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It is challenging to crystalize a thin film of higher melting temperature when deposited on a substrate with comparatively lower melting point. Trading such disparities in thermal properties between a thin film and its substrate can significantly impede material processing. We report a novel solid-state crystallization process for annealing of high melting point molybdenum thin films. A systematic investigation of laser induced annealing from single pulse to high pulse overlapping is reported upon scanning at fluences lower than the threshold required for the damage/ablation of molybdenum thin films. The approach allows better control of the grain size by changing the applied laser fluence. Atomic force microscopy surface morphology and x-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis reveal significant improvements in the average polycrystalline grain size after laser annealing; the sheet resistance was reduced by 19% of the initial value measured by a Four-point probe system. XRD confirms the enlargement of the single crystal grain size. No melting was evident, although a change in the close packing, shape and size of nanoscale polycrystalline grains is observed. Ultrashort laser induced crystallinity greatly enhances the electrical properties; Hall measurements reinforced that the overall carrier concentration increases after scanning at different laser fluences. The proposed method, based on the aggregation and subsequent growth of polycrystalline and single crystal-grains, leading to enhanced crystallization, has potential to be applicable in thin film processing industry for their wide applications.

Non-hydrostatic ocean models are widely required in coastal and estuarine studies but are limited in their application due to their very high computational expense. To alleviate this issue, this study developed a highly computationally efficient non-hydrostatic ocean model named MERF v3.0 (the third version of the Marine Environment Research and Forecasting model) in which a semi-implicit and variable layers (SIVL) scheme is proposed for dynamic pressure calculation. The SIVL scheme provides freedom to choose the ratio between the number of dynamic pressure layers and the number of velocity layers as required. Moreover, the model adopted numerical calculation framework OpenArray and PETSc (Portable, Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation) to achieve implicit parallelism and a concise code structure. Five classical numerical experiments were performed to validate the simulation capacity of this non-hydrostatic ocean model, including the standing wave in a closed basin, surface solitary wave, lock-exchange problem, periodic wave over a bar and tidally induced internal lee wave. The numerical simulation results are consistent with the analytical solutions and experimental data published in the literature. Benefitting from the advantages of OpenArray and PETSc, MERF v3.0 achieves an 87.8% parallel efficiency in the strong scaling test and an 84.1% parallel efficiency in the weak scaling test on 3584 processes, whereas the OpenArray limits the parallel efficiency of MERF v3.0 on more processes, which is beyond the scope of this article and will be further examined in our next study.

Hole transport material (HTM) is a major component of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). PEDOT: PSS, an organic HTM, is widely used in inverted (p-i-n) PSCs. While PEDOT: PSS is unstable, expensive and it's acidic nature could deteriorate the absorber. Copper zinc tin sulphide (CZTS), an inorganic semiconductor can be used as HTM due to its properties such as low cost, ease of synthesis and high hole mobility. In this work, device simulation of inverted (p-i-n) PSC was performed with CZTS as HTM to exploit its maximum capability. Remarkable power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 25.43% was achieved after optimizing the performance. Device performance was strongly affected by thickness and electron affinity of HTM as well as diffusion length of carriers. PCE of real fabricated device was also found to be 9.72%. This work demonstrates CZTS is a promising candidate to replace PEDOT: PSS from both experimental and theoretical perspectives.

Renal fibrosis is the pathological consequence of progressive chronic kidney disease. Although it has been reported that vitamin D3 exerts antifibrotic effects, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. This study is aimed at investigating the effects and molecular mechanisms in high-dose vitamin D3 treatment on renal fibrosis. A model of chronic kidney disease was established by 5/6 nephrectomy in rats characterised by high levels of serum creatine, urea nitrogen, and urinary protein. Serum 25-dihydroxyvitamin D3, calcium and parathormone levels were measured to evaluate vitamin D levels. Hematoxylin and eosin, periodic acid Schiff and Mallory's Trichrome staining were used to evaluate histopathological changes in rats. Moreover, the expression of vimentin, collagen I, α-smooth muscle actin and E-cadherin were analyzed at molecular and histopathological levels. Our results showed that exposure to vitamin D3 decreased the levels of serum creatine, urea nitrogen and urine protein and restored the homeostasis of calcium and parathormone. Vitamin D3 also downregulated the expression of vimentin, collagen I and α-smooth muscle actin and attenuated renal fibrosis and epithelial to mesenchymal transition in the kidney. Importantly, vitamin D3 treatment increased the expression of the vitamin D receptor and inhibited Transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1)/Smad3 signaling pathway in rats kidneys with chronic kidney disease. Mechanistically, the upregulation of TGF-β1 and phosphorylation of Smad3 induced by vitamin D3 was reversed by activation of the vitamin D receptor. Our findings indicated that vitamin D3 is a potential antifibrotic drug in chronic kidney disease via the vitmin D receptor and inhibiting TGF-β1/Smad3 signaling pathway.

To present a meta-analysis of high-quality published reports comparing laparoscopic rectal resection (LRR) and open rectal resection (ORR) for rectal cancer.Studies that compared LRR and ORR and were published within the last 5 years were identified. All eligible randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and non-randomized comparative trials (NRCTs) were evaluated based on the Jadad score, the Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool and modified Methodological Indices for Nonrandomized Studies (MINORS). The mean differences (MD) and odds ratios (OR) were used to compare the operative time, blood loss, mortality, complications, harvested lymph nodes, hospital stay, distal resection margin, and circumferential resection margin. The risk ratio (RR) method was used to examine recurrence and survival.Fourteen studies were identified and included 7 RCTs and 7 NRCTs and 4353 patients (2251 LRR, 2102 ORR). Although the operation time of the LRR group was obviously longer than that of the conventional surgery group (MD = 25.64, 95%CI = [5.17,46.10], P = 0.01), LRR was associated with fewer overall complications (OR = 0.67, 95%CI = [0.52,0.87], P = 0.002), less blood loss (MD = -66.49, 95%CI = [-88.31, -44.66], P 0.00001), shorter postoperative hospital stays (OR = -1.26,95%CI = [-2.45, -0.07],P = 0.004) and shorter bowel function recovery times (MD = -0.93, 95%CI = [-1.27,-0.58], P 0.00001). Moreover, the difference in the DRM was statistically clear (MD = 0.14, 95%CI = [0.02,0.27], P = 0.03). However, no significant differences between the LRR and ORR groups were observed in terms of the number of lymph nodes harvested, mortality, positive CRM, local and distal recurrence, or overall and disease-free survival.This study indicates that there are no significant differences between LRR and ORR in terms of survival and pathological outcomes with the exception of the DRM. Moreover, this study suggests that LRR can be performed safely and elicits faster recovery times compared with conventional surgery.

