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This study was conducted to test the main effect of two different types of pandemic cues on consumer preference for anthropomorphic products.

This study was conducted to test the main effect of two different types of pandemic cues on consumer preference for anthropomorphic products.

Purpose. To investigate the efficacy of idiopathic macular pucker (epimacular membrane) surgery and to identify the possible prognostic factor. Methods. This was a retrospective study which enrolled 38 patients with idiopathic macular pucker who underwent 23-gauge pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) with indocyanine green-assisted peeling of epiretinal membrane (ERM) and internal limiting membrane (ILM). Visual outcomes were assessed at the baseline and during the follow-up including best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and metamorphopsia score, as well as outer plexiform layer (OPL) angle and central retinal thickness (CRT) using spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). A comparison was made between patients with the prepeeling CRTs ≥500 μm and those p < 0.001 ; metamorphopsia score was significantly reduced from 1.42 ± 0.16 to 0.61 ± 0.08 p < 0.001 ; CRT was significantly decreased from 519.62 ± 13.41 μm to 385.37 ± 8.97 μm p < 0.001 . Greater prepeeling OPL angle (≥130°) was associated with significantly greater BCVA improvement (Snellen E/LogMAR: p = 0.01 / 0.03 ) and greater metamorphopsia reduction p = 0.03 , as compared to smaller OPL angle ( p > 0.05 ). Endophthalmitis, retinal tear, or retinal detachment was not observed after peeling. Conclusion. Indocyanine green-assisted ERM/ILM peeling combined with small gauge vitrectomy is associated with significant visual acuity improvement and metamorphopsia reduction in patients with idiopathic macular pucker. Greater prepeeling OPL angle rather than CRT might act as a useful prognostic factor in predicting better final visual functional outcomes.

Background Key knowledge gaps remain in the understanding of viral dynamics and immune response of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Methods We evaluated these characteristics and established their association with clinical severity in a prospective observational cohort study of 100 patients with PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection (mean age, 46 years; 56% male; 38% with comorbidities). Respiratory samples (n = 74) were collected for viral culture, serum samples for measurement of IgM/IgG levels (n = 30), and plasma samples for levels of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines (n = 81). Disease severity was correlated with results from viral culture, serologic testing, and immune markers. Results Fifty-seven (57%) patients developed viral pneumonia, of whom 20 (20%) required supplemental oxygen, including 12 (12%) with invasive mechanical ventilation. Viral culture from respiratory samples was positive for 19 of 74 patients (26%). No virus was isolated when the PCR cycle threshold (Ct) value was >30 or >14 days after symptom onset. Seroconversion occurred at a median (IQR) of 12.5 (9–18) days for IgM and 15.0 (12–20) days for IgG; 54/62 patients (87.1%) sampled at day 14 or later seroconverted. Severe infections were associated with earlier seroconversion and higher peak IgM and IgG levels. Levels of IP-10, HGF, IL-6, MCP-1, MIP-1α, IL-12p70, IL-18, VEGF-A, PDGF-BB, and IL-1RA significantly correlated with disease severity. Conclusions We found virus viability was associated with lower PCR Ct value in early illness. A stronger antibody response was associated with disease severity. The overactive proinflammatory immune signatures offer targets for host-directed immunotherapy, which should be evaluated in randomized controlled trials.

Sentence alignment provides multi-lingual or cross-lingual natural language processing (NLP) applications with high-quality parallel sentence pairs. Normally, an aligned sentence pair contains multiple aligned words, which intuitively play different roles during sentence alignment. Inspired by this intuition, we propose to deal with the problem of sentence alignment by exploring the semantic interactionship among fine-grained word pairs within the framework of neural network. In particular, we first employ various relevance measures to capture various kinds of semantic interactions among word pairs by using a word-pair relevance network, and then model their importance by using a multi-view attention network. Experimental results on both monotonic and non-monotonic bitexts show that our proposed approach significantly improves the performance of sentence alignment.

