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The lack of biomarkers greatly limits the diagnosis and treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD). Endogenous L-carnitine (LC) and its derivative acetyl-L-carnitine (ALC) play antidepressant roles by improving brain energy metabolism, regulating neurotransmitters and neural plasticity. The levels of ALC in people and rodents with depression are significantly reduced. It is necessary to determine whether serum LC and ALC might be used as novel biomarkers for the diagnosis of MDD. Here, ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) was used to determine the concentration of LC and ALC in the serum of healthy controls and patients with MDD; among the latter, in patients who were responsive (effective group) and non-responsive (ineffective group) after 2 weeks of treatment. The diagnostic value of serum LC and ALC for MDD was assessed. Compared with healthy controls, the serum LC and ALC concentrations in patients with MDD were significantly decreased (P < 0.001). Pearson correlation analysis shows that the HDRS-24 score was negatively associated with serum ALC (r = −0.325, P = 0.007). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis revealed an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.801 with 83.1% sensitivity and 66.3% specificity for LC, and an AUC of 0.898 with 88.8% sensitivity and 76.4% specificity for ALC, differentiating patients with MDD from healthy controls. Furthermore, the concentration of LC and ALC in patients with depression was significantly increased in the effective treatment group, and no significant change was observed in the ineffective treatment group. These results suggest that serum LC and ALC may be novel biomarkers for the diagnosis of MDD.

Background:The safe closure of atrial septal defect with deficient posterior-inferior or inferior vena cava rim is a controversial issue. Few studies have been conducted on the closure of atrial septal defect with deficient posterior-inferior or inferior vena cava rim without fluoroscopy. This study evaluated the feasibility and safety of echocardiography-guided transcatheter closure of atrial septal defect with deficient posterior-inferior or inferior vena cava rim.Methods:The data of 136 patients who underwent transcatheter atrial septal defect closure without fluoroscopy from March 2017 to March 2020 were retrospectively analysed. The patients were classified into the deficient (n = 45) and sufficient (n = 91) posterior-inferior or inferior vena cava rim groups. Procedure and the follow-up results were compared between the two groups.Results:Atrial septal defect indexed diameter and the device indexed diameter in the deficient rim group were both larger than that in the sufficient rim group (22.12 versus 17.38 mm/m2, p < 0.001; 24.77 versus 21.21 mm/m2, p = 0.003, respectively). There was no significant difference in the success rate of occlusion between two groups (97.78% in the deficient rim group versus 98.90% in the sufficient rim group, p = 1.000). During follow-up, the incidence of severe adverse cardiac events was not statistically significant (p = 0.551).Conclusions:Atrial septal defect with deficient posterior-inferior or inferior vena cava rim can safely undergo transcatheter closure under echocardiography alone if precisely evaluated with transesophageal or transthoracic echocardiography and the size of the occluder is appropriate. The mid-term results after closure are similar to that for an atrial septal defect with sufficient rim.

Colorectal cancer is a common malignancy with the third highest incidence and second highest mortality rate among all cancers in the world. Chemotherapy resistance in colorectal cancer is an essential factor leading to the high mortality rate. The ATP-binding cassette (ABC) superfamily G member 2 (ABCG2) confers multidrug resistance (MDR) to a range of chemotherapeutic agents by decreasing their intracellular content. The development of novel ABCG2 inhibitors has emerged as a tractable strategy to circumvent drug resistance. In this study, an ABCG2-knockout colorectal cancer cell line was established to assist inhibitor screening. Additionally, we found that ataxia-telangiectasia mutated (ATM) kinase inhibitor AZ32 could sensitize ABCG2-overexpressing colorectal cancer cells to ABCG2 substrate chemotherapeutic drugs mitoxantrone and doxorubicin by retaining them inside cells. Western blot assay showed that AZ32 did not alter the expression of ABCG2. Moreover, molecule docking analysis predicted that AZ32 stably located in the transmembrane domain of ABCG2. In conclusion, our result demonstrated that AZ32 could potently reverse ABCG2-mediated MDR in colorectal cancer.

In this paper, we propose an extraction method for landslide topographic features and based on these fine features, we trained a landslide stability classification model. Topographic factors have a huge impact on the stability of landslides, and our new feature extraction methods can provide more accurate portraits of landslides. Considering the factors affected landslide stability, this paper studied the factors used in traditional quantitative stability calculations and analyzed the factors affecting stability based on landslide data. So, the proposed method is a combination of theoretical method and numerical method. Based on support vector classification (SVC), random forest (RF), and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) models, this paper compares and analyzes the rationality and reliability of the landslide stability classification results output by three models. After adopting the new fine feature extraction method, the accuracy of the stable classification results has been improved by about 5% on average, and the interpretability of the classification results has also been greatly enhanced.

In landslide disaster prevention project, landslide profile is an important research object, which contains rich geological information of landslide. When we get the profile image of the landslide, if we can recommend several landslide cases with similar geological characteristics by the landslide profile image for research, the landslide disaster prevention project can be carried out quickly. In this paper, we propose a recommendation system based on similarity of landslide geological characteristics. The recommendation system is divided into two steps. Firstly, we construct a classification model to obtain the categories of landslide geological characteristics from the profile image by random forest algorithm and supervised machine learning approach. Then, according to the categories of landslide geological characteristics, the landslide case recommended model is constructed, and 5 landslide cases with similar geological characteristics are recommended for the landslide. According to the evaluation index of the recommendation system, the evaluation results show the effectiveness of the recommendation system.