This study demonstrates a facile and general one-pot synthetic approach for all-inorganic colloidal cesium lead halide (CsPbX3, X = Cl, Br, I, mixed Cl/Br, Br/I) perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) by directly heating the precursors/solvent/ligands. In contrast to typical routes, these reactions are conducted in open air, requiring neither high temperature dissolution nor a vacuum/inert atmosphere. The composition, shape and size of the as-synthesized NCs can be finely tuned by varying the reaction parameters such as temperature and time, ligand species and precursor halide ratios. CsPbX3 morphologies may be varied from perovskite nanoplatelets (NPLs) to nanosheets and sphere-like NCs, each with tunable absorption spectra and photoluminescence (PL) emissions. In particular, mixed halide NCs with controllable band gaps and PL emission across the entire visible region have been demonstrated by tuning the precursor halide ratios. The reproducibility and scalability of the present synthetic protocol is elaborated by upscaling the amounts of chemicals and solvents/ligands in a representative synthesis of CsPbBr3 NPLs. The representative large-scale CsPbBr3 NPLs exhibit a high PL quantum yield of 73.56%.

Irbesartan (Irb), a unique subset of angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) with PPAR-γ activation function, has been reported to play a role in renal dysfunction, glucose metabolism, and abnormal lipid profile in diabetic animal models and humans. However, the underlying mechanisms that improve hyperlipidemia and liver steatosis are unclear. This study investigated the effects of Irb on lipid metabolism and hepatic steatosis using the spontaneous type 2 diabetic db/db mouse model. The results demonstrated body and liver weight, food consumption, lipid content in serum and liver tissue, and liver dysfunction as well as hepatic steatosis were increased in db/db mice compared with db/m mice, whereas the increases were reversed by Irb treatment. Moreover, Irb administration resulted in an increase in LC3BII as well as the LC3BII/I ratio through activating PPAR-γ and p-AMPK and inhibiting p-Akt and p-mTOR, thereby inducing autophagy in the db/db mouse liver. Therefore, our findings suggest that Irb can ameliorate hyperlipidemia and liver steatosis by upregulating the expression of PPAR-γ, activating the AMPK/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway and inducing liver autophagy.

We report the gram-scale synthesis of Cu-poor CZTS nanocrystals (NCs) with tuned shapes and compositions by using a facile phosphine-free heat-up procedure. Based on the detailed characterization and analyses of the evolution of crystal phases, compositions, morphologies and optical spectra over the reaction stage and temperature, we explore the reaction mechanism. The synthesis reaction involves the formation of binary CuS (covellite) nanoparticles at room temperature, and the conversion from the as-formed CuS to Zn–Sn-codoped CuS NCs as intermediates at 150 °C and finally to quaternary CZTS NCs in the kesterite phase at 220 °C, during which the NCs gradually grow due to the progressive incorporation of foreign cations (Zn2+ and Sn2+) into the as-formed CuS NCs. The introduction of dodecanethiol (DT) leads to the formation of bullet-like CZTS NCs in the wurtzite phase. The Cu-poor CZTS synthesis is reproducible by upscaling the amounts of chemicals and solvents/ligands, which allows for a promising approach to gram-scale production of Cu-based chalcogenides for potential applications in photovoltaics.

The materials used in detection of high energy photons are of primary importance in the construction of efficient, cost effective and sensitive detectors. Current research into Perovskites for solar cell technology has stimulated interest in their potential alternative uses, one of which is in direct photon conversion radiation detectors, owed primarily to their high-Z elemental composition twinned with exceptional charge carrier transport properties. Here, the Perovskite CsPbBr 3 has been synthesised through solution growth. The raw CsPbBr 3 was a granular powder which was formed into disks of 8 mm diameter and 1-2 mm thickness by two methods: 1). the powders were pressed into pellets using a hydraulic press or 2). sealed in a quartz ampoule under vacuum and then melted and quenched to form a polycrystalline solid which was cut to size. Metallic contacts were deposited on the front and back faces to permit charge collection. The results from the pressed devices are promising, particularly given that the production method is cost effective, repeatable and scalable. The solid-from-melt devices show similar performance but further development is required to optimise the production method.

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have achieved tremendous success within just a decade. This success is critically dependent upon compositional engineering, morphology control of perovskite layer, or contingent upon high-temperature annealed mesoporous TiO2, but quantitative analysis of the role of facile TiCl4 treatment and thickness control of the compact TiO2 layer has not been satisfactorily undertaken. Herein, we report the facile thickness control and post-treatment of the electron transport TiO2 layer to produce highly efficient planar PSCs. TiCl4 treatment of TiO2 layer could remove the surface trap and decrease the charge recombination in the prepared solar cells. Introduction of ethanol into the TiCl4 aqueous solution led to further improved open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current density of the related devices, thus giving rise to enhanced power conversion efficiency (PCE). After the optimal TiCl4 treatment, PCE of 16.42% was achieved for PSCs with TiCl4 aqueous solution-treated TiO2 and 19.24% for PSCs with TiCl4 aqueous/ethanol solution-treated TiO2, respectively. This work sheds light on the promising potential of simple planar PSCs without complicated compositional engineering and avoiding the deposition and optimization of the mesoporous scaffold layer.

