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It was to explore the clinical efficacy and safety of epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI) targeted drugs combined with hyaluronic acid-gadolinium sesquioxide-nanoparticles (HA-Gd2O3-NPs) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In this study, 70 patients with stage IV EGFR mutant NSCLC diagnosed in the First Affiliated Hospital of Jinzhou Medical University were selected. They were randomly divided into the combined group (35 cases) and the control group (35 cases). HA-Gd2O3-NPs were prepared by hydrothermal polymerization, and combined with EGFR-TKI in the clinical treatment of NSCLC. The results showed that HA-Gd2O3-NPs were spherical with a uniform particle size of about 124 nm. The NSCLC survival rate of the combined group was 37.2 ± 5.3% under 6 Gy X-ray irradiation, and that of the control group was 98.4 ± 12.6% under 6 Gy X-ray irradiation. The total effective rate of the control group (20%) was significantly lower than that of the study group (42.86%) (P

Developed at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation (JCSDA), the Community Global Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) Package (CGOP) provides a vehicle to quantitatively evaluate the impacts of emerging environmental observing systems or emerging in situ or remote sensing instruments on NOAA numerical weather prediction (NWP) forecast skill. The typical first step for the OSSE is to simulate observations from the so-called nature run. Therefore, the observation spatial, temporal, and view geometry are needed to extract the atmospheric and surface variables from the nature run, which are then input to the observation forward operator (e.g., radiative transfer models) to simulate the new observations. This is a challenge for newly proposed systems for which instruments are not yet built or platforms are not yet deployed. To address this need, this study introduces an orbit simulator to compute these parameters based on the specific hosting platform and onboard instrument characteristics, which has been recently developed by the NOAA Center for Satellite Applications and Research (STAR) and added to the GCOP framework. In addition to simulating existing polar-orbiting and geostationary orbits, it is also applicable to emerging near-space platforms (e.g., stratospheric balloons), cube satellite constellations, and Tundra orbits. The observation geometry simulator includes not only passive microwave and infrared sounders but also global navigation satellite system/radio occultation (GNSS/RO) instruments. For passive atmospheric sounders, it calculates the geometric parameters of proposed instruments on different platforms, such as time varying location (latitude and longitude), scan geometry (satellite zenith and azimuth angles), and ground instantaneous field of view (GIFOV) parameters for either cross-track or conical scanning mechanisms. For RO observations, it determines the geometry of the transmitters and receivers either on satellites or stratospheric balloons and computes their slant paths. The simulator has been successfully applied for recent OSSE studies (e.g., evaluating the impacts of future geostationary hyperspectral infrared sounders and RO observations from stratospheric balloons). Significance Statement An orbit simulator for satellite and near-space platforms for supporting observing system simulation experiments (OSSE) is developed in this study. It can compute spatial, temporal, and view geometry parameters of the new observations based on the specific hosting platform and onboard instrument characteristics. These parameters are important for the OSSE to extract atmospheric profiles and surface properties from nature run data and simulate new observations. In addition to simulating existing polar-orbiting and geostationary orbits, it is applicable to emerging near-space platforms (e.g., stratospheric balloons), cube satellite constellations, and Tundra orbits. The observation geometry simulator includes not only passive microwave and infrared sounders but also radio occultation instruments.

In this study, the bending vibration characteristics of the piezoelectric composite double laminated vibrator are studied by simulation and experiment. Firstly, the bending vibration characteristics of a 2-2 piezoelectric composite double laminated vibrator under free and fixed boundary conditions are simulated by the finite element analysis software. Results show that the vibrator has a pure bending vibration mode in the frequency band of 2–4.6 kHz. Then, two types of a 2-2 piezoelectric composite double laminated vibrator are prepared by using epoxy resin and silicone rubber. The test results show that the resonance frequencies of the free and fixed boundaries are ~4.5 and 2.5 kHz, respectively. The vibrator has relatively pure bending vibration characteristics, especially the silicone rubber vibrator, which has lower resonance frequency, higher electromechanical coupling coefficient and larger bending vibration displacement; thus, the 2-2 piezoelectric composite double laminated vibrator is a better choice for the fabrication of a low-frequency transducer.

1-3 piezoelectric composite has been widely used in underwater acoustic high frequency transducer because of its excellent high frequency characteristics. Resonance frequency, transmitting voltage ...

