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This paper proposes a new algorithm, which is an extension of Direct Position Determination (DPD), for passive radar system to estimate both position and velocity in a multipath scenario. The proposed method is based on the maximum likelihood theory and the cost function is derived in this paper. The simulation shows that the proposed algorithm is effective since it can attain to Cramer-Rao Lower Bound (CRLB)at a moderate signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).

Psychoactive drugs discharged into the environment have different effects on the behavior of vertebrates. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of venlafaxine on the behavior of zebrafish, and whether melatonin could reverse the induction of venlafaxine. In this study, a series of venlafaxine concentrations (1 μg/L, 10 μg/L, 100 μg/L) was used to treat zebrafish embryos from 2 hours post-fertilization (hpf) to 5dpf. We found that venlafaxine (1 μg/L) can stimulate the growth of the head area, eye area, and body length of zebrafish. The light-dark test showed that venlafaxine (1 μg/L) could increase the activity of zebrafish larvae. What's more, venlafaxine (1 μg/L) upregulated the expression of steroid regulatory factors including steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (star), cytochrome P450 family member 11A1 (cyp11a1) and 11 β hydroxylase (cyp11b1) by cAMP-pCREB pathway, affecting the function of the steroidogenic cells, which might be involved in the increased cortisol levels in zebrafish larvae. Whereas, melatonin (230 μg/L) restored the altered locomotion behavior induced by venlafaxine and recovered the altered gene expression. Our results demonstrate that venlafaxine at levels detected in the aquatic environment impacts behavior and may compromise the adaptive responses to the environment in zebrafish larvae.

The accurate detection and classification of power quality (PQ) disturbances in power systems is a key step to determine the causes of these events before any proper countermeasure could be taken. This paper presents a new algorithm for detection and classification of PQ disturbances based on the combination of double-resolution S-transform (DRST) and directed acyclic graph support vector machines (DAG-SVMs). The proposed method first employs DRST for an effective feature extraction from power signals. Then, the DAG-SVMs are used to predict the classes of PQ disturbances. The DRST not only has better time–frequency localization and stronger robustness but also reduces the computational complexity without losing the useful information of the original signal in comparison with the traditional S-transform. Through the combined use of DRST and DAG-SVMs, the algorithm can be easily implemented in embedded real-time applications. Finally, the implementation of the proposed algorithm in a digital signal processor + advanced reduced instruction set computing machine-based hardware test platform is introduced. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by means of computer simulations and practical experiments with single and combined PQ disturbances.

The Greater Khingan Mountains region is the largest natural distribution area of wild Vaccinium uliginosum L. in China. V. uliginosum berries from 16 representative geographical origins in this region were systematically investigated in this study. The anthocyanin and flavonol contents and the antioxidant capacities of V. uliginosum berries measured in this study were generally higher than those reported from previous studies investigating berries from other regions of China, but significant variations were detected. Significant positive correlations were detected between the bioactive component content in fresh berry peels of V. uliginosum and latitude. Our results indicated that the ‘Greater Khingan Mountains’ can be used as a geographical indication for V. uliginosum berries produced in this region to reflect their high bioactive component content. However, we suggest that some more specific geographical indications should be used to ensure quality control and to label V. uliginosum with superior bioactive component content, such as V. uliginosum from locations L14 and L15.

Qinglin Shen1,2,*, Caixia Peng2,3,*, Yan Zhan1, Liang Fan1, Mengyi Wang1, Qing Zhou4, Jue Liu2,4, Xiaojuan Lv1, Qiu Tang1, Jun Li1,2, Xiaodong Huang2, Jiahong Xia2 1Department of Oncology, 2Key Laboratory for Molecular Diagnosis ofHubei Province, 3Central Laboratory, 4Department of Pharmacy, The Central Hospital of Wuhan, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally tothis work Abstract: Selection of the optimal chemotherapy regimen for an individual cancer patient is challenging. The existing chemosensitivity tests are costly, time-consuming, and not amenable to wide utilization within a clinic. This limitation might be addressed by the recently proposed use of circulating tumor cells (CTCs), which provide an opportunity to noninvasively monitor response to therapy. Over the past few decades, various techniques were developed to capture and recover CTCs, but these techniques were often limited by a capture and recovery performance tradeoff between high viability and high efficiency. In this work, we used anti-epithelial cell adhesion molecule coated aptamer–poly (N-isopropylacrylamide) functionalized silicon nanowire substrates to capture and release epithelial cell adhesion molecule-positive CTCs at 32°C and 4°C, respectively. Then, we applied the nuclease to digest the aptamer to release the captured CTCs (near or at the end of the polymer brush), which cannot be released by heating/cooling process. High viability and purity CTCs could be achieved by decreasing the heating/cooling cycles and enzymatic treatment rounds. Furthermore, the time-saving process is helpful to maintain the morphology and enhance vitality of the recovered CTCs and is beneficial to the subsequent cell culture in vitro. We validated the feasibility of chemosensitivity testing based on the recovered HCC827 cells using an adenosine triphosphate–tumor chemosensitivity assay, and the results suggested that our method can determine which agent and what concentration have the best chemosensitivity for the culturing recovered CTCs. So, the novel method capable of a highly effective capture and recovery of high viability CTCs will pave the way for chemosensitivity testing. Keywords: circulating tumor cells, aptamer–PNIPAM coating, capture and recovery, cell culture in vitro, chemosensitivity testing

