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An Autonomous Surface Manipulator System (ASMS) is a versatile system with a robotic manipulator installed onto an Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV), which can bring important technological innovations and efficiency improvements to various ocean applications. To develop a high-performance ASMS, an accurate model of the ASMS is required. However, existing models have limitations, such as neglecting the dynamic coupling between manipulators and USVs and not being suitable for stability analysis of ASMS. Hence, this paper proposed a modeling method for ASMS considering the dynamic coupling between the manipulator and the USV and performed stability analysis of the ASMS with the proposed model. Firstly, a six-degree-of-freedom ASMS model is introduced using the Newton-Euler equations. Then, an ASMS prototype is developed to validate the model, with its parameters identified through experiments. Subsequently, the motions of the USV are measured and compared with the calculated values under various motions of the manipulator. The accuracy of the proposed ASMS model is validated by the calculated errors of maximum roll angles and stable roll angles of the USV, which are less than 2deg and 1.1deg, respectively. Finally, a stability indicator is proposed, and the stability of the ASMS is analyzed. • A dynamic model for autonomous surface manipulator systems (ASMS) is proposed. • The dynamic model considered the motion coupling between the manipulator and the USV. • Experiments for model validation were conducted using a prototype of ASMS. • A stability index was proposed, and stability analysis was performed for the ASMS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circular RNA (circRNA), one of the important non-coding RNA molecules with a closed-loop structure, plays a key regulatory role in cell processing. In this study, circRNAs of Epinephelus coioides , an important marine cultured fish in China, were isolated and characterized, and the network of circRNAs and mRNA was explored during Singapore grouper iridovirus (SGIV) infection, one of the most important double stranded DNA virus pathogens of marine fish. 10 g of raw data was obtained by high-throughput sequencing, and 2599 circRNAs were classified. During SGIV infection, 123 and 37 circRNAs occurred differential expression in spleen and spleen cells, indicating that circRNAs would be involved in the viral infection. GO annotation and KEGG demonstrated that circRNAs could target E. coioides genes to regulate cell activity and the activation of immune factors. The results provide some insights into the circRNAs mediated immune regulatory network during bony fish virus infection. • CircRNAs from Epinephelus coioides was identified and characterized. • The relationship of circRNA and mRNA was explored. • The function of E. coioides CircRNAs was evaluated during SGIV infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • A duplex PCR for the simultaneous detection of EHP and IHHNV was developed. • The detection limit of the duplex PCR could reach 1.5 × 102 copies/μL for EHP and IHHNV. • 578 L. vannamei samples were detected by the developed duplex PCR. • There is a certain synergistic effect between EHP and IHHNV. Infectious hypodermal and hematopoietic necrosis virus (IHHNV) is one of the linearly single-stranded DNA viruses. Ecytonucleospora hepatopenaei (EHP) is an intracellular parasitic microsporidian. IHHNV and EHP are pathogens that have been widely prevalent in shrimp farming. Both of them are associated with growth retardation of the penaeid shrimp, which causes serious economic losses to shrimp farming. Shrimp can be co-infected with IHHNV and EHP. In this study, a rapid duplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was developed and optimized for the simultaneous detection of EHP and IHHNV. The detection limit of the duplex PCR could reach 1.5 × 102 copies for EHP and IHHNV. A total of 578 Litopenaeus vannamei samples were detected by the established duplex PCR detection method. The results suggested that 398 samples were infected with EHP, 362 samples were infected with IHHNV, and 265 samples were co-infected with EHP and IHHNV. The case-control analysis of the detected shrimp samples showed a certain synergistic effect between EHP and IHHNV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, a fault diagnosis approach for a pantograph is developed with collected vibration data from a test rig. Ensemble empirical mode decomposition is used to decompose the signals to get intrinsic mode function, and four kinds of entropies (permu1tation entropy, approximate entropy, sample entropy, and fuzzy entropy) reflecting the working state are extracted as the inputs of the support vector machine based on particle swarm optimization algorithm support vector machine. The effect of data length, embedded dimension, and other parameters on calculation of the entropy value has also been studied. Multiple feature ranking criteria are used to select the useful features and improve the fault diagnosis accuracy of certain measurement points. Experimental results on pantograph vibration analysis have then confirmed that the proposed method provides an effective measure for pantograph diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nonvolatile memory (NVM)-based