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In this letter, we study the robust beamforming design for the reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS)-assisted communication systems from a multi-antenna access point (AP) to a single-antenna user under imperfect channel state information (CSI), where the RIS has only a finite number of phase shifts at each element. In particular, considering the cascaded AP-RIS-user channel estimation error, we aim to jointly optimize the transmit beamforming at the AP and discrete phase shifts of RIS to minimize the transmission power of AP, subject to a signal-to-noise ratio constraint at the user. To tackle the non-convex optimization problem, we decouple it into two subproblems and propose a novel alternative optimization framework. More specifically, the robust beamforming of AP is first obtained through S-Procedure and semidefinite relaxation. Then we recast the discrete phase shift constraint at RIS into an equivalent convex one, and propose an efficient algorithm to obtain near optimal solution. Finally, the two-subproblems are iteratively optimized to obtain the joint robust beamforming. Simulation results show that the proposed scheme can approach the performance of the perfect CSI counterpart, and substantially outperforms traditional non-robust methods.

Maoti Wei,1,&ast; Li Dong,2,&ast; Fenghua Wang,1 Kai Cui,3 Delong Ma,2 Ning Yang,4 Yuming Li4 1Center of Clinical Epidemiology, TEDA International Cardiovascular Hospital, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Pediatrics, Center Hospital of Beikuo Town, Rizhao City, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Disease Prevention and Control, Hospital of Gaoxing Town, Rizhao City, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Hypertension, TEDA International Cardiovascular Hospital, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Ning Yang; Yuming Li Email yangningzxdl@sina.com; cardiolab@live.comObjective: To understand the prevalence and control of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) in a rural area, a cross-sectional study was carried out.Methods: Blood glucose was determined in residents over 60 years during the National Basic Public Health Service project carrying on in a rural town of Shandong province. Combined with detail information of diabetic history, the prevalence rate of this disease was calculated with a cutoff of more than 7.0 mmol/L of fasting plasma glucose (FPG). Furthermore, according to FPG levels, the control rate of diabetes was evaluated. Basic information and clinical laboratory tests were analyzed with proper methods for univariate analysis. Multivariable logistic analysis was used to explore multiple variables associated with the control effect of T2DM.Results: The prevalence rate of T2DM was 13.5% (95% CI 12.4%∼ 14.7%) without age difference in residents over 60-year old (X2= 1.078, P = 0.898). And the rate was higher in the female (16.1%, 95% CI 14.4%∼ 17.8%) than that in the male (11.3%, 95% CI 9.7%∼ 12.9%). The control rate of diabetes was 44.5% (95% CI 39.4– 49.6%, cutoff < 6.1 mmol/L for FPG) and 59.6% (95% CI 54.5– 64.6%, cutoff < 7.0 mmol/L for FPG), respectively. Most T2DM residents had balance foods, and a high proportion of drugs or insulin were used; however, the proportion of keeping exercise and modifying behaviors was low. Nearly 80% of the diabetic individuals used at least one drug or insulin. However, the more drugs or insulin used, the higher the FPG level was.Conclusion: A relative high level of T2DM prevailed in the rural area under fast economy-transforming. T2DM was controlled poor and measures should be further optimized to achieve ideal effect, especially for the use of anti-diabetic drugs.Keywords: rural area, type 2 diabetes mellitus, the control of diabetes

Individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are clinically heterogeneous, with different risks of progression to Alzheimer’s disease. Regular follow-up and examination may be time-consuming and costly, especially for MRI and PET. Therefore, it is necessary to identify a more precise MRI population. In this study, a two-stage screening frame was proposed for evaluating the predictive utility of additional MRI measurements among high-risk MCI subjects. In the first stage, the K-means cluster was performed for trajectory-template based on two clinical assessments. In the second stage, high-risk individuals were filtered out and imputed into prognosis models with varying strategies. As a result, the ADAS-13 was more sensitive for filtering out high-risk individuals among patients with MCI. The optimal model included a change rate of clinical assessments and three neuroimaging measurements and was significantly associated with a net reclassification improvement (NRI) of 0.246 (95% CI 0.021, 0.848) and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI) of 0.090 (95% CI − 0.062, 0.170). The ADAS-13 longitudinal models had the best discrimination performance (Optimism-corrected concordance index = 0.830), as validated by the bootstrap method. Considering the limited medical and financial resources, our findings recommend follow-up MRI examination 1 year after identification for high-risk individuals, while regular clinical assessments for low-risk individuals.

Background Atrial fibrillation (AF) and stable coronary artery disease (SCAD) frequently coexist. Hypothesis To investigate the prognosis of catheter ablation versus drug therapy in patients with AF and SCAD. Methods In total, 25 512 patients with AF in the Chinese AF Registry between 2011 and 2019 were screened for SCAD. 815 patients with AF and SCAD underwent catheter ablation therapy were matched with patients by drug therapy in a 1:1 ratio. Primary end point was composite of thromboembolism, coronary events, major bleeding, and all‐cause death. The secondary endpoints were each component of the primary endpoint and AF recurrence. Results Over a median follow‐up of 45 ± 23 months, the patients in the catheter ablation group had a higher AF recurrence‐free rate (53.50% vs. 18.41%, p

OBJECTIVE. Pulmonary intravascular metastasis is a special type of pulmonary metastasis of malignancies; however, few relevant studies have been performed. This study aimed to determine the characteristics of pulmonary intravascular metastasis and improve understanding of the disease by retrospective analysis of FDG PET/CT and thin-layer high-resolution CT (HRCT) imaging of the chest in patients with tumors. MATERIALS AND METHODS. We identified all patients who underwent FDG PET/CT at two hospitals between January 2016 and February 2019 and conducted a comparative analysis of HRCT and PET/CT images. In total, 84 patients (38 women and 46 men) ranging in age from 35 to 82 years old (mean age, 54.7 ± 14.5 [SD] years) participated in the study. Patient characteristics were summarized, and diagnosis was confirmed by chest CT or PET/CT follow-up. RESULTS. A total of 260 pulmonary intravascular metastases were found, which were classified as type I (no significant abnormality, n = 5), type II (abrupt and uneven thickening of the pulmonary vessel, n = 118), type III (simultaneous invasion of adjacent pulmonary vessel, n = 121), and type IV (large strip-shaped high-density mass, n = 16). The majority were located in peripheral pulmonary vessels (94.2% [245/260]). FDG up-take was increased in 252 lesions, and the mean SUVmax was 4.6 ± 2.5. CONCLUSION. The combination of PET/CT and chest HRCT is an effective approach for detecting pulmonary intravascular metastasis. The linear pattern of FDG uptake, abnormal pulmonary blood vessel morphology, and location (below the lung segment) are specific indicators for the diagnosis of pulmonary intravascular metastasis and should be recognized by clinicians and radiologists.

Image restoration is a critical component of image processing pipelines and for low-level computer vision tasks. Conventional image restoration approaches are mostly based on hand-crafted image priors. The inter-channel correlation of color images is not fully exploited. Motivated by the special characteristics of the inter-channel correlation (higher correlation for red/green and green/blue channels than for red/blue) in color images and general characteristics (green channel always shows the best image quality among the three color components) of distorted color images, in this paper, a three-stage convolutional neural network (CNN) structure is proposed for color image restoration tasks. Since the green channel is found to have the best quality among all three channels, in the first stage, the network is designed to reconstruct the green component. Then, with the guidance of the reconstructed green channel from the first stage, the red and blue channels are reconstructed in the second stage with two parallel networks. Finally, the intermediate reconstructions from the previous stages are concatenated and further refined jointly. We demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed three-stage structure with three typical color image restoration tasks: color image demosaicking, color compression artifacts reduction, and real-world color image denoising. In addition, we integrate pixel-shuffle convolution into our scheme to improve the efficiency, and also introduce a quality-blind training strategy to simplify the training process for the compression artifacts reduction task. Extensive experimental results and analyses show that the proposed structure successfully exploits the spatial and inter-channel correlation of color images and outperforms the state-of-the-art image reconstruction approaches.

