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Background: Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease. To date, there are no serum biomarkers for psoriasis that have been validated to diagnose or treat psoriasis. Methods: Peptidase inhibitor 3 (PI3) levels in serum were measured using chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA) in two independent cohorts including healthy controls (HC) and patients diagnosed with chronic urticaria (CU), chronic eczema (CE), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), rheumatoid arthritis (RA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA), or psoriasis vulgaris (PV). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis determined the diagnostic performance of PI3 in patients with psoriasis. The correlation between PI3 levels and the Psoriasis Area Severity Index (PASI) score was analyzed using the Spearman correlation method. Additionally, the study evaluated PI3 expression and treatment response of PV patients 12 weeks before and after topical treatment with calcipotriol betamethasone and calcipotriol ointment (T#1) or topical therapy plus PSORI-CM01 granules (T#2). Results: In cohort #1, PI3 levels effectively discriminate PV patients from HC and CU patients, with AUCs of 0.909 and 0.840, respectively. In cohort #2, AUCs for detecting PV patients among HC, CU, CE, SLE, and RA patients were 0.940, 0.926, 0.802, 0.989, and 0.951, respectively. For PsA patients, AUCs were 0.989, 0.986, 0.910, 1.000, and 0.984 compared to HC, CU, CE, SLE, and RA patients, respectively. In both cohorts, PI3 levels correlated significantly with PASI scores in PV patients (cohort #1, r = 0.433; cohort #2, r = 0.634) and PsA patients (cohort #2, r = 0.718). Moreover, univariate logistic regression analyses revealed that PV patients with higher PI3 expression had a significantly higher risk of treatment resistance, with an odds ratio of 3.45 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.54, 7.74, p = 0.003]. Finally, PI3 levels decreased nearly 35-fold more in the responder than in the non-responder group before and after treatment. Conclusions: Serological PI3 is a reliable biomarker for PV diagnosis and may have the potential to predict and monitor the progression of PV before and after treatment. Key Points • This study validated PI3's diagnostic performance in two independent psoriasis cohorts using CLIA. • PI3 expression is significantly correlated with the psoriasis severity and with patients who benefited from the treatments. • Serological PI3 is a reliable biomarker for psoriasis diagnosis and may have the potential to monitor the psoriasis progression with and without treatments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Algae biomass and community structure can reflect the current situation of a lake, especially in response to changes in light intensity. The relationship between chlorophyll a (Chl a) and chlorophyll b (Chl b) ratio and the proportion of Chlorophyta within the algae community were analyzed in this study. Results showed that light was more intense in August than in March. Algae density in August was greater than in March. The concentration of Chl a and b was influenced by light intensity level. In March, Microcystis and Kirchneriella sp dominated surface water, where the light intensity was over 216 μmol m s, Gloeocapsa, Dictyospaerium pulchellum, and Scenedesmus dominated intermediate water, where the light ranged from 36 to 216 μmol m s. Asterionella formosa Hassall and Mougeotia scalaris dominated near the bottom, where the light was below 36 μmol m s. In August, Microcystis and Selenastrum reinsch dominated surface water, where the light was above 18 μmol m s. Chroococcus, Chlorella, and Scendesmus quadricauda dominated intermediate water, where light ranged from 90 to 180 μmol m s. Anabaena spirioides and Pediastrum simplex dominated bottom water, where the light was below 90 μmol m s. According to the mean value of Chlorophyta density and algae cell density in three different water levels, the ratio of Chlorophyta and algae community declined from March to August, ranging from 12.35-21.41 to 4.28-11.19 %. The mean value ratio of Chl b and Chl a in three different water levels showed the same tendency from March to August, ranging from 18.05-21.77 to 15.15-17.44 %. These variations in chlorophyll ratio and Chlorophyta ratio indicated that the structure of the algae community structure was influenced by differences in light intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automatic service composition is the generation of a business process to fulfill business goals that cannot be fulfilled by individual services. Planning algorithms are frequently used to solve this problem. In addition to satisfying functional goals, recent research is geared toward selecting the best services to optimize the QoS of the result business process. Without considering QoS, the planning algorithm normally searches for the shortest plan, which actually implies the unit execution time for each service. With QoS, a longer plan may have better QoS values and thus is preferred over a shorter one. In this paper, we are motivated to combine a systematic search algorithm like Dijkstra's algorithm with a planning algorithm, GraphPlan, to achieve both functional goals and QoS optimization at the same time. The planning graph generated by GraphPlan is a compact representation of all execution paths, which makes it feasible to apply Dijkstra's principle. In our new QoSGraphPlan algorithm, we extend Dijkstra's algorithm from working on a single-source graph to working on the planning graph whose nodes have multiple sources. Using our method, we can get the best QoS value for throughput and response time in polynomial time when they are the single criteria. For the other QoS criteria, such as execution time, reputation, successful execution rate, and availability, our algorithm is exponential for both single criterion problem and multiple criteria problem. In this case, we extend QoSGraphPlan with beam search to solve the combination explosion problem. As our algorithms search for an optimal solution during the process of constructing the planning graph, they belong to the category of anytime algorithms that return better solutions if they keep running for a longer time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the self-designed coaxial cylindrical electrodeposition device, the electrodeposition method was adopted using anhydrous copper chloride as copper source. The effects of deposition voltage, initial concentration of CuCl2 and solution pH value on the purity, average grain size, phase composition and micromorphology of nano-copper were systematically researched by means of scanning electron microscope and X-ray diffraction. Under the deposition voltage of 7 V, the nano-copper presented a dendritic structure. When the reactant concentration was 20 g/L, the average particle size was about 50 nm. The copper nanoparticles changed from sheet to branch structure while the pH was between 4.0 and 4.5. In addition, the possible formation mechanism of different copper structures was analyzed in detail. This method provided a theoretical basis for expanding the preparation of nano-metal materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]