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Ke Jiang,1 Genpeng Li,1 Wenjie Chen,1 Linlin Song,1 Tao Wei,1 Zhihui Li,1 Rixiang Gong,1 Jianyong Lei,1 Hubing Shi,2 Jingqiang Zhu1 1Thyroid and Parathyroid Surgery Center, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, People’s Republic of China; 2State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University and Collaborative Innovation Center, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Jianyong LeiThyroid and Parathyroid Surgery Center, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, People’s Republic of ChinaTel/Fax +86-28-85423822Email leijianyong11@163.comHubing ShiState Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University and Collaborative Innovation Center, Chengdu 610041, Sichuan, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail shihb@scu.edu.cnBackground: Lymph node metastasis (LNM) is associated with increased risk of recurrence and poor prognosis in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC). Novel non-invasive biomarkers for the prediction of LNM in PTC patients are still urgently needed. In this study, the relationship between the expression of plasma exosomal microRNAs (miRNAs) and LNM was analyzed. Further, we aimed to explore if exosomal miRNAs can serve as indicators of LNM in PTC patients.Methods: A total of 64 PTC patients who underwent total thyroidectomy and neck dissection from June 2018 to July 2018 in West China Hospital were enrolled in this study. Plasma exosomes were isolated by exoRNeasy Serum/Plasma Maxi Kit. The levels of selected exosomal miRNAs were detected by real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR). Cox proportional hazard analyses and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were conducted to evaluate the predictive efficiency. Furthermore, PTC cell lines with transfection of miRNA mimics/inhibitors were used to verify the functions of exosomal miRNAs.Results: 49 PTC patients with LNM and 15 without LNM were included in the present study. Exosomal miR-146b-5p and miR-222-3p were both significantly upregulated in patients with LNM (P values were 0.008 and 0.015, respectively). ROC analyses revealed that the areas under the curves (AUCs) of miR-146b-5p and miR-222-3p for LNM prediction were 0.811 and 0.834, respectively. Moreover, the AUC increased to 0.895 when the two miRNAs used together. Wound healing assays and transwell assays showed that miR-146b-5p and miR-222-3p significantly enhanced the migration and invasion ability of PTC cells in vitro.Conclusion: Plasma exosomal miR-146b-5p and miR-222-3p could serve as potential biomarkers for LNM in PTC.Keywords: papillary thyroid cancer, lymph node metastasis, exosomal miRNAs, biomarkers

Since the establishment of the China (Heilongjiang) pilot free trade zone, the development of cross-border e-commerce with Russia has continued to increase speed and quality. With its geographical advantages and its comparative advantages in the Internet field, Heilongjiang Province promoted the rapid development of the Internet economy in Russia, fostered a new digital trade format represented by cross-border e-commerce, and promoted online and offline collaborative promotion of customs clearance logistics and financial services. The paper expounds foundation and development status of Heilongjiang Province’s cross-border e-commerce, analyzes in integrated development of digital economy with the Heilongjiang Province’s cross-border e-commerce with Russia, and further puts forward prospects and recommendations.

As one of the nine border provinces in the country, Heilongjiang Province has 2,981 kilometres of RussianRussian border and 25 national first-class ports. In the past five years, Heilongjiang Province, based on the prominent geographical position in the core of Northeast Asia, has actively promoted the national strategy of the Belt and Road Initiative, deepened on open cooperation with countries in the Northeast Asia, and focused on developing economic cooperation and trade with Russia while building a new pattern of openness to the outside world. This paper in detail elaborates the progress of Heilongjiang Province’s participation in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in aspect of “five links” construction, namely, policy coordination, connectivity of infrastructure, unimpeded trade, financial integration and closer people-to-people ties, since the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, and further proposes feasible countermeasures.

AIMS The Bethesda System for Reporting Thyroid Cytopathology (TBSRTC) has been widely adopted since its introduction. In this study, we aimed to report our experience using this reporting system at a College of American Pathologists (CAP)-accredited hospital laboratory in a large series of Chinese patients. METHODS All patients who underwent preoperative ultrasound-guided thyroid fine-needle aspiration (FNA) from January 2011 to August 2016 were retrospectively analyzed. Thyroid FNAs were classified according to the Bethesda System. For patients who underwent subsequent surgery at our institution, the diagnostic performance of the preoperative FNA was further analyzed according to four different calculation criteria. All of the follicular variants of papillary thyroid carcinoma specimens were reviewed to exclude NIFTP (noninvasive follicular thyroid neoplasm with papillary-like nuclear features). RESULTS A total of 13 351 thyroid FNAs were included in this analysis. Of the 12 530 sampled patients, 3594 (28.7%) underwent thyroidectomy, and the malignancy rates for each cytological category were as follows: 66.7% unsatisfactory, 14.2% benign, 53.5% undetermined significance, 30.2% follicular neoplasm, 82.0% suspicious, and 99.1% malignant. Only 12 (0.36% of all PTC) patients were reclassified as having NIFTP. The sensitivities of the preoperative FNAs were all above 95.0% and were as high as 99.0%. The specificities ranged from 50.3% to 63.9%, depending on which criteria were used. The positive predictive value was 95.4% for criteria 1 and 2 and was 94.2% for criteria 3 and 4. The negative predictive values ranged from 64.5% to 85.8%. The diagnostic accuracies all exceeded 90.0%, with the highest being 94.8%. CONCLUSION This study revealed the great efficacy and accuracy of TBSRTC in a large Chinese population for the first time.

Self-piercing riveted (SPR) connections are gradually being used in cold-formed steel structures due to higher tensile strength, shear strength and connection efficiency compared to those of self- drilling connections. With the purpose of investigating the flexural behavior of truss beams with SPR connections and studying the effects of height and span, as well as diagonal web arrangement, on their flexural stiffness and ultimate bearing capacity, the symmetric vertical static load test was conducted for 5 cold-formed thin-walled truss beam specimens with SPR connections. The finite element software was adopted to simulate the test models, and the more parameters were additionally analyzed. The research indicated that the failure modes of the specimens can be divided into two types: the local strength failure mode occurred when the upper chord flange plate was cracked, the other one occurred when the rivets at joints of truss beams were stripped from the plate. The span-height ratio, spacing of web members, chord thickness and number of rivets had great influence on the flexural stiffness and ultimate bearing capacity of truss beams with SPR connections, while the thickness of web members and the arrangement of diagonal web members had less influence. The truss beam was a simply supported beam with a weak web. A theoretical formula was proposed to calculate the equivalent flexural stiffness of the truss beam with SPR connections based on parametric analysis, and it agreed with the experiment results, so the proposed theoretical formula is valid and can be applied to practical engineering.