Background Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are detectable in peripheral blood of metastatic lung cancer patients. In this article, we evaluate a new CTC separation method based on a combination of anti-EpCAM and immunomagnetic beads with the aim to detect CTCs more conveniently and specifically. Methods Lung cancer cells were magnetically labeled by anti-EpCAM magnetic beads, and subsequently captured by magnetic separation using our novel device. Isolated lung cancer cells were identified by pathomorphological by hematoxylin–eosin staining protocol. The system was used to detect CTCs in 2 ml blood. Blood samples of healthy donors spiked with lung cancer cell line A549 cells were used to determine the sensitivity and specificity of the method. Prevalence of CTCs was examined in samples from 56 patients with lung cancer. Results Regression analysis of number of recovered versus spiked A549 cells yielded a coefficient of determination of R2 = 0.996 (P < 0.001). The average recovery was 68% or more at each spiking level. The coefficient of variation increased as the number of spiked cells decreased, ranging from 6.4% (1,000-cell spike) to 18.4% (50-cell spike). Forty-nine of the fifty-six patients (87.5%) were found to have CTCs in peripheral blood. None of the 2 ml peripheral blood samples of the 20 healthy subjects analyzed were found to have CTCs. Conclusions This novel turbulence device provides a new tool allowing for feasible and specific detection of CTCs in lung cancer patients. It is likely clinically useful in diagnosis and monitoring of lung cancer and may have a role in clinical decision making.

As the rapid development in power electronic devices, the harmonic pollution becomes one of principle power quality problems in power system. The fast Fourier transform (FFT) is widely used for analysing and measuring power system harmonics. However, the limitation of the FFT such as an aliasing effect, spectrum leakage picket-fence effect, would contribute to inaccuracy results. Furthermore, the real power system harmonic is actually a non-stationary signal while FFT is a tool for stable signal. This study focuses on a novel FFT based method for time-varying power system harmonic measurement. The harmonic signal is preprocessed by infinite impulse response filter bank and Teager–Kaiser energy operator for fast detection of instability onset time. Then an adaptive Kaiser self-convolution window-based interpolated FFT algorithm is used to estimate each harmonic component. The results of both simulation and practical implementation show that the proposed method is suitable to deal with time-varying harmonic and achieves a higher accuracy compared with the traditional FFT-based techniques.

Fluorene-9-bisphenol (BHPF) is a substitute for bisphenol A (BPA), which is widely used to manufacture plastic products. Previous studies indicate that BHPF has an anti-estrogenic effect and induces cytotoxicity in mice oocytes. However, the effects of acute BHPF exposure on the aquatic organism obtain little attention. In this study, a series of BHPF concentrations (1 μM, 2 μM, 5 μM, 10 μM, 20 μM) was used to exposed zebrafish embryos from 2 h post-fertilization (hpf). The results showed the LC50 at 96hpf was 2.88 μM (1.01 mg/L). Acute exposure induced malformation in morphology, and retarded epiboly rate at 10hpf, increased apoptosis. Moreover, acute BHPF exposure led cardiotoxicity, by impeding cardiac looping, decreasing cardiac contractility (reducing the stroke volume and cardiac output, decreasing fractional shortening of ventricle). Besides that, BHPF exposure altered the expression of cardiac transcriptional regulators and development related genes. In conclusion, acute BHPF exposure induced developmental abnormality, retarded cardiac morphogenesis and injured the cardiac contractility. This study indicated BHPF would be an unneglected threat for the safety of aquatic organisms.

