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Background Most human diseases are accompanied by systems changes. Systems biomarkers should reflect such changes. The phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of biomolecules maintain human homeostasis. However, the systems biomarker characteristics of circulating alkaline phosphatase, a routine blood test conducted for many human diseases, have never been investigated. Method This study retrieved the circulating alkaline phosphatase (ALP) activities from patients with 48 clinically confirmed diseases and healthy individuals from the database of our hospital during the past five years. A detailed analysis of the statistical characteristics of ALP was conducted, including quantiles, receiving operator curve (ROC), and principal component analysis. Results Among the 48 diseases, 45 had increased, and three had decreased median levels of ALP activities compared to the healthy control. Preeclampsia, hepatic encephalopathy, pancreatic cancer, and liver cancer had the highest median values, whereas nephrotic syndrome, lupus erythematosus, and nephritis had decreased median values compared to the healthy control. Further, area under curve (AUC) values were ranged between 0.61-0.87 for 19 diseases, and the ALP activities were the best systems biomarker for preeclampsia (AUC 0.87), hepatic encephalopathy (AUC 0.87), liver cancer (AUC 0.81), and pancreatic cancer (AUC 0.81). Conclusions Alkaline phosphatase was a decent systems biomarker for 19 different types of human diseases. Understanding the molecular mechanisms of over-up-and-down-regulation of ALP activities might be the key to understanding the whole-body systems' reactions during specific disease progression.

This paper studied the weak parts of the wireless sensor networks under strong electromagnetic pulse, and protected the whole network with hardware protection and software protection. After analysis, the weak parts of the sensor node are antenna module, signal line communication module, and sensor module. Numbers of experiments were done to research the relationship between the weak parts and the peak value of the electromagnetic pulse. Failure rates of the sensor nodes were calculated when the peak value of the electromagnetic pulse takes different value. Then protection circuits of the sensor nodes were designed, and experiments were done to verify the effectiveness of the protection circuits. Experiments results showed that the sensor nodes with hardware protection can work normally under strong electromagnetic pulse with 50kV/m peak value. For further protection, the improved LEACH (Low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy) routing algorithm was realized, and the performance of the wireless sensor network was improved once more. At last, simulations with different protection methods were done, and simulation results showed that the performance of the network with hardware protection and software protection was improved by 75%. The method with hardware and software protection gets the best reinforcement effect.

Background: As a new type of advanced packaging and system integration technology, System- in-Package (SiP) can realize the miniaturization and multi-functionalization of electronic products and is listed as an important direction of development by International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS). Objective: This paper mainly introduces and discusses recent academic research and patents on package structure and packaging materials. Additionally, the trend of development is described. Methods: Firstly, we analyze and summarize the challenges and existing problems in SiP. Then the corresponding solutions are introduced with respect to packaging structure and packaging materials. Finally, the research status of SIP and some patents in these aspects are reviewed. Results: In order to increase the density of internal components, SiP products need to use a stacked structure. The causes of different performance in SiP products are: 1) the stress concentration and bonding quality problems caused by the chip stack structure; 2) the warpage and package thickness problems caused by the package stack; 3) thermal conductivity of materials and thermal mismatch between materials; and 4) dielectric properties and thermomechanical reliability of materials. The following solutions are summarized: 1) structural optimization of chip stacking and packaging stacking; 2) application of new packaging technology; 3) optimization of packaging materials; 4) and improvement of packaging material processing technology. Conclusion: With the study of packaging structure and packaging materials, SiP can meet the requirements of the semiconductor industry and have great future prospects.

Background Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), often diagnosed at advanced stages without curative therapies, is the fifth most common malignant cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality. Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) is activated in the late G2 phase of the cell cycle and is required for entry to mitosis. Interestingly, PLK1 is overexpressed in many HCC patients and is highly associated with poor clinical outcome. Baculoviral inhibitor of apoptosis repeat-containing 5 (BIRC5) is also highly overexpressed in HCC and plays key roles in this malignancy. Aim To determine the expression patterns of PLK1 and BIRC5, as well as their correlation with p53 mutation status and patient clinical outcome. Methods The expression patterns of PLK1 and BIRC5, and their correlation with p53 mutation status or patient clinical outcome were analyzed using a TCGA HCC dataset. Cell viability, cell apoptosis, and cell cycle arrest assays were conducted to investigate the efficacy of the PLK1 inhibitors volasertib and GSK461364 and the BIRC5 inhibitor YM155, alone or in combination. The in vivo efficacy of volasertib and YM155, alone or in combination, was assessed in p53-mutated Huh7-derived xenograft models in immune-deficient NSIG mice. Results Our bioinformatics analysis using a TCGA HCC dataset revealed that PLK1 and BIRC5 were overexpressed in the same patient subset and their expression was highly correlated. The overexpression of both PLK1 and BIRC5 was more frequently detected in HCC with p53 mutations. High PLK1 or BIRC5 expression significantly correlated with poor clinical outcome. PLK1 inhibitors (volasertib and GSK461364) or a BIRC5 inhibitor (YM155) selectively targeted Huh7 cells with mutated p53, but not HepG2 cells with wild-type p53. The combination treatment of volasertib and YM155 synergistically inhibited the viability of Huh7 cells via apoptotic pathway. The efficacy of volasertib and YM155, alone or in combination, was validated in vivo in a Huh7-derived xenograft model. Conclusion PLK1 and BIRC5 are highly co-expressed in p53-mutated HCC and inhibition of both PLK1 and BIRC5 synergistically compromises the viability of p53-mutated HCC cells in vitro and in vivo.

