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BACKGROUND Warfarin for the prevention of non-valvular atrial fibrillation related thromboembolic stroke in patients on maintenance haemodialysis is controversial. Despite the exclusion of haemodialysis patients in randomised control trials, the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology has recommended warfarin in high-risk AF patients. AIM We retrospectively examined the utility of warfarin anticoagulation therapy in our prevalent haemodialysis patients over 10 years of follow-up. METHODS Eligible patients were retrospectively identified and stratified to two cohorts based on whether warfarin was prescribed. The outcomes of interest were ischaemic stroke, haemorrhagic stroke and death from any cause. Rate ratio and cox proportional hazard regression model were compare the differences in outcome between the two cohorts. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyse survival. RESULTS Three ischaemic strokes and four haemorrhagic strokes occurred in the unexposed group of 166 patients over 484.44 patient-years follow-up. One ischaemic stroke and no cases of haemorrhagic stroke occurred in the exposed warfarin group of 16 patients over 39.32 patient-years of follow-up. 87% of patients in both groups were indigenous. More than 90% of each cohort was had CHA2DS2VaSc score ≥2. 101 deaths occurred in the follow-up period, ninety in the unexposed group and eleven in the warfarin group. A non-statistically significant trend towards increasing mortality was observed in the warfarin group (Hazard ratio =1.63, p=0.13). CONCLUSION This retrospective study of prevalent haemodialysis patients with co-existing history of non-valvular AF failed to demonstrate sufficient evidence for the routine use of warfarin for prophylaxis of thromboembolic stroke. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Gait-based age estimation is a key technique for many applications. It is well known that age estimation uncertainty is highly dependent on age (i.e., small for children and large for adults), and it is important to know the uncertainty for the above-mentioned applications. Therefore, we propose a method for uncertainty-aware gait-based age estimation by introducing a label distribution learning framework. Specifically, we design a network that takes an appearance-based gait feature as input and outputs discrete label distributions in the integer age domain. We then train the network to minimize a loss function, which is defined as the dissimilarity between the estimated age distribution and the ground-truth age distribution, in addition to the conventional mean absolute error for the estimated age. Additionally, we demonstrate that uncertainty-aware gait-based age estimation is beneficial for two applications: person search by age query and people counting by age group. Experiments on the world’s largest gait database, OULP-Age, demonstrated that the proposed method can successfully represent age estimation uncertainty, and outperforms or is comparable with state-of-the-art methods in terms of age estimation accuracy. Moreover, we demonstrated the effectiveness of the uncertainty-aware framework in applications to person search and people counting through experiments on the database.

Liangliang Li,1– 3 Jun Fu,2 Chi Xu,2 Ming Ni,2 Wei Chai,2 Libo Hao,2 Yonggang Zhou,2 Jiying Chen2 1Medical School of Chinese PLA, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Orthopedics, The First Medical Centre, Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Orthopedics, The Second Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, Shanxi, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Jiying Chen; Libo HaoDepartment of Orthopedics, The First Medical Centre, Chinese PLA General Hospital, No. 28 Fuxing Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100853, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 13901078832; Tel +86 13901078832Fax +86 010 68216336Email chenjiying_301@163.com; haolibo301@sina.comBackground: This study aimed to compare the clinical data of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) patients who underwent unilateral and bilateral total hip arthroplasty (THA) due to advanced hip involvement. Furthermore, to determine the factors associated with bilateral THA.Methods: Utilizing a single-institution database, we selected 373 consecutive AS patients undergoing primary THA from 2012 to 2017 and compared the clinical characteristics and anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) therapy of the patients who underwent unilateral and bilateral THA. Logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with bilateral THA.Results: Bilateral THA was performed in 67.3% (n=251) of the patients. Male patients had a higher frequency of undergoing bilateral THA compared with female ones (P< 0.05). The proportion of the patients who had bilateral onset in hips, administration of TNF inhibitors, flexion contracture in the hip, and a BASRI-hip score of 4 was significantly higher in patients with bilateral THA than that with unilateral THA (P< 0.05). Patients with bilateral THA experienced longer disease duration than those with unilateral THA (P< 0.05). The results of the logistic regression showed that factors related to bilateral THA were bilateral onset in hips, administration of TNF inhibitors, a BASRI-hip score of 4, and an erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) level (P< 0.05).Conclusion: Bilateral THA is more common in AS patients with advanced hip involvement. Bilateral onset in hips, a BASRI-hip score of 4, and a higher level of ESR are risk factors associated with bilateral THA, while anti-TNF therapy is a protective factor reducing the progression of hip involvement to bilateral THA.Keywords: ankylosing spondylitis, hip involvement, bilateral total hip arthroplasty, anti-TNF therapy

This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of the albumin/fibrinogen ratio (AFR) in the assessment of malnutrition and to compare its ability to predict early postoperative periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) in patients with aseptic revisions.Four hundred sixty-six patients undergoing revision total hip or knee arthroplasty between February 2017 and December 2019 were recruited in this retrospective study. We compared the differences in nutritional parameters between patients undergoing revision for septic and aseptic reasons. We used multivariate logistic regression and assessed the association between nutritional parameters and risk of PJI. 207 patients with aseptic revision were then evaluated for the incidence of acute postoperative infection within 90 days. The predictive ability of nutritional markers was assessed by receiver operating characteristic curves.In the multivariate logistic regression analysis, low albumin level (adjusted OR 1.56, 95% CI 1.16-2.08, P = .003), low prognostic nutritional index (PNI) (adjusted OR 1.57, 95% CI 1.01-2.43, P.043), and low AFR (adjusted OR 2.54, 95% CI 1.92-3.36, P.001) were independently associated with revision surgery for septic reasons. In accordance with the receiver operating characteristic analysis, the AFR exhibited a greater area under the curve value (0.721) than did the prognostic nutritional index and albumin. An elevated AFR (≥11.7) was significantly associated with old age, joint type, high Charlson comorbidity index, high American Society of Anesthesiologist, and diabetes (P.05).Our findings demonstrated AFR may be an effective biomarker to assess nutrition status and predict acute PJIs after revision TJA.

Cogeneration system based on Small Modular Lead‐cooled Fast Reactor (SMLFR) becomes attractive due to its good characteristics of flexible location, safety, thermal efficiency, and economy. The conventional cogeneration systems using coal, gas, or renewable energy as the thermal resource have lower thermal performance as compared to LFR based cogeneration systems due to lack of sustainable energy resources. A modified concept design of cogeneration system based on a 35‐MWth SMLFR has been proposed to improve the thermal performance. A new concept of District Heating (DH) structure layout along with optimization based on the exhaust steam/water drainage position. The thermodynamic model based on energy and exergy methods has been used to design and calculate the energy losses of the cogeneration system components. The energy utilization rate can be increased significantly by optimizing the DH. The thermal efficiency of the proposed system reaches up to 73.64% with an increase of 3.51% and the exergy efficiency reaches up to 59.31% with an increase of 5.01%. The increase of thermal performance under the different heating demands will lead to better energy conservation and environmental safety. This study can be further used as the reference for the design and optimization of SMLFR cogeneration system based on thermodynamic and exergy analysis.

