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• A self-assembled whispering gallery mode microbottle resonator was fabricated. • The proposed microbottle resonator can be used for acetone gas sensing. • The sensor has merits of small size, low cost, and simple manufacture using non-toxic materials. In this paper, an acetone gas sensor based on a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) self-assembled whispering gallery mode (WGM) microbottle resonator coated with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is proposed and demonstrated. The preparation of the PVA self-assembled microresonator and the coating of PDMS are all finished by employing a dip coater. Compared with the PVA microresonator and the PDMS microresonator, the PVA microresonator coated with PDMS shows the highest acetone gas sensitivity, which is up to −6.34 pm/ppm. Besides, it can effectively reduce the effects of humidity on the detection of acetone gas compared to the PVA microresonator. Since the concentration of acetone in breathing gas is an indicator of diabetes, the proposed sensor with the benefits of small size, low cost, and simple manufacture using non-toxic materials presents promising applications for painless and non-invasive diagnosis of diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional ad-hoc network packet scheduling schemes cannot fulfill the requirements of proximity-based ad-hoc social networks (ASNETs) and they do not behave properly in congested environments. To address this issue, we propose a user popularity-based packet scheduling scheme for congestion control in ASNETs called Pop-aware. The proposed algorithm exploits social popularity of sender nodes to prioritize all incoming flows. Pop-aware also provides fairness of service received by each flow. We evaluate the performance of Pop-aware through a series of simulations. In comparison with some existing scheduling algorithms, Pop-aware performs better in terms of control overhead, total overhead, average throughput, packet loss rate, packet delivery rate and average delay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In patients with cirrhosis excessive hemorrhage and the need for blood transfusion are associated with increased postoperative morbidity and mortality as well as a poor long-term outcome. Saline-linked radiofrequency dissecting sealer (TissueLink) is a recent advance in technology that improves hemostasis during difficult liver resections. Preliminary studies have shown that this technique reduces blood loss without inflow occlusion. Patients and methods: A controlled study was performed on 122 consecutive patients with cirrhosis who underwent liver resection for hepatocytotic carcinoma. The outcomes of liver transection with clamp crushing and TissueLink were compared to evaluate which strategy is most beneficial to the patients. Results: Both intraoperative blood loss and blood transfusion requirements were significantly higher in the crushing clamp group than in the TissueLink group (P = 0.047 and P = 0.031, respectively). In addition, a significantly higher number of patients required a blood transfusion in the crushing clamp group (P < 0.001). However, the transection time was significantly faster in the crushing clamp group than in the TissueLink group (P < 0.001). The number of patients that required Pringle''s maneuver was markedly higher in the crushing clamp group (P < 0.001). In addition, the hemostasis time was significantly longer in the crushing clamp group (P < 0.001). The serum aspartate aminotransferase levels 3 and 7 days after surgery were significantly higher in the crushing clamp group than in the TissueLink group (P = 0.035 and P = 0.003, respectively). Serum total bilirubin levels were markedly increased 3 days after surgery in the crushing clamp group than in the TissueLink group (P = 0.011). Biliary leakage occurred in a higher number of crushing clamp patients (six) than TissueLink patients (three), although this difference was not significant. The operative morbidity not including biliary leakage was higher in the crushing clamp group than the TissueLink group (nine patients versus five patients, respectively). Conclusion: This study reveals that the TissueLink procedure has beneficial effects during liver transection under cirrhotic conditions in terms of blood loss and reperfusion-related liver injury. However, this procedure requires a significantly longer transection time of the parenchyma. