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Ruoran Wang,1 Min He,2 Jing Zhang,1 Shaobo Wang,3 Jianguo Xu1 1Department of Neurosurgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Critical Care Medicine, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Infectious Diseases, Xi’an Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Xi’an, Shannxi Province, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Jianguo XuDepartment of Neurosurgery, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, No. 37, Guoxue Alley, Chengdu, 610041, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail xujg@scu.edu.cnShaobo WangDepartment of Infectious Diseases, Xi’an Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. 69, Fengcheng 8th Road, Xi’an, 710016, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail 1307799083@qq.comBackground: As an inflammation-based marker, red cell distribution width to platelet ratio (RPR) has been verified to be associated with disease severity and outcome in many clinical settings. We designed this study to evaluate the prognostic value of RPR in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI).Methods: A total of 420 patients admitted with TBI were included in this study. Laboratory and clinical data were collected from an electronic medical record system. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were sequentially performed to discover risk factors of in-hospital mortality. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were drawn to confirm the predictive value of different markers including RPR in training set and testing set.Results: Non-survivors had higher level of RPR than survivors (P< 0.001). Logistic regression analysis showed that RPR was significantly associated with mortality even after adjusting for confounding factors (P< 0.001). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) value of Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) for predicting mortality was 0.761 and 0775 in training set and testing set, respectively. And the constructed predictive model incorporating RPR had the highest AUC value of 0.858 and 0.884 in training set and testing set.Conclusion: RPR is significantly associated with mortality in TBI patients. Utilizing RPR to construct a predictive model is valuable to evaluate prognosis of TBI patients.Keywords: red cell distribution to platelet ratio, traumatic brain injury, prognosis, marker

Ternary two-dimentional (2D) materials exhibit diverse physical properties depending on their composition, structure, and thickness. Through forming heterostructures with other binary materials that show similar structure, there can be numerous potential applications of these ternary 2D materials. In this work, we reported the structure of few-layer CrPS4 by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscope, and electron-density distribution calculation. We also demonstrated a new application of the CrPS4/MoS2 heterobilayer: visible-infrared photodetectors with type-II staggered band alignment at room temperature. The response of the heterostructure to infrared light results from a strong interlayer coupling that reduces the energy interval in the junction area. Since the intrinsic bandgap of individual components determines wavelengths, the decrease in energy interval allows better detection of light that has a longer wavelength. We used photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM) under illumination, and electrical transport measurements to verify the photoinduced charge separation between the CrPS4/MoS2 heterostructures. At forward bias, the device functioned as a highly sensitive photodetector, as the wavelength-dependent photocurrent measurement achieved the observation of optical excitation from 532 to 1,450 nm wavelength. Moreover, the photocurrent caused by interlayer exciton reached around 1.2 nA at 1,095 nm wavelength. Our demonstration of the strong interlayer coupling in the CrPS4/MoS2 heterostructure may further the understanding of the essential physics behind binary-ternary transition metal chalcogenides heterostructure and pave a way for their potential applications in visible-infrared devices.

PET enables a concurrent evaluation of perfusion status and metabolic activity. We aimed to evaluate the feasibility of perfusion and early-uptake 18F-FDG PET/CT in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) using a dual-input dual-compartment uptake model. Data from 5 min dynamic PET/CT and conventional PET/CT scans were retrospectively collected from 17 pathologically diagnosed HCCs. Parameters such as hepatic arterial blood flow (Fa), portal vein blood flow (Fv), total blood flow (F), hepatic arterial perfusion index (HPI), portal vein perfusion index (PPI), blood volume (BV), extracellular mean transit time (MTT) and intracellular uptake rate (Ki) were calculated. Fa, HPI, MTT and Ki images were generated and used to identify HCC. Compared with the surrounding liver tissue, HCCs showed significant increases in Fa, HPI, Ki and the maximum standard uptake value (SUVmax) (all P 0.05) did not differ significantly between HCCs and the surrounding liver tissue. Perfusion and early-uptake PET/CT increased the positivity rate of HCCs from 52.9% with conventional PET/CT alone to 88.2% with the combined method (P

Underground natural gas storage (UNGS) is an important part of the natural gas supply system to ensure a balanced energy supply. The surface system, as an important part of the gas storage, undertakes the functions of gas injection and gas production of the gas storage, and its investment economy is of vital importance. In fact, the UNGS surface pipeline network has two-way injection and production characteristics, which is different from the one-way production characteristics of conventional oil&gas gathering and transportation systems. This paper takes the minimum investment of the pipeline network as the objective function, considers the gas injection and gas withdrawal flow conditions and esablishes a mixed integer non-linear programming model (MINLP) for the surface pipeline network of the UNGS to optimize its pipeline layout and diameter parameters. Constraints including the well affiliation, the number of stations, the gathering radius, the processing capacity and the flow/pressure equilibrium equations, are also taken into consideration. Taking an UNGS in China as an example, the results of the optimal structure and diameter of the pipeline network, as well as the pipe flow, node pressure, and maximum/minimum flowrate during gas injection and gas withdrawal are obtained. Finally, the effects of constraints such as processing capacity and radius on the structure layout and investment of the UNGS are analyzed, verifying the reliability and effectiveness of the model.

PURPOSE: We aimed to differentiate tuberculous peritonitis (TBP) from peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) using a visual positron-emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) scoring system based on mesenteric fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) uptake. METHODS: PET/CT scans from 31 patients with TBP and 92 patients with PC were retrospectively reviewed. A visual PET/CT scoring system for mesenteric FDG uptake was used according to the following characteristics: FDG uptake intensity (low = 0, moderate = 1, high = 2), FDG uptake deposits (uniform = 0, irregular = 1, ascitic = 2), FDG uptake focality (diffuse = 0, segmental = 1, focal = 2), nodularity on the corresponding CT (nonnodular = 0, micronodular = 1, macronodular = 2) and mesenteric lymphadenopathy (absent = 0, lymphadenopathy without FDG uptake = 1, lymphadenopathy with FDG uptake = 2). The FDG uptake intensity, deposits, focality, nodularity and mesenteric lymphadenopathy scores between TBP and PC were compared using chi-square tests. The diagnostic performance of this scoring system for differentiating TBP from PC was analyzed using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: Twenty-four patients with TBP (77.4%) and 56 patients with PC (60.9%) had mesenteric FDG uptake (P = 0.095) and were included for evaluation with the visual PET/CT scoring system. PC lesions scored higher than TBP lesions in FDG uptake deposits (P < 0.001), focality (P < 0.001) and nodularity (P < 0.001). No significant differences were observed between PC and TBP lesions in FDG uptake intensity (P = 0.396) and lymphadenopathy (P = 0.074). The total score that combined deposits, focality and nodularity had significant value for differentiating TBP from PC (area under the curve (AUC) = 0.869, P < 0.001), and a cutoff > 1 had a sensitivity (the accuracy for diagnosis of PC) of 80.4% and a specificity (the accuracy for diagnosis of TBP) of 75.0%. CONCLUSION: A visual PET/CT scoring system based on mesenteric FDG uptake performed well in differentiating between TBP and PC.

