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The strong demand of autonomous driving in the industry has led to vigorous interest in 3D object detection and resulted in many excellent 3D object detection algorithms. However, the vast majority of algorithms only model single-frame data, ignoring the temporal clue in video sequence. In this work, we propose a new transformer, called Temporal-Channel Transformer (TCTR), to model the temporal-channel domain and spatial-wise relationships for video object detecting from Lidar data. As the special design of this transformer, the information encoded in the encoder is different from that in the decoder. The encoder encodes temporal-channel information of multiple frames while the decoder decodes the spatial-wise information for the current frame in a voxel-wise manner. Specifically, the temporal-channel encoder of the transformer is designed to encode the information of different channels and frames by utilizing the correlation among features from different channels and frames. On the other hand, the spatial decoder of the transformer decodes the information for each location of the current frame. Before conducting the object detection with detection head, a gate mechanism is further deployed for re-calibrating the features of current frame, which filters out the object-irrelevant information by repetitively refining the representation of target frame along with the up-sampling process. Experimental results reveal that TCTR achieves the state-of-the-art performance in grid voxel-based 3D object detection on the nuScenes benchmark.

BACKGROUND: Visceral pleural invasion (VPI) is a clinical manifestation associated with a poor prognosis, and diagnosing it preoperatively is highly imperative for successful sublobar resection of these peripheral tumors. We evaluated the roles of computed tomography (CT) features and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) for improving VPI detection in patients with clinical T1N0M0 invasive lung adenocarcinoma. METHODS: Three hundred and ninety-one patients were reviewed retrospectively in this study, of which 234 presented with a pleural tag or pleural contact on CT images. CTCs positive for the foliate receptors were enriched and analyzed prior to surgery. Logistic regression analyses were performed to assess the association of CT features and CTCs with VPI, and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was generated to compare the predictive power of these variables. RESULTS: Patients mostly underwent either segmentectomies (18.9%) or lobectomies (79.0%). Only 49 of the 234 patients with pleural involvement on CT showed pathologically confirmed VPI. Multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that CTC level ≥10.42 FU/3 mL was a significant VPI risk factor for invasive adenocarcinoma cases ≤30 mm [adjusted odds ratio (OR) =4.62, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.05–10.44, P

BACKGROUND Spinal cord injury (SCI) refers to the interruption of the tracts inside the spinal cord caused by various factors. The repair of damaged axons has always been a difficult point in clinical treatment and neuroscience research. The treatment of SCI with Buyang huanwu decoction (BYHWD), a well-known recipe for invigorating Qi (a vital force forming part of any living entity in traditional Chinese culture) and promoting blood circulation, shows a good effect. METHODS The rubrospinal tract (RST) transection model in rats was established in this study and rats were administrated with low (BL), medium (BM), or high (BH) doses of BYHWD. RESULTS Compared with the SCI group, BL, BM moderately, and BH significantly improved the motor function of forelimbs and increased the number of red nucleus neurons in SCI rats. As for the possible molecular mechanism, BL, BM moderately, and BH significantly increased mTOR whereas decreased Beclin-1 and LC3 in the red nucleus. CONCLUSION In conclusion, low, medium, and high doses of BYHWD could promote neural recovery in SCI rats through improving motor function and neuron survival in the red nucleus. The neuroprotective effects of BYHWD might be associated with affecting the mTOR signaling pathway and autophagy.

At present, the midstory isolation (MSI) technology has great potential for application in historical buildings’ retrofitting and multifunction buildings. The coupling effect due to the variability of the location of the isolation layer may amplify the structural seismic response and is required for in-depth analysis. This paper aims to evaluate the magnitude of the coupling effect and delimitate the region of the coupling effect to be considered. Based on the complex mode superposition method, the explicit formulas for calculating the random response of the simplified model are deduced. The root-mean-square (RMS) ratio of the shear force coefficient of the upper isolation system is adopted as the performance indicator to evaluate the coupling amplification effect of the MSI system. Parameter analysis indicates that the coupling region is closely related to the mass ratio and frequency ratio of the upper and lower structures to the isolation layer. In general, the region of the coupling effect to be considered can be divided into two parts according to parameters of frequency ratios, depending on the thresholds of the performance indicator. As the mass ratio of the upper isolation system to the entire system increases, one of the coupling regions shrinks and eventually disappears, indicating that the coupling amplification effect in this region can be neglected under certain conditions. Finally, the time-domain analysis of three representative numerical cases of MSI buildings was performed to verify the reliability of the results obtained from the frequency-domain analysis. The research results can provide technical guidance for the preliminary design of the MSI buildings.

Many methods have been proposed for image denoising, among which the non-local means (NLM) denoising is widely used for fully exploiting the self-similarity of natural images. For NLM denoising, it needs to calculate the similarity of clean image blocks as weights. But affected by noise, it is challenging to accurately get the similarity of clean image patches. Most existing NLM denoising approaches often cause the restored image to be over smoothed and lose lots of details, especially for image with high noise levels. To tackle this, a novel singular value decomposition-based similarity measure method is proposed, which can effectively reduce the disturbance of noise. For the method, we first calculate and vectorize the singular values of two image patches extracted from the noisy image and compute Euclidean distances and cross-angles of the vectors. Second, we propose to utilize the geometric average of Euclidean distance and cross-angle to calculate the similarity between two image patches which is resistant to noise. Third, the proposed similarity measure is applied to non-local means denoising to compute similarity of noisy image patches. Experimental results show that compared to state-of-the-art denoising algorithms, the proposed method can effectively eliminate noise and restore more details with higher peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and the structural similarity (SSIM) index values.

Background Annexin A1 might be neuroprotective and serum annexin A1 concentrations were markedly declined after severe traumatic brain injury. We determine dthe ability of serum annexin A1 to assess severity and predict prognosis after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH). Methods We included 157 aSAH patients and 157 healthy subjects. Serum annexin A1 measurements were measured. A poor outcome was designated as Glasgow outcome scale score of 1–3. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was applied to identify predictors of a poor 6-month outcome. Results Serum annexin A1 concentrations were significantly lower in patients than in controls. Annexin A1 concentrations were strongly correlated with the World Federation of Neurological Surgeons scale (WFNS) score, Hunt-Hess score, Glasgow coma scale score and modified Fisher score. A total of 59 patients (37.6%) experienced a poor outcome. Serum annexin A1, WFNS score and modified Fisher score emerged as the 3 independent predictors for a poor outcome after aSAH. Under ROC curve analysis, serum annexin A1 had a fair accuracy to predict a poor outcome, AUC of serum annexin A1 concentration was equivalent to those of WFNS score and modified Fisher score and AUC of combination of the 3 factors significantly exceeded that of each one alone. Conclusions Annexin A1 may be involved in the occurrence and progression of secondary brain injury after aSAH. Detection of serum annexin A1 may have certain ability for assessment of severity and prediction of long-term prognosis following aSAH.

