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Mian Wang,1,* Luting Nie,1,* Dandan Wei,2 Pengling Liu,2 Li Zhang,2 Keliang Fan,2 Yu Song,1 Lulu Wang,2 Qingqing Xu,2 Juan Wang,2 Xiaotian Liu,2 Linlin Li,2 Zhenxing Mao,2 Chongjian Wang,2 Wenqian Huo1 1Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, College of Public Health, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Wenqian HuoDepartment of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences, College of Public Health, Zhengzhou University, 100 Kexue Avenue, Zhengzhou, 450001, Henan, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 371 67781452Fax +86 371 67781868Email huowenqian@zzu.edu.cnBackground: Although the concentrations of progesterone (P4) and 17-hydroxyprogesterone (17-OHP) have been correlated with some characteristics of metabolic syndrome (MetS), the relationships with MetS are inconclusive. Therefore, we investigated the relationship between P4 and 17-OHP with MetS.Methods: In all, the present study includes 4807 participants. Serum P4 and 17-OHP were measured through liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. Logistic regression and restricted cubic splines were used to assess the independent and combined effects of P4 and 17-OHP on MetS.Results: After adjusting for multiple variables, the positive association of P4 with MetS was observed in postmenopausal women (Third tertiles vs First tertiles: OR = 1.49, 95% CI: 1.20– 1.86) and the negative association of 17-OHP with MetS was observed in men (Third tertiles vs First tertiles: OR = 0.43, 95% CI: 0.32– 0.58). Compared with the combination of low P4 and low 17-OHP, the combination of high P4 and high 17-OHP were significantly related to MetS in postmenopausal women (OR = 1.71, 95% CI: 1.18– 2.48). Moreover, the combination of low P4 and high 17-OHP was negatively associated with MetS in men (OR = 0.41, 95% CI: 0.24– 0.69).Conclusion: The association between P4 and MetS in postmenopausal women was positive, whereas 17-OHP was negatively associated with MetS in men. Additionally, their combination has a synergistic effect on MetS in postmenopausal women and an antagonistic effect on MetS in men.Keywords: progesterone, 17-hydroxyprogesterone, metabolic syndrome, obesity

Luting Nie,1,* Dandan Wei,2,* Pengling Liu,2 Li Zhang,2 Keliang Fan,2 Yu Song,1 Mian Wang,1 Lulu Wang,2 Qingqing Xu,2 Juan Wang,2 Xiaotian Liu,2 Linlin Li,2 Zhenxing Mao,2 Hui Huang,1 Chongjian Wang,2 Wenqian Huo1 1Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, College of Public Health, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, College of Public Health, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, Henan, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Wenqian HuoDepartment of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences, 100 Kexue Avenue, Zhengzhou, Henan, 450001, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 371 67781452Fax +86 371 67781868Email huowenqian@zzu.edu.cnPurpose: Studies of progesterone with obesity have been lacking, and no prior studies have investigated progesterone and C-reactive protein in rural natural populations. This study aimed to investigate the association of serum progesterone with obesity based on anthropometric parameters in Henan Rural Cohort, then further to explore the potential role of C-reactive protein in this association.Patients and Methods: A total of 4687 participants (2474 men and 2213 postmenopausal women) from the Henan Rural Cohort study were included. Logistic regression analysis, linear regression analysis, and restricted cubic splines were performed to estimate the relationships between progesterone, C-reactive protein, obesity, and obesity-related parameters. Mediation analysis was carried out to assess the intermediary role of C-reactive protein played in the association between progesterone and obesity.Results: After controlling for confounders, the odds ratios of obesity no matter how obesity was defined was associated with progesterone (P trend < 0.05). Moreover, progesterone was related to obesity-related parameters. Also, C-reactive protein increased with the elevation of progesterone, and C-reactive protein was associated with obesity no matter how obesity was defined (P trend < 0.001). Mediation analysis indicated that hsCRP had the mediating effects on the obesity, and the proportion of the effects were 15.35% and full mediating effect (defined by body mass index), 15.46% and 12.24% (defined by waist circumference), 19.14% and 12.12% (defined by waist-to-hip ratio), 23.81% and 15.09% (defined by waist-to-height ratio) for men and postmenopausal women, relatively.Conclusion: In the Chinese rural men and postmenopausal women population, progesterone and C-reactive protein are related to obesity. We firstly found C-reactive protein partly mediates the effect of progesterone on obesity, indicating that systemic inflammation played a critical role in the association.Keywords: sex hormone, obesity, C-reactive protein, mediation effect