Broflanilide, a novel meta-diamide insecticide, shows high insecticidal activity against agricultural pests and is scheduled to be launched onto the market in 2020. However, little information about its potential toxicological effects on fish has been reported. In this study, broflanilide showed low toxicity to the zebrafish, Danio rerio, with LC50 > 10 mg L−1 at 96 h and also did not inhibit GABA-induced currents of the heteromeric Drα1β2Sγ2 GABA receptor. Broflanilide showed medium bioconcentration level with a bioconcentration factor at steady state (BCFss) of 10.02 and 69.40 in D. rerio at 2.00 mg L−1 and 0.20 mg L−1, respectively. In the elimination process, the concentration of broflanilide rapidly decreased within two days and slowly dropped below the limit of quantification after ten days. In the 2.00 mg L-1 broflanilide treatment, CYP450 activity was significantly increased up to 3.11-fold during eight days. Glutathione-S- transferase (GST) activity significantly increased by 91.44 % within four days. In conclusion, the acute toxicity of broflanilide was low, but it might induce chronic toxicity, affecting metabolism. To our knowledge, this is the first report of the toxicological effects of broflanilide on an aquatic organism, which has the potential to guide the use of broflanilide in the field.

The aim of the study was to address the causality links and identify specific features of the gut microbiota signatures contributing to host lipids metabolism in the presence or absence of polyene phosphatidylcholine (PPC) administration, and evaluate potential risk of PPC consumption. About 20 C57BL/6J mice were randomly allocated into two groups, normal diet group (CK) and PPC administration group (205.2 mg/kg). Compared with CK group, the contents of unsaturated fatty acids were increased and the saturated fatty acids were decreased in PPC group. The content of free fatty acids (FFA) and lipopolysaccharides (LPS) were significantly decreased (P < 0.05), and expression of carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1A (CPT1A), cluster of differentiation 36 (CD36), liver fatty acid binding protein (L-FABP), fatty acid transport protein 5 (FATP5), and fatty acid synthase (FASN) were significantly decreased in the mRNA and protein levels after treated by PPC (P < 0.05, P < 0.01). Also, we found that acetic acid in feces was significantly increased after consumption of PPC (P < 0.05). After PPC administration the relative abundances of Firmicutes and Clostridia were increased within the phylum level and the class level, respectively. Microbial abundances in genus level were dominated by Lachnospiraceae and Lachnospiraceae_NK4A136_group, whereas the proportion of sequences assigned to Bacteroidetes within the phylum level, class Bacteroidias and Mollicutes, order Anaeroplasmatalesl, genus Bacteroidales_S24-7_group were decreased in metagenomes of treated group with PPC and did not significantly influence on the accumulation of trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO). This study revealed that intake of PPC could regulate the gut microbiota signatures and lipids metabolism in mice without TMAO accumulations. © 2019 BioFactors, 45(3):439-449, 2019.

To generate an efficient tool used in Xenopus oocyte expression for in situ investigation of channel receptor expression, distribution and function, the C-terminus of the honeybee (Apis mellifera L.) resistant to dieldrin (RDL) subunit was fused with *FP, including monomeric red, enhanced yellow or enhanced green fluorescent protein (referred to as mRFP, EYFP and EGFP, respectively). In the present study, all fused *FP-AmRDLs could be visualized using fluorescence and laser confocal microscopy in cRNA-injected oocytes. Fluorescence was distributed isotropically in the cellular membrane. The potencies of the agonist γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), but not β-alanine, and the test antagonists (fipronil, flufiprole, dieldrin, α-endosulfan, bifenazate and avermectin B1a) in the *FP-AmRDL receptor did not significantly differ from that of the untagged receptor with two-electrode voltage clamp detection. The half maximal effective concentrations (EC50 s) of GABA in AmRDL, EGFP-AmRDL, EYFP-AmRDL and mRFP-AmRDL receptors were 11.98, 12.61, 18.92 and 22.11 μM, respectively, and those of β-alanine were 651.6, 629.6, 1643.0 and 2146.0 μM, respectively. Inhibition percentages of test antagonists against *FP-AmRDL and AmRDL were not significantly different from each other. Overall, the consistency in functional properties between *FP-AmRDL and AmRDL receptors makes pGH19-*FP a promising tool for further in situ investigation of GABA receptors.