The abnormal emission of gas in coals is the main factor that induces serious gas disasters in coal mines. During the coal mining process, roof movement has important effects on the gas emission law and gas flow characteristics. In this study, an extremely thick coal seam under fully mechanized sublevel caving mining conditions from the Tashan coal mine in China was used as an example; the effect of roof weighting on gas emission in the goaf was studied. Then, the large roof weighting step and the small roof weighting step caused by the different thicknesses of lamprophyre breakage were used as the objects and a numerical simulation study on the gas flow characteristics in the goaf was carried out. The results indicate that the mining coal seams, the overlying adjacent unmined coal seams, and the goaf are the main contributors to the large gas emission capacity, and even situations exist where the gas concentration exceeds the limit in the working face. During roof weighting, the gas concentration and emission capacity in the return airway, upper corner, and high drainage roadway increase substantially. The results of the numerical analysis are in good agreement with the observed data, which indicates that it is effective to control the gas in coal seams by designing the location of high drainage roadway according to the mining characteristics of coal seam and the gas emission law.

Structural biological materials with integrated soft and hard phases are ubiquitous in nature. Over recent decades, bio-inspired hard-soft-integrated materials (BHSIMs) have shown excellent mechanical properties of drag reduction and abrasion resistance. This work is proposed to investigate the friction behaviors of BHSIMs via theoretical modeling, numerical simulation and experimental verification. First, the mathematical model of the friction process was established based on the classic adhesive friction theory. Then, a range of factors in the friction process were examined by simulation and the respective friction coefficients were discussed. Subsequently bio-inspired materials with integrated soft and hard layers were prepared by 3D printing and their friction coefficients were measured by experiments, which had verified the results of theoretical analyses.

IntroductionLaparoscopic distal gastrectomy (LDG) is regarded as a standard treatment for patients with clinical stage I–III gastric cancer. With the popularisation of the Da Vinci robotic system in the 21st century, robotic distal gastrectomy has been increasingly applied, and its potential advantages over LDG have been proved by several studies. Intraperitoneal anastomosis is a hot topic in research as it highlights the superiority of minimally invasive surgery and is safe and feasible. We intend to conduct this randomised clinical trial to focus on short-term outcomes and quality of life (QOL) in totally laparoscopic distal gastrectomy (TLDG) and totally robotic distal gastrectomy (TRDG) for patients with clinical stage I–III gastric cancer.Methods and analysisThis study is a prospective, multi-institutional, open-label randomised clinical trial that will recruit 722 patients with a 1:1 ratio (361 patients in the TLDG group and 361 patients in the TRDG group) from eight large-scale gastrointestinal medical centres in China. The primary endpoint is 30-day postoperative morbidity. The secondary endpoints include QOL, 30-day severe postoperative morbidity and mortality, anastomotic-related complication rate, conversion to open surgery rate, intraoperative and postoperative indicators, operative and total costs during hospitalisation, 1-year overall survival and disease-free survival. QOL is determined by the The European Organization for Reasearch and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnare-Core 30 and Stomach22 (EORTC QLQ-C30 and STO22) questionnaires which are completed before surgery and 1, 3, 6 months, and 1 year after surgery. χ2 test will be used for the primary endpoint, while analysis of covariance will be used to compare the overall changes of QOL between the two groups.Ethics and disseminationThis trial was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Chinese PLA General Hospital. The trial’s results will be disseminated via peer-reviewed scientific journals and conference presentations.Trial registration numberChiCTR2000032670.

To analyze the influence of the thin-film residual stresses on the high-order aberrations of deformable mirrors, a finite-element model of a 37-element deformable mirror was constructed. The deformation and high-order aberrations were simulated after applying residual stresses to the mirrors. The appearance of high-order aberrations became more significant as the mirror thickness decreased. A print-through effect due to the piezoelectric actuators was obvious when the mirror thickness was 1 mm. The peak-to-valley size decreased from 0.320 to 0.158 μm when the mirror thickness increased from 1 to 3 mm, and the corresponding residual error after removing the low-order Zernike coefficients decreased from 0.281 to 0.156 μm. High-order aberrations of the deformed mirrors were very small at a mirror thickness of 3 mm. These results should be useful for designing deformable mirrors for adaptive optical systems in the future.

Ethnopharmacological relevance Shenqi Fuzheng (SQ) is a renowned traditional Chinese medicine extracted from Radix Codonopsis and Radix Astragali. Although SQ is widely used to treat myocardial ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury, the molecular mechanisms supporting its clinical application remain elusive. Aim of the study The purpose of current study was to understand its cardioprotective effects at the molecular level using network pharmacology approach. Materials and method In an I/R injury animal model, the beneficial pharmacological activities of SQ were confirmed by decreased infarct range observed on drug treated rats versus control group. Additionally, several serum biochemical indicators were in concord with this observation. Subsequently, a microarray experiment was performed to reveal the influence on injured heart at the gene expression level by this TCM injection. We then proposed a network analysis algorithm NTRA to discover the key nodes based on both disease network structure and transcriptomics. Using NRIODN, a method developed by our group previously, the holistic changes on the gene network induced by for I/R injury and SQ treatment were evaluated. Results Pathway enrichment analysis of highly ranked genes by NTRA showed that PPAR and apoptosis pathways were highly related to I/R injury. Finally, western blot results showed increased level of the PPARα and BAX protein in the heart after injection treatment which confirmed the hypothesis. Conclusion In conclusion, our results suggest that SQ injection exerts protective effect against myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury through multiple pathways, including myocardial energy metabolism improvement, cell adhesion inhibition, inflammatory reaction perturbation, myocardial apoptosis reduction and ventricular remodeling avoidance.

