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Bupivacaine (BUP) may cause neurotoxic effects after spinal anesthesia. Resveratrol (RSV), a natural agonist of Silent information regulator 1 (SIRT1), protects various tissues and organs from damage by regulating endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. The aim of this study is to explore whether RSV could alleviate the neurotoxicity induced by bupivacaine via regulating ER stress. We established a model of bupivacaine-induced spinal neurotoxicity in rats using intrathecal injection of 5% bupivacaine. The protective effect of RSV was evaluated by injecting intrathecally with 30 μg/μL RSV in total of 10 μL per day for 4 consecutive days. On day 3 after bupivacaine administration, tail-flick latency (TFL) tests and the Basso, Beattie, and Bresnahan (BBB) locomotor scores were assessed to neurological function, and the lumbar enlargement of the spinal cord was obtained. H&E and Nissl staining were used to evaluate the histomorphological changes and the number of survival neurons. TUNEL staining was conducted to determine apoptotic cells. The expression of proteins was detected by IHC, immunofluorescence, and western blot. The mRNA level of SIRT1 was determined by RT-PCR. Bupivacaine caused spinal cord neurotoxicity by inducing cell apoptosis and triggering ER stress. RSV treatment promoted the recovery of neurological dysfunction after bupivacaine administration by suppressing neuronal apoptosis and ER stress. Furthermore, RSV upregulated SIRT1 expression and inhibited PERK signaling pathway activation. In summary, resveratrol suppresses bupivacaine-induced spinal neurotoxicity in rats by inhibiting endoplasmic reticulum stress via SIRT1 modulation.

Objective. This nationwide, multicenter prospective observational study with a patient registry was designed to evaluate the efficacy of Fufang E’jiao Jiang (FEJ) in Chinese patients with Qi and blood deficiency syndrome (QBDS). Methods. QBDS patients were consecutively recruited from 81 investigational sites in China from July, 2019, to December, 2020. Patients who met the eligibility criteria were enrolled in a prospective registry database. Baseline characteristics and changes in scores on the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) symptom evaluation scale for Qi and blood deficiency, the clinical global impression (CGI) scale, the fatigue scale-14 (FS-14), and the Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI) were analyzed to determine the clinical efficacy of FEJ. Results. A total of 3,203 patients were recruited. The average remission rate (i.e., the sum of the cure rate and improvement rate) of the 20 symptoms of QBDS was 92.49% after 4 weeks of FEJ treatment, which was higher than at baseline; the rate increased to 94.69% at 8 weeks. The CGI scale revealed that the number of total remissions at 4 and 8 weeks was 3,120 (97.41%) and 415 (100%), respectively. The total FS-14 scores decreased by 1.67 ± 4.11 ( p < 0.001 ) at 4 weeks and 1.72 ± 3.09 ( p < 0.001 ) at 8 weeks of treatment. The PSQI scores were 6.6 ± 4.7 and 6.52 ± 3.07 at 4 and 8 weeks, respectively, which were significantly lower than the baseline scores ( p < 0.001 ; p = 0.0033 ). Both the subhealth fatigue (SF) and iron deficiency anemia (IDA) groups showed significantly improved clinical symptoms of QBDS ( p < 0.01 ). Between-group comparisons revealed significantly greater improvements in FS-14 and PSQI scores in the SF group than in the IDA group ( p < 0.05 ). A multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that disease course, FS-14 score at baseline, and four-week FEJ doses were independent risk factors for the degree of symptom relief in QBDS patients ( p < 0.05 ). Conclusion. In real-world settings, FEJ has a promising effect in treating QBDS and can significantly improve the severity of its symptoms.

Background. Liangxue Tongyu prescription (LTP) is a commonly used formula for acute intracerebral hemorrhage (AICH) in clinical practice that has significant ameliorative effects on neurological deficits and gastrointestinal dysfunction, yet the mechanism remains elusive. The aim of this study was to investigate the pathway by which LTP alleviates brain damage in AICH rats. Methods. The AICH rat models were established by autologous caudal arterial blood injection. The neurological function scores were evaluated before and after treatment. The water content and the volume of Evans blue staining in the brain were measured to reflect the degree of brain damage. RT-PCR was used to detect the inflammatory factors of the brain. Western blotting was used to detect the expression of the tight junction proteins zonula occludens 1 (ZO-1), occludin (OCLN), and claudin (CLDN) in the brain and colon, followed by mucin 2 (MUC2), secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA), and G protein-coupled receptor 43 (GPR43) in the colon. Flow cytometry was used to detect the ratios of helper T cells 17 (Th17) and regulatory T cells (Treg) in peripheral blood, and the vagus nerve (VN) discharge signals were collected. Results. LTP reduced the brain damage of the AICH rats. Compared with the model group, LTP significantly improved the permeability of the colonic mucosa, promoted the secretion of MUC2, SigA, and GPR43 in the colon, and regulated the immune balance of peripheral T cells. The AICH rats had significantly faster VN discharge rates and lower amplitudes than normal rats, and these abnormalities were corrected in the LTP and probiotics groups. Conclusion. LTP can effectively reduce the degree of brain damage in AICH rats, and the mechanism may be that it can play a neuroprotective role by regulating the function of the intestinal mucosal barrier.

