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Qishan Chen,1,*,2 Shuting Yang,3,* Miaosi Li,3 Jingyi He,1,2 Liuying Lu1,2 1Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 2School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 3Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Psychology Education (Beijing Normal University), Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Qishan Chen Email kaisanchan@163.comPurpose: Drawing upon self-categorization theory and the comparative literature on public and private sectors, the purpose of this study is to examine whether leader-follower extraversion congruence is positively related to leader-member exchange (LMX) and whether congruence at high levels of extraversion results in higher LMX than congruence at low levels. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate the moderating role of sectoral difference in the relationship between extraversion fit and LMX.Methods: Participants were 320 leader-follower dyads (53 leaders and 320 followers) from various public and private sectors in the Chinese cultural context. The extraversion part of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and leader-member exchange multidimensional measure (LMX-MDM) were used to measure extraversion and LMX, respectively. Hypotheses were tested using cross-level moderated polynomial regression and response surface analysis.Results: Leader-follower extraversion congruence was not significantly associated with LMX, and there was no significant difference in LMX between congruence at high levels of extraversion and congruence at low levels. However, sectoral difference moderated the relationship between extraversion fit and LMX. Specifically, in the public sector, leader-follower extraversion congruence was positively related to LMX, and LMX was higher when leader and follower extraversion were both at a high level compared to when they were at a low level. In the private sector, this fit effect vanished.Practical Implications: The results suggest that, in the public sector, when organizations deal with the deployment of staff, taking leader-follower extraversion fit into account may mitigate possible later relationship conflicts. However, in the private sector, by not emphasizing extraversion fit, organizations can focus resources on more crucial factors.Originality/Value: By considering sectoral difference as the boundary condition of leader-follower extraversion fit, this study extends the comparative literature on public and private sectors and supports self-categorization theory.Keywords: leader-member exchange, leader-follower extraversion, sectoral difference, self-categorization theory

Xiaoyu Wang,1 Guangbing Li,1,2 Changfa Guo,3 Jiayao Zhang,1 Junjie Kong,1,2 Jingyi He,1,2 Feiyu Li,1 Yong Liu,1 Yang Yang,1 Ziwen Lu,1 Jun Liu1,2 1Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Center of Organ Transplantation, Shandong Provincial Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Center of Organ Transplantation, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, Shandong, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Neurosurgery, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Jinan, Shandong, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Jun LiuDepartment of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Center of Organ Transplantation, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail dr_liujun1967@126.comBackground: The AMP-activated protein kinase alpha (AMPKα) pathway has widely been considered a key factor in energy metabolism. Ethyl 2-[2,3,4-trimethoxy-6-(1-octanoyl)phenyl] acetate (TMPA) is a novel AMPK agonist, which influences the stability of Nuclear Receptor Subfamily 4, Group A, Member 1 (Nur77)-serine-threonine kinase 11 (LKB1) in the nucleus. A recent study has determined that TMPA can ameliorate the reduction of insulin resistance in type II db/db mice. However, the role of TMPA in hepatocyte lipid metabolism has not been elucidated.Objective: To investigate whether TMPA could ameliorate liver lipid accumulation under the stimulation of free fatty acids (FFAs) in vitro.Methods: We evaluated differences of Nur77 and AMPK pathway in mice fed a high-fat diet and those fed a normal diet. In vitro, TMPA was added to HepG2 cells and primary hepatocytes before FFAs stimulation. Oil red O staining, Nile red staining were used to evaluate lipid deposition. Western blot and immunofluorescence were used to quantify related proteins.Results: Nur77, AMPKα, LKB1, 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase (HMGCR), acetyl-CoA carboxylase phosphorylation (p-ACC), and carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 (CPT1A) showed significant differences in vivo. Under the intervention of TMPA, HepG2 cells and primary hepatocytes showed considerable amelioration of lipid deposition and improved the expression of phosphorylated (p)-AMPKα (p-AMPKα), p-LKB1, p-ACC, and CPT1A. Furthermore, Western blotting and immunofluorescence studies indicated that LKB1 dramatically increased expression in the cytoplasm but decreased in the nucleus. Further, AMPKα phosphorylation (p-AMPKα) also showed a higher expression in cytoplasm instead of the nucleus.Conclusion: TMPA ameliorated lipid accumulation by influencing the stability of Nur77-LKB1 in vitro.Keywords: ethyl 2-[2,3,4-trimethoxy-6-(1-octanoyl)phenyl] acetate, Nur77, AMPK pathway, HepG2 cells, primary hepatocytes

The improvement of the accuracy of simulated cloud-related variables, such as the cloud fraction, in global climate models (GCMs) is still a challenging problem in climate modeling. In this study, the influence of cloud microphysics schemes (one-moment versus two-moment schemes) and cloud overlap methods (observation-based versus a fixed vertical decorrelation length) on the simulated cloud fraction was assessed in the BCC_AGCM2.0_CUACE/Aero. Compared with the fixed decorrelation length method, the observation-based approach produced a significantly improved cloud fraction both globally and for four representative regions. The utilization of a two-moment cloud microphysics scheme, on the other hand, notably improved the simulated cloud fraction compared with the one-moment scheme; specifically, the relative bias in the global mean total cloud fraction decreased by 42.9%–84.8%. Furthermore, the total cloud fraction bias decreased by 6.6% in the boreal winter (DJF) and 1.64% in the boreal summer (JJA). Cloud radiative forcing globally and in the four regions improved by 0.3%−1.2% and 0.2%−2.0%, respectively. Thus, our results showed that the interaction between clouds and climate through microphysical and radiation processes is a key contributor to simulation uncertainty.

