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Green synthesis and metal oxide composites have attracted much attention from researchers of industry and academia. As a typical application of green synthesis and metal oxide composites, the continuous change of industrial technology and the continuous improvement of the social and economic level, the demand for oil and gas are also increasing. However, the spatial gap between the place of origin and the place of demand for oil and gas resources is large, so the long-distance oil and gas pipeline came into being. However, under the action of time, coupled with the corrosion effect of the soil due to deep burial, some pipelines have serious aging and corrosion phenomena. Therefore, in order to give corresponding guarantees for economic development, we need to conduct in-depth research and analysis of the corrosion of oil and gas long-distance pipelines and give effective solutions. In this paper, the corrosion rate prediction of buried oil and gas pipelines is studied in Changqing gas field. By improving the inertial weights and learning factors of the traditional particle swarm algorithm, the parameters of the generalized regression neural network are optimized and selected, and the corrosion rate prediction model of buried pipelines is finally constructed. Comparative analysis with other swarm intelligence algorithms shows that the improved particle swarm algorithm has stronger convergence ability and higher prediction accuracy than the BP model and SVM model. In addition, based on the detection data collected at the site of the gathering and transportation pipeline in Changqing gas field, this paper uses the extreme value distribution theory and the local corrosion progress formula to establish a prediction model for the residual life of corrosion of buried pipelines. The model established in this paper can effectively determine the risk pipe segment of buried pipeline and provide a decision-making basis for pipeline management departments. The work provides an important application guidance to green synthesis and metal oxide composites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. In order to verify the safety and effectiveness of tirofiban combined with statins in the perioperative period of intracranial aneurysms, this study adopts systematic review and meta-analysis, so as to comprehensively understand the situation of intracranial aneurysms in the perioperative period, and tirofiban combined with statins was finally determined as an effective treatment drug. Methods. This study used systematic retrospective analysis and selected 80 patients with intracranial aneurysms treated in our hospital from June 2021 to June 2022 as the research objects. Through conventional drugs and tirofiban combined with statins used in this study, the intracranial levels, the probability of aneurysm rupture, and postoperative complications of the two groups were observed and recorded. Results. The analysis of 80 patients with intracranial aneurysms showed that the influence of intracranial levels in the observation group was better than that in the reference group, the rupture of aneurysms in the observation group was lower than that in the reference group, and the incidence of postoperative complications in the observation group was lower than that in the reference group. Conclusion. Through simulation verification, it is concluded that tirofiban combined with statins is safe and effective in the perioperative application of intracranial aneurysms. This drug can improve vascular recanalization, reduce the incidence of cerebrovascular disease events, and reduce the incidence of rebleeding. Its therapeutic effect is worthy of wide clinical application and promotion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is thought to be an effective technique to handle the problem of educational data explosion and lack of information by identifying potential relationships between data and directing decision-makers through the extraction, transformation, analysis, and modeling of educational data. Based on this, this research constructs a data analysis model for education evaluation using the K-means clustering technique in DM. The weight of each index of students' comprehensive quality is calculated using AHP, and the value of the weight is used to determine whether the index is the important feature of analysis system mining. Improved sampling technology is used to deal with the representation of large-scale data sets; a sample partition clustering technique is proposed as a general framework. The best accuracy of this method, according to experimental data, is 95.6 percent, which is 12.1 percent greater than Mi cluster algorithm and 6.8 percent higher than DRCluster algorithm. The K-means clustering analysis technology is used to analyze students' comprehensive evaluation data in this paper, with the goal of determining the regularity of data implication, accurately diagnosing learning problems, and providing the foundation for developing effective student management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Driving behavior analysis plays an important role in improving the human-like driving capability of the Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) and autonomous driving technologies. In this study, 906 data of drivers stopping normally at urban intersections were extracted from natural driving data to study reaction characteristics and braking characteristics of drivers in real road traffic. The effects of traffic state and traffic density on approach speed and reaction distance were studied using one-way ANOVA, and the relationships between maximum deceleration, average deceleration, braking duration, and influencing factors were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression. The main results indicate the following: (1) compare with free driving, the approach speed in the following state was lower, and following traffic also caused drivers with higher speeds to further increase reaction distance in high-density traffic. (2) Traffic density only affected the approach speed in the free-driving condition. High-density traffic caused drivers to reduce speed. (3) There was a clear correlation between approach speed and reaction distance: the greater the approach speed, the longer the reaction distance. (4) The braking characteristics were mainly affected by the self-vehicle motion state. Drivers braked to a stop with greater average deceleration and maximum deceleration in a shorter time when the approach speed was higher or the reaction distance was shorter. (5) Both traffic state and traffic density had an influence on the braking characteristics. Drivers reduced average deceleration and increased braking duration in the following state and high-density traffic. (6) When following a preceding vehicle to stop, the braking characteristics of drivers were no longer influenced by the traffic density but were related to the relative motion state with the preceding vehicle. In addition to the driving behavior analysis, the identification method of traffic participants and ranging method used in this study will also advance the development of autonomous driving technologies and driver assistance systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes corresponding teaching methods and instructional modes based on predecessors' research on mathematics instructional mode and the current state of mathematics teaching. In addition, this paper constructs a teaching evaluation model based on DL algorithm based on an in-depth study of DL-related theories in order to accurately and scientifically analyze the problems that exist in mathematics teaching. This paper constructs an instructional quality evaluation index system based on rationality and fairness, and uses the BPNN evaluation model to train and study a set of instructional quality data. Finally, the experimental results show that this system has a high level of stability, with a 96.37 percent stability rate and a 95.42 percent evaluation accuracy rate. The results of this paper's evaluation of the mathematical instructional quality model are objective and reasonable. It can accurately assess instructional quality while also assessing problems in the teaching process based on the instructional quality scores and making reasonable recommendations for teaching improvement based on the weak links in the teaching process. It has the potential to provide a workable system for assessing instructional quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. The therapeutic effect of drugs for functional dyspepsia (FD) is still limited. Ganoderic acid A (GAA) has anti-inflammatory and cellular protective activities. The aim of this study is to explore the therapeutic effect of GAA on FD. Methods. The FD rat model was established via tail damping and forced exercise fatigue. The gastric emptying rate and intestinal propulsion rate of the rats in each group were then detected, and the pathological damage of gastric antrum and duodenum tissues was observed by hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was conducted to determine the levels of motilin (MTL), vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP), leptin, gastrin (GAS), calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), and somatostatin (SS) in plasma, and Western blot was used to detect the protein expression levels of occludin, zonula occluden-1 (ZO-1), and junctional adhesion molecule-1 (JAM-1) in the duodenal tissue. Results. Treatment with GAA significantly raised the gastric emptying rate and intestinal propulsion rate of FD rats and histologically alleviated the gastric and duodenal damage. Meanwhile, GAA positively regulated the secretion of brain-gut proteins, such