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Peripheral nerve injuries (PNI) represent one of the primary neuropathies leading to lifelong disability. Nerve regeneration and targeted muscle atrophy stand as the two most crucial factors influencing functional rehabilitation post peripheral nerve injury. Over time, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) rehabilitation approaches such as acupuncture, Tuina, and microneedles serve as pivot means to activate the regeneration of injured nerve Schwann cells. By promoting axon regeneration, these approaches can accomplish nerve repair, reconstruction, and functional rehabilitation. Although TCM rehabilitation approaches have clinically demonstrated effectiveness in promoting the repair and regeneration of PNI, the related molecular mechanisms remain unclear. This significantly hampers the application and promotion of TCM rehabilitation in PNI recovery. Therefore, deeply delving into the cellular and molecular mechanisms of TCM rehabilitation technologies to foster nerve regeneration stands as the most pressing issue. On the other hand, in recent years, novel biomaterials represented by hydrogels, microfluidic platforms, and new chitosan scaffolds have showed their unique roles in treating various degrees of nerve injury. These methods exhibit immense potential in conducting high-throughput cell and organoid culture in vitro and synthesizing diverse tissue engineering scaffolds and drug carriers. We believe that the combination of TCM rehabilitation technology and novel biomaterials can more effectively address precise treatment issues such as identification of treatment target and dosage control. Therefore, this paper not only summarizes the molecular mechanisms of TCM rehabilitation technology and novel biomaterials in treating peripheral nerve injury individually, but also explores the research direction of precise treatment by integrating the two at both macro and micro levels. Such integration may facilitate the exploration of cellular and molecular mechanisms related to neurodegeneration and regeneration, providing a scientific and theoretical foundation for the precise functional rehabilitation of PNI in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Clonorchis sinensis (C. sinensis) is a epidemiologically significant food-borne parasite, causing several hepatobiliary diseases. Biliary microbiota community structure might be influenced by infection with pathogens. However, the biliary microbiome of biliary obstruction patients infected with C. sinensis is still an unexplored aspect. Methods: A total of 50 biliary obstruction patients were enrolled, including 24 infected with C. sinensis and 26 non-infected subjects. The bile samples were collected by Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancretography. Biliary microbiota alteration was analyzed through high-throughput 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequencing. Results: Our findings revealed that there was significant increase in both richness and diversity, as well as changes in the taxonomic composition of the biliary microbiota of C. sinensis infected patients. At the phylum level, C. sinensis infection induced Proteobacteria increased and Firmicutes reduced. At the genus level, the relative abundance of Pseudomonas and Staphylococcus increased significantly, while Enterococcus decreased prominently in infected groups (P < 0.05). The PICRUSt analysis further showed remarkably different metabolic pathways between the two groups. Conclusion: C. sinensis infection could modify the biliary microbiota, increasing the abundance and changing the phylogenetic composition of bacterial in biliary obstruction patients. This study may help deepen the understanding of the host-biliary microbiota interplay with C. sinensis infection on the background of biliary obstruction and provide new insights into understanding the pathogenesis of clonorchiasis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments worldwide have announced stimulus packages to remobilize the labor force after COVID-19 and therefore to cope with the COVID-19-related recession. However, it is still unclear how to facilitate large-scale work resumption. This paper aims to clarify the issue by analyzing the large-scale prefecture-level dataset of human mobility trajectory information for 320 million workers and about 500,000 policy documents in China. We model work resumption as a collective behavioral change due to configurations of capacity, motivation, and policy instruments by using qualitative comparative analysis. We find that the effectiveness of post-COVID-19 recovery stimulus varied across China depending on the fiscal and administrative capacity and the policy motivation of the prefecture. Subnational fiscal and procurement policies were more effective for the wholesale and retail sector and the hotel and catering sector, whereas the manufacturing and business services sectors required more effort regarding employment policies. Due to limited prefectural capacity and wavering policy motivation, the simultaneous adoption of fiscal, employment, and procurement policy interventions endangered post-COVID-19 work resumption. We highlight the necessity of tailored postcrisis recovery strategies based on local fiscal and administrative capacity and the sectoral structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser powder bed fused (LPBFed) AlSi10Mg is recognised for its superior mechanical properties. However, its thermal stability has never been justified. Herein, we exposed as-built AlSi10Mg to different temperatures (200-500°C) for only 3 min to evaluate its thermal stability. Results showed that LPBFed AlSi10Mg had relatively low thermal stability. Only 3 min of thermal exposure at 200°C would deteriorate its tensile strength dramatically. Microstructural analysis revealed that with increasing thermal input, as-built AlSi10Mg exhibited a microstructural evolution similar to annealing of cold-worked metals, namely recovery, recrystallisation followed by grain-growth. The excessive energy stored in as-built microstructure due to fast cooling during LPBF was deduced as the driving force for this phenomenon. Therefore, such microstructural change was at the expense of dislocations stored in the as-built material, which in turn caused deterioration in tensile strength. The present findings may provide guidance for the application of LPBFed AlSi10Mg. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diglyphus Walker, 1844 (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae) is an economically important genus including species acting as biocontrol agents against agromyzid leafminer pests. A new species of Diglyphus, Diglyphus difasciatus Liu, Hansson & Wan, sp. nov., was discovered during the identification of agromyzid leafminers and their associated parasitoid wasps collected from 2016 to 2022 in China, based on morphological characteristics and molecular analyses of COI, ITS2 and 28S genes. Diglyphus difasciatus is similar to D. bimaculatus Zhu, LaSalle & Huang, distinguished by two interconnected infuscate vertical bands on the fore wing and the color of the scape. Molecular data support D. difasciatus and D. bimaculatus as two different species. The mean genetic distances between D. difasciatus and D. bimaculatus were 11.33%, 8.62%, and 0.18%, based on the COI, ITS2, and 28S genes, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anomaly detection of steam turbines is to recognize infrequent instances within sensor data that plays a vital role in stable power supply. Machine learning models have been applied to diagnose the faults of turbine and verified useful for identifying engine problem. To detect anomalies of steam turbines with machine learning methods, here, an approach called hierarchical pre-warning strategy is proposed that combines clustering methods with classification methods. Three different clustering methods, K-means, Isolation Forest and Local Outlier Factor, are chosen to separate anomalies from normal data. Since clustering results cannot give unanimous decision, the clustering instances are labelled with three classes, real anomalies, suspected anomalies and normal data, according to their overlapping recognition. Subsequently, five classification algorithms, k-nearest neighbour, support vector machine, decision tree, random forest and gradient boosting decision tree, have been examined to train the labelled data set. The classification results illustrate that gradient boosting decision tree and random forest are much more precise to detect real anomalies of steam turbines. The real anomalies identified by clustering methods have been classi- fied into suspected anomalies by this approach that is more practicable and consistent with ground truth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the existence and qualitative properties of multiscale steady vortex patches for Euler equations in a 2D bounded domain. By considering certain maximization problems for the vorticity, we obtain the existence of double vortex patches which are trapped in a neighborhood of two points. Limiting localizations of these two points are determined by the Robin function and the boundary of the domain, rather than critical points of the Kirchhoff--Routh function H2, which is quite different from all the known results. Moreover, the strengths of two components of vorticity are of different order. Multiscale vortex patches concentrating near k points are also constructed for any integer k ̥ 2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hot-tearing susceptibility (HTS) of Mg-6Zn-xGd (x=0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6) alloys was evaluated using a constrained rod casting (CRC) method. The results show that the HTS curve follows a typical "Λ" shape with the increase of Gd content. The Mg-6Zn-2Gd alloy has the highest while Mg-6Zn-6Gd alloy has the lowest HTS value. The hot-tearing behavior characteristics of Mg-6Zn-xGd alloys were further studied through a multifunctional hot-tearing test device. According to the dendrite contact point inferred from the stress curve, the Clyne-Davies criterion was modified and found to be accurate in predicting the HTS of Mg-6Zn-xGd alloys. Microstructure observation reveals that the grain size and the volume of eutectic liquid are the two key factors affecting HTS of Mg-6Zn-xGd alloys. The large grain with columnar structure can easily promote initiation and propagation of hot-tearing due to the poor feeding and coordinating deformation capability, which have a harmful effect on HTS. A higher volume fraction of eutectic phase can refill the cracking and provide continuous feeding