Introduction The perceived health benefits and effectiveness of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) in quitting smoking may affect e-cigarette usage, however, research on the use of e-cigarettes among the Chinese, especially among the rural Chinse, is scarce. This study examined factors associated with perceptions of e-cigarette related harms, benefits, and addictiveness, among smoker and non-smoker households with children in rural China, to support the design of populationbased interventions targeting rural Chinese households. Methods In a cross-sectional study design, using a structured questionnaire, we collected data from the household members of children in two selected rural communities in China. Descriptive analyses were used to characterize respondents; χ 2 test and Fisher’s exact probability test were used to compare the perceptions of e-cigarettes between different sociodemographic groups. Logistic regression was used to determine predictors for e-cigarette harms, benefits, and addictiveness, adjusting for demographic and other characteristics. Results The overall participation rate was 81% (1211/1498). Of the participants, 668 (55%) were smokers and 543 (45%) were non-smokers; 53% knew about e-cigarettes. Participants from rural Dali (77% vs 59%), those who were ethnic minority (76% vs 59%), those who perceived increased COPD risks from smoking (mean score 4.37 vs 4.18) and concerned about harmful effects of secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure to children (mean score 4.48 vs 4.30) and adults (mean score 4.06 vs 3.87) were more likely to believe that e-cigarettes were less harmful (p

Purpose. This study is aimed at investigating the expression, underlying biological function, and clinical significance of coatomer protein complex subunit beta 2 (COPB2) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods. HCC-related data were extracted from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) database, and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. A logistic regression module was applied to analyze the relationship between the expression of COPB2 and clinicopathologic characteristics. The Cox proportional hazard regression model and Kaplan–Meier method were used for survival analysis. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was used to annotate the underlying biological functions. Loss-of-function experiments were conducted to determine the underlying mechanisms. Results. COPB2 was overexpressed in HCC, and high expression of COPB2 was significantly correlated with higher alpha fetoprotein (AFP) (odds ratio OR = 1.616 , >20 vs. ≤20, p < 0.05 ), stage ( OR = 1.744 , III vs. I, p < 0.05 ), and grade ( OR = 1.746 , G4+G3 vs. G2+G1, p < 0.05 ). Kaplan–Meier survival analysis showed that HCC patients with high COPB2 expression had a worse prognosis than those with low COPB2 expression ( p < 0.0001 for TCGA cohort, p < 0.05 for ICGC cohort). The univariate Cox (hazard ratio HR = 1.068 , p < 0.0001 ) and multivariate Cox ( HR = 2.011 , p < 0.05 ) regression analyses suggested that COPB2 was an independent risk factor. GSEA showed that mTOR and other tumor-related signaling pathways were differentially enriched in the high COPB2 expression phenotype. Silencing of COPB2 inhibited the proliferation, migration, and invasion abilities by suppressing epithelial-mesenchymal transition and mTOR signaling. Conclusion. COPB2 is a novel prognostic biomarker and a promising therapeutic target for HCC.

Backgrounds. Fatty acid synthase (FASN) has been regarded as a prognostic marker in prostate cancer (PCa). In this study, we evaluated FASN expression at both mRNA and protein levels and assessed the association between FASN expression and prognosis in male Han Chinese with PCa treated with radical prostatectomy (RP). Methods. Expression profile and prognostic value of FASN were analyzed in tissue microarray (TMA) and data retrieved from databases including TCGA public database, GEO database, and our sequencing data with whole clinicopathological characteristics. Results. FASN expression was associated with clinical parameters and biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer. The relative expression of FASN mRNA was higher in the tumor tissue in all public databases and our sequencing data (p<0.001). A similar result was seen in tissue microarray (TMA) (p<0.001). Analysis of our sequencing data indicated that FASN’s relative expression was associated with tumor stage (p=0.048), and FASN expression was positively associated with the Gleason score (p=0.004) and seminal vesicle invasion (p=0.011) in TMA. We found that high FASN expression was an independent predictor of shorter BCR-free survival with univariate and multivariate survival analysis (p<0.05), rendering FASN an optimal prognostic biomarker in male Han Chinese with prostate cancer. Conclusions. Our study demonstrated that FASN was overexpressed at mRNA and protein levels in PCa. We found that patients with high FASN expression had a shorter BCR-free survival, showing its value as a prognostic biomarker in male Han Chinese with PCa.

PurposeTo assess the impact of retinopathy and systemic vascular comorbidities on the all-cause mortality in a representative U.S. sample.MethodsA total of 5703 participants (≥40 years old) from the 2005-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study grading scale was used to evaluate the retinopathy status. Systemic vascular comorbidities included diabetes mellitus (DM), high blood pressure (HBP), chronic kidney disease (CKD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Time to death was calculated as the time from baseline to either the date of death or censoring (December 31st, 2015), whichever came first. Risks of mortality were estimated using Cox proportional hazards models after adjusting for confounders and vascular comorbidities.ResultsAfter a median follow-up of 8.33 years (IQR: 7.50-9.67 years), there were 949 (11.8%) deaths from all causes. After adjusting for confounders, the presence of retinopathy predicted higher all-cause mortality (hazard ratio (HR), 1.41; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.08-1.83). The all-cause mortality among participants with both retinopathy and systemic vascular comorbidities including DM (HR, 1.72; 95% CI, 1.21-2.43), HBP (HR, 1.47; 95% CI, 1.03-2.10), CKD (HR, 1.73; 95% CI, 1.26-2.39) and CVD (HR, 1.92; 95% CI, 1.21-3.04) was significantly higher than that among those without either condition. When stratified by diabetic or hypertension status, the co-occurrence of retinopathy and CKD or CVD further increased the all-cause mortality compared to those without either condition.ConclusionsThe co-occurrence of retinopathy and systemic vascular conditions predicted a further increase in the risk of mortality. More extensive vascular risk factor assessment and management are needed to detect the burden of vascular pathologies and improve long-term survival in individuals with retinopathy.