Accurately locating forced oscillations (FOs) disturbance source in a large-scale power system is a challenging task. In this paper, a localisation method featuring system-level and area-level localisation is proposed. Compared with traditional localisation methods which process the FOs signals only in control centre phasor data concentrator (PDC), the proposed method can not only relieve the data communication pressure, but also meets the data privacy and confidentiality requirements of utility companies. Besides, with the two-stage deep transfer learning, high accuracy of localisation can be realised with far less training. Firstly, by adopting principle component analysis (PCA) to extract the most representative information at system-level and smooth pseudo Wigner-Ville distribution (SPWVD) to characterize FOs signals, graphical representations of FOs at system-level and area-level are obtained respectively, transforming the localisation problem to image recognition problem. Subsequently, a two-stage deep transfer learning (DTL) algorithm is developed to locate FOs disturbance source. The first stage involves repurposing the learnt features from a pre-trained deep convolutional neural network (previously trained for universal image recognition) to improve the learning of system-level localisation. In a similar logic, the second stage entails transferring the knowledge acquired from the first stage is exploited to aid area-level localisation learning. Case studies carried out on the WECC 179-bus system demonstrate that the proposed method achieves a significantly higher accuracy in the presence of measurement noise, topology variation and load disturbances of the system with respect to the traditional machine learning method. The proposed method also exhibits a more favorable computational performance and learning efficiency due to the employment of the tactfully designed two-stage DTL approach.

Lentinan is a polysaccharide extracted from Shiitake mushrooms that have been used to improve general health for thousands of years in Asia. Lentinan injection is a clinically approved drug in several countries in Asia. The purpose of this study is to review the structure, preclinical and clinical studies, and molecular mechanisms of lentinan. Most importantly, the clinical effectiveness of lentinan as an adjuvant therapeutic drug in treating patients with lung cancer in China during the past 12 years is analyzed statistically. We carried out literature search of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published from 2004 to 2016 based on CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), VIP (Chongqing VIP Chinese Scientific Journals Database) and Wanfang database, and 38 eligible RCTs of lentinan-associated lung cancer treatment were identified, containing 3,117 patients. The structure and function relationship and underlying molecular mechanism of lentinan as an immunostimulant has been summarized. The mean value of overall response rate in treating lung cancer was increased from 43.3% of chemotherapy alone to 56.9% of lentinan plus chemotherapy [p

Ganoderma lucidum is an edible medicinal mushroom known as “Lingzhi” in China and “Reishi or Manetake” in Japan. It is a highly prized vitality‐enhancing herb for more than 2000 years. G. lucidum polysaccharide (GLPS) has been identified as one of the major bioactive components and developed into a drug named “Ji 731 Injection” in China since 1973. The large‐scale production of the drug began in 1985 and approved by the Chinese FDA as “Polysaccharidum of G. lucidum Karst Injection” (Ling Bao Duo Tang Zhu She Ye) in 2000, which is applied intramuscularly. After more than forty years of clinical use, its efficacy, safety and long‐term tolerability have been recognized by neurologists. It is one of a few non‐hormonal drugs used for treating refractory myopathy. It is also used for combination therapy, which reduces the amount of glucocorticoid required for myopathy patient who is in remission. In addition, it reduces adverse reactions and improves the quality of life for cancer patients during chemotherapy. We found 81 qualified chemical, biochemical, preclinical and clinical studies of GLPS both in English and in Chinese spanning from 1973 to 2017 by searching CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), Wanfang database and PubMed. The molecular mechanisms underlying GLPS's antioxidant, anti‐tumour, immune‐modulatory, hypoglycaemic, hypolipidaemic and other activities are discussed. Both preclinical and clinical studies are either deliberated or indexed in the current article. We aimed at providing a molecular picture as well as a clinical basis to comprehend GLPS as one of few polysaccharide‐based modern medicines with complicated chemical and pharmacological properties that prevent it from entering the world's market.

Optical waveguide amplifiers are essential to improve the performance of integrated communication systems. Previous research has mainly focused on C- and L-bands amplification, but there are few reports on S-band waveguide amplifiers. Here, we introduce a polymer-based waveguide amplifier that uses a NaYF4:Yb3+,Tm3+ nanoparticles–PMMA nanocomposite as gain medium, which can provide loss compensation in the S-band. To obtain the strongest emission luminescence at 1480 nm, we optimized the doping concentration of Yb3+ and Tm3+ to 20% and 1%, respectively. By copolymerizing the nanoparticles and methyl methacrylate monomers, the nanocomposite was synthesized and used as the gain medium to fabricate S-band waveguide amplifiers. A relative gain of 5.6 dB/cm was observed at 1480 nm under the excitation of a 980-nm pump laser. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that S-band amplification has been observed in a polymer-based waveguide amplifier. This result is expected to extend the waveband of polymer-based waveguide amplifiers to the S-band.

The cavity ring-down (CRD) technique is adopted for simultaneously measuring s- and p-polarization reflectivity of highly reflective coatings without employing any polarization optics. As the s- and p-polarized light trapped in the ring-down cavity decay independently, with a randomly polarized light source the ring-down signal recorded by a photodetector presents a double-exponential waveform consisting of ring-down signals of both s- and p-polarized light. The s- and p-polarization reflectivity values of a test mirror are therefore simultaneously determined by fitting the recorded ring-down signal with a double-exponential function. The determined s- and p-polarization reflectivity of 30° and 45° angle of incidence mirrors are in good agreement with the reflectivity values measured with the conventional CRD technique employing a polarizer for polarization control.

