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Purpose This study aimed to compare the effects of ground and treadmill running on energy metabolism and muscle contractile properties, providing a basis for the general public to choose running venues. Methods Ten male college students (age, 20.10 ± 1.53 years; height, 176.20 ± 5.49 cm; weight, 72.14 ± 8.25 kg; body fat percent, 12.41% ± 4.65%) were recruited in this study. Energy expenditure (EE) was measured using the accelerometer (GT9X) combined with specific estimation equations. Average heart rate (HR) was measured using a heart rate band (Polar). Muscle contractile properties were assessed by measuring muscle displacement (Dm) and contraction velocity (Vc) using tensiomyography (TMG-S1). Blood glucose (Glu) and lactate (Lac) were measured by portable devices (eB-G and Lactate Scout). The running speed was 9 km/h and the duration was 25 min. Two-way ANOVA (protocol × time) was used to analyze the effect of running protocols on energy metabolism and muscle contractile properties. Results EE of treadmill running was significantly higher than EE of ground running (protocol main effect, P < 0.001), and HR of treadmill running was significantly higher than that of ground running in the first testing time (protocol simple effect, P = 0.026; protocol × time interaction P = 0.043). The decrease in Dm of the rectus femoris after treadmill running was significantly higher than that of ground running (protocol main effect, P = 0.009). The interaction of different running protocols and testing times on Lac was significant (P = 0.025), but all results of the simple effects analysis were not statistically significant (P > 0.05). Conclusion Our study found a difference in energy expenditure between treadmill and ground running at 9 km/h with duration of 25 min. In addition, treadmills are more likely to cause a decrease in muscle displacement distance of the rectus femoris measured after exercise than ground running. Future studies are needed to further investigate whether the differences are induced by internal metabolism or the environmental conditions of running.

Sonographic features are associated with pathological and immunohistochemical characteristics of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). To predict the biological property of TNBC, the performance using quantitative high-throughput sonographic feature analysis was compared with that using qualitative feature assessment. We retrospectively reviewed ultrasound images, clinical, pathological, and immunohistochemical (IHC) data of 252 female TNBC patients. All patients were subgrouped according to the histological grade, Ki67 expression level, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) score. Qualitative sonographic feature assessment included shape, margin, posterior acoustic pattern, and calcification referring to the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS). Quantitative sonographic features were acquired based on the computer-aided radiomics analysis. Breast cancer masses were manually segmented from the surrounding breast tissues. For each ultrasound image, 1688 radiomics features of 7 feature classes were extracted. The principal component analysis (PCA), least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO), and support vector machine (SVM) were used to determine the high-throughput radiomics features that were highly correlated to biological properties. The performance using both quantitative and qualitative sonographic features to predict biological properties of TNBC was represented by the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). In the qualitative assessment, regular tumor shape, no angular or spiculated margin, posterior acoustic enhancement, and no calcification were used as the independent sonographic features for TNBC. Using the combination of these four features to predict the histological grade, Ki67, HER2, axillary lymph node metastasis (ALNM), and lymphovascular invasion (LVI), the AUC was 0.673, 0.680, 0.651, 0.587, and 0.566, respectively. The number of high-throughput features that closely correlated with biological properties was 34 for histological grade (AUC 0.942), 27 for Ki67 (AUC 0.732), 25 for HER2 (AUC 0.730), 34 for ALNM (AUC 0.804), and 34 for LVI (AUC 0.795). High-throughput quantitative sonographic features are superior to traditional qualitative ultrasound features in predicting the biological behavior of TNBC. • Sonographic appearances of TNBCs showed a great variety in accordance with its biological and clinical characteristics. • Both qualitative and quantitative sonographic features of TNBCs are associated with tumor biological characteristics. • The quantitative high-throughput feature analysis is superior to two-dimensional sonographic feature assessment in predicting tumor biological property.

This study presents a novel angle-based contact detection method to address the concave contact problem of arbitrary polyhedra, including convex and concave polyhedra, those with cavities and/or holes, and likely their unions. First, the most important mathematical concept in this study, the angle, is introduced to represent a general polyhedron. Using angles, the topologies of the polyhedra can be far more complex and universal than those previously studied, allowing for the coplanarity of faces and collinearity of edges, and not limiting the polyhedra to simple homeomorphic to closed three-dimensional (3-D) spheres. Second, all the local entrances of two general angles, which are either vertex angle to half-space or crossing edge angle to edge angle entrances, are identified using the entrance formulas. Third, local convex decomposition (LCD) is proposed to decompose any arbitrarily concave angle into a set of convex subangles, making the method easy to implement and naturally compatible with detection of entrance angles. Fourth, the proposed entrance angle method (EAM) is implemented in 3-D discontinuous deformation analysis (DDA) to compute arbitrarily convex/concave contacts. Finally, the EAM-based 3-D DDA method is validated and then employed to investigate the discontinuous mechanical behaviors of complex polyhedral block systems. Overall, the extended 3-D DDA program is sufficiently developed to meet the analysis requirements of complex rock mass projects.

