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Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) is one powerful tool in the sensing field, in which the electrochemical workstation is necessary to achieve the electrical/optical signal conversion in the presence of luminescent agents. By contrast, biofuel cells (BFCs) can also provide electricity from renewable biofuels under moderate conditions. More importantly, BFCs with the features of adjustable voltage output and excellent compatibility would well meet the requirement of working voltages for different ECL devices. However, to the best of our knowledge, the BFC-driven luminous system has not been reported. In this work, we constructed, for the first time, a BFC-driven ECL system with fast and stable signal outputs. To demonstrate the proof-of-concept of the BFC-ECL system, the sensitive and selective detection of histidine was achieved, exhibiting great potential among point-of-care diagnoses in remote regions. Overall, this work not only paves a new way for the conversion of chemical energy, electrical energy, and luminous system but also explores the new application of BFC.

Genetically modified wheat has not been commercially utilized in agriculture largely due to regulatory hurdles associated with traditional transformation methods. Development of marker-free transgenic wheat plants will help to facilitate biosafety evaluation and the eventual environmental release of transgenic wheat varieties. In this study, the marker-free transgenic wheat plants previously obtained by Agrobacterium-mediated co-transformation of double T-DNAs vector were identified by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) in the T1 generation, and their genetic stability and agronomic traits were analyzed in T2 and T3 generations. FISH analysis indicated that the transgene often integrated into a position at the distal region of wheat chromosomes. Furthermore, we show that the GUS transgene was stably inherited in the marker-free transgenic plants in T1 to T3 generations. No significant differences in agronomic traits or grain characteristics were observed in T3 generation, with the exception of a small variation in spike length and grains per spike in a few lines. The selection marker of bar gene was not found in the transgenic plants through T1 to T3 generations. The results from this investigation lay a solid foundation for the potential application of the marker-free transgenic wheat plants achieved through the co-transformation of double T-DNAs vector by Agrobacterium in agriculture after biosafty evaluation.

Diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) is characterized by lipid accumulation, mitochondrial dysfunction, and aseptic inflammatory activation. Mitochondria-derived cytosolic DNA has been reported to induce inflammation by activating cyclic GMP-AMP synthase (cGAS)/the stimulator of interferon genes (STING) pathway in the adipose, liver, and kidney tissue. However, the role of cytosolic mtDNA in the progression of DCM is unclear. In this study, with an obesity-related DCM mouse model established by feeding db/db mice with a high-fat diet (HFD), we observed increased mtDNA in the cytosol and activated cGAS-STING signaling pathway during DCM, as well as the downstream targets, IRF3, NF-κB, IL-18, and IL-1β. In further study with a palmitic acid (PA)-induced lipotoxic cell model established in H9C2 cells, we revealed that the cytosolic mtDNA was resulted from PA-induced overproduction of mitochondrial ROS, which also led to the activation of the cGAS/STING system and its downstream targets. Notably, treatment of extracted mtDNA alone was sufficient to activate the cGAS-STING signaling pathway in cultured H9C2 cells. Besides, both knockdown of STING in PA-induced H9C2 cells and inhibition of STING by C-176 injection in the DCM mouse model could remarkably block the inflammation and apoptosis of cardiomyocytes. In conclusion, our study elucidated the critical role of cytosolic mtDNA-induced cGAS-STING activation in the pathogenesis of obesity-related DCM and provided preclinical validation for using a STING inhibitor as a new potential therapeutic strategy for the treatment of DCM.

The impact resistance of protective structure directly affects the vitality of the ship. Since the excellent energy absorption characteristics and lightweight structural forms, foamed aluminum sandwich panels have gradually replaced stiffened panels and are widely used in local structures and components of vessels. In order to improve the protective ability of the ship structure, the impact resistance of the foam aluminum sandwich panel is studied in this paper. The deformation mechanism of the foam aluminum sandwich panel under the impact of the foam aluminum projectile is simulated by the finite element analysis, and the effect of different core thickness and core strength on the dynamic response of the sandwich panel is studied. An optimized structural form is proposed for the shear failure of foam aluminum sandwich panels. The results show that the optimized structure improves the impact resistance of foam aluminum sandwich panel and the shear resistance of the intermediate core layer. The research of this paper provides reference for the optimization of foam metal sandwich structure and its application in ship protection structure.

Background Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is an early postoperative complication. Thrombosis formation, which is potentially life-threatening, seriously affects the rehabilitation of patients after surgery. We aimed to establish a C57 mouse model of DVT and to examine the changes in the expression of Kruppel-like factor 15 (KLF15) and endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) in venous wall tissues, and we also investigated the regulatory relationship of KLF15 and eNOS in the thrombin-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) injury cell model. Methods The DVT model was established using the inferior vena cava (IVC) stenosis method. The expression levels of KLF15 and eNOS were analyzed using quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). In cell experiments, the expression of KLF15 and eNOS was analyzed in the model of thrombin-induced HUVEC injury with KLF15 siRNA. Results Compared to the control and sham-operated groups, KLF15 in the DVT group was upregulated, while eNOS was downregulated. The results of cell experiments revealed that KLF15 was downregulated in the thrombin+KLF15 siRNA group compared with the thrombin group. Meanwhile, eNOS was upregulated in the thrombin+KLF15 siRNA group compared with the thrombin group. These findings suggested that KLF15 regulated the expression of eNOS in the DVT model. Conclusions We successfully constructed a DVT mouse model. In the early stage of DVT formation, KLF15 regulated the expression and inhibited the antithrombotic effect of eNOS, resulting in thrombi formation.