Jian Cheng,1,2,* Hai-yan Xu,3,* Ming-ming Liu,4 Jian-ping Cai,2 Lei Wang,2 Zhen Hua,2 Xiao-dong Wu,1 Wei-ling Huo,1 Nan-ning Lv4 1Department of Orthopedics, Xuzhou Central Hospital Affiliated to Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Xuzhou, Jiangsu 221009, People’s Republic of China; 2Institute of Traumatology & Orthopedics, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210029, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Human Anatomy, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, Jiangsu 221004, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Lianyungang Second People’s Hospital, Lianyungang 222023, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Ming-ming LiuDepartment of Orthopedic Surgery, Lianyungang Second People’s Hospital, No. 41 Hailian East Road, Haizhou District, Lianyungang, Jiangsu 222023, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail mmliu89@126.comJian-ping CaiInstitute of Traumatology & Orthopedics, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210029, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail caijianpingcjp@126.comIntroduction: The protective effect of catalpol on diabetic osteoporosis (DOP) and its mechanism remain unclear. This study aimed to explore whether catalpol enhanced the proliferation and differentiation of MC3T3 cells induced by high glucose by inhibiting the expression of KDM7A.Methods: MC3T3 cells were induced by high glucose (HG) and treated with different concentrations of catalpol. The proliferation and mineralization abilities of MC3T3-E1 cells were determined by CCK-8 assay and Alizarin Red Staining, respectively. The expression of differentiation-related osteogenic proteins, KDM7A and related proteins of Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway was analyzed by Western blot analysis. The alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activity was detected by ALP assay kits.Results: MC3T3-E1 cells induced by high glucose showed decreased proliferation and mineralization abilities and decreased ALP activity, which were all reversed by the treatment of catalpol. High glucose induction inhibited the expression of KDM7A, Total-β-catenin, Nuclear-β-catenin and p-GSK3β, which was reversed by the treatment of catalpol. And KDM7A interference up-regulated the expression of Total-β-catenin, Nuclear-β-catenin and p-GSK3β, which was down-regulated by KDM7A overexpression. Furthermore, the proliferation and mineralization abilities and ALP activity were improved when treated with KDM7A interference and decreased when treated with KDM7A overexpression. However, SKL2001 could improve the proliferation and mineralization abilities and ALP activity of MC3T3-E1 cells.Discussion: Catalpol promotes the proliferation and differentiation of osteoblasts induced by high glucose by regulating the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway through KDM7A.Keywords: catalpol, KDM7A, proliferation, differentiation, osteoblasts, high glucose

This article is concerned with the qualitative properties for the Cauchy problem of a non-Newtonian filtration equation with a reaction source term and volumetric moisture content. On the basis of the slowly decaying behavior of volumetric moisture content, we establish new critical exponents that depend on the ratio of coefficients and exponent of volumetric moisture content. Meantime, under appropriate conditions, we show that the solution globally exists for small enough initial data and blows up in finite time for large enough or any nontrivial initial datum.

Gallium arsenide (GaAs) semiconductor wires have emerged as potent candidates for nonlinear optical devices, necessitating bandgap engineering for an expanded operational wavelength range. We report the successful growth of strain-mediated GaAs microwires (MWs) with an average diameter of 1.1 μm. The axial tensile strain in these wires, as measured by X-ray diffraction and Raman scattering, ranges from 1.61 % to 1.95 % and from 1.44 % to 2.03 %, respectively. This strain condition significantly reduces the bandgap of GaAs MWs compared to bulk GaAs, enabling a response wavelength extension up to 1.1 μm. Open aperture Z-scan measurements reveal a nonlinear absorption coefficient of −15.9 cm/MW and a third-order magnetic susceptibility of −2.8 × 10−8 esu at 800 nm for these MWs. I-scan measurements further show that the GaAs saturable absorber has a modulation depth of 7.9 % and a nonsaturation loss of 3.3 % at 1050 nm. In laser applications, GaAs MWs have been effectively used as saturable absorbers for achieving Q-switched and dual-wavelength synchronous mode-locking operations in Yb-bulk lasers. These results not only offer new insights into the use of large diameter semiconductor wires but also expand the potential for applications requiring bandgap tuning.

