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Conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs), with rigid π‒conjugated skeletons and tunable microporous structure, have shown great potential as gas storage and sequestration materials, however, the inherent poor solubility of initial building block in the polymerization process always leads to low crosslinking polymers and limited application. Here, in this work, we have designed the flexible@rigid mutualistic symbiosis in two series of CMPs (2D extend truxene and triazatruxene cores, P‒C(‒Et) and P‒N(‒Et). The results demonstrated that rational flexible groups with additional rigid skeletons structure could change the 2D C3 symmetric building core into 3D steric configuration, which increased the target polymers' BET surface areas more than 3 times and narrowed the microporous width. The optimized molecule structure delivers a high CO2 uptake ability, 5.8–11.5 wt% for truxene, and 7.8–17.6 wt% for triazatruxene at 273 K and 1.0 bar. Besides, the optimized structures also have superior selectivity of CO2 when the N2 or CH4 still exists in the system. In conclusion, this work provides a fundamental understanding for the design of CMPs for high CO2 adsorption and separation performances.

The AAO template arranged in hexagonal regular arrays with the highly ordered structure and constant diameter is introduced in this paper. FeCo nanowire arrays were successfully produced using the porous orderly AAO template. The CoFe2O4 nanowire arrays are indirectly obtained by annealing the FeCo alloy. The size of diameter is consistent with the AAO template pores and the FeCo and CoFe2O4 nanowire arrays have a large aspect ratio and shape anisotropy. The analyzing of magnetic reveals that the FeCo and CoFe2O4 nanowire arrays are easier to magnetize along the axis of the nanowire, and the perpendicular to the axis of the nanowires is the hard magnetization axis. The magnetic properties are different in different directions of the crystal orientation, showing both have the magneto-crystalline anisotropy. The FeCo and CoFe2O4 nanowire arrays exhibit ferromagnetic behavior, and the coercivity of CoFe 2O4 nanowire arrays obviously increases twice than that of FeCo. The significantly increased coercivity proves that the CoFe2O4 nanowire arrays have more obvious magneto-crystalline anisotropy.

In the Japan/East Sea (Sea of Japan), the basin-scale barotropic high-frequency signals cause aliasing error in the gridded sea level anomaly (SLA) product of the satellite altimeters. The aliasing errors can produce false mesoscale eddies and alter the dynamical explanation of ocean circulation. In this article, we corrected non-tidal aliasing errors in gridded SLA product using bottom pressure (BP) data and tide gauge (TG) data. The root mean square (RMS) of the aliasing induced SLA is about 3 cm in the Sea of Japan, which accounts for about 20% of the total energy. We found that, after BP correction, the percentage of error variance (PEV) is reduced from 43% to 34% for satellite-derived velocity, and from 22% to14% for 70-day low-pass filtered gridded SLA product. However, the improvement for TG correction is not notable. The basin-scale barotropic high-frequency signals are likely to be found in other nearly enclosed marginal seas. We suggested that more BP measurements should be conducted in ...

This paper presents a 5-bit noninterleaved time-based analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which operates at a 5-GS/s rate. The ADC is designed for the use in radio-astronomy telescopes, for which time interleaving is not acceptable. The ADC employs a dynamic, differential voltage-to-time converter, a folded-flash time-to-digital converter (TDC), and calibration circuitry. To generate reference delays, the calibration circuitry utilizes a delay-time reference network, which is designed to map the input voltage range into 16 equal time intervals that are used for the calibration of the TDC. The 65-nm CMOS ADC achieves the Signal-to-noise plus distortion ratio/spurious-free dynamic range of 27/32 dB at Nyquist, an effective number of bits (ENOB) of 4.7 bit at low frequencies and 4.1 bit at high frequencies with a power consumption of 21.5 mW at Nyquist.

Background: To determine the serum concentrations of cytokines in infants with retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), and to evaluate the changes of serum vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) concentration who received intravitreal Conbercept (IVC). Methods: Case series study. Forty infants with ROP treated with IVC 0.25 mg and ten full-term infants with congenital cataract were included. Blood samples were collected before and 1 week, and 4 weeks after IVC. Serum levels of 45 types of cytokines were measured by multiplex bead assay. Results: In the ROP group, significantly higher concentrations of VEGF-A, VEGF-D, macrophage inflammatory protein 1 beta (MIP-1β), interferon-inducible protein-10 (IP-10), regulated on activation, normal T Cell expressed and secreted (RANTES), eotaxin, TNF-α, IL-18, EGF, SCF, PIGF-1, and β-NGF were measured, while lower concentrations of monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) were observed; when compared with the control group. No significant differences were detected in serum concentrations of VEGF-A and VEGF-D in ROP patients between baseline and 1 week, and 4 weeks after IVC treatment.Conclusion: Besides angiogenic factors, several inflammatory cytokines were associated with ROP. IVC 0.25 mg in ROP patients did not induce circulatory VEGF suppression at 1 week after injection.