Since the release of the 13th Five-Year Plan, the construction plan of the smart city and Internet of Things (IoT) has once again pushed the sensors into the limelight. In the current situation, whether in China or around the world, the construction of smart communities has become an irreversible trend. In this environment, the sensor as a smart city “bridge” will certainly usher in an industrial explosion. “Smart city” is a new concept and model for urban development. Academics have also explored the concept and theoretical model of smart cities from different perspectives in different forms. With the gradual establishment of the national smart city system, the Internet of Things and other technologies are being widely used to serve other aspects of human social life, such as urban smart communities, intelligent transportation, and intelligent home security systems. The application of technology is gradually penetrating into the life of our human society. In the context of building a smart city, scholars have also brought an unprecedented broader idea. By seeking a reasonable balance between human and urban nature, the concept of “park city,” which aims to create a good ecological habitat where people and nature can coexist and develop in harmony, has emerged as China’s urbanization process accelerates and the conflict between people and land becomes more and more prominent. As an important factor to promote the harmonious development of humans and nature, the planning and construction of urban parks is an important means to meet the needs of people for a better life and to improve the ecological environment of cities; therefore, the planning and design of urban parks under the concept of “park city” is getting more and more attention. Qingdao, as a typical coastal city, has a mosaic of green areas and urban construction land, so urban ecological parks with the carrier of nonconstruction land exist in large numbers in the city and become a key link in the practice of the “park city” concept. However, while urban ecological parks provide ecological and social services to citizens, their special land use has also led to a series of problems. At present, there is not enough basis for the planning and management of such special parks in Qingdao, and it is not possible to guide the planning and construction of such parks with universal standards, so how to effectively protect and reasonably utilize them to promote the construction of “park city” is an urgent problem to be solved. Based on the above background, this study takes Qingdao urban ecological park as the research object and summarizes the typical problems in the process of planning, construction, and use of this kind of park through relevant data research and extensive studies. Based on this, we propose three aspects, namely, the location and layout of parks at a macro level, the construction of the park system at meso-level, and the design optimization of parks at a micro level. The specific research content includes the following aspects: the first part defines the background, purpose, and significance of the topic and the research object and summarizes and reviews the existing research results at home and abroad, and then proposes the overall idea and framework of the research. The second part analyzes the problems of Qingdao urban ecological parks with the concept of “park city.” Based on the connotation and characteristics of the “park city” concept, the impact of the concept on urban parks is analyzed, and the significance of the “park city” concept on the planning and construction of urban ecological parks is clarified based on the special characteristics of urban ecological parks. Finally, we provide the basis for the proposed strategy by combining case studies at different levels. Finally, we propose a better spatial planning for the construction of a park city in Qingdao using smart detection sensors and other means of building a smart city.

Along with the increasing prominence of energy and environmental issues, solar energy has received more and more extensive attention from countries around the world, and the installed capacity of photovoltaic power generation, as one of the main forms of solar energy development, has developed rapidly. Solar energy is by far the largest available source of energy on Earth, the use of solar power photovoltaic system has the advantages of flexible installation, simple maintenance, environmentally friendly, etc., by the world’s attention, especially the grid-connected photovoltaic power generation system has been rapid development. However, photovoltaic power generation itself is intermittent, affected by irradiance and other meteorological factors very drastically, and its own randomness and uncertainty are very large, and its grid connection affects the stability of the entire power grid. Therefore, the short-term prediction of photovoltaic power generation has important practical significance and guiding meaning. Multi-input deep convolutional neural networks belong to deep learning architectures, which use local connectivity, weight sharing, and subpolling operations, making it possible to reduce the number of weight parameters that need to be trained so that convolutional neural networks can perform well even with a large number of layers. In this paper, we propose a multi-input deep convolutional neural network model for PV short-term power prediction, which provides a short-term accurate prediction of PV power system output power, which is beneficial for the power system dispatching department to coordinate the cooperation between conventional power sources and PV power generation and reasonably adjust the dispatching plan, thus effectively mitigating the adverse effects of PV power system access on the power grid. Therefore, the accurate and reasonable prediction of PV power generation power is of great significance for the safe dispatch of power grid, maintaining the stable operation of power grid, and improving the utilization rate of PV power plants.

