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This study analyzed the differential expression of miRNAs related to alcohol dependence in rats undergoing continued consumption and withdrawal. Furthermore miRNAs were sought and evaluated for potential use as biomarkers for diagnosis. This study used Exiqon miRCURYTM LNA miRNA microarray on alcohol-dependent and normal rats for the expression of microRNAs in perfluorinated compounds, and the stem-loop qPCR method to validate its expression in brain tissue. We forecast the relevant target genes of differentially expressed miRNA and drew the regulatory network. Comparison of the differential expression between brain tissue and plasma was carried out and the correlation and analyzed.65 miRNA with differential expression with threshold of 1.5 were screened out; among them, most miRNA with differential expression in the dependent group had relatively high expression values. The target genes were found with great confidence: PIK3CA, MAPK, NTF, BDNF, NGFR, IGF-1, and the pair consisting of miRNA- mRNA. Among the three groups, the expression levels of miR-101b (F=8.12, P less than0.05) showed significant difference; no significant difference was found in the expression levels of miRNA in plasma among the groups (F=1.23, P0.05). No consistency was shown in the changing trend of miRNA in PFC and plasma (r= -.004, p0.05). The genetic regulatory network of neurotrophic factors, its receptors and the protein kinases that influence metabolism may mediate the incidence of alcohol-dependence. There is a lack of conformity between the expression of miR-101b in the prefrontal cortex and the plasma.

Adjustment is necessary for wearable devices such as rehabilitation anthropomorphic leg devices and exoskeletons. However, this is normally done by trial and error and requires a significant amount of expertize. A novel methodology is developed to locate centers of rotation of human joints. The developed methodology is applicable to human joints with fixed centers of rotation, but it is also applicable to knee joints where an equivalent center of rotation can be identified for a given range of motion. The proposed novel methodology involves a device consisting of two slides and procedures of position measurements during flexion/extension which yield the position of a human joint in a Sagittal plane. The third coordinate can be obtained by repeating the procedure in a lateral plane. A theoretical proof is presented based on complex numbers, the proposed system is modeled using Solid Works and results are promising.

In multidisciplinary collaborative, Sometimes one variable may be shared by several constraints subject to different disciplinary, or one constraint includes several variables subject to different disciplinary. Using non-cooperative game theory to model the relationship between design teams can effectively achieve decoupling of constraints. In view of this, we present a robust collaborative approach which adopts interval to describe the uncertainty of decision variables and considers the Rational Reaction Sets (RRS) from non-cooperation game theory as design constraint in the decision space. Therefore multidisciplinary collaborative decision is described as an interval based constraint solving problem and a two-step solving approach was developed to obtain final robust decision scheme. A new kind of feasibility censor based immune chaotic algorithm for model solving was designed. Finally, a single disk elastic rotor system is used as example to validate the effectiveness and reliability of proposed decision approach.

Textile composites consist of interlaced tows, which are impregnated with a matrix material and then cured. The interlacing of the tows offers the potential for increased through-thickness strength compared to conventional laminated composites. However, one disadvantage of textile composites is the difficulty in predicting their per formance due to the complex geometry of their internal architectures. Finite element analysis (FEA) has become an effective means to predict the response of complex textile composite structures. When an attempt is made to perform a conventional FEA, one of the tough issues faced is how to deal with the topologically complex internal geometries. To overcome this difficult issue, a domain superposition technique (DST) has been proposed to implement free vibration analysis of woven composite structures. The significant advantage of the DST over traditional FEA is that it does not need to directly deal with the likely degenerated resin-rich region, thus the DST model is much easier to establish. Numerical results show that DST predictions correlate excellently with traditional FEAs.