Aim To evaluate the intraocular pressure (IOP)-lowering efficacy and safety of tafluprost 0.0015% eye drops [benzalkonium chloride (BAK) 0.1 mg/mL] compared with that of latanoprost 0.005% eye drops (BAK 0.2 mg/mL) for primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) and ocular hypertension (OHT). Methods All the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about treating POAG and OHT comparing tafluprost and latanoprost were collected by searching PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, CNKI and VIP. The outcomes of interest to evaluate the clinical efficacy and adverse effects included IOP and patient-related drop discomfort. Results Five RCTs involving 888 glaucoma patients were included. The results showed that, 1) at the end of the study, no statistically significant differences were observed in IOP reduction [standard mean difference (SMD) =0.48, 95%CI 0.07 to 0.88, P=0.085] between tafluprost and latanoprost; 2) No statistically significant differences were observed in adverse events of foreign-body sensation [relative risk (RR) =0.62, 95%CI 0.26 to 1.46, P=0.269], eye irritation (RR=1.16, 95%CI 0.49 to 2.75, P=0.744), eye pain (RR=2.000, 95%CI 0.949 to 4.216, P=0.07), iris hyper-pigmentation (RR=0.741, 95%CI 0.235 to 2.334, P=0.61), dry eye (RR=1.154, 95%CI 0.409 to 3.256, P=0.79) and eye pruritus (RR=1.600, 95%CI 0.536 to 4.774, P=0.4) between tafluprost and latanoprost. However, tafluprost showed more reported incidence of conjunctival hyperaemia than latanoprost (RR=2.11, 95%CI 1.24 to 3.59, P=0.006). Conclusion Tafluprost 0.0015% eye drops (BAK 0.1 mg/mL) and latanoprost 0.005% eye drops (BAK 0.2 mg/mL) are comparable in lowering IOP for open angle glaucoma (OAG) and OHT. It does not differ in the incidence of foreign-body sensation, eye irritation, eye pain, iris hyper-pigmentation, dry eye and eye pruritus, but tafluprost shows less ocular tolerability because of more incidence of conjunctival hyperaemia.

Single-mode lasing for small size semiconductor laser is significantly important in the on-chip optical signal processing, data storage, and dense optical integrated systems. This paper presents new, to the best of our knowledge, single-mode quantum well microlasers by distributing periodical strain along the longitudinal laser cavity. The quantum transmission line modeling (Q-TLM) method is employed to establish the model for strained microlasers. The dynamic output of quantum well microlasers with longitudinal periodical strain (LPS) distribution is analyzed in the time and frequency domains, and it is found that the introduction of LPS significantly improves the single-mode output of quantum well microlasers by increasing the side mode suppression ratio (SMSR) from 8.44 to 28.29 dB. The study results confirm that well-controlled periodical strain along the longitudinal laser cavity provides an alternative routine for realizing single-mode lasing by strain engineering.

Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR) is an increasingly popular voltage compensator mainly used for mitigating voltage sags through the series-connected transformer that connects electric distribution system and AC sub-system or load. The high response speed required for voltage compensation makes DC magnetic bias and magnetic saturation apt to occur when series-connected transformer in DVR outputs voltages, which may cause the waveform distortion of output offset voltages, or even worse, the failure to compensate. In consequence, observations and suppression of transformer magnetic saturation and magnetizing inrush current are imperative during voltage compensation. To realize that purpose, this paper proposes a method by which the flux linkage of the transformer that is regarded as a state variable can be directly controlled, and then verifies it through co-simulation by using the software Ansys Simplorer, Matlab and Ansys Maxwell from three parts.

Sentence alignment is a basic task in natural language processing which aims to extract high-quality parallel sentences automatically. Motivated by the observation that aligned sentence pairs contain a larger number of aligned words than unaligned ones, we treat word translation as one of the most useful external knowledge. In this paper, we show how to explicitly integrate word translation into neural sentence alignment. Specifically, this paper proposes three cross-lingual encoders to incorporate word translation: 1) Mixed Encoder that learns words and their translation annotation vectors over sequences where words and their translations are mixed alternatively; 2) Factored Encoder that views word translations as features and encodes words and their translations by concatenating their embeddings; and 3) Gated Encoder that uses gate mechanism to selectively control the amount of word translations moving forward. Experimentation on NIST MT and Opensubtitles Chinese-English datasets on both non-monotonicity and monotonicity scenarios demonstrates that all the proposed encoders significantly improve sentence alignment performance.