Zika virus (ZIKV) is an infectious disease that has become an important concern worldwide, it associates with neurological disorders and congenital malformations in adults, also leading to fetal intrauterine growth restriction and microcephaly during pregnancy. However, there are currently no approved vaccines or specific antiviral drugs for preventing or treating ZIKV infection. Here, we show that two FDA-approved Na+/K+-ATPase inhibitors, ouabain and digoxin, can block ZIKV infection at the replication stage by targeting Na+/K+-ATPase. Furthermore, ouabain reduced the viral burden of ZIKV in adult mice, penetrated the placental barrier to enter fetal tissues, and protected fetal mice from ZIKV infection-induced microcephaly in a pregnant mouse model. Thus, ouabain has therapeutic potential for ZIKV.

BACKGROUND: Trichostatin A (TSA) is emerging as a potential component of anticancer therapy. In this study, we aimed to identify the radiosensitizing effects of TSA in esophageal squamous carcinoma cell lines and identify the genomic alteration of histone acetylation associated with TSA treatment. METHODS: EC109 and KYSE450 cells were pretreated with TSA (0.1 µM) for 12 hours prior to irradiation, and the cell viability, flow cytometry, and comet assays were performed to analyze cell growth, cell apoptosis, and DNA damage, respectively. Chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing (ChIP-Seq) was performed to identify the acetylation sites of histone H3 lysine 9 (H3K9), which was altered by TSA. RESULTS: Our data showed that TSA could sensitize esophageal cancer cells to radiation by inducing cell cycle arrest and increasing cell apoptosis. DNA damage induced by radiation was enhanced by TSA treatment. In addition, a total of 105 differential peak-related genes were found to be associated with TSA treatment, which was identified using ChIP-Seq with specific antibodies against acetylated histone H3K9. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that pretreatment with TSA can enhance ionizing radiation-induced DNA damage of esophageal cancer cells, which was associated with the altered histone modification of whole genome. TSA has potential implications for clinical use in increasing the anticancer efficacy of radiation.

Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunction may lead to the occurrence of critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency. Critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency can easily occur after traumatic brain injury, but few studies have examined this occurrence. A multicenter, prospective, cohort study was performed to evaluate the function of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and the incidence of critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency during the sub-acute phase of traumatic brain injury. One hundred and forty patients with acute traumatic brain injury were enrolled from the neurosurgical departments of three tertiary-level hospitals in China, and the critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency incidence, critical-illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency-related risk factors, complications, and 28-day mortality among these patients was recorded. Critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency was diagnosed in patients with plasma total cortisol levels less than 10 μg/dL (275.9 nM) on post-injury day 4 or when serum cortisol was insufficiently suppressed (less than 50%) during a dexamethasone suppression test on post-injury day 5. The results demonstrated that critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency occurred during the sub-acute phase of traumatic brain injury in 5.6% of patients with mild injury, 22.5% of patients with moderate injury, and 52.2% of patients with severe injury. Traumatic brain injury-induced critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency was strongly correlated to injury severity during the sub-acute stage of traumatic brain injury. Traumatic brain injury patients with critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency frequently presented with hemorrhagic cerebral contusions, diffuse axonal injury, brain herniation, and hypotension. Differences in the incidence of hospital-acquired pneumonia, gastrointestinal bleeding, and 28-day mortality were observed between patients with and without critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency during the sub-acute phase of traumatic brain injury. Hypotension, brain-injury severity, and the types of traumatic brain injury were independent risk factors for traumatic brain injury-induced critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency. These findings indicate that critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency is common during the sub-acute phase of traumatic brain injury and is strongly associated with poor prognosis. The dexamethasone suppression test is a practical assay for the evaluation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis function and for the diagnosis of critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency in patients with traumatic brain injury, especially those with hypotension, hemorrhagic cerebral contusions, diffuse axonal injury, and brain herniation. Sub-acute infection of acute traumatic brain injury may be an important factor associated with the occurrence and development of critical illness-related corticosteroid insufficiency. This study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of General Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, China in December 2011 (approval No. 201189).

Track reconstruction is necessary for time projection chamber (TPC), because TPCs usually face the measurement error that impedes gaining precise spacial and angular resolution. Kalman filter is a well-performed and applicable algorithm to denoise and reconstruct the event track. In this paper, we develop a six-dimensional Kalman filter to reconstruct the particle track in high-energy physics experiments, while the most common form of Kalman filter used in many research fields is four-dimensional. The modelisation is based on a gaseous TPC, and the whole reconstruction process is first tested by a toy Monte Carlo simulation. The results show the Kalman filter can effectively reduce the noise and improve the detector resolution. Then, the performance of the Kalman filter is also verified with the data produced by the Geant4 toolkit.

Professional long drivers can hit golf balls to a speed of up to 350 km/h. Extremely short exposure time is required to capture the objects moving that fast without blur. The very high frame rate is also required to capture the sufficient sequence of object movements within the field of view in order to predict trajectory, which means a sacrifice in frame image resolution at fixed data throughput. This paper presents a high-speed stereo vision system that is able to track the golf ball motion at the speed of up to 360 km/h under normal indoor lighting conditions. Binocular camera operated at 810 frames/s with 35- $\mu \text{s}$ exposure time, requiring no additional strobe lights in order not to compromise user experiences. Ball markers were designed for spin measurement. To detect balls and identify markers from highly underexposed low resolution images, new algorithms were developed and implemented on field-programmable gate array board with an advanced RISC machines CPU. The experimental results showed high detection rate and high accuracy with overall processing time less than 300 ms.