With the rapid development of urbanization, more and more attention has been paid to the structure of urban function zone. Thus, it is of great significance to investigate urban function zone. In this paper, we introduced the deep neural network (DNN) to infer the urban function zone with a supervised classification approach, taking the Shenzhen city in China as a case. First of all, the urban road networks of Shenzhen city were gathered and selected appropriately. Then, the fifth level road networks were utilized to segment the study region. Second, the communication data of different times and points of interest (POI) were collected. Then, the fifteen factors influencing urban function zone were derived. In addition, the urban function zone was divided into five types and the labeled examples with fifteen influencing factors were chosen. Third, the labeled examples were employed to train the DNN with different hidden layers compared with random forest (RF) and support vector machine (SVM). The models were trained with the approach of five-fold cross validation, and the average training accuracy with five times is taken as the accuracy of models. Finally, this paper compared the accuracy. It's been shown in the results that DNN was the optimum model and achieved the highest accuracy. Therefore, our proposed method is an efficient approach to infer the urban function zone.

Purpose To examine the indications and outcomes of medial patellofemoral ligament reconstruction (MPFLR) with or without tibial tubercle osteotomy (TTO) in treating recurrent or habitual patellar dislocation with an increased tibial tuberosity–trochlear groove (TT-TG) distance. Methods We performed a literature search of the established medical databases Cochrane Central, PubMed-MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Web of Science. The inclusion criteria were as follows: skeletally mature patients with recurrent or habitual patellar dislocation and an increased TT-TG distance, treatment with MPFLR combined with a TTO procedure or isolated MPFLR, and reporting of clinical outcomes and complications. Each study was assessed for quality and the level of evidence. The general characteristics, indications, surgical techniques, TT-TG distance, clinical results, imaging evaluation findings, and complications of each study were recorded. Results Nine studies consisting of 288 knees met the inclusion criteria. The average Coleman score was 71.56 (range, 55-83). The threshold for an increased TT-TG distance ranged from 16 to 20 mm in the included studies. Similar good postoperative outcomes were reported in patients with an increased TT-TG distance treated with MPFLR with versus without a TTO procedure. The mean postoperative Lysholm score ranged from 75.0 to 94.7 (I2 = 87.6%) in the isolated MPFLR group and from 85.0 to 87.6 (I2 = 16.3%) in the TTO-with-MPFLR group. Similar postoperative congruence angles were reported in both groups. The postoperative redislocation rate ranged from 0% to 4.2% in the TTO-with-MPFLR group, and no redislocation was found in the isolated MPFLR group. The postoperative apprehension sign was only reported in isolated MPFLR patients. Conclusions The outcomes of MPFLR with or without TTO to treat recurrent or habitual patellar dislocation with an increased TT-TG distance appeared similar. However, this study was limited by the considerable heterogeneity, variety of techniques, variety of TT-TG distances, and variability in patella alta and trochlear dysplasia among the included studies. Level of Evidence Level IV, systematic review of Level II to IV studies.

Human endometrial stem cells (hEnSCs), dental pulp stem cells (hDPSCs) and adipose tissue-derived stem cells (hADSCs) are considered to be the promising candidates for the treatment of pancreas diseases. The prognosis is better with in situ injection of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) to the damaged pancreas compared with intravenous injection. However, the clinical application of these cells are limited, due to poor engraftment of transplanted cells after delivery. On the other hand, understanding the role of the biomaterials in cell therapy is essential to promote the therapeutic effects of MSCs. Matrigel, a basement membrane matrix biomaterial, is rich in laminin and collagen IV. The aim of this study is to investigate the difference of biological characteristics of hEnSCs, hDPSCs and hADSCs in vitro and their survival situation with Matrigel post intrapancreatic transplantation in vivo. Our findings showed, firstly, there was no significant difference in morphology and immunophenotype of these MSCs. Secondly, the biological properties, including cell proliferation, the ability of adipogenic and osteogenic differentiation and the mRNA expression levels of pancreas development-related genes, have been showed distinct difference among these MSCs. Thirdly, Matrigel can improve the survival of MSCs in vivo, especially for Matrigel-based hDPSCs and Matrigel-based hEnSCs in pancreas parenchyma of SD rats. These results suggest that hDPSCs and hEnSCs are with the greater inherent therapeutic potential for pancreas diseases compared with hADSCs.

Background Peripheral blood (PB) is a potential source of chondrogenic progenitor cells that can be used for cartilage repair and regeneration. However, the cell types, isolation and implantation methods, seeding dosage, ultimate therapeutic effect, and in vivo safety remain unclear. Methods PubMed, Embase, and the Web of Science databases were systematically searched for relevant reports published from January 1990 to December 2019. Original articles that used PB as a source of stem cells to repair cartilage in vivo were selected for analysis. Results A total of 18 studies were included. Eight human studies used autologous nonculture-expanded PB-derived stem cells (PBSCs) as seed cells with the blood cell separation isolation method, and 10 animal studies used autologous, allogenic or xenogeneic culture-expanded PB-derived mesenchymal stem cells (PB-MSCs), or nonculture-expanded PBSCs as seed cells. Four human and three animal studies surgically implanted cells, while the remaining studies implanted cells by single or repeated intra-articular injections. 121 of 130 patients (in 8 human clinical studies), and 230 of 278 animals (in 6 veterinary clinical studies) using PBSCs for cartilage repair achieved significant clinical improvement. All reviewed articles indicated that using PB as a source of seed cells enhances cartilage repair in vivo without serious adverse events. Conclusion Autologous nonculture-expanded PBSCs are currently the most commonly used cells among all stem cell types derived from PB. Allogeneic, autologous, and xenogeneic PB-MSCs are more widely used in animal studies and are potential seed cell types for future applications. Improving the mobilization and purification technology, and shortening the culture cycle of culture-expanded PB-MSCs will obviously promote the researchers' interest. The use of PBSCs for cartilage repair and regeneration in vivo are safe. PBSCs considerably warrant further investigations due to their superiority and safety in clinical settings and positive effects despite limited evidence in humans.

