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To evaluate the diagnostic performance of a new two-dimensional shear wave speed (SWS) imaging (i.e. Toshiba shear wave elastography, T-SWE) in differential diagnosis of breast lesions. 225 pathologically confirmed breast lesions in 218 patients were subject to conventional ultrasound and T-SWE examinations. The mean, standard deviation and ratio of SWS values (m/s) and elastic modulus (KPa) on T-SWE were computed. Besides, the 2D elastic images were classified into four color patterns. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve analysis was performed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of T-SWE in differentiation of breast lesions. Compared with other quantitative T-SWE parameters, mean value expressed in KPa had the highest AUROC value (AUROC = 0.943), with corresponding cut-off value of 36.1 KPa, sensitivity of 85.1%, specificity of 96.6%, accuracy of 94.2%, PPV of 87.0%, and NPV of 96.1%. The AUROC of qualitative color patterns in this study obtained the best performance (AUROC = 0.957), while the differences were not significant except for that of Eratio expressed in m/s (AUROC = 0.863) (P = 0.03). In summary, qualitative color patterns of T-SWE obtained the best performance in all parameters, while mean stiffness (36.05 KPa) provided the best diagnostic performance in the quantitative parameters.

Due to the emergence of social media in the field of Internet , the structure of tourism as well as its developing pattern has changed a lot, the application of social media enabled the tourists who can take part in more traveling information to exchange ideas. It also can influence the character of the traditional traveling consumers' behavior by the subtle changes in tourism. In this paper, with the analysis of the consumer's behaving habits of using social network platform, it explored the influential factors that contributed to the tourism enterprises, which can be beneficial for making the traveling decisions through the social networks platform.

This paper establish the function relationship between various parameters based on the study of the hydraulic pump and the dynamic characteristics. Through the establishment of transfer function is pull transform and the analysis of the characteristics of the transfer function of accumulator absorbing pressure pulsation actual effect. On the basis of further analysis, the improved method of effective volume of the accumulator, designed for fault detection and improve the system to provide a reliable basis.

Acquiring causal knowledge of abnormity is essential to Missile-Launching reliably. There are lots of Knowledge Acquisition methods. But it is absence for usage and maintenance support process. So it is necessary to start the research on new knowledge acquisition technology of aid Decision-Making for Missile-Launching. Based on the Usage and Maintenance-Support Process, this thesis acquires knowledge with the ESD and CESD (Converse Event Sequence Diagram) method. First, this thesis gives the concept of CESD. Then, in order to adapt the CESD model of the complex systems more effectively, this paper expands the CESD framework and provides a software frame of computer aided ESD study. Finally, the operation of pulse power supply system is analyzed on the basis of the improved ESD and CESD. This sample shows the applicability of ESD and CESD methodology in knowledge acquisition technology of aid Decision-Making for Missile-Launching.

Aiming at the actual demand of complex equipment fault diagnosis, this paper made the fault intelligent diagnosis technology of a certain type of equipment as research object, analyzed the characteristics of equipment and its faults, presented four strategy to solve the problem: Circuit-decomposition, the decision tree, confirm key component using FMECA and establish model by PSPICE.And proving it by actual circuit.

For the problems like discreteness, tolerance, non-linear of the parts, acquiring the fault knowledge of analog system in electric equipment is hard. This method realized the process of KA automatization through the combination of PSPICE software and C language and taking command lines as combining site. Using the batch file, the programs will form some topological information and parameter information about the fault states of a circuit system each time. The result of a experiment about an Basic Transistor Amplifier circuit proves its feasibility.

Based on the theory of electromagnetic compatibility, in view of the automatic loading control system, and carries on the EMC design, analyzed the sensitive circuit part of the principle and method of EMC design, mainly includes the power supply part, CPU control chip, the digital interface circuit and D/A conversion circuit protective measures.

Aim at work process complications, high break down incidence rate and break down diagnosis difficulty of current automatic loading control system, this text designed a set of new automatic loading control system which combined the advantage of the Rough Set - Neural Network to diagnose the automatic loading system.The system used LPC2294 as main control chip and additional other function units to complete hardware electric circuit design and software procedure exploit development of automatic loading system.The system made use of VS2008 to design the place of honor machine to show interface and passed the correspondence of a string of completion place of honor machine and control system, this system automatically packed to fill system to provide a new way of thinking at present for improvement.

