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Congenital hemangiomas (CHs) are rare vascular tumors and do not exhibit progressive postnatal growth. The incidence is less than 3% of all hemangiomas. Most CHs have a favorable prognosis; however, the Kasabach–Merritt phenomenon (KMP) is a rare but life-threatening complication in CHs that requires aggressive treatment. Medical treatments with corticosteroids and interferon have been suggested. Surgical resection can be considered for the treatment of complicated CHs in medically resistant lesions. Vascular embolization could be an alternative method if surgery is not considered feasible. Herein, we report a case of a 9-day-old newborn who underwent arterial embolization for a CH with KMP, combined with sirolimus treatment, and the outcome was favorable. The hemangioma completely regressed by 3 months and rapidly involuting congenital hemangioma (RICH) was diagnosed. Our successful experience with treating RICH associated with KMP revealed that RICH can have potentially serious complications although they usually resolve rapidly after birth without treatment. Surgical resection is considered to be the standard method for the treatment of medically resistant vascular tumors, but it is difficult to perform during the active phase of KMP due to acute bleeding and severe coagulopathy. Arterial embolization is feasible and can be used as an alternative to surgical resection, even in small babies.

Identification of natural hybrids considered as endangered species is of vital importance in biodiversity conservation and taxonomy, as natural hybrids will usually waste the conservation resource and obscure the divergences between distinct species. During the field surveys in the Sanqing Mountain, we found the endangered endemic species, Ilex sanqingshanensis, strictly co-occurred with I. ficoidea and I. pernyi and then supposed a hybrid origin for this taxon. Combing the molecular analyses of ITS and cpDNA (petA-psbJ + psbA-trnH) with the morphological analyses of eight leaf characters, we confirmed this taxon to be a hybrid between I. ficoidea and I. pernyi and accepted it as I. × sanqingshanensis. Despite the presence of intermediacy in morphology, this hybrid is sharply distinct from the two parents in all tested traits, misleading the botanists to treat it as a species. Considering the inadequacies of morphological distinctions in distinguishing holly hybrids, we have emphasized the necessity of molecular evidence for erecting Ilex species.

A novel species of Rhamnaceae, Colubrina zhaoguangii , is discovered in Sichuan, China, during the biodiversity investigations of the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research. Detailed descriptions and illustrations of the new species are presented herein. To date, the new species is only found in dry-warm river valleys of the Jinsha River basin in the Hengduan Mountains region (HDM). Compared with the other two known Chinese Colubrina species, C. zhaoguangii features by the habit of twisted shrub and tiny leaves with emarginate apex. In morphology, the new species highly resembles C. alluaudii endemic in Madagascar and C. viridis in northwestern Mexico, whereas it is distinguished from these two relatives by its minutely white scales on the leaf blades. The discovery of C. zhaoguangii reminds us again that the bottom region is also important for biodiversity conservation in HDM and should be a flora survey priority.

The condition of partial anomalous origin of a branch pulmonary artery from the descending aorta could be found in several diseases and should be carefully differentiated. We report an unusual case of anomalous systemic arterial supply to normal basal segments of the left lower lung and another case of intralobar pulmonary sequestration. These two cases were treated successfully by transarterial embolisation using the Amplatzer Vascular Plug. We also set up a diagnostic algorithm to differentiate these diseases from anomalous systemic arterial supply to the pulmonary region. It is possible to make the correct diagnosis using the step-by-step diagnostic algorithm and careful interpretation of chest computed tomography angiography.

Location selection is an important part of running a business. A good business location can greatly increase customer flow, reduce operating costs, and increase business revenue. Therefore, it is necessary to select an appropriate location for business premises. In this research, we propose a method combining machine learning and particle swarm optimization for the business location selection. In the proposed method, we first apply the particle swarm algorithm to optimize the proportional coefficient of the influence of different surrounding commercial places on the site selection of the research site. Then we use a machine learning method to perform the binary classification on the sites to judge whether a geographic location is a good site selection point. The proposed method is compared with several common location selection methods such as random selection method and k-nearest neighbor method. The experimental results have validated the effectiveness of our proposed method for business location selection.

Traffic Signal Control (TSC) is a fundamental task in modern intelligent transport systems. TSC is often formulated as a bi‐level optimization problem, comprised by the signal timing at the upper level and the Dynamic User Equilibrium (DUE) traffic assignment at the lower level. Since DUE is non‐convex, existing methods either formulate approximation models or adopt traffic simulators. However, approximation models may oversimplify the practical situations, while traffic simulators are usually time‐consuming. This paper formulates a vehicle‐based DUE (vDUE) model and proposes an agile method that can simultaneously maintain the computational simplicity and the traffic dynamics for the traffic assignment. Further, an agile TSC system is built by combining the vDUE at the lower level for the traffic assignment with an adaptive differential evolution algorithm at the upper level for the signal timing optimization. To enhance the effectiveness of optimization, the TSC problem formulation is also improved to make it better characterize the practical requirements. In the experiments undertaken, comparisons of different TSC methods are carried out on both real‐world and synthetic transportation networks. The experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed agile TSC system in various traffic situations.

