Search

The formation of non-dendritic structure of Mg alloy solidified with ultrasonic treatment was investigated by numerical simulation and experiment. The models of nucleation and crystal growth involved the effects of ultrasonic cavitation and acoustic streaming were built. Based on the models, the grain refinement and the microstructure change from dendrite to non-dendritic structure of a Mg-Al alloy were numerically simulated by cellular automata method. The simulation and experimental results indicated that the ultrasonic cavitation strongly contributes to the grain refinement by improving nucleation, while the acoustic streaming is mainly responsible for the formation of non-dendritic structure.

Acquisition device clustering from speech recordings is a new and critical problem in the field of speech forensic, which aims at merging speech recordings acquired by the same device into one cluster without both pre-knowing prior information of the processed data and pre-training classifier. We propose a mobile phone clustering method, in which deep Gaussian supervector learned by deep neural network is used to represent the intrinsic trace left behind by mobile phone in speech recordings, and then spectral clustering technique is adopted to merge speech recordings acquired by the same mobile phone into one cluster. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated on a public corpus of speech recordings acquired by mobile phones. The results show that the proposed method is effective for mobile phone clustering from acquired speech recordings.

The authors propose a method of fast speaker clustering in which a distance (distance of feature matrix mean, DFMM) is first defined for characterising the similarities between any two clusters, and then an adaptive convergence threshold is introduced for terminating the procedure of speaker clustering. If the minimum of the DFMMs between any two clusters is smaller than the threshold, then they are merged. The above mergence of clusters is repeated until the minimum of the DFMMs between any two clusters is larger than the threshold. They conduct experiments on both shorter voice segments (≤ 3 s) and longer voice segments (> 3 s) to compare their method with state-of-the-art methods, agglomerative hierarchical clustering with Bayesian information criterion (AHC + BIC) and vector quantisation with spectral clustering. Experiments show that their method achieves the best results for clustering shorter voice segments, and also obtains satisfactory results for clustering longer voice segments in comparison with other two methods. What is more, their method is faster than other methods in all experimental cases. The initial results show that the hybrid methods by combining their method with the AHC + BIC obtain further improvement in terms of the F score.

In this paper, a novel type of magnetic photocatalyst, made of Fe3O4ZnO hybrid nanoparticles, was prepared and characterized using various analytical instruments. Upon the degradation of phenol in water, the hybrid nanoparticles demonstrated significantly enhanced photocatalytic activity, achieving a phenol degradation efficiency of 82.3%, in comparison with that of 52% by the pure ZnO nanoparticles. A reduced photoluminescence in the hybrid nanoparticles revealed the suppressing effect of the hybrid nanoparticles on the recombination of photoinduced electron–hole pairs. A hypothesized reaction mechanism was presented, showing the possible presence of free iron ions that can act as an electron-trapping site to prevent the fast recombination of photogenerated charge carriers, therefore improving the photocatalytic properties. The stability and the recoverability of the hybrid nanoparticles were also investigated. A recovering yield of 89% was achieved. The strong photocatalytic activity was well maintained after three cyclic treatments, indicating both good recoverability and high performance of the novel photocatalyst. Photocorrosion caused loss of ZnO and Fe3O4 in the recycled hybrid nanoparticles was noticeable. Whilst the loss of ZnO might have led to the reduced photoreactivity of the recycled nanoparticles, the dissolution of iron ions could be critical for the enhanced overall photocatalytic properties of Fe3O4ZnO.

Terrestrial biosphere models are designed to synthesize our current understanding of how ecosystems function, test competing hypotheses of ecosystem function against observations, and predict responses to novel conditions such as those expected under climate change. Reducing uncertainties in such models can improve both basic scientific understanding and our predictive capacity, but rarely are ecosystem models employed in the design of field campaigns. We provide a synthesis of carbon cycle uncertainty analyses conducted using the Predictive Ecosystem Analyzer ecoinformatics workflow with the Ecosystem Demography model v2. This work is a synthesis of multiple projects, using Bayesian data assimilation techniques to incorporate field data and trait databases across temperate forests, grasslands, agriculture, short rotation forestry, boreal forests, and tundra. We report on a number of data needs that span a wide array of diverse biomes, such as the need for better constraint on growth respiration, mortality, stomatal conductance, and water uptake. We also identify data needs that are biome specific, such as photosynthetic quantum efficiency at high latitudes. We recommend that future data collection efforts balance the bias of past measurements toward aboveground processes in temperate biomes with the sensitivities of different processes as represented by ecosystem models. ©2014. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.

