Search

Many factors were reported to be associated with diabetic retinopathy (DR); however, their contributions remained unclear. We aimed to evaluate the prognostic and diagnostic accuracy of logistic regression and three machine learning models based on various medical records.This was a cross-sectional study. We investigated the prevalence and associations of DR among 757 participants aged 40 years or older in the 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). We trained the models to predict if the participants had DR with 15 predictor variables. Area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) and mean squared error (MSE) of each algorithm were compared in the external validation dataset using a replicate cohort from NHANES 2007-2008.Among the 757 participants, 53 (7.00%) subjects had DR, the mean (standard deviation, SD) age was 57.7 (13.04), and 78.0% were male (n = 42). Logistic regression revealed that female gender (OR = 4.130, 95% CI: 1.820-9.380; P 0.05), HbA1c (OR = 1.665, 95% CI: 1.197-2.317; P 0.05), serum creatine level (OR = 2.952, 95% CI: 1.274-6.851; P 0.05), and eGFR level (OR = 1.009, 95% CI: 1.000-1.014, P 0.05) increased the risk of DR. The average performance obtained from internal validation was similar in all models (AUROC ≥ 0.945), and k-nearest neighbors (KNN) had the highest value with an AUROC of 0.984. In external validation, they remained robust or with modest reductions in discrimination with AUROC still ≥ 0.902, and KNN also performed the best with an AUROC of 0.982. Both logistic regression and machine learning models had good performance in the clinical diagnosis of DR.This study highlights the utility of comparing traditional logistic regression to machine learning models. We found that logistic regression performed as well as optimized machine learning methods when classifying DR patients.

To investigate the prevalence of depression and anxiety in patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) in Hohhot, a large city on the northern border of China, and to identify independent risk factors for depression and anxiety in these patients.Patients receiving MHD for3 months were enrolled in the four largest hemodialysis centers between September 2020 and December 2020. Depression and anxiety were assessed using the Zung self-rated depression scale (SDS) and Zung self-rated anxiety scale (SAS), respectively, with demographic and other data collected for logistic regression analyses.Among 305 MHD patients included in this study, the prevalence of depression was 55.1%, including 27.5%, 21.0%, and 6.6% with mild, moderate and severe cases, respectively. The prevalence of anxiety was 25.9%, with 20.0%, 4.6%, and 1.3% having mild, moderate, and severe cases, respectively. An independent protective factor for depression was family income of ≥1415 US dollars/month relative to157 US dollars/month (odds ratio [OR] 0.209, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.065-0.673), and predictors of depression included ≥3 comorbidities (OR 18.527, 95% CI 1.674-205.028) and severe pruritus (OR 15.971, 95% CI 5.173-49.315). Independent predictors of anxiety included infrequent exercise (OR 3.289, 95% CI 1.411-7.664) and severe pruritus (OR 5.912, 95% CI 1.733-20.168). The correlation between depression and anxiety in these patients was significant (MHD patients in Northern China had high prevalence rates of depression (55.1%) and anxiety (25.9%). Lower family income, more comorbidities, and a higher degree of pruritus were predictors of depression, while infrequent exercise and severe pruritus were predictors of anxiety. Depression correlated significantly with anxiety. Attention should be given to family income, comorbidity, exercise, and pruritus severity for improved management of depression and anxiety among MHD patients.

In mobile crowdsensing (MCS), sensing data uploaded by dishonest workers may be false or even malicious. Thus, a reputation management system is often set up by using workers’ historical behaviours to indicate the quality of sensing data. As existing management schemes usually protect reputation update process, reputation scores are generally stored in plaintext, which may destroy the fair bidding property of a MCS system. To address this issue, we propose an anonymous reputation management system based on dual blockchain architecture, where reputation scores are masked. More precisely, one chain is used to store and update reputation scores, and another chain is responsible for publishing tasks and storing task-related data. To anonymously update and verify the reputation scores without affecting their usages in data sensing process, a kind of ring signature and Pedersen commitment are employed in smart contracts. In addition, a Schnorr signature is generated to make the reputation scores verifiable in the MCS system. We implement a prototype system on Hyperledger Fabric, and simulation results are provided for comparisons with two existing schemes.

Password guessing is an important issue in user security and privacy protection. Using generative adversarial network (GAN) to guess passwords is a new strategy emerging in recent years, which exploits the discriminator’s evaluation of passwords to guide the update of the generator so that password guessing sets can be produced. However, the sampling process of discrete data from a categorical distribution is not differentiable so that backpropagation does not work well. In this paper, we propose a novel password guessing model named G-Pass, which consists of two main components. The first is a new network structure, which modifies the generator from the convolutional neural network (CNN) to long short-term memory- (LSTM-) based network and employs multiple convolutional layers in the discriminator to provide more informative signals for generator updating. The second is Gumbel-Softmax with temperature control for training GAN on passwords. Experimental results show the proposed G-Pass outperforms PassGAN in password quality and cracking rate. Moreover, by dynamically adjusting one parameter during the training process, a trade-off between sample diversity and quality can be achieved with our proposed model.

