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Stimuli responsive luminescent materials, especially those exhibiting multicolor emission switching, have potential application in sensor, optical recording, security ink, and anti-counterfeit label. Through combination of twisted conjugation core and donor and acceptor units, a luminogen (2-(bis(4-(carbazol-9-yl)phenyl)methylene)malononitrile (1) was synthesized. Luminogen 1 can form three kinds of crystals emitting green (1GC, λem = 506 nm, ΦF = 19.8%), yellow-green (1YC, λem = 537 nm, ΦF = 17.8%), and orange (1OC, λem = 585 nm, ΦF = 30.0%) light upon 365 nm UV illumination. The emission of amorphous solid of 1 (1Am) overlaps with that of 1OC (λem = 585 nm), with quantum yield of 13.9%, which is seldom reported. Emission of 1 can be switched among green, yellow-green, and orange through morphology modulation upon exposure to thermal, solvent vapor, or mechanical stimuli. Finally, its potential application in optical recording was also investigated.

Small object detection has long been one of the most challenging problems in computer vision.Since small objects have the characteristics of small coverage area,low resolution,and lack of feature information,their detection effect is not ideal compared to large-sized objects.In recent years,the small object detection algorithm based on deep convolutional neural networks has developed vigorously,and been successfully used in fields such as satellite remote sensing and driverless vehicles.This survey makes a taxnomy,analysis and comparison of existing algorithms.First,the difficulties of small object detection and common detection datasets are introduced.Second,the existing detection algorithms are systematically described from five aspects:backbone network,pyramid structure,anchor design,optimization of object and a bag of species,to provide ideas for further improving the performance of small object detection algorithms.Then,we briefly summarize the existing small object detection algorithms and analyze their performance of the listed algorithm on common dataset.Finally,the application and the future research direction in the field of small object detection has been prospected.

The adipose Nod-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome senses danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs) and initiates insulin resistance, but the mechanisms of adipose inflammasome activation remains elusive. In this study, Homocysteine (Hcy) is revealed to be a DAMP that activates adipocyte NLRP3 inflammasomes, participating in insulin resistance. Hcy-induced activation of NLRP3 inflammasomes were observed in both adipocytes and adipose tissue macrophages (ATMs) and mediated insulin resistance. Lysophosphatidylcholine (lyso-PC) acted as a second signal activator, mediating Hcy-induced adipocyte NLRP3 inflammasome activation. Hcy elevated adipocyte lyso-PC generation in a hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF1)-phospholipase A2 group 16 (PLA2G16) axis-dependent manner. Lyso-PC derived from the Hcy-induced adipocyte also activated ATM NLRP3 inflammasomes in a paracrine manner. This study demonstrated that Hcy activates adipose NLRP3 inflammasomes in an adipocyte lyso-PC-dependent manner and highlights the importance of the adipocyte NLRP3 inflammasome in insulin resistance. Keywords: Insulin resistance, NLRP3 inflammasome, Homocysteine, Adipocyte, Adipose tissue macrophage

In OpenFlow networks,switches accept flow rules through standardized interfaces,and perform flow-based packet processing.To facilitate the lookup of flow tables,TCAM has been widely used in OpenFlow switches.However,TCAM is expensive and consumes a large amount of power.A hybrid lookup scheme integrating multiple-cell Hash table with TCAM was proposed for flow table matching to simultaneously reduce the cost and power consumption of lookup structure without sacrificing the lookup performance.By theoretical analysis and extensive experiments,optimal capacity configuration of Hash table and TCAM was achieved with the optimized cost of flow table lookup.The experiment results also show that the proposed lookup scheme can save over 90% cost and the power consumption of flow table matching can be reduced significantly compared with the pure TCAM scheme while keeping the similar lookup performance.

Nested mobile networks face the challenge of route optimization (RO) even it can expend the scope of communications.The existing RO approaches have the limitation of low performance and difficulty of deployment.A nested mobile networks route optimization (NMNRO) scheme is proposed by extending the neighbor discovery protocol，in which foreign prefixes in nested networks are advertised，and the destination caches of access routers and the routing tables of mobile routers are updated accordingly.After that，a correspondent registration is performed in order to implement RO.Performance analysis shows that NMNRO provides an overall RO solution with lower overhead，better compatibility，and higher deployability.Simulation results demonstrate that NMNRO has lower handover delay and higher goodput than other schemes，and the performance advantage appears more significant with the increase of nesting level.