The mechanical anisotropy of directionally solidified Mg-4 wt.% Zn alloy was studied under compression test at room temperature. The results show that directionally solidified Mg-4 wt.% Zn has higher compression strength and work hardening rates when compression axis is parallel to the growth direction, which is mainly due to the formation of { 10 1 ‾ 2 } extension twins. Besides, the microstructural evolution in the process of plastic deformation was also investigated. When the compression axis is parallel to the growth direction, plastic deformation of the alloy starts with multi-slip systems and { 10 1 ‾ 2 } twins are activated as the strain increases. The interactions among the twins, matrix and dislocations result in the occurrence of sub-grains and the fragmentation of columnar grains.

Photosensitive nanoparticles are useful in developing phototherapeutic agents for targeted cancer therapy. In this paper, core-shell structured titanium dioxide-silica (TiO2-SiO2) nanoparticles, with varying shell thickness, were synthesized. The influence of the silica shell thickness on the photoreactivity, cytotoxicity and photo-killing ability of the TiO2 nanoparticles was investigated. Silica coating reduced the photocatalytic reactivity but improved the cytocompatibility of the TiO2 nanoparticles. This effect was amplified with increasing silica shell thickness. When the silica thickness was about 5.5 nm, the coated TiO2 not only retained a high level photodynamic reactivity, comparable to the non-coated TiO2 nanoparticles, but also demonstrated an improved cell compatibility and effective photo-killing ability upon the mouse fibroblast cells (L929).

The direct and indirect economic burden of human cystic echinococcosis (CE) was investigated in the five specialist hydatid hospitals in Xinjiang, PR China, to provide information for health policy in the future. A total of 2018 CE patients (age range 2-88 years) attending the hospitals were studied between 2004 and 2008. The per-person direct medical cost was US$1493.12 (95% CI 1438.43-1547.80) and the per-person direct non-medical cost was US$19.67. The indirect economic cost was US$1435.96 per person, and the disability-adjusted life-years (DALY) lost was approximately 1.03 DALY/person. This study is the first to combine the human capital method with DALYs to analyse the indirect CE economic burden in northwest China. Factors such as age, occupation and hospital level should be considered when developing polices to reduce the economic burden of CE.

Speaker role clustering is to obtain the number of different roles and to merge the utterances of the same role into one cluster in an unsupervised way, which is important for rich transcription of multi-speaker spoken documents. This paper presents an approach to role clustering using turn features and maximum distances of inter-clusters. The turn features of each speaker are extracted from audio outputs of speaker diarization, and used as the initial clusters. During clustering iteration, the cluster-pair (e.g. C A and C B ) with the minimum distance is merged and the cluster number is decreased by one if the distance of the N c - 1 clusters (after merging C A and C B ) is bigger than that of the N c clusters (not merging C A and C B ); otherwise, the clustering iteration is finished. Evaluated on four types of multi-speaker spoken documents, the proposed approach outperforms the previous clustering approach and is close to the supervised approach in terms of K scores.

Industry-University-Research (IUR) cooperative innovation has been regarded as the frontier innovation mode to promote the major innovations of knowledge and technology. It has been the general consensus of small satellite enterprises, universities and scientific research institutes that the superiority of IUR cooperative innovation should be further developed and the level of technical service of small satellites should be further enhanced to promote the innovation and development of the small satellite industry. In this paper, based on the study of the IUR cooperative innovation system, we analyze the concept and connotation of IUR cooperative innovation, present the deficiencies in the current research, put forward the management and control method, design the path of cooperative innovation, and provide the strategy and suggestion.

Nitrogen (N) addition typically increases overall plant growth, but the nature of this response depends upon patterns of plant nitrogen allocation that vary throughout the growing season and depend upon canopy position. In this study seasonal variations in leaf traits were investigated across a canopy profile in Miscanthus (Miscanthus 9 giganteus) under two N treatments (0 and 224 kg ha � 1 ) to determine whether the growth response of Miscanthus to N fertilization was related to the response of photosynthetic capacity and nitrogen allocation. Miscanthus yielded 24.1 Mg ha � 1 in fertilized plots, a 40% increase compared to control plots. Photosynthetic properties, such as net photosynthesis (A), maximum rate of rubisco carboxylation (Vcmax), stomatal conductance (gs) and PSII efficiency (Fv’/Fm’), all decreased significantly from the top of the canopy to the bottom, but were not affected by N fertilization. N fertilization increased specific leaf area (SLA) and leaf area index (LAI). Leaf N concentration in different canopy layers was increased by N fertilization and the distribution of N concentration within canopy followed irradiance gradients. These results show that the positive effect of N fertilization on the yield of Miscanthus was unrelated to changes in photosynthetic rates but was achieved mainly by increased canopy leaf area. Vertical measurements through the canopy demonstrated that Miscanthus adapted to the light environment by adjusting leaf morphological and biochemical properties independent of nitrogen treatments. GPP estimated using big leaf and multilayer models varied considerably, suggesting a multilayer model in which Vcmax changes both through time and canopy layer could be adopted into agricultural models to more accurately predict biomass production in biomass crop ecosystems.