We demonstrate the formation of Ta2O5 nanodimple arrays on technologically relevant non-native substrates through a simple anodization and annealing process. The anodizing voltage determines the pore diameter (25-60 nm), pore depth (2-9 nm), and rate of anodization (1-2 nm/s of Ta consumed). The formation of Ta dimples after delamination of Ta2O5 nanotubes occurs within a range of voltages from 7 to 40 V. The conversion of dimples from Ta into Ta2O5 changes the morphology of the nanodimples but does not impact dimple ordering. Electron energy loss spectroscopy indicated an electronic band gap of 4.5 eV and a bulk plasmon band with a maximum of 21.5 eV. Gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) were coated on Ta2O5 nanodimple arrays by annealing sputtered Au thin films on Ta nanodimple arrays to simultaneously form Au NPs and convert Ta to Ta2O5. Au NPs produced this way showed a localized surface plasmon resonance maximum at 2.08 eV, red-shifted by ∼0.3 eV from the value in air or on SiO2 substrates. Lumerical simulations suggest a partial embedding of the Au NPs to explain this magnitude of the red shift. The resulting plasmonic heterojunctions exhibited a significantly higher ensemble-averaged local field enhancement than Au NPs on quartz substrates and demonstrated much higher catalytic activity for the plasmon-driven photo-oxidation of p-aminothiophenol to p,p'-dimercaptoazobenzene.

Background: To introduce and determine the value of optimized strategies for the management of urological tube-related emergencies with increased incidence, complexity and operational risk during the global spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Methods: All emergent urological patients at Tongji Hospital, Wuhan, during the period of January 23 (the beginning of lockdown in Wuhan) to March 23, 2020, and the corresponding period in 2019 were recruited to form this study’s COVID-19 group and control group, respectively Tongji Hospital has the most concentrated and strongest Chinese medical teams to treat the largest number of severe COVID-19 patients Patients in the control group were routinely treated, while patients in the COVID-19 group were managed following the optimized principles and strategies The case incidence for each type of tube-related emergency was recorded Baseline characteristics and management outcomes (surgery time, secondary complex operation rate, readmission rate, COVID-19 infection rate) were analyzed and compared across the control and COVID-19 periods Results: The total emergent urological patients during the COVID-19 period was 42, whereas during the control period, it was 124 The incidence of tube-related emergencies increased from 53% to 88% (P

The advent of the Internet has brought great changes in media use, yet little is known about how media use has changed in China and what leads to the overall media-use changes. Using three waves of...

Hybrid lead halide perovskites fabricated via solution processing have been regarded as a promising candidate for next-generation optoelectronic devices owing to their outstanding optoelectronic pr...

This study aimed to verify the reliability of ablation index (AI) for ablation lesion estimating with different settings for radiofrequency (RF) parameters: power, impedance, contact angles, irrigation rate, temperature of irrigation saline, and irrigation solution. RF ablations (N = 66) were performed on ex vivo porcine left ventricle submerged in 37 °C saline. The aforementioned ablation parameters were changed to measure whether the size of the ablation lesion was consistent at a fixed AI value of 500. The maximum lesion diameter (r = - 0.631, P = 0.028), depth (r = - 0.896, P 0.001), and volume (r = - 0.745, P 0.005) were significantly reduced with an increase of the impedance. The lesion depth (P 0.05) and the lesion volume (P 0.05) were significantly larger with glucose irrigation than saline irrigation. In conclusion, at a fixed AI value, impedance and irrigation solution have impact on the ablation lesions, which could affect the accuracy of AI formula to estimate ablation lesion size. Graphical abstract.

Being a world-renowned heritage site, the Ming Great Wall, located in Qinghai Province, China, mainly has existed as the form of earthen sites with high historical, artistic, and scientific values. However, exposed under environmental impacts for about 500 years, these sites have been seriously threatened. The study on their damage assessment using reasonable methods is the key premise for further protection work. As there are few studies focused on the damage assessment of earthen sites, especially by using machine learning methods, this study explored to apply the current effective machine learning approaches, namely Support Vector Machine (SVM) and back-propagation (BP) Neural Network, into solving this problem. The authors used two such algorithms by training and testing the existing data of damage assessment results of 18 earthen sites located in Qinghai Province. By comparing experimental results, the prediction effects of SVM are much better than those of BP Neural Network. To test its practicability, Liutun Great Wall was chosen as an engineering case, showing better prediction and reasonable performance of SVM. This research has proved that SVM can be selected as a suitable model to assess the damage levels of earthen sites located in Qinghai Province for their future conservation works.

This letter presents an active rectifier with SAR-assisted coarse-fine adaptive digital delay compensation technique for biomedical implantable devices. Both on- and off-delays are compensated by adjusting the comparator offset. In order to achieve accurate zero-voltage switching against process, voltage, and temperature variations, a two-step coarse-fine digital tuning method is introduced. The coarse-tuning phase and the fine-tuning phase are controlled by a 7-bit SAR controller and a 3-bit bidirectional counter, respectively. Meanwhile, the tuning frequency is designed to be much smaller than the switching frequency to minimize the power consumption. The proposed rectifier has been fabricated in 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS process with a core area of 0.203 mm2 and a maximum output power of 54 mW. With the input ac voltage ranging from 1.5 to 2 V, the measurement results show that the peak power conversion efficiency and voltage conversion ratio are 92.6% and 95.7% for the load resistor of 2 $\text{k}\Omega $ , respectively.

Bone regeneration is a delicate physiological process. Non-union and delayed fracture healing remains a great challenge in clinical practice nowadays. Bone and fat hold a close relationship to remain balanced through hormones and cytokines. Adiponectin is a well-known protein to maintain the hemostasis, which may be an interesting target for fracture healing. Herein, we provided a facile and efficient method to obtain high-purity and high-yield recombinant human adiponectin (ADPN). The biocompatibility and the pharmaceutical behaviors were evaluated in Sprague–Dawley rats. The paracrine effects of adiponectin on bone fracture healing were investigated with a rat tibia fracture model via intrabone injection. Significantly accelerated bone healing was observed in the medulla injection group, indicating the paracrine effects of adiponectin could be potentially utilized for clinical treatments. The underlying mechanism was primarily assessed, and the expression of osteogenic markers, including bone morphogenic protein 2, alkaline phosphatase, and osteocalcin, along with adiponectin receptor 1 (AdipoR1), was markedly increased at the fracture site. The increased bone healing of ADPN treatment may result from both enhanced osteogenic proliferation as well as differentiation. Cell experiments confirmed that the expression of osteogenesis markers increased significantly in ADPN treatment groups, while it decreased when the expression of AdipoR1 was knocked down by siRNA. Our study provided a feasible and efficacious way for bone fracture treatment with local administration of ADPN, which could be rapidly translated into the clinics.

