Search

Aiming at the problem of silo design, the silo ejector model and ejector function were proposed. The properties of the static pressure matching function were studied. The critical conditions were a...

Fat fixation is a key step in filling tear trough depression with inferior eyelid orbital septum fat. The ideal position for inferior eyelid fat fixation is to cross the tear trough ligament causing tear trough depression and the orbicularis retaining ligament, with the distal end fixed at the farthest end of the dissected lacuna deep down the inferior orbicularis oculi muscle. Traditional suturing is difficult in the deep narrow lacunae, but a buried guide needle can be used to suture and fix the fat in the deepest lacuna. In this study, 264 patients who underwent tear trough filling using a buried guide needle to fix the released inferior eyelid orbital septum fat from 2017 to 2020 were followed up. The preoperative and postoperative imaging findings were compared to evaluate the effectiveness of the operation and postoperative complications. The inferior eyelid bulging, loose skin, and tear trough depression significantly improved than that before the operation. None of the patients had any severe complications, such as inferior eyelid ectropion, lagophthalmos, scar hyperplasia, and diplopia, in the long term (6 months) postoperatively. Five patients showed mild eyelid-eyeball separation and recovered in 1 month. Four patients had diplopia, and 3 patients had chemosis; all recovered in 7 days. The tear trough depression was not corrected completely in 2 patients. The operation showed satisfactory results in the improvement of tear trough depression in addition to alleviation of inferior eyelid bulging and loose inferior eyelid skin that is caused by the traditional inferior eyelid pouch removal.

As a natural abundant high-carbon resource, the use of coal to develop carbon nanomaterials is an important research topic. In recent years, a variety of carbon materials with different morphologies and nanotextures have been designed and constructed using coal and their derivatives as precursors, and their use in energy storage, catalysis, adsorption and absorption have been explored. State-of-the-art research on carbon nanomaterials derived from coals of different rank and their derivatives are summarized with specific attention to the synthesis strategies and structure control. The use of these coal-derived carbons for energy storage, such as secondary batteries and supercapacitors, is also discussed in terms of their structural features. The review aims to provide valuable insight into the present challenges and inspire new ideas for the development of advanced coal-derived carbon materials.

Objectives. Dexmedetomidine is widely used as an adjunct to general anesthesia. In this study, we evaluated the effects of perioperative dexmedetomidine infusion on postoperative analgesia in patients undergoing lateral thoracotomy for thoracic esophageal cancer. Methods. A total of 62 patients undergoing lateral thoracotomy for thoracic esophageal cancer were randomized to receive adjuvant therapy with either dexmedetomidine (0.5 μg/kg intravenous bolus injection for 10 min before induction of anesthesia, followed by continuous infusion of 0.2–0.4 μg/kg/h until the end of surgery, and 0.06 μg/kg/h for 5 days after surgery) or equal volumes of saline. Acute postoperative pain was treated with patient-controlled intravenous sufentanil and flurbiprofen axetil. The primary outcomes of this study were the numbers of analgesic requirements in the first postoperative 72 h. Results. Perioperative dexmedetomidine did not decrease the numbers of analgesic requirements in the first postoperative 72 h (dexmedetomidine group: 12.14 ± 4.76, saline group: 10.89 ± 5.66; p=0.367). Likewise, the groups did not differ with respect to total postoperative analgesic requirements, postoperative pain, perioperative inflammation, blood cell count, incidence of adverse events, surgical recovery (assessed at postoperative days 2 and 5 using the surgical recovery scale), length of hospital stay, hospital cost, incidence of chronic pain, or quality of life. Notably, dexmedetomidine had beneficial effects on decreasing intraoperative opioid consumption and improving postoperative sleep quality. Discussion. Perioperative dexmedetomidine has limited analgesic benefits in lateral thoracotomy for esophageal cancer when added to an opioid-based multimodal anesthetic regimen but can reduce opioid consumption.

Image description is a great challenge in the field of computer vision under complex illumination condition. The complex illumination condition is usually unavoidable and unpredictable in real application. In this paper, we propose a novel generalized image descriptor, named as Anisotropy Weber Adapted Symmetric Ternary Pattern (AWASTP), which can overcome the directional inseparability of Weber Local Descriptor (WLD) and invariant threshold of Local Ternary Pattern (LTP). More particularly, we heighten the discriminative effectiveness of image description under complex illumination condition in several ways to restrain the effect of illumination variation. Firstly, a novel selection scheme for scale and angle is proposed. Based on this, an improved anisotropic Laplacian of Gaussian(ALOG) operator model is established by introducing the scale and angle parameter, moreover, an Anisotropic Weber Local Descriptor (AWLD) is presented, which can achieve more rich detailed information of illumination-insensitive feature. Secondly, an Adaptive Symmetric Ternary Pattern (ASTP) algorithm is proposed based on Weber criterion to generate more accurate threshold judgment according to the region characteristics. Thirdly, a two-dimensional AWASTP histogram is created to enhance the discriminative power and represent illumination-insensitive feature description. We conduct many experiments on benchmark databases, such as CMUPIE, FERET, PhoTex, RawFoot, and etc. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach under different illumination conditions.

To investigate the feasibility of ultrasonography in detecting the oropharynx movement during deep breathing and to quantitatively analyze oropharynx airway lumen changes during deep breathing. The motions of oropharynx were monitored, and sonographic measurements of airway lumen were obtained during deep breathing in 448 healthy volunteers. Adequate visualization of oropharynx movement was obtained on all healthy volunteers. The anterior-posterior (AP) diameters and AP/transverse (T) diameter ratios were greater at the end of deep inspiration than that at the end of deep expiration for each sex (p < 0.01). The anterior-posterior dimensional changes were greater than lateral airway dimensional changes each sex (p < 0.05). Ultrasonography could provide realistic impression of the process on the oropharynx movement during deep breathing and perform the quantitative analysis of the oropharynx airway lumen changes during deep breathing. The results were encouraging and supported the utility of ultrasonography in future studies.