Background SD-OCT is becoming commonplace in everyday practice. Vitreomacular adhesions (VMAs) are being more routinely diagnosed. Predictive studies to the natural course of VMA are thus clinically significant. Spectral domain-optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) was presently utilized to analyze the incidence of floaters, the complete vitreomacular separation or VMA, the VMA complication, the vitreomacular angle (VMAng), and the complication mechanism. Methods Monthly SD-OCT was performed on patients with/without symptomatic floaters. OCT allowed VMA and vitreomacular separation to be compared. The incidence was assessed applying one-tailed Fisher’s exact tests. The VMAngs between the inner retina and posterior hyaloid were measured, and the complication mechanism was studied using OCT image. For macular hole (MH), pre- and/or post-operative best corrected visual acuities (BCVAs; LogMAR), refractions and photoreceptor conditions were also evaluated. Results Totally, 124 eyes were included; there were 116 eyes with VMA and 8 eyes with vitreomacular separation. Considering the percentages over 124 eyes, floaters were present in 14.5% of enrolled eyes (=18/124), consisting of 12.9% of eyes with VMA (16/124) and 1.6% of eyes with vitreomacular separation (2/124). Moreover, there were twelve eyes (9.7%) with VMA-associated vision-threatening complications, including MH (n = 8; 6.5%), retinal detachment (RD; n = 2; 1.6%), vitreomacular traction (VMT; n = 1; 0.8%) and macular pucker (MP; n = 1; 0.8%). Eyes with initial VMA had a significantly greater possibility of complications than eyes with initial vitreomacular separation (p = 0.03). Among these eyes with MH (n = 8), the pre-operative BCVA (LogMAR) was 1.1 ± 0.5, which was insignificantly (p = 0.35) improved to 0.8 ± 0.7 post-operatively. The VMAng of VMA eyes with MHs was 24.2 ± 24.9° (n = 8). The critical VMAng was 13.3°. Conclusions A minority of eyes with VMA or vitreomacular separation had floaters. Moreover, the use of SD-OCT could identify vision-threatening sequelae, namely MH, RD, MP and VMT, and this was significantly more frequent in eyes with VMA than in eyes with complete vitreomacular separation. Therefore, SD-OCT might be a useful way of identifying either identity, and evaluating VMA-associated complications. Whether VMA eyes with MH (n = 8) that have a VMAng greater than critical VMAng have a greater likelihood of tangential traction and subsequent MH needs further investigation.

Febrile neutropenia (FN) is associated with substantial morbidity and necessitates empirical broad-spectrum antimicrobial treatment. In this prospective cohort study, a risk-guided management strategy for FN using empirical piperacillin/tazobactam (TZP) or a carbapenem was evaluated. The analysis involved 723 FN episodes in hospitalised adult patients, including those with severe sepsis or prior infection/colonisation with extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Enterobacteriaceae. Propensity score matching analysis was used to adjust for baseline differences between treatment groups and produced 267 matched pairs. The primary outcome was all-cause mortality. Secondary outcomes were the incidences of drug-resistant Gram-negative (including ESBL-producing) and Gram-positive bacterial isolates and of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) and their associated mortality. There was no difference in mortality between empirical carbapenem and TZP [18/267 (6.7%) vs. 14/267 (5.2%); P = 0.466]. Higher incidences of drug-resistant Gram-negative isolates [77/267 (28.8%) vs. 26/267 (9.7%); P0.001], including ESBL-producing bacteria [57/267 (21.3%) vs. 16/267 (6.0%); P0.001], were observed in carbapenem-treated episodes where its use lowered mortality. Mortality rates for ESBL-positive infections were 5.3% (3/57) and 25.0% (4/16) (P = 0.037) and for drug-resistant Gram-negative infections were 6.5% (5/77) and 23.1% (6/26) (P = 0.018) in carbapenem- and TZP-treated episodes, respectively. More IPA was observed with carbapenem use [16/267 (6.0%) vs. 6/267 (2.2%); P = 0.029]. Antifungal prophylaxis reduced the risk of death (odds ratio = 0.39, 95% confidence interval 0.17-0.87; P = 0.017). Risk-guided carbapenem prescribing in FN correctly identified cases prone to drug-resistant Gram-negative infections and reduced the mortality in these episodes.

