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Botulinum neurotoxin A injection is a popular noninvasive alternative for the treatment of masseter hypertrophy. This study was conducted to identify a safe injection volume to avoid sunken lateral cheek after botulinum neurotoxin A injection in the masseter muscle.One milliliter or 0.5 ml of indocyanine green was randomly injected into either side of the masseter muscles of 18 fresh cadaver heads. The bilateral spreads of indocyanine green within the masseter were observed by a fluorescence imager. The masseters were then dissected, and the spreading distance was measured.Dye spreading showed an oval shape parallel to the long axis of the masseter muscle. The lower edges of the masseters were all stained with indocyanine green. The upward spreading exceeded the mouth corner-tragus line in 94.44% (17/18) of the masseters on the 1-ml side, and 11.11% (2/18) of the masseters on the 0.5-ml side. The spreading area and upward spreading distance on the 1-ml side (9.95 ± 0.48 cmThe spread of indocyanine green within the masseter occurs in direct proportion to its volume. A bolus of 1 ml easily exceeded the mouth corner-tragus line and cause sunken cheek.

The long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are associated with tumorigenesis and progression of cancer. While DNA methylation is a common epigenetic regulator of gene expression, the methylation of lncRNAs was rarely studied. To address this gap, we integrated DNA methylation and RNA-seq data to characterize the landscape of lncRNA methylation in colon adenocarcinoma (COAD). We collected and analyzed the lncRNA expression and methylation data from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia to identify the epigenetically regulated lncRNAs. We further investigated the biological and clinical relevance of the identified lncRNAs via bioinformatics analysis. We identified 20 epigenetically upregulated lncRNAs in COAD, including several well-studied lncRNAs whose methylation regulation were poorly investigated, such as PVT1 and UCA1. We also revealed several novel tumor-associated lncRNAs in COAD, including GATA2-As1 and CYTOR. Next, we explored their biology function using gene set enrichment analysis and competitive endogenous RNA analysis. We characterized the methylation landscape of lncRNA in COAD and identified 20 epigenetically upregulated lncRNAs. Our findings will shed new light on the epigenetic regulation of lncRNA expression by DNA methylation.

Macrophages are involved in the full processes of tissue healing or regeneration and play an important role in the regeneration of a variety of tissues. Although recent evidence suggests the role of different macrophage phenotypes in adipose tissue expansion, metabolism, and remodeling, the spectrum of macrophage phenotype in the adipose tissue engineering field remains unknown. The present study established a rat model of adipose tissue regeneration using a tissue engineering chamber. Macrophage phenotypes were assessed during the regenerative process in the model. Neo-adipose tissue was generated 6 weeks after implantation. Macrophages were obvious in the chamber constructs 3 days after implantation, peaked at day 7, and significantly decreased thereafter. At day 3, macrophages were predominantly M1 macrophages (CCR7+), and there were few M2 macrophages (CD206+). At day 7, the percentage of M2 macrophages significantly increased and remained stable at day 14. M2 macrophages became the predominant macrophage population at 42 days. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay demonstrated transition of cytokines from pro-inflammatory to anti-inflammatory, which was consistent with the transition of macrophage phenotype from M1 to M2. These results showed distinct transition of macrophage phenotypes from a pro-inflammatory M1 phenotype to an anti-inflammatory M2 in adipose tissue regeneration in our tissue engineering model. This study provides new insight into macrophage phenotype transition in the regeneration of adipose tissue.

The steady increase of the spatial resolutions of numerical atmospheric and oceanic circulation models has occurred over the past decades. Horizontal grid spacing down to the order of 1 km is now often used to resolve cloud systems in the atmosphere and sub-mesoscale circulation systems in the ocean. These fine resolution models encompass a wide range of temporal and spatial scales, across which dynamical and statistical properties vary. In particular, dynamic flow systems at small scales can be spatially localized and temporarily intermittent. Difficulties of current data assimilation algorithms for such fine resolution models are numerically and theoretically examined. Our analysis shows that the background error correlation length scale is larger than 75 km for streamfunctions and is larger than 25 km for water vapor mixing ratios, even for a 2-km resolution model. A theoretical analysis suggests that such correlation length scales prevent the currently used data assimilation schemes from constraining spatial scales smaller than 150 km for streamfunctions and 50 km for water vapor mixing ratios. Moreover, our results highlight the need to fundamentally modify currently used data assimilation algorithms for assimilating high-resolution observations into the aforementioned fine resolution models. Lastly, within the framework of four-dimensional variational data assimilation,more » a multiscale methodology based on scale decomposition is suggested and challenges are discussed.« less