PLEKHG5, a Rho-specific guanine-nucleotide exchange factor, is involved in tumor cell migration, invasion and angiogenic potential. In this study, the expression pattern, prognostic value and function of PLEKHG5 in gliomas were investigated. Immunohistochemistry was used to determine the expression pattern of PLEKHG5 in 61 glioma patients after curative resection. Statistical analysis was performed to evaluate the diagnostic and prognostic significance of PLEKHG5. Gene ontology (GO) analysis, Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis and Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) were used to predict potential functions of PLEKHG5. Migration assay and western blot analysis determined PLEKHG5 function in glioma migration and invasion. Increased PLEKHG5 expression levels were associated with higher glioma grades (P

Recently, the incidence of lung cancer is generally rising along with air pollution and smoking, and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for nearly 85% among all lung cancer diagnoses. With the development of chemotherapy, the drug resistance rate of common platinum-based chemotherapeutic drugs (like cisplatin) is gradually increased, which seriously affects the chemotherapy efficiency and survival rate of patients. In this study, polyethylenimine caged platinum nanoclusters (PEI-caged Pt NCs) were proposed as a new chemotherapeutic agent to apply in the treatment of NSCLC, choosing the classical cisplatin-resistant A549/DDP cells and normal A549 cells as targets. It was found that our Pt NCs-based chemotherapeutic drugs showed its preferable therapeutic effect in cisplatin-resistant NSCLC through the results of confocal microscopic images, cell counting kit-8 test, cell apoptosis assay and western blot. Most importantly, in the cisplatin-resistance A549/DDP cells, this kind of agents could enter the nucleus obviously, and emerged a superior inhibitory and apoptotic effects than A549 via activating p53 protein and the related signaling pathways. Comparing with the traditional chemotherapy drugs, these Pt NCs-based chemotherapeutic agents exhibit great potential and advantages in the treatment and diagnosis of NSCLC regardless of the therapeutic effect or toxic side effects, especially the drug resistance.

Background: Clear evidence shows that tumor could secrete microRNAs (miRNAs) via exosomes to modulate tumor microenvironment (TME). However, the mechanisms sorting specific miRNAs into exosomes are still unclear. Methods: In order to study the biological function and characterization of exosomal miRNAs, we performed whole-transcriptome sequencing in 59 patients’ whole course cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) small extracellular vesicles (sEV) and matched glioma tissue samples. Results: The results demonstrate that miRNAs could be divided into exosome-enriched miRNAs (ExomiRNAs) and intracellular-retained miRNAs (CLmiRNAs), and exosome-enriched miRNAs generally play a dual role. Among them, miR-1298-5p was enriched in CSF exosomes and suppressed glioma progression in vitro and vivo experiments. Interestingly, exosomal miR-1298-5p could promote Immunosuppressive effects of myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) to facilitate glioma. Therefore, we found miR-1298-5p had different effects on glioma cells and MDSCs. Mechanically, downstream signaling pathway analyses showed that miR-1298-5p plays distinct roles in glioma cells and MDSCs via targeting SETD7 and MSH2, respectively. Moreover, reverse verification was performed on the intracellular-retained miRNA miR-9-5p. Conclusions: Thus, we hypothesized that tumor-suppressive miRNAs in glioma cells could be eliminated through exosomes and target tumor-associated immune cells to induce tumor-promoting phenotypes. Glioma could get double benefit from it. These findings uncover the mechanisms that glioma selectively sorts miRNAs into exosomes and modulates tumor immunity.

Mosquito-borne Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) causes serious illness worldwide and is associated with high morbidity and mortality. To identify potential host therapeutic targets, a high-throughput receptor tyrosine kinase small interfering RNA library screening was performed with recombinant JEV particles. Platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFRβ) was identified as a hit after two rounds of screening. Knockdown of PDGFRβ blocked JEV infection, and trans-complementation of PDGFRβ could partly restore its infectivity. The PDGFRβ inhibitor imatinib, which has been approved for the treatment of malignant metastatic cancer, protected mice against JEV-induced lethality by decreasing the viral load in the brain, while abrogating the histopathological changes associated with JEV infection. These findings demonstrated that PDGFRβ is important in viral infection and provided evidence for the potential to develop imatinib as a therapeutic intervention against JEV infection.

Mosquito-borne Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) causes serious illness worldwide and is associated with high morbidity and mortality. To identify potential host therapeutic targets, a high-throughput receptor tyrosine kinase small interfering RNA library screening was performed with recombinant JEV particles. Platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFRβ) was identified as a hit after two rounds of screening. Knockdown of PDGFRβ blocked JEV infection and transcomplementation of PDGFRβ could partly restore its infectivity. The PDGFRβ inhibitor imatinib, which has been approved for the treatment of malignant metastatic cancer, protected mice against JEV-induced lethality by decreasing the viral load in the brain while abrogating the histopathological changes associated with JEV infection. These findings demonstrated that PDGFRβ is important in viral infection and provided evidence for the potential to develop imatinib as a therapeutic intervention against JEV infection.

This study aimed to develop and validate a novel rabbit fixator made from a thermoplastic mask for awake imaging experiments. When heated in a hot-water bath at 65–70 °C for 2–5 min, the thermoplastic mask became soft and could be molded to fit over the entire body of an anesthetized rabbit (4 ml of 3% pentobarbital sodium solution by intramuscular injection). Twenty rabbits were randomly divided into fixator (n = 10) and anesthesia (n = 10) groups. The animals’ vital signs, stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline), and subjective image quality scores for the computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanning were measured and compared. Phantom CT, MRI and PET studies were performed to assess the performance with and without the thermoplastic mask by using image agents at different concentrations or with different radioactivity. The respiration rate (RR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), peripheral capillary oxygen saturation (SpO2) and body temperature (T) decreased after anesthesia (all P P > 0.05). The heart rate (HR), cortisol and adrenaline did not significantly decrease after either anesthesia or fixation (all P > 0.05). The subjective image quality scores for the CT and MRI images of the head, thorax, liver, kidney, intestines and pelvis and the subjective image quality scores for the PET images did not significantly differ between the two groups (all P > 0.05). For all examined organs except the muscle, 18F-FDG metabolism was lower after fixation than after anesthesia, and was almost identical of liver between two groups. The phantom study showed that the CT values, standard uptake values and MR T2 signal values did not differ significantly with or without the mask (all P > 0.05). A novel rabbit fixator created using a thermoplastic mask could be used to obtain high-quality images for different imaging modalities in an awake and near-physiological state.