training-in-memory (TIME) systems have emerged that can process the neural network (NN) training in an energy-efficient manner. However, the endurance of NVM cells is disappointing, rendering concerns about the lifetime of TIME systems, because the weights of NN models always need to be updated for thousands to millions of times during training. Gradient sparsification (GS) can alleviate this problem by preserving only a small portion of the gradients to update the weights. However, conventional GS will introduce nonuniform writes on different cells across the whole NVM crossbars, which significantly reduces the excepted available lifetime. Moreover, an adversary can easily launch malicious training tasks to exactly wear-out the target cells and fast break down the system. In this article, we propose an efficient and effective framework, referred as SGS-ARS, to improve the lifetime and security of TIME systems. The framework mainly contains a structured GS (SGS) scheme for reducing the write frequency, and an aging-aware row swapping (ARS) scheme to make the writes uniform. Meanwhile, we show that the back-propagation mechanism allows the attacker to localize and update fixed memory locations and wear them out. Therefore, we introduce Random-ARS and Refresh techniques to thwart adversarial training attacks, preventing the systems from being fast broken in an extremely short time. Our experiments show that when TIME is programmed to train ResNet-50 on ImageNet dataset, $356\times $ lifetime extension can be achieved without sacrificing the accuracy much or incurring much hardware overhead. Under the adversarial environment, the available lifetime of TIME systems can still be improved by $84\times $. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Neural network (NN) computing is energy-consuming on traditional computing systems, owing to the inherent memory wall bottleneck of the von Neumann architecture and the Moore's Law being approaching the end. Non-volatile memories (NVMs) have been demonstrated as promising alternatives for constructing computing-in-memory (CIM) systems to accelerate NN computing. However, NVM-based NN computing systems are vulnerable to the confidentiality attacks because the weight parameters persist in memory when the system is powered off, enabling an adversary with physical access to extract the well-trained NN models. The goal of this article is to find a solution for thwarting the confidentiality attacks. We define and model the weight encryption problem. Then we propose an effective framework, containing a sparse fast gradient encryption (SFGE) method and a runtime encryption scheduling (RES) scheme, to guarantee the confidentiality security of NN models with a negligible performance overhead. Moreover, we improve the SFGE method by incrementally generating the encryption keys. Additionally, we provide variants of the encryption method to better fit quantized models and various mapping strategies. The experiments demonstrate that only encrypting an extremely small proportion of the weights (e.g., 20 weights per layer in ResNet-101), the NN models can be strictly protected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are widely used in many natural language processing tasks, which employ some convolutional filters to capture useful semantic features of a text. However, a small window size convolutional filter is short of the ability to capture contextual information, simply increasing the window size may bring the problems of data sparsity and enormous parameters. To capture the contextual information, we propose to use the weighted sum operation to obtain contextual word representation. We present one implicit weighting method and two explicit category-aware weighting methods to assign the weights of the contextual information. Experimental results on five text classification datasets show the effectiveness of our proposed methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study aims to investigate the relationship between psychological resilience, thriving at work, and work performance among nurses, as well as analyse the mediating role of thriving at work in the relationship between psychological resilience and the work performance of nurses. The findings are intended to serve as a reference for nursing managers to design tailored work performance intervention programs. Method: Using convenience sampling, 308 clinical nurses were selected from a tertiary hospital in Changsha City, Hunan Province, China, from February to April 2023. The Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), the Thriving at Work Scale, and the Work Performance Scale were employed for the questionnaire survey. Pearson correlation analysis was used to explore the relationship between psychological resilience, thriving at work and work performance. The SPSS 26.0 software's 'Process' plugin was utilised for mediation effect analysis. Results: Significantly positive correlations were found between psychological resilience and thriving at work (r = 0.806, P < 0.01), thriving at work and work performance (r = 0.571, P < 0.01) as well as psychological resilience and work performance (r = 0.572, P < 0.01). Psychological resilience significantly predicted work performance positively (β = 0.558, t = 11.165, P < 0.01), and this prediction remained significant when thriving at work (the mediating