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Objective: AO/OTA 31‐A3.3 intertrochanteric fracture is the most unstable type of intertrochanteric fracture, with a high rate of postoperative complications and implant failure. We have designed a new intramedullary fixation, proximal femoral totally bionic nail (PFTBN), for the treatment of A3.3 intertrochanteric fracture. To test its biomechanical performance, we adopted the method of finite element analysis and compared PFTBN with proximal femoral nail antirotation (PFNA) and proximal femoral bionic nail (PFBN, another internal fixation we previously designed for stable intertrochanteric fractures). Methods: Mimics, 3‐matic, ANSYS, and other software were used to construct a highly precise and realistic 3D digital model of the human femur. An AO/OTA 31‐A3.3 intertrochanteric fracture of the femur was constructed according to the 2018 classification of AO/OTA, and then assembled with PFNA, PFBN and PFTBN models, respectively. The stress distribution and displacement distribution of the three groups of constructs were tested under three times the body weight load and one‐foot standing configuration. Results: In terms of maximum stress and maximum displacement, the PFTBN group outperforms the PFBN group, and the PFBN group, in turn, surpasses the PFNA group. The maximum stress of PFTBN group was 408.5 Mpa, that of PFBN group was 525.4 MPa, and that of PFNA group was 764.3 Mpa. Comparatively, the maximum stress in the PFTBN group was reduced by 46.6% when contrasted with the PFNA group. Moreover, the stress dispersion within the PFTBN group was more evenly distributed than PFNA group. Regarding maximum displacement, the PFTBN group displayed the least displacement at 5.15 mm, followed by the PFBN group at 7.32 mm, and the PFNA group at 7.73 mm. Notably, the maximum displacement of the PFTBN group was 33.4% less than that observed in the PFNA group. Additionally, the relative displacement between the fragment and implant at the tip of pressure screw or helical blade was 0.22 mm in the PFTBN group, 0.34 mm in the PFBN group, and substantially higher 0.51 mm in the PFNA group. Conclusion: The "lever‐reconstruction‐balance" theory provides a new perspective for us to understand the mechanical conduction of the proximal femur. Compared with PFNA, in treating A3.3 intertrochanteric fractures PFTBN can better reconstruct the function of lateral wall, restore physiological mechanical conduction, increase postoperative stability, and finally reduce the risk of postoperative cut‐out and implant failure. It might be a better alternative for the treatment of A3.3 intertrochanteric fracture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: The starch‐fatty acid (FA) complex belongs to a new type of resistant starch (RS5) and has become a prevalent research topic because of its slow‐digestion and enzymatic resistance properties. In this study, the starch‐FA complexes were prepared from potato starch (PS) and FAs with various carbon chain lengths and unsaturation by hydrothermal treatment (HT), alcohothermal treatment (AT) or ultrasound treatment (UT), and their physicochemical properties and digestibility were interpreted. The PS‐8% lauric acid (Lau) with the highest complex index value (approximately 95%) and RS content (approximately 31%) was obtained by HT; meanwhile, it had a slow glucose diffusion rate and a low free fatty acid release rate in simulated gastrointestinal digestion compared to native PS. Besides, the V‐type crystalline structure was formed obviously after HT, but it was too weak for AT and UT samples to be detected. The gelatinisation viscosity was reduced due to the physical combination of PS and Lau. Therefore, HT was a relatively efficient and safe approach to prepare starch‐FA complex with high RS content, and the obtained starch‐FA complex has the potential to become an alternative functional food ingredient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is an autosomal recessive disease with a high carrier frequency. While current screening methods can identify 1+0 carriers, detecting 2+0 genotypes remains challenging, highlighting the need for additional research. Herein, we applied Digital Polymerase Chain Reaction (dPCR) to develop a novel approach for the detection of male carriers (DMC), especially for those with a 2+0 genotype. The clinical utility of DMC was evaluated in 39 semen samples. Multiple ligation‐dependent probe amplification (MLPA) and pedigree analysis were performed on genomic DNA from 111 males and their family members. DMC identified 1+1, 2+1, and 1+0 genotypes in 21, 1, and 8 subjects. Importantly, seven men were identified as 2+0 carriers, while two men were excluded from the 2+0 carrier status. The results of DMC were consistent with those of MLPA and pedigree analysis. DMC provides an inexpensive and accurate method for determining the 2+0 and 1+0 genotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Compared with total hip replacement, conventional collum femoris preserving prosthesis has a better bone retention effect. However, damage to the trabecular bone of the proximal femur leads to inevitable abnormal stress distribution, which leads to increased risks of femoral neck bone absorption, periprosthetic fracture, prosthesis loosening, rotation, and sinking. Thus, we compare the biomechanical properties of collum femoris preserving (CFP) and bionic collum femoris preserving (BCFP) hip prostheses. Methods: The Sawbone digital model (#3503, left, medium) was selected as the research object. We used the Mimics 21.0 software to reconstruct the digital model of the femur and the SolidWorks 2019 software to build and assemble the three‐dimensional models of CFP and BCFP prostheses. With the ANSYS Workbench 2021R1 software, the models were meshed and assigned values to simulate the load of a single foot under slow walking. We measured the mechanical distribution of the whole model and obtained the stress nephogram. Results: For CFP prosthesis, the peak stresses of the medial interface of the stem neck, the lateral interface of the stem neck, and the end of the stem were 64.894, 32.199, and 8.578 MPa, respectively; the peak stresses of the medial surface of the femoral shaft, the lateral surface of femoral shaft, the medial femoral neck bone‐prosthesis interface (osteotomy interface), the lateral femoral neck bone‐prosthesis interface (basal area), the lateral femoral neck bone‐prosthesis interface (osteotomy interface), and the greater trochanter area were 28.093, 24.790, 14.388, 5.118, 4.179, and 8.245 MPa, respectively; the valley stress of the greater trochanter area was 1.134 MPa. For BCFP prosthesis, the peak stresses of the medial interface of the stem neck, the lateral interface of the stem neck, and the end of the stem were 47.015, 26.771, and 47.593 MPa, respectively; the peak stress of tension screw was 15.739 MPa; the peak stresses of the medial surface of the femoral shaft, the lateral surface of femoral shaft, the medial femoral neck bone‐prosthesis interface (osteotomy interface), the lateral femoral neck bone‐prosthesis interface (basal area), the lateral femoral neck bone‐prosthesis interface (osteotomy interface) and the greater trochanter area were 28.581, 25.364, 15.624, 6.434, 4.986, and 8.796 MPa, respectively; the valley stress of the greater trochanter area was 1.419 MPa; the peak stress of bone‐metal interface between the tension screw and the lateral surface of the femur was 5.858 MPa. Conclusion: Compared with the CFP prosthesis, the design of the BCFP prosthesis is based on the lever balance theory. With the bionic reconstruction of tension trabeculae, BCFP prosthesis makes up for the