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Being proposed from 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative highlights five focuses, which are policy coordination, unimpeded trade, financial integration, facilities connectivity and people-to-people bond respectively. However, we propose that the implementation of people-to-people bond could be hampered by cultural distance between different countries and thus negatively affecting the fulfillment of other focuses. Hence, it’ s an essential prerequisite to verify the impact of cultural distance so as to better promote the connectivity among Belt and Road partners. In this study, we conduct an empirical study on the impact of cultural distance on Chinese companies’ OFDI using a panel data set of 40 countries along the Belt and Road over the period 2014-2020. Results show that cultural distance has a negative impact on Chinese companies’ OFDI in Belt and Road partner countries. What is more, it’ s found that based on the model of national culture developed by Hofstede, Chinese companies pay more attention to the similarity in the cultural dimension of masculinity with host countries when making outbound investment. Our research has both theoretical and practical implications to relevant research fields and the Belt and Road practice.

IntroductionThe occurrence of pachyonychia congenita (PC) and acne inversa (AI) may be related to gene mutations. The aim of this study is to identify the genetic cause in a patient with PC and AI, and to explore the possible molecular mechanism of their co-occurrence.MethodsThe clinical data of the proband were collected, and the genomic DNA of the proband and unaffected parents were extracted. The variant sites of the proband were identified by whole-exome sequencing, and then the variant sites of the proband and his parents were verified by Sanger sequencing.ResultsA heterozygous variant in KRT17 gene was found in the patient, resulting in a missense amino acid variant (p.N92D). The variant was not found in his parents or 100 unrelated healthy controls. In addition, this variant was not found in the gnomad v4 database. The three-dimensional structure analysis of the protein suggested that the polarity of amino acids changed after the variant. After lentiviral plasmid transfection into HaCaT cells, the expression level of NOTCH signaling decreased in the constructed c.274A>G (p.Asn92Asp) of KRT-17 mutant cells compared to that in the wild-type. Subsequent verification confirmed that differences in the expression levels of p-PI3K, AKT and p-AKT between the groups were not statistically significant.DiscussionAlthough this variant has been reported previously, our findings could expand the spectrum of co-occurrence of PC and AI with KRT17 gene variants, and elucidated the possible pathogenesis at the protein level, thereby laying a foundation for the genetic diagnosis and genetic counseling provided to individuals with PC.

Accurate prediction of the structurally diverse complementarity determining region heavy chain 3 (CDR-H3) loop structure remains a primary and long-standing challenge for antibody modeling. Here, we present the H3-OPT toolkit for predicting the 3D structures of monoclonal antibodies and nanobodies. H3-OPT combines the strengths of AlphaFold2 with a pre-trained protein language model and provides a 2.24 Å average RMSDCα between predicted and experimentally determined CDR-H3 loops, thus outperforming other current computational methods in our non-redundant high-quality dataset. The model was validated by experimentally solving three structures of anti-VEGF nanobodies predicted by H3-OPT. We examined the potential applications of H3-OPT through analyzing antibody surface properties and antibody–antigen interactions. This structural prediction tool can be used to optimize antibody–antigen binding and engineer therapeutic antibodies with biophysical properties for specialized drug administration route.

Battery energy storage system (BESS) has been regarded as an effective technology to regulate system frequency for power systems. However, the cost and the system security of battery energy storage are the bottle necks for the battery energy storage system to be applied to practical projects for frequency regulation. Comparing with the large-scale battery energy storage system, the small-scale energy storage system has better robustness and could reduce the cost and improve the system security with lower energy capacity and wider regional distribution. However, coordinating the state of charge (SOC) of a large number of small-scale battery storage system to provide effective frequency regulation service is a challenge for the operation of power systems. In this paper, a hierarchical energy management strategy, which can be applied to different scenarios with and without limited communication systems, has been proposed to coordinate a large number of small-scale energy storage systems to regulate frequency for power systems. The rated power capacity, energy capacity, and SOC of the BESS are considered in the proposed strategy to maximize the capability of frequency regulation for power systems. The proposed strategy can be applied to power systems without powerful and expensive communication systems and coordinate BESS according to SOC of the BESS and the quality of communication system. The resilience of power systems after extreme natural events can be enhanced by the frequency regulation service of BESS under proposed strategy.