To identify the expression changes of microRNA 93 (miR-93) in oxygen-glucose deprivation/reoxygenation (OGD/R) injury in cardiomyocytes and its mechanism of mediating OGD/R and inducing apoptosis.Primary cardiomyocytes were extracted and OGD/R model in cardiomyocytes was established in vitro. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was used to detect the expressions of miR-93, and Western blot assay was applied to measure the protein levels of nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) and caspase-3. Flow cytometry was utilized to examine the cardiomyocyte apoptosis rate.The apoptosis rate was increased after OGD/R in cardiomyocytes, accompanied by remarkable rise of miR-93 expression. After transfection of miR-93 antagomir, the apoptosis rate of cardiomyocyte induced by OGD/R was down-regulated, and the expression of cleaved caspase-3 was decreased. Meanwhile, the results of qRT-PCR and Western blot showed that the levels of Nrf2 mRNA and protein expression were up-regulated after the miR-93 level was inhibited, and luciferase reporter assay affirmed that Nrf2 was a target molecule for OGD/R-induced apoptosis mediated by miR-93.miR-93 mediates OGD/R-induced hypoxia/reoxygenation injury apoptosis in cells by targeting Nrf2.

The purpose is to demonstrate the optical charactering concerning nasopharyngeal tissue of pig by fresh sections and frozen correlating sections with optical coherence tomography (OCT). After being imaged on a fresh specimen, samples are then stored in low temperature refrigerators (−80°C) for one year for the second OCT measurement. The OCT structure of the epithelium, lamina propria, and the basement membrane are still resolvable; the median scattering coefficients and anisotropy factors fitting from OCT images based on the multiple scattering effects for epithelium are 27.6 mm−1 [interquartile range (IQR) 23.6 to 29.3 mm−1] versus 22.5 mm−1 (IQR 20.5 to 24.4 mm−1), 0.86 (IQR 0.81 to 0.9) versus 0.88 (IQR 0.87 to 0.9) for fresh and frozen tissue, respectively; and 10.2 mm−1 (IQR 8.1 to 13.6 mm−1) versus 9.6 mm−1 (IQR 8.1 to 13.8 mm−1), 0.96 (IQR 0.93 to 0.98) versus 0.92 (IQR 0.9 to 0.98) for lamina propria, respectively. The results show that the frozen storage method can be used for OCT research.

The relationship between hypertension and the mechanism of the expression of T-lymphocyte Kv1.3 channels in vascular aging has been analyzed in this study based on the gender and age matches' principle.Thirty patients have been consecutively chosen with vascular aging caused by hypertension (group A), while 30 cases of high blood pressure not merged with vascular aging (group B) were chosen, and 30 cases of healthy volunteers (group C), conforming to gender and age 1:1 and the closest matching principle, were studied. The aim of this study was to separate the peripheral blood mononuclear cells and give intervention of 0.2 nmol/L ANGII to CD4 + T-lymphocytes, and store them in the incubator 48 h. The difference of Kv1.3 channel current of CD4 + T-lymphocyte, mRNA, angiotensin receptor (AT1R) protein mRNA, and IFN-γ density has also been compared.The membrane capacitance, peak current, and current density of group A, are higher than those of the other two groups, and the differences have statistical significance (p0.05). After adding ANGII intervention to group A, the expression levels of T-lymphocyte Kv1.3 potassium channels mRNA, AT1R mRNA, and IFN-γ are significantly increased, so that the difference has statistical significance p0.05, while the other two groups have no significant change (p0.05). The levels of Kv1.3 potassium channels, AT1R mRNA, and IFN-γ of group A before and after the intervention are significantly higher than those of the other two groups, and the differences are statistically significant (p0.05).Vascular aging caused by hypertension may be linked to the increase of Kv1.3 potassium channel activity of T-lymphocyte, while ANGII can improve the high expression of Kv1.3 potassium channel and AT1R, to stimulate lymph cells to secrete IFN-γ.