Prior neuroimaging studies of the relationship between the kidney and the brain have been limited to clinical populations and have largely relied on a single modality. We sought to examine the kidney-brain associations in healthy subjects using a combined analysis of multi-modal imaging data. Structural, diffusion, and perfusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were performed to measure cortical thickness, white matter integrity, and cerebral blood flow in 157 healthy young adults. Peripheral venous blood samples were collected to measure serum renal function indexes. Correlation analyses were performed to investigate the relations between brain MRI measures and renal function indexes. Results showed that higher serum uric acid level was associated with increased cortical thickness in the transverse temporal gyrus. We also found that decreased serum creatinine level was linked to lower white matter integrity in the sagittal stratum, anterior corona radiata, superior corona radiata, and external capsule. Furthermore, we observed that increased serum uric acid level was related to hyperperfusion in the opercular and triangular parts of inferior frontal gyrus and supramarginal gyrus, and hypoperfusion in the calcarine sulcus, cuneus and lingual gyrus. More importantly, mediation analysis revealed that the relationship between serum uric acid and working memory performance was mediated by perfusion in the supramarginal gyrus and lingual gyrus. These findings not only may extend current knowledge regarding the relationship between the kidney and the brain, but also may inform real-world clinical practice by identification of potential brain regions vulnerable to renal dysfunction.

With the development of distributed energy resources (DERs), the power flow (PF) in the distribution network (DN) is changed from unidirectional to bidirectional, resulting in complex control and coordinate measures. Network reconfiguration (NR) is a feasible solution for the power grid side to deal with the complex PF. This paper proposed an edge-cloud-coordinated reconfiguration framework with edge servers (ESs) in the prosumer side and cloud servers (CSs) in the utility grid side, where the edge computing (EC) technology is implemented in ES to support load forecasting (LF), while cloud computing (CC) is used in CS to reconstruct the DN. LF is implemented by the long–short-term memory network to acquire the load information in advance, and the social preference of prosumers has been considered. The NR is formulated as a complex combinatorial optimization problem with the goal of minimizing power losses, while satisfying the power flow and voltage requirement. The NR problems are solved by the proposed advanced harmony search algorithm, which can find the optimal global solution, while satisfying the complex constraints of the NR problem. Numerical results are conducted based on an IEEE 33-bus network, which shows the high accuracy of LF and demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed framework in terms of reducing more than 40% power losses and satisfying the voltage requirement.

Convolutional neural networks have achieved great success in analyzing potential features inside tropical cyclones (TCs) using satellite images for intensity estimation. However, due to the high similarity of visual features in TC images, it is still a challenge to learn the accurate mapping between TC images and numerical intensity. Existing works mainly focus on the visual features of a single TC, ignoring the impact of intensity continuity and time evolution among TCs on decision making. Therefore, we propose a DR-transformer framework for temporal TC intensity estimation. Inside DR-transformers, a novel DR-extractor can extract Distance-consistency(DC) and Rotation-invariance (RI) features between TC images, and therefore can better learn the contours, structures, and other visual features of each TC image. DC features can reduce the estimation error between adjacent intensities, and RI features can eliminate feature deviation caused by shooting angles and TC rotation. Additionally, a transformer with a DR-extractor as the backbone is applied to aggregate the temporal correlation in a series of TC images, which can learn the evolution from intensity to the visual features of TC. Experiments show that the final result, an RMSE of 7.76 knots, outperforms the baseline, and is better than any previously reported method trained on the TCIR dataset.

Purpose This paper aims at understanding the current situation of research support services offered by academic libraries in world-leading universities and providing useful implications and insights for other academic libraries. Design/methodology/approach Of the top 100 universities listed in the QS World University Rankings in 2017, 76 libraries were selected as samples and a website investigation was conducted to explore the research support services. The statistical method and visualization software was used to generalize the key services, and the text analysis and case analysis were applied to reveal the corresponding implementation. Findings Research support service has become one of the significant services of academic libraries in the context of e-research and data-intensive research. The research support services can be generally divided into seven aspects, as follows: research data management (62, 81.58 per cent), open access (64, 84.21 per cent), scholarly publishing (59, 77.63 per cent), research impact measurement (32, 42.11 per cent), research guides (47, 61.84 per cent), research consultation (59, 77.63 per cent) and research tools recommendation (38, 50.00 per cent). Originality/value This paper makes a comprehensive investigation of research support services in academic libraries of top-ranking universities worldwide. The findings will help academic libraries improve research support services; thus, advancing the work of researchers and promoting scientific discovery.

Objectives: To evaluate the prognostic significance of Adult Comorbidity Evaluation-27 (ACE-27) for elderly patients (age ≥70 years) with locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) treated with Intensity-Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT), with or without chemotherapy. Methods: 206 elderly patients with locoregionally advanced NPC treated from December 2006 to December 2016 were involved into analysis as the training cohort. Besides, a separate cohort of 72 patients from the same cancer center collected between January 2003 and October 2006 served as the validation cohort. By using propensity score matching (PSM), we created a balanced cohort by matching patients who received chemoradiotherapy with patients who received IMRT alone. Treatment toxicities were calculated between CRT and RT groups using the χ2 test. The primary endpoint was cancer-specific survival (CSS). Multivariate analysis was performed to assess the relative risk for each factor by using a Cox's proportional hazards regression model. Results: The median follow-up was 39.0 months (range = 3-137 months). In the PSM cohort, patients in the CRT group achieved comparable survival compared with patients in the RT group. The 3-year CSS rate was 64.3% and 65.2%, respectively (P =0.764). In multivariate analysis, the addition of chemotherapy to IMRT was not an independent prognostic factor for CSS, whereas a high ACE-27 score was an independent risk factor. In subgroup analysis with ACE-27 score ≥ 2, the 3-year CSS rate was worse in patients from the CRT group (63.5% vs. 46.3%, P = 0.041). Conclusions: CRT is comparable to IMRT alone for elderly patients with locoregionally advanced NPC. The ACE-27 tool may help to identify high-risk subgroup for poor disease outcome and tailor individualized treatment.

Mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells are an invariant T cell subset, which have been reported to play an antimicrobial role in infectious diseases. However, little is known about it in malignant diseases and tumors, especially in gastric cancer (GC). So in this study, we aim to examine the frequency, phenotype, partial functional capacity and clinical relevance of this cells from GC patients’ peripheral blood by flow cytometry. It was shown that the frequency of peripheral blood MAIT cells was negatively correlated with their increasing age in healthy adults. Importantly, comparing to the healthy controls (HC), the frequency and the absolute number of MAIT cells from GC patients’ peripheral blood with or without chemotherapy were both significantly lower than those. For the phenotype, the proportion of CD4−MAIT cell subset in GC patients without chemotherapy was lower than in HC, but higher than in GC patients with chemotherapy. Whereas, the proportion of CD4−CD8+MAIT cell subset in GC patients without chemotherapy was significantly lower than that in HC. Finally, the level of Granzyme-B (GrB), a molecule associated with MAIT cells was markedly lower in GC patients. But the correlation between the serum levels of GC-associated tumor antigens and the percentages of MAIT cells in GC patients was not observed. In conclusion, our study shows the decreased frequency, changed phenotypes and partial potentially impaired function of MAIT cells in GC patients, suggesting a possible MAIT cell-based immunological surveillance of GC.

Privacy protection is an essential issue in biomedical natural language processing (BioNLP). Recently, some researchers apply federated learning (FL) in BioNLP to protect the privacy of biomedical data. However, their methods are only applicable for small NLP models, whose effectiveness is heavily limited in processing biomedical data. In this paper, we propose a novel memetic federated learning framework named Mem-Fed, which is tailored for federated learning of large-scale NLP models in the biomedical scenario. Experiments with large-scale BioNLP model on the public dataset show that the proposed framework significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art counterparts.

Background The imported cases of Plasmodium malariae (P. malariae) and Plasmodium ovale (P. ovale) malaria are increasing annually, especially in central China. Here, we report a case of serological rapid diagnostic test (RDT)-negative P. malariae malaria imported from West Africa. Methods The case patient was exclusively diagnosed with P. malariae through microscopy, Plasmodium genus-specific nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR), and sequencing of targeted P. malariae circumsporozoite (pmcsp) gene, except for serological RDT. Results The patient was discharged in stable condition after 5 days of hospitalization, with no overt malaria parasites or associated symptoms. Conclusions This case reveals that asymptomatic P. malariae infections can occur among exported laborers back from malaria-endemic areas, some of whom may escape serological screening test or RDT, posing a continuing potential threat to malaria control. Therefore, PCR-based molecular techniques are more effective and necessary than serological RDT for malaria surveillance nationwide.

Ali CMB Polarization Telescope (AliCPT-1) is the first CMB degree-scale polarimeter to be deployed on the Tibetan plateau at 5,250m above sea level. AliCPT-1 is a 90/150 GHz 72 cm aperture, two-lens refracting telescope cooled down to 4 K. Alumina lenses, 800mm in diameter, image the CMB in a 33.4{\deg} field of view on a 636mm wide focal plane. The modularized focal plane consists of dichroic polarization-sensitive Transition-Edge Sensors (TESes). Each module includes 1,704 optically active TESes fabricated on a 150mm diameter silicon wafer. Each TES array is read out with a microwave multiplexing readout system capable of a multiplexing factor up to 2,048. Such a large multiplexing factor has allowed the practical deployment of tens of thousands of detectors, enabling the design of a receiver that can operate up to 19 TES arrays for a total of 32,376 TESes. AliCPT-1 leverages the technological advancements in the detector design from multiple generations of previously successful feedhorn-coupled polarimeters, and in the instrument design from BICEP-3, but applied on a larger scale. The cryostat receiver is currently under integration and testing. During the first deployment year, the focal plane will be populated with up to 4 TES arrays. Further TES arrays will be deployed in the following years, fully populating the focal plane with 19 arrays on the fourth deployment year. Here we present the AliCPT-1 receiver design, and how the design has been optimized to meet the experimental requirements., Comment: Proc. SPIE, 11453, 114532A (2020)

Background: Previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated brain abnormalities in patients with hepatic diseases. However, the identified liver–brain associations are largely limited to disease-affected populations, and the nature and extent of such relations in healthy subjects remain unclear. We hypothesized that serum liver function markers within a normal level would affect brain properties.Method: One hundred fifty-seven healthy young adults underwent structural, resting-state functional, and arterial spin labeling MRI scans. Gray matter volume (GMV), regional homogeneity (ReHo), and cerebral blood flow (CBF) analyses were performed to assess brain structure, function, and perfusion, respectively. Peripheral venous blood samples were collected to measure serum liver function markers. Correlation analyses were conducted to test potential associations between liver function markers and brain imaging parameters.Results: First, serum proteins showed relations to brain structure characterized by higher albumin associated with increased GMV in the parahippocampal gyrus and amygdala and lower globulin and a higher albumin/globulin ratio with increased GMV in the olfactory cortex and parahippocampal gyrus. Second, serum bilirubin was linked to brain function characterized by higher bilirubin associated with increased ReHo in the precuneus, middle cingulate gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, and supramarginal gyrus and decreased ReHo in the caudate nucleus. Third, serum alanine transaminase (ALT) was related to brain perfusion characterized by higher ALT associated with increased CBF in the superior frontal gyrus and decreased CBF in the middle occipital gyrus, angular gyrus, precuneus, and middle temporal gyrus. More importantly, we found that CBF in the superior frontal gyrus was a significant mediator of the association between serum ALT level and working memory performance.Conclusion: These findings may not only expand existing knowledge about the relationship between the liver and the brain but also have clinical implications for studying brain impairments secondary to liver diseases as well as providing potential neural targets for their diagnosis and treatment.

Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is a tyrosine kinase receptor involved in homeostatic regulation of normal cells and carcinogenesis of epithelial malignancies. With rapid development of the precision medicine era, a series of new therapies targeting EGFR are underway. Four EGFR monoclonal antibody drugs (cetuximab, panitumumab, nimotuzumab, and necitumumab) are already on the market, and a dozen other EGFR monoclonal antibodies are in clinical trials. Here, we comprehensively review the newly identified biological properties and anti-tumor mechanisms of EGFR monoclonal antibodies. We summarize recently completed and ongoing clinical trials of the classic and new EGFR monoclonal antibodies. More importantly, according to our new standard, we re-classify the complex evolving tumor cell resistance mechanisms, including those involving exosomes, non-coding RNA and the tumor microenvironment, against EGFR monoclonal antibodies. Finally, we analyzed the limitations of EGFR monoclonal antibody therapy, and discussed the current strategies overcoming EGFR related drug resistance. This review will help us better understand the latest battles between EGFR monoclonal antibodies and resistant tumor cells, and the future directions to develop anti-tumor EGFR monoclonal antibodies with durable effects.

