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For the case that two pursuers intercept an evasive target, the cooperative strategies and state estimation methods taken by pursuers can seriously affect the guidance accuracy for the target, which performs a bang For the case that two pursuers intercept an evasive target, the cooperative strategies and state estimation methods taken by pursuers can seriously affect the guidance accuracy for the target, which performs a bang-bang evasive maneuver with a random switching time. Combined Fast multiple model adaptive estimation (Fast MMAE) algorithm, the cooperative guidance law takes detection configuration affecting the accuracy of interception into consideration. Introduced the detection error model related to the line-of-sight (LOS) separation angle of two interceptors, an optimal cooperative guidance law solving the optimization problem is designed to modulate the LOS separation angle to reduce the estimation error and improve the interception performance. Due to the uncertainty of the target bang-bang maneuver switching time and the effective fitting of its multi-modal motion, Fast MMAE is introduced to identify its maneuver switching time and estimate the acceleration of the target to track and intercept the target accurately. The designed cooperative optimal guidance law with Fast MMAE has better estimation ability and interception performance than the traditional guidance law and estimation method via Monte Carlo simulation.

PURPOSEWe aimed to differentiate tuberculous peritonitis (TBP) from peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) using a visual positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) scoring system based on mesenteric fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake.METHODSPET/CT scans from 31 patients with TBP and 92 patients with PC were retrospectively reviewed. A visual PET/CT scoring system for mesenteric FDG uptake was used according to the following characteristics: FDG uptake intensity (low = 0, moderate = 1, high = 2), FDG uptake deposits (uniform = 0, irregular = 1, ascitic = 2), FDG uptake focality (diffuse = 0, segmental = 1, focal = 2), nodularity on the corresponding CT (nonnodular = 0, micronodular = 1, macronodular = 2) and mesenteric lymphadenopathy (absent = 0, lymphadenopathy without FDG uptake = 1, lymphadenopathy with FDG uptake = 2). The FDG uptake intensity, deposits, focality, nodularity and mesenteric lymphadenopathy scores between TBP and PC were compared using chi-square tests. The diagnostic performance of this scoring system for differentiating TBP from PC was analyzed using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.RESULTSTwenty-four patients with TBP (77.4%) and 56 patients with PC (60.9%) had mesenteric FDG uptake (P = 0.095) and were included for evaluation with the visual PET/CT scoring system. PC lesions scored higher than TBP lesions in FDG uptake deposits (P < 0.001), focality (P < 0.001) and nodularity (P < 0.001). No significant differences were observed between PC and TBP lesions in FDG uptake intensity (P = 0.396) and lymphadenopathy (P = 0.074). The total score that combined deposits, focality and nodularity had significant value for differentiating TBP from PC (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.869, P < 0.001), and a cutoff > 1 had a sensitivity (the accuracy for diagnosis of PC) of 80.4% and a specificity (the accuracy for diagnosis of TBP) of 75.0%.CONCLUSIONA visual PET/CT scoring system based on mesenteric FDG uptake performed well in differentiating between TBP and PC.

Abstract. Backgrounds. Cervical posterior decompression surgery is used to relieve ventral compression indirectly by incorporating a backward shift of the spinal cord, and this indirect decompression is bound to be limited. This study aimed to determine the decompression limit of posterior surgery and the effect of the decompression range. Methods. We retrospectively reviewed the data of 129 patients who underwent cervical open-door laminoplasty through 2008 to 2012 and were grouped as follows: C4–C7 (n = 11), C3–C6 (n = 61), C3–C7 (n = 32), and C2–C7 (n = 25). According to the relative location of spinal levels within a decompression range, the type of decompression at a given level was categorized as external decompression (ED; achieved at the levels located immediately external to the decompression range margin), internal decompression (ID; achieved at the levels located immediately internal to the decompression range margin), and central decompression (CD; achieved at the levels located in the center, far from the decompression range margin). The vertebral–cord distance (VCD) was used to evaluate the decompression limit. The C2–C7 angle and VCD on post-operative magnetic resonance images were analyzed and compared between groups. The relationship between VCD and decompression type was analyzed. Moreover, the relationship between the magnitude of the ventral compressive factor and the probability of post-operative residual compression at each level for different decompression ranges was studied. Results. There was no significant kyphosis in cervical curvature (> −5°), and there was no significant difference among the groups (F = 2.091, P = 0.105). The VCD of a specific level depended on the decompression type of the level and followed this pattern: ED < ID < CD (P < 0.05). The decompression type of a level was sometimes affected by the decompression range. For a given magnitude of the ventral compressive factor, the probability of residual compression was lower for the group with the larger VCD at this level. Conclusions. Our study suggests that the decompression range affected the decompression limit by changing the decompression type of a particular level. For a given cervical spinal level, the decompression limit significantly varied with decompression type as follows: ED < ID < CD. CD provided maximal decompression limit for a given level. A reasonable range of decompression could be determined based on the relationship between the magnitude of the ventral compressive factor and the decompression limits achieved by different decompression ranges.