Background and aim The association between Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) and gallbladder diseases is still unclear and is controversial. We conducted a retrospective study to clarify the prevalence of gallbladder diseases and factors related to gallbladder diseases and relationships between H. pylori infection, gallstones, cholecystitis, and cholecystic polypus. Methods The retrospective study was performed at the Aerospace Center Hospital in Beijing. The subjects in this study were a healthy population who underwent health examinations at the hospital between 2012 and 2015. The logistic regression models were used to explore the relationships between H. pylori infection and gallbladder diseases. Results There were 7803 (43.4%) subjects with H. pylori infection, 995 (5.5%) with gallstones, 219 (1.2%) with cholecystitis, and 1003 (5.6%) with cholecystic polypus amongst 17 971 subjects, respectively. In subjects aged 45 years or less, the prevalence of gallstones in the H. pylori (+) group was lower than that in the H. pylori (-) group (odds ratio = 0.653; 95% confidence interval: 0.468-0.911; P = 0.012). The prevalence of cholecystic polypus in the H. pylori (+) group was significantly higher than that in the H. pylori (-) group (odds ratio = 1.160; 95% confidence interval: 1.012-1.328; P = 0.033). Conclusions Helicobacter pylori infection was related with cholecystic polypus and gallstones in a Chinese population.

Objective This study examined the association between iron status and a set of breast cancer risk factors among U.S. adult women aged 20–80 years. Methods Data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2017–2018) were used to examine the relation between serum ferritin, serum iron and transferrin saturation with a set of breast cancer risk factors [body mass index (BMI), waist circumference, glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c), fasting plasma glucose, insulin and HOMA-IR]. The multivariable linear regressions were used controlling for age, race/ethnicity, menopause status, education level, smoking status, alcohol consumption, physical activity, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) and total energy intake. Results HbA1c, BMI and waist circumference data were available for 1902 women with a fasting sample (n = 913) for fasting plasma glucose, insulin and HOMA-IR. Transferrin saturation had significant, inverse associations with BMI, waist circumference and HbA1c. The size of difference observed were that participants in the fourth quartile of transferrin saturation had a 4.50 kg/m2 smaller BMI, a 9.36 cm smaller waist circumference and a 0.1 % lower HbA1c level than participants in the first quartile. Similarly, serum iron concentrations were inversely associated with BMI and waist circumference. In addition, serum iron had significant, inverse associations with insulin and HOMA-IR. Sensitivity analyses among men gave similar results. For serum ferritin, there was a trend towards a positive association between waist circumference, HbA1c and fasting plasma glucose with serum ferritin. However, the associations did not reach statistical significance among women. Conclusions Iron status may impact breast cancer risk via effects on adiposity or glucose metabolism. The findings should be confirmed with further prospective data.

In this paper, a novel framework, named as global-local feature attention network with reranking strategy (GLAN-RS), is presented for image captioning task. Rather than only adopting unitary visual information in the classical models, GLAN-RS explores the attention mechanism to capture local convolutional salient image maps. Furthermore, we adopt reranking strategy to adjust the priority of the candidate captions and select the best one. The proposed model is verified using the Microsoft Common Objects in Context (MSCOCO) benchmark dataset across seven standard evaluation metrics. Experimental results show that GLAN-RS significantly outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches, such as multimodal recurrent neural network (MRNN) and Google NIC, which gets an improvement of 20% in terms of BLEU4 score and 13 points in terms of CIDER score.

Aim To explore the association between Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection and obesity/weight gain in a Chinese population. Methods Our primary outcome was the change in body mass index (BMI). The generalized linear models were used to explore the association between H. pylori infection and the change of BMI, and the logistic regression models were used to explore the association between H. pylori infection and obesity. Results A total of 3039 subjects were recruited and analyzed, of which 12.8% were obese. The prevalence of H. pylori infection was 53.9% (1639/3039) overall and 54.6% (212/388) in the obese subjects. The change of BMI in the H. pylori (+) group was not significantly higher than that in the H. pylori (-) group after adjustment for potential confounding factors [RR = 0.988, 95%CI: 0.924-1.057, P = 0.729]. The prevalence of obesity decreased 1.1% in the H. pylori (+) group and 0.5% in the H. pylori (-) group. The RR of H. pylori infection for obesity was 0.831 (95%CI: 0.577-1.197, P = 0.321) after the adjustment. Conclusion H. pylori infection was not associated with overweight/obesity observed from the retrospective study in this Chinese population.