Twinky Star colored compomer produced by VOCO GmbH is a new type of filling material designed with seven different colors. Previous studies have shown that using the colored filling material can induce children’s curiosity and increase the acceptance for dental treatment. However, few studies have been conducted to evaluate it. Hence, the present study was designed to assess the mechanical and adhesive properties of this new compomer, examine its biological safety, and evaluate the effects of its clinical application on children’s adherence to dental treatment and the subsequent therapeutic outcomes. We found that Twinky Star compomer has a high compressive strength, good biaxial flexural strength, low wear rate, and good adhesive properties, and had little in vitro cytotoxic effects and did not cause apparent hemolysis in vivo. Finally, application of the compomer helped to improve children’s acceptance of treatment without affecting the subsequent therapeutic outcomes in the follow-up examinations. To summarize, the findings suggest that Twinky Star compomer meets the performance requirements for dental fillings, and can be recommended for future clinical application.

Nd-YAG laser surface treatment was conducted on 7075-T651 aluminum alloy with the aim of improving the stress corrosion cracking resistance of the alloy. Laser surface treatment was performed under two different gas environments, air and nitrogen. After the laser treatment, coarse constituent particles were removed and fine cellular/dendritic structures had formed. In addition, for the N 2 -treated specimen, an AlN phase was detected. The results of the stress corrosion test showed that after 30 days of immersion, the untreated specimen had been severely attacked by corrosion, with intergranular cracks having formed along the planar grain boundaries of the specimen. For the air-treated specimen, some relatively long stress corrosion cracks and a small number of relatively large corrosion pits were found. The cracks mainly followed the interdendritic boundaries; the fusion boundary was found to be acting as an arrestor to corrosion attacks. In contrast, only few short stress corrosion cracks appeared in the N 2 -treated specimen, indicating an improvement in corrosion initiation resistance. The superior corrosion resistance was attributed to the formation of the AlN phase in the surface of the laser-melted layer, which is an electrical insulator. The electrochemical impedance measurements taken during the stress corrosion test showed that the film resistance of the laser-treated specimens was always higher than that of the untreated specimen, with the N 2 -treated specimen showing the highest resistance.

The effect of excimer laser surface treatment on the stress corrosion cracking (SCC) behaviour of 7075 aluminium alloy was studied in a 3·5%NaCl solution using a slow strain rate test (SSRT). The test was conducted at the open circuit potential, a constant anodic or cathodic potential. The results of the SSRT and examination of the fracture surface of the specimens showed that the laser treatment can significantly increase the SCC initiation resistance of 7075 aluminium alloy, and reduce the degree of intergranular attack. This was due to the absence of coarse constituent particles and precipitate free grain boundaries in the laser melted layer. Moreover, the thin compact Al2O3 layer with nanocrystalline structures formed at the top surface of the laser melted layer serves as a barrier to retard corrosion attack.

This article studies the effect of surface finish on the corrosion behavior of magnesium ZM51/SiC composite. Four different machining processes were employed: single-point diamond turning, wire electrical discharge machining, grinding, and polishing. The machined surface quality was found to have a significant influence on the corrosion behavior of magnesium ZM51/SiC composite. The results showed that, in terms of corrosion current, charge transfer resistance, and double-layer capacitance, the polished and fine-ground specimens have the highest corrosion resistance whereas the rough-ground specimen exhibited the highest corrosion rate. The effects of the various machining-induced defects on corrosion behavior are discussed.

Excimer laser surface treatment was found to be an effective method for improving the pitting corrosion resistance of the aluminum alloy 7075. The results of the TEM study showed that laser surface melting of the alloy at an intensity of 10.3 J/cm2 resulted in the elimination of coarse second-phase particles in the laser-melted zone. More importantly, two compact layers containing aluminum oxide were formed on top of the laser-melted surface. Potentiodynamic polarization tests showed that as a result of the laser treatment, the corrosion current can be reduced by as much as six times, and a passive region was obtained. Besides, the analysis of the electrochemical impedance measurements showed that at an open-circuit potential (OCP), the polarization resistance and double-layer capacitance of the film/electrolyte interface of the laser-treated specimen were one order of magnitude higher and six times lower than that of the untreated specimen, respectively. Furthermore, when tested at OCP+50 mV, the untreated specimen suffered serious pitting corrosion, while a passive film had formed on the laser-treated specimen, which served as an effective barrier for reducing anodic dissolution.

