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Due to the serious recombination of electron-hole and weak photoresponse ability, achieving highly efficient photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting activity for TiO2 photoelectrode has become a key issue. In this paper, we reported a new method for preparing ZnO/TiO2 photoelectrodes by electrostatic adsorption from zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) as the precursor. ZIF-8 was combined with TiO2 nanorods (NRs) through electrostatic interaction and then calcined to obtain ZnO/TiO2 heterojunction photoelectrodes with abundant oxygen vacancies (Ovac). The introduced ZnO with Ovac provides a large number of active sites which enhanced the electrical conductivity and charges separation of ZnO/TiO2 photoelectrode. The optimal photocurrent density of ZnO/TiO2 photoelectrodes at 1.23 V versus (vs.) reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE) under illumination (100 mW/cm2) has reached 1.76 mA/cm2, almost 2.75 times that of the pure TiO2. Meanwhile, the incident photon-to-electron conversion efficiency (IPCE) of the best photoelectrode has increased to 58.2% at 390 nm, the charge injection (ηinjection) and separation (ηseparation) efficiency have reached to 93.53% and 51.62% (1.23 V vs. RHE), respectively.

ObjectiveTo estimate the association of selected maternal and fetal characteristics with the risk of perinatal mortality in South China.MethodsA prospective cohort study was conducted from March 2013 to December 2019. The exposures of interest were maternal sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle and habits during early pregnancy, and complications of pregnancy. Their effects on the development of perinatal death were analyzed in our study.ResultsA total of 44,048 eligible pregnant women were included in the analysis. Of these, 596 fetuses were perinatal deaths (perinatal mortality was 13.5 per 1,000 births). After adjustment, maternal obesity, being employed, history of gestational hypertension, taking antidepressants during early pregnancy, history of gestational diabetes mellitus, gestational diabetes mellitus, infertility drug treatment and assisted reproductive techniques, history of neonatal death, preterm birth, and congenital malformations all significantly increased the risk of perinatal death. Ethnic minority, income > 5,000, multiparous women, and cesarean section associated with reduced risk of perinatal death.ConclusionSome factors of maternal sociodemographic characteristics, abnormal pregnancy history, lifestyle and habits during early pregnancy, and complications of pregnancy were associated with the risk of perinatal death.

This study aimed at assessing the association between maternal methylenetetrahydrofolate dehydrogenase 1 (From November 2017 to March 2019, a case-control study comprising 360 mothers of VSD cases and 504 mothers of healthy infants was conducted in Han Chinese populations. The main exposures of interest were maternal dietary habits in early pregnancy andIt was observed that maternal excessive intake of pickled vegetables (aOR = 1.85, 95%CI: 1.45-2.37), smoked foods (aOR = 1.93, 95%CI: 1.48-2.51), barbecued foods (aOR = 1.74, 95%CI: 1.28-2.36), and fried foods (aOR = 1.68, 95%CI: 1.30-2.17) were associated with a higher risk of VSD in offspring, whereas maternal excessive intake of fresh meat (aOR = 0.61, 95%CI: 0.47-0.79), fish and shrimp (aOR = 0.29, 95%CI: 0.23-0.38), fresh eggs (aOR = 0.54, 95%CI: 0.42-0.70), fresh fruits or vegetables (aOR = 0.44, 95%CI: 0.33-0.60), soy foods (aOR = 0.65, 95%CI: 0.53-0.80), and milk products (aOR = 0.49, 95%CI: 0.40-0.59) could contribute significantly to a lower risk of VSD in offspring. Furthermore, the genetic polymorphisms of maternalMaternal dietary factors,Registered in Chinese Clinical Trial Registry Center; registration number, ChiCTR1800016635; registration date, 06/14/2018 (Retrospectively registered); URL of trial registry record, https://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=28300.