Background Rheumatoid arthritis is a long-term systemic disease that primarily affects multiple synovial joints throughout the body. Some patients with severe joint effusion even require repeated arthrocentesis or arthroscopic debridement to relieve symptoms, which causes them much suffering mentally and physically. This text-mining study was designed to find potential drugs that target key genes in this disease. Methods Firstly, we performed text mining by two keywords ("rheumatoid synovitis" and "joint effusion") to get a common set of genes. Secondly, Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analysis performed on these genes, and protein-protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed. Subsequently, the significant genes clustered in the PPI network were chose to execute genedrug interaction analysis for potential drug discovery. Results Through text mining, 68 overlapping genes were identified as an initial set of key genes. Construction of the initial gene set's PPI network showed that 25 genes clustered in a significant gene module. Ultimately, 8 out of 25 genes could be targetable by a total of 19 drugs. Conclusions The final 8 genes (PTGS2, TNF, VEGFA, IL1B, CCL2, VWF, IL6, and ESR1) and 19 drugs may provide significant therapeutic value for rheumatoid arthritis patients with joint effusion.

Aims It can be extremely challenging to determine whether to perform reimplantation in patients who have contradictory serum inflammatory markers and frozen section results. We investigated whether patients with a positive frozen section at reimplantation were at a higher risk of reinfection despite normal ESR and CRP. Methods We retrospectively reviewed 163 consecutive patients with periprosthetic joint infections (PJIs) who had normal ESR and CRP results pre-reimplantation in our hospital from 2014 to 2018. Of these patients, 26 had positive frozen sections at reimplantation. The minimum follow-up time was two years unless reinfection occurred within this period. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were performed to identify the association between positive frozen sections and treatment failure. Results Treatment failure occurred in eight (30.77%) of the 26 PJI patients with positive frozen sections at reimplantation, compared with 13 (9.49%) of 137 patients with negative results. In the multivariate analysis, positive frozen section increased the risk of failure (odds ratio 4.70; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.64 to 13.45). The mean number of months to reinfection was lower in the positive frozen section group than in the control group (p = 0.041). While there were nine (34.62%) patients with positive frozen section and 25 (18.25%) patients with negative frozen section who had prolonged antibiotic use (p = 0.042), the mean duration of antibiotic use was comparable in two groups. Synovial white blood cell count (p = 0.137) and polymorphonuclear leucocyte percentage (p = 0.454) were not associated with treatment failure in logistic regression model. Conclusion Positive frozen section at reimplantation was independently associated with subsequent failure and earlier reinfection, despite normal ESR and CRP levels pre-reimplantation. Surgeons should be aware of the risk of treatment failure in patients with positive frozen sections and carefully consider benefits of reimplantation. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2021;103-B(5):916–922.

Background Patients with native joint septic arthritis are one of the highest risk groups for developing complications following total joint arthroplasty (TJA), especially periprosthetic joint infection(PJI). There is a paucity of information on the risk factors for developing PJI and the optimal treatment modality of the native septic joint that can mitigate that risk. This multicenter study aimed to determine these risk factors, including prior treatment. Methods A retrospective study of 233 TJAs performed, following prior septic arthritis at five institutions, was conducted. Comorbidities, organism profile, prior surgery, etiology of septic arthritis, and other relevant variables were reviewed. The primary outcome was the development of PJI, defined by Musculoskeletal Infection Society criteria. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify risk factors for PJI. Results Overall, the PJI rate was 12.4% in patients who underwent TJA after native septic arthritis. Predisposing risk factors for PJI included antibiotic-resistant organisms, male gender, diabetes, and a postsurgical cause of septic arthritis eg open reduction internal fixation. When controlling for potential confounders, multivariate analysis revealed that male gender, diabetes, and a postoperative etiology were predictors of PJI. The definitive treatment modality for the septic joint did not affect the rate of PJI for both arthroscopy vs irrigation and debridement (I&D), and two-stage exchange vs single-stage procedure. Discussion This study has identified several risk factors for developing PJI in patients with prior septic joint arthritis, some of which are modifiable. The initial treatment modality of the native septic joint has no bearing on the development of PJI after TJA.

Avalanche ruggedness is one of the key factors for safe and reliable power converters deployed in various automotive subsystems. In this article, the avalanche capability of power MOSFETs is tested under different repetitive avalanche conditions to differentiate the die degradation and package degradation. While examining the degradation mechanisms, the corresponding electrical parameter shifts are analyzed to better understand the structural changes and root causes and identify potential precursors for condition monitoring. For this purpose, a high-resolution and cost-effective nanosecond current pulse generator (CPG) is designed. Due to the high-resolution pulsewidth modulation function of a digital signal processor (DSP), short current pulses can be generated in the order of 100 ps where the magnitude and duration of the current pulsewidth can be adjusted precisely. During the experiments, power MOSFETs are stressed under two different pulsewidths. It is observed that the ON-state resistance gradually increases in both cases, yet the roots of the degradations are different. The die degradation and package degradation are responsible for the changes in short pulse and long pulse, respectively. In the short pulse case, some devices show saturation in drain leakage current and ON-state resistance, while some others show a significant threshold voltage drop, which leads to a noticeable shift of transfer and output characteristics. The electrical parameter shifts indicate a possible gate degradation after the device aging. At the end of the tests, failure analyses are conducted on both devices under test (DUTs) under different stress conditions, revealing different failure mechanisms.

This article proposes a new complete condition monitoring method which can independently monitor both the threshold voltage drift and the packaging degradation accurately by monitoring only the reverse body diode voltage drop at different gate bias levels. The SiC MOSFETs are aged through an accelerated aging method and the corresponding changes in electrical parameters are periodically measured to assess their correlation with the state of the device's health. It has been revealed that the on -state resistance reveals the combination of gate oxide and package-related degradation while the threshold voltage mainly depicts gate oxide-related issues. Unlike these two parameters, the body diode voltage drop is found to independently indicate the state of device health both for package and gate oxide. This is caused by a unique secondary conduction mode of SiC MOSFETs in third-quadrant operation which is clearly disclosed with transition boundaries by a proposed body diode transfer characterization curve. In order to have a detailed condition information of the device with a simple circuit, monitoring the reverse body diode voltage drop at 0 and $-$ 5 V gate bias is proposed. The proposed condition monitoring method is implemented on a gate drive circuit and experimental results are given for two artificially degraded devices. The experimental results confirm that the proposed method can independently monitor both the gate oxide and packaging degradations accurately by monitoring a single precursor parameter. The proposed method can be integrated into the gate driver or converter itself to monitor SiC devices.

S-oxiracetam (S-ORC), a nootropic drug, was used to protect against ischemic stroke by lessening the blood brain barrier dysfunction and inhibiting neuronal apoptosis. However, the potential effects of S-ORC in the recovery of cognitive functions after ischemic stroke and the underlying mechanisms remains unclear. In this study, middle cerebral artery occlusion/reperfusion (MCAO/R) in rats was used as the animal model. By using Y-maze test, Morris water maze, triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (TTC) staining, terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated 2'-deoxyuridine 5'-triphosphate (dUTp) nick end labeling (TUNEL) assay, hematoxylin and eosin, immunohistochemical staining and western blot to evaluate the protective effect of S-ORC on cognitive recovery, we were able to confirm that S-ORC ameliorated spatial learning impairment, tissue loss, and hippocampal neuronal apoptosis and injury induced by MCAO/R in rats. These cognitive effects were achieved by restoring the normal function of synaptophysin and increasing PSD95 expression in the hippocampus. Furthermore, we found that methyllycaconitine, the antagonist of α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (α7nAChR), and LY294002, the inhibitor of phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K), were able to block the cognitive effects of S-ORC after MCAO/R in rats. In conclusion, α7nAChR and PI3K are key molecules that mediated the signaling pathway leading to S-ORC-induced cognitive restoration after MCAO/R.