Background Radiology reports are a permanent record of patient's health information often used in clinical practice and research. Reading radiology reports is common for clinicians and radiologists. However, it is laborious and time-consuming when the amount of reports to be read is large. Assisting clinicians to locate and assimilate the key information of reports is of great significance for improving the efficiency of reading reports. There are few studies on information extraction from Chinese medical texts and its application in radiology information systems (RIS) for efficiency improvement. Objectives The purpose of this study was to explore methods for extracting, grouping, ranking, delivering, and displaying medical-named entities in radiology reports which can yield efficiency improvement in RISs. Methods A total of 5,000 reports were obtained from two medical institutions for this study. We proposed a neural network model called Multi-Embedding-BGRU-CRF (bidirectional gated recurrent unit-conditional random field) for medical-named entity recognition and rule-based methods for entity grouping and ranking. Furthermore, a methodology for delivering and displaying entities in RISs was presented. Results The proposed neural named entity recognition model has achieved a good F1 score of 95.88%. Entity ranking achieved a very high accuracy of 99.23%. The weakness of the system is the entity grouping approach which yield accuracy of 91.03%. The effectiveness of the overall solution was proved by an evaluation task performed by two clinicians based on the setup of actual clinical practice. Conclusions The neural model shows great potential in extracting medical-named entities from radiology reports, especially for languages, that lack lexicons and natural language processing tools. The pipeline of extracting, grouping, ranking, delivering, and displaying medical-named entities could be a feasible solution to enhance RIS functionality by information extraction. The integration of information extraction and RIS has been demonstrated to be effective in improving the efficiency of reading radiology reports.

Endothelial dysfunction plays important roles in vascular dysfunction under diabetic conditions. The generation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which can induce inflammation and oxidative stress, is pivotal in endothelial dysfunction. Salidroside, a major active compound in Rhodiola rosea, exerts protective effects against vascular diseases. To study the effects and mechanism of salidroside in diabetes-induced vascular endothelial dysfunction, an in vitro model was established with AGEs-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). Then, cell viability, cell apoptosis, pro-inflammatory cytokines and oxidative biomarkers were tested to determine the effects of salidroside at 10, 50 and 100 μM doses on AGEs induced HUVECs. Additionally, RNA-Seq and bioinformatics analyses were used to search for the underlying mechanism of salidroside. The results showed that salidroside promoted cell viability and significantly alleviated cell apoptosis in AGEs-induced HUVECs. Furthermore, salidroside remarkably decreased the levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6 and impeded the expression of VCAM-1 and ICAM-1 induced by AGEs. Additionally, salidroside promoted superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and increased catalase (CAT) and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) levels while inhibiting the intracellular generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and malondialdehyde (MDA) in AGEs-induced HUVECs. Importantly, salidroside alleviated endothelial inflammation and oxidative stress by activating AMPK phosphorylation and inhibiting NF-ĸB p65 and NLRP3 inflammasome activation. Therefore, we used compound C, an accepted AMPK inhibitor, to further demonstrate the mechanism. Interestingly, the phenomenon produced by salidroside was abolished. Our findings suggest that salidroside ameliorates AGEs-induced endothelial inflammation and oxidative stress, partially via the AMPK/NF-κB/NLRP3 signaling pathway.

This paper proposed a new approach to design medical imaging-sharing service network based on professional medical imaging center (PMIC). PMIC is famous for advanced imaging modalities and expert resources. The network connects clinics, hospitals and PMICs to provide collaborative diagnosis, consultation, mobile expert consulting and medical imaging artificial intelligence (AI) analysis services through Internet. It allows patients to be registered in hospital and examined in PMIC. It provides to schedule and view patients exam from mobile devices. It also provides AI analysis for some specific kinds of medical images such as carotid plaque and mammary cancer, to help doctors get accurate conclusions. The network is flexible to use three layers architecture with secure messaging and data communication: data source, service cloud and service provider. It has been deployed in Guangzhou Huyun Medical Imaging Diagnosis Center since July 2018 to provide services for the First People’s Hospital of Guangzhou.

Oxidative stress contributes to muscle wasting in advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. Atractylenolide III (ATL-III), the major active constituent of Atractylodes rhizome, has been previously reported to function as an antioxidant. This study is aimed at investigating whether ATL-III has protective effects against CKD-induced muscle wasting by alleviating oxidative stress. The results showed that the levels of serum creatinine (SCr), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), and urinary protein significantly decreased in the ATL-III treatment group compared with the 5/6 nephrectomy (5/6 Nx) model group but were higher than those in the sham operation group. Skeletal muscle weight was increased, while inflammation was alleviated in the ATL-III administration group compared with the 5/6 Nx model group. ATL-III-treated rats also showed reduced dilation of the mitochondria, increased CAT, GSH-Px, and SOD activity, and decreased levels of MDA both in skeletal muscles and serum compared with 5/6 Nx model rats, suggesting that ATL-III alleviated mitochondrial damage and increased the activity of antioxidant enzymes, thus reducing the production of ROS. Furthermore, accumulated autophagosomes (APs) and autolysosomes (ALs) were reduced in the gastrocnemius (Gastroc) muscles of ATL-III-treated rats under transmission electron microscopy (TEM) together with the downregulation of LC3-II and upregulation of p62 according to Western blotting. This evidence indicated that ATL-III improved skeletal muscle atrophy and alleviated oxidative stress and autophagy in CKD rats. Furthermore, ATL-III could also increase the protein levels of p-PI3K, p-AKT, and p-mTOR in skeletal muscles in CKD rats. To further reveal the relevant mechanism, the oxidative stress-mediated PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway was assessed, which showed that a reduced expression of p-PI3K, p-AKT, and p-mTOR in C2C12 myoblast atrophy induced by TNF-αcould be upregulated by ATL-III; however, after the overexpression of Nox2 to increase ROS production, the attenuated effect was reversed. Our findings indicated that ATL-III is a potentially protective drug against muscle wasting via activation of the oxidative stress-mediated PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway.

