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The purpose of this study was to investigate whether platelet count was associated with mortality in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) patients.We analyzed patients with ARDS from Multi-parameter Intelligent Monitoring in Intensive Care Database III (MIMIC-III). Platelet count was measured at the time of intensive care unit (ICU) admission. The cox proportional hazard model and subgroup analysis were used to determine the relationship between the platelet count and mortality of ARDS, as well as the consistency of its association. The primary outcome of this study was 365-day mortality from the date of ICU admission.This study enrolled a total of 395 critically ill patients with ARDS. After adjustment for age, gender and ethnicity, the multivariate cox regression model showed that the hazard ratios (HRs) (95% confidence intervals [CIs]) of platelet count192 × 10Taken together, our analysis showed that platelet count is an independent predictor of mortality in critically ill patients with ARDS.

Hybridized materials frequently exhibit boosting performances greater than those of the individual components in functional applications because of intriguing synergistic effects. Nonetheless, the ...

Deep Learning is being widely used to identify and segment various structures in 2D and 3D scans in fields such as robotics and medical imaging. We leverage this exciting technology to train state-of-the-art models for 3D object detection and segmentation for various buried structures such as Through Silicon Vias (TSVs), memory bumps, and logic bumps. We show in detail how we fabricate our wafers and generate 3D scans. Thereafter, we explain our approach in locating these different structures in 3D scans and how we further segment these structures into solders, voids, Cu-Pillars, and Cu-Pads for 3D metrology and defect identification. We compare our approach with state-of-the-art techniques and perform a thorough analysis to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various approaches in each step.

Yield improvement is a critical component of semiconductor manufacturing. It is done by collecting, analyzing, identifying the causes of defects, and then coming up with a practical solution to resolve the root causes. Semiconductor components such as Through Silicon Vias (TSVs) and other package interconnects are getting smaller and smaller with the ongoing miniaturization progress in the industry. Detecting defects in these buried interconnects is becoming both more difficult and more important. We collect both 2D and 3D X-Ray scans of defective TSVs containing defects such as voids. We label the data in 3D and perform registration between 2D and 3D scans. We use this registration information to locate the TSVs and void defects in these 2D X-ray scans which would be difficult to label manually as these voids look very fuzzy in 2D scans. Thereafter we use a state-of-the-art deep-learning segmentation network to train models to identify foreground (TSV, void defects) from the background. We show that our model can accurately identify the TSVs and their voids in images where it is impossible to locate the defects manually. We report a dice score of 0.87 for TSV segmentation and a dice score of 0.67 for void detection. The dice score for voids demonstrates the capability of our models to detect these difficult buried defects in 2D directly.

Social ties can help firms gain and secure resources. However, it is unclear whether social ties facilitate or inhibit firms’ decision-making on dominant design generation. Our study distinguishes the variant roles of business ties and political ties and examines how contextual factors moderate the effects of these ties. Based on archival data of 443 Chinese automotive firms embedded in standard alliances during the period 2005–2009, we find that weak business ties enhance firms’ influence on dominant design, and the positive effect of the number of business ties is even stronger when firms operate in a context with higher IRP enforcement. Moreover, the empirical results indicate that when either the IPR enforcement or the technological turbulence is high, establishing political ties is detrimental to a firm’s influence on dominant design. Our findings add new insights to the research on social capital, dominant design, and open innovation in the automotive industry. The findings also provide significant implications for managers by showing how they can utilize social ties to influence the emergence of dominant designs in an industry.