Virtualization has attained mainstream status in enterprise IT industry. Despite its widespread adoption, it is known that virtualization also introduces non-trivial overhead when tasks are executed on a virtual machine (VM). In particular, a combined effect from device virtualization overhead and CPU scheduling latency can cause performance degradation when computation intensive tasks and I/O intensive tasks are co-located on a VM. Such an interference also causes extra energy consumption. In this paper, we present Hylics , a novel solution that enables efficient data traverse paths for both I/O and computation intensive workloads. This is achieved with the provision of in-memory file system and network service at the hypervisor level. Several important design issues are pinpointed and addressed during our prototype implementation, including efficient intermediate data sharing, network service offloading, and QoS-aware memory usage management. Based on our real-world deployment on KVM, we show that Hylics can significantly improve computation and I/O performance for hybrid workloads. Moreover, this design also alleviates the existing virtualization overhead and naturally optimizes the overall energy efficiency.

With the deep integration of information, communication and operation technologies, industrial wireless control networks (IWCNs) are playing key roles to drive industrial revolution. This article proposes a 5G-based new radio (NR) for IWCNs to realize ultra-reliable low-latency communication over unlicensed bands, namely WIA-NR. We first define a hierarchical star network topology, which employs a hybrid centralized and distributed system management architecture. Then, a three-layer protocol stack is defined by integrating some fundamental functions of 5G and proposing new functions to enhance reliability and timeliness. The key technologies include dynamic multi-channel listen before talk, adaptive channel hopping, over-the-air time synchronization, industrial data priority scheduling, aggregation and disaggregation. Finally, system-level simulations are performed to evaluate the performance of WIA-NR. The results show that WIA-NR can achieve less than 1 ms latency under 99.999 percent reliability constraint, which can well satisfy critical industrial control. Meanwhile, WIA-NR can harmoniously coexist with WiFi over unlicensed bands.

Purpose The study assessed the correlation among the patients’ perception of leg length discrepancy (LLD) after total hip arthroplasty (THA) in patients with unilateral Crowe type IV developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH) and the four methods of measuring the leg length in the full-length standing anteroposterior radiographs. Methods Sixty patients with unilateral Crowe type IV DDH were recruited in this retrospective study between January 2012 and January 2019. Four methods of measurement were used: 1) TD-TP: distance between the inferior aspect of teardrop (TD) and the midpoint of tibial plafond (TP); 2) CH-TP: distance between the center of the hip (CH) or acetabular cup and the TP; 3) GT-TP: distance between the apex of greater trochanter (GT) and the TP; and 4) FL+TL: the sum of femoral length (FL) and tibial length (TL). Results Association was found among the patients’ perception on LLD with difference in TD-TP (OR=1.157), and the difference in FL+TL (OR=1.166). The area under the curve of the difference in FL+TL and the difference TD-TP (0.704 and 0.679) was significantly higher than those of the difference in CH-TP and the difference in GT-TP (0.564 and 0.483). With the calculated threshold of LLD set at 9.0 mm, the sensitivity and specificity of the difference in TD-TP and the difference in FL+TL were 57.7%, 79.4% and 61.5%, 79.4%, respectively. Conclusion Patients’ perception on LLD had good correlation and reliability on the difference of FL+TL and the difference of TD-TP on both sides in the full-length standing anteroposterior radiographs after THA in patients with unilateral Crowe type IV DDH. The calculated threshold of the difference in FL+TL and the difference in TD-TP was set at 9.0 mm to assess the patients’ perception on LLD.

Model-based gait recognition is considered to be promising due to the robustness against some variations, such as clothing and baggage carried. Although model-based gait recognition has not been fully explored due to the difficulty of human body model fitting and the lack of a large-scale gait database, recent progress in deep learning-based approaches to human body model fitting and human pose estimation is mitigating the difficulty. In this paper, we, therefore, address the remaining issue by presenting a large-scale human pose-based gait database, OUMVLP-Pose, which is based on a publicly available multi-view large-scale gait database, OUMVLP. OUMVLP-Pose has many unique advantages compared with other public databases. First, OUMVLP-Pose is the first gait database that provides two datasets of human pose sequences extracted by two standard deep learning-based pose estimation algorithms, OpenPose and AlphaPose. Second, it contains multi-view large-scale data, i.e., over 10,000 subjects and 14 views for each subject. In addition, we also provide benchmarks in which different kinds of gait recognition methods, including model-based methods and appearance-based methods, have been evaluated comprehensively. The model-based gait recognition methods have shown promising performances. We believe this database, OUMVLP-Pose, will greatly promote model-based gait recognition in the next few years.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality worldwide. Patients with locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have lower overall survival. Studies have shown that some patients with unresectable stage III NSCLC develop disease progression after initial chemoradiotherapy, and new treatment is needed to improve the prognosis of these patients. The rapid development of therapy has greatly changed and continued to renew the treatment strategy of advanced NSCLC. However, the clinical treatment for patients with the wild-type gene remains problematic, and chemotherapy with platinum are not yet considered satisfactory. Herein, we are reporting a case of a patient with wild-type gene mutation locally advanced NSCLC who was treated with neoadjuvant therapy by using combined targeted anti-PD-1 immunotherapy and chemotherapy. The percentage of tumor cells with membranous PD-L1 staining (tumor proportion score) was 90% or greater. After receiving all three cycles of treatment, the patient underwent video-assisted right upper lung lobectomy and wedge resection plus radical mediastinal lymph node dissection. Pathological section samples showed a pathological complete response. This experience has led us to believe that the subgroup of patients with unresectable advanced NSCLC may benefit from this strategy and may have an opportunity for radical surgery.

Orientation-controlled growth of two-dimensional (2D) transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) may enable many new electronic and optical applications. However, previous studies reporting aligned growth of WSe2 usually yielded very small domain sizes. Herein, we introduced gold vapor into the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) process as a catalyst to assist the growth of WSe2 and successfully achieved highly aligned monolayer WSe2 triangular flakes grown on c-plane sapphire with large domain sizes (130 µm) and fast growth rate (4.3 µm·s−1). When the aligned WSe2 domains merged together, a continuous monolayer WSe2 was formed with good uniformity. After transferring to Si/SiO2 substrates, field effect transistors were fabricated on the continuous monolayer WSe2, and an average mobility of 12 cm2·V−1·s−1 was achieved, demonstrating the good quality of the material. This report paves the way to study the effect of catalytic metal vapor in the CVD process of TMDCs and contributes a novel approach to realize the growth of aligned TMDC flakes.