This study aimed to explore antithrombotic strategy and its relationship with outcomes in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) at high risk for stroke and chronic coronary syndrome (CCS) in real-world clinical practice. Patients with AF at high risk for stroke complicated with CCS from China Atrial Fibrillation Registry (CAFR) were enrolled. The patients were divided into non-antithrombotic (Non-AT) group, oral anticoagulants (OAC) group, antiplatelet therapy (APT) group (aspirin or clopidogrel), and dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT) group (aspirin + clopidogrel) according to their antithrombotic strategies at baseline. The patients with OAC + single antiplatelet drug (14 cases) and OAC + dual antiplatelet therapy (7 cases) were excluded for the small sample size. The primary effectiveness outcome was the composite outcome of coronary events, thromboembolism, and all-cause mortality. The primary safety outcome was major bleeding events. From 2011 to 2018, 25,512 patients were included in the CARF study, 769 patients with AF at high risk for stroke and CCS were enrolled in this study. After a follow-up of 47.4 ± 25.3 months, the incidences of primary effectiveness outcome were 44.6%, 25.7%, 43.6%, and 29.1% in the four groups, respectively (P

BACKGROUND The population with diabetes mellitus-induced erectile dysfunction is increasing rapidly, but current drugs are not effective in treating erectile dysfunction. Studies of the traditional Chinese medicine extract berberine on diabetes and its complications provide us with new ideas. OBJECTIVES To evaluate the therapeutic effect and potential mechanism of berberine on the erectile function of diabetic rats. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifty male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly grouped, and 42 rats were injected intraperitoneally with streptozotocin to establish a diabetes model. Erectile dysfunction rats were screened out through the apomorphine test and randomly divided into the diabetes mellitus and berberine groups, and these animals were administered berberine (200 mg/kg/day) and normal saline by gavage for 4 weeks. Primary corpus cavernous smooth muscle cells from healthy rats were cultured and treated with berberine. RESULTS Fasting blood glucose in the diabetes mellitus group was significantly increased, while berberine showed no significant effect on glucose. Erectile function was obviously impaired in the diabetes mellitus group, and berberine administration partially rescued this impairment. The expression of sphingosine kinase 1, S1PR2, and sphingosine-1-phosphate in the diabetes mellitus group was increased. Berberine partially inhibited the expression of sphingosine kinase 1 and S1PR2, but the decrease in sphingosine-1-phosphate was not significant. Moreover, mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway factor expression was upregulated and eNOS activity was decreased in the diabetes mellitus group. Berberine treatment could partially reverse these alterations. Severe fibrosis and apoptosis were detected in diabetic rats, accompanied by higher expression of TGFβ1, collagen I/IV, Bax/Bcl-2, and caspase 3 than in the other groups. However, supplementation with berberine inhibited the expression of these proteins and attenuated fibrosis and apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS Berberine ameliorated erectile dysfunction in rats with diabetes mellitus, possibly by improving endothelial function and inhibiting apoptosis and fibrosis by suppressing the sphingosine kinase 1/sphingosine-1-phosphate/S1PR2 and mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways.

Having extremely high artistic, scientific and social values, earthen sites are widely distributed in China and are important human cultural relic resources. Due to accumulated natural erosions (from rain and wind) and human activities (destructive activities of human beings in history and modern times), however, earthen sites have been greatly damaged, and many sections have even been absent, so that they are seriously threatened by extinction. Under these circumstances, acquiring the conservation status of earthen sites is a vital prerequisite for the subsequent targeted protection. In this paper, as a world-renowned heritage site, the castles of the Ming Great Wall located in Qinghai Province were selected as the research object. A novel indicator, namely the linear absent section ratio (L-ASR), was proposed, and its value was classified into five levels to quantitatively characterize the specific conservation status of such sites, including excellent (E) (0–10%), good (G) (10–25%), fair (F) (25–50%), poor (P) (50–75%), and very poor (VP) (75–100%). Based on the assessment results, the castles with excellent status constituted the minimum proportion, while the castles with very poor status represented the largest percentage, reflecting the grave situation of earthen sites. Furthermore, by applying population distribution models to the linear fitting combined with the population density (PD), a positive correlation between PD and L-ASR was obtained to reveal the anthropogenic influence on the destruction of earthen sites. Principal component analysis (PCA) was utilized to provide a far richer understanding of which factors correlate most strongly with deterioration. This study provides a new thought to quantitatively characterize the preservation conditions of earthen sites and also indicates the effect of human activities on the damage of earthen sites from a population density perspective, which is potentially used for the analysis of more various types of architecture with different construction techniques. Hence, this approach is beneficial to the overall damage assessment of earthen sites, and also meaningful to their further preservation and protective planning.

Background: Cystic lymphangioma that is the most common type of lymphangioma, but it rarely occurs in the forearm. It may show localized invasive behavior, but is benign. Case presentation: A 42-year-old woman was admitted to the hospital because she had discovered a right forearm mass approximately 3 years earlier.Ultrasound had shown a subcutaneous hypoechoic strip on the right forearm (nature to be determined). Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed characteristics of a lymphangioma with irregular strips, and surrounding irregular small blood vessels showed hypointensity or isointensity relative to the T1-weighted imaging (WI) signals for nearby muscle and hyperintensity on T2WI.Hematoxylin–eosin (H&E) staining showed a dilated cystic space lined with flat endothelial cells, and the cyst wall was rich in mature lymphocytes, smooth muscle, and irregular fatty small cysts.Immunohistochemical (IHC) staining of monoclonal antibody D2-40–labeled cystic lymphangioma endothelial cells was performed and showed focal expression of D2-40.Conclusions: The atypicality of clinical symptoms and imaging findings makes preoperative diagnosis difficult, so histological examination is necessary for the diagnosis of cystic lymphangioma. At present, if the disease affects the function or appearance of the body, the ideal treatment is radical resection to reduce recurrence. Incomplete resection causes relapse of the disease.

Images and videos compressed with lossy compression algorithms usually suffer from visible distortions, especially when the bitrate is low. To improve the quality without spending extra bitrate, many image and video codecs have built-in filters to mitigate these artifacts. However, most of them are only applied on the luminance channel, while the chrominance channels remain unmodified. While this is partly justified by the observation that the luminance channel usually contains more details and has higher-resolution than the chrominance channels. We observe that the luminance and chrominance channels still have latent correlations. Therefore, the post-filtering of the chrominance channels is also beneficial and can be driven by the information from the luminance channel. In this paper, we propose a 3-stage YUV post-filtering network for compressed YUV420 images and video. The proposed 3-stage structure not only improves the quality of the luminance channel, but also exploits the luma-chroma correlations to improve the quality of the chrominance channels. Our experimental results show that the proposed approach achieves 3.60%/12.75%/14.93% Bj⊘ntegaard Delta bitrate improvement for the Y, U and V channels over the VVC 10.0 codec for All-Intra configuration.

We present a neural network-based compression artifact removal technique for vibrotactile signals. The proposed decoder-side quality enhancement approach is based on recurrent neural networks (RNNs) and the principle of residual learning. We use a total of 8 nonlinear RNN layers trained to first estimate the difference between the original and the compressed signal. The estimated difference signal is then added to the compressed signal, followed by further linear processing steps to construct the enhanced signal. With our approach, we are able to enhance signals at almost all compression ratios by up to $1.25\ \mathrm {dB}$. For the signals in our data set, rougly 86% are enhanced in their quality. Through an ablation study, we show that every block of our network is functioning as intended and contributes to the compression artifact removal. Additionally, we show that the chosen network parameters maximize performance.