Background Recent studies indicate that the correlation in the expression level of CD9 and the prognosis differs from tumor types. This meta-analysis was performed to illustrate the predictive value of CD9. Methods This analysis included 13 studies involving a total of 1231 patients. We used PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science and Embase for comprehensive literature search and manual search for related bibliography. To probe into the relationships between CD9 expression and patient prognosis, pooled hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were used to describe patient survival and disease recurrence. Results This meta-analysis contained 13 eligible studies. High expression of CD9 indicate worse overall survival (OS) (the polled HR = 1.14, 95%CI: 0.66–1.99), although the result was not statistically significant (P = 0.638).Moreover high expression of CD9 could not result in the worse disease-free survival (DFS) / recurrence-free survival (RFS) of the tumor patients (the pooled HR = 0.67, 95% CI: 0.24–1.87; P = 0.445). Conclusions The expression of CD9 could not be used to regard as an independent prognostic predictor.

Background: Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in December 2019, it has spread rapidly and widely, bringing great psychological pressure to the public. In order to prevent the epidemic, traffic lockdown was required in many areas of China, which led to inconvenience of treatment for dialysis patients. This study was conducted to explore the psychological distress and the psychological demand induced by CO­VID-19 in the patients undergoing dialysis and compare the difference between hemodialysis (HD) and peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients during the traffic lockdown period. Methods: Questionnaires were given to the dialysis patients in the West China Hospital of Sichuan University. The Impact of Event Scale (IES) was used to investigate the patients’ trauma-related distress in response to COVID-19. Results: 232 eligible respondents were enrolled in this cross-section study, consisting of 156 PD patients and 76 HD patients. The median IES score for all the enrolled patients was 8.00 (2.00–19.00), which belonged to the subclinical dimension of post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS). HD patients had a significant higher IES score than PD patients (11.50 vs. 8.00) (p < 0.05). HD patients already got more psychological support from the medical staff. According to IES scores, 22.4% HD patients and 13.4% PD patients were classified as having moderate or severe PTSS, which need psychological support (p < 0.05). But more patients of both groups considered psychological support was necessary (HD: 50%, PD: 45.5%) (p > 0.05). In the multivariate regression analysis, we found that dialysis vintage, the impact of COVID-19 on the severity of illness and daily life, and confidence in overcoming the disease contributed to IES score (p < 0.05). Conclusions: HD patients had more severe trauma-related stress symptoms than PD patients. When major public healthy events occurred, careful psychological estimate and sufficient psychological support should be provided to the dialysis patients, especially to the HD patients.

BACKGROUND In December 2019, an ongoing outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was first identified in Wuhan, China. The characteristics of COVID-19 patients treated in local hospitals in Wuhan are not fully representative of patients outside Wuhan. Therefore, it is highly essential to analyze the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 in areas outside Wuhan or Hubei Province. To date, a limited number of studies have concentrated on the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 patients with different genders, clinical classification, and with or without basic diseases. AIM To study the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 patients in Hengyang (China) and provide a reliable reference for the prevention and control of COVID-19. METHODS From January 16 to March 2, 2020, a total of 48 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were reported in Hengyang, and those cases were included in this study. The diagnostic criteria, clinical classification, and discharge standard related to COVID-19 were in line with the Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (Trial Version 7) released by National Health Commission and National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The presence of SARS-CoV-2 in pharyngeal swab specimens was detected by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. All the data were imported into the excel worksheet and statistically analyzed by using SPSS 25.0 software. RESULTS A total of 48 cases of COVID-19 were collected, of which 1 was mild, 38 were moderate, and 9 were severe. It was unveiled that there were 31 (64.6%) male patients and 17 (35.4%) female patients, with a female-to-male ratio of 1.82:1. The range of age of patients with COVID-19 was dominantly 30-49 years old [25 (52.1%) of 48], followed by those aged over 60 years old [11 (22.9%)]. Besides, 29.2% (14 of 48) of patients had basic diseases, and 57.2% (8 of 14) of patients with basic diseases were aged over 60 years old. The occupations of 48 COVID-19 patients were mainly farmers working in agricultural production [15 (31.5%) of 48], rural migrant workers from Hengyang to Wuhan [15 (31.5%)], and service workers operating in the service sector [8 (16.7%)]. The mean latent period was 6.86 ± 3.57 d, and the median was 7 [interquartile range (IQR): 4-9] d. The mean time from onset of symptoms to the first physician visit was 3.38 ± 2.98 (95%CI: 2.58-9.18) d, with a median of 2 (IQR: 1-5) d, and the mean time from hospital admission to confirmed diagnosis was 2.29 ± 2.11 (95%CI: 1.18-6.42) d, with a median of 2 (IQR: 1-3) d. The main symptoms were fever [43 (89.6%) of 48], cough and expectoration [41 (85.4%)], fatigue [22 (45.8%)], and chills [22 (45.8%)]. Other symptoms included poor appetite [13 (27.1%)], sore throat [9 (18.8%)], dyspnea [9 (18.8%)], diarrhea [7 (14.6%)], dizziness [5 (10.4%)], headache [5 (10.4%)], muscle pain [5 (10.4%)], nausea and vomiting [4 (8.3%)], hemoptysis [4 (8.3%)], and runny nose [1 (2.1%)]. The numbers of peripheral blood leukocytes, lymphocytes, and eosinophils were significantly reduced in the majority of the patients. The levels of C-reactive protein, fibrinogen, blood glucose, lactate dehydrogenase, D-dimer, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), gamma-glutamyl transferase (γ-GT), myoglobin (MB), and creatine kinase (CK) were increased in 64.6%, 44.7%, 43.2%, 37.0%, 29.5%, 22.9%,20.8%, 21.6%, 13.6%, and 12.8% of patients, respectively. The incidence of ALT elevation in male patients was remarkably higher than that in females (P < 0.01), while the incidences of AST, CK, and blood glucose elevations in severe patients were remarkably higher than those in moderate patients (P < 0.05, respectively). Except for the mild patients, chest computed tomography showed characteristic pulmonary lesions. All the patients received antiviral drugs, 38 (79.2%) accepted traditional Chinese medicine, and 2 (4.2%) received treatment of human umbilical-cord mesenchymal stem cells. On March 2, 2020, 48 patients with COVID-19 were all cured and discharged. CONCLUSION Based on our results, patients with COVID-19 often have multiple organ dysfunction or damage. The incidences of ALT elevation in males, and AST, CK, and blood glucose elevations in severe patients are remarkably higher.