Aiming at the current problems in the safety monitoring of urban manhole covers, this paper proposes a safety monitoring system for manhole covers based on smart light poles. The system uses STM32F103C8T6 as the microcontroller, and processes and controls the movement, loss, tilt, flooding, and positioning data of the manhole cover. Then, the data frame is sent to the LoRa gateway of the nearby smart light pole through the LoRa communication protocol, and the LoRa gateway will transmit the abnormal state of the manhole cover to the large screen display of the smart light pole through the bus. At the same time, a voice broadcast is carried out to remind localized road vehicles and pedestrians. Besides, it is sent to the IoT cloud platform KitLink, and the cloud platform will push the abnormal status data to the subscribed management user, and the user will quickly process it according to the positioning data. Among them, the terminal sensing control device of the manhole cover adopts an integrated package, and at the same time, it is installed at the center point under the manhole cover by using a waterproof material. It can not only carry out reliable and accurate installation without changing the original components but also can effectively monitor the safety. Through the design and implementation test of the system, it can be seen that the system can efficiently and accurately realize all-round and multi-modal safety linkage monitoring of urban manhole covers.

With the rapid development of the Internet and various learning platforms, the explosive growth of resources in the field of education has made the recommendation of learning resources increasingly important, and it has gradually become the research focus of academic circles. This article develops an English precision teaching platform based on the CF algorithm of combinatorial optimization to accurately recommend English learning materials that meet the learners’ personal preferences and achieve precision teaching. This optimization algorithm takes full advantage of the background information of users, calculates the similarity between users, and forms the best neighbor set, and then recommends the learning resources evaluated by neighbors with similar interests to the target users, addressing the problem of data sparseness and cold start, which leads to a decline in recommendation accuracy. On different data sets, experimental results show that this method’s recommendation accuracy is 94.6%, which is higher than the CF algorithm of multifeature fusion by 4.5% and the traditional CF algorithm by 9.7%. The findings show that when applied to English instructional resources, this method is accurate and practical and that it can effectively recommend resources that are appropriate for users to achieve accurate CET.

Background. This study is aimed at investigating the expressions and prognostic values of secreted or membrane-located proteins (SMPs) in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC). The correlations between the expressions of SMPs and immune cells’ infiltrations were also investigated. Methods. The expression data of normal laryngeal and LSCC samples were obtained from the TCGA and GEO datasets. The differentially expressed SMPs were identified, and their prognostic values were analyzed. The biological functions of differentially expressed and worse-survival-related SMPs were explored. LASSO regression, Cox multivariate analysis, and nomogram were used to construct a model to predict the survival. Then, the infiltrations of the 24 immune cell populations were calculated using the GSVA method, and the correlations between the expression of SMPs and the immune infiltration were investigated. Results. 122 samples (12 normal and 120 LSCC) of the TCGA database and 114 samples (57 normal and 57 LSCC) of GSE127165 were included. We identified that 138 SMPs were significantly upregulated in LSCC samples of both the TCGA and GEO datasets, among which 52 SMPs were significantly correlated with worse survival. GO and KEGG analyses revealed those 52 SMPs significantly participate in tumor microenvironment and immune cells’ communication. Nine of 52 SMPs (ABCC5, ATP1B3, CLEC11A, FLNA, FSTL3, MMP1, NME1, OAS3, and PHLDB2) were included in the nomogram to effectively and accurately predict the LSCC patients’ survival. The expressions of most SMPs, such as MMP1 and FSTL3, were significantly positively correlated with the immune infiltration of LSCC. Conclusions. In this study, the expression, prognostic values, and correlations with immune infiltration of SMPs were analyzed in LSCC samples. Our analyses identified several significant SMPs differentially expressed between normal laryngeal and LSCC samples, correlated with worse survival, and related to the immune infiltration.