On the basis of the datasets obtained for the monthly turbulent heat flux (1984-2009) from the Objectively Analyzed Air-Sea Heat Flux (OAFlux), the radiation flux from the International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP), the variability characteristics of the net heat flux (Qnet) over the Kuroshio System (KS) and its relationship with the climate in China were studied. The results reveal that except for a steady enhancement in the period 1984-2009, the boreal winter Qnet over the KS is characterized by obvious interannual variation of the period quasi-5 year as well as decadal variability shifting from negative to positive anomalies in the mid-1990s. In the wintertime, the increasing KS Qnet is primarily responsible for the intensification of the East Asia winter monsoon (EAWM) via a deepening of the Aleutian low and an enhancement of the Siberia high and has a correlation coefficient of 0.72 with a 1-month delay. The enhanced-EAWM induces colder winters in Northeast China and higher Qnet over the KS by carrying significantly greater amounts of cold air mass. During the low Qnet winter, the EAWM is weakened, and the southwesterly wind that contains abundant water vapour enhances and pushes toward southern China, thereby bringing heavier rainfall. The anomalous Qnet over the KS in the wintertime lasts until the following spring with a weaker relative intensity. In the spring after the low KS Qnet winter, the anomalous easterly wind transfers colder air masses from the Sea of Japan to the North China and Yellow-Huaihe regions and then cools these regions. The warmer and wetter southwesterlies along the northwestern flank of the anomalous anticyclone east of Taiwan Island meet these colder easterlies accompanied by an anomalous upward motion, thereby inducing an anomalous northwest-southeast precipitation band in the central and eastern region of China, especially in the Yangtze-Huaihe region.

Er3+–Yb3+-codoped titania–zirconia composites were synthesized using a coprecipitation method with aqueous ammonia as the precipitator. Their crystal structures and upconversion luminescent properties were investigated using X-ray diffraction and photoluminescence spectra. The strong green and red upconversion emissions were observed. The ratio of green to red emission was changed with the variation of the host composition and dopant concentrations. The relevant mechanism was discussed.

The potential for using synergistic combinations of measurements from autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and output from three-dimensional numerical models for studying the central California coastal region is demonstrated. Two case studies are used to illustrate the approach. In the first, propeller-driven AUV observations revealed a subsurface salinity minimum in northern Monterey Bay. A Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) reanalysis of the three-dimensional flow in the region suggested an offshore source for this water and particular propagation pathways from the south and west into the bay. In the second case study, the effectiveness of assimilating observations in improving the ROMS reanalysis fields is investigated. A significant improvement, especially in the salinity fields, is demonstrated through a single glider deployed outside the intensive observational domain. These results suggest that investigation of more sophisticated techniques for using data and models together is warranted. Such techniques include increasing model resolution in areas of interest identified by observing platforms and using model-based “targeted observing” techniques to identify areas of uncertainty in the flow to guide placement of observational assets.

Adjoint formulation is employed for the optimal control of flow around a rotating cylinder, governed by the unsteady Navier-Stokes equations. The main objective consists of suppressing Karman vortex shedding in the wake of the cylinder by controlling the angular velocity of the rotating body, which can be constant in time or time-dependent. Since the numerical control problem is ill-posed, regularization is employed. An empirical logarithmic law relating the regularization coefficient to the Reynolds number was derived for 60 ≤ Re ≤ 140. Optimal values of the angular velocity of the cylinder are obtained for Reynolds numbers ranging from Re = 60 to Re = 1000

The known properties of equivalence between four-dimensional variational (4D-Var) data assimilation and the Kalman filter as well as the fixed-interval Kalman smoother point to particular optimal properties of 4D-Var. In the linear context, the 4D-Var solution is optimal, not only with respect to the model trajectory segment over the assimilation time interval, but also with respect to any model state at a single observation time level; in the batch processing (cycling 4D-Var) method, the information in 4D-Var is fully transferred from one batch to the next by the background term; 4D-Var allows the processing of observations in subsets, while the final solution is optimal as all observations are processed simultaneously. These properties hold even for models that are imperfect, as well as not invertible. Various properties of equivalence of 4D-Var to the Kalman filter and smoother result from these optimality properties of 4D-Var. Further, we show that the fixed-lag Kalman smoother may also be constructed in an optimal way using a multiple batch-processing 4D-Var approach. While error covariances are crucial for the equivalence, practical techniques for evaluating error covariances in the framework of cycling 4D-Var are discussed.

For linear forcing problems, a method is developed to provide a set of forcing modes which form a complete orthonormal basis for the finite-time response to steady forcing in the energy inner product space. the forcing modes are found by calculating the singular vectors of a matrix using the adjoint technique. the amplitude of response to forcing modes is given in terms of the associated singular values. This method is used in the damped barotropic model linearized about the 300 hPa zonally varying climatological flow for the northem wintertime. the results show that the strength of response varies considerably for the different forcing modes, and thus only a small number of efficient forcing modes control the behaviour of atmospheric response. the structure of the response to these forcing modes is primarily composed of teleconnection patterns in good agreement with those in the real atmosphere, and conversely these forcing modes may excite the observed teleconnection patterns. the efficient forcing is mainly localized to the south of regions of strong flow and in the polar region. Energetics analyses are performed. the primary source of energy of the responses to the most efficient forcing modes is the conversion of basic state kinetic energy to the response kinetic energy, rather than directly supplied by the forcing itself. So the routes of teleconnection patterns should be ones along which the response will most efficiently extract kinetic energy from the basic state. It is suggested that teleconnection patterns produced by an external source are not only determined by Rossby wave dispersion from anomalous external sources, but also depend on the efficient extraction of energy from the basic state.