Due to the advantages of XLPE cable, it is frequently used in power transmission and distribution systems. For long-term use, there are inevitable insulation defects. To detect the status of cable insulation, an improved capacitive sensor that fully covers the cable is proposed, which can be used for nondestructive monitoring of cable insulation, especially for cable joints. In this paper, the geometric structure of the fully-covered interdigital capacitance sensor is designed, and a 3D model of the sensor is built with COMSOL Multiphysics. Three parameters i.e. signal strength, sensitivity and penetration depth are defined for sensor optimization. The influences of electrode length, width, and thickness on interdigital capacitance sensors are discussed. When the length exceeds 5 cm, the length of the electrode does not affect the sensitivity. Electrodes with larger width lead to better signal strength and sensitivity, but the penetration depth decreases. With the increase in the electrode number, the signal strength increases while the sensitivity and penetration depth decrease. Taking YJV1*185 cable as an example, the electrodes of equal width and with a thickness of 0.02-0.12 mm could achieve better measurement results.

International audience; This paper, following earlier work on the measurement of inequality when only ordinal information is available, proposes an axiomatic derivation of a new class of inequality‐sensitive and additive achievement measures. Use is then made of these indices to study health achievement in Europe, using information on self‐assessed health in 30 countries, based on the European Health Interview Survey (wave 2).

We propose a symmetric spectrally-efficient frequency-division multiplexing (SEFDM) scheme using a logarithmic-maximum-a-posteriori (log-MAP) based detecting algorithm with reduced complexity due to I/Q separation, and successfully demonstrate 200-Gb/s optical SEFDM transmission using 16-QAM modulation over 500-m of standard single mode fiber (SSMF), with a bandwidth compression factor (BCF) of 0.8.

Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) can help drivers in the driving process and increase the driving safety by automatically detecting objects, doing basic classification, implementing safeguards, etc. ADAS integrate multiple subsystems including object detection, scene segmentation, lane detection, and so on. Most algorithms are now designed for one specific task, while such separate approaches will be inefficient in ADAS which consists of many modules. In this paper, we establish a multi-task learning framework for lane detection, semantic segmentation, 2D object detection, and orientation prediction on FPGA. The performance on FPGA is optimized by software and hardware co-design. The system deployed on Xilinx zu9 board achieves 55 FPS, which meets real-time processing requirement.

We study changes in social well‐being and deprivation in the U.S. during the Great Recession and the subsequent recovery. We outline an analytical framework for measuring well‐being and deprivation in a multidimensional fashion when data on achievement in each dimension is assumed to be ordinal and binary in nature. We use data from the American Community Survey between 2008 and 2015 and find that there was a decline in social well‐being and a rise in social deprivation in the U.S. during the recession followed by a reversal of trends during the recovery. Despite low deprivation levels among the White population, this population experienced the largest increase in deprivation during the recession and the least decline in deprivation in the recovery period. These results underscore the fact that the impact of recession and the subsequent recovery varied significantly across population groups.

This paper studies the measurement of multidimensional well-being and deprivation when every attribute is discretely and ordinally measurable. In this context, we propose an axiom, Non-dominance, and use it together with some other standard axioms from the existing literature to characterize a class of measures of social well-being and also a class of social deprivation measures.

While mesoscale eddies can trap and transport chlorophyll (CHL) within the water columns, satellite measurements can only observe CHL at the sea surface. Here, we estimate the eddy-induced CHL distribution based on satellite observations, Argo float measurements, and global empirical models. The combination of satellite altimeter data and Argo measurements is used to detect eddy boundaries by tracking the outermost closed contours of potential vorticity (PV) at depth; then, sea surface CHL from satellite observations, together with their vertical distributions estimated from models are used to derive the CHL within eddy boundaries. We find that the CHL trapped by eddies can reach 3.2 × 1012g, which is about half of the total CHL in the ocean; the global time-mean CHL eddy-induced zonal transport adds up to 5.7 × 103 g/s westward. The results show that oceanic mesoscale eddies play an important role in the elevated CHL in the interior of the ocean.