Background Hem-o-Lok clips (HOLCs) are widely used in minimal access urological operations due to the advantage of vascular control and suture stabilization. In rare cases, however, they can develop problems themselves. Migration of HOLCs into the collecting system is a fairly rare complication after laparoscopic pyelolithotomy. To date, only two cases were reported in the literature. Case presentation This article describes a case of 51-year-old man with a complaint of left flank pain. He had a medical history of ipsilateral retroperitoneal laparoscopic pyelolithotomy at another hospital 8 years ago. Non-contrast CT scan demonstrated a renal stone in the left ureteropelvic junction complicated by mild hydronephrosis. A straight foreign body was found near the renal pelvis, with part of it wedging into renal pelvic wall. A percutaneous nephrolithotomy (PNL) was performed for this patient. After some fragmentation, a HOLC was found in the kernel of the stone. With an alligator plier, the clip was totally removed out of the collecting system. The postoperative period and follow-up were uneventful. Conclusions HOLC migration into renal pelvis is a rare complication following laparoscopic pyelolithotomy. It could act as nidus for stone formation under extended exposure to urine. Using HOLCs to stabilize the anastomotic suture near renal pelvis should be avoided to prevent this complication. Instead, knotting is a better choice under such condition. The secondary calculi and dislodged HOLCs can be removed through PNL by an alligator plier after laser lithotripsy.

Background: MTHFD may affect the embryonic development by elevated homocysteine levels, DNA synthesis and DNA methylation, but limited number of genetic variants of MTHFD was focused on the association with congenital heart disease (CHD). This study examined the role of MTHFD and maternal smoking in CHD risk, and investigated their interaction effects in Chinese populations. Methods: A case-control study of 464 mothers of CHD infants and 504 mothers of health controls was performed. The exposures of interest were maternal tobacco exposure, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of maternal MTHFD gene. The logistic regression model was used for accessing the strength of association.Results: Mothers exposed to secondhand smoke during three months before pregnancy (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.56; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.13-2.15) and in the first trimester of pregnancy (aOR = 2.24; 95%CI: 1.57-3.20) were observed an increased risk of CHD. Our study also found that polymorphisms of maternal MTHFD gene at rs1950902 (AA vs. GG: aOR = 1.73, 95% CI: 1.01-2.97), rs2236222 (GG vs. AA: aOR = 2.38, 95% CI: 1.38-4.12), rs1256142 (GA vs.GG: aOR = 1.57, 95% CI: 1.01-2.45) and rs11849530 (GG vs. AA: aOR = 1.68, 95% CI: 1.02-2.77) were significantly associated with higher risk of CHD. Furthermore, we found the different degrees of interaction effects between polymorphisms of the MTHFD gene including rs1950902, rs2236222, rs1256142, rs11849530 and rs2236225, and maternal tobacco exposure.Conclusions: Maternal polymorphisms of MTHFD gene at rs1950902, rs2236222, rs1256142 and rs11849530, maternal tobacco exposure and their interactions are significantly increased the risk of CHD in offspring. However, more studies in different ethnic populations with a larger sample and prospective designs are required to confirm our findings.Trial registration: Registration number: ChiCTR1800016635; http://www.chictr.org.cn/edit.aspx?pid=28300&htm=4

The phase field approach to fracture is efficient in simulating crack nucleation and propagation but requires a very fine mesh to resolve the regularization length scale. To alleviate such difficulty we have developed a variational h-adaption method for this approach based on Mosler and Ortiz (Int J Numer Methods Eng 72(5):505–523, 2007, Int J Numer Methods Eng 77(3):437–450, 2009), which consists of a mesh refinement scheme based on edge bisection and a mesh coarsening scheme via node deletion. The main advantages are that a single criterion can be used for the adaption process without any undetermined constant as in a residual-based method and that there is no need to weigh the importance of the two coupled fields, as would be needed for a recovery-based method. We showed examples to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method and compared the performance of two bisection operations: simple edge bisection and the modified backward longest edge propagation path scheme. In particular, these two methods lead to condition numbers of the coefficient matrices on the same order of magnitude.

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) is a valuable drug target for diabetic treatment and ligands of PPARγ have shown potent anti-diabetic efficacy. However, to overcome the severe side effects of current PPARγ-targeted drugs, novel PPARγ ligands need to be developed. Sulindac, an identified ligand of PPARγ, is widely used in clinic as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. To explore its potential application for diabetes, we designed and synthesized a series of sulindac derivatives to investigate their structure-activity relationship as PPARγ ligand and potential anti-diabetic effect. We found that meta-substitution in sulindac's benzylidene moiety was beneficial to PPARγ binding and transactivation. Z rather than E configuration of the benzylidene double bond endowed derivatives with the selectivity of PPARγ activation. The indene fluorine is essential for binding and regulating PPARγ. Compared with rosiglitazone, compound 6b with benzyloxyl meta-substitution and Z benzylidene double bond weakly induced adipogenesis and PPARγ-targeted gene expression. However, 6b potently improved glucose tolerance in a diabetic mice model. Unlike rosiglitazone, 6b was devoid of apparent toxicity to osteoblastic formation. Thus, we provided some useful guidelines for PPARγ-based optimization of sulindac and an anti-diabetic lead compound with less side effects.