channels by dendrite bridge and thicker liquid film, thus increase the hot-tearing resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the large-scale grid connection of new energy power, the random fluctuation existing in the power system is intensified, which leads to frequent fluctuation of load instructions of thermal power units. It is of great significance to improve the variable load performance of the coal-fired units. It is more difficult to control the superheated steam temperature (SST). In order to improve the control performance of SST, a state variable fuzzy predictive control method is proposed in this paper. Firstly, Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy state observer is used to approximate the non-linear plant of the SST. At the same time, based on the state observer, a fuzzy state feedback controller is designed to improve its dynamic characteristics. Thirdly, based on the extended predictive model of the state feedback controller, a model predictive controller is designed to realize the SST tracking control. Dynamic simulation shows the effectiveness of the strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-sensing actuators use a single piezoelectric element as actuators and sensors simultaneously. This paper proposes the asymmetric indirect-driven self-sensing actuation (AIDSSA) circuit to realize the concept of self-sensing in piezoelectric-actuated systems. Unlike traditional circuits relying on differential amplifiers, the AIDSSA circuit is constructed with only op-amps and uses negative feedback to reject the common-mode interferences from the control command. The new circuit requires simpler conditions of component matching and is able to sense the mechanical responses with a uniform gain and without a phase lag. The actuator is able to achieve full-stroke actuation while sensing is performed, because AIDSSA introduces no undesirable dynamics into the control loop. For the first time, the sensing and actuation transfer functions in self-sensing actuators have become fully decoupled at all frequencies. The investigation takes the form of an industrial application of hard disk drives, and demonstrates the usefulness the circuit in complex positioning systems. Experimental results show that the position error variance, a measure of disturbance rejection capability, has been improved by about 15% in the track-following mode relative to the same servo before modifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In social networks, user attention affects the user's decision-making, resulting in a performance alteration of the recommendation systems. Existing systems make recommendations mainly according to users' preferences with a particular focus on items. However, the significance of users' attention and the difference in the influence of different users and items are often ignored. Thus, this paper proposes an attention-based multi-layer friend recommendation model to mitigate information overload in social networks. We first constructed the basic user and item matrix via convolutional neural networks (CNN). Then, we obtained user preferences by using the relationships between users and items, which were later inputted into our model to learn the preferences between friends. The error performance of the proposed method was compared with the traditional solutions based on collaborative filtering. A comprehensive performance evaluation was also conducted using large-scale real-world datasets collected from three popular location-based social networks. The experimental results revealed that ou proposal outperforms the traditional methods in terms of recommendation performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecular dynamics simulations were applied to study the structural and transport properties, including the pair distribution function, the structure factor, the pair correlation entropy, self-diffusion coefficient, and viscosity, of liquid iron under high temperature and high pressure conditions. Our calculated results reproduced experimentally determined structure factors of liquid iron, and the calculated self-diffusion coefficients and viscosity agree well with previous simulation results. We show that there is a moderate increase of self-diffusion coefficients and viscosity along the melting curve up to the Earth-core pressure. Furthermore, the temperature dependencies of the pair correlation entropy, self-diffusion, and viscosity under high pressure condition have been investigated. Our results suggest that the temperature dependence of the pair correlation entropy is well described by T-1 scaling, while the Arrhenius law well describes the temperature dependencies of self-diffusion coefficients and viscosity under high pressure. In particular, we find that the entropy-scaling laws, proposed by Rosenfeld [Phys. Rev. A 15, 2545 (1977)] and Dzugutov [Nature (London) 381, 137 (1996)] for self-diffusion coefficients and viscosity in liquid metals under ambient pressure, still hold well for liquid iron under high temperature and high pressure conditions. Using the entropy-scaling laws, we can obtain transport properties from structural properties under high pressure and high temperature conditions. The results provide a useful ingredient in understanding transport properties of planet's cores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Migraine is an intractable headache disorder, manifesting as periodic attacks. It is highly burdensome for patients and society. Acupuncture treatment can be beneficial as a supplementary and preventive therapy for migraine. Objectives: This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to investigate the efficacy and safety of acupuncture for migraine, and to examine transcranial doppler changes after acupuncture. Methods: Reports, conference, and academic papers published before March 15, 2019 in databases including PubMed, Cochrane library, Embase, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, WANFANG Database, Chinese journal of Science and Technology, and China Biomedical were searched. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) involving acupuncture, sham acupuncture, and medication in migraine were included. The Cochrane Collaboration software, RevMan 5.3, was used for data processing and migration risk analysis. Results: Twenty-eight RCTs were included. 15 RCTs included medication only, 10 RCTs included sham acupuncture only, and 3 RCTs included both. The study included 2874 patients, split into 3 groups: acupuncture treatment group (n = 1396), medication control group (n = 865), and sham acupuncture control group (n = 613). The results showed that treatment was more effective in the acupuncture group than in the sham acupuncture group (MD = 1.88, 95% CI [1.61, 2.20], P < 0.00001) and medication group (MD = 1.16, 95% CI [1.12, 1.21], P < 0.00001). Improvement in visual analog scale (VAS) score was greater in the acupuncture group than in the sham acupuncture group (MD = −1.00, 95% CI [-1.27,−0.46], P < 0.00001; MD = −0.59, 95% CI [-0.81,−0.38], P < 0.00001), and their adverse reaction rate was lower than that of the medication group (RR = 0.16, 95% CI [0.05, 0.52], P = 0.002). The improvement of intracranial blood flow velocity by acupuncture is better than that by medication, but the heterogeneity makes the result unreliable. Conclusions: Acupuncture reduced the frequency of migraine attacks, lowered VAS scores, and increased therapeutic efficiency compared with sham acupuncture. Compared with medication, acupuncture showed higher effectiveness with less adverse reactions and improved intracranial blood circulation. However, owing to inter-study heterogeneity, a prospective, multicenter RCT with a large sample is required to verify these results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local features play an important role in remote sensing image matching, and handcrafted features have been excessively used in this area for a long time. This article proposes a pyramid convolutional neural triplet network that extracts a 128-dimensional deep descriptor that significantly improves the matching performance. The proposed approach first extracts deep descriptors of the anchor patches and corresponding positive patches in a batch using the proposed pyramid convolutional neural network. Following this step, the approaches chooses the closest negative patch for each anchor patch and corresponding positive patch pair to form the triplet sample based on the descriptor distances among all other image patches in the batch. These triplets are used to optimize the parameters of the network using a new loss function. We evaluated the proposed deep descriptors on two benchmark data sets (Brown and HPatches) as well as real image data sets. The results reveal that the proposed descriptor achieves the state-of-the-art performance on the Brown data set and a comparatively very high performance on the HPatches data set. The proposed approach finds more correct matches than the classical handcrafted feature descriptors on aerial image pairs and is observed to be robust to variations in the viewpoint and illumination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we prove nonlinear orbital stability for steady vortex patches that maximize the kinetic energy among isovortical rearrangements in a planar bounded domain. As a result, nonlinear stability for an isolated vortex patch is proved. The proof is based on conservation of energy and vorticity, which is an analogue of the classical Liapunov function method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four new lanthanide coordination polymers, [H3O][Ln3(HPA)10(H2O)3·2H2O] (Ln = Pr for 1, Ln = Nd for 2), [Ln2(HPA)6(H2O)4·2H2O] (Ln = Sm for 3, Ln = Tb for 4) (HHPA =3-(4-hydroxyphenyl)propanoic acid), were successfully synthesized and characterized. 1 and 2 are isostructural and have 1D metal chain structure, while 3 and 4 show 0D network with binuclear subunits. The results indicated that the effect of reaction temperature can modulate the final structures. The HPA ligands adopt bidentate chelating and tridentate chelating bridging modes to coordinate with Ln(III) ions in 1-4. It has been shown that 4 can act as a fluorescent sensor for highly sensitive detection of nitroaromatics and Fe3+. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In vehicular participatory sensing, vehicles may provide false data or low-quality data. Building trust in vehicular ad hoc networks is an efficient way to deal with this issue. On one hand, vehicles need to disclose necessary information to demonstrate their trustworthiness. On the other hand, vehicles tend to hide their sensitive information to preserve user privacy. Therefore, privacy and trust are conflict in vehicular ad hoc networks. A cluster-based reputation framework named ClusterRep is proposed to balance privacy and trust in vehicular ad hoc networks. In this framework, the cluster head collaborates with cluster members to change pseudonyms and reputation values. The experiments show the scalability and the effectiveness of the ClusterRep compared with Beta strategy and IncogniSense-floor strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) is defined as the clinical diagnosis of heart failure (HF) and ejection fraction (EF) ≤40%, which is a severe public healthcare issue and brings a heavy social and economic burden for patients with HFrEF. Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) has a long history in treating HF. Questions concerning the efficacy and acceptability of CHM-related interventions in adult patients with HFrEF led us to use the method of systematic review and network meta-analysis to integrate direct and indirect evidence to create hierarchies for all CHM. Methods and analysis Nine medical databases, including PubMed, EMBASE (OVID), the Cochrane Library, Google Scholar, Web of Science, CNKI, VIP, Wanfang Database and CBM will be searched from the date of database inception to June 2015 (updated to March 2017) without language and publication status restriction. Completely randomised controlled trials (RCTs) comparing CHM or CHM plus routine treatment with CHM, CHM plus routine treatment, routine treatment, no treatment or placebo for adults with HFrEF will be examined. Our primary outcomes will include all-cause mortality, HF-related death, all-cause rehospitalisation, HF-related rehospitalisation and acceptability (discontinuation due to any adverse events during treatment). Secondary outcomes will include response rate, mean value or mean difference from baseline of surrogate indexes. We will perform the Bayesian network meta-analyses (NMA) for the most frequently reported primary or secondary outcome and the acceptability outcome, if available. Meta-regression, subgroup analyses and sensitivity analyses will be conducted based on prespecified effect modifiers to assess the robustness of the findings. Dissemination The results of this NMA will provide useful information about the effectiveness and acceptability of CHM in adults with HFrEF, which will also have implications for clinical practice and further research. Findings will be disseminated through peer-reviewed journal publication and conference presentations. PROSPERO registration number CRD42016053854. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cytoplasmic male sterility (CMS) is universally utilized in cruciferous vegetables. However, the Chinese cabbage hau CMS lines, obtained by interspecific hybridization and multiple backcrosses of the Brassica juncea (B. juncea) CMS line and Chinese cabbage, show obvious leaf etiolation, and the molecular mechanism of etiolation remains elusive. Here, the ultrastructural and phenotypic features of leaves from the Chinese cabbage CMS line 1409A and maintainer line 1409B are analyzed. The results show that chloroplasts of 1409A exhibit abnormal morphology and distribution. Next, RNA-sequencing (RNA-Seq) is used to identify 485 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between 1409A and 1409B, and 189 up-regulated genes and 296 down-regulated genes are found. Genes that affect chloroplasts development, such as GLK1 and GLK2, and chlorophyll biosynthesis, such as PORB, are included in the down-regulated DEGs. Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis validate that the expression levels of these genes are significantly lower in 1409A than in 1409B. Taken together, these results demonstrate that leaf etiolation is markedly affected by chloroplast development and pigment biosynthesis. This study provides an effective foundation for research on the molecular mechanisms of leaf etiolation of the hau CMS line in Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa L. ssp. pekinensis). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of air-cooled units is significantly affected by meteorological conditions because they use the ambient air directly as the cooling medium. The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of air-cooled units on grid stability under extreme meteorological conditions. Based on the characteristics of air-cooled units, cooling air face velocity and temperature are two main meteorological factors taken into consideration. A dynamic model of the air-cooled units is developed. Since grid frequency is a representation of grid stability, the above model is then applied to a mathematical model to analyse the primary frequency regulation process of a grid. A coefficient to measure the primary frequency regulation ability (PFRA) is defined and the calculation of PFRA is put forward. To increase the reliability of the study, the performance of the grid under different meteorological conditions is also studied in frequency domain. Case studies under generator tripping and steep load rising conditions are studied. The corresponding PFRA and the maximum capacity proportion of air-cooled units are calculated. This study provides a constructive guide for the operation of air-cooled units under different meteorological conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During