Heparin is an anticoagulant medication that was discovered in 1917 and used in clinic since 1935. Low molecular weight heparins (LMWHs) represent a refined use of heparin as anticoagulant medications that were developed in 1980s. LMWHs are obtained by cleaving heparin with different chemical or enzymatic methods. Eight chemically distinct and officially approved LMWHs are Bemiparin, Certoparin, Dalteparin, Enoxaparin, Nadroparin, Parnaparin, Reviparin, and Tinzaparin. LMWHs are mainly used for preventing blood clots, for treating deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, and for treating myocardial infarction. LMWHs have advantages over heparin in that they can be used at home with good predictability, dose-dependent plasma levels, a long half-life, less bleeding for a given antithrombotic even, smaller risk of osteoporosis in long-term use, and smaller risk of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia and thrombosis, a potential side effect of heparin. However, heparin is reversible with protamine sulfate while LMWHs have no antidote. Moreover, LMWHs have less of an effect on inhibiting thrombin activity than heparin. Furthermore, patients with end-stage renal diseases have to use heparin because LMWHs are dependent on functioning kidney for their clearance but heparin is primarily cleared in the liver. We will review the recent progress made on the clinically approved and under clinical trialed LMWHs and their potential medical applications. In particular, we will provide an update on the chemical characteristics and clinical use of different branded LMWHs. In addition, the potential clinical applications of LMWHs in other therapeutic area will also be discussed.

Most of clinically used cancer biomarkers are either specific glycan structures or glycoproteins. Although the high serum levels of the cancer biomarkers are also present in certain patients suffering noncancer diseases, systematic measurement and comparison of the serum levels of all cancer biomarkers among cancer and noncancer patients have not been reported. In this study, the serum levels of 17 glucose and glycan-related biomarkers including 10 cancer biomarkers SCCA, CA724, CA50, CA242, CA125, CA199, CA153, AFP, CEA, and PSA were retrospectively investigated based on clinical laboratory data in two medical centers during the past 6 years (2012–2018). The data included a total of 1,477,309 clinical lab test results of 17 biomarkers from healthy controls and patients suffering 64 different types of cancer and noncancer diseases. We found that the median serum levels of CA724, CEA, CA153, SCCA, and CA125 were highest not in cancer patients but in patients suffering gout, lung fibrosis, nephrotic syndrome, uremia, and cirrhosis, respectively. Consistently, the classical ovarian cancer biomarker CA125 had better overall sensitivity and specificity as biomarker for cirrhosis (67% and 92%, respectively) than that for ovarian cancer (41% and 97%, respectively). Furthermore, the information shown as heatmap or waterfall built on the − Log10 p values of the 17 glycan-related biomarkers in different clinically defined diseases suggested that all glycan-related biomarkers had cancer-, aging-, and disease-relevant characteristics and cancers were systems disease. The detailed presentation of the data for each of the 17 biomarkers will be deliberated in chapters 6–23 in this book series.

Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) was first identified as colon cancer antigen in 1965. The higher serum CEA level than that of healthy individuals led to its clinical application as a diagnostic biomarker for colorectal cancer. Subsequent molecular biology studies revealed that CEA are glycoproteins from a family of 32 genes and are normally expressed in various tissues. Indeed, serum CEA levels are not only increased in colorectal cancer but also increased in other types of cancers and noncancer diseases. However, a systematic comparison of the serum CEA levels in different diseases has not been reported. In current study, serum CEA levels from 70,993 patients with 49 clinically defined diseases were retrieved in the clinical laboratory of Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University over the past 5 years. In addition, serum CEA levels from 39,650 individuals who attended their annual physical examination were used as healthy controls. Based on the mean, median, and -Log10p values, we found that patients suffering from 42 diseases had significantly increased serum CEA levels than that of healthy controls. Moreover, patients with lung fibrosis, pancreatic cancer, uremia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, colon cancer, Alzheimer's disease, rectum cancer, and lung cancer had highest media levels of serum CEA in a descending order. Furthermore, healthy individuals older than 65 years old ranked 24th out of 49 in the media levels of serum CEA. In summary, the increased serum CEA levels are associated with aging, cancers, and noncancer diseases and the molecular mechanisms behind the increased serum CEA levels in the 42 unrelated diseases need to be investigated.

In order to reduce power consumption of underwater acoustic equipment(such as acoustic releaser, wireless sensor nodes, etc.), this paper puts forward a low-power signal detection mechanism on the basis of the matched filter noncoherent envelope detector, and a low false alarm rate signal detection mechanism on the basis of the Taylor orthogonal detector. Several hardware prototype for tone detection have been build and tested. Field tests shows the low power consumption and high reliability characteristics of the above two detectors which are more practical among the other methods.

Artificial neural network algorithm can represent all functions at any accuracy through learning the observed data and training parameters. Compared with conventional methods such as analytical met...

A polarized cavity ring-down technique was employed to precisely measure the residual stress birefringence of fused silica substrates with greatly enhanced measurement sensitivity. Intracavity birefringence resulted in beating of two orthogonally resonant modes in a Fabry–Perot cavity. The beating frequency of the ring-down decay was directly related to phase retardation induced by stress birefringence of optical components inside the cavity. For fused silica substrates, measurement reproducibilities of phase retardation of 2.38×10−6 rad and of optical path difference of 2.4×10−4 nm were experimentally achieved. In addition, spatially resolved mapping of stress birefringence of a fused silica substrate was obtained, which was in good agreement with that measured with a commercial stress birefringence measurement instrument. The experimental results demonstrated that cavity ring-down is a sensitive technique for stress birefringence measurements of optical components.

