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In the forming process of fiber-reinforced metal laminates (FMLs) product, the exploratory compound forming technology, including hot stamping of aluminum alloy and laying process of fiber prepreg which is named HFQ-FMLs was proposed to solve the puzzles such as weak rigidity, low strength and integration deformation with large difficulty, and the feasibility and mechanical properties of the innovative forming process were studied. Firstly, based on the modified metal volume fraction formula, the theoretical values of the mechanical properties of the HFQ-FMLs plates were calculated. Compared with the experimental results, the minimum error is 1%, proving that the HFQ-FMLs technology scheme is feasible. Secondly, three kinds of metal sheets with different heat treatments and specimens by HFQ-FMLs were carried out for the tensile tests, the mechanical properties distributions were demonstrated, and the influence regularity of the strain rate and rolling direction on the stress analysis was considered at the same time. As can be seen from the distribution of yield strength and tensile strength, the yield stress of metal sheets obtained by HFQ-FMLs technology along the 45° is superior to the raw material and can increase by 46% under strain rate = 0.01 s−1. While, because the vacuum thermal curing treatment makes the aluminum alloy happen double aging, the metal sheet strength dropped, and the jointing strength between the metal and fiber prepreg became weak too, which made the strength limit of the new material improve weakly. Thirdly, the fractured style of the FMLs under different conditions was studied qualitatively. It is helpful to achieve the development rule of defects, optimize the craft route, and avoid deformation failure. more...

In many recommendation scenarios, the interactions between users and items are divided into a series of sessions according to the time interval. The traditional Recurrent Neural Network has some shortcomings, such as limited memory ability, inflexible access to memory data, and obvious deficiency in feature capture for long sequences. To deal with the mentioned issues, we propose a hierarchical network with user memory matrix, named HNUM2, which utilizes the memory network to store users' long-term and short-term interests. The memory network is more flexible to access memory data, which can solve the problem of insufficient capture of long sequence features. The proposed model is a hierarchical recommendation algorithm, which consists of two layers. The first layer is the session-level GRU model, which obtains the sequence characteristics of the current session to predict the next item. The second layer is the user-level memory network model which exploits the attention mechanism and incorporates the write module and read module. The experimental results on two public available datasets show that HNUM2 has achieved significant performance improvement comparing to the state-of-the-art methods. more...

We reported an 85-year-old patient with malignant glomus tumor (GT) of the prostate. He presented with urinary frequency for more than 2 years and gross hematuria for 7 days. Computed tomography scan showed that the prostate was markedly irregularly enlarged, and the boundary between the prostate and the posterior wall of the bladder was unclear. Bilateral kidneys and ureters were dilated. Biochemical examinations showed that the serum potassium was 7.24 mmol/L and the serum creatinine was 974.6 μmol/L. Transurethral diagnostic resection was performed after restoring homeostasis through several times of bedside blood filtration. The pathological diagnosis was malignant GT. The patient’s renal function recovered after bilateral nephrostomy, and he refused further treatment and was out of contact after 9 months. We summarize the clinical and histopathological features of malignant GT of the prostate in order to improve the early recognition of the disease by clinicians. more...

With the rapid development of cloud computing technology, online recommendation services have been a new trend for providing specific information on topics such as lifestyle, fashion news and a variety of other activities. Recommendation algorithm is crucially important for the delivery of personalized services to users. Currently, the key important problem is how to improve the quality of online recommendation services. To solve the problem of goods popularity bias, this paper introduces the prevalence of items into user interest model, and proposes an item popularity model based on user interest feature. Usually, traditional models do not consider the stable of users’ interests, which may make it hard to capture their interest. To deal with the above situation, we propose a time-sensitive and stable interest similarity model to calculate the similarity of user interest. Furthermore, a novel algorithm termed as item popularity similarity with time sensitivity (IPSTS)is proposed by combining the above two kinds of similarity model, and they are assigned different weight factors to balance their impacts. In this paper, we conduct the comparative experiments to evaluate the proposed approach and the traditional collaborative filtering algorithms. The final experimental results indicate that IPSTS can effectively reduce the value of Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). more...

Microsporidia, as unicellular eukaryotes, also have an endomembrane system for transporting proteins, which is essentially similar to those of other eukaryotes. In eukaryotes, coat protein complex II (COPII) consists of Sar1, Sec23, Sec24, Sec13, and Sec31 and mediates protein transport from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) to the Golgi apparatus. Sar1 is the central player in the regulation of coat protein complex II vesicle formation in the endoplasmic reticulum. In this study, we successfully cloned the more...

As one of the core framework proteins of nuclear pore complex (NPC), nucleoporin Nupl70 acts as a structural adapter between the nucleolus and nuclear pore membrane and maintains the stability of NPC structure through interaction with other proteins. In this study, we identified a Nup170 protein in the microsporidian Nosema bombycis for the first time and named it as NbNup170. Secondary structure prediction showed that the NbNup170 contains α-helices and random coils. The three-dimensional structure of NbNup170 is elliptical in shape. Phylogenetic analysis based on the Nup170 and homologous sequences showed that N. bombycis clustered together with Vairimorpha ceranae and Vairimorpha apis. The immunofluorescence localization results showed that the NbNup170 was located on the plasma membrane of the dormant spore and transferred to the surface of sporoplasm in a punctate pattern when the dormant spore has finished germination, and that NbNup170 was distributed on the nuclear membrane and both sides of the nuclei of early proliferative phase, and only on the nuclear membrane during sporogonic phase in the N. bombycis. qPCR analysis showed that the relative expression level of NbNup170 maintained at a low level from 30 to 78 h post-infection with N. bombycis, then reached the highest at 102 h, while that of NbNup170 was repressed at a very low level throughout its life cycle by RNA interference. These results suggested that NbNup170 protein is involved in the proliferative phase and active during the sporogonic phase of N. bombycis. more...