We explored the association between the serum level of cystatin C (CysC) at admission and short-term functional outcome in patients with hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage (HICH) without chronic kidney disease (CKD). A total of 555 patients with HICH were consecutively recruited after admission and were followed-up for 3 months after admission. The primary outcome was poor functional outcome (modified Rankin Scale [mRS] score ≥ 3). The median serum CysC level in our cohort was 1.03 mg/L (interquartile range, .89-1.20). Patients were categorized into four groups according to the serum CysC quartiles. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed a negative association between serum CysC and poor functional outcome at 3-month follow-up (quartile [Q]1 vs. Q4: adjusted odds ratio [OR] = .260, 95% confidence interval [CI] = .098, .691, p.001). The negative association between serum CysC and poor functional outcome at 3 months was more pronounced in subgroups with smaller hematoma volume (≤ 30 mL), and absence of secondary intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH). Addition of serum CysC to a model containing conventional risk factors improved the model performance with net reclassification index (NRI) of .426% (p.001) and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) of .043% (p.001) for poor functional outcome. Serum CysC was found to be a negative predictor of poor short-term functional outcome in HICH patients independent of renal function.

Anjun Song,1,&ast; Hui Yang,2,&ast; Guofeng Wu,1 Siying Ren,1 Likun Wang,1 Guannan Qin,1 Yuanhong Mao1 1Emergency Department, The Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, Guizhou, People’s Republic of China; 2Guiyang Public Health Treatment Center, Guiyang, Guizhou, People’s Republic of China&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Anjun Song, Email 351815967@qq.comObjective: The present study aimed to evaluate the clinical value of minimally invasive surgery for intracranial hematoma removal and high intracranial pressure (ICP) reduction using a novel three-needle brain puncture technique.Methods: A total of 202 cases with supratentorial hematoma were analyzed, 54 of whom received three-needle brain puncture (study group), and the remaining cases received single-needle (control groups 1 and 2) and two-needle brain puncture (control group 3). The amount of intracranial hematoma removed, changes in ICP, retention time of puncture needle, volume of residual blood, the National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) score, and postoperative survival rate were used as indexes to evaluate patient outcomes.Results: We found that three-needle brain puncture (study group) can remove more intracranial hematoma (P < 0.05) and achieve lower ICP (P < 0.05) than single- and two-needle brain puncture (control group). The needle retention time and volume of residual blood significantly decreased in the study group. Additionally, a statistically significant difference was observed in the NIHSS scores and survival rates between the study and control groups (P < 0.05).Conclusion: These data suggest that three-needle minimally invasive stereotactic puncture can effectively remove hematoma, reduce ICP, decrease the degree of brain damage, and improve prognosis.Keywords: cerebral hemorrhage, intracranial pressure monitoring, minimally invasive procedures, three-needle puncture, National Institute of Health Stroke Scale

Exploring natural diversity of functional genes/proteins from environmental DNA (eDNA) in a high-throughput fashion remains challenging. In this study, we developed a sequence-based functional metagenomics procedure for mining the diversity of copper resistance gene copA in global microbiomes, by combining the metagenomic assembly technology, local BLAST, evolutionary trace analysis (ETA), chemical synthesis, and conventional functional genomics. In total, 88 metagenomes were collected from a public database and subjected to copA detection, resulting in 93,899 hits. Manual curation of 1214 hits of high-confidence led to the retrieval of 517 unique CopA candidates, which were further subjected to ETA. Eventually 175 novel copA sequences of high-quality were discovered. Phylogenetic analysis showed that almost all of these putative CopA proteins are distantly related to known CopA proteins, with 55 sequences from totally unknown species. Ten novel and three known copA genes were chemically synthesized for further functional genomic tests using the Cu-sensitive Escherichia coli (ΔcopA). Growth test and Cu uptake determination showed that five novel clones had positive effects on host Cu resistance and uptake. One recombinant harboring copA-like 15 (copAL15) successfully restored Cu resistance of host with a substantially enhanced Cu uptake. Two novel copA genes were fused with the gfp gene and expressed in E. coli for microscopic observation. Imaging results showed that they were successfully expressed and their proteins were localized to the membrane. The results here greatly expand the diversity of known CopA proteins, and the sequence-based procedure developed overcomes biases in length, screening methods, and abundance of conventional functional metagenomics.