as upregulation of MTL, GAS, and SS and downregulation of VIP, leptin, and CGRP. In addition, GAA treatment increased the protein expression levels of occludin, ZO-1, and JAM-1 in the duodenal tissue of the FD rats. Conclusion. GAA may exhibit protective effects on FD by regulating the secretion of brain-gut peptide, protecting the intestinal barrier and improving gastrointestinal motility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the expansion of college enrollment, the number of college students is increasing, and the amount of information to be dealt with in the information management of college students is increasing. In most colleges and universities, managing college student information is done artificially. In this context, how to effectively manage and utilize the dance big data of college students has important research value. Therefore, this article takes the development and realization of student dance under the public service platform system of colleges and universities as the subject and design the university dance big data management and utilization system based on information resource sharing. Due to the high mobility of college students, this work also carries out an information resource sharing strategy to establish the dance big data management and utilization system for universities; after the implementation of the student dance big data management service system, colleges and universities can provide more convenient transfer, management, query, and other services of student files. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of Internet economy and the advent of artificial intelligence era, the transformation from financial accounting to management accounting has become an inevitable trend of financial management among companies. In this paper, the significance of the transformation from financial accounting to management accounting is expounded under the background of artificial intelligence, and the current situation, problems and reasons of the transition are analyzed. In addition, the development of self-management accounting system based on Drools rule engine is put forward, including rule management, rule engine and so on. The core processes such as pattern matching and auto-billing are analyzed, and then the core subsystems such as data receiving and processing, accounting rule engine are designed in detail. Finally, the technological advancement and structural stability of this system are discussed, which can provide reference for promoting the transformation from financial accounting to management accounting under artificial intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By considering the comprehensive impact index ranking of all factors to identify the impact of university innovation knowledge, the group decision-making characteristic root method, decision-making experiment, and evaluation laboratory method are used to analyze the factors that affect the university's innovative knowledge management ability. The key factors affecting management capabilities have been identified and reviewed to establish measures to enhance the innovative knowledge management capabilities of colleges and universities. Using artificial intelligence-based knowledge management fuzzy evaluation algorithm evaluation model to evaluate the innovation knowledge management of 16 universities, the results obtained are consistent with the actual evaluation results of the year; this result proves the fuzziness of university innovation knowledge management, which is based on artificial intelligence fuzzy. The algorithm is evaluated. The results show that the evaluation model is feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a multiresidual module convolutional neural network-based method for athlete pose estimation in sports game videos. The network firstly designs an improved residual module based on the traditional residual module. Firstly, a large perceptual field residual module is designed to learn the correlation between the athlete components in the sports game video within a large perceptual field. A multiscale residual module is designed in the paper to better solve the inaccuracy of the pose estimation due to the problem of scale change of the athlete components in the sports game video. Secondly, these three residual modules are used as the building blocks of the convolutional neural network. When the resolution is high, the large perceptual field residual module and the multiscale residual module are used to capture information in a larger range as well as at each scale, and when the resolution is low, only the improved residual module is used. Finally, four multiresidual module convolutional neural networks are used to form the final multiresidual module stacked convolutional neural network. The neural network model proposed in this paper achieves high accuracy of 89.5% and 88.2% on the upper arm and lower arm, respectively, so the method in this paper reduces the influence of occlusion on the athlete's posture estimation to a certain extent. Through the experiments, it can be seen that the proposed multiresidual module stacked convolutional neural network-based method for athlete pose estimation in sports game videos further improves the accuracy of athlete pose estimation in sports game videos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The feature extraction of high-precision microseismic signals is an important prerequisite for multicategory recognition of microseismic signals, and it is also an important basis for intelligent sensing modules in smart mines. Aiming at the problem of unobvious feature extraction of multiclass mine microseismic signals, this paper is based on the unsupervised learning method in the deep learning method, combined with wavelet packet energy ratio and empirical modulus singular value decomposition, and proposes a method based on wavelet packet energy and empirical modulus singular value decomposition and proposes a method (M-W&E) based on wavelet packet energy and empirical modulus singular value decomposition. This method firstly performs empirical modulus singular value decomposition and wavelet packet energy ratio on the microseismic signal to construct the basic feature vector and then uses the unsupervised learning algorithm to perform the unsupervised learning method feature fusion of the basic feature vector to construct the fused feature vector. After visualization by t-SNE, various distinctions in the fusion feature vector are more obvious. After testing the fusion feature classification using SVM, it is found that the recognition rate of the new feature after feature fusion is better than that of a single wavelet packet empirical energy component and singular value of empirical modulus, which basically meets the engineering needs and is a mine microseism. The signal extraction and feature enhancement fusion of multiclass samples provide a new idea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Word sense disambiguation (WSD) is an important research topic in natural language processing, which is widely applied to text classification, machine translation, and information retrieval. In order to improve disambiguation accuracy, this paper proposes a WSD method based on the graph convolutional network (GCN). Word, part of speech, and semantic category are extracted from contexts of the ambiguous word as discriminative features. Discriminative features and sentence containing the ambiguous word are used as nodes to construct the WSD graph. Word2Vec tool, Doc2Vec tool, pointwise mutual information (PMI), and TF-IDF are applied to compute embeddings of nodes and edge weights. GCN is used to fuse features of a node and its neighbors, and the softmax function is applied to determine the semantic category of the ambiguous word. Training corpus of SemEval-2007: Task #5 is adopted to optimize the proposed WSD classifier. Test corpus of SemEval-2007: Task #5 is used to test the performance of WSD classifier. Experimental results show that average accuracy of the proposed method is improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of basketball, the formulation of the existing training plan mainly relies on the coaches' artificial observation and personal experience, which is inevitably subjective. The application of body domain network technology in athletes' training and recognition of athletes' postures can help coaches to assist decision-making and greatly improve athletes' competitive ability. The human movements reflected in basketball are more complex which need deep understanding. The accuracy of basketball players' shooting movements recognition plays a positive and important role in basketball games and training practice. Based on the prior knowledge of the convolutional neural network study, environment light conditions change the dynamic characteristics of basketball image analysis, capture images of the basketball goal algorithm of minimum circumscribed rectangle of the object, and based on the convolutional neural network, introduce two types of prior knowledge, one kind is based on the feature matching method that defined a priori knowledge, while another kind is based on training the convolution neural network model. The test results of the network model are taken as the prior knowledge, and then, a convolutional neural network dynamic target recognition model is constructed based on the prior knowledge. The construction process of the model is organized as the basketball target image is collected under any illumination conditions, the convolutional neural network model is trained with the convolutional neural network as the input data, and the standard illumination conditions are determined according to the test results of the network model. Then, put