Introduction: We aimed to explore the risk factors for periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) after primary artificial hip and knee joint replacements by performing a case-control study. Methodology: The clinical data of patients receiving primary hip and knee joint replacements were retrospectively analyzed. The case group included 96 patients who suffered from PJI, comprising 42 cases of hip joint replacement and 54 cases of knee joint replacement. Another 192 patients who received joint replacement at the ratio of 1:2 in the same period and did not suffer from PJI were selected as the control group. Differences between the two groups were compared in regard to etiology, pathogen, blood type, urine culture, body mass index (BMI), surgical time, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative 1st day and total drainage volumes, length of hospitalization stay, and history of surgery at the affected sites. Results: Gram-positive bacteria were the main pathogens for PJI. The most common infection after hip joint replacement was caused by Staphylococcus epidermidis, which accounted for 38.10%, while Staphylococcus aureus was mainly responsible for the infection of knee joint (40.74%). High BMI, long surgical time, large postoperative drainage volume, long hospitalization stay, history of surgery at incisions, previous use of immunosuppressants, preoperative hypoproteinemia and superficial infection were independent risk factors (p < 0.05). Conclusions: PJI after primary replacement was mainly caused by gram-positive bacteria, and patients with high BMI, long surgical time, large postoperative drainage volume, long hospitalization stay, history of surgery at incisions, previous use of immunosuppressants, preoperative hypoproteinemia and superficial infection were more vulnerable.

Multipath TCP (MPTCP) has recently been suggested as a promising transport protocol to boost the utilization of underlaying datacenter networks, yet it also increases the host CPU power consumption. It remains unclear whether datacenters can indeed benefit from using MPTCP from the perspective of energy efficiency. Through realworld measurement of MPTCP, we show that the energy efficiency of MPTCP is largely related to the flow completion time and the existence of link-sharing subflows. In particular, we find that the link-sharing subflows in MPTCP will significantly elevate the CPUs’ power consumption on hosts. To make the matter worse, it will also reduce the transmission efficiency for both throughput-sensitive long flows and latency-sensitive short flows. To address such a problem, we present MPTCP-D, an energy-efficient enhancement of MPTCP in datacenter networks. MPTCP-D incorporates a novel congestion control algorithm that improves energy efficiency by minimizing the flow completion time. It also has a build-in subflow elimination mechanism that precludes link-sharing subflows from increasing the host CPU power consumption. We implement MPTCP-D in the Linux kernel, analyze the parameter selection in the algorithm and study its performance through packet-level simulation and on Amazon EC2. Our results show that, without degrading the performance of the long flow throughput and the short flow completion time, MPTCP-D reduces the long flow energy consumption by up to 72% compared to DCTCP for data transfers, and reduces the short flow power consumption by up to 46% compared to MPTCP with link-sharing subflows.

Time sensitive networks support deterministic schedules over Ethernet networks. Due to their high determinism, high reliability and high bandwidth, they have been considered as a good choice for the backbone network of industrial internet of things. In industrial applications, the backbone network connects multiple industrial field networks together and has to carry massive real-time packets. However, the off-the-shelf time-sensitive network (TSN) switches can deterministically schedule no more than 1024 real-time flows due to the limited number of schedule table entries. The excess real-time flows have to be delivered by best-effort services because the switch only supports the two scheduling services. The best-effort services can reduce average delay, but cannot guarantee the hard real-time constraints of industrial applications. To make the limited number of schedule table entries support more real-time flows, first, we relax scheduling rules to reduce the requirement for schedule table entries and formulate the process of transmitting packets as a satisfiability modulo theories (SMT) specification. Then, we divide the SMT specification into multiple optimization modulo theories (OMT) specifications so that the execution time of solvers can be reduced to an acceptable range. Second, we propose fast heuristic algorithms that combine schedule tables and packet injection control to eliminate scheduling conflicts. Finally, we conduct extensive evaluations. The evaluation results indicate that, compared to existing algorithms, our proposed algorithm requires only one-twentieth the number of schedule entries to schedule the same flow set.

Clothing and carrying status variations are the two key factors that affect the performance of gait recognition because people usually wear various clothes and carry all kinds of objects, while walking in their daily life. These covariates substantially affect the intensities within conventional gait representations such as gait energy images. Hence, to properly compare a pair of input gait features, an appropriate metric for joint intensity is needed in addition to the conventional spatial metric. We therefore propose a unified joint intensity transformer network for gait recognition that is robust against various clothing and carrying statuses. Specifically, the joint intensity transformer network is a unified deep learning-based architecture containing three parts: a joint intensity metric estimation net, a joint intensity transformer, and a discrimination network. First, the joint intensity metric estimation net uses a well-designed encoder-decoder network to estimate a sample-dependent joint intensity metric for a pair of input gait energy images. Subsequently, a joint intensity transformer module outputs the spatial dissimilarity of two gait energy images using the metric learned by the joint intensity metric estimation net. Third, the discrimination network is a generic convolution neural network for gait recognition. In addition, the joint intensity transformer network is designed with different loss functions depending on the gait recognition task (i.e., a contrastive loss function for the verification task and a triplet loss function for the identification task). The experiments on the world’s largest datasets containing various clothing and carrying statuses demonstrate the state-of-the-art performance of the proposed method.

A unique class of crystalline Ge1–ySny alloys with ultrahigh Sn concentrations reaching 33% as well as Si-doped analogues have been synthesized directly on large-area Si wafers by chemical vapor de...

Purpose The diagnosis of persistent infection at reimplantation of two-stage revision arthroplasty for periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) remains challenging. Several studies have shown the benefit of serum interleukin-6 (IL-6) in diagnosing periprosthetic joint infection (PJI). Recent data indicated serum IL-6 could be promising in differentiating persistent infection. The purpose of this study was to validate the efficacy of serum IL-6 in diagnosing persistent infection at reimplantation. Methods A retrospective review of 86 PJI patients with a two-stage exchanged hip arthroplasty from 2013 to 2017 was conducted. Persistent infection was defined using the modified Musculoskeletal Infection Society (MSIS) criteria combined with follow-up results. Serum IL-6 at reimplantation were collected and compared among patients with or without persistent infection. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated to evaluate the diagnostic performance and optimal cut-off value of serum IL-6 at reimplantation. Results Sixteen cases were diagnosed as persistent infection at reimplantation. There was no significant difference in serum IL-6 levels between cases with persistent infection and controls (7.89 pg/ml vs. 5.56 pg/ml; P = 0.179). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) for serum IL-6 in diagnosing persistent infection at reimplantation was 0.59 (95% confidential interval [CI] 0.40–0.77). With the calculated threshold set at 8.12 pg/ml, the corresponding sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive values were 38%, 88%, 38%, and 87%, respectively. Conclusion Serum IL-6 is inadequate in diagnosing persistent infection at reimplantation for two-stage revision arthroplasty. With the serum IL-6 threshold set at 8.12 pg/ml, the specificity to rule out persistent infection is high, but the sensitivity to predict persistent infection is not satisfactory.