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunction may lead to the occurrence of critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency. Critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency can easily occur after traumatic brain injury, but few studies have examined this occurrence. A multicenter, prospective, cohort study was performed to evaluate the function of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the incidence of critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency during the sub-acute phase of traumatic brain injury. One hundred and forty patients with acute traumatic brain injury were enrolled from the neurosurgical departments of three tertiary-level hospitals in China, and the critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency incidence, critical-illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency-related risk factors, complications, and 28-day mortality among these patients was recorded. Critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency was diagnosed in patients with plasma total cortisol levels less than 10 μg/dL (275.9 nM) on post-injury day 4 or when serum cortisol was insufficiently suppressed (less than 50%) during a dexamethasone suppression test on post-injury day 5. The results demonstrated that critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency occurred during the sub-acute phase of traumatic brain injury in 5.6% of patients with mild injury, 22.5% of patients with moderate injury, and 52.2% of patients with severe injury. Traumatic brain injury-induced critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency was strongly correlated to injury severity during the sub-acute stage of traumatic brain injury. Traumatic brain injury patients with critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency frequently presented with hemorrhagic cerebral contusions, diffuse axonal injury, brain herniation, and hypotension. Differences in the incidence of hospital-acquired pneumonia, gastrointestinal bleeding, and 28-day mortality were observed between patients with and without critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency during the sub-acute phase of traumatic brain injury. Hypotension, brain-injury severity, and the types of traumatic brain injury were independent risk factors for traumatic brain injury-induced critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency. These findings indicate that critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency is common during the sub-acute phase of traumatic brain injury and is strongly associated with poor prognosis. The dexamethasone suppression test is a practical assay for the evaluation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis function and for the diagnosis of critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency in patients with traumatic brain injury, especially those with hypotension, hemorrhagic cerebral contusions, diffuse axonal injury, and brain herniation. Sub-acute infection of acute traumatic brain injury may be an important factor associated with the occurrence and development of critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency. This study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of General Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, China in December 2011 (approval No. 201189).

To mitigate the contradiction between scarcity spectrum resources and heavily wireless services, cognitive radio (CR) has been proposed to improve spectrum utilization through allowing CR users to access licensed channels opportunistically. In large-scale networks, spectrum status is not the same at different locations due to the heterogeneity of CR network (CRN). To cope with such heterogeneity, some noncooperative spectrum sensing and distributed cooperative sensing algorithms were proposed. Such spectrum decision results will be exploited in this paper, in order to draw the spectrum map of the entire largescale CRN. The proposed spectrum mapping scheme contains three processing steps, and a boundary CR users searching algorithm using kennel function based supportive vector machine is adopted to improve the performance of the proposed scheme. The simulation results show that radial basis function kennel performs the best in the proposed scheme, and when accuracy threshold θα = 0.95 and filtration threshold θf = 0.02, the proposed scheme can draw a spectrum map with the accuracy 99.3% using only about 28% CR users performing spectrum sensing. Furthermore, the number of CR users and energy detection threshold have little effects on the performance of the proposed scheme.

