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In this letter, we first propose a construction of aperiodic binary Z-complementary sequence sets (ZCSSs) with length $3\cdot 2^m$ employing Boolean functions. Next we present a construction of binary ZCSSs with large set sizes by using orthogonal sequences. At last, we provide a large class of optimal binary ZCSSs of length $2^m\cdot L$ with large zero correlation zone width, where $L$ is the length of Z-complementary pairs. The lengths of the ZCSSs are more flexible than the known methods. In this letter, these systematic constructions can generate more ZCSSs of the new sequence lengths and set sizes, which have not been reported before.

The absolute and sum-of-squares indicators are used to evaluate the Global avalanche characteristics (GAC) of Boolean functions in a global manner. The GAC properties of a class of highly nonlinear 1-resilient Boolean functions are given. We derive new upper bounds of the absolute and sumof-squares indicators for a class of 1-resilient Boolean functions with high nonlinearity. Compared to the known 1-resilient Boolean functions, the constructed functions possess higher nonlinearity and better GAC properties.

The lengths of binary Golay complementary pairs are limited to 2 α 10 β 26 γ , where α, s, γ ∈ {0, 1, 2, . . .}. This weakness is repaired by the Z-complementary pairs (ZCPs). In this letter, by concatenating several different complementary pairs of length 2 m , we present a construction of even-period binary ZCPs of length N = 2 m+ 3 + 2 m+ 2 + 2 m+ 1 with zero-correlation zone (ZCZ) width Z = 2 m+ 3 . We also propose another construction of ZCPs of length N' with larger ZCZ width Z = 6N'/7.

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The Walsh-Hadamard transform is a powerful tool to investigate interference-resist capabilities and cryptographic of functions which have a wide array of applications in coding theory and cryptography. It is interesting to find functions with few Walsh-Hadamard transform values (spectral amplitudes) and to determine their distributions. In this letter, a new modified generalized Maiorana-McFarland (MGMM) construction is presented. A collection of MGMM classes of functions of few spectral amplitudes can be obtained by using the proposed construction. The constructed functions have determined spectral amplitude distributions. As a class of these MGMM functions, generalized 3-ary functions of two nonzero spectral amplitudes $3^{n/2}$ and $3^{n/2+1}$ are then exploited to construct spreading sequences for even $n$. Moreover, an efficient assignment is presented to provide that the smallest distance between pairs of sequences of correlation $3^{n/2+1}$ is 3, which implies that the spreading sequences based on these functions in our assignment have better interference-resist capability than the spreading sequences based on ternary semi-bent functions.

Proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) is a serious microangiopathic complication of diabetes mellitus and a major cause of blindness in working-age adults. Diabetes-induced alterations in the vitreous protein composition in diabetic patients with PDR may be responsible for the presence of PDR. Therefore, we performed a comprehensive proteomic analysis and compared the protein profiles of vitreous humor from type 2 diabetic patients with PDR (n = 8) and that from normal human eyes donated for corneal transplant (n = 8). Using reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) coupled to electrospray Ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS), we identified 96 significant differentially expressed proteins (abundance ratio > 1.5, p < 0.05), including 37 and 59 proteins up- and downregulated in PDR vitreous compared with the control, respectively. Biological pathway analysis revealed 44 proteins involved in 56 biological pathways; among them, the most remarkable pathways differentially represented between PDR and normal vitreous were the glycolysis/gluconeogenesis, complement and coagulation cascades, gap junction, and phagosome pathways. The differential expressions of angiopoietin-related protein 6, apolipoprotein A-I, estrogen receptor alpha, and tubulin were confirmed by western blot analysis. These data provide insight into the molecular events possibly involved in the pathogenesis of PDR and widen the scope of potential avenues for new therapies for PDR.

In this paper, we employ the so-called semi-bent functions to achieve significant improvements over currently known methods regarding the number of orthogonal sequences per cell that can be assigned to a regular tessellation of hexagonal cells, typical for certain code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems. Our initial design method generates a large family of orthogonal sets of sequences derived from vectorial semi-bent functions. A modification of the original approach is proposed to avoid a hard combinatorial problem of allocating several such orthogonal sets to a single cell of a regular hexagonal network, while preserving the orthogonality to adjacent cells. This modification increases the number of users per cell by starting from shorter codewords and then extending the length of these codewords to the desired length. The specification and assignment of these orthogonal sets to a regular tessellation of hexagonal cells have been solved regardless of the parity and size of $m$ (where $2^m$ is the length of the codewords). In particular, when the re-use distance is $D=4$ the number of users per cell is $2^{m-2}$ for almost all $m$, which is twice as many as can be obtained by the best known methods., Comment: 24 pages, 4 figures, 5 tables. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory,vol.62, no.6, 2016