Currently, with the requirements of quality, safety and service in many modern industrial process systems, fault detection and diagnosis become a significant issue to ensure the high control performances. Under these circumstances, this paper presents a fault detection method based on the monitoring state synchronization to perceive and evaluate the system operation situation. This model firstly considers the system states measured by some sensors as the nodes and defines the distributed monitoring state network with changing dynamically over time, all of which have been given their definition, calculation method and actual physical meaning, and finally its synchronization state of distributed network can be employed to achieve fault detection. Furthermore, this method can be used to provide a novel and feasible research method for the global assessment of the operation states and for monitoring the local operation fault of modern industrial process systems. The application of this method on a simple multivariate process system example shown that it can not only track the operation state of the whole system well to detect the fault, and not only monitor the situation of each distributed network node in real time to achieve fault diagnosis, but also make use of the correlation between the network node states to effectively locate the system operation fault.

The ionotropic GABAA receptor (GABAAR) is the main fast inhibitory post-synaptic receptor and is also an important insecticidal target. Effect of insecticides on fish has attracted intensive attention. However, no systematic study on heteromeric zebrafish GABAAR expressed in oocytes has been reported to date. In this study, the α1 subunit, the β2S subunit lacking 47 amino acid residues compared with the β2L subunit, and the γ2 subunit having five transmembrane domains were isolated from zebrafish Danio rerio. The responses of homomeric and heteromeric (α1, β2S and γ2) channels to agonists and GABAAR-targeted compounds were detected with two-electrode voltage clamp. Dose-dependent responses were observed in heteromeric α1β2S, β2Sγ2, and α1β2Sγ2 GABAR channels with EC50 values at 21.75, 6291, and 33.69 μM for GABA-induced current and 3.28, 155.5, and 3.79 mM for β-alanine-induced current, respectively. However, no response was induced by benzamidine in all GABAR channels. Abamectin, dieldrin, fluralaner and fipronil could strongly inhibited GABA-induced inward current ≥50% at 10−6 M, while α-endosulfan, flufiprole and ethiprole only inhibited GABA-induced current

Six novel target compounds 5-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-3H-1,2-dithiole-3-thione (ADT) based fibrates were synthesized and evaluated. All the synthesized compounds were preliminarily screened by using the Triton WR-1339-induecd hyperlipidemia model, in which T1 exhibited more potent hypolipidemic property than positive drug fenofibrate (FF). T1 also significantly decreased serum triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC) and low density lipoprotein cholesterin (LDL) in methionine solution (Mets) induced hyperlipidemic mice. Moreover, hepatic transaminases (AST and ALT) were obviously ameliorated after treatment with T1 and the histological observation indicated that T1 ameliorated the injury in liver tissue and inhibited the hepatic lipid accumulation. In the livers of T1-administrated rat, the levels of PPARα related to lipids metabolism were up-regulated. Additional effects such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and H2S releasing action confirmed and reinforced the activity of T1 as a potential multifunctional hypolipidemic and hepatoprotective agent.

The influence of three modification treatments on the physicochemical and rheological properties of yam starch was investigated in this study. Prominent changes in structure, physicochemical, rheological and gel textural properties were incurred by yam starch after esterification or alcoholic-alkaline treatment. The XRD pattern suggested that the structure of granular cold water soluble (GCWS) starch converted from crystalline to amorphous, whereas octenyl succinic anhydride (OSA) and acetylated starches maintained the same C-type pattern as native starch. Compared to native starch, OSA and acetylated starch exhibited higher viscosity and thixotropy with better gel textural properties, whereas GCWS starch showed higher solubility and swelling power. This study will provide a theoretical basis for industrial applications of modified yam starch.

To investigate the effects of aquaporin 4 (AQP4) inhibitor in irradiation-induced pulmonary inflammation in mice. A single dose of 75 Gy was delivered to the left lung of mice to induce radiation pneumonitis. For inhibition of AQP4, 200 mg/kg of TGN-020 was administered i.p. one time per 2 days post-irradiation. Blockade of AQP4 with TGN-020 resulted in the inhibition of inflammatory cell infiltration and the downregulation of inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-17, and TGF-β), chemokines (MIP1a and MCP1), fibrosis-related (Col3al and Fn1), and M2 macrophage marker (Arg1) post-irradiation. Immunofluorescence staining indicated that there was significant fewer M2 macrophage infiltration in the irradiated lung tissues from mice treated with TGN-020. Additionally, depletion of macrophages with liposome clodronate resulted in alleviated lung injury induced by irradiation. Furthermore, adoptive transfer of M1 or M2 macrophages into clodronate-treated mice was performed. The results showed that the administration of M2 macrophages fully reversed the clodronate-induced beneficial effect on inflammation score, thickness, and fibrosis. However, transfer of M1 macrophages only impacted the inflammation score and thickness and did not affect lung fibrosis. AQP4 blockade alleviated the development and severity of irradiated lung damage. This was associated with attenuated infiltration of inflammatory cell, decreased production of pro-inflammatory cytokines, and inhibited activation of M2 macrophages.