The GaN:Mn nanostructure was prepared using direct current (DC) arc discharge plasma method. No catalysts or templates are involved in the experiment. The test of energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDXS) detected the signals of Ga, N, Mn, and the Mn signal strength is slightly stronger with the increasing Mn content. The X-ray diffraction peak (XRD) is sharp, and there is a clear XRD peak shift towards larger angle with the increase of doping concentration. It is indicated that GaN:Mn nanoparticles have good crystallinity, and the introduced Mn has changed the lattice parameter. Photoluminescence (PL) shows that the absorption of visible light is a relatively broad range. The Mn doped induced the energy levels in the band gap, leading to the increasing of yield of electron-hole pair, and the optical property enhanced with the increasing of Mn concentration. Meanwhile the complicated magnetic transition has been found due to the quantum tunneling of magnetization. The magnetism is from the doped Mn, and its concentration impacts the strength of magnetic coupling.

Economic systems generate various distributions of opportunity sets for individuals to choose consumption bundles. This paper presents an axiomatic analysis of distributions of opportunity sets. We introduce three properties for distributions of opportunity sets, and show that they axiomatically characterize the distributions of the budget sets in the market economy. We also axiomatically characterize the distribution of equal-income budget sets by considering two equity properties.

PURPOSE To investigate Wnt3a and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) levels in the vitreous fluid of patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) and to examine their correlation with PDR activity. METHODS Vitreous samples from 45 eyes with PDR and 28 eyes with nondiabetic macular disease were collected. Active PDR was present in 24 patients and inactive PDR in 21 patients, according to retinal neovascularization. The Wnt3a and VEGF level of vitreous fluid samples were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. RESULTS Comparison revealed that mean intravitreal levels of Wnt3a increased significantly in PDR eyes compared with control eyes (13.55 ng/mL vs. 1.57 ng/mL, P < 0.001). The mean VEGF concentrations in the vitreous fluid of patients with PDR were also higher than those in nondiabetic controls, with the values being 723.21 pg/mL and 20.81 pg/mL, respectively (P < 0.001). In addition, vitreous concentrations of Wnt3a and VEGF were significantly higher in active PDR than in eyes with inactive PDR (P = 0.016 and P = 0.008, respectively). Furthermore, a significant positive correlation was detected between Wnt3a and VEGF levels in the vitreous. CONCLUSION Intravitreous levels of Wnt3a and VEGF in patients with PDR are increased and correlated mutually. Wnt3a may be an important player in the development of diabetic retinopathy and its activity in vitreous fluid can be biomarker of PDR.

Ocean surface currents estimated from the satellite data consist of two terms: Ekman currents from the wind stress and geostrophic currents from the sea surface height (SSH). But the classical Ekman model does not consider the wave effects. By taking the wave-induced Coriolis-Stokes forcing into account, the impact of waves (primarily the Stokes drift) on ocean surface currents is investigated and the wave-modified currents are formed. The products are validated by comparing with OSCAR currents and Lagrangian drifter velocity. The result shows that our products with the Stokes drift are better adapted to the in situ Lagrangian drifter currents. Especially in the Southern Ocean region (40 degrees S-65 degrees S), 90% (91%) of the zonal (meridional) currents have been improved compared with currents that do not include Stokes drift. The correlation (RMSE) in the Southern Ocean has also increased (decreased) from 0.78 (13) to 0.81 (10.99) for the zonal component and 0.76 (10.87) to 0.79 (10.09) for the meridional component. This finding provides the evidence that waves indeed play an important role in the ocean circulation, and need to be represented in numerical simulations of the global ocean circulation.

This study presents a systematic investigation of AlN:Co nanowires synthesis by a DC arc discharge plasma method that is catalyst- and template-free. X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) have been used to characterize the structure, components, morphology and size of the nanowires. Raman spectroscopy revealed very symmetric and strong phonon modes, indicating very good crystal quality of the AlN:Co nanowires. Comparison of the Raman spectra of AlN and AlN:Co nanowires showed that the Co doping influenced the lattice structure, producing impurities and defects. The photoluminescence emission spectrum (PL) confirmed that the Co2+ ions existed in the AlN:Co nanowires and enhanced the optical light range and intensity of the material. A magnetic study suggested that ferromagnetism in the AlN:Co nanowires may be due to the Co ion clusters, accompanied by Al vacancies. In brief, 1D-AlN:Co nanowires were fabricated with high aspect ratio and high crystal quality and possessed excellent optical and magnetic properties. These features are very valuable for scaling up manufacturing opportunities of AlN-based DMSs and will be beneficial to manipulate and integrate these for nanodevice fabrication in spintronics.