A theoretical analysis of the steady-state photocarrier grating (SSPCG), which takes the nonlinear carrier recombination processes into account, has been presented. First, the nonlinear diffusion equation, containing the bimolecular radiative recombination and Auger recombination terms, has been numerically solved, and the spatial distribution of the carrier concentration of the SSPCG has been obtained. Second, using Fourier analysis, the amplitude of the carrier concentration is determined based on the numerical results. Finally, using the band-filling theory and rigorous coupled-wave analysis, all the optical parameters of the SSPCG are determined and the diffraction efficiency is estimated. The results show that, for an InP-based SSPCG, the bimolecular radiative recombination plays a dominant role in the diffusion equation at a given excitation level. The +1st-order diffraction efficiency of the SSPCG increased less by the increase of the grating period, and the rising rate was reduced by it. In spite of the diffraction efficiency (about 0.7 %), it has the potential to be an optical signal processing component.

This paper addresses the stabilization and optimization problem of networked control systems (NCSs) with long time delays and parameter scheduling. According to the actual network conditions, the network time delay is divided into the fixed time delay and the random time delay. Then, the stabilization controller and the gain scheduling controller are constructed, where the stabilizing control parameters are obtained with cone complementary linearization (CCL) approach and the optimizing control parameters are solved with estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA). Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

A two-dimensional theoretical model of a diffractive steady-state photocarrier grating (SSPCG) has been developed. The carrier diffusion equation with a spatially periodic excitation source was solved, and an analytical expression of the carrier density distribution was obtained. Based on the band-filling theory and the Kramers–Kronig relation, the carrier-induced refractive index change of SSPCG was estimated, and the refractive index profile was determined. The diffraction efficiency of the SSPCG was calculated by multilevel rigorous coupled-wave analysis. Simulations were carried out to investigate the influence of the carrier transport properties on the diffraction efficiency of the SSPCG. The results show that a semiconductor material with a longer lifetime and a smaller diffusivity will have a higher diffraction efficiency. The spatial amplitude of the carrier density and the grating strength of the SSPCG are closely related to the grating period. For an InP-based SSPCG, the diffraction efficiency of the $$+1\mathrm{st}$$ transmitted wave reaches its maximum value (25 %) when the grating provides a $$\pi $$ phase shift. The theoretical analysis and conclusions are helpful for material selection and experimental parameter determination of a diffractive SSPCG.

Ganoderma sinense or "Chinese Lingzhi" is a well-known medicinal fungus in China for more than 2000 years. Polysaccharide is the main immunomodulatory and antitumor component in G. sinense. In 2010, G. sinense polysaccharide (GSP) tablet is approved as an adjunctive therapeutic drug in China for treating leukopenia and hematopoietic injury caused by concurrent chemo/radiation therapy during cancer treatment by the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA). β-glucan, an established immunostimulant, is one of the components in GSP. Based on CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), VIP (Chongqing VIP Chinese Scientific Journals Database), Wanfang database, and PubMed searches, we have not only summarized but also translated all the basic and preclinical studies about GSP published in Chinese into English in this review article. Unfortunately, all the clinical studies about GSP tablet could not be found during the search or by contacting the drug manufacturers. However, both basic and preclinical studies showed that GSP has antitumor, antioxidant, anticytopenia, and unique mushroom-poison detoxification properties that are different from that of G. lucidum polysaccharide, another "Lingzhi" polysaccharide. The structure and molecular mechanisms of GSP are also discussed. This article urges availability of clinical study results of GSP tablet that would allow in-depth evaluation if the tablet is appropriate to serve as an immunomodulatory drug during cancer therapy at world stage.

Neuregulin1β (NRG1β), a member of the excitomotor of tyrosine kinase receptor (erbB) family, was recently shown to play a neuroprotective role in cerebral ischemia–reperfusion injury. The present study analyzed the effects and its possible signaling pathway of NRG1β on brain tissues after cerebral ischemia–reperfusion injury. A focal cerebral ischemic model was established by inserting a monofilament thread to achieve middle cerebral artery occlusion, followed by an NRG1β injection via the internal carotid artery. NRG1β injection resulted in significantly improved neurobehavioral activity according to the modified neurological severity score test. Tetrazolium chloridestaining revealed a smaller cerebral infarction volume; hematoxylin-eosin staining and transmission electron microscopy showed significantly alleviated neurodegeneration in the middle cerebral artery occlusion rats. Moreover, expression of phosphorylated MEK5, phosphorylated ERK5, and phosphorylated MEK2C increased after NRG1β treatment, and the neuroprotective effect of NRG1β was attenuated by an injection of the MEK5 inhibitor, BIX02189. Results from the present study demonstrate that NRG1β provides neuroprotection following cerebral ischemia–reperfusion injury via the ERK5-dependent MAPK pathway.

This letter introduces a novel estimator of equivalent number of looks (ENL) that can be applied to any distribution of texture model, i.e., an estimator that is texture invariant. The novel estimator is the Development of Trace Moments (DTM), which cancels the textural variation using trace moments. Five forms of the DTM estimator using submatrices are presented and compared with each other. The results show that the full-dimensional matrix form seems to be the best in performance and computational complexity. The experiments were performed using simulated and real data. The comparisons among all the existing methods of ENL estimation in the product model of the clutter, such as K-distribution and G0 distribution, show the performance of the DTM estimator to be the best if there is a sufficient number of samples. The global and local ENL estimations of the real data of San Francisco are analyzed, and the results agree with the simulated case. This shows that the DTM always gives a good result, particularly in the global estimation of ENL. Therefore, it can be concluded that the DTM estimator is robust to any distribution model, with low computational complexity and high accuracy, particularly in wide areas with similar scattering mechanism.

