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Additional file 7: Table S1. Clinical characteristic data of patients and normal controls.

Additional file 8: Table S2. Summary of standard products for lipid.

The goal of this study is to formulate a pyrotechnic mixture that emits strongly in the ultraviolet (specifically, UVA) spectrum (i.e., 315-400 nm). This goal was accomplished by testing several formulations using a UV-VIS spectrometer to examine emission spectra upon combustion. The candidate formulations used either aluminum or magnesium powders as the fuel material and were combined with several different solid oxidizers to synthesize a total of 17 candidate formulations. Results showed that the high temperature emission of magnesium oxide was the key ingredient for enhancing UVA emission. Thermal equilibrium chemical modeling using REAL code software shows that the flame temperature needs to be greater than 2369 K for MgO emission to be achieved. Also, UVA emission was shown to be a strong function of stoichiometry. For example, the formulation including Mg/KClO4 produces significant MgO at elevated temperatures to emit well in the UVA. As this mixture becomes increasingly fuel rich, emission intensity is optimized. The additional Mg from the fuel rich mixture combines with oxygen from air to produce greater concentration of MgO that optimize the overall emission intensity. This study provides a foundational understanding on how to use a thermite reaction properties such as adiabatic flame temperature at stoichiometry to engineer a specific response, in this case heightened UVA emission.

The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility and safety of high intensity focused ultrasound's (HIFU) in pancreatic diseases. Twelve pigs were divided into three groups. The pancreases of pigs in Group A were ablated directly with HIFU, but those in Group B and C ablated by extracorporeal HIFU. The pigs in Group C were sacrificed at day 7 after HIFU. Serological parameters were determined pre-operation and post-operation. The entire pancreas was removed for histological examination. Each animal tolerate the HIFU ablation well. The complete necrosis was observed in targeted regions. The margins of the necrotic regions were clearly delineated from the surrounding normal tissues. Infiltration of inflammatory cells and phorocytosis on the boundary were found in group C. Blood and urine amylase levels were relatively steady after HIFU. No acute pancreatitis or severe complications occurred. In conclusion, HIFU ablation on the pancreas was safe and effective in experimental pigs.

A new algorithm to exploit the learning rates of gradient descent method is presented, based on the second-order Taylor expansion of the error energy function with respect to learning rate, at some values decided by “award-punish” strategy. Detailed deduction of the algorithm applied to RBF networks is given. Simulation studies show that this algorithm can increase the rate of convergence and improve the performance of the gradient descent method.

In phase space reconstruction of time series, the selection of embedding dimension is important. Based on the idea of checking the behavior of near neighbors in the reconstruction dimension, a new method to determine proper minimum embedding dimension is constructed. This method has a sound theoretical basis and can lead to good result. It can indicate the noise level in the data to be reconstructed, and estimate the reconstruction quality. It is applied to speech signal reconstruction and the generic embedding dimension of speech signals is deduced.