This paper introduced a deep learning approach to achieve fault detection with signal analysis and processing, which is based on an sparse auto-encoder and can be employed to achieve unsupervised learning to automatically extract features of complex data-sets to detect fault. This sparse auto-encoder can be employed to extract features from the unrecognized signals to achieve intelligent identification. The hidden layer of auto-encoder can be considered as an over-complete dictionary, which can be employed to reconstruct the input signals to extract data-sets features unsupervised. Furthermore, the sparse auto-encoder can be considered as the method to build up a specific architecture to describe the process industrial system, not only to avoid the requirement of large amount of data onto the training step, but also to handle the problem with small sample training data. Finally, the application of this method of Tennessee Eastman Process Chemical system can be employed to demonstrate and illustrate the effectiveness and the reliability of this proposed method, and the results have shown its excellent performance on fault detection for process industrial systems.

Hypolipidemic effects of the newly synthesized 5-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-3H-1,2-dithiole-3-thione-based fibrates were evaluated in Triton WR-1339 and high-fat diet (HFD)-induced hyperlipidemic mice. Preliminary screening of all the synthesized compounds was done by using an acute model (Triton WR-1339 model), in which compound 6 shown more significant antidyslipidemic activity than fenofibrate (FF). The compound 6 was also found to reduce serum triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC) and low density lipoprotein cholesterin (LDL) in HFD-induced hyperlipidemic mice. Moreover, compound 6 displayed hepatoprotective effect, a significant amelioration in hepatic indices (AST and ALT) toxicity was observed and the histological examination showed that compound 6 inhibited the development of hepatic lipid accumulation and ameliorated the damage in hepatic tissue compared to model mice. Additional effects such as the potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory action confirmed and reinforced the efficacy of compound 6 as a new agent of dual-effect hypolipidemic and hepatoprotective activities.

Lipoprotein-associated phospholipase A2 (Lp-PLAOur study cohort included 320 consecutive STEMI patients undergoing PPCI with HTB who were randomly assigned to receive either TA before PPCI (TA group, n = 160) or PPCI alone (standard PPCI group, n = 160). The baseline characteristics of study participants were well-matched. After 30 ± 2 days, serum Lp-PLAAfter 30 ± 2 days of treatment, TA may significantly reduce serum levels of Lp-PLA

Fault detection and diagnosis in the chemical industry is a challenging task due to the large number of measured variables and complex interactions among them. To solve this problem, a new fault diagnosis method named Fisher discriminative sparse representation (FDSR), based on deep belief network (DBN), is proposed in this paper. We used DBN to extract the features of all faulty and normal modes. Features extracted by the DBN were used to learn subdictionaries, then the overcomplete dictionary was constructed by cascading all subdictionaries in order, and each dictionary atom corresponded to class labels. The Fisher discrimination criterion (FDC) was applied to the dictionary learning to ensure smaller within-class scatter but greater between-class scatter. The quadratic programming method was applied to estimate the sparse coefficients simultaneously class by class. Therefore, both the reconstruction error and sparse coefficients were discriminative, so that the reconstruction error after sparse coding can be used for pattern classification. An experiment performed on the Tennessee Eastman (TE) process indicated that compared with the traditional monitoring methods, the FDSR based on DBN produced more interpretable results and achieved superior performance for feature extraction and classification in the field of complex system fault diagnosis. T-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) appropriately visualized the performance of the proposed method and produced reliable fault diagnosis results.

Gentianopsis barbata, Halenia corniculata, and Gentianella acuta were widely distributed throughout China and commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine. However, owing to similar living environments and morphological features, locals often had trouble distinguishing between these three species. In this present study, chromatograms at 350 nm were obtained and the composition and content of their chemical compounds determined using HPLC-DAD/ESI-MS2. In total, 35 chemical compounds were detected, 32 of which were identified, 25 of which were xanthones, 6 flavonoids, and 1 chlorogenic acid. The 350 nm chromatograms of these three species displayed evident differences. The individual compounds and their occurrence and content in different parts of the plant within different species were included in our results. This basic data will be useful for future pharmacological study. The total compositions of flavonoids and xanthones were approximately comparable in G. barbata and H. corniculata. Meanwhile, xanthones were predominant in G. acuta. From the perspective of chemical compound compositions, the leaf is recommended as the most valuable medicinal section for each of these three species.