Traditional robotic walkers have primarily focused on safety and navigation. In this paper, we challenge the previous work on walkers by implementing a deep learning module developed with the goal of using a robot to provide mobility assistance to the elders. Through the data collected from multiple sensors, we are capable of leveraging the maneuverability of robotic walkers under different scenarios and gait requirements. This capability is achieved by CNN (Convolutional Neural Networks) and LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory) architectures. Thus, the system can provide personalized assistance to the elders performing the locomotion activities indoors accurately. Furthermore, the robot learns the optimal behavior based on the interactions with the environment in a supervised learning approach. To validate our system, we evaluated the system with some users who provided qualitative comments about the comfort degree of using the robot.

Semantic relatedness assessment between concepts is a critical issue in many domains such as artificial intelligence, information retrieval, psychology, biology, linguistics and cognitive science. Therefore, several methods assess relatedness by exploiting knowledge bases to express the semantics of concepts. However, there are some limitations such as high-dimensional space, high-computational complexity, fitting non-dynamic domains. Considering that Wikipedia, a domain-independent encyclopedic repository, which provides very large coverage, has been exploited by many methods as a huge semantic resource. In this paper, we propose a novel graph-based relatedness assessment method using Wikipedia features to avoid some of the limitations and drawbacks mentioned above. Firstly, for each term in a word pair, the top k most relevant Wikipedia concepts are returned by the Naive-ESA algorithm to reduce the dimensional space of Explicit Semantic Analysis (ESA) method. Secondly, for each different candidate concept in two relevant concept sets, we collect its categories set from the Wikipedia Category Graph (WCG). Based on the categories in WCG network, the relatedness between concepts at the correspondence position of the two sorted concept sets is computed as the association coefficient. Thirdly, based on this parameter, a novel relatedness assessment metric is presented. The evaluation is performed on some datasets well-recognized as benchmarks, using several widely used metrics and a new metric designed by ourselves. The result demonstrates that our method has a better correlation with the intuitions of human judgments than other related works.

We present a photonic approach for fast quantum random number generation based on optically sampled amplified spontaneous emission (ASE). This approach utilizes a terahertz optical asymmetric demultiplexer to sample the ASE and then digitize the sampled optical pulses into random bits using a multi-bit parallel comparator. A proof-of-concept experiment demonstrates that 40 Gb/s random bits with verified randomness can be obtained using our method. The current generation rate is mainly limited by the bandwidth of the available ASE source.

Background and Objectives: Previous studies of the prognostic value of the signet ring cell (SRC) type have yielded inconsistent results. Therefore, the aim of the present meta-analysis is to explore the clinicopathological characteristics and prognostic value of SRCs. Methods: Relevant articles that compared SRC and non-SRC type in PubMed and Web of Science were comprehensively searched. Then, a meta-analysis was performed. Results: A total of 19 studies including 35947 cases were analyzed. Compared with non-SRC patients, SRC patients tended to be younger (WMD: -3.88, P=0.001) and predominantly female (OR: 1.60, P

Background: The present study aimed to explore whether gastric cancer patients with peritoneal seeding after receiving palliative chemotherapy could benefit from gastrectomy and to identify patients with peritoneal seeding who should be selected to receive gastrectomy. Methods: A total of 201 gastric cancer patients were diagnosed with peritoneal seeding and received palliative chemotherapy. Propensity score matching (PSM) was performed to balance the selection bias. Results: After PSM, compared with non-gastrectomy group, gastrectomy group had a longer median overall survival (OS) (23.60 vs. 13.80 moths; P=0.034). Patients with R0 resection had a median OS of 43.60 months compared with 11.27 months in patients who underwent R1/2 resection (P

When applying common object detection algorithms to detect small objects on high-resolution images, the down-sampling operation of the input images is inevitable due to the limitation of GPU memory. Accordingly, the details for characterizing small objects are lost. To resolve this contradiction, a small object detection method in a coarse-to-fine manner is presented. Specifically, some rough regions of interest (ROI) are firstly computed from low-resolution images. The prior knowledge of the positions of objects is used to guide the generation of ROIs. Then the features of small ROIs are recomputed from high-resolution images, and the features of large ROIs are obtained from the feature maps used to generate ROIs. The proposed method is validated on two datasets. One is a plant phenotyping dataset and the other is a public traffic sign dataset. Experimental results convincingly show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Epigenetic regulation has been implicated in the control of multiple agronomic traits in maize. Here, we review current advances in our understanding of epigenetic regulation, which has great potential for improving agronomic traits and the environmental adaptability of crops. Epigenetic regulation plays vital role in the control of complex agronomic traits. Epigenetic variation could contribute to phenotypic diversity and can be used to improve the quality and productivity of crops. Maize (Zea mays L.), one of the most widely cultivated crops for human food, animal feed, and ethanol biofuel, is a model plant for genetic studies. Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing technology have made possible the study of epigenetic regulation in maize on a genome-wide scale. In this review, we discuss recent epigenetic studies in maize many achieved by Chinese research groups. These studies have explored the roles of DNA methylation, posttranslational modifications of histones, chromatin remodeling, and noncoding RNAs in the regulation of gene expression in plant development and environment response. We also provide our future prospects for manipulating epigenetic regulation to improve crops.