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The rewarming phase after therapeutic hypothermia in cerebral ischemia appears crucial as rapid rewarming may lead to rebound phenomena and enhance deleterious ischemic effects. We hypothesized that slow and controlled rewarming after moderate hypothermia is superior to fast rewarming in rats subjected to 90 min temporary middle cerebral artery occlusion (tMCAO). Two experiments were designed: (i) 34 rats were randomly assigned to either normothermic treatment, to hypothermia (33°C) with rapid rewarming within 20 min, or to hypothermia with slow rewarming within 2 h after 4 h of hypothermia starting 2 h after tMCAO. Infarct size, neuroscore, myeloperoxidase and aquaporin 4 (AQP4) positive cells were assessed on day 5 after tMCAO. (ii) In 15 rats, striatal cerebral microdialysis was performed from 1.5 h before until 8 h after tMCAO. Total infarct volume was largest in the normothermic group (89.9±16.8 mm3) followed by the fast rewarming group (69.2±12.6 mm3), and a significantly smaller infarct volume in the slow rewarming group (41.1±6.6 mm3, p <0.05). Neurological functions improved in both hypothermia groups at day 5 after tMCAO (Neuroscore median 2.5 in normothermia vs. 1.5 in both hypothermia groups) though without any difference between slowly and fast rewarmed animals. Periinfarct expression of AQP4 was less prominent in slowly rewarmed animals as was the count of MPO-positive cells in subcortical regions. Glutamate release was significantly higher at 4 distinct time points in the control group. Slow rewarming after a period of hypothermia is superior to fast rewarming. It may blunt deleterious rebound effects such as overexpression of AQP4, sustain anti-inflammatory mechanisms and thereby preserve the neuroprotection delivered by hypothermia. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Human adverse drug reactions (ADRs), and in vivo nonclinical adverse and nonadverse findings, were identified in 27 biotherapeutic programs and placed into organ categories to determine translation. The sensitivity of detecting human ADRs was 30.8% with a positive predictive value (PPV) of 53.3% for nonclinical adverse findings; sensitivity increased to 67.3% and PPV fell to 35.0% when including nonadverse findings. Nonclinical findings were associated with a greater likelihood of a human ADR in that organ category, especially for adverse findings [positive likelihood ratio (LR+) >10 (lower 95% confidence interval [CI] of >5)]. The specificity and negative predictive value (NPV) were very high (>85%). A lack of nonclinical findings in an organ category was associated with a lower likelihood of a human ADR in that organ category. About 40–50% of human ADRs and nonclinical adverse findings, and about 30% of nonclinical nonadverse findings, were attributed to pharmacology. Slightly more than half of the human ADRs with a translating nonclinical finding had findings in animals that could be considered very similar. Overall, 38% of nonclinical findings translated to a human ADR at the organ category level. When nonclinical findings did not translate to humans, the cause was usually higher exposures or longer dosing in animals. All programs with human ADRs attributed to immunogenicity also had nonclinical adverse or nonadverse findings related to immunogenicity. Overall, nonclinical adverse and nonadverse findings were useful in predicting human ADRs, especially at an organ category level, and the majority of human ADRs were predicted by nonclinical toxicity studies. • Over 2/3's of human ADRs had translating nonclinical organ category findings. • In 36.5% of findings were very similar between humans and animals. • A lack of nonclinical organ category findings predicted a similar result in humans. • Reasons why nonclinical findings lacked translation to humans were often apparent. • Many findings could not be attributed to pharmacology or immunogenicity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In energy-constrained wireless sensor networks, energy efficiency is critical for prolonging the network lifetime. A family of ant colony algorithms called DAACA for data aggregation are proposed in this paper. DAACA consists of three phases: initialization, packets transmissions and operations on pheromones. In the transmission phase, each node estimates the remaining energy and the amount of pheromones of neighbor nodes to compute the probabilities for dynamically selecting the next hop. After certain rounds of transmissions, the pheromones adjustments are performed, which take the advantages of both global and local merits for evaporating or depositing pheromones. Four different pheromones adjustment strategies which constitute DAACA family are designed to prolong the network lifetime. Experimental results indicate that, compared with other data aggregation algorithms, DAACA shows higher superiority on average degree of nodes, energy efficiency, prolonging the network lifetime, computation complexity and success ratio of one hop transmission. At last, the features of DAACA are analyzed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• A computer-aided expert system was developed to distinguish edible oils. • The contents of fatty acids and quality parameters of edible oils were assessed. • All the unqualified edible oils were screened out and identified. • The identification accuracy for pure and mixed edible oils are over 90%. • The quality information of the edible oils was provided. The advantages of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) such as nondestructive and simultaneous detection, high reproducibility and rapidity make it easily develop the objective and credible methods for food analysis and identification. In this study, we developed a computer-aided, MATLAB-scripted expert system which enables NMR data to distinguish different edible