Patients with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) demonstrate disrupted lipid homeostasis before and during treatment with mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) inhibitor. However, few previous reports focused on if the serum lipid status at baseline would influence lipid metabolic side-effects of mTOR inhibitors for TSC associated renal angiomyolipomas (TSC-AML). The present study was designed to evaluate the predictive function of serum lipid status at baseline for hyperlipidaemia by mTOR inhibitor treatment in TSC-AML patients.The clinical data of TSC-AML patients who took mTOR inhibitors in Department of Urology of Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH) from 1 January 2014 to 1 January 2021, were retrospectively analysed. The record of lipid parameters at baseline and the highest levels of total cholesterol (TC) and triglyceride (TG) after treatment at least ≥3 months were collected. The correlation of serum lipid parameters at baseline with incidence of hyperlipidaemia during mTOR inhibitor treatment was analysed. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was conducted to evaluate the ability of the serum lipid parameters in predicting hyperlipidaemia.19 patients experienced hyperlipidaemia and 13 patients still had normal TC and TG levels during mTOR inhibitor treatment. The levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) (0.98 ± 0.30 mmol/L vs. 1.23 ± 0.31 mmol/L, p = 0.030), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) (2.47 ± 0.69 mmol/L vs. 1.95 ± 0.53 mmol/L, p = 0.029) and apolipoprotein B (ApoB) (0.82 ± 0.21 g/L vs. 0.65 ± 0.16 g/L, p = 0.019) are higher in the patients who experienced hyperlipidaemia during mTOR inhibition therapy. TC, TG, LDL-C, ApoB and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) at baseline had positive correlation with TC after treatment; ApoB at baseline had positive correlation, while HDL-C and free fat acid (FFA) at baseline had negative correlation with TG after treatment. Therefore, ApoB concentration at baseline has statistically significant correlation with both TC (p 0.001) and TG (p = 0.012) levels after mTOR inhibitor treatment. ROC curve and AUC revealed that ApoB with a cut-off value of 0.640g/L may be the best parameter for predicting hyperlipidaemia during mTOR inhibitor treatment in TSC-AML patients. The incidence rates of hyperlipidaemia were 27.3% and 76.2% among the patients with ApoB level ≤0.640 g/L and0.640 g/L respectively.Some baseline serum lipid parameters could be used for predicting incidence of hyperlipidaemia during mTOR inhibition therapy in TSC-AML patients, and ApoB with 0.640 g/L as a cut-off value may be a potentially optimal indicator, which could help for diagnosis and treatment decision-making.

This review aims to demonstrate the current core competencies of the Chinese midwifery workforce and to summarize the influencing factors of core competencies.Midwifery core competencies are crucial to providing high-quality maternal and newborn health care, but little is known about the overall status of the core competencies of the Chinese midwifery workforce.A scoping review was conducted following the latest Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) scoping review methodology and Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) checklist.Forty-one studies were included in this review. Regarding core competency assessment tools, the Midwife Core Competency Scale was used most frequently among 16 identified tools. Generally, the core competencies of the Chinese midwifery workforce were at a moderate or high level, but the competencies in pre-pregnancy, public health care and integrative competence were relatively inadequate. The main factors influencing the core competencies of the midwifery workforce were their working years, educational level and training experience.This review provides a comprehensive overview of the core competencies of the Chinese midwifery workforce at the national level. Future studies are encouraged to use objective instruments to reflect core competencies and explore the intervenable influencing factors of core competencies.Core competency assessment tools can be used to select the qualified midwifery workforce. Targeted core competency enhancement programmes should be formulated based on the current core competencies level and the factors influencing core competencies.

With the continuous development of road construction worldwide, the construction sector is trying to find a versatile material for building roads in particular areas. Air-foamed lightweight soil, which is produced using low-cost raw materials and has a lower density varying from 300 to 1800 kg/m3, adjustable strength, excellent thermal isolation, and a more straightforward construction method, has emerged as a worthy candidate. This paper reviews air-foamed lightweight soil in terms of its composition as well as physical and mechanical properties, such as its compressive strength, flexural strength, and stability. This paper also generalizes the engineering applications of air-foamed lightweight soil and provides ideas for its wide use.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is the hepatic manifestation of the metabolic syndrome featuring ectopic lipid accumulation in hepatocytes. NAFLD has been a severe threat to humans with a global prevalence of over 25% yet no approved drugs for the treatment to date. Previous studies showed that procyanidin B2 (PCB2), an active ingredient from herbal cinnamon, has an excellent hepatoprotective effect; however, the mechanism remains inconclusive. The present study aimed to investigate the protective effect and underlying mechanism of PCB2 on PA-induced cellular injury in human hepatoma HepG2 cells. Our results showed that PA-induced oxidative stress, calcium disequilibrium, and subsequent endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) mediated cellular injury, with elevated protein levels of GRP78, GRP94, CHOP, and hyperphosphorylation of PERK and IRE1α as well as the increased ratio of Bax/Bcl-2, which was restored by PCB2 in a concentration-dependent manner, proving the excellent antiapoptosis effect. In addition, 4-phenylbutyric acid (4-PBA), the ER stress inhibitor, increased cell viability and decreased protein levels of GRP78 and CHOP, which is similar to PCB2, and thapsigargin (TG), the ER stress agonist, exhibited conversely meanwhile partly counteracted the hepatic protection of PCB2. What is more, upregulated protein expression of p-IKKα/β, p-NF-κB p65, NLRP3, cleaved caspase 1, and mature IL-1β occurred in HepG2 cells in response to PA stress while rescued with the PCB2 intervention. In conclusion, our study demonstrated that PA induces ERS in HepG2 cells and subsequently activates downstream NLRP3 inflammasome-mediated cellular injury, while PCB2 inhibits NLRP3/caspase 1/IL-1β pathway, inflammation, and apoptosis with the presence of ERS, thereby promoting cell survival, which may provide pharmacological evidence for clinical approaches on NAFLD.