Demand Responsive Connector (DRC) is a type of flexible transit service that connects the residents of an area to a transportation hub. Previous studies on DRC have optimized the service design parameters with the objective to minimize the passengers’ travel time. However, the cost and profit of the service were neglected, making it difficult for DRC operators to use the optimization method and the optimized design. In order to fill this gap, the study explores the way to optimize DRC service design with the objective to maximize the profit considering under elastic demand. Rectangular service area and the case of one vehicle are used in this study. Travelling of the DRC vehicle in the service area is regarded as a traveling salesman problem. In this way, the expected travel distance, travel time, and service cycle are derived. The relationship between service design parameters and passenger demand has also been constructed. It has been observed that the profit can be expressed as a nonlinear function of the demand density and service design parameters, including fare, length and width of the service area. Optimal service design and the expected profit are given at different levels of demand density. Simulation is performed to verify the results. Sensitivity analysis is performed with respect to the design parameters when any other is fixed due to practical constraints. DRC operators can use the proposed method to perform feasibility study and to determine the profit of DRC service in an area.

Traditional taxi has been criticized for underserving regions far away from downtown, leading to social inequity. However, there has been no evidence so far to support this argument. With the advent of e-hailing taxi services such as Uber and Lyft, it becomes possible to test this argument. Because e-hailing taxi trips are assigned to the drivers who are willing to undertake the rides, the e-hailing taxi trips plus the traditional taxi trips can be regarded as the true travel demand served by taxi. The proportion of e-hailing taxi trips to total taxi trips is used as an indicator of to what extent area is underserved by traditional taxi. All the origins of traditional taxi and e-hailing taxi trips in New York City from January 2015 to December 2017 are aggregated at the level of taxi zones, which is defined by the New York City Taxi Limousine Commission. Fractional Response Model (FRM) is used to identify factors that influence the proportion of e-hailing trips. Results show that the proportion of African-American, the proportion of households of income less than 50,000 dollars, the proportion of household of income between 100,000 to 200,000 dollars, road density, distance to the Midtown Center have positive impact on the proportion of e-hailing taxi trips, while the population density, subway station density, bus station density, existence of airport have negative impact on the proportion of e-hailing taxi trips.

This paper presents a guidance method for solid-rocket launch vehicles. A three-stage launch vehicle, as illustration, the guidance algorithm is designed for the second stage and the third stage. For the second stage, the guidance algorithm guides the vehicle to a transfer orbit, and high precision orbit injection is implemented by the guidance algorithm for the third stage. Numerical simulation results show that the proposed guidance method can achieve an adequate precision with the burnout shutdown.

The Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS) has been shown to be associated with survival rates in patients with advanced cancer. The present study aimed to compare the GPS with the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status (ECOG PS) in patients with gastric cancer with peritoneal seeding. For the investigation, a total of 384 gastric patients with peritoneal metastasis were retrospectively analyzed. Patients with elevated C-reactive protein (CRP; >10 mg/l) and hypoalbuminemia (

There have been increasing demands for developing robotic system combining camera and inertial measurement unit in navigation task, due to their low-cost, lightweight and complementary properties. In this paper, we present a Visual Inertial Odometry (VIO) system which can utilize sparse depth to estimate 6D pose in GPS-denied and unstructured environments. The system is based on Multi-State Constraint Kalman Filter (MSCKF), which benefits from low computation load when compared to optimization-based method, especially on resource-constrained platform. Features are enhanced with depth information forming 3D landmark position measurements in space, which reduces uncertainty of position estimate. And we derivate measurement model to access compatibility with both 2D and 3D measurements. In experiments, we evaluate the performance of the system in different in-flight scenarios, both cluttered room and industry environment. The results suggest that the estimator is consistent, substantially improves the accuracy compared with original monocular-based MSKCF and achieves competitive accuracy with other research.

Background The current study sought to perform a meta-analysis to compare the preoperative staging of endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) and multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) in gastric carcinoma. Methods Articles published between January 1, 2000, and April 1, 2016, that compared EUS with MDCT were included, and data were presented as 2 × 2 tables. The sensitivities, specificities and summary receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for T and N staging were calculated using a bivariate mixed effects model. Data were weighted by generic variance and then pooled by random-effects modeling. Results Eight studies comprising 1736 patients were included in this meta-analysis. For T1 staging, the sensitivity value for EUS (82%) was significantly higher than that for MDCT (41%) (relative risk (RR): 2.06, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.07–3.94; P = 0.030). For lymph node involvement, the sensitivity value for EUS (91%) was also significantly higher than that for MDCT (77%) (RR 1.14, 95% CI 1.05–1.23; P = 0.001). However, the specificity values of both EUS and MDCT were quite low, at 49 and 63%, respectively. No significant differences in T2–4 staging between EUS and MDCT were noted. Conclusion This meta-analysis indicates that EUS may be superior to MDCT in preoperative T1 and N staging. Additionally, the low specificity values of EUS and MDCT for N staging merits attention.