Purpose: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) has been linked to a range of systemic risk factors, but the evidence supporting these associations is inconsistent. This study aimed to use Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to establish genetic causal links between different risk factors and DR. Methods: The study analyzed the genetic associations between obesity, overall health status, lifestyle factors, and serum parameters with DR (n=14,584), PDR (n=8,681), and NPDR (n=2,026). Multiple MR models, multivariable MR (MVMR), and meta-analysis were used to identify significant mediators for the relationship between the risk factors and DR. Results: Genetic analysis of the 14,584 cases and 202,082 controls identified two novel genes, rs111953004 and rs9280092 on chromosome 6, with the nearest gene being HLA-DQB1 (p value of 2.146×10-160). Multiple MR models consistently showed genetic associations between obesity and DR. Overall health status, including overall rating (OR: 1.60; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.27-2.00), ischemic stroke (OR: 1.16; 95% CI: 1.09-1.24), and hypertension (OR: 1.07; 95% CI: 1.04-1.11) were found to increase the risk of DR. Meanwhile, moderate physical activity frequency (OR: 0.79; 95% CI: 0.68-0.92) and having a college degree (OR: 0.56; 95% CI: 0.48-0.67) were found to protect against DR according to meta-analysis. Serum parameters such as lower LDL cholesterol (OR: 0.94; 95% CI: 0.89-0.98) and higher HDL cholesterol (OR: 0.91; 95% CI: 0.88-0.94) were found to reduce the risk of DR. MVMR revealed that hypertension, coffee intake, and overall health rating were risk factors for DR. Combined meta-analysis results also suggested that alcohol consumption, coffee intake, and daytime napping might increase the risk of DR (all p Conclusions: This study established strong genetic causal links between selected risk factors and DR, which were largely mediated by obesity. Higher education level, physical activity, and better cholesterol control were associated with a decreased risk of DR.

Major ocular diseases share common risk factors and pathogeneses with stroke. This study aimed to evaluate the relation between stroke and ocular diseases including visual impairment (VI).The cross-sectional study investigated the prevalence and associations of VI and major eye diseases with stroke among 4570 participants in the 2005-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The association of VI and major ocular diseases with stroke were estimated using univariate and multivariate logistic regression crude models and models adjusted for demographics and clinical factors. We also conducted stratified analyses by diabetes and hypertension status.VI was associated with stroke, and the odds ratios (ORs) for mild and moderate and severe visual impairment (MSVI) were 6.79 (95% confidence interval (CI): 2.44-18.88) and 9.46 (95% CI: 2.19-40.94) after adjusting for age and gender (all P 0.05). Ocular disease was associated with stroke with OR reaching 5.54 (95% CI: 1.83-16.74), and the OR was 9.61 (95% CI: 3.05-30.23) for stroke patients suffering DR after adjusting for age and gender (all P 0.05). After multivariable adjustment, the associations were limited to mild VI (OR = 10.00, 95% CI: 3.16-30.58), MSVI (OR = 8.57, 95% CI: 1.58-43.36), and any ocular disease (OR = 5.18, 95% CI: 1.46-18.42) (all P 0.05). Significant associations between stroke and any ocular disease and DR were observed among diabetic participants, and significant relation between stroke and MSVI was found among hypertension patients.The sample of the US population demonstrates significant associations between VI and major ocular disease with stroke.

It is well-known that the surface quality of the niobium microalloy profiled billet directly affects the comprehensive mechanical properties of the H-beam. The effects of chromium on the γ/α phase transformation and high-temperature mechanical properties of Nb-microalloyed steel were studied by Gleeble tensile and high-temperature in-situ observation experiments. Results indicated that the starting temperature of the γ→α phase transformation decreases with increasing Cr content. The hot ductility of Nb-microalloyed steel is improved by adding 0.12wt% Cr. Chromium atoms inhibit the diffusion of carbon atoms, which reduces the thickness of grain boundary ferrite. The number fractions of high-angle grain boundaries increase with increasing chromium content. In particular, the proportion is up to 48.7% when the Cr content is 0.12wt%. The high-angle grain boundaries hinder the crack propagation and improve the ductility of Nb-microalloyed steel.

Most polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs) and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (DL-PCBs) in the human body are acquired from dietary intake. The chronic exposure of humans to PCDD/Fs and DL-PCBs is a major health concern, and these compounds are strictly controlled in many areas. This study measured the levels of PCDD/Fs and DL-PCBs in Chinese mitten crab (

Purpose Studies have indicated that the observed association between vitamin D and myopia was confounded by time spent outdoors. This study aimed to elucidate this association using a national cross-sectional dataset. Methods Participants with 12 to 25 years who participated in non-cycloplegic vision exam from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2001 to 2008 were included in the present study. Myopia was defined as spherical equivalent of any eyes ≤ −0.5 diopters (D). Results 7,657 participants were included. The weighted proportion of emmetropes, mild myopia, moderate myopia, and high myopia were 45.5%, 39.1%, 11.6%, and 3.8%, respectively. After adjusting for age, gender, ethnicity, TV/computer usage, and stratified by education attainment, every 10 nmol/L increment of serum 25(OH)D concentration was associated with a reduced risk of myopia (odds ratio [OR] = 0.96, 95% confidence interval [95%CI] 0.93–0.99 for any myopia; OR = 0.96, 95%CI 0.93–1.00 for mild myopia; OR = 0.99, 95%CI 0.97–1.01 for moderate myopia; OR = 0.89, 95%CI 0.84–0.95 for high myopia). Serum 25(OH)D level was closely correlated with time spent outdoors. After categorizing time spent outdoors into quarters (low, low-medium, medium-high, and high), every 1 quarter increment of time spent outdoors was associated with 2.49 nmol/L higher serum 25(OH)D concentration. After adjusting for time spent outdoors, serum 25(OH)D level did not show significant association with myopia (OR = 1.01, 95%CI 0.94–1.06 for 10 nmol/L increment). Conclusions The association between high serum vitamin D and reduced risk of myopia is confounded by longer time spent outdoors. Evidence from the present study does not support that there is a direct association between serum vitamin D level with myopia.