Chinese grammatical error correction (CGEC), a task of correcting grammatical errors in text, is treated as a translation task, where error sentences are “translated” to correct sentences. However, some grammatical errors in the training data can confuse the CGEC models and have negative influence in the “translating” process. In this paper, we propose a Grammatical Error Weakening Module (GEWM) to impair the negative influence of grammatical errors in CGEC task. The grammatical error weakening module first extracts contextual features for each word in an error sentence via context attention mechanism. Then the proposed module uses learnable error weakening factors to control the proportion of contextual features and word features in the final representation of each word. As such, features from grammatical error words can be suppressed. Experiments show that our approach has better performance compared with the baseline models in CGEC task.

Background We evaluated the clinical applications of the reconstruction of postoperative defects of the oral cavity using contralateral submental artery flaps. Methods A retrospective study of 18 patients with postoperative intraoral cancer defects reconstructed with contralateral submental artery perforator flaps between October 2018 and October 2019 in our department was conducted. The defect area, flap size, and complications were evaluated. Results All patients were diagnosed based on pathological examinations: 2 with adenoid cystic carcinoma and 16 with squamous cell carcinoma. The submental artery perforator flap used for simultaneous repair was 8 to 15 cm in length and 4 to 6.5 cm in width. The survival rate of flap reconstruction was 100% with no donor site complications. Conclusions Contralateral submental artery flap reconstruction is a suitable alternative for moderate to large intraoral defects, postoperative mouth floor defects, and oral cavity composite defects of oral malignant tumors without contralateral lymph node metastases.

Based on the local energy Internet system project of State Grid Customer Service Center Northern Park, this paper introduces the general idea and system integration of local energy Internet design. In view of the system integration technology, this paper explores and studies the local energy Internet from the three aspects, namely planning and terminal access integration, equipment and system integration, system and system integration. It is found out that the integration technology can effectively gather energy sources and data to realize efficient integration between the energy flow and the data flow.

Lung cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. It mainly consists of 2 histological types: small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC, including squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma). The present study aimed to assess the role of serum progastrin-releasing peptide (ProGRP), neuron-specific enolase (NSE), and carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and their combinations in the histological diagnosis of lung cancer (specially SCLC), which is of great importance for the initiation of treatment and prognostic implications. Serum ProGRP, NSE, and CEA were determined by the electro-chemiluminescence immunoassay (ECLIA) in 66 patients with SCLC, 73 with adenocarcinoma, 44 with squamous cell carcinoma, 45 with non-malignant pulmonary diseases, and 50 healthy controls. Receiver operating characteristic curves were constructed to compare the predictive ability of each biochemical marker and their combined detection models to discriminate among the patients with lung cancers of different histological groups, benign pulmonary diseases and healthy individuals. In the ECLIA detection system, ProGRP showed the sensitivity and specificity for SCLC diagnosis were 71.2% and 91.1% to 93.2%, respectively. Among the markers, the largest area under the ROCs was for ProGRP in discriminating SCLC from benign pulmonary diseases, squamous cell carcinoma and adenocarcinoma (0.815, 0.859, and 0.835, respectively), which indicated that ProGRP was the most efficient marker for identifying SCLC. Besides, ProGRP and NSE exhibited almost equivalent diagnostic performance in discriminating SCLC from benign diseases. As for squamous cell carcinoma, we recommended proGRP, while for adenocarcinoma, the combination of proGRP and CEA was preferred. Remarkably, when ProGRP ≤ 66 pg/mL, CEA was of great value in diagnosing SCLC and adenocarcinoma. If CEA ≤ 5 ng/mL, the patient was at higher risk for SCLC, whereas the patient was more likely to be diagnosed with adenocarcinoma. Our study provided promising information about the diagnostic values of serum ProGRP, NSE, CEA in distinguishing SCLC from benign pulmonary diseases and NSCLC, which was of crucial clinical significance in the early diagnosis and therapy of SCLC. Key words: carcinoembryonic antigen; differential diagnosis; histological diagnosis; lung cancer; neuron-specific enolase; progastrin-releasing peptide; small cell lung cancer

As a powerful instrument to fulfil customer needs, quality function deployment (QFD) is capable of converting customer requirements (CRs) into appropriate engineering characteristics (ECs) in the p...

A novel illumination-insensitive texture feature descriptor (Weber synergistic center-surround pattern) is presented.We model differential synergistic excitation pattern, synergistic straight orientation pattern and synergistic diagonal orientation pattern.We discuss different scale and direction weighted coefficients in detail.We mine higher order spatial information of weighted WSCP. Image representation under complex illumination condition is a great challenge in computer vision field. Motivated by Weber law and synergistic center-surround receipt field model, we propose an illumination-insensitive feature descriptor, named as Weber synergistic center-surround pattern (WSCP), including three components: differential synergistic excitation pattern (DSEP), synergistic straight orientation pattern (SSOP) and synergistic diagonal orientation pattern (SDOP). To further enhance the discriminative power of WSCP, we present a scale and orientation weighted WSCP (WWSCP), which fully considers the inner and outer layer pixels excitation distributions, as well as their orientation information importance. To acquire more discriminative and rich features, we utilize the spatiograms to describe patterns instead of the conventional histograms, which can obtain higher order spatial information. In the final classification stage, we present a novel distance measurement model called weighted similarity measurement model (WSMM) to improve classification accuracy, by sufficiently utilizing the information contents and orientation distributions of each pattern. Extensive experimental comparisons between our methods and other state-of-the-art methods are conducted on CMUPIE, YALE B, YALE B Ext, FERET, PhoTex, Alot and RawFooT databases, and performance results have verified the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed methods on the robustness to illumination variations.