Abstract Background Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) is widely used in the treatment of cervical degenerative disease; however, the variation of cervical sagittal alignment changes after ACDF has been rarely explored. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between changes of cervical sagittal alignment after ACDF and spino-pelvic sagittal alignment under Roussouly classification. Methods A cohort of 133 Chinese cervical spondylotic patients who received ACDF from 2011 to 2012 was recruited. All patients were categorized with Roussouly Classification. Lateral X-ray images of global spine were obtained, and preoperative and postoperative parameters were measured and analyzed, including C2–C7 angles (C2–C7), C0–C7 angles (C0–C7), external auditory meatus (EAM) tilt, sacral slope (SS), thoracic kyphosis (TK), lumbar lordosis (LL), spinal sacral angles (SSA), Superior adjacent inter-vertebral angle (SAIV), inferior adjacent inter-vertebral angle (IAIV) and et al. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for intragroup comparisons preoperatively and at postoperative 48 months. Results Among the parameters, C2–C7 and C0–C7 showed significant increase, while EAM TK, and IAIV decreased significantly. In type I, EAM and TK decreased significantly, however SS showed a significant increase; in type II, TK showed a significant decrease, but SSA showed a significant increase; in type III, a significant increase of C0–C7 was observed with a significant decrease in EAM, nevertheless, LL, SS and SSA showed significant decreases; and in type IV, C2–C7 showed a significant increase and EAM decreased significantly. The percentage of lordotic alignment in cervical spine increased, which was presenting in type I, III and IV. Nevertheless, the amount of patients with straight cervical alignment increased in type II. Conclusion The backward movement of head occurs is the compensatory mechanism in cervical sagittal alignment modifications after ACDF. The compensatory alteration of spino-pelvic sagittal alignment varied in different Roussouly type.

Main objective is to explore the characteristics, drug resistance, and risk factors of pathogens in urinary tract infection patients complicated with urinary calculi. A total of 417 patients with urinary calculi who were treated in our hospital from January 2017 to December 2019 were enrolled in this study, including 234 patients with urinary tract infection and 183 patients without urinary tract infection. The midstream urine of 234 patients with urinary tract infection were cultured and used in the drug sensitivity test. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the risk factors of postoperative urinary tract infection in patients with urinary calculi. A total of 624 strains of pathogens were isolated from the urine samples of 234 patients with postoperative urinary tract infection, of which 386 strains were gram-negative bacteria (61.86 %), 169 strains were gram-positive bacteria (27.08 %), and 69 strains were fungus (11.06 %). In the drug resistance test, the resistance rates of Staphylococcus aureus to tetracycline, rifampicin, and levofloxacin, and the resistance rate of Enterococcus faecium to levofloxacin was low. Enterococcus faecalis had the lowest resistance rate to levofloxacin, followed by azithromycin and gentamicin. The resistance rates of Staphylococcus epidermidis to levofloxacin and vancomycin were low and the resistance rate to erythromycin was 100.00 %. The resistance rate of Acinetobacter baumannii, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Proteus mirabilis to meropenem and amikacin, and the resistance rate of Klebsiella pneumoniae and Proteus mirabilis to etilmicin and ceftriaxone were low. Univariate analysis showed that the postoperative urinary tract infection in patients with urinary calculi was related to the age, operation time, postoperative indwelling catheter time, stone size, and preoperative prophylactic use of antibiotics. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that the age (=65 y old), operation time (=60 min), postoperative indwelling catheter time (=7 d), and no preoperative prophylactic use of antibiotics were the risk factors of postoperative urinary tract infection in patients with urinary calculi. Patients with urinary calculi were prone to urinary tract infection after the operation. The main pathogens of infection were gram-negative bacteria and gram-positive bacteria, and they were resistant to some antibiotics. Antibiotics should be treated reasonably according to the risk factors of urinary tract infection and the results of the drug sensitivity tests to avoid further aggravation of bacterial drug resistances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidation of N-containing heteroaryl ferrocenes with 1,4,2-dioxazol-5-ones as the amidated reagents was achieved via a Rh-catalyzed direct C-H functionalization reaction. Under mild reaction