This paper presents a model for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) in the modern era of data explosion and globalisation. Application here refers to software, which is in essence data system,...

Purpose: This study aimed at developing and validating a novel noninvasive urinary exosome-based post-DRE (digital rectal examination) lncRNA assay to diagnose PCa (prostate cancer) and clinically significant PCa (Gleason score ≥ 7) from the initial prostate biopsy. Methods: A total of 602 urine samples from eligible participants were collected. The expression levels of urinary exosomal PCA3 (prostate cancer antigen 3) and MALAT1 (metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1) were detected by qPCR (quantitative real-time PCR). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was applied to evaluate the diagnostic performance of PCA3, MALAT1 and the lncRNA assay. A decision curve analysis (DCA) and waterfall plots were used to assess the clinical value of the lncRNA assay. Results: Urinary exosomal PCA3 and MALAT1 were overexpressed in PCa and clinically significant PCa (p &lt, 0.001). The lncRNA assay combining PCA3 and MALAT1 had a better diagnostic performance (AUC 0.828) than the current clinical parameters in detecting PCa. More importantly, the lncRNA assay yielded an AUC of 0.831 to detect clinically significant PCa, which is much higher than that of the current clinical parameters. The lncRNA assay was superior to PSA, f/tPSA and the base model for detecting PCa and clinically significant PCa, with a higher net benefit for almost all threshold probabilities. At the cutoff value of 95% sensitivity, the lncRNA assay could avoid 24.2% unnecessary biopsies while only missing 1.2% of the cases of clinically significant PCa. Conclusion: We developed and validated a novel noninvasive post-DRE urine-based lncRNA assay that presented good diagnostic power and clinical utility for the early diagnosis of PCa and high-grade PCa.

With the advent of mobile applications in health service systems, concerns such as security, privacy, usability, and resilience have been raised. We developed a system view of the concepts of secur...

ObjectivesTo identify and validate a biomarker panel by serum metabolic profiling for improvement of PCa diagnosis.Materials and MethodsTotally, 134 individuals were included in this study. Among them, 39 PCa patients and 45 control patients (negative prostate biopsy) were involved in the discovery phase and 50 healthy controls were enrolled for validation phase of metabolomics study. LC-MS Analysis was used for the identification of the serum metabolites of patients.ResultsLogistics regression analysis shows that 5 metabolites [dMePE(18:0/18:2), PC(16:0/20:2), PS(15:0/18:2), SM(d16:0/24:1], Carnitine C14:0) were significantly changed in PCa patients compared with control patients. A metabolic panel (MET) was calculated, showing a significantly higher diagnostic performance than PSA in differentiating PCa from control patients [AUC (MET vs. PSA): 0.823 ± 0.046 vs. 0.712 ± 0.057, pvs. PSA]: 0.836 ± 0.050 vs. 0.656 ± 0.067, pConclusionsThe metabolite biomarker panel discovered in this study presents a good diagnostic performance for the detection of PCa.

Aims/hypothesisTo investigate the joint effects of retinopathy and systemic vascular comorbidities on mortality.MethodsThis study included 5703 participants (≥40 years old) from the 2005-2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study grading scale was used to evaluate the retinopathy status. Systemic vascular comorbidities included diabetes mellitus (DM), high blood pressure (HBP), chronic kidney disease (CKD) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Time to death was calculated as the time from baseline to either the date of death or censoring (December 31st, 2015), whichever came first. Risks of mortality were estimated using Cox proportional hazards models.ResultsAfter adjusting for confounders, the presence of retinopathy predicted higher all-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR], 1.40; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.09-1.81). The all-cause mortality among participants with both retinopathy and systemic vascular comorbidities including DM (HR, 1.63; 95% CI, 1.06-2.50), HBP (HR, 1.46; 95% CI, 1.03-2.08), CKD (HR, 1.71; 95% CI, 1.24-2.35) and CVD (HR, 1.88; 95% CI, 1.19-2.96) was significantly higher than that among those without either condition.Conclusions/interpretationIn this prospective study, individuals with retinopathy had increased all-cause mortality. The joint effects of retinopathy and major systemic vascular comorbidities increased the all-cause mortality further, suggesting that more extensive vascular risk factor assessment and management are needed to detect the burden of vascular pathologies and improve long-term survival in individuals with retinopathy.Research in contextWhat is already known about this subject?Retinopathy has been recognized as an independent risk factor for mortality.What is the key question?What are the joint effects of retinopathy and systemic vascular comorbidities (including diabetes mellitus, hypertension and chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease) on mortality?What are the new findings?Consistent evidence on the increased risk of mortality among individuals with retinopathy was noted in a large sample of middle-aged and older adults.The co-occurrence of retinopathy and systemic vascular conditions (diabetes mellitus, hypertension and chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular disease) further increased all-cause mortality independent of other covariates.How might this impact on clinical practice in the foreseeable future?Individuals with retinopathy may benefit from a comprehensive vascular assessment.Intensive vascular risk reduction is needed in the management of patients with retinopathy and and micro- or macrovascular disorders.Highlighted the importance of retinopathy screening using retinal imaging for identifying individuals at high risk of mortality, particularly among individuals with systemic vascular comorbidities.