Eu3+ doped Gd2WO6 and Gd2(WO4)3 nanophosphors with different concentrations were prepared via a co-precipitation method. The structure and morphology of the nanocrystal samples were characterized by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), respectively. The emission spectra and excitation spectra of samples were measured. J-O parameters and quantum efficiencies of Eu3+ 5D0 energy level were calculated, and the concentration quenching of Eu3+ luminescence in different matrixes were studied. The results indicated that effective Eu3+:5D0−7F2 red luminescence could be achieved while excited by 395 nm near-UV light and 465 nm blue light in Gd2WO6 host, which was similar to the familiar Gd2(WO4)3:Eu. Therefore, the Gd2WO6:Eu red phosphors might have a potential application for white LED.

SiO2, ZSM-5 and MCM-22 supported ZnO catalysts were prepared. Elemental analysis and Zn element mapping were conducted to evaluate the dispersion of ZnO on the supports. The prepared materials were tested in adsorption, photochemical oxidation, and photocatalytic degradation of phenol in aqueous solution. Peroxydisulphate (PDS) and peroxymonosulphate (PMS) were used as oxidants to provide sulphate radicals for chemical oxidation. It was found that adsorptive property of the supports played an important role in photochemical and photocatalytic oxidation. MCM-22 was found to exhibit stronger adsorption, giving 68% of phenol removal in 25 ppm solution, compared to 0%, 3%, and 4% removal on ZnO, SiO2, and ZSM-5, respectively. The PDS and PMS oxidants could be activated by low intensity UV at wavelength greater than 380 nm. However, under low UV intensity, SiO2 and ZSM-5 supported ZnO did not exhibit synergistic effect for phenol degradation. The phenol removal efficiencies in PDS/UV, ZnO/PDS, ZnO/UV, ZnO(10%)/MCM-22/UV/PDS, and ZnO(10%)/MCM-22/UV/PMS at 90 min and 60 μW/cm2 were 34.2, 13.8, 14.2, 79.0, and 72.1%, respectively. The apparent reaction rate constants of PDS/UV, ZnO/PDS, ZnO/UV, ZnO(10%)/MCM-22/UV/PDS, and ZnO(10%)/MCM-22/UV/PMS were 0.00473, 0.00154, 0.00262, 0.00831, and 0.00365 min−1, respectively.

Epitaxial GaN films are fabricated by a chemical solution approach of metal–organic decomposition (MOD) for the first time. The precursors employed are metal–organic compounds, which are dissolved ...

The inhibitory effect of phosphate on the crystal grain growth of nanosized titania during high temperature calcination was investigated. Nanosized titanium dioxide powders prepared by hydrolysis of titanium tetrachloride were soaked in phosphate solutions with different concentrations. The obtained powders calcined at various temperatures were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray photoelectronic spectroscopy (XPS). The grain size of the samples without phosphate treatment increased quickly when calcined at high temperatures, while the grain size of the samples with phosphate modification increased slowly when calcined at the same temperature. This phenomenon implies that phosphate treatment plays an important role in inhibiting the crystal grain growth of titania. The possible mechanism of the inhibition effect of phosphate on titania is discussed.

In order to solve the issue of ignoring the successive and dynamic lip motion information in traditional audio-visual speech synchrony analysis models, a novel method based on shift-invariant learned dictionary is presented. In this method, sparse representation with shift-invariant dictionary is introduced to analyze the bimodal structure of articulation. The learned dictionary is obtained based on the audio-visual coherence dictionary learning algorithm, and the dynamic correlation between voice and lip motion of diverse syllable or word is represented as a pattern by this audio-visual coherence atom. According to these utterance patterns, an original audio-visual synchronization score measuring scheme is proposed. The results of the experiment on four different asynchronous data show the good performance of the method.

Terrestrial ecosystem productivity is widely accepted to be nutrient limited. Although nitrogen is deemed a key determinant of aboveground net primary production, the prevalence of co-limitation by nitrogen and phosphorus is increasingly recognized. However, the extent to which terrestrial productivity is co-limited by nutrients other than nitrogen and phosphorus, such as potassium and micronutrients, has remained unclear. Here, we report results from a standardized factorial nutrient addition experiment, in which we added nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium combined with a selection of micronutrients (K+μ), alone or in concert, to 42 grasslands spanning five continents, and monitored aboveground net primary production. Nutrient availability limited productivity at 31 of the 42 grassland sites studied. Pairwise combinations of N, P, and K+μ co-limited aboveground net primary production at 24 of the 42 sites, and nitrogen limitation peaked in cool, high latitude sites. Our findings indicate widespread variation in the combination of nutrients that limit aboveground grassland productivity, and highlight the importance of potassium and micronutrients, and an apparent absence of limitation by the nutrients we considered at some sites. This variation in nutrient limitation must be considered when assessing the ecosystem-scale consequences of nutrient enrichment.