The main function of Sec61 complex is participating in the transport of polypeptide chains across the endoplasmic reticulum. The Sec61α subunit is the largest subunit of the Sec61 complex and shows high degree of conservation. In this study, we identified the NbSec61α and NbSec61γ genes in the microsporidian Nosema bombycis for the first time. Multiple sequence alignment showed that the sequence similarity between NbSec61α and homologous proteins of other microsporidia was greater than 48 %. NbSec61α contains a "plug" domain (amino acids 40-74) unique to the Sec61/SecY complex. Phylogenetic analysis based on NbSec61α and NbSec61γ indicated that the N. bombycis was closely related to Nosema granulosis, Nosema ceranae and Nosema apis. Indirect immunfluorescence assay showed that NbSec61α and NbSec61γ were mainly distributed in the perinuclear region of N. bombycis in different developmental phases. qRT-PCR results revealed that the expression level of NbSec61α gene increased in the early stage and reached the highest at 48 h, then decreased in the late stages. After knockdown of NbSec61α, the expression of NbSec61α, NbSec61γ and NbssrRNA genes were all significantly down-regulated. These results suggest that the NbSec61α and NbSec61γ may play an important role in the intracellular development of N. bombycis. more...

The glass fiber-reinforced metal laminates (GLARE) cannot be used to form complex laminate structures in the aerospace industry, because there is substantial variation in the plasticity of the heterogeneous materials. Hence, a compound process for composite materials based on the thermoforming technology for aluminum alloy and fiber-reinforced metal laminates (FMLs)-forming technology was proposed; it contains solution heat treatment, thermoforming, quick cold die quenching, artificial aging integrated process (HFQ), and the thermal consolidation of fiber-reinforced metal laminates, and it is named the HFQ-FMLs forming process. In order to test and judge the effect of the heat treatment on the properties of the materials obtained by the new technology, the pure metal sheet and the three kinds of HFQ-FMLs composite laminates fabricated with the different layup method were assessed with the Vickers hardness test and the Charpy impact test at the same time, and they were labeled #1, #2, #3, #4, respectively. In the Charpy impact test, in order to obtain accurate data, the shape and fixing position of the specimen was optimized so that the gap direction was parallel to the loading direction. After the heat treatment, the properties of the aluminum alloy were improved, the hardness will affect the energy absorption of the laminates, and the relationship between the thickness, hardness and impact properties will be analyzed. The hardness test results are 39.9 HV, 37.5 HV, 37.4 HV, 37.1 HV which indicates the pure metal sheet had the greatest hardness, and the greater the thickness of fiber layer, the lower was the hardness of the HFQ-FMLs composite laminate. The impact resistance of the HFQ-FMLs composite laminates was about two times of the pure metal sheet for the same thickness, and the values are 2.3 J, 4.8 J, 4.8 J, 4.8 J, respectively. In addition, the method of laying the fiber layer had no effect on the impact resistance of the composite laminates. For the novel composite laminates subjected to different cutting processes, the scanning electron microscope (SEM) results for the incision morphology suggest that the water cutting process ensures the structural integrity of the composite laminates after the edges’ and holes’ cutting procedures, and the performance maintains continuity. more...

Background. Bladder cancer (BCa) is one of the most prevalent cancers occurring in the urinary system. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), in recent years, have emerged as crucial regulators in various biological processes of tumors. Aim. To identify the role of MIR4435-2 host gene (MIR4435-2HG) and uncover its molecular mechanism in BCa. Methods. Firstly, quantitative real-time PCR (RT-qPCR) analysis was used to examine MIR4435-2HG expression in BCa cells. Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8), 5-ethynyl-2 ′ -deoxyuridine (EdU), wound healing, and transwell assays were implemented to identify the role of MIR4435-2HG in BCa. RNA-binding protein immunoprecipitation (RIP), RNA pull down, and luciferase reporter assays were applied to explore the potential mechanism of MIR4435-2HG in BCa. Results. MIR4435-2HG was highly expressed in BCa. Moreover, MIR4435-2HG silencing abrogated BCa cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. In terms of underlying mechanism, MIR44352HG acted as a microRNA-2467-3p (miR-2467-3p) sponge to control the expression of IQ motif containing GTPase activating protein 3 (IQGAP3) and cell division cycle associated 5 (CDCA5), resulting in activation of the rat sarcoma virus (Ras)/rapidly accelerated fibrosarcoma (Raf)/mitogen-activated protein kinase (MEK)/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) and PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathways. Conclusion. MIR4435-2HG involves in the progression of BCa, which might provide novel insights for BCa treatment. more...

As a typical species of microsporidium, Nosema bombycis is the pathogen causing the pébrine disease of silkworm. Rapid proliferation of N. bombycis in host cells requires replication of genetic material. As eukaryotic origin recognition protein, origin recognition complex (ORC) plays an important role in regulating DNA replication, and Orc1 is a key subunit of the origin recognition complex. In this study, we identified the Orc1 in the microsporidian N. bombycis (NbOrc1) for the first time. The NbOrc1 gene contains a complete ORF of 987 bp in length that encodes a 328 amino acid polypeptide. Indirect immunofluorescence results showed that NbOrc1 were colocalized with Nbactin and NbSAS-6 in the nuclei of N. bombycis. Subsequently, we further identified the interaction between the NbOrc1 and Nbactin by CO-IP and Western blot. These results imply that Orc1 may be involved in the proliferation of the microsporidian N. bombycis through interacting with actin. more...