Background: Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common clinical intracranial malignancy worldwide, and the most common supratentorial tumor in adults. GBM mainly causes damage to the brain tissue, which can be fatal. This research explored potential gene targets for the diagnosis and treatment of GBM using bioinformatic technology. Methods: Public data from patients with GBM and controls were downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus database, and differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified by Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis (GEPIA) and Gene Expression Omnibus 2R (GEO2R). Construction of the protein–protein interaction network and the identification of a significant module were performed. Subsequently, hub genes were identified, and their expression was examined and compared by real-time quantitative (RT-q)PCR between patients with GBM and controls. Results: GSE122498 (GPL570 platform), GSE104291 (GPL570 platform), GSE78703_DMSO (GPL15207 platform), and GSE78703_LXR (GPL15207 platform) datasets were obtained from the GEO. A total of 130 DEGs and 10 hub genes were identified by GEPIA and GEO2R between patients with GBM and controls. Of these, strong connections were identified in correlation analysis between CCNB1, CDC6, KIF23, and KIF20A. RT-qPCR showed that all 4 of these genes were expressed at significantly higher levels in patients with GBM compared with controls. Conclusions: The hub genes CCNB1, CDC6, KIF23, and KIF20A are potential biomarkers for the diagnosis and treatment of GBM.

Lossy compressed images and videos suffer from visible compression artifacts, especially when the bit-rate is low. To improve the quality of the compressed image while keeping the same bit-rate, decoder-side compression artifacts reduction (CAR) becomes important. Recently, convolutional neural networks are adopted for CAR tasks and achieve the state-of-the-art performance. However, most CAR algorithms only focus on the reconstruction of the luminance channel. Also, a separate model usually needs to be trained for each quality factor (QF), which makes these approaches not practical in existing codecs. In this paper, we analyze a quality-blind training strategy and compare it with training separate models for each QF. The testing results with three representative CAR algorithms show the superiority of the quality-blind training compared to separate training. The results for pseudo and real quality-blind CAR tests further prove the generalizability of the quality-blind training for practical CAR tasks.

With the development of energy internet and power market, the operation regulation and pricing mechanism of traditional virtual power plants are improved to adapt to the new environment. In this paper, a bi-level multi-time scale scheduling method based on bidding for multi-operator virtual power plant is proposed to provide a framework for solving the interest distribution between operators and optimal scheduling problems of multiple-operator virtual power plant. An operator power allocation and internal electricity price formation method based on bidding equilibrium is proposed in the upper level, which introduces the fluctuation cost coefficient to express the influence of the uncertainty of renewable energy power generation on the bidding process. A multi-time scale optimal scheduling method combining scheduling model and adjustment strategy is established in the lower level. A default penalty mechanism in the scheduling model is used to ensure that operators provide the electricity allocated from the bidding process and considering the influence of demand response based on internal electricity price on adjustment strategy. Simulation results show that the proposed method can realize the optimal distribution of operators’ power generation and form the internal electricity price that reflects the internal supply and demand level of virtual power plant. Besides, it can reduce the impact of uncertainty on dispatching results and improve the application range of virtual power plant to enhance the competitiveness of virtual power plant in market transactions.

This paper demonstrates the research-based lighting design process of Yushu Library, a new library built after the 2010 Yushu Earthquake. The design goal is to recreate the Tibetan traditional lighting in this local modern library without sacrificing functional needs. The research methodology is comprised of a literature review, site visit and measurement, user interview, and daylighting simulation.

As a world-renowned heritage site, the Ming Great Wall in Qinghai Province, is an example of an earthen site that is seriously threatened by a series of deterioration. Its damage assessment is the ...

Modification of carbon nitride based polymeric 2D materials for tailoring their optical, electronic and chemical properties for various applications has gained significant interest. The present rep...

Hearing loss is a major unresolved problem in the world, which has brought a heavy burden to society, economy, and families. Hair cell damage and loss mediated by oxidative stress are considered to be important causes of hearing loss. The nuclear factor erythroid 2–related factor 2 (Nrf2) is a major regulator of antioxidant capacity and is involved in the occurrence and development of a series of toxic and chronic diseases associated with oxidative stress. In recent years, studies on the correlation between hearing loss and Nrf2 target have continuously broadened our knowledge, and Nrf2 has become a new strategic target for the development and reuse of hearing protection drugs. This review summarized the correlation of Nrf2 in various types of hearing loss, and the role of drugs in hearing protection through Nrf2 from the literature.

Neonicotinoid pesticide residues are ubiquitous in various foodstuffs and may adversely affect human health. We performed a nationwide survey of neonicotinoid residues in foodstuffs collected from Chinese markets and evaluated the risks of chronic and acute exposure in 1–6-year-old children and the general population. Among the 3406 samples of 13 commodities, 62.21% contained neonicotinoids with concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 1471.43 μg/kg, and 37.58% were simultaneously contaminated with 2–7 neonicotinoids. Acetamiprid, thiamethoxam, and imidacloprid were the top three detected neonicotinoids (22.14–34.32% of samples). Chronic and acute cumulative risk assessment using the relative potency factor method revealed that exposure to neonicotinoids was within established safety limits (below 1); however, the acute risk was much greater than the chronic risk (chronic hazard index range, 1.40 × 10−6–2.33 × 10−3; acute hazard index range, 1.75 × 10−6–0.15). A relatively greater acute cumulative risk was found for children with respect to consumption of grapes, mandarins, and cowpeas (acute hazard index range, 0.11–0.15). Despite the low health risk, the potential health hazards of neonicotinoids should be continuously assessed, given their ubiquity and cumulative effects.

The agroeconomic benefits of the routine use of triazole fungicides on crops have been evident for more than 40 years. However, increasing evidence shows that residues of triazoles are ubiquitous in various foods and thus could pose a potential health risk to humans. We analyzed 3406 samples of 13 food commodities that were collected from markets in 9 regions across China, and assessed the health risk of both chronic and acute exposure to the triazoles for Chinese children (1–6 years old) and the general population. Among all samples, 55.52% had triazoles in concentrations of 0.10–803.30 μg/kg, and 29.77% of samples contained a combination of 2–7 triazoles. Tebuconazole and difenoconazole were the most commonly found triazoles in the foods, being detected in 33.44% and 30.45% of samples, respectively. Chronic and acute cumulative risk assessment for total triazoles based on a relative potency factor method revealed that exposure to triazoles from these particular commodities was below the levels that might pose a health risk (chronic hazard index range, 5.90×10−7 to 1.83×10−3; acute hazard index range, 7.77×10−5 to 0.39, below 1). Notably, dietary exposure risk for children was greater than that for the general population—particularly for the acute intake of mandarin, grape, and cucumber (acute hazard index values of 0.35–0.39). Despite the low health risk, the potential hazards of exposure to triazoles should raise public concern owing to their ubiquitous presence in common foods and potential cumulative effects.