Children&rsquo, s exposure to secondhand smoke (SHS) is a severe public health problem. There is still a lack of evidence regarding panoramic changes in children&rsquo, s urinary metabolites induced by their involuntary exposure to SHS, and few studies have considered individual differences. This study aims to clarify the SHS-induced changes in urinary metabolites in preschool children by using cross-sectional and longitudinal metabolomics analyses. Urinary metabolites were quantified by using untargeted ultra high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (UPLC(c)-MS/MS). Urine cotinine-measured SHS exposure was examined to determine the exposure level. A cross-sectional study including 17 children in a low-exposure group, 17 in a medium-exposure group, and 17 in a high-exposure group was first conducted. Then, a before&ndash, after study in the cohort of children was carried out before and two months after smoking-cessation intervention for family smokers. A total of 43 metabolites were discovered to be related to SHS exposure in children in the cross-sectional analysis (false discovery rate (FDR) corrected p &lt, 0.05, variable importance in the projection (VIP) &gt, 1.0). Only three metabolites were confirmed to be positively associated with children&rsquo, s exposure to SHS (FDR corrected p &lt, 0.05) in a follow-up longitudinal analysis, including kynurenine, tyrosyl-tryptophan, and 1-(3-pyridinyl)-1,4-butanediol, the latter of which belongs to carbonyl compounds, peptides, and pyridines. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis indicated that 1-(3-pyridinyl)-1,4-butanediol and kynurenine were significantly enriched in xenobiotic metabolism by cytochrome P450 (p = 0.040) and tryptophan metabolism (p = 0.030), respectively. These findings provide new insights into the pathophysiological mechanism of SHS and indicate the influence of individual differences in SHS-induced changes in urinary metabolites in children.

Background Asthma exacerbations in children often require medications, urgent care, and hospitalization. Multiple environmental triggers have been associated with asthma exacerbations, including particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) and ozone, which are primarily generated by motor vehicle exhaust. There is mixed evidence as to whether proximity to highways increases risk of asthma exacerbations. Methods To evaluate the impact of highway proximity, we assessed the association between asthma exacerbations and the distance of child’s primary residence to two types of roadways in Durham County, North Carolina, accounting for other patient-level factors. We abstracted data from the Duke University Health System electronic health record (EHR), identifying 6208 children with asthma between 2014 and 2019. We geocoded each child’s distance to roadways (both 35 MPH+ and 55 MPH+). We classified asthma exacerbation severity into four tiers and fitted a recurrent event survival model to account for multiple exacerbations. Results There was a no observed effect of residential distance from 55+ MPH highway (Hazard Ratio: 0.98 (95% confidence interval: 0.94, 1.01)) and distance to 35+ MPH roadway (Hazard Ratio: 0.98 (95% confidence interval: 0.83, 1.15)) and any asthma exacerbation. Even those children living closest to highways (less 0.25 miles) had no increased risk of exacerbation. These results were consistent across different demographic strata. Conclusions While the results were non-significant, the characteristics of the study sample – namely farther distance to roadways and generally good ambient environmental pollution may contribute to the lack of effect. Compared to previous studies, which often relied on self-reported measures, we were able to obtain a more objective assessment of outcomes. Overall, this work highlights the opportunity to use EHR data to study environmental impacts on disease.

Jingyi He,1,2 Guangbing Li,1,2 Xihan Liu,3 Liye Ma,1,2 Jiayao Zhang,1,2 Shunzhen Zheng,1,2 Jianping Wang,1,2 Jun Liu1,2 1Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Center of Organ Transplantation, Shandong Provincial Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250021, China; 2Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Center of Organ Transplantation, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University, Jinan, Shandong 250021, China; 3Qilu Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250021, ChinaCorrespondence: Jun LiuDepartment of Hepatobiliary Surgery and Center of Organ Transplantation, Shandong Provincial Hospital, Cheeloo College of Medicine, Shandong University, 324, Jing 5 Road, Jinan 250021, Shandong, ChinaTel +86 531 87925615Email dr_liujun1967@126.comPurpose: Intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) is an aggressive malignant tumor characterized by high malignancy and poor prognosis. Although the efficacy of sorafenib against cholangiocarcinoma cell lines has been demonstrated in vivo and in vitro, limited clinical data are available on the efficacy of sorafenib in patients with cholangiocarcinoma. Sorafenib can enhance endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-mediated apoptosis, and ER stress and unfolded protein response are also the mechanisms by which cancer cells resist drug therapy. Mesencephalic astrocyte-derived neurotrophic factor (MANF), initially identified as a neurotrophic factor, can be regulated by ER stress activation. There are no available studies on the diagnostic value and therapeutic significance of MANF in ICC. Hence, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the role of MANF in cholangiocarcinoma, investigating the possibility of whether sorafenib could become a reliable strategy for cholangiocarcinoma therapy.Methods: In this study, the expression level of MANF in ICC patients was investigated by bioinformatic analysis and the results were verified by tissue microarray assay. Cholangiocarcinoma cell lines were also used to determine how MANF regulates the therapeutic effect of sorafenib and to identify the underlying mechanisms.Results: The results showed that MANF was correlated with poor prognosis and MANF knockdown could facilitate sorafenib-mediated apoptosis and increase the sensitivity of sorafenib treatment by activating excessive ER stress.Conclusion: MANF is a prognostic marker of cholangiocarcinoma. MANF knockdown increases sorafenib-mediated ER stress and apoptosis in the cholangiocarcinoma cell lines. This mechanism may lead to a new therapeutic strategy in cholangiocarcinoma.Keywords: intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, MANF, sorafenib, prognosis