The 21st century is an era of globalization with rapid development of information technology and there are more and more close exchanges among countries. Under this background, the importance of translation is self-evident, and MTI (Master of Translation and Interpreting) teaching, which is closely related to it, has also attracted increasing attention. On the whole, after over ten years of development, translation teaching in China has begun to take shape. Both major foreign language colleges and foreign language departments of various comprehensive colleges have set up corresponding translation courses. But at present, the teaching effect of MTI is far from satisfaction. Based on the translation quality assessment model of Malcolm Williams, the necessity and possibility of the application of the translation quality assessment model in MTI teaching is explored, and the concept of the application of the translation quality assessment model in the classroom is put forward, aiming to establish an objective and effective evaluation system in MTI teaching so as to further promote the development of MTI teaching.

In this work, we achieve high count-rate single-photon output in single-mode (SM) optical fiber. Epitaxial and dilute InAs/GaAs quantum dots (QDs) are embedded in a GaAs/AlGaAs distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) with a micro-pillar cavity, so as to improve their light emission extraction in the vertical direction, thereby enhancing the optical SM fiber’s collection capability (numerical aperture: 0.13). By tuning the temperature precisely to make the quantum dot exciton emission resonant to the micro-pillar cavity mode (Q ~ 1800), we achieve a fiber-output single-photon count rate as high as 4.73 × 106 counts per second, with the second-order auto-correlation g 2(0) remaining at 0.08.

Aim To investigate the effect of albuminuria on diabetic macular edema (DME) and the possible association between baseline urinary albumin excretion (UAE) and intravitreal conbercept (IVC) treatment frequency in DME patients. Methods In this hospital-based retrospective study, a total of 350 in-patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus were recruited and their clinical records were reviewed. Thereafter, 52 patients identified with severe non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) combined with albuminuria were divided into the microalbuminuria (UAE 30-300 mg/24h) and macroalbuminuria (UAE>300 mg/24h) groups, which were compared and analyzed by both independent sample t-test and Chi-square test. Correlations between the systemic variables and the central foveal thickness (CFT) were evaluated using Spearman's correlation and linear regression analyses. Of the 52 patients with center-involved DME, 43 received an initial combined injection of conbercept (0.5 mg/0.05 mL) and triamcinolone acetonide (1 mg/0.05 mL), followed by an IVC injection, as needed. The relationship between baseline UAE and number of IVC injections during the first year of treatment was analyzed using Spearman's partial correlation. Results Of 350 patients, a higher incidence of DME was observed in severe non-proliferative retinopathy (NPDR) patients than that observed in other groups. By dividing the 52 patients with severe NPDR into the micro- and macro-albuminuria subgroups, significant differences in CFT, systolic blood pressure, total cholesterol and serum creatinine levels, and UAE were revealed. Furthermore, a positive liner correlation between the UAE and CFT was found. Finally, the partial correlation coefficient adjusted for either the CFT or UAE indicated that both parameters directly correlated with the number of IVC injections administered during the 12mo of follow-up. Conclusion Generally, macular edema occurred in patients with severe NPDR, for whom the UAE is an independent risk predictor of DME. The baseline UAE and CFT predicted the treatment frequency of IVC injections administered in the first year for eyes with DME.

Graphene is a kind of material formed by Sp2 hybridization of carbon atoms, which has been widely used in various scientific research fields in recent years. In this paper, the mechanism of electromagnetic shielding on fabrics and the recent development of resistance type electromagnetic shielding materials are introduced. The effects of graphene and metal particle composites, graphene and high conductivity polymer composites, carbon nanotubes and high conductivity polymer composites on fabrics are briefly described. The optimization of electromagnetic shielding effectiveness and the future development of shielding materials is prospected.