In order to decrease the exhaust of the switch of inverter bridge arm, the auxiliary resonant net was imbed in the circuit structure which lead to cost ascension and credibility descend. This text discusses to design a DC/AC converter based on simplex single voltage source high frequency chain inversion technology, the output is 0.9KW/115V/400Hz.The pulse direct current voltage has been created by forward circuit and absorption branch which is controlled by voltage feedback in the input terminal of inverter bridge arm. The soft-switch of inverter bridge arm using DPM has been realized by controlling open or close of switch electric circuit on the invert bridge arm at pulse voltage for zero stages. It is not adding topology complicated degree of main circuit which could assure the reliability of the inverter.

In an Elevator Group Control System (EGCS), the analysis and prediction of elevator traffic can improve service quality and system performance. For this purpose, we propose a new hybrid approach to analyze and predict elevator passenger flow. In this approach, nonlinear analysis methods are used to reveal the internal dynamic characteristics of passenger flow time series collected from an office building. The results suggest that passenger flow has obvious fractal and chaos characteristics. Based on these characteristics, the support vector machine (SVM) method and fuzzy information granulation (FIG) method are employed to predict passenger flow. The simulation results suggest that the accuracy of passenger flow prediction can meet the identification requirements of elevator traffic patterns in an EGCS. Therefore, the proposed approach can effectively address the passenger flow analysis and prediction problems of office buildings and the results can be used as a foundation for practical application in an EGCS.

Design a DC/AC converter based on simplex single voltage source high frequency pulse DC loop technology, the output is 115V400Hz, 0.9KVA and the input is three phase alternating current. The forward part is DC/DC converter which provides pulse D.C. to the back part DC/AC converter. Implement soft-switch by changing the on-off state of switching tubes on the inversion arm path at the zero-voltage instant of the pulse direct current, no need of the auxiliary resonant net. The system takes three-state DPM current hysteresis control mode, gets good performance on output wave and efficiency.

Low voltage ride through (LVRT) is regarded as one of the biggest challenges in photovoltaic grid equipments designing, manufacturing and control technology. The fast and accurate automatic phase locked control is the premise to achieve photovoltaic grid low voltage ride through. Considering that the traditional phase locked loop method is difficult to adapt the performance requirements of low voltage ride through (LVRT) in three-phase three-wire photovoltaic grid system, this paper presents a new three-phase unbalanced phase locked loop method. Improved second order generalized integral orthogonal signal generator (SOGI-OSG) is used for line voltage detection; Synchronous reference frame for phase locked loop (SRF-PLL) is used for line voltage phase locked and phase angle detection; Heron formula and Sine theorem is adopted to calculate the three-phase phase voltage amplitude and phase angle. Research results show that when grid voltage dips, this phase locked loop method can detect the fault signal accurately. It provides a technical support for photovoltaic grid low voltage ride through system.

For the characteristics of a new elevator twin elevator with multiple objectives and uncertainty of group control system ,this work proposed a method of twin elevator group optimization dispatching based on genetic algorithm (GA). On the basis of the analysis of structure characteristics of twin elevator, by means of putting twin elevator running rules into the multi-objective control strategy, the method constructed objective function for twin elevator group; the method utilized GA for the simulation of twin elevator group optimization dispatching, and compared it with the minimum waiting time algorithm. Research results show that the method is able to adapt to the running characteristics of twin elevator, and different traffic flow pattern. Compared with the ones of the minimum waiting time algorithm, average waiting time, long waiting time incidence and the numbers of elevator stops of genetic algorithm are all significantly reduced. Consequently, this method has a strong ability to adapt, and provides a theoretical basis for engineering application of twin elevator group control system.

A new method for electronic circuit fault knowledge automatic generation Using PSpice has been put forward based on summarizing development of the intelligent fault diagnosis technology. A new algorithm of generating fault knowledge automatically has been designed by analysing the structure characteristics of the CIR file. The algorithm of search automatically has been designed by analysing the structure characteristic of the OUT file. The DC fault dictionary method has been improved and the fault order according to the minimum distance will guide the user to remove the fault. In the end, through these technologies, the fault knowledge query system has been empoldered. The feasibility of the proposed method has been proved by experiment results.

For armored vehicles electrical system fault diagnosis of fault original data collection difficult situation, a new intelligent computing programs designed based on the fuzzy set theory and possibility distribution theory and fuzzy logic reasoning design, which realized the process of KA automatization through the combination of fault simulation technology and knowledge acquisition technology. The approach presented in this paper makes the work of knowledge acquisition (KA) engineer easier, and makes fast diagnosis fault location and fault reasons possible.