Background: Interstitial cystitis (IC) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the bladder, while both Chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 7 (CXCL-7) and Galectin-3 are the molecule related inflammatory diseases.Objective: This study sought to investigate the potential feasibility of diagnosis of interstitial cystitis by measurement of the urinary level of Chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 7 (CXCL-7) and Galectin-3.Methods: Both interstitial cystitis patients with or without Hunner’s ulcers were recruited in the study, while healthy subjects were involved as controls. Then we collected urine samples from all the involved subjects, and the CXCL-7 level and Galectin-3 level in the supernatants of urine were measured by ELISA. Urinary creatinine concentrations (mg Cr) of involved subjects were measured to normalize the level of CXCL-7 and Galectin-3. Also the clinical data and demographic characteristics of the recruited subjects were collected. The Receiver-operating curve (ROC) analysis was performed to explore the sensitivity and specialty of both CXCL-7 and Galectin-3 to identify interstitial cystitis. And the associations between urinary levels (CXCL-7 or Galectin-3) and the symptom severity (O'Leary and Sant Symptom, OSSI index) were analyzed with linear regression.Results: The urinary levels of both CXCL-7 and Galectin-3 were significantly increased in interstitial cystitis compared to the healthy controls. The urinary CXCL-7 showed the sensitivity of 59.5% and specificity of 94.6%, at the cut-off value 21.30 pg/mg Cr to discriminate interstitial cystitis from controls, while the urinary Galectin-3 level showed the sensitivity of 62.2% and specificity of 91.9%, at the cut-off value 11.32 pg/mg Cr to discriminate interstitial cystitis from controls. Urinary Galectin-3 level was higher in interstitial cystitis patients with Hunner’s ulcers compared to patients without Hunner’s ulcers. The sensitivity and specificity were 45.5% and 93.3%, respectively for urinary CXCL-7 to discriminate from interstitial cystitis patients with Hunner’s ulcers to patients without Hunner’s ulcers, at the cut-off value of 35.97 pg/mg Cr. In addition, the urinary Galectin-3 level was positive correlated with the symptom severity.Conclusion: CXCL-7 and Galectin-3 were elevated in the interstitial cystitis patients, both of which could be supplementary biomarker for diagnosis of interstitial cystitis. Moreover, urinary CXCL-7 might serve as the biomarker to decimate interstitial cystitis with Hunner ‘s ulcers from the without Hunner’s ulcers. more...

Objective To determine the impact of preoperative stent placement on postradiotherapy stricture rate in patients with cervical cancer after radical resection. Methods This study was a retrospective analysis of data collected from 55 cervical cancer patients treated with radiotherapy between June 2016 and June 2020. Patients were divided into the stent and control groups. After 3 months, the stricture rate and the complications related to stent placement between the two groups were compared. Results There were 12 (46.2%) and 10 (34.5%) cases of ureteral stricture in the stent (n = 26) and control (n = 29) groups, respectively, three months after the end of radiotherapy. The incidence rates of ureter stricture in the two groups were not significantly different (P = 0.378). Moreover, there were 20 units (38.5%) and 15 units (25.9%) ureteral strictures in the stent and control groups, respectively. No significant difference in the incidence rates of ureteral strictures was found between the two groups (P = 0.157). There were 13 (50.0%) and 10 (34.5%) cases of ureteral stricture in the stent (n = 26) and control (n = 29) groups, respectively, six months after the end of the radiotherapy. The incidence rates of ureter stricture in the two groups were not significantly different (P = 0.244). Moreover, there were 21 units (40.4%) and 15 units (25.9%) ureteral strictures in the stent and control groups, respectively. No significant difference in the incidence rates of ureteral strictures was found between the two groups (P = 0.105). Complications related to stent placement such as urinary tract infections and bladder irritation were statistically significant (P = 0.006 and P = 0.036) between the two groups; while the other complications were not significantly different (P = 0.070, P = 0.092 and P = 0.586). Conclusions Ureteral stents may not reduce the incidence of ureteral stricture after radiotherapy in patients with cervical cancer. The stent needs to be replaced regularly, and the complications related to stent placement may occur at any time. Thus, preoperative stent placement should be cautious for the clinical management of cervical cancer patients treated with postoperative radiotherapy. more...

In this study, by rearranging the typical pyramid lattice structure of carbon fibre reinforced polymer composites to obtain a small node distance and simplify the fabrication procedure, a new type of pyramid lattice structure is designed and fabricated using the snap-fit method. The flatwise compression and bending properties of the new pyramid lattice structure are studied experimentally. The results show that the compression failure mode of the lattice structure is truss fracture, while the bending failure mode is truss fracture and debonding between face sheets and cores. The damage distribution of the fibre and matrix in the lattice structure core is obtained via a finite element simulation, and it is found that there are differences in the ply damage with different fibre directions. In addition, the influence of the core truss length and layering direction on compression and bending properties of the structure are analysed using a finite element simulation. more...

