Search

This study aimed to develop fecal low-odor adult dog feed using processed corn protein powder as the primary raw material and evaluate its effectiveness through feeding experiments. The objectives included analyzing the fundamental nutritional indicators, comparing the quality of fecal low-odor adult dog feed with commercially available dog feed, and assessing the changes in the eating behavior, physical condition, and physiological and biochemical indicators before and after feeding on the fecal low-odor adult dog feed. This study involved formulating dog feed using processed fermented corn protein powder and conducting nutritional analyses to compare moisture, crude protein, ash, crude fat, and starch contents. Physical properties such as hardness and cohesion were also evaluated. Feeding experiments were conducted with adult dogs to monitor the changes in the eating behavior and physical condition. Physiological and biochemical indicators, including ammoniacal nitrogen and putrefactive odor in feces, were measured both before and after feeding to assess the impact of the fecal low-odor adult dog feed. The analysis showed no significant difference in moisture (p > 0.05), crude protein (p > 0.05), ash (p > 0.05), crude fat (p > 0.05), and starch (p > 0.05) contents between the fecal low-odor adult dog feed and commercially available dog feed. Similarly, no significant difference was noted in the hardness (p > 0.05) and cohesion (p > 0.05) between the two types of dog feed. Both types of dog feed contained rich volatile compounds with varying compositions. The commercially available dog feed had a sour odor, whereas the fecal low-odor adult dog feed had a barbecue and resin-like smell. After feeding with the fecal low-odor adult dog feed, the liquid nitrogen content significantly decreased (p < 0.01). Also, the indole content, a major contributor to fecal odor, based on the data, decreased after feeding.

Transient ischemic attack (TIA) is an early warning sign of stroke and death, necessitating suitable animal models due to the associated clinical diagnostic challenges. In this study, we developed a TIA model using flexible spatially targeted photothrombosis combined with real-time blood flow imaging feedback. By modulating the excitation light using wavefront technology, we precisely created a square light spot (50 × 250 µm), targeted at the distal middle cerebral artery (dMCA). The use of laser speckle contrast imaging (LSCI) provided real-time feedback on the ischemia, while the excitation light was ceased upon reaching complete occlusion. Our results demonstrated that the photothrombus formed in the dMCA and spontaneously recanalized within 10 min (416.8 ± 96.4 s), with no sensorimotor deficits or infarction 24 h post-TIA. During the acute phase, ischemic spreading depression occurred in the ipsilateral dorsal cortex, leading to more severe ischemia and collateral circulation establishment synchronized with the onset of dMCA narrowing. Post-reperfusion, the thrombi were primarily in the sensorimotor and visual cortex, disappearing within 24 h. The blood flow changes in the dMCA were more indicative of cortical ischemic conditions than diameter changes. Our method successfully establishes a photochemical TIA model based on the dMCA, allowing for the dynamic observation and control of thrombus formation and recanalization and enabling real-time monitoring of the impacts on cerebral blood flow during the acute phase of TIA.

Background: Given the differential expression and biological functions of protein arginine methylation (PAM) regulators in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD), it may be of great value in the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of LUAD. However, the expression and function of PAM regulators in LUAD and its relationship with prognosis are unclear. Methods: 8 datasets including 1798 LUAD patients were selected. During the bioinformatic study in LUAD, we performed (i) consensus clustering to identify clusters based on 9 PAM regulators related expression profile data, (ii) to identify hub genes between the 2 clusters, (iii) principal component analysis to construct a PAM.score based on above genes, and (iv) evaluation of the effect of PAM.score on the deconstruction of tumor microenvironment and guidance of immunotherapy. Results: We identified two different clusters and a robust and clinically practicable prognostic scoring system. Meanwhile, a higher PAM.score subgroup showed poorer prognosis, and was validated by multiple cohorts. Its prognostic effect was validated by ROC (Receiver operating characteristic curve) curve and found to have a relatively good prediction efficacy. High PAM.score group exhibited lower immune score, which associated with an immunosuppressive microenvironment in LUAD. Finally, patients exhibiting a lower PAM.score presented noteworthy therapeutic benefits and clinical advantages. Conclusion: Our PAM.score model can help clinicians to select personalized therapy for LUAD patients, and PAM.score may act a part in the development of LUAD.