defects of CFP prosthesis design, optimizes the stress distribution, and reduces the stress shelter effect of the proximal femur, which has better biomechanical properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Western flower thrips are considered the major insect pest of horticultural crops worldwide, causing economic and yield loss to Solanaceae crops. The eggplant (Solanum melongena L.) resistance against thrips remains largely unexplored. This work aims to identify thrips‐resistant eggplants and dissect the molecular mechanisms underlying this resistance using the integrated metabolomic and transcriptomic analyses of thrips‐resistant and ‐susceptible cultivars. RESULTS: We developed a micro‐cage thrips bioassay to identify thrips‐resistant eggplant cultivars, and highly resistant cultivars were identified from wild eggplant relatives. Metabolomic profiles of thrips‐resistant and ‐susceptible eggplant were compared using the gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry (GC‐MS)‐based approach, resulting in the identification of a higher amount of quinic acid in thrips‐resistant eggplant compared to the thrips‐susceptible plant. RNA‐sequencing analysis identified differentially expressed genes (DEGs) by comparing genome‐wide gene expression changes between thrips‐resistant and ‐susceptible eggplants. Consistent with metabolomic analysis, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis of DEGs revealed that the starch and sucrose metabolic pathway in which quinic acid is a metabolic by‐product was highly enriched. External application of quinic acid enhances the resistance of susceptible eggplant to thrips. CONCLUSION: Our results showed that quinic acid plays a key role in the resistance to thrips. These findings highlight a potential application of quinic acid as a biocontrol agent to manage thrips and expand our knowledge to breed thrips‐resistant eggplant. © 2022 Society of Chemical Industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To compare the biomechanical properties of proximal femur bionic nail (PFBN), proximal femoral nail antirotation (PFNA) and InterTan in the treatment of elderly intertrochanteric fractures AO/OTA 31‐A1.3 by finite element analysis. Methods: We used Mimics, Unigraphics and other software to establish normal femur and AO/OTA 31‐A1.3 fracture models, and reconstructed PFBN, PFNA and InterTan intramedullary nail models, and assembled them on the fracture model. The ANSYS software was used to compare the femoral von Mises stress distribution, deformation distribution, and internal fixation stress distribution of each group under a load of 2100 N. Results: It could be seen that the femoral maximum stress, femoral maximum displacement, and maximum stress of internal fixation of the PFBN group were lower than those in the PFNA group and the InterTan group. The maximum femoral stress of the PFBN was 190.25 MPa, while the maximum stress of the femur of the PFNA and InterTan groups were 238.41 Mpa and 226.97 Mpa. The maximum femoral displacement of each group were located at the top of the femoral head, and the maximum displacement of the PFBN group was 14.373 mm, and the maximum displacement values of the PFNA and InterTan groups were 19.49 and 15.225 mm. For the stress distribution of intramedullary nail, the maximum stress of the three kinds of internal fixation was located on the main nail. The maximum stress of PFBN was 1191.8 MPa, compared with 2142.8 MPa for PFNA and 1702.3 MPa for InterTan. And the maximum stress on the PFBN pressure nail was 345.35 MPa, compared with 868.6 MPa for the PFNA spiral blade and 545.5 MPa for InterTan interlocking twin nails. Conclusion: Compared with PFNA and InterTan, PFBN has better mechanical properties. The biomechanical characteristics of PFBN are more advantageous than PFNA and InterTan internal fixation system in the treatment of femoral intertrochanteric fractures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: Anthocyanins are important pigments that impart color in plants. In Solanum, different species display various fruit or flower colors due to varying degrees of anthocyanin accumulation. Here we identified two anthocyanin‐free mutants from an ethylmethane sulfonate‐induced mutant library and naturally occurring mutants in Solanum melongena, with mutations in the 5′ splicing site of the second intron of dihydroflavonol‐4‐reductase (DFR) – leading to altered splicing. Further study revealed that alternative splicing of the second intron was closely related to anthocyanin accumulation in 17 accessions from three cultivated species: S. melongena, Solanum macrocarpon and Solanum aethiopicum, and their wild related species. Analysis of natural variations of DFR, using an expanded population including 282 accessions belonging to the spiny Solanum group, identified a single‐nucleotide polymorphism in the MYB recognition site in the promoter region, which causes differential expression of DFR and affects anthocyanin accumulation in fruits of the detected accessions. Our study suggests that, owing to years of domestication, the natural variation in the DFR promoter region and the alternative splicing of the DFR gene account for altered anthocyanin accumulation during spiny Solanum domestication. Significance Statement: Variations in the DFR promoter strongly affect anthocyanin biosynthesis, and alternative splicing of DFR contributes to the diversity of anthocyanin pigmentation during spiny Solanum group domestication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The microstructures and mechanical properties of Fe–0.35C–3.2Al–5Mn (in wt%, same later) hot‐rolled medium‐manganese steels are systematically investigated. The results show that ultrafine‐grained duplex phases with bimodal morphologies of lath and equiaxed are obtained with intercritical annealing at 750 °C for 1 h, along with ultimate tensile strength of 950 MPa and total elongation of 71.2%, attributed to the dislocation slip and deformation of ferrite matrix, accompanied by the synergetic twinning of retained austenite plus transformation of retained austenite to martensite. The newly developed medium‐manganese steels, which exhibit an excellent product of ultimate tensile strength and total elongation of 67.6 GPa·%, demonstrate great practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The petal colour of rapeseed plants is usually yellow but can range from milky white to orange or pink, making petal colour a popular target in rapeseed breeding programmes. In this study, metabolites and RNA were extracted from the yellow (Bn‐Y) and orange (Bn‐O) petal colour lines in rapeseed. Chromatography analysis, RNA‐Seq and quantitative RT‐PCR analysis were conducted. A total of 89 differential metabolites including 64 down‐regulated and 25 up‐regulated metabolites were identified in the petals of orange versus yellow rapeseed by UHPLC‐ESI‐MS/MS. A total of 168 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were detected in the petals of Bn‐O versus Bn‐Y plants. KEGG functional annotation and quantitative RT‐PCR analysis showed that BnaC08g39510D and BnaA09g10680D expression was significantly higher in orange petals than in yellow and that BnaC09g07880D and BnaC09g08690D were strongly expressed in yellow petals but were not expressed in orange petals. These results will be useful for further understanding the molecular mechanisms underlying petal colour and provide the theoretical and practical basis for breeding varieties with colourful petals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polysaccharides with antioxidant and hypoglycemic activities were first isolated from jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.) peel