oils and evaluate the quality of edible oils. The NMR spectral data of seven species of most popular vegetable edible oils in China were used to establish the assessment criterions including the content percentage of fatty acids and the quality parameters of edible oils. In our case, the identification accuracy of vegetable origin for the pure edible oils is 95.83% and that for the mixed edible oils is 89.58%, and all the recycled waste cooking oils and fried oils were correctly screened out and identified by the expert system. Further, the quality information of the edible oils was also provided. Our results show that the current expert system is a fast, easy-operated and convenient tool for the adulteration identification and quality control of edible oils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A hybrid fiber-optic sensor consisting of a micro extrinsic Fabry-Perot Interferometer (MEFPI) and an etched fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is proposed, which can measure strain and magnetic field simultaneously. The etched FBG is sealed in a capillary with ferrofluids to detect the surrounding magnetic field. FBG with small diameter will be more sensitive to magnetic field is confirmed by simulation results. The MEFPI sensor that is prepared through welding a short section of hollow-core fiber (HCF) with single-mode fiber (SMF) is effective for strain detection. The experiment shows that strain and magnetic field can be successfully simultaneously detected based on hybrid MEFPI/FBG sensor. The sensitivities of the strain and magnetic field intensity are measured to be up to 1.41 pm/με and 5.11 pm/mT respectively. There is a negligible effect on each other, hence simultaneously measuring strain and magnetic field is feasible. It is anticipated that such easy preparation, compact and low-cost fiber-optic sensors for simultaneous measurement of strain and magnetic field could find important applications in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is known to play a significant role in tumor initiation and metastasis. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) frequently occurs in cirrhotic livers after chronic inflammation, and the SNS is hyperactive in advanced liver cirrhosis. However, it remains unclear whether the SNS promotes hepatocarcinogenesis by modulating chronic liver inflammation. In this study, a retrospective pathological analysis and quantification of sympathetic nerve fiber densities (tyrosine hydroxylase, TH + ) in HCC patients, and diethylnitrosamine (DEN)-induced hepatocarcinogenesis in rats were performed. Our data showed that high density of sympathetic nerve fibers and α1-adrenergic receptors (ARs) of Kupffer cells (KCs) were associated with a poor prognosis of HCC. Sympathetic denervation or blocking of α1-ARs decreased DEN-induced HCC incidence and tumor development. In addition, synergistic effects of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) in hepatocarcinogenesis were observed. The suppression of the SNS reduced IL-6 and TGF-β expression, which suppressed hepatocarcinogenesis, and KCs play a key role in this process. After the ablation of KCs, IL-6 and TGF-β expression and the development of HCC were inhibited. This study demonstrates that sympathetic innervation is crucial for hepatocarcinogenesis and that the SNS promotes hepatocarcinogenesis by activating α1-ARs of KCs to boost the activation of KCs and to maintain the inflammatory microenvironment. These results indicate that sympathetic denervation or α1-ARs blockage may represent novel treatment approaches for HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The disease-causing gene which underlies a naturally occurring X-linked mutant cone dysfunction Sprague–Dawley rat model was investigated. Full-field electroretinogram (ERG) and simple sequence length polymorphism analyses were applied to 441-second filial generation rats that were derived from crossing a mutant rat and a Brown–Norway rat. After identifying a mutation mapping within the telomeric region of chromosome X, a candidate gene related to retinal cone function in this region was further screened using real-time PCR, immunohistochemistry and histological methods. The results showed that a G-to-T substitution at the splice acceptor site of intron 4 was present in the opsin 1, medium-wave sensitive (Opn1mw) gene, thereby causing down-regulated transcription and translation. These changes were consistent with abnormities seen in the ERG response. However, there was no significant histological change in the mutant rat retina. Therefore, we infer from this that the causative gene for the mutation is Opn1mw and consequently term this a middle-wavelength opsin cone dysfunction (MCD) rat model. The deficiency in vision of the MCD rat is similar to the color vision defects that occur in humans with a color vision defect but without recessive retinal degeneration. This rat model may be useful for understanding the mechanism that is responsible for color vision and for developing clinical therapies for several retinal dystrophies caused by cone opsin deficiencies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]