it into the trained network model to test and get the recognition results of basketball players' shooting movements. The research is validated with performing experiments and the results revealed the success of the study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Previous studies proved that AS-IV could prevent blood-brain barrier (BBB) against an increase in permeability. However, its underlying molecular mechanism has not been enlightened yet. The aim of the study is to reveal the potential protective mechanism of astragaloside IV (AS-IV) on the blood-brain barrier after ischemia-reperfusion. Methods. In vivo, AS-IV neurological protection was measured by Long's five-point scale and 2,3,5-triphenyltetrazolium chloride staining. AS-IV protection for BBB was observed by Evans blue extravasation technique. Endoplasmic reticulum stress and apoptosis-related protein levels were measured by western blot with AS-IV intervention. In vitro, cell apoptosis was analyzed by western blot and flow cytometry.Endoplasmic reticulum stress-related protein levels were quantified through western blot. Results. AS-IV treatment could decrease the infarct size in rats' brain and protect the BBB against Evans blue permeating through brain, after ischemia/reperfusion, significantly. Further, ischemia/reperfusion or oxygen‐glucose deprivation/reperfusion was found to have an increase in endothelial cell apoptosis proteins, such as Bax, Bcl-2, and caspase-3, and endoplasmic reticulum stress-associated proteins, such as phosphorylated PERK and eIF2α, Bip, and CHOP, which were attenuated by AS-IV treatment. Conclusions. AS-IV can effectively protect the blood-brain barrier and reduce the area of cerebral infarction via inhibiting endoplasmic reticulum stress-mediated apoptosis in endothelial cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the study of pediatric automatic bone age assessment (BAA) in clinical practice, the extraction of the object area in hand radiographs is an important part, which directly affects the prediction accuracy of the BAA. But no perfect segmentation solution has been found yet. This work is to develop an automatic hand radiograph segmentation method with high precision and efficiency. We considered the hand segmentation task as a classification problem. The optimal segmentation threshold for each image was regarded as the prediction target. We utilized the normalized histogram, mean value, and variance of each image as input features to train the classification model, based on ensemble learning with multiple classifiers. 600 left-hand radiographs with the bone age ranging from 1 to 18 years old were included in the dataset. Compared with traditional segmentation methods and the state-of-the-art U-Net network, the proposed method performed better with a higher precision and less computational load, achieving an average PSNR of 52.43 dB, SSIM of 0.97, DSC of 0.97, and JSI of 0.91, which is more suitable in clinical application. Furthermore, the experimental results also verified that hand radiograph segmentation could bring an average improvement for BAA performance of at least 13%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lonicera japonica Thunb. (LJ) and Lonicera macranthoides Hand. -Mazz. (LM) have been widely used in Chinese medicine for thousands of years. Although the morphological characteristics of LJ and LM are quite similar, there are significant distinctions of medicinal ingredients (mainly the secondary metabolites) and clinical indications between them. However, the in-depth differences of primary metabolites have not thoroughly been studied yet. Therefore, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry- (GC-MS-) based metabolomics method combined with chemometric methods were performed to analyze the distinction in this study. The results showed that LJ and LM were obviously classified into two groups. 10 metabolites were obtained as biomarkers on account of their p values, p corr values, and differing variable importance in projection (VIP) values. Metabolic pathway analysis showed that the galactose metabolism and starch and sucrose metabolism gathered as potential pathways caused these extraordinary differences of primary metabolites between LJ and LM. Further, we found that the differences of main medicinal ingredients between LJ and LM could be interpreted from these metabolites according to the analysis of mainly related pathways. The metabolites involved in the starch and sucrose metabolism presented upregulated in LJ, while almost all metabolites in the galactose metabolism, the TCA cycle, and the phenolic acid part of phenylpropanoid metabolism were downregulated in LJ. Therefore, the energy stored in the starch and sucrose metabolism may be saved to produce flavonoid, which could be the reason that the level of flavonoid of phenylpropanoid metabolism is higher in LJ compared to LM. Consequently, this study presented an effective tool for quality evaluation of LJ and LM and laid a foundation for further studies of the metabolic mechanisms and high-quality manufacturing of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a chronic recurrent inflammation of the colon, and clinical outcome of UC is still unsatisfied. Pingkui enema, a traditional Chinese medicine prescription, has been safely applied for the treatment of diarrhea and dysentery in clinic for many years. However, its mechanism is still elusive. The present study is designed to investigate the effect of Pingkui enema on trinitrobenzene sulfonic acid- (TNBS-) induced ulcerative colitis (UC) and possible mechanism in rats. Methods. UC was induced by intracolonic instillation of TNBS in male Sprague-Dawley rats, which were treated with different dosages of Pingkui enema (low, medium, and high) or sulfasalazine for ten days. Survival rate was calculated. A clinical disease activity score was evaluated. Histological colitis severity was analyzed by hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining. Content of Bifidobacterium in intestinal tissue was analyzed by RT-PCR. Concentration of IL-8, IL-13, TNF-α, D-lactic acid (D-LA), and diamine oxidase (DAO) in serum and contents of adhesin and receptor of Bifidobacterium adhesion in rat intestinal mucus were measured by ELISA. Results. The results showed that Pingkui enema treatment with high dosage markedly improved the survival rate compared with untreated and sulfasalazine treated groups. All dosages of Pingkui enema reduced pathological score. High dosage of Pingkui enema and sulfasalazine treatments significantly reduced the serum concentration of IL-8, TNF-α, D-LA, and DAO and markedly increased the serum concentration of IL-13. In addition, high-dose Pingkui enema and sulfasalazine treatments increased gut content of Bifidobacterium, gut mucus expressions of adhesin, and adhesin receptor of Bifidobacterium. Conclusions. Pingkui enema has therapeutic effect on TNBS-induced UC, and possible mechanism may be via regulation of gut probiotics (Bifidobacterium) and inflammatory factors and protection of intestinal mucosal barrier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In general, porphyry Cu deposit is related to the highly oxidized ore-forming system. However, there are many porphyry Cu deposits that are related to the reduced ore-forming system, and the ore-forming characteristics of reduced porphyry Cu deposit are unclear. Cu-(Fe)-sulfides are the main Cu-hosting minerals in porphyry Cu deposits and are also economically important, and the composition of Cu-(Fe)-sulfides has closely relationship with ore-forming characteristics. In this study, concentration data obtained via laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry are reported for chalcopyrite, bornite, and chalcocite from the 109 porphyry Cu deposit formed in a reduced granite-related mineralization system in western Tianshan, Xinjiang, northwest China. The results show that the chalcopyrite hosts several trace elements including Zn, Ge, Se, In, and Sn; the bornite hosts Mo, Ag, Zn, Se, and Bi; and the chalcocite hosts Mo, Ag, Zn, Sn, Se, and Bi. The smooth time-resolved depths profiles and limited variations of trace element concentrations in these sulfides suggest that their presence is isomorphic. The microstructures of the chalcopyrite and bornite were observed by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Their lattices are neatly arranged, also indicating that the trace elements exist mainly as isomorphisms in the chalcopyrite and bornite. Ge, Sn, and In are hosted in the chalcopyrite but absent in bornite and chalcocite, indicating that chalcopyrite has a high potential for hosting these elements. Ge and Sn are preferentially hosted in the chalcopyrite, possibly due to relatively high temperatures and low oxygen fugacity during its formation. Indium is preferentially hosted in the chalcopyrite, possibly due to the In2+ substitution for Fe2+ controlled by Goldschmidt's rules, which state that substitution occurs between a substituent and host owing to similarities in their radii and charges. However, the concentration of Ag is low in chalcopyrite but significantly high in bornite and chalcocite, indicating that this element is preferentially hosted in the latter two minerals. The abundance of Ag, a low-temperature element, in Cu-(Fe)-sulfides may largely be dependent on temperature. The Au content is below the minimum level of detection in all sulfides, which is obviously different from the classic porphyry copper deposits. In addition, the concentrations of Zn, Ge, As, Sb, and Te in the chalcopyrite and those of Zn, Se, As, Sb, and Bi in the bornite from the 109 porphyry Cu deposit show obvious differences from those of classic porphyry Cu deposits. Therefore, some elements in Cu-(Fe)-sulfides can