Although existing research has made considerable progress in person re-identification (re-id), it remains challenges due to intra-class variations across different cameras and the lack of cross-view paired training data. Recently, there are increasing studies focusing on using generative model to augment training samples. One of the main obstacles is how to use generated unlabeled samples. To address this issue, we propose a joint learning framework without label predictions, including re-id learning and data generation end-to-end. Each person encodes into a feature code and a structure code. The generative module is able to generate cross-id images by decoding structure code with switched feature code. For generated unlabeled data, we average re-id model weights instead of label predictions. Moreover, we expand the distance between inter-class feature code. Our approach improves the accuracy of the re-id model and the quality of the generated data. Experiments on several benchmark datasets shows that our method achieves competitive results with most state-of-the-art methods.

The PandaX-III experiment uses high pressure gaseous time projection chamber to search for the neutrinoless double beta decay of 136Xe. A modular slow control system (SCS) has been designed to monitor all the critical parameters of the experiment. It ensures the proper operation of the experiment and provides necessary information for data corrections. The main subsystems of the experiment will be constantly monitored by the data collection module of the SCS, which collects data from sensors and sends them to the centralized database. When an alarm message is generated by the anomaly detection module, it will be sent to an alert website and related on-call experts immediately. A demonstrator of the SCS has been built for the PandaX-III prototype detector. The long-term test of it provided valuable experience for the final design of the SCS for PandaX-III.

This paper proposes a lane change path planning method for Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) driving in structured environments. Due to the complexity of dynamically changing structured environment, the path planner generally requires to generate a safe and smooth path in a short time when changing lanes. Therefore, we propose an efficient lane change path planning method, which can take into account both the curvature and heading angle of the planned path, ensuring the safety and stability of the lane change maneuver. It builds upon existing method using quintic spline with second-order geometric (G2-) continuity in a Frenet coordinate system. By calculating the optimal prediction time interval of the lane change maneuver, the heading angle was kept within a safe range. In order to improve the real-time performance, we use road prior information to optimize the selection of sampling points, effectively reducing the number of candidate paths. In addition, beyond the sampling points, the problem of continuous lane change is solved by adding mid-adjust point and target point, so that AVs have the ability to complete complex movements. In an urban environment, the proposed method is tested on our experimental autonomous vehicle equipped with a modular ROS architecture. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm can generate complex motion paths efficiently, and the curvature and heading angle of the planned path are continuous, which effectively improves the efficiency and stability of path planning.

Individual recognition of communication emitter can obtain the working mechanism, system parameters, and the usage model of the emitters based on the separation and interception of the specific emitter signals. In order to realize the individual recognition of communication emitter, a method of communication emitter recognition based on wavelet packet feature extraction and attribute reduction of granular computing is proposed. The method uses hierarchical and granularity to represent the subtle feature information of different emitter signals contained in the original data after the decomposition of wavelet packet, so that the feature attributes of different emitters are efficiently mapped to different levels of granular structure which can be used to search for an optimal reduced attributes operation for signal recognition. And then, the reduced attributes are used to distinguish the emitter signals correctly by label propagation method. The experimental results show that the proposed method based on wavelet packet feature extraction and granular computing attribute reduction has good classification performance in individual recognition of communication emitters.

Essentials The pathogenesis of immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) has not been fully clarified. We analyzed the role of anti-αvβ3 autoantibody in the pathogenesis of ITP in patients. Anti-αvβ3 autoantibody impeded megakaryocyte migration and adhesion to the vascular niche. Anti-αv β3 autoantibody potentially contributes to the pathogenesis of refractory ITP. Summary Background The pathogenesis of immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) has not been fully clarified. Anti-αvβ3 integrin autoantibody is detected in chronic ITP patients, but its contribution to ITP is still unclear. Objectives To clarify the potential role of anti-αvβ3 integrin autoantibody in chronic ITP and the related mechanism. Methods Relationship between levels of anti-αvβ3 autoantibody and platelets in chronic ITP patients was evaluated. The influence of anti-αvβ3 antibody on megakaryocyte (MK) survival, differentiation, migration and adhesion was assessed, and the associated signal pathways were investigated. Platelet recovery and MKs' distribution were observed in an ITP mouse model pretreated with different antibodies. Result In this study, we showed that the anti-αvβ3 autoantibody usually coexists with anti-αIIbβ3 autoantibody in chronic ITP patients, and patients with both autoantibodies have lower platelets. In in vitro studies, we showed that the anti-αvβ3 antibody had no significant effect on the survival and proliferation of MKs, whereas it decreased formations of proplatelet significantly. Anti-αvβ3 antibody impeded stromal cell derived facor-1 alpha (SDF-1α)- mediated migration and inhibited the phosphorylation of protein kinase B. Anti-αvβ3 antibody significantly inhibited MKs' adhesion to endothelial cells and Fibrogen. The phosphorylation of focal adhesion kinase and proto-oncogene tyrosine-protein kinase Src induced by adhesion was inhibited when MKs were pretreated with anti-αvβ3 antibody. In in vivo studies, we showed that injection with anti-αv antibody delayed platelet recovery in a mouse model of ITP. Conclusions These findings demonstrate that the autoantibody against integrin αv β3 may aggravate thrombocytopenia in ITP patients by impeding MK migration and adhesion to the vascular niche, which provides new insights into the pathogenesis of ITP.

Intracranial hypertension is a serious threat to the health of neurosurgical patients. At present, there is a lack of a safe and effective technology to monitor intracranial pressure (ICP) accurately and nondestructively. In this paper, based on near infrared technology, the continuous nondestructive monitoring of ICP change caused by brain edema was studied. The rat brain edema models were constructed by lipopolysaccharide. The ICP monitor and the self-made near infrared tissue parameter measuring instrument were used to monitor the invasive intracranial pressure and the reduced scattering coefficient of brain tissue during the brain edema development. The results showed that there was a negative correlation between the reduced scattering coefficient (690[Formula: see text]nm and 834[Formula: see text]nm) and ICP, and then the mathematical model was established. The experimental results promoted the development of nondestructive ICP monitoring based on near infrared technology.