Background Cervical cancer (CC) is one of the most common cancers among females worldwide. Spindle and kinetochore-associated complex subunit 3 (SKA3), located on chromosome 13q, was identified as a novel gene involved in promoting malignant transformation in cancers. However, the function and underlying mechanisms of SKA3 in CC remain unknown. Using the Oncomine database, we found that expression of SKA3 mRNA is higher in CC tissues than in normal tissues and is linked with poor prognosis. Methods In our study, immunohistochemistry showed increased expression of SKA3 in CC tissues. The effect of SKA3 on cell proliferation and migration was evaluated by CCK8, clone formation, Transwell and wound-healing assays in HeLa and SiHa cells with stable SKA3 overexpression and knockdown. In addition, we established a xenograft tumor model in vivo. Results SKA3 overexpression promoted cell proliferation and migration and accelerated tumor growth. We further identified that SKA3 is involved in regulating cell cycle progression and the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway via RNA-sequencing (RNA-Seq) and gene set enrichment analyses. Western blotting results revealed that SKA3 overexpression increased levels of p-Akt, cyclin E2, CDK2, cyclin D1, CDK4, E2F1 and p-Rb in HeLa cells. Additionally, the use of an Akt inhibitor (GSK690693) significantly reversed the cell proliferation capacity induced by SKA3 overexpression in HeLa cells. Conclusions We suggest that SKA3 overexpression contributes to CC cell growth and migration by promoting cell cycle progression and activating the PI3K–Akt signaling pathway, which may provide potential novel therapeutic targets for CC treatment. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12935-018-0670-4) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

A temporal phase-truncated double random phase encoding cryptosystem is proposed to be improved by replacing the temporal Fourier transformers (TFTs) of the dispersion-time lens-dispersion structure with temporal skew Fourier transformers (TSFTs). A TSFT is similar to a TFT except for the time lens (TL) replaced by a skew time lens (STL). A STL is a temporal analog of a spatial cylindrical lens with the in-plane rotational asymmetry mapping to a front–back asymmetry. The front–back asymmetry is achieved by adding the chirp factor C of a TL by + ϵ ⋅ C and − ϵ ⋅ C respectively along the positive and negative half axis of the local time coordinate. The skew coefficients ϵ 1 and ϵ 2 of the two TSFTs involved in the encryption stage are dimensionless and ideally unbounded, serving as additional secret keys. By mathematical analysis, STLs are proven to have complex-value modulations on low frequency components of input signals of TSFTs, which cannot be removed by phase truncations (PTs) in the legal decryption stage. The plain/cipher-text-independent and non-removability features of STLs make phase retrieval attacks unable to exempt eavesdroppers from brute-force trials of STLs. A STL is implemented by an electrical arbitrary waveform generator (AWG) driven electro-optic phase modulator (EOPM). By numerical simulations, the using of STLs is proven to increase the difficulty of phase retrieval attacks in terms of the time consuming required for convergence. Even if phase retrieval attacks converge, the plaintext signal cannot be recovered without the knowledge of ϵ 1 , 2 in the encryption stage. The total key space of ϵ 1 , 2 is also evaluated as 2 17 at AWG bandwidth B m = 20 GHz, and as 2 37 at B m = 100 GHz. The fidelity robustness of our optical cryptosystem against possible noise and occlusion penalties on the communication channels and networks of optical cipher-text signals is also proven.

We describe a novel solid state crystallisation method for optimising a thin film transparent conductive oxide when deposited on flexible polymer substrates. The method is based on ultra-short non-thermal laser sintering of indium tin oxide (ITO) thin films. In this study, we used commercial ITO thin films deposited on a flexible polyethylene terephthalate substrate with a relatively low melting temperature compared with ITO on glass. We demonstrate the use of laser scanning with high pulse overlapping at fluences seven times less than the threshold required for melting/damage of ITO. The results confirm greater than four times enhancement in the mobility of charge carriers of ITO thin films after laser scanning and sheet resistance can be reduced up to 25%. There is no reduction in optical transparency observed in laser treated samples. Surface morphology and x-ray diffraction analyses confirm the improvement in crystallite sizes by laser sintering, resulting in a greater than 37% increase in grain size due to enhanced crystallization. Comparison of experimental and simulation based on a delayed two temperature model confirms that ITO thin film crystallization occurred at about one-third of the melting temperature of ITO.

In this paper, a method to optimize the sensitivity of multi-core fiber (MCF) strain sensors by properly designing fiber structure is investigated from theory, simulation and experiments. The mode-coupling between cores is tuned by changing fiber structure parameters, which will result in a change in sensitivity of such MCF strain sensor. Thus it is possible to obtain an optimal sensitivity in advance by reasonably designing the fiber structure parameters. Taking a symmetrical four-core fiber as an example, numerical simulation has been implemented and the results show that the highest strain sensitivity of −11.85 nm/me can be obtained when the core diameter, the core-to-core pitch, the refractive index difference between core and cladding are set to 4.53 µm, 18.1 µm and 0.0108, respectively. The method was verified through experiments and the experimental results are very close to the simulated results. The proposed MCF strain sensor has the advantages of simple structure, low cost and high sensitivity, which makes it have high research value in commercial sensing applications.