The classification problem is a significant topic in machine learning which aims to teach machines how to group together data by particular criteria. In this paper, a framework for the ensemble learning (EL) method based on group decision making (GDM) has been proposed to resolve this issue. In this framework, base learners can be considered as decision-makers, different categories can be seen as alternatives, classification results obtained by diverse base learners can be considered as performance ratings, and the precision, recall, and accuracy which can reflect the performances of the classification methods can be employed to identify the weights of decision-makers in GDM. Moreover, considering that the precision and recall defined in binary classification problems can not be used directly in the multi-classification problem, the One vs Rest (OvR) has been proposed to obtain the precision and recall of the base learner for each category. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed EL method based on GDM has higher accuracy than other 6 current popular classification methods in most instances, which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method., 6 pages, 2 figures

Objective To explore the association between retinopathy and arthritis in a representative sample in the United States.Methods National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) is a series ...

Twin-skeg ship has better hydrodynamic performances than regular ship, however, it is still difficult to obtain an accurate relationship between skeg design and overall hydrodynamic performances. Resistance optimization is the major concern of developing twin-skeg ship. This paper proposes a combined approach for hull form design optimization of twin-skeg ship by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculation and surrogate model. Main design parameters of skeg geometry and arrangement could be determined from the design domain by using the proposed method. Parametric modeling technology is adopted for performing design evaluations in an automatic manner with different design parameter combinations. A twin-skeg fishing vessel is selected as research object. In the proposed method, the sample set for constructing surrogate models is generated by using Optimal Latin Hypercube Sampling (OLHS) method, the corresponding responses are calculated through CFD simulations, and then the surrogate models are constructed by using Kriging modeling method, which represent the mathematical relationship between input design variables (skeg shape design variables) and output objective functions (resistance values under four different working conditions). The functional analysis of variance (ANOVA) is performed to investigate how much influence the design variables have on the objective functions. Finally, a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (NSGA-II) is used to obtain the optimal solution, which shows 5.4% average decrease in the total resistance than the original design. The CFD calculation results of the optimal solution show that the proposed method can achieve minimum resistance design with high accuracy and low time cost.

Lots of endeavors have been made to apply optimization techniques to real design problems for various engineering beam-plate structures, however, due to the limitation of traditional topological form and the difficulty of finding the optimal topology in numerous optional design plans, many beam-plate structure designs are not the optimal solution but only a feasible solution. This paper proposes an integrated optimal design framework for beam-plate structure based on combining bi-directional evolutionary structural optimization (BESO) and surrogate model method, which covers three optimization levels, as dimension optimization, topology optimization and section optimization. BESO is used for topology optimization. In order to deal with beam-plate structures, the traditional BESO method is improved by using cubic box as the unit cell instead of solid unit to construct periodic lattice structure. Requirements for the framework are discussed based on the features of beam-plate structure design process first. The proposed framework consists of automated finite element modeling module, structure optimization module and post-processing module. Usefulness of the designed framework is examined through a cantilever beam structure design.

Background Hypertension remains a leading global cause for premature death and disease. Most treatment guidelines emphasize the importance of risk factors, but not all are known, modifiable, or easily avoided. Population blood pressure correlates with latitude and is lower in summer than winter. Seasonal variations in sunlight exposure account for these differences, with temperature believed to be the main contributor. Recent research indicates that UV light enhances nitric oxide availability by mobilizing storage forms in the skin, suggesting incident solar UV radiation may lower blood pressure. We tested this hypothesis by exploring the association between environmental UV exposure and systolic blood pressure ( SBP ) in a large cohort of chronic hemodialysis patients in whom SBP is determined regularly. Methods and Results We studied 342 457 patients (36% black, 64% white) at 2178 US dialysis centers over 3 years. Incident UV radiation and temperature data for each clinic location were retrieved from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration database. Linear mixed effects models with adjustment for ambient temperature, sex/age, body mass index, serum Na + /K + and other covariates were fitted to each location and combined estimates of associations calculated using the DerSimonian and Laird procedure. Pre‐dialysis SBP varied by season and was ≈4 mm Hg higher in black patients. Temperature, UVA and UVB were all linearly and inversely associated with SBP . This relationship remained statistically significant after correcting for temperature. Conclusions In hemodialysis patients, in addition to environmental temperature, incident solar UV radiation is associated with lower SBP . This raises the possibility that insufficient sunlight is a new risk factor for hypertension, perhaps even in the general population.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic and complex disease of the central nervous system (CNS). Progressive loss of dopamine (DA) neurons in midbrain substantia nigra is considered to be the main cause of PD. The hallmark of PD pathology is the formation of Lewy bodies and the deposition of α-synuclein (α-syn). The mechanisms responsible for the progressive feature of DA neurodegeneration are not fully illustrated. Recently, oxidative stress and neuroinflammation have received extensive attention as two important entry points in the pathogenesis of PD. The occurrence of oxidative stress and neuroinflammation is usually derived from external influences or changes in internal environment, such as the accumulation of reactive oxygen species, exposure to a toxic environment, and the transformation of systemic inflammation. However, PD never results from a single independent factor and the simultaneous participation of oxidative stress and neuroinflammation contributed to PD development. Oxidative stress and neuroinflammation could potentiate each other to promote progression of PD. In this review, we briefly summarized the conditions of oxidative stress and neuroinflammation and the crosstalk between oxidative stress and neuroinflammation on the development of PD.