Excimer surface treatment was conducted on 7075-T651 aluminium alloy with the aim of improving the alloy's resistance to stress corrosion cracking (SCC) when tested in a NaCl solution. Using a pulse energy of 8 J/cm2, a laser-melted layer of about 8 μm thick was formed. Within the re-solidified laser-melted layer, the original grain boundaries of the wrought structure and most of the coarse constituent particles were removed. The grain boundaries of the re-solidified structure were found to be free from precipitates. The results of the SCC tests showed that after the 30-day immersion test, the untreated specimen was severely attacked with intergranular cracks that reached deep into the specimen; by contrast, no intergranular cracks were found in the laser-treated specimen. The form of corrosion attack in the laser-treated specimen took the form of corrosion pits instead. The electrochemical impedance measurements taken during the SCC test showed that the film resistance of the laser-treated specimen was always higher than that of the untreated specimen.

Purpose: To compare volumetric modulated arc radiotherapy (VMAT) technique with fixed-gantry intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) technique for locally advanced laryngeal carcinoma. Methods: CT datasets of eleven patients were included. Dual-arc VMAT and 7-field IMRT plans, which were created based on the Eclipse treatment planning system, were compared in terms of dose-volume parameters, conformity index (CI) and homogeneity index (HI) of planning target volume (PTV), as well as organ-at-risk (OAR) sparing, planning time, monitor units (MUs) and delivery time. Results: Compared with the IMRT plans, the VMAT plans provided lower D2% and better CI/HI for the high-risk PTV (PTV1), and provided better CI and comparable HI for the low-risk PTV (PTV2). Concerning the OAR sparing, the VMAT plans demonstrated significantly lower Dmax of the spinal cord (planning OAR volume, PRV) and brainstem (PRV), as well as lower Dmean and V30Gy of the right parotid. No significant differences were observed between the two plans concerning the doses delivered to the thyroid, carotid, oral cavity and left parotid. Moreover, the VMAT planning (147 ± 18 min) consumed 213% more time than the IMRT planning (48 ± 10 min). The MUs of the VMAT plans (556 ± 52) were 64% less than those of the IMRT plans (1684 ± 409), and the average delivery time (2.1 ± 0.1 min) was 66% less than that of the IMRT plans (6.3 ± 0.7 min). Conclusion: Compared with the IMRT technique, the VMAT technique can achieve superior target dose distribution and better sparing of the spinal cord, brainstem and right parotid, with less MUs and less delivery time. It is recommended for the radiotherapy of locally advanced laryngeal carcinoma.

Background Idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss has great impact on quality of life. Many clinical trials using Chinese herbal medicine for idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss have been conducted and reported beneficial results. However, there is no critical appraised evidence on efficacy and safety of Chinese herbal medicine for idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss to inform clinical use. Objective of review To assess the beneficial effect and safety of Chinese herbal medicine for idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss. Type of review Systematic review of randomised clinical trials. Search strategy Seven electronic databases and two trial registries were searched for all eligible trials from inception to January 2013. Evaluation method Two authors independently selected trials and extracted data. The Cochrane risk of bias tool was utilised to assess the methodological quality of the included trials. revman 5.2 software was applied for data analysis with effect estimate presented as risk ratio and mean difference with its 95% confidence interval. Results Forty-one randomised clinical trials involving 3560 participants were identified. Five kinds of Chinese herbal medicine were trialed. All trials compared conventional therapies of steroids, vasodilaltors, anticoagulants, nutritional supplements or hyperbaric oxygen with or without herbal medicine. No trial was identified that compared herbal medicine alone with placebo. No trial was identified that blinded the participants or the observers to their herbal medication. Only one trial adequately reported its method of randomisation. No trial reported the sample size calculated to show an effect. All trials had material other defects giving a high likelihood of bias. Because of the overall poor quality of all 41 trials, it was concluded that there was no level-one evidence to support the use of Chinese herbal medicine, alone or in addition to conventional therapies, to improve the hearing in adults with idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss. Two trials reported adverse effects, and no severe adverse effects were found in the Chinese herbal medicine groups. Conclusions The existing evidence for the beneficial effect and safety of Chinese herbal medicine for idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss comes from methodologically poor studies and therefore cannot be reliably used to support their clinical use. We identify a justification to further investigate the effect and safety of Chinese herbal medicine for people with idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss in rigorously designed randomised trials.