Although solid fuel use has been increasingly linked to cardiovascular events (CVEs), conclusions have been inconsistent. We systematically searched 3 databases (PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science) up to July 3, 2020, to identify English language reports that assessed the association of solid fuel use with CVEs. Summary relative risks (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated with a random-effects model. Subgroup analyses and sensitivity analyses were conducted to explore the potential sources of heterogeneity and to test the stability of the results. We finally included 13 observational studies (8 cohort, 3 cross-sectional, and 2 case-control studies comprising 791,220 participants) in the meta-analysis. The risk of CVEs was increased 21% with the highest versus the lowest solid fuel use (highest/lowest, RRpooled = 1.21, 95% CI: 1.10-1.34). As for the subgroup analyses on study design, the pooled RR for cohort studies, case-control studies, and cross-sectional studies were 1.11 (95%CI: 1.03-1.19), 4.80 (95%CI: 2.22-10.39), and 1.46 (95%CI: 0.82-2.62), respectively. The results of this study suggested that high solid fuel use was associated with increased CVE risk, and that reducing the use of solid fuel will be important for improving the health of the populations in developing countries.

Background. GXN tablets are composed of Danshen and Chuanxiong, with the functions of activating blood circulation, removing blood stasis, invigorating the pulse, and nourishing the heart, which are used for CHD patients with stable exertional angina Grade I or II (according to traditional Chinese medicine, it is a syndrome of heart and blood stasis with chest pain and dark purple lips and tongue). Clinical trials have shown satisfactory effects on coronary heart disease (CHD). 90.6% of Chinese patients with CHD use both Western medicine and Chinese medicine with the latter being thought to promote blood circulation and remove blood stasis. Some researchers doubt that the combination of Chinese medicine increases the risk of bleeding. The main objective of this study is to observe the safety of long-term use of Guanxinning (hereafter referred to as GXN) tablets combined with aspirin. Methods. The study population is patients with CHD after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Randomization was performed for patients with stable CHD who received dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) with aspirin plus clopidogrel or ticagrelor for more than 12 months and then switched to the treatment with aspirin alone for 1 month. This study includes a total of 3,595 subjects in 63 hospitals. The experimental group took aspirin orally (100 mg, 1 time/day) + GXN tablets (0–6 months: 4 tablets/time, 3 times/day; 7–12 months, 4 tablets/time, 2 times/day), and the control group received oral aspirin (100 mg, 1 time/day). Major observation indicators are the incidence of bleeding events, adverse events (AEs), and adverse reactions. The primary endpoint indicators are the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) and the MACCE composite endpoint. Results. A total of 31 cases of symptomatic bleeding were found in the two groups, including 21 cases (0.98%) in the experimental group and 10 cases (0.86%) in the control group; the difference between the two groups was not statistically significant. There were 29 cases (1.35%) of bleeding not reaching BARC type 1 in the experimental group. No attention was paid to the laboratory indicators in the control group during the trial process, so the bleeding as a laboratory indicator between the two groups was not comparable. For BARC type 3–5 bleeding events, there were 3 cases in the experimental group (0.139%) and 2 cases in the control group (0.172%); the difference between the two groups was not statistically significant and not clinically significant. During the trial period, there were a total of 255 cases of adverse reactions in 208 subjects with an incidence of 6.57% (141/2146) in the experimental group and 5.77% (67/1161) in the control group, and the P value was 0.5021; the difference between the two groups was not statistically significant. According to the analysis, the adverse reactions with a statistically significant difference between the two groups were gastrointestinal diseases, with the incidence in the experimental group being higher than that in the control group, and the main manifestations were gastrointestinal symptoms. There was no statistical difference in other types of adverse reactions between the two groups. In the trial period, there were 10 cases of serious adverse reactions, including 5 cases in the experimental group (5/2146, 0.23%) and 5 cases in the control group (5/ 1161, 0.43%), the P value was 0.3351; the difference in the incidence between the two groups was not statistically significant. Conclusion. For CHD patients with heart-blood stasis syndrome, the combination of aspirin and GXN tablets in the experimental group did not increase the incidence of bleeding events, nor did it increase the risk of bleeding of types 3–5 defined by BARC. Except for the increase in gastrointestinal symptoms, there was no increase in other adverse reactions in the experimental group. This trial is registered with Registration no. ChiCTR-IIR-17010688.