Word embeddings are trained to predict word cooccurrence statistics, which leads them to possess different lexical properties (syntactic, semantic, etc.) depending on the notion of context defined at training time. These properties manifest when querying the embedding space for the most similar vectors, and when used at the input layer of deep neural networks trained to solve downstream NLP problems. Meta-embeddings combine multiple sets of differently trained word embeddings, and have been shown to successfully improve intrinsic and extrinsic performance over equivalent models which use just one set of source embeddings. We introduce word prisms: a simple and efficient meta-embedding method that learns to combine source embeddings according to the task at hand. Word prisms learn orthogonal transformations to linearly combine the input source embeddings, which allows them to be very efficient at inference time. We evaluate word prisms in comparison to other meta-embedding methods on six extrinsic evaluations and observe that word prisms offer improvements in performance on all tasks.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignant tumors, and its prognosis is still poor. Mesencephalic astrocyte-derived neurotrophic factor (MANF) plays a key role in endoplasmic reticulum stress. ER stress plays a key role in HCC carcinogenesis. To confirm the clinical and prognostic value of MANF in HCC, we investigated the expression level of MANF in HCC as recorded in databases, and the results were verified by experiment. Survival analysis was probed by the Kaplan–Meier method. Cox regression models were used to ascertain the prognostic value of MANF in HCC tissue microarray. The diagnostic value of MANF in HCC was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis. Potential correlation between MANF and selected genes was also analyzed. Results showed that MANF was overexpressed in HCC. Patients with high MANF expression levels had a worse prognosis and higher risk of tumor recurrence. Furthermore, the expression level of MANF had good diagnostic power. Correlation analysis revealed potential regulatory networks of MANF in HCC, laying a foundation for further study of the role of MANF in tumorigenesis. In conclusion, MANF was overexpressed in HCC and related to the occurrence and development of HCC. It is a potential diagnostic and prognostic indicator of HCC.

Heterochromatic flicker photometry (HFP), minimum motion (MM), and minimally distinct border (MDB) settings have often been used to determine equiluminance, a relative intensity setting for two chromaticities that, in theory, eliminates the responses of a luminance or achromatic psychophysical mechanism. These settings have been taken to reflect the relative contribution of the long (L) and medium (M) wavelength cones to luminance, which varies widely across individuals. The present study compares HFP, MM, and MDB using stimuli that do not modulate the short (S) wavelength cones, in both practiced and naive observers. MDB was performed with both flashed and steadily viewed stimuli. Results are represented in the (∆L/L, ∆M/M) plane of cone contrast space. Considering both practiced and naive observers, both MM and HFP had excellent within-subject precision and high test-retest reliability, whereas HFP also had low between-subject variability. The MDB tasks were less reliable and less precise. The mean L:M contrast ratios at equiluminance were lower for the two temporal tasks (HFP and MM) compared to the spatial tasks (MDB), perhaps consistent with the existence of multiple luminance mechanisms. Overall, the results suggest that the best method for determining equiluminance is HFP, with MM being a close second.

This work reports on a study regarding the plasmonic properties of a honeycomb-like structure that is formed by silver and gold nanoparticles. A honeycomb structure is proposed, and its plasmonic characteristics under the irradiation of a plane-wave light are numerically calculated, with several parameters being varied, including the radius of the nanoparticles, the separation between adjacent nanoparticles, and the polarization of the incident light. In the honeycomb, highly localized electric fields created by the oscillation of surface electrons are observed, and the associated electromagnetic hot spots are revealed in the vicinity of the noble metals. The results demonstrate that localized electric fields can be generated in the honeycomb-like structure, due to the plasmonic coupling between the metallic nanoparticles, and the hot spots can be adjusted by varying the values of the nanoparticles’ radius, the separation, as well as the incident light’s polarization. The plasmonic characteristics of the metal–nanoparticle honeycomb structure revealed in this study may be useful in the designs of plasmonic devices that utilizes localized, intensive electromagnetic hot spots.

Huoxue Huayu therapy (HXHY) has been widely used to treat cardiovascular diseases in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) such as hypertension and coronary heart disease (CHD). The present study describes a meta-analysis of a series of prospective randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials conducted to evaluate the effect of HXHY on patients with CHD after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). The Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), the Chinese Biomedical Literature database, and the Wanfang database were searched up until June 2018. A series of randomized controlled clinical trials were included and the subjects were patients with CHD who had undergone PCI. The experimental group was treated with HXHY therapy, and the control group was treated with placebo; meanwhile, all the patients accepted conventional Western medicine. Review Manager 5.3 software was used for the statistical analysis. Ten trials were included in the final study. The overall risk of bias assessment was low. HXHY had a greater beneficial effect on reducing the in-stent restenosis (ISR) rate (RR = 0.57, 95% confidence interval [CI] [0.40–0.80], P=0.001) and the degree of restenosis (MD = −8.89, 95% CI [−10.62 to −7.17], P0.05). Therefore, HXHY is an effective and safe therapy for CHD patients after PCI.

