Search

Genetic determinants of drug response remain stable throughout life and offer great promise to patient-tailored drug therapy. The adoption of pharmacogenetic (PGx) testing in patient care requires accurate, cost effective and rapid genotyping with clear guidance on the use of the results. Hence, we evaluated a 32 SNPs panel for implementing PGx testing in clinical laboratories.We designed a 32-SNP panel for PGx testing in clinical laboratories. The variants were selected using the clinical annotations of the Pharmacogenomics Knowledgebase (PharmGKB) and include polymorphisms of CYP2C9, CYP2C19, CYP2D6, CYP3A5 and VKORC1 genes. The CYP2D6 gene allele quantification was determined simultaneously with TaqMan copy number assays targeting intron 2 and exon 9 regions. The genotyping results showed high call rate accuracy according to concordance with genotypes identified by independent analyses on Sequenome massarray and droplet digital PCR. Furthermore, 506 genomic samples across three major ethnic groups of Singapore (Malay, Indian and Chinese) were analysed on our workflow.We found that 98% of our study subjects carry one or more CPIC actionable variants. The major alleles detected include CYP2C9*3, CYP2C19*2, CYP2D6*10, CYP2D6*36, CYP2D6*41, CYP3A5*3 and VKORC1*2. These translate into a high percentage of intermediate (IM) and poor metabolizer (PM) phenotypes for these genes in our population.Genotyping may be useful to identify patients who are prone to drug toxicity with standard doses of drug therapy in our population. The simplicity and robustness of this PGx panel is highly suitable for use in a clinical laboratory.

Immunosuppressive agents in general are shown to prevent renal progression and all-cause mortality in idiopathic membranous nephropathy (IMN) patients with nephrotic syndrome. However, the efficacy and safety of different immunosuppressive treatments have not been systematic assessed and compared. A network meta-analysis was performed to compare different immunosuppressive treatment in IMN.Cochrane library, MEDLINE, EMBASE and trial register system were searched for randomized controlled trials reporting the treatments for IMN to May 3, 2016. Composite endpoint of mortality or end-stage kidney disease (ESKD), complete or partial proteinuria remission and withdrawal because of treatment adverse events were compared combing direct and indirect comparison using network meta-analysis. Ranking different immunosuppressive treatments in the outcomes were analyzed by using surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA).Total 36 randomized controlled trials (n = 2018) covering 11 kinds of treatments were included. Compared with non-immunosuppressive treatment, only cyclophosphamide (CTX) and chlorambucil significantly reduced the risk of composite outcome of mortality or ESKD while combining the direct and indirect comparison (OR = 0.31, 95%CI: 0.12-0.81 and OR = 0.33, 95%CI: 0.12-0.92). CTX increased the composite outcome of complete remission (CR) or partial remission (PR) (OR = 4.29, 95%CI: 2.30-8.00) but chlorambucil did not (OR = 1.58, 95%CI: 0.80-3.12) as compared with non-immunosuppressive treatment. Chlorambucil also significantly increased the withdrawal risk (OR = 3.34, 95%CI: 1.37-8.17) as compared to CTX. Both tacrolimus (OR = 3.10, 95%CI: 1.36-7.09) and cyclosporine (CsA) (OR = 2.81, 95%CI: 1.08-7.32) also significantly increased the rate of CR or PR as compared with non-immunosuppressive treatment (without significant difference as compared with CTX), while ranking results showed that cyclosporine or tacrolimus was with less possibility of drug withdrawal as compared to CTX.Cyclophosphamide and chlorambucil reduce risk of ESKD or death in IMN with nephrotic range proteinuria, but carry substantial toxicity that may be lower for cyclophosphamide. Tacrolimus and cyclosporine increase the possibility of proteinuria remission with less drug withdrawal, but the effects on kidney failure remain uncertain.