Genetic Programming (GP) is a popular and powerful evolutionary optimization algorithm that has a wide range of applications such as symbolic regression, classification and program synthesis. However, existing GPs often ignore the intrinsic structure of the ground truth equation of the symbolic regression problem. To improve the search efficacy of GP on symbolic regression problems by fully exploiting the intrinsic structure information, this paper proposes a genetic programming with separability detection technique (SD-GP). In the proposed SD-GP, a separability detection method is proposed to detect additive separable characteristics of input features from the observed data. Then based on the separability detection results, a chromosome representation is proposed, which utilizes multiple sub chromosomes to represent the final solution. Some sub chromosomes are used to construct separable sub functions by using separate input features, while the other sub chromosomes are used to construct sub functions by using all input features. The final solution is the weighted sum of all sub functions, and the optimal weights of sub functions are obtained by using the least squares method. In this way, the structure information can be learnt and the global search ability of GP can be maintained. Experimental results on synthetic problems with differing characteristics have demonstrated that the proposed SD-GP can perform better than several state-of-the-art GPs in terms of the success rate of finding the optimal solution and the convergence speed.

The increasing popularity of battery-limited electric vehicles puts forward an important issue of how to charge the vehicles effectively. This problem, commonly referred to as Electric Vehicle Charging Scheduling (EVCS), has been proven to be NP-hard. Most of the existing works formulate the EVCS problem simply as a constrained shortest path finding problem and treat it by discrete optimization. However, other variables such as the charging amount of energy and the charging option at a station need to be considered in practical use. This paper hence formulates the EVCS problem as a hierarchical mixed-variable optimization problem, considering the dependency among the station selection, the charging option at each station and the charging amount settings. To adapt to the new problem model, we specifically design a Mixed-Variable Differentiate Evolution (MVDE) as the scheduling algorithm for our proposed EVCS system. The MVDE contains several specific operators, including a charging station route construction, a hierarchical mixed-variable mutation operator and a constraint-aware evaluation operator. Experimental results validate the effectiveness of our proposed MVDE-based system on both synthetic and real-world transportation networks.

Background Emerging evidence shows allergic diseases, such as atopic dermatitis and asthma, are risk factors of heart failure. However, the causal relationship between allergic diseases and heart failure is not clear. Methods We performed a two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis between allergic diseases and heart failure using summary statistics of genome-wide association studies from large GWAS consortia, with total sample size of 1.2 million. Independent instrumental variables for asthma and atopic dermatitis (P−5) were used as the exposure. We applied five models for the Mendelian randomization analysis. Finally, we performed the sensitivity analyses to assess the robustness of the results. Results We have identified 55 independent single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) for asthma 54 independent SNPs for atopic dermatitis as our instrumental variables. The inverse variance-weighted (IVW) analysis showed asthma was significantly associated with increased risk of heart failure (ORIVW = 1.04, 95% CI, 1.01–1.07, P = 0.03). The Mendelian randomization analysis using the other four models also showed consistent results with the IVW analysis. Similarly, atopic dermatitis was also significantly associated with an increased risk of heart failure (ORIVW = 1.03, 95% CI, 1.01–1.06, P = 0.01), consistent with the other four models. The sensitivity analysis showed no evidence of horizontal pleiotropy or results were driven by single SNPs. Conclusion Our study identified asthma and atopic dermatitis as a causal risk factor for heart failure and suggest inflammatory pathogenesis as a key factor contributing to the underlying mechanism. These findings emphasize the importance of asthma and allergy control in the prevention and management of heart failure.

We report a case of a 9-day-old newborn who underwent arterial embolization for Kaposiform hemangioendothelioma (KHE) with Kasabach-Merritt phenomenon (KMP), combined with sirolimus treatment, and the outcome was favorable. To the best of our knowledge, there are no case reports of such small infants undergoing arterial embolization to treat KHE. Our successful experience of treating KHE with KMP showed that transcatheter arterial embolization is feasible and can be used as an alternative to surgical resection, even in small infants.