N,N′-Dinitrosopiperazine (DNP) induces nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and shows organ specificity to the nasopharyneal epithelium. To investigate its mechanism, the rat NPC model was inducd using DNP. Rat NPC and normal nasopharyngeal cells were obtained from the NPC model using laser capture. The total proteins from these cell samples were separated with two-dimension polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis techniques, and highly expressed proteins (> five-fold) were analyzed using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight and bioinformatics. The results showed that HSP70 and mucin 5B expression increased not only in rat NPC but also in atypical hyperplasia nasopharyngeal tissues, a precancer stage of NPC. High-expression of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) and mucin 5B was further supported by western blot analysis. The immunofluorescence and western-blotting studies further showed that DNP induced the expression of HSP70 and mucin 5B in a dosage-dependent manner in normal nasopharyngeal epithelia cells. Our data indicate that DNP triggers over-expression of HSP70 and mucin 5B, and is involved in nasopharyngeal tumorigenesis. HSP70 and mucin 5B may be important targets in nasopharyngeal tumorigenesis induced by DNP. (Cancer Sci 2009; 100: 216–224)

Mobile video service consumes more energy than other services from the perspective of data transmitting and user-side device energy consumption. Research on energy efficiency of mobile video service is of vital significance in achieving a green communication system. This paper aims to increase energy efficiency for mobile video systems based on the characteristics of QoE. Considering that user's QoE is constrained by factors like devices and ambient environment, a QoE-driven adaptive streaming scheme is proposed in order to help save radio resources and reduce power consumption. After that, a simple QoE model and several power models relevant to mobile video service are formulated. Based on these models, a QoE-driven energy efficient resource allocation algorithm is introduced. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can achieve superior performance in both QoE and energy efficiency, especially for cell-edge users.

To understand the molecular mechanisms of idiopathic epiretinal membranes (iERMs), the vitreous proteomes of patients with iERMs were investigated. The vitreous proteome in patients with iERMs (n = 8) and donor samples (n = 8) was analysed using reversed phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) coupled with electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS) and GeneGo Metacore™. This research followed the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki for the use of human subjects. In this current study, 226 significant changes in protein abundance (abundance ratio >2, p < 0.01) were identified in the vitreous proteome of iERM patients compared to normal control vitreous, including 122 proteins that were present at lower levels and 104 proteins that were present at higher levels. In the iERM vitreous samples, complement components, inflammation-related proteins and matrix metalloproteinase were present at higher levels, while normal cytoskeleton proteins were present at lower levels. The top GeneGo pathway was "immune response", the top process network was "inflammation", and the top KEGG pathway was "coagulation cascades". The essential 2-node proteins of the network were estrogen receptor 1 (ESR1) and p300. Among those found at higher levels, ubiquitin-conjugating enzyme E2O (UBE2O) and complement C4A (C4A) were the most abundant proteins, and could be detected in each of the iERM vitreous samples. It can be concluded that iERMs are a complicated pathological process involving inflammation, immune response, and cytoskeleton remolding. UBE2O and C4A may be candidate biomarkers for iERMs.

A generalized energy functional describing rigid–viscoplastic dynamic deformation is newly proposed. The Lagrangian multiplier method and the penalty method are introduced to enforce the incompressibility condition into the functional, respectively. The rigid–viscoplastic dynamic explicit finite element equation is established by employing the functional, in which the penalty method is used to remove the restraint of incompressibility. Then the rate-type explicit time integration formulation is given by the central difference method. A rigid–viscoplastic dynamic explicit finite element code, H-RING, is developed for the analysis of ring rolling. The discussion is mainly focused on an investigation of the cause and elimination of fishtail defect in rectangular section ring rolling and the strain distribution in L-section profiled ring rolling. The constraint of guide rollers is also introduced into the calculation. The numerical analysis results are in good agreement with experiments in terms of geometrical changes and in load variation.

Nowadays, evacuation is mostly based on individual decisions, which is unreliable. This paper introduces a practical solution towards emergency evacuation by guiding people out of building efficiently. Built on wireless sensor network (WSN), our system is capable of learning and dynamically generating evacuation strategy. Distributed mechanism and backup mechanism feature the scalability and invulnerability. Simulations prove the efficiency and reliability of the system.

To determine the molecular mechanism of berberine (BBR) inhibiting the metastasis and invasion of nasopharyngeal carcinoma 5-8F cells, and identify whether berberine suppresses the tumor-invasive action through inhibiting Ezrin or phosphate-Ezrin.The non-cytotoxic concentration of berberine was detected by MTT assay. Filopodia formation of 5-8F cells was observed by electron microscope. The invasion and motility of 5-8F cells with berberine treatment were measured with Trans-well assay. Western blot was used to investigate the Ezrin and phos-Ezrin expression in 5-8F cells treated by berberine. pcDNA3.1-Ezrin and pcDNA3.1-Ezrin M were transfected into 6-10B cells. The inhibitory effect of berberine on the motility and invasion of 6-10B-pcDNA3.1-Ezrin and 6-10B-pcDNA3.1-Ezrin M was detected, respectively.Berberine non-cytotoxic concentration was 0-40 μmol/L. After being treated by berberine, filopodia of 5-8F cells obviously reduced, and the permeating artificial basement membrane cells largely decreased in both time- and concentration-dependent manner. There was significant difference compared with the control group (P0.05). Berberine suppressed the phos-Ezrin expression of 5-8F cells in both time- and concentration-dependent manner (P0.05), but the effect of berberine was weaker on 6-10B-pcDNA3.1-Ezrin M than on 6-10B-pcDNA3.1-Ezrin.Berberine inhibits nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell invasion through inhibiting phos-Ezrin expression and filopodia formation.

