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The polymer‐based acetabular cup prosthesis, a vital component of hip replacement surgery, significantly contributes to the recovery of patients afflicted with osteoarthritic conditions. Nevertheless, the current clinical usage of polymer acetabular cup prostheses commonly encounters the challenge of balancing wear resistance and oxidation resistance, significantly impacting both their lifespan and patients′ quality of life. Consequently, researchers have persistently enhanced the attributes of polymer acetabular cup prosthetic materials. These enhancements, including irradiation and filler modifications, are intended to concurrently bolster both the wear and oxidation resistance of the prosthesis materials. This comprehensive approach aims to address wear‐associated clinical complications like osteolysis and oxidative brittleness, ultimately extending their in vivo service life. For this reason, this paper retrospectively discusses the progress of research on the modification of polymer acetabular cup prosthesis materials for high wear and oxidation resistance and explores potential design methods for optimising artificial acetabular cup materials, with a view to providing new ideas for extending the service life of artificial joint implants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine the association of inflammation and immune responses with the outcomes of patients at various stages, and to develop risk stratification for improving clinical practice and reducing mortality. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We included 77 patients with primary outcomes of either death or survival. Demographics, clinical features, comorbidities, and laboratory tests were compared. Linear, logistic, and Cox regression analyses were performed to determine prognostic factors. RESULTS: The average age was 59 years (35-87 years). There were 12 moderate cases (16.2%), 42 severe cases (54.5%), and 23 critical cases (29.9%); and 41 were male (53.2%). Until March 20, 68 cases were discharged (88.3%), and nine critically ill males (11.7%) died. Interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels on the 1st day were compared with IL-6 values on the 14th day in the severe and the critically ill surviving patients (F=4.90, p=0.034, ß=0.35, 95% CI: 0.00-0.10), and predicted death in the critically ill patients (p=0.028, ß=0.05, OR: 1.05, 95% CI: 1.01-1.10). CD4+ T-cell counts at admission decreased the hazard ratio of death (p=0.039, ß=-0.01, hazard ratio=0.99, 95% CI: 0.98-1.00, and median survival time 13.5 days). CONCLUSIONS: The present study demonstrated that IL-6 levels and CD4+ T-cell count at admission played key roles of predictors in the prognosis, especially for critically ill patients. High levels of IL-6 and impaired CD4+ T-cells are seen in severe and critically ill patients with COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predictive biomarkers for early diagnosis of prostate cancer are important for its treatment. The functional microRNAs in the exosomes of plasma and serum samples are of interest as stable and non-invasive biomarkers for recurrence in cancer patients. The present study aimed to clarify the value of plasma exosomal miRNA-125a-5p and miR-141-5p as biomarkers for the diagnosis of prostate cancer. The study included 19 healthy individuals and 31 prostate cancer patients. In comparison to the levels in healthy controls, exosomal miR-141-5p levels showed a slight increase in prostate cancer patients (p=0.085), and miR-125a-5p levels that showed a significant decrease in patients with prostate cancer than in healthy controls (p=0.032). As a derived parameter, the miR-125a-5p/miR-141-5p ratio was significantly higher in patients with prostate cancer than in healthy controls (p<0.001). We found that exosomal miR-141-5p in plasma showed a promise in distinguishing prostate cancer patients with the AUC of 0.652, and for miR-125a-5p, the AUC was 0.691. For the miR-125a-5p/miR-141-5p ratio, the AUC value was 0.793. We found that miR-125a-5p has a weak positive correlation with PSA (correlation coefficient = 0.3413). Moreover, miR-141-5p has been found to hold a negatively no-significant correlation with PSA, with the correlation coefficient is -0.1102. We speculate that, as diagnostic markers for prostate cancer, miR-125-5p and miR-141-5p might be independent of the PSA. In summary, the results of this study suggest that high plasma exosomal expression of miR-141-3p and low expression of miR-125a-5p in plasma exosomes from prostate cancer patients might be useful markers of specific tumor traits associated with prostate cancer. Moreover, the miR-125a-5p/miR-141-5p ratio seems to perform better than either of the single values alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertain and lumpy demand forces capacity planners to maximize the profit of individual