Background. Sexual dimorphism with critical diseases has been documented. However, the role of serum sex hormones for the presence of acute kidney injury (AKI) in moderately or severe acute pancreatitis (MSAP and SAP) patients remains controversial. Here we set out to evaluate whether early (first 48 h) serum estradiol level is associated with AKI in patients with MSAP and SAP. Patients and Methods. We retrospectively collected data from patients with preliminary diagnosis of MSAP and SAP from the Affiliated Hospital of Yangzhou University between January 2014 and June 2018. Serum sex hormones were extracted for further assessment within first 48 h following admission. Logistic regression analysis and the receiving operating characteristic (ROC) curve were applied to evaluate the association and correlation between serum sex hormones and AKI. Results. Data from a total of 122 patients with MSAP or SAP were enrolled in this study. There were no differences in the incidence of AKI between males and females. However, comparing with patients without AKI, those with AKI saw higher estradiol level ( p ≤ 0.01 ) and slight higher progesterone level ( p = 0.014 ) but similar testosterone level ( p = 0.668 ). Interestingly, during both the manual selection and the stepwise backward logistic regression analysis, serum estradiol level was independently associated with AKI in patients with MSAP and SAP (OR 4.699, CI 1.783-12.386, and p = 0.002 ). Additionally, area under the curve of ROC (AUCROC) showed that serum estradiol level was a proper predictor for AKI (area under the curve 0.875). Specifically, the serum estradiol level of 223.15 pg/mL demonstrated a 92.3% sensitive and a 79.3% specificity in predicting AKI of MSAP and SAP patients, respectively. Conclusions. High baseline serum estradiol level appears to be an independent risk factor for AKI in patients with MSAP and SAP. It also tends to be an appropriate indicator for AKI.

Cannulation in low birth weight (LBW) neonates using larger sheaths could increase the risk of vascular injury. This study investigated the relationship between body weight (BW) and diameter of femoral vessels in LBW neonates and whether BW can be used to predict femoral vessel diameter.The cohort included 100 neonates weighing 2.5 kg (.57-2.42 kg) with a gestational age of 24-39 weeks. Vascular ultrasonography was used to measure diameters of the bilateral femoral arteries (FA) and veins (FV). The cohort was divided into four groups according to weight: group-A, 2-2.49 kg (n = 28); group-B, 1.5-1.99 kg (n = 38); group-C, 1-1.49 kg (n = 21); and group-D, 1 kg (n = 13); or according to BSA: group-A, BSA .16 mThe median vessel diameters (mm) in groups A-D according to weight were FA, 1.96, 1.86, 1.78, and 1.53, and FV, 2.30, 2.28, 2.13, and 1.87, respectively. The median vessel diameters (mm) in groups A-D according to BSA were FA, 1.96, 1.86, 1.76, and 1.53, and FV, 2.30, 2.28, 2.05, and 1.87, respectively. There were positive correlations between BW and femoral vessel diameter (correlation coefficient: .56 and .55 between BW and FA and FV, respectively) (p 0.001), and between BSA and femoral vessel diameter (correlation coefficient: .56 and .55 between BSA and FA and FV, respectively) (p 0.001).BW is a predictor of femoral vessel diameter in LBW newborns. This finding may help to avoid using larger sheath in smaller vessels.

Background: Sepsis-3 definitions have been published recently; however, their diagnostic value remains controversial. This study was to assess the accuracy of Sepsis-3 definitions compared to Sepsis-1 definitions by stratifying mortality among adult critically ill patients with suspected infection. Methods: A multicenter, prospective cohort study was conducted from November 10, 2017 to October 10, 2018, in five Intensive Care Units (ICUs) at four teaching hospitals. Thirty-day mortality was compared across categories for both Sepsis-3 definitions and Sepsis-1 definitions, which were evaluated by logistic regression analysis followed by measurement of the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) for predicting 30-day mortality rates. Results: Of the 749 enrolled patients, 644 (85.9%) were diagnosed with sepsis according to the Sepsis-1 definitions. Among those patients, 362 were diagnosed with septic shock (362/749, 48.3%). However, according to the Sepsis-3 definitions, there were 483 patients with a diagnosis of sepsis (483/749, 64.5%), among whom 299 patients were diagnosed with septic shock (299/749, 39.9%). According to the Sepsis-3 definitions, sepsis (sepsis and septic shock) patients had higher 30-day mortality (41.8%) than sepsis patients according to the Sepsis-1 definitions (31.8%, χ2 = 5.552, P = 0.020). The AUROC of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) and quick sequential organ failure assessment (qSOFA) scores with regard to 30-day mortality rates were 0.609 (0.566–0.652) and 0.694 (0.654–0.733), respectively. However, the AUROC of SOFA scores (0.828 [0.795–0.862]) were significantly higher than that of SIRS or qSOFA scores (P < 0.001). Conclusion: In adult critically ill patients with suspected infection, the Sepsis-3 definitions were relatively accurate in stratifying mortality and were superior to the Sepsis-1 definitions. Trial Registration: www.chictr.org.cn (ChiCTR-OOC-17013223). Key words: Infection; Critically ill patients; Sepsis-3; Septic shock; Mortality