With the continuous improvement of people’s requirements for food safety and quality, cold chain logistics has become the focus of much attention in the logistics industry. my country’s Cold chain logistics is developing rapidly in China, but the overall level is low, and the cold chain loss rate of fresh agricultural products is high, causing huge waste. Road transportation is an important part of cold chain logistics. 90% of the freight volume in the cold chain logistics is completed by road transportation, but the proportion of broken links in the transportation process reaches 60%, which seriously affects service quality of cold chain logistics. Cold chain logistics is directly related to people’s life safety and physical health, and it is also an important way for my country to build a resource-saving society. However, one of the problems with the inadequacy of the cold chain is the incomplete management system, extensive management methods, and imperfect management systems and standards of the cold chain transportation enterprises, refrigerated and heat-preserving vehicles and other basic elements by the industry management department. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a closed-loop management and control system for the entire process of “market access-process monitoring-service evaluation-joint rewards and punishments” centering on road cold chain transportation. The high-quality development of logistics creates a good market environment, improves the service quality and management level of cold chain transportation, and reduces the loss of agricultural products in the cold chain logistics process.

Image feature representation is a hot topic in the computer vision field. Inspired by Weber's law and local graph structure (LGS), we propose a novel image feature representation descriptor, called orthogonal symmetric local weber graph structure (OSLWGS). It contains two components: differential excitation pattern (DEP) and orthogonal symmetric LGS (OSLGS). In particular, DEP is extended by bringing difference of Gaussian (DoG), which can make OSLWGS robust to image noise. In addition, OSLGS can overcome some defects of LGS including non-symmetric and single horizontal structure problems. Furthermore, 2D OSLWGS histogram is generated by fusing DEP and OSLGS to improve the discriminative power and obtain more precise image description. And then, it is further encoded into 1D histogram and classified via sparse representation. Extensive experiments on FERET, CMUPIE, LFW, Yale B, simulated YALE partial occlusion, RawFooT and PhoTex databases validate the effectiveness of the proposed OSLWGS. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is an efficient and robust method compared with some state-of-the-art approaches.

Background: Numerous studies have investigated the influence of osseous factors on patellofemoral joint instability, but research on the influence of dynamic muscle factors in vivo is still in the exploratory stage. This study aimed to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to evaluate vastus medialis oblique (VMO) fiber bundles in patients with recurrent patellar dislocation to explore the changes in muscle morphology and function. Methods: This prospective study involved 30 patients (7 males and 23 females; average age, 21.4 ± 3.8 years) clinically diagnosed with recurrent patellar dislocation in Peking University Third Hospital and 30 healthy volunteers matched for age, sex, and body mass index in our medical school between January 2014 and October 2014. None of the patients had a recent history of traumatic patellar dislocation or transient patellar dislocation. All patients underwent conventional MRI and DTI of the knee. The cross-sectional area of the VMO on MRI and the fractional anisotropy (FA), apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), and primary (λ1), secondary (λ2), and three-level characteristic (λ3) values on DTI were measured. The independent-samples t-test was used to compare these parameters between the two groups. Results: Compared with the control group, the patient group showed significantly higher FA values (0.39 ± 0.05 vs. 0.33 ± 0.03) and significantly lower ADC (1.51 ± 0.13 vs. 1.58 ± 0.07), λ2 (4.96 ± 0.13 vs. 5.04 ± 0.07), and λ3 values (4.44 ± 0.14 vs. 4.58 ± 0.07; t = 5.99, t = –2.58, t = –3.02, and t = –4.88, respectively; all P < 0.05). Cross-sectional VMO area and λ1 values did not differ between the two groups (t = –1.82 and t = 0.22, respectively; both P > 0.05). Conclusions: The functional status of the VMO is closely associated with recurrent patellar dislocation. MRI, especially DTI (FA, ADC, λ2, and λ3), can detect early changes in VMO function and might facilitate the noninvasive monitoring of the functional status of the VMO in patients with recurrent patellar dislocation.

Most blind deconvolution methods usually pre-define a large kernel size to guarantee the support domain. Blur kernel estimation error is likely to be introduced, yielding severe artifacts in deblurring results. In this paper, we first theoretically and experimentally analyze the mechanism to estimation error in oversized kernel, and show that it holds even on blurry images without noises. Then to suppress this adverse effect, we propose a low rank-based regularization on blur kernel to exploit the structural information in degraded kernels, by which larger-kernel effect can be effectively suppressed. And we propose an efficient optimization algorithm to solve it. Experimental results on benchmark datasets show that the proposed method is comparable with the state-of-the-arts by accordingly setting proper kernel size, and performs much better in handling larger-size kernels quantitatively and qualitatively. The deblurring results on real-world blurry images further validate the effectiveness of the proposed method., Comment: Accepted by WACV 2019

Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) is a powerful imaging tool providing high resolution and optical sectioning. In its standard optical configuration, a pair of confocal pinholes is used to reject out-of-focus light. The diffraction limited resolution can be broken by reducing the confocal pinhole size. But this comes at the cost of extremely low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The limited SNR problem can be solved by image scanning microscopy (ISM), in which the single-point detector of a regular point-scanning confocal microscopy is substituted with an array detector such as CCD or CMOS, thus the two-fold super-resolution imaging can be achieved by pixel reassignment and deconvolution. However, the practical application of ISM is challenging due to its limited image acquisition speed. Here, we present a hybrid microscopy technique, named multifocal refocusing after scanning using helical phase engineering microscopy (MRESCH), which combines the double-helix point spread function (DH-PSF) engineering with multifocal structured illumination to dramatically improve the image acquisition speed. In the illumination path, sparse multifocal illumination patterns are generated by a digital micromirror device for parallel imaging information acquisition. In the detection path, a phase mask is introduced to modulate the conventional PSF to the DH-PSF, which provides volumetric information, and meanwhile, we also present a digital refocusing strategy for processing the collected raw data to recover the wild-filed image from different sample layers. To demonstrate imaging capabilities of MRESCH, we acquire the images of mitochondria in live HeLa cells and make a detailed comparison with those from the wide-field microscopy. In contrast to the conventional wide-field approach, the MRESCH can expand the imaging depth in a range from –1 μm to 1 μm. Next, we sample the F-actin of bovine pulmonary artery endothelial cells to characterize the lateral resolution of the MRESCH. The results show that the MRESCH has a better resolution capability than the conventional wide-field illumination microscopy. Finally, the proposed image scanning microscopy can record three-dimensional specimen information from a single multi-spot two-dimensional scan, which ensures faster data acquisition and larger field of view than ISM.