Oxidative stress has been regarded as the leading mechanism of the hepatotoxicity of clofibrate (CF). To achieve multifunctional novel hypolipidemic agents with hypolipidemia, antioxidant, and ameliorating liver injury, clofibric acid derivative hydroxytyrosol-clofibrate (CF-HT) was synthesized by molecular hybridization. CF-HT exhibited significant hypolipidemia, reducing serum triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol (TC), and malonaldehyde (MDA) by 30%, 33%, and 29% in hyperlipidemic mice induced by Triton WR 1339. CF-HT also shown hepatoprotective effect, a significant decrease in hepatic indices toxicity was observed, i.e. aspartate and lactate transaminases (AST and ALT) activities, alkalines phosphatases (ALP), and total bilirubin (TBIL) levels. The liver weight and liver coefficient were also ameliorated. Serum superoxide dismutase (SOD) was significantly elevated, and serum catalase (CAT) and malondialdehyde (MDA) content were remarkably restored. The hepatic glutathione (GSH) content was obviously increased and hepatic oxidized glutathione (GSSG) content was reduced dramatically by CF-HT, as compared to the CF treated mice (p 0.05). Moreover, the histopathological damage that hepatocyte hyperplasia and hypertrophy was also significantly ameliorated by treatment with CF-HT. Therefore, the results indicated that CF-HT exerted more potent hypolipidemic activity and definite hepatoprotective effect which may mainly be associated with its antioxidative property in mice.

Background Published data regarding associations between the P275A polymorphism in the macrophage scavenger receptor 1 (MSR1) gene and prostate cancer (PCa) risk are inconclusive. The aim of this study was to comprehensively evaluate the genetic risk of P275A polymorphism in MSR1 gene for PCa. Materials and methods A systematic literature search was carried out in Pubmed, Medline (Ovid), Embase, CBM, CNKI, Weipu, and Wanfang databases, covering all available publications (last search was performed on Apr 27, 2015). Statistical analysis was performed using Revman 5.2 and STATA 10.1 software. Results A total of 5,017 cases and 4,869 controls in 12 case-control studies were included in this meta-analysis. When all groups were pooled, there was no evidence that the P275A polymorphism had a significant association with PCa under dominant (OR=0.93, 95%CI=0.81-1.06, and p=0.28), co-dominant (homogeneous OR=0.97, 95%CI=0.56-1.68, and p=0.92; heterogeneous OR=0.93, 95%CI=0.74-1.15, and p=0.49), recessive (OR=1.10, 95%CI=0.65-1.87, and p=0.73), over-dominant (OR=0.93, 95%CI=0.75-1.15, and p=0.50), and allelic (OR=0.95, 95%CI=0.77-1.16, and p=0.61) genetic models. For stratified analyses by ethnicity and study design, no significant associations were found in the white race, the yellow race, the black race and mixed ethnicity, and the population-based case-control (PCC) and hospital-based case-control (HCC) studies under all genetic models. Conclusions Based on our meta-analysis, the P275A polymorphism in the MSR1 gene is unlikely to be a risk factor for PCa.

Fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm inevitably suffers from spectral leakage and picket-fence effect under asynchronous sampling and nonintegral period truncation. So the FFT-based dielectric loss angle (DLA) measurement needs window functions and spectral lines interpolation algorithm, which requires massive sampled data and high computational cost. Therefore, this paper proposes a DLA measurement method on the basis of time-domain quasi-synchronous sampling technique to achieve fast measurement and high accuracy. First, the fundamental frequencies of the original voltage and current sampled signals were estimated accurately with the time-domain Newton interpolation algorithm. Then, the quasi-synchronous sampled sequences (QSSA) of the original asynchronous sampled signals were reconstructed using cubic spline interpolation algorithm. Finally, the DLA was calculated according to the equivalent circuit model and frequency-domain analysis of voltage and current QSSA based on FFT. The proposed method in this paper can perfectly restrain spectral leakage and picket-fence effect without window functions and spectral lines interpolation algorithm. The results of simulation and the implementation on the embedded system have confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm in this paper with less sampled data and lower computational cost.