On the analysis of the development situation of the ETC home and abroad, CC2431 wireless location function is used in the high speed highway ETC system to realize data transmission between network centre node and terminal node safely, Record passing information of the vehicle terminal by the wireless data transmission between the coordinator and vehicle terminal. A weighted centroid position algorithm is introduced to meet the position accuracy. The test results of the wireless communication between vehicle terminal and coordinator show that CC2431 wireless position system can realize vehicle omnibearing position and real time monitor in the super-speed highway.

In this paper, a terminal sliding mode (TSM) controller is designed for boost converter with purpose of robustness and better response against circuit nonlinearities and disturbances. Instead of using the commonly used average model or switching model for current-mode controlled (CMC) boost converter, a novel energy storage function (ESF) model is proposed for TSM controller, which contains all of the nonlinear elements of inductor current and capacitor voltage and further converges the both to the zero, unlike the CMC control ignoring the transient control of capacitor voltage. By adopting TSM instead of the traditional linear sliding mode (LSM), the system can track the given output voltage with faster response due to its finite time convergence. Meanwhile, an exponential reaching law is designed for TSM controller to eliminate the unexpected chattering phenomenon. Simulation results with comparison of the traditional CMC LSM control can prove the better control performance of the proposed scheme.

The present study aimed to investigate the capabilities of the cardiovascular virtual endoscopy (VE) system in diagnosing tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) and performing measurements. A total of 37 patients underwent two-dimensional echocardiography (2-DE) and multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) examinations. The obtained MDCT images were applied to a cardiovascular VE system. Diagnostic time by VE was first studied and compared with MDCT. Subsequently, with surgical findings as the ground truth, the capabilities of VE, 2-DE and MDCT in diagnosing TOF and its complications were investigated. Additionally, measurements on aorta overriding ratio and diameters for the left pulmonary artery, right pulmonary artery and right ventricular outflow tract by 2-DE and VE were analyzed. Diagnostic time by VE was significantly shorter than MDCT (188±42 vs. 303±42 sec, respectively; P0.05). Similar findings were demonstrated in diagnosing complications of the muscular ventricular septal defects, patent ductus arteriosus, vagus subclavian artery, right arch, double superior vena cava and pulmonary artery. Furthermore, in diagnosing the atrial septal defect, 2-DE outperformed MDCT and VE (accuracy, 100 vs. 81 vs. 73%, respectively; all P

To evaluate the rate of overexpression of matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP2), mouse double minute 2 homolog (MDM2) and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), and evaluate their correlation with clinicopathological parameters and prognosis.This was a prospective cohort study conducted from 2003 to 2008 among 184 NSCLC patients who underwent tumor resection. Each patient's clinical history and tumor characteristics were obtained from histopathology reports and medical records. EGFR, MDM2 and MMP2 expression were assessed by immunohistochemical (IHC) staining of the tissue specimens.MDM2 overexpression was observed in 70 (38%) of the patients studied, and was significantly higher in younger patients (p=0.01). Only 46 (25%) of patients had overexpression of MMP2. EGFR positive staining occurred in 105 (57%percnt;) of the evaluated tumor specimens and was more frequent in specimens with squamous cell carcinoma (p0.001), the elderly (p0.001), and in smokers (p0.001). Independent risk factors for mortality were older age (adjusted odds ratio/aOR 1.3=), being a smoker (aOR 10), having stage II disease (aOR 10.8) or stage III/IV disease (aOR 28.3), expression of EGFR (aOR 5.9) and MMP2 (aOR 4.1). However, the expression of MDM2 independently predicted a reduced risk of death (aOR 0.3).Overexpression of MMP2 and EGFR were independent risk factors for mortality in NSCLC patients, while overexpression of MDM2 independently predicted a reduced risk of death.

With the development of monitoring camera and the update of hardware, the processing of video data is becoming more and more. It is an important topic to detect the event in the video data and analyze its intrinsic relationship in order to form a semantic description. Complex event detection in video includes detection of video events, description of target features, and finding the concept of semantic. Based on the hypergraph theory, this paper put forward the characteristics of the construction of track and multi label hypergraph description of the moving target, and classification of video events. The experimental results show that, in comparison with other methods including ordinary graph based method and hypergraph based multi-label semi-supervised learning method, our method achieves better average precision and average recall when detecting complex events.