With the development of face detection technology in identity authentication system, human face detection technology is becoming more and more important. It is very easy to use photographs and videos and other ways to get fake face to attack the identity authentication system. This paper designs a method on judging the authenticity of faces based on the texture feature difference between real face images and deception photos. The system is constructed by VC++ and OpenCV, mainly composed of image reading, face and facial features detection, image block feature extraction and classification of the support vector machine. In this paper, sparse support vector machine is used to train and classify data, and the application of sparse support vector machine in liveness detection is the innovation point of this paper. The results of experiments on a specific database show that it has good performance in terms of accuracy and speed.

The device characteristics of semiconductor quantum dot lasers have been improved with progress in active layer structures. Self-assembly formed InAs quantum dots grown on GaAs had been intensively promoted in order to achieve quantum dot lasers with superior device performances. In the process of growing high-density InAs/GaAs quantum dots, bimodal size occurs due to large mismatch and other factors. The bimodal size in the InAs/GaAs quantum dot system is eliminated by the method of high-temperature annealing and optimized the in situ annealing temperature. The annealing temperature is taken as the key optimization parameters, and the optimal annealing temperature of 680 °C was obtained. In this process, quantum dot growth temperature, InAs deposition, and arsenic (As) pressure are optimized to improve quantum dot quality and emission wavelength. A 1.3-μm high-performance F-P quantum dot laser with a threshold current density of 110 A/cm2 was demonstrated.

The panoramic images are widely used in many applications. Saliency detection is an important task for panoramic image processing. Traditional saliency detection algorithms that are originally designed for conventional flat-2D images are not efficient for panoramic images due to their particular viewing way. Based on this consideration, we propose a novel saliency detection algorithm for panoramic images by fusing visual frequency feature and viewing behavior pattern. By extracting the spatial frequency information in viewport domain and computing the center-surround contrast of them for the whole panoramic image, the visual frequency feature for saliency detection is accurately obtained. Further more, the context of user’s viewing behavior is integrated with visual frequency feature to generate the final saliency map. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is superior to the state-of-the-art algorithms when Pearson Correlation Coefficient (CC) is used as the evaluation metric.

In this paper, gesture recognition is being research which focuses on the key steps - gesture feature extraction. Also, designed and implemented a gesture feature extraction algorithm in a complex environment. The experimental test proved that the feature extraction algorithm has better real - time performance and higher recognition rate, which achieve the desired objectives.

To optimize the supply and exhaust stroke of electro-pneumatic changeover valve (EP valve), a basic structure of proportional solenoid which used in the EP valve is designed, and a computational model of proportional solenoid and EP valve simulation model are established based on the AMESim. Then the electric magnetic characteristic curves of proportional electromagnetic valve and EP valve output side air pressure curves of different supply and exhaust stroke are obtained by simulations. Through the analysis of the simulation results to optimize the supply and exhaust stroke of the EP valve.

To analyze the variation of electromagnetic field distribution, a mathematical model of the eddy current brake (ECB) is established and the two-dimensional simulation and three-dimensional simulation are comparatively analyzed. Then the curves of the braking torque of the ECB at different speeds are obtained by the simulations. The characteristics of two-dimensional and three-dimensional simulation of the electromagnetic field of the ECB are summarized by contrasted comparative curves between simulation date and test date. The analysis is helpful to optimizing the application of electromagnetism by using software.

The UV atmospheric transmission theory and the non-line of sight single scattering channel model were introduced.According to the model,the transmission loss caused by atmospheric channel under different structure design was quantitatively analyzed.Attenuation was quantitatively simulated under different atmospheres,communication patterns and structure parameters.Experimental results show that attenuation increases with increasing transmission distance;under different visibility,attenuation increasing different,and the higher visibility,the less attenuation,the far transmission distance;transmission distance increases with decreasing launching elevation and receiving elevation,and influence degree of launching elevation is more series than receiving elevation;transmission distance increases with increasing beam divergence angle and decreasing field angle,and influence degree of field angle is more series than beam divergence angle.