Contrast enhancement (CE) of magnetic resonance (MR) brain images is an important technique to bring out the tissue details for clinical diagnosis. Recently, a new form of image enhancement has been proposed to complete the task without any information loss. Specifically, information required to restore the original image is reversibly hidden into the enhanced image. Moreover, several image segmentation based algorithms have been proposed so that the region of interest can be exclusively enhanced. However, with the reversible algorithms, it is hard to properly enhance the tissues in MR brain images when they are relatively small or connected with each other. To address this issue, a hierarchical CE scheme is proposed for MR brain images with reversibility in this letter. Firstly, a deep convolutional neural network is used to segment multiple tissue classes automatically. Then, the segmented tissues are individually utilized to guide the CE procedure so that individual-tissue-enhanced images are generated. Compared with using the background information to guide the CE procedure, better tissue enhancement effects and visual quality are both obtained by our proposed hierarchical scheme. The evaluation results obtained over MR brain test images demonstrate the reversibility and adaptability of the proposed scheme for the enhancement of interested tissues.

Purpose: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a multifactorial disease in the elderly with a prominent genetic basis. This study aimed to apply machine learning method to develop a novel diagnostic model for AMD based on gene biomarkers in RPE/choroid complex, which may be potential therapeutic targets.Methods: We collected RPE/choroid tissue gene expression profiles of AMD and normal patients from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database as training and validation cohorts. After differential expression analysis and the selection of gene biomarkers by random forest algorithms, selected genes were applied to the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) logistic regression to construct a diagnostic model in the training cohort. The diagnostic ability of the model was further tested in the validation cohort. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) and immune cell assessment were also conducted for further analyses.Results：A noval diagnostic model based on ten genes (BMPR2, CNOT3, CRLF1, FXYD6, HRASLS5, KRTDAP, NUDT16L1, PI16, PLAGL1, SART1) was constructed in the training cohort. The AUC in the training cohort reached 0.908 (95% CI: 0.823-0.975), while it remained 0.809 (95% CI: 0.522-0.889) in the validation cohort. According to the GSEA analysis, glutathione metabolism and phototransduction pathway are the two shared enriched pathways in the training and validation cohorts. Functional enrichment analysis and immune cell evaluation demonstrated that AMD was significantly correlated with both adaptive and innate immune cells, and the levels of neutrophil in the high-risk group were significantly higher than that in the low-risk group in both training and validation datasetsConclusion: We identified and validated a novel ten-gene-based diagnostic model with high accuracy for AMD. The current study provided a promising tool to be used as a precise and cost-effective non-invasive test in clinical practice.

Background To examine an effect of intravitreally applied antibodies against epidermal growth factor family members, namely epiregulin, epigen and betacellulin, on ocular axial elongation. Methods The experimental study included 30 guinea pigs (age:3–4 weeks) which underwent bilateral lens-induced myopization and received three intraocular injections of 20 µg of epiregulin antibody, epigen antibody and betacellulin antibody in weekly intervals into their right eyes, and of phosphate-buffered saline into their left eyes. Seven days after the last injection, the animals were sacrificed. Axial length was measured by sonographic biometry. Results At baseline, right eyes and left eyes did not differ (all P > 0.10) in axial length in neither group, nor did the interocular difference in axial length vary between the groups (P = 0.19). During the study period, right and left eyes elongated (P P = 0.001); epigen-antibody group:from -0.01 ± 0.06 mm to 0.06 ± 0.08 mm;P = 0.02; betacellulin antibody group:from -0.05 ± 0.05 mm to 0.02 ± 0.04 mm;P = 0.004). Correspondingly, interocular difference in axial length increased from -0.02 ± 0.04 mm to 0.13 ± 0.06 mm in the epiregulin-antibody group (P P = 0.045). In the betacellulin-antibody group the increase (0.01 ± 0.04 mm to 0.03 ± 0.03 mm) was not significant (P = 0.24). Conclusions The EGF family members epiregulin, epigen and betacellulin may be associated with axial elongation in young guinea pigs, with the effect decreasing from epiregulin to epigen and to betacellulin.