The tumor suppressor p53 protein activates expression of a vast gene network in response to stress stimuli for cellular integrity. The molecular mechanism underlying how p53 targets RNA polymerase II (Pol II) to regulate transcription remains unclear. To elucidate the p53/Pol II interaction, we have determined a 4.6 Å resolution structure of the human p53/Pol II assembly via single particle cryo-electron microscopy. Our structure reveals that p53’s DNA binding domain targets the upstream DNA binding site within Pol II. This association introduces conformational changes of the Pol II clamp into a further-closed state. A cavity was identified between p53 and Pol II that could possibly host DNA. The transactivation domain of p53 binds the surface of Pol II’s jaw that contacts downstream DNA. These findings suggest that p53’s functional domains directly regulate DNA binding activity of Pol II to mediate transcription, thereby providing insights into p53-regulated gene expression., Liou et al. report a 4.6 Å resolution structure of the human p53/ RNA polymerase II assembly, using single particle cryoelectron microscopy. This study suggests that p53’s functional domains regulate the DNA binding activity of RNA polymerase II, providing insights into p53-regulated gene expression.

The 2018 Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC) recommends rapid administration of 30 mL/kg crystalloid fluids for hypotension or lactate ≥4 mmol/L in patients with septic shock; however, there is limited evidence to support this recommendation. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between initial fluid resuscitation doses and prognosis in patients with septic shock.This was a multicenter prospective observational study of adult patients with septic shock who were admitted to four intensive care units (ICUs) in a total of three Jiangsu Province teaching hospitals over a 3-year span from May 8, 2018, to June 15, 2021. Each enrolled patients with septic shock was categorized into the low-volume (below 20 mL/kg fluid), medium-volume (20-30 mL/kg fluid) or high-volume (above 30 mL/kg fluid) fluid group according to the initial infusion dose given for fluid resuscitation. Various demographic attributes and other variables were collected from medical records. Logistic regression and Kaplan-Meier curve analysis were used to determine the relationship between initial fluid resuscitation doses and patient outcomes.A total of 302 patients who presented to the ICU were diagnosed with septic shock. The 28-day mortality was highest in the high-volume group (48.3%) and lowest in the medium-volume group (26.3%, P 0.05). Patients who completed 30 mL/kg initial fluid resuscitation in the first 1-2 h had the lowest 28-day mortality rate (22.8%, P 0.05). Logistic regression showed that a medium initial fluid volume dose was an independent protective factor, with the odds ratio (OR) indicating significantly decreased mortality (OR, 0.507; 95% confidence interval, 0.310-0.828; P = 0.007; P 0.05). A Kaplan-Meier curve stratified by initial fluid resuscitation dose was constructed for the probability of 28-day mortality. The medium-volume fluid group showed a significantly lower 28-day mortality rate than the high-volume group or the low-volume group (log-rank test, P = 0.0016).In septic shock patients, an initial fluid resuscitation rate of 20-30 mL/kg within the first hour may be associated with reduced 28-day mortality; however, this result needs to be confirmed by further high-quality randomized controlled clinical trials.Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, ChiCTR-OOC-17013223. Registered 2 November 2017, http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=22674.

OBJECTIVESThe 2018 Surviving Sepsis Campaign (SSC) recommends rapid administration of 30 ml/kg crystalloid for hypotension or lactate ≥4 mmol/L in patients with septic shock; however, there is no credible evidence to support this recommendation. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between initial fluid resuscitation doses and prognosis in patients with septic shock.METHODSThis was a multicentre prospective observational study of adult patients with septic shock admitted to four intensive care units (ICUs) in a total of three Jiangsu province teaching hospitals over a 1-year span from May 8, 2018, to June 31, 2020. All enrolled patients with septic shock were categorized as below 20 ml/kg fluid, 20-30 ml/kg fluid and above 30 ml/kg fluid groups according to initial infusion doses of fluid resuscitation. Various demographic and other variables were collected from medical records. Logistic regression analysis and curve fitting were used to determine the relationship between initial fluid resuscitation and patient outcome.MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTSA total of 153 patients who presented to the ICU were diagnosed with septic shock. The 28-day mortality was highest in the fluid above 30 ml/kg group (47.8%) and lowest in the fluid 20-30 ml/kg group (26.5%, PCONCLUSIONIn septic shock patients, an initial fluid resuscitation rate of 20-30 ml/kg within the first 1 h or completion of the initial 30 ml/kg fluid resuscitation between the first 1-2 h may be associated with faster organ function recovery and lower 28-day mortality.Trial registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, ChiCTR-OOC-17013223. Registered 2 November 2017, http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=22674