To avoid monster community problem which suffered by distributed k-clique community detection, τ-window community detection was proposed. In addition, τ-window centrality estimation was put forward. By investigating the periodic evolution of τ-window community and τ-window centrality, two new metrics, TTL(time to live) community and TTL centrality, were proposed to improve the prediction of the node's encounter during the message's lifetime. Moreover, a social-aware routing algorithm, PerEvo, was then designed based on them. Extensive trace-driven simulation results show that PerEvo achieves higher message delivery ratio than the existing social-based forwarding schemes, while keep-ing similar routing overhead.

Due to the fact that leftover bandwidth appears during non-overlapping time intervals, an approach of using such bandwidth to distribute delay tolerant data was proposed, and then a distributs and scalable leftover band-width-aware peer selection algorithm named LBAPS was designed. LBAPS avoids centralized optimization method that fails to effectively utilize leftover bandwidth when multiple destinations occur. In LBAPS, a node selection strategy based on synthetical evaluation was presented in order to find appropriate nodes h leftover bandwidth currently. In addition, two other strategies, i.e., resource reservation based on threshold and exiting upload upon the length of time slice, were put forward. With these two strategies, nodes with more leftover bandwidth get higher priority to obtain file blocks; be-sides, different file blocks can be delivered to different nodes as soon as possible. On the basis of LBAPS, a content cloud prototype, P2PStitcher was implemented. Experimental results on PlanetlLab show that the strategies proposed in LBAPS are effective to decrease the average delivery time.

The existence of selfish nodes seriously affects the routing performance of opportunistic networks(OppNet).To protect the OppNet against the nodes’ selfish behavior,a credit-based selfish nodes detection mechanism was proposed to make it possible to keep away from such nodes during the process of message forwarding.The mechanism leverages 2-ACK messages to observe the nodes’behavior.Then the credit value was calculated based on the observation information and accordingly acts as the metric to distinguish the selfish nodes.Simulation results show that,when coupled with various routing algorithms,the mechanism could detect selfish nodes out accurately,and improve network performance effectively in terms of delivery rate and traffic load.

OBJECTIVE: Ventricular septal defects resulting from post-traumatic cardiac injury are very rare. Percutaneous closure has emerged as a method for treating this disorder. We wish to report our experience in three patients who underwent percutaneous closure of a post-traumatic ventricular septal defect with a patent ductus arteriosus occluder. METHODS: We treated three patients with post-traumatic ventricular septal defects caused by stab wounds with knives. After the heart wound was repaired, patient examinations revealed ventricular septal defects with pulmonary/systemic flow ratios (Qp/Qs) of over 1.7. The post-traumatic ventricular septal defects were closed percutaneously with a patent ductus arteriosus occluder (Lifetech Scientific (Shenzhen) Co., LTD, Guangdong, China) utilizing standard techniques. RESULTS: Post-operative transthoracic echocardiography revealed no residual left-to-right shunt and indicated normal ventricular function. In addition, 320-slice computerized tomography showed that the occluder was well placed and exhibited normal morphology. CONCLUSION: Our experiences indicate that closure of a post-traumatic ventricular septal defect using a patent ductus arteriosus occluder is feasible, safe, and effective.