GaN:Mn nanoparticles were synthesized successfully by DC arc discharge plasma without any catalyst or template. X-ray diffraction patterns revealed that all peaks position of GaN:Mn nanoparticles were shifted towards larger angles, indicating the c lattice parameter of GaN:Mn is smaller than that of GaN due to the lattice distortion. The growth mechanism explains the characteristic of morphology and size. The room temperature photoluminescence (PL) of GaN:Mn nanostructure exhibits a relatively broad range of visible light absorption due to dopant-induced energy levels within the band gap increasing the yield for electron–hole pair formation under illumination with visible light. The magnetic properties were investigated by VSM and quantum design MPMS SQUID. Mn doped GaN nanoparticles show two prominent critical points corresponding to the magnetic phase transition, respectively. One is the classical thermally driven from superparamagnetic (SP) to blocked SP, the other is the quantum tunneling of magnetization from magnetic long-range order to quantum superparamagnetic (QSP) state. The magnetism is derived from the Mn atoms, the magnetic coupling between Mn atoms depends on the mediating of N.

Carbonated water injection (CWI) is a technology with significant sweep efficiency advantages in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), but the mechanism of the microscopic diffusion of CO2 is still unclear. In this study, the diffusion mechanism of CO2 from the aqueous phase to the oleic phase in a carbonated water (CW)&ndash, decane system was investigated by the molecular dynamics simulation method. This investigation also explored the diffusion capacity and interface properties of the CW&ndash, decane system. We found that the movement of CO2 from the aqueous phase to the oleic phase can be divided into two processes: the accumulation behavior of CO2 moving from the aqueous phase to the interface, and the dissolution behavior of CO2 moving from the interface to the decane phase. The increase in the temperature and CO2 concentration in carbonated water can improve the decane phase&rsquo, s diffusion ability and reduce the water&ndash, decane interfacial tension. The difference in the interactions between water&ndash, CO2 and decane&ndash, CO2 provides a driving force for the diffusion of CO2 between aqueous and oleic phase. The temperature increase intensifies the degree of diffusion and improves the diffusion rate of CO2 from the aqueous phase to the oleic phase. The diffusion coefficient results show that CO2 significantly enhances the oleic phase&rsquo, s diffusion properties. In addition, the affinity of water for CO2 is increased by the hydrogen bond, and it provides a mechanism for the accumulation behavior of CO2. Further, the temperature significantly improves the CO2 diffusion ability at the interface, which promotes CO2 leaving the interface and weakens the accumulation behavior. This work provides useful information for guiding carbonated water injection to improve the recovery mechanism of enhanced oil.

We experimentally demonstrate a 260-Gbit/s DMT IM-DD short-reach transmission system using frequency-domain nonlinear equalization (FD-NE) over 500-m SSMF. Compared with FD linear equalization (FD-LE), around 11% capacity improvement can be achieved by utilizing the FD-NE.

We experimentally demonstrate a 260-Gbit/s PAM-6 transmission over 500-m SSMF using optical pre-equalization and a simplified Volterra nonlinear feed-forward and decision-feedback equalizer (NL-FF-DFE), achieving the BER below the 7% forward error correction threshold.

The similar crystal structures of martensite (BCT) and ferrite (BCC) cause difficulty in distinguishing the grain orientations of individual phases in dual-phase (DP) steels. A dislocation-based multiphase mixed hardening model is presented, considering both ferrite and martensite strain partitioning, to describe the texture-dependent mechanical behavior of DP steels more precisely. This model is based on the ideals that (i) the volume fractions of the constituent phases and the corresponding strain partitioning function are obtained through in situ tensile experimentation, and (ii) the grain orientations of ferrite and martensite are assumed to be in accordance with the overall texture. We applied the model to calculate the macroscopic and microscopic mechanical behavior of DP800 steel using a crystal plasticity finite element (CPFE) code. The results show that the calculated stress-strain response and textural evolution are in good agreement with the experimental results. The dislocation evolution indicates that the rapid hardening of ferrite induces a high hardening rate for DP steels early in plastic deformation. In addition, for the grains corresponding to the texture center orientations of DP800, the activity and dislocation density evolutions of the slip systems are studied.