Background/Aims: Nasal continuous positive airway pressure (nCPAP) was recommended as the initial respiratory support for spontaneous breathing in infants with very low birth weight and neonatal respiratory distress syndrome (NRDS). Less invasive surfactant administration (LISA) and minimally invasive surfactant therapy (MIST) have been reported to reduce the incidence of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD). This study aimed to explore the applicability of minimally invasive surfactant administration (MISA) in China. Materials and Methods: MISA was a randomized controlled study conducted at eight level III neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in China. Spontaneously breathing infants born at 25+0 to 31+6 weeks' gestation who progressively developed respiratory distress during the first 6 h after birth were randomly assigned to receive MISA or endotracheal intubation surfactant administration (EISA). The primary outcome was the difference in the morbidity of BPD between two groups of infants with MISA and EISA at 36 weeks corrected gestational age. Results: Demographic and clinical characteristics of the 151 infants in the MISA group were similar to the 147 infants in the EISA group. The comparison showed no clear benefits in the MISA group in the incidence of BPD, while infants from the EISA group had higher rates of patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) (60.5 vs. 41.1%, p = 0.001). The duration of surfactant infusion and the total time of surfactant administration in the MISA group were significantly longer than in the EISA group. A slightly increased heart rate was noted 1 h post surfactant administration in the EISA group. In subgroup analysis, the comparison of 51 smaller (

OBJECTIVE: To identify risk factors for minimally invasive surfactant administration (MISA) failure in the treatment of preterm infants with respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) and the influence of MISA failure on neonatal outcome. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was performed for the clinical data of 148 preterm infants with a gestational age of ≤ 32 weeks and a clinical diagnosis of RDS, who were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit of eight tertiary hospitals in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province from July 1, 2017 to December 31, 2018 and were treated with MISA (bovine pulmonary surfactant, PS). According to whether MISA failure (defined as the need for mechanical ventilation within 72 hours after MISA) was observed, the infants were divided into two groups:MISA failure group (n=16) and MISA success (n=132). A logistic regression analysis was used to investigate the risk factors for MISA failure and its influence on neonatal outcome. RESULTS: The MISA failure rate was 10.8% (16/148). The logistic regression analysis showed that a high incidence rate of grade > Ⅱ RDS before PS administration, low mean arterial pressure and high pulse pressure before administration, a low dose of initial PS administration, and long injection time and operation time were the risk factors for MISA failure (OR=5.983, 1.210, 1.183, 1.055, 1.036, and 1.058 respectively, P < 0.05). After the control for the above risk factors, the logistic regression analysis showed that the MISA failure group had a significantly higher incidence rate of bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) (OR=8.537, P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: A high grade of RDS, a low mean arterial pressure, and a high pulse pressure before administration are independent risk factors for MISA failure, and a low dose of initial PS administration, a long injection time, and a long operation time may increase the risk of MISA failure. MISA failure may increase the incidence rate of BPD in preterm infants.

To investigate the effects of mitochondrial ATPase inhibitory factor 1 (Atpif1) on hemoglobin synthesis.Firstly, the K562 cells were divided into 2 groups, hypoxia-treated group and normoxic control group. The K562 cells in hypoxia-treated group were treated with 2% oxygen. The K562 cells in the two groups were collected after cultured for 24, 48 and 72 hours. The proliferation-inhibitory rates of cells were detected by CCK-8 assay. The apoptosis rates of K562 cells were analyzed by flow cytometry. The hemoglobin synthesis of K562 cells was induced by hemin. The gene expressions of Atpif1, Aladelta-aminolevulinate synthase 2 (Alas2) and nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) were detected by qRT-PCR. Then, the K562 cells were cultured in hypoxic incubator and divided into blank control group, negative control group and si-Atpif1 group. After sliencing Atpif1 gene, the hemoglobin synthesis and the levels of NF-κB and Alas2 were determined.Compared with the normoxic control group, the proliferation activity of K562 cells was inhibited, the apoptosis rate was increased, and the hemoglobin synthesis was also increased in hypoxia-treated groups. The expressions of Atpif1, Alas2 and NF-κB mRNA of K562 cells were upregulated. Compared with blank control group and negative control group, the content of hemoglobin was decreased, and the levels of NF-κB and Alas2 mRNA were also decreased in si-Atpif1 group.Atpif1 gene is involved in the regulation of hemoglobin synthesis. Exploring its roles in the development of high altitude polycythemia (HAPC) can provide new ideas and therapeutic targets for the prevention and treatment of HAPC.

Stem cell surface markers may facilitate a better understanding of stem cell biology through molecular function studies or serve as tools to monitor the differentiation status and behavior of stem cells in culture or tissue. Thus, it is important to identify additional novel stem cell markers. We used glycoproteomics to discover surface glycoproteins on human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) that may be useful stem cell markers. We found that a surface glycoprotein, leucine-rich repeat neuronal protein 1 (LRRN1), is expressed abundantly on the surface of hESCs before differentiation into embryoid bodies (EBs). Silencing of LRRN1 with short hairpin RNA (shLRRN1) in hESCs resulted in decreased capacity of self-renewal, and skewed differentiation toward endoderm/mesoderm lineages in vitro and in vivo. Meanwhile, the protein expression levels of the pluripotency factors OCT4, NANOG, and SOX2 were reduced. Interestingly, the mRNA levels of these pluripotency factors were not affected in LRRN1 silenced cells, but protein half-lives were substantially shortened. Furthermore, we found LRRN1 silencing led to nuclear export and proteasomal degradation of all three pluripotency factors. In addition, the effects on nuclear export were mediated by AKT phosphorylation. These results suggest that LRRN1 plays an important role in maintaining the protein stability of pluripotency factors through AKT phosphorylation, thus maintaining hESC self-renewal capacity and pluripotency. Overall, we found that LRRN1 contributes to pluripotency of hESC by preventing translocation of OCT4, NANOG, and SOX2 from nucleus to cytoplasm, thereby lessening their post-translational modification and degradation.