Graphical abstract, Highlights • Xinjiang is one of the most important foci of human cystic echinococcosis in the world. • A control programme, including PZQ dosing of dogs, began in Xinjiang in 2010. • The control programme was evaluated using LQAS sampling, dog necropsies and questionnaires. • The control programme did not meet our evaluation criteria in most communities studied. • Other measures should be considered to improve Echinococcus spp. control in Xinjiang., The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China is one of the world's most important foci for cystic echinococcosis. Domestic dogs are the main source for human infection, and previous studies in Xinjiang have found a canine Echinococcus spp. coproELISA prevalence of between 36% and 41%. In 2010 the Chinese National Echinococcosis Control Programme was implemented in Xinjiang, and includes regular dosing of domestic dogs with praziquantel. Six communities in Hobukesar County, northwest Xinjiang were assessed in relation to the impact of this control programme through dog necropsies, dog Echinococcus spp. coproantigen surveys based on Lot Quality Assurance Sampling (LQAS) and dog owner questionnaires. We found that 42.1% of necropsied dogs were infected with Echinococcus granulosus, and coproELISA prevalences were between 15% and 70% in the communities. Although approximately half of all dog owners reported dosing their dogs within the 12 months prior to sampling, coproELISA prevalence remained high. Regular praziquantel dosing of owned dogs in remote and semi-nomadic communities such as those in Hobukesar County is logistically very difficult and additional measures should be considered to reduce canine echinococcosis.

Source recording device recognition is an important emerging research field of digital media forensic. Most of the prior literature focus on the recording device identification problem. In this study we propose a source cell phone verification scheme based on sparse representation. We employed Gaussian supervectors (GSVs) based on Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) extracted from the speech recordings to characterize the intrinsic fingerprint of the cell phone. For the sparse representation, both exemplar based dictionary and dictionary learned by K-SVD algorithm were examined to this problem. Evaluation experiments were conducted on a corpus consists of speech recording recorded by 14 cell phones. The achieved equal error rate (EER) demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed scheme.

This paper describes a method to extract time-frequency (TF) audio features by tensor-based sparse approximation for sound effects classification. In the proposed method, the observed data is encoded as a higher-order tensor and discriminative features are extracted in spectrotemporal domain. Firstly, audio signals are represented by a joint time-frequency-duration tensor based on sparse approximation; then tensor factorization is applied to calculate feature vectors. The three arrays of the proposed tensor are used to represent frequency, time and duration of transient TF atoms respectively. Experimental results show that exploiting tensor representation allows to characterize distinctive transient TF atoms, yielding an average accuracy improvement of 9.7% and 12.5% compared with matching pursuit (MP) and MFCC features.

Understand the changes before and after treatment in patients with severe OSAHS serum S100β protein, NSE levels and cognitive function. To investigate the molecular mechanisms of cognitive dysfunction in patients with severe OSAHS. Serum S100β protein, NSE levels and cognitive function were examined before and after the therapy.Select one hundred patients diagnosed as severe OSAHS were included, by polysomnography (PSG) diagnosis of severe OSAHS patients. Determination of serum S100β protein, and NSE levels and theat the same time be MoCA score were checked at after the day after admission, CPAP treatment for the 7th days after CPAP treatment and the 90th day after, comprehensive treatment in these patients for 3 months. Assessment of severe OSAHS patients with serum S100β protein, NSE basic level and MoCA score situation. Comparison of three groups serum S100β protein, NSE levels and MoCA score changes. Serum S100β protein, NSE detection assay (ELISA) method using enzyme-linked immunosorbent.(1) Severe OSAHS patients with serum S100β protein, and NSE levels in severe OSAHS patients were positively correlated with AHI, but negatively correlated with lowest oxygen saturation (LSaO2); (2) MoCA score in patients with severe OSAHS was significantly negatively correlated with AHI, but positively correlated with LSaO2; (3) S100β protein, NSE levels were negatively correlated with MoCA score; (4) Compared with admission, serum S100β protein, and NSE levels in these patients have declined after 7 days CPAP therapy, compared with admission the difference was statistically significant (P0.05). After 3 months of comprehensive treatment, patients' serum S100β protein and, NSE levels were significantly decreased, compared with the admission and the 7th days after CPAP treatment. The difference was statistically significant (P0.05). (5) After CPAP treatment for 7 days, the MoCA scores were slightly higher, but have there was no statistically significant difference compared with the admission (P0.05). After 3 months of comprehensive treatment, MoCA score improved significantly, compared with the admission and 7 days after CPAP treatment the difference was statistically significant (P0.05).Comprehensive treatment can reduce serum S100β protein, and NSE levels, and improve MoCA score. Disease severity in patients with OSAHS have a correlation some relative.with the serum S100β protein, NSE levels and MoCA score. Long-term hypoxemia and the structure of sleep disorders may be the cause of elevated serum S100β protein, NSE levels elevated and causes of cognitive dysfunction. Comprehensive treatment can improve patient hypoxemia, correct disorders of sleep structure ,and can improve cognitive function and to improve the quality of life of patients.