Gliomas are the most common type of primary brain tumor in adults with a high mortality rate. Low-grade gliomas progress to glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) in the majority of cases, forming secondary GBM (sGBM), followed by rapid fatal clinical outcomes. Protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor type Z1 (PTPRZ1)-MET proto-oncogene receptor tyrosine kinase (MET) (ZM) fusion has been identified as a biomarker for sGBM that is involved in glioma progression, but the mechanism of gliomagenesis and pathology of ZM-negative sGBM has remained to be fully elucidated. A whole-transcriptome signature is thus required to improve the outcome prediction for patients with sGBM without ZM fusion. In the present study, whole-transcriptome sequencing on 42 sGBM samples with or without ZM fusion from the Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas database identified mRNAs with differential expression between patients with and without ZM fusion and the most significant survival-associated genes were identified. A 6-gene signature was identified as a novel prognostic model reflecting survival probability in patients with ZM-negative sGBM. Clinical characteristics in patients with a high or low risk score value were analyzed with the Kaplan-Meier method and a two-sided log-rank test. In addition, ZM-negative sGBM patients with a high risk score exhibited an increase in immune cells, NF-κB-induced pathway activation and a decrease in endothelial cells compared with those with a low risk score. The present study demonstrated the potential use of a next-generation sequencing-based cancer gene signature in patients with ZM-negative sGBM, indicating possible clinical therapeutic strategies for further treatment of such patients.

BACKGROUND: There is insufficient research on the correlation between the apparent diffusion coefficient and clinicopathological characteristics of breast cancer patients. The present study is to investigate the correlation between the apparent diffusion coefficient and pathological characteristics of patients with invasive breast cancer. METHODS: From January 2019 to September 2020, 122 cases of invasive breast cancer and 21 cases of benign tumors were retrospectively enrolled. The apparent diffusion coefficient was compared between the two groups, and the correlation between the apparent diffusion coefficient and the pathological characteristics of the patients with invasive breast cancer were analyzed. RESULTS: Compared with the benign tumor group, the apparent diffusion coefficient in the invasive breast cancer group was significantly lower (0.89±0.17 vs. 1.47±0.27 10(−3) mm(2)/s, P=0.000). Using the apparent diffusion coefficient to diagnose patients with invasive breast cancer, the area under receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.966±0.021 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.924–1.000, P=0.000], and the best diagnostic cut-off value was 1.16 (10(−3) mm(2)/s), with sensitivity and specificity of 0.905 and 0.902, respectively. The apparent diffusion coefficient was used to diagnose vascular tumor thrombus in patients with invasive breast cancer. The area under the ROC curve was 0.641±0.068 (95% CI: 0.508–0.774, P=0.047), and the best diagnostic threshold was 0.835 (10(−3) mm(2)/s), with sensitivity and specificity of 0.676 and 0.650, respectively. The apparent diffusion coefficient in patients with high expression of Ki-67 (%) was significantly reduced (0.87±0.17 vs. 1.00±0.16 10(−3) mm(2)/s, P=0.000). The apparent diffusion coefficient was not significantly correlated with age, menopause, lesion size, estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, or lymph node metastasis in patients with invasive breast cancer (P>0.05). CONCLUSIONS: In patients with invasive breast cancer the apparent diffusion coefficient was significantly reduced. It was able to differentiate invasive breast cancer and vascular tumor thrombus, and was also related to Ki-67 (%) high expression.

The electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), which is a result of destructive interference between different excitation paths in a three-energy-level atomic medium, makes opaque probe light transparent over a range of frequencies. As this EIT effect is usually accompanied with strong dispersion, it has potential applications such as slow light propagation, optical buffering, nonlinear optics, optical sensing, etc. However, for conventional quantum EIT effect which requires stable gas lasers and low temperature environment, the implementation of EIT in chip-scale applications is severely hampered by the scathing experimental requirements. Recently, the EIT-like effect in metamaterials, which are constructed by designing the artificial subwavelength functional elements and arranging the spatial sequences, attracts tremendous attention because of its advantages, such as room temperature manipulability, large bandwidth, and small sizes. In addition, the high-quality factor(Q) value obtained by EIT-like effect has great significance in designing the metamaterial-based devices. In this paper, we design an EIT-like metamaterial with such a structure. The unit cell of the proposed metamaterial is constructed by two asymmetric silicon blocks embedded on a silicon dioxide substrate. Meanwhile, we analyze its optical properties and EIT-like effects by using three-dimension (3D) FDTD method. Based on the coupled Lorentz model, the EIT-like effect of the designed metamaterial is investigated. Then, by employing the electric field distribution on the surface of the metamaterial, and combining with the three-level atomic system, the mechanism of the EIT-like effect is analyzed in detail. We find that the EIT-like effect in the proposed metamaterial has high Q value (Q ≈ 8616) and the high transmission (T = 96%). By changing the length of the silicon block to destroy the asymmetry of the metamaterial structure, an active tuning EIT-like effect is realized. Furthermore, the metamaterial structure has the advantages of low loss, easy preparation, and active-controllability. This study represents an innovative approach to designing the EIT-like metamaterial, which is expected to be useful for designing active tunable slow-light devices and highly sensitive optical sensors.

Modern timber buildings are more and more popular with their characteristics of green, environmental protection, low carbon. According to their structure, they are divided into light wood frame construction, sawn and log timber structures, glued laminated timber structures, log cabins. This paper analyzes the structure supporting structural system of log cabins, from material requirements, structural design to production process, supplemented by practical case to demonstration, to explore the design method of log cabin’s structure supporting system.