We propose a novel approach for the generation of flat optical frequency comb (OFC) using a single polarization modulator (PolM) and a Brillouin-assisted power equalizer (BAPE). The reference radio-frequency (RF) signal applied to the PolM is provided by an optoelectronic oscillator (OEO). The spectra of the optical signals launched to the BAPE are optimized in advance for the generation of OFCs with different number of lines. The BAPE is introduced to flatten the uneven OFC lines by attenuating the optical lines having power beyond the threshold of the stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) and amplifying the ones having power below the SBS threshold with the amplifier inside the BAPE. In addition, the OFC generator is optical wavelength independent since there is no optical filter involved in our approach. We experimentally demonstrated that the proposed OFC generator can produce 5, 7, 9, and 11 lines within a spectral flatness of 0.5, 1.5, 2, and 4.1 dB, respectively.

We propose an optical vector network analyzer (OVNA) based on single-sideband (SSB) modulation and segmental measurement. The motivation of this work lies in the fact that it is hard for the previous SSB-based OVNA to measure a device-under-test (DUT) with bandpass response. In our scheme, the transmission response of the DUT is divided into several segments, which are measured one by one using the SSB modulation method. The frequency interval between adjacent segments is precisely controlled by a microwave source. The full transmission response of the DUT is obtained by combining the measured results of different segments. The adjacent segments are connected using the overlapped transmission responses. A proof-of-concept experiment was carried out to measure the transmission response of an optical bandpass filter. It was successfully obtained over a frequency range of 80.05 GHz with a resolution of 25 MHz.

Subject to the blowing air, fungal spores can be aerosolized from the colonies growing on cooling coils. The blowing air may accelerate and decelerate when passing a coil. The caused spore detachment may be different, when the fungal colonies grow on different positions of the coil. This study investigated the aerosolization of Aspergillus niger spores from a colony on a circular tube in a wind tunnel. The colony was first cultured in the carved groove along the longitudinal tube, and then the spores were aerosolized by a gradual increase of the blowing air speed. The grown colony on four different positions of the coil surface were blown for aerosolization. In addition, the airflow surrounding the circular tube was numerically solved to estimate the drag force for aerosolization of the spores. The results revealed that the collected airborne spores when the colonies were located tangentially to the upcoming airflow were six to eight times of those when the colonies were located parallel with the upcoming airflow for both the 4-day-old and 10-day-old colonies. The local air speeds in different positions of the tube were highly different from the inlet air speed of the wind tunnel. Such difference should be accounted for when estimating the drag force to aerosolize the fungal spores on the coils.

The paper analyzed research and application status of information management of coal mine safety supervision and pointed out that information management system of coal mine safety supervision is established on coal mine or mining group grade at present and safety supervision departments can only monitor simple data. It analyzed advantages of Internet of things applied in coal mine safety supervision, proposed an information management system of coal mine safety supervision based on Internet of things including two layers of provincial safety supervision and national safety supervision, and gave information structure of the system. It also discussed challenges of information standard, grading of safety factors, safety supervision hierarchy, content of information collection in the system implementation.

The paper indicated security functions of coal mine accident cases were strengthening security consciousness of miners, promoting implementation of security policy, providing reference for urgent processing of accidents, predicting danger of mines, promoting invested funds for mine security, encouraging generation of security conception and advancing development and application of new technologies and equipments. It analyzed structure, functions and development mode of database system of coal mine accident cases. The database realizes sharing and effective management of coal mine accident cases. The next work is to research functions of the database system including intelligent extraction of treatment measures of accidents and prediction of accident danger.

We propose and demonstrate a novel reconfigurable instantaneous frequency measurement (IFM) system based on the dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator (DPMZM). The IFM system can be reconfigurable with tunable measurement range and resolution by simply adjusting the dc bias voltage of the DPMZM. In principle, the measurement range could be tuned to any frequencies, which is only limited by the bandwidth of the optical transmitter and receiver employed. Alternatively, the IFM system can also work with a fixed wide measurement range and moderate resolution by generating two complementary power-fading functions.