As a subtype membrane receptor of tumor necrosis factor alpha, not much is known about the link between the soluble TNF receptor-I and obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea syndrome. We hypothesized that the TNF receptor might play an important role in the inflammation in patients with OSAHS, moreover this study was undertakan to investigate the effects of multimodality therapies on its periphery blood level.Seventy-seven adults with habitual snoring and mean age of 34.9 +/- 11 years old consented to participate in the study. All participants were studied with overnight polysomnography, physical examination and a blood crew at baseline. According to the severity of OSAHS, they were categorized into three groups and one control group. Moderate and severe OSAHS groups returned for a repeat test of polysomnography and a blood crew at 3 months after the ENT surgery or continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). serum levels were measured by using an immunoluminometric assay kit.(1) Compared with control non-OSAHS group, serum sTNF-R I levels prior to treatment in OSAHS groups were significantly greater, with a mean serum levels at (742 +/- 258340 +/- 102) pg/ml (P0.05), respectively. (2) Plasma solube tumor necrosis factor receptor-I responsed sensitively to the effect of comprehensive therapies when we compared its prior treatment levels with post ones. (3) Analysis was used to assess the associations adjusting for age, gender, BMI and weight ,a positive assosiation were found between apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) and sTNF-R I (r = 0.646, P0.01) a negative assosiation were found between lowest nadir oxygen saturation (LSaO2) and (r = 0.522, P0.01).ln summary, independent of age, gender, BMI and weight ,our datas suggest a relationship can be found between the the severity of OSAHS and periphery blood level of soluble TNF receptor-I. Comprehensive therapies is effective in changing sTNF-R I. sTNF-R I may be recommended as a Inflammation factor of OSAHS.

Cold-inducible RNA-binding protein (Cirp), the first cold-shock protein identified in mammals, is a sensor protein whose expression increases in response to stress. Recent reports have shown that Cirp is involved in cell proliferation, development, circadian modulation under physiological conditions, and tumor formation and progression. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying the activities of Cirp in the mammalian kidney cells remain unclear. In this study, we constructed BHK-21cells overexpressing Cirp (Cirp + BHK-21) knockdown BHK-21 cells (Cirp - BHK-21) to investigate the function of Cirp in cell proliferation. We analyzed the gene expression of Cirp - BHK-21 cells using genome-wide expression microarrays to explore the molecular mechanism of Cirp action. We found that (1) Cirp overexpression significantly enhanced cell proliferation, whereas Cirp knockdown dramatically reduced cell proliferation, suggesting that Cirp is a positive regulator of BHK-21 cell proliferation. (2) Differentially expressed genes in Cirp - BHK-21 and control cells were shown to be involved in many biological processes. (3) Pathway analysis showed that five enriched pathways, namely, Focal adhesion, Mapk, Wnt, Apoptosis, and Cancer-related signaling pathways, were identified as central pathway networks regulated by Cirp. These results can provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms of Cirp function.

Liveness check through measuring synchrony between the lip and the voice in video sequence has been proved to be a feasible way to prevent spoofing attacks. The generic methods utilize degree of audiovisual correlation to judge consistency. However, little attention is paid to the audiovisual time drift difference between live recordings and fraudulent attacks. In this paper, the time shift difference and the delay range is concluded by delay estimation experiments on VidTIMID. According to the conclusion, we propose an improved ?liveness? scores evaluation algorithm for audio-video identification system. Experimental results on the same database show that the proposed algorithm got better performance. In comparison with the traditional methods, the EER (Equal Error Rate) averagely decreases about 5%.