Background Diagnosing acute periprosthetic joint infection remains a challenge. Several studies have proposed different acute cutoffs resulting in the International Consensus Meeting recommending a cutoff of 100 mg/L, 10,000 cell/μL and 90% for serum C-reactive protein (CRP), synovial white blood cell count (WBC), and polymorphonuclear percentage (PMN%), respectively. However, establishing cutoffs are difficult as the control group is limited to rare early aseptic revisions, and performing aspiration in asymptomatic patients is difficult because of a fear of seeding a well-functioning joint arthroplasty. This study (1) assessed the sensitivity of current thresholds for acute periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) and (2) identified associated factors for false negatives. Methods We retrospectively reviewed patients with acute PJIs (n = 218), defined as less than 6 weeks from index arthroplasty, treated between 2000 and 2017. Diagnosis of PJI was based on 2 positive cultures of the same pathogen from the periprosthetic tissue or synovial fluid samples. Sensitivities of International Consensus Meeting cutoff values of CRP, synovial WBC, and PMN% were evaluated according to organism type. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to determine associated factors for false negatives. Results Overall, the sensitivity of CRP, synovial WBC, and PMN% for acute PJI was 55.3%, 59.6%, and 50.5%, respectively. Coagulase-negative Staphylococcus (CNS) demonstrated the lowest sensitivity for both CRP (37.5%) and WBC (55.6%). CNS infection was identified as an independent risk factor for false-negative CRP. Conclusions Current thresholds for acute PJI may be missing approximately half of PJIs. Low virulent organisms, such as CNS, may be responsible for these false negatives. Current thresholds for acute PJI must be reexamined.

Omics data can be used to identify biological characteristics from genetic to phenotypic levels during the life span of a living being, while molecular interaction networks have a fundamental impact on life activities. Integrating omics data and molecular interaction networks will help researchers delve into comprehensive information hidden in the data. Here, we propose a new multimodal method — AutoGGN — to integrate multi-omics data with molecular interaction networks based on graph convolutional neural networks (GCNs). We evaluated AutoGGN using three classification tasks: single-cell embryonic developmental stage classification, pan-cancer type classification, and breast cancer subtyping. On all three tasks, AutoGGN showed better performance than other methods. This means AutoGGN has the potential to extract insights more effectively by means of integrating molecular interaction networks with multi-omics data. Additionally, in order to provide a better understanding of how our model makes predictions, we utilized the SHAP module and identified the key genes contributing to the classification, providing insight for the design of downstream biological experiments.

China is a country where the levels of water resources per capita are extremely low. With the rapid development of urbanization, water resource shortages have become a bottleneck existing in more and more cities. This study considers the comprehensive management of urban flood control, water supply, water and the ecological environment, catches the main contradiction between “water deficient” and “water rich” in cities, puts forward a comprehensive utilization pattern for urban water resources by emphasizing the utilization of rain–flood resources. After a simulation study, a better regulation pattern is brought out and achieve multiple benefits based on the river system of Gucheng Lake, which is located in Nanjing, Gaochun district, by optimizing conventional regulation. The results show that two parameters, the low water level (LWL) below which Gucheng Lake stops supplying ecological water, and the high water level (HWL) where Gucheng Lake stops importing water from rivers, are the key parameters to decide the regulation benefits, and the LWL of 9 m and HWL of 12 m is the best combination in river network regulation, the annual potential utilizable of rain–flood resources of Gucheng Lake river system can reach 57 million m3 per year, through the comprehensive utilization of the rain–flood resources, the negative effect of flood is effectively reduced and the disaster is controlled on one hand, and the water demand of urban and rural water supply, 100,000 m3/day, is effectively guaranteed as well as the regional ecological environment is improved on the other hand.

Aims Preoperative aspiration culture and intraoperative cultures play pivotal roles in periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) diagnosis and pathogen identification. But the discordance between preoperative aspiration culture and intraoperative synovial fluid culture remains unknown. We aim to determine (1) the discordance between preoperative and intraoperative synovial fluid (SF) culture and. (2) compared to intraoperative synovial fluid cultures, the sensitivity of preoperative aspiration fluid culture. Then the following question is tried to be answered: Are intraoperative synovial fluid re-cultures necessary if the preoperative aspiration culture is positive? Materials and methods Between 2015 and 2019, 187 PJI patients managed with surgeries were included in this study. Compared to intraoperative synovial fluid culture, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of preoperative aspiration culture were calculated. Then, the discordance between preoperative aspiration culture and intraoperative SF culture was analyzed. Results The sensitivity of preoperative aspiration culture was 81.29% compared to intraoperative synovial fluid cultures. Concordance was identified in 147 PJI (78.61%) patients and culture discordance occurred in 40 patients (21.39%). In these discordant PJI patients, 24 patients (60%) were polymicrobial and no intraoperative synovial fluid culture growth was found in 16 PJI cases (40%). Preoperative monomicrobial staphylococcus results had a sensitivity of and a specificity of 80.43% and 83.16%, respectively. Preoperative polymicrobial results had the lowest sensitivity. Conclusions The intraoperative synovial fluid re-cultures are necessary if the preoperative aspiration culture is positive and the discordance between preoperative aspiration culture and intraoperative synovial fluid culture should be noted especially when Streptococcus spp. and more than one pathogen was revealed by preoperative aspiration culture. Level of evidence: Level III.

BACKGROUND Lupus nephritis (LN) is common feature of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) and affects 50% of patients with SLE. Racial differences in incidence and prevalence have been well documented worldwide. In Australia, higher incidence and prevalence of SLE had been previously reported in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Australians compared to non-Indigenous Australians. AIM to describe the differences in clinical features and lupus biomarkers between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian and non-Indigenous Australian LN patients. METHODS We retrospectively identified all consecutive biopsy-proven LN patients in our institution and compared the clinical features and lupus biomarkers between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and non-indigenous Australians. RESULTS Of the thirty-three consecutive biopsy proven LN patients, twenty-six self-identified as of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent. The estimated incidence of lupus nephritis in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian and non-Indigenous Australians were 5.08 and 0.47 per 100,000 patient years respectively. Neurological manifestations (23.08% vs 0%), haematological manifestations (46.50 % vs 16.67) and right heart catheter proven pulmonary arterial hypertension (23.08% vs 0%) were more frequently observed amongst Indigenous Australian patients compared to non-Indigenous Australian patients. The incidence of positive Extractable Nuclear Antigen (ENA) was also higher among Indigenous Australian patients (84.62% vs 57.14%). CONCLUSION Our study further supports the observation that lupus in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians were of a 'distinct phenotype' compared to non-Indigenous Australians. Future research should be aimed at delineating the reason for this observed difference. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

As a part of rehabilitation training, rehabilitation gymnastics plays an important role in restoring the patients’ bodily movement. To facilitate the evaluation of rehabilitation exercises, in this work we propose multi-view on a motion transfer framework which is based on GANs and parameterized human model. Thus we can generate virtual exercise images sampled from the front and back view of one person with the appearance features. Motion transfer methods based on 2D information can hardly deal with the ambiguity of human pose and lack of appearance features. Therefore, this work uses a 3D parametric human model to represent the human body and poses, sampling, and combining pixels from pictures token from both front and back view of a source character, to generate target images under given poses. The whole framework we used can be divided into three stages. 1) In the first stage the 3D human mesh will be reconstructed. 2) In the second stage, transformation maps of multi-view will be calculated, which can show the coordinates of required pixels for sampling and placing. 3) In the third stage, a generated adversarial network is employed to optimize the coarse result from the second stage and make it more realistic. In our experiments, the whole framework achieves good results, especially it is proved that sampling features from both the front and back view can preserve more details of appearance by comparison experiment.

