-based micromolding, and printing. It has been proposed that the patterns create enhanced mixing and irregular fluid flow that increases mass transfer of solutes away from the membrane. The main objective of this paper is to explore whether enhanced mixing and improved mass transfer actually do take place for reverse osmosis (RO) membranes operated in laminar flow conditions typical of full-scale applications. We analyzed velocity, concentration, shear stress, and concentration polarization (CP) profiles for flat, nanopatterned, and micropatterned membranes using computational fluid dynamics. Our methods coupled the calculation of fluid flow with solute mass transport, rather than imposing a flux, as has often been done in other studies. A correlation between Sherwood number and mass-transfer coefficient for flat membranes was utilized to help characterize the hydrodynamic conditions. These results were in good agreement with the numerical simulations, providing support for the modeling results. Models with flat, several line and groove patterns, rectangular and circular pillars, and pyramids were explored. Feature sizes ranged from zero (flat) to 512 μm. The ratio of feature length, between-feature distance, and feature height was 1:1:0.5. Results indicate that patterns greatly affected velocity, shear stress, and concentration profiles. Lower shear stress was observed in the valleys between the pattern features, corresponding to the higher concentration region. Some vortices were generated in the valleys, but these were low-velocity flow features. For all of the patterned membranes CP was between 1% and 64% higher than the corresponding flat membrane. It was found that pattern roughness correlated with boundary layer thickness and thus the patterns with higher roughness caused lower mass transfer of solute away from the surface. Rather than enhancing mixing to redistribute solute, the patterns accumulated solute in valleys and behind surface features. Despite the elevated CP, the nominal permeate flux increased by as much as 40% in patterned membranes due to higher surface area compared to flat membranes. The advantageous results seen in other studies where patterns have helped increase flux may be caused by the additional surface area that patterns provide.

To investigate the clinical effects of fan-shaped scar flaps for reconstruction of the wounds after auricular keloid core excision.193 auricular keloid lesions in 177 patients were treated. The fan-shaped scar flap, harvested from the surface of the auricle keloid, was clipped into the suitable size. The curved surface of flap was shaped into flat surface to cover the wound after keloid core excision without tension. Adjuvant intralesional injection of corticosteroid was performed intraoperatively and postoperatively.All the flaps survived completely with satisfactory aesthetic results. The effective rate of treatment was 96.4％ (186/193),and the recurrence rate was 3.6％ (7/193).Satisfactory results can be achieved with the fan-shaped scar flap in the reconstruction after auricular keloid core excision. It' s an effective treatment suitable for auricle keloids in different shapes and sizes.

State-space model is an efficient tool for describing multiple input multiple output system, but the parameters identification of state-space model is a complicated problem, because in many cases, the parameters and state variables are all unknown in the model. Aiming at the shortcomings of the traditional identification method, in this paper, combined the unknown parameters and state variables of the state space model into a new state variable, then the linear state space model equation can be transformed into a nonlinear equation, and extended Kalman filtering(EKF) algorithm is used to estimate the new state variables. In this way, we can implement double estimates of the unknown parameters and state variables. Doing simulation and analysis with Matlab, the results show that the method can realize parameter identification and state estimation of state-space model effectively, which has higher precision and accuracy.

Premise of the study: Polymorphic microsatellite markers were developed to reveal the genetic diversity of extant populations and the mating system of Sinowilsonia henryi (Hamamelidaceae). Methods and Results: In this study, nuclear simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were developed using the Illumina high-throughput sequencing technique (RNA-Seq). The de novo–assembled transcriptome generated a total of 64,694 unique sequences with an average length of 601 bp. A total of 2941 microsatellite loci were detected. Of the 121 tested loci, 13 loci were polymorphic and eight were monomorphic among 72 individuals representing three natural populations of the species. The number of alleles per locus ranged from one to four, and the observed and expected heterozygosity at population level were 0.00–1.00 and 0.10–0.66, respectively. Conclusions: The developed expressed sequence tag (EST)–SSRs will be useful for studying genetic diversity of S. henryi as well as assessing the mating system among Sinowilsonia species.