Yu-fan Yang,1,2,&ast; Lin-Lin Liu,1,2,&ast; Ming-jie Huang,1,2,&ast; Zheng-min Ma,1,2 Wen-wen Huo,1,2 Ya-juan Zhu,1,2 Hong Liu,3 Ke Peng,1,2 Fu-Hai Ji1,2 1Department of Anesthesiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China; 2Institute of Anesthesiology, Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, University of California Davis Health, Sacramento, CA, USA&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Ke Peng; Fu-Hai Ji, Department of Anesthesiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, 188 Shizi Street, Suzhou, Jiangsu, 215006, People’s Republic of China, Email pengke0422@163.com; jifuhaisuda@163.comBackground: Postoperative complications are common after major surgical procedures, leading to increased morbidity and mortality. Regional cerebral oxygen saturation (rScO2) reflects cerebral and global perfusion, and thus it can be used to guide hemodynamic management. We aim to explore the effect of rScO2-guided blood pressure management strategy on postoperative major complications in older adults who undergo major noncardiac surgery.Methods: This randomized controlled clinical trial includes a total of 400 elderly patients receiving major noncardiac surgery and general anesthesia. Patients will be randomized (1:1) to one of two blood pressure management groups: a standard care group (targeting mean arterial pressure > 65 mmHg or within 20% of baseline value), and a rScO2-guided group (absolute value of rScO2 > 60% or decrease in rScO2 < 10% of baseline). The primary outcome is the composite outcome of major complications (including infectious, respiratory, neurologic, cardiovascular, renal, thromboembolic gastrointestinal, and surgical complications) and deaths within the first 7 days after surgery. Secondary outcomes include the individual components of the primary outcome by day 7 after surgery and 30-day mortality. Data will be analyzed in the modified intention-to-treat population.Discussion: This study will provide evidence for improving postoperative outcomes using the rScO2-guided blood pressure management among older adults who undergo major noncardiac surgery.Trial Registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (Identifier: ChiCTR2200060816).Plain Language Summary: This is a protocol for a prospective, randomized, controlled clinical trial to evaluate the use of intraoperative individualized regional cerebral oxygen saturation (rScO2) optimization for blood pressure management in older adults undergoing major noncardiac surgery.The primary focus of this trial is the composite outcome of major complications (including infectious, respiratory, neurologic, cardiovascular, renal, thromboembolic gastrointestinal, and surgical complications) and deaths within the first 7 days after surgery. The secondary outcomes are the individual components of the primary outcome by day 7 after surgery and 30-day mortality.The findings of this trial will provide clinical evidence for the rScO2-guided blood pressure management to improve postoperative outcomes in older patients who are scheduled for major noncardiac surgery.Keywords: regional cerebral oxygen saturation, blood pressure management, postoperative major complications, major noncardiac surgery, elderly patients

Objective: Combined with the determination of macromolecular protein, amino acid and total protein, a quantitative analysis method for the content of small molecular peptides in infant formula milk powder was established. Methods: The contents of total protein, polymer protein and free amino acid in infant formula milk powder were determined by Kjeldahl nitrogen determination method, gravimetric method and ion exchange chromatography, and then the contents of small molecular protein peptide were calculated. Results: The precision RSD of the macromolecular protein detection (n=6) was 0.74%; The recovery rates of the 17 kinds of amino acids were 91.0%~103.2%, and the relative deviations of the detection results were 0.6%~ 2.5%. The recovery rates of small molecular weight peptides were 95.2%~98.2%. Conclusion: The established method has been validated by methodology, with good precision and recovery rate, and can be used for the determination of small molecular peptides in infant formula milk powder.