// Yan-Hua Guo 1, 3, * , Lu-Qin Wang 1, * , Bin Li 1, * , Hui Xu 1 , Jian-Hua Yang 1 , Li-Si Zheng 1 , Peng Yu 1 , Ai-Dong Zhou 2 , Yin Zhang 1 , Shu-Juan Xie 1 , Zi-Rui Liang 1 , Chen-Min Zhang 1 , Hui Zhou 1, Liang-Hu Qu 1 1 Key Laboratory of Gene Engineering of the Ministry of Education, State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, P. R. China 2 Present address: Department of Neurosurgery, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas, USA 3 Present address: Guangzhou Quality Supervision and Testing Institute, Guangzhou, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Liang-Hu Qu, email: lssqlh@mail.sysu.edu.cn Keywords: Wnt/β-catenin, miR-150, CREB, EMT, colorectal cancer Received: December 16, 2015 Accepted: May 09, 2016 Published: June 7, 2016 ABSTRACT A hallmark of aberrant activation of the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway has been observed in most colorectal cancers (CRC), but little is known about the role of non-coding RNAs regulated by this pathway. Here, we found that miR-150 was the most significantly upregulated microRNA responsive to elevated of Wnt/β-catenin signaling activity in both HCT116 and HEK293T cells. Mechanistically, the β-catenin/LEF1 complex binds to the conserved TCF/LEF1-binding element in the miR-150 promoter and thereby transactivates its expression. Enforced expression of miR-150 in HCT116 cell line transformed cells into a spindle shape with higher migration and invasion activity. miR-150 markedly suppressed the CREB signaling pathway by targeting its core transcription factors CREB1 and EP300. Knockdown of CREB1 or EP300 and knockout of CREB1 by CRISPR/Cas9 phenocopied the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) observed in HCT116 cells in response to miR-150 overexpression. In summary, our data indicate that miR-150 is a novel Wnt effector that may significantly enhance EMT of CRC cells by targeting the CREB signaling pathway.

Background: Malnutrition and tuberculosis (TB) tend to interact with each other. TB may lead to nutrition deficiencies that will conversely delay recovery by depressing immune functions. Nutrition support can promote recovery in the subject being treated for TB. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of nutrition support on promoting the recovery of adult pulmonary TB patients with anti-TB drug therapy. Methods: English database of the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, PubMed, EMBASE, and Chinese database of CBM, CNKI, VIP, and WANFANG were searched. Randomized controlled trials comparing nutrition support (given for more than 2 weeks) with no nutrition intervention, nutrition advice only, or placebo-control for TB patients being anti-TB treated were included. Two reviewers conducted data extraction, assessed the quality of the studies independently, and any discrepancies were solved by the third reviewer. Data were entered and analyzed by RevMan 5.2 software, and meta-analysis was done using risk ratios ( RR s) for dichotomous variables and mean differences (MDs) for continuous variables with 95% confidence intervals ( CI s). Results: A total of 19 studies (3681 participants) were included. In nutritional support for TB patients, pooled RR and its 95% CI of sputum smears- or culture-negative conversion rate and chest X-ray (CXR) absorption rate were 1.10 (1.04, 1.17) and 1.22 (1.08, 1.39), respectively, the pooled MD and its 95% CI of body mass index (BMI) and time of sputum smears or culture negativity were 0.59 (0.16, 1.2) and − 5.42 (−7.93, −2.92), respectively, compared with the control group. The differences in outcomes of CXR zone affected, TB score, serum albumin, and hemoglobin were not statistically significant ( P = 0.76, 0.24, 0.28, and 0.20, respectively) between the intervention group and the control group. No systemic adverse events were recorded. Conclusions: During anti-TB course, nutrition support may be helpful in treatment of TB patients by improving both sputum smears- or culture-negative conversion rate and BMI, shortening the time of sputum conversion negative. Whether it can improve the final clinical effect, there still needs high-level quality studies to confirm in the future.

Multi-hop Ad-hoc networks is an important organization way for Internet of Things. Through the simulation and analysis in high data load conditions, it can be seen that packet loss is not mainly caused by the change of data links，but the data collisions in MAC layer. What's more, the data collisions affect the routing constructions in NET layer. Therefore, packet loss is not only related to the routing algorithm, but also closely connected with point-to-point transmission performance in MAC layer. So we proposed a cross-layer scheme between the MAC layer and the NET layer. Through the simulation and analysis, it can be proved that this scheme improves the packet delivery, decreases the end-to-end delay and reduces the routing cost, applies to low speed mobile net-works and high data load scene.

Material cost prediction should be based on the scientific mathematical models, to reduce the influence of subjective factors on the quota and other indicators of decomposition. This paper analyzes the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to optimize the parameters of support vector machine and establishes the prediction model of material cost after preprocessing the actual data and using the support vector regression (SVR) machine to perform data mining. In the forecasting process, the total cost of material is predicted, the predicted results are fitted with the actual value, and the relative errors are tested. The result shows that the forecasting effect is satisfied. The prediction of material cost is utilizing special methods to estimate and predict the level of material cost on the basis of historical data and relevant information. Its characteristic is predicting the future on the basis of history, and predicting unknown level on the basis of known information. The renewal of statistical data and a series of characteristics of material production of enterprises determine that the sequence formed by material cost data generally has the nonstationarity, nonlinearity and the point of abrupt change. The support vector machine can realize the minimization of structural risk, and the error rate on test data (namely generalization error rate) of learning machines takes the sum of training error rate and a dependent item as boundary. The support vector machine doesn't utilize the internal problems of the field, which can provide the good generalization performance in problems of pattern classification, and that is the specific characteristic of support vector machine. This paper conducts the data mining to establish the prediction model of material cost according to the learning method of support vector regression machine. This method is a type of relational schema between the spatial pattern of learning input and function mapping of learning output, and researchers generally call the function set in this type of mapping relation as learning machine. It starts from the research on observation data (namely sample). Researchers obtains some rules that can't be obtained from principle in the current situations, and meanwhile utilizes these rules to analyze the data obtained. Thus they can reach the value prediction and conduct the decision making and value estimation. 2. PSO-SVR MODELING ALGORITHM