factory by simultaneously taking advantage of outsourcing to and/or being outsourced from its supply chain and even competitors. This study develops a resource-planning model of a large manufacturer with two profit-centered factories. The proposed model enables a collaborative integration for resource and demand sharing which is highly attractive to the high-tech industries against the challenges of short product life cycle, intensive capital investment and decreasing marginal profit. Each of the individual factories applies an economic resource-planning model and a genetic algorithm to improve its objective while purchasing extra capacity requirement from its peer factory or selling extra capacity of resources to the others through a negotiation algorithm. This study makes a contribution in successfully building a mutual negotiation model for a set of customer tasks to be realized by the negotiating parties, each with private information regarding company objectives, cost and price. Experimental results reveal that near-optimal solutions for both of the isolated (a single factory) and negotiation-based (between two factories) environments are obtained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A distributed model for allocating a single job to be processed through multiple machines and alternative routings so that the job flow time is experimentally shown to reach its minimum is presented. Issues are addressed pertaining to dynamic and fully distributed decision-making for determining the job flow time in a cooperative manner between system agents (i.e. machines and a job), and for selecting a good routing (i.e. a short flow time) for a job when alternative routings are available. Two cases with confirmed jobs and without confirmed jobs are examined. The proposed protocols can deal with job shop scheduling with multiple product types in a sequential manner. The model is developed on the basis of a distributed shortest path algorithm using asynchronous job-initiated protocols. These protocols are examined using object-oriented simulation models and it is shown how the agents converge to the optimal path in a finite time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the semiconductor testing process, many resources such as testers, handlers, loadboards and toolings are required to be ready simultaneously so that testing tasks can be conducted. A limited budget under depressed economy enhances the need for exploring better solutions of testing capacity expansion and allocation. However, to maximize profit as planning with multiple resources is very challenging. This study focused on the issues pertaining to the decisions of (1) the type and number of testers that should be invested to deal with forthcoming orders at a semiconductor testing facility under a constrained budget and (2) the allocation of tester capacity for the orders so as to maximize company profit with limited, multiple resources. Owing to the high computational complexity of the problem, the study developed a genetic algorithm to resolve the two issues simultaneously. A mathematical model was developed to formalize the problem and serve as a benchmark for comparison with the proposed algorithm that attacked the same problem more efficiently. Taguchi experimental design was employed to find the most appropriate parameters for the proposed genetic algorithm under a variety of budget set-up. Experimental results indicated that the proposed algorithm was robust enough to budget plans, and its performance approximated closely with that of the mathematical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OBJECTIVE: Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the most common malignant tumors of the digestive system with a high degree of malignancy. Currently, there have been many studies on exosomal microRNAs (miRNAs) discovery in pancreatic cancer. This systematic review aimed to give an overview about known exosomal miRNAs and discuss their diagnostic performance, as well as prognostic value in PC. MATERIALS AND METHODS: PubMed and Web of Science were used for systematic literature research for this review. This literature research was mainly to identify studies that performed plasmatic and serological testing for exosomal miRNAs in pancreatic cancer patients and controls. Two independent reviewers separately extracted data on study characteristics and results. RESULTS: In total, nine prior studies were included in this review. Of which, eleven different single exosomal miRNAs and three exosomal miRNA panels were reported. CONCLUSIONS: When single exosomal miRNA was used as a diagnostic tool, the specificity is generally high, but the sensitivity is commonly low. When multiple of exosomal miRNAs were used simultaneously, higher sensitivities can be obtained at relatively reasonable specificity levels with certain miRNA combinations. Developing a combination of miRNA