With the development of computer technology, video event detection is becoming more and more important part of Recognition Pattern. Video event detection is the process of describing, identifying, classifying and interpreting the Objects or phenomena in the video. Finally across the underlying semantic gap, get high-level semantic concept. This paper improves the hypergraph partitioning theory, for the classification of the video events. The graph transformation tool AGG is used to conduct experiments in order to evaluate the accuracy of hypergraph method, a good result is obtained.

In recent years, equity incentive have appeared some problems such as that earnings fail to offset incentive costs in its process of rapid development. Panel data from 2010 to 2014 of 48 listing enterprises in Chinese energy industry was chosen in this paper, and used to research the influence of equity incentive to the reliability of accounting information, which was based on earnings management and choice behavior theory. And the result tells that, when carrying out equity incentives, measures are taken by executives under the guidance of self-interested behavior, and this lowers the reliability levels of accounting information. Index Terms - Equity incentives, Reliability of accounting information, control of earnings, Electric power enterprise

Reaction of a ZnI2 solution in CH3OH/H2O with a solution of L in DMF gave rise to a novel 3D supramolecular compound [ZnI2L(CH3OH)(H2O)2]n based on 1D wavy chain. The crystal structural analysis indicated that the complex crystallized in a monoclinic space group C2/c, a = 29.381(6), b = 13.021(3), c = 13.959(3), β = 102.48(3), V = 5214.0(18) A3, Z = 8. The complex possessed a 3-D supramolecular framework formed by intermolecular hydrogen bonding among 1D wavy chains.

The aim of this study is to identify the effects of interleukin-1 receptor-associated kinase-4 (IRAK-4) gene silencing on human osteoblast-like cells. The siRNA sequences of the target gene, IRAK-4, were constructed and transferred into MG63 cells (control group = MG63 cells; SC group = MG63 cells transfected with scrambled IRAK-4 siRNA; KD group = MG63 cells transfected with 75 nM IRAK-4 siRNA). The morphological changes, cell growth, cell-cycle progression, apoptosis, and the expression of various cytokines and proteins were compared. Compared with the control and SC groups, IRAK-4 gene silencing in MG63 cells caused morphological changes, inhibited growth, altered the cell-cycle distribution, increased apoptosis (p0.05), decreased bone alkaline phosphatase and osteocalcin levels (p0.05), and decreased protein expression of Bcl-2/Bax and Bcl-2, p-JNK1/2, p-ERK1/2, and p-p38MAPK (p0.05). The results indicated that IRAK-4 gene silencing in MG63 cells inhibited cell proliferation and function and increase apoptosis, which may be related to the decreased Bcl-2/Bax ratio and inhibition of the protein expression of various components of the mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways. The results of this study may help improve the understanding of the relationship between IRAK-4 and osteoblast-like cells and the interactions between various cytokines in the periprosthetic inflammatory environment.

The operations of data set, such as intersection, union and complement, are the fundamental calculation in mathematics. It's very significant that designing fast algorithm for set operation. In this paper, the quantum algorithm for calculating intersection set $${\text{C}=\text{A}\cap \text{B}}$$ is presented. Its runtime is $${O\left( {\sqrt{\left| A \right|\times \left| B \right|\times \left|C \right|}}\right)}$$ for case $${\left| C \right|\neq \phi}$$ and $${O\left( {\sqrt{\left| A \right|\times \left| B \right|}}\right)}$$ for case $${\left| C \right|=\phi}$$ (i.e. C is empty set), while classical computation needs O (|A| ? |B|) steps of computation in general, where |.| denotes the size of set. The presented algorithm is the combination of Grover's algorithm, classical memory and classical iterative computation, and the combination method decrease the complexity of designing quantum algorithm. The method can be used to design other set operations as well.

With progress making in the art of industrial fields, control methods for synchronized multi-motor systems get more and more extensive applications, and there are increasingly high requirements for synchronous controllers. In this paper, a new control method for multi-axis drive systems is proposed, an adjacent-coupling algorithm based synchronization control strategy is designed, and a CMAC neural network based controller is developed. Simulation results show good performance of synchronization control accuracy, interference immunity, and convergence for the suggested synchronous controller

Satellite-based is a very complex system, including of many subsystems involving space, channel, ground, command and so on. The simulation system must rely on the joint co-simulation. Based on HLA (High-Level Architecture) system standard, from the perspective of distributed simulation, a simple satellite design schema was introduced in this article, which can achieve a joint multi-system co-simulation.