Objective To search for markers of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) for diagnosis. Design and methods Using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, we evaluated 51 serum metabolites in 49 NPC, 37 throat cancer patients and 40 healthy controls. High metabolites were selected and confirmed in NPC tissues. Sensitivity and specificity were appraised for 53 NPC diagnoses. Results Metabolic profiling revealed that kynurenine, N-acetylglucosaminylamine, N-acetylglucosamine and hydroxyphenylpyruvate increased in NPC patient sera. Their sensitivity and specificity were respectively 79% and 71%, 78% and 69%, 83% and 68%, 84% and 73% for NPC diagnosis. These increases were confirmed in NPC cells. Four metabolites gradually increased from stage I to stage III. After radiotherapy, four metabolites decreased gradually, and tended to a normal level, and were associated with rate of tumor reduction. Conclusion The results reveal that kynurenine, N-acetylglucosaminylamine, N-acetylglucosamine and hydroxyphenylpyruvate are potentially markers of NPC for diagnosis and therapy.

Ezrin is highly expressed in metastatic tumors and is involved in filopodia formation as well as promotion of tumor metastasis. Thus, Ezrin may serve as a potential target for anti-metastatic therapy. This study demonstrates that berberine reduces filopodia formation of a nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) cell line, 5-8F, at non-cytotoxic concentrations. Furthermore, invasion and motility of 5-8F cells are decreased in a dose- and time-dependent manner, resulting in 73.0% invasion and 67.0% motility inhibition at 20 mum. The inhibitory effects of berberine on 5-8F cell metastasis were further confirmed in a mouse model of metastasis. Berberine treatment in vivo resulted in a 51.1% inhibition of tumor metastasis to the lymph nodes and decreased Ezrin phosphorylation at threonine 567 in metastatic samples. Berberine suppressed the presence of phosphorylated Ezrin (phospho-Ezrin) in a dose- and time-dependent manner but had no effect on total Ezrin protein expression at non-cytotoxic concentrations. Furthermore, the inhibitory effects of berberine on phospho-Ezrin were dependent on the suppression of Rho kinase activity. Reduction of Ezrin phosphorylation at Thr(567) by berberine was associated with its inhibitory effect on filopodia formation in 5-8F cells. However, berberine did not effectively inhibit the motility and invasion of NPC cells containing Ezrin Thr(567) mutants. These results confirm that berberine inhibits Ezrin phosphorylation at Thr(567). Nonetheless, berberine reduces motility and invasion of cells and inhibits tumor metastasis. The reduction of Rho kinase-mediated Ezrin phosphorylation mediated by berberine may be a novel anti-metastatic pathway in NPC 5-8F cells.

In this paper, we propose a multi‐time scale modeling technique for analyzing cyclic plastic deformation in crystalline solids subject to periodic loading. An asymptotic expansion of the variables in the time domain, together with homogenization forms the basis of multi‐time scaling. In the macroscopic scale analysis, the oscillatory behavior of the load is averaged out and neglected, and the rate of averaged material behavior is quite slow in cyclic deformation. Implicitly, this means that the periodicity of some variables may be assumed for the oscillatory potion of the material behavior may be approximated. In this formulation, the governing equations are divided into two initial‐boundary value problems with two different time scale: one is long time scale problem for describing the smooth averaged solution (global problem) and the other is for the remaining oscillatory potion (local problem). For the global problem, long time increments, which are longer than one cycle period, can be used and this multi‐time scaling becomes an effective integrator.

Under thermally activated deformation conditions many engineering metals (steels, aluminum and magnesium alloys) exhibit much enhanced formability; thus, thermal forming has received increasing interests by automotive industries. The thermally activated material constitutive behaviors are not only strain dependent, but also strain rate and temperature dependent, and it is sensitive to in-situ microstructure evolution. In addition, non-steady-state deformation at a high strain rate (in the order of 10−2s−1 or above) introduces additional challenges in forming simulation. In this case, von Mises based macroscopic plasticity are often not sufficient to describe material behaviors with complex thermomechanical history. In this paper, the rate-dependent crystal plasticity model [1] was applied to the high temperature and high strain rate deformation that is dominated by dislocation creep. A user material subroutine was developed and used for FEA metal forming simulation using commercial ABAQUS/Dynamic code. In the simulation, material behavior was computed based on crystal plasticity at each strain increment without using von-Mises equation or a look-up table of material testing data. By inputting different slip systems or their combinations, and by matching the predicted crystallographic textures with experimentally obtained ones, the active slip systems responsible for the deformation was identified. Then, the material parameters were best fitted to the tensile curves obtained at various strain rates and temperatures. The model was applied for more complex multi-axial metal forming processes. The material behavior, along with its crystallographic texture development, was obtained and validated. As a demonstration, this paper also provides an analysis of a newly developed thrmal forming process [2] with this meso-scale crystal plasticity approach. This forming process involves diameter expansion of a tubular workpiece under combined internal pressure and axial loading and at elevated temperatures.