be used as indicators of ore-forming oxygen fugacity. Bornite and chalcocite are generally enriched in Ag, indicating that the mining of porphyry Cu deposits may be concerned with the precious metal Ag in bornite and chalcocite. In addition, chalcopyrite may host sufficient Se and Zn, and bornite and chalcocite could host sufficient Se, Zn, and Bi, suggesting that sulfides may be hosts for deleterious elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: A series of non‐precious metal FexNC electrocatalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) were successfully synthesized using Fe(NO3)3, glucose, and melamine as the Fe, C, and N sources, respectively. The effects of the pyrolysis temperature and Fe/N contents on the catalytic performances are comprehensively investigated. Electrochemical results reveal that among the FexNC catalysts, Fe1.5NC‐900‐2 pyrolyzed at 900°C with the mass ratio of FeC to melamine being 1:10 proves the highest catalytic performance. The half‐wave potential (E1/2) of ORR was 821 mV (vs reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE)) and only 36 mV lower than that on commercial Pt/C catalyst (857 mV). More importantly, Fe1.5NC‐900‐2 catalyst shows excellent stability and methanol tolerance. After 1000 sequential cycles, the E1/2 on Pt/C catalyst shifts negatively by approximately 60 mV, while for Fe1.5NC‐900‐2 catalyst, this shift is only 28 mV although the number of sequential cycles is increased to 8000. In the presence of methanol, the current decay in the chronoamperometric response at 1000 seconds is only 8% and also much lower than that on Pt/C catalyst (46%). The high catalytic performances arise from the abundant Fe3N active sites embedded in the carbon matrix of the FexNC catalysts. These findings can be used to discuss the catalytic mechanism of ORR on the FexNC catalysts and design the nonprecious metal carbon‐based electrocatalysts for ORR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a multiobjective root system growth algorithm-based p-optimality (p-MORSGA) is proposed. The proposed p-MORSGA extended original root system growth algorithm with multiobjective nondomination strategy. To enhance its effect of convergence of solution groups, the p-optimality criterion is employed to determine the solutions of last nondominated front into the next generation group. In the evolution process, global general (GG), concerning the margin information and population density, is selected as the suitable optimality criterion of evaluating the performance of solutions. Application of the new p-MORSGA on several multiobjective benchmark functions shows a marked improvement in performance over the modified classical MOEAs with such criterion. Finally, the proposed p-MORSGA is applied to solve two real-world problems, multiobjective portfolio optimization problems (MOPOPs) and multiobjective optimal power flow (OPF) problems. The experimental results demonstrate that p-MORSGA is extremely effective for real-world application problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The engine performance test at altitudes of 0-7000 m was carried out on the high-performance test bench of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) piston engine. The flight performance of UAV was studied, including propeller thrust characteristics, maneuverability, flight envelope, and cruise performance. The results showed that with the increase in altitudes, the UAV climb rate gradually decreased; the maximum climb rate decreased from 2.5 m/s at 2000 m to 0.5 m/s at 7000 m. The maximum flight altitude is 7000 m, and the flight speed range is about 47 m/s-52 m/s at the altitude of 7000 m. Maximum navigation range and endurance of UAV decrease by 5.8% and 8%, respectively, with each increment of 1000 m in altitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. To investigate the role of Coxsackie-adenovirus receptor (CAR) in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Background. CAR, a type I transmembrane protein with functions in virus attachment, has been shown to be associated with epithelial tight junctions (TJs) and mediates cell adhesion, implying its potential roles in the pathogenesis of IBD. Methods and Materials. To determine the effect of CAR in IBD using QPCR and Western blotting to determine the expression of CAD in TNF-α induced NCM460 and SW480 cells and IBD tissues compared to control groups. Furthermore, TJs dysregulation, FITC-Dextran permeability assay, qRT-PCR, Western blot, and IF assessed the permeability in CAR overexpressed cells treated with TNF-α. HE, qRT-PCR, Western blot, and IHC assay were used to assess the CAR overexpressed cells whether they have the effect to cure DSS induced ulcerative colitis rat model in vivo. Result. We found CAR levels in human colon cell lines are significantly downregulated under the treatment of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α). Furthermore, overexpression of CAR markedly prevented TNF-α induced inflammatory response, TJs dysregulation, and permeability disruption (FITC-Dextran permeability assay) in cells. Consistent with these findings in vitro, we found that CAR overexpression could suppress gut inflammation, attenuate the downregulation of TJ protein ZO-1 and Occludin, and limit the induction of barrier permeability in a DSS induced ulcerative colitis rat model in vivo. Together, our findings strongly suggest that CAR could protect tight junctions and has an anti-inflammatory effect during the pathogenesis of IBD. Thus CAR may serve as a therapeutic target for the diagnosis and treatment of IBD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kawasaki disease (KD) is an acute systemic vasculitis that predominantly affects children and can result in coronary artery lesions (CALs). Thrombomodulin (TM) is a critical cofactor in the protein C anticoagulant system. The TM C1418T (rs1042579) polymorphism is associated with a high risk of cardiac-cerebral vascular diseases. But the association of the TM C1418T polymorphism with susceptibility to KD, CAL formation, and intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) resistance is still unclear. In our study, we examined the TM C1418T polymorphism in 122 children with KD and 126 healthy children and revealed the correlation between the TM C1418T polymorphism and KD, CAL formation, and IVIG resistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Loeys-Dietz syndrome (LDS) is an autosomal dominant connective tissue disorder predisposing patients to aneurysm formation and arterial dissection. Aortic root replacement is often performed prophylactically and valve-sparing root replacement (VSRR) has become the procedure of choice. However, in these patients with connective tissue disorders, postoperative pseudoaneurysms may develop.Methods: All children with LDS undergoing VSRR at a single institution were retrospectively reviewed to identify patients who developed postoperative pseudoaneurysms.Results: Thirty-one children with LDS underwent VSRR; four of these developed pseudoaneurysms of their synthetic aortic root grafts requiring reoperation. These four children were reviewed to investigate the cause of pseudoaneurysm formation after VSRR. Each had severe subtypes of LDS. Each underwent reoperation for repair of their pseudoaneurysms and were found to have suffered pseudoaneurysms as a result of tearing of sutures from their reimplantation VSRR.Conclusions: Pseudoaneurysms following aortic root replacement with VSRR can occur in children with severe subtypes of LDS. Long-term surveillance is required to detect these potentially life-threatening lesions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the status of myoglobin, lipid oxidation and MetMb reductase of beef and its influential mechanism on color stability during postmortem aging under three packaging systems. Fresh bovine longissimus dorsi muscles were packaged under air-permeable packaging (AP), vacuum packaging (VP) and modified atmosphere packaging (MAP, 80% O2 + 20% CO2) and stored at 4C in dark for 10 days. The color of beef from MAP was more stable, while OxyMb content and MetMb reductase activity of VP were higher than those from samples of AP and MAP at 7 and 10 days ( P < 0.05). The lipid oxidation of VP samples was significantly lower than those of samples from AP and MAP ( P < 0.05). In conclusion, MetMb reductase activity, the status of lipid and myoglobin could be the key factors that decide the color stability of beef during chilled storage under different packaging conditions. Practical Applications MAP is often introduced for the packaging of small cuts and high-priced fresh beef such as psoas major (PM) or muscles to preserve stable bright red color and extend the shelf life. Modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) can affect the tenderness of beef through oxidative modifications during chilled storage. However, the potential mechanism about how MAP, VP and AP influence color stability of beef samples is still unclear. Our results suggest that the decrease of color stability of beef samples from AP and MAP could be closely associated with myoglobin and lipid oxidation and the color stability of AP and MAP beef samples was further lower the level of color stability compared with VP during chilled storage. VP improved color stability of fresh beef obviously during chilled storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compared the Austin Moore hemiarthroplasty versus cemented hemiarthroplasties using a propensity score matched cased control study. For a consecutive cohort of 450 patients with displaced intracapsular neck of femur fractures, 128 matched cases in each group were selected based on age, gender, walking status, nursing home residency, delays in surgery, ASA