Effects of different species of Sr additives (pure Sr, cast Mg-10Sr block, Ф10mm extruded Al-10Sr bar) on as-cast microstructure and tensile properties both at ambient temperature and elevated temperature of AS31 alloy were studied. The experimental results showed that pure Sr, Mg-10Sr, Al-10Sr additions all could refine the grains of AS31 alloy obviously, modify the eutectic Mg2Si particles and strengthen AS31 alloy. Al-10Sr is most effective to refine microstructure and improve mechanical properties of AS31 alloy.

We investigated the roles of tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) and its receptor death receptor 5 (DR5) in the onset of acute leukemia and changes in their expression during chemotherapy. Bone marrow samples from 16 patients newly diagnosed with acute leukemia were collected before chemotherapy. Bone marrow samples from patients with non-hematologic malignancies served as the control group. Peripheral blood samples of patients with acute leukemia were also collected before chemotherapy and at 1 and 3 days after chemotherapy. Mononuclear cells in the bone marrow and peripheral blood were isolated and used to detect the expression of TRAIL and DR5 by flow cytometry. Compared with mononuclear cells from the control group, mononuclear cells from newly diagnosed patients with acute leukemia showed no significant difference in the expression of TRAIL (P > 0.05) but showed significantly increased expression of DR5 (P < 0.05). TRAIL and DR5 expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells after chemotherapy was significantly increased compared to expression before chemotherapy (P < 0.05). Patients showing high expression of DR5 had a higher remission rate. One of the mechanisms underlying the treatment of leukemia with chemotherapy drugs may be the induction of TRAIL and DR5, which may promote apoptosis in leukemia cells. TRAIL-mediated apoptosis is regulated by DR5 expression.

The S transform is widely used in time-frequency analysis (TFA). However, the standard S transform suffers from the poor energy concentration in time-frequency distribution (TFD). In this study, an adaptive Dolph–Chebyshev window instead of the Gaussian window-based S transform and its fast realisation strategy are introduced for non-stationary signal TFA. By controlling the shape of the Dolph–Chebyshev window adaptively to signal, the new TFA method is able to achieve a high energy concentration in TFD. In addition, the new method is superior to other classical methods for instantaneous frequency estimation. Several examples are presented to illustrate its behaviour on different signals and demonstrate its validity.

To explore the differences of CD146 expression in adult and children's acute B cell lymphoblastic leukemia(B-ALL), and its relation with clinical features, molecular biological and cytogenctic claracteristics.The expression of CD146 in bone marrow samples from adult and children's B-ALL patients were detected by flow cytometry (FCM) and the relation of CD146 abnormal high expression with the patients' clinical features, molecular biological and cytogenetical characteristics, as well as other antigens were analyzed.The abnormal high expression rates of CD146 in adult and children's B-ALL patients were 29.17% and 9.09% respectively, showing that the expression rate of CD146 in adult patients was higher than that in children's patients(P0.05). In adult B-ALL, CD146 was positively related with CD64 and CD117, while in children's B-ALL CD146 was positively related with CD71 and CD58 (P0.05). After 1 course of standardized chemotherapy, the complete remission rates in adult and children's B-ALL patients with abnormal high expression of CD146 both were low as compared with adult and children's B-ALL without abnormal high expression of CD146 (P0.05).The expression rate of CD146 in adult B-ALL is higher than that in children's B-ALL. The CD146 positively relates with poor prognostic antigens, the CD146 may be one poor prognosis marker.

Melt holding time has important influences on the modification effect of Sr modified AS31 alloy. Effects of different melt holding time (30min, 60min, 90min and 120min) at 700°C on as cast microstructure and tensile properties both at ambient temperature and elevated temperature of Sr-modified AS31 alloy were studied. There exist polyhedral shape, fine fibers shape and a few Chinese script Mg2Si particles in Sr-modified AS31 alloys. And the average grain size is smallest in Sr-modified AS31 alloys with holding time at 700°C for 30min. The ultimate strength, yield strength and elongation at both ambient temperature and 150°C decrease gradually when the melt holding time increases from 30min to 120min. In the process of smelting of Sr-modified AS31. The burning loss of Sr element becomes more serious with the prolongation of melt holding time, which contributes to the modification effect reducing.