variable), was introduced (β = 0.371, t = 4.772, P < 0.01). Psychological resilience significantly predicted thriving at work positively (β = 0.731, t = 20.779, P < 0.01), and thriving at work significantly predicted work performance positively (β = 0.256, t = 3.105, P < 0.05). The mediating effect size of thriving at work between psychological resilience and work performance was 33.49% (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Thriving at work plays a partial mediating role between psychological resilience and work performance. The level of work performance among clinical nurses was relatively high. Nursing managers can enhance thriving at work by fostering psychological resilience among clinical nurses, thereby further improving their work performance to ensure high-quality and efficient nursing care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report a new δ-chain hemoglobin (Hb) variant observed in a 5-year-old female living in Yulin, Guangxi, China. Capillary electrophoresis revealed splitting of the Hb A2 peak into two fractions (Hb A2 and Hb A2 variant), and the Hb A2 variant was also detected by high-performance liquid chromatography. However, it could not be detected using matrix-assisted laser desorption lonization-time of flight mass spectrometry. CD41-42 (-TCTT) heterozygosity was observed on the HBB gene by PCR and reverse dot-blot hybridization. Sanger sequencing showed a new transition (G > A) at codon 46 of the HBD gene, resulting in glycine changing to arginine. Based on the patient's place of residence, the new variant was named Hb A2-Yulin [δ46(CD5)Gly→Arg,HBD:c.139G > A]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two closely timed moderate-sized earthquakes (e.g., the ML 6.6 Guanshan and ML 6.8 Chihshang earthquakes) occurred in eastern Taiwan on 17–18 September 2002. To understand the rupture relationship between the two earthquakes, we used a teleseismic P-wave inversion and rupture directivity analysis to investigate the source parameters of the ML 6.6 Guanshan earthquake. The teleseismic P-wave inversion method assumed earthquake rupture to be a single source to determine the focal mechanism, seismic moment, and azimuth-dependent source duration for the Guanshan earthquake. The rupture directivity analysis using the azimuth-dependent source duration showed that the Guanshan earthquake unilaterally ruptured along a west-dipping fault plane (Central Range fault) with a rupture velocity (Vr) of approximately 2.8 km/s from the hypocenter toward the deeper part of the fault. Furthermore, through time-domain deconvolution, the source time function of the Guanshan earthquake approximated an isosceles triangle, which also indicated that the earthquake rupture was relatively simple. Here, we propose a fault-based relationship between the ML 6.6 Guanshan and ML 6.8 Chihshang earthquakes. After the ML 6.6 Guanshan earthquake, the source area was relocked, preventing the Chihshang earthquake from rupturing southward. Instead, it ruptured the fault from south to north. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emerging resistive random-access memory (RRAM) has been widely applied in accelerating the computing of deep neural networks. However, it is challenging to achieve high-precision computations based on RRAM due to the limits of the resistance level and the interfaces. Low bit-width convolutional neural networks (CNNs) provide promising solutions to introduce low bit-width RRAM devices and low bit-width interfaces in RRAM-based computing system (RCS). While open questions still remain regarding: 1) how to make matrix splitting when a single crossbar is not large enough to hold all parameters of one weight matrix; 2) how to design a pipeline to accelerate the inference based on line buffer structure; and 3) how to reduce the accuracy drop due to the parameter splitting and data quantization. In this paper, we propose an RRAM crossbar-based low bit-width CNN (LB-CNN) accelerator. We make detailed discussion on the system design, including the matrix splitting strategies to enhance the scalability, and the pipelined implementation based on line buffers to accelerate the inference. In addition, we propose a splitting and quantizing while training method to incorporate the actual hardware constraints with the training. In our experiments, low bit-width LeNet-5 on RRAM show much better robustness than multibit models with device variation. The pipeline strategy achieves approximately $6.0\times $ speedup to process each image on ResNet-18. For low-bit VGG-8 on CIFAR-10, the proposed accelerator saves 54.9% of the energy consumption and 48.3% of the area compared with the multibit VGG-8 structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To ensure data availability and save storage space, storage systems usually save data across multiple storage nodes (or servers) using erasure codes. Storage systems need to reconstruct the complete data to respond to reading requests in the case of the loss of some data blocks when node failure occurs. However, a degraded read in erasure code-based storage systems does not fully utilize node resources and ignores the node's topology. In this paper, we propose a real-time performance evaluation model for storage nodes to evaluate the performance of each node combining a metrics choice and an analytic hierarchy process. We