goat follicular development, abnormal expression of nuclear respiratory factor 1 (NRF1) in granulosa cells may drive follicular atresia with unknown regulatory mechanisms. In this study, we investigated the effects of NRF1 on steroidogenesis and cell apoptosis by overexpressing or silencing it in goat luteinized granulosa cells (LGCs). Results showed that knockdown of NRF1 expression significantly inhibited the expression of STAR and CYP19A1, which are involved in sex steroid hormones synthesis, and led to lower estrogen levels. Knockdown of NRF1 resulted in an increased percentage of apoptosis, probably due to the release of cytochrome c from mitochondria, accompanied by upregulating mRNA and protein levels of apoptosis-related markers BAX, caspase 3 and caspase 9. These data indicate that NRF1 might be related with steroidogenesis and cell apoptosis. Furthermore, NRF1 silence reduced mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) transcription activity, mtDNA copy number and ATP level. Simultaneously, knockdown of NRF1 suppressed the transcription and translation levels of SOD, GPx and CAT, decreased glutathione level and increased 8-OHdG level. However, the overexpression of NRF1 in LGCs or gain of TFAM in NRF1 silenced LGCs increased the expression of genes involved in mitochondrial function and biogenesis, and elevated the antioxidant stress system and steroids synthesis. Taken together, aberrant expression of NRF1 could induce mitochondrial dysfunction and disturb the cellular redox balance, which lead to disturbance of steroid hormone synthesis, and trigger LGC apoptosis through the mitochondria-dependent pathway. These findings will be helpful for understanding the role of NRF1 in goat ovarian follicular development and atresia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To explore the current situation, existing problems and possible causes of said problems with regards to physician-nurse communication under an environment of increasingly widespread usage of Hospital Information Systems and to seek out new potential strategies in information technology to improve physician-nurse communication.Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 physicians and nurses in five leading tertiary grade A hospitals in Beijing, China (two physicians and two nurses in each hospital). The interviews primarily included three aspects comprising the current situation and problems of clinical physician-nurse communication, the application and problems of Hospital Information Systems, and assessments on the improvement of physician-nurse communication through the usage of information technology. The inductive conventional content analysis approach was employed.Results: (1) Physicians and nurses are generally quite satisfied with the current situation of communication. However, the information needs of nurses are prone to being overlooked, and the communication methods are primarily synchronous communication such as face-to-face and phone communication. (2) Hospital Information Systems are gradually being used for physician-nurse communication; in the meantime, physicians and nurses face challenges with regards to the improvement of physician-nurse communication through the usage of information technology. Challenges differ based on the different stages of using the system and the different levels of understanding of physicians and nurses towards information technology. Their dissatisfaction mainly deals with system errors and the level of convenience in using the system. (3) In-depth interviews found that in general, physicians and nurses have a strong interest and trust in improving physician-nurse communication through appropriate information technology, e.g., communication methods such as information reminders for physicians and nurses through mobile devices and instant voice-to-text conversion methods.Conclusions: There are objective risks in physician-nurse communication in Chinese hospitals, and clinical information systems lack solutions to the relevant problems. Developing a dedicated, mobile, quick and convenient module for physician-nurse communication within existing hospital information system with automatic reminders for important information that segregates between synchronous and asynchronous communication according to the different types of information could help improve physician-nurse communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glucocorticoid‑induced tumor necrosis factor receptor (GITR) is expressed at high levels on CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells (Tregs). Following activation by its ligand (GITRL), GITR influences the activity of effector T cells and Tregs and participates in the development of numerous autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, including asthma. However, the GITR/GITRL expression level in lung tissue and its influence on group 2 innate lymphocytes (ILC2s) in asthma remains unclear. The present study detected the number of ILC2s and the expression levels of GITR and GITRL in the lung tissues of asthmatic mice by flow cytometry analysis, immunofluorescence staining and reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The results demonstrated that the number of ILC2s and the expression levels of ILC2‑associated molecules (interleukin‑33 receptor ST2, RAR related orphan receptor A and