To accurately reconstruct the three-dimensional (3D) surface of dynamic objects, we proposed a wrapped phase extraction method for spatiotemporal analysis based on 3D wavelet transform (WT). Our proposed method uses a 2D spatial fringe image combined with the time dimension and forms a 3D image sequence. The encoded fringe image sequence’s wrapped phase information was extracted by 3D WT and complex Morlet wavelet, and we improved the wrapped phase extraction’s accuracy by using the characteristics of spatiotemporal analysis and a multi-scale analysis of 3D WT, then we reconstructed the measured object by wrapped phase unwrapping and phase height transformation. Our simulation experiment results show that our proposed method can further filter the noise in the time dimension, and its accuracy is better than that of the one- (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) WT wrapped phase extraction method and the 3D Fourier transform wrapped phase extraction method because the reconstructed spherical crown’s RMSE value does not exceed 0.25 and the PVE value is less than 0.95. Our results show that the proposed method can be applied to the dynamic 3D reconstruction of a real human thoracic and abdominal surface, which fluctuates slowly with respiration movement, further verifying its effectiveness. more...

Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) is used to treat prostate cancer (PCa). However, ADT may increase the expression of androgen receptor (AR) through the amplification of chromosome X. The gene oligophrenin 1 (OPHN1) is located in the same region as the AR gene, which could be amplified by ADT. Thus, the role of OPHN1 in PCa pathology was investigated. The expression status of OPHN1 in PCa was searched in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Androgen‑sensitive cells LNCaP and 22RV1 were cultured under ADT conditions, and then the expression of OPHN1 was evaluated by northern blotting. The expression of OPHN1 was enhanced or knocked down in LNCaP and 22RV1 cells by transfection. Subsequently, the LNCaP and 22RV1 cells were cultured under ADT, and the viability rate, apoptosis, and migration of cells were assessed by MTT, flow cytometry, and Transwell assay respectively. The expression of OPHN1 was also enhanced or knocked down in androgen‑insensitive PC3 cells, and then the effects of OPHN1 on the viability, apoptosis, and migration of PC3 cells were assessed. A mouse xenograft model was created by injecting LNCaP cells with OPHN1 overexpression subcutaneously, and the tumor growth rates were monitored. In TCGA database, amplification of the OPHN1 gene was observed in the PCa tumors. ADT increased the expression of OPHN1 in LNCaP and 22RV1 cells (P more...

To further improve the hardness of the laser cladding layer on the surface of the vermicular graphite cast iron, the structural parameters of the laser cladding Co-base were designed and optimized, and the properties of the clad layer were evaluated using optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), electrochemical workstation, and friction wear equipment. The results show that the average hardness of the molten layer of Ni and Co-based composite cladding layer is 504 HV0.5, which is 0.64 times that of the Co-based cladding layer due to the combined factors of Ni-Cr-Fe equivalent to the dilution of the Ni-based cladding layer to the Co-based cladding layer. Due to the potential difference of the Ni, Cr, and Co elements on the surface of the cladding layer, the self-corrosion potential of the Ni and Co-based composite cladding layer is 1.08 times that of the Co-based cladding layer, and the self-corrosion current density is 0.51 times. Laser cladding Co-based cladding layer has high corrosion resistance. Under the influence of plastic deformation and oxidative wear of the cladding layer of the Ni and Co-based composite cladding layer, the wear amount of the cladding layer of the Ni and Co-based composite cladding layer is less. more...

In accordance with the requirement of manufacturing dies quickly and economically, a hybrid forming method of stamping dies for automobile panels is proposed. The method combines digital patternless casting and high-power laser cladding. An experimental study is conducted on the hybrid forming process and its trial production and application in the manufacturing of stamping dies for typical panels. Results prove that the laser cladding layer exceeds HRC60 (Rockwell hardness) and thus meets the production efficiency requirement of automobile dies. The rate of defects is well controlled. Compared with traditional technology, this technology has remarkable advantages and advancement. more...

A Ni25—10% SiC—X% graphene (mass fraction X = 0, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5) composite cladding layer was prepared on a 6063 aluminum alloy substrate using laser cladding in order to enhance the comprehensive performance of the aircraft refueling interface. The effect of the graphene content on the organization and properties of nickel-based silicon carbide composite cladding layers was investigated by laser melting. The macroscopic morphology, microstructure, hardness, elemental changes, corrosion and wear resistance of the cladding layer were studied by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, a hardness tester, an X-ray diffractometer, an electrochemical workstation and an M-2000 frictional wear tester. The results indicated that the nickel-based clad layer without graphene incorporation had the worst forming, with a large number of pores and cracks in the cladding layer. Because graphene agglomerated easily, cracks were regenerated when the content of graphene was higher than 0.5%. The material phases of the cladding layer without graphene incorporation were mainly: Al3Ni2, Fe3Si and SiC. Due to the addition of graphene, the clad layer of specimen 2 was refined and a large number of hard phases, such as CrC and Cr23C6, were generated, which led to the increase in the hardness of the clad layer. When the content of graphene was further increased, the number of hard phases such as CrC and Cr23C6 produced in the cladding was relatively reduced due to the agglomeration of graphene, and the hardness of the cladding was reduced. As the impermeability of graphene reduces the diffusion of corrosive media to the substrate, the generation of hard-phase Al3Ni2 in the cladding layer makes the corrosion resistance of the cladding layer increase with the increase in graphene mass fraction. The result is that, when the content of graphene was 0.5%, the overall performance of the clad layer was the best, where its average hardness was increased by 40%, the average coefficient of friction was reduced by 12.7% and the wear rate was reduced by 60%. more...