The lip behavior detection is work foundation by utilizing video control software behavior, which including the lip positioning, feature extraction and behavior recognition. It is proposed that we utilize LBP operator to conduct lip feature extraction in this article, and adopt SVM to conduct classification and recognition of behavior. Experimental results show that the algorithm can effectively achieve detection and identification of lip behavior in the article, which meet the real-time and robustness in video processing.

To effectively solve the loading reinforcement problem of overloaded vehicles and e quipment when troops use railway transportation, this paper takes the field rushing car of Dongfeng as example. Makes calculations from gravity center stability of heavier cars, force in conveying process, stability and reinforce the strength, analysis its mechanical structure and then c alculates, designs its loading reinforcement project. This paper also sets up the whole model and a pplies software of Ansys to simulated experiment, verifiers the safety and practicality of the loading reinforcement scheme and provides theoretical guidance and technical support for the force ra ilway transport station tasks.

Depending on the cause of equipment acquisition risk, a multi-level evaluation model is to be built based on the extension theory. The simple dependent function and the similar coefficient methods are used to determine the level of the index weight objectively and scientifically, and make extension assessment for the equipment acquisition risk assessment system. In the end, the feasibility, objectivity and validity of this system is proved by an example, which is applied to a certain type of anti-riot armored vehicle of CAPF.

Background The impacts of nurse-led disease management programs on the quality of life for patients with chronic kidney disease have not been extensively studied. Furthermore, results of the existing related studies are inconsistent. The focus of the proposed meta-analysis is to evaluate the efficacy of nurse-led disease management programs in improving the quality of life for patients with chronic kidney disease. Methods Literature survey was performed to identify the eligible studies from PubMed, Current Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials with predefined terms. The outcome measured was quality of life. This meta-analysis was conducted in line with recommendations from the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Results Eight studies comprising a total of 1520 patients were included in this meta-analysis, with 766 patients assigned to the nurse-led disease management program. Nurse-led disease management improved the quality of life in terms of symptoms, sleep, staff encouragement, pain, general health perception, energy/fatigue, overall health and mental component summary when evaluated 6 weeks after the beginning of intervention. When evaluated 12 weeks later, the quality of life in terms of symptoms, sleep, staff encouragement, energy/fatigue, and physical component summary was improved. Stratified by the modalities of dialysis, similar results of pooled analyses were observed for patients with peritoneal dialysis or hemodialysis, compared with the overall analyses. The results of sensitivity analyses were the same as the primary analyses. The symmetric funnel plot suggested that the possibility of potential publication bias was relatively low. Conclusion Nurse-led disease management program seems effective to improve some parameters of quality of life for patients with chronic kidney disease. However, the seemingly promising results should be cautiously interpreted and generalized and still need to be confirmed through well-designed large-scale prospective randomized controlled trials.

In the design of steel structure, the requirements for the high- strength bolts in slip-critical connections are not identical in China and America. The Steel Structure Design Codes (GB50017-2003) is used in China, while the latest Specification for Structural Steel Buildings (ANSI / AISC 360-10) is used in the United States. In this article, requirements on the high- strength bolts in slip-critical connections in these two specifications are compared to find out the differences.

从水稻叶片中克隆了一个韧皮部组织特异表达的水稻蔗糖合酶启动子( RSS1P )，将 RSS1P 与中间偃麦草乙烯反应因子基因 TiERF1 相融合构成组织特异表达的 TiERF1 基因表达盒，取代pAHC20中 Ubi::bar 基因表达盒，构建成无选择标记的韧皮部组织特异表达的pA20- RSS1P::TiERF1 载体。利用基因枪将pA20- RSS1P::TiERF1 与pAHC20载体混合、共轰击小麦品种扬麦12的幼胚愈伤组织，获得转 RSS1P::TiERF1 基因小麦。对该转基因小麦T 0 和T 1 代植株进行PCR、PCR-Southern、半定量RT-PCR和荧光定量PCR分析，证实外源 RSS1P::TiERF1 基因已转入受体，并且具有可遗传性；转入的 RSS1P::TiERF1 基因仅在根、茎、叶中表达，以根部表达量最高，在种子内不表达。纹枯病抗性鉴定和主要农艺性状考察结果表明，与受体扬麦12相比，转 RSS1P::TiERF1 基因小麦对纹枯病的抗性有明显提高，与转 Ubi::TiERF1 基因小麦的抗病性相当，而且转 RSS1P::TiERF1 基因小麦的农艺性状没有明显改变，说明可以利用 RSS1P 启动子创造更实用的转基因小麦新种质。

In this thesis, the digital figure of the defect of the casting elements is extracted by PCA. And a new method that simplifies the automatic quality detection is also brought forward. The author not only expounds the theory of PCA, the calculating method, the segmentation of digital figure and the feature extraction, but also analysis the real example to optimize the selecting of the preferences. This thesis is valuable in the real manufacture.

Aspergillus abscesses in the cerebellum are extremely rare, and most cases are solitary. Here, we report the first case of multiple Aspergillus cerebellar abscesses in a 46-year-old female after one mastoidectomy, two craniectomies, and extended use of antibiotics. The possible pathogenesis of this unusual event is discussed. Good outcome was achieved by treatment with a combination of neurosurgical resection and voriconazole (VRC) administration, which we suggest is a potential management plan.

The character of the deformation zone on pair cross rolls is different from that of the regular 4-high mill. Considering comprehensive influences of normal stress and shear stress in rolling direction, width direction and thickness direction, the rolling force calculation model of the PC (pair crossed) hot strip mill is built. Taking the entry stress and the exit stress of strip as the boundary conditions, the longitudinal and transverse distribution of rolling force is worked out by the differential method. Then the total rolling force is calculated, and calculated results are verified by experimental data.