In this report, the case of a 65-year-old immunosuppressed female who presented with recurring redness and irritation in her right eye for 2 months is described. Ocular examination revealed conjunctival congestion, feather-like greyish-white corneal deep stromal infiltrate, white, floccular material sprawling from the anterior chamber angle and hypopyon. The in vivo confocal microscopy (IVCM) instantly confirmed fungal keratitis, and empirical antifungal therapy was thus administered. The patient exhibited therapeutic penetrating keratoplasty, however, due to the progression of infection and the lack of identified pathogens. The fungal isolate was identified as Corynespora cassiicola by metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) of the host cornea. The patient responded well to intensive conservative therapy and subsequent surgical therapy. To our knowledge, this case represents the first case of C. cassiicola infection from China, highlighting the emergence of a rare fungus that causes keratitis. Furthermore, mNGS has the capability to facilitate prompt identification and timely management of challenging ocular infections that are difficult to diagnose.

Under the development of intelligent network technology, drivers can obtain the surrounding traffic situation in real time, which is conducive to improving the stability of traffic flow. Therefore, this paper proposes a new curve-car-following model considering multi-vehicle information of adjacent lanes in connected environment, and conducts linear and nonlinear stability analyses of the model to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model and its ability to improve the stability of traffic system; in addition, numerical simulation experiments of traffic flow convoys are designed to analyze the effects of different parameters in the proposed model on the stability of the traffic flow and test the proposed model’s ability to maintain the following behavior in a convoy. Furthermore, numerical simulation experiments are designed to analyze the effects of different parameters in the proposed model on the stability of traffic flow, and to test the ability of the proposed model to maintain the following behavior in the convoy. The model can provide theoretical guidance to alleviate traffic congestion and improve safety, and extend the application of the following model in curved multi-lane road scenarios.

We introduce De Morgan Heyting logic for Heyting algebras with De Morgan negation (DH-algebras). The variety DH of all DH-algebras is congruence distributive. The lattice of all subvarieties of DH is distributive. We show the discrete dualities between De Morgan frames and DH-algebras. The Kripke completeness and finite approximability of some DH-logics are proven. Some conservativity of DH expansion of a Kripke complete superintuitionistic logic is shown by the construction of frame expansion. Finally, a cut-free terminating Gentzen sequent calculus for the DH-logic of De Morgan Boolean algebras is developed.

Residuated basic logic (RBL) is the logic of residuated basic algebras, which constitutes a conservative extension of basic propositional logic (BPL). The basic implication is a residual of a non-associative binary operator in RBL. The conservativity is shown by relational semantics. A Gentzen-style sequent calculus GRBL, which is an extension of the distributive full non-associative Lambek calculus, is established for residuated basic logic. The calculus GRBL admits the mix-elimination, subformula, and disjunction properties. Moreover, the class of all residuated basic algebras has the finite embeddability property. The consequence relation of GRBL is decidable.

Wind power systems are a promising form of energy supply. At present, most of the studies focuses on the performance of individual components such as wind rotors or generators, and the overall output effect of wind power system is determined by the characteristics of wind rotor and generator and their combined characteristics. However, the evaluation of the overall output characteristics of the system is rarely considered. In order to investigate the overall output of the system quickly, a performance matching method of wind rotor and generator based on energy transfer is proposed in this paper. Based on the series operating characteristics of the wind power system model, the energy transformation process of the wind rotor, generator and the whole system are unified described by energy transfer. On the premise that the performance of wind rotor and generator is known, the transfer function model of each component is established, and on this basis, the transfer function model of the overall system is obtained. Then, the overall output effect of the system is analyzed and evaluated by this system transfer function model. The performance of the model is analyzed and compared by using a vertical axis wind power system coupling test bench and MATLAB/Simulink software. The results show that the error between the system output based on the theoretical model and the wind tunnel test is less than 6.5%, and the trend of the simulation and the test curve of the system output is consistent. Therefore, this method can be used to quickly predict the overall output performance of the wind turbine and generator on the premise that the performance of each component is known, without the need to connect each component to a wind power system for testing.