Effects of different Sr additions (0.1%-1%Sr, mass fraction) on as-cast microstructure and tensile properties both at ambient temperature and elevated temperature of AS31 magnesium alloy were studied. The experimental results show that the addition of Sr could refine the grain size obviously and modify the eutectic Mg2Si from Chinese script shape to polyhedral shape or fine fibers shape. The addition of Sr to AS31 alloy improved the tensile strength at ambient temperature, and the ultimate strength at 150°C first decrease and then increase with the Sr addition increase from 0.1% to 1%Sr.

Casting temperature has important influence on microstructure and tensile properties of casting products. Effects of different casting temperatures (670°C, 700°C, 730°C and 760°C) on as cast microstructure and tensile properties both at ambient temperature and elevated temperature of AS31-0.1%Sr (mass fraction) alloy were studied.The experimental results show that there exist polyhedral shape, fine fibers shape and a few Chinese script Mg2Si particles in AS31-0.1%Sr alloys. The grains at the casting temperature of 700°C are finest. The ultimate strength,yield strength and elongation at both ambient temperature and 150°C first increase when the casting temperature increases from 670°C to 700°C and then decrease with the casting temperature continuously increasing to 760°C.

Background The number and ratio of positive lymph nodes are important prognostic factors in gastric cancer, but there is little data reported in hypopharyngeal cancer. Methods Medical data from 81 patients with hypopharyngeal cancer undergoing radical hypopharyngectomy and cervical lymph node dissection were reviewed. Results The median survival time was 84, 54, 30, and 13 months in patients with N0, N1, N2, and N3, respectively, and 84, 51, and 17 months with positive lymph node ratios (N ratio) 0, 10%, respectively. Of the 24 N1 patients, the 20 patients that had an N ratio 10%. Similar data was seen for the N2 patients. Tumor (T) classification, adjuvant therapy, and N ratio were independent prognostic factors in multivariate analysis. Conclusion The positive lymph node ratio is complementary to the current N classification system. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Head Neck 37: 111–116, 2015

Ischemia/reperfusion injury remains an untreated clinical problem in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) despite significant advances in emergent revascularization through percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Pharmacological intervention for infarct size reduction is unavailable. We have identified that the medications milrinone and esmolol, when administered together at the beginning of the reperfusion, significantly decrease infarct size via reducing reperfusion injury in an experimental model. The present study tested the safety of combination therapy of milrinone and esmolol (M + E) in patients with AMI. Sixteen subjects with AMI requiring PCI were consecutively recruited. M + E was intravenously infused simultaneously for 10 min started at 5 min before anticipated angioplasty balloon inflation. Another 16 consecutively recruited AMI patients requiring PCI served as a placebo arm treated per routine clinical protocol. Blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) were monitored continuously during PCI. M + E combination therapy resulted in a trend of non-significant reduction in BP compared with a control group. There was a modest but significant increase in HR at the later phase of M + E infusion compared with a control group. No significant cardiac arrhythmia was induced during M + E infusion. The combination therapy with M + E produces a minimal change in hemodynamics and appears safe as an adjunctive therapy to PCI in AMI patients. Further studies are warranted.

Colorectal cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers and is a leading cause of cancerrelated death worldwide. In this study, we aimed to examine the expression of PTEN in human colorectal cancer cell lines HCT-8 and to further investigate the functions of PTEN in colorectal cancer cells. Therefore, we established stably transfected HCT-8 cell lines expressing siRNA targeting the PTEN gene. Cell proliferation and cell migration of the siPTEN cells were characterized by the CCK-8 assay and the Transwell assay, respectively. Our results show that constitutive knockdown of the PTEN gene in siPTEN cells significantly promoted cell proliferation and migration. These results suggest that PTEN may play important roles in colorectal cancer cell proliferation and migration.

Voltage flicker analysis is one of the elementary tools of power quality assessment in power systems. A new algorithm, fast S-transform (FST) is proposed and is used to analyze the time-varying voltage flicker in this paper. A voltage flicker waveform envelope, which captures the main flicker characteristic, is obtained by Teager-Kaiser energy operator instantaneously. FST achieves much lower computational complexity in comparison to the S-transform. FST is used to extract both the time and the frequency domain information of each flicker component. The proposed algorithm can be easily implemented with hardware multipliers, making the method a good choice for real-time applications for the time-frequency analysis of flicker. The implementation of the proposed algorithm in the dual-core processor-digital signal processor and advanced RISC machines-based voltage flickermeter is also introduced. The simulation and application results validate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed algorithm.