As a core subtask in anaphora resolution, anaphoricity determination has aroused the interest of researchers. However, in recent work, the influence caused by the deep semantic information and the context of the coreference elements have not been taken into account. In this paper, by combining the semantic feature of Uygur, we established a Convolutional Neural Network & Long Short-Term Memory (CNN_LSTM) model in determining the anaphoricity of Uygur pronoun. Firstly, the deep negative semantic feature representation is extracted via word2vec. Secondly, the shallow explicit feature representation of coreference elements is extracted by our system. Afterwards, two kinds of features are combined to recognize whether coreference element is referential or not. The results showed that the method we used can distinguish coreference element accurately, the ACC[Formula: see text] score is 90.18% and the ACC[Formula: see text] score is 89.93%, which are higher than ANN (Artificial Neural Network) and SVM (Support Vector Machine) respectively.

Random numbers play an important role in many fields, including information security, testing and engineering practice. Especially in information security, generation of secure and reliable random numbers, they have a significant influence on national security, financial stability, trade secrets and personal privacy. Generally, random number generators can be classified as two main types: pseudo random number generators and physical random number generators. Pseudo random numbers with high speed are generated by software algorithms, but the inherent periodicity will cause serious hidden dangers when they are used in information security. Random numbers based on physical entropy sources (such as electronic thermal noise, frequency jitter of oscillator, quantum randomness) can produce reliable random numbers. However, due to the limitation of traditional physical source bandwidth, their generation speeds are at a level of Mbit/s typically, which cannot meet the needs of the current high-speed and largecapacity communication. In 2008, Uchida et al. (2008 Nat. Photon. 2 728) realized the physical random number of 1.7 Gbit/s by using a wideband chaotic laser for the first time. The emergence of wideband physical entropy sources such as chaotic laser greatly promote the rapid development of the physical random number generators. As far as we know, a semiconductor laser can generate wideband chaotic signals under external disturbances such as optical feedback, optical injection or photoelectric feedback. However, compared with the structures of other two lasers, the structure of the optical feedback semiconductor laser is simple and easy to integrate. Therefore, chaotic signals have received great attention to produce high-speed physical random number extracted from the optical feedback semiconductor laser. In the reported schemes, a variety of post-processing methods are used to improve the speed and randomness of random numbers. Besides, optimizing the chaotic entropy source can also improve the performance of random number. So far, the influence of internal parameters on the dynamic characteristics of semiconductor lasers has attracted wide attention. The linewidth enhancement factor is one of the key parameters for a semiconductor laser. The values of linewidth enhancement factor are different, depending on the type of semiconductor laser. The existence of linewidth enhancement factor results in a large number of unstable dynamic characteristics of semiconductor lasers. Therefore, it is of great significance for studying the influence of the linewidth enhancement factor on performance of random numbers. In this paper, we focus on the influence of the linewidth enhancement factor on the randomness of the obtained random numbers. The time delay characteristics and complexity are two important parameters to measure the quality of chaotic signals. The simulation results show that with the increase of the linewidth enhancement factor, the time delay characteristic peak of the chaotic signal from an optical feedback semiconductor laser decreases gradually, meanwhile, the maximum Lyapunov exponent of chaotic signal increases gradually. The randomness of random numbers, generated by the chaotic signal from the optical feedback semiconductor laser under different linewidth enhancement factors, is tested by NIST SP 800-22. The test results show that semiconductor laser with larger linewidth enhancement factor is chosen as a physical entropy source to generate random numbers with high quality.

Random numbers are used to encrypt the information in the field of secure communications. According to one-time pad theory found by Shannon, the absolute security of the high-speed communication requires the ultrafast reliable random numbers to be generated in real-time. Using complex algorithms can generate pseudorandom numbers, but they can be predicted due to their periodicity. Random numbers based on physical stochastic phenomena (such as electronic noise, frequency jitter of oscillator) can provide reliable random numbers. However, their generation rates are at a level of Mbit/s typically, limited by the bandwidth of traditional physical sources. In recent years, high-speed physical random number generation based on chaotic laser has attracted much attention. Common methods of extracting random numbers are to sample and quantitate the chaotic signal in electronic domain with a 1-bit or multi-bit analog-to-digital converter (ADC) triggered by an RF clock and then post-process the original binary sequences into random numbers. However, the large jitter of the RF clock severely restricts the speed of ADC. Moreover, the existence of the subsequent post-processing process put a huge challenge to how the synchronization is kept among all the devices (e.g., XOR gates, memory buffers, parallel serial converters) by using an RF clock. Thus, to our knowledge, the fastest real-time speed of the reported physical random number generator is less than 5 Gbit/s. In this paper, we propose a novel method of generating the real-time physical random numbers by utilizing chaotic laser pulses. Through sampling the chaotic laser in all-optical domain by using a mode-locked pulsed laser, chaotic laser pulse sequences can be obtained. Then, real-time physical random numbers are obtained directly by self-delay comparing the chaotic pulse sequences with no need of RF clock nor any post-processing. Furthermore, a proof-of-principle experiment is carried out, in which an optical feedback chaotic semiconductor laser is employed as an entropy source. Experimental results show that the real-time random number sequences at rates of up to 7 Gbit/s can be achieved. The real-time speed is mainly limited by the bandwidth of the applied chaotic signal. If the chaotic laser with a higher bandwidth is adopted, the real-time generation rate can be further enhanced.