A novel, water-soluble 20-hydroxylecdysono-20,22-phosphoric acid 2 and its sodium salt 3 were designed and synthesized from 20-hydroxylecdysone 1 in six steps and with 67% overall yield. The synthesized phosphoric acid 2 exhibited hypoglycemic activity >40-fold more potent than that of 20-hydroxylecdysone 1 at concentrations between 2 × 10− 7 and 2 × 10− 8 mol/l in a glucose consumption test in HepG2 cells. At a concentration of 2 × 10− 9 mol/l, phosphoric acid 2 was still active, causing a maximum increase in glucose consumption of more than 500%, while 20-hydroxylecdysone 1 was inactive.

The Pspice which is a simulation circuit simulation software is powerful, but the graphics are still defects, and MATLAB can make up for the shortcomings. In this paper, on the basis of analyzing the characteristics of the Pspice software output file created in the MATLAB M file, the method based on multi-resolution analysis to extract the fault feature, can solve the problem of the data transmission between the two, and example verification.

The friction between the die and workpiece plays an important role in determining the quality of the finished products during the hot deformation. Based on the experimental results, a rigid-viscoplastic finite element model was made to study the effects of friction conditions on the strain distribution and microstructural evolution in high strength low alloy steel during hot upsetting process. Also, the effects of friction conditions on the forging loadings and shape geometry of the deformed specimen were also investigated. The results show that: (1) the deformation of specimen is inhomogeneous, and the degree of deformation inhomogeneity decreases with the increase of friction coefficient; (2) the dynamic recrystallization volume fraction decreases with the increase of friction coefficient; (3) the distribution of the average grain size is inhomogeneous in the deformed specimen, and the average grain size increase as the friction coefficient is increased; (5) the effects of friction conditions on the peak forging loading and shape geometry of the deformed specimen are significant.

Two copper complexes of 4′-p-tolyl-2,2′:6′,2′-terpyridine (ttpy), namely, monomer [Cu II (ttpy)Cl2] (1) and trinuclear complex [Cu II (ttpy)Cl2]. [Cu II Cu I (ttpy)Cl3] (2), were prepared through solvothermal synthesis and structurally determined by single crystal X-ray diffraction. Compound 1 obtained by another way before was firstly solvothermally synthesized and structurally investigated herein. In 1 metal center Cu2+ ligated by a ttpy molecule and two chloride ions is in a distorted square pyramidal geometry. However, complex 2 is a novel mixed-valent tri-copper complex which contains a monomeric [Cu II (ttpy)Cl2] part being very similar to 1, and a mixed-valent chloride-bridged di-nuclear [Cu II Cu I (ttpy)Cl3] part, presented interesting co-crystallization behavior.

The coordination polymer, [Cu2(bpp)4Cl2]Cl2, was prepared by self-assembly of benzo[f] [1,10]phenanthroline-6,7-dicarboxylic acid and bpp [bpp = 1,3-bis(4-pyridyl)propane] with CuCl2·2H2O, and determined by X-ray crystallographic diffraction, IR spectrum, and thermal analysis. The complex features a 3-D 4-fold interpenetrated metal–organic framework with diamondoid topology. There are two sets of diamondoid frameworks independently constructed by bpp bridging the same copper centers, and the two sets of diamondoid frameworks interpenetrate one another to form an interesting 4-fold interpenetrating 3-D architecture.

The transcription factor forkhead box D3 (FOXD3), widely studied as a transcriptional repressor in embryogenesis, participates in the carcinogenesis of many cancers. However, the expression pattern and role of FOXD3 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have not been well characterized. We report that FOXD3 is significantly downregulated in NSCLC cell lines and clinical tissues. FOXD3 overexpression significantly inhibits cell growth and results in G1 cell cycle arrest in NSCLC A549 and H1299 cells. In a xenograft tumor model, FOXD3 overexpression inhibits tumor growth and angiogenesis. Remarkably, expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) was reduced in FOXD3 overexpression models both in vitro and in vivo . These findings suggest that FOXD3 plays a potential tumor suppressor role in NSCLC progression and represents a promising clinical prognostic marker and therapeutic target for this disease.