BackgroundTo investigate the association of systemic, serum lipids and genetic variants in the high-density lipoprotein (HDL) metabolic pathway with polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV) in China.MethodsThe case-control study was included 150 controls and 66 cases with PCV. Serum levels of total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein (LDL), HDL, triglycerides (TG), apolipoprotein A1 (APOA1), apolipoprotein B (APOB) together with systemic risk factors including gender, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus (DM), hypertension, coronary artery disease (CAD) and asthma were identified. All subjects were genotyped for four single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from three genes in the HDL metabolic pathway: rs10468017 of hepatic lipase (LIPC), rs12678919 of lipoprotein lipase (LPL), rs3764261 and rs173539 of cholesterol ester transfer protein (CETP) with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF-MS). Student's t-tests, chi-square tests, anova and logistic regression were used to evaluate associations.ResultsHyperlipidemia was a risk factor (odds ratio (OR) = 1.19, P = 0.001) for PCV. HDL, LDL and APOB levels were associated with PCV (OR = 0.001, P = 0.004; OR = 0.099, P = 0.010; OR = 0.839, P = 0.018). Higher level of TC was potently associated with increased risk of PCV (OR = 109.8, P = 0.000). LIPC rs10468017 was a risk factor for PCV (OR = 11.68, P = 0.000). CETP rs3764261 conferred a decreased risk for PCV (OR = 0.08, P = 0.000). No associations of LPL rs12678919 or CETP rs173539 with PCV were found. Mean level of HDL increased with T allele of the CETP gene (p = 0.026): 1.24 mmol/L (±0.31) for the GG genotype and 1.66 mmol/L (±0.54) for the TT genotype. Additionally, T allele was associated with the following increase in APOA1: 136.78 mg/dl (±20.53) for the CC genotype and 149.57 mg/dl (±22.67) for the TT genotype of LIPC and 137.91 mg/dl (±20.36) for the GG genotype and 162.67 mg/dl (±22.50) for the TT genotype of CETP gene.ConclusionOur study suggested that the significant association was found between hyperlipidemia, the serum levels of TC, HDL, LDL and APOB and PCV. The result of present study also showed that the association of LIPC rs10468017 and CETP rs3764261 with PCV.

Optical modulators are at the heart of optical communication links. Ideally, they should feature low insertion loss, low drive voltage, large modulation bandwidth, high linearity, compact footprint and low manufacturing cost. Unfortunately, these criteria have only been achieved on separate occasions.Based on a Silicon and Lithium Niobate hybrid integration platform, we demonstrate Mach-Zehnder modulators that simultaneously fulfill these criteria. The presented device exhibits an insertion loss of 2.5 dB, voltage-length product of 2.2 Vcm, high linearity, electro-optic bandwidth of at least 70 GHz and modulation rates up to 112 Gbit/s. The high-performance modulator is realized by seamless integration of high-contrast waveguide based on Lithium Niobate - the most mature modulator material - with compact, low-loss silicon circuits. The hybrid platform demonstrated here allows for the combination of 'best-in-breed' active and passive components, opening up new avenues for enabling future high-speed, energy efficient and cost-effective optical communication networks., Comment: Main Manuscript: 4 figures, 1 table Supplementary Information: 9 figures

A considerable segment of the recent analytical literature on freedom visualizes an individual’s freedom as his/her ability to choose any one of several alternative (mutually exclusive) outcomes available to him/her. A major application of this formulation of freedom is to be found in the functioning and capability approach where an individual’s capability or opportunity set is taken to be a set of functioning bundles any one of which the individual is able to choose at will. Following the lead provided by an early contribution from K. Basu, this chapter explores the limitations of this conception of freedom, both in the framework of perfectly competitive markets and in cases where an individual’s life is determined through strategic interaction among several individuals.

Purpose To measure intravitreal low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein 6 (LRP6) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) levels in the eyes of patients with proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) and to observe their correlation with PDR activity. Methods Fifty-five eyes of 55 patients were enrolled consecutively. Vitreous samples from 30 eyes with PDR and 25 eyes with nondiabetic macular disease were collected. Active PDR was present in 16 patients and quiescent PDR in 14 patients according to retinal neovascularization. LRP6 and VEGF concentrations in samples were determined using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results ELISA revealed significant increases in the vitreous levels of VEGF in eyes affected with PDR compared to the controls (p

The time series of the net meridional heat transport (MHT) at 15 degrees N in the Pacific Ocean from 2003 to 2012 is estimated by combining the Argo profiles with the satellite altimeter and scatterometer data. The estimate is validated against the climatological ocean data and the ECCO2 products, and is demonstrated to be reasonable. The MHT has a high degree of variability with a temporal mean of 0.700.31 PW, which is concentrated in the upper 800 dbar. The time series of the MHT and Ekman temperature transport have a significant annual cycle which peaks near April and December, whereas the time series of the geostrophic temperature transport have a subannual cycle. The results are consistent with previous estimates and lower than the ECCO2 estimate, which may mainly be caused by the different data sources and processings. The correlation between the air-sea flux and MHT is 0.50 with a 3 month delay. This report describes the first such attempt at a continuous transport of heat at 15 degrees N in the Pacific Ocean from in situ observations.