To prevent tumorigenesis, p53 stimulates transcription by facilitating the recruitment of the transcription machinery on target gene promoters. Cryo-Electron Microscopy studies on p53-bound RNA Polymerase II (Pol II) reveal that p53 structurally regulates Pol II to affect its DNA binding and elongation, providing new insights into p53-mediated transcriptional regulation.

Perenniporiopsis gen. nov. is described to accommodate Perenniporiopsis minutissima spec. et comb. nov. Phylogenetic analyses based on two data sets, [ITS+n28S nrRNA] and [ITS, n28S, mtSSU, tef1], and using Maximum Parsimony, Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian inferences, showed that specimens of Perenniporia minutissima form a monophyletic well-supported clade within the core polyporoid clade, The new genus grouped with the Abundisporus, Perenniporiella and Perenniporia s.s. lineages, and is phylogenetically distinct from the Perenniporia s.s. lineage (100% BS, 99% MP, 1.00 BPP). Morphologically, the consistency of the basidiocarps, waxy when fresh, drying rigidly osseous, as well as the large basidiospores characterize this species and distinguish it from Perenniporia s.s. The species seems to be endemic to temperate east Asia, and is known from temperate Japan and China.

There is little research comparing dermatologist and patient satisfaction with in-person, store-and-forward, and live interactive examinations.To compare satisfaction with in-person examinations to store-and-forward and live interactive consultations having two types of video.A controlled study was conducted where patients referred for dermatology consultations were examined in-person, by video, and by store-and-forward methods. Video changed between compressed and uncompressed on alternate clinics. Patients and dermatologists rated encounters after each examination. Dermatologists doing store-and-forward evaluations rated the quality of information provided. After experiencing all methods patients ranked their preferences. Dermatologists ranked their preferences at the end of the study.In-person examinations were preferred by both patients and dermatologists. Overall, satisfaction with teledermatology was still high. Patients were evenly divided in preferring store-and-forward workups or live interactive video. Dermatologists were also divided on store-and-forward and uncompressed video, but tended toward the latter. Compressed video was the least preferred method among dermatologists.Dermatology residents took store-and-forward photos and their quality was likely superior to those normally taken in practice.Patients and dermatologists prefer in-person examinations and diverge on preferring store-and-forward and live interactive when video is not compressed. The amount of video compression that can be applied without noticeable image degradation is a question for future research.

Background: There is little teledermatology research directly comparing remote methods, even less research with two in-person dermatologist agreement providing a baseline for comparing remote methods, and no research using high definition video as a live interactive method. Objective: To compare in-person consultations with store-and-forward and live interactive methods, the latter having two levels of image quality. Methods: A controlled study was conducted where patients were examined in-person, by high definition video, and by store-and-forward methods. The order patients experienced methods and residents assigned methods rotated, although an attending always saw patients in-person. The type of high definition video employed, lower resolution compressed or higher resolution uncompressed, was alternated between clinics. Primary and differential diagnoses, biopsy recommendations, and diagnostic and biopsy confidence ratings were recorded. Results: Concordance and confidence were significantly better for in-person versus remote methods and biopsy recommendations were lower. Store-and-forward and higher resolution uncompressed video results were similar and better than those for lower resolution compressed video. Limitations: Dermatology residents took store-and-forward photos and their quality was likely superior to those normally taken in practice. There were variations in expertise between the attending and second and third year residents. Conclusion: The superiority of in-person consultations suggests the tendencies to order more biopsies or still see patients in-person are often justified in teledermatology and that high resolution uncompressed video can close the resolution gap between store-and-forward and live interactive methods.

Objectives: Small bowel angioectasia (SBA) plays an important role in the etiologies of obscure gastrointestinal haemorrhage. But the exact prevalence of the disease is unknown, especially ...