Purpose : To investigate the prognostic implications of plasma fibrinogen and serum C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in tumour resection and survival following successful tumour resection in patients with nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods : One hundred and fifty-three NSCLC patients who underwent surgical resection at a tertiary care hospital from January 2006 through December 2010 were enrolled. Pre-operative serum CRP and plasma fibrinogen levels were measured. The levels of these biomarkers correlated with tumour size and pathologic TNM stage. The possibility of complete resection and associated findings are reported. Results : Plasma fibrinogen (r = 0.381, p = 0.002) and serum CRP (r = 0.471, p < 0.001) levels were positively associated with tumour diameter. Increased levels of these biomarkers were significantly associated with sex, smoking status, histological type, tumour stage, and clinical stage. Partial tumour resection occurred in 28 % (27/95) of patients with an increased plasma fibrinogen level compared to 10 % (6/58) with a normal fibrinogen level (p = 0.008), and in 30 % (29/97) of patients with an increased serum CRP level compared to 11 % (6/56) with a normal CRP level (p = 0.006). Patients with elevated CRP and fibrinogen concentrations demonstrated higher susceptibility to disease advancement and survival compared to patients with normal fibrinogen and CRP levels. Conclusion : Pre-operative functional concentrations of serum CRP and plasma fibrinogen could serve as indicators of tumour resectability wherein a high tumour resection rate is possible in patients with favourable pre-operative levels of these biomarkers. Increased concentrations of serum CRP and plasma fibrinogen are associated with poor overall survival and progression-free survival. Key words : Plasma fibrinogen, serum C-reactive protein, biomarker, non-small cell lung cancer

Background: The aim of this meta-analysis was to compare sensitivities and specificities of fine needle aspiration (FNA) and core needle biopsy (CNB) in the diagnosis of thyroid cancer. Materials and Methods: Articles were screened in Medline, the Cochrane Library, EMBASE and Google Scholar, and subsequently included and excluded based on the patient/problem-intervention-comparison-outcome (PICO) principle. Primary outcome was defined in terms of diagnostic values (sensitivity and specificity) of FNA and CNB for thyroid cancer. Secondary outcome was defined as the accuracy of diagnosis. Compiled FNA and CNB results from the final studies selected as appropriate for meta-analysis were compared with cases for which final pathology diagnoses were available. Statistical analyses were performed for FNA and CNB for all of the selected studies together, and for individual studies using the leave-one-out approach. Results: Article selection and screening yielded five studies for meta-analysis, two of which were prospective and the other three retrospective, for a total of 1,264 patients. Pooled diagnostic sensitivities of FNA and CNB methods were 0.68 and 0.83, respectively, with specificities of 0.93 and 0.94. The areas under the summary ROC curves were 0.905 (±0.030) for FNA and 0.745 (±0.095) for CNB, with no significant difference between the two. No one study had greater influence than any other on the pooled estimates for diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. Conclusions: FNA and CNB do not differ significantly in sensitivity and specificity for diagnosis of thyroid cancer.

Persistent infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major risk factor in the development of hepatocellular carcinoma. The elucidation of the pathogenesis of HCV-associated liver disease is hampered by the absence of an appropriate small animal model. Zebrafish exhibits high genetic homology to mammals, and is easily manipulated experimentally. In this study, we describe the use of a zebrafish model for the analysis of HCV replication mechanisms. As the 5' untranslated region (UTR), the core protein, the non-structural protein 5B (NS5B) and the 3'UTR are essential for HCV replication, we constructed a HCV sub-replicon gene construct including the 4 gene sequences and the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) reporter gene; these genes were transcribed through the mouse hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 (mHNF4) promoter. By microinjection of the subgenomic replicon vector into zebrafish larvae, the virus was easily detected by observing EGFP fluorescence in the liver. The positive core and NS5B signals showed positive expression of the HCV gene construct in zebrafish by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and western blot analysis. Importantly, the negative strand sequence of the HCV subgenomic RNA was detected by RT-PCR and hybridization in situ, demonstrating that the HCV sub-replicon has positive replication activity. Furthermore, the hybridization signal mainly appeared in the liver region of larvae, as detected by the sense probe of the core protein or NS5B, which confirmed that the sub-replicon amplification occurred in the zebrafish liver. The amplification of the sub-replicon caused alterations in the expression of certain genes, which is similar to HCV infection in human liver cells. To verify the use of this zebrafish model in drug evaluation, two drugs against HCV used in clinical practice, ribavirin and oxymatrine, were tested and these drugs showed significant inhibition of replication of the HCV sub-replicon in the larvae. In conclusion, this zebrafish model of HCV may prove to be a novel and simple in vivo model for the study of the mechanisms of HCV replication and may also prove useful in the disovery of new anti-HCV drugs.