inducible T cell costimulator) were increased in the lung tissues of asthmatic mice. The upregulated ILC2s were accompanied by an increased number of GITR‑positive cells in the spleen and lung tissues, and additionally an increased level of GITRL mRNA in lung tissue in asthma. In addition, increased mRNA expression levels of interleukin (IL)‑5 and IL‑13 were observed in the asthmatic lung, and there was a significant, positive correlation between the mRNA levels of GITR/GITRL and ILC2‑associated molecules. Therefore, GITRL treatment may increase the number of ILC2s and/or GITR‑positive cells in lung tissue. These results indicated that the activity of GITR‑expressing ILC2s may be enhanced via interaction of GITRL and GITR, which may contribute to pathogenesis of asthma. These findings present potential therapeutic targets for the treatment of asthma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large power units have to run under deep variable load operations to reduce the regulation peak of power systems. The sliding pressure operation is now recognized as one of the most effective ways to improve economy and safety at variable load operations. In this paper, we examine the effects of back pressure and steam extraction on the optimum sliding pressure operation curve and analyze the limitations of the traditional sliding pressure operation curve design methods. Consequently, we propose a new optimization method for the sliding pressure operation that uses the main steam flow rate as an independent variable. Our results show that the sliding pressure operation curve obtained via the proposed method can overcome the effect of the heating steam extraction capacity and back pressure on the unit. The proposed method also satisfies the economic operation in different working conditions, and can easily be implemented in the Distributed Control System (DCS) transformation. Optimization transformation of the variable load running economy by application of the method in an air-cooled unit resulted in significant improvement. It significantly enhances the safety and efficiency of thermal power generating units, which are dominant in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years wind power is a hot topic in the field of new energy. However, due to the larger fluctuations of wind power, which is a threat to the safe operation of the power grid, large-scale wind power integration has been greatly restricted. Therefore, accurate wind speed forecast has great significance to wind power integration, especially the day-ahead wind speed forecast of 1-24 hours. For the sake of accurate wind speed forecast, the information efficiency of NWP and measured data were taken into account in this paper. Based on this, a fusion model was proposed. Experiments show that the fusion strategy can improve the accuracy of the day-ahead wind speed prediction results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large power units have to run under deep variable load operations to reduce the regulation peak of power systems. The sliding pressure operation is now recognized as one of the most effective ways to improve economy and safety at variable load operations. In this paper, we examine the effects of back pressure and steam extraction on the optimum sliding pressure operation curve and analyze the limitations of the traditional sliding pressure operation curve design methods. Consequently, we propose a new optimization method for the sliding pressure operation that uses the main steam flow rate as an independent variable. Our results show that the sliding pressure operation curve obtained via the proposed method can overcome the effect of the heating steam extraction capacity and back pressure on the unit. The proposed method also satisfies the economic operation in different working conditions, and can easily be implemented in the Distributed Control System (DCS) transformation. Optimization transformation of the variable load running economy by application of the method in an air-cooled unit resulted in significant improvement. It significantly enhances the safety and efficiency of thermal power generating units, which are dominant in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years wind power is a hot topic in the field of new energy. However, due to the larger fluctuations of wind power, which is a threat to the safe operation of the power grid, large-scale wind power integration has been greatly restricted. Therefore, accurate wind speed forecast has great significance to wind power integration, especially the day-ahead wind speed forecast of 1-24 hours. For the sake of accurate wind speed forecast, the information efficiency of NWP and measured data were taken into account in this paper. Based on this, a fusion model was proposed. Experiments show that the fusion strategy can improve the accuracy of the day-ahead wind speed prediction results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rise of green industrial revolution' objected to low-carbon and energy conservation has made it an important research direction to measure energy efficiency and its influence factors. In this paper, character identification method has been proposed to determine influence factors of energy efficiency, and energy efficiency of 24 provinces is analyzed and evaluated by the method of data mining algorithm. In