Lipid metabolism disorders contribute to hyperlipidemia and hepatic steatosis. It is ideal to develop drugs simultaneous improving both hyperlipidemia and hepatic steatosis. Nitazoxanide is an FDA-approved oral antiprotozoal drug with excellent pharmacokinetic and safety profile. We found that nitazoxanide and its metabolite tizoxanide induced mild mitochondrial uncoupling and subsequently activated AMPK in HepG2 cells. Gavage administration of nitazoxanide inhibited high-fat diet (HFD)-induced increases of liver weight, blood and liver lipids, and ameliorated HFD-induced renal lipid accumulation in hamsters. Nitazoxanide significantly improved HFD-induced histopathologic changes of hamster livers. In the hamsters with pre-existing hyperlipidemia and hepatic steatosis, nitazoxanide also showed therapeutic effect. Gavage administration of nitazoxanide improved HFD-induced hepatic steatosis in C57BL/6J mice and western diet (WD)-induced hepatic steatosis in Apoe–/– mice. The present study suggests that repurposing nitazoxanide as a drug for hyperlipidemia and hepatic steatosis treatment is promising.

Background: Apoptosis is a type of cell death, which can produce abundant mediators to modify the tumor microenvironment. However, relationships between apoptosis, immunosuppression, and immunotherapy resistance of gastric cancer (GC) remain unclear.Methods: Gene expression data and matching clinical information were extracted from TCGA-STAD, GSE84437, GSE34942, GSE15459, GSE57303, ACRG/GSE62254, GSE29272, GSE26253, and IMvigor210 datasets. A consensus clustering analysis based on six apoptosis-related genes (ARGs) was performed to determine the molecular subtypes, and then an apoptosisScore was constructed based on differentially expressed and prognostic genes between molecular subtypes. Estimate R package was utilized to calculate the tumor microenvironment condition. Kaplan-Meier analysis and ROC curves were performed to further confirm the apoptosisScore efficacy.Results: Based on six ARGs, two molecular subgroups with significantly distinct survival and immune cell infiltration were identified. Then, an apoptosisScore was built to quantify the apoptosis index of each GC patient. Next, we investigated the correlations between the clinical characteristics and apoptosisScore using logistic regression. Multivariate Cox analysis shows that low apoptosisScore was an independent predictor of poor overall survival in TCGA and ACRG datasets, and was associated with the higher pathological stage. Meanwhile, low apoptosisScore was associated with higher immune cell, higher ESTIMATEScore, higher immuneScore, higher stromalScore, higher immune checkpoint, and lower tumorpurity, which was consistent with the “immunity tidal model theory”. Importantly, low apoptosisScore was sensitive to immunotherapy. In addition, GSEA indicated that several gene ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes items associated with apoptosis, several immune-related pathways, and JAK–STAT signal pathway were considerably enriched in the low apoptosisScore phenotype pathway.Conclusion: Our findings propose that low apoptosisScore is a prognostic biomarker, correlated with immune infiltrates, and sensitivity to immunotherapy in GC.

The cut-free single-succedent Gentzen sequent calculus GKt for the minimal tense logic Kt is introduced. This sequent calculus satisfies the displaying property. The proof proceeds in terms of a Kolmogorov translation and three intermediate sequent systems. Finally, we show that tense logics axiomatized by strictly positive implication have cut-free Gentzen sequent calculi uniformly.

An integrated control strategy is considered in this paper with the aim of solving congestion in freeway merging regions during peak hours. Merging regions discussed in this paper include the mainline and on-ramp. Traditional research mainly focuses on the efficiency of traffic, ignoring the experience of on-ramp drivers and passengers. Accordingly, a dynamic competition control strategy is proposed to balance individual behaviour and traffic efficiency. First, the concept of the congestion index is introduced, which is expressed by the queue length and the speed parameter of the merging region. The congestion index is used to balance the priorities of the vehicles from the mainline and on-ramp into the merging region in order to avoid poor individual behaviour of on-ramp drivers due to the long-time waiting. Additionally, a nonlinear optimal control approach integrating variable speed limits control and ramp metering is proposed to minimize the total time spent and the maximum traffic flow. The integrated control approach proposed in this paper is tested by simulation which is calibrated using field data. The results indicate that the integrated control approach can effectively shorten the total delay and enhance the traffic service level.