BACKGROUND CYP21A2 gene mutations may all cause reduction or loss of 21-hydroxylase activity, leading to development of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) with different clinical phenotypes. For families with CAH children, genetic testing of the parents and genetic counseling are recommended to assess the risk of recurrence. CASE SUMMARY We report a case of CAH with a high suspicion before delivery. The risk of the child suffering from CAH during the pregnancy had been underestimated due to the deviation of genetic counseling and genetic testing results. Our report confirmed a CYP21A2 homozygous deletion in this case, CYP21A2 heterozygous deletion in the mother, and a rare 2+0 CYP21A2 deletion in the father. CONCLUSION It is important to analyze the distribution of CYP21A2 gene in the two alleles of parents of children with CAH.

Pedestrian trajectory prediction is vital for transportation systems. Generally we can divide pedestrian behavior modeling into two categories, i.e., knowledge-driven and data-driven. The former might bring expert bias, and it sometimes generates unrealistic pedestrian movement due to unnecessary repulsive forces. The latter approach is popular nowadays but most existing neural networks, including fully connected long short-term memory (LSTM) networks, use a 1D vector to model their input and state. The shortcoming is that these works cannot learn spatial information about pedestrians, especially in a dense crowd. To tackle this, we propose to use tensors to represent essential environment features of pedestrians. Accordingly, a convolutional LSTM is designed and deepened to predict spatiotemporal trajectory sequences. As the tensor and convolution can learn better spatiotemporal interactions among pedestrians and environments, experimental results show that the proposed network can estimate more realistic trajectories for a dense crowd in evacuation and counterflow.

Anticancer peptides (ACPs) eliminate pathogenic bacteria and kill tumor cells, showing no hemolysis and no damages to normal human cells. This unique ability explores the possibility of ACPs as therapeutic delivery and its potential applications in clinical therapy. Identifying ACPs is one of the most fundamental and central problems in new antitumor drug research. During the past decades, a number of machine learning-based prediction tools have been developed to solve this important task. However, the predictions produced by various tools are difficult to quantify and compare. Therefore, in this article, a comprehensive review of existing machine learning methods for ACPs prediction and fair comparison of the predictors is provided. To evaluate current prediction tools, a comparative study was conducted and analyzed the existing ACPs predictor from the 10 public works of literature. The comparative results obtained suggest that the Support Vector Machine-based model with features combination provided significant improvement in the overall performance when compared to the other machine learning method-based prediction models.

To evaluate the utility of a contact-free device in screening for obstructive sleep apnea.Three hundred fifty-nine participants (mean age 46 ± 13 years, body mass index 26.1 ± 4.2 kg/m², 67.7% male) underwent overnight monitoring using a contact-free device, the OrbSense, and polysomnography (PSG) in the sleep laboratory simultaneously. The OrbSense recordings were analyzed automatically, and PSG was scored based on recommended guidelines.The respiratory event index from the OrbSense was lower than the apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) from PSG (25.5 ± 20.7 vs 27.0 ± 25.2 events/h; P = .007) and was significantly correlated with AHI (Pearson coefficient, 0.92; P.0001). Bland-Altman analysis showed a mean difference of 1.5 events/h, and the limit of agreement was -18.6 to 21.5 events/h. Use of the OrbSense resulted in larger underestimates of AHI and lower negative predictive values at higher AHI values (especially when AHI ≥ 30 events/h). When we used a PSG diagnostic criterion of AHI5 events/h, the optimal diagnostic cutoff value from the OrbSense was 8 events/h, with a sensitivity of 90.4%, a specificity of 77.6%, a 94.6% positive predictive value, and a 65% negative predictive value. For patients with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea whose AHI was15 events/h, the OrbSense cutoff was 16.6 events/h, with a sensitivity of 87.1% and a specificity of 89.7%. Among the 359 participants, 250 patients (69.6%) had the same obstructive sleep apnea severity division classified by both PSG and the OrbSense.The contact-free device OrbSense can detect respiratory events during sleep and has close agreement with in-laboratory PSG in screening for obstructive sleep apnea. Further studies are warranted to test its utility in community-based settings and at home.

Future pedestrian trajectory prediction offers great prospects for many practical applications. Most existing methods focus on social interaction among pedestrians but ignore the factors that heterogeneous traffic objects (cars, dogs, bicycles, motorcycles, etc.) have significant influence on the future trajectory of a subject pedestrian. Also, the walking direction intention of a pedestrian may be referred by his/her pose keypoints. Considering this, this work proposes to predict a pedestrian’s future trajectory by jointly using neighboring heterogeneous traffic information and his/her pose keypoints. To fulfill this, an end-to-end pose keypoints-based convolutional encoder-decoder network (PK-CEN) is designed, in which the heterogeneous traffic and pose keypoints are modeled as input. After training, PK-CEN is evaluated on manifold crowded video sequences collected from the public dataset MOT16, MOT17 and MOT20. Experimental results demonstrate that it outperforms state-of-the-art approaches, in terms of prediction errors.

In this paper, we point out the security weakness of Shang et al.'s identity-based dynamic data auditing protocol for big data storage [IEEE Transactions on Big Data, 2019, doi: 10.1109/TBDATA.2019.2941882]. Specifically, we identify that their protocol is vulnerable to a secret key reveal attack, i.e., the service provider (SP) can reveal the secret key of the data owner (DO) from the stored data. Further, SP can also generate a proof to pass the challenge of TPA (third party auditor) even if all block and tag pairs have been deleted. We hope that by identifying these design flaws, similar weaknesses can be avoided in future designs.

Despite the impressive performance of some recent state-of-the-art detectors, small target detection, scale variation, and label ambiguities remain challenges. To tackle these issues, we present a coordinate-based anchor-free (CBAF) module for object detection. It can be used as a branch of a single-shot detector (e.g., RetinaNet or SSD) or predict the output probabilities and coordinates directly. The main idea of the CBAF module is to predict the category and the adjustments to the box of the object by part feature and its contextual part features, which are based on feature maps divided by spatial coordinates. This is inspired by the fact that human beings can infer an entire object by observing the part of the surrounding environment. The CBAF module will encode and decode boxes in the anchor-free manner per feature map with different resolutions during training and testing. During training, we first use the proposed spatial coordinate partition layer to divide feature maps into several parts of size n × n and then propose a contextual building layer to fuse the part and its contextual parts together. We will demonstrate the CBAF module through a concrete implementation. The CBAF module improves AP scores of object detection with nearly no additional computation when working in conjunction with the anchor-based RetinaNet. Furthermore, experimental results on the MS-COCO dataset show that the mAP of the CBAF module has increased by 1.1%, compared with RetinaNet. When the CBAF module works in conjunction with the anchor-based RetinaNet, the mAP increased by 2.2%.

We reported a novel human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) circulating recombinant form (CRF) among four epidemiologically unlinked patients through men having sex with men in Heilongjiang Province, China. It was named CRF107_01B (this is temporary as we have not received the CRF number from HIV databases). A near full-length genome phylogenetic tree showed that CRF107_01B was generated by two CRF01_AE segments that was described as cluster 5 lineage of CRF01_AE (CRF01-5) inserted into the B (Western origin) backbone. The emergence of CRF107_01B increased the complexity of HIV-1.