markers may be a promising approach for early detection of pancreatic cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extraordinarily warm 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 winter temperatures in California accompanied by drought conditions contributed to low snow accumulations and stressed water resources, giving rise to the question: how much has California's climate warmed over the last century? We examine long-term trends in maximum ( Tmax) and minimum ( Tmin) daily temperatures in winter estimated from five gridded data sets. Resulting trends show some consistent features, such as higher trends in Tmin than Tmax; however, substantial differences exist in the trend magnitudes and spatial patterns due mostly to the nature of spatial interpolation employed in the different data sets. Averaged across California over 1920-2015, Tmax trends vary from −0.30 to 1.2°C/century, while Tmin trends range from 1.2 to 1.9°C/century. The differences in temperature strongly impact modeled changes in snow water equivalent over the last century (from −5.0 to −7.6 km3/century). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of the electron cyclotron current drive on magnetic islands in tokamak plasmas are studied using gyrokinetic simulations. By investigating the effects of different characteristics of the driven current, such as current density distribution and deposition location, the factors which can determine the suppression effect on the resistive tearing modes have been explored. It is found that an electron cyclotron wave (ECW) driven current with a larger peak value and more focused deposition region has a better stabilization effect. When the ECW-driven current is closer to the rational surface, it has a better stabilizing effect. These gyrokinetic toroidal code (GTC) linear simulations in the electron fluid limit of the tearing modes in the cylindrical geometry agree well with the magnetohydrodynamic codes. Furthermore, the optimal timing control of the current deposition on resistive tearing modes is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The polyfluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP)/polypropylene (PP) blend was compounded at melt state in a twin-screw extruder. The melt dynamic viscoelasticity of FEP/PP blends was measured using a Bohlin rheometer with the extended temperature option under experimental conditions with temperature scope from 270°C to 280°C and shear frequency (ω) varying from 10−2 to 101 s−1. The results showed that the shear storage modulus (G′) and shear loss modulus (G″) increased nonlinearly, while the dynamic complex viscosity (η*) decreased slightly with increasing ω. The G′ and G″ were an exponential function of ω. The G′, G″, and η* of the blend melts decreased with an addition of the PP weight fraction ( φ PP ) , and the relationship between them might be expressed by a multinomial third-order equation. This phenomenon might be attributed to the difference in viscoelasticity between the FEP melt and PP melt. The value of tan δ of the blend melts achieved the maximum at about 100 s−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, an anisotropic thermal-elastic-plastic (TEP) constitutive model is developed for soft clays. Two yield surfaces, namely the current yield surface and reference yield surface, are adopted to characterize the development of plastic volumetric strain (i.e., the unique internal variable of the two surfaces) due to either mechanical or thermal loading. The model is formulated based on the framework of the Modified Cam-Clay model, with only two additional parameters introduced (i.e., α and θ), to account for stress-induced anisotropy and thermal-induced translation of compression curves, respectively. Based on the model, a simplified equation is proposed to quantify the effect of drained heating on the undrained shear strength of clay. The predictive capability of the proposed model and the simplified equation for undrained shear strength are verified against published results of temperature-controlled triaxial tests on soft clay. By assessing seven different types of clays, the thermal-related parameters θ are found to almost linearly increase with the plastic index (Ip) of soil. Empirical correlations are then proposed for a quick approximation of θ, in case that data from temperature-controlled tests are not readily available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel digester, termed an internal circulation anaerobic digester (ICAD), was developed to intensify sludge digestion. It consists of reaction zone, settling zone, thickening zone, riser and downcomer. Internal circulation in the digester is intensified by backflow biogas. The mesophilic ICAD treating thermal pretreated waste activated sludge with volatile suspended solids (VSS)/suspended solids (SS) of 0.45-0.49 was conducted in this study to reduce and stabilize the