Reversible data hiding in ciphertext has potential applications for privacy protection and transmitting extra data in a cloud environment. For instance, an original plain-text image can be recovered from the encrypted image generated after data embedding, while the embedded data can be extracted before or after decryption. However, homomorphic processing can hardly be applied to an encrypted image with hidden data to generate the desired image. This is partly due to that the image content may be changed by preprocessing or/and data embedding. Even if the corresponding plain-text pixel values are kept unchanged by lossless data hiding, the hidden data will be destroyed by outer processing. To address this issue, a lossless data hiding method called random element substitution (RES) is proposed for the Paillier cryptosystem by substituting the to-be-hidden bits for the random element of a cipher value. Moreover, the RES method is combined with another preprocessing-free algorithm to generate two schemes for lossless data hiding in encrypted images. With either scheme, a processed image will be obtained after the encrypted image undergoes processing in the homomorphic encrypted domain. Besides retrieving a part of the hidden data without image decryption, the data hidden with the RES method can be extracted after decryption, even after some processing has been conducted on encrypted images. The experimental results show the efficacy and superior performance of the proposed schemes.

In this paper, a novel image transformation scheme is proposed to protect the visual information. By mimicking an arbitrarily chosen reference image, a secret image is visually changed and can be exactly recovered from the transformed image when needed. Unlike the block-wise visual encryption methods, the proposed transformation scheme modifies the secret image by bit plane replacement and reordering so that no block effect is introduced. In particular, one or more bit planes are hidden into the other bit planes so that the most significant one(s) can be vacated. Besides replacing the vacated bit plane(s) and reordering the others according to the reference image, histogram modification may be performed to conceal the secret content if needed. To exactly recover the secret image, the required information is recorded and reversibly hidden into the transformed image by adopting a reversible data hiding algorithm. The experimental results on three image sets show that their content can be semantically changed to prevent leakage of visual information. Moreover, the applicability and efficiency of the proposed scheme have been validated by comparing the existing visual encryption schemes.

Controlling the solution-state aggregation of conjugated polymers for producing specific microstructures remains challenging. Herein, a practical approach is developed to finely tune the solid-state microstructures through temperature-controlled solution-state aggregation and polymer crystallization. High temperature generates significant conformation fluctuation of conjugated backbones in solution, which facilitates the polymer crystallization from solvated aggregates to orderly packed structures. The polymer films deposited at high temperatures exhibit less structural disorders and higher electron mobilities (up to two orders of magnitude) in field-effect transistors, compared to those deposited at low temperatures. This work provides an effective strategy to tune the solution-state aggregation to reveal the relationship between solution-state aggregation and solid-state microstructures of conjugated polymers.

To examine the influence of epidermal growth factor (EGF) and its receptor (EGFR) on axial ocular elongation, we intraocularly injected an EGF antibody and an EGFR antibody into young guinea pigs with lens-induced axial elongation (myopization). Mean axial elongation was reduced in the eyes injected with the EGF/EGFR-antibody compared with the contralateral control eyes injected with PBS (phosphate-buffered solution) (0.43 ± 0.13 mm vs 0.53 ± 0.13 mm; P < .001). The intereye difference in axial length increased (P = .005) as the doses of the EGF antibody and EGFR antibody increased. As a corollary, the thickness of the retina at the posterior pole was dose-dependently increased in the injected eyes compared to the contralateral control eyes. Immunohistochemical staining for EGF and the relative mRNA expression of EGF and EGFR were the highest in eyes not injected with the EGF antibody or EGFR antibody and decreased (P < .05) as the dose of EGF antibody or EGFR antibody increased. In an in vitro study, EGF had a stimulating effect and the EGF antibody had an inhibitory effect on the proliferation and migration of RPE cells. The findings showed that the intravitreal application of an EGF antibody and EGFR antibody is associated with a dose-dependent reduction in lens-induced axial elongation in young guinea pigs. The EGFR family may play a role in axial elongation of the eye and in the development of myopia.

In this study, crack generation and propagation during γ-austenite to α-ferrite phase transformation in Nb-microalloyed steel is observed. The relationship among the cracks, α-ferrite phase, and pr...

Contrast enhancement (CE) of medical images is helpful to bring out the unclear content in the interested regions. Recently, reversible CE has been proposed so that the original version of a contrast-changed image can be exactly recovered. This property can be used to save storage space or facilitate the archiving system. To enhance the regions of interest (ROI) without introducing visual distortions, the technique of image segmentation (e.g. using Otsu's method) has been used to obtain the background before conducting the CE process. To segment the ROI more accurately, an interactive algorithm called GrabCut is employed in the proposed scheme. In addition, a new preprocessing strategy is adopted to preserve the image quality through the CE process. Consequently, the content in the selected regions can be better brought out while the reversibility of the CE process is achieved. The experimental results on 30 chest radiograph images and 20 magnetic resonance images have demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed scheme for reversible CE. The evaluation results are provided to show the better performances of the proposed method in achieving CE effects and preserving image quality.

Strong interchain interactions of conjugated polymers usually result in poor miscibility with molecular dopants, limiting the doping efficiency because of uncontrolled phase separation. We have developed a strategy to achieve efficient charge-transport and high doping miscibility in n-doped conjugated polymers. We solve the miscibility issue through disorder side-chains containing dopants better. Systemic structural characterization reveals a farther side-chain branching point will lead to higher disorders, which provides appropriate sites to accommodate extrinsic molecular dopants without harming original chain packings and charge-transport channels. Therefore, better sustainability of solid-state microstructure is obtained, yielding a stable conductivity even when overloading massive dopants. This work highlights the importance of realizing high host-dopant miscibility in molecular doping of conjugated polymers.