Yanlei Ji,1,2 Qingtao Qiu,3 Jing Fu,4 Kai Cui,5 Xia Chen,6 Ligang Xing,3 Xiaorong Sun6 1Department of Ultrasound Medicine, Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250012, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Ultrasound Medicine, Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shandong First Medical University and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan, Shandong 250117, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Radiation Oncology, Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shandong First Medical University and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan, Shandong 250117, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Ultrasound Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital of Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, Shandong 250014, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of PET/CT, The Second Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250033, People’s Republic of China; 6Department of Nuclear Medicine, Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shandong First Medical University and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan, Shandong 250117, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xiaorong SunDepartment of Nuclear Medicine, Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shandong First Medical University and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, 440 Jiyan Road, Jinan, Shandong 250117, People’s Republic of ChinaTel/Fax + 86-531-67626287Email 251400067@qq.comPurpose: To investigate the impact of staging on differences in glucose metabolic heterogeneity between lung adenocarcinoma (ADC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) by 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG PET) textural analysis and to develop a stage-specific PET radiomic prediction model to distinguish lung ADC from SCC.Patients and Methods: Patients who were histologically diagnosed with lung ADC or SCC and underwent pretreatment 18F-FDG PET/CT scans were retrospectively identified. Radiomic features were extracted from a semiautomatically outlined tumor region in the Chang-Gung Image Texture Analysis (CGITA) software package. The differences in radiomic parameters between lung ADC and SCC were compared stage-by-stage in 253 consecutive NSCLC patients with stages I to III disease. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm was used for feature selection. A radiomic signature for each stage was subsequently constructed and evaluated. Then, an individual nomogram incorporating the radiomic signature and clinical risk factors was established and evaluated. The performance of the constructed models was assessed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, and the nomogram was further validated by calibration curve analysis.Results: The performance of the radiomic signature for distinguishing lung ADC and SCC in both the training and validation cohorts was good, with AUCs of 0.883, 0.854, and 0.895 in the training cohort and 0.932, 0.944, and 0.886 in the validation cohort for stages I, II, and III NSCLC, respectively. The radiomic-clinical nomogram integrating radiomic features with independent clinical predictors exhibited more favorable discriminative performance, with AUCs of 0.982, 0.963, and 0.979 in the training cohort and 0.989, 0.984, and 0.978 in the validation cohort for stages I, II, and III, respectively.Conclusion: Differences in PET radiomic features between lung ADC and SCC varied in different stages. Stage-specific PET radiomic prediction models provided more favorable performance for discriminating the histological subtype of NSCLC.Keywords: non-small-cell lung cancer, positron emission tomography, PET, textural analysis, heterogeneity, staging

BACKGROUND The purpose of this study was to compare circulating tumor cells (CTCs)/circulating tumor microemboli (CTM) detection rates of the CellSearch and CTC-Biopsy systems in patients with gastric cancer (GC). We also investigated potential correlations between clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis in patients with GC. MATERIAL AND METHODS This prospective study was conducted at the Shandong Institute of Cancer Prevention and Control in China. Fifty-nine patients with GC and 22 healthy volunteers were recruited and their peripheral blood samples were examined by the CTC-Biopsy system and CellSearch system for CTC. RESULTS The rate of detection of CTCs/CTM was significantly higher with the CTC-Biopsy system than with the CellSearch system (59.32% vs. 27.12%, P0.001). The Kappa value was 0.179, indicating poor consistency. CTCs detected with the CellSearch system in patients with stage III/IV GC was significantly correlated with neutrophil count (P=0.020), neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (N/L ratio) (P=0.009), CA19-9 (P=0.049), tumor size (P=0.026), and the extent of vascular invasion (P=0.007). CTCs detected with the CTC-Biopsy system correlated with tumor differentiation (P=0.010). CTM in patients with stage I/II GC and stage II/IV GC correlated with CEA (P=0.004) and tumor differentiation (P=0.030), respectively. A CTC count3 detected with the CellSearch system, and not the CTC-Biopsy system, correlated with reduced progression-free survival and overall survival. CONCLUSIONS The CTC-Biopsy system was superior to the CellSearch system for detecting CTCs in GC patients. CTM were detected with the CTC-Biopsy system but not with the CellSearch system. CTCs detected with the CellSearch system correlated with various clinicopathological factors and long-term survival outcomes.

Objective. To understand the prevalence of hypertension in the population without awareness of hypertension in a rural area, a cross-sectional study was carried out. Methods. Blood pressures were measured in residents over 60 years during the National Basic Public Health Service project carrying on in a rural town of Shandong province. Combined with detail information of the hypertension disease history, the status of prevalence of hypertension was calculated. Basic information and clinical laboratory examinations were analyzed with Student’ t or t’ or chi-square test for univariate analysis. Multinomial logistic analysis was used in exploring multiple variables. Results. According to the individual history and blood pressure levels, the awareness rate of hypertension in the population over 60 years old was 50.3% (1285/2554, 95% CI: 48.3–52.3%). The prevalence of hypertension was 55.1% (1270/2304, 95% CI: 53.1–57.2%) in the population without awareness of hypertension, in which the proportion of stage 1 hypertension was 58.8% (747/1270), stage 2 hypertension was 28.9% (367/1270), and stage 3 hypertension was 12.3% (156/1270). The prevalence of hypertension in men was 54.4% (611/1124, 95% CI: 51.4–57.3%), which was almost the same as that in women (55.8%, 659/1180, 95% CI: 53.0–58.7%) (X2 = 0.515, P = 0.473 ). The prevalence of hypertension increased with age (X2trend = 11.848, P = 0.001 ). Age, BMI, total cholesterol, triglyceride, and drinking rate were positively correlated with the prevalence of hypertension, that is, the higher the level of these factors, the higher the prevalence of hypertension; on the contrary, LDL and smoking rate might be negatively correlated with the prevalence of hypertension, which means, the higher the prevalence of hypertension, the lower the level of these two indicators. Binary and multinominal logistic results showed that age, BMI, and drinking had stronger effects on the higher blood pressure level. Conclusions. The awareness rate of hypertension among the elderly in a rural area needs to be further improved. In the prevention and control of hypertension, close attention should be paid to the group of elder, high BMI index, high levels of total cholesterol and triglyceride, and drinking habits.

At present, the contradiction between the high efficiency of the world’s food production and environmental pollution is becoming increasingly prominent. In order to study the related issues of the world’s food production efficiency and sustainability, this paper uses the method of entropy weight to extract 5 indicators as the environmental pollution assessment model from the environmental pollution of agricultural production, scores 10 major agricultural production countries in the world, and obtains the environmental pollution index. Subsequently, the DEA model was established for these countries, the environmental pollution index was included into the production efficiency system as an unexpected output, the Malmquist index was established to describe the changes in agricultural production efficiency from 2010 to 2018, and the cluster analysis was carried out for it. Subsequently, the OSL and Tobit models were used for regression of the influencing factors. In addition, the comprehensive evaluation model of efficiency and sustainability was established by controlling the amount of fertilizer used, which was applied in different countries.

This paper first extracted 11 indicators from four aspects of infrastructure, educational equity, teaching quality, and scientific research level and established a multidimensional higher education evaluation system. After that, according to TOPSIS and the entropy method, a comprehensive score of the development of higher education was obtained, and a comprehensive index of higher education was proposed. According to the level of the score, we divide the development status into 5 categories, and use discrete Hopfield neural network for verification. In addition, we applied the model to many countries and chose Vietnam to conduct an in-depth analysis of the model, including reforming policies and evaluating policy effects based on cobweb model. Finally, we found that the application of the model is very universal, but in reality the reform is very difficult.