What are the major factors contributing to ship accidents, and how do these factors evolve in the long term? This study addresses these two questions by leveraging an unsupervised machine learning method named structural topic modelling to identify the causes of ship accidents. The study analysed 2,341 task errors manually collected from 441 reports issued by four government agencies covering a 45-year time span. The results show that the structure of causes of ship accidents remained essentially the same during this period. This highlights the social-material aspect of navigation technology, indicating that the use of advanced technology may not necessarily lead to safer navigation practices, and the interaction between the technology and human agency must be focused on in the bridge management context. Additionally, the computer-assisted textual data analysis highlights pilot-related factors, which might be rooted in the unsupervised and difficult-to-verify handover procedures between pilots and captains, thereby underlining the importance of appropriate piloting regulations.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the value of parameters related to right heart function combined with N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) in acute radiation-induced right heart injury.Seventy patients who received chest radiotherapy (RT) in the RT department of our hospital between September 2015 and March 2019 were included in the study.Of the included 70 patients, 19, 32, 4, and 15 had thoracic esophageal cancer, central lung cancer, thymoma, and left breast cancer, respectively. The Tei index, tricuspid annular displacement, right ventricular ejection fraction, and NT-proBNP of the 70 patients were measured 1 week before RT, at weeks 2 and 4 during RT, and 4 weeks after RT. Differences in the Tei index, the tricuspid annular displacement, and NT-proBNP were significant (P0.01, P0.05, and P0.05, respectively). The Tei index significantly increased in the second week of RT. Tricuspid annular displacement decreased significantly 4 weeks after RT. NT-proBNP reached its peak value in the fourth week of RT. However, there was no significant difference in right ventricular ejection fraction (P0.05).The Tei index of the right ventricle can be used as a sensitive indicator for the early detection of right heart injury after RT for thoracic tumors. Additionally, tricuspid annular displacement can be used as an index for the early detection of right ventricular damage after RT for thoracic tumors. However, right ventricular ejection fraction showed no significant change in the early stage of right heart damage after RT. Finally, it is important to consider NT-proBNP for the detection of acute radiation-induced heart injury. In acute radiation-induced right heart injury, the combined application of right ventricular Tei index, tricuspid annular displacement, and NT-proBNP is clinically relevant.

Background & AimsCooperation between species in the same ecosystem is the core function of microbial communities. We found that in cocultures of Escherichia coli and Enterococcus avium isolated from the gut, the former promoted the growth of the latter. Hence, we investigated the mechanisms by which Escherichia coli promoted the growth of Enterococcus avium.MethodEnterococcus avium was cultured in growth medium supplemented with E. coli metabolites. The physical and chemical properties of the growth-promoting substances were determined by high-performance liquid chromatography. Transcriptomics and metabolomics analyses were performed to determine the possible mechanisms underlying the accelerated growth of Enterococcus avium.ResultsHigher concentrations of Escherichia coli metabolites accelerated the growth of Enterococcus avium in the logarithmic phase but not in the plateau phase. A group of small molecules with high polarity and thermal stability were found to promote the growth of Enterococcus avium. The Escherichia coli metabolites upregulated ribosome expression and oxidative phosphorylation and accelerated several aerobic metabolic processes in Enterococcus avium.ConclusionSome metabolites secreted by Escherichia coli may accelerate aerobic metabolism in Enterococcus avium, thereby increasing its growth rate. This study provides a meaningful insight for understanding the symbiosis between intestinal bacteria and its possible mechanisms.

Accurate predicting thermodynamics and kinetics of DNA molecules are important for designing oligonucleotides in biotechnological applications, but current models in use are not accurate enough. Here, we propose a model combining quantum chemical calculations and convolutional neural networks (QCM) to predict the free energies of DNA duplexes and rate constants of DNA strand displacement reactions. The QCM achieves better accuracy than previous models on two limited datasets by active learning, the accuracy of predicting free energies of duplexes is 23% better than the nearest neighbor model, and the accuracy of predicting rate constants of strand displacement reactions is 60% better than the worm-like chain model.