The arrival time of bus at the stop is critical data in design of bus operational strategies. Especially for real-time control strategies (i.e., signal priority system), bus arrival time is usually predicted to assess the next bus operation condition in the future (i.e., bus bunching and reliability of transit service) and then can be used as a decision basis of current control actions. The signalized intersection and surrounding traffic are the key factors in bus travel time prediction, but most previous approaches focus on the impact of signal control on bus delay only. This paper proposes a prediction model for arrival time at bus stop under the influence of both upstream signalized intersection and surrounding traffic flow. Considering the affected range of signalized intersection and the dynamic variation of bus speed, bus running processes are evaluated separately (including processes from a given detection point to stop line, through intersection, and from intersection to bus stop). In the proposed models, bus speed is deduced according to the change of traffic density at different locations to reflect the micro-impact of surrounding traffic flow on bus operation. The observed bus travel time is collected from actual investigations at two bus stops incorporating signalized intersection in Jinan City and compared with the predicted travel time in the proposed model. The results show that the proposed model has a low mean relative error. In addition, through the analysis of the maximum relative error, it also can be seen that vehicle queuing with random arrival of vehicles at stop line makes a gap between the prediction and the actual situation, which will be the focus of further research.

As an undesired behavior of the transport system, headway fluctuation or even bus bunching reduce reliability of bus stop service for waiting passengers. This paper proposes a pre-control method to improve the balance of service intervals at downstream stop through an adjustment of green time for bus passing, in which priority and delay of bus passing can be achieved. The proposed pre-control strategies at intersection are triggered based on prediction of service intervals at downstream stop to select priority or delay strategy that includes adjusting starting and ending time of green light. Meanwhile, the influence of adjustment of green time on surrounding traffic delay of vehicle is also considered. The traffic delay is estimated for vehicles arriving during phases within associated two signal cycles induced by the signal adjustment. To derive optimal adjustment of green time, a multi-objective function is established and the objectives include deviation of the bus service intervals and traffic average delay. An exhaustive search algorithm is programmed to solve the objective function. The effects of control strategies are tested by numerical experiments based upon a real bus route in Changchun. Results show that the bus service reliability can be improved through a proper signal pre-control and, compared with the single control strategy with only bus delay, the standard deviations of service intervals with the average running time and the stochastic running time are improved by 8.53% and 7.31%, respectively.

Short-term prediction of passengers’ flow is one of the essential elements of the operation and real time control for public transit. Although fine prediction methodologies have been reported, they still need improvement in terms of accuracy when the current or future data either exhibit fluctuations or significant change. To address this issue, in this study, a fusion method including Kalman filtering and K-Nearest Neighbor approach is proposed. The core point of this method is to design a framework to dynamically adjust the weight coefficients of the predicted values obtained by Kalman filtering and K-Nearest Neighbor approach. The Kalman filtering and K-Nearest Neighbor approach can handle different variation trend of the data. The dynamic weight coefficient can more accurately predict the final value by giving more weight to the appropriately predicted method. In the case study of real-world data, the predicted values of alighting passengers and boarding passengers are presented by four predicted methods involving Kalman filtering, K-Nearest Neighbor approach, support vector machine, and the proposed method. According to the comparison of the test results, the proposed fusion method performed better in terms of predicting accuracy, even if time-series data abruptly varied or exhibited wide fluctuations. The proposed methodology was found as one of the effective approaches based on the historical data and current data in the area of passengers’ flow forecasting for urban public transit.