Previously, we developed and validated a multiplex assay of 27 ancestry-informative markers (AIMs) for analyzing African (AFR), European (EUR), and East Asian (EAS) ancestry components. In this study, we typed and collectively analyzed a large Uyghur sample of 979 individuals to estimate the genetic coefficients of the 27 AIMs and investigate differentiation parameters between Uyghur and Han. The Uyghur allele frequencies ranged from 0.243 to 0.952, and heterozygosities ranged from 0.091 to 0.500. Values of F st 3 and I n 3 for EUR, Uyghur, and EAS ranged from 0.028 to 0.550 and 0.0002 to 0.345, respectively. The Uyghur population displays a substantial ancestry contribution of 50.3:49.7 (EUR:EAS) and was efficiently discriminated from Han Chinese with an accuracy of 99.285 %. All populations were clustered into AFR, EUR, EAS, and admixture groups of these three ancestries. Central Asian was obviously stratified from the other admixture populations of South Asians, North Asians, and the Americans. The 27 SNPs yield a circle with an average distance of 0.936 from the center (0, 0) in PCA analysis. Using this set, Chinese Uyghur and Han populations achieved accurate differentiation, and our updated genotype database (by citing 1000 Genomes data) of 43 worldwide populations is a useful resource for forensic applications and disease association studies.

A single-tube multiplex assay of a small set of ancestry-informative markers (AIMs) for effectively estimating individual ancestry and admixture is an ideal forensic tool to trace the population origin of an unknown DNA sample. We present a newly developed 27-plex single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) panel with highly robust and balanced differential power to perfectly assign individuals to African, European, and East Asian ancestries. Evaluating 968 previously described intercontinental AIMs from three HapMap population genotyping datasets (Yoruban in Ibadan, Nigeria (YRI); Utah residents with Northern and Western European ancestry from the Centre de'Etude du Polymorphism Humain (CEPH) collection (CEU); and Han Chinese in Beijing, China (CHB)), the best set of markers was selected on the basis of Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (p > 0.00001), population-specific allele frequency (two of three δ values >0.5), according to linkage disequilibrium (r 2

The Kazak ethnic minority is a large ethnic group in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China and is valuable resource for the study of ethnogeny. In the present study, 24 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat (Y-STR) loci were analyzed in 201 unrelated Kazak male individuals from Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture, Xinjiang, China. The gene diversity of the 24 Y-STR loci in the studied Kazak group ranged from 0.0050 to 0.9104. According to haplotypic analysis of the 24 Y-STR loci, 113 different haplotypes were obtained, 96 of which were unique. The haplotype diversity and discrimination capacity in Kazak group were 0.9578 and 0.5622 at 24 STR loci, respectively. The haplotype diversity and discrimination capacity at Y-filer 17 loci, extended 11 loci, and minimal 9 loci were reduced to 0.9274 and 0.4279, 0.8459 and 0.3284, and 0.8354 and 0.2985, respectively, which could indicate that the more loci were detected, the higher forensic efficacy was obtained. We evaluated the application value of the 24 loci in forensic sciences and analyzed interpopulation differentiations by making comparisons between the Kazak1 (represent our samples from Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture) group and other 14 groups. The results of pairwise genetic distances, multidimensional scaling plot, and neighbor-joining tree at the same set of 17 Y-filer loci indicated that the Kazak1 group had the closer genetic relationships with Kazak2 (represent samples from the whole territory of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region), Mongolian, and Uygur ethnic groups. The present results may provide useful information for paternal lineages in forensic cases and can also increase our understanding of the genetic relationships between Kazak1 and other groups.

TiO2 was prepared by a hydrothermal method. It was chemically combined with carboxymethyl cellulose prepared from biodegradable ramie fiber to obtain the TiO2/ramie fiber composite. The TiO2/ramie fiber composites were characterized by an X-ray diffractometer, an environmental scanning electron microscope, and a Fourier-transform infrared spectra. The results indicate that TiO2 is chemically combined with ramie fiber, and it can be reused more than five times without obvious TiO2 loss. The photocatalytic performances of TiO2 and TiO2/ramie fiber composite used to degrade both a methyl orange (MO) anionic dye and a rhodamine B (RB) cationic dye solution indicate that the photocatalytic activities of TiO2 for the degradation of the above described solutions are greatly improved when the TiO2 is dispersed on ramie fiber. When 0.5 g of the TiO2/ramie fiber composite is added to a dye solution for 3 h, the degradation rates for the initial concentrations (20 mg/L of MO and 12 mg/L of RB) are greater than 90 %. The photocatalytic degradation of MO can be described as a zeroth order reaction.

Background Numerous case–control studies have been performed to investigate the association between three cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) polymorphisms (rs20417 (−765G > C), rs689466 (−1195G > A), and rs5275 (8473 T > C)) and the risk of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). However, the results were inconsistent. Therefore, we conducted this meta-analysis to investigate the association. Methods We searched in PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science up to January 20, 2015 (last updated on May 12, 2016). Two independent reviewers extracted the data. Odds ratios (ORs) with their 95 % confidence intervals (CIs) were used to assess the association. All statistical analyses were performed using the Review Manager (RevMan) 5.2 software. Results Finally 8 case–control studies were included in this meta-analysis. For unadjusted data, an association with increased risk was observed in three genetic models in COX-2 rs689466 polymorphism; however, COX-2 rs5275 and rs20417 polymorphisms were not related to HNSCC risk in this study. The pooled results from adjusted data all revealed non-significant association between these three polymorphisms and risk of HNSCC. We also found a similar result in the subgroup analyses, based on both unadjusted data and adjusted data. Conclusion Current results suggest that COX-2 rs689466, rs5275, and rs20417 polymorphisms are not associated with HNSCC. Further large and well-designed studies are necessary to validate this association.