CD38 is highly expressed on multiple myeloma (MM) cells and plays a role in regulating tumor generation and development. CD38 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) have been used as an effective therapy for MM treatment by various mechanisms, including complement-dependent cytotoxic effects, antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity, antibody-dependent cellular phagocytosis, programmed cell death, enzymatic modulation, and immunomodulation. Although CD38 mAbs inhibit the proliferation and survival of MM cells, there are substantial side effects on antitumoral NK cells. The NK-mediated immune response needs to be further evaluated to minimize the adverse effects of NK cell loss. The killing effect of CD38 mAbs on CD38

To study thickness of RPE-BM complex in adult Chinese subjects and its correlation with systemic and ocular biometric parameters.Population-based longitudinal study. Cross-sectional study.The population-based Beijing Eye Study 2011 included 3468 individuals with a mean age of 64.6 ± 9.8 years (range: 50-93 years).A detailed ophthalmic examination was performed including spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD OCT) for measurement of the thickness of RPE-BM complex. Use Heidelberg software "Heidelberg Eye Explorer" for segmentation and measurements.Thickness of RPE-BM complex.In total, 3276 people (6530 eyes) were included in the study. In total, 1844 (56.3%) subjects were female. The mean age was 64.3 ± 9.6 years (range: 50-93 years). The mean refractive error (spherical equivalent) was -0.18 ± 2.04 diopters (range: -22.0 to +7.50 diopters). Mean thickness of the RPE-BM complex at the foveal center was 25.09 ± 3.98 μm (range: 17-37 μm). In multiple regression analysis, subfoveal thickness of the RPE-BM complex was associated with age (p = 0.039; beta: 0.22; B: 0.10 (95% CI: 0.01, 0.20)) and hypertension history (p = 0.038; beta: 0.23; B: 1.96 (95% CI: 0.12, 3.81)).Mean subfoveal thickness of the RPE-BM complex was 25.09 ± 3.98 μm in elderly subjects with a mean age of 64.3 years increased with age and hypertension history. The increase in the thickness of RPE-BM complex may play a role in the pathophysiologic features of various age-related ocular conditions.

Pyroptosis is closely related to inflammation. However, the molecular mechanisms and pathologic contributions of pyroptotic epithelial cell are not yet fully understood.This study aimed to explore the function and molecular mechanisms of IL-17A on human nasal epithelial cell (hNEC) pyroptosis.The expression of pyroptosis-related biomarkers and IL-17A was assessed in sinonasal mucosa from control individuals, patients with chronic rhinosinusitis without nasal polyps, and patients with chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) by using quantitative RT-PCR. Their localization was analyzed via immunohistochemistry and immunofluorescence. The ultrastructural characteristics of IL-17A-induced pyroptosis in hNECs were visualized by using electron microscopy. IL-17A functional assays were performed on hNECs and airway epithelial cell lines. Cytokine levels were quantified via ELISA. The signaling pathways involved in IL-17A-induced pyroptosis were studied via unbiased RNA sequencing and Western blotting.The expression of IL-17A and the pyroptotic biomarkers NOD-like receptor family, pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3), caspase-1, gasdermin D, and IL-1β was increased in nasal mucosa from patients with CRSwNP compared with in those with chronic rhinosinusitis without nasal polyps and the control subjects. IL-17A was positively correlated and colocalized with the pyroptotic biomarkers. IL-17A treatment induced pyroptosis in the hNECs and cell lines analyzed, primarily through the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)-NLRP3/caspase-1 signaling pathway, and increased IL-1β and IL-18 secretion in hNECs. Moreover, IL-17A-induced pyroptosis contributed to steroid resistance by affecting glucocorticoid receptor-α and glucocorticoid receptor-β expression, and the inhibition of pyroptotic proteins partially abolished IL-17A-induced steroid resistance in hNECs.Elevated IL-17A level promotes pyroptosis in hNECs through the ERK-NLRP3/caspase-1 signaling pathway and contributes to glucocorticoid resistance by affecting glucocorticoid receptor homeostasis in patients with CRSwNP.

Background To evaluate global burden of refraction disorders by year, age, region, gender, socioeconomic status and other national characteristics in terms of disability adjusted life years (DALYs) and prevalence from Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study 2019 and World Bank Open Data 2019. Methods Global, regional, and national DALY numbers, crude DALY rates, age-standardized DALY and prevalence rates of refraction disorders were acquired from the GBD study 2019. Mobile cellular subscriptions, urban population, GDP per capita, access to electricity and total fertility rate were obtained from the World Bank to explore the factors that influenced the health burden of refraction disorders. Kruskal-Wallis test, linear regression and multiple linear regression were performed to evaluate the associations between the health burden with socioeconomic levels and other national characteristics. Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test was used to investigate the gender disparity. Results Globally, age-standardized DALY rates of refraction disorders decreased from 88.9 (95% UI: 60.5–120.3) in 1990 to 81.5 (95% UI: 55.0–114.8) in 2019, and might fall to 73.16 (95% UI: 67.81–78.51) by 2050. Age-standardized prevalence rates would also reduce to 1830 (95% UI: 1700–1960) by 2050, from 2080 (95% UI: 1870–2310) in 1990 to 1960 (95% UI: 1750–2180) in 2019. In low SDI region, age-standardized DALY rates (equation: Y = 114.05*X + 27.88) and prevalence rates (equation: Y = 3171.1*X + 403.2) were positively correlated with SDI in linear regression respectively. East Asia had the highest blindness rate caused by refraction disorders in terms of age-standardized DALY rates (11.20, 95% UI: 7.38–16.36). Gender inequality was found among different age groups and SDI regions. Conclusion Health burden of refraction disorders decreased in recent years, and may continue to alleviate in the next three decades. Older ages, females and lower socioeconomic status were associated with higher refraction disorders health burden.