Purpose: To explore the effect of the Jaw-tracking with RapidArc(JT-RapidArc) plans for upper thoracic esophageal cancer. Methods: Treatment planning was designed by using RapidArc and JT-RapidArc techniques for 11 consecutive patients. The dose-volume histogram parameters of PTV and the organs at risk(OAR), conformity index(CI), heterogeneity index(HI), low dose volume of normal tissue(B-P) and monitor units(MUs) were compared between the different techniques. Results: JT-RapidArc plans provided the better coverage of PTV1(64) D98 and HI(P 0.05), which comparison with RapidArc plans. Plans with JT- RapidArc had lower Lung of V5, V10, V13, V20, V30, MLD(P 0.05) as compared with RapidArc plans. Conclusion: All of the plans had met the requirements of clinical dosimetry. JT-RapidArc plans as compared with RapidArc plans, showing better part of target coverage, part of OARS(lung and heart) and heart and B-P sparing, which MUs was slightly increased. This work was sponsored by Shantou University Medical College Clinical Research Enhancement Initiative(NO.201424)

Although the difficulties, the temporal and spatial knowledge of runoff rate, flow velocity and sediment concentration or sediment yield in watersheds during the rainfall-runoff-soil erosion processes is of great importance for understanding the soil erosion mechanism. Their onsite and accurate measurements will provide very much demanded data for physically based soil erosion simulation/prediction models. An automated system is presented in this paper for the measurements of the factors affecting soil erosion dynamic processes. The whole measurement system consists of weir and water level sensor systems for runoff rates; shallow water flow velocity measuring systems for flow velocities in hill-slope rills and/or watershed water channels; sediment concentration measuring systems for sediment concentrations at designed locations; and data acquisition systems for the control and data logging of the systems. A laboratory watershed model was constructed to run the demo experiments. The detailed information concerning the arrangements of the sensors in the watershed is given. The data logged by the system were compared with the manually–measured ones to illustrate the feasibility and the accuracy of the system. Also, the measured runoff and sediment data from the watershed under simulated rainfall were shown to illustrate the runoff and sedimentation processes. The primary results indicated that the system is promising to be applicable in the study of soil erosion dynamic processes.

Suicide is a serious and complex public health problem. Health care providers, including both psychiatrists and primary care physicians, are just beginning to understand the intricacies involved in suicide and its prevention. Suicide rates continue to rise, making the education of the public and physicians regarding awareness and prevention, recognition of a wide range of risk factors, and research into suicide prevention strategies very important.

Suicide prevention is a critical objective in the treatment of bipolar disorder. This article describes practical mechanisms by which monitoring and management of suicide risk can be integrated into the routine care of patients with bipolar disorder. Suicide risk is assessed in terms of inclination (the drive to commit a self-destructive act) and opportunity (access to lethal means). Intervention strategies are adapted to the needs of bipolar patients across 3 phases of treatment: the acute episode; the continuation phase, when symptom reduction has occurred but adaptive recovery has not; and the maintenance phase, in which optimization of adaptive function and vigilance against impending relapse are paramount. Integration of suicide prevention into the outpatient management plan begins with a routine discussion of suicide risk at the initiation of a treatment relationship, even in the absence of other known risk factors. This discussion paves the way for ongoing assessment of suicidality. Just as the recommended routine monitoring of every euthymic bipolar patient includes at least some minimal assessment for prodromal symptoms of acute mania or depression, every clinical visit can include sufficient probes to determine the need for new interventions specific to suicide prevention. Ongoing assessment of risk and protective factors can be linked to a range of individualized interventions designed to meet the varying needs of patients over time. The intensity of monitoring and interventions reflects the clinician's knowledge of risk factors and may be life saving, but it is also important that patients and others involved in their care understand that monitoring cannot guarantee safety.