through the one‐step high‐speed countercurrent chromatography. The separation process was completed using the polymer two‐phase aqueous system constituted by PEG1000‐K2HPO4‐KH2PO4‐H2O (0.8:1.25:1.25:6.5, w/w). For every separation process, two main polysaccharides, namely, fraction‐1 and fraction‐2 (165 and 225 mg, respectively) were obtained from a 2.0 g crude sample. As suggested by high‐performance gel permeation chromatography, jackfruit peel polysaccharides had the mean molecular weight values of 113.3 and 174.3 kDa, separately. Physicochemical analysis suggested that two polysaccharides were dominant in galacturonic acid, galactose, rhamnose, arabinose, glucose, mannose, as well as fucose, which were highly esterified. Biological activity analysis showed that fraction‐1 exhibited stronger antioxidant activity in vitro and hypoglycemic activity in streptozotocin‐induced diabetic mice compared with fraction‐2. The results suggest that polysaccharide fraction‐1 may be developed as a potential functional food supplement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The QT interval prolongation was associated with fatal arrhythmias and cardiac death. However, there were not adequate data to clarify the situation of QT interval prolongation in primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) patients. The aim of this study was to clarify the rate and the associated risk factors of corrected QT (QTc) interval prolongation in PBC patients. Methods: From January 2016 to December 2020, PBC patients were retrospectively enrolled. The rate of QTc interval prolongation was surveyed and the associated risk factors were clarified by univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: Among the 189 PBC patients, 24.3% (46/189) had the QTc interval prolongation. The univariate analysis showed that age, Child‐Pugh classification, creatinine, international normalized ratio (INR), and platelet (PLT) were associated with QTc interval prolongation in the PBC patients. The multivariate analysis further showed only age (p =.028) and Child‐Pugh classification (p =.035) were the associated risk factors. It had the highest risk of QTc interval prolongation (as high as 64.3%) in the patients who were more than 62.5 years old and with Child‐Pugh C. Conclusion: The QTc interval prolongation was frequent in PBC patients, especially in the patients with decompensated cirrhosis. The rate of QTc interval prolongation was as high as 64.3% in the PBC patients who were more than 62.5 years old and classified as Child‐Pugh C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a common and complex disease in kidneys which has been associated with an increased risk of renal cell carcinoma. Elevated homocysteine (Hcy) levels are known to influence the development and progression of CKD by regulating podocyte injury and apoptosis. To investigate the molecular mechanisms triggered in podocytes by Hcy, we used cbs+/− mice and observed that higher Hcy levels increased the apoptosis rate of podocytes with accompanying glomerular damage. Hcy‐induced podocyte injury and apoptosis in cbs+/− mice was regulated by inhibition of microRNA (miR)‐1929‐5p expression. Overexpression of miR‐1929‐5p in podocytes inhibited apoptosis by upregulating Bcl‐2. Furthermore, the expression of miR‐1929‐5p was regulated by epigenetic modifications of its promoter. Hcy upregulated DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1) and enhancer of zeste homolog 2 (EZH2) levels, resulting in increased DNA methylation and H3K27me3 levels on the miR‐1929‐5p promoter. Additionally, we observed that c‐Myc recruited DNMT1 and EZH2 to the miR‐1929‐5p promoter and suppressed the expression of miR‐1929‐5p. In summary, we demonstrated that Hcy promotes podocyte apoptosis through the regulation of the epigenetic modifiers DNMT1 and EZH2, which are recruited by c‐Myc to the promoter of miR‐1929‐5p to silence miR‐1929‐5p expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a progressive lung disease characterized by epithelial cell damage, fibroblast activation, and collagen deposition. IPF has high mortality and limited therapies, which urgently needs to develop safe and effective therapeutic drugs. Bergenin, a compound derived from a variety of medicinal plants, has demonstrated multiple pharmacological activities including anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor, also acts as a traditional Chinese medicine to treat chronic bronchitis, but its effect on the pulmonary fibrosis is unknown. In this study, we demonstrated that bergenin could attenuate bleomycin (BLM)-induced pulmonary fibrosis in mice. In vitro studies indicated that bergenin inhibited the transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1)-induced fibroblast activation and the extracellular matrix accumulation by inhibiting the TGF-β1/Smad signaling pathway. Further studies showed that bergenin could induce the autophagy formation of myofibroblasts by suppressing the mammalian target of rapamycin signaling and that bergenin could promote the myofibroblast apoptosis. In vivo experiments revealed that bergenin substantially inhibited the myofibroblast activation and the collagen deposition and promoted the autophagy formation. Overall, our results showed that bergenin attenuated the BLM-induced pulmonary fibrosis in mice by suppressing the myofibroblast activation and promoting the autophagy and the apoptosis of myofibroblasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to its low hardware complexity, small volume and simple structure, time‐division‐multiplexing multiple‐input‐multiple‐output (TDM MIMO) radar has been widely applied in automotive applications. The transmitting antennas of TDM MIMO automotive radar are usually switched according to a sequential‐TDM pattern. However, moving targets can introduce a motion‐induced phase into the sequential‐TDM pattern, which is coupled to the spatial phase, resulting in errors in velocity and azimuth estimation. Herein, a random‐TDM pattern with the matrix completion (MC)‐based estimation method is proposed to address these issues. In the proposed method, the random‐TDM pattern, which means randomly activating the transmitting antenna instead of sequentially, can decouple the linear temporal‐spatial coupling phase, avoiding the coupling problem in velocity and azimuth estimation. Then, by reshaping the echo data into a matrix form of sparse sampling, the inexact augmented Lagrange multiplier algorithm is adopted to recover this matrix, solving the underdetermined estimation problem caused by sparse sampling. Finally, the high‐accuracy velocity and azimuth can be jointly estimated by applying the estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance technique algorithm to the recovered full sampling data. Moreover, compared with the compressed sensing‐based method, the proposed method overcomes the grid mismatch problem. The results of comparative simulations and real‐data experiments demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Adult T‐Cell Leukemia/Lymphoma (ATLL) is an aggressive T‐cell malignancy without known characteristic cytogenetic abnormalities. Recurrent mutations in TP53, APC, and epigenetic and histone‐modifying genes have been identified in North American ATLL. Their roles in disease progression are not yet fully elucidated. Methods: We studied the cytogenetic and Next‐Generation Sequencing (NGS) findings of the North American ATLL cohort at our institution and compared the findings with Japanese and other North American cohorts. We also analyzed the genetic variants in TP53, APC, and histone‐modifying genes and investigated the impact of their mutations on the number of mutations