Recently, convolutional neural networks (CNN) have been widely used in image denoising. But with most CNN denoising methods, all the channels are treated equally and the relationship between spatial locations are neglected. In the letter, we propose a novel channel and space attention neural network (CSANN) for image denoising. In CSANN, we concatenate the noise level with the average and maximum values of each channel as the input and propose a convolutional network to learn the relationship between channels. Meanwhile, we combine the noise level map with the average and maximum values of each spatial locations as the input and use a convolutional network to learn the relationship between spatial locations. Moreover, we combine them as an attention network and introduce it into the main CNN and symmetric skip connections, which makes channels related to attention network play different roles in the subsequent convolution and offsets the performance degradation caused by using a single convolution kernel in spatial locations. In addition, the use of symmetric skip connections and resnet blocks avoid the vanishing gradient problem and the loss of shallow features. Experimental results show that, compared with some state-of-the-art denoising algorithms, the experimental results of CSANN have better visual effects and higher peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) values.

Context Re-yan-ning mixture (RYNM) is a new national drug approved by China's State Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of colds, simple pneumonia and acute bronchitis. Objective To determine the mechanism of action of RYNM in the treatment of bacterial pneumonia. Materials and methods Using the network pharmacology approach, the multiple components, component candidate targets and multiple therapeutic targets of RYNM were screened and functionally enriched. Also, we established a rat Streptococcus pneumonia model to verify the results of network pharmacology enrichment analysis. Forty male SPF Sprague Dawley rats were divided into four groups of 10 rats: control (normal saline), model (normal saline), levofloxacin-intervened and RYNM-intervened groups. IL-10, NOS2, COX-1, IL-6, TNF-α and NF-κB in serum and BALF were detected by ELISA. Western blot detected IL-17, IL-6, TNF-α, COX-2 and Bcl-2. Results The network pharmacology approach successfully identified 48 bioactive components in RYNM, and 65 potential targets and 138 signal pathways involved in the treatment of Streptococcus pneumonia with RYNM. The in vivo experiments indicated that model group has visible inflammation and lesions while RYNM and levofloxacin groups have not. The RYNM exhibited its therapeutic effects on Streptococcus pneumonia mainly via the regulation of cell proliferation and survival through the IL-6/IL-10/IL-17, Bax/Bcl-2, COX-1/COX-2, NF-κB and TNF-α signalling pathways. Discussion and conclusions The present study demonstrated the protective effects of RYNM on Streptococcus pneumonia, providing a potential mechanism for the treatment of bacterial pneumonia with RYNM.

Due to pollution in the process of chemical treatments, wool textile industry has been remarkably changed to use eco-friendly reagents in preparatory and finishing operations. We previously isolate...

BACKGROUND Intrahepatic cholestasis in pregnancy (ICP) is the most common liver disease during pregnancy, and its exact etiology and course of progression are still poorly understood. AIM To investigate the link between the gut microbiota and serum metabolome in ICP patients. METHODS In this study, a total of 30 patients were recruited, including 15 patients with ICP (disease group) and 15 healthy pregnant patients (healthy group). The serum nontarget metabolomes from both groups were determined. Amplification of the 16S rRNA V3-V4 region was performed using fecal samples from the disease and healthy groups. By comparing the differences in the microbiota and metabolite compositions between the two groups, the relationship between the gut microbiota and serum metabolites was also investigated. RESULTS The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis results showed that the primary bile acid biosynthesis, bile secretion and taurine and hypotaurine metabolism pathways were enriched in the ICP patients compared with the healthy controls. In addition, some pathways related to protein metabolism were also enriched in the ICP patients. The principal coordination analysis results showed that there was a distinct difference in the gut microbiota composition (beta diversity) between the ICP patients and healthy controls. At the phylum level, we observed that the relative abundance of Firmicutes was higher in the healthy group, while Bacteroidetes were enriched in the disease group. At the genus level, most of the bacteria depleted in ICP are able to produce short-chain fatty acids (e.g., Faecalibacterium, Blautia and Eubacterium hallii), while the bacteria enriched in ICP are associated with bile acid metabolism (e.g., Parabacteroides and Bilophila). Our results also showed that specific genera were associated with the serum metabolome. CONCLUSION Our study showed that the serum metabolome was altered in ICP patients compared to healthy controls, with significant differences in the bile, taurine and hypotaurine metabolite pathways. Alterations in the metabolization of these pathways may lead to disturbances in the gut microbiota, which may further affect the course of progression of ICP.

Cui Ying Wei,1,* Zhong Ming He,2,* Han Yan,3 Jing Li,3 Pei An,3 Long Zhao,3 Li Nong Ji,4 Zhan Cheng Gao,3 Xiao Song Dong,3 Fang Han3 1Department of Endocrinology, First Affiliated Hospital, Baotou Medical College, Baotou, Inner Mongolia, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Pulmonary Medicine, Karamay Central Hospital, Karamay, Xinjiang, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Peking University People’s Hospital, Beijing, People’s Republic of China; 4Department of Endocrinology, Peking University People’s Hospital, Beijing, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Xiao Song DongDepartment of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Peking University People’s Hospital, Beijing, People’s Republic of ChinaTel/Fax +86-10-88324207Email dongxiaosong@pkuph.edu.cnPurpose: The study aimed at assessing glucose control measured with a continuous glucose monitoring system (CGMS) before and after short-term continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP).Materials and Methods: Twenty-four type 2 diabetic patients (T2DM) with Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) (mean age 55.0 ± 9.0 years; BMI 29.5 ± 5.2 kg/m2) were admitted and kept under diet control for 2 days, then underwent 2 overnight polysomnographies: a diagnostic study and one with CPAP titration. Then they were treated by CPAP during sleep for the following three nights. Participants were divided into subgroup D (only diet control) and subgroup M (with DM medication). CGMS was utilized over the last five days. Glucose control was also assessed with plasma insulin and a clinical measure of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) index.Results: The mean (±SD) apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) at diagnostic polysomnography was 51.2 ± 22.4 (range 10– 88) events/h. CPAP treatment in the subjects with OSAS resulted in the index of oxygenation desaturations being reduced from 33.3 ± 20.1 to 1.1 ± 1.6 (P =0.00). CGMS showed mean 24-hours glucose values significantly lower after CPAP treatment than at baseline in both subgroups (7.97± 1.31 vs 7.52± 0.94, P=0.033 in subgroup D; and 7.72± 1.51 vs 7.17± 1.21, P=0.05 in subgroup M), as the fasting plasma insulin levels and HOMA-IR were also decreased significantly after CPAP treatment (13.0 ± 7.5μU/mL vs 10.8 ± 5.4μU/mL, P=0.044; and 4.2 ± 2.2 vs 3.1± 1.7, P=0.003, respectively). Standard deviation (SD) and mean amplitude of glucose excursions (MAGE) were also decreased in the subgroup D (1.91 ± 1.10 vs 1.61 ± 1.20, P=0.014; 1.26 ± 1.13 vs 1.01 ± 0.98, P=0.008, respectively) only.Conclusion: Short-term CPAP treatment in OSAS with type 2 diabetic patients is accompanied by a decrease in blood glucose level and improved insulin sensitivity. Glucose variability was reduced but only in the patients with diet control.Keywords: type 2 diabetes mellitus, obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, continuous positive airway pressure, continuous glucose monitoring system, glucose variability, HOMA-IR