In this article, an information propagation model for instant messaging with group is constructed to research the group influence on information propagation in instant messaging network. The feature of group is if a group member propagates a message in a group, the other members in the same group will have a chance to receive this message. There are 4 kinds of nodes in instant messaging network: 1, N0, hasn’t received the message; 2, N1, has received the message, but hasn’t opened it yet; 3, N2, has opened the message, but hasn’t retransmitted it yet; 4,N3, has already opened the message and has retransmitted the message. When a message is propagated into the network, the group influence on information propagation in instant messaging network is revealed by changing the size of each group and the number of groups. The conclusion: the information propagation efficiency of instant messaging network with group is much higher than normal instant messaging network. When the size of each group is very small and the number of groups is very little, the influence of them on information propagation is not very obvious. With the growth of the size of each group and the number of groups, the information propagation is more and more widely and quickly.

This paper addresses the stabilization and optimization problem of networked control systems (NCSs) with long time delays. According to the actual network conditions, the network time delay is divided into the fixed time delay and the random time delay. Then, the stabilization controller is constructed, where the stabilizing control parameters are obtained with cone complementary linearization (CCL) approach and the optimizing control parameters are solved with estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA) algorithm. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

Although piezoelectric acceleration sensors enclosure can shield electromagnetic pulse commendably, the electromagnetic pulse can be coupled into the sensor and interfere signal processing circuit in the high-frequency electromagnetic environment, which can lead to the failure of acceleration sensor. So, the reasonable design and optimization are necessary for the improvement of signal processing circuit anti-electromagnetic interference ability under the principle of EMC. Some methods were proposed in this paper, such as adding a filter circuit, increasing the spacing between the wires and increasing the number of ground wires, etc. Finite integration technique (FIT) is used in this paper for these simulations in CST software. Simulating results show that the transfer impedances of signal processing circuit under the high-frequency electromagnetic interference were greatly reduced after optimization and power integrity was greatly improved. It achieves the goal of enhancing electromagnetic interference resistance of the signal processing circuit, thereby reduces the influence of the electromagnetic pulse on the piezoelectric acceleration sensor greatly.

The constant outbreak of diseases caused by viral infections has caused serious harm to human health all over the world. Although many antiviral drugs have been approved for clinical use during the past decade, important issues, such as unsatisfactory efficacy, toxicity, and high cost of drugs, remain unresolved. Glycans are major components of the surfaces of both host cells and most viruses and play critical roles in the steps of viral infection. Marine glycans have more structural diversities than those found in humans. Most importantly, low toxicity and low-cost marine glycans have demonstrated potent antiviral activities through multiple molecular mechanisms. As a result, a series of marine glycan-derived agents are undergoing preclinical and clinical trials. This review discusses the recent progress in research on the marine glycan-based antiviral agents in clinical trials, relating to their structural features and clinical applications. In addition, molecular mechanisms of marine glycans involved in viral infection and novel strategies used in glycan-based drug development are critically reviewed and discussed.

The amount of data is of crucial to the accuracy of fault classification through machine learning techniques. In wind energy harvest industry, due to the shortage of faulty data obtained in real practice, together with ever changing operational conditions, fault detection and evaluation of wind turbine blade problems become intractable through conventional machine learning methods. In this paper, a modified unsupervised learning method, namely a convolutional auto-encoder based data enlargement strategy (ABE) is proposed for wind turbine blade fault classification. Limited simulation results for different levels of wind turbine icy blades are used for investigation. First, convolutional auto encoder is used to increase the amount of the data. Then, decision tree based xgboost tool, as an example, is used to demonstrate the effectiveness of data enlargement strategy for fault classification. The study shows that the proposed data enlargement strategy is an effective method to improve the fault classification accuracy through machine learning techniques.

The frequency of extreme weather events in China has been increasing due to global warming. The variety of soil types makes for varying levels of water retention capacity across Southwest China. However, spatially detailed information about soil water retention capacity is often difficult to obtain on a large scale. It has been hypothesized that agricultural drought is directly related to evapotranspiration fluxes and soil water retention capacity. This paper presents the relative water supply capacity index (RWSI), which is based on the integrated standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and vegetation condition index (VCI) to explore the potential of using the temporal moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer archive and meteorological data collected from stations in Southwest China to estimate the soil water retention capacity. The results showed that the spatial pattern of RWSI correlated well with that of the soil clay content in Southwest China, which suggests that RWSI could reflect the variations in relative soil water retention capacity in the research region. The RWSI was significantly correlated with relative soil moisture at depths of 0 to 10 cm and 10 to 20 cm. These data showed that RWSI could be used to examine and distinguish the relative differences in soil water retention capacity with an integrated implication of VCI and SPEI in Southwest China.