The role of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection in haematological system diseases is not well understood. We conducted this retrospective study to explore the association between H. pylori infection and anaemia in the Chinese population. This retrospective study was performed in Aerospace Center Hospital in Beijing. We derived the data from the registration system of the physical population between 2012–2016. Logistic regression models were used to explore the association between H. pylori infection and anaemia. Among 17,791 subjects, there were 7,804 (43.9%) subjects with H. pylori infection and 950 (5.3%) with anaemia. The prevalence of anaemia in the H. pylori (+) group was significantly higher than in the H. pylori (−) group after adjusting for age, sex, marriage, underlying diseases and body mass index. Compared to H. pylori (−), the OR of H. pylori (+) was 1.39 for moderate-to-severe anaemia and 1.05 for mild anaemia. The level of haemoglobin was lower in the H. pylori (+) group than in the H. pylori (−) group. This study indicates that H. pylori infection may be related to anaemia and haemoglobin level in the Chinese population.

Aim: Although, miR-218 has been implicated in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition process, the detailed mechanisms of miR-218 involvement in epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition in human lung adenocarcinoma cell are still unclear. Materials & methods: miR-218 function assays and its target gene analysis were performed. Results: miR-218 suppresses human lung adenocarcinoma cell migration and invasion and inhibits its target gene, Ecop and Robo1 expression, which subsequently suppresses NF-κB activity and its downstream targets. Conclusion: miR-218 inhibits human lung adenocarcinoma cell migration and invasion via the suppression of Ecop and Robo1 expression, thus suggesting that miR-218 could serve as a potential therapeutic target.

A shape optimization method based on strain energy is proposed for framed structures. This method combines free nodal shift, or restricted nodal shift on a specified line in the structural geometry. The optimization is based on nodal sensitivity information to amend the structural shape to achieve a structure with minimum strain energy. In this method, the design parameters, such as initial structure, supporting conditions, spatial constraints, etc, have significant influence on the final structural form; so various structural forms can be obtained by changing these design parameters in the project design phase. A numerical example is provided to illustrate the validity of this method and the mechanical behaviour of the structure. Results show that this can effectively reduce the structural bending moments and ensure sufficient structural stiffness.

The lithium niobate integrated optical phase modulator (Y waveguide) is the key device in the digital closed-loop fiber optic gyroscope. However, the half-wave voltage of the lithium niobate changes with the environment temperature, which produces the phase bias drift and ultimately decreases the accuracy of FOG. In this manuscript, the thermal resistor is introduced in the amplification part in the driving circuits of Y waveguide. Due to the characteristic of the thermal resistor, the magnitude of driving voltage on Y waveguide changed with temperature to compensate the electro-optic effects temperature drift of the lithium niobate. This method was proved to improve the performance of fiber optic gyroscopes conveniently in experiment.

This paper presents a node shift method to find the optimal distribution of nodes in single-layer reticulated shells. The optimization process searches for the minimum strain energy configuration and this leads to reduced sensitivity in initial imperfections. Strain energy sensitivity numbers are derived for free shift and restricted shift where nodes can move freely in the 3D space or have to move within a predefined surface respectively. Numerical examples demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach. It was found that optimized structures achieve higher ultimate load and are less sensitive to imperfections than the initial structure. The configuration of the final structure is closely related to factors like the initial structural configuration, spatial conditions, etc. Based on different initial conditions, architects can be provided with diverse reasonable structures. Furthermore, by amending the defined shapes and nodal distributions, it is possible to improve the mechanical behavior of the structures.

The ectoenzyme CD39 hydrolyzes extracellular adenosine 5′-triphosphate (ATP), which possesses pro-inflammatory properties. However, the role of CD39 in allergic asthma has not been fully elucidated. A total of 18 patients with persistent asthma who were allergic to house dust mites and 19 healthy volunteers were enrolled in this study. The expression of CD39, GATA3, RAR-related orphan receptor γ (ROR-γt) and forkhead box P3 (FoxP3) mRNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) was determined by SYBR-Green I quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR). The cytokines interleukin (IL)-4, IL-17A, transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) and DP.sIgE were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Our data demonstrated that the expression of CD39 mRNA in PBMCs from asthmatic patients was significantly lower compared to that in normal controls [(1.49±0.59)×10−3 vs. (2.17±0.77)×10−3, respectively; P

In recent years, the phenomenon of vehicle overload in highway transportation is more and more serious. The three-dimensional dynamic FEM was adopted and a three-dimensional simulative model for asphalt pavement with subgrade based on cross-anisotropy under moving load was established by the large-scale finite element analysis software ABAQUS. The response of the stress in the pavement structure was got by using ABAQUS/Standard code. During deceleration, The simulation analysis results under the rated load were compared with those under the different overload ratio. The results show that, under moving load, the surface course of pavement is mainly in three dimension compressive stress state. The horizontal load caused by deceleration has a remarkable effect on the longitudinal stress and the horizontal shearing stress. The stress of the pavement structure under overload is much greater than that caused by the rated load. And the greater the overload ratio, the greater the deviation between them.

Punch forming is widely used in many fields such as car industry, aviation, and mechanical industry. Along with the new requirement such as velocity, efficiency, costing of punch forming, there is more and more failure appearance. For example, fracture, fold and spring back. In this paper, a detailed analysis of punch forming is done by FEM(finite element method), and the stresses of punch forming are obtained at every phase of punch. This work is very useful for mold design, punch forming parameters set and material properties test.