BACKGROUND Pregnancy in the setting of systemic lupus erythematosus can worsen the condition from the stable to active stage, with quality of life and fertility desire being particular concerns. Pregnancy in the active stage of systemic lupus erythematosus (ASLE), although rare and complicated to manage, can be treated favorably with immunotherapies ifs used properly. Here we report such a success case. CASE SUMMARY A 31-year-old primigravida patient, diagnosed with SLE seven years ago, was induced ASLE after a cold at 21 + weeks. The patient’s vital signs on presentation were normal. Her laboratory exam was remarkable for significant proteinuria, liver and renal dysfunction, and low C3 and C4 levels. Infectious work-up was negative. The patient was diagnosed with ASLE. She was given immunosuppressive agents (methylprednisolone, gamma globulin and azathioprine etc.) and plasma adsorption therapy, monitoring blood pressure every 8 h, fetal heart rate twice a day, and liver and renal function at least twice a week. Successful maternal and fetal outcomes are presented here. CONCLUSION Child-bearing in ASLE has become more promising, even for this difficult case of ASLE with multiple organ damage. Thorough antepartum counseling, cautious maternal-fetal monitoring, and multi-organ function monitoring by multidisciplinary specialties are keys to favorable pregnancy outcomes.

During last two decades, transition-metal catalyzed asymmetric reactions under continuous flow system have attracted a widespread attention. With its prominent advantages including higher safety and efficiency, precise control, better heat/mass transfer, easier scale-up and better sustainability, it has impressed both the academia and related industries. However, comparing with the prosperous development of transition-metal catalyzed asymmetric reactions in batch, utilization of this type of chemistry under continuous flow is still at an early stage. To inspire more potential industrial application and further studies of this chemistry in flow, this review summarized the recent advances of transition-metal catalyzed asymmetric reactions under continuous flow. Moreover, we further discussed the encountered challenges including reactor engineering, catalyst design, catalyst deactivation, pressure drop, clogging, side reactions etc., as well as their corresponding solutions and achievements in this mini-review.

Quantum devices for generating entangled states have been extensively studied and widely used. As so, it becomes necessary to verify that these devices truly work reliably and efficiently as they are specified. Here, we experimentally realize the recently proposed two-qubit entangled state verification strategies using both local measurements (nonadaptive) and active feed-forward operations (adaptive) with a photonic platform. About 3283/536 number of copies ($N$) are required to achieve a 99% confidence to verify the target quantum state for nonadaptive/adaptive strategies. These optimal strategies provide the Heisenberg scaling of the infidelity $\epsilon$ as a function of $N$ ($\epsilon$ $\sim$ $N^r$) with the parameter $r=-1$, exceeding the standard quantum limit with $r=-0.5$. We experimentally obtain the scaling parameter of $r=-0.88\pm$0.03 and $-0.78\pm$0.07 for nonadaptive and adaptive strategies, respectively. Our experimental work could serve as a standardized procedure for the verification of quantum states., Comment: 16+19 pages, 6+10 figures

Diabetes mellitus is a leading cause of mortality and reduced life expectancy. We aim to estimate the burden of diabetes by type, year, regions, and socioeconomic status in 195 countries and territories over the past 28 years, which provide information to achieve the goal of World Health Organization Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases in 2025. Data were obtained from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017. Overall, the global burden of diabetes had increased significantly since 1990. Both the trend and magnitude of diabetes related diseases burden varied substantially across regions and countries. In 2017, global incidence, prevalence, death, and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) associated with diabetes were 22.9 million, 476.0 million, 1.37 million, and 67.9 million, with a projection to 26.6 million, 570.9 million, 1.59 million, and 79.3 million in 2025, respectively. The trend of global type 2 diabetes burden was similar to that of total diabetes (including type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes), while global age-standardized rate of mortality and DALYs for type 1 diabetes declined. Globally, metabolic risks (high BMI) and behavioral factors (inappropriate diet, smoking, and low physical activity) contributed the most attributable death and DALYs of diabetes. These estimations could be useful in policy-making, priority setting, and resource allocation in diabetes prevention and treatment.

The predictive value of prognosis based on the histopathological subtype is a critical criterion in the new classification of lung adenocarcinoma published in 2011 by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), the American Thoracic Society (ATS), and the European Respiratory Society (ERS) (IASLC/ATS/ERS). In this new classification, the differences of histopathology and prognosis are two considerable parameters to classify the subtypes of lung adenocarcinoma. Cribriform growth pattern is regarded as a variant of acinar growth pattern in lung adenocarcinoma, however, more and more studies pointed out that cribriform growth pattern is associated with more aggressive histopathological structures, higher proportion of recurrence rates, and shorter postoperative survival than acinar growth pattern. These features are similar to solid or micropapillary predominant adenocarcinoma. In this review, we summarized the clinicopathological features, prognosis, and genetic variations of cribriform growth pattern of lung adenocarcinoma, and provided a novel insight into the diagnosis and treatment of cribriform lung adenocarcinoma.

Measurement of electric fields is crucial for the evaluation of the electromagnetic environment in electric power transmission system. Due to limited transmission corridor resources, the hybrid transmission lines including high-voltage alternating current and high-voltage direct current (HVAC/HVDC) are more common nowadays. However, commonly used field-mill direct current electric field sensors (DC EFSs) can only be used beneath HVDC lines and the emergence of alternating current (AC) electric fields has adversely affected measurement results recorded by DC EFS. In this work, a DC EFS was designed that is capable of measuring ground-level DC electric fields generated by overhead HVAC/HVDC transmission lines in a hybrid corridor. A field-mill structure was used to modulate the DC and AC hybrid electric field and then a narrow band-pass filter was used to realise suppression of the AC electric field signal. Subsequently, the phase-sensitive detection method was used to realise amplitude demodulation and phase discrimination of the DC electric field. Sensor prototypes based on the foregoing method were experimentally tested in the China national high-voltage base. These DC EFSs could be mass-produced conveniently from current field-mill for hybrid corridors application.