Summary � Relationships between leaf traits and carbon assimilation rates are commonly used to predict primary productivity at scales from the leaf to the globe. We addressed how the shape and magnitude of these relationships vary across temporal, spatial and taxonomic scales to improve estimates of carbon dynamics. � Photosynthetic CO2 and light response curves, leaf nitrogen (N), chlorophyll (Chl) concentration and specific leaf area (SLA) of 25 grassland species were measured. In addition, C3 and C4 photosynthesis models were parameterized using a novel hierarchical Bayesian approach to quantify the effects of leaf traits on photosynthetic capacity and parameters at different scales. � The effects of plant physiological traits on photosynthetic capacity and parameters varied among species, plant functional types and taxonomic scales. Relationships in the grassland biome were significantly different from the global average. Within-species variability in photosynthetic parameters through the growing season could be attributed to the seasonal changes of leaf traits, especially leaf N and Chl, but these responses followed qualitatively different relationships from the across-species relationship. � The results suggest that one broad-scale relationship is not sufficient to characterize ecosystem condition and change at multiple scales. Applying trait relationships without articulating the scales may cause substantial carbon flux estimation errors.

Teacher talk, as a important factor of second language acquisition, play an important role in the control of the university English classes and students' learning effect; quantity and quality of teachers' talk will influence or even determine the success of class. Teacher talk reflects the features and functions as the mean and tool of organizing, managing, arranging, and directing second language classes. Functional grammar has 3 purely theoretical functions: experiential metafunction, interpersonal metafunction, and textual metafunction. This paper analyses teacher talk in the classroom context from the angle of interpersonal metafunction and makes a research on the quantity of teacher talk and interactive adjustment of teachers and students and the forms of teachers' reflection on students' involvement by describing and explaining the structure of teacher talk. The study on interpersonal metafunction in systemic-functional linguistics has expanded the framework of interpersonal metafunction beyond sentence and achieved the interpersonal meanings by cognitive, estimative and interactive semantic means, which emphasizes that teachers talk can become important resources for expressing impersonal meanings.

The aim of this work was to study the epidemiology of Listeria spp., particularly Listeria monocytogenes, and to identify the serotypes present in contaminated samples from beef processing plants in China. A total of 439 samples were obtained from bovine feces, hides, and carcasses at three commercial processing plants. A standard protocol (ISO 11290-1) was followed to detect Listeria spp. and L. monocytogenes, and multiplex polymerase chain reaction was used to identify the various L. monocytogenes serotypes. The overall prevalences of Listeria spp. and L. monocytogenes were 65.6% and 26.4%, respectively, and the contamination was highest in the hide samples. The identified L. monocytogenes serotypes were 1/2c and 1/2a. The results of the current study indicate that Listeria spp. contamination is common in Chinese beef processing plants; specific measures should be taken to prevent and/or treat L. monocytogenes contamination of feces and hides in beef slaughter plants. Furthermore, because Listeria spp. contamination was found to be prevalent, it should, therefore, be studied further. The prevention of cases of sporadic listeriosis in China should also be addressed.

In this paper, a novel nanophosphor, Y10W2O21:Eu, was synthesized through co-precipitation which is a simple and low-costing method. The structure and morphology of the nanocrystal samples were characterized by using XRD and FE-SEM. The emission spectra, excitation spectra and fluorescence decay curves were measured. J-O parameters, quantum efficiencies of Eu3+ 5D0 energy level, color coordinates and Huang-Rhys factor of Y10W2O21:Eu nanophosphors were calculated. The results indicate that EU3+ 5D0-7F2 red luminescence at 610 nm can be effectively excited by 394 nm near-UV light and 464 nm blue light in Y10W2O21 host, which is similar to the familiar Eu3+ doped tungstate phosphors (e.g., Gd2(WO4)3:Eu, CaWO4:Eu). Besides, compared with the other types of tungstate phosphors, a less expensive tungsten was used, which can effectively reduce cost. Therefore, the Y10W2O21:Eu red nanophosphors may have a potential application for white LED.

To study the expression of IgE in recur repeatedly children otitis media with effusion (OME), and the relativity of IgE between adenoid and middle ear effusion.Thirty-five cases diagnosed of OME in our department, were enrolled in the research. Thirty-one adenoidal hypertrophy cases were selected as control group. Obtained middle ear effusion and adenoid samples from experimental group, and obtained adenoid samples from control group. All adenoid samples were taken for tissue homogenate. Determination all samples of concentration of IgE by ELISA. SPSS 18.0 statistical software was used for all relevant data processing and analysis.Compared the IgE content between experimental group and control group with adenoid samples, IgE content increased significantly in experimental group (P0.05), and IgE in experimental group of middle ear effusion samples were also increased (P0.05). The content of IgE in the experimental group of middle ear effusion and adenoid assumed straight-line correlation, in negative correlation (r = 0.580, P0.05).The occurrence of OME is related to immune factors. Adenoidal hypertrophy may lead to local immunity enhancement, may cause middle ear cavity immune system abnormality, give rise to recur repeatedly with OME and procrastinate does not recover.