Our previous studies found that mitochondrial uncouplers CCCP and niclosamide inhibited artery constriction and the mechanism involved AMPK activation in vascular smooth muscle cells. BAM15 is a novel type of mitochondrial uncoupler. The aim of the present study is to identify the vasoactivity of BAM15 and characterize the BAM15-induced AMPK activation in vascular smooth muscle cells (A10 cells). BAM15 relaxed phenylephrine (PE)-induced constricted rat mesenteric arteries with intact and denuded endothelium. Pretreatment with BAM15 inhibited PE-induced constriction of rat mesenteric arteries with intact and denuded endothelium. BAM15, CCCP, and niclosamide had the comparable IC50 value of vasorelaxation in PE-induced constriction of rat mesenteric arteries. BAM15 was less cytotoxic in A10 cells compared with CCCP and niclosamide. BAM15 depolarized mitochondrial membrane potential, induced mitochondrial fission, increased mitochondrial ROS production, and increased mitochondrial oxygen consumption rate in A10 cells. BAM15 potently activated AMPK in A10 cells and the efficacy of BAM15 was stronger than that of CCCP, niclosamide, and AMPK positive activators metformin and AICAR. In conclusion, BAM15 activates AMPK in vascular smooth muscle cells with higher potency than that of CCCP, niclosamide and the known AMPK activators metformin and AICAR. The present work indicates that BAM15 is a potent AMPK activator. KEY WORDS: BAM15, Mitochondrial uncoupling, AMPK, Smooth muscle cells, AICAR, Metformin

The headway-based control method is usually used to regulate the bus headways to improve the bus operation. However, these control methods only focus on equalizing bus headways, neglecting analysis for STD (standard deviation) of passengers on the buses. Therefore, in order to fix this gap, this paper analyzed performance of the control method in terms of regulating bus headways and number of passengers on the buses under variable number of buses on the route. First, as an enhanced version of headways-based control method, a coordinated control method based on the self-equalizing bus headways concept involving bus holding and stop-skipping is proposed. A discrete system is formulated to describe the bus operation, and the coordinated control method is imbedded into it. In order to reflect the performance in regulating bus headways and the number of passengers, two indexes are formulated, respectively. Finally, a set of numerical analysis was conducted. The test results showed that the regulated bus headways can make the number of passengers on buses equalized. As a by-product, the headway-based control method can make the bus capacity be well utilized by equalizing bus headways on the bus route.

Through theoretical calculation, the stress and deformation of surrounding rock can be analyzed, providing guidance for the support design and optimization of soft rock roadways. In this paper, theoretical solutions for both the optimal support pressure and the allowable maximum displacement of surrounding rock are derived from the Drucker–Prager (DP) yield criteria and the steady creep criterion expressed by the third invariant of deviator stress. The DP criterion with different parameters is compared and analyzed with an engineering example. Then, based on the calculation results the effects of long-term strength, cohesion, and internal friction angle of soft rock on the maximum plastic zone radius and allowable maximum displacement of roadway are discussed. The results show that the optimal support solution of soft rock roadways based on the DP criteria can not only reasonably reflect the intermediate principal stress but can also be used to compare and discuss the influence of different DP criteria on the calculation results. The higher the long-term strength of the rock surrounding a roadway is, the smaller the optimal support force is and the larger the allowable maximum displacement is. When the calculated long-term strength of soft rock can ensure that the deformation of the roadway does not exceed the allowable maximum displacement, the roadway can maintain long-term stability without support. With an increase in the cohesion or internal friction angle of soft rock, the radius of the plastic zone decreases gradually and the allowable maximum displacement is reduced by degrees. The use of grouting and other means to improve the strength of surrounding rock can effectively reduce the roadway deformation and save support costs. This new theoretical solution can consider different intermediate principal stress effects and different DP strength criteria, enabling the parameters to become easier to determine. It has a wider range of applications, and the calculation results better demonstrate the strength potential of the surrounding rock.

The syntax of modal graphs is defined in terms of the continuous cut and broken cut following Charles Peirce's notation in the gamma part of his graphical logic of existential graphs. Graphical calculi for normal modal logics are developed based on a reformulation of the graphical calculus for classical propositional logic. These graphical calculi are of the nature of deep inference. The relationship between graphical calculi and sequent calculi for modal logics is shown by translations between graphs and modal formulas.