Methyl parathion hydrolase (MPH), an enzyme that catalyses the turnover of methyl parathion (MP) to p-nitrophenol (pNP), can be utilized as an enzyme label. In this paper, a unique fluorescence response of 1,1-bis[4-(diethylaminomethyl)phenyl]-2,3,4,5-tetraphenylsilole (A2HPS) to MPH whose gene was obtained from Pseudomonas sp. strain WBC-3 is described. In the absence of MP, A2HPS could only give a small fluorescence response to the enzyme (I/I0 = 1.1). The detection must be performed under low pH conditions, and the influence of BSA and hemoglobin (Hb) was high; upon addition of the enzyme's substrate, 1 x 10-5 µg mL-1 or 2.85 x 1013 M of the MPH could be reported by A2HPS with a higher I/I0 of 1.7. The detection limit was 10-5 times more sensitive than that given by a spectrophotometric method. In addition, the assay could be performed at a near neutral pH which was more biocompatible, and little influence was observed from BSA and Hb. The light-on response to the MPH was due to the different quenching effect of the MP and pNP on A2HPS and the improvement in the detection selectivity was due to combining the enzyme reaction with the detection. The findings of this work suggested that A2HPS and MP could form a new reporter system for the MPH enzyme label. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although invasive thymoma commonly infiltrates neighbouringmediastinal structures, its extension into the superior vena cava (SVC) and consequent SVC occlusion are rare. In such cases, the urgent removal of the thymoma and radical resection of the infiltrated SVC representreasonable options, sinceinduction therapy is time-consuming and useless for symptom resolution. A case of invasive thymoma extending into the SVC and right atrium(RA) with SVC syndrome is reported. The patient underwent a combined resection of the invasive tumor and SVC under cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), and the SVC and bilateral brachiocephalic vein (BCV) were reconstructed with an autologous pericardial 'Y' conduit. After 40 months of follow-up, the patient showed a patent graft and no tumor recurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A hyperbranched poly(aryleneethynylene) containing anthracene chromophore was synthesized by palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction of 2,4,6-triiodophenyl 9-anthracenylcarboxylate with 9,9-bis[4-(2-propynyloxy)phenyl]-9H-fluorene. The structure and properties of the polymer are characterized and evaluated by NMR, IR, UV, PL and TGA analyses. The polymer is soluble in common organic solvents, possesses high thermal stability (Td > 330°C), and emits a strong blue light of 465 nm in both solution and solid states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecules of a thiol-functionalized phenylacetylene derivative were assembled on the CdS nanorod surface and copolymerized with phenylacetylene, affording an inorganic semiconductor–conjugated polymer hybrid with excellent solubility and high photoconductivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes two cases of acute esophageal obstruction caused by intramural esophageal bronchogenic cyst with wall hemorrhage. The patients were a 40-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman who presented with dysphagia and chest pain. The condition was diagnosed with thoracic computed tomography (CT) scan, gastroendoscopy and barium swallow and was treated surgically.

Aim: To investigate the role of signal transduction and activation of transcription 4 (STAT4) in the development and progression of human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)., Methods: Recent genetic investigations have identified that a genetic variant of STAT4 is associated with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-related HCC. The level of STAT4 in 90 HCC patients was examined via Western blot and immunohistochemical analyses. The correlation between STAT4 expression and the clinicopathological characteristics of the patients was analyzed. The level of STAT4 expression in the HCC liver tissues was significantly lower than that in the non-HCC liver tissues and correlated with tumor size, histological grade of HCC and serum hepatitis B surface antigen level in HCC patients. The data were statistically analyzed using SPSS. Furthermore, siRNA oligos targeting STAT4 were employed to investigate the influence of STAT4 RNA interference on HCC cell physiology. Based on Cell Counting Kit-8 and flow cytometric assays, we found that depletion of STAT4 expression significantly enhanced the proliferation of L02 cells., Results: STAT4 protein expression was significantly lower in HCC tissues than in normal liver tissues. Immunohistochemistry followed by statistical analysis revealed that the expression of STAT4 negatively correlated with Ki67 expression (r = 0.851; P < 0.05) and positively correlated with maximal tumor size (P < 0.05), HBV (P = 0.012) and histological grade (P < 0.05). Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed significant differences in the survival curves between HCC patients expressing low and high levels of STAT4 and Ki67 (P < 0.05). Based on a multivariate Cox proportional hazard model, STAT4 expression was an independent prognostic indicator for HCC patients who underwent curative resection. In vitro, following the release of L02 cell lines from serum starvation, the expression of STAT4 was downregulated, and transfection of L02 cells with siRNA targeting STAT4 inhibited cell proliferation., Conclusion: Our data indicate that STAT4 may inhibit HCC development by modulating HCC cell proliferation.