In recent years, several correlation tracking algorithms have been proposed exploiting hierarchical features from deep convolutional neural networks. However, most of these methods focus on utilizing the hierarchical features for target translation and use a fixed-size searching window throughout a sequence. Because of neglecting the changes of target scale, these algorithms may import error to the model and lead to drifting. Moreover, numerous factors like fast motion and heavy occlusion can induce instability of translation model which may result in the tracking failure. In this paper, we propose a novel scale adaptive tracking algorithm based on hierarchical CNN features, which learns correlation filters to locate the target and constructs a target pyramid around the estimated target position for scale estimation. In case of tracking failure, we generate an online detector of random fern classifier and activate it to re-detect the target. To evaluate the tracking algorithm, extensive experiments are conducted on a benchmark with 100 video sequences. The tracking result demonstrate that the hierarchical CNN features are well fit to handle sequences with scale variation, motion blur and illumination variation. And the online re-detection is of great importance in tracking failures caused by fast motion and heavy occlusion. The evaluation results show that our tracker outperforms the state-of-the-art methods by a huge margin.

The economies of China-Japan-Korea (CJK) are complementary, with their proximity resulting in the three countries having a high degree of interdependence with respect to trade. Currently, trade among these countries relies mainly on port-centered shipping. The development of the shipping network is integral for in-depth integration of CJK trade. This paper analyzes the overall characteristics, centrality, spatial structure, and vulnerability of the CJK shipping network using the methods of complex network analysis, blocking flow theory, and interruption and deletion of hub ports. The main findings are as follows: 1) The CJK shipping network has a small average path length and clustering coefficient, and its degree distribution follows a power-law distribution, which make the network present obvious characteristics of a Barabasi-Albert scale-free. 2) The characteristics of the multi-center point of the CJK shipping network can alleviate traffic pressure. At the same time, the network shows a clear hierarchy in the port transportation system, with cargo transport relying mainly on the ‘hub port-hub port’ connection. 3) The CJK shipping network is relatively stable. Compared with ports in Japan and Korea, the main hub ports in China have a greater impact on the stability of the shipping network, in particular those ports of the central coastal region, including Shanghai, Ningbo, and Lianyungang.

This study considers the finite-time dissipative control problem for a class of discrete stochastic systems under the circumstance of wireless communication networks, in which both randomly occurring uncertainties and stochastic fading measurements are involved. A modified stochastic Rice fading model with disturbance-dependent Gaussian noise is put forward to better reflect the fading phenomena in complex wireless communication networks. By introducing a novel concept of finite-time stochastic exponential dissipative, this work designs a state-feedback controller such that the closed-loop system is finite-time stochastic bounded with a prescribed exponential dissipativity performance. Moreover, some parameters-dependent sufficient conditions on the existence of the finite-time dissipative controller are derived and the corresponding computation algorithm is given. A numerical example is finally provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design approach.

The formation of suitable defects levels is crucial to the optical performance of the electron trapping materials which provide a wide range of applications from the initial civil uses to life sciences, energy and environmental engineering. SrGa2O4, possessing a one-dimensional chain structure of cations along a crystal direction, exhibits a self-activated blue long persistent luminescence (LPL) related to the intrinsic defects. Different trap depths are generated forming a successive defect structure in this three-dimensional framework of SrGa2O4 containing channels occupied by Sr2+ when Tb3+ ions are introduced. The captured carriers in shallow traps are spontaneously released at room temperature and recombine in the luminescence center of Tb3+, eventually causing characteristic emission of Tb3+. The deeper traps are critically important to prevent the thermal fading of carriers at room temperature, therefore, LPL is achieved in SrGa2O4:Tb3+ phosphor at 328 K. Furthermore, a photo-stimulated luminescence (PSL) originated from Tb3+ ions is realized in SrGa2O4:Tb3+ phosphor induced by 980 nm laser diode with the releasing of the carriers trapped in the deeper traps at room temperature. Our results infer that the existence of a successive defect structure with multiple traps for the incorporation of the shallow and deep ones is conducive to the thermal stability of SrGa2O4:Tb3+ phosphor, which could provide a potential application in a rigorous environment with a higher thermal energy than the room temperature, such as solar energy utilization, and in vivo-imaging.

Background Cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) is the most severe type of cervical spondylosis and the most common cause of spinal cord dysfunction among adults over 55 years old. MRI plays an important role in the diagnosis and evaluation of CSM, which can directly demonstrate the correlation between disc, spinal cord, posterior structures and abnormal signal in spinal cord. Static MRI can only show the static and neutral position of spinal cord, which is not enough to understand the pathogenesis of CSM. Dynamic MRI demonstrating the extension and flexion position of spinal cord can be a better tool for the treatment of CSM, especially the surgical decision making. Method A total of 180 CSM patients who have indications for surgery will be recruited in outpatient of Peking University Third Hospital and assigned to three groups (Group A, B and C) based on their static MRI after consent. Group A (incomplete dura compression) means the signal of cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) is still visible. Group B (complete dura compression) means no CSF signal and no shape change of spinal cord. Group C (spinal cord compression) means shape change of spinal cord. Two surgical plans will be made for each participant by one professional surgeon according to the static MRI and dynamic MRI respectively and we will randomly choose one to perform via a random number system. Follow-up will be maintained at 3, 6, and 12 months after surgery through outpatient or telephone interview, including mJOA score, 10-s G&R (grip and release) and 10-s step test, SF-36 score, radiographic examination and complications. Finally, data collection and statistical analysis will be finished by researchers who are blinded to recruitment and treatment. Discussion This study will help us to explore the indication of dynamic MRI and the value of dynamic MRI in the treatment of CSM, especially the surgical decision making. Dynamic MRI can be a useful tool in the treatment of CSM patients. Trial registration ChiCTR1900023014. Registered on May 7th, 2019.