To investigate the protective effects of Sestrin2 protein on lung epithelial Beas-2B cells in the heat-exposure environment and its mechanism.Lung epithelial Beas-2B cells were cultured at 37℃, 39℃, 40℃ and 41℃ respectively. Cells were harvested at different times (0, 3, 6 and 12 h) after pancreatin digestion. The expressions of Sestrin2, superoxide dismutase(SOD), reactive oxygen species(ROS), cell mitochondrial membrane potential and apoptosis rate of cells were detected by Western blot, fluorescence spectrophotometer and flow cytometry, respectively. Gene expression sequence was cloned into high expression plasmid pcDNA3.1With the increase of temperature, the expression level of Sestrin2 protein in heat treatment group was decreased compared with the control group. When Beas-2B cells were exposed to 41℃, the ROS level was increased, mitochondrial membrane potential was decreased significantly and apoptosis rate was increased at different time points. After high expression of Sestrin2 and SOD in the Beas-2B cells, the expression level of ROS was decreased and the change tendency of mitochondrial membrane potential was decreased, and the apoptosis rate was reduced at 41℃ exposure.Sestrin2 can alleviate the apoptosis of lung epithelial cells induced by heat exposure through mitochondrial membrane potential and SOD, which has protective effect on lung epithelial Beas-2B cells.

Cartesian Genetic Programming (CGP) is a powerful and popular tool for automatic generation of computer programs to solve user defined tasks. This paper proposes a Co-evolutionary CGP (named Co-CGP) which can automatically gain high-order knowledge to accelerate the search. In the Co-CGP, two modules are working in cooperation to solve a given problem. One module focuses on solving a series of small scale problems of the same type to generate the building blocks. Simultaneously, the second module focuses on combing the available building blocks to construct the final solution. Besides, an adaptive control strategy is introduced to automatically evaluate the effectiveness of the building blocks and adjust the search behaviour adaptively so as to improve search efficiency. The proposed Co-CGP is tested on eight problems with different complexities. Experimental results show that the Co-CGP can significantly improve the performance of CGP, in terms of both search efficiency and accuracy.

Traffic Signal Control (TSC) is a crucial component in the modern intelligent transportation systems. Typically, the TSC can be formulated as a bilevel optimization problem, which is comprised of the signal timing and the traffic assignment modules. The problem is challenging that the existing approaches usually endure a huge computational cost. As a result, many TSC approaches focus on relatively simple and small transportation networks, which do not satisfy the practical situations. To address above issues, this paper proposes an evolvable TSC (EvoTSC) system, which adopts nature-inspired techniques to realize the global optimization of the TSC in large-scale urban transportation networks. Particularly, it involves two evolutionary computation components. The first component is an Adaptive Differential Evolution (ADE) to optimize the signal timing. Meanwhile, the traffic assignment process is included in the solution evaluation of the ADE to react to the traffic flow dynamics. The second component is an off-line Niching Ant Colony Optimization (NACO), which aims to provide the traffic assignment with sets of multiple promising routes beforehand. This way, the EvoTSC system avoids repeatedly building candidate routes for the traffic assignment, which can greatly save the computational cost of the ADE to evaluate each solution in a large-scale transportation network. In experiments, we carry out comparisons of different TSC approaches on both synthetic and practical transportation networks. The experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed EvoTSC system.

The master tumor suppressor p53 activates transcription in response to various cellular stresses in part by facilitating recruitment of the transcription machinery to DNA. Recent studies have documented a direct yet poorly characterized interaction between p53 and RNA polymerase II (Pol II). Therefore, we dissected the human p53/Pol II interaction via single-particle cryo-electron microscopy, structural docking, and biochemical analyses. This study reveals that p53 binds Pol II via the Rpb1 and Rpb2 subunits, bridging the DNA-binding cleft of Pol II proximal to the upstream DNA entry site. In addition, the key DNA-binding surface of p53, frequently disrupted in various cancers, remains exposed within the assembly. Furthermore, the p53/Pol II cocomplex displays a closed conformation as defined by the position of the Pol II clamp domain. Notably, the interaction of p53 and Pol II leads to increased Pol II elongation activity. These findings indicate that p53 may structurally regulate DNA-binding functions of Pol II via the clamp domain, thereby providing insights into p53-regulated Pol II transcription.

Adulteration of polycarbonate (PC) drinking bottles with postconsumer recycled PC materials was considerably difficult to identify due to similar chemical compositions and minute differences between virgin and recycled PC materials. In the present study, UV/Vis spectroscopy coupled with GC-MS analysis was carried out to identify the adulteration with recycled materials in PC drinking bottles. The minimum adulterating level which could be detected was 20 %. This strategy represents a rapid and promising analytical method for screening the adulteration of PC drinking bottles with postconsumer recycled plastics.

A series of mesoporous NiO–Al 2 O 3 catalysts were prepared by sol–gel method with calcination temperature increasing from 400 °C to 800 °C. The effect of calcination temperature on the texture property and catalytic performance of NiO–Al 2 O 3 catalysts for partial oxidation of methane (POM) was investigated. These catalysts were evaluated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electronic microscopy (TEM), N 2 adsorption–desorption method and temperature programmed reduction (TPR) techniques and tested in a fixed bed reactor at 550 °C. The meso-NiO–Al 2 O 3 catalyst with low carbon deposition prepared at 600 °C was proved to be more active, stable. After 40 h reaction at 550 °C, the Ni–Al 2 O 3 -600 sample still maintained relatively high CH 4 conversion and CO yield indicating high activity and stable structure of obtained sample.