In recent years, with the development of advanced technologies for data collection, real-time bus control strategies have been implemented to improve the daily operation of transit systems, especially headway-based holding control which is a proven strategy to reduce bus bunching and improve service reliability for high-frequency bus routes, with the concept of regulating headways between successive buses. This hot topic has inspired the reconsideration of the traditional issue of fleet size optimization and the integrated bus holding control strategy. The traditional headway-based control method only focused on the regulation of bus headways, without considering the number of buses on the route. The number of buses is usually assumed as a given in advance and the task of the control method is to regulate the headways between successive buses. They did not consider the bus fleet size problem integrated with headway-based holding control method. Therefore, this work has presented a set of optimal control formulations to minimize the costs for the passengers and the bus company through calculating the optimal number of buses and the dynamic holding time, taking into account the randomness of passenger arrivals. A set of equations were formulated to obtain the operation of the buses with headway-based holding control or the schedule-based control method. The objective was to minimize the total cost for the passengers and the bus company in the system, and a Monte Carlo simulation based solution method was subsequently designed to solve the optimization model. The effects of this optimization method were tested under different operational settings. A comparison of the total costs was conducted between the headway-based holding control and the schedule-based holding control. It was found that the model was capable of reducing the costs of the bus company and passengers through utilizing headway-based bus holding control combined with optimization of the bus fleet size. The proposed optimization model could minimize the number of buses on the route for a guaranteed service level, alleviating the problem of redundant bus fleet sizes caused by bus bunching in the traditional schedule-based control method.

Traffic congestion in freeway network is a prevalent transportation problem and leads to a strong degradation of freeway network facilities. This paper proposes a new coordinated optimization approach for freeway network, aiming to relieve the traffic congestion in freeway network equipped with the coordinated traffic controllers. The challenge is how to solve the problem between the traffic control goals of each path and those of the network. In this paper, the bi-level programming theory is used to address this problem. More exactly, in the path level, the optimal control model is designed to relieve congestion in each path of the test network. Furthermore, in the network level, the optimal model considers the traffic equilibrium and cost optimization. The efficiency of the proposed approach is tested on a well-known traffic network calibrated by the field test data of freeway network. The results show that the proposed approach has positive effects in balancing traffic load and improving the service level of freeway networks.

Short-term traffic volume forecasting is widely recognized as an important element of intelligent transportation systems, because the accuracy of predictive methods determines the performance of real-time traffic control and management to some extent. The goal of this article is to propose a two-dimensional prediction method using the Kalman filtering theory based on historical data. In the first dimension, using Kalman filtering, we predict the values of traffic flows based on data from the current day and historical data separately. The two predicted values are fused using an equation with weight coefficients where the weight coefficients can be generated in real time in the process of prediction. Accordingly, in the second dimension, using Kalman filtering again, we obtain the predicted value of weight coefficients. In addition, some extreme cases during the process of weight coefficient prediction are discussed, and solutions are proposed as well. The accuracy of the two-dimensional forecasting method is studied based on a set of performance criteria. Comparison of the results of different methods based on field test data of road networks shows that the proposed method outperforms the standard Kalman filtering method, and more accurate traffic flow prediction is obtained using the framework incorporating Fusion method 3 proposed in this article.

On the high-demand bus route where there are commuting passengers, the stops for boarding and alighting passengers are concentrated in a certain section of the route. According to this demand pattern, transit operators need to respond symmetrically. Short-turning services promise benefits for both users and operators because a proportion of vehicles runs within shorter cycles and address a greater demand. The design of short-turning services mainly involves defining running section and frequency. Due to two sections of high and low demand being distinguished under the short-turning service, dealing with each section by vehicle type and selecting an appropriate vehicle type for each section can satisfy passengers demand well, instead of a single vehicle type. Considering the interests of passengers and buses, this paper establishes objective functions to determine the running section of short-turning buses by frequencies and vehicle types. Two optimization models with single and hybrid vehicle type are formulated that can be compared with each other and reflect the differences of method with hybrid vehicle type. Load factor is established as a performance measure to express the degree of utilization of bus resources. A layer-by-layer search method incorporating Monte Carlo simulation is proposed to solve the optimization model. Finally, the optimization approach is tested based on a bus route in Changchun City. Sensitivity analyses are then performed on the passenger demand and travel time.