The chaperonin-containing t-complex polypeptide 1 (CCT) is a molecular chaperone protein that is widely present in eukaryotic cytoplasm and can assist in the folding of newly synthesized proteins. The CCT complex consists of eight completely different subunits, among which the δ subunit plays an extremely important role in the folding and assembly of cytoskeleton proteins as an individual or complex with other subunits. In this study, we identified the CCTδ in the microsporidian Nosema bombycis (NbCCTδ) for the first time. The NbCCTδ gene contains a complete ORF of 1497 bp in length that encodes a 498 amino acid polypeptide. NbCCTδ is expressed throughout the entire lifecycle of N. bombycis and rather higher in early stage of proliferation. Indirect immunofluorescence results showed that NbCCTδ was colocalized with actin and β-tubulin during the proliferative and sporogonic phases of N. bombycis. RNA interference down-regulated the expression of the NbCCTδ gene. These results imply that NbCCTδ may participate in cytoskeleton formation and proliferation of N. bombycis. more...

The cross-modal retrieval task can return different modal nearest neighbors, such as image or text. However, inconsistent distribution and diverse representation make it hard to directly measure the similarity relationship between different modal samples, which causes a heterogeneity gap. To bridge the above-mentioned gap, we propose the deep adversarial learning triplet similarity preserving cross-modal retrieval algorithm to map different modal samples into the common space, allowing their feature representation to preserve both the original inter- and intra-modal semantic similarity relationship. During the training process, we employ GANs, which has advantages in modeling data distribution and learning discriminative representation, in order to learn different modal features. As a result, it can align different modal feature distributions. Generally, many cross-modal retrieval algorithms only preserve the inter-modal similarity relationship, which makes the nearest neighbor retrieval results vulnerable to noise. In contrast, we establish the triplet similarity preserving function to simultaneously preserve the inter- and intra-modal similarity relationship in the common space and in each modal space, respectively. Thus, the proposed algorithm has a strong robustness to noise. In each modal space, to ensure that the generated features have the same semantic information as the sample labels, we establish a linear classifier and require that the generated features’ classification results be consistent with the sample labels. We conducted cross-modal retrieval comparative experiments on two widely used benchmark datasets—Pascal Sentence and Wikipedia. For the image to text task, our proposed method improved the mAP values by 1% and 0.7% on the Pascal sentence and Wikipedia datasets, respectively. Correspondingly, the proposed method separately improved the mAP values of the text to image performance by 0.6% and 0.8% on the Pascal sentence and Wikipedia datasets, respectively. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is better than the other state-of-the-art methods. more...

To compare the influence of three operative approaches [transurethral en bloc resection of bladder tumor by pin-shaped electrode (pin-ERBT), transurethral resection of bladder tumor (TURBT) and transurethral holmium laser resection of bladder tumor (HoLRBT)] on the recurrence rate of non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) at low dimension (i.e. diameter below 3 cm).A retrospective analysis was conducted for a total of 115 patients affected by solitary NMIBC, with a diameter3 cm, who were submitted to operation between March 2013 to May 2017. The patients were divided according to the operative method applied (pin-ERBT, TURBT and HoLRBT groups, respectively). The 2-year recurrence rate was compared among the three groups, and multivariat Cox hazard model analysis was applied to analyze the influencing factor(s) for postoperative recurrence.The 2-year recurrence rate was 10.0% in ERBT, 38.5% in TURBT and 40.0% in HoLRBT group, with a significant difference (P =0.014). According to the Cox hazard model analysis, age(HR=1.058, 95% CI: 1.019~1.098，P=0.003), operative method(HR=2.974,6.508, 95% CI: 0.862~10.255,1.657~25.566, P=0.023), smoking(HR=2.399, 95% CI: 1.147~5.017, P=0.020) and pathological grade(HR=2.012,95% CI: 1.279~3.165, P=0.002) were risk factors for postoperative recurrence of bladder cancer.Pin-ERBT can prominently decrease the postoperative recurrence rate of solitary NMIBC with a diameter3 cm. more...

Due to its high query speed and low storage cost, binary hashing has been widely used in approximate nearest neighbors (ANN) search. However, the binary bits are generally considered to be equal, which causes data points with different codes to share the same Hamming distance to the query sample. To solve the above distance measure ambiguity, bitwise weights methods were proposed. Unfortunately, in most of the existing methods, the bitwise weights and the binary codes are learnt separately in two stages, and their performances cannot be further improved. In this paper, to effectively address the above issues, we propose an adaptive mechanism that jointly generate the bitwise weights and the binary codes by preserving different types of similarity relationship. As a result, the binary codes are utilized to obtain the initial retrieval results, and they are further re-ranked by the weighted Hamming distance. This ANN search mechanism is termed AR-Rank in this paper. First, this joint mechanism allows the bitwise weights and the binary codes to be used as mutual feedback during the training stage, and they are well adapted to one other when the algorithm converges. Furthermore, the bitwise weights are required to preserve the relative similarity which is consistent with the nature of ANN search task. Thus, the data points can be accurately re-sorted based on the weighted Hamming distances. Evaluations on three datasets demonstrate that the proposed AR-Rank retrieval system outperforms nine state-of-the-art methods. more...

The binary coding technique has been widely used in approximate nearest neighbors (ANN) search tasks. Traditional hashing algorithms treat binary bits equally, which usually causes an ambiguous ranking. To solve this issue, we propose an innovative bitwise weight method dubbed minimal residual ordinal loss hashing (MROLH). Different from a two-step mechanism, MROLH simultaneously learns binary codes and bitwise weights by a feedback mechanism. When the algorithm converges, the binary codes and bitwise weights can be well adaptive to each other. Furthermore, we establish the ordinal relation preserving constraint based on quartic samples to enhance the power of preserving relative similarity. To decrease the training complexity, we utilize a tensor ordinal graph to represent quartic ordinal relation, and the original objective function is approximated by the one based on triplet samples. In this paper, we also assign different weight values to training samples. During the training procedure, the weight of each data is initialized to the same value, and we iteratively boost the weight of the data whose relative similarity is not well preserved. As a result, we can minimize the residual ordinal loss. Experimental results on three large-scale ANN search benchmark datasets, i.e., SIFT1M, GIST1M, and Cifar10, show that the proposed method MROLH achieves a superior ANN search performance in both the Hamming space and the weighted Hamming space over the sate-of-the-art approaches. more...