Land use change can have a strong impact on soil carbon dynamics and carbon stocks in urban areas. Due to rapid urbanization, large areas of land have been paved, and other areas have undergone rapid land use change. Evaluation of the impact of urbanization on carbon dynamics and carbon stock (30 cm) has become an issue of urgent concern. The soil carbon dynamics, due to rapid land use change in Tianjin Binhai New Area of China, have been simulated in this paper using the RothC model. Because this area is saline, a modified version of RothC that includes a salt rate modifier provided more accurate simulations than the original model. The conversion to urban green land was not accurately simulated by either of the models because of the undefined changes in soil and plant conditions. According to the model, changes of arable to grassland resulted in a decline in soil carbon stocks, and changes of grassland to forest and grassland to arable resulted in increased soil carbon stocks in this area. Across the whole area simulated, the total carbon stocks in 2010 had decreased due to land use change by 6.5% from the 1979 value. By 2050, a further decrease of 21.9% is expected according to the 2050 plan for land use and the continuing losses from the soils due to previous land use changes.

The equivalent number of looks is an important parameter in the processing of polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (Pol-SAR) imagery. In this paper, novel estimation methods named maximum likehood (ML) estimator and union ML estimators are presented based on log-cumulants of the sub-covariance-matrices. The novel methods can not only be applied to the statistical model of Gaussian, but also to product model. Then the performance of different ML estimators with sub-covariance-matrices of different dimensions is analyzed, and the comparisons among the novel and existed methods including the Cramer-Rao Bound (CRB) are given. The statistics of the determinant of the covariance matrix is given to improve the estimation accuracy. At last the correctness and effectiveness of the novel methods are verified via simulated data and real data, especially for the product model, which really improve the rapidity and accuracy of parameter estimation in Pol-SAR imagery.

Open-path cavity ring down (OPCRD) technique with variable cavity length was developed to measure optical extinction including scattering and absorption of air in laboratory environment at 635 nm wavelength. By moving the rear cavity mirror of the ring-down cavity to change cavity length, ring-down time with different cavity lengths was experimentally obtained and the dependence of total cavity loss on cavity length was determined. The extinction coefficient of air was determined by the slope of linear dependence of total cavity loss on cavity length. The extinction coefficients of air with different particle concentrations at 635 nm wavelength were measured to be from 10.46 to 84.19 Mmsup-1/sup(ppm/m) in a normal laboratory environment. This variable-cavity-length OPCRD technique can be used for absolute extinction measurement and real-time environmental monitoring without closed-path sample cells and background measurements.

A combined cavity ring-down (CRD) and photometry technique is employed to measure the transmittance of optical laser components in a range extending from below 0.01% to over 99.99%. In this combined technique, the conventional photometric configuration is used to measure, by ratioing the transmitted light power to the input power, the transmittance ranging from below 0.01% to over 99% with a typical relative uncertainty below 0.3%, and the CRD configuration is used to measure the transmittance higher than 99% with an uncertainty below 0.01%. Eight test samples with transmittance in the range of nearly 99.99% to approximately 0.013% are experimentally measured. Uncertainties of approximately 0.0001% for the transmittance of 99.9877% and of 0.003% for the transmittance of 0.013% are achieved with respectively the CRD and photometric schemes of a simple experimental apparatus. The experimental results showed that the combined technique is capable of measuring the transmittance of any practically fabricated optical laser components.

Diabetes mellitus is the most common metabolic disease and its prevalence is increasing in many countries year by year. More than 90% of diabetes patients are type 2 diabetes, which is caused by insulin resistance and beta-cell dysfunction. In this paper, the oligomannuronate-chromium (III) complex (OM2) was prepared and its effect and mechanism on attenuating insulin resistance in diabetic C57BL/KsJ-db/db mice were studied. The results indicated that oral intake of OM2 (50 mg kg−1d−1) for 42 d decreased blood glucose and lipid concentration, which was associated with the reduced serum insulin concentration and insulin resistance. According to western blot assay, OM2 could activate AMPK pathway to regulate glycogen synthesis, gluconeogenesis and lipid metabolism in the liver, and attenuate the hyperglycemic symptom in db/db mice. The effects of OM2 on attenuating insulin resistance were comparable to that of the established antidiabetic drug metformin, and OM2 showed less adverse effect than metformin in vivo. Based on the effectiveness and low toxicity, OM2 may potentially be used for prevention and treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus.

This study presents a quantitative and ecological benefit evaluation of the Baiyangdian wetland in China between the years 2000 and 2006. Methods of EMERGY analysis were applied to illustrate the wetland ecosystem, to evaluate the economic and environmental inputs and consequent yields, and to assess the sustainability of the Baiyangdian wetland. The indicators for the integrated ecological and economic system, such as EMERGY yield ratio (EYR) (7.51), EMERGY investment ratio (EIR) (4.52), environmental loading ratio (ELR) (2.92), EMERGY exchange ratio (0.41), and EMERGY sustainable indicator (ESI) (2.57) were calculated, compared, analyzed, and discussed. The non-renewable investment in Baiyangdian was greater than renewable investment, leading to the unsustainable development of the system. High EYR indicated that the Baiyangdian integrated system had created huge profits for its people, while ELR and ESI revealed that human behavior has been a heavy burden on the environment, and countermeasures should be taken by the Chinese government to relieve and resolve these problems. Potential management methods were also proposed in this paper.

The networked control system was modeled in this paper. According to the actual network conditions, the networked-induced time delay is always varying in a certain range. So, the networked-induced time delay can be divided into the fixed time delay and the random time delay. The long time delay can be taken as packet dropout. What’s more, the drive mode, packets disorder, sampling period, and some assumed conditions were considered carefully in this paper. In order to make the research close to the reality, the round-trip delay of the network between Tsinghua University and Yahoo is measured by sending and receiving data packet every 5 s from Tsinghua side. Simulation showed that the modeling method improved the effectiveness of the system.