Backgrounds While previous meta-analysis have investigated the efficacy of cilostazol in the secondary prevention of ischemic stroke, they were criticized for their methodology, which confused the acute and chronic phases of stroke. We present a new systematic review, which differs from previous meta-analysis by distinguishing between the different phases of stroke, and includes two new randomized, controlled trials (RCTs). Methods All RCTs investigating the effect of cilostazol on secondary prevention of ischemic stroke were obtained. Outcomes were analyzed by Review Manager, including recurrence of cerebral infarction (ROCI), hemorrhage stroke or subarachnoid hemorrhage (HSSH), all-cause death (ACD), and modified Rankin Scale score (mRS). The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) assessed the quality of the evidence. Results 5491 patients from six studies were included in the current study. In secondary prevention of ischemic stroke in chronic phase, cilostazol was associated with a 47% reduction in ROCI (relative risk [RR] 0.53, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.34 to 0.81, p = 0.003), while no significant difference in HSSH and ACD compared with placebo; and 71% reduction in HSSH (RR 0.29, 95% CI 0.15 to 0.56, p = 0.0002) compared with aspirin, but not in ROCI and ACD. In the secondary prevention of ischemic stroke in acute phase, cilostazol did not show any effect in the ROCI, HSSH, ACD and mRS compared to placebo or aspirin. The quality of the evidence from chronic phase was high or moderate, and those from acute phase were moderate or low when analyzed by GRADE approach. Conclusion Cilostazol provided a protective effect in the secondary prevention of the chronic phase of ischemic stroke.

Background: Y-box binding protein 1 (YB-1) overexpression has been shown in various tumor cells including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC); moreover, this protein can be actively secreted. Objectives: The aim of this study was to establish a method to quantify serum YB-1 and evaluate its clinical application in the clinical diagnosis of HCC. Patients and Methods: Recombinant YB-1 and two populations of its antibodies were prepared. A monoclonal antibody was specific to the N-terminus of YB-1 amino acids 134-160; and another was a polyclonal antibody. A sandwich-type chemiluminescence immunoassay (CLIA) was developed and evaluated. Levels of YB-1 and alpha fetoprotein (AFP) in serum samples from 105 HCC patients, 25 hepatitis B virus patients, 25 cirrhosis patients, and 50 healthy donors were detected using the established method and an AFP electrochemiluminescence kit. Results: The developed method was linear to 150 μg/L of YB-1 with a minimum detection limit of 0.01 μg/L. The average recoveries were between 93.9% and 109.0%. The mean intra- and inter-assay coefficients of variation (CVs) were 4.0-4.8% and 8.2-10.2%, respectively. The relationship between the concentration of diluted YB-1 and the dilution ratios gave a good linear correlation coefficient of 0.9986. The YB-1 concentration was increased in serum of HCC patients (33.0 ± 23.39 μg/L) compared to healthy individuals (13.2 ± 5.29 μg/L, P < 0.0001), patients with HBV (17.9 ± 7.49 μg/L, P = 0.0003), and patients with HBV cirrhosis (20.7 ± 8.75 μg/L, P < 0.05). Moreover, the combination of YB-1 and alpha-fetoprotein had a high sensitivity (89.5%) and reasonable specificity (62.0%) in identifying HCC. Conclusions: The established method has an acceptable performance in quantifying YB-1. In addition, serum YB-1 may aid in the diagnosis of HCC. Implication for health policy/practice/research/medical education: In our submitted manuscript, recombinant YB-1 and two populations of antibodies were prepared; and a rapid and sensitive sandwich-type chemilu- minescence immunoassay (CLIA) was developed. The concentrations of serum YB-1 in healthy donors, hepatitis B virus patients, patients with hepatic cirrhosis and HCC patients were quantitatively measured for the first time. This revealed that serum YB-1 concentrations were significantly increased in HCC compared with control groups. Furthermore, the combination of YB-1 and alpha-fetoprotein has a high sensitivity and reasonable specificity to identify HCC. Our findings suggested that this new assay is reliable for routine clinical application, and serum YB-1 levels might be a potential routine tumor marker for screening HCC, especially when tested in parallel with alpha-fetoprotein. Copyright © 2013, Kowsar Corp.; Licensee Kowsar Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 1. Background

The elastohydrodynamic (EHD) traction coefficients of a lubricating grease LGLT2 were tested at various loads and rolling speeds on a self-made test rig. Traction coefficient versus slide-to-roll ratio curves were generated. Formulae which relate traction coefficient with normal load and rolling speed are put forth. The coefficients of the formulae may be computed by regression analysis of the experimental data. The results show that the calculated traction coefficients agree well with the experimental observation. The critical normal load exists when the traction coefficients change with the normal loads.

Dongping County of Tai'an City has a long history and rich ancient cultural relics. With a unique natural scenery and traditional cultural superiority, it has the most distinctive and the most valuable tourism resource-the Shuihu city. But there are many problems in cultural tourism development, such as the exploring insufficient of tourism culture deposits, the failure of synchronous follow-up of basic facilities construction, the defects of the Shuihu brand image force, the low popularity, the stereotype of the content of tourism and culture display, the lack of high-quality creative, the single form and so on. This paper pertinently puts forward the countermeasures to advance Dongping County's cultural tourism development soundly and rapidly, such as the overall and comprehensive integrate, the clear of development localization, the well planning, the development leaded by science, start from specific projects to support the development of cultural tourism, the synchronization with environment to promote comprehensive service level of tourism.