In recent years, binary coding methods have become increasingly popular for tasks of searching approximate nearest neighbors (ANNs). High-dimensional data can be quantized into binary codes to give an efficient similarity approximation via a Hamming distance. However, most of existing schemes consider the importance of each binary bit as the same and treat training samples at different positions equally, which causes many data pairs to share the same Hamming distance and a larger retrieval loss at the top position. To handle these problems, we propose a novel method dubbed by the top-position-sensitive ordinal-relation-preserving bitwise weight (TORBW) method. The core idea is to penalize data points without preserving an ordinal relation at the top position of a ranking list more than those at the bottom and assign different weight values to their binary bits according to the distribution of query data. Specifically, we design an iterative optimization mechanism to simultaneously learn binary codes and bitwise weights, which makes their learning processes related to each other. When the iterative procedure converges, the binary codes and bitwise weights are effectively adapted to each other. To reduce the training complexity, we relax the discrete constraints of both the binary codes and the indicator function. Furthermore, we pretrain a tensor ordinal graph to decrease the time consumption of computing a relative similarity relationship among data points. Experimental results on three large-scale ANN search benchmark datasets, i.e., SIFT1M, GIST1M, and Cifar10, show that the proposed TORBW method can achieve superior performance over state-of-the-art approaches. more...

cir-ITCH, a well-known tumor-suppressive circular RNA, plays a critical role in different cancers. However, its expression and functional role in prostate cancer (PCa) are unclear. Herein, we explored the potential mechanism and tumor-inhibiting role of cir-ITCH in PCa. Using reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction assay, we analyzed the expression of cir-ITCH in PCa and paired adjacent nontumor tissue samples resected during surgical operation, as well as in two cell lines of human PCa (LNCaP and PC-3) and the immortalized normal prostate epithelial cell line (RWPE-1). Cell viability and migration of PCa cell lines were evaluated using CCK-8 and wound-healing assays. Expression of key proteins of the Wnt/β-catenin and PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathways was detected using western blotting. We found that cir-ITCH expression was typically downregulated in the tissues and cell lines of PCa compared to that in the peritumoral tissue and in RWPE-1 cells, respectively. The results showed that cir-ITCH overexpression significantly inhibits the proliferation, migration, and invasion of human PCa cells and that reciprocal inhibition of expression occurred between cir-ITCH and miR-17. Proteins in the Wnt/β-catenin and PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathways were downregulated by overexpression of cir-ITCH both in androgen receptor-positive LNCaP cells and androgen receptor-negative PC-3 cells. Taken together, these data demonstrated that cir-ITCH plays a tumor-suppressive role in human PCa cells, partly through the Wnt/β-catenin and PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathways. Thus, cir-ITCH may serve as a novel therapeutic target for the treatment of PCa, especially castration-resistant prostate cancer. more...

Aiming to solve the problem of goods popularity bias, this paper introduces the prevalence of items into user interest modeling, and proposes an item popularity model based on user interest feature. Usually, traditional model that does not take into account the stability of user’s interests, which leads to the difficulty in capturing their interest. To cope with this limitation, we propose a time-sensitive and stabilized interest similarity model that involves a process of calculating the similarity of user interest. Moreover, by combining those two kinds of similarity model based on weight factors, we develop a novel algorithm for calculation, which is named as IPSTS (IPSTS). To evaluate the proposed approach, experiments are performed and results indicate that Mean Absolute Difference (MAE) and root mean square error (RMSE) could be significantly reduced, when compared with those of traditional collaborative filtering Algorithms. more...

Aims This study aimed to identify suitable datasets for reanalysis and then explore potential key genes and related pathways of interstitial cystitis (IC). Methods We searched the Gene Expression Omnibus database and three expression profile datasets and included 23 lesions of IC and 9 normal tissues in the analysis. Eight urine specimens of patients with IC and five urine specimens of healthy controls were also included. Then, these datasets were reanalyzed to determine the differentially expressed genes (DEGs), which were used to perform Gene Ontology and pathway enrichment analyses. These identified candidate genes were also applied to generate a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. Results Forty-two common DEGs were sorted and identified from two datasets, both of which included the samples of bladder lesions. Based on their functions and signaling pathways, these 42 DEGs are mainly classified as cell-surface proteins and are involved in the immune and inflammatory responses. The PPI network included 41 nodes. In this network, we identified 11 genes as central nodes that are involved in the immune system and the inflammatory response. Furthermore, IC with Hunner's lesions shared the same DEGs with IC without Hunner's lesions. In both subgroups (IC with and without Hunner's lesions), we identified some common DEGs shared between bladder lesions and urine samples. Conclusion Using bioinformatics, we integrated different IC-related datasets and identified potential critical genes involved in IC that may contribute to future research on IC. more...