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the isomerization selectivity in fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) process. A parameter cracking chain length (CCL) has been proposed and used to correlate with bi-molecular reactions and isomerization selectivity. The effects of zeolite structure on the mechanism of n-hexane cracking and CCL have also been studied. Catalyst design is based on the understanding of the chain mechanism of the cracking reactions and the correlation between CCL and zeolite properties. A new series of catalysts GOR has been developed and commercially applied in a number of FCC units.

This study presents an efficient quasi-binary search algorithm for vector quantisation (VQ). The proposed algorithm adopts a tree-structured VQ (TSVQ) with overlapped codewords (TSOC) to reduce computational complexity and enhance quantisation quality. This algorithm uses overlapped codewords to expand the scope of the search path to traverse more appropriate codewords. In the authors' speech experiment, compared with the full search VQ (FSVQ), the average computational savings for triangle inequality elimination (TIE), TSVQ and TSOC are 23.65, 88.63 and 59.43%, respectively. In this experiment, the quantisation accuracy of TIE, TSVQ and TSOC are 100, 46.61 and 99.16%, respectively. To further evaluate computations at each stage of the proposed algorithm, both speech and images are considered. With codebook sizes of 256, 512 and 1024, the corresponding optimal computational savings for images are 84.59, 91.08 and 93.51%, respectively, compared with the FSVQ. For speech, the optimal computational savings reached 59.43% for a codebook size of 128. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm can save a significant number of computations, depending on the size of codebook. The TSOC algorithm is a trade-off between TSVQ and TIE, which provides a satisfactory computation quality. Moreover, unlike the TIE method, our algorithm does not depend on the high correlation characteristics of signals to reduce the amount of computation, but the TIE method can be incorporated into our algorithm to dramatically reduce the amount of computation.

Edge-emitting c-plane GaN/sapphire-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs) sandwiched by two dielectric/metal hybrid reflectors on both sapphire and GaN surfaces were studied to determine their light emission polarization. The hybrid reflectors comprised dielectric multiple thin films and a metal layer. The metal layers of Au or Ag used in this study were designed to enhance the polarization ratio from S-polarization (transverse electric wave, TE) to P-polarization (transverse magnetic wave, TM). The two sets of optimized dielectric multi thin films served as matching layers for wide-angle incident light on both sapphire and GaN surfaces. To determine which reflector scheme would achieve a higher polarization ratio, simulations of the reflectance at the hybrid reflectors on sapphire (or GaN) interface were performed before the fabrication of experimental LEDs. Compared with conventional c-plane InGaN/GaN/sapphire LEDs without dielectric/metal hybrid reflectors, the experimental LEDs exhibited higher polarizati...

Excimer laser surface melting of the aluminum alloy 8090 has been conducted with the aim of improving the intergranular corrosion resistance of the alloy. Both the results of the electrochemical and the intergranular corrosion cracking immersion tests show that the laser treatment significantly increases the intergranular corrosion resistance of the alloy, especially when the material is treated in nitrogen gas. The improvement in intergranular corrosion resistance is considered to be primarily due to the elimination of grain boundary Cu enriched precipitates in the laser-melted layer, which has effectively prohibited intergranular corrosion cracking. Besides, the reduction of Cu and Fe enriched constituent particles increases the pitting corrosion resistance of the alloy. As a result, a reduction in corrosion current density of one order of magnitude has been obtained for the laser-treated material. Moreover, a strong passivation has been obtained for the N2-treated specimen. This is attributed to the pr...