The early asphalt pavement in our country severely reduced the road performance due to various external factors during the use process. According to incomplete statistics, there are more asphalt pavements that need to be renovated and repaired every year in China, and the amount of construction waste such as asphalt concrete and other construction waste reaches 1,000. About ten thousand tons. If such a huge amount of construction waste is not used, it will inevitably cause great pollution to the environment. If it can be reused, not only will it be environmentally friendly and energy-saving, it will also save more than one billion yuan in costs. In view of the above problems, this article conducts related Research and Analysis on the Principle in Plant Cold Recycling for Foamed Bitumen and Mixture Performance to provide reference for future projects.

Although it is generally recognized that genetic and environmental factors are associated with the risk of congenital heart disease (CHD), the mechanism remains largely uncertain. This study aimed to investigate the association of maternal folate use, the time when folate use was started, and polymorphisms of the reduced folate carrier (RFC1) gene with the risk of CHD in offspring of Chinese descent, which can help provide new insight into the etiology of folate-related birth defects. A case-control study of 683 mothers of CHD patients and 740 mothers of healthy children was performed. The present study showed that mothers who did not use folate were at a significantly increased risk of CHD (OR=2.04; 95% CI: 1.42-2.93). When compared with those who started using folate prior to conception, mothers who started using folate from the first trimester of pregnancy (OR=1.90; 95% CI: 1.43-2.54) or from the second trimester of pregnancy (OR=8.92; 95% CI: 4.20-18.97) had a significantly higher risk of CHD. Maternal RFC1 gene polymorphisms at rs2236484 (AG vs AA: OR=1.79 [95% CI: 1.33-2.39]; GG vs AA: OR=1.64 [95% CI: 1.15-2.35]) and rs2330183 (CT vs CC: OR=1.54 [95% CI: 1.14-2.09]) were also significantly associated with CHD risk. Additionally, the risk of CHD was significantly decreased among mothers who had variant genotypes but used folate when compared with those who had variant genotypes and did not use folate.Conclusion: In those of Chinese descent, maternal folate use and the time when use started are significantly associated with the risk of CHD in offspring. Furthermore, maternal folate supplementation may help to offset some of the risks of CHD in offspring due to maternal RFC1 genetic variants. What is Known: • Folate use could help prevent CHD, but the relationship between the time when folate use is started and CHD has not received sufficient attention. • Studies have assessed the associations of folate metabolism-related genes with CHD, but genes involved in cellular transportation of folate, such as the RFC1 gene, have not garnered enough attention. What is New: • In those of Chinese descents, the time when folate use is started is significantly associated with the risk of CHD in offspring. • Maternal RFC1 polymorphisms were significantly associated with the risk of CHD. • Folate supplementation may help to offset some risks of CHD due to RFC1 genetic variants.

Lithium-ion batteries have been widely used as energy storage systems and in electric vehicles due to their desirable balance of both energy and power densities as well as continual falling price. Accurate estimation of the state-of-charge (SOC) of a battery pack is important in managing the health and safety of battery packs. This paper proposes a compact radial basis function (RBF) neural model to estimate the state-of-charge (SOC) of lithium battery packs. Firstly, a suitable input set strongly correlated with the package SOC is identified from directly measured voltage, current, and temperature signals by a fast recursive algorithm (FRA). Secondly, a RBF neural model for battery pack SOC estimation is constructed using the FRA strategy to prune redundant hidden layer neurons. Then, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is used to optimize the kernel parameters. Finally, a conventional RBF neural network model, an improved RBF neural model using the two stage method, and a least squares support vector machine (LSSVM) model are also used to estimate the battery SOC as a comparative study. Simulation results show that generalization error of SOC estimation using the novel RBF neural network model is less than half of that using other methods. Furthermore, the model training time is much less than the LSSVM method and the improved RBF neural model using the two-stage method.