In many instances, individual health statuses are self-reported on several ordinal scales. The ordinal nature of the data creates some challenging problems in the measurement of inequalities of various distributions of health statuses in a population. In this paper, we propose and discuss a class of measures of inequalities of heath status distributions based on such ordinal data. Our measures are easy to compute and have some desirable properties often required for a reasonable measure for health inequality.

In order to reduce the computational expense, a Kriging surrogate model is developed as an approximation of a numerical model based on FEM (finite element method) and FDM (finite difference method) to solve direct fractional viscoelastic problems and then is combined with a gridding-partition-based continuous ant colony algorithm to identify constitutive parameters of fractional viscoelastic materials. Three kinds of modeling strategies are presented to generate the Kriging surrogate model, that is, global modeling, piecewise modeling, and reduced modeling. Two numerical examples are given to illustrate the proposed approach in terms of computing accuracy and expense. The utilization of Kriging surrogate model not only can provide a sufficient computing accuracy, but also can significantly reduce the computational cost in solving inverse fractional viscoelastic problems. In addition, regional inhomogeneity and impact of noisy data are taken into account.

The complement component 3 (C3) is a central component of complement system. All three pathways converge at formation of C3 convertases and share the terminal pathways of membrane attack complex (MAC) formation. In this study, three isoforms of C3 were discovered in Misgurnus anguillicaudatus, named “C3-1”, “C3-2” and “C3-3”, respectively. The full-length of C3-1 cDNA sequence was firstly identified and analyzed from dojo loach (Misgurnus anguillicaudatus). The Ma-C3-1 cDNA sequence comprised of 4509 bp encoding 1454 amino acids with a putative signal peptide of 20 amino acid residues. The deduced amino acid sequence showed that Ma-C3-1 has conserved residues and domain, which are known to be crucial for C3 function. Interestingly, an amino acid substitution of the highly conserved GCGEQ was discovered in Ma-C3-1. Phylogenetic analysis showed that Ma-C3-1 was closely related to Cyprinidae. The mRNA expression levels of three isoforms of C3 were detected in kidney, eye, spleen, gonad, heart, fin ray, gut, muscle, brain, gill, skin, blood and liver. The expression of Ma-C3-1 and Ma-C3-3 were mainly detected in liver, followed by spleen, gonad. However, the high expression of Ma-C3-2 was found in kidney, followed by blood and gonad. The morphological changes of gill and skin, and the expression pattern of these three isoforms C3 molecular following the infection with Aeromonas hydrophila were investigated. The mRNA expression levels of three C3 isoforms were up-regulated in the gill, skin, liver and spleen after infection with A.hydrophila. Similarly, challenge experiments resulted in significant up-regulated expression of other complement-relevant genes in gill, liver and skin, such as C4, C5, C8b, especially at 24 h and 36 h. These results suggest that complement system might play an important role not only in liver, but also in the mucosal tissues as gill and skin of teleost fish.

Pertussis infection can mimick the clinical manifestations of lower airway infection, while the symptoms and signs in some cases are like Bronchiolitis. The paper carried out retrospective analysis of infant pertussis bordetella infected cases admitted by the Respiratory Dept. of Tianjin Children's Hospital for "capillary bronchitis" from Sept. 2015 to Feb. 2016. It analyzed its clinical features, radiological features, laboratory characteristics and outcome through comparing the capillary bronchitis cases induced by the non-bordetella pertussis. 26 cases of patients infected with bordetella pertussis were included in the group, 15 male patients and 11 female patients, aging from 40 days to 11 months. Comparing with non-pertussis infected cases, the capillary bronchitis induced by pertussis presents spasmodic cough, vomiting after cough, apnea suspension and lymphocythemia and obvious prolong of LOS. However the clinical symptom score is decreased and the duration of breathing is shorter. The follow-up visit detects that the recurrent number of respiratory symptoms of pertussis infected children is higher than that of non-pertussis infected children. The clinical symptoms of patients with capillary bronchitis infected by bordetella pertussis are not typical and are susceptible to be ignored. The duration of respiratory symptoms is longer and susceptible for recurrence.