s In this work, we highlight the significances of Controlled Surface Sulfidation (CSS) for high-current-density hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) with bimetallic NiMoO4 microcuboids supported on Ni foam. It reveals that a new phase 1T’-MoS2 is derived in-situ from the surface NiMoO4 microcuboids during CSS in addition to pyrite-phase NiS2 and 2H-MoS2 as obtained from full sulfidation. We denote the controlled sulfided sample as “CSS-NiS2/MoS2” and the fully sulfided sample as “FS-NiS2/MoS2”, respectively. The CSS-NiS2/MoS2 electrode only required low overpotentials of 12, 47, 112 mV to drive -10, -20, -100 mA cm−2, respectively, which surpasses the FS-NiS2/MoS2 considerably (54, 90, 195 mV at -10, -20, -100 mA cm−2, respectively). Notably, it delivers a high current density of -500 and -1000 mA cm−2 at low overpotentials of only 200 and 264 mV, respectively. The durability of the high-current-density activity of CSS-NiS2/MoS2 is also proven over 50 h of stability test. The excellent performances of CSS-NiS2/MoS2 may be synergistically contributed from the active phases and the design dual hierarchical (i.e., 2D-nano/1D-microhybrids) structure. The CSS may serve as an effective strategy to modulate the electrochemical properties of materials holding great promises for the applications of next-generation energy storage and conversion.

The new product development (NPD) is crucial to firms’ survival and success. Tough decisions must be made between the binary NPD strategy (i.e. incremental NPD strategy and radical NPD strategy) to ensure that scarce resources are allocated efficiently. The inappropriate NPD strategy that does not meet the internal and external conditions may lead to resources waste and performance decline. The binary NPD strategy forecasting is helpful to guide the firms when to improve existing products and when to develop ‘really new’ products. Therefore, the primary purposes of this study are to construct an evaluating indicator system and to find the appropriate method for the binary NPD strategy forecasting. Here we obtain 1088 valid sample datasets from Chinese automotive industry, covering the period 2001–2014. The empirical results indicate that RS-MultiBoosting as a kind of hybrid ensemble machine learning (HEML) method demonstrate an outstanding forecasting performance in dealing with the small datasets by comparison with the other four ensemble machine learning (EML) methods and three individual machine learning (IML) methods. The findings can help firms to make the right business decision between incremental and radical NPD strategies so that they can avoid resources waste and improve the overall NPD performance.

Reduced molybdenum oxide, generally MoO3- x, becomes increasingly metallic as the oxygen level decreases during the reduction of MoO3 to MoO2. Its interesting properties have recently intrigued research on MoO3- x in electrical and electrochemical areas. Lacking effective tools to control the oxygen level is one of the research difficulties for MoO3- x. Herein, we report facile temperature-controlled synthesis of triangular MoO2 and square Mo4O11. The triangular and square flakes showed metallic behavior with conductivity as high as ∼940 and ∼28 S/cm in DC measurement, respectively. The decrease in oxygen level from Mo4O11 to MoO2 affected the density of states mapped in Mo 4d orbitals, leading to higher conductivity for triangular MoO2. Further Mott-Schottky analysis on MoO3- x regrown on carbon fiber paper (CFP) revealed hole mobility of 105-108 cm2 V-1 s-1. The hole carriers at high frequencies are attributed to potential oxygen acceptors, and molybdenum vacancies resulted from limited reduction power of hydrogen.

In the case of Changsha Taskin Square, according to the theory of space syntax, the multi-level shopping mall is translated into a two-dimensional model by connecting each floor with models of vertical path in DEPTHMAP. Then a visibility analysis is made with the model. According to the theory of ecological approach to visual perception, an agent model is built to simulate the pedestrian distribution in the multi-level shopping mall, by using the result of the visibility analysis. By simulating the pedestrian distribution of initial plan and optimized plan of Taskin Square, and comparing the simulation results, several principles and measures for optimizing the multi-level shopping mall design are verified: (1) the form of horizontal circulation space should be concise and symmetry as possible; (2) a core space should be set to connect each floor in the vertical direction; (3) elevators and escalators should be set in the central area with high visual accessibility; (4) the atrium and vertical path, like escalators and elevators, should be set near the entrance of the building, and an aisle should be set to connect them to the entrance directly.