Recently, how to protect privacy in JPEG images has become an important issue in social networks. Besides encryption, reversible visual transformation has been studied for content and privacy protection. In this paper, an improved algorithm is proposed to conceal privacy information in JPEG images. By adopting face detection, the regions to be protected can be identified so that the DC and some AC coefficients in them are modified. The changes that have been made are reversibly saved in the other AC coefficients, and the block selection information is hidden into the whole image also by reversible data hiding. As a secret key is employed to control the process of transformation, the protected content can hardly be obtained without knowing the key. We conduct the proposed algorithm on a set of test images, and compare the performance with several existing algorithms in terms of information leakage, file size increment, and image quality. The experimental results show that improved image quality and less information leakage can be achieved with the proposed reversible transformation algorithm.

We propose a theory to characterize the information and information processing abilities of metasurfaces, and demonstrate the relation between the information of the metasurface and its radiation pattern in the far-field region. By incorporating a general aperture model with uncertainty relation in L2-space, we propose a theory to predict the upper bound of information contained in the radiation pattern of a metasurface, and reveal the theoretical upper limit of orthogonal radiation states. The proposed theory also provides guidance for inverse design of the metasurface with respect to given functionalities. Through investigation of the information of disordered-phase modulated metasurfaces, we find the information invariance (1−γ, where γ is Euler's constant) of chaotic radiation patterns. That is to say, the information of the disordered-phase modulated radiation patterns is always equal to 1−γ, regardless of variations in size, the number of elements and the phase pattern of metasurface. This value might be the lower bound of radiation-pattern information of the metasurface, which can provide a theoretical limit for information modulation applications, including computational imaging, stealth technologies and wireless communications.

Recently, reversible data hiding in encrypted images has been developed to transmit useful data while the original images can be perfectly recovered when needed. In this paper, a new method is proposed for homomorphic encrypted images so that part of the hidden data can be extracted in encrypted domain and the rest are extractable after image decryption. Specifically, a plain-text image is preprocessed by reversibly embedding the bit values of some pixels into the image. The preprocessed image is encrypted in Paillier cryptosystem and two embedding algorithms are applied on the encrypted image in succession. Compared with the state-of-the-art schemes, higher embedding capacity can be achieved by applying the proposed method, respectively for data extraction before and after image decryption. Compared with the schemes with similar properties, better performances are achieved with the proposed method in terms of quality of directly decrypted image with respect to data hiding rate.

Given the questionnaire design and the nature of the problem, partially ordered data that are neither completely ordered nor completely unordered are frequently encountered in social, behavioral, and medical studies. However, early developments in partially ordered data analysis are very limited and restricted only to cross-sectional data. In this study, we propose a Bayesian two-level regression model for analyzing repeated partially ordered responses in longitudinal data. The first-level model is defined for partially ordered observations of interest that are taken at each time point nested within individuals, while the second-level model is defined for individuals to assess the effects of their characteristics on the first-level model. A full Bayesian approach with the Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm is developed for statistical inference. Simulation studies demonstrate the satisfactory performance of the developed methodology. The methodology is then applied to a longitudinal study on adolescent smoking behavior.

With the widespread adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing, more and more individuals and organizations are outsourcing their IoT data in the cloud server. Under these circumstances, how to protect the privacy and security of the outsourced data becomes a key challenge. Public key encryption with keyword search (PEKS) is a promising technology to solve the problem. In this paper, we present a new kind of PEKS named time controlled public key encryption with delegated conjunctive keyword search (tc-PEDCKS) for IoT deployment. A basic tc-PEDCKS is firstly presented which supports conjunctive keyword search and enables a data user to delegate access right over the data to others in a limited time period. To resist against the keyword guessing attacks, a more secure tc-PEDCKS with designated server construction is also presented. The two constructions are proved secure in the random oracle model. The performance evaluation and experimental results demonstrate that our constructions are practical and feasible for real world IoT scenarios.

Vacuum smelting experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of different initial nitrogen content and surface active elements on nitrogen denitrification and nitrogen absorption in molten steel. Thermodynamic calculations show that the pressure corresponding to 10 ppm of [N] should be less than 45 Pa; at 30 Pa and 1600°C, the nitrogen content in the steel reduced from 18 to 10 ppm in 50 min. Furthermore, denitrification can be described as a 1.5th order reaction model. In addition, the mean parameters of nitrogen absorption between the ultra-low and common-nitrogen steels are different: for ultra-low nitrogen molten steel exposed to air, even if [S] ≥ 200 ppm and [O] ≥ 300 ppm, [N] can increase from 10 to over 40 ppm in 20 min.