In the quest to realize a scalable quantum network, semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) offer distinct advantages including high single-photon efficiency and indistinguishability, high repetition rate (tens of GHz with Purcell enhancement), interconnectivity with spin qubits, and a scalable on-chip platform. However, in the past two decades, the visibility of quantum interference between independent QDs rarely went beyond the classical limit of 50$\%$ and the distances were limited from a few meters to kilometers. Here, we report quantum interference between two single photons from independent QDs separated by 302 km optical fiber. The single photons are generated from resonantly driven single QDs deterministically coupled to microcavities. Quantum frequency conversions are used to eliminate the QD inhomogeneity and shift the emission wavelength to the telecommunication band. The observed interference visibility is 0.67$\pm$0.02 (0.93$\pm$0.04) without (with) temporal filtering. Feasible improvements can further extend the distance to 600 km. Our work represents a key step to long-distance solid-state quantum networks., 14 pages, 5 figures

Proteasomal activity is compromised in diabetic hearts that contributes to proteotoxic stresses and cardiac dysfunction. Osteocrin (OSTN) acts as a novel exercise-responsive myokine and is implicated in various cardiac diseases. Herein, we aim to investigate the role and underlying molecular basis of OSTN in diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM). Mice received a single intravenous injection of the cardiotrophic adeno-associated virus serotype 9 to overexpress OSTN in the heart and then were exposed to intraperitoneal injections of streptozotocin (STZ, 50 mg/kg) for consecutive 5 days to generate diabetic models. Neonatal rat cardiomyocytes were isolated and stimulated with high glucose to verify the role of OSTN in vitro. OSTN expression was reduced by protein kinase B/forkhead box O1 dephosphorylation in diabetic hearts, while its overexpression significantly attenuated cardiac injury and dysfunction in mice with STZ treatment. Besides, OSTN incubation prevented, whereas OSTN silence aggravated cardiomyocyte apoptosis and injury upon hyperglycemic stimulation in vitro. Mechanistically, OSTN treatment restored protein kinase G (PKG)-dependent proteasomal function, and PKG or proteasome inhibition abrogated the protective effects of OSTN in vivo and in vitro. Furthermore, OSTN replenishment was sufficient to prevent the progression of pre-established DCM and had synergistic cardioprotection with sildenafil. OSTN protects against DCM via restoring PKG-dependent proteasomal activity and it is a promising therapeutic target to treat DCM.

Background:. Patients undergoing total joint arthroplasty (TJA) following septic arthritis are at higher risk for developing periprosthetic joint infection (PJI). Minimal literature is available to guide surgeons on the optimal timing of TJA after completing treatment for prior native joint septic arthritis. This multicenter study aimed to determine the optimal timing of TJA after prior septic arthritis and to examine the role of preoperative serology in predicting patients at risk for developing PJI. Methods:. A total of 207 TJAs were performed after prior septic arthritis from 2000 to 2017 at 5 institutions. Laboratory values, prior treatment, time from the initial infection, and other variables were recorded. Bivariate analyses were performed to identify the association between the time from septic arthritis to TJA and the risk of developing subsequent PJI. A subanalysis was performed between patients who underwent TJA in 1 setting (n = 97) compared with those who underwent 2-stage arthroplasties (n = 110). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed for serum markers prior to TJA in predicting the risk of a subsequent PJI. Results:. The overall PJI rate was 12.1%. Increasing time from septic arthritis treatment to TJA was not associated with a reduction of PJI, whether considering time as a continuous or categorical variable, for both surgical treatment cohorts (all p > 0.05). Although the ROC curve analysis found that the optimal threshold for timing of TJA from the initial treatment was 5.9 months, there was no difference in the PJI rate when the overall cohort was dichotomized by this threshold and when stratified by 1-stage compared with 2-stage TJA. There was no significant difference in erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) level prior to conversion TJA between patients who subsequently developed PJI and those who did not. Conclusions:. Serum markers have limited value in predicting subsequent PJI in patients who undergo TJA after prior septic arthritis. There was no optimal interim period between septic arthritis treatment and subsequent TJA; thus, delaying a surgical procedure does not appear to reduce the risk of PJI. Level of Evidence:. Prognostic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.

Background and objective The purpose of this study was to estimate the diagnostic performance of synovial fluid polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in periprosthetic hip and knee infection, and whether synovial fluid PCR has greater diagnostic significance than conventional methods. Methods The literature databases PubMed, Scopus, and the Web of Science were searched for English articles describing periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) diagnosis by synovial fluid PCR. Articles were limited to the period between January 1990 and December 2019. Subsequently, conventional methods that were used on at least two occasions were included for further analysis. Data analysis was performed using the Meta-DiSc and Stata software. Results Eleven studies with 1360 cases were included in the meta-analysis. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) of synovial fluid PCR were 0.70 (95% CI 0.66–0.74), 0.92 (95% CI 0.90–0.93), and 37.4 (95% CI 17.77–78.74), respectively. Conclusions Synovial fluid PCR provides an effective tool for rapid diagnosis of PJI, and also in the early stages of culture-negative bacterial infections.

Aims Periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) is a serious complication of total joint arthroplasty. We performed a retrospective cohort study to evaluate (1) the change of coagulation profile in two-staged arthroplasty patients and (2) the relationship between coagulation profile and the outcomes of reimplantation. Method Between January 2011 and December 2018, a total of 202 PJI patients who were operated on with two-staged arthroplasty were included in this study initially. This study continued for 2 years and the corresponding medical records were scrutinized to establish the diagnosis of PJI based on the 2014 MSIS criteria. The coagulation profile was recorded at two designed points, (1) preresection and (2) preimplantation. The difference of coagulation profile between preresection and preimplantation was evaluated. Receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) were used to evaluate the diagnostic efficiency of the coagulation profile and change of coagulation profile for predicting persistent infection before reimplantation. Results The levels of APTT, INR, platelet count, PT, TT, and plasma fibrinogen before spacer implantation were significantly higher than before reimplantation. No significant difference was detected in the levels of D-dimer, ACT, and AT3 between the two groups. The AUC of the combined coagulation profile and the change of combined coagulation profile for predicting persistent infection before reimplantation was 0.667 (95% CI 0.511, 0.823) and 0.667 (95% CI 0.526, 0.808), respectively. Conclusion The coagulation profile before preresection is different from before preimplantation in two-staged arthroplasty and the coagulation markers may play a role in predicting infection eradication before reimplantation when two-stage arthroplasty is performed. Level of evidence Level III, diagnostic study.