Marine accidents cause not only significant economic losses, but also severe environmental pollution and inestimable human casualties, which have become a worldwide concern. To better cope with this concern, this paper adopts temporal association rules (TARs) to mine and discover the domino effect in marine accidents. Using the dataset of 5754 marine domino accidents (MDAs) collected from the International Maritime Organization and IHS Markit Company, the main findings of this paper are as follows. First, 'hull damage' was found to be the most frequent accident in MDAs, and 'collision' was more likely to cause the damage in the whole hull. Second, 'oil spill' was most often observed as a final marine accident. Meanwhile, 'foundered' was more likely to cause 'oil spill' in both oil tanker and general cargo ship MDAs. Third, it is pointed out that most probable scenarios involved 'hull damage' as the basic accident which ended with 'foundered' and 'oil spill' as top accidents. These findings not only advance our knowledge of marine accidents from the perspective of the domino effect, but also provide insights into improving marine safety.

Blend sign on initial computed tomography (CT) is associated with poor outcome in patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). However, the mechanisms underlying the blend sign formation are poorly understood. The present study aimed to explore the possible mechanism of the CT blend sign in patients with ICH. Seventy healthy rabbits were selected to prepare an ICH model. The animals were assigned to a whole blood group + whole blood group (ww group, 50 rabbits), a whole blood + plasma group (wp group, 10 rabbits) or a whole blood + serum group (ws group, 10 rabbits). The animals of the ww group were allocated to five subgroups based on the interval between the first infusion of blood and the second one. The subgroups included ww 1 h group (with an interval of 1 h), ww 2 h group, ww 3 h group, ww 4 h group and ww 5 h group. The rabbits from each group received first infusion of 0.3 mL of whole blood into the basal ganglia area to form a hematoma. Then, they received a second infusion of the same amount of whole blood, plasma or serum into the brain to form another hematoma adjacent to the first one. A hematoma with two densities on brain CT could be formed in each group after a second infusion of blood into the brain. A significant difference in CT attenuation values was observed between the hyperattenuation and the hypoattenuation in all the groups. However, only the morphological features of the hematoma in the ww group was in accordance with the CT blend sign observed in humans. The CT attenuation values in the hypodensity area of the ww 4 h group or the ww 5 h group were decreased compared with the ww 1 h group to the ww 3 h group. The CT blend sign observed in humans might be composed of two parts of blood with different ages. The hypodense area might be blood with older age and the hyperdense area might be new bleeding.

Complex hybrid nanostructures may integrate advantages of individual species and afford new functionalized materials with well-modulated properties for specific applications. In view of the potenti...

A scanning tunneling microscope (STM) combined with a pump-probe femtosecond terahertz (THz) laser can enable coherence measurements of single molecules. We report THz pump-probe measurements that demonstrate quantum sensing based on a hydrogen (H

Risk management of ship fire accidents (SFA) is a vital issue in maritime transportation systems since ship fires are instantaneous and developing events-small errors can cause serious accidents. T...

This study investigated the material degradation of service-exposed reformer tubes. Microstructural and mechanical experiments were carried out to reveal the property degradation, including optical and scanning electron microscope observations, room and high temperature tensile tests, and stress rupture tests. The rupture data were obtained, and the residual life was evaluated for tubes with different microstructures by both reliability-based Z-parameter method and deterministic method. The results showed the deterioration of microstructural and mechanical properties of the service-exposed reformer tubes. The material degradation was most critical for the overheated reformer tubes, and more serious in the lower part of tube than that in upper part. However, the difference in rupture data between upper and lower tubes was not significant. The results also demonstrated that the residual life evaluated by the Z-parameter method on confidence level of 99.9% was similar as that of the deterministic method by using average fit curves and maximum operating parameters, which was much less conservative than that evaluated by using 95% lower predication fit curves.

Eddy current analysis is a key issue for large turbine generators. The finite-element method (FEM) is a computational tool for obtaining the electromagnetic characteristics of electrical machines. In this article, we propose a computer model of the eddy current losses of metal fasteners in the rotor slots of a large turbine generator. The electromagnetic properties of the rotor fasteners and the outer diameter of the rotor are taken as the input, and the eddy current loss of the rotor fasteners is taken as the output. A prediction model is constructed using the FEM and deep learning. The analysis results show that compared with the independent finite-element analysis, this method reduces the design cycle time and improves the design efficiency for a large-capacity turbine generator. Compared with other machine learning models, the error is smaller and the accuracy is higher. This method provides a new way to accurately predict the eddy current loss of a generator under complex nonlinear conditions.