It remains controversial regarding the association between interleukin-8 (IL-8) gene −251 T/A polymorphism and peptic ulcer disease (PUD) risk. Thus, a large-scale meta-analysis evaluating the precise association between this gene variant and PUD risk is required. We searched the PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Google Scholar until April 25, 2012. Additionally, hand searching of the references of identified articles were performed. All the statistical tests were performed using Stata 11.0. A total of eight studies (3105 subjects) were included in this meta-analysis. Overall, no significant association was found between IL-8 gene −251 T/A polymorphism and PUD risk (for A allele vs. T allele: OR = 1.17, 95% CI = 0.97–1.41, p = 0.094; for A/A vs. T/T: OR = 1.33, 95% CI = 0.94–1.90, p = 0.108; for A/A vs. A/T + T/T: OR = 1.22, 95% CI = 0.97–1.52, p = 0.083; for A/A + A/T vs. T/T: OR = 1.26, 95% CI = 0.95–1.67, p = 0.113). However, in the subgroup analyses by ethnicity, H. pylori infection and the subtype of PUD, significant associations were found between IL-8 gene −251 T/A polymorphism and PUD risk in Asians, H. pylori+, duodenal ulcer disease (DUD) and gastric ulcer disease (GUD), respectively. In summary, the present meta-analysis suggests that IL-8 gene −251 T/A polymorphism is associated with increased PUD risk among Asians, and especially for the subgroups of H. pylori+, DUD and GUD.

The composite laminates are produced by manual molding technology using two guide bar warp knitted fabrics of glass fiber as reinforcement and epoxy resin as matrix. The tensile properties of composites in the course, wale and diagonal directions are tested on the universal material testing machine. The influences of warp knitting stitch structures for mechanical performance of the composites are discussed. The results show that the tensile stress/strain curves of two guide bar warp knitted fabric reinforced composites were nonlinear. The tensile properties of composites possess obvious anisotropic characteristics. The tensile strengths and modulus of the warp knitting fabric composites depend on the yarn numbers bearing load along tensile direction, which are related to the stitches and structural parameters of warp knitted fabrics.

BACKGROUND: We established the reference intervals for glycated albumin (GA), fructosamine (FA), and 1,5‐anhydroglucitol (1,5‐AG) in a Chinese healthy population. METHODS: This study enrolled a total of 458 eligible reference individuals, consisted of 226 men and 232 women, aged from 20~79 years (median age 43 years), who attending routine healthy checks. We stratified the subjects according to gender (males and females) and age (20‐39, 40‐59, and 60‐79 years), and combined statistical methods with Lahti algorithm, as well as appropriate clinical consideration, to judge whether partitioning for data was needed. RESULTS: Glycated albumin levels between males and females were statistically different (P.05). The reference interval for FA was 220‐298 μmol/L. CONCLUSION: New reference intervals for nontraditional glycemic markers were established based on a Chinese population.

BACKGROUND Docetaxel is the first line treatment for castration resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). However, docetaxel resistance rapidly develops. Identifying the critical mechanisms giving rise to docetaxel resistance is the major challenge in advanced prostate cancer.

Aiming at the disadvantages of large computing, slow convergence and easily trapping into local minima of traditional BP network, a new method named batch momentum learning algorithm which combining the momentum with batch gradient descent algorithm has been used to be as the learning algorithm of connection weights and threshold of BP neural network, through using this method to forecast the prevalence of plant disease, the convergence speed of BP neural network has been enhanced.

With the development of the petroleum industry ,the separation technology has made progress. The cyclone separator with different structure sizes (such as taper Angle, import hole, overflow hole and bottom hole) are numerical simulated. The separating efficiency are greatly influenced by structural dimension through studied.

In this paper ,we ared study on the reinforcement of a large opening with which the opening ratio is (W)0.8 with numerical calculation. We analyzed the Mechanical characteristics of opened shell It shows the stress concentration is seen clearly on point A which is between Connecting Inside surface of pipe and shell ,and point B, which is between Connecting outside surface of pipe and shell. And the stress concentration on point A is more than on point A when the opening ration(W) is 0.8.And it is calculated reinforcing effect and analyze the limitation when the opening ration by pressure area method（Referred to PAM）.It is obtained the limitation of PAM by comparing numerical calculation to PAM.

The purpose of this study is to determine the dynamic character coefficient of journal bearing with the consideration of bearing load direction and oil groove. Based on numerical differential method, the oil film pressure distribution on journal bearing is obtained with the point-by-point relaxation iteration method. Then, the dynamic characters are calculated by numerical integral algorithm.The calculation program is developed for the dynamic characteristics of journal bearing. The computation method provides a useful guide for the numerical simulation of rotary parts.

The structural morphogenesis methods are numerical methods for seeking various‘good structure shape’ based on mathematical and mechanical principles. The methods are to realize the coordination between structural shape and mechanical properties. In this paper, the height adjusting method and Extended-ESO (extended evolutionary structural optimism) method are successfully applied in practical engineering design schemes, which could be a meaningful reference and a powerful tool to the present design in structural shape and mechanical performance.

In this paper we study the multi-attribute group decision-making problems and put forward a kind of method. In this method, based on clustering evidence theory, the decision-making information is translated into evidences to support different decision-making program. Then, by the amount of evidences, decision-making program ranking is completed. The method’s character can not only rank the decision-making programs by their merits, but also give each program the probability to be the best. Finally, an example is given to show the rationality and effectiveness of the new method.