score, and the Charlson comorbidity score. At a mean follow-up of 16.3 months, we evaluated their outcomes. Significantly more patients with AMA experienced thigh pain (RR = 3.5, 95% CI: 1.67–7.33,  p=0.000), overall complications (RR = 4.47, 95% CI: 1.77–11.3, p=0.000), and implant loosening (RR = 8.42, 95% CI: 2.63–26.95, p=0.000). There were no definite cement related deaths in this series. There was no significant difference in mortality, walking status, and the number of revisions between the groups. We support the routine use of cemented hemiarthroplasty instead of the Austin Moore for treating elderlies with displaced intracapsular neck of femur fractures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We systematically identified the prevalence of hyperuricemia and gout in mainland China and provided informative data that can be used to create appropriate local public health policies. Relevant articles from 2000 to 2014 were identified by searching 5 electronic databases: PubMed, Google Scholar, Chinese Wanfang, CNKI, and Chongqing VIP. All of the calculations were performed using the Stata 11.0 and SPSS 20.0 software. The eligible articles (n=36; 3 in English and 33 in Chinese) included 44 studies (38 regarding hyperuricemia and 6 regarding gout). The pooled prevalence of hyperuricemia and gout was 13.3% (95% CI: 11.9%, 14.6%) and 1.1% (95% CI: 0.7%, 1.5%), respectively. Although publication bias was observed, the results did not change after a trim and fill test, indicating that that impact of this bias was likely insignificant. The prevalence of hyperuricemia and gout was high in mainland China. The subgroup analysis suggested that the geographical region, whether the residents dwell in urban or rural and coastal or inland areas, the economic level, and sex may be associated with prevalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acute aortic dissection is a life-threatening clinical emergency, which mostly occurs in aged patients and presents with sharp chest pain. In this paper, we reported a case of acute aortic dissection, which induced septic shock in a young woman, without typical chest pain. The septic shock was possibly due to the bacterial translocation caused by aortic dissection-induced intestinal ischemia and intestinal epithelial barrier dysfunction. Our case appeared as the first case report of aortic dissection presenting as septic shock. This case is rare but can serve as a reminder that aortic dissection may be accompanied by septic shock, and this could result in a grave outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To investigate the treatment effect and treatment length of Chinese herbal decoction (CHD) as maintenance therapy on patients with extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC) and to reflect the real syndrome differentiation (Bian Zheng) practices of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Patients and Methods. Different CHDs were prescribed for each patient based on syndrome differentiation. The length of CHD treatment was divided into two phases for analyzing progression-free survival (PFS) and postprogression survival (PPS). Results. Three hundred and fifty-seven CHDs were prescribed based on syndrome differentiation during the study period. Median PFS was significantly longer in patients who received CHD >3 months than patients who received CHD ≤3 months in the first phase (8.7 months versus 4.5 months; hazard ratio (HR), 0.52; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.41–0.99; P=0.0009). Median PPS was significantly longer in patients who received CHD >7 months than patients who received CHD ≤7 months in the second phase (11.7 months versus 5.1 months; HR, 2.32; 95% CI, 1.90–2.74; P=0.002). Conclusion. CHD could improve PFS and PPS, which are closely related to treatment time and deepness of response of first-line therapy. In addition, CHD could improve body function and keep patients in a relatively stable state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. The objective is to explore the effectiveness and safety of CAR T-cell therapy in advanced relapsed/refractory central nervous system B-cell lymphoma and compare the impact of autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) plus CAR T-cell therapy versus sequential CART therapy on the survival of patients. Methods. The retrospective analysis was based on the data of 17 patients with advanced relapsed/refractory central nervous system B-cell lymphoma. Bridging chemotherapy was applied before CAR T-cell infusion to further reduce the tumor burden. For patients with autologous hematopoietic stem cell successful collection, CD19/20/22CAR T-cell immunotherapy following ASCT was performed with the thiotepa-containing conditioning regimen, while sequential CD19/CD20/CD22CAR T-cell therapy was applied. For lymphodepletion, patients received bendamustine or fludarabine monotherapy or fludarabine combined with cyclophosphamide pre-CART-cell infusion. Results. Out of the 17 patients, 8 completed ASCT plus CART cell therapy, while 9 patients completed CART cell alone therapy. In efficacy assessment at 3 months after infusion, the objective response rate (ORR) was 12/17 (71%) and the complete response rate (CRR) was 11/17 (65%). The CRR of the ASCT group and non-ASCT was 100% and 44.4%, respectively (P < 0.01). The median progression-free survival was 16.3 (2.6–24.5) months, and the median overall survival was 19.3 (6–24.5) months. Patients who underwent ASCT plus CART cell therapy had significantly longer PFS (P < 0.01) and OS (P < 0.01). Grade 3 or higher immune effector cell-associated neurologic toxicity syndrome (≥grade 3 ICANS) and cytokine release syndrome (≥grade 3 CRS) events occurred in 29% and 41% of the patients, respectively. No treatment-related death occurred. Conclusion. The CAR T-cell therapy could augment its efficacy in the treatment of advanced relapsed/refractory CNS B-cell lymphoma, while ASCT in combination with CART can induce durable responses and OS with a manageable side effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Spexin is a novel peptide hormone and has shown antinociceptive effects in experimental mice. This study is aimed at evaluating the association of serum spexin level with diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) and related pain in a Chinese population. Methods: We enrolled 167 type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) including 56 patients without DPN (non-DPN), 67 painless DPN, and 44 painful DPN. Serum spexin was measured using ELISA. Logistic regression models were performed to analyze the independent effects of spexin on prevalence of DPN and painful DPN. In streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic mice, mechanical pain threshold was measured using electronic von Frey aesthesiometer. Human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were isolated and further stimulated with lipopolysaccharide without or with spexin. The gene expression was assayed by qPCR. Results: Compared with non-DPN, serum spexin level decreased in painless DPN and further decreased in painful DPN. The odds of DPN was associated with low spexin level in T2DM, which was similar by age, sex, BMI, and diabetes duration, but attenuated in smokers. The odds of having pain was associated with decreased spexin level in DPN, which was similar by age, sex, smoking status, and diabetes duration, but attenuated in normal weight. Furthermore, we observed that mechanical pain threshold increased in spexin-treated diabetic mice. We also found that lipopolysaccharide treatment increased the mRNA level of TNF-α, IL-6, and MCP-1 in human PBMCs, while spexin treatment prevented this increase. Conclusions: These results suggested that spexin might serve as a protective factor for diabetes against neuropathology and pain-related pathogenesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is a painful, persistent feeling of physical and cognitive subjective fatigue related to cancer or cancer remedy. The occurrence of CRF may be related to the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenaline (HPA) axis, inflammatory mediator theory, and gut microbiota. Moreover, acupuncture could play a vital part in the therapy of CRF. The study will evaluate whether acupuncture can improve fatigue symptoms of CRF patients after breast cancer chemotherapy by regulating the gut-brain axis. Methods/design. Seventy patients with CRF will be enrolled in this study, with 35 patients randomly assigned to each group. Blood and feces will be collected at the beginning and end of treatment. Piper fatigue scale, KPS score scale, and quality-of-life scale will be used to observe the changes of fatigue symptoms and life quality of CRF patients and to evaluate the effect of acupuncture on CRF. Then, the method of ELISA will be used to explore the regulatory effect of acupuncture on the HPA axis and inflammatory cytokines. Moreover, based on 16SrDNA, the changes of gut microbiota structure and flora of CRF patients will be observed. Ultimately, the correlation analysis of gut microbiota can be related to inflammatory cytokines, HPA axis, and clinical efficacy evaluation. Discussion. This study will identify the effect and the mechanism of acupuncture therapy in CRF. And it will offer an alternative treatment modality for the treatment of CRF after chemotherapy for breast cancer. Furthermore, it will also provide the clinical and theoretical bases for the extensive application of acupuncture therapy in tumor rehabilitation. Trial Status. Protocol version number and date: V2.0, 6 May 2021. The trial is registered with the Chinese Clinical Trial Registry on 20 June 2021 (trial identifier: ChiCTR2100047510). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. To examine the mediating role of positive psychological capital in the relationship between nursing students' perceived social support and bullying behavior in nursing education. Design and Methods. In May 2021, a sample of 1196 nursing students majoring in nursing at a medical college was conveniently selected as the study population. A set of questionnaires, including a General Information Questionnaire, Perceived Social Support Scale (PSSS), Positive Psychological Capital Questionnaire (PPQ), and Bullying Behaviors in Nursing Education Scale (BBNE), were utilized to examine and analyze the relationships among the variables. Findings. The scores of nursing students' PSSS, PPQ, and BBNE were 68.19 ± 11.90, 123.97 ± 18.74, and 13.31 ± 9.24, respectively. There was a negative correlation (r = −0.421, P < 0.01) between perceived social support and bullying behaviors in nursing education among nursing students. Positive psychological capital partially mediated the relationship between perceived social support and bullying behaviors in nursing education, accounting for 19.88% of the total effect. Further analysis revealed that self-efficacy, resilience, optimism, and hope in positive psychological capital each played a partial mediating role in the impact of nursing students' perceived social support on bullying behaviors in nursing education, with the ratio of indirect effect to total effect being 5.38%, 7.74%, 6.09%, and 5.34%, respectively. Practice Implications. The impact of perceived social support on bullying behaviors in nursing education is substantial among nursing students, and it can indirectly influence bullying behaviors through positive psychological capital. Nursing educators should pay attention to nursing students with lower levels of social support, and they can decrease the occurrence of bullying behaviors by enhancing social support and fostering higher levels of psychological capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of smart manufacturing, quality has become an indispensable issue in the manufacturing process. Although there is increasing publication about inspection allocation problems, inspection allocation optimization research considering resource capability is scarce. This paper focuses on the inspection allocation problem with resource constraints in the flexible manufacturing system. Combined with the inspection resource capability model, a bi-objective model is developed to minimize the cost and balance loads of the inspection station. A modified NSGA-II algorithm with adaptive mutation operators is suggested to deal with the proposed model. Finally, a simulation experiment is conducted to test the performance of the modified algorithm and the results demonstrate that modified NSGA-II can obtain acceptable inspection solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rosmarinic acid (RA) is a natural phenolic compound extracted from the Labiatae family and is a natural antioxidant. In this study, walnut oil added with RA was treated with different ultraviolet radiations, and stabilization effects in terms of the same conditions (0.2 mg/g) were compared with synthetic antioxidant (BHT). In order to compare the effectiveness of three UV treatments, different lab tests were conducted, namely, the acid value, peroxide value, iodine value, anisidine value, DPPH free radical scavenging rate, and malondialdehyde content. The enhanced UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C radiation intensities have increased the oxidation stability of RA-added walnut oil, of which UV-B has the greatest influence on the oxidative stability of walnut oil. When both RA and BHT were added at 0.2 mg/g, the antioxidant effect of RA is superior to the general antioxidant BHT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single-snapshot direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation plays an important role in dynamic target detection and tracking applications. Because a single-snapshot signal provides few information for statistics calculation, recently compressed sensing (CS) theory is applied to solve single-snapshot DOA estimation, instead of the traditional DOA methods based on statistics. However, when the unknown sources are closely located, the spatial signals are highly correlated, and its overcomplete dictionary is made up of dense grids, which leads to a serious decrease in the estimation accuracy of the CS-based algorithm. In order to solve this problem, this paper proposed a two-step compressed sensing-based algorithm for the single-snapshot DOA estimation of closely spaced signals. The overcomplete dictionaries with coarse and refined grids are used in the two steps, respectively. The measurement matrix is constructed by using a very sparse projection scheme based on chaotic sequences because chaotic sequences have determinism and pseudo-randomness property. Such measurement matrix is mainly proposed for compressing the overcomplete dictionary in preestimation step, while it is well designed by choosing the steering vectors of true DOA in the accurate estimation step, in which the neighborhood information around the true DOAs partly solved in the previous step will be used. Monte Carlo simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can perform better than other existing single-snapshot DOA estimation methods. Especially, it can work well to solve the issues caused by closely spaced signals and single snapshot. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Ultrathin FeNiOxHy nanoflake arrays with the thickness of only ~4.5 nm were prepared on Ni foam (NF) via a facile hydrothermal reaction. The oxygen evolution reaction (OER) properties of the obtained sample (FeNiOxHy/NF) were investigated under alkaline conditions (1.0 M KOH). The optimized FeNiOxHy/NF displays extremely small overpotentials of only 195 and 306 mV to achieve the current densities of 10 and 1000 mA cm−2, respectively, and shows almost no potential attenuation during the 160 hours of stability test even the current density is up to 1000 mA cm−2, demonstrating brilliant OER catalytic activity and durability. FeOOH and the NiOOH produced from the in situ oxidation of the surface Ni atoms of the NF substrate are the active sites. The synergistic effect between FeOOH and NiOOH is responsible for the high performances. To our knowledge, the high activity and stability of FeNiOxHy/NF catalyst outperform almost all of the OER catalysts reported to date. These informative findings are valuable not only for understanding the mechanism of OER but also for the design of cheap transition metal catalysts for industrial water electrolysis at high current densities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a 7‐GHz to 40‐GHz ultra‐wideband passive double‐balanced mixer MMIC using compact wideband Marchand balun (CWMB) is presented. The CWMB is analyzed and designed by introducing a novel optimal impedance deviation coefficient. A trade‐off between the needed bandwidth and the acceptable insertion loss in an ultra‐wideband passive‐doubly‐balanced mixer design can be made through introducing the optimal impedance deviation coefficient. Finally, to verify the proposed methodology, a compact wideband passive double‐balanced mixer monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) was designed and fabricated using a standard gallium arsenide (GaAs) pHEMT technology according to the process characteristics. Experimental results show that an ultra‐wideband mixer MMIC is realized from 7 GHz to 40 GHz (140% fractional bandwidth) with a measured conversion loss between 9.5 dB~12.5 dB (in‐band fluctuation less than 3 dB) and a LO‐to‐RF isolation larger than 34 dB. The measurement results are in good agreement with the simulation results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand dynamic changes in rhizosphere microbial community in consecutive monoculture, Illumina MiSeq sequencing was performed to evaluate the V3-V4 region of 16S rRNA in the rhizosphere of newly planted and three-year ratooning sugarcane and to analyze the rhizosphere bacterial communities. A total of 126,581 and 119,914 valid sequences were obtained from newly planted and ratooning sugarcane and annotated with 4445 and 4620 operational taxonomic units (OTUs), respectively. Increased bacterial community abundance was found in the rhizosphere of ratooning sugarcane when compared with the newly planted sugarcane. The dominant bacterial taxa phyla were similar in both sugarcane groups. Proteobacteria accounted for more than 40% of the total bacterial community, followed by Acidobacteria and Actinobacteria. The abundance of Actinobacteria was higher in the newly planted sugarcane, whereas the abundance of Acidobacteria was higher in the ratooning sugarcane. Our study showed that Sphingomonas, Bradyrhizobium, Bryobacter, and Gemmatimonas were dominant genera. Moreover, the richness and diversity of the rhizosphere bacterial communities slightly increased and the abundance of beneficial microbes, such as Bacillus, Pseudomonas, and Streptacidiphilus, in ratooning sugarcane were more enriched. With the consecutive monoculture of sugarcane, the relative abundance of functional groups related to energy metabolism, glycan biosynthesis, metabolism, and transcription were overrepresented in ratooning sugarcane. These findings could provide the way for promoting the ratooning ability of sugarcane by improving the soil bacterial community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background/Aims. The underlying mechanisms of differential responsiveness to IFN remain poorly understood. The elongation factor Tu GTP binding domain-containing protein 2 (EFTUD2), involved in RNA splicing and pre-mRNA processing, was recognized as a novel innate immune regulator of