A fluorine-doped, chlorine-intercalated carbon nitride (CNF-Cl) photocatalyst has been synthesized for simultaneous improvements in light harvesting capability along with suppression of charge recombination in bulk g-C3N4. The formation of heterojunctions of these CNF-Cl nanosheets with low bandgap, earth abundant bismuth oxyiodide (BiOI) was achieved, and the synthesized heterojunctions were tested as active photoanodes in photoelectrochemical water splitting experiments. BiOI/CNF-Cl heterojunctions exhibited extended light harvesting with a band-edge of 680 nm and generated photocurrent densities approaching 1.3 mA cm-2 under AM1.5 G one sun illumination. Scanning Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) under optical bias showed a surface potential of 207 mV for the 50% BiOI/CNF-Cl nanocomposite, while pristine CNF-Cl and BiOI had surface photopotential values of 83 mV and 98 mV respectively, which in turn, provided direct evidence of superior charge separation in the heterojunction blends. Enhanced charge carrier separation and improved light harvesting capability in BiOI/CNF-Cl hybrids were found to be the dominant factors in increased photocurrent, compared to the pristine constituent materials.

The expression of tumor stem cell markers musashi1 (msi1) and numb in brain metastases were detected to explore their roles in the development of brain metastases. A total of 51 cases of brain metastasis, 29 cases of primary tumor and 15 cases of normal brain tissue were selected. Immunohistochemistry and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were used to detect msi1 and numb expression at the protein and mRNA levels. Correlation between msi1 and numb in brain metastases were evaluated. Immunohistochemistry and RT-PCR showed that no significant difference in the expression of msi1 and numb between brain metastases and primary tumors was observed (P > .05); the expression of msi1 and numb in brain metastases was significantly higher than that in normal brain tissues (P .05). Msi1 is highly expressed in brain metastases and primary tumors, while numb is lowly expressed in brain metastases and primary tumors; msi1 and numb are negatively correlated in brain metastases, suggesting that msi1 and numb may have regulatory mechanisms in the development of brain metastases.

Background: To evaluate the clinical value of circulating tumor cell (CTC) detection in peripheral blood for the diagnosis and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods: Public databases were searched, and a meta-analysis was performed to determine the specificity, sensitivity, negative- likelihood ratio (NLR) and positive-likelihood ratio (PLR), and diagnostic odds ratio (dOR) of CTC detection for the diagnosis of HCC. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were analyzed for the association of CTC detection with overall survival (OS) and HCC recurrence. The Meta-DiSc 1.4 and Review Manager 5.2 software programs were used for statistical analysis. Results: Meta-analysis of 20 studies including 1191 patients showed that the specificity, sensitivity, NLR, PLR, and dOR of CTC testing for HCC diagnosis were 0.60 (95% CI = 0.57–0.63), 0.95 (95%CI = 0.93–0.96), 0.36 (95%CI = 0.28–0.48), 11.64 (95%CI = 5.85–23.14), and 38.94 (95%CI = 18.33–82.75), respectively. Meta-analysis of 18 studies including 1466 patients indicated that the OS of CTC-positive HCC patients was less than that of CTC-negative patients (HR = 2.31; 95% CI = 1.55–3.42; P

Aim: Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is the most commonly encountered genetic condition that predisposes individuals to severe autosomal dominant lipid metabolism dysfunction. Although more than 75% of the European population has been scrutinized for FH-causing mutations, the genetic diagnosis proportion among Chinese people remains very low (less than 0.5%). The aim of this study was to identify genetic mutations and help make a precise diagnosis in Chinese FH patients. Methods: We designed a gene panel containing 20 genes responsible for FH and tested 208 unrelated Chinese possible/probable or definite FH probands. In addition, we called LDLR copy number variation (CNVs) with the panel data by panelcn.MOPS, and multiple ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA) was used to search for CNVs in LDLR, APOB, and PCSK9. Results: A total of 79 probands (38.0%) tested positive for a (likely) pathogenic mutation, most of which were LDLR mutations, and three LDLR CNVs called from the panel data were all successfully confirmed by MLPA analysis. In total, 48 different mutations were identified, including 45 LDLR mutations, 1 APOB mutation, 1 ABCG5 mutation, and 1 APOE mutation. Among them, the five most frequent mutations (LDLR c.1879G>A, c.1747C>T, c.313+1G>A, c.400T>C, and APOB c.10579C>T) were detected. Moreover, we also found that patients with LDLR variants of CNVs and splicing and nonsense had increased low-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels when compared with those who carried missense variants. Conclusions: The spectrum of FH-causing mutations in the Chinese population is refined and expanded. Analyses of FH causal genes have been a great help in clinical diagnosis and have deep implications in disease treatment. These data can serve as a considerable dataset for next-generation sequencing analysis of the Chinese population with FH and contribute to the genetic diagnosis and counseling of FH patients.

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo is one of the most common vestibular diseases, especially in the elderly. Although the treatment of BPPV is relatively successful, many patients suffer recurrence after treatment. Therefore, identifying potential risk factors for BPPV recurrence may help improve treatment outcome and patient prognosis. However, some related risk factors for BPPV recurrence are relatively controversial and poorly studied. This meta-analysis aims to identify potential risk factors associated with BPPV recurrence, thereby reducing the recurrence rate of BPPV and improving the prognosis of patients. This meta-analysis was conducted through systematically searching PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library for eligible English original studies published up to June 2020. All search results were reviewed based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria. We calculated the pooled odds ratios (ORs) or the mean differences (MDs) with their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to evaluate the effects of included risk factors on BPPV recurrence. A total of 14 studies involving 3060 BPPV patients published between 2010 and 2019 were finally included, including six prospective studies and eight retrospective studies, with a NOS score ranged from 6 to 9. Our pooled results of this meta-analysis suggested that the recurrence of BPPV was closely related to female gender (OR = 1.42; 95% CI 1.17–1.74; P = 0.0004), hypertension (OR = 2.61; 95% CI 1.22–5.59; P = 0.01), diabetes mellitus (OR = 2.62; 95% CI 1.25–5.48; P = 0.01), hyperlipidemia (OR = 1.60; 95% CI 1.23–2.09; P = 0.0006), osteoporosis (OR = 1.72; 95% CI 1.03–2.88; P = 0.04) and vitamin D deficiency (MD = − 3.29; 95% CI − 5.32 to − 1.26; P = 0.001). This meta-analysis indicated that female gender, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, osteoporosis, and vitamin D deficiency were risk factors for BPPV recurrence. However, the effects of other potential risk factors including advanced age, migraine, head trauma, and Meniere’s disease on BPPV recurrence need further investigations. Furthermore, most studies included in this meta-analysis were performed in Asia, so our results cannot easily be extended to the whole world population. Therefore, more large-scale prospective studies in different countries are required to further investigate these risk factors.

Background Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has been a favored option for the patient who suffered from symptomatic aortic stenosis. However, the efficacy and safety outcomes in novel oral anticoagulants (NOACs) versus Vitamin-K antagonist (VKA) for post-TAVI patients are still controversial. This meta-analysis aims at comparing the clinical outcome and safety of NOACs and VKA in the patients after receiving TAVI. Method We searched literature articles in all reachable databases, and observational study as well as randomized controlled trial would be included in order to perform a comprehensive analysis. All-cause mortality, major or life-threatening bleeding, disabling or nondisabling stroke were main pooled outcome measures. Subgroup analysis and meta-regression were adopted to explore heterogeneity. Assessment of bias was performed under the suggestion of Cochrane’s Collaboration Tool. Results We collected 3841 non-duplicate citations from PubMed, Embase, Cochrane and ClinicalTrials.gov, and eventually 7 studies were included for this meta-analysis. As a result, VKA showed priority against NOACs in the field of anti-thromboembolism (4435 participants, RR:1.44, 95% CI: 1.05 to 1.99, I2 = 0%, P = 0.02). Conclusion With corroborative analysis of severe complications, VKA is shown to be more protective on post-TAVI patients in disabling or nondisabling stroke scenario but not in mortality or bleeding event.