Abstract Limited researches focused on the application of laparoscopic gastrectomy (LG) in locally advanced gastric cancer (LAGC) patients following neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT). In this study, we aimed at illustrating the surgical and survival outcome of LG in LAGC patients following NACT. We performed a retrospective study of patients with LAGC who received either LG following NACT or upfront LG at Fujian Provincial Hospital between March 2013 and October 2018. Perioperative parameters, short-term and long-term outcomes were compared. The Kaplan–Meier estimator was used to describe the survival curves, and the differences were examined by the log-rank test. In total, 76 consecutive patients were enrolled into the NACT-LG (41 patients) and LG (35 patients) group. The postoperative hospital stay was significantly longer for LG than for NACT-LG (11.0 vs. 12.0 day, P = 0.031). Significant difference was found in Grade ≥ III severe postoperative complications in two groups (0 vs. 17.1%, P = 0.001). No patient died of postoperative complications in the NACT-LG group, and one patient (1/35, 2.9%) died of postoperative complications in the LG group. A forest plot revealed that most subgroups of LG group were at great risks of postoperative complications. Compared with the LG group, the NACT-LG group had a significantly better DFS (14.4% vs. 5.7%, P = 0.0299) and better OS (34.1% vs. 8.6%, P = 0.0061) at 3 years. NACT increased the safety of LG for patients with LAGC and offer better disease-free and overall survival. For patients with LAGC, LG following NACT should be the priority treatment.

ObjectivesThe inflammatory response caused by gastric cancer surgery and the low nutritional status of patients with gastric cancer can cause growth of tumour cells, reduce immunity, and increase tumour burden. We investigated the effects of different surgical methods on postoperative inflammatory response and nutritional status in patients with distal gastric cancer.MethodsClinical data of 249 patients who underwent radical distal gastrectomy for distal gastric cancer from February 2014 to April 2017 were retrospectively analysed. Patients were divided according to the surgical method (open distal gastrectomy [ODG], laparoscopic-assisted distal gastrectomy [LADG] and total laparoscopic distal gastrectomy [TLDG]). Characteristics of different surgical procedures, including inflammation parameters and nutritional indicators, and different time points (preoperatively, 1 day postoperatively, and 1 week postoperatively) were compared using non-parametric test analysis.ResultsAt postoperative day 1, white blood cell count [WBC], neutrophil count [N], neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio [NLR], and platelet/lymphocyte ratio [PLR] increased in the three groups, and ΔN and ΔNLR were significant; the smallest change was observed in TLDG (P

BackgroundHemoporfin-mediated photodynamic therapy (HMME-PDT) is reported to be effective and safe for port-wine stains (PWS). However, its efficacy is influenced by several factors and there is no appropriate method to evaluate efficacy so far. Therefore, this study explored the clinical efficacy of HMME-PDT for PWS on the face and neck and the feasibility of evaluating treatment potency with optical coherence tomography (OCT).MethodsA total of 211 PWS patients subjected to HMME-PDT were recruited for study and correlations of therapeutic effect with treatment sessions, age, gender, lesion distribution and treatment history analyzed. OCT was utilized for quantitative analysis of PWS lesions of 36 selected patients before and after HMME-PDT.ResultsThe efficacy of two consecutive treatments was significantly higher than that of single treatment (P < 0.05). In multivariate analysis, after the first treatment, age, lesion distribution and treatment history were correlative factors affecting treatment efficacy (P < 0.05). The improvement effect on central facial lesions was lower than that on lateral facial lesions (P < 0.05). The efficacy of therapy on the group with no history of pulsed dye laser (PDL) treatment was greater than that on effective and ineffective treatment groups (P < 0.05). After the second session, age remained the only factor correlated with efficacy (P < 0.05). Dilated vessel diameter and depth before and after treatment were significantly different (P < 0.05). With increasing treatment times, age was the most significant factor influencing treatment efficacy.ConclusionsOur collective findings indicate that HMME-PDT therapy is effective and safe for PWS and support the utility of OCT in objective assessment of the efficacy of HMME-PDT.

This paper develops a new method for the diagnosis and prediction of the evaporation duct heights on the sea, which has certain reference significance for the study of the evaporation ducts. Based on traditional diagnostic and predictive models of evaporation duct heights, a new diagnostic model is proposed. By determining the overall Richardson number Rib, the Monin-Obukhov (M-O) length L and the wind speed characteristic parameter u∗, temperature characteristic parameter θ∗ and humidity characteristic parameters q∗ are calculated, and then the evaporation duct height is diagnosed. Taking the diagnosed heights as a time series, and using the support vector regression (SVR) algorithm improved by a simulated annealing operator, then the time series is analyzed by taking three consecutive sample steps as input and the next sample step as output in order to develop an algorithm for predicting future heights. Finally, the prediction results are compared with those from the traditional auto-regressive (AR) algorithm and classical SVR algorithm to identify the advantages and disadvantages of the improved SVR algorithm. The results show that the root-mean-square error (RMSE) of the traditional AR, the classical SVR and the improved SVR algorithms is 0.60, 0.45, and 0.38, and the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of the three algorithms is 7.79%, 6.10% and 4.78%, respectively. The prediction error of the improved SVR algorithm is 37% less than that of the traditional AR algorithm and 15% less than that of the classical SVR algorithm, signifying an improvement in its prediction capability.