With record cell efficiency of 21.7%, CIGS solar cells have demonstrated to be a very promising photovoltaic (PV) technology. However, their market penetration has been limited due to the inherent high cost of the cells. In this work, to lower the cost of CIGS solar cells, all nonvacuum-processed CIGS solar cells were designed and developed. CIGS absorber was prepared by the annealing of electrodeposited metallic layers in a chalcogen atmosphere. Nonvacuum-deposited Ag nanowires (NWs)/AZO transparent electrodes (TEs) with good transmittance (92.0% at 550 nm) and high conductivity (sheet resistance of 20 Ω/□) were used to replace the vacuum-sputtered window layer. Additional thermal treatment after device preparation was conducted at 220 °C for a few of minutes to improve both the value and the uniformity of the efficiency of CIGS pixel cell on 5 × 5 cm substrate. The best performance of the all-nonvacuum-fabricated CIGS solar cells showed an efficiency of 14.05% with Jsc of 34.82 mA/cm(2), Voc of 0.58 V, and FF of 69.60%, respectively, which is comparable with the efficiency of 14.45% of a reference cell using a sputtered window layer.

Emodin, a major component of Rheum palmatum, has been reported to significantly protect neural tissue against apoptosis and autophagy. However, the effects and underlying mechanisms of action of emodin in muscle atrophy are still poorly defined. In this study, we investigated the protective effects and the underlying mechanisms by which emodin acts on tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α)-induced apoptosis and autophagy in mouse C2C12 myoblasts. Emodin, at various concentrations, decreased TNF-α-induced apoptosis in C2C12 myoblasts, which were analyzed by Hoechst 33342 staining and annexin V/PI analysis. Emodin also inhibited the collapse of the mitochondrial membrane potential and the generation of reactive oxygen species in TNF-α-stimulated C2C12 myoblasts. Consistent with these results, the expression of Bcl-2 was increased, whereas the expression of Bax, cleaved-caspase 3 and cleaved-PARP was decreased after emodin treatment. These data demonstrate that emodin attenuated apoptosis in TNF-α-stimulated C2C12 myoblasts through mitochondrial signaling pathways. In addition, emodin inhibited autophagy in TNF-α-stimulated C2C12 myoblasts by suppressing the expression of LC3-II, Beclin-1 and Atg7. Emodin also resulted in the upregulation of the phosphorylated forms of Akt. Taken together, these results suggest that emodin inhibited apoptosis and autophagy in TNF-α-induced C2C12 myoblasts, possibly through the activation of phosphorylated Akt. Our findings suggest that emodin could be a potential therapeutic agent in the treatment of muscle atrophy.

In this paper, we propose and describe a novel nonlinear numerical filtering approach to remove the zero-order term which overlaps the image, and meanwhile, to effectively control the image distortion in digital off-axis holography. To reach this goal, a special numerical filter is constructed by extracting and improving a modulation function from the G-channel sampling-gained hologram in Fourier frequency domain based on a color CCD detector. The quantitative analysis on the zero-order term suppression and image distortion control in both amplitude and phase for the filter optimization are presented in detail. The experimental result agrees with theoretical prediction well and proves the effectiveness of this method.

In coherent digital holographic microscopy, speckle noise is incorporated into the hologram so that phase reconstruction may become worse in quality. Meanwhile, the previous speckle suppression algorithms are not satisfactory to solving this problem due to under- or over-filtering the image with a purely multiplicative or additive phase processing technique. In this paper, the complex-valued speckle effect on the phase reconstruction is first disclosed in theory by creating a multiplicative complex-valued model. A composite noise processing approach is subsequently proposed, which combines a revision of speckle reducing anisotropic diffusion algorithm and an improvement of dual-domain noise processing technique by developing a principal component analysis model for the image blocks to determine the true noise standard deviation in the algorithm for optimization of speckle suppression. The phase unwrapping algorithm with proposed speckle suppression processing is optimally combined to obtain better robustness and phase reconstruction quality of the image. The results are satisfactory. It verifies the validity of the proposed method especially for the objects with continuously-varied phases

The similarity between in-plane directions of spatial optics and overlapped time ranges of temporal optics is introduced as a new rule of the space–time duality. Applying this rule, an optical dual random phase encoding (DRPE) cryptosystem in the temporal anamorphic fractional Fourier transform (TAFrFT) domain is proposed for physical-level protection of time-varying signals. The structure of a TAFrFT system is an anamorphic time lens (ATL) sandwiched by two identical dispersion elements. The additional key provided by a TAFrFT system is only related to phase profile of the involved ATL, leading to a dispersion-independent manner of key updating as well as an enlarged key space (KS) in comparison with the conventional temporal FrFT and Fresnel transform system. This manner of key updating has potential as a one-time key strategy to evade the intrinsic linearity and symmetry weakness of DRPE-like temporal cryptosystems, due to the updating speed being comparable to the frame rate of plaintext signals. As the temporal counterpart of a spatial optical device composed of cylindrical lenses along different directions, an ATL is designed as an equal-spaced array of time lenses with unipolar phase, constant extension, and varying phase height. Implemented by an arbitrary waveform generator (AWG)-driven electro-optic phase modulator (EOPM), the time interval of adjacent time lenses, extension of each time lens, and the standard phase height are optimally designed as functions of the AWG bandwidth B M and the EOPM damage phase threshold Γ 0 . By numerical simulations, a 16-slot input optical Gaussian pulse sequence with half pulse width of 10 ps and frame length of 2000 ps is encrypted with a KS near 2 698 provided by ATLs at parameters B M = 100 GHz and Γ 0 = 5 π radians under the state of the art, enough for resistance to brute-force attacks.