The non-line of sight single scattering channel model and its solution in ellipsoidal coordinates are introduced.According to vertical transmitter-receiver model,the influence of atmospheric channel on ultraviolet communication system is analyzed.Under different weather conditions and different communication distances,the transmission loss,time-delay and pulse broaden etc.caused by atmospheric channel are quantificationally analyzed and simulated.The simulation results show that:the curve of energy attenuation with visibility dependence has inflection point that the better weather and the higher visibility do not result in greater system receiving energy;when the visibility equals to 18 km,the minimum of energy attenuation occurs;energy attenuation nonlinearly increases with the increase of communication distance,and the energy attenuation is almost 100 dB when the communication distance equals to 1 km;with the increase of the communication distance,both time delay and pulse broaden approximately linearly increase;the time delay is close to 5 μs and pulse broaden is greater than 10 μs when the communication distance equals to 1 km.

Nanocrystalline MoO3 thin films are prepared by electron beam evaporation technique. By using the dry MoO3 pellets, the films are deposited on quartz substrates at substrate temperatures ranging from 100 °C to 400 °C. A phase structure of β-MoO3 at the substrate temperature 200 °C is characterized by X-ray diffraction, but α-MoO3 comes forth at 300 °C and 400 °C. The surface morphology, cross section view and plate form nanostructures have been illustrated from the scanning electron microscope images. The absorption spectra of films show that the energy band E g decreases with the increasing substrate temperature, due to the increase in oxygen vacancy. The resistances of thin films prepared at various substrate temperatures gradually decrease with the increasing environmental temperatures.

Mining frequent sequences in large databases has been an important research topic. The main challenge of mining frequent sequences is the high processing cost due to the large amount of data. In this paper, we propose a novel strategy to find all the frequent sequences without having to compute the support counts of non-frequent sequences. The previous works prune candidate sequences based on the frequent sequences with shorter lengths, while our strategy prunes candidate sequences according to the non-frequent sequences with the same lengths. As a result, our strategy can cooperate with the previous works to achieve a better performance. We then identify three major strategies used in the previous works and combine them with our strategy into an efficient algorithm. The novelty of our algorithm lies in its ability to dynamically switch from a previous strategy to our new strategy in the mining process for a better performance. Experiment results show that our algorithm outperforms the previous ones under various parameter settings.

Now the advanced visual simulation system is usually equipped with the large-wide projection or multi-projection display system, and several graphic workstations to achieve the real-time rendering task for multiple channels, which can provide the large field of view for user and bring the immersive feeling with the interactive devices' supporting. This paper presented a novel multi-channel visual simulation system with on one single PC, analyzed the system architecture of multi-channel visual simulation and the process of visual generation, studied the technology bottlenecks and the key factors of visual simulation expanding from single to multi-channel, and presented a visual simulation expanding scheme based on graphics card programming. The experimental results verified that this scheme has a more flexible and scalable architecture, a close or even better performance compared to distributed simulation system based on PC cluster, and easier to expand and upgrade, the system cost will be cut down. 1

Target association is a crucial technique in information fusion of underwater platform and its weapon sensors, which can generate a more clear situation picture. In this paper, DEMON spectrum analysis was used for target association of two platforms to improve the association performance. Based on the computation of the similarity of DEMON spectrum, an improved cross-correlation method was introduced for spectrum association and the comparision of it with two classical methods was conducted. The simulation results using sea recorded data show that the correlation-based methods can realize the right association between the same targets and have potential application in practical system.