also design a cost evaluation method to calculate the transmission cost by considering the node's topology. By combining the node evaluation method and a distance calculation, we propose an adaptive degraded read optimization strategy, NADE. We further implement the node selection method NADE in Ceph. The evaluation results show the efficiency of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: It is well known that diet Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) is beneficial to colon cancer (CC). However,  the underlying molecular mechanisms of EPA-relating miRNAs on genesis and development of this area is still unclear. Materials and Methods: This study tries to find the function and specific role of EPA in CC through quantitative PCR (qPCR), Western blotting, immunofluorescence (IF), mass spectrometry, and immunohistochemistry (IHC) assays. By these methods, the enrichment of 15-LOX-1 metabolites of EPA, the expression of miR-101 and Cox2, and the relationship among them in CC are measured. Results: The quantity of miR-101 was obviously suppressed in CC tissues and SW480 cells. After application of miR-101 mimics in CC cell lines, the Cox2 expression was inhibited too. Next, we confirmed that EPA could increase the expression of miR-101 induced by 15-LOX-1. Finally, we tested whether EPA functions as a regulator of miR-101 via the production of resolvin E3. Conclusion: Our data demonstrate that the EPA– 15-LOX-1–miR-101-Cox2 signaling pathway owns a crucial position in the pathogenesis and development of diet-related CC. These findings exert exciting meanings for presenting new therapeutic angles in CC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Text classification is an important task in natural language processing. Previous text classification models do not perform well on short texts due to the data sparsity problem. In order to solve this problem, recent research extracts concepts of words to enrich text representation. However, this approach might bring general concepts, which might not be helpful in discriminating categories in text classification. Furthermore, it might bring noise into text representation and lead to performance degradation. To tackle these problems, we propose a neural network called DE-CNN, which can incorporate context-relevant concepts into a convolutional neural network for short text classification. Our model firstly utilizes two layers to extract concepts and context respectively and then employs an attention layer to extract context-relevant concepts. Then the concepts are incorporated into text representation for short text classification. The experimental results on three text classification tasks show that our proposed model outperforms compared state-of-the-art models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extracellular adenosine triphosphate (eATP) and its main metabolite adenosine (ADO) constitute an intrinsic part of immunological network in tumor immunity. The concentrations of eATP and ADO in tumor microenvironment (TME) are controlled by ectonucleotidases, such as CD39 and CD73, the major ecto-enzymes expressed on immune cells, endothelial cells and cancer cells. Once accumulated in TME, eATP boosts antitumor immune responses, while ADO attenuates immunity against tumors. eATP and ADO, like yin and yang, represent two opposite aspects from immune-activating to immune-suppressive signals. Here we reviewed the functions of eATP and ADO in tumor immunity and attempt to block eATP hydrolysis, ADO formation and their contradictory effects in tumor models, allowing the induction of effective anti-tumor immune responses in TME. These attempts documented that therapeutic approaches targeting eATP/ADO metabolism and function may be effective methods in cancer therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To compare the characteristics of choroidal transmission in punctate inner choroidopathy (PIC) with or without choroidal neovascularization (CNV) and myopic CNV (mCNV) using spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT). Methods: This retrospective observational case series includes 22 consecutive myopic patients (22 eyes) recruited from April 2016 until April 2018 who complained of acute blurring of vision and showed evidence of hyper-reflective material on SD-OCT imaging. Each patient underwent a comprehensive eye examination and imaging with fundus fluorescein angiography (FFA), SD-OCT, and SD-OCT angiography (SD-OCTA). Based on the results of SD-OCTA imaging and the color fundus imaging, the patients were divided into 2 groups: a group with myopic choroidal neovascularization (mCNV group, n = 10 eyes) and a group with PIC and no evidence of CNV at baseline (PIC group, n = 12 eyes). Four eyes diagnosed with PIC developed secondary PIC-CNV during follow-up. The characteristics of choroidal transmission in these eyes using SD-OCT imaging were compared. Results: At baseline, none of the PIC lesions showed any evidence of blood flow within the lesions on OCTA imaging. However, all of the eyes with mCNV showed flow signals within the subretinal neovascularization on SD-OCTA and subretinal or intra-retinal fluid on SD-OCT imaging. These eyes with mCNV showed subretinal hyper-reflectivity associated with choroidal hypo-transmission accompanied by retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and ellipsoid zone (EZ) disruption. In eyes with PIC inflammatory lesions, disruption of both the RPE and EZ were observed in 33% of the inflammatory lesions, and disruption of the EZ alone was observed in 67% of the lesions at the baseline. They all showed a hyper-reflective subretinal lesion located above RPE. Three cases (25%) showed evidence of choroidal hyper-transmission at the baseline, while the remaining had normal transmission within the first month after onset. Hyper-transmission then developed in all the lesions as the disease progressed. Four cases of PIC (33%) developed PIC-related CNV that showed choroidal hypo-transmission along with hyper-transmission with disruption of the RPE and EZ. In cases with PIC-related CNV, evidences of neovascularization on SD-OCTA imaging were all detected afterwards. No intra-retinal fluid was detected before secondary CNV occurred. Conclusion: SD-OCT imaging can noninvasively differentiate and track the progression of inflammatory lesions and myopic CNV by using the presence of choroidal hyper-transmission as a sign of just an inflammatory lesion and the presence hypo-transmission as a sign of a secondary CNV, which provides a convenient strategy for diagnosis and treatment of these lesions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aspect-Based Sentiment Analysis (ABSA) is a fine-grained sentiment analysis task, which aims to predict sentiment polarities of given aspects or target terms in text. ABSA contains two subtasks: Aspect-Category Sentiment Analysis (ACSA) and Aspect-Term Sentiment Analysis (ATSA). Aspect embeddings have been extensively used for representing aspect-categories on ACSA task. Based on our observations, existing aspect embeddings cannot properly represent the relation between aspect-categories and aspect-terms. To address this limitation, this paper presents a learning method which trains aspect embeddings according to the relation between aspect-categories and aspect-terms. According to the cosine measure metric we proposed in this paper, the limitation is successfully alleviated in the aspect embeddings which are trained by our method. The trained aspect embeddings can be used as initialization in existing models to solve ACSA task. We conduct experiments on SemEval datasets for ACSA task, and the results indicate that our pre-trained aspect embeddings are capable of improving the performance of sentiment analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: With the rapid development of intervertebral disc interventional technology, surgical treatment of lumbar disc herniation has made great progress, but at the same time, surgeons and patients have more choices. Therefore, it is particularly important to compare the efficacy and safety of new surgical methods and traditional widely accepted treatment methods. Traditional meta-analysis cannot classify the advantages and disadvantages of various surgical methods. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of seven surgical interventions for the treatment of lumbar disc herniation using network meta-analysis. METHODS: We performed a Bayesian-framework network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials to compare seven surgical interventions for people with lumbar disc herniation, including percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy, standard open discectomy, standard open microsurgical discectomy, chemonucleolysis, microendoscopic discectomy, percutaneous laser disc decompression, and automated percutaneous lumbar discectomy. The eligible randomized controlled trials were identified by searching the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), PubMed, Embase and Google scholar. Data from three outcomes (success rate, complication rate, and reoperation rate) were independently extracted by two assessors. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: (1 ) A total of 29 randomized controlled trials (31 literatures) including 3 146 participants were finally included into this article. (2) Our Meta-analysis provides hierarchies of these seven interventions. For the success rate, the rank probability is as follows (from best to worst}: percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy > standard open discectomy >standard open microsurgical discectomy > chemonucleolysis > microendoscopic discectomy > percutaneous laser disc decompression> automated percutaneous lumbar discectomy. (3) For the complication rate, the rank probability is as follows (from best to worst}: percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy > standard open microsurgical discectomy > standard open discectomy > microendoscopic discectomy > percutaneous laser disc decompression > chemonucleolysis >automated percutaneous lumbar discectomy. (4) For the reoperation rate, the rank probability is as follows (from best to worst): standard open microsurgical discectomy > standard open discectomy > microendoscopic discectomy > percutaneous laser disc decompression > percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy > chemonucleolysis > automated percutaneous lumber discectomy. (5) This meta-analysis provides evidence that percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy might be the best choice to increase the success rate and decrease the complication rate. Moreover, standard open microsurgical discectomy might be the best option to drop the