Flexible devices are garnering substantial interest owing to their potential for wearable and portable applications. Here, flexible and self-powered photodetector arrays based on all-inorganic perovskite quantum dots (QDs) are reported. CsBr/KBr-mediated CsPbBr3 QDs possess improved surface morphology and crystallinity with reduced defect densities, in comparison with the pristine ones. Systematic material characterizations reveal enhanced carrier transport, photoluminescence efficiency, and carrier lifetime of the CsBr/KBr-mediated CsPbBr3 QDs. Flexible photodetector arrays fabricated with an optimum CsBr/KBr treatment demonstrate a high open-circuit voltage of 1.3 V, responsivity of 10.1 A W-1 , specific detectivity of 9.35 × 1013 Jones, and on/off ratio up to ≈104 . Particularly, such performance is achieved under the self-powered operation mode. Furthermore, outstanding flexibility and electrical stability with negligible degradation after 1600 bending cycles (up to 60°) are demonstrated. More importantly, the flexible detector arrays exhibit uniform photoresponse distribution, which is of much significance for practical imaging systems, and thus promotes the practical deployment of perovskite products.

Colorectal cancer stem cells (CSCs), characterized by self-renewal ability and high expression of proliferative genes, contribute to the chemoresistance of colorectal cancer (CRC). We aimed to identify the molecular mechanisms underlying CRC chemoresistance through comprehensive bioinformatics screenings and experimental confirmation of gene functions. We found that high expression of FGF1 intracellular binding protein (FIBP) was correlated with chemoresistance and poor prognosis in CRC patients. Therefore, the chemoresistant CRC cell line HCT116-CSC with high expression of the stem cell markers CD44 and CD133 was established for further phenotypic tests. FIBP knockdown inhibited proliferation, enhanced chemotherapy effects, and attenuated the stemness markers of CRC cells in vivo and in vitro. Through RNA-seq and gene set enrichment analysis, we identified cyclin D1 as a key downstream target in FIBP-regulated cell cycle progression and proliferation. Moreover, FIBP bound to GSK3β, inhibited its phosphorylation at Tyr216, and activated β-catenin/TCF/cyclin D1 signaling in HCT116-CSCs. Additional GSK3β knockdown reversed the FIBP silencing-induced inhibition of proliferation and decreased stemness marker expression in HCT116-CSCs. Furthermore, DNA methylation profiling suggested that FIBP regulated the stemness of CRC cells via methylation activity that was dependent on GSK3β but independent of β-catenin signaling. Our data illuminate the potential of FIBP as a novel therapeutic target for treating chemoresistant CRC through inhibition of GSK3β-related signaling.

The benign and malignant differential diagnosis of small pulmonary nodules (diameter < 20 mm) found in lung CT images is big challenges for most of radiologists. Here, we presented our preliminary study of benign and malignant differentiation of small pulmonary nodules in lung CT images by using deep learning Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). The 921 cases with small benign and malignant pulmonary nodules confirmed by pathology were collected from three data sources and were used to train and validate the CNN. The preliminary results of AUCs of ROC curves for differentiating benign and malignant pulmonary small nodules with various types and sizes of solid, semi-solid and ground glass nodules were presented and discussed.

In this presentation, we presented a new approach to design cloud-based image sharing network for collaborative imaging diagnosis and consultation through Internet, which can enable radiologists, specialists and physicians locating in different sites collaboratively and interactively to do imaging diagnosis or consultation for difficult or emergency cases. The designed network combined a regional RIS, grid-based image distribution management, an integrated video conferencing system and multi-platform interactive image display devices together with secured messaging and data communication. There are three kinds of components in the network: edge server, grid-based imaging documents registry and repository, and multi-platform display devices. This network has been deployed in a public cloud platform of Alibaba through Internet since March 2017 and used for small lung nodule or early staging lung cancer diagnosis services between Radiology departments of Huadong hospital in Shanghai and the First Hospital of Jiaxing in Zhejiang Province.

Chalcopyrite Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 (CIGSSe) thin films have been deposited by a novel, nonvacuum, and cost-effective electrostatic spray-assisted vapor deposition (ESAVD) method. The generation of a fine aerosol of precursor solution, and their controlled deposition onto a molybdenum substrate, results in adherent, dense, and uniform Cu(In,Ga)S2 (CIGS) films. This is an essential tool to keep the interfacial area of thin film solar cells to a minimum value for efficient charge separation as it helps to achieve the desired surface smoothness uniformity for subsequent cadmium sulfide and window layer deposition. This nonvacuum aerosol based approach for making the CIGSSe film uses environmentally benign precursor solution, and it is cheaper for producing solar cells than that of the vacuum-based thin film solar technology. An optimized CIGSSe thin film solar cell with a device configuration of molybdenum-coated soda-lime glass substrate/CIGSSe/CdS/i-ZnO/AZO shows the photovoltaic (j-V) characteristics of Voc=0.518 V, jsc=28.79 mA cm(-2), fill factor=64.02%, and a promising power conversion efficiency of η=9.55% under simulated AM 1.5 100 mW cm(-2) illuminations, without the use of an antireflection layer. This demonstrates the potential of ESAVD deposition as a promising alternative approach for making thin film CIGSSe solar cells at a lower cost.

In this paper, we describe an approach, which uses dual reference beams yet a single shot to record the hologram, and reconstructs object wave-field subsequently by extracting double image spectra and using Hadamard transform. In this way, the noises are completely suppressed without any spectrum loss to the reconstructed object image, even if the image and the dc term are in close proximity to each other. Thus, the space bandwidth can be guaranteed, as long as the image and the dc term do not overlap each other.