Neuropathic pain is caused by lesion or disease of the nervous system, which results in abnormal spontaneous and evoked pain. It's common in clinical practice and greatly impairs the life quality of patients, but the effective treatment is still lacking. In this study, we aimed to explore the effect of quercetin (QUE) on neuropathic pain and the underlying mechanisms. Spinal nerve ligation (SNL) was performed in Sprague Dawley rats to establish the neuropathic pain model. Single or continuous oral administration of QUE after the operation or continuous administration before the operation was applied to evaluate the effects of QUE on SNL-induced thermal and cold hyperalgesia. Dorsal root ganglions from these rats were harvested to analyze the expression levels of some inflammatory mediators. Primary cultured astrocytes and HEK293 cells were used to further explore the downstream signaling pathways of QUE. Both single and continuous oral administration of QUE dose-dependently alleviated SNL-induced thermal and cold hyperalgesia. Pre-administration also attenuated neuropathic pain symptoms. Meanwhile, SNL-induced increase in protein or mRNA levels of some inflammatory mediators could be down-regulated by QUE treatment. Furthermore, QUE reduced the phosphorylation of TAK1, IKK and JNK2 in cultured astrocytes. Moreover, luciferase assay in HEK293 cells showed that QUE dose-dependently inhibited NF-κB activity only via TAK1. QUE exerts anti-inflammatory effects and alleviates neuropathic pain through the inhibition of Toll-like receptor signaling pathway. It could shed some light on the potential applications of QUE in chronic pain therapy.

We conduct a lab-experimental study of bargaining over the distribution of monetary losses. Groups of four differently endowed participants must agree, as a group, on the contribution each participant will make to cover a financial loss imposed on the group. The study sheds light on burden sharing and what loss allocation rules groups adopt. Furthermore, we characterize a new theoretical model which contains the proportional rule and equality of losses as special cases but collides with the constrained equal awards rule. The combination of our model and the constrained equal awards rule can explain the majority of proposals made in our experiment.

We propose an enhanced decision-directed algorithm with preconditions for spectral efficient DMT signals. A 98.7-Gb/s 4-QAM modulated optical SE-DMT transmission over 2-km fiber is successfully demonstrated, achieving an electrical spectral efficiency of 3.9-bit/s/Hz.

The rate of regional sea level rise (SLR) provides important information about the impact of human activities on climate change. However, accurate estimation of regional SLR can be severely affected by sea surface height (SSH) change caused by the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO-SSH). Here, the PDO-SSH signal is extracted from satellite altimeter data by multi-variable linear regression, and regional SLR in the altimeter era is calculated, before and after removing that signal. The results show that PDO-SSH trends are rising in the western Pacific and falling in the eastern Pacific, with the strongest signal confined to the tropical and North Pacific. Over the past 20 years, the PDO-SSH accounts for about 30%-40% of altimeter-observed SLR in the regions 8 degrees-15 degrees N, 130 degrees-160 degrees E and 30 degrees-40 degrees N, 170 degrees-220 degrees E. Along the coast of North America, the PDO-SSH signal dramatically offsets the coastal SLR, as the sea level trends change sign from falling to rising.

The role of turbulent diapycnal mixing in the northwestern Pacific was estimated by employing a fine-scale parameterization method based on 6756 high-resolution CTD profiles spanning a period of 8 years from the Japan Oceanography Data Center (JODC) and the Kuroshio Extension System Study (KESS). The rate of turbulent mixing in the upper ocean within 300-1800 m depth displayed a distinct seasonal cycle, bearing a statistically significant correlation to wind-induced near-inertial energy flux (hereafter denoted by WNEF). Enhanced turbulent mixing was also found near the rough seafloor relative to that over smooth topography. Enhanced dissipation at surface and bottom was found to be able to penetrate the ocean interior up to 1800 m and 3300 m, respectively, with penetration depths varying with the WNEF and topographic roughness. Our study here provides evidence for the important role of near-inertial energy input from wind stress and the influence of bottom topography in maintaining mixing in the ocean interior.

An active electronically scanned array (AESA) beamforming method that provides enhanced selectivity (interference rejection) for the same number of antennas compared to conventional delay-and-sum (DAS) beamforming is proposed. Conventional DAS 2-D transfer function is modified by introducing complex pole-manifolds based on recently proposed 2-D infinite impulse response (IIR) beam filters, at guaranteed stability. A continuous-time domain signal flow graph is proposed based on first order all-pass filters that eliminate the need of transmission line-based delays used in conventional DAS beamformers. Improved interference rejection is verified using closed-form signal processing models. For an array of 64 antennas, with desired signal direction of arrival (DOA) 10 ° and interference DOA -60° from array broadside, the proposed scheme shows an improvement in the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) around 7 dB for the same number of antennas, compared to DAS beamforming. The improvement in interference rejection is observed for both uniform and non-uniform aperture weights in terms of side lobe performance. A feasibility study is presented on potential CMOS circuit implementation of the proposed AESA for a linear array of eight antennas and maximum operational frequency of 1 GHz.