The rapid proliferation of mobile sensing devices has promoted the emergence of a novel sensing paradigm mobile crowdsensing (MCS) for Internet of Things (IoT). For the data sensing in various mobile devices carried by different users, the sensed data may contain a variety of noise and sensitive information of mobile users. In order to extract the optimal truth from the noisy sensing data without privacy breach, privacy-preserving truth discovery (PPTD) has been proposed recently. However, there are two limitations to apply the existing PPTD approaches in real-time MCS applications. First, it is often ignored that the correctness of estimated truths may be susceptible to the dropout of mobile devices. Second, large-scale PPTD MCS application cannot be deployed, especially in real-time scenarios, due to the inefficiency of heavy cryptographic operations and iterative truth discovery algorithm. In this paper, we design and implement a real-time PPTD framework for crowdsensed data streams. Our design is based on the incremental conflict resolution on heterogeneous data, which is very efficient in processing data streams. In this framework, a low-overhead secure summation aggregation protocol is customized between an untrusted aggregator and a sensing client to estimate the true value of the sensed object. In addition, it should be noted that our system only needs one service provider. Theoretical analysis demonstrates that our design accomplishes both privacy-preserving and failure-robust. Through the complexity analysis and concrete implementation, the results show that the framework can achieve better scalability.

Background: Ophthalmological screening for cytomegalovirus retinitis (CMVR) for HIV/AIDS patients is important. The application of a deep learning (DL) system to AIDS-related CMVR with ultra-wide-field (UWF) fundus images is promising, but the feasibility and efficiency of this method have not been studied. Methods: We independently developed and internally validated a DL system for identifying active CMVR, inactive CMVR and non-CMVR in 6960 UWF fundus images from 862 AIDS patients and validated the system in a prospective and an external validation data set using area under curve (AUC), accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity. A heat map identified the most important area (lesions) used by the DL system for differentiating CMVR. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT04831333. Findings The DL system showed AUCs of 0·945 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0·929, 0·962), 0·964 (95% CI: 0·870, 0·999) and 0·968 (95% CI: 0·860, 1·000) for detecting active CMVR from non-CMVR and 0·923 (95% CI: 0·908, 0·938), 0·902 (0·857, 0·948) and 0·884 (0·851, 0·917) for detecting active CMVR from non-CMVR in the internal cross-validation, external validation, and prospective validation, respectively. It also showed the ability to differentiate active CMVR from non-CMVR and inactive CMVR as well as to identify active CMVR and inactive CMVR from non-CMVR (all AUCs in the three independent data sets >0·900). The heat maps successfully highlighted lesion locations. Interpretation: Our system showed reliable performance for detecting AIDS-rated CMVR. DL technology is promising for screening and differentiating CMVR in AIDS patients. Clinical Trial: This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT04831333. Funding: Scientific Research Project of Beijing Youan Hospital, CCMU, 2018 (YNKTQN20180201); Capital Health Research and Development of Special (2020-1-2052); Science & Technology Project of Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission (Z181100001818003); Beijing Municipal Administration of Hospitals’ Ascent Plan (DFL20150201). Declaration of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare. Ethical Approval: This study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Both the Ethics Committee of Beijing YouAn Hospital (LL-2018-150-K) and the Ethics Committee of Beijing Tongren Hospital (TRECKY2018-056) approved the study. Written informed consent was obtained from each subject.

Purpose: Major ocular diseases share common risk factors and pathogeneses with stroke. This study aimed to evaluate the relation between stroke and the prevalence of ocular diseases including visual impairment (VI) in the United States. Design: Cross-sectional study. Methods: We investigated the prevalence and associations of VI and major eye diseases with stroke among 4570 participants aged 40 years or older in the 2005-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The association of VI and major ocular diseases with stroke were estimated using univariate and multivariate logistic regression crude models and models adjusted for demographics and other clinical measurements factors. We also conducted stratified analyses by diabetes and hypertension status. Results: Among the 207 participants with stroke, the mean (SD) age was 67.34 (11.90) years, 59.5% were women (n=102), and 79.7% were non-Hispanic White (n=127). Major eye diseases were all risk factors for stroke, and the odds ratios (ORs) for mild and MSVI were 3.06 (95% confidence interval (CI): 2.02-4.64) and 2.16 (95% CI: 1.21-3.83), respectively. Any ocular disease was a risk factor for stroke with OR 4.46 (95% CI: 2.71-7.37), and the OR for other major eye diseases were as followed: DR, 3.44 (95%m CI: 1.84-6.45); cataract, 4.53 (95% CI: 2.75-7.46); AMD, 3.67 (95% CI: 2.29-5.89), and glaucoma, 2.7 (95% CI: 1.41-5.15) (all P

Molecular ordering of conjugated polymers both in solution-state aggregates and in solid-state microstructures is a determining factor of the charge transport properties in optoelectronic devices. However, the effect of backbone conformation in conjugated polymers on assembly structures is still unclear. Herein, to understand such backbone conformation effect, three novel chlorinated benzodifurandionge-based oligo(p-phenylene vinylene) (BDOPV) polymers are systematically developed. These BDOPV-based polymers exhibit significantly twisted backbone conformation (near 90° interunit torsion angle) between conjugated units, which can prevent polymer chains from forming ordered assembly structures by increasing conformational energy penalty in closely packed chains. A higher rotational barrier of the torsion angle would further prevent polymer chains from assembling, finally resulting in nonaggregated chains in solution and highly disordered solid-state packing structures. This work will deepen the understanding of the relationship between polymer backbone conformation and assembly structures, contributing to the exploration of the structure-property relationship of polymers.