OBJECTIVE By analysis and evaluation of the perfusion images and perfusion parameters of the rabbits with VX2 lung tumor, the association between the perfusion parameters and tumor angiogenesis of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the lung has been studied in order to establish a non-invasive and effective way to detect tumor blood supply, which is be able to exhibit hemodynamic data in tumors during cancer treatments.METHODS Fifteen Netherlands rabbits inoculated with VX2 lung tumor (rabbit group) and 25 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the lung (patient group) received a multi-slice spiral CT perfusion imaging test using the Netherlands HILIPS Brilliance 16-slice spiral CT and a U.S. MEDRAD binocular high-pressure syringe. Image postprocessing was done using the special perfusion software and EBW 4.0 Workstation. Perfusion volume (PV), peak enhanced increment (PEI), transit time peak (TTP), and blood volume (BV) were measured and analyzed. RESULTS In the rabbit group, the values of the PV, PEI, TTP, and BV of the tumor margin were (53.89 ± 13.38) mL/(min*mL), (45.71 ± 15.52) Hu, (39.29 ± 10.10) sec, and (31.45 ± 18.19) mL/100 g, respectively; these values of the tumor center were (36.57 ± 14.17) mL/(min*mL), (28.64 ± 11.74) Hu, (39.00 ± 9.78) sec, and (19.76± 13.95) mL/100 g, respectively; the values of the muscles were (12.45 ± 4.38) mL/(min*mL), (10.98 ± 5.03) Hu, (38.86 ± 10.04) sec, and (5.38 ± 2.87) mL/100 g, respectively. The values of the relative perfusion volume (RPV), relative peak enhanced increment (RPEI), and relative blood volume (RBV) of the tumor margin were 4.38 ± 1.45, 3.96 ± 1.45, 9.99 ± 11.7, respectively; these values of the tumor center were 2.14 ± 1.08, 1.83 ± 1.45, 4.17 ± 3.39, respectively. The values of the PV, PEI, BV of the tumor margin vs. the values of the muscles developed t-values, which were 15.028, 10.79, and 5.88, respectively (P ≤ 0.01), with statistical significance; the values of the PV, PEI, BV of the tumor center vs. the values of the muscles produced t-values, which were 8.67, 7.49, and 4.55, respectively (P ≤ 0.01), with statistical signifi cance. The values of the TTP of the tumor margin vs. TTP values of the muscles, and the TTP values of the tumor center vs. TTP values of the muscles developed t-values, which were 1.7 and 0.806, respectively (P ≥ 0.05), without statistical significance. In the patient group, the values of the PV, PE, TTP, and BV of the tumor margin were (88.95 ± 30.89) mL/(min*mL), (61.87 ± 27.31) Hu, (37.72 ± 12.53) sec, and (18.38 ± 7.2) mL/100 g, respectively; these values of the tumor center were (39.77 ± 18.29) mL/(min*mL), (14.57 ± 8.1) Hu, (35.64 ± 12.41) sec, and (11.22 ± 6.02) mL/100 g, respectively; these values of the muscles were (12.45 ± 6.5) mL/(min*mL), (6.14 ± 2.66) Hu, (35.68 ± 12.35) sec, and (2.23 ± 1.11) mL/100 g, respectively. The values of the RPV, RPEI, and RBV of the tumor margin were 8.05 ± 5.04, 8.87 ± 4.32, and 12.16 ± 8.49, respectively; these values of the tumor center were 2.39 ± 1.68, 2.97 ± 2.1, 3.53 ± 2.82, respectively. The values of the PV, PEI, BV of the tumor margin in the patient group vs. the values of the muscles produced t-values, which were 13.8, 10.85, and 12.22, respectively (P 0.05), without statistical di? erence. CONCLUSION CT perfusion imaging technics demonstrates directly dynamic changes of blood fl ow to tumors, which assists in identifying tumor growth and necrosis, therefore, this research provides an evidence-based guidelines for the treatment of human lung squamous cell carcinoma and has far-reaching clinical signifi cancer.

In this paper, we present a general class of hybrid bi-directional associative memory (BAM) neural networks. By using M-matrix theory, inequality technique and other analysis techniques, we investigate the exponential stability and the existence of periodic solutions for this kind of neural networks and sufficient conditions are obtained. The results generalize and improve some previous known results. Finally, two examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the results obtained.

We demonstrate a transverse electro-optical modulator based on a tiny and irregular octahedral wafer of cubic boron nitride (cBN) crystal that is prepared by hexagonal boron nitride at high pressure and high temperature using nitride as the catalyst. A continuous wave semiconductor laser at the wavelength of 650nm is used as a light source. A novel electrode fabrication is designed, a developed method different from the conventional transverse electro-optical modulator is introduced and the expression of the intensity of output beam is thought over. We obtain the half-wave voltage based on experiments of transverse electro-optical modulation. The second-order nonlinear optical susceptibility @g"i"j"k^(^2^)(@w,0)=1.919x10^-^1^2m/V of cBN crystal is calculated by means of the half-wave voltage.

We fabricated a hemispherical nearly-intrinsic Si-based photodetector with ( \(\bar{1}10)\) plane. The photocurrent generated from the detector under a continuous wave laser at the wavelength of 1.3 μm was observed. The photocurrent shows a quadratic dependence on the incident optical power. The dependence of the photocurrent on the azimuth of the incident optical field is consistent with the anisotropy of the two-photon absorption in Si crystals. The ratio of the two nonzero independent components of the third-order susceptibility of silicon is obtained to be 0.42 from the observed result of the anisotropy of the photocurrent.