This paper presents a continuously tunable microwave photonic notch filter with a complex coefficient. The complex coefficient is generated using a radio-frequency (RF) phase shifter that consists of a dual-parallel Mach-Zehnder modulator (DPMZM) and a tunable optical bandpass filter (TBPF). By simply controlling the bias voltage of the DPMZM, the frequency response of the filter can be continuously tuned over a full free spectral range (FSR) without changing the shape of the frequency response.

Matthew effect ("the rich get richer") has been a research topic for decades. It refers to a cumulative advantage, social or individual, in talent development as well as performance or productivity, typically unfolding longitudinally. The present study builds on a previous qualitative study as an attempt to fully understand developmental underpinnings of an accelerated science career, with a focus on developmental changes as potential explanations for the observed Matthew effects. In contrast to traditional theoretical explanations that resort to either social or individual advantages, the present study, in light of Evolving Complexity Theory (ECT), uncovered developmental changes as potentially responsible for a distinct accelerated career trajectory and the apparently unfolding Matthew effects. Implications of the findings in terms of understanding the role of evolving individuality for talent development are discussed.

The paper expounded main functions of automatic control center of chemical mine, introduced design of physical platform of the automatic control center including software and hardware of control systems and industrial television, and discussed forms of management-control integration in the automatic control center. It finally proposed points for attention about designing the automatic control center, namely model selection of UPS and anti-interference measures of control systems and industrial television system. The application showed that the automatic control center can realize functions of remote monitoring and control of production equipments and telemetry of safety monitoring meters, and greatly reduce labor intensity of managers and workers.

In this paper, we present a phase-intensity surface plasmon resonance (SPR) biosensor and demonstrate its use for avian influenza A (H5N1) antibody biomarker detection. The sensor probes the intensity variation produced by the steep phase response at surface plasmon excitation. The prism sensor head is fixed between a pair of polarizers with a perpendicular orientation angle and a forbidden transmission path. At SPR, a steep phase change is introduced between the p- and s-polarized light, and this rotates the polarization ellipse of the transmission beam. This allows the light at resonance to be transmitted and a corresponding intensity change to be detected. Neither time-consuming interference fringe analysis nor a phase extraction process is required. In refractive index sensing experiments, the sensor resolution was determined to be 6.3 × 10−6 refractive index values (RIU). The sensor has been further applied for H5N1 antibody biomarker detection, and the sensor resolution was determined to be 193.3 ng mL−1, compared to 1 μg mL−1 and 0.5 μg mL−1, as reported in literature for influenza antibody detection using commercial Biacore systems. It represents a 517.3% and 258.7% improvement in detection limit, respectively. With the unique features of label-free, real-time, and sensitive detection, the phase-intensity SPR biosensor has promising potential applications in influenza detection.

Based upon the synopsis of failure analysis and fault tree analysis, this paper puts up the component framework of reinforced computer equipment and typical fault tree, carries out practical analysis and systematic application of failure analysis and fault tree analysis, and implements mechanism analysis, correction measures and probability evaluation. This will benefit capability improvement of reinforced computer equipment and related information system.

With the rapid development of computer technology, pervasive computing and wearable devices, EEG-based emotion recognition has gradually attracted much attention in affecting computing (AC) domain. In this paper, we propose an approach of emotion recognition using EEG signals based on the weighted fusion of multiple base classifiers. These base classifiers based on SVM are constructed using a channel division mechanism according to the neuropsychological theory that different brain areas are differ in processing intensity of emotional information. The outputs of channel base classifiers are integrated by a weighted fusion strategy which is based on the confidence estimation on each emotional label by each base classifier. The evaluation on the DEAP dataset shows that our proposed multiple classifiers fusion method outperforms individual channel base classifiers and the feature fusion method for EEG-based emotion recognition.