Background Subjects of Chinese heritage have been found to participate in clinical research at lower rates than other groups despite growing in numbers as a population. While much research has examined research participants' motivation, there has not been a comprehensive synthesis of this information with respect to participants of Chinese descent. We sought to identify the factors that promote and hinder participation in clinical research among participants of Chinese heritage. Methodology/Principal Findings We conducted a systematic review of the literature in Pubmed, OpenJGATE, SCIRUS, and COCHRANE databases and performed a meta-synthesis of retrieved articles. We extracted qualitative data, such as quotes to identify emerging themes. We identified five studies that met our selection criteria. Of them, only one (1/5) was conducted in China while other studies involved Chinese emigrants in USA (3/5) and Singapore (1/5). Participants from China were similar to emigrants with regard to factors that either promoted or decreased research participation. Four studies reported data exclusively on Chinese subjects. Three of the five studies involved qualitative interviews while the others were conducted using a survey design. Six themes favoring research participation were identified: Personal Benefit to Participants, Financial Incentives, Participant Sense of Altruism, Family or Physician Recommendations, Advertisements, and Convenience to the Participant. Five factors were seen as a barrier to participation in clinical trials: Mistrust of Researchers, Language Barrier, Lack of Financial and Other Support, Cultural and Social Barriers, Lack of Knowledge about Clinical Trials. Conclusions/Significance Chinese heritage clinical research participants value personal benefit, financial incentives, the ability to help others, recommendations of others, advertisements, and convenience when considering clinical research participation. In addition, the establishment of trust and addressing knowledge deficits are important factors to them. Investigators seeking to optimize enrolment in these populations should incorporate these findings into their study design and subject handouts.

A polarization-insensitive semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) with a very thin active tensile-strained InGaAs bulk has been fabricated. The polarization sensitivity of the amplifier gain is less than 1 dB over both the entire range of driving current and the 3 dB optical bandwidth of more than 80 nm. For optical signals of 1550 nm wavelength, the SOA exhibits a high saturation output power +7.6 dBm together with a low noise figure of 7.5 dB, fibre-to-fibre gain of 11.5 dB, and low polarization sensitivity of 0.5 dB. Additionally, at the gain peak 1520 nm, the fibre-to-fibre gain is measured to be 14.1 dB.

Detecting and interception Ultraviolet light scattering communication is not easy, it is applicable for various short anti-jamming communication the environment, which can meet tactical communication requirements. In this paper, the current situation of the development of the ultraviolet light scattering communication is described, explore ultraviolet light scattering technology to realize atmospheric optical communication. Put forward atmospheric optical communication technology based on the principle of ultraviolet light scattering, and introduce the principle of ultraviolet light scattering communication, the research can be applied to the free space optical communication of ultraviolet light scattering communication method. The results of the study show that: Choose wavelength for 254 nm, energy for the low-pressure mercury lamp for 20 W ultraviolet light transmission, it is suitable for 1 km within the scattering communication in vertical launch, vertical receiving work mode.

This paper analyses the business process of books purchasing and bidding, studying the criteria for the structure, content and weight, advancing the AHP method to optimize indicators evaluation system, improving the evaluation mechanism of bidding process, which make the bidding process more scientific, fair, and form a highly efficient pattern of books purchasing.

To analyze the mechanism of the high-speed train eddy current braking device and optimize the design, established the basic structural model and derived the braking force equation. The magnetic circuit of it was analyzed by the analysis method and the finite element method (FEM). Mainly analyzed the influence of the air gap and the thickness of the turntable on the eddy current brake (ECB) electromagnetic field and the braking force, and the corresponding braking performance curve was obtained. There is some directive significance on the selection and optimization of the structural parameters of the eddy current braking device.

In this report, an OTA which is used in fully differential pipelined ADC was described. Using gain-boost architecture with current-mode single-ended amplifier, this OTA reduce parasitic taking by gain-boost amplifier to achieve high-gain and high-speed. Besides, a dual phase SC-CMFB circuit is introduced, and some methods are concerned to improve the performance. Then, by optimization the layout design, OTA's mismatch was reduced. This design was using SMIC 0.35um CMOS process and simulation both schematic and layout in Cadence. The result of the simulation shows that the OTA has a gain up to 105dB, a unity gain bandwidth of about 937MHz for a 2pF load, a settling time of about 4.4ns, a Common-Mode Range is 0.6V∼3.3V, a output swing is 0.6V∼3.1V, with the power supply of 3.3V, the dissipation is 39mW. This amplifier was used in a 10bit 100MHz pipelined ADC.

We calculate the structure of photonic crystal waveguide with a line defect by the plane wave expansion method, and analyze effects on the dispersion character and the group velocity of changes of the filling factor.