reoperation rate. Automated percutaneous lumbar discectomy might lead to the lowest success rate and the highest complication rate. It is hoped that one-to-one randomized controlled trials of high quality will further validate the results of this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aerial parts of Tetrastigma hemsleyanum (APTH) have been used as a functional tea in China. The purpose of the current study was to identify the bioactive constituents with inhibitory activity against soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) and inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), which are jointly considered potential therapeutic targets for vascular system diseases. In the present study, 39 compounds (1–39) were isolated from the APTH. Among them, compounds 8, 10, 12, 16, 17, 19, and 32 displayed potential activities, with IC50 values ranging from 4.5 to 9.5 µM, respectively, and all in non-competitive inhibition mode. Compounds 5, 10, 12, 19, and 32 displayed potent iNOS inhibitory effects, with IC50 values ranging from 15.6 to 47.3 µM. The results obtained in this work contribute to a better understanding of the pharmacological activities of T. hemsleyanum and its potential application as a functional food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard methods for two-sample tests such as the t-test and Wilcoxon rank sum test may lead to incorrect type I errors when applied to longitudinal or clustered data. Recent alternatives of two-sample tests for clustered data often require certain assumptions on the correlation structure and/or noninformative cluster size. In this paper, based on a novel pseudolikelihood for correlated data, we propose a score test without knowledge of the correlation structure or assuming data missingness at random. The proposed score test can capture differences in the mean and variance between two groups simultaneously. We use projection theory to derive the limiting distribution of the test statistic, in which the covariance matrix can be empirically estimated. We conduct simulation studies to evaluate the proposed test and compare it with existing methods. To illustrate the usefulness proposed test, we use it to compare self-reported weight loss data in a friends' referral group, with the data from the Internet self-joining group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the development of deep neural networks, Sequence-to-sequence (Seq2Seq) models become a popular technique of conversation models. Current Seq2Seq models with single encoder-decoder structures tend to generate responses which contain high frequency patterns on datasets. However, these patterns are always generic and meaningless. Generic and meaningless responses will lead the conversation between computer and human to an end quickly. According to our observations, human conversations are always topic related. If the conversation data can be divided into different clusters according to their topics, high frequency patterns will be topic related rather than generic. We consider that a model trained in different clusters can generate more topic related and meaningful responses. Inspired by this idea, we propose a Multi-Encoder Neural Conversation (MENC) model. MENC can make use of topic information by its multi-encoder structure. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first work which applies multi-encoder structures into conversation models. We conduct our experiments on two daily conversation datasets. Our experiments show that MENC gets a better performance than other mainstream models on both subject and object evaluation metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enhance the heat dissipation of high-power light-emitting diodes (LEDs), corona wind based on corona discharge was promoted. In this paper, we aimed at reinforcing the intensity of corona wind by modifying the needle electrode with graphene solution. To explore the differences in the graphene-coated electrode and the original bare electrode on the electrical characteristics, the intensity of corona wind, and LED heat dissipation, a corona wind cooling system and a thermal test system were built for the experimental study. The results showed that the graphene-coated electrode system could produce corona wind at a lower voltage. In addition, the discharge current of the graphene-coated electrode system is higher than that of the bare electrode system under the same discharge voltage. The graphene-coated electrode system can induce a faster corona wind and the highest speed is about 3.4 m/s, showing that it is more efficient than the bare electrode system in corona wind production. Moreover, the temperature drop of LEDs for the graphene-coated system is greater, which means that the corona wind cooling system can reduce the junction temperature of the LED chips effectively. Ultimately, as the discharge power increases, the average convective heat transfer coefficient increases. Indeed, the result of this paper can be used for the wide variety of the graphene-coated corona wind generator application as a promising technology for the LED heat management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scaffold hopping of N -benzyl-3,4,5-trimethoxyaniline afforded 5,6,7-trimethoxyflavan derivatives that were efficiently synthesized in four linear steps. As lung cancer is the most