Ground segmentation is an important preprocessing task for autonomous vehicles (AVs) with 3D LiDARs. To solve the problem of existing ground segmentation methods being very difficult to balance accuracy and computational complexity, a fast point cloud ground segmentation approach based on a coarse-to-fine Markov random field (MRF) method is proposed. The method uses an improved elevation map for ground coarse segmentation, and then uses spatiotemporal adjacent points to optimize the segmentation results. The processed point cloud is classified into high-confidence obstacle points, ground points, and unknown classification points to initialize an MRF model. The graph cut method is then used to solve the model to achieve fine segmentation. Experiments on datasets showed that our method improves on other algorithms in terms of ground segmentation accuracy and is faster than other graph-based algorithms, which require only a single core of an I7-3770 CPU to process a frame of Velodyne HDL-64E data (in 39.77 ms, on average). Field tests were also conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method., Comment: 16 page,22 figures

An accurate prediction of future trajectories of surrounding vehicles can ensure safe and reasonable interaction between intelligent vehicles and other types of vehicles. Vehicle trajectories are not only constrained by a priori knowledge about road structure, traffic signs, and traffic rules but also affected by posterior knowledge about different driving styles of drivers. The existing prediction models cannot fully combine the prior and posterior knowledge in the driving scene and perform well only in a specific traffic scenario. This paper presents a long short-term memory (LSTM) neural network driven by knowledge. First, a driving knowledge base is constructed to describe the prior knowledge about a driving scenario. Then, the prediction reference baseline (PRB) based on driving knowledge base is determined by using the rule-based online reasoning system. Finally, the future trajectory of the target vehicle is predicted by an LSTM neural network based on the prediction reference baseline, while the predicted trajectory considers both posterior and prior knowledge without increasing the computation complexity. The experimental results show that the proposed trajectory prediction model can adapt to different driving scenarios and predict trajectories with high accuracy due to the unique combination of the prior and posterior knowledge in the driving scene.

The mosquito-borne Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) causes serious illness worldwide that is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Currently, there are no effective drugs approved for the treatment of JEV infection. Drug-repurposing screening is an alternative approach to discover potential antiviral agents., The mosquito-borne Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) causes serious illness worldwide that is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Currently, there are no effective drugs approved for the treatment of JEV infection. Drug-repurposing screening is an alternative approach to discover potential antiviral agents. In this study, high-content screening (HCS) of a natural extracts library was performed, and two hit FDA-approved Na+/K+-ATPase inhibitors, ouabain and digoxin, were identified as having robust efficiency against JEV infection with the selectivity indexes over 1,000. The results indicated that ouabain and digoxin blocked the JEV infection at the replication stage by targeting the Na+/K+-ATPase. Furthermore, it was proven that ouabain significantly reduced the morbidity and mortality caused by JEV in a BALB/c mouse model. This work demonstrated that Na+/K+-ATPase could serve as the target of treatment of JEV infection, and ouabain has the potential to be developed as an effective anti-JEV drug.

Cardiovascular disease is the predominant complication and leading cause of mortality in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Previous studies have revealed that uremic toxins, including indoxyl sulfate (IS), participate in cardiac hypertrophy. As a heme‑thiolate monooxygenase, cytochrome P450 family 1 subfamily B member 1 (CYP1B1) is able to metabolize arachidonic acid into hydroxyeicosatetraenoic acids, which are thought to serve a central function in the pathophysiology of the cardiovascular system. However, whether CYP1B1 is involved in cardiac hypertrophy induced by uremic toxins remains unknown. The present study revealed that the expression of the CYP1B1 gene was significantly (P

Background With the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases increasing worldwide, early prediction and accurate assessment of heart failure (HF) risk are crucial to meet the clinical demand. Objective Our study objective was to develop machine learning (ML) models based on real-world electronic health records to predict 1-year in-hospital mortality, use of positive inotropic agents, and 1-year all-cause readmission rate. Methods For this single-center study, we recruited patients with newly diagnosed HF hospitalized between December 2010 and August 2018 at the First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University (Liaoning Province, China). The models were constructed for a population set (90:10 split of data set into training and test sets) using 79 variables during the first hospitalization. Logistic regression, support vector machine, artificial neural network, random forest, and extreme gradient boosting models were investigated for outcome predictions. Results Of the 13,602 patients with HF enrolled in the study, 537 (3.95%) died within 1 year and 2779 patients (20.43%) had a history of use of positive inotropic agents. ML algorithms improved the performance of predictive models for 1-year in-hospital mortality (areas under the curve [AUCs] 0.92-1.00), use of positive inotropic medication (AUCs 0.85-0.96), and 1-year readmission rates (AUCs 0.63-0.96). A decision tree of mortality risk was created and stratified by single variables at levels of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin I ( Conclusions ML techniques based on a large scale of clinical variables can improve outcome predictions for patients with HF. The mortality decision tree may contribute to guiding better clinical risk assessment and decision making.

Detecting small objects in complex circumstances is an important topic in the research of today’ s object detection [1], especially in military, which needs more reliable, stable and accurate detection results. In order to improve the detection of small objects, we improved the structure of the YOLOv3 network by replacing the convolution module in the original network with multi-branch scale convolution, increasing the adaptability of the network to different sizes of objectss and reducing the number of network layers to balance the depth and width of the network, while also improving the feature extraction and representation capabilities. And based on the premise of a small number of data sets, we simulate some complex environments, which are composed of different weather, illumination, motion and rotational blur. We also enhance and extend the data in the network learning. Through the system simulation experiment, small objects can be recognized in such complex environments, which provides a reference for object detection of missile-borne images.

Purpose: This study is to share our experience of a modified anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) procedure with a new source of autograft bone for interbody fusion.Methods: The same procedure was performed in 893 cases where autograft was obtained from the osteophytes and/or the reams of vertebrae. For each case, radiological fusion rate and clinical outcome were followed up for 3 and 12 months after surgery.Results: For one to three-level ACDF, fusion rates were from 67.8% to 75.4% at 3 months follow-up, and 92% to 98.8% at 12 months follow-up. Patients’ VAS, NDI, JOA and SF-36 score improve significantly at 12 months follow-up.Conclusion: Osteophytes and vertebral reams can be a reliable source of bone graft that leads to high fusion rate and successful clinical outcome while avoiding all the problems with the current bone grafting methods used in ACDF surgery.