Background: The prospective surveillance programs on patients with liver diseases based on repeat ultrasound examinations of liver and serum α-fetoprotein (AFP) detection were reported having the probability of finding hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) at its early stage, but it is time-consuming and not cost-effective. To improve the effectiveness and cost-effective of HCC surveillance program, close monitoring has been focused on patients with liver cirrhosis who have particularly high risk of HCC development. It has been found that high liver cell proliferation is a reliable predictor of HCC development, and survivin is a new gene with the role of suppressing apoptosis which has been studied mostly over the past few years. This study aimed to evaluate the usefulness of proliferation cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) and survivin detection in the process of screening cirrhotic patients with high risk of HCC development. Methods: Total RNA was extracted from fresh specimens of HCC and liver cirrhosis. Survivin mRNA amplification was performed by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Immunostaining for PCNA was employed to assess liver cell proliferation activity in formalin-fixed, paraffin embedded liver specimens. Five liver specimens obtained from patients operated for hemangioma were used as normal control. The PCNA labeling index was determined as the mean value of positive cells in ten different microscopic fields. Results: RT-PCR was performed in 17 HCC and 10 liver cirrhosis specimens, 11 HCC specimens showed 344bps molecular survivin DNA band in 1% agarose electrophoresis, but none of liver cirrhosis specimens showed positive band. The survivin positive rate in HCC specimens was 64.7% (11/17); The PCNA labeling index was 2.38 ± 2.11 in 30 liver cirrhosis specimens, while 10.08 ± 12.28 in 30 HCC specimens, the latter was significantly higher than the former, P = 0.003. The median PCNA labeling index of 11 survivin positive HCC specimens was 6.8 (from 0.5 to 40), which is significantly higher than that of 6 survivin negative HCC specimens (2.15). Conclusions: Survivin expressed in HCC tissues but not in liver cirrhosis tissues, this phenomenon indicates that the gene expression may occur at the late phase of liver cell cancer transformation. Compared with survivin detection, the PCNA detection on liver cells of cirrhosis patients is better to differentiate high-risk HCC transformation among liver cirrhosis patients.

This work focuses on the integration of CGI, AJAX and SVG technologies into the B/P/S architecture for monitoring the distributed and embedded Linux system. The traditional monitoring technologies and architectures do not sufficiently satisfy either the transparency of the distributed or the resource limitation of the embedded at the same time, but these two aspects are basic for distributed and embedded system. This paper describes the design decisions on integrating CGI, AJAX and SVG into the B/P/S architecture, analyzes the shortcoming of the traditional monitoring methods, introduces a sample implementation and points out some potential application domains and ideas for future development.

Designing energy-efficient routing protocols to effectively increase the networks' lifetime and provide the robust network service is one of the important problems in the research of wireless sensor networks. Using the hyper-graph theory, the paper represents large-scale wireless sensor networks into a hyper-graph model, which can effectively decrease the control messages in routing process. Based on this mathematic model, the paper presents the minimum spanning hyper-tree routing algorithm in synchronous wireless sensor networks (MSHT-SN), which builds a minimum energy consumption tree for data collection from multi-nodes to Sink node. The validity of the algorithm is proved by the theatrical analysis. Finally, the simulation is proposed to prove the MSHT-SN algorithm is right and effective. It can increase the transmitting success rate and effectively save the scarce energy.

Mining frequent itemsets has been widely studied over the last decade. Past research focuses on mining frequent itemsets from static databases. In many of the new applications, data flow through the Internet or sensor networks. It is challenging to extend the mining techniques to such a dynamic environment. The main challenges include a quick response to the continuous request, a compact summary of the data stream, and a mechanism that adapts to the limited resources. In this paper, we develop a novel approach for mining frequent itemsets from data streams based on a time-sensitive sliding window model. Our approach consists of a storage structure that captures all possible frequent itemsets and a table providing approximate counts of the expired data items, whose size can be adjusted by the available storage space. Experiment results show that in our approach both the execution time and the storage space remain small under various parameter settings. In addition, our approach guarantees no false alarm or no false dismissal to the results yielded.