We demonstrate the use of a two-channel cavity ring-down (CRD) technique for simultaneously measuring/mapping the reflectance R, transmittance T and optical loss L (absorption plus scattering losses) of highly reflective (HR) and anti-reflective (AR) laser components. High reflectance/transmittance of HR/AR components is measured with the ring-down time of CRD signals, while the low residual transmittance/ reflectance of HR/AR components is determined by the amplitude ratio of two CRD signals, and the optical loss is then determined via L = 1-R-T. Experiments are performed to measure and map R, T, and L of HR mirrors with different transmittance levels from below 1ppm to about 70 ppm (part-per-million) and of one AR window at 635nm. For a 4 ppm-transmittance HR mirror, the measured R, T, and L at one position are 99.99821 ± 0.00004%, 4.042 ± 0.008 ppm and 13.9 ± 0.4 ppm, respectively. For the AR sample, the measured T, R, and L at one position are 99.99279 ± 0.00004%, 50.0 ± 0.7 ppm and 22.0 ± 0.4 ppm, respectively. The sub-ppm standard deviations for R, T, and L indicate the high accuracy of the two-channel CRD technique for the simultaneous measurements of reflectivity, transmittance and optical loss of HR and AR components. High-resolution mappings of R, T, and L of both HR and AR samples are demonstrated. The simultaneous measurements/mappings of reflectance, transmittance, and optical loss with sub-ppm accuracy are of great importance to the preparation of high-performance laser optics for applications such as gravitational-wave detection and laser gyroscopes.

For the issues that the cropped level of image is detected and the cropped region of image is determined, a new scheme is proposed that is based on SIFT (Scale-invariant feature transform) for the regular clipping operation under the situation of existing original image. Features points of original and testing images are extracted by SIFT algorithm, and the matching are done between the corresponding features points. According to the relative position relations among matching points, the scaling of testing images corresponding to the original can be calculated, and further the cropped region can be determined. The experimental results show that the detection way works well for the regular clipping.

After describing the concept of middleware, this paper discusses the position and value of middleware among modern software technologies, summarizes some kinds of common middleware. This paper also gives some proposals for developing middleware in China.

Optical pump-terahertz (THz) probe spectroscopy is employed to investigate the photo-excited carrier relaxation process and the evolution of terahertz conductivity in ZnSe.With the pump pulse at a wavelength of 400 nm,the carrier relaxation process can be well fitted to a biexponential function.We find that the recombination process in ZnSe occurs through two components,one is the fast carrier recombination process,and the other is the slow recombination process.The fast carrier relaxation time constant is in a range from a few tens of picoseconds to hundreds of picoseconds, and slow carrier relaxation time constant ranges from one to several nanoseconds.We find that both the fast and the slow carrier relaxation time constant increase with the power density of pump beam increasing,which is related to the density of defects in the sample.Upon increasing the excitation power density,the defects are filled by the increased photo-excited carriers,which leads to an increase in the fast carrier relaxation time.While,the slow carrier relaxation time increasing with pump flux can be attributed to the filling of surface state.We also present the THz complex conductivity spectra of ZnSe at different delay times with a pump flux of 240 J/cm2.It is shown that the real part of the conductivity decreases with increasing the pump-probe delay time.The real part of the conductivity is positive and increases with frequency in each of the selective three delay times (2,20,and 100 ps),while the imaginary part is negative and decreases with frequency.The transient conductivity spectra at terahertz frequency in different delay times are fitted with Drude-Smith model.According to the fitting results from Drude-Smith model,with the pump-probe delay time increasing,the average collision time and the value of c1 decrease.Generally,a higher carrier density leads to a more frequent carrier-carrier collision,which means that the collision time should decrease with carrier density increasing. The abnormal carrier density dependence of collision time implies a predominance of backscattering in our ZnSe.The predominance of backscattering is also observed for the negative value of c1.The negative value of c1 indicates that some photocarriers are backscattered in ZnSe.With a delay time of 2 ps,the value of c1 approaches to -1,which indicates that the direct current (DC) conductivity is suppressed,and the maximum conductivity shifts toward higher frequency. With increasing the delay time,the value of c1 decreases:in this case DC conductivity dominates the spectrum.The study of the dynamics of photoinduced carriers in ZnSe provides an important experimental basis for designing and manufacturing the high speed optoelectronic devices.

Systems approaches have great potential for application in predictive ecology. In this paper, we present a range of examples, where systems approaches are being developed and applied at a range of scales in the field of global change and biogeochemical cycling. Systems approaches range from Bayesian calibration techniques at plot scale, through data assimilation methods at regional to continental scales, to multi-disciplinary numerical model applications at country to global scales. We provide examples from a range of studies and show how these approaches are being used to address current topics in global change and biogeochemical research, such as the interaction between carbon and nitrogen cycles, terrestrial carbon feedbacks to climate change and the attribution of observed global changes to various drivers of change. We examine how transferable the methods and techniques might be to other areas of ecosystem science and ecology.

Due to the uncertainty of battlefield environment, the coherence of organizational behavior is often blocked by the conflicting beliefs among team members. Yet there are few conflicts resolving mechanisms embedded in existing models of CGF. Aiming at human behavior representing (HBR) preciseness requested by combat simulation, a negotiation based conflicts resolving method is presented. Distinct from most existing theories, the negotiation behavior among CGF entities is cooperative. In addition, the communication and decision making behaviors of CGF entities are often restrained by the organization frame. Thus, the organization restrained negotiation behavior is preliminarily analyzed. Finally, a simple example is given. The results show that the method is available and efficient.