Background Negative regulatory T cells (Tregs) not only deplete effector T cells but also inhibit the clearance of HIV during infection, which may allow Tregs to be used as informative diagnostic markers. To facilitate both diagnosis and treatment, a thorough understanding of these regulators by characterizing them on temporal and spatial scales is strongly required. Methods Hundred HIV‐infected/AIDS patients, including 87 males, with an average age of 35.8 years, as well as 20 healthy controls, were enrolled. Flow cytometry was used to analyze CD3+T cells, CD4+T cells, and CD8+T cells to evaluate the immune status of the participants. Then, a group of representative negative regulatory T cells, including CD4+PD‐1+T cells, CD4+PD‐1highT cells, CD8+PD‐1+T cells, and CD4+CD25high Tregs was also analyzed to explore their effects on disease progression and intercorrelation. Results The percentages of CD4+PD‐1+T cells and CD4+CD25highTregs increased in patients with the same ultrahigh significance. Temporally, the patients with both intermediate‐stage and late‐stage disease had higher percentages of CD4+PD‐1+T cells; however, the percentage of CD4+CD25highTregs only increased in the patients with late‐stage disease. In addition, CD4+PD‐1+T cells but not CD4+CD25highTregs were negatively correlated with the absolute CD4+T cell count. Spatially, no correlations between CD4+PD‐1+T cells and CD4+CD25highTregs were observed, which suggests these Tregs function differently during immunosuppression. Conclusions This study characterized negative regulatory T cells in HIV‐infected/AIDS patients at both temporal and spatial scales and found that CD4+CD25+Tregs and CD4+PD‐1+T cells could be used as potential diagnostic markers for identifying different disease stages and monitoring disease progression., At late‐stage (CD4+T cells 500/μl). The percentage of CD4+CD25highTregs in the group of CD4+T cells 500/μl. It reveals that the CD4+PD‐1+T cells increased in patients when their absolute CD4+ is less than 500/μl, while CD4+CD25highTregs only increased when absolute CD4+ count is lower than 500/μL. This new discovery indicated that CD4+CD25highTregs are generated at a later stage of HIV infection, which could be used as a clinical indicator for poor disease status. We also found the percentage of CD4+PD‐1+T had a negative correlation with absolute CD4+ count in the HIV infected/AIDS patients and the percentage of CD4+CD25highTregs was not correlated with absolute CD4+ count. This provides a new quantitative maker for evaluating the progress of immunosuppression.

Summary Background It is not known whether age alone or the increased comorbidities in older patients are responsible for the higher rate of periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) in older patients. Aim To test the hypothesis that age alone is not a risk factor for PJI after total joint arthroplasty. Methods This retrospective study included the review of 23,966 patients undergoing primary total hip and knee arthroplasty between January 1st, 2010 and December 31st, 2016 at a single institution. Patients who developed PJI, as defined by International Consensus Meeting criteria, were identified. All enrolled patients were divided into three groups that included patients aged Findings The incidence of PJI in the entire cohort was 0.72% (171 out of 23,966). Multivariate analysis adjusting for all variables, except age, demonstrated that, compared to the patients aged Conclusion When adjusting for confounding variables, age alone is not a risk factor for PJI. Studies evaluating the influence of age on the incidence of PJI should take into account the other confounding variables that contribute to PJI.

Background The success of debridement, antibiotics, and implant retention (DAIR) in early periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) largely depends on the presence of a mature biofilm. At what time point DAIR should be disrecommended is unknown. This multicenter study evaluated the outcome of DAIR in relation to the time after index arthroplasty. Methods We retrospectively evaluated PJIs occurring within 90 days after surgery and treated with DAIR. Patients with bacteremia, arthroscopic debridements, and a follow-up Results We included 769 patients. Treatment failure occurred in 294 patients (38%) and was similar between time intervals from index arthroplasty to DAIR: the failure rate for Week 1–2 was 42% (95/226), the rate for Week 3–4 was 38% (143/378), the rate for Week 5–6 was 29% (29/100), and the rate for Week 7–12 was 42% (27/65). An exchange of modular components was performed to a lesser extent in the early post-surgical course compared with the late course (41% vs 63%, respectively; P < .001). The causative microorganisms, comorbidities, and durations of symptoms were comparable between time intervals. Conclusions DAIR is a viable option in patients with early PJI presenting more than 4 weeks after index surgery, as long as DAIR is performed within at least 1 week after the onset of symptoms and modular components can be exchanged.

A 1 × 2 integrated four-mode power splitter based on multimode interference is proposed and experimentally demonstrated for the first time. A three-dimensional simulation is used to optimize the core/cladding refractive index difference and the input waveguide position for the TE00, TE01, TE10, and TE11 input waveguide modes. Minimum insertion loss (IL) and mode-dependent loss (MDL) of 0.1 and 0.2 dB are predicted, respectively. IL and MDL less than 1 dB can be maintained over a bandwidth of approximately 50 and 25 nm, respectively. The device was fabricated on SiO2 and experimentally characterized. The variation of the power splitting ratio for each mode is less than 0.4 dB over the full C-band, and the excess losses of the splitter for all four modes exceed the IL of a straight waveguide by less than 1.85 dB.

In terms of developmental dysplasia of the hip (short for DDH), several classification systems have been proposed [1–5]. Most literature is published applicating Crowe’s classification system, because it could be suggestive and instructive for surgery. In 1979, Crowe et al. [1] proposed a four-type system classifying the degree of hip dislocation regarding the ratio of proximal displacement distance of the femoral head in relation to the height of the pelvis or the femoral head, resulting in a calculated coefficient, which converts into one of the four types. Crowe practiced as a hand surgeon after that, so this system was used worldwide and never ameliorative for improvement. In 1987, Eftekhar et al [6] proposed a four-type classification system based on the presence or absence of pseudoacetabulum and overlap between the true acetabulum and the false one. In 1996, Hartofilakidis et al. [4] used the pathology of the dysplastic acetabulum to distinguish between three different types of dysplasia, with subtypes discriminating between a primary and a secondary acetabulum and the relation of the head in relation to these structures. In 2008, Hartofilakidis [7] proposed subtypes on the presence or absence of false acetabulum, and in 2013, he analyzed the clinical outcome of THA based on different subtypes [8]. With the classification of Crowe being increasingly popular, especially in the English literature, it may be the best choice for a classification system with the data available today [9]. In 2016, Ma et al. reported different results between hips of Crowe type IV subtypes on the presence or absence of false acetabulum [10]. High dislocation of hip dysplasia is the most serious type of developmental dysplasia of the hip (short for DDH), which is very difficult to reconstruct the original acetabulum and reset the rotation center to equal both legs and avoid nerve injury after total hip arthroplasty (short for THA). Placing the acetabular component at the true hip center has been shown to provide successful long-term results [11]. However, placement of the acetabular component in the original acetabulum location may result in nerve injury by excessive leg lengthening. This can be addressed by subtrochanteric shortening osteotomy (short for SSTO) first described as a treatment for congenital dislocation of the hip in older children [12], which demands accurate anatomical knowledge and technical expertise for durable results. It was later applied to patients with THA [13]. The shortening subtrochanteric osteotomy (short for SSTO) combined with total hip arthroplasty was a good way to solve the difficulty and showed a good outcome of long-term follow-up. Many authors have reported SSTO with un-cemented THA [14–20]. SSTO procedure was complicated and challenging to surgeons. In clinical experience, for Crowe IV type developmental dysplasia of the hip, we found that some cases did not need SSTO and could get reduction while others hardly could not get reduction unless SSTO. With understanding and reviewing both the Crowe and Hartofilakidis classification systems, we presumed that the presence or absence of secondary false acetabulum may result in different biomechanical patterns of proximal femur and pelvis, which may lead to differences in the anatomical morphology of the proximal femur, affecting the depth of implantation of the prosthesis, and thus affecting the reduction and necessity of SSTO. Currently, the S-ROM prosthesis was recognized as the best prosthetic option for severe femoral deformity such as Crowe type IV DDH. This article was designed to investigate the surgical options between the presence and absence of secondary false acetabulum in the treatment of Crowe IV DDH with the S-ROM prosthesis. If difference presents, it is necessary to classify the Crowe IV type DDH into two subtypes depending on if false acetabulum exists or not, which facilitates and instructs surgery.