Aiming to problems in the pairwise registration of point clouds, such as keypoints are difficult to describe accurately, corresponding points are difficult to match accurately and convergence speed is slow due to uncertainty of initial transformation matrix, we propose a novel feature descriptor based on ratio of rotational volume to describe effectively keypoints, and on the basis of the feature descriptor, we proposed an improved coarse-to-fine registration pipeline of point clouds, in which we use coarse registration to obtain a good initial transformation matrix and then use fine registration based on a modified ICP algorithm to obtain an accurate transformation matrix. Experimental results show that our proposed feature descriptor has a good robustness to rotation, noise, scale and varying mesh resolution, less storage space and faster running speed than PFH, FPFH, SHOT and RoPS descriptors, and our improved pairwise registration pipeline is very effective to solve the problems in the pairwise registration of point clouds.

The effect of bran on rheological property of wheat flour was researched. The national trial strong gluten variety Jinmai 92 was used as raw material to grind flour.The bran addition were 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% and 30% with pure flour as negative control group and pure bran as positive control group.The rheological properties were determined by electronic farinograph, electronic extensograph and automatic bubblerin accordance with GB/T 14614-2006, GB/T 14615-2006 and GB/T 14614.4-2005. The results showed thatalong with the bran addition changed from 30% to 5%, the sedimentation value, farinograph stabilizing time and extensograph energy increased gradually, the maximum bubble pressure and Dmax gradually decreased, and blowing curve length, bubble inflation index and bubble deformation energy decreased at first then upward, the ratio of stretch ratio and bubble curve increased first and then decreased. As the bran addition was 5%~25%, the dough strength hreached the level of medium or moderately strong which can be used to make noodles or steamed bread.

Thermal electron transfer across hydrogen bond remains largely unexplored. Here the authors demonstrate that electron self-exchange through hydrogen bonds is highly efficient and can proceed either via the known proton-coupled pathway or an overlooked proton-uncoupled pathway

We prove the finite dimensionality of the global attractor and estimate the numbers of the determining modes for the 2D Boussinesq system in a periodic domain with fractional Laplacian in the subcritical case.

A novel compressed sensing imaging algorithm for high-squint Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) based on a Nonlinear Chirp-Scaling (NCS) operator is proposed. First, the echo signal of high-squint SAR is analyzed, and a novel imaging method based on the Nyquist-sampled echo signal is proposed. With the proposed method, the range migration is corrected and the coupling problem in the range and azimuth directions is solved. Then, to solve the problem of high-squint SAR imaging using undersampled echo signals, the NCS operator and compressed sensing algorithm based on this operator are constructed. Imaging results are obtained by solving an optimization problem. The proposed method can recover a sparse scene using undersampled echo data. Furthermore, it can recover a nonsparse scene using fully sampled data. Finally, simulations show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

The original version of this Article contained errors in the symbols displayed in the eighteenth sentence of the third paragraph of the ‘Determination of H ab and k ET data for the Mo2 dimers’ section of the Results, and the third sentence of the Discussion. This has been corrected in both the PDF and HTML versions of the Article.

Three filter strips were conducted on self-designed soil bins. Taking a filter strip with no vegetation as contrast, the effectiveness of vegetation and soil conditions on heavy metals (including copper and zinc) removal efficiencies were investigated by simulated runoff experiment. The results showed that the adsorbed state is the main existing form of heavy metal. For surface runoff, most of total copper and total zinc are trapped in first 4m and it is ineffective to increase the distance beyond 4m for removal. Vegetation has no significant effect on total copper and total zinc removal, while the soil with higher content of organic matter is contributing to total Zn interception. For subsurface runoff, the removal efficiencies of total copper and total zinc can reach to above 95.38% and both vegetation and soil conditions have no significant effects. Vegetation is contributing to copper ion and zinc ion removal significantly. Soil condition is only a significant factor to zinc ion, with higher content of organic matter as a contributing factor.