This paper designs four kinds of three-dimensional negative Poisson’s ratio lattice structures, based on the two-dimensional concave hexagonal negative Poisson’s ratio honeycomb structure. Different parameters are designed for simulation analysis and experimental research, and the influence of different parameters on Poisson’s ratio is studied respectively. The main contents are as follows: Firstly, the three-dimensional solid model of lattice structure is established by modeling software, and the different structural parameters are determined, and the equivalent mechanical model is established. And according to the relevant structural parameters to establish the test scheme. Then, the finite element software is used to simulate the test core material with different parameters. According to the simulation results, the influence of different parameters on Poisson’s ratio is found out. Then the crashworthiness of the test board with different parameters is simulated and analyzed. According to the results, the most suitable structure is selected and applied to the engine hood. Finally, the simulation experiment of collision between pedestrian head and engine hood is carried out. The results of this paper compare the performance of lattice sandwich panels with different parameter structures in different tests and select the optimal combination of structural parameters. The adjustment and optimization direction of the structure is put forward according to the test results. more...

This paper focuses on improving the performance of recommender systems by the use of social trust information. Probabilistic matrix factorization is a classic algorithm for recommender systems. However, both the rating matrix and trust matrix become sparser, which makes the recommended results inaccurate. We propose a hybrid method based on probabilistic matrix factorization and directed trust. First, we apply the probabilistic matrix factorization approach to break down the trust matrix. Thus, the potential preferences of users, considering trusters and trustees, are obtained. This approach alleviates the problem of the sparsity of the trust matrix. Second, to capture the trust relations among users, we modify undirected trust to directed trust, since a user has different preferences when he is treated as a truster or trustee. Last, the two algorithms are combined to predict ratings. Experiments involving two datasets show that the proposed algorithm is superior to existing benchmark algorithms. more...

According to the pedestrian leg protection regulations, a collision with the simplified finite element model of the leg was carried out on the basis of incorporating EPP foam materials with different foaming rates and cushioning into the simplified front-end structure of the car. The results show that the front-end foam energy-absorbing structure of the vehicle cannot meet the pedestrian leg protection regulations. This paper designs a thin-walled steel structure and applies it to the front-end structure of the vehicle. After collision simulation with a simplified finite element model of the leg, the pedestrian’s tibial acceleration, knee joint shear displacement and knee joint bending angle are compared and analyzed. Pedestrian leg injury parameters, the results show that thin-walled steel structure is more suitable for giving full play to the energy absorption effect in an environment with insufficient energy absorption space than foam energy absorption structure. more...

Splicing factors are important components of RNA editing in eukaryotic organisms and can produce many functional and coding genes, which is an indispensable step for the correct expression of corresponding proteins. In this study, we identified splicing factor arginine/serine-rich 10 protein in the microsporidian Nosema bombycis and named it NbSRSF10. The NbSRSF10 gene contains a complete ORF of 1449 bp in length that encodes a 482-amino acid polypeptide. The isoelectric point (pI) of the protein encoded by NbSRSF10 gene was 4.94. NbSRSF10 has a molecular weight of 54.6 kD and has no signal peptide. NbSRSF10 is comprised of arginine (11.41%), glutamic acid (11.41%) and serine (9.54%) among the total amino acids, and 7 α-helix, 7 β-sheet and 15 random coils in secondary structure, and contains 71 phosphorylation sites, 22 N-glycosylation sites and 20 O-glycosylation sites. The three-dimensional structure of NbSRSF10 is similar to that of transformer-2 beta of Homo sapiens (hTra2-β). Indirect immunofluorescence showed that the NbSRSF10 is localized in the cytoplasm of the dormant microsporidian spore and is transferred to the nuclei when N. bombycis develops into the proliferative and sporogonic phase. qPCR revealed that the relative expression of NbSRSF10 increased in the meronts stage and was found at a relatively low level in the sporogonic phase of development of N. bombycis, and was up-regulated again during infection in the host cell and early proliferative phase of second life cycle. These results suggested that the NbSRSF10 may participate in the whole life cycle and play an important role in transcription regulation of N. bombycis. more...

Entosis is a homogeneous cell-in-cell phenomenon and a non-apoptotic cell death process. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors have been used in the treatment of prostate cancer and have already demonstrated efficacy in a clinical setting. The present study investigated the role of entosis in prostate cancer treated with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor nintedanib. Prostate cancer cells were treated with nintedanib in vitro and entosis was observed. Mice xenografts were created to evaluate whether nintedanib is able to induce entosis in vivo. The reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction, western blotting and immunofluorescence were performed to investigate whether the entosis pathway is induced by nintedanib. It was also investigated whether entosis can contribute to cell survival and progression under nintedanib stress, and nintedanib was revealed to enhance prostate cancer cell entosis. Nintedanib-induced entosis in prostate cancer cells occurred through phosphoinositide 3-kinase/cell division cycle 42 (CDC42) inhibition, followed by the upregulation of epithelial (E-)cadherin and components of the Rho kinase (ROCK) signaling pathway. In addition, nintedanib-resistant cells exhibiting entosis had a higher invasive ability. In addition, in vivo treatment of mice xenografts with nintedanib also increased the expression of E-cadherin and components of the ROCK signaling pathway. Nintedanib can promote entosis during prostate cancer treatment by modulating the CDC42 pathway. Furthermore, prostate cancer cells acquired nintedanib resistance and survived by activating entosis. more...

In this paper, an improved reachability algorithm is presented to support automatic generation test suites for conformance testing. To select test cases, coverage criteria is specified formal structural criteria to be fulfilled by the test suite. The result is optimal in the sense that the set of test cases in the test suite which require the shortest possible accumulated time to cover the given coverage criterion. The key features of our technique are: (i) the coverage of given criteria is calculated in an on-the-fly manner, (ii) the sets of covered elements that arise during the analysis is efficiently manipulated, and (iii) requirement specification language is extended to express a variety of coverage criteria. more...