lethal cancer, twenty-three synthesized compounds were evaluated against a panel of lung cancer cells. Amongst, compounds 8q and 8e showed interesting activity. Hence, compounds 8q and 8e were evaluated against panels of diverse cancers. Compounds 8q and 8e showed broad spectrum anticancer activity. However, compound 8q was more effective and, hence, was advanced for potency evaluation and characterization. Compound 8q showed comparable potencies to gefitinib, and oxaliplatin against lung and colorectal cancers, respectively, and superior potencies to temozolomide, dacarbazine, cisplatin, enzalutamide, methotrexate, imatinib against brain, skin, ovary, prostate, breast, and blood cancers, respectively. Compound 8q increased cleaved PARP, caspase 3, and 7 inducing apoptosis. In addition, it inhibited cyclins A, B 1 , H and cdc25c, and increased p53 triggering cell cycle arrest in G 2 /M phase. Moreover, it decreased YAP and increased LATS1 and p-mob1/mob1 activating hippo signaling. Furthermore, it decreased p-PI3K/PI3k, p -mTOR/mTOR and p-P70S6K/P70S6K inhibiting PI3k pathway. Together, these findings present compound 8q as a potential anticancer lead compound for further development of potential agents. [Display omitted] • Scaffold hoping of N -benzyl-3,4,5-trimethoxyaniline core into 5,6,7-trimethoxyflavan. • Compounds 8q and 8e showed broad spectrum anticancer activity against diverse cancers. • Compound 8q was more effective anticancer and it increased cleaved PARP, caspase 3, and 7 inducing apoptosis. • Compound 8q inhibited cyclins A, B 1 , H and cdc25c, and increased p53 triggering cell cycle arrest in G 2 /M phase. • Compound 8q activated hippo signaling pathway and inhibited PI3k pathway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method of luminol-diazonium chemiluminescence (CL) induced by microplasma for hazardous substance detection is proposed. The luminol-diazonium CL is caused by microplasma jet, rather than hydrogen peroxide reagent or other oxidizing agents. The CL intensity is increased by the concentration of nitrites. Based on the process of microplasma generation and CL mechanism, the optimal work conditions of the method are obtained. The linear range for nitrites detection is 0.03–1 mmol L−1 with the limit of detection (LOD) of 0.01 mmol L−1. Furthermore, a miniature system using test paper and smartphone is designed for nitrites detection in emergency. The detection system is confined in the custom-tailored shell which is only 28 cm in length, 18 cm in width and 10 cm in height. After microplasma jet treatment, the color of the test paper changes with the NO 2 − concentration. The photographs of the test paper are taken by the built-in camera of smartphone and analyzed by visiting the website via smartphone. The LOD is 1 mmol L−1 obtained by the CL miniature detection system based on test paper and smartphone. The accuracy, reliability and practicability of the proposed method is verified in this paper. [Display omitted] • A CL method induced by microplasma for nitrites detection is proposed. • No reagent of hydrogen peroxide is used in the CL system. • The CL mechanism and the process of microplasma generation are investigated. • With test paper and smartphone, nitrites can be detected in emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Topic models like Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and its variants is a type of statistical model for discovering latent topics. However, as revealed by the previous research, some topics generated by LDA may be uninterpretable and semantically incoherent due to the occurrence of irrelevant words in these topics. To improve the semantic qualities of automatically discovered topics, we explore the distributional characteristics of words across topics to identify topic-indiscriminate words which are blamed for the low-quality topics. The main contribution of our research reported in this paper is that we develop a novel framework named Iterative Term Weighting Framework (ITWF) which can effectively identify and filter out topic-indiscriminate words from uncovered topics. In particular, the proposed framework first applies an entropy-based term weighting schemes and adopts a novel iterative method to identify topic-indiscriminate words. To the best of our knowledge, our research is among the very few successful work that aims to enhance both the semantic coherence and the interpretability of LDA-based topic modeling methods. The experimental results show that the proposed framework improves the effectiveness of LDA as well as its variants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was designed to investigate the therapeutic effect of bone marrow MSC‐derived factors on gonadotropic toxicity induced by busulfan in vivo. The conditioned media (CM) was obtained from MSCs in serum‐free incubation for 48 hr and concentrated ~25‐fold by ultrafiltration. The CM of HEK 293 cells was treated as control (293‐CM). MSC‐CM was injected into busulfan mice via caudal veins after 1 day of busulfan treatment for 2 weeks (200 μl per dose/twice weekly）. Compared to the 293‐CM group, testicular injury was delayed in MSC‐CM group, including reduced vacuolations of cells in the basal compartment of the seminiferous epithelium and detachment of cells from basement membrane. Apoptotic spermatogenic cells were significantly decreased