the IFN antihepatitis C virus (HCV) effect. The aim of this study is to elucidate the mechanisms underlying EFTUD2's involvement in IFN-mediated anti-HBV responses. Methods. Using a CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing system, EFTUD2 single allele knockout HepG2.2.15 cells were constructed. Subsequently, the HBV biomarkers in EFTUD2+/– HepG2.2.15 cells and wild-type (WT) cells with or without IFN-α treatment were detected. And the EFTUD2-regulated genes were then identified using mRNA sequence. Selected gene mRNA variants and their proteins were examined by qRT-PCR and Western blotting. To confirm the effects of EFTUD2 on HBV replication and IFN-stimulated gene (ISG) expression, a rescue experiment in EFTUD2+/– HepG2.2.15 cells was performed by EFTUD2 overexpression. Results. IFN-induced anti-HBV activity was found to be restricted in EFTUD2+/– HepG2.2.15 cells. The mRNA sequence showed that EFTUD2 could regulate classical IFN and virus response genes. Mechanistically, EFTUD2 single allele knockout decreased the expression of ISG-encoded proteins, comprising Mx1, OAS1, and PKR (EIF2AK2), through mediated gene splicing. However, EFTUD2 did not affect the expression of Jak-STAT pathway genes. Furthermore, EFTUD2 overexpression could restore the attenuation of IFN anti-HBV activity and the reduction of ISG resulting from EFTUD2 single allele knockout. Conclusion. EFTUD2, the spliceosome factor, is not IFN-inducible but is an IFN effector gene. EFTUD2 mediates IFN anti-HBV effect through regulation of gene splicing for certain ISGs, including Mx1, OAS1, and PKR. EFTUD2 does not affect IFN receptors or canonical signal transduction components. Therefore, it can be concluded that EFTUD2 regulates ISGs using a novel, nonclassical mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose. To analyze the changes of refraction and metabolism of the retinal cones under monochromatic lights in guinea pigs. Methods. Sixty guinea pigs were randomly divided into a short-wavelength light (SL) group, a middle-wavelength light (ML) group, and a white light (WL) group. Refraction and axial length were measured before and after 10-week illumination. The densities of S-cones and M-cones were determined by retinal cone immunocytochemistry, and the expressions of S-opsins and M-opsins were determined by real-time PCR and Western blot. Results. After 10-week illumination, the guinea pigs developed relative hyperopia in the SL group and relative myopia in the ML group. Compared with the WL group, the density of S-cones and S-opsins increased while M-cones and M-opsins decreased in the SL group (all, p<0.05); conversely, the density of S-cones and S-opsins decreased while M-cones and M-opsins increased in the ML group (all, p<0.05). Increased S-cones/opsins and decreased M-cones/opsins were induced by short-wavelength lights. Decreased S-cones/opsins and increased M-cones/opsins were induced by middle-wavelength lights. Conclusions. Altered retinal cones/opsins induced by monochromatic lights might be involved in the refractive development in guinea pigs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of columbite-group mineral phases in peraluminous granite has not been demonstrated to date. Here, a nanoscale study of the columbite-tantalite mineral in the Zhaojinggou Nb-Ta deposit in North China Craton elucidated its formation mechanism and the role of fluids in Nb-Ta mineralization. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis of a focused ion beam cut of the columbite-tantalite mineral revealed a comparatively well-ordered mineral structure. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) revealed the presence of Nb, Ta, Mn, W, Fe, Sn, and Pb in the columbite-tantalite mineral. Furthermore, detailed TEM images depicted the nanoscale hydrothermal fluid occurring within the columbite-group mineral grain as well as between columbite-tantalite mineral and quartz grains. K, Al, Si, and O were found to be enriched in the hydrothermal fluid that was present between the quartz grains and the columbite-tantalite mineral. It did not react with the mineral grains of the columbite group. The ultrastructure of the columbite-tantalite mineral suggested the columbite-group mineral in the Zhaojinggou Nb-Ta deposit formed during magmatic crystallization rather than from hydrothermal fluids. Furthermore, HR-TEM images provided the first nanoscale observations of the fluid-mediated mineral dissolution and amorphous phase formation. This study also revealed that the mineral dissolution, element transport, and reprecipitation were significantly influenced by the fluid amorphous phase in the Nb-Ta deposits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ischemic stroke is a cerebrovascular disease with a high morbidity and mortality rate, which poses a serious challenge to human health and life. Meanwhile, the management of ischemic stroke remains highly dependent on manual visual analysis of noncontrast computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). However, artifacts and noise of the equipment as well as the radiologist experience play a significant role on diagnostic accuracy. To overcome these defects, the number of computer-aided diagnostic (CAD) methods for ischemic stroke is increasing substantially during the past decade. Particularly, deep learning models with massive data learning capabilities are recognized as powerful auxiliary tools for the acute intervention and guiding prognosis of ischemic stroke. To select appropriate interventions, facilitate clinical practice, and improve the clinical outcomes of patients, this review firstly surveys the current state-of-the-art deep learning technology. Then, we summarized the major applications in acute ischemic stroke imaging, particularly in exploring the potential function of stroke diagnosis and multimodal prognostication. Finally, we sketched out the current problems and prospects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The semisupervised semantic segmentation method uses unlabeled data to effectively reduce the required labeled data, and the pseudo supervision performance is greatly influenced by pseudo labels. Therefore, we propose a semisupervised semantic segmentation method based on mutual correction learning, which effectively corrects the wrong convergence direction of pseudo supervision. The well-calibrated segmentation confidence maps are generated through the multiscale feature fusion attention mechanism module. More importantly, using internal knowledge, a mutual correction mechanism based on consistency regularization is proposed to correct the convergence direction of pseudo labels during cross pseudo supervision. The multiscale feature fusion attention mechanism module and mutual correction learning improve the accuracy of the entire learning process. Experiments show that the MIoU (mean intersection over union) reaches 75.32%, 77.80%, 78.95%, and 79.16% using 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, and 1/2 labeled data on PASCAL VOC 2012. The results show that the new approach achieves an advanced level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. A case-control study was conducted to explore the value and clinical significance of troponin level and pediatric sequential organ failure score in the evaluation of sepsis 3.0 definition in critically ill children. Methods. 180 children with sepsis who were admitted to the ICU from March 2019 to June 2021 were enrolled in our hospital as the research objects. In addition, 100 children with general infection did not meet the diagnostic criteria of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) as controls. The creatine kinase MB (CK-MB) and cardiac troponin I (cTnI) data at the 1st and 24-72 h after admission to pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) were enrolled as the observation indexes of myocardial enzymology. In the meantime, the relevant literature was reviewed to obtain the indicators related to sepsis death. The data of the first examination in the medical history data were enrolled for analysis. According to the definition of sepsis 3.0 in critically ill children, they were assigned into sepsis and nonsepsis group. According to the survival outcome of discharge and 30 days after discharge, the patients were assigned into the death subgroup and survival subgroup and were assigned into the sequential organ failure assessment SOFA score ≥ 2 subgroup and< 2 subgroup according to SOFA score. COX proportional hazard regression was used to analyze the relationship between CK-MB, cTnI, and SOFA scores and prognosis. ROC curve was adopted to analyze the value of CK-MB, cTnI, and SOFA scores in the evaluation of critical sepsis in children. Results. Univariate analysis indicated that the prognosis of children with sepsis was correlated with abnormal levels of CK-MB and cTnI, SOFA score, oxygenation index < 200 , mean arterial pressure, and Glasgow coma scale (GCS), and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). The results of COX regression analysis indicated that the variables that were remarkably associated with death from sepsis in children were CK-MB, elevated cTnI levels, and SOFA score ≥ 2 , and serum cTnI and/or CK-MB levels and SOFA score were remarkably higher correlation (r = 0.453 , P < 0.05). In terms of the myocardial enzyme levels in the sepsis group and the nonsepsis group, the levels of CK-MB and (or) cTnI augmented in 121/180 cases (67.22%) in the sepsis group and in 19/100 cases (19.00%) in the nonsepsis group. The levels of CK-MB and (or) cTnI were augmented, and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). The levels of CK-MB and cTnI in the sepsis group at admission to ICU and 24 to 72 hours after admission were remarkably higher