conditions, a wide range of N-ferrocenyl amides were obtained in up to 99% yield. Transformations of the amide group were also feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Synthesis of ferrocene-based pyridinones via Rh(III)-catalyzed annulation of ferrocenecarboxamides with internal alkynes has been developed using a directing group as the internal oxidant. This method displays good functional group tolerance and delivers ferrocene-based pyridinones generally in moderate to good yields. Additionally, an asymmetric reaction can be achieved in the presence of a chiral catalyst Rh1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Rh-catalyzed enantioselective dearomatization of 1-aryl-2-naphthols with internal alkynes via C-H functionalization reaction was achieved. In the presence of a chiral Cp/Rh catalyst and combined oxidants of Cu(OAc)2 and air (oxygen), various highly enantioenriched spirocyclic enones bearing an all-carbon quaternary stereogenic center could be synthesized in 33-98% yields with up to 97:3 er. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new terahertz (THz) filtering antenna realised by 3D substrate integrated circular waveguide (3D-SICW) is presented. The filtering antenna is designed on a low-temperature co-fired ceramic substrate. Different from traditional planar structure, the direction of power in 3D-SICW is along Z-axis and this will significantly enhance the performance of the devices at THz frequency. The filtering antenna is constructed by two 3D-SICW cavities and a standard substrate integrated waveguide (SIW) cavity, where one SICW cavity and the standard SIW cavity form the bandpass filter by using electric coupling and the other SICW cavity is used as antenna. The results indicate that the passband of filtering antenna range from 170.4 to 177.8 GHz and the gain of antenna is about 5.7 dB. Finally, the filtering antenna is fabricated and measured to verify the simulation prediction. The measured and simulated results are in good agreement at such high frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zika virus (ZIKV) is an emerging arbovirus belonging to the genus Flavivirus of the family Flaviviridae. During replication processes, flavivirus manipulates host cell systems to facilitate its replication, while the host cells activate antiviral responses. Identification of host proteins involved in the flavivirus replication process may lead to the discovery of antiviral targets. The mosquitoes Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus are epidemiologically important vectors for ZIKV, and effective restrictions of ZIKV replication in mosquitoes will be vital in controlling the spread of virus. In this study, an iTRAQ-based quantitative proteomic analysis of ZIKV-infected Aedes albopictus C6/36 cells was performed to investigate host proteins involved in the ZIKV infection process. A total of 3,544 host proteins were quantified, with 200 being differentially regulated, among which CHCHD2 can be upregulated by ZIKV infection in both mosquito C6/36 and human HeLa cells. Our further study indicated that CHCHD2 can promote ZIKV replication and inhibit beta interferon (IFN-β) production in HeLa cells, suggesting that ZIKV infection may upregulate CHCHD2 to inhibit IFN-I production and thus promote virus replication. Bioinformatics analysis of regulated host proteins highlighted several ZIKV infection-regulated biological processes. Further study indicated that the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) plays roles in the ZIKV entry process and that an FDA-approved inhibitor of the 20S proteasome, bortezomib, can inhibit ZIKV infection in vivo. Our study illustrated how host cells respond to ZIKV infection and also provided a candidate drug for the control of ZIKV infection in mosquitoes and treatment of ZIKV infection in patients. IMPORTANCE ZIKV infection poses great threats to human health, and there is no FDA-approved drug available for the treatment of ZIKV infection. During replication, ZIKV manipulates host cell systems to facilitate its replication, while host cells activate antiviral responses. Identification of host proteins involved in the ZIKV replication process may lead to the discovery of antiviral targets. In this study, the first quantitative proteomic analysis of ZIKV-infected cells was performed to investigate host proteins involved in the ZIKV replication process. Bioinformatics analysis highlighted several ZIKV infection-regulated biological processes. Further study indicated that the ubiquitin proteasome system (UPS) plays roles in the ZIKV entry process and that an FDA-approved inhibitor of the UPS, bortezomib, can inhibit ZIKV infection in vivo. Our study not only illustrated how host cells respond to ZIKV infection but also provided a candidate drug for the control of ZIKV infection in mosquitoes and treatment of ZIKV infection in patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]