via NGS in ATLL. Results: Cases with more than 6 chromosomal breaks (n = 13) had significantly shorter overall survival compared to cases with fewer chromosomal breaks (n = 7) (P =.0007). Cases with breaks on chromosome 3q (n = 4) exhibited worse survival compared to the rest of the cases (n = 16) (P =.012). Chromosomal abnormalities on 3q, 14q, 1q, 1p, and 17q are likely primary changes in ATLL based on frequency and association with prognosis. The average number of mutations via NGS was significantly higher in cases with mutations in TP53 (n = 8) (P =.020) as well as APC (n = 6) (P =.024) compared to cases without mutations in these genes. All TP53 variants were pathogenic missense and truncating mutations in COSMIC database. Conclusion: Cytogenetic and NGS methods are useful tools to monitor disease progression in indolent ATLL and assess prognosis in aggressive ATLL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the potential interactions among long noncoding RNA domain containing 1‐antisense (lncRNA DCST1‐AS1), miR‐21, and periodontal ligament–associated protein‐1 (PLAP‐1) in periodontitis. Background data discussing the present state of the field: It has been verified that miR‐21 can target PLAP‐1 to regulate the osteogenic differentiation of periodontal ligament cells (PDLCs). Methods: Differential expression of DCST1‐AS1 and miR‐21 in PDLCs derived from periodontitis patients and healthy controls was determined by qPCR and unpaired t test. QPCR and Western blots were conducted to evaluate the effects of overexpression of DCST1‐AS1 and miR‐21 on the expression of PLAP‐1. CCK‐8 assay was applied to evaluate the effect of DCST1‐ASI, miR‐21, or PLAP‐1 on PDLCs' proliferation. Western blotting was conducted to detect the expression levels of CKD family (CDK4, CDK6, and CCND1). Results: DCST1‐AS1 was downregulated in PDLCs derived from periodontitis patients, and its expression was inversely correlated with the expression of miR‐2 but positively correlated with PLAP‐1. Bioinformatics analysis showed that DCST1‐AS1 might bind with miR‐21 precursor but not mature miR‐21. Transfection experiments showed that overexpression of DCST1‐AS1 led to decreased expression levels of miR‐21 and significantly increased the expression levels of PLAP‐1 at both mRNA and protein levels, while overexpression of miR‐21 resulted in a dramatic lower level of PLAP‐1. CCK‐8 assay indicated that overexpression of DCST1‐AS1 or PLAP‐1 prohibited PDLCs' proliferation. However, elevation of miR‐21 had a contrary effect on the proliferation of PDLCs. And increased expression levels of DCST1‐AS1 could significantly inhibit the expression of CDK4, CDK6, and CCND‐1, while overexpression of miR‐21 inversed the effects of DCST1‐AS1. Conclusion: Therefore, the expression levels of DCST1‐AS1 are much lower in periodontitis patients compared to that in healthy controls, and overexpression of DCST1‐AS1 can significantly elevate the expression of PLAP‐1 by inhibiting miR‐21 in PDLCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refractory ceramic fibers (RCFs) are increasingly used as heating‐insulated materials in various industries. However, toxicological and epidemiological studies focusing on the adverse effects of RCFs were still insufficient, particularly in China. We conducted a cross‐sectional study to evaluate comprehensively the associations between occupational exposure to RCFs and respiratory health effects among Chinese workers. We measured and calculated cumulative RCFexposure levels of RCFs workers from the biggest RCFs factory in China. In total, 430 RCF‐exposed workers and 121 controls were enrolled in this study. Physical examinations of the respiratory system were performed and serum levels of biomarkers including Clara cell protein 16 (CC16), surfactant protein D (SP‐D), transforming growth factor β1 (TGF‐β1), and 8‐hydroxy‐2′‐deoxyguanosine (8‐OHdG) were determined among all subjects. RCF exposure workers showed a higher prevalence rate of respiratory symptoms (cough: 11.9%) and lower levels of small airways function indices (V50%: 82.71 ± 20.01, maximal mid expiratory flow (MMEF)%: 81.08 ± 19.56) compared with the control group (cough: 5.0%, V50%: 90.64 ± 24.36, MMEF%: 88.83 ± 24.22). RCFs workers showed higher levels of TGF‐β1 (31.04 ng/mL) and 8‐OHdG (130.72 ng/mL) and lower levels of CC16 (3.68 ng/mL) compared with the controls (TGF‐β1: 26.63 ng/mL, 8‐OHdG: 106.86 ng/mL, CC16: 5.65 ng/mL). After adjusting for covariates, cumulative RCF exposure levels showed significant positive associations with the levels of TGF‐β1 and 8‐OHdG and negative association with the level of CC16. Occupational RCF exposure could induce adverse respiratory health effects, including cough and small airways damage, which may correlate to the altered levels of lung damage markers (CC16 and TGF‐β1) and oxidative markers (8‐OHdG). Refractory ceramic fibers (RCFs) are increasingly used worldwide but the adverse health effects of RCFs were still unclear. A cross‐sectional study was conducted to evaluate comprehensively respiratory health effects caused by exposure to RCFs among Chinese workers. Our results suggest that occupational exposure to RCFs could induce adverse respiratory health effects, including cough and small airways damage, which may correlate to the altered levels of lung damage biomarkers and oxidative biomarkers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hepatocarcinoma‐intestine‐pancreas/pancreatitis‐associated protein (HIP/PAP), a C‐type lectin, exerts anti‐oxidative, anti‐inflammatory, bactericidal, anti‐apoptotic, and mitogenic functions in several cell types and tissues. In this study, we explored the role of HIP/PAP in pulmonary fibrosis (PF). Expression of HIP/PAP and its murine counterpart, Reg3B, was markedly increased in fibrotic human and mouse lung tissues. Adenovirus‐mediated HIP/PAP expression markedly alleviated bleomycin (BLM)‐induced lung injury, inflammation, and fibrosis in mice. Adenovirus‐mediated HIP/PAP expression alleviated oxidative injury and lessened the decrease in pulmonary superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity in BLM‐treated mice, increased pulmonary SOD expression in normal mice, and HIP/PAP upregulated SOD expression in cultured human alveolar epithelial cells (A549) and human lung fibroblasts (HLF‐1). Moreover, in vitro experiments showed that HIP/PAP suppressed the growth of HLF‐1 and ameliorated the H2O2‐induced apoptosis of human alveolar epithelial cells (A549 and HPAEpiC) and human pulmonary microvascular endothelial cells (HPMVEC). In HLF‐1, A549, HPAEpiC, and HPMVEC cells, HIP/PAP did not affect the basal levels, but alleviated the TGF‐β1‐induced down‐regulation of the epithelial/endothelial markers E‐cadherin and vE‐cadherin and the over‐expression of mesenchymal markers, such as α‐SMA and vimentin. In conclusion, HIP/PAP was found to serve as a potent protective factor in lung injury, inflammation, and fibrosis by attenuating oxidative injury, promoting the regeneration of alveolar epithelial cells, and antagonizing the pro‐fibrotic actions of the TGF‐β1/Smad signaling pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polarimetric high‐resolution range profile (HRRP) holds great potential for radar automatic target recognition (RATR) owing to its capability of providing both polarimetric and spatial scattering information. In recent years, deep learning (DL) has obtained state‐of‐the‐art results in many classification tasks and has drawn great attention in the RATR field. However, as one of the most challenging tasks in RATR, small training sample case will restrict the application of DL because its superior performance generally depends on a large number of training samples. A feature‐guided deep model based on Transformer framework is proposed for polarimetric HRRP recognition with limited training samples. In the proposed model, artificial features are introduced to the attention module to guide the model focus on the range cells of HRRP with more target scattering information so as to reduce the dependence of the model on the number of training samples. Several different approaches are also studied to measure the similarity between artificial features and HRRP data to further improve the learning capacity of the model. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed feature‐guided Transformer model modifying by Cosine similarity measure is able to achieve a better performance for polarimetric HRRP recognition with limited training samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polarimetric information is of great importance for radar target recognition. Conventional polarimetric features are hand-designed based on scattering mechanism. In this study, a novel polarimetric target recognition framework based on long–short-term memory (LSTM) network is proposed. The different polarimetric channels are regarded as the sequential inputs in LSTM, and the features are extracted automatically. Experimental results on dual-polarised high-resolution range profile recognition demonstrate that the features learnt by LSTM are more discriminating than conventional features. The recognition performance of the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art methods as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An end-to-end radar high-resolution range profile recognition method is proposed based on stacked denosing sparse autoencoder which stacks several denosing sparse autoencoders and uses softmax as the classifier. The training process consists of two steps. The first is layer-by-layer pre-training and the second is fine tuning using the pre-training results for initialisations. The two-step training process makes this model converge faster and more likely to converge to the global optimal point than directly training the joint network. Experimental result shows that the proposed method achieves higher recognition accuracy than state-of-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of polarisation and high-resolution technology is a promising research direction for radar automatic target recognition. Fusing the polarisation information into the scattering centre model is able to refine the scattering structural information. This study proposes a fully-polarised radar high range resolution profile (HRRP) scattering centre estimation method based on a multiple measurement vector atomic norm minimisation model. The estimation is performed in a continuous domain, thus avoids the basis mismatch problem. The experimental results demonstrate the superiorities of the proposed method in terms of accuracy and robustness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, ground target recognition based on one-dimensional convolutional neural network (CNN) is studied by exploiting the targets' high-resolution range profiles (HRRPs). Contrary to conventional methods which need feature extraction artificially, CNN can automatically discover features for classification. The authors propose a multi-channel CNN architecture that can be applied on diverse forms of HRRP such as amplitude, complex, spectrum etc. Experimental results demonstrate the superiorities of the proposed method over conventional methods based on handcrafted features and single-channel CNN in terms of recognition accuracy. Visualisation of the 'deep features' shows higher separability than handcrafted features, thus providing an insight into its effectiveness in exploiting the intrinsic structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-resolution range profile (HRRP) has received intensive attention in the radar automatic target recognition filed. Here, deep forest is applied to the recognition of HRRP. The deep forest is a deep learning method, which is a cascade of ensemble learners. In each layer, there are various ensemble learners. The input of each layer is the combination of the previous layer output and the original input data. The number of cascade levels can be adaptively determined such that the model complexity can be automatically set. Experiments based on measured data show that deep forest is feasible and achieves highly competitive performance for HRRP recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clutter presents considerable heterogeneity in forward-looking airborne radar (FLAR) applications and conventional space-time adaptive processing (STAP) methods are sensitive to model mismatch. As a result, when a strong target signal contaminates the training samples, despite the use of guard cells, the performance of conventional STAP methods degrades significantly. In this study, a robust method, which involves reconstructing a target-free covariance matrix and correcting the presumed steering vector to prevent target cancellation in FLAR, is proposed. First, the target-free covariance matrix is reconstructed through integrating the spatial–temporal spectrum over a sector separated from the desired frequency and direction of targets. Subsequently, the mismatch between presumed steering vector and actual steering vector is corrected via quadratic optimisation. In addition, the processing scheme is applied to real-measured clutter data, and the experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polarisation is an inner property of electromagnetic wave. It has considerable significance to analyse the polarimetric feature of targets in target recognition and classification applications. Slant 45° dual polarisation measurement is widely used due to its low requirements on system complexity and data rate on the one hand, and good polarisation measure and anti-interference capabilities on the other. However, its performance is seriously affected by rotation angle of the polarisations in transmission and reception. Here, the impact of rotation error of the transmit–receive polarisations on feature extraction is assessed by theoretical derivation at first. The variations with rotation angles of the transmit–receive polarisations are then simulated using standard scatterers and ground targets data. This permits quantification of the resulting rotation error on slant 45° dual polarisation measurement. The impact of the rotation error on H/α and polarimetric similarity features is also quantified in results. Some practical advices on system design, calibration, and feature application are given at last. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most existing algorithms in high-resolution range profile recognition focus on the closed set cases, where the test sample is from a known class. However, a sample could be drawn from unknown classes in realistic scenario, which is named as open set recognition. Here, open set HRRP recognition is achieved by incorporating extreme value theory into convolutional neural network. The softmax layer is replaced by a so-called openmax layer which estimates probabilities of the test sample belonging to known and unknown classes. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-art algorithms such as NN, 1-vs-set machine, and W-SVM in terms of correct rejection rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the high cost of real experiments, radar data simulation plays an important role in radar applications. However, the accuracy and the calculation speed of existing simulation methods is limited by the model error and the heavy calculation of electromagnetic simulation. Here, a radar data simulation method based on deep generative network (DGN) is proposed. DGN is generative model involving deep network as the representation tool, in which the model is trained with labelled data. When the training phase is finished, the generative model can generate data samples which are similar to the real samples. The performance of the DGN is evaluated on the ground-based radar dataset, and the results show that the distribution of the generated radar data is similar to the training radar data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In automotive anti-collision radar system, the accuracy of velocity is one of the key indicators to measure radar performance. For frequency modulation continuous wave radar with chirp sequence, which is commonly used in automotive radar, there are two problems that are velocity ambiguity and measurement error. In order to address these problems, a cascaded Kalman filter algorithm is proposed in this article, which is able to overcome velocity ambiguity and improve the accuracy of measurements. In addition, the problem of velocity ambiguity can be solved just in the data processing and it avoids transmitting staggered or multiple pulse repetition frequency signal. The simulation results show that this algorithm can effectively improve the tracking performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a facile preparation method of Ti‐doped CeO2 nanosheets and their use as supports for palladium (Pd) deposition. The nanosheets were fabricated by the coordination‐precipitation method, and Pd nanoparticles were placed on the surfaces in situ. The obtained Pd‐loaded nanosheets TixCe1–xO2‐Pd were applied as catalysts in the hydrogenation of 4‐nitrophenol (4‐NP). While the catalyst supported by pure CeO2 nanosheets exhibited a 4‐NP conversion of 40 % in 10 min, doping a small amount of Ti into the support led to a faster 4‐NP reduction of 80 % in 10 min and quantitative conversion in 30 min. The hydrogenation of 4‐NP catalyzed by Ti0.1Ce0.9O2‐Pd exhibited a relatively high apparent reaction rate constant (k = 0.134 min‐1). This high catalytic activity could be attributed to the synergetic effect of the Pd nanoparticles with high dispersion and the TixCe1–xO2 supports with high oxygen vacancies. Furthermore, these catalysts displayed high reproducibility and chemical stability: they can be recycled and reused for at least 5 times with negligible loss of catalytic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The effect of penicillin therapy on clinical outcomes vary among patients with general paresis (GP). We sought to explore biomarkers that might serve as predictors of clinical outcomes in GP and identify patients requiring early intervention. Methods: Thirty‐five inpatients with GP were recruited. Each GP patient underwent comprehensive neuropsychological, neuroimaging and laboratory assessments before receiving penicillin therapy, and returned for follow‐up evaluations after 6 months. The visual rating of medial temporal lobe atrophy (MTA) and the Fazekas scale was used to analyze the neuroimaging abnormalities. Results: MTA scores were correlated with the pre‐treatment cognitive scores and change in Mini Mental State Examination scores. GP patients with a Clinical Dementia Rating Scale (CDR) ≤1 or MTA scores ≤2 achieved significant improvement in neuropsychological test scores, as compared with patients with CDR >1 or MTA scores >2. Fazekas scale scores correlated with the pre‐treatment attention scores. Significant improvements in cognitive test scores were observed in GP patients with normalization of serum rapid plasma regain (RPR) titers, but not those without normalization of RPR titers. Conclusions: Severe MTA may serve as a predictor of poor cognitive outcome and an indicator of severe cognitive impairment in GP patients. Thus, early interventions for improving cognitive function may be considered for GP patients with severe MTA. White matter hyperintensities may associated with attention impairment. Serum RPR titer may serve as a sensitive indicator of therapeutic effect in GP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In previous studies with Pseudomonas chlororaphis G05, two operons (phzABCDEFG and prnABCD) were confirmed to respectively encode enzymes for biosynthesis of phenazine‐1‐carboxylic acid and pyrrolnitrin that mainly contributed to suppression of some fungal phytopathogens. Although some regulators were identified to govern their expression, it is not known how two operons coordinately interact. By constructing the phz‐ or/and prn‐ deletion mutants, we found that in comparison with the wild‐type strain G05, phenazine‐1‐carboxylic acid production in the mutant G05Δprn obviously decreased in GA broth in the absence of prn, and pyrrolnitrin production in the mutant G05Δphz remarkably declined in the absence of phz. By generating the phzA and prnA transcriptional and translational fusions with a truncated lacZ on shuttle vector or on the chromosome, we found that expression of the phz or prn operon was correspondingly increased in the presence of the prn or phz operon at the post‐transcriptional level, not at the transcriptional level. These results indicated that the presence of one operon would promote the expression of the other one operon between the phz and prn. This reciprocal enhancement would keep the strain G05 producing more different antifungal compounds coordinately and living better with growth suppression of other microorganisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship of insulin‐like growth factor 2 (IGF2) expression and survival in women with uterine carcinosarcoma (UCS). Insulin‐like growth factor 2 protein expression was determined by immunohistochemical staining of tumor tissues from 103 patients with UCS. The H‐score (product of staining intensity and percentage positive cells) was quantified for the epithelial cytoplasmic (EC), epithelial nuclear (EN), and malignant stromal compartments. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to examine the relationship of IGF2 levels with progression‐free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Adjusting for stage, race, and adjuvant therapy, PFS and OS were reduced in patients with high IGF2 (H‐score ≥ median) in the EC and EN compartments. Black race was independently associated with reduced PFS and OS in patients with early‐stage disease, and IGF2 levels in the EC were higher in black than in white patients (P = 0.02, Wilcoxon test). In a race‐stratified multivariable analysis, high IGF2 in the epithelial compartments more than doubled the risk of death in black women; HR = 2.43 (95% CI: 1.18–5.01, P = 0.02) for high IGF2 in the EC; and HR = 2.34 (95% CI: 1.25–4.39, P = 0.008) for high IGF2 in the EN. In conclusion, high tumor IGF2 expression is an independent risk factor for reduced PFS and OS in UCS. Black women have elevated tumor IGF2 compared with white women, and decreased survival associated with high IGF2. These findings identify IGF2 as a candidate biomarker for survival linked to racial disparity in women with UCS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Three polyacetylenes were isolated and purified from Platycodon grandiflorum A. DC for the first time by high‐speed counter‐current chromatography using a two‐phase solvent system composed of hexane/ethyl acetate/methanol/water (1:31:1:31, v/v/v/v) and high‐performance liquid chromatography with an Agilent ZORBAX® SB‐C18 column (4.6 mm × 150 mm, 5 μm). After separation by high‐speed counter‐current chromatography and high‐performance liquid chromatography, we obtained 3.5 mg of platetyolin A, 4.1 mg of platetyolin B, and 18.1 mg of lobetyolin with purities of 