Objective To explore the molecular mechanism involved in secondary brain damage caused by intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), we activated microglia by thrombin, to observe the changes of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPARγ), nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and heme oxygenase 1 (HO-1) mRNA transcription and protein expression in the microglia cells of primary culturing in vitro. Methods Microglial cells were obtained from the brain tissues of the newborn rats and cultured in vitro. The isolated microglia cells were randomly divided into normal control group (NC group) and thrombin stimulation group (TH group). The expression of PPARγ, Nrf2 and HO-1 was tested by immunofluorescence and real-time PCR. Results The immunofluorescence showed that the numbers of stained positive cells of PPARγ, Nrf2 and HO-1 in TH group was increased remarkably as compared with NC group. The results of RT-qPCR showed that the mRNA expression of PPARγ, Nrf2 and HO-1 in TH group was increased significantly as compared with NC group (P Conclusion The expression of PPARγ, Nrf2 and HO-1 in the microglia cells activated by the thrombin were increased. Therefore, the microglia could be activated by intracerebral hemorrhage and the anti-oxidative stress effects of microglia can be improved.

A method combining the finite-element method (FEM) numerical calculation with machine learning is developed and used to calculate the eddy current losses of the rotor damping slot wedge of generator with different structures and electromagnetic properties. FEM simulation data is used as the input, and the stacking method is used to build the ensemble Gaussian process regression model for eddy current loss prediction to predict and analyse the calculation results. The error is tiny. The FEM results are highly consistent with the prediction data. As demonstrated by comparison experiments, the prediction accuracy of the stacking Gaussian process regression (SGPR) model is greater than that of other models. Therefore, the SGPR model provides a new auxiliary design method for large generators that can help improve generator design efficiency.

Structural, electronic and optical properties of Nb and F co-doped SnO2 were mainly investigated using density functional theory (DFT). Hybrid density functional theory was employed to obtain band structure, density of states (DOS) and optical properties. The calculated lattice parameters of pure SnO2 by PBEsol functional (a = 4.774 A and c = 3.218 A) are in good agreement with experimental date (a = 4.742 A and c = 3.206 A). When co-doping with Nb&F, the length of octahedron (4.136 A) closely matches with pure SnO2 (4.112 A) in direction of perpendicular to the c-axis. The direct band gaps of 3.80 eV, 3.38 eV 3.63 eV, 3.23 eV, 3.06 eV have been obtained for pure, F, Nb, Nb&F and Nb&2F doped SnO2 respectively, and the dispersed conduction band after doping does not significantly affect the electron effective mass of the conduction band minimum (CBM). A study of band alignment shows the clearly increasing valence band maximum (VBM) and the slightly decreasing CBM occur after doping. Analyses of the charge density difference and Bader charge suggest that Sn–O bond shows covalent characteristic, but the degree of ionization decreases in following order: Nb > Nb&F > Nb&2F > SnO2 > F. In terms of optical properties after doping, the optical absorption side slightly red or blue shift, and the reflectivity in the visible spectrum is greatly low.

Organic–inorganic halide perovskites feature excellent optoelectronic properties but poor chemical stability. While passivating perovskite grain boundary (GB) by polymers shows prospects on long-te...

As one of the calibration reference targets used to calibrate the cross-track infrared sounder (CrIS) earth scene (ES) measurements, the stable deep space (DS) reference spectrum in the 30-scan DS calibration moving window is very important for the accuracy of the calibrated ES radiances. The DS view changes when the lunar radiation intrudes into the observation field of view (FOV). In the original CrIS lunar intrusion (LI) detection algorithm implemented in the operational ground processing system, the contaminated DS spectra were not effectively removed from the DS moving window due to large threshold values and the assumption that the first DS spectrum in the moving window was not contaminated. As a result, inaccurate, degraded, or invalid ES radiances were produced in the operational CrIS sensor data record (SDR) during LI events. In this article, an improved LI detection algorithm is developed and implemented into the operational system. First, the new algorithm efficiently finds a contamination-free DS spectrum in the DS 30-scan calibration moving window to use as the reference spectrum. Second, based on the phase characteristics of the complex raw DS spectra during LI events, the LI band-dependent thresholds were derived to effectively reject the contaminated DS spectra and to make the valid DS window size consistent among the three CrIS bands. The new LI algorithm implemented in the operational system shows a successful detection and removal of all the lunar-contaminated DS spectra in the DS moving window, resulting in an improved calibration of ES radiances during LI events.

In this study, three-phase piezocomposites are fabricated on the basis of the 1–3 composite structure and the cutting–filling method. The 1–3 piezocomposites are used with PZT-5A as the piezoelectr...