To evaluate the behavior of the advanced unbonded pre-stressed concrete containment vessel (UPCCV) for one typical China nuclear power plant under Japan’s March 11 earthquake, five nonlinear time history analysis and a nonlinear static analysis of a 1:10 scale UPCCV structure have been carried out with MSC.MARC finite element program. Comparisons between the analytical and experimental results demonstrated that the developed finite element model can predict the earthquake behavior of the UPCCV with fair accuracy. The responses of the 1:10 scale UPCCV subjected to the 11 March 2011 Japan earthquakes recorded at the MYG003 station with the peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 781 gal and at the MYG013 station with the PGA of 982 gal were predicted by the dynamic analysis. Finally, a static analysis was performed to seek the ultimate load carrying capacity for the 1:10 scale UPCCV. Keywords: earthquake; concrete containment vessel; unbounded tendon; nonlinear time history; finite element analysis

To study the biaxial strength and failure characteristics of reinforced concrete in the state of biaxial tension-compression stresses and provide some suggestions for the practical engineering design, 3 one-third scale reinforced concrete (RC) plate specimens are tested. The results indicate that, in biaxial tension-compression stresses, reinforced concrete cracks in the direction normal to the principal tensile stress direction and presents the characteristics of shear failure modes. The test device could simulate the required stress condition. The compression strength of reinforced concrete is obviously lower than the uniaxial strength fc. The reduction factor k is about 0.55~0.75 which varies with different tension-compression force ratio. Concrete material takes part in the tension process of reinforced concrete and shares part of the tension, while the share ratio decreases as concrete cracks gradually.

"Adversity" is one primary element that impacts the pharmacology components of authentic Chinese herbal medicine. Knowledge about "adversity" is a precondition of yield estimation, quality monitoring, location selection and the geo-herbalism protection. Used 3S(GIS, RS and GPS) technology to combine multi-source key ecological factors of "Anling", and used parasitic relationships between organisms to extracting its suitable region for the first time. Results showed that the "Anling" were mainly distributed in Dabie coteau. Suitable area amount to 36.8 km², Yuexi, Shucheng, Jinzhai and Qianshan which account for about 93.55% of whole congenial region. The first three accounts for about 80.82%. It was Yuexi that account for 1/3 above especially. Field investigation verify accuracy of extraction about 91.67%, which has confirmed it is feasible that using the relationship between parasitic host and parasitic to extract native environment of parasitic traditional medicine based on 3S technology.

The efficiency of zero-valent iron particles used in the remediation of contaminated groundwater has, with the emergence of nanotechnology, stimulated interest on the use of nano-size particles to take advantage of high-specific surface area and reactivity characteristics of nanoparticles (NPs). Accordingly, engineered iron-NPs are among the most widely used nanomaterials for in situ remediation. However, while several ecotoxicity studies have been conducted to investigate the adverse impacts of these NPs on aquatic organisms, research on the implications of spent iron-based NPs is lacking. In this study, a comparative approach is used, in which the biological effects of three iron-based NPs (Fe3O4 and γ-Fe2O3 NPs with particle sizes ranging from 20 to 50 nm, and Fe0-NPs with an average particle size of 40 nm) on Raphidocelis subcapitata (formely known as Pseudokirchneriella subcapitata) and Daphnia magna were investigated using both as-prepared and pollutant-doped Fe-based NPs. For the latter, arsenic (As) was used as example sorbed pollutant. The results show that improved degree of NP dispersion by use of polyvinylpyrrolidone overlapped with both increased arsenic adsorption capacity and toxicity to the tested organisms. For R. subcapitata, Fe-oxide NPs were more toxic than Fe0-NPs, due primarily to differences in the degree of NPs aggregation and ability to produce reactive oxygen species. For the invertebrate D. magna, a similar trend of biological responses was observed, except that sorption of As to Fe0-NPs significantly increased the toxic response when compared to R. subcapitata. Overall, these findings point to the need for research on downstream implications of NP-pollutant complexes generated during water treatment by injection of NPs into aquatic systems.