We have developed a porous silicon nanocantilever for a nano-optomechanical system (NOMS) with a universal sensing surface for enhanced sensitivity. Using electron beam lithography, we selectively applied a V2O5/HF stain etch to the mechanical elements while protecting the silicon-on-insulator photonic ring resonators. This simple, rapid, and electrodeless approach generates tunable device porosity simultaneously with the mechanical release step. By controlling the porous etchant concentration and etch time, the porous etch depth, resonant frequency, and the adsorption surface area could be precisely manipulated. Using this control, cantilever sensors ranging from nonporous to fully porous were fabricated and tested as gas-phase mass sensors of volatile organic compounds coming from a gas chromatography stream. The fully porous cantilever produced a dramatic 10-fold increase in sensing signal and a 6-fold improvement in limit of detection (LOD) compared to an otherwise identical nonporous cantilever. This signal improvement could be separated into mass responsivity increase and adsorption increase components. Allan deviation measurements indicate that a further 4-fold improvement in LOD could be expected upon speeding up characteristic peak response time from 1 s to 50 ms. These results show promise for performance enhancement in nanomechanical sensors for applications in gas sensing, gas chromatography, and mass spectrometry.

Manufacturing big data provide the factory with a tremendous opportunity for transforming the current manufacturing paradigm to smart manufacturing. However, the multi-source data modeling and integration problems are the existing gaps between the collected big data and the data-driven smart applications. With the large-scale deployment of Internet of things on the shop floor, it is essential to develop adequate data modeling and integration methods to manage and organize the generated manufacturing big data. In this study, the spatiotemporal modeling is firstly presented to organize the data in temporal, spatial and attributive dimensions respectively. Furthermore, the ontology-based big data integration approach is proposed to manage the multisource manufacturing data and ensure the data can be easily indexed and conveniently reused for different subsequent applications. Finally, the proposed data modeling and integration methods are implemented and verified through the developed manufacturing big data-driven analysis and decision-making system.

Continental coverage and year-round operation of the weather radar networks provide an unprecedented opportunity for studying large-scale airborne migration. The broad and local-scale airborne information collected by these infrastructures can answer many ecological questions. However, extracting and interpreting the biological information from such massive weather radar data remains an intractable problem. Recently, many big-data problems have been solved using the deep learning technology. In this study, the biological information in the weather radar data is identified using the advanced deep learning method. The proposed method consists of two main parts, i.e., a rendering and casting procedure and an image segmentation procedure based on a convolutional neural network. The biological data are automatically extracted by rendering and mapping, image segmentation, and result masking. By analyzing the typical radar data from single and multiple stations, we partly reveal the intensity and speed of the migration pattern. We present the first feasibility study of the extraction of local and large-scale biological phenomena from the Chinese weather radar network data.

Background Point‐of‐care (POC) cTn assays are needed when the central laboratory is unable to provide timely results to the emergency department. Many POC devices are available. The prospect of choosing them is daunting. In order to provide a quick decision‐making reference for POC cTn device selection comparing them to the central laboratory, seven POC devices commonly employed by emergency department were evaluated. Methods Firstly, we reviewed all devices package inserts. Secondly, we evaluated several POC cTn assays for imprecision, linearity, and correlation with central laboratory assays according to CLSI EP protocols. The linear regression analyses were performed only for the detectable concentrations. Five cTnI devices (Alere Triage, BioMerieux Vidas, Mitsubishi Pathfast, ReLIA TZ‐301, and Radiometer AQT90) were evaluated against a contemporary cTnI assay (Beckman Access II Accu TnI). Two cTnT assays (Radiometer AQT90 and Roche Cobas h232) were compared to a high‐sensitivity (hs) cTnT method (Roche Cobas e601). Results For cTn levels around the 99th percentile upper reference limits (URLs) of the comparator assays, imprecision could not be assessed for the Alere, BioMerieux, and Cobas h232 as they gave undetectable readings due to a lack of assay sensitivity. Imprecision (CV) was unacceptably high for the ReLIA (33.3%). On account of this precision metric, these four assays were deemed unsuitable. Regression analyses showed acceptable linearity for all the POC devices. The correlation coefficients for ReLIA, BioMerieux, Cobas h232, and Radiometer cTnT were >0.95. Unlike the cTnT devices, the cTnI assays employ different capture and detection antibodies leading to non‐commutable results. The POC cTn results were concordant with their comparator—Radiometer cTnT 90%, Pathfast cTnI 85%, and Radiometer cTnI 75%. Conclusion Our study provides the procedure and essential data to guide selection of a POC cTn device. Of the point‐of‐care devices, methods evaluated Radiometer AQT90 (cTnI and cTnT) and Pathfast might be considered.

Objective. To investigate the protective effects and mechanisms of human tissue kallikrein 1 (hKLK1) on type 1 diabetes mellitus- (DM-) induced erectile dysfunction in rats. Materials and Methods. The homozygous transgenic rats (TGR) harboring the hKLK1 gene and age-matched wild-type Sprague Dawley rats (WTR) were involved, and intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin was utilized to induce diabetes in rats. Forty-eight-week-old male rats were randomly divided into a WTR group, TGR group, diabetic WTR group (WTDM), diabetic TGR group (TGDM), and TGDM with HOE140 group (TGDMH), with eight rats in each group. Twelve weeks later, the erectile response of all rats was detected by cavernous nerve electric stimulation, and corpus cavernosums were harvested to evaluate the levels of cavernous oxidative stress (OS), apoptosis, fibrosis, and involved pathways. Moreover, cavernous smooth muscle cells (CSMC) and endothelial cells (EC) were primarily isolated to build a coculture system for a series of in vitro verification. Results. The hKLK1 gene only existed and was expressed in TGR. Compared to the WTR group, the WTDM group showed a lower erectile response, overactivated OS and apoptosis, inhibited PI3K/AKT/eNOS pathway, and aggravated cavernous fibrosis. However, hKLK1 in the TGDM group could improve these pathological changes induced by DM, while its protective effects could be weakened by HOE140 in the TGDMH group. In the coculture system, hKLK1 could induce CSMC relaxation through activating PI3K/eNOS/cGMP signaling and inhibiting calcium ion influx under physiological condition. It could also resist the increased reactive oxygen species, apoptosis level, and reduced cGMP level in CSMC under high-glucose condition. Conclusions. hKLK1 preserves erectile function of DM rats through its antitissue excessive OS, apoptosis, and fibrosis effects, as well as activation of the PI3K/AKT/eNOS/cGMP pathway in the penis. Moreover, hKLK1 promotes relaxation and prevents high glucose-induced injuries of CSMC mediated by EC-CSMC crosstalk.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of early weaning on growth performance, feed intake and diarrhea rate of Hu lambs, and establish the experimental model of early weaning stress in lambs. A total of 60 neonatal male Hu lambs were randomly allotted into 10 pens and 6 lambs in each pen with their ewes. Five pens of lambs were weaned at 21days of age as early weaning group (EW group), and the other 5 pens of lambs were remained with their ewes as control group (CON group). Body weight (BW) were recorded at birth (d0) and at d7, 14, 21, 22, 24, 26, 28, 35,42 and 49 after birth. Solid feed intake of lambs in each pen was recorded and diarrhea incidence was also monitored on daily basis. Data was analyzed using the MIXED model of SAS, and statistical significance was determined at P < 0.05. There was no difference in BW at birth and d21 between the two groups of lambs (P > 0.05). However, BW and average daily gain (ADG) of the lambs in EW group were significantly lower than those in CON group (P < 0.01) since weaning. Solid feed intake of the lambs in EW group were obviously higher than that in CON group (P < 0.01). In addition, the diarrhea rate was significantly higher than that in CON group from d21 to d35 (P < 0.01). The results indicated that lambs weaned at d21 showed strong stress response by significantly decreasing in BW and ADG, and had more feed intake but higher diarrhea rate. Future study is warranted to determine the changes in gut microbiota and barrier function to assess the mechanism of early weaning on health status and growth performance of lambs, and to investigate nutritional intervention methods to alleviate weaning stress.

Detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in cancer patients has diagnostic and prognostic importance. However, the clinical implications of CTC detection in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC) are still unclear. In this study, we investigated the clinical significance of CTCs using two detection systems, the CellSearch system (CSS) and isolation by size of epithelial tumor cells (ISET), among RCC patients. We recruited 36 RCC patients and 22 healthy volunteers as controls. Blood was drawn before treatment. Samples were analyzed using the CSS and ISET. We prospectively followed the RCC patients to determine overall and progression-free survival. We did not detect CTCs in the control group using either the CSS or ISET. CTCs were detected in 7/36 patients (19.4%) using the CSS and in 13/36 patients (36.1%) using ISET, while circulating microemboli (CTMs) were detected in three patients (8.3%). The presence of ISET-detected CTCs correlated with clinical tumor node metastasis (TNM) stages, while the CSS-detected CTCs did not. After 36 months (median), CTCs detected by both methods failed to correlate with overall and progression-free survival among RCC patients. We discovered that ISET is more suitable than the CSS for detecting CTCs in RCC patients. The presence of CTCs/CTMs in RCC patients correlated with higher TNM stages, suggesting that the presence of CTCs could be a prognostic marker in RCC patients.

Ran Zhang,1,2 Changbin Wang,2,3 Kai Cui,3,4 Yicong Chen,1,2 Fenghao Sun,2,5 Xiaorong Sun,4 Ligang Xing2 1Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Radiation Oncology, Shandong Key Laboratory of Radiation Oncology, Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shandong First Medical University and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Clinical Medicine, Jinan University, Jinan, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Nuclear Medicine, Shandong Key Laboratory of Radiation Oncology, Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shandong First Medical University and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Clinical Medicine, Weifang Medical University, Weifang, Shandong, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xiaorong SunDepartment of Nuclear Medicine, Shandong Key Laboratory of Radiation Oncology, Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shandong First Medical University and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, 440 Jiyan Road, Jinan, Jinan, People’s Republic of ChinaTel/Fax +86 531 6762 6419Email 251400067@qq.comPurpose: The imaging features of patients with early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) are crucial for the decision-making process to establish a treatment plan. The purpose of this study was to predict the clinical outcomes of SBRT from the textural features of pretreatment computed tomography (CT) images.Patients and methods: Forty-one early-stage NSCLC patients who received SBRT were included in this retrospective study. In total, 72 textural features were extracted from the pretreatment contrast-enhanced CT images. Survival analysis was used to identify high-risk groups for progression-free survival (PFS) and disease-specific survival (DSS). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was utilized to estimate the diagnostic abilities of the textural parameters. Univariable and multivariable Cox regression analyses were performed to evaluate the predictors of PFS and DSS.Results: Four parameters, including entropy (P=0.003), second angular moment (SAM) (P=0.04), high-intensity long-run emphasis (HILRE) (P=0.046) and long-run emphasis (LRE) (P=0.042), were significant prognostic features for PFS. In addition, contrast (P=0.008), coarseness (P=0.017), low-intensity zone emphasis (LIZE) (P=0.01) and large number emphasis (LNE) (P=0.046) were significant prognostic factors for DSS. In the ROC analysis, the area under the curve (AUC) of coarseness for local recurrence (LR) was 0.722 (0.528–0.916), and the AUC of entropy for lymph node metastasis (LNM) was 0.771 (0.556–0.987). The four highest AUCs for distant metastasis (DM) were 0.885 (0.784–0.985) for LNE, 0.846 (0.733–0.959) for SAM, 0.731 (0.500–0.961) for LRE and 0.731 (0.585–0.876) for contrast. In the multivariable analysis, smoking and entropy were independent prognostic factors for PFS.Conclusion: This exploratory study reveals that textual features derived from pretreatment CT scans have prognostic value in early-stage NSCLC patients treated with SBRT.Keywords: computed tomography imaging, clinical outcomes, non-small cell lung cancer, NSCLC, stereotactic body radiation therapy, textural analysis &nbsp

Previously, we have demonstrated that human tissue kallikrein 1 (hKLK1) improves age-related erectile dysfunction (ED). Autophagy has been implicated in age-related diseases, including ED. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying hKLK1-mediated amelioration of age-related ED via regulation of autophagy remains unknown. To explore the potential mechanism, male wild-type Sprague-Dawley rats (WTR) and transgenic rats harboring human KLK1 (TGR) were bred till 4 or 18 months of age and divided into three groups: young WTR (yWTR) as the control group, aged WTR (aWTR) group, and aged TGR (aTGR) group. The erectile function of each rat was evaluated using cavernous nerve electrostimulation. The ratio of intracavernous pressure/mean arterial pressure (ICP/MAP) and total ICP were also measured. Western blotting, immunohistochemistry, and transmission electron microscopy were performed to detect the levels of autophagy. The expression levels of related signaling pathways were determined by western blotting and immunohistochemistry. We found that hKLK1 improved the impaired erectile function of aged rats. Compared to the yWTR and aTGR groups, the aWTR group showed reduced smooth muscle/collagen ratio, fewer autophagosomes, and lower expression of Beclin 1 and LC3-II, which indicate impaired smooth muscle function and low level of autophagy in the smooth muscle cells. Moreover, the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway, which is considered to be a negative regulator of autophagy, was upregulated in the aWTR group. hKLK1 may partially restore erectile function in aged transgenic rats by upregulating protective autophagy via the PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway. These observations indicate that hKLK1 is a potential gene therapy candidate for age-related ED.

Previous studies have shown that oxidative stress and corporal fibrosis in penile tissues of rats were key pathological factors of erectile dysfunction induced by diabetic mellitus (DMED). Lipoxin A4 (LXA4) was reported to inhibit oxidative stress and fibrosis diseases, while whether it could exert a protective role on erectile function was not clear. Type I diabetic mellitus (DM) was induced in thirty male 10-week-old Sprague-Dawley rats using streptozotocin. Ten weeks later, twenty-two rats with DMED confirmed by an apomorphine test were divided into two groups: the DMED group (n = 11) and the DMED + LXA4 group (n = 11; LXA4 injection daily for 4 weeks). In addition, another ten age-matched rats formed the Control group. We found that erectile function was significantly impaired in the DMED group compared with the Control group, but was improved in the DMED + LXA4 group. Similarly, the over-activated oxidative stress and impaired endothelial function in the DMED group were both improved in the DMED + LXA4 group. Moreover, the DMED group showed serious corporal fibrosis, which was also inhibited by the treatment of LXA4 in the DMED + LXA4 group. Taken together, LXA4 could exert an inhibition role on oxidative stress and fibrosis to improve DMED effectively.