This study aimed to examine the risk of macrosomia and large for gestational age (LGA) births in relation to maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI) status mediated through gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). This prospective study included 34,104 singleton pregnancies at 8–14 weeks of gestation. The interesting outcomes were macrosomia (≥4000 g) and LGA (≥90th percentile). Mediation analyses were conducted using log-binomial regression adjusted for age, education, parity, fetal sex, and gestational weight gain. The proportion mediated was estimated based on the risk difference scale, and the E-value was utilized to assess potential confounders. Overall, 15.9% of women had GDM, and there were 4.0% macrosomia and 9.9% LGA births. The proportion mediated by GDM on macrosomia was up to 40% among obese women, and the estimate of the total effect was 6.18 (95% CI: 5.26–7.26), of the natural direct effect was 4.10 (95% CI: 3.35–4.99), and of the natural indirect effect was 1.51 (95% CI: 1.31–1.76). Likewise, among overweight women, the proportion mediated by GDM on macrosomia was up to 40%. Furthermore, consistent findings were evident for the outcome of LGA births. Pre-pregnancy overweight/obesity increased the risk of macrosomia and LGA births independently and partly mediated by GDM.

Objective To evaluate the global prevalence of malnutrition in children with congenital heart disease (CHD). Study design A systematic review and meta-analysis were performed. Web of Science, PubMed, Embase, Wanfang Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure and China Biology Medicine disc databases were searched for studies published through April 2021. Random-effect model meta-analyses were performed to derive the pooled the prevalence of pre-operative underweight, stunting, and wasting in CHD children. Time-trend analyses of post-operative malnutrition prevalence were undertaken. Subgroup and sensitivity analyses were conducted to explore sources of heterogeneity. Egger’s test and funnel plots were used to explore public bias. Results A total 39 studies were included in this meta-analysis. The pooled estimates of pre-operative malnutrition in children with CHD were 27.4% (95% CI: 21.7-34.0) for underweight, 24.4% (95% CI: 19.5-30.0) for stunting, and 24.8% (95% CI: 19.3-31.3) for wasting. Catch-up growth was found in the post-operative period among some children. Different continents were identified as heterogeneity moderators by subgroup analyses. Conclusions Children with CHD have a high prevalence of pre-operative malnutrition and some show catch-up growth post-operatively. These data can be used as benchmarks in efforts to improve the nutritional status of children with CHD.

Lithium-ion batteries have been widely used in electric vehicles, smart grids and many other applications as energy storage devices, for which the aging assessment is crucial to guarantee their safe and reliable operation. The battery capacity is a popular indicator for assessing the battery aging, however, its accurate estimation is challenging due to a range of time-varying situation-dependent internal and external factors. Traditional simplified models and machine learning tools are difficult to capture these characteristics. As a class of deep neural networks, the convolutional neural network (CNN) is powerful to capture hidden information from a huge amount of input data, making it an ideal tool for battery capacity estimation. This paper proposes a CNN-based battery capacity estimation method, which can accurately estimate the battery capacity using limited available measurements, without resorting to other offline information. Further, the proposed method only requires partial charging segment of voltage, current and temperature curves, making it possible to achieve fast online health monitoring. The partial charging curves have a fixed length of 225 consecutive points and a flexible starting point, thereby short-term charging data of the battery charged from any initial state-of-charge can be used to produce accurate capacity estimation. To employ CNN for capacity estimation using partial charging curves is however not trivial, this paper presents a comprehensive approach covering time series-to-image transformation, data segmentation, and CNN configuration. The CNN-based method is applied to two battery degradation datasets and achieves root mean square errors (RMSEs) of less than 0.0279 Ah (2.54%) and 0.0217 Ah (2.93% ), respectively, outperforming existing machine learning methods.

Rosiglitazone is a ligand of peroxisome proliferation-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ). However, it exerts biological activities and therapeutic effects through both PPARγ-dependent and independent mechanisms. In this study, we defined that rosiglitazone was also a ligand of retinoid X receptor alpha (RXRα) and displayed RXRα-dependent activities. We found that rosiglitazone directly bound to the ligand binding domain (LBD) of RXRα and induced RXRα/LBD tetramerization. Rosiglitazone inhibited the agonist-induced transcriptional activity of RXRα homodimers and heterodimers likely through inhibiting RXRα homo- and hetero-dimerization. In acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) NB4 cells, rosiglitazone inhibited cell proliferation and induced cell differentiation, resulting from inhibiting RXRα/PML-RARα complex formation and down-regulating PML-RARα. Together, our study identified RXRα as a novel target of rosiglitazone and RXRα mediating the anti-APL activity of rosiglitazone.