Neuropeptide Y (NpY) is an important factor in neuropeptide signalling, and significantly change in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) during chronic kidney disease (CKD) progression. However, the role of NpY remains unclear. We aimed to investigate the associations between NpY levels, nutritional status and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in patients with CKD. In this cohort study, we performed Pearson's correlation analysis and multiple linear regressions to assess the relationship between CSF and serum NpY levels, as well as nutritional indices. Receiver operating characteristic curves were used to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of CSF NpY levels. As NpY affects the cardiovascular system, Kaplan–Meier analysis was used to investigate the relationship between serum NpY levels and CVD. CSF NpY levels and nutritional indices were related during CKD progression (energy intake: β=0.236, P

Human C-C chemokine receptor 3 (CCR3), belonging to the G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) family, plays a central role in various allergic diseases. Although good understanding on this protein is of critical importance to drug design, studies on the structure and functions of CCR3 are still limited, mainly due to the difficulties to obtain a large quantity of pure and functional protein. Here we report high-level production of human CCR3 fused to maltose binding protein (MBP) in Escherichia coli. Over-expression of MBP-CCR3 was achieved by systematically optimizing expression conditions, and Fos choline-14 was found to be an optimum surfactant for solubilization and stabilization of MBP-CCR3 in purification. After the two-step chromatography purification, the yield of MBP-CCR3 was 2–4 mg/l culture. The binding activity of purified MBP-CCR3 was verified by binding with its endogenous ligands CCL11 and CCL24, with KD of 2.90 × 10−6 and 1.81 × 10−6 M, respectively. This is the first report for that MBP fused recombinant CCR3 (MBP-CCR3) produced in E. coli still maintains its binding activity with its endogenous ligands, which provides an efficient way to produce functional GPCR proteins at large scale for further structural and functional studies.

Nitrosomonas europaea, an ammonia oxidizing bacterium, was chosen as a research model to study the alteration of cell membrane in the presence of sulfurous acid and biodegradation of acetochlor. Significant changes of the outer cell membrane were observed in the presence of sulfurous acid using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The fluorescence polarization has shown a significant decrease in membrane fluidity and the increase of permeability of cell membrane: Lysozyme experiment show the cell becomes easily influenced by substance in medium. Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) measurements show considerable amount of Ca2+ and Mg2+ in the supernatant from the sulfurous acid exposed cells. Sulfurous acid treatment enhanced the ability of N. europaea to degrade acetochlor. On this basis, it can be concluded that the increased cell permeability is favor for the absorbability of nutrition. As a result, N. europaea grows faster and the biodegradation efficiency was improved. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

AIM Messenger RNAs (mRNAs) play an important role in the pathogenesis of coronary artery disease (CAD). We evaluated the association of selected increase in mRNAs from monocytes with the risk of CAD. METHODS Chip data (GSE9820) retrieved from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) was re-analyzed, and the selected candidate genes, meeting specific conditions, were up-regulated and verified for specific biomarkers of CAD within a prospective cohort study that recruited 194 individuals and subdivided into two groups: group Non-CAD (GN), n = 68 and group CAD (GC), n = 126. The patients in GC were further categorized into three sub-units according to the extent of coronary stenosis shown during coronary angiography, coded as single-vessel stenosis (GC1, n = 53), 2-vessel stenosis (GC2, n = 50), or ≥ 3-vessel stenosis (GC3, n = 23). All candidate mRNAs expressions were analyzed from patients' monocytes with quantitative PCR (q-PCR). Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves and the area under the ROC curves (AUCs) were used to evaluate the mRNAs' feasibility for CAD prediction. AUCs ≥0.8 were accounted as highly specific association with CAD. RESULTS GBA2, CSTF3, ZNF606 and MPP5 were selected as mRNAs candidates from chip data reanalysis. GBA2 (P = .002) and ZNF606 (P

In any off-axis holographic experiments, it is generally difficult to accurately obtain plane reference wave angle so that tilt phase aberration (TPA) occurs in three-dimensional phase reconstruction for the object. In this paper, a novel approach to accurately determining the plane reference wave angle for phase reconstruction of the object in digital offaxis holography is described. The method ingeniously constructs a numerical reference plane (NRP) reflecting true tilt of the reconstructed object by randomly choosing three points from a local flat of the reconstructed object image, and establishes the relation between NRP tilt and plane reference wave angle. So the reference wave angle can be exactly obtained by iterative computation and TPA is completely compensated. The experimental result approves of theoretical prediction very well.

We aimed to examine the effects of zinc supplementation on nutritional status, lipid profile, and antioxidant and anti-inflammatory therapies in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized, controlled clinical trials of zinc supplementation. Metaregression analyses were utilized to determine the cause of discrepancy. Begg and Egger tests were performed to assess publication bias. Subgroup analysis was utilized to investigate the effects of zinc supplementation in certain conditions. In the crude pooled results, we found that zinc supplementation resulted in higher serum zinc levels (weighted mean difference [WMD] = 28.489;P<0.001), higher dietary protein intake (WMD = 8.012;P<0.001), higher superoxide dismutase levels (WMD = 357.568;P=0.001), and lower levels of C-reactive protein (WMD = −8.618;P=0.015) and malondialdehyde (WMD = −1.275;P<0.001). The results showed no differences in lipid profile. In the metaregression analysis, we found that serum zinc levels correlated positively with intervention time (β=0.272;P=0.042) and varied greatly by ethnicity (P=0.023). Results from Begg and Egger tests showed that there was no significant bias in our meta-analysis (P>0.1). Results of subgroup analysis supported the above results. Our analysis shows that zinc supplementation may benefit the nutritional status of MHD patients and show a time-effect relationship.

In our work, eco-friendly, non-vacuum and low cost Electrostatic Spray Assisted Vapour Deposition (ESAVD) method has been used to produce Cu(In,Ga)(S,Se)2 (CIGS) solar cells. Copper (Cu) deficient (Cu/In + Ga = 0.76) CIGS films were designed to avoid the rather dangerous KCN treatment step for the removal of conductive minor phases of Cu2S/Cu2Se. A simple sodium (Na) treatment method was used to modify the morphology and electronic properties of the absorber and it clearly improved the solar cell performance. The SEM and XRD results testified a slightly increase of the grain size and (112) crystal orientation in the Na-incorporated CIGS thin films. From the Mott-schottky results, it can be seen that the functions of the Na treatment in our non-vacuum deposited CIGS are mainly used for defect passivation and reduction of charge recombination. Photovoltaic characteristics and j-V curve demonstrated that the dipping of CIGS films in 0.2 M NaCl solution for 20 minutes followed by selenization at 550 °C under selenium vapor resulted in the optimum photovoltaic performance, with jsc, Voc, FF and η of the optimized solar cell of 29.30 mA cm−2, 0.564 V, 65.59% and 10.83%, respectively.