low organic content sludge. The results showed that the VSS removal rate and biogas rate reached 46.0% and 0.72 m3/kg VSSfed at hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 15 days. VSS/SS and soluble chemical oxygen demand (SCOD) of the effluent sludge ranged from 0.39 to 0.41 and 274 mg/L to 473 mg/L, respectively, under various HRTs from 10 to 27 days. The degradation ability of ICAD derived from the improved mass transfer by internal circulation and long solid retention time at short HRT is compared with continuous stirred tank reactor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to previous studies, integrins play an important role in the mechanotransduction. The aim of this study was to examine the role of integrin subunits and its down-stream signaling molecules in the cyclic hydrodynamic pressure-induced proliferation of human bladder smooth muscle cells (HBSMCs) cultured in scaffolds. The HBSMCs cultured in scaffolds were subjected to four different levels of cyclic hydrodynamic pressure for 24 hours, which were controlled by a BOSE BioDynamic bioreactor. Flow cytometry was used to examine cell cycle distribution. Real-time RT-PCR and western blotting were used to examine the expression levels of integrin subunits and their downstream signaling molecules. Integrin a5 siRNA was applied to validate the role of integrin a5 in cell proliferation. Here, we showed that cyclic hydrodynamic pressure promoted proliferation of HBSMCs. The cyclic hydrodynamic pressure also increased expression of integrin a5 and phosphorylation of FAK, the key mediator of integrin a5 signaling, but not that of integrin a1, a3, a4, av, ß1 and ß3. Moreover, inhibition of integrin a5 decreased the level of p-FAK and abolished proliferation of HBSMCs stimulated by cyclic hydrodynamic pressure. Taken together, we demonstrate for the first time that the integrin a5-FAK signaling pathway controls the proliferation of HBSMCs in response to cyclic hydrodynamic pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A newly developed low-velocity non-Darcy flow numerical simulator is applied to the Fuyu formation. The three-dimensional geological model of subject reservoir was established and 9 well plans were designed to obtain the optimal well adjustment plan. Additionally, the formation pressure gradient distributions were provided and the flow regions were divided to study the adaptability of different well adjustment plans. The numerical simulation of Da45 reservoir is an excellent opportunity to: (1) put the non-Darcy flow numerical simulator into application, (2) provide guidance for the Da45 reservoir, and (3) provide reference to the non-Darcy flow numerical simulation technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A solids conveying theory called double-flight driving theory was proposed for helically channeled single screw extruders. In the extruder, screw channel rotates against static barrel channel, which behaves as cooperative embedded twin-screws for the positive conveying. They turn as two parallel arc plates, between which an arc-plate solid-plug was assumed. By analyzing the forces on the solid-plug in the barrel channel and screw channel, the boundary conditions when the solid-plug is waived of being cut off on barrel wall, were found to have the capacity of the positive conveying. Experimental data were obtained using a specially designed extruder with a helically channeled barrel in the feeding zone and a pressure-adjustable die. The effects of the barrel channel geometry and friction coefficients on the conveying mechanism were presented and compared with the experimental results. The simulations showed that the positive conveying could be achieved after optimizing extruder designs. Compared with the traditional design with the friction-drag conveying, the throughput is higher while screw torque and energy consumption are decreased. Besides, the design criteria of the barrel channel were also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We utilize steady-state and transient optical spectroscopies to examine the responses of nonthermal quasiparticles with respect to orbital modifications in normal-state iron-chalcogenide superconductors. The dynamics shows the emergence of gaplike quasiparticles (associated with a ∼36 meV energy gap) with a coincident transfer of the optical spectral weight in the visible range, at temperatures above the structural distortion. Our observations suggest that opening of the high-temperature gap and the lattice symmetry breaking are possibly driven by short-range orbital and/or charge orders, implicating a close correlation between electronic nematicity and precursor order in iron-based superconductors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Zinc oxide (ZnO) thin film was grown on semi-insulating Si substrate using arsine (AsH3) as precursor by atmospheric-pressure metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (AP-MOCVD). In recently reported results, the physical mechanisms for As-doped ZnO thin films are explained as As substitution for oxygen (AsO) or As substitution for Zn and As combined with two Zn vacancies (AsZn-2VZn). In this study, we control the in situ annealing ambient into two environments with various temperatures, which are Zn-rich, using diethylzinc (DEZn) as ambient gas, and O-rich, using water vapor as ambient gas, respectively. This should help to create AsO and AsZn-2VZn. The ZnO thin film after in situ thermal annealing with H2O vapor ambient at 550 and 750 °C show p-type conductivity with hole concentration of 2.651 × 1017 and 1.782 × 1018 cm−3, Hall mobilities of 10.08 and 5.402 cm2/V s, and resistivities of 2.368 and 0.6485 Ω cm, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With 6 figures and 4 tables The cultivated soybean is domesticated from the wild soybean. Nevertheless, the origin of a semi‐wild‐type (Glycine gracilis) intermediate in morphology between the wild and cultivated species has not been very clearly established. The current hypothesis is that it is formed by hybridization between wild and cultivated soybeans. However, this theory is based on molecular data and lacks undisputed evidence, owing to no actual insight into the morphological behaviour of the occurrence of natural introgression. Phenotypic evidence is required in addition to molecular analyses. We investigated wild and cultivated soybean populations and captured the process of natural introgression between wild and cultivated soybeans as the direct and crucial evidence for the interspecific gene flow. Normal wild and cultivated soybean seeds from natural and cultivated populations generated G. gracilis‐type plants, which revealed the speciation of G. gracilis type. Our results demonstrated that the semi‐wild soybean type originated from reciprocal hybridizations between wild and cultivated soybeans. Phenotypically different cytoplasmic impacts between the wild and cultivated cytoplasmic genomes occurred in G. gracilis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With 6 figures and 2 tables Soybean Kunitz trypsin inhibitor (SKTI) is extensively studied for its biological function, anti-nutritional feature, transgenic insect-resistant breeding and as a genetic marker for tracing the origin and dissemination of soybeans. In this study, SKTI was revealed to exist with a high level of polymorphism at its single locus in the genus Glycine subgenus Soja. We investigated 5612 individual plants of Chinese wild soybean for polymorphic variation and geographical distribution of SKTI in China. As a result, five new variants were detected. These variants were Tibi7, Tih, Tii, Tij and Tik. Together with the known variants at this locus, the sum surprisingly has accounted up to at least eight electrophoretically distinguishable variants at this locus in Chinese wild soybean. This strongly suggests that Chinese wild soybean has high level of polymorphism at SKTI locus, and this protein has high mutability in the phylogenetic history of SKTI. The geographical pattern of the polymorphism indicated that the variability of SKTI abounded in Northeast China and Tib allele existed with high frequency in the southeastern littoral of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wild soybean ( Glycine soja), as the progenitor of soybeans ( G. max), is widely distributed in China and has been collected as a supplementary germplasm pool of soybeans. In this study, 375 wild soybean accessions from a set of genebank core collection were analysed for genetic diversity by using 42 simple sequence repeat primer pairs. The mean allele number per locus was 19.62. Ten-percent unique alleles involving 35 or 83.33% loci differentiated among the geographical regions. The mean gene diversity ( h) per locus was 0.89. A very low mean coefficient of gene differentiation ( GST = 0.08) for geographical regions and a high mean within-region gene diversity ( HS = 0.81) were observed, indicating that most genetic diversity existed within the regions. There was an obvious relationship between genetic distance and geographical distance. The results showed multiple centers of genetic diversity for Chinese wild soybean in North China, the Huanghe River Valley, and Central China as well as the Changjiang River Valley, implicating multiple site origins of soybeans within China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A field experiment with colophony-coated fertilizer (CRF) and sulfur-coated fertilizer (SCF) showed that under the same application rates of N, P and K, applying CRF and SCF increased the summer maize grain yield by 13.15% and 14.15%, respectively, compared to the application of common compound fertilizer CCF. When the applied amount of CRF and SCF was decreased by 25%, the yield increment was 9.69% and 10.04%, respectively; and when the