Based on the existing financial system risk models, a set of time-lag financial system risk models is established considering the influence brought by time-lag factors on the financial risk system, and the dynamical behavior of this system is analyzed by using chaos theory. Through Matlab simulation, the bifurcation diagram and phase diagram of time-lag risk intensity and control intensity are plotted. The analysis shows that this kind of time-lag financial system risk model has complex dynamic behavior, different motion states will appear when different parameter values are selected, and the time-lag risk intensity parameter also has a very strong influence on the system motion. To ensure the operation of the financial system in a stable state, measures with certain delay effects must be taken to control the risk and to choose the appropriate time-lag control intensity, and too much or too little time-lag control intensity is not conducive to the benign operation of the system.

Parallel test is an efficient approach for improving test efficiency in the aerospace field. To meet the challenges of implementing multiunit parallel test in practical projects, this paper presented a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model for solving the task scheduling problem. A novel sequence-based iterative (SBI) method is proposed to solve the model in reasonable time. The SBI method is composed of an implied sequence finding procedure (ISF) and a sequence-based iterative optimization (SBIO) procedure. The first procedure can reduce the search space by fixing free sequence variables according to the original test flowcharts, and the second procedure can solve the model iteratively in a reasonable amount of time. In addition, two indexes, namely, speed rate and average resource utilization rate, are introduced to evaluate the proposed methods comprehensively. Computational results indicate that the proposed method performs well in real-world test examples, especially for larger examples that cannot be solved by the full-space method. Furthermore, it is proved that the essence of the parallel test is trading space for time.

Although the Hippo pathway and CD133 have been reported to play pertinent roles in a variety of cancer, knowledge about their contribution to radiation resistance in small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is limited. In this first-of-a-kind study, we have reported the expression of key Hippo pathway proteins in SCLC patients by immunohistochemical staining. We assessed the involvement of yes-associated protein 1 (YAP1) in radiation resistance by Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) and flow cytometry. In addition, we analysed the impact of CD133 on radiotherapy for SCLC. The mammalian Ste20-like serine/threonine kinase 2(MST2), pMST2, and pYAP1 in the Hippo pathway were not significantly associated with the disease stage and survival time in patients with SCLC. However, the pYAP1 expression showed some significance in the “YAP/TAZ subgroup” of SCLC patients. The proportion of CD133 in the SCLC cells was controlled by the YAP1 expression. The CD133 and YAP1 levels were significantly correlation with each other in tissues of SCLC patients. We sorted and isolated the CD133+ and CD133−cells in H69 and found that the cell surface glycoprotein may be associated with the radiation resistance of SCLC.In summary, we have firstly reported the expression of key Hippo pathway proteins in SCLC patients. Furthermore, we also identified that CD133 may be controlled by the expression of YAP1 in the Hippo pathway and that CD133 may be associated with the radiation resistance of SCLC.

Three common lubricant additives, including an antioxidant, detergent, and an antifoamer, were added to diesel fuel to perform a diesel engine bench test. Particulate matter samples underwent thermogravimetric analysis to investigate the effect of lubricant additives on the particulate matter oxidation process, characteristic temperature, and activation energy. The results showed the following. Different lubricant additives result in different variation trends in the thermogravimetric curve of a particulate matter sample by varying the rotating speed and torque. When the rotating speed was stable, as the torque increased, the ignition temperature of the particulate matter of Fuel C declined rapidly during the initial stage and then increased rapidly. When the torque was stable, as the rotating speed increased, the ignition temperature of the particulate matter of Fuel C increased initially and then declined. The particulate matter of Fuel C had the lowest level of activation energy at approximately 57.89 J·mol−1. The particulate matter of Fuel A had the highest level of activation energy at approximately 74.10 J·mol−1. When the fuel has a higher cetane number, the combustion chemical reaction rate is faster and results in a more complete reaction. The active substance contact surface increases, which facilitates particulate matter oxidation.