This paper describes a project to generate organ dose data for the purposes of extending VirtualDose software from CT imaging to interventional radiology (IR) applications. A library of 23 mesh-based anthropometric patient phantoms were involved in Monte Carlo simulations for database calculations. Organ doses and effective doses of IR procedures with specific beam projection, filed of view (FOV) and beam quality for all parts of body were obtained. Comparing organ doses for different beam qualities, beam projections, patients’ ages and patient’s body mass indexes (BMIs) which generated by VirtualDose-IR, significant discrepancies were observed. For relatively long time exposure, IR doses depend on beam quality, beam direction and patient size. Therefore, VirtualDose-IR, which is based on the latest anatomically realistic patient phantoms, can generate accurate doses for IR treatment. It is suitable to apply this software in clinical IR dose management as an effective tool to estimate patient doses and optimize IR treatment plans.

A group of mesh-based and age-dependent family phantoms for Chinese populations were developed in this study. We implemented a method for deforming original RPI-AM and RPI-AF models into phantoms of different ages: 5, 10 ,15 and adult. More than 120 organs for each model were processed to match with the values of the Chinese reference parameters within 0.5%. All of these phantoms were then converted to voxel format for Monte Carlo simulations. Dose coefficients for adult models were counted to compare with those of RPI-AM and RPI-AF. The results show that there are significant differences between absorbed doses of RPI phantoms and these of our adult phantoms at low energies. Comparisons for the dose coefficients among different ages and genders were also made. it was found that teenagers receive more radiation doses than adults under the same irradiation condition. This set of phantoms can be utilized to estimate dosimetry for Chinese population for radiation protection, medical imaging, and radiotherapy.

Word segmentation is an important support of semantic analysis, Machine Translation, QA, knowledge mapping research work, mainly used in information retrieval, text processing, data processing and many other areas of Natural Language Processing. Therefore, the realization of word segmentation is a very meaningful work. The method of this paper is to segment the syllables of the text corpus of Lao language and complete the maximal matching of syllables and dictionaries. Then match the results of the word segmentation and the error dictionary, and correct some wrong words by the error dictionary. Finally, we use regular expressions to match the corresponding word strings in segmentation results and correct the wrong words by some artificially formulated rules of the alphabet, numbers, etc. in the Lao language. It can improve the efficiency and accuracy rate of Laos Word Segmentation.

In the title compound, C31H34N2O7, the fused tetrahydrofuran and six-membered rings each display an envelope conformation. The dihedral angles between the benzene ring of the benzo[d][1,3]dioxole and the other two benzene rings are 89.68 (3) and 63.38 (2)°. In the crystal, weak intermolecular C—H...O hydrogen bonds link the molecules.

China is increasingly confronted with serious water shortages, so rainwater harvesting and utilization have gradually received attention with advantages such as accessibility, simple operation and low cost. The harvested rainwater can be used for drinking, irrigation, municipal greening, etc., and when applied for drinking, the demand for water quality is highest. Most existing researches have put their focus on improving the accumulation of rainwater, but there is a lack of in-depth studies on how to enhance the quality of rainwater. Based on the above considerations, this paper, by summing up the situation of rainwater harvesting and utilization in China, has systematically analyzed the system components of rainwater harvesting for drinking, i.e., the consisting units of rainwater harvesting, delivering, processing and accumulating. It also explains the sources of rainwater pollution and how to deal with it. Considering that the water harvesting system can make a contribution to the society and public welfare, this paper proposes a framework of participatory management for projects of rainwater harvesting for drinking.

Some of our recent studies on hohlraum physics are presented, mainly including simulation study on hohlraum physics experiments on SGIII prototype, the design of Au + U + Au sandwich hohlraum for ignition target, and an initial design of elliptical hohlraum and pertinent drive laser power in order to generate an ignition radiation profile.

Besides the routinely used broad-band x-ray spectrometer (Dante or SXS), ablative shock-wave method is often used to diagnose the radiation fields of laser-driven Hohlraums. The x-ray ablation process of Aluminum and Titanium is studied numerically with a 1-D radiation hydrodynamic code RDMG [F. Tinggui et al., Chin. J. Comput. Phys. 16, 199 (1999)], based on which a new scaling relation of the equivalent radiation temperature with the ablative shock velocity in Aluminum plates is proposed, and a novel method is developed for determining simultaneously the radiation temperature and the M-band (2-4 keV) fraction in laser-driven gold Hohlraums.