Aim The aim of the study was to review and summarize the epidemiologic evidence on the associations of homocysteine (HCY) and folate with the risk of recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA). Methods This review was performed following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane Libraries and Chinese databases were searched through May 2019 to identify studies that met prestated inclusion criteria. Either a fixed- or a random-effects model was used to calculate the combined standardized mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results Twenty-three studies involving 2052 RSA cases and 1476 healthy controls were included. Overall, women with RSA compared with those without RSA were at a significantly higher level of HCY both in plasma (SMD = 1.34; 95% CI: 0.76-1.93) and in serum (SMD = 1.46; 95% CI: 1.02-1.91), but lower level of folate both in serum (SMD = -1.63; 95% CI: -2.51 to -0.75) and in red blood cells (SMD = -1.30; 95% CI: -1.76 to -0.85). However, a statistically significant association between plasma folate and risk of RSA was not been observed (SMD = -0.82; 95% CI: -1.73 to 0.09). These findings have to be viewed with caution for the significant heterogeneity (I2 : from 88 to 98%). Conclusion High HCY levels in both plasma and serum as well as low folate levels in serum and red blood cells are significantly associated with risk of RSA, which indicates that measures to reduce HCY levels or folate supplementation may help to reduce the risk of RSA. However, prospective studies are needed to confirm our findings.

Background Although it is generally acknowledged that genetic and environmental factors are associated with risk of congenital heart disease (CHD), the causes are not fully understood. This study aimed at assessing the association of maternal dietary intakes, genetic variants of cystathionine beta synthase (CBS) gene and their interactions with risk of CHDs in offspring. Method A hospital-based case-control study of 464 mothers with CHD infants and 504 control mothers of health infant was performed. The exposures of interest were maternal dietary intakes in early pregnancy, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of CBS gene. Results More frequent intake of pickled vegetables (adjusted odds ratio[aOR] = 1.81; 95% confidence interval[CI]: 1.38–2.37), smoked foods (aOR = 2.00; 95%CI: 1.53–2.60), barbecued foods (aOR = 1.63; 95%CI: 1.19–2.25) and fried foods (aOR = 1.57; 95%CI: 1.22–2.03) were associated with higher risk of CHD, while salted eggs (aOR = 0.20; 95%CI: 0.12–0.33), fish and shrimp (aOR = 0.34; 95%CI: 0.27–0.44), fresh fruits (aOR = 0.49; 95%CI: 0.37–0.66), and milk products (aOR = 0.54; 95%CI: 0.45–0.65) were associated with lower risk of CHD. The SNPs of CBS gene at rs2851391 (T/T vs C/C: aOR = 1.91, 95%CI: 1.15–3.15) and rs234714 (T/T vs C/C: aOR = 2.22, 95%CI: 1.32–3.73) significantly increased the risk of CHD. Additionally, significant interaction effects between maternal dietary intakes and CBS genetic variants on CHD risks were observed. Conclusions Maternal dietary factors, CBS genetic variants and their interactions were significantly associated with risk of CHD in offspring. However, it is still unclear how these factors jointly work in the development of CHD, and more studies with larger samples and prospective design are required.

This study aimed at assessing the association of maternal diabetes mellitus (DM), the adiponectin gene (APM1) gene polymorphisms, and their interactions with risk of congenital heart disease (CHD) in offspring. A case-control study of 464 mothers of CHD patients and 504 mothers of healthy children was conducted. After adjusting for potential confounding factors, our study suggested that mothers with gestational DM (GDM) during this pregnancy (adjusted odds ratio [aOR = 2.96]), GDM in previous pregnancy experiences (aOR = 3.16), and pregestational DM in the 3 months before this pregnancy (aOR = 4.52) were at a significantly higher risk of CHD in offspring, when compared with those without any diabetes. The polymorphisms of maternal APM1 gene at rs1501299 (T/T vs G/G: aOR = 3.45; T/G vs G/G: aOR = 1.73) and rs2241766 (G/G vs T/T, aOR = 3.36; G/T vs T/T, aOR = 1.93) were significantly associated with risk of CHD in offspring. In addition, significant interactions between maternal DM and the APM1 genetic variants on the development of CHD were found. Our findings indicate that maternal DM, APM1 gene genetic variants, and their interactions are significantly associated with risk of CHD in offspring. However, more studies in different ethnic populations and with a larger sample and prospective design are required to confirm our findings.