This study aimed to explore the protective effects of Wenshen-Yanggan decoction on dopaminergic (DA) neuron injury in a rotenone-induced mouse model with chronic Parkinson’s disease (PD) and explore its mechanism of action. Ultraperformance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) was used to measure the content of six main components in the Wenshen-Yanggan decoction. The chronic PD mouse model was established by treating 10-month-old healthy wild C57BL/6 male mice with rotenone 30 mg/kg/day for 28 days in succession. The pole test and rotarod test were applied to detect the rescue effect of Wenshen-Yanggan decoction in high, medium, and low dosages, respectively, on PD-like behaviors in mice with chronic PD. The protective effect of Wenshen-Yanggan decoction on the mesencephalic nigrostriatal DA neuron injury was determined employing tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) immunofluorescence staining. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was adopted to measure the inflammatory cytokines in serum, including TNF-α (tumor necrosis factor-alpha), IFN-γ (interferon gamma), NF-κB (nuclear factor kappa-B), and IL-1β (interleukin-1 beta). Western blotting was performed to quantify the expression of phosphorylated c-Jun N-terminal kinase (p-JNK), cleaved caspase-3, B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2), and NF-κB in the brain. Our results showed that the Wenshen-Yanggan decoction in high, medium, and low dosages reduced the turning time of mice P<0.01,P<0.01, and P<0.05. The high and medium dosages shortened the total climbing time of PD mice in the pole test P<0.01 and P<0.05. Meanwhile, the high, medium, and low dosages increased the rod-standing time of PD mice in the rotarod test P<0.01,P<0.05, and P<0.05. Besides, the decoction reversed the decrease in TH-positive neurons induced by rotenone, upregulated TH protein expression, and downregulated the α-syn expression in the PD model. Moreover, the decoction in high dosage significantly inhibited the expression of p-JNK, cleaved caspase-3, and NF-κB in the midbrain of PD mice P<0.05,P<0.05, and P<0.01, upregulated the expression of Bcl-2 P<0.05, and decreased the content of TNF-α, IFN-γ, NF-κB, and IL-1β in the serum P<0.001,P<0.001,P<0.001, and P<0.001. Taken together, the Wenshen-Yanggan decoction could protect mice from rotenone-induced chronic PD, which might be related to the reduction of the DA neuron apoptosis via suppressing the inflammatory reaction and the neuronal apoptosis pathway.

A new trajectory tracking control method based on the U-model is proposed to improve the trajectory tacking speed of robot manipulators. The U-model method is introduced to relieve the requirement of the dynamic mathematical model and make the design of trajectory tracking controller of robot manipulators simpler. To further improve the trajectory tacking speed, an improved iterative learning control algorithm is used to suppress the influence of the initial state error with less computation time. Experimental results show that the proposed control method is effective and practical for the trajectory tracking control of robot manipulators, especially with a high real-time requirement.

Background. Immune-related pancytopenia (IRP) is a kind of autoimmune disease mediated by autoantibodies in bone marrow. T helper 9 (Th9) cell is a new subset of T cell discovered recently, which mainly expresses cytokine interleukin-9 (IL-9) to exert immune function. Th9 cells are associated with a variety of inflammatory diseases, but the role of Th9 cells in IRP remains unclear. Methods. Fifty patients with IRP and 20 healthy controls were enrolled. The percentage of Th9 cells was detected by flow cytometry (FCM) and ELISA. CD4+ lymphocytes were sorted by magnetic beads, and the mRNA expression levels of Th9 cells related transcription factors PU.1 and BATF were detected by RT-PCR. Results. The percentage of Th9 cells in CD3+CD4+ cells was 2.73±1.96% in the untreated group, which was significantly higher than those in the remission group (1.21±0.86%) (p<0.01) and the control group (0.68±0.40%) (p<0.001). And that in the remission group was significantly higher than that in the control group (p<0.05). The level of IL-9 in the untreated group was 183.91±112.42 pg/mL, which was significantly higher than that in the remission group (105.96±64.79 pg/mL) (p<0.01) and control group (56.03±14.49 pg/mL) (p<0.001). That in the remission group was also significantly higher than that in the control group (p<0.01). They were negatively correlated with hemoglobin, red blood cell, white blood cell, and platelet counts and positively correlated with the percentage of CD19+B cells and CD5+CD19+/CD19+B cells, respectively. The mRNA expression levels of PU.1 and BATF in IRP patients were higher than those in controls (p<0.05). Conclusions. The percentage of Th9 cells in the peripheral blood and the level of IL-9 in the serum of patients with IRP were increased, which was related to the severity of the disease.