Mirror-imaging of arachnoid cysts (ACs) in monozygotic twins (MZ) is extremely rare. We describe a pair of MZ who developed mirror-imaging of ACs in the temporal fossas, and we also review the literature. Brain computer tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of the MZ revealed mirror-imaging of vast lesions of cerebrospinal fluid intensity in their temporal fossas. This is the second ever report of such a case according to the available literature. Unlike the prior case, our patients were 14 months, which is a much younger age than the patients of the previous report. Consequently, our case is better in supporting a genetic origin in the pathogenesis of AC. The findings in our case indicate that early neuroimaging is mandatory in the counterpart of the symptomatic patient with AC, irrespective of the absence of symptoms.

Network administrators are faced with a large amount of network data that they need to sift through to analyze user behaviors and detect anomalies. Through a network monitoring tool, we obtained TCP and UDP connection records together with additional information of the associated users and software in an enterprise network. Instead of using traditional payload inspection techniques, we propose a method that clusters such network traffic data by using relations between entities so that it can be analyzed for frequent behaviors and anomalies. Relational methods like Markov Logic Networks is able to avoid the feature extraction stage and directly handle multi-relation situations. We extend the common pairwise representation in relational models by adopting set evidence to build a better objective for the network service clustering problem. The automatic clustering process helps the administrator filter out normal traffic in shorter time and get an abstract overview of opening transport layer ports in the whole network, which is beneficial for assessing network security risks. Experimental results on synthetic and real datasets suggest that our method is able to discover underlying services and anomalies (malware or abused ports) with good interpretations. © 2010 ACM.

Based on the components of psychological committee members' assessment and investigation from several Chinese colleges, the results showed that psychological committee members' assessment has stepped into rapid, but differentiated development across colleges; training and motivation were highly valued compared with inspection and institutionalization. We suggested establishing the three-dimensional stereo model of assessment.

Probabilistic Neural Networks (PNN) learn quickly from examples in one pass and asymptotically achieve the Bayes-optimal decision boundaries. The major disadvantage of PNN is that it requires one node or neuron for each training sample. Various clustering techniques have been proposed to reduce this requirement to one node per cluster center. A new fast optimization of PNN is investigated here using iteratively computing the centers of each class samples unrecognized and add their nearest neighbors to pattern layer. For fast constructing the classification model, weight and incremental technique is introduced to improve the learning speed. To further decrease the structure of PNN, KL transform is adopted to compress feature dimension. The approach proposed here decreases redundancy not only in samples using nearest neighbor but also in features using KL transformation. Experiments on UCI show the appropriate tradeoff in training time and generalization ability.

Deaeration stirrer is the important equipment in the manufacturing processes of aramid fiber. The double helical-ribbon blades of the stirrer are operated in high-viscosity glue. The stiffness of Blades has a strong impact on the effect of deaeration. Usually, the analysis for the fluid-structural interaction problem is a complex problem. However, under the condition of the high viscosity of the glue and uniform rotation of the blades, glue can be treated as a laminar flow and the fluid-structural interaction problem can be simplified. This paper first computes the flow field of blender by solving the Navier-stokes equation in FLUENT and find the pressure distribution on the common face of solid-liquid. Then for the six different thicknesses of blades, the paper computes the displacement and the stress of the blades under the pressure distribution by using ANSYS respectively. The simulation results of the paper are crucial in the design of the blades of the Double Helical-Ribbon Blender.

A 300 mV 20 MHz-350 MHz low variation all-digital multiphase dual clock output generator with rapid self-calibration has been designed with UMC 90 nm CMOS technology model. The PVT immunity properties of several classic delay elements in low voltage era have been studied. A low voltage calibration unit is also proposed to reduce the maximum multiphase error no larger than 120 ps when delay-locked loop is operating at 40 MHz/300 mV. A novel static current-mirror-based phase blender is developed to provide wide range accurate twice multiphase information, and phase error is reduced by no more than 11.83%. The clock generator could provide more independent outputs by simply using additional edge combiner. The frequency and phase of output clock could be dynamically adjusted without relocking process. The total power dissipation of the all-digital multiphase dual digital clock output generator is 36 muW at 40 MHz/300 mV.

A 333 MHz-1 GHz all-digital multiphase delay-locked loop with precise multi-phase output has been designed with TSMC 130 nm CMOS technology model. A modified binary search algorithm is proposed to match up a linear approximate delay element (LADE). The LADE property of linearity and insensitive to PVT variations is good for digitally-controlled delay element. The lock-in time could be reduced down to 14 reference clock cycles, and enhance the operation range based on LADE/binary search algorithm co-operate effort. The timing error caused by process mismatch is further reduced by proposed rapid self-calibration (RSC) algorithm. A calibration unit is designed based on RSC algorithm, which reduces the maximum timing error to less than 9 ps when DLL is operating at 500 MHz. The entire calibration unit could be turned off after calibration procedure is complete to reduce power consumption. The total power dissipation of the all-digital self-calibrated multiphase delay-locked loop is 5.2 mW at 1 GHz with a 1.2 V power supply.

For some imaging system the number of detector array and pixel dimension of sensor are limit, super-resolution algorithm is regarded as a good choice to acquire image with higher resolution without changing hardware. These algorithms are especially used to get higher resolution image from low resolution original image, but at present the representative super-resolution algorithms must apply iterative operation and the calculation speed is quite low. To improve the image quality of restoration and calculation speed, this article first introduces Poisson maximum posteriori probability (MAP) algorithm, MARKOV Poisson maximum posteriori probability (MPMAP) algorithm and wavelet filtering theory. According to the study of MAP algorithm this article proposed a new algorithm combined MAP algorithm with wavelet filtering and it is called post-wavelet MAP algorithm (PWMAP). Test result proved that super-resolution restoration capability of this algorithm is better than MAP algorithm and calculation speed is much faster than MPMAP algorithm.