A microgripper component which is made of piezo-cantilever is presented in this paper. The modified mixed variational principle including piezoelectric materials is established and then the state-vector equations of laminated piezoelectric beams are derived directly from the principle. Finally the exact expressions of mechanical and electrical variables along the thickness direction based on the state-vector equation are simply given. Based on the semi-analytical solution of the state-vector equation, a state space finite element model is established. The static analysis is carried out for a laminated beam fully covered with piezoelectric actuating layers on the top and bottom surfaces of the substrate. Both the substrate and piezoelectricity of the laminated beam are considered as one-dimensional line solids and the same linear element is used to discretize the whole beam. This semi-analytical technique can guarantee the continuity of generalized displacements and generalized stresses inter-layers and the transfer matrix method can be applied. Furthermore the exact solution in one direction ensures there is no restriction on the thickness for the smart structures. At the end of this paper the influence of secondary converse piezoelectric effect (SCPE) on the deflection of the laminated beam covered with piezoelectric driving layers for static precision displacement control is investigated. The above mentioned state space finite element method is used to predict the deflection of the beam with and without SCPE. If the influence of SCPE is eliminated, the deflections of the clamped beam will increase by ~2.7%. In addition, the driving characteristic with different PZT/steel thickness ratio considering SCPE are also studied. The maximum influence of SCPE on deflection can reach ~3% for the beam fully covered with piezoelectric active layers, which should not be neglected in practical microoperation applications. State space element is used to solve the laminated beams with piezoelectric layers.Displacements and stresses were discretized by FE technique in axis direction.Displacements and stresses along thickness were solved using state equations.Influence of secondary converse piezoelectric effect was investigated.The parameters, thickness ratio, piezoelectric constant ratio etc., are analyzed.

The transmission polarization conversion metasurface has been widely concerned, because it has the advantage of being easy to be conformal with the antenna. Based on the reasonable arrangement of transmission polarization conversion units, various and complex electromagnetic functions can be realized. As the electromagnetic open window on the flight platform, the antenna is the bottleneck that restricts the decrease of radar cross section (RCS) of the whole flight platform. It is difficult to simultaneously realize the normal and efficient radiation of the antenna and the decrease of the RCS of the antenna. When the designed transmission metasurface is used in the antenna design, the radiation and scattering of the antenna can be regulated comprehensively. In this paper, a composite polarization conversion metasurface is proposed and verified. The unit cell of composite polarization conversion metasurface consists of two mirror symmetrical anisotropic metal patches in the upper layer, a dielectric layer and a polarization gate in the lower layer. When the polarization direction of the incident electromagnetic wave is perpendicular to the extension direction of the polarization gate and arrives at the composite polarization conversion surface, the conversion surface can realize the conversion from transmission linear polarization to right-hand circular polarization in a frequency range from 9.3 GHz to 10.9 GHz. When the polarization direction of the incident electromagnetic wave is parallel to the extension direction of the polarization gate, co-polarized total reflection can be realized. The chessboard arrangement metasurface is composed of composite polarization conversion unit and its mirror unit. A novel linearly polarized chessboard arrangement metasurface antenna is composed of the linearly polarized source microstrip antenna with a bandwidth of 9.4–10.7 GHz and the chessboard arrangement metasurface. By using the counter rotating cancellation characteristic of circular polarization, the chessboard arrangement metasurface antenna maintains linearly polarized radiation. Comparing with the source microstrip antenna, the linear polarization purity of chessboard arrangement metasurface antenna is improved from 9.5 GHz to 10.5 GHz. At the same time, the forward gain of the chessboard arrangement antenna increases and the radar cross section decreases. The maximum reduction is 39.2 dB. To further verify the practicability of the design and analysis, the chessboard arrangement metasurface antenna sample is fabricated and measured in microwave anechoic chamber with an Agilent 5230C network analyzer. The experimental results are in good agreement with the simulation results. This study has important reference value in the design of high gain, low RCS antenna and integrated regulation radiation and scattering of antenna.

Background: The incidence of proximal humeral fracture is increasing gradually. Many patients choose open reduction and internal fixation. With the maturity of surgical technology and thought, people begin to think about the optimization of surgical effect from the surgical incision, including less trauma, less bleeding, less postoperative complications and fast postoperative recovery. However, due to the complexity of shoulder anatomy, scholars have created different surgical approaches from different perspectives. Objective: Although the effect of open reduction and internal fixation is confirmed, there are still some differences in the effect of different surgical approaches. We need to study the summary and research progress of surgical approach for proximal humeral fracture, which is conducive to the selection of the optimal approach for incision, so as to improve the prognosis. Method: Selective literature review. Result: At present, common surgical approaches include lateral approach, anteromedial approach, anterolateral approach, small incision approach and other approaches. This paper describes and compares the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, so as to choose the best approach for different fracture types. Conclusion: Based on the complexity of the anatomical relationship of the shoulder joint, the displacement, classification of the fracture, the proximal humerus are opened and exposed from different perspectives. Choosing a safe surgical approach is one of the key links of the whole operation and plays an important role in the postoperative effect. In this paper, the common approaches and new approaches of open reduction and internal fixation for proximal humeral fracture are reviewed, which provides new ideas for the design of surgical scheme.

Resurfacing large facial defect is a continuing challenge for plastic surgeons. Skin graft or free flap is hard to obtain satisfactory results or is beyond the skill of most surgeons. The authors performed 13 expended submental island flaps to resurface middle and lower facial defects and achieved satisfactory results. In the first stage operation, the authors implanted one soft tissue expander in the anterior neck region which was expanded over an average of 3 months. In the second stage operation, the authors elevated the expanded submental island flap to resurface facial defect. For the patients who request aesthetic results and allow 2-stage operation, our method provides more satisfactory results. This technique does not require any special skills and is well within the skill of most plastic surgeons.