Background. Numerous studies have highlighted that long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) can indirectly regulate the expression of mRNAs by binding to microRNA (miRNA). LncRNA-associated ceRNA networks play a vital role in the initiation and progression of several pathological mechanisms. However, the lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA ceRNA network in endothelial cells under cyclic stretch is seldom studied. Methods. The miRNA, mRNA, and lncRNA expression profiles of 6 human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) under circumferential stress were obtained by next-generation sequencing (NGS). We identified the differential expression of miRNAs, mRNAs, and lncRNAs using the R software package GDCRNATools. Cytoscape was adopted to construct a lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA ceRNA network. In addition, through GO and KEGG pathway annotations, we analyzed gene functions and their related pathways. We also adopted ELISA and TUNEL to investigate the effect of si-NEAT1 on endothelial inflammation and apoptosis. Results. We recognized a total of 32978 lncRNAs, 1046 miRNAs, and 31958 mRNAs in 6 samples; among them, 155 different expressed lncRNAs, 74 different expressed miRNAs, and 960 different mRNAs were adopted. Based on the established theory, the ceRNA network was composed of 13 lncRNAs, 44 miRNAs, and 115 mRNAs. We constructed and visualized a lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA network, and the top 20 nodes are identified after calculating their degrees. The nodes with most degrees in three kinds of RNAs are hsa-miR-4739, NEAT1, and MAP3K2. Functional analysis showed that different biological processes enriched in biological regulation, response to stimulus and cell communication. Pathway analysis was mainly enriched in longevity regulating, cell cycle, mTOR, and FoxO signaling pathway. Circumferential stress can significantly downregulate NEAT1, and after transducing si-NEAT1 for 24 h, inflammatory cytokine IL-6 and MCP-1 were significantly increased; furthermore, fewer TUNEL-positive cells were found in the si-NEAT1 treated group. Conclusions. The establishing of a ceRNA network can help further understand the mechanism of vein graft failure. Our data demonstrated that NEAT1 may be a core factor among the mechanical stress factors and that cyclic stress can significantly reduce expression of NEAT1, give rise to inflammation in the early stage of endothelial dysfunction, and promote EC apoptosis, which may play an essential role in vein graft failure.

WHAT IS KNOWN AND OBJECTIVE Focusing on the tolerance and pharmacokinetics of new drugs, phase I clinical drug trials are characterized by high risk, poor compliance and management difficulties. High-quality clinical drug trials ensure subjects' safety while extending new drug research and development. Many studies have examined micro-level concerns of trial design and implementation rather than macro-level factors. Accordingly, we evaluated the quality of phase I clinical drug trials (trial quality) and analysed the influence of organizational management factors from a macro-level perspective. METHODS We surveyed staff at clinical trial institutions engaged in phase I clinical drug trials in China using convenience sampling. We employed a five-point Likert-scale questionnaire, comprising five items on phase I clinical drug trial quality and items on organizational management factors. Data from 604 questionnaires were analysed. We utilized a logistic regression model to estimate the influence of organizational management factors on trial quality, using individual demographic factors as controlling variables. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The trial quality score was 3.81, which indicates that substantial improvement is required. Government regulation, industry management and medical institution management had a positive effect on trial quality: β = 0.842, 0.691 and 0.579, respectively; P

Understanding the mechanism of water drainage and gas recovery is the burning issue for Coalbed Methane (CBM) reservoir development. In the process of exploitation, threshold pressure gradients (TPG) is an important factor affecting the control areas, which related to the low-permeability and complex water saturation of CBM reservoirs. In this paper, a new flow model of CBM has been established considering the TPG and gas desorption. Then we carried out a series of experiments and fitted out a new relational expression between TPG and permeability and water saturation, which shows that TPG is negatively correlated with permeability and positively correlated with water saturation. After that, we analyzed the influence of TPG and desorption on the control radius and illustrated a case study. The results show that TPG and desorption effect both can slow down the rate of pressure reduction. The case study indicates that the control radius of target well groups ranges from 55 m to 136.7 m The average control radius and gas TPG are 91.3 m 0.0082 MPa/m respectively. Furthermore, we classify the wells into 5 categories, which are mainly distributed in III (80∼100 m). Finally, we suggest using well pattern infilling in region II and III and hydraulic fracturing method for region IV to increase the utilization area and the sustainability for the target area. This study provides a quick and reasonable prediction of control radius in CBM reservoir with different water saturation for further adjustment suggestion and sustainable development.

With the environment concern increasing, corporations are facing new challenges on carbon management in supply chain network. In this paper, environmental consideration is introduced to traditional supply chain management, and the sustainable supply chain (SSC) is designed considering carbon footprint. We develop a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model to get the optimal decisions on partner selection, technology selection, and transportation mode selection, as well as material procurement, product supply, and recovery mode. For validating the model, a beverage company in China is used. We also analyze the impact of supply chain uncertainties such as carbon emission price and recovery rate of returned products on the decision of SSC design.