Background and objective: It has been shown that macrophages play an important role in the development of severe acute pancreatitis (SAP), and eventually lead to multiple organ failure (MOF). Clodronate-liposome selectively depleted macrophages. This study was to investigate the role of renal macrophage infiltration in acute renal injury in rats with SAP and to evaluate the potential of superparamagnetic iron oxide (SPIO)-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for diagnosis. Methods: Superparamagnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles were prepared by chemical coprecipitation. SPIO-liposomes and SPIO-clodronate-liposomes were prepared by the thin film method. SAP models were prepared by injection of sodium taurocholate into the subcapsular space of rat pancreas. Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into a control group, SAP plus SPIO-liposome (P) group, and SAP plus SPIO-clodronate-containing liposome (T) group. Kidney injury was evaluated by T2-weighted MRI scan. The levels of serum amylase (SAM), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), and serum creatinine (SCr) were measured by an automated enzymatic method. Serum tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Pathological changes in the pancreas and kidney were observed using hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining, while cell apoptosis was detected with terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL) staining. In addition, the macrophage markers (CD68) of the renal tissue were detected with immunohistochemistry. Results: The pathological changes in the pancreas and kidneys of rats in the T group were milder than those in the P group. The MRI signal intensity of the kidneys in the P and T groups was significantly lower than that in the control group. There were significant changes in the two experimental groups (P

The optical constants used in metallic multilayer structures may differ from those measured in air using a two-phase model and thus will affect the design performance of an optical device. To understand the effect better, we used Dove prisms with different refractive indices as the substrates. The spectroscopic ellipsometry method was used to measure directly the optical constants of Ag and Au films which were thermally or electron-beam evaporated on the bottom of the prisms. In this configuration, the optical constants of the films can be measured at the metal-air and metal-substrate interfaces. Upon data reduction, we found that the optical constants of a given film measured at the metal-substrate interface do change with the refractive index of the substrate and differ from those measured at the metal-air interface in both of the Drude and interband transition regions. These results agree with those obtained by other authors in a liquid-contacting situation, and need to be studied in great detail in the future.

The lack of small animal models for hepatitis C virus has impeded the discovery and development of anti-HCV drugs. HCV-IRES plays an important role in HCV gene expression, and is an attractive target for antiviral therapy. In this study, we report a zebrafish model with a biscistron expression construct that can co-transcribe GFP and HCV-core genes by human hepatic lipase promoter and zebrafish liver fatty acid binding protein enhancer. HCV core translation was designed mediated by HCV-IRES sequence and gfp was by a canonical cap-dependent mechanism. Results of fluorescence image and in situ hybridization indicate that expression of HCV core and GFP is liver-specific; RT-PCR and Western blotting show that both core and gfp expression are elevated in a time-dependent manner for both transcription and translation. It means that the HCV-IRES exerted its role in this zebrafish model. Furthermore, the liver-pathological impact associated with HCV-infection was detected by examination of gene markers and some of them were elevated, such as adiponectin receptor, heparanase, TGF-β, PDGF-α, etc. The model was used to evaluate three clinical drugs, ribavirin, IFNα-2b and vitamin B12. The results show that vitamin B12 inhibited core expression in mRNA and protein levels in dose-dependent manner, but failed to impact gfp expression. Also VB12 down-regulated some gene transcriptions involved in fat liver, liver fibrosis and HCV-associated pathological process in the larvae. It reveals that HCV-IRES responds to vitamin B12 sensitively in the zebrafish model. Ribavirin did not disturb core expression, hinting that HCV-IRES is not a target site of ribavirin. IFNα-2b was not active, which maybe resulted from its degradation in vivo for the long time. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of the zebrafish model for screening of anti-HCV drugs targeting to HCV-IRES. The zebrafish system provides a novel evidence of using zebrafish as a HCV model organism.

The present study aimed to ascertain whether suppression of midkine (MK) expression in pancreatic cancer cells inhibits metastasis to the liver. Human pancreatic cancer AsPC-1 cells were transfected with small interfering RNA (siRNA) targeting MK. siRNA against MK was observed to reduce the expression of MK mRNA and protein in a concentration- and time-dependent manner, and to decrease the number of migrating and tissue-penetrating cells in a concentration-dependent manner (P