e20671 Background: EGFR-TKIs are the standard in the first line treatment for patients with advanced NSCLC with EGFR activating mutations.This network meta-analysis was undertaken to compared all the EGFR-TKIs in terms of PFS, overall survival (OS), objective response rate (ORR) and disease control rate (DCR). Methods: The PubMed and Embase databases were screened for relevant studies. We extracted data of ORR, DCR, PFS, and OS from enrolled studies and performed multiple treatment comparisons based on bayesian network meta-analysis. Due to the differences in design of each clinical study, two rounds of analysies were performed. We first compared the therapeutic efficacy of the first-generation TKIs (erlotinib and gefitinib), second-generation TKIs (afatinib or dacomitinib) and third-generation TKIs based on A7471028, ARCHER 1009, LUX-Lung 7, ARCHER 1050 and FLAURA studies. The following comparison between first-generation TKIs (gefitinib, erlotinib and icotinib) and second-generation TKIs was performed based on ICOGEN, A7471028, ARCHER 1009, WJOG 5108L, CTONG 0901, LUX-Lung 7 and ARCHER 1050 studies. Results: Eight trials with 2154 patients and 6 TKIs (gefitinib, erlotinib, icotinib, afatinib, dacomitinib and osimertinib) were included. The first round analysis indicated that Osimertinib ranked best among all the TKIs in terms of DCR, 1y-PFS and 1y-OS. Afatinib ranked first among these similar agents with ORR. The second round analysis showed that second-generation TKIs had potentially better efficacy compared with first-generation TKIs. Icotinib seemed to work best in first-generation TKIs and ranked first among first- and second-generation TKIs in terms of 1y-OS. Conclusions: The third-generation TKIs had better therapeutic efficacy compared with the first-generation TKIs and the second-generation TKIs. However, the second-generation TKIs had better efficacy compared with first-generation TKIs. [Table: see text]

Wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) networks are believed to be a promising candidate to meet the explosive increase of bandwidth demand in the Internet. In this article, we survey the problems of and approaches to multicasting in WDM networks. In particular, we address the issues in the context of three types of WDM networks: broadcast-and-select, wavelength-routed, and optical burst-switched (OBS) WDM networks. Broadcast-and-select WDM networks are typically for WDM LANs?MANs, and can be either single-hop or multihop. Various multicast scheduling algorithms (MSAs) are discussed for single-hop networks. For multihop networks, we discuss how channel sharing can be employed to effectively support multicast. In a wavelength-routed WDM network, supporting multicast leads to the multicast routing and wavelength assignment (MC-RWA) problem, which has been discussed for different scenarios, including sparse-splitting networks. We also discuss the problem of efficiently supporting multicast in optical burst-switched (OBS) networks, where the overheads due to control packets and guard bands need to considered.

With the development of the wild Internet of things , Because of the many benefits of laser communications, laser communications network as Internet of things important means of optical networks has become an inevitable trend and urgent demand. This paper designed the 150mm optical main diameter, Laser divergence angle of 1mrad multipoint communication system. Mainly using the splitter splitting and frequency division multiplexing combined, through optical design and frequency shift keying binary method, The purpose is achieve that received the same optical signal of six channels at the same time.The laser communications systems for the internet of things development of a new device.

In order to improve the accuracy of the flash intensity test system of the flash light bang, two models including an error calibration model and a single-element regression modification model were used to compensate the coaxial error. Original detection accuracy has been increased from 10E-6 to 10E-7 and the system accuracy has been increased from 10% to 4% by this method. So the system-test accuracy of the flash intensity of the flash light bang has been highly increased. This research is a step in the direction that to improve the test accuracy of the flash light bang's intensity.

Modulating Retro-reflector terminal does not need capture, tracking, targeting(ATP) sub-system .The key unit of this type structure is corner- cube prism,its performance will cause the light beam intensity distribution and light beam divergence angle .There are several factors ,such as effective area , right-angle accuracy, surface-type errors .Those errors caused loss of light power result in communication fail,so in this paper we made a precise analysis as a supplement.

In wireless LAN (WLAN), the access point (AP) is connected to the Internet to provide network service to mobile users. Such system has limited coverage. To overcome it, a number of APs may form a wireless mesh and packets are forwarded from one AP to another by means of ad hoc connections. In this way, WLAN coverage can be cost-effectively extended to infrastructureless areas of low population and accessibility so long as one AP (namely, I-AP) is attached to the wired infrastructure. Since each AP can use multiple channels, we investigate in this paper the issue of routing and channel assignment in such an AP mesh network. We propose a routing scheme which takes the traffic load into consideration and routes the traffic through a load balanced shortest path tree (LB-SPT) rooted at the I-AP. We also propose a load-based channel assignment (LCA) scheme to judiciously assign the channels among the links. Our schemes are shown to significantly improve the system throughput and flow fairness, as compared with generic shortest path routing and uncoordinated random channel assignment.

Wireless networks have been widely deployed in recent years to provide high-speed Internet access to mobile users. In traditional IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs, all users directly connect to an access point (AP) and all packets are forwarded by the AP. As a result, the coverage and capacity of the network is limited. If ad hoc mode is adopted in both the AP and mobile nodes, the one hop connections from AP can be extended to multiple hops. Such an architecture, termed WIANI (wireless infrastructure and ad-hoc network integration), is able to extend the network coverage beyond the coverage of APs. Furthermore, users may take advantage of the ad hoc connections to forward local data and hence alleviate the traffic load through the AP and increase the network capacity. We propose a dynamic load-balancing protocol for WIANI in which all APs and nodes operate in ad-hoc mode. Our protocol consists of two parts, a load-balancing zone forming algorithm and a weighted x-hop routing algorithm. Using simulation, we show that our protocol improves system throughput and reduces packet delivery delay.

Optical packet switched (OPS) network is a strong candidate for the future optical Internet. In this paper, we study packet aggregation and deflection routing a employed in OPS networks on the performance of upper layer Internet protocols represented by TCP and UDP. Regarding packet aggregation schemes, we study no aggregation, mixed-flow aggregation, and per-flow aggregation. Our results show that for both TCP and UDP, mixed-flow aggregation significantly decreases the fairness at large aggregation intervals. Both aggregation schemes increase UDP delay jitter. Regarding deflection routing, we show that deflection routing significantly improves TCP throughput in spit of the out-of-order packet delivery. However, the congestion of the deflection path significantly affects the improvement that can be achieved. UDP throughput does not suffer from out-of-order packet delivery, and hence its throughput improvement by deflection routing can be even more prominent. The larger the deflection cost (delay difference between the deflection path and the shortest path) is, the larger UDP delay jitter results. Deflection cost, however, does not affect the throughput and fairness very much for both TCP and UDP.