© 2020 Elsevier. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ We present a phase field model to simulate brittle fracture in an initially straight Euler–Bernoulli beam, with generalization to curved beams. We start from formulating the problem with the principle of minimum potential energy in a 3D solid, with the displacement field and the phase field as primary arguments. We then select, for each cross section, representative fields that characterize the said cross section, including the beam deflection and rotation, and two independent ansatz variables within the cross section to represent the phase field. The problem then reduces to a minimization with only one-dimensional field variables. A feature of the proposed method is, without discretizing the phase field within the cross section, it can represent its variation within the cross section, allowing to simulate cracks partially going through the thickness due to bending as well as axial loads.

Background. Congenital heart disease (CHD) is one of the most common birth defects among newborns, accounting for a large proportion of infant mortality worldwide. However, the mechanisms remain largely undefinable. This study aimed to investigate the association of CHD in offspring of mothers with diabetes mellitus (DM) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) ofNKX2.5.Methods and Results. A case-control study of 620 mothers of CHD patients and 620 mothers of healthy children admitted to Hunan Children’s Hospital from November 2017 to December 2019 was conducted. We collected the mothers’ information by questionnaire and detected children’sNKX2.5variants with a MassARRAY system. The interaction coefficient (γ) was used to quantify the estimated gene-environment interactions. Univariate and multivariate analyses both showed that the infants had a higher risk of CHD if their mothers had a history of DM, including gestational DM (GDM) during this pregnancy (adjusted odds ratio [aOR=4.98]), GDM in previous pregnancies (aOR=4.30), and pregestational DM (PGDM) in the 3 months before this pregnancy (aOR=6.78). Polymorphisms of theNKX2.5gene at rs11802669 (C/C vs. T/T:aOR=4.97; C/T vs. T/T:aOR=2.15) and rs2277923 (T/T vs. C/C,aOR=1.74; T/C vs. C/C,aOR=1.61) were significantly associated with the risk of CHD in offspring. In addition, significant interactions between maternal DM andNKX2.5genetic variants at rs11802669 (aOR=8.12) and rs2277923 (aOR=17.72) affecting the development of CHD were found.Conclusions. These results suggest that maternal DM,NKX2.5genetic variants, and their interactions are significantly associated with the risk of CHD in offspring.

Phase field description of fracture is a very promising approach for simulating crack initiation, propagation, merging and branching. This method greatly reduces the implementation complexity, compared with discrete descriptions of cracks. In this work, we provide an overview of phase field models for quasistatic and dynamic cases. Afterward, we present useful vectors and matrices for the implementation of this method in two and three dimensions.

Cost Stickiness means that costs increase more rapidly with an activity increase than they decrease with an activity decrease. This paper focuses on Chinese A-shares listed companies, which implement private equity placement from 2007 to 2016, to study the impact of earnings management motivation of private equity placement on listed companies’ cost stickiness. The results show that the listed companies implementing private equity placement have positive motivation of earnings management, and will cut more costs when the operating income declines, thus weakening their cost stickiness. Further tests find that this weakened effect is more obvious in the state-owned enterprises, and less obvious in the enterprises audited by the big-four.

To assess associations and interactions of maternal smoking and cytochrome P450 (CYP450) genetic variants with the developments of congenital heart disease (CHD) and specific subtypes.A case-control study of 654 cases and 666 controls was conducted from November 2017 to March 2020. The exposures of interest were maternal active and passive smoking before/in the early pregnancy and CYP450 genetic polymorphisms. Data were analyzed using the Chi-square test and logistic regression analysis.After adjusting for the potential confounding factors, our study showed maternal active (ORadj = 2.34, 95%CI: 1.19-4.60) or passive (ORadj = 1.76, 95%CI: 1.34-2.31) smoking before pregnancy, passive smoking in the early pregnancy (ORadj = 3.05, 95%CI: 2.26-4.12), as well as polymorphisms of CYP450 at rs1065852 (G/A vs G/G: ORadj = 1.46, 95%CI: 1.07-1.99; A/A vs G/G: ORadj = 1.63, 95%CI: 1.15-2.33) and rs16947 (A/A vs G/G: ORadj = 3.61, 95%CI: 2.09-6.23), were significantly associated with risk of total CHD in offspring. Similar results were also found for some subtypes of CHD. Additionally, significant interactions between maternal smoking and CYP450 genes on the risk of CHD were observed.Maternal smoking and CYP450 genetic variants were associated with increased risk of CHD and specific subtypes in offspring. And the effects of CYP450 genes on CHD may be modified by maternal smoking.