A nonlinear analysis program based on fiber model was developed and used in analyzing the flexural behavior of steel reinforced concrete (SRC) columns under axial and bilateral loading. Concrete different confinement levels for different zones in a SRC column section, such as cover concrete zone, stirrup confined concrete zone and steel confined concrete zone, etc., can be considered. Some SRC tested specimens were simulated using the developed program. It was pointed out that the flexural capacity will be lower-estimated if the concrete confinement was neglected.

There are a large number of acceleration records obtained in the near fault strong motion of Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, which greatly enriched the database of strong motion. By the classification analysis to Sichuan records and comparison with the domestic and international earthquakes analysis, we draw the following conclusions: 1) whether parallel or perpendicular direction, the peaks of soil are greater than rock. With the fault distance increasing, the gap between the two gradually will minish.2) With the increase in the number of peaks obtained, the correlation coefficient of GPGA or LGPA is generally increasing.3) The mean of R is respectively 8.10(rock), 10.31(soil), 10.10(total) in the usual range.4). The average of λ is respectively 0.5862(rock), 0.5707(soil), 0.5722(total), they are between 1/2 and 2/3. The difference is not large.

This paper presents several methods usually used for measuring cable tension in cable-stayed bridges, especially frequency vibration method. Taken two different length stay-cables under given tension forces in a real cable-stayed bridge as an example, different modeling methods in finite element methods (FEM) were used to solve their natural vibration frequencies. The results by FEM were compared with those from other available theoretical predicting method. It was found that FEM based on tightening string model is more suitable for a long stay-cable. For a short stay-cable under given tension force, beam bending stiffness can be ignored in predicting its first five natural frequencies using a hinged beam model in FEM. While the predicted lower frequency using clamped beam FEM model is more accurate and reasonable.

Steel braces are widely used in seismic retrofit of buildings. However, their tendency of buckling under compression impairs their efficacy. In this paper, characteristics of a cross bracing with rigid intersection, including its bearing capacity, hysteretic property and fracture ductility are investigated. With the analysis results, performance-based design requirements of a steel cross bracing are proposed based on its width-thickness ratio and effective slenderness ratio.

The aim of this paper is to provide some basis for the design and assembly of a rod-fastened rotor with Hirth coupling. The rod-fastened rotor is comprised of a series of discs clamped together by a central tie rod or several tie rods on the pitch circle diameter. The key difference between a rod-fastened rotor and an integrated one is the existence of contact interfaces. The contact status of contact interface in the rod-fastened rotor is the key concern for accurate rotor dynamic analysis. Therefore, the method of accurately describing the slippage status and contact status is presented in this paper. The approach of eliminating the slippage and making the radial contact pressure distribution more uniform is also presented. According to the characteristics of Hirth coupling, one model of a turbine end rotor with Hirth coupling of a heavy duty gas turbine was built. The three-dimensional finite element contact method and non-linear behaviors such as friction were also taken into account. The effect of pre-tightening forces, centrifugal forces and overhung rim lengths on the radial slippage including initial radial slippage usi and dynamic radial slippage usd of contact interface was determined. A dimensionless coefficient cr was also defined to describe the radial contact pressure distribution of contact interface which was influenced by the values of pre-tightening forces, centrifugal forces and wheel rim lengths respectively. The results of Hirth coupling indicate that the initial radial slippage increases with the pre-tightening forces, and for a fixed pre-tightening force, usi decreased with the increase of overhung rim length. In addition, there is an optimum rim length to eliminate the dynamic radial slippage usd produced by the change of the centrifugal force. Through the analysis of contact pressure distribution, we know that the reasonable design of the load relief trough processed in the overhung rim makes the contact pressure distribution more uniform. Finally, the effect of temperature load on the radial slippage and contact pressure distribution was investigated.

In this paper, we propose an intelligent communication scheme for power protection system. The objective is to improve the reliability of power protection system and make sure protective devices accurately trigger protection schemes when system faults occur. We implement the prototype of the proposed scheme and conduct experiments on a set of typical system faults. The experimental results show that our technique can effectively and accurately deal with power system faults.

The prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) in a population aged 15 y or older was high in China, but an immunization strategy for this population was unavailable. We investigated the seroprevalence of hepatitis B and immune response to HBV vaccine in Chinese college students (n = 2040 participants), 11.1%, 80.8%, and 8.1% had confirmed, unknown and no HBV vaccination history, respectively. The seropositive rates for HBsAg, anti-HBs sole and anti-HBs plus anti-HBc were 12.6%, 25.7%, and 30.1%, respectively. The HBsAg seropositive rate was significantly lower in participants with confirmed HBV vaccination history than in those with unknown or no vaccination history (5.3%, 13.6%, and 12.6%, respectively, P = 0.0019). The anti-HBs alone seropositive rate was significantly higher in participants with confirmed HBV vaccination history than in those with unknown or no vaccination history (37.6%, 25.3%, and 13.8%, respectively, P < 0.0001). Participants negative for HBsAg, anti-HBs, and anti-HBc at baseline (n = 600) were given three doses of recombinant HBV vaccine (GlaxoSmithKline) at month 0, 1, and 6. Robust immune response was elicited after two and three doses (seroprotective rate: 91.9% and 99.0%, respectively, and geometric mean concentration [GMC]: 95.8 and 742.6 IU/L, respectively). Fourteen months after the third dose, the anti-HBs seroprotective rate of the group remained more than 97%. The seroprotective rates and GMCs did not differ significantly by vaccination history. This study suggested that three doses of 20 μg HBV vaccine were needed for college students negative for HBsAg, anti-HBs, and anti-HBc to ensure high seroprotective rates and concentrations.

The John Cunningham virus (JCV) infects a large proportion of the population worldwide and may cause progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy upon immunodeficiency. Recent reports provided evidence of its oncogenetic role in malignancies. In this study, JCV was examined by targeting T antigen, viral protein and agnoprotein in paraffin-embedded or frozen gastrointestinal carcinomas and paired non-neoplastic mucosa (NNM) samples by nested-PCR followed by Southern blot analysis. In addition, the expression of JCV T antigen, ki-67, caspase-3, p53, Rb and β-catenin was studied by immunohistochemistry on tissue microarrays. The positive rate of JCV T antigen was higher in paraffin-embedded gastrointestinal carcinomas compared to adjacent NNM by nested-PCR followed by Southern blot analysis (36.9 vs. 16.9%, P0.05). In conlusion, JCV T antigen may be involved in gastrointestinal carcinogenesis as an oncogene in China.

We have proposed a document representation model based on query and content, this model uses users’ query behavior and content information of documents for representing document. The pragmatic information from users’ implicit feedback and the semantic and syntactic information from documents are integrated to dynamically regulate the term-weight of index database. In this paper, our document representation model is applied to website search engine and the key parameters of this model are determined by experiments. The results show that this model can consequently improve precision ratio in information retrieval.

A new route for preparing benzoylformic acid (phenylglyoxylic acid) was studied by benzene as the starting material after Friedel-Crafts reaction with acetic anhydride, oximation by isopropyl nitrite, then hydrolysis by hydrochloric acid and sodium nitrite. Calculated on the basis of acetophenone, the final yield is 57.5%. The suitable experimental conditions were also discussed.

Human Vocational College of Science and Technology, Changsha 410118, P. R. China E-mail : jiangyr@mail.csu.edu.cn, klhuang@mail.csu.edu.cn Fax : 86-731-8879850 College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, P. R. China Manuscript received 11 August 2006. revised 4 December 2007, accepted 29 January 2008 A new route for preparing benzoylformic acid (phenylglyoxylic acid) was studied by benzene as the starting material after Friedel-Crafts reaction with acetic anhydride, oximation by isopropyl nitrite, then hydrolysis by hydrochloric acid and sodium nitrite. Calculated on the basis of acetophenone, the final yield is 57 .5%. The suitable experimental conditions were also discussed.