Abstract The cloud fraction demonstrates an obvious northward‐tilting structure associated with the northward advance of the East Asian summer monsoon. As a follow‐up study, this study explores the physical explanation of the tilted structure based on ERA‐Interim data. The lower convergence center is located on the northern side of the convective center, and the upper divergence center is located on the southern side of the convective center. This specific atmospheric circulation promotes the formation of the tilted cloud vertical structure. Further study shows that the convective instability layer is thinner, and the convective available potential energy is smaller on the northern side of the convective center, favoring the formation of cumulus and altocumulus clouds in the lower troposphere. Condensation from cumulus convection releases latent heat, enhancing convective activity and generating an abundance of deep convective clouds. As the cloud anvils after deep convective clouds collapse, high clouds accumulate in the upper troposphere and are transported to the southern side of the convective center. Therefore, the observed clouds demonstrate a tilted structure. This study can be used to validate cloud vertical structure simulated by climate and weather models.

Texture features related to scar collagen second harmonic generation (SHG) images are useful for studying scars; however, current computational analysis methods require extensive computing resources. We designed a local orientation ternary pattern (LOTP) method in the SHG images for the purpose of extracting the characterization. SHG images were generated from human scar tissue samples, with scar age ranging from 2 to 40 years. Depending on the complete texture information of LOTP images, we extracted the Tamura features including coarseness, contrast, directionality, regularity, line-likeness, and roughness. Tamura texture features could be measured for all input patterns to set up a regression model about the age of scars and that give well-distributed results. Generalized boosted regression trees were calculated with the computed data, and R2 and root-mean-square error (RMSE) statistical analysis were used to determine accuracy. Use of the LOTP operator allowed for the maximum extraction and relative importance of Tamura feature data, with roughness being the most important feature and line-likeness being the least important feature. Using the LOTP operator resulted in the highest accuracy assessment of scar characteristics compared to other methods, such as improving local ternary pattern, binary gradient contours, and grey level co-occurrence. Our proposed LOTP method requires less computation time than the extension of LTP and describes SHG images with higher accuracy compared to existing algorithms.

Flexible electrodes have attracted much attention in consumer electronic applications. In this work, laser direct writing is used to fabricate copper/graphene composite electrodes on a flexible substrate in one step. This direct writing process with a low power laser can reduce copper ions in thin films to form copper nanomaterials and spontaneously interconnect them to gain good conductivity, while the laser also induces the growth of multi-layer graphene that coats on copper to improve the oxidation resistance of electrodes. The electrical performance and chemical composition of flexible electrodes can be tuned by laser power, scanning speed, and defocus distance. A mechanism of in situ reduction and interconnection of copper nanomaterials during laser direct writing has been proposed. This method could largely reduce the oxidation issue by avoiding synthesis and sintering processes of copper nanomaterials. These as-written copper electrodes have good stability and have potential applications in flexible electronics, such as flexible heaters or antennas as demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transparent and flexible electrodes on cost effective plastic substrates for wearable electronics have attract great attention recently. Due to the conductivity and flexibility in network form, metal nanowire is regarded as one of the most promising candidates for flexible electrode fabrication. Prior to application, low temperature joining of nanowire processes are required to reduce the resistance of electrodes and simultaneously maintain the dimensionality and uniformity of those nanowires. In the present work, we presented an innovative, robust and cost effective method to minimize the heat effect to plastic substrate and silver nanowires which allows silver nanowire electrodes been directly written on polycarbonate substrate and sintered by different electrolyte solutions at room temperature or near. It has been rigorously demonstrated that the resistance of silver nanowire electrodes has been reduced by 90% after chemical sintering at room temperature due to the joining of silver nanowires at junction areas. After ∼1000 bending cycles, the measured resistance of silver nanowire electrode was stable during both up-bending and down-bending states. The changes of silver nanowires after sintering were characterized using x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy and a sintering mechanism was proposed and validated. This direct-written silver nanowire electrode with good performance has broad applications in flexible electronics fabrication and packaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]