To establish the vocational education personal learning account and achieve the traceability, query and conversion of learning results, the paper proposes a credit platform of vocational education chain. The technical characteristics of block chain decentralization, bookkeeping, asymmetric encryption, distributed, smart contract and consensus mechanism are used to construct the platform. In system design and system logic design, we focus on how to evaluate students more objectively, completely and accurately, how to make the platform more secure, public and shared, and how to make colleges, students and enterprises more trustworthy and prefer to use credit platforms. In view of the difficulties in the construction of credit platform nodes in polytechnic education chain, such as credit issuance and acquisition, credit query and so on, this paper puts forward some ideas and carries out prototype design. As a result, the credit platform is made more suitable for the development of educational alliance, collectivization, diversification and Internet +, open, shared and lifelong education.

Facilitated by ultrafast dynamic modulations, spatiotemporal metasurfaces have been identified as a pivotal platform for manipulating electromagnetic waves and creating exotic physical phenomena, such as dispersion cancellation, Lorentz reciprocity breakage, and Doppler illusions. Motivated by emerging information-oriented technologies, we hereby probe the information transition mechanisms induced by spatiotemporal variations and present a general model to characterize the information processing capabilities of the spatiotemporal metasurface. Group theory and abstract number theory are adopted through this investigation, by which the group extension and independent controls of multiple harmonics are proposed and demonstrated as two major tools for information transitions from the spatiotemporal domain to the spectra-wavevector domain. By incorporating Shannon’s entropy theory into the proposed model, we further discover the corresponding information transition efficiencies and the upper bound of the channel capacity of the spatiotemporal metasurface. The results of harmonic information transitions show great potential in achieving high-capacity versatile information processing systems with spatiotemporal metasurfaces., Metamaterials: Heightened harmonics from moving metasurfaces The generation of light harmonics by rapidly-changing metasurfaces could provide exciting new methods of information processing. Metasurfaces made from metal or semiconducting nanostructures have opened up new ways of manipulating electromagnetic waves, but most are static in nature. More recently, spatiotemporal metasurfaces have emerged, in which the ‘meta-atoms’ that affect the waves can be rearranged periodically, through electrical or mechanical forcing. Now, Tie Jun Cui and co-workers at Southeast University in Nanjing and Peking University in Beijing have explained how several useful information transitions can be induced by spatiotemporal metasurfaces. Through a theoretical model and a proof-of-principle demonstration with microwaves, the researchers show how spatiotemporal metasurfaces can generate multiple harmonics from incoming waves. These harmonics represent processed information that could benefit new technologies such as intelligent computational imaging and sixth-generation (6G) wireless networks.

Background Sleep disorders are common in older adults and have a negative influence on their physical and mental health. General aerobic exercises (GAEs) have long been used in the treatment of sleep disorders as a non-pharmacological measure. However, there is no consensus on the efficacy of traditional Chinese exercises (TCEs) for treating sleep disorders in older adults and the difference between TCEs and GAEs. Objective This study assessed the effects of TCEs and GAEs on the sleep quality of older adults and the differences between these two interventions. Search strategy PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, China Biology Medicine disc, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, China Science Journal Database and Wanfang Data were searched from their inception to August 2020. Inclusion criteria Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that evaluated the effects of TCEs and GAEs on older adults with sleep disorders were included. Data extraction and analysis Data were extracted by two researchers working independently. The risk bias of included studies was assessed using the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions 5.1.0 and the quality of evidence was assessed using the Grades of Recommendation, Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) was used to estimate sleep quality. Meta-analyses were performed to assess the total PSQI score of the exercise intervention as the primary outcome, and the scores of subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, sleep duration, habitual sleep efficiency, sleep disturbance, use of sleep medication and daytime dysfunction were assessed as secondary outcomes. Subgroup, sensitivity, and meta-regression analyses were conducted to assess the contribution of covariables to heterogeneity. Results A total of 22 RCTs (including 1747 participants) were included in the meta-analysis. The results indicated that TCEs (weighted mean difference [WMD] = −2.14, 95% confidence interval [CI] [−2.82, −1.46], P Conclusion Current evidence shows that both TCEs and GAEs, as complementary and non-pharmacological approaches, help to improve the sleep quality in older adults with potentially clinical implications; however, there was not enough evidence to conclude the difference between them. More rigorous and high-quality RCTs are needed to arrive at reliable conclusions.

Recently, reversible contrast enhancement (CE) is achieved so that an original image can be recovered after its contrast has been changed. As most of the reversible CE methods are primarily proposed for gray-level images, directly applying them to color images may cause visual distortions. To cope with this issue, a new reversible CE scheme is proposed based on the HSV (hue, saturation, and value) color model. In particular, hue component is preserved during histogram equalization of value component and a new preprocessing is designed for original RGB (red, green, and blue) images. The experimental results show that exact recovery of all test images can be achieved with the proposed scheme. Moreover, several metrics are adopted to measure CE effects, image quality and color difference, respectively. Compared with separately conducting the CE process on the RGB channels, less color differences and better image quality can be simultaneously obtained with the proposed scheme.