applied amount of CRF and SCF was decreased by 50%, the yield had less difference with that under CCF application. The field ammonia volatilization rate in treatments CRF and SCF increased slowly, with a peak appeared 7 days later than that in treatment CCF, and the total amount of ammonia volatilization in treatments CRF and SCF was ranged from 0.78 kg N×hm-2 to 4.43 kg N×hm-2, with a decrement of 51.34%-91.34% compared to that in treatment CCF. The fertilizer nitrogen use efficiency and agronomic nitrogen use efficiency of CRF and SCF were also significantly higher than those of CCF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Bilateral chylothorax is mainly encountered following certain thoracic procedures. It is a rare complication following neck dissection, but can be serious and life threatening. The authors report a case of bilateral chylothorax following left modified radical neck dissection, right modified neck dissection and superior mediastinal dissection for bilateral medullary thyroid cancer. The patient was treated successfully with conservative management. The pathophysiology of this complication is discussed and multidisciplinary approach is advocated. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The electronic structure single crystals of the new double perovskite Sr2YRu1-xCuxO6 (x = 0-0.05) has been investigated by x-ray absorption nearedge structure (XANES) spectroscopy. The Cu K-edge spectra show that Cu is incorporated as Cu1+ and Cu2+ in the crystals grown in air and in an oxygen atmosphere and Ru5+ is seen in the Ru K-edge spectra. The O K-edge and the Ru L3-edge spectra indicate an increase in the unoccupied states (hole concentration) as x is increased, accompanied by a lattice distortion from an increased O-Ru-O bond angle. These changes observed even with a small Cu addition are interpreted to result from the Cu 3d-O 2p hybridization as Cu replaces Ru in the octahedral sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two new phenolic compounds, gastrodin A (1) and gastrol A (2), together with 7 known ones (3-9) have been isolated from the EtOH extract of the rhizomes of Gastrodia elata Blume (Orchidaceae), and their structures were elucidated by spectroscopic analysis and comparison of their spectral data with those reported previously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan is the global leader in capacity and technology in the semiconductor testing and assembly industry; its firms must confront the tremendous competitive pressure from more than 30 other related firms in Taiwan and a market force for vertical integration of the semiconductor manufacturing industry. One of the key issues to a firm's success is how to utilise its semiconductor assembly and testing resources against dynamic demands. This study proposes an effective resource allocation approach for wire bonders from the perspectives of comparative advantage and opportunity cost, and implements it using a decision tree to match the complex product requirements with different levels of bonder resource availability. There are two objectives: (i) when the capability of resources exceeds the demand of products, the proposed approach aims at keeping higher-level resources as unencumbered as possible; and (ii) when resources are insufficient to meet the demands, the approach aims at minimising computation time for a resource allocation plan, making full utilisation of resources. Experimental results from a leading semiconductor assembly firm have shown that the proposed model outperforms its conventional approach in terms of resource capability appropriation and computational time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the most challenging production decisions in the semiconductor testing industry is to select the most appropriate dispatching rule which can be employed on the shop floor to achieve high manufacturing performance against a changing environment. Job dispatching in the semiconductor final testing industry is severely constrained by many resources conflicts and has to fulfil a changing performance required by customers and plant managers. In this study we have developed a hybrid knowledge discovery model, using a combination of a decision tree and a back-propagation neural network, to determine an appropriate dispatching rule using production data with noise information, and to predict its performance. We built an object-oriented simulation model to mimic shop floor activities of a semiconductor testing plant and collected system status and resultant performances of several typical dispatching rules, earliest-due-date (EDD) rule, first-come-first-served rule, and a practical dispatching heuristic taking set-up reduction into consideration. Performances such as work-in-process, set-up overhead, completion time, and tardiness are examined. Experiments have shown that the proposed decision tree found the most suitable