Purpose: Due to the generation of a large number of electronic imaging diagnostic records (IDR) year after year in a digital hospital, The IDR has become the main component of medical big data which brings huge values to healthcare services, professionals and administration. But a large volume of IDR presented in a hospital also brings new challenges to healthcare professionals and services as there may be too many IDRs for each patient so that it is difficult for a doctor to review all IDR of each patient in a limited appointed time slot. In this presentation, we presented an innovation method which uses an anatomical 3D structure object visually to represent and index historical medical status of each patient, which is called Visual Patient (VP) in this presentation, based on long term archived electronic IDR in a hospital, so that a doctor can quickly learn the historical medical status of the patient, quickly point and retrieve the IDR he or she interested in a limited appointed time slot. Method: The engineering implementation of VP was to build 3D Visual Representation and Index system called VP system (VPS) including components of natural language processing (NLP) for Chinese, Visual Index Creator (VIC), and 3D Visual Rendering Engine.There were three steps in this implementation: (1) an XML-based electronic anatomic structure of human body for each patient was created and used visually to index the all of abstract information of each IDR for each patient; (2)a number of specific designed IDR parsing processors were developed and used to extract various kinds of abstract information of IDRs retrieved from hospital information systems; (3) a 3D anatomic rendering object was introduced visually to represent and display the content of VIO for each patient. Results: The VPS was implemented in a simulated clinical environment including PACS/RIS to show VP instance to doctors. We setup two evaluation scenario in a hospital radiology department to evaluate whether radiologists accept the VPS and how the VP impact the radiologists’ efficiency and accuracy in reviewing historic medical records of the patients. We got a statistical results showing that more than 70% participated radiologist would like to use the VPS in their radiological imaging services. In comparison testing of using VPS and RIS/PACS in reviewing historic medical records of the patients, we got a statistical result showing that the efficiency of using VPS was higher than that of using PACS/RIS. New Technologies and Results to be presented: This presentation presented an innovation method to use an anatomical 3D structure object, called VP, visually to represent and index historical medical records such as IDR of each patient and a doctor can quickly learn the historical medical status of the patient through VPS. The evaluation results showed that VPS has better performance than RIS-integrated PACS in efficiency of reviewing historic medical records of the patients. Conclusions: In this presentation, we presented an innovation method called VP to use an anatomical 3D structure object visually to represent and index historical IDR of each patient and briefed an engineering implementation to build a VPS to implement the major features and functions of VP. We setup two evaluation scenarios in a hospital radiology department to evaluate VPS and achieved evaluation results showed that VPS has better performance than RIS-integrated PACS in efficiency of reviewing historic medical records of the patients.

Burn wounds can significantly reduce the quality of life of patients with respect to their physiology and psychology and can even threaten their lives. Many treatments have been proposed, including stem cell therapy but no effective method can as yet cure such damage. Our study highlights the role of Cd271 in epidermal stem cells (eSC) during the healing of burn wounds. The expression of Cd271 increases together with burn wound healing. Injection of Cd271-over-expressing eSC into wounds promotes the healing rate in a mouse burn model. Over-expression of Cd271 enhances the abilities of eSC with regard to their differentiation, proliferation and migration and even their resistance to apoptosis in vitro. These results are in accordance with a hypothesis suggesting that Cd271 promotes the healing of skin burn wounds by improving the potential of eSC for differentiation, proliferation and migration. Our findings shed light on the role of Cd271 in wound healing and may provide new therapeutic approaches for curing burn wounds of the skin.

In this article, an environmentally friendly and non vacuum electrostatic spray assisted vapour deposition (ESAVD) process has been developed as an alternative and low cost method to deposit CIGS absorber layers. ESAVD is a non-vacuum chemical vapour deposition based process whereby a mixture of chemical precursors is atomized to form aerosol. The aerosol is charged and directed towards a heated substrate where it would undergo decomposition and chemical reaction to deposit a stable solid film onto the substrate. A sol containing copper, indium and gallium salts, as well as thiourea was formulated into a homogene-ous chemical precursor mixture for the deposition of CIGS films. After selenization, both XRD and Raman results show the presence of the characteristic peaks of CIGSSe in the fabricated thin films. From SEM images and XRF results, it can be seen that the deposited absorbers are promising for good performance solar cells. The fabricated solar cell with a typical structure of glass/Mo/CIGSSe/CdS/i-ZnO/ITO shows efficiency of 2.82% under 100mW/cm2 AM1.5 illumination.

The chemokines eotaxin-1 (CCL11) and eotaxin-2 (CCL24), belonging to the CC chemokines family, play key roles in the inflammatory response, allergic asthma and other diseases. When expressed in Escherichia coli, chemokines are prone to form inclusion bodies devoid of biological activity, and it is hard to refold them properly. Here an expression and purification protocol for high-level production of soluble and biologically active CCL11 and CCL24 in E. coli has been established. A final yield of 8.7 mg/l for CCL11 and 3.9 mg/l for CCL24 has been obtained and the purified proteins were characterized with SDS-PAGE, mass spectrometry and circular dichroism. High binding affinity of purified chemokines with C C chemokine receptor type 3 (CCR3) has been confirmed with surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and the KD values are 3.7 × 10−7 M and 3.0 × 10−7 M, respectively, for CCL11 and CCL24. This report provides a straightforward strategy for the efficient production of soluble and biologically active chemokines in E. coli.