In recent years, wireless public networks have been widely deployed to provide high-speed Internet access to mobile users. Due to the dynamic and uneven distribution of user requests, some access points (the so-called “hot-spots”) may be congested by many users. In order to alleviate such congestion, we introduce an ad hoc relaying wireless LAN framework in this paper. A user can be served by a neighboring access point through an ad hoc connection in such a network. We propose a framework to establish such ad hoc connections. Using simulations, we show that the framework is efficient to reduce the service failure rate as well as to improve channel utilization in hot-spot networks.

Deflection routing has been well studied for optical networks with regular topologies. We propose using deflection routing in the Internet and study its TCP performance. In particular, we show that when the difference between the delay of the deflection path and the shortest path (i.e., the deflection cost) is in a certain range, deflection routing can make almost full use of the free bandwidth in the deflection path and hence achieve substantial throughput improvement. In the worst case when the deflection cost is large, deflection routing can achieve an aggregate throughput no less than that without deflection routing. We analyze the underlying mechanisms of these characteristics. In order to extend the usefulness of deflection routing, we also propose a deflection routing scheme with adaptive deflection point and show, via simulation, that this scheme can achieve very high throughput as long as the deflection cost is no larger than a certain value. We show that deflection routing is friendly to existing traffic in the deflection path. One possibly unfavorable requirement of deflection routing is that. it should be enabled for either all or none of the flows contending for the same outgoing (congested) link.

The multicast routing and wavelength assignment (MC-RWA) problem is generally studied with the objective of maximizing the number of multicast groups admitted, or equivalently, to minimize the call (or session) blocking probability given a certain number of wavelengths. While this approach is sound, a better objective is to maximize the total number of users served (i.e., minimizing the user blocking probability) by allowing part of a multicast group to be admitted. We present for the first time a formulation of the MC-RWA problem with such an objective. The formulation is a nonlinear integer program, which in general is complex to solve. We therefore propose a heuristic algorithm based on linear programming (LP). We further develop a simpler MAX-FIRST algorithm, which achieves almost the same performance as the LP algorithm. These algorithms are for static MC-RWA, where the multicast trees are predetermined and cannot be changed during the wavelength assignment. We extend the algorithms to dynamic MC-RWA, where new multicast trees can be built for unserved groups. We finally present upper and lower bounds on the user blocking probability for the static MC-RWA.

This paper presents a novel bulk type of optical current transducer (OCT), in which a single-mode fiber to multi-mode fiber coupling configuration is adopt to reduce the optical loss and to restrain the random mode-coupling noise in a conventional multi-mode fiber to multi-mode fiber coupling structure. A special design is used to automatically compensate the changes of the State of Polarization (SOP) of the optical fiber. Experiment shows that about 10 times of precision improvement can be achieved compared with conventional sensing element without SOP compensation. The OCT system employs microcomputer together with corresponding software to accomplish signal processing. The OCT system employs microcomputer together with corresponding software to accomplish signal processing. The overall performance of the OCT system is tested experimentally. The results show that the system has good long-term stability - the precision during 100 hours is 0.3 percent, and temperature compensation can considerably improve the temperature characteristic of the system.© (1999) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

We address multicasting in a wavelength-routed WDM network in which each destination node has different, as opposed to the traditional uniform, weights for different multicast groups. The weight, in practice, may reflect the popularity of that multicast group at the node. The objective is therefore to serve the multicast groups so as to maximize the total weights of the multicast trees (or equivalently to minimize the weighted overall blocking rate). We propose for this purpose a routing and wavelength assignment (RWA) heuristic that serves the group of the largest weight first (LWF). Since LWF penalizes groups of small weights, we also propose a fairness improvement (FI) heuristic that runs on top of LWF to achieve better fairness among the multicast groups in terms of their respective blocking rates. We show that LWF significantly reduces the weighted overall blocking rate as compared with traditional schemes that do not take group weights into consideration, and FI is effective in improving the blocking fairness. Moreover, we show that FI does not trade off the overall blocking rate for fairness when the group weight heterogeneity is small, the group sizes are small, or the network is densely connected, because of more efficient use of the links.

In the traditional IEEE 802.11 wireless LAN using infrastructure mode, all users share the same channel and all packets are forwarded by an access point (AP). As a result, as the number of users in the cell increases, the throughput for each user degrades substantially. If there are users communicating with each other within the cell (as in conferencing or file exchange applications), such throughput degradation could be relieved by making these users communicate through ad hoc connections without going through the AP. The advantages are multi-fold. First, the traffic load at the AP is reduced, hence relieving the contention. Second, ad hoc connections are single-hop, hence improving the channel efficiency. Moreover, ad hoc connections could use different channels, hence multiplying the system bandwidth. In this paper, we propose to integrate the infrastructure mode and the ad hoc mode in a wireless network so as to achieve these advantages. We present a framework for such mixed-mode wireless LAN (termed M/sup 2/-WLAN). In such a network, a node can dynamically switch between the infrastructure mode and the ad hoc mode according to the instruction of the AP, and hence the switching is transparent to the users. Using simulations, we show that M/sup 2/-WLAN can indeed improve system throughput substantially without user's manual configuration.