Cell viability assay measured by 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) (DOC 25 kb)

Background Acute lung injury (ALI) is an inflammatory disorder. Semen Cassiae has potent anti-inflammatory activities. The aim of our study was to investigate whether Semen Cassiae plays a protective effect on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced ALI and, if so, to elucidate its potential mechanism. Methods Male Sprague–Dawley rat lungs were injured by intratracheal instillation of LPS. Rats were treated with Semen Cassiae or vehicle 3 h after LPS challenge. Samples were harvested 24 h post-LPS administration. We also investigated the effects of Semen Cassiae on LPS stimulation in RAW 264.7 cells. Results LPS administration markedly induced pulmonary edema and polymorphonuclear neutrophil influxes. These changes were significantly attenuated in Semen Cassiae treated group. Moreover, Semen Cassiae markedly reduced pulmonary interleukin (IL)-6, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, and 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) levels. The pulmonary soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) activity and the DNA binding activity of Nuclear factor (NF)-κB were significantly inhibited in Semen Cassiae treated group. Furthermore, Semen Cassiae treatment significantly increased epoxyeicosatrienoic acids (EETs), and heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) activity. Our in vitro study demonstrates that Semen Cassiae treatment may inhibit LPS induced IκBα phosphorylation and NF-κB p65 nucleus translocation. Conclusion Semen Cassiae protects LPS-induced ALI in rats. Semen Cassiae can be developed as a novel treatment for ALI. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12906-017-1747-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Severe sepsis and septic shock are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in hospitalized patients. This study aimed to investigate the association of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase-1 (PARP-1) activity in circulating mononuclear cells with myocardial dysfunction in patients with septic shock.A total of 64 patients with septic shock were divided into the survival group (n = 41) and the nonsurvival group (n = 23) according to mortality at 28 days after enrollments. PARP-1 activity in circulating mononuclear cells, brain natriuretic peptide, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score, the cardiac index (CI), the cardiac function index (CFI), global ejection fraction (GEF), and the left ventricular contractility index (dp/dt max) were measured after admission to the intensive care unit.PARP-1 activity in circulating mononuclear cells of nonsurvival patients with septic shock was significantly higher than that in survival patients. PARP-1 activity in circulating mononuclear cells was strongly, negatively correlated with the CI, the CFI, GEF, and dp/dt max. Multiple Logistic regression analysis showed that PARP-1 activity in circulating mononuclear cells was an independent risk factor of myocardial dysfunction. The optimal cutoff point of PARP-1 activity for predicting 28-day mortality was 942 nmol/L with a sensibility of 78.2% and specificity of 65.1%.PARP-1 activity in circulating mononuclear cells is significantly associated with myocardial dysfunction and may have prognostic value in patients with septic shock.

To investigate the role of β 3 -integrin in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced autophagy in cardiomyocytes and its underlying mechanism.β 3 -Integrin expression in cardiomyocytes was up- or downregulated by adenovirus transfection or cyclic arginine-glycine-aspartic acid (cRGD) peptide treatment before LPS stimulation. The expression of autophagy-associated proteins (LC3-II, Beclin-1 and Bcl-2) and the activation of Akt were determined using Western blotting. Autophagosomes and autophagic vacuoles were observed using monodansylcadaverine (MDC) dye and transmission electron microscopy, respectively.Downregulation of β 3 -integrin with cRGD peptide resulted in enhanced LC3-II and Beclin-1 and decreased Bcl-2 expression. Low Beclin-1 levels were detected after LPS stimulation in adenovirus β 3 -integrin-transfected cardiomyocytes. There was no significant difference in LC3-II levels between control and adenovirus β 3 -integrin-transfected cardiomyocytes. Enhanced accumulation of MDC dye and autophagosomes, which were inhibited by β 3 -integrin overexpression, were detected after LPS treatment. The increased phosphorylation of Akt after LPS stimulation was inhibited by cRGD and enhanced by β 3 -integrin overexpression. Furthermore, the Akt inhibitor triciribine inhibited the negative effect of β 3 - integrin on autophagy, as shown by LC3-II and Beclin-1 upregulation.β 3 -Integrin inhibits LPS-induced autophagy in cardiomyocytes. The inhibition of Akt signaling might be an important mechanism in this process.