Short linear motifs (SLiMs) play a central role in several biological functions, such as cell regulation, scaffolding, cell signaling, post-translational modification, and cleavage. Identifying SLiMs is an important step for understanding their functions and mechanism. Due to their short length and particular properties, discovery of SLiMs in proteins is a challenge both experimentally and computationally. So far, many existing computational methods adopted many predicted sequence or structures features as input for prediction, there is no report about using position-specific scoring matrix (PSSM) profiles of proteins directly for SLiMs prediction. In this study, we describe a simple method, named as PSSMpred, which only use the evolutionary information generated in form of PSSM profiles of protein sequences for SLiMs prediction. When comparing with other methods tested on the same datasets, PSSMpred achieves the best performances: (1) achieving 0.03–0.1 higher AUC than other methods when tested on HumanTest151; (2) achieving 0.03–0.05 and 0.03–0.06 higher AUC than other methods when tested on ANCHOR-short and ANCHOR-long respectively. more...

Service-oriented computing is a widely adopted paradigm in real applications. Considering the continuous evolution of services, adaptive service composition has always been a major concern. It is a big challenge to adjust the composition to be optimal in real-time. In this paper, a learning automata-based approach is proposed to attack this problem. It consists of two important components: random environment and a learning automaton. The former can be mapped to the service's execution environment. The latter is responsible for the adaptation achievement using reward and penalty functions, while we take the service composition structures into account to compute the usefulness value of all services. At last, simulation study has shown that our approach is efficient to find the optimal (sub-optimal) composition. more...

Web services are becoming more and more widespread as an emerging technology; it is hard to test Web services because they are distributed applications with numerous aspects of runtime behavior that are different from typical applications. This paper presents a new approach to testing Web services based on Extended Finite State Machine (EFSM). Web Services Description Language (WSDL) file alone does not provide dynamic behavior information. This problem can be overcome by appending the formal model of EFSM to standard WSDL, we can generate a set of test cases which has a better test coverage than other methods. Moreover, a procedure for deriving an EFSM model from WSDL specification is provided to help a service provider augment, the EFSM model describing dynamic behaviors of the Web service. To show the efficacy of our approach, we applied our approach to Parlay-X Web services. In this way, we can test Web services with greater confidence in potential fault detection. more...

We propose a service's reputation model in service-oriented environments. The model is built on the base of raters' behavior showing on current rated service and other similar services. Both a rater's credibility and sensitivity are considered in our model at the same time. Furthermore, the latter is first put forward distinguishing among the services to give constructive suggestions for new users. And temporal characteristics of the ratings are considered throughout the model establishment. Experiments are benchmarked to demonstrate that all the factors play an important role in the final reputation of a service. Specially, it is also observed that sensitivity is excellent to increase the distinction of reputations among different services. more...

The order in which test-cases are executed has an influence on the rate at which faults can be detected. In this paper we demonstrate how test-case prioritization can be performed with the use of model-checkers. For this, different well known prioritization techniques are adapted for model-based use. New property based prioritization techniques are introduced. In addition it is shown that prioritization can be done at test-case generation time, thus removing the need for test-suite post-processing. Several experiments for safety-crucial embedded systems are used to show the validity of these ideas. more...

Test case prioritization is a technique to schedule the test case in order to maximize some objective function. Early fault detection can provide a faster feedback generating a scope for debuggers to carry out their task at an early stage. In this paper, a method is proposed to prioritize the test cases for testing component dependency in a Component Based Software Development (CBSD) environment using Greedy Approach. The OIG (Object Interaction Graph) is traversed to calculate the total number of inter component object interactions and intra component object interactions. Depending upon the number of interactions, the objective function is calculated and the test cases are ordered accordingly. This technique is applied to the components developed in Java for a software system and found to be very effective in early fault detection as compared with non-prioritize approach. more...

The self-healing ability is very important for service-oriented systems in a highly dynamic environment. Case-based reasoning is adopted to cope with the component services failing to meet with the functional and nonfunctional requirements in this paper. We take previous failure instances as cases which are stored in a case base. When a new fault occurs, its symptoms are extracted and matched against the case base to look for the most similar case. A case representation and a similarity function are proposed. Meanwhile, a novel reuse approach is designed to find the solutions satisfying the symptoms. Moreover we present a self-healing framework and conduct experiments with real QoS dataset. Experimental results show that case-based reasoning improves the self-healing ability encouragingly. more...

Automated composition of web services is a crucial aspect of web services technology, which gives us the opportunity for selecting new services and best suits our needs at the moment. Doing this automatically would require us to compute our criteria for composing candidate services. In addition, there are challenging issues of correctness and optimality. A framework is designed in this paper represent all criteria guiding the selection of the services as business restriction then choose an optimal set of services to satisfy the customers requirements. This Framework reduces the optimal selection of web services to a constraint satisfaction problem. more...

In a distributed service-oriented computing environment, service consumers like to obtain guarantees related to services which they use provided by web service provider. Web service agreement specification is to define a language and protocol for advertising the capabilities of service providers. As the current version of web service agreement can not provides enough semantic expression. This work extend the original schema of web service agreement for achieve effective semantic matches. The approach of web service agreement matching is presented in this paper is flexible and scalable for abundant and accurate matches. more...

This paper put forward semantic web service matching method based on service hierarchy, the use of OWL reasoning capabilities of auto inn tic concept hierarchy structure, through the concept of mi effective layered coding, will include time consuming to determine the range into a simple comparison. The definition of related concepts on service hierarchy is given and the algorithm construction services hierarchy maps is designed which effectively improve the efficiency of services matching. Experimental results show that service matching method based on service hierarchy compared with other existing service matching methods can respond to service requests in less time and ensure the quality of matches. more...