To investigate the alterations in body movement and their compensatory characteristics under different spinal diseases through an objective and quantitative analysis of the spinal-pelvic-lower limb motor function.A total of 120 subjects were recruited from October 2016 to April 2017. The patients were classified into 2 groups in which 65 patients with cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) and 25 patients with idiopathic scoliosis (IS). The former group was evaluated with JOA score while those in the IS group underwent Lenke classification. A control group was set up with 30 healthy subjects. All the subjects were instructed to walk at a constant speed for one minute on a treadmill, and their spinal-pelvic-lower limb motions were monitored simultaneously with a DIERS Formetric 4D® grating system and a QUINTIC gait analysis system.The rotation angle of thoracic and lumbar vertebrae in IS group were larger than those in the control group (P 0.05), and the knee joint angle A in the CSM group and IS group were larger than the control group (P 0.05). In the CSM group, the knee joint angular velocity and angular acceleration were both greater than the control group (P 0.05). And there was a negative linear correlation between the JOA score for the lower extremity of CSM patients and their knee joint angular acceleration.IS patients tend to demonstrate increased swing amplitude of the trunk. Those with CSM will also have larger knee joint angular velocity and angular acceleration.

Summary We consider evaluating new or more accurately measured predictive biomarkers for treatment selection based on a previous clinical trial involving standard biomarkers. Instead of rerunning the clinical trial with the new biomarkers, we propose a more efficient approach which requires only either conducting a reproducibility study in which the new biomarkers and standard biomarkers are both measured on a set of patient samples, or adopting replicated measures of the error-contaminated standard biomarkers in the original study. This approach is easier to conduct and much less expensive than studies that require new samples from patients randomized to the intervention. In addition, it makes it possible to perform the estimation of the clinical performance quickly, since there will be no requirement to wait for events to occur as would be the case with prospective validation. The treatment selection is assessed via a working model, but the proposed estimator of the mean restricted lifetime is valid even if the working model is misspecified. The proposed approach is assessed through simulation studies and applied to a cancer study.

Background Immunotherapy targeting programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) or its ligand 1 (PD-L1) has shown promising results in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Exploring PD-L1 expression could help to select NSCLC candidates for immunotherapy. Fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT could provide phenotypic information on malignant tumors. Thus, this study investigated PD-L1 expression correlation with metabolic parameters of FDG PET/CT and clinicopathological characteristics in NSCLC. Methods FDG PET/CT metabolic parameters including maximum standard uptake (SUVmax), metabolic tumor volume and total lesion glycolysis of primary lesion (MTV-P, TLG-P), and combination of primary lesion and metastases (MTV-C, TLG-C) were compared with PD-L1-positive expression in patients with NSCLC. Moreover, clinicopathological characteristics, including age, gender, smoking history, serum tumor markers, tumor location, size, TNM stage, and genetic mutation were also reviewed. Results All 374 patients (215 men; 159 women; age 63 ± 9 years) included 283 adenocarcinomas (ACs) and 91 squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs). PD-L1 expression was positive in 27.8% (104/374) cases. SUVmax, TLG-P, and TLG-C of PD-L1 positivity were significantly higher than PD-L1 negativity. Moreover, PD-L1 expression was obviously correlated with man, smoking, and central NSCLC. If ACs and SCCs were separately analyzed, PD-L1 positivity in ACs and SCCs was 21.6% (61/283) and 47.5% (43/91), respectively, and only SUVmax was obviously associated with PD-L1 expression. Furthermore, multivariate analysis revealed that only SUVmax was an independent predictor of PD-L1 positive expression in overall NSCLC, AC, and SCC. Using a SUVmax cut-off value of 12.5, PD-L1 status of NSCLC was predicted by FDG PET/CT with sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of 65.4%, 86.7%, and 80.7%, respectively. Conclusions PD-L1 expression of NSCLC was related to SUVmax, TLG, man, smoking, and central location. However, only SUVmax was an independent predictor of PD-L1 positivity, which could help to explore the existence of immune checkpoints.

Background Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer incidence and mortality. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for the vast majority of lung cancer, which lacks comprehensive prognostic biomarkers to predict the prognosis of patients. This research was performed to assess the potential prognostic role of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in patients with NSCLC. Methods We searched the following databases: PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Ovid MEDLINE(R) up to May 20, 2019 to identify studies which explored the association between circRNAs and NSCLC. Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) was applied to assess the quality of the included studies. Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) and the corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated to assess the prognostic value of circRNAs in patients with NSCLC. Subgroup analyses were performed to explain heterogeneity among the included studies. Publication bias was estimated using Begg's funnel plot. Sensitivity analysis was performed to test the stability of pooled results. Results A total of 19 eligible studies including 1,650 NSCLC patients were included in this research. Pooled results indicated that the up-regulated expression of circRNAs was significantly associated with worse prognosis of patients with NSCLC (HR =2.08, 95% CI: 1.81-2.40). Conclusions Our finding indicated that circRNAs could serve as prognostic biomarkers in patients with NSCLC. However, further large-scale prospective studies about the clinical significance of circRNAs are of great need in order to obtain conclusive results.

Recently, leveraging on the development of end-to-end convolutional neural networks, deep stereo matching networks have achieved remarkable performance far exceeding traditional approaches. However, state-of-the-art stereo frameworks still have difficulties at finding correct correspondences in texture-less regions, detailed structures, small objects and near boundaries, which could be alleviated by geometric clues such as edge contours and corresponding constraints. To improve the quality of disparity estimates in these challenging areas, we propose an effective multi-task learning network, EdgeStereo, composed of a disparity estimation branch and an edge detection branch, which enables end-to-end predictions of both disparity map and edge map. To effectively incorporate edge cues, we propose the edge-aware smoothness loss and edge feature embedding for inter-task interactions. It is demonstrated that based on our unified model, edge detection task and stereo matching task can promote each other. In addition, we design a compact module called residual pyramid to replace the commonly-used multi-stage cascaded structures or 3-D convolution based regularization modules in current stereo matching networks. By the time of the paper submission, EdgeStereo achieves state-of-art performance on the FlyingThings3D dataset, KITTI 2012 and KITTI 2015 stereo benchmarks, outperforming other published stereo matching methods by a noteworthy margin. EdgeStereo also achieves comparable generalization performance for disparity estimation because of the incorporation of edge cues.

Purpose The accounts receivable pool (ARP) is an e-invoice management system that provides suppliers with easy access to financial service. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the strength and weakness of ARP mechanism and suggest efficient methods to identify creditworthy borrowers. Design/methodology/approach By decomposing the sales records of 348 ARP borrowers and predicting the occurrence of overdue incidences, this study first portrays the creditworthy borrowers by sales features. Then, content analysis was applied to measure the loadings of soft and hard information, and examined the effectiveness of different information structures in creditworthiness assessment. Findings For ARP borrowers, upward trend and low volatility reveal their creditworthiness. In order to identify creditworthy borrowers beforehand, ARP financiers who have elaborated more soft information and less hard information can perform better. Originality/value This study first discussed ARP finance from a critical perspective and underlines borrower assessment to eliminate the defect of loose recourse. The empirical evidence presents the sales features of creditworthy borrowers. Moreover, the results suggest an efficient approach for ARP financiers to conduct better assessment.