dispatching rule given a specific performance measure and system status, and the back propagation neural network then predicted precisely the performance of the selected rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common cancers in the world and is particularly prevalent in China. China is also a hyperendemic area for hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Although a strong association between HBV infection and HCC has been established previously, the role of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection and the interaction between HBV and HCV in the development of HCC has not been adequately explored. The major objective of this study is to determine the relationship between HBV or HCV infection and HCC by use of case-control study in Henan, China.Method: In all, 152 HCC patients and 115 control patients were collected from four hospitals in Henan, China between January 1994 and October 1995. The demographic characteristics of the two groups were comparable. In further analysis, a 1:1 pair-matched case-control study was performed. Of 152 HCC patients, 113 were randomly selected to be pair-matched by sex and age (+/-5 years) to controls with non-hepatic disease. All the cases and controls were interviewed during hospitalization by two specially trained interviewers using a standard questionnaire. All sera were tested for HBV and HCV markers. Odds ratios (OR) and 95% CI for HCC risk factors were calculated by logistic regression model controlling for possible confounding factors such as sex and age. The multivariate analysis was done on the basis of the univariate analysis.Results: The results of this study indicated that the prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and antibody to HCV (anti-HCV) were much higher in HCC patients (63.2% and 11.2% respectively) than in the control patients (5.2%, 3.5%). The difference between two groups was significant (P < 0.05). Risk factor analysis revealed that both HBV and HCV infection were important factors for HCC in Henan, China and HBV appeared to have a key role in the development of HCC. Odds ratios of HBsAg and HBV infection were 28.82 (95% CI: 11.18-78.78) and 31.22 (95% CI: 13.86-72.15), respectively. Moreover, the risk of developing HCC increased significantly and showed an additive effect when both viral markers of HBV and HCV infection were considered (OR = 42.85). Results from the 1:1 pair-matched case-control study also showed that HBV infection was an important risk factor for HCC, which was consistent with the results from the group-matched case-control study.Conclusion: This is the first reported case-control study of HCC in Henan, China. This study provides further evidence that chronic HBV infection is strongly associated with the development of HCC among this population. Our results have demonstrated that HCV and HBV infection are independent and probably additive risk factors for HCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure and magnetic properties were studied for bulk nanocrystalline dysprosium (Dy) metal prepared by spark plasma sintering method. All the as-prepared samples have hexagonal close packed structure. A decrease in grain size results in remarkable changes in magnetic ordering temperature of the nanocrystalline Dy metal. At 5 K, the magnetization drops by 3.35%, and the coercive force increases by three times for nanocrystalline Dy compared to those of coarse-grained bulk Dy sample. These results indicate the remarkable influence of the nanostructure on the magnetism of Dy due to finite size effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Single crystals of Sr2HoRu1-xCuxO6 (with x=0–0.2), measuring 2–3 mm across have been grown from PbO–PbF2 based solutions in the temperature range of 1250–1150 °C. The crystals exhibit octahedral morphology and belong to the monoclinic space group P21/n. While Sr2HoRuO6 is found to be antiferromagnetic with weak ferromagnetism below 30 K, the solid solutions containing Cu exhibit a diamagnetic transition at 31 K which increases in magnitude and temperature with increasing Cu. Through a correlation of magnetic and calorimetric properties, these crystals are concluded to be spin-glass superconductors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bulk nanocrystalline gadolinium metal was prepared using spark plasma sintering (SPS) and subsequent annealing process. The SPS Gd metal had a single phase with a mean grain size of about 10 nm. A pressure-induced C-axis crystal texture was found in the SPS Gd sample. With the decrease of Gd grains from micrometer to nanometer range, the Curie temperature TC decreased by 10.7 K and the magnetic moment per Gd atom at 5 K dropped noticeably from 7.81μB to 6.31μB. These results indicate the remarkable influence of the nanostructure on the magnetism of Gd due to the finite size effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]