Multiclass classification is one of the most fundamental tasks in data mining. However, traditional data mining methods rely on the model assumption, they generally can suffer from the overfitting problem on high dimension and low sample size (HDLSS) data. Trying to address multiclass classification problems on HDLSS data from another perspective, we utilize Genetic Programming (GP), an intrinsic evolutionary classification algorithm that can implement feature construction automatically without model assumption. This paper develops an ensemble-based genetic programming classification framework, the Sigmoid-based Ensemble Gene Expression Programming (SEGEP). To relieve the problem of output conflict in GP-based multiclass classifiers, the proposed method employs a flexible probability representation with continuous relaxation to better integrate the output of all the binary classifiers, an effective data division strategy to further enhance the ensemble performance, and a novel sampling strategy to refine the existing GP-based binary classifier. The experiment results indicate that SE-GEP can attain better classification accuracy compared to other GP methods. Moreover, the comparison with other representative machine learning methods indicates that SE-GEP is a competitive method for multiclass classification in HDLSS data.

Genetic programming(GP) is a powerful tool to solve Symbolic Regression that requires finding mathematic formula to fit the given observed data. However, existing GPs construct solutions based on building blocks (i.e., the terminal and function set) defined by users in an ad-hoc manner. The search efficacy of GP could be degraded significantly when the size of the building blocks increases. To solve the above problem, this paper proposes a multi-population GP framework with adaptively weighted building blocks. The key idea is to divide the whole population into multiple sub-populations with building blocks with different weights. During the evolution, the weights of building blocks in the sub-populations are adaptively adjusted so that important building blocks can have larger weights and higher selection probabilities to construct solutions. The proposed framework is tested on a set of benchmark problems, and the experimental results have demonstrated the efficacy of the proposed method.

Multimodal optimization (MMO) aims at finding multiple optimal (or close to optimal) solutions, which plays a crucial role in various fields. However, most of the efforts have been devoted to the continuous MMO domain, while little attention has been paid to discrete problems like the traveling salesman problem (TSP). This paper makes a proof of principle study on multimodal TSP. Particularly, we design a test suite for multimodal TSP and then develop an ant colony algorithm to accomplish the optimization task. The traditional ant algorithms such as the ant colony system are unable to maintain multiple solutions because of the global convergence. To deal with this problem, we propose a novel niching ant colony system (NACS). The algorithm employs a niching strategy and multiple pheromone matrices to preserve population diversity and keep the trace of multiple paths. The experimental results are presented to validate the good performance of the proposed algorithm.

Background Minorities are underrepresented in health professions and efforts to recruit minority students into health careers are considered a way to reduce health disparities. There is little research about the effectiveness of these programs, other than satisfaction. This study aimed to measure program effects on student understanding of and interest in health careers. Methods Students took a career interest inventory, completed a scale measuring their self-reported understanding and interest in health careers, and wrote essays about health careers before and after completing a 1 week on campus internship on health careers and after a 9 month follow up distance mentoring program where they continued to interact with university faculty by videoconference about career options. Changes in inventory, scale, and essay scores were analyzed for changes over time using Wilcoxon and Mann-Whitney tests. Results Inventory scores were unchanged over time, but scale and essay scores trended upward significantly post internship and mentoring. Conclusion Health career education and mentoring programs can positively affect student knowledge of health careers and their attitudes about them. The study’s methods extend measures of program impact beyond satisfaction.

Introduction: Cloud-based videoconferencing versus traditional systems are described for possible use in telemedicine and distance learning. Materials and Methods: Differences between traditional and cloud-based videoconferencing systems are examined, and the methods for identifying and testing systems are explained. Findings are presented characterizing the cloud conferencing genre and its attributes versus traditional H.323 conferencing. Results: Because the technology is rapidly evolving and needs to be evaluated in reference to local needs, it is strongly recommended that this or other reviews not be considered substitutes for personal hands-on experience. Conclusions: This review identifies key attributes of the technology that can be used to appraise the relevance of cloud conferencing technology and to determine whether migration from traditional technology to a cloud environment is warranted. An evaluation template is provided for assessing systems appropriateness.

OBJECTIVE The study tested the efficacy of providing distance learning with real-time videoconferencing to broaden high school student knowledge of health careers. METHODS A pilot program was tried out and extended over ten years to include other schools in four different time zones and the National Library of Medicine. Survey results, site visits, and continued school participation were used as effectiveness indicators. Student ratings, site visits, and ongoing discussions were used to evaluate critical factors in the program. RESULTS Nine program factors contributed to success. CONCLUSIONS Synchronous communication can be effective for outreach to special populations given appropriate infrastructure, technology, program design, and implementation.