Pyrophosphate synthetase-1(PRS-1) is a crucial enzyme that catalyzes the synthesis of phosphoribosylpyrophosphate (PRPP) with substrate: adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and ribose-5-phophate(R5P) in the de novo pathways of purine and pyrimidine nucleotide synthesis. Mutation in PRPS1 can result in a series of diseases of purine metabolism, which includes PRS-1 superactivity. The common clinical phenotypes are hyperuricemia and hyperuricosuria. We identified a novel missense mutation in X-chromosomal gene PRPS1 in a young Chinese woman while her mother has heterogeneous genotype and phenotype. A 24-year-old Chinese female patient suffered hyperuricemia, gout, and recurrent hyperpyrexia for more than 6 years, and then was diagnosed with hyperandrogenism, insulin resistance (IR), and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). A novel missense mutation, c.521(exon)G>T, p.(Gly174Val) was detected by next-generation sequencing (NGS) and confirmed by Sanger sequencing in the patient and her parents. Interestingly, her mother has the same heterozygous missense mutation but without uric acid overproduction which can be explained by the phenomenon of the skewed X-chromosome inactivation. The substituted amino acid Val for Gly174 is positioned in the pyrophosphate (PPi) binding loop, and this mutation impacts the binding rate of Mg2+-ATP complex to PRS-1, thus the assembling of homodimer is affected by changed Val174 leading to the instability of the allosteric site. Our report highlights the X-linked inheritance of gout in females caused by mutation in PRPS1 accompanied with severe metabolic disorders and recurrent hyperpyrexia.

The TM-doped Si-based semiconductor clusters have aroused increased attention in a lot of fields. Here, we have performed a structural search of the global minimum for neutral and anionic Sin and L...

PBC is a chronic progressive autoimmune disorder involving the destruction of intrahepatic small bile ducts, cholestasis, fibrosis, and ultimately cirrhosis if left untreated. It is largely driven by the autoimmune response, but bile acids and the intestinal microbiota are implicated in disease progression as well. The only drugs licensed for PBC are UDCA and OCA. UDCA as a first-line and OCA as a second-line therapy are safe and effective, but the lack of response in a significant portion of patients and inadequate control of symptoms such as fatigue and pruritus remain as concerns. Liver transplantation is an end-stage therapy for many patients refractory to UDCA, which gives excellent survival rates but also moderate to high recurrence rates. The limited options for FDA-approved PBC therapies necessitate the development of alternative approaches. Currently, a wide variety of experimental drugs exist targeting immunological and physiological aspects of PBC to suppress inflammation. Immunological therapies include drugs targeting immune molecules in the B cell and T cell response, and specific cytokines and chemokines implicated in inflammation. Drugs targeting bile acids are also noteworthy as bile acids can perpetuate hepatic inflammation and lead to fibrosis over time. These include FXR agonists, ASBT inhibitors, and PPAR agonists such as bezafibrate and fenofibrate. Nonetheless, many of these drugs can only delay disease progression and fail to enhance patients' quality of life. Nanomedicine shows great potential for treatment of autoimmune diseases, as it provides a new approach that focuses on tolerance induction rather than immunosuppression. Tolerogenic nanoparticles carrying immune-modifying agents can be engineered to safely and effectively target the antigen-specific immune response in autoimmune diseases. These may work well with PBC especially, given the anatomical features and immunological specificity of the disease. Nanobiological therapy is thus an area of highly promising research for future treatment of PBC.

ObjectiveTo investigate the association between hypothyroxinemia and the risk of preeclampsia–eclampsia and gestational hypertension.DesignHistorical cohort study.MethodsThe study included pregnant individuals who delivered live-born singletons and had at least one thyroid function assessment during pregnancy at a tertiary hospital. Hypothyroxinemia was defined as thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels within the normal reference range and free thyroxine (FT4) levels lower than the tenth percentile. Risk ratios (RRs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) for preeclampsia–eclampsia and gestational hypertension between women with and without a diagnosis of hypothyroxinemia during pregnancy were estimated using a generalized estimating equation model.ResultsA total of 59,463 women with live-born singletons were included in the analysis. Logistic regression models with restricted cubic spline suggested that there was a U-shaped association between FT4 levels and preeclampsia–eclampsia risk. Compared with euthyroid women, those with hypothyroxinemia had an increased risk of preeclampsia–eclampsia (RR = 1.16, 95% CI: 1.02–1.31), and the risk increased with the increasing severity of hypothyroxinemia (p for trend < 0.001). Moreover, persistent hypothyroxinemia from the first to second trimesters was associated with an increased risk of preeclampsia–eclampsia (RR = 1.37, 95% CI: 1.03–1.83), especially for women with severe hypothyroxinemia (RR = 1.70, 95% CI: 1.12–2.58). In contrast, there was no association between hypothyroxinemia and gestational hypertension.ConclusionOur study suggested that hypothyroxinemia was only associated with an increased risk of preeclampsia–eclampsia, especially in women with persistent hypothyroxinemia in the first half of pregnancy. Analyses of the associated risk of gestational hypertension with hypothyroxinemia were not significant.

Background This study aims to establish a predictive model on the basis of 18F-FDG PET/CT for diagnosing the nature of pleural effusion (PE) in patients with lung adenocarcinoma. Methods Lung adenocarcinoma patients with PE who underwent 18F-FDG PET/CT were collected and divided into training and test cohorts. PET/CT parameters and clinical information in the training cohort were collected to estimate the independent predictive factors of malignant pleural effusion (MPE) and to establish a predictive model. This model was then applied to the test cohort to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy. Results A total of 413 lung adenocarcinoma patients with PE were enrolled in this study, including 245 patients with MPE and 168 patients with benign PE (BPE). The patients were divided into training (289 patients) and test (124 patients) cohorts. CEA, SUVmax of tumor and attachment to the pleura, obstructive atelectasis or pneumonia, SUVmax of pleura, and SUVmax of PE were identified as independent significant factors of MPE and were used to construct a predictive model, which was graphically represented as a nomogram. This predictive model showed good discrimination with the area under the curve (AUC) of 0.970 (95% CI 0.954–0.986) and good calibration. Application of the nomogram in the test cohort still gave good discrimination with AUC of 0.979 (95% CI 0.961–0.998) and good calibration. Decision curve analysis demonstrated that this nomogram was clinically useful. Conclusions Our predictive model based on 18F-FDG PET/CT showed good diagnostic performance for PE, which was helpful to differentiate MPE from BPE in patients with lung adenocarcinoma.

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) tilt photogrammetry technology is a new technology that uses UAVs to obtain high-definition images, and has fast response data acquisition capabilities. In the hydropower industry, UAV tilt photogrammetry technology can obtain panoramic images, perform aerial monitoring, produce real-life three-dimensional models and achieve engineering calculations, providing intuitive geomorphological analysis and reliable data sources for projects. This paper briefly describes the types and system composition of UAV, and discusses the key technology of UAV tilt photogrammetry for digital modeling of hydropower station landform.