To set up suitable kinetic models for the evaluation of heat inactivation rate of Listeria monocytogenes in ground beef.Ground beef, inoculated with 3 strains of L. monocytogenes, was subjected to heating at 55 degrees C, 57.5 degrees C, 60 degrees C, 63 degrees C, 66 degrees C or 70 degrees C to develop the isothermal kinetic models. The survival curves were fitted with modified Gompertz model after the bacterial counts were decreased from 10(9) CFU/g to 10(3) CFU/g. Natural logarithm of mu (the relative inactivation rate) and M (time constant) were fitted with linear regression model. The kinetic models were validated at 59 degrees C and 64 degreeeC.We established one first-level model and one secondary-level model to predict the inactivation rate. In addition, we validated the accuracy and deviation of the models to guarantee their feasibility.The models should be suitable for describing the survival of L. monocytogenes in ground beef at different temperatures, which are helpful for the control of the pathogens.

Entrepreneurs use innovation and management talents to create rents for enterprises. From the perspective of entrepreneurs to study the corporate governance, incentive, focusing on how to maximize the play of its entrepreneurial spirit, is a relatively new research direction. This paper analyzes the private enterprises, state-owned enterprises and joint-stock companies in three different forms of ownership on corporate governance model that entrepreneurship play, and we find that entrepreneurs can influence the designation and form the governance structure, which direction that Conducive entrepreneurial to maximize the spirit of their own , creating a kind of "incentive-based corporate governance."

To study the expression of matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) and free fatty acids (FFA) in obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome(OSAHS) patients. And the relativity among the serum level of MMP-9, FFA, four factors of blood lipids,hypopnea index (AHI), minimum oxygen saturation, body mass index (BMI) in OSAHS patients.Fifty cases diagnosed of OSAHS,with integral clinical data in our department, were enrolled in the research. Fifty cases were selected as control group by the sleepiness scale score and the exclusion of the physical examination OSAHS. There was no significant difference (P0.05) of the body mass index (BMI) and age in the two groups. Two fasting venous blood samples of 3 ml were taken from every object in the morning wake from sleep monitoring and kept at room temperature for 30 min. The samples were sent to the laboratory to test the four factors of blood lipid and the FFA by colorimetric determination. Another fasting venous blood samples of 3 ml was preserved in refrigerator at -75 degrees C, used for serum MMP-9 test with Enzyme-linked immunoadsorbent assay (ELISA). SPSS 13.0 statistical software was used for all relevant data processing and analysis.Serum levels of MMP-9 and FFA in severe OSAHS cases were significantly higher than those in control group (P0.01). Serum four factors of blood lipids level of severe OSAHS was a little higher(P0.05) than those in control group. There were a close relationship among serum FFA and TG, LSaO2 , BMI and AHI in severe O()SAHS patients. Serum FFA level was positively related with TG, BMI and AHI and negatively related with LSaO2. There were also a close relationship among serum MMP-9 and FFA, LSaO2 and AHI. The serum MMP-9 was positively related with FFA and AHI and negatively related with LSaO2. There was a positive linear correlation between serum FFA concentration and MMP-9 concentration in severe OSAHS cases.The higher risk of endocrinopathy and cardiovascular diseases were happened in OSAHS patients. The higher expression of both MMP-9 and FFA in OSAHS cases suggested a higher risk than that of the single high expression of them.

Background/Question/Methods Ecosystem models use physiological traits and environmental data to model land-air carbon exchange. Such models can integrate heterogeneous ecological and environmental data, but rarely account for the contribution of each input to the overall uncertainty in model output. Quantifying uncertainty in each model input and propagating uncertainty through model ensembles directly estimates overall uncertainty in model output. Identification of data that would most effectively constrain uncertainty can also be directly inferred by processing output. Real-time data assimilation and forecasting benefits from a method that is transparent, scalable, and adaptable. A tool that manages these steps while tracking the provenance of data inputs, model parameters, output, and post-processing would facilitate evaluation, reproducibility, and adaptation of the workflow. Results/Conclusions We present such a workflow management tool, the Predictive Ecophysiological Carbon flux Analyzer (PECAn). PECAn is an open source utility that encapsulates 1) acquisition of meteorological inputs, 2) synthesis of physiological trait data as the posterior distribution of a Bayesian meta-analysis, 3) sampling trait meta-analysis posterior distributions to parameterize ensembles of an ecophysiological model, Ecosystem Demography, version 2 (ED2), 4) probabilistic forecasts,5) postprocessing to constrain forecasts and model parameters with field, meterological, eddy flux, and spectral data, and 6) provenance tracking. This system provides a detailed analysis of the past and present ecosystem functioning that seamlessly transitions into forecasts. We demonstrate an application of PECAn to an intensively monitored and data-rich plot of a perennial biofuel crop, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). This particular context will be used to highlight PECAn's general utility to support model-data integration, ecological research, and decision support.