compared to the nonsepsis group. The levels of CK-MB and cTnI at 24-72 h were higher compared to ICU. The myocardial enzyme levels of different SOFA scores and survival outcome subgroups in the sepsis group were compared. The subgroup with SFOA score ≥ 2 points had remarkably higher levels of CK-MB and (or) cTnI than the subgroup with <2 points. The survival subgroup of CK-MB and cTnI level was remarkably higher compared to the death subgroup, the CK-MB and cTnI levels in each subgroup at 224-72 hours were remarkably higher compared to the ICU, and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). Kaplan-Meier method and log-rank test indicated that the survival rates of groups 1 to 4 at 30 days were 33.23%, 78.71%, 40.03%, and 100.00%, respectively. The average survival time and their 95% CI were 12.82 d (10.52~ 16.26 d), 22.34 d (18.76~ 25.81 d), 14.65 d (11.62~ 16.38 d), and 30 d (30.00~ 30.00 d), respectively. Pairwise comparison indicated that the survival time of children in group 1 was the shortest, and that in group 4 was the longest. The results of ROC curve research showed that the CK-MB, cTnI, and SOFA scores and AUC for the combination test were 0.778 (95% CI 0.642–0.914), 0.736 (95% CI 0.602–0.890), 0.848 (95% CI 0.733–0.963), and 0.934 (95% CI 0.854–0.999), respectively. The AUC of combined diagnosis was remarkably higher compared to single factor prediction, and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). Predictive value showed the joint test > SOFA score > CK − MB > cTnI. Conclusion. Troponin level and pediatric SOFA score can be adopted as effective indicators to assess the severity and prognosis of patients with sepsis and can guide the formulation of a reasonable treatment plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is aimed at performing a systematic review and a network meta-analysis of the effects of several membranes on vertical bone regeneration and clinical complications in guided bone regeneration (GBR) or guided tissue regeneration (GTR). We compared the effects of the following membranes: high-density polytetrafluoroethylene (d-PTFE), expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (e-PTFE), crosslinked collagen membrane (CCM), noncrosslinked collagen membrane (CM), titanium mesh (TM), titanium mesh plus noncrosslinked (TM + CM), titanium mesh plus crosslinked (TM + CCM), titanium-reinforced d-PTFE, titanium-reinforced e-PTFE, polylactic acid (PLA), polyethylene glycol (PEG), and polylactic acid 910 (PLA910). Using the PICOS principles to help determine inclusion criteria, articles are collected using PubMed, Web of Science, and other databases. Assess the risk of deviation and the quality of evidence using the Cochrane Evaluation Manual, and GRADE. 27 articles were finally included. 19 articles were included in a network meta-analysis with vertical bone increment as an outcome measure. The network meta-analysis includes network diagrams, paired-comparison forest diagrams, funnel diagrams, surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA) diagrams, and sensitivity analysis diagrams. SUCRA indicated that titanium-reinforced d-PTFE exhibited the highest vertical bone increment effect. Meanwhile, we analyzed the complications of 19 studies and found that soft tissue injury and membrane exposure were the most common complications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ulcerative colitis (UC) is a kind of inflammatory bowel disease. Procyanidins have been found to prevent UC. However, most research has been focused on the alleviation effect of B‐type procyanidins on UC and ignored those of A‐type procyanidins. Hence, this study aims to investigate the anti‐UC effect and the potential mechanism of A‐type procyanidins by combining gut microbiome and metabolic profile. UC was induced by dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) in Balb/c mice, and then the mice were administrated with peanut skin procyanidins (PSP; rich in A‐type procyanidins) for 9 days. Administration of PSP can ameliorate DSS‐induced UC by mediating the intestinal barrier, the expression of inflammatory cytokines (TNF‐α, IL‐β, IL‐6, and IL‐10) and oxidative stress (MDA, T‐SOD, NO, and iNOS) in mice. We observed that PSP affects the gut microbiota and colon metabolomic patterns of mice. The 16S rDNA sequencing showed increase in abundance of Lachnospiraceae_NK4A136_group, Oscillibacter and Roseburia and decrease of Bacteroides, Helicobacter, Parabacteroides, Escherichia‐Shigella, and Enterobacter after PSP treatment. The colon tissue metabolome was significantly altered, as reflected by regulating taste transduction, mTOR signaling pathway, PI3K‐Akt signaling pathway, and FoxO signaling pathway to improve the protection against UC. Practical applications: We investigated the anti‐ulcerative colitis (UC) effect and its potential mechanism of peanut skin procyanidins (PSP). This suggests that PSP with abundant A‐type procyanidins may be an effective candidate for dietary supplementation to alleviate the symptoms of UC by regulating gut microbiota and metabolism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hyssopus cuspidatus Boriss (H. cuspidatus) is a traditional Chinese medicine commonly used in the treatment of asthma. In the present study, we applied bioinformatics techniques for mRNA-miRNA profiling to elucidate the potential mechanisms of H. cuspidatus in asthma treatment. Bioactive compounds from H. cuspidatus, potential therapeutic targets of H. cuspidatus, and asthma-related targets were identified from the literature and databases. The intersection of H. cuspidatus-related targets and asthma-related targets was identified using the STRING platform. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analyses were performed using the Metascape platform. Networks were constructed from these nodes using Cytoscape. The results showed that 23 active compounds were identified in H. cuspidatus, sharing 122 common asthma-related targets. Moreover, 43 miRNAs regulating 19 key targets involved in the antiasthmatic effects of H. cuspidatus were identified. Further analysis of biological pathways, active compound-key target-pathway network, and active compound-key target-miRNA network indicated that the antiasthmatic effects of H. cuspidatus mainly occurred through caffeic acid, methyl rosmarinate, luteolin, esculetin, and 8-hydroxycirsimaritin. These compounds interacted with multiple miRNAs, including miR-99a, miR-498, miR-33b, and miR-18a, regulating multiple genes, including JAK, STAT3, EGFR, LYN, and IL-6, in multiple pathways, including those involved in the regulation of JAK-STAT signaling, EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor resistance, PI3K-Akt signaling, and inflammation. In summary, we have elucidated the potential mechanisms of H. cuspidatus treatment of asthma from a systemic and holistic perspective through analysis of compound-mRNA-miRNA interaction. Our study should provide new insights for further research on H. cuspidatus treatment of asthma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Xihuang pill (XH) is a complementary and alternative medicine that has been used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for the treatment of tumors since the 18th century. XH has clinical effects on non-Hodgkin lymphoma, breast cancer, gastric cancer, liver cancer, and bone metastasis. XH can also inhibit the growth of tumor cells and cancer stem cells, prevent tumor invasion and angiogenesis, and regulate the tumor microenvironment. XH is composed of Ru Xiang (olibanum), Mo Yao (Commiphora myrrha), She Xiang (Moschus), and Niu Huang (Calculus bovis). Some of the compounds found in these ingredients exert multiple antitumor effects and may synergize with the other ingredients. We aimed to summarize the clinical applications and molecular mechanisms of XH and its chemical composition. This review will provide potential new strategies and alternative perspectives for tumor treatments and basic research into complementary and alternative medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to explore the alliin, saccharides, antioxidant and some other physicochemical changes of black garlic during the thermal processing steps. The contents of alliin and polysaccharides decreased significantly after 10 days of heat treatment, whereas the content of reducing sugars increased correspondingly. The 57.14% of fructose, 6.78% of glucose and 7.62% of sucrose were mainly saccharides in black garlic to answer for its sweet taste. The color value of black garlic increased over time, whereas the pH decreased continually from 6.25 to 4.25 after heating at 70-80C for 10 days, which contributed a characteristic black appearance and a sour taste mouthfeel. The antioxidant activities, including 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrilhydrazyl, hydroxyl radical scavenging and ferric reducing/antioxidant power activities, increased gradually during thermal processing. Practical Applications Black garlic has been used as foods and herbal remedies mainly in Japan, Korea and China, which has a wide range of health benefits, significantly antioxidant properties. Various physicochemical changes have been found to take place during thermal processing of garlic, including alliin, allicin, saccharides, pH, color and antioxidant activities. This is the first study to investigate the changes in the molecular weight distribution of polysaccharides and the monosaccharide composition of black garlic. These changes in saccharide contents and composition could be utilized as quality factors for the production of black garlic. Therefore, the results may have some useful practical implications at both the food technology and nutritional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]