BackgroundLaparoscopic gastrectomy (LG) has been increasingly used for the treatment of locally advanced Siewert type II and III adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction (AEG). However, whether LG can achieve the same short-term efficacy in the treatment of patients who receive neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) remains controversial. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the clinical outcomes of NACT combined with LG for Siewert type II and III AEG.MethodsThis retrospective study identified patients with locally advanced Siewert type II and III AEG diagnosed between May 2011 and October 2020 using the clinical tumor-node-metastasis (cTNM) staging system. The short-term outcomes were compared between the matched groups using a 1:3 propensity score matching (PSM) method, which was performed to reduce bias in patient selection.ResultsAfter PSM, 164 patients were selected, including 41 in the NACT group and 123 in the LG group. The baseline characteristics were similar between the two groups. Compared with the LG group, the NACT group exhibit a smaller tumor size and significantly less advanced pathological tumor classification and nodal classification stages. The time to first flatus of the NACT group was significantly shorter, but the hospital stay was significantly longer than that of the LG group. The NACT group showed similar overall (29.3% vs 25.2%, P=0.683), systemic (24.4% vs 21.1%, P=0.663), local (12.2% vs 9.8%, P=0.767), minor (19.5% vs 19.5%, P=1.000) and major (9.8% vs 5.7%, P=0.470) complications as the LG group. Subgroup analyses showed no significant differences in most stratified parameters. Operation time≥ 300 minutes was identified as an independent risk factor for overall complications. Age≥ 60 years was identified as an independent risk factor for major complications.ConclusionNACT combined with LG for AEG does not increase the risk of postoperative morbidity and mortality compared with LG.

Ethnopharmacological relevance Fructus Tribuli (FT) has been commonly used as a traditional medicine for thousands of years. With the diverse uses of FT, more attention has been paid to its hepatorenal toxicity. However, the compounds causing the hepatorenal toxicity of FT remain undetermined. Terrestrosin D (TED), a major spirostanol saponin isolated from FT, may exert hepatorenal toxicity. Aim of the study This study aimed to evaluate the potential hepatorenal toxicity of TED, and preliminarily explore the possible mechanism of TED-induced hepatorenal toxicity. Materials and methods Cytotoxicity assays, a repeated-dose 28-day in-vivo study, a toxicokinetic study, and a tissue distribution study were used to evaluate the potential hepatorenal toxicity of TED. Furthermore, network pharmacology was applied to preliminarily explore the possible mechanism of TED-induced hepatorenal toxicity. Results Both the in vitro and in vivo studies showed that the spirostanol saponin TED had potential hepatorenal toxicity. Nonetheless, hepatorenal toxicity induced by oral treatment with TED at a dosage range of 5 – 15 mg/kg daily for 28 consecutive days to Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats was reversible after 14 days of TED withdrawal. The toxicokinetic study demonstrated that the systematic exposure of SD rats to TED had an accumulation phenomenon and a dose-dependent trend after a 28-day repeated-dose oral administration. The tissue distribution study revealed that TED had a targeted distribution in the liver and kidneys accompanied by a phenomenon of accumulation in SD rats. Network pharmacology combined with molecular docking methods was used to screen for the key targets (HSP90AA1, CNR1, and DRD2) and the key pathways of TED-induced hepatorenal toxicity. Conclusions The spirostanol saponin TED, a major spirostanol saponin isolated from FT, had potential hepatorenal toxicity.

Programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) blockade is considered contraindicated in liver transplant (LT) recipients due to potentially lethal consequences of graft rejection and loss. Though post-transplant PD-1 blockade had already been reported, pre-transplant use of PD-1 blockade has not been thoroughly investigated. This study explores the safety and efficacy of neoadjuvant PD-1 blockade in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after registration on the waiting list. Seven transplant recipients who underwent neoadjuvant PD-1 blockade combined with lenvatinib and subsequent LT were evaluated. The objective response rate (ORR) and disease control rate (DCR) was 71% and 85% according to the mRECIST criteria. Additionally, a literature review contained 29 patients were conducted to summarize the PD-1 blockade in LT for HCC. Twenty-two LT recipients used PD-1 inhibitors for recurrent HCC. 9.1% (2/22) and 4.5% (1/22) recipients achieved complete remission (CR) and partial remission (PR), respectively; 40.9% (9/22) recipients had progressive disease (PD). Allograft rejection occurred in 45% of patients. In total, seven patients from our center and three from the literature used pretransplant anti-PD-1 antibodies, eight patients (80%) had a PR, and the disease control rate was 100%. Biopsy-proven acute rejection (BPAR) incidence was 30% (3 in 10 patients), two patients died because of BPAR. This indicated that neoadjuvant PD-1-targeted immunotherapy plus tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI) exhibited promising efficacy with tolerable mortality in transplant recipients under close clinical monitoring.

variable selection is critical to select characteristic variables of critical quality attributes to improve model performance and interpret the identified variables in multivariate calibration. However, classical variable selection methods were developed and optimized by the prediction error. It is rare for the robustness evaluation of variable selection methods. In this study, the robustness of four different variable selection methods was investigated by adding different types of simulate noises to validation set and calibration and validation sets, respectively. The reproducibility as well as root mean squared error of prediction (RMSEP) were used together as common measure in assessing the robustness of different variable selection methods. The robustness of four variable selection methods method was investigated using two near infrared (NIR) datasets including open-source dataset of corn and Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) dataset. The result illustrated that variable importance in projection (VIP) was substantially more robust to additive noise, with smaller RMSEP value and high reproducibility. This provides a novel strategy for the reliability evaluation of variable selection methods in NIR model of critical quality attributes.

Background: Growing evidence suggests that the bidirectional interactions between cancer cells and their surrounding environment namely the tumor microenvironment (TME), contributes to cancer progression, metastasis, and resistance to treatment. Intense investigation of Hippo pathway, which controls multiple central cellular function to tumorigenesis, was focused on cancer cells. However, the role of Hippo pathway in modulating tumor–stromal interactions in triple negative breast cancer remains largely unknow. This study therefore focused on revealing effects of Hippo-YAP/TAZ signaling to immune microenvironment.Methods: The correlation between Hippo/YAP signaling and the abundance of immune cells were estimated by Immune Cell Abundance Identifier. Clinical TNBC samples from 120 patients were analyzed to assess the correlation between TAZ expression and disease prognosis as well as tumor-infiltrating immune cells. Inflammatory immune profiles, bioinformatics analysis and chromatin immunoprecipitation were performed to identify the expression of immune-related genes that were regulated by TAZ. An in vitro co-culture system was applied to investigate the crosstalk between TNBC cells and tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) modulated by the TAZ/interleukin 34 (IL-34) axis. In vivo tumor growth and metastasis models were used to evaluate the pro-tumor functions of TAZ, IL-34, and TAMs as well as the antitumor efficacy of anti-PD-L1 and IL-34/colony-stimulating factor 1 receptor (CSF-1R) blockade.Results: In TNBC patients, high activity of Hippo pathway was correlated with decreased number of T cells, upregulated TAM infiltration, and poor prognosis. TAZ could directly regulate IL-34 and PD-L1 expression and promote IL-34 secretion in TNBC cells, leading to increased TAM infiltration and distant metastasis. TAM-derived transforming growth factor beta 1 (TGF-β1) could also induce TAZ expression in TNBC cells, thus forming a positive feedback loop between TNBC cells and TAMs. Furthermore, targeting the TAZ/IL-34 axis through its CSF-1R inhibitor could dramatically decrease TAM infiltration and significantly improve anti-PD-L1 efficacy in inhibiting metastasis in TNBC.Conclusions: Activity of Hippo pathway was associated with worse disease outcomes in TNBC and could increase TAM infiltration through the TAZ/IL-34 axis, leading to an immunosuppressive microenvironment and impairing the treatment efficacy of anti-PD-L1. Thus, the TAZ/IL-34 axis can serve as a novel target for TNBC patients.