Real-time performance and reliability are two critical indicators in an industrial wireless sensor network (IWSN). Several time-division multiple-address (TDMA)-based industrial standards such as WirelessHART and ISA100 are widely used in IWSNs. However, to simplify the analysis, standard TDMA supports only one or two slot types in each frame, and each slot is usually 10 ms, which severely limits transmissibility and real-time responses in TDMA-based IWSNs where the number of transmissions is large but the length of most packets is small. In this paper, we propose a TDMA frame containing slots of different lengths to address this issue. The key ideas are to waste fewer slot resources and achieve on-demand slot allocation. First, we study the matching problem in a TDMA frame; then, we propose two scheduling methods, the split scheduling algorithm (SSA) and the double plug-in algorithm (DPA), under our TDMA frame. Extensive simulations and real testbed results show that the proposed solution DPA can significantly improve network performance and reliability. Real-time comparisons with other existing scheduling schemes show that the proposed solution improves the acceptance ratio by 48.8% compared to the rate-monotonic scheme.

Gait is one of the most popular behavioral biometrics because it can be authenticated at a distance from a camera without subject cooperation. Speed differences between matching pairs, however, cause significant performance drops in gait recognition, and gait mode difference (i.e., walking versus running) makes gait recognition further challenging. We therefore propose a speed-invariant gait representation called single-support GEI (SSGEI), which realizes a good trade-off between speed invariance and stability by aggregating multiple frames around single-support phases. In addition, to mitigate the pose differences between walking and running modes at single-support phases, we morph walking and running SSGEIs into intermediate SSGEIs between walking and running mode, where we exploit a free-form deformation field from the walking or running modes to the intermediate mode obtained by training data. We finally apply Gabor filtering and spatial metric learning as postprocessing for further accuracy improvement. Experiments on two publicly available datasets, the OU-ISIR Treadmill Dataset A and the CASIA-C Dataset demonstrate that the proposed method yields the state-of-the-art accuracies in both identification and verification scenarios with a low computational cost.

Autonomous driving, which can free our hands and feet, is of increasing importance in our daily lives. However, the capacity of onboard computation and communication limits the rapid development of autonomous driving. To address this issue, this paper proposes a novel model named the edge computing-based lanes scheduling system (ECLSS) to study lane scheduling for each vehicle around crossroads with real-time edge devices. There are several edge computing devices (ECD) deployed around crossroads in ECLSS that can collect information from vehicles and road conditions with short-range wired/wireless transmissions. Based on the strong computing power of ECDs and their real-time transmission performance, we propose two centralized management lane scheduling methods: the searching for efficient switching algorithm (SESA) and special vehicles lane switching algorithm (SVLSA). These edge computing-based autonomous driving methods aim to achieve high speed passing through crossroads and guarantee that special vehicles can pass through crossroads within a certain time. Extensive simulations are conducted, and the simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approaches over competing schemes in typical lane switching scenarios.

Gait is believed to be an advanced behavioral biometric that can be perceived at a large distance from a camera without subject cooperation and hence is favorable for many applications in surveillance and forensics. However, appearance differences caused by human aging may significantly reduce the performance of gait recognition. Modeling the aging process on gait features is one of the possible solutions to this problem, and it may inspire more potential applications, such as finding lost children and examining health status. To the best of our knowledge, this topic has not been studied in the literature. Motivated by the fact that aging effects are mainly reflected in the shape and appearance deformations of the gait feature, we propose a baseline algorithm for gait-based age progression and regression using a generic geometric transformation between different age groups, in conjunction with the gait energy image, which is an appearance-based gait feature frequently used in the gait analysis community, to render gait aging and reverse aging effects simultaneously. Various evaluations were conducted through gait-based age group classification and cross-age gait identification to validate the performance of the proposed method, in addition to providing several insights for future research on the subject.

A novel EMD-based denoising method, referred to as EMD with soft thresholding and Savitzky-Golay, is proposed for single photon lidar denoising. After the discrimination of the high-frequency and low-frequency IMFs, the soft thresholding and Savitzky-Golay filter are applied, respectively. The proposed denoising method has a better denoising performance and less signal distortion on simulated single photon lidar data than that of EMD partial reconstruction and wavelet transform method. With the proposed method, the SNR of real single photon lidar increased from 12.36 to 15.32 dB and false alarm rate is reduced obviously.

Summary Background Although a large number of studies have identified obesity as an independent risk factor for the development of periprosthetic joint infection (PJI), the synergistic impacts of obesity with other factors on PJI remain unknown. Additionally, few studies have specifically explored the risk factors of PJI within a Chinese population. Aims To investigate the association between obesity and PJI in a Chinese population, and identify synergistic impacts of obesity with other risk factors on the development of PJI. Methods Three hundred and seven patients at a single institution with a diagnosis of PJI following primary total hip or knee arthroplasty, treated from 2008 to 2015, were identified. Each case was matched with two controls who did not develop PJI after primary total hip or knee arthroplasty in the study period using propensity score matching for several important parameters. Multi-variable logistic regression models were used to estimate the association between body mass index (BMI) and the risk of developing PJI. Interaction and stratified analyses were conducted according to age, sex, type of surgery, smoking status, alcohol use, diabetes, inflammatory arthritis, liver disease and renal disease. Findings The multiple logistic analyses showed that obesity was associated with increased risk of PJI [odds ratio (OR) 2.48; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.66–3.69]. When analysed as a continuous variable, BMI was also associated with increased risk of PJI (OR per 1 kg/m2 increase in BMI 1.08; 95% CI 1.02–1.14). In the interaction analysis, patients who were obese and smoked had a higher OR of developing PJI than non-smokers who were obese (OR 3.54 vs 1.55, P-value for interaction=0.031). Similarly, the OR was much higher for patients with both obesity and inflammatory arthritis than for patients who were obese with no history of inflammatory arthritis (OR 3.9 vs 1.55, P-value for interaction=0.029). No other significant interactions were found in the association between obesity and PJI. Conclusion Obesity is an independent risk factor for the development of PJI in the Chinese Han population. Surgeons should be aware that obese patients who smoke or have inflammatory arthritis are at additional increased risk of PJI.

The temperature of exhaust gas can exceed 800K, which is much higher than surroundings. It’s easy to demonstrate IR and get bombed. Therefore, it’s necessary to lower the temperature of exhaust gas. In this paper, a kind of infrared suppressor which uses engine exhaust to eject cold air and water spray is designed. Water spray is produced by ultrasonic atomization. The mixing process of the ejector is revealed by CFD. CFD results are validated with the experimental values. After validation is satisfied, this paper analyzes the temperature field inside the ejector and compares the performances of ejectors with varying geometries. According to CFD results, a device is made. Test results show that a good performance is achieved: radiation energy is only 36% of the original.