In the conventional excitation control concept, the power angle and frequency of a generator are driven to a pre-designed operation point after the fault occurs. It is named as Constant Point Stabilization (CPS) concept in this paper. A novel concept, called dynamic Center of Inertia (COI)-tracking concept is proposed in this paper. In the concept, the power angle and frequency of each generator track the dynamic COI of the power system. Compared to CPS concept, a salient feature the suggested dynamic COI-tracking concept has is that the generators are not restricted to constant angle point or frequency any longer but track the dynamic COI trajectory of the system to keep synchronous in rotor angle and frequency. Wide area measurement system (WAMS) will be used to transform COI signals to each generator. The time delay within a certain limit of WAMS signals is permitted. To make comparison between the two concepts, the control system models based on the two concepts are first established. Then, using the back-stepping method, two robust controllers are designed to achieve the control objectives of the two concepts. At last, dynamic simulations are carried out based on a 2-area-4-machine test power system, and the control effects of the two controllers, together with that of the conventional AVR + PSS excitation system, are compared. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In the paper, a relationship of detectivity with material parameters is given by a theoretical calculation. An In 1− x Ga x As photovoltaic detector structure with x = 0.47 is used as an example for this study. The results show that the detectivity of a photodetector can be enhanced by optimizing the carrier concentration, thickness and surface recombination velocity during the structure growth and device fabrication.

Personalizing medicines has refined the traditional treatments for non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In the present study, efforts towards personalizing delivery of care based on the status of EGFR and K-RAS mutations, and mRNA expression levels of ERCC1, TUBB3, TYMS, RRM1 and EGFR by choosing appropriate treatments for 52 patients with NSCLC were discussed. Among these 52 NSCLC patients, there were 14 patients treated with gefitinib. Ten patients with EGFR exon 21 point mutations or exon 19 deletions had better treatment outcomes following gefitinib treatment (71.4%). There were 38 patients treated with platinum-based chemotherapy. Docetaxel-platinum based chemotherapy was chosen as the first-line treatment when the patients had low or median ERCC1/TUBB3 expression and gemcitabine-platinum based chemotherapy was chosen when the patients had low or median ERCC1/RRM1 expression. In total, 26 cases had mRNA expression levels of ERCC1/TUBB3 or ERCC1/RRM1 that could be used to predict the treatment outcomes of chemotherapy (68.4%). The present results indicated that the mutation status of EGFR, as well as the mRNA expression levels of ERCC1, TUBB3 and RRM1, could be used as predictors of the response to gefitinib or chemotherapy.

The growth of perylene on Ag (1 1 0) has been studied by ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy measurements and low-energy electron diffraction. Four emission features of the organic material are located at 3.5, 4.8, 6.4 and 8.5 eV, respectively, below the Fermi level. An ordered structure of c(6×2) can be observed when the organic film is about a monolayer (3 A thickness). The angle-resolved ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy measurements show that the molecular plane of perylene near the interface is parallel to the substrate. The desorption of the organic material occurs with warming the substrate; the perylene molecules are stable on the Ag (1 1 0) surface and no decomposition is observed below 140°C.

BACKGROUND There is no effective therapy currently available for androgen-independent (AI) prostate cancer (CaP). This is largely due to lack of information about the molecular mechanisms by which androgen-dependent tumor cells progress to androgen independence. In this study, we investigated molecular alterations occurring in AI LNCaP cells. METHODS We established and characterized three AI LNCaP sublines that exhibited a wide range of cytogenetic alterations. In order to understand why androgen-sensitive LNCaP cells can survive in an androgen-deprived environment, we analyzed the expression of signaling proteins associated with proliferation and survival of AI cells. In addition, gene expression profiling was performed to gain insight into molecular alterations in these LNCaP sublines. RESULTS These LNCaP sublines exhibited heightened levels of androgen receptor (AR), HER2, MAPK, serine 473-phosphorylated Akt, and Bcl-2, implicating these proteins as mediators of AI growth. Gene expression profiling identified a common set of 66 genes that were differentially expressed in all three sublines compared to the parental LNCaP cells. Of these, 32 were apparently androgen regulated, while the remainder comprised an expression signature specific for androgen independence. CONCLUSION We have developed AI LNCaP cell models and identified several genes that are specifically expressed in these models. Elucidating the relative importance of these genetic changes will help define the molecular mechanism by which CaP progresses to androgen independence. © 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

BACKGROUND Radioimmunotherapy (RIT) is a promising new modality for targeted, systemic delivery of radionuclides specifically to sites of androgen-independent metastatic prostate cancer. To be effective, RIT requires an antibody with specificity for malignant cells and appropriate pharmacokinetics in the body. METHODS Specific binding of the L6 monoclonal antibody to prostate cancer cell lines or cell lysates was determined by enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay (ELISA), solid-phase radioimmunoassay, and immunofluorescent staining. Biodistribution, tumor uptake, and whole body and blood clearances of 125I-L6 were determined in nude mice bearing human prostate cancer xenografts. RESULTS The L6 monoclonal antibody showed strong binding to the lysates of PC3 and DU145 prostate cancer cell lines, and 66% binding to live PC3 cells. The L6 antibody specifically targeted prostate cancer in PC3 and DU145-tumored nude mice, where approximately 10% of the injected dose of 125I-L6 bound to prostate cancer. Low-normal organ uptake was found, and the blood clearances were similar in each group of tumored mice. CONCLUSIONS The L6 monoclonal antibody targets human prostate cancer xenografts in nude mice and has low-normal organ uptake. Therefore, further study of the radiolabeled L6 monoclonal antibody for RIT of prostate cancer is warranted. Prostate 37:91–97, 1998. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.