Background Mounting evidence in the cancer literature suggests that microRNAs (miRNAs) influence the progression of human cancer cells by targeting protein-coding genes. How insulin-like growth factor 1(IGF1) and miR-186-3p contribute to the development of cervical cancer (CC) remains unclear. This study examined the regulatory roles of miR-186-3p and IGF1 in CC development. Methods Gene expression levels were determined by qRT-PCR. Proliferation, migration, and apoptosis of CC and normal cells were determined by MTT, Transwell, and caspase-3 activity assays, respectively. Dual-luciferase reporter activity and RNA pull-down assays were performed to identify the target gene of miR-186-3p. Results IGF1 was the target of miR-186-3p. The expression of miR-186-3p inhibited cell proliferation and migration abilities of CC cell lines, but induced the apoptosis rate of CC cells. IGF1 could restore the inhibitory effects of miR-186-3p on the proliferation, migration, and apoptosis abilities of CC cells. Experimental results revealed that miR-186-3p could inhibit IGF1 expression, thereby reducing the viability of CC cells. Conclusions The data suggest that targeting of IGF1 by miR-186-3p could be crucial in regulating the progression of CC.

Background: Insulin resistance (IR) is one of the main pathophysiology of PCOS. Previous studies have shown that 4G/5G polymorphism in promoter region of plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 gene(PAI-1) can affect insulin sensitivity by elevating the level and activity of plasma PAI-1, involved in the formation of IR. In order to elucidate the relationship between 4G/5G polymorphism of PAI-1 gene and PCOS, we used transmission disequilibrium test (TDT) to study the nuclear family of PCOS. Purpose: This study used family-based analysis of TDT to determine whether an association exists between 4G/5G polymorphism of PAI-1 gene and PCOS and in Han Chinese in order to identify PAI-1 gene as a genetic susceptibility factor for PCOS. Methods: Eight hundred and fifty-five participants consisting of 285 trios (mother, father and offspring with PCOS) were recruited from the Center for Reproductive Medicine, Shandong University, from July 2007 to August 2014. 4G/5G polymorphism of PAI-1 gene was genotyped using direct sequencing protocol and TDT was used to analyze the association between PAI-1 gene and PCOS. Results: Though the 5G allele in PAI-1 gene was overtransmitted in families, no statistical significance existed and there was no association between PAI-1 gene and PCOS. The levels of FINS, HOMA-IR and TG were significantly different between obese and lean PCOS and the parents.Conclusion: No significant evidence of association or linkage was found between 4G/5G polymorphism of PAI-1 gene and PCOS, indicating that PAI-1 gene was unlikely to play a major role in the etiology of PCOS in our sample.

Recently, records on stereo matching benchmarks are constantly broken by end-to-end disparity networks. However, the domain adaptation ability of these deep models is quite poor. Addressing such problem, we present a novel domain-adaptive pipeline called AdaStereo that aims to align multi-level representations for deep stereo matching networks. Compared to previous methods for adaptive stereo matching, our AdaStereo realizes a more standard, complete and effective domain adaptation pipeline. Firstly, we propose a non-adversarial progressive color transfer algorithm for input image-level alignment. Secondly, we design an efficient parameter-free cost normalization layer for internal feature-level alignment. Lastly, a highly related auxiliary task, self-supervised occlusion-aware reconstruction is presented to narrow down the gaps in output space. Our AdaStereo models achieve state-of-the-art cross-domain performance on multiple stereo benchmarks, including KITTI, Middlebury, ETH3D, and DrivingStereo, even outperforming disparity networks finetuned with target-domain ground-truths., Comment: Accepted by CVPR 2021

This paper mainly studies the integrated attitude and orbit control of spacecraft under external interference when landing asteroid. Firstly, assuming that only one orbital engine is equipped on the spacecraft, based on the relative orbital dynamic model expressed in the landing point coordinate system and relative attitude dynamics model expressed in the system of proprio-coordinate, an integrated attitude and orbit dynamic model is established. Secondly, based on the filtering Backstepping idea, the nonlinear part of the integrated attitude and orbit model is transformed, the integrated attitude-orbit control law with certain disturbance suppression ability is designed, and the stability analysis of the closed-loop system is given. Finally, the proposed control scheme is simulated by numerical simulation, and compared with the traditional separated attitude and orbit control, the effectiveness and superiority of the integrated attitude and orbit control are verified.

Using a logistic model, this paper empirically investigated farmers' perception of climate change and its determinants based on a field survey of 1 350 rural households across five major grain producing provinces in China. The results show: i) There is an apparent difference in perception levels for long-term temperature and precipitation changes. Specifically, 57.4% of farmers perceived the long-term temperature change correctly, but only 29.7% of farmers perceived the long-term precipitation change correctly; ii) The factors influencing the farmers' perceptions are almost completely different between precipitation and temperature, the former are mostly agriculture related, while latter are mostly non-agriculture related, except for farm size; and iii) Farmers are not expected to pay more attention to long-term precipitation changes over the crop growing seasons, because less than 30% of farmers can correctly perceive long-term precipitation change. Therefore, to improve the accuracy of farmers' perceptions of climate change, the government is recommended to: i) enhance education and training programs; ii) speed up land transfer and expand household land farm size; iii) develop farmer cooperative organizations; iv) invest more in agricultural infrastructure, specifically in major grain producing regions; and v) improve the agricultural environment and increase farming income.

As computer vision develops, pan-tilt platform visual systems are able to track moving target over static camera systems. In this paper, a novel motion-intelligence-based control algorithm for object tracking by controlling pan-tilt platform has been proposed. The algorithm includes the motion control model based on angular speed and the intelligent control algorithm based on reinforcement learning (RL). The motion control model converts deviation between the center point of the tracked target and the center point of the frame to angular speed of pan-tilt platform. It can keep position of the tracked object in the center of the frame automatically. The intelligent control algorithm based on reinforcement learning can reduce the error between the ideal value and the actual value when the pan-tilt platform moves. The two blocks work together to make the pan-tilt platform track a dynamic object more stably and the experiment result shows that both the tracking accuracy and robustness are improved.