In hierarchical cellar tree (HCT), this paper proposes a novel and effective speaker retrieval method based on minimum distance, which can be much better used to calculate the distance of unequal length vectors. In speaker indexing stage, minimum distance is used to control cell mitosis and HCT growing. In speaker retrieval stage, minimum distance is used to retrive the most relevant speakers. Experimental results have demonstrated that the minimum distance can be much better than some common used distance formulas.

An improved model for lip contour detection is proposed in this paper, which incorporates prior shape information into geometric active contours (GAC). A new shape energy function dependent on the prior shape information is used in GAC with prior shape. And the external energy function used in this model, is depending on the information of the image gradient. Therefore, the boundary of object can be captured either by higher magnitude of the image gradient or by the minimum dissimilar between the evolutive shape and the average prior shape. Experiments on mouth images show that the accuracy improvement of the shape contour detection using GAC with prior shape is nearly 11% over GAC.

A new 3-min rapid dot immunogold filtration assay (DIGFA) for serodiagnosis of human cystic and alveolar echinococcosis was developed using four native antigen preparations: crude and partially purified hydatid cyst fluid extracts from Echinococcus granulosus (EgCF and AgB), E. granulosus protoscolex extract (EgP) and Echinococcus multilocularis metacestode antigen (Em2). The overall sensitivity of DIGFA in a hospital diagnostic setting was 80.7% for human cystic echinococcosis (CE) (n=857) and 92.9% for human alveolar echinococcosis (AE) (n=42). Highest specificity was 93.4% with AgB extract for CE, and 90.3% with Em2 antigen for AE when CE versus AE cross-reactivity was excluded. Anti-AgB antibodies were present in 35.5% of AE cases and anti-Em2 in 7.4% of CE cases. In endemic communities in northwest China screened for echinococcosis, the sensitivity of DIGFA ranged from 71.8% to 90.7% in comparison to abdominal ultrasound; specificity for CE using AgB was 94.6% and for AE using Em2 was 97.1%. This simple eye-read rapid test can be used for both clinical diagnostic support, as well as in conjunction with ultrasound for mass screening in endemic CE and AE areas.

International audience; OBJECTIVE: To determine the true community prevalence of human cystic (CE) and alveolar (AE) echinococcosis (hydatid disease) in a highly endemic region in Ningxia Hui, China, by detecting asymptomatic cases. METHODS: Using hospital records and "AE-risk" landscape patterns we selected study communities predicted to be at risk of human echinococcosis in Guyuan, Longde and Xiji counties. We conducted community surveys of 4773 individuals from 26 villages in 2002 and 2003 using questionnaire analysis, ultrasound examination and serology. FINDINGS: Ultrasound and serology showed a range of prevalences for AE (0-8.1%; mean 2%) and CE (0-7.4%; mean 1.6%), with the highest prevalence in Xiji (2% for CE, 2.5% for AE). There were significant differences in the prevalence of CE, AE and total echinococcosis between the three counties and villages (with multiple degrees of freedom). While hospital records showed 96% of echinococcosis cases attributable to CE, our survey showed a higher prevalence of human AE (56%) compared to CE (44%). Questionnaire analysis revealed that key risk factors for infection were age and dog ownership for both CE and AE, and Hui ethnicity and being female for AE. Drinking well-water decreased the risk for both AE and CE. CONCLUSION: Echinococcosis continues to be a severe public health problem in this part of China because of unhygienic practices/habits and poor knowledge among the communities regarding this disease.

International audience; We have identified a significant focus and unusual clustering of human cases of cystic echinococcosis (CE) and alveolar echinococcosis (AE) in the village of Nanwan, Xiji County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, in one of the most highly endemic areas for both diseases in China. The village, a Chinese Hui Islamic community, is composed of 167 members of four extended families. A total of 28 people died (12 of echinococcosis) since the village was first settled in the 1950s. Despite similar life patterns, the number of AE and CE cases occurring in each family was different. Overall, the prevalences of AE and CE were 9% (20 cases) and 5.9% (13 cases), with a combined prevalence of 14.9%. In contrast to CE, a comparison of the prevalence of AE indicated significant differences between the four family clusters. Although suggestive that host genotype might play a role in susceptibility to AE, this hypothesis requires further investigation.

Hierarchical TiO 2 hollow microspheres composed of rutile nanorods were directly prepared by a simple, efficient, facile, and template-free hydrothermal method with TiC1 4 solution in the presence of hydrochloric acid.