Traffic data are the basis of traffic control, planning, management, and other implementations. Incomplete traffic data that are not conducive to all aspects of transport research and related activities can have adverse effects such as traffic status identification error and poor control performance. For intelligent transportation systems, the data recovery strategy has become increasingly important since the application of the traffic system relies on the traffic data quality. In this study, a bidirectional k-nearest neighbor searching strategy was constructed for effectively detecting and recovering abnormal data considering the symmetric time network and the correlation of the traffic data in time dimension. Moreover, the state vector of the proposed bidirectional searching strategy was designed based the bidirectional retrieval for enhancing the accuracy. In addition, the proposed bidirectional searching strategy shows significantly more accuracy compared to those of the previous methods.

Intersection regions widely exist in road networks as crucial connections, and the congestion effects on traffic in the networks cannot be ignored. In general, a conventional intersection region includes a merging region and more than two ramps, whose congestion brings a serious negative effect on traffic service quality and satisfaction of drivers. Specifically, intersection region congestion is caused by congestion in merging regions. However, current control methods regarding coordination of the variable speed limits and ramp metering in order to solve merging region congestion are insufficient to handle congestion occurring in the intersection region. Therefore, a new method of coordinated control is proposed in this paper based on mainline control using the variable speed limits and coordinated ramp metering. The coordinated control method is formulated considering the degree of crowdedness indexes and implemented based on the queue length, with the goal to relieve congestion in conventional intersection regions caused by merging region congestion. The coordinated control method is further evaluated based on an actual traffic network. The results show that the proposed method is effective in terms of improving traffic service quality and relieving intersection region congestion.

To evaluate traffic conditions in an urban region, the average travel speed in the street network and the average traffic flow per lane are selected as indexes. The results for identifying traffic conditions are obtained using macroscopic fundamental diagram. Because of the difficulty of collecting the traffic parameter of travel speed from widely distributed fixed detectors directly, in this paper, the relationship between average travel speed and queue lengths at signalized intersections within the urban area is established based on an equivalent assumption. Finally, the average travel speed estimation model proposed in this paper is tested with microscopic simulation platform, and the results showed that the average travel speed estimation model performed well with satisfactory accuracy. In addition, the best performance of the network efficiency can be identified based on the reflections of macroscopic fundamental diagram, and the evaluation system is simple enough for application in engineering. Therefore, the result is instructive both for generating traffic control strategies and for making route choices.

Background and objectiveGenetic factors including TNF-β have been considered as important components in the aetiology of migraine. Many studies have investigated the association between TNF-β 252A>G polymorphism and migraine risk, with debatable results. This study was designed to examine whether the TNF-β 252A>G polymorphism confers genetic susceptibility to migraine in diverse populations.MethodStudies eligible for this meta-analysis were searched in the PubMed, Embase, and CNKI by using the keywords "tumor necrosis factor", "TNF", "252A>G", "rs909253", "polymorphism", "polymorphisms", "variant", "SNP", combined with "migraine" or "migraine with aura (MA)" or "migraine without aura (MO)". Pooled ORs and 95% CI were appropriately calculated using the fixed-effect model.ResultsWe finally included a total of seven studies, providing 5 557 migraineurs and 20 543 unrelated healthy controls. Meta-analysis results showed no statistical evidence of a significant association between TNF-β 252A>G polymorphism and overall migraine risk. Stratified analyses by type of migraine and gender revealed similar results. Interestingly, an OR with 95% CI representing an increased migraine risk was indicated in Asians under the recessive model (GG vs. AG + AA: OR, 1.38; 95%CI, 1.04-1.84; P for heterogeneity, 0.665).ConclusionsOur findings appear to support the hypothesis that genetic variability of 252A>G polymorphism in TNF region may modulate risk of migraine in the population of Asian ancestry.