Ras association domain family member 6 (RASSF6) has been shown to act as a tumor suppressor and predictor of poor prognosis in renal cell carcinoma (RCC). However, little is known about the effects of RASSF6 on sorafenib resistance or the underlying mechanism. Here, we show that RASSF6 expression positively correlates with sorafenib sensitivity in RCC cells and human samples. Stable ectopic overexpression of RASSF6 in RCC cell lines reduces resistance to sorafenib in vitro and in vivo. At a molecular level, RASSF6 activates the JNK signaling pathway, which further contributes to Mcl-1 inhibition. Suppression of the JNK pathway can partially restore Mcl-1 expression and sorafenib resistance. Together, these findings suggest that RASSF6 inhibits sorafenib resistance by repressing Mcl-1 through the JNK-dependent pathway. RASSF6 may serve as a novel regulator for sorafenib therapy in RCC.

Artificial noise (AN) assisted secure communication is a promising technique in the area of physical layer security. In this paper, we propose a new AN method to enhance the secrecy performance of a time reverse (TR) transmission system. Based on the proposed AN model, we first derive the closed-form secrecy rate, whose accuracy is verified through simulations. Then using it as an objective function, we further study the power allocation issue between useful information signals and the AN with the aid of maximizing the secrecy rate. The optimal power allocation is first derived in closed form and then analyzed in some special cases such as Rayleigh channel. Analytical and simulation results show that the secrecy performance can be considerably improved by over 10% even with a small amount of AN. And when there are less multi-paths in the channel or when the transmit power is small, more power for AN is required.

The electricity market of China is currently in the process of a new institutional reform. Diversified electricity retail entities are gradually being established with the opening of the marketing electricity side. In the face of a complex market environment and fierce competition, the operating efficiency can directly reflect the current market position and development of electricity retail companies. TOPSIS method can make full use of the information of original data, calculate the distance between evaluated objects and the ideal solutions and get the relative proximity, which is generally used in the overall department and comprehensive evaluation of the benefits. Least squares support vector machine (LSSVM), with high convergence precision, helps save the training time of algorithm by solving linear equations and is used to predict the comprehensive evaluation value. Considering the ultimate goal of sustainable development, a comprehensive evaluation model on operating efficiency of electricity retail companies based on the improved TOPSIS method and LSSVM optimized by modified ant colony algorithm is proposed in this paper. Firstly, from the view of sustainable development, an operating efficiency evaluation indicator system is constructed. Secondly, the entropy weight method is applied to empower the indicators objectively. After that, based on the improved TOPSIS method, the reverse problem in the evaluation process is eliminated. According to the relative proximity between the evaluated objects and the absolute ideal solutions, the scores of comprehensive evaluation for operating efficiency can then be ranked. Finally, the LSSVM optimized by modified ant colony algorithm is introduced to realize the simplified expert scoring process and fast calculation in the comprehensive evaluation process, and its improved learning and generalization ability can be used in the comprehensive evaluation of similar projects. The example analysis proves that the comprehensive evaluation model proposed in this paper can provide scientific and effective evaluation results of the operating efficiency of electricity retail companies.

Objective To evaluate the prognostic effects of combining serum circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC-Ag) levels on patients with locally advanced cervical cancer treated with radiotherapy. Methods Ninety-nine patients with locally advanced cervical cancer ([FIGO] stage IIB-IVA) undergoing radiotherapy (RT) or concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) were identified. The association between serum CTC level and clinicopathological parameters was examined. Univariate and multivariate survival analyses were performed by using Cox's proportional hazards regression model. Results Elevated CTC and SCC-Ag levels were significantly associated with poor disease-free survival (DFS). Multivariate analysis suggest that serum CTC level, FIGO stage and serum SCC-Ag level were independent prognostic factors for two-year DFS. When CTC and SCC-Ag levels were combined into a new risk model to predict disease progression of cervical cancer patients, it performed a significantly better predictive efficiency compared with either biomarker alone. Conclusion Serum CTC and SCC-Ag levels are potentially useful biomarkers for prediction of prognosis in locally advanced cervical cancer patients and their combination significantly improves predictive ability for survival in locally advanced cervical cancer patients.

Time reversal (TR) transmission is a promising technique for wireless communications. Recently, the security problem in TR communication has drawn growing attention. In this paper, we firstly propose a path selection based physical layer security method, where a subset of paths with larger channel gains are selected for transmitting information signals. We then propose to add artificial noise (AN) on remaining paths to mask the information signals. The corresponding average secrecy rates are approximately derived in closed form. Analytical and simulation results show that the secrecy performance can be considerably improved with the help of path selection, and further improved with the AN aided approach. The optimal values of the selected path number and the power allocation between information signals and AN are also investigated. Simulation results show that costing a small amount of power on AN and transmitting AN on a few paths, we can achieve good secrecy performance.

In this paper, we investigate the performance of artificial noise (AN) assisted secure communication in the presence of an active eavesdropper, who selects a jammer to assist eavesdropping. An approximate closed-form expression for the secrecy rate is derived firstly. Then we consider the practical scenario where Alice aims to allocate considerable power to the AN under the target Quality of Service (QoS) of the legitimate link. While Eve tries to compel Alice to reduce the AN by selecting an optimal helper to transmit jamming signals to Bob. To solve the conflict, we formulate a game-theoretic model between Alice and Eve. Nash equilibriums, including the minimum power allocation factor, the jammer's optimal position and jamming power are proved to exist and then analytically derived. An iterative algorithm is also proposed to obtain the optimal solution. Finally, simulation results are provided to verify our analytical results.

In this paper, we investigate the performance of artificial noise assisted secure communication in the presence of a full-duplex active eavesdropper who can simultaneously perform eavesdropping and jamming. An approximate closed-form expression for the secrecy rate is derived. With this result, we obtain a new result for the optimal power allocation factor maximizing the secrecy rate, and analyze the impact of self-interference coefficient and jamming power on it. We further consider a more practical scenario where the legitimate user aims to maintain a given target data rate and uses all remaining power for artificial noise (AN) to interfere with the eavesdropper. While the eavesdropper tries to compel the transmitter to reduce the AN by sending jamming signals to the legitimate receiver. To solve this conflict, we introduce a power cost parameter to describe the impact of jamming on the eavesdropper itself and then formulate a game-theoretic framework. We also derive the closed-form equilibrium solutions for both sides. These results show the optimal jamming strategy of the eavesdropper and provide insights into the low bound secrecy performance. Finally, simulation results are provided to verify our analytical results.