97.2, 96.7, and 96.9%, respectively. The purity of each compound was assessed by high‐performance liquid chromatography and the chemical structures were evaluated by high‐resolution electrospray ionization time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry and one‐ and two‐dimensional NMR spectroscopy. Among the isolated compounds, platetyolin A and platetyolin B are newly reported compounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of annealing conditions on the microstructure and deformation mechanism of 0.17C-9Mn-3.5Al steel have been investigated. Through austenite reverted transformation (ART) annealing, a multiphase microstructure composed of δ-ferrite, α-intercritical ferrite, γ-austenite, and α'-martensite is obtained in as-forged specimens. For the specimen annealed at 750 °C for 60 min, a high volume fraction (42.19%) of retained austenite is attained, yielding a large total elongation (TE) of ≈38% and tensile strength ( Rm) of ≈810 MPa and a two-stages work hardening behavior. The work hardening behavior analysis using the differential C-J model clarifies that the multistage can be mainly attributed to the discontinuous transformation induced plasticity (TRIP) effect, which is related to the volume fraction of retained austenite and its different stability levels as well as cooperative deformation of the multiphase microstructure. Thus, the active TRIP effect predominately affects the high strain stage, resulting in a higher work hardening ability and a increased plasticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims Plasmablastic plasma cell myeloma ( PPCM) is a rare morphological presentation of multiple myeloma, and can resemble plasmablastic lymphoma ( PBL), a human immunodeficiency virus ( HIV)-related lymphoid neoplasm, morphologically and immunophenotypically. The aim of this study was to retrospectively search for factors that could help to differentiate these two entities. Methods and results We used clinical looking glass, a data mining tool, to identify patients with a diagnosis of either PPCM or PBL with a CD117 test performed. We identified 27 cases from 16 patients in our institution with a diagnosis of either PPCM or PBL. There were 14 cases of PBL from eight patients and 13 cases of PPCM from eight patients. We found that six of eight patients with PPCM were positive for CD117, whereas no patients with PBL (0/8) showed positivity ( P = 0.007 for patients). All (8/8) PPCM patients had a paraproteinaemia, whereas only two of eight PBL patients had a paraproteinaemia ( P = 0.007). Lytic bone lesions were more indicative of a PPCM, with six of eight patients showing these lesions, and only one of eight PBL patients showing these lesions ( P = 0.0406). HIV status was more likely to be positive in PBL patients, with six of seven patients showing positivity, and only one of five PPCM patients showing positivity ( P = 0.072). Epstein-Barr virus-encoded RNA in-situ hybridization did not differentiate these two entities, with seven of eight PBL patients showing positivity, and two of five PPCM patients showing positivity ( P = 0.2168). Conclusions This study reveals that CD117 can be a useful marker to help differentiate PPCM from PBL and give the patient an appropriate prognosis and options for treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Roflumilast is a cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase inhibitor that is FDAapproved for treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. With a view toward possible use for treatment of patients with X-linked nephrogenic diabetes insipidus (NDI) due to hemizygous mutations in the V2 vasopressin receptor, this study sought to determine the effect of roflumilast on aquaporin-2 (AQP2) phosphorylation, AQP2 trafficking, and water permeability in the rat inner medullary collecting duct (IMCD). In the presence of the vasopressin analog dDAVP (0.1 nmol/L), both roflumilast and its active metabolite roflumilast N-oxide (RNO) significantly increased phosphorylation at S256, S264, and S269, and decreased phosphorylation at S261 (immunoblotting) in IMCD suspensions in a dose-dependent manner (3-3000 nmol/L). Another commonly used phosphodiesterase inhibitor, IBMX, affected phosphorylation only at the highest concentration in this range. However, neither roflumilast nor RNO had an effect on AQP2 phosphorylation in the absence of vasopressin. Furthermore, roflumilast alone did not increase AQP2 trafficking to the plasma membrane (immunofluorescence) or increase water permeability in freshly microdissected perfused IMCD segments. We conclude that roflumilast can be used to enhance vasopressin's action on AQP2 activity in the renal collecting duct, but has no detectable effect in the absence of vasopressin. These findings suggest that roflumilast may not have a beneficial effect in X-linked NDI, but could find useful application in acquired NDI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Poly[6-(2,6-bis(1′-methylbenzimidazolyl)pyridin-4-yloxy)hexyl acrylate] (PBIP) and its terbium complex (PBIP-Tb3+) were prepared and characterized by 1H NMR and FT-IR. The optical properties of PBIP-Tb3+ complex were characterized by UV-vis spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy. Both polymer PBIP and PBIP-Tb3+ complex show good thermal stability. The magnetic property of PBIP-Tb3+ complex was measured as a function of temperature (5-300 K) at 30 kOe and as a function of an external field (−50 to 50 kOe) at 5 K. Magnetic hysteresis loop of PBIP-Tb3+ complex at 5 K shows typical 'S' shape and PBIP-Tb3+ complex is soft ferromagnetic. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016, 133, 44249. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In humans, urea is excreted in sweat, largely through the eccrine sweat gland. The urea concentration in human sweat is elevated when compared to blood urea nitrogen. The sweat urea nitrogen ( UN) of patients with end-stage kidney disease ( ESRD) is increased when compared with healthy humans. The ability to produce sweat is maintained in the overwhelming majority of ESRD patients. A comprehensive literature review found no reports of sweat UN neither in healthy rodents nor in rodent models of chronic kidney disease ( CKD). Therefore, this study measured sweat UN concentrations in healthy and uremic rats. Uninephrectomy followed by renal artery ligation was used to remove 5/6 of renal function. Rats were then fed a high-protein diet to induce uremia. Pilocarpine was used to induce sweating. Sweat droplets were collected under oil. Sweat UN was measured with a urease assay. Serum UN was measured using a fluorescent ortho-pthalaldehyde reaction. Immunohistochemistry ( IHC) was accomplished with a horseradish peroxidase and diaminobenzidine technique. Sweat UN in uremic rats was elevated greater than two times compared to healthy pair-fed controls (220 ± 17 and 91 ± 15 mmol/L, respectively). Post hoc analysis showed a significant difference between male and female uremic sweat UN (279 ± 38 and 177 ± 11 mmol/L, respectively.) IHC shows, for the first time, the presence of the urea transporters UT-B and UT-A2 in both healthy and uremic rat cutaneous structures. Future studies will use this model to elucidate how rat sweat UN and other solute excretion is altered by commonly prescribed diuretics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To accelerate T1p quantification in cartilage imaging using combined compressed sensing with iterative locally adaptive support detection and JSENSE. Methods: To reconstruct T1p images from accelerated acquisition at different time of spin-lock (TSLs), we propose an approach to combine an advanced compressed sensing (CS) based reconstruction technique, LAISD (locally adaptive iterative support detection), and an advanced parallel imaging technique, JSENSE. Specifically, the reconstruction process alternates iteratively among local support detection in the domain of principal component analysis, compressed sensing reconstruction of the image sequence, and sensitivity estimation with JSENSE. T1p quantification results from accelerated scans using the proposed method are evaluated using in vivo knee cartilage data from bilateral scans of three healthy volunteers. Results: T1p maps obtained from accelerated scans (acceleration factors of 3 and 3.5) using the proposed method showed results comparable to conventional full scans. The T1p errors in all compartments are below 1%, which is well below the in vivo reproducibility of cartilage T1p reported from previous studies. Conclusion: The proposed method can significantly accelerate the acquisition process of T1p quantification on human cartilage imaging without sacrificing accuracy, which will greatly facilitate the clinical translation of quantitative cartilage MRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The carbonylative of aryl iodides with terminal alkynes was studied by using thermoregulated ligand-palladium as an efficient and reusable catalyst at 80 °C in water. The corresponding alkynone products were obtained in good to excellent yields under 1 atm of . The isolation of the products was readily achieved by extraction with ethyl acetate, and the catalyst recovered in water can be reused and recycled up to four times without significant loss in . Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic fluorines usually cannot act as halogen bond donors, as a result of the extreme electronegativity and least polarizability of the fluorine atom. However, when the electronegative ability of the substituents bound to the carbon atom is very strong, organic fluorines do show positive electrostatic potentials (ESPs) along the CF bond and thus can form halogen bonds with electron donors. In this work, the effects of six different substituents, i.e., NO2, CF3, CN, COOH, CHO, and CCH, on the ESPs of the F atom were studied using the M06-2x method. When two or three substituents with very strong electron-withdrawing ability, such as NO2 and CN, are linked to the C atom, positive ESPs take place on the outermost portion of the F atom. However, the ESPs remain negative along the CF bond with the introduction of relatively weak electron-withdrawing substituents, irrespective of the number of the subsituents. In addition, some complexes between fluorinated molecules with positive ESPs on the F atom and NH3 were calculated, to characterize the structural and energetic features of these specific halogen bonds. Finally, some crystal structures extracted from the Cambridge Structural Database were selected to provide experimental evidence of these interactions involving the CF bond. The results presented in this work are very important for the modern definition of halogen bonding as well as for the development of pharmaceuticals and a wide range of functional material. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two polymers containing pyridine rings were prepared by free-radical polymerization and confirmed by Fourier transform infrared and 1H NMR spectra. The preparation of four multilayer films that were obtained by self-assembly of the polymer and the transition metal neutralized polyelectrolyte on PE substrate was described. UV-vis spectra and atomic force microscopy images were applied to characterize these films and indicate the uniform assembling process. The driving force for building up the multilayer films was identified by infrared spectroscopy to be the coordination interaction. The magnetic behavior was examined as a function of magnetic field strength at 30 kOe and as a function of temperature (5-300 K). All films display strong soft ferromagnetic properties and higher than those of the bulk materials. The magnetic results show that the layer-by-layer self-assembling approach is beneficial to the ordered alignment of adjacent paramagnetic spins and induces better magnetic phenomena. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human papillomavirus ( HPV)-positive oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma ( OPSCC) is recognized as a distinct disease entity associated with improved survival. DNA hypermethylation profiles differ significantly by HPV status suggesting that a specific subset of methylated CpG loci could give mechanistic insight into HPV-driven OPSCC. We analyzed genome-wide DNA methylation of primary tumor samples and adjacent normal mucosa from 46 OPSCC patients undergoing treatment at Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY using the Illumina HumanMethylation27 beadchip. For each matched tissue set, we measured differentially methylated CpG loci using a change in methylation level (M value). From these analyses, we identified a 22 CpG loci panel for HPV+ OPSCC that included four CDKN2A loci downstream of the p16( INK4A) and p14( ARF) transcription start sites. This panel was significantly associated with overall HPV detection ( P < 0.05; ROC area under the curve = 0.96, 95% CI: 0.91-1.0) similar to the subset of four CDKN2A-specific CpG loci (0.90, 95% CI: 0.82-0.99) with equivalence to the full 22 CpG panel. DNA hypermethylation correlated with a significant increase in alternative open reading frame ( ARF) expression in HPV+ OPSCC primary tumors, but not to the other transcript variant encoded by the CDKN2A locus. Overall, this study provides evidence of epigenetic changes to the downstream region of the CDKN2A locus in HPV+ oropharyngeal cancer that are associated with changes in expression of the coded protein products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The selective dehydration of fructose and sucrose to 5-hydroxymethyl-2-furfural (HMF) has been achieved using heterogeneous Ge (IV) catalysts. Based on GeO2 material, two catalyst systems are found to be efficient for the dehydration process. In the presence of the dual GeO2Ge3N4 catalyst, fructose and sucrose was converted to HMF in 62 and 37% yield at 150°C for 100 min, respectively,. Moreover, with sulfated GeO2 (SO42−/GeO2) as the catalyst, a 68% yield of HMF from the dehydration of fructose was obtained in dimethyl sulfoxide solvent. The effects of reaction temperature and reaction time were studied in the fructose dehydration. In addition, further investigations showed that dual GeO2Ge3N4 catalyst is superior to SO42−/GeO2 for the conversion of sucrose to generate HMF under similar conditions. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 34: 207-210, 2015 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A motion‐compensation method that applies sparse reconstruction (SR) to reconstruct the Doppler spectrum of targets based on a random transmission scheme is proposed for time‐division multiplexing (TDM) multiple‐input multiple‐output (MIMO) radar. Since the random transmission can eliminate the characteristic of periodic time‐delay in conventional TDM scheme between transmit cycles, the angle information of a target is not affected by its motion. Therefore, the angle and velocity are no longer coupled with each other and can be estimated separately. This method not only overcome the space–frequency coupling problem but also enhances the unambiguous Doppler interval. Another advantage is that the method is valid even when the estimated target velocity is ambiguous. The results reported here offer the possibility of utilising SR to solve conventional TDM MIMO problems. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]