The whole mitochondrial genome sequence of Lepturichthys fimbriata was amplified by primer walking sequence method, and then the whole genome genetic map of mitochondrion was obtained and mapped. T...

The high speed railway (HSR) is a complex system with many subsystems and components. The reliability of its core subsystems is a key consideration in ensuring the safety and operation efficiency of the whole system. As the service time increases, the degradation of these subsystems and components may lead to a range of faults and deteriorate the whole system performance. To ensure the operation safety and to develop reasonable maintenance strategies, fault detection and isolation is an indispensable functionality in high speed railway systems. In this paper, the traction power supply system, bogie system, civil infrastructure system, and control and signaling system of HSR are briefly summarized, and then different fault diagnosis methods for these subsystems are comprehensively reviewed. Finally, some future research topics are discussed.

Objective: To assess the association of conventional semen parameters and sperm DNA fragmentation with risk of recurrent spontaneous abortion (RSA). Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Setting: Not applicable. Patient(s): Total 1,690 male partners of women with RSA, and 1,337 male partners of fertile control women. Intervention(s): Case-control or cohort studies were determined by searching PubMed, Google Scholar, Cochrane Libraries, China Biology Medicine disc, Chinese Scientific Journals Fulltext Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang Database. RSA was defined as two or more previous pregnancy losses. The fertile women refer to the reproductive women who have had at least a normal pregnancy history and no history of abortion. Main Outcome Measure(s): This study included eight outcome measures: semen volume(ml), semen pH value, sperm density(106/ml), sperm viability (%), sperm progressive motility rate (%), normal sperm morphology rate (%), sperm deformity rate(%), sperm DNA fragmentation index (DFI) (%). The summary measures were reported as standardized mean difference (SMD) with 95% confidence interval (CI). Result(s): Finally, twenty-four studies were included for analysis. Overall, male partners of women with RSA had a significantly lower level of sperm density (SMD = -0.53, 95%CI: – 0.75 to –0.30), sperm viability (SMD = -1.03, 95%CI: – 1.52 to –0.54), sperm progressive motility rate (SMD = -0.76, 95%CI:-1.06 – -0.46), and normal sperm morphology rate (SMD = –0.56, 95%CI: – 0.99 to –0.12), and had a significantly higher rate of sperm deformity rate (SMD = 1.29, 95%CI: 0.60 – 1.97), and sperm DFI (SMD = 1.60, 95%CI: 1.04 to 2.17), when compared with the reference group. However, there were no statistically significant differences for semen volume (SMD = -0.03, 95%CI: -0.14 – 0.08) and semen pH value (SMD = –0.23, 95% CI: –0.50 to 0.05) among 2 groups. Conclusion(s): The results of this analysis support an association of sperm density, sperm viability, sperm progressive motility rate, normal sperm morphology rate, sperm deformity rate, as well as sperm DFI with RSA. However, given the significant heterogeneity between studies and the lack of more detailed data on the subjects, further large-scale prospective studies are needed.

Online battery capacity estimation is a critical task for battery management system to maintain the battery performance and cycling life in electric vehicles and grid energy storage applications. Convolutional Neural Networks, which have shown great potentials in battery capacity estimation, have thousands of parameters to be optimized and demand a substantial number of battery aging data for training. However, these parameters require massive memory storage while collecting a large volume of aging data is time-consuming and costly in real-world applications. To tackle these challenges, this paper proposes a novel framework incorporating the concepts of transfer learning and network pruning to build compact Convolutional Neural Network models on a relatively small dataset with improved estimation performance. First, through the transfer learning technique, the Convolutional Neural Network model pre-trained on a large battery dataset is transferred to a small dataset of the targeted battery to improve the estimation accuracy. Then a contribution-based neuron selection method is proposed to prune the transferred model using a fast recursive algorithm, which reduces the size and computational complexity of the model while maintaining its performance. The proposed model is capable of achieving fast online capacity estimation at any time, and its effectiveness is verified on a target dataset collected from four Lithium iron phosphate battery cells, and the performance is compared with other Convolutional Neural Network models. The test results confirm that the proposed model outperforms other models in terms of accuracy and computational efficiency, achieving up to 68.34% model size reduction and 80.97% computation savings.