Porous carbon materials have been considered as the promising media for post combustion CO2 capture. Development and design of cost-effective carbons with high adsorption capacity and selectivity of CO2 over other gases at low CO2 partial pressures has attracted increasing attention. In this study, a category of functionalized 3D microporous carbon foam was prepared by using inexpensive and commercially available polyisocyanurate foam (PIR) as the precursor via a facile one-step chemical activation process. The porous structure and surface chemistry of the carbon foams can be tailored by adjusting the activation temperature and KOH/PIR mass ratio. At 25 ℃ and a CO2 partial pressure of 0.15 bar, the carbon foam of FC7001 with highest volume of fine micropores (

Background: Hepatic encephalopathy (HE) is one of the common complications of many serious liver diseases. Western medicine treatment is mainly symptomatic treatment such as neutralizing blood ammonia and protecting liver, which has poor curative effect, easy repetition and high mortality. Retention enema with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been used on treatment of HE in China for many years. And it has been clinically proved that retention enema with TCM is effective and safe. But there is absent convincing evidence-based medicine to confirm the efficacy of retention enema with TCM for HE. Thus, we aimed to conduct this meta-analysis to summarize the efficacy of retention enema with TCM in patients with HE. Methods: The study only selects clinical randomized controlled trials of retention enema with TCM for HE. We will search each database from the built-in until December 31, 2020. The English literature mainly searches Cochrane Library, Pubmed, EMBASE, and Web of Science. While the Chinese literature comes from CNKI, CBM, VIP, and Wanfang database. Meanwhile, we will retrieve clinical trial registries and gray literature. Two researchers worked independently on literature selection, data extraction and quality assessment. The dichotomous data is represented by relative risk (RR), and the continuous is expressed by mean difference (MD) or standard mean difference (SMD), eventually the data is synthesized using a fixed effect model (FEM) or a random effect model (REM) depending on the heterogeneity. The total effective rate, blood ammonia and the total bilirubin were evaluated as the main outcomes. While several secondary outcomes were also evaluated in this study. The statistical analysis of this Meta-analysis was conducted by RevMan software version 5.3. Results: This study will synthesize and provide high-quality evidence based on the data of the currently published retention enema with TCM for the treatment of HE. Conclusion: This meta-analysis aims to evaluate the benefits of retention enema with TCM for the treatment of HE reported in randomized controlled trials, and provide more options for clinicians and patients with HE. Registration number: INPLASY202080107.

Aiming at the problem that the traditional feature parameters are difficult to meet the fastness and effectiveness of frequency-hopping signal sorting recognition, a feature extraction method based on ambiguity function theory is proposed. The algorithm applies the ambiguity function theory to the frequency hopping signal sorting and identification. Firstly, the ambiguity function of the single-hop signal is calculated, then the AFMR slice of the signal is extracted by the PSO algorithm, and the global features of the AFMR slice are extracted to form the feature vector. The results of FCM clustering experiments show that the extracted feature parameters have higher sorting accuracy and can adapt to the larger dynamic signal-to-noise ratio.

The prior information of the enemy frequency-hopping (FH) radio stations that can be obtained in real time is limited, under the non-cooperative conditions of the battlefield. In the conventional radio signal-sorting algorithm based on parameter estimation of FH signals, the number of estimation parameters that can be used for sorting is small, the estimation accuracy is low, and the accuracy of sorting largely depends on the estimation precision of parameter, therefore the effects of radio signal sorting cannot be realized in a complex battlefield environment. In order to solve the above issue and learn from the idea of signal subtle feature extraction of neural network, this paper proposes an FH signal radio-sorting algorithm based on subtle feature extraction of stacked auto-encoder. The method utilizes the stacked auto-encoder to extract radio feature, then realizing the FH signal radio sorting by Low-rank clustering algorithm. The experimental results of the measured FH signals demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method.

Automatic frequency-hopping (FH) signal network-station sorting is one of the most difficult and import problems in the field of electronic warfare, especially in a complex electromagnetic environment. In this paper, an automatic and reliable network-station sorting method of FH signal with maxout network feature extraction and generative-based classification method is proposed. Experiments on real FH data sets demonstrate that the proposed method not only outperforms the competitive feature extraction methods with a higher accuracy of FH signal network-station sorting but also has a better robustness against noise, especially Gaussian noise.

Rationale: The typical intraoperative presentation of vertebral artery injury (VAI) usually involves profuse bleeding and requires immediate treatment. However, an occult VAI may occur intraoperatively and result in delayed life-threatening epidural pseudoaneurysm several days postoperatively. Patient concerns: A 21-year-old man with compressive cervical myelopathy resulting from canal stenosis of skeletal fluorosis underwent decompression of C1 to C7 and instrumentation from C2 to C7. No impressive bleeding event occurred during the operation. On postoperative day 40, progressive quadriplegia developed. Diagnoses: Pseudoaneurysm of the VA was established by angiography. Interventions: After occlusion of the right VA, the patient underwent hematoma clearing. Outcomes: Fortunately, the patient experienced significant recovery of neurologic function after the second surgery. Lessons: From this case, we realize even in the absence of obvious signs of VAI during a cervical operation, postoperative evaluation should be mandatory for suspected bleeding events occurring at VAI-prone sites during surgery. Moreover, the bone morphological abnormality of skeletal fluorosis was determined to be the most important risk contributing to VAI in this case. The safety limits of bone removal should be determined preoperatively to avoid the effects of bone morphological abnormalities.

Multicast1 can allow a gateway to send data packets to a group of receivers in an efficient manner, which can save bandwidth and network resources. A major issue for wireless mesh networks (WMNs) is multicast routing. In multicast communication, link load and link quality between two nodes are both important elements in the process of multicast routing. In this paper, a link load and link quality (LLLQ) routing algorithm is proposed to construct an efficient multicast tree. The simulation results show that our proposed algorithm can improve the performance of WMNs.

The current ship reporting procedures are a little cumbersome, a large number of ship reports increased the burden of the ship's officer, to a certain extent, affecting the safety of navigation. In order to simplify the ship reporting procedures and reduce the workload which brings to the ship officer, under the background of the e-navigation construction advocated by IMO (International Maritime Organization), this paper combining the maritime cloud framework, tried to propose the framework of the ship reporting system, and analyzed the concrete process of the ship's report under the new background.