the research, some common classification algorithms are utilized to build three classification models with collected data, with the accuracy of over 90%. Then energy efficiency of other six provinces are predicted with this model. Furthermore, provinces with high and low energy efficiency are distinguished by cluster algorithm, and the trend of a fall in energy efficiency of the whole country is discovered. In the end, on the basis of above analysis, a strategy is put forward to improve Chinese energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Absolute orientation is an important method in the field of photogrammetry. The technique is used to transform points between a local coordinate reference system and a global (geodetic) reference system. The classical transformation method uses a single set of similarity transformation parameters. However, the root mean square error (RMSE) of the classical method is large, especially for large-scale aerial photogrammetry analyses in which the points used are triangulated through free-net bundle adjustment. To improve the transformation accuracy, this study proposes a novel absolute orientation method in which the transformation uses various sets of local similarities. A Triangular Irregular Network (TIN) model is applied to divide the Ground Control Points (GCPs) into numerous triangles. Local similarities can then be computed using the three vertices of each triangle. These local similarities are combined to formulate the new transformation based on a weighting function. Both simulated and real data sets were used to assess the accuracy of the proposed method. The proposed method yields significantly improved plane and z-direction transformed point accuracies compared with the classical method. On a real data set with a mapping scale of 1:30,000 for a 53 km × 35 km study area, the plane and z RMSEs can be reduced from 1.2 m and 12.4 m to 0.4 m and 3.2 m, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oxidative stress has consistently been linked to breast carcinogenesis, and mitochondria play a significant role in regulating reactive oxygen species generation. In our previous study, we found that increased levels of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) copy number and the presence of mitochondrial length heteroplasmies in the hypervariable (HV) regions 1 and 2 (HV1 and HV2) in peripheral blood are associated with increased risk of breast cancer. In current study with 1000 breast cancer cases and 1000 healthy controls, we intended to replicate our previous findings. Overall, levels of mtDNA copy number were significantly higher in breast cancer cases than healthy controls (mean: 1.17 versus 0.94, P < 0.001). In the multivariate linear regression analysis, increased mtDNA copy number levels were associated with a 1.32-fold increased risk of breast cancer [adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 1.32, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.15-1.67]. Breast cancer cases were more likely to have HV1 and HV2 region length heteroplasmies than healthy controls (P < 0.001, respectively). The existence of HV1 and HV2 length heteroplasmies was associated with 2.01- and 1.63-folds increased risk of breast cancer (for HV1: OR = 2.01, 95% CI = 1.66-2.42; for HV2: OR = 1.63, 95% CI = 1.34-1.92). Additionally, joint effects among mtDNA copy number, HV1 and HV2 length heteroplasmies were observed. Our results are consistent with our previous findings and further support the roles of mtDNA copy number and mtDNA length heteroplasmies that may play in the development of breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using tellurium as a solvent, we grew ZnTe ingots of 30 mm in diameter and 70 mm in length by a temperature gradient solution growth method. Hall tests conducted at 300 K indicated that the as-grown ZnTe exhibits p-type conductivity, with a carrier concentration of approximately 10 cm, a mobility of approximately 300 cm·V·s, and a resistivity of approximately 10 Ω·cm. A simple and effective method was proposed for chemical surface texturization of ZnTe using an HF:HO:HO etchant. Textures with the sizes of approximately 1 µm were produced on {100}, {110}, and {111} surfaces after etching. The etchant is also very promising in crystal characterization because of its strong anisotropic character and Te-phase selectivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thymic atrophy occurs during normal aging, and is accelerated by exposure to chronic stressors that elevate glucocorticoid levels and impair the naïve T cell output. The orexigenic hormone ghrelin was recently shown to attenuate age-associated thymic atrophy. Here, we report that ghrelin enhances the proliferation of murine CD4+ primary T cells and a CD4+ T-cell line. Ghrelin induced activation of the ERK1/2 and Akt signaling pathways, via upstream activation of phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase and protein kinase C, to enhance T-cell proliferation. Moreover, ghrelin induced expression of the cell cycle proteins cyclin D1, cyclin E, cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2) and retinoblastoma phosphorylation. Finally, ghrelin activated the above-mentioned signaling pathways and stimulated thymocyte proliferation in young and older mice in vivo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]