© 2019 Gaertner et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. But experimental studies of related situations, such as those involving bankruptcies or bequests in which the sum of the legal claims that can be made against a bank or firm or estate are greater than their values, have produced strong support for the proportionality principle. To test whether this principle would find support in other situations involving losses we designed an experimental game in which four players start out with differing initial endowments of real money. They are then informed that a certain amount of this resource has to be given back to the experimenter. How should the loss be shared among the agents? This game was run at different locations and under different treatments over a period of almost three years. We found that the proportionality principle was rarely proposed and even less frequently accepted as a solution to this problem. One of the main reasons for this result was that the two players with the smallest endowments opposed most of the proposals which asked them to contribute at least some positive amount of their own initial resource.

This research aimed to reveal the relationship of SRY-type HMG box 9 (SOX9) gene polymorphisms with osteoarthritis (OA) risk in a Chinese population.Polymerase chain reaction and direct sequencing were used for genotyping polymorphism in 152 OA patients and 139 controls. Firstly, the conform

The main purpose of our study was to evaluate the biomechanics of different posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) reconstruction techniques. Seven fresh cadaver knees were collected. A 6-DOF robot arm was used to test the biomechanical parameters, including the posterior stability, the lateral stability and the rotation stability of different PCL reconstruction techniques. Each group was tested at the knee flexion of 0, 30[Formula: see text], 60[Formula: see text], 90[Formula: see text] and 120[Formula: see text], under the following conditions respectively: a posterior force of 134[Formula: see text]N, an internal and external rotation torque of 5[Formula: see text][Formula: see text], a varus and valgus torque of 10[Formula: see text][Formula: see text], and a combination of 100[Formula: see text]N posterior force and 5[Formula: see text][Formula: see text] external rotation torque. The posterior tibia translation and the rotational angle of the 4-tunnel double-bundle PCL reconstruction group were significantly lower than that of 3-tunnel double-bundle group and the single-bundle group; the posterior tibia translation valgus–varus-angle were lower at some specified flexion angle. No statistical difference was found between the anatomic 4-tunnel bundle group and the intact knee group concerning the posterior tibia translation, the rotational angle, and the valgus–varus-angle. This study showed that the biomechanics of PCL of 4-tunnel double-bundle reconstruction was closer to the intact knees than the other two reconstruction methods.

We develop a simple scheme for the provision of public good and show that, under certain conditions, the equilibrium provision of the public good is at the efficient level. Our scheme is based on conventional games of private provision of the public good with an exogenously given cost structure to share the cost of the provision of the public good. We also give a characterization of the class of cost-sharing rules that induce the efficient provision of the public good at the equilibrium.

Purpose In the present work, the aim was to systematically review all studies about the association of vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) polymorphisms with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and to perform a meta-analysis. Methods Relevant studies were searched using PubMed, Embase, Wanfang (Chinese), VIP (Chinese), and the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure databases up to October, 2011. A meta-analysis was conducted using Stata software, version 11.0. Results A total of nine studies with 2,281 AMD cases and 2,820 controls met our eligibility criteria, and meta-analyses of four polymorphisms of the VEGF-A gene (rs1413711, rs833061, rs2010963, and rs3025039) were performed. This meta-analysis revealed moderate evidence supporting an association between the VEGF-A polymorphisms and AMD. For rs1413711, the TT genotype was associated with an increased risk of overall AMD (TT versus CT model, odds ratio (OR) 1.74, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.22–2.48) and of wet AMD (TT versus CT model, OR 1.82, 95% CI 1.22–2.71; TT versus (CC+CT) model, OR 1.63, 95% CI 1.13–2.35). For rs833061, the C allele (C allele versus T allele, OR 1.72, 95% CI 1.00–2.96) and CC genotype (CC versus TT model, OR 1.77, 95% CI 1.00–3.11) were the risk factors for overall AMD, while the C allele was also associated with an increased risk of wet AMD (C allele versus T allele, OR 1.54, 95% CI 1.03–2.31). No association was observed between AMD risk and the variant genotypes of VEGF-A rs2010963 and rs3025039 polymorphisms in different genetic models. Conclusions The results suggest the VEGF-A rs1413711 and rs833061 polymorphisms may contribute to AMD susceptibility.

High-pressure behaviors of AlN:Mg and AlN:Co nanowires have been investigated by in situ angle dispersive synchrotron X-ray diffraction up to 41.5 GPa and 38.2 GPa, respectively. Their corresponding pressure-induced wurtzite-to-rocksalt phase transitions start at 17.7 GPa and 15.0 GPa and complete at 33.2 GPa and 31.0 GPa, respectively. The phase-transition routes are not affected by the doped ions, while the phase transition pressures are lower than that of pure AlN nanowires. The distinct high-pressure behaviors are ascribed to the doped ions, which reduce the formation energy of cation vacancies and induce Al vacancies defects together with substitution defects, resulting in lattice distortion and affecting structural stability and phase transition pressure.