Detecting body temperature variation is highly crucial to monitor health conditions. Temperature sensors with good sensitivity can detect temperature through resistive changes. Among such sensors, silver nanowires (AgNWs) are one kind of important conductive fillers owing to the excellent conductivity and low cost. Here we introduce a facil strategy to construct AgNWs-based temperature sensors in terms of the effect of temperature and humidity on the resistance of AgNWs films. A linear relationship between the resistance and temperature was quantified. Moreover, the temperature sensitivity achieves ˜16 Ω/℃ over the range of 30–80 ℃, by combining polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) films with AgNWs random network as the protective layer, which effectively controls the influence of humidity on the AgNWs. The integrated PDMS-AgNWs temperature sensor with a good reproducibility, opens an avenue for the potential applications of silver nanowires in other types of sensors.

Chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH) is common and more prevalent in the aged population. Surgical intervention is the treatment of choice, but its outcomes may not be satisfactory because of recurrence and physical infirmity associated with aging. Aberrant angiogenesis and localized inflammation contribute to the formation of CSDH. Atorvastatin is active in promoting angiogenesis and modulating inflammation. We hypothesize that atorvastatin is effective in reducing CSDH and have tested the hypothesis in a preliminary prospective study of small cohort of patients.Twenty-three patients with CT- or MRI-confirmed CSDH were recruited from three regional medical centers and evaluated using Markwalder's Grading Scale (MGS) and the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS). These patients received oral atorvastatin 20 mg/day for 1-6 months (3.02±1.77 months) and were followed for 3 to 36 months (18.62±13.13) after the therapy. Hematoma volume, neurological functions and daily activities (measured using the Activities of Daily Life-the Barthel Index scale, ADL-BI) were compared before and after treatment with Linear Trend Chi-Square test.Twenty-two of the 23 patients experienced improvements in symptoms, and the reduction in hematoma volume from 48.70±20.38 ml to 16.64±14.28 ml (paired-sample t-test, p0.01) within the first month of the treatment. Hematoma was completely resolved in 17 patients (77.3%) and shrank by more than 73.99%±11.17% in 5 patients (22.7%) 3 months after the treatment was initiated. One patient experienced an initial relief of symptoms, but his condition deteriorated with an enlarged hematoma during the 4th week of treatment and underwent surgery. At 6 months, 18 patients presented no hematoma by CT or MRI and four patients, whose hematoma was completely resolved at 3 months, were not followed. None of these 22 patients relapsed during the entire follow-up period of 3-36 months. All have improved MGS, GCS, and ADL-BI. No atorvastatin-related side effects were documented.Results of this preliminary prospective study show that the oral administration of atorvastatin is safe and effective in treating CSDH, offering a cost-effective alternative to surgery. A prospective randomized clinical trial is required to validate the effect of atorvastatin.

Background Anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) is widely used in the treatment of cervical degenerative disease; however, the variation of cervical sagittal alignment changes after ACDF has been rarely explored. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between changes of cervical sagittal alignment after ACDF and spino-pelvic sagittal alignment under Roussouly classification. Methods A cohort of 133 Chinese cervical spondylotic patients who received ACDF from 2011 to 2012 was recruited. All patients were categorized with Roussouly Classification. Lateral X-ray images of global spine were obtained, and preoperative and postoperative parameters were measured and analyzed, including C2–C7 angles (C2–C7), C0–C7 angles (C0–C7), external auditory meatus (EAM) tilt, sacral slope (SS), thoracic kyphosis (TK), lumbar lordosis (LL), spinal sacral angles (SSA), Superior adjacent inter-vertebral angle (SAIV), inferior adjacent inter-vertebral angle (IAIV) and et al. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for intragroup comparisons preoperatively and at postoperative 48 months. Results Among the parameters, C2–C7 and C0–C7 showed significant increase, while EAM TK, and IAIV decreased significantly. In type I, EAM and TK decreased significantly, however SS showed a significant increase; in type II, TK showed a significant decrease, but SSA showed a significant increase; in type III, a significant increase of C0–C7 was observed with a significant decrease in EAM, nevertheless, LL, SS and SSA showed significant decreases; and in type IV, C2–C7 showed a significant increase and EAM decreased significantly. The percentage of lordotic alignment in cervical spine increased, which was presenting in type I, III and IV. Nevertheless, the amount of patients with straight cervical alignment increased in type II. Conclusion The backward movement of head occurs is the compensatory mechanism in cervical sagittal alignment modifications after ACDF. The compensatory alteration of spino-pelvic sagittal alignment varied in different Roussouly type.

International audience; We presented in 2014 the very first data from a polarised gamma-ray beam between 1.7 and 74MeV. We now show the results of their analysis, and in particular the polarimetry measurements. With these results, we are establishing a new, high-performance way to do gamma-ray astronomy and, for the first time, polarimetry, in the e+e- pair regime.

Objective We aimed to critically analyze the current evidence regarding the role of dynamic supine magnetic resonance imaging (dsMRI) in the evaluation of cervical spondylotic myelopathy. Methods Thirteen studies were identified through a comprehensive literature search performed in the PubMed, EMBASE, and ISI databases as fulfilling the inclusion criteria and were reviewed for subject characteristics, radiographic parameters, and salient findings. Results Studies herein reviewed suggested that dsMRI was able to detect new appearance or increased grade of medullary compression in ≥20% of patients and to demonstrate an average narrowing of the cervical canal by 20% (in comparison with the neutral position). Several additional parameters were investigated, but their clinical significance remained unconfirmed. Two studies examined how surgical decision-making could be affected by the additional findings of dsMRI. Conclusions dsMRI represents an available modification of conventional static magnetic resonance imaging and is potentially able to demonstrate pathologies that might be previously missed. Evidence suggests that dsMRI can elucidate spinal cord compression with higher sensitivity, resulting in improved diagnostic accuracy of cervical spondylotic myelopathy, which may impact surgical planning for these patients. However, more high-quality studies are required to further establish its indications to avoid overdiagnosis with this powerful imaging technique and to justify its cost-effectiveness.

With the rapid development of multi-media services, the multi-media traffic flows make the load in wireless mesh network (WMN) increase sharply, which incurs network congestion. In the context of having multiple multicast sessions, the load-balance and interference-aware (LBIA) routing algorithm is proposed by considering the intra-flow interference, inter-flow interference and load balance. This algorithm selects the link with less load to transmit information and uses the load balance factor to balance the load of each link in multicast sessions. NS3 simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can improve the overall network performance.