in MSC‐CM group (p ＜ 0.05). Interesting N‐cadherin，ICAM‐1 and P‐cadherin expressions significantly increased in MSC‐CM group, while occludin, ZO‐1 and connexin 43 expressions showed no difference among MSC‐CM, 293‐CM and busulfan groups. Present results suggest MSC‐secreted factors protect spermatogenesis impairment after busulfan treatment by reducing the apoptosis of spermatogenic cells and enhancing intercellular adhesion molecule expressions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary High voltage is an obstacle when applying electrohydrodynamics technology. Nanomaterials are good candidates for its extraordinary electrical properties and heat‐conducting characteristics. An originally designed ionic wind cooling system was secured with graphene using the dip‐coating method to study the cooling effect for the high‐power light‐emitting diodes. The experiment results indicated that the graphene on the needles' surface acted as new emitting electrode with a smaller curvature radius. The corona discharge current density increased, and the ionic wind inception voltage decreased, because of the high aspect ratios and the field emission characteristic of graphene. The maximum ionic wind volume velocity was improved by 41.3% when the discharge gap was 10 mm, which was attributed to the local electric field enhancement and the electron field emission effect that the graphene had. The best cooling performance was obtained when the needles and the heat sink were both coated with graphene. The junction temperature decreased 21%, and the luminous flux increased 5.6% at the discharge gap of 15 mm, taking the electrostatic screening effect into consideration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gut microbiome in human is recognized as a "microbial organ" for its roles and contributions in regulating the human homeostasis and metabolism. Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, especially colorectal cancer (CRC), rank as the most common cancer-related deaths worldwide. Evidences have suggested that the disorder of gut microbiota, also named as "dysbiosis," is related to the development of a variety of diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and the CRC. However, detailed mechanisms between disease and gut microbiota remain largely unknown. This review introduced the correlation between gastrointestinal diseases and the microbiota in human gut from the recent studies, as well as the roles of microbiota in manipulating the CRC and IBDs development, in order to facilitate future studies and to develop novel methods for the precaution, diagnosis, or even cure of gastrointestinal diseases. Additionally, we also elucidated the possibility of probiotics in treatment against CRC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Mebendazole was first used as template to synthesize a MIP for benzimidazoles. • Its recognition mechanism for 8 drugs was studied by computation simulation. • The MIP was used to prepare a chemiluminescence sensor on 96-well microplate. • The sensor can simultaneously determine 8 benzimidazoles in meat sample. • The sensor achieves ultrahigh sensitivity (pg/mL) and can be reused for 4 times. Abstract In this study, a molecularly imprinted polymer capable of recognizing 8 benzimidazoles was first synthesized. The computation simulation showed that the shape and size of used template were the main factors influencing its recognition ability. Then the polymer was used as recognition reagent to prepare a chemiluminescence sensor on conventional 96-well microplate. The sample solution and a HRP-labeled hapten were added into the microplate wells to perform competitive binding, and the light signal was initiated with 4-(imidazol-1-yl)phenol enhanced luminol-H 2 O 2 system. The optimized sensor was used to determine the residues of 8 benzimidazoles in mutton and beef. Result showed that the sensor achieved ultrahigh sensitivity (limits of detection of 1.5–21 pg/mL), rapid assay process (18 min) and satisfactory recovery (65.8%–91.2%). Furthermore, this sensor could be reused for 4 times. Therefore, this sensor could be used as a rapid, simple, sensitive and durable tool for screening the residual benzimidazoles in meat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • O 3 and BAC synergistically degraded the pollutants in biotreated textile wastewater. • Ozonated hydrophobic/hydrophilic fluorophores were more susceptible to BAC. • O 3 -BAC removed more low-MW fraction and formed less high-MW fraction than BAC. • Changing patterns of EDC-SUVA 254 were different for ozonation and BAC. Abstract The advanced treatment of bio-treated dyeing and finishing wastewater (BDFW) in textile industries is urgently necessitated to reduce the discharge of pollutants from industrial wastewater and enhance wastewater reclamation. In this study, it was found that ozonation and biological activated carbon (O 3 -BAC) can synergistically degrade the dissolved organic carbon (43.0%), chemical oxygen demand (45.8%), color (73.0%), and specific UV absorbance (SUVA 254) (29.7%) of BDFW. BAC alone could hardly degrade the fluorophore, but ozonation can transfer hydrophobic or hydrophilic protein-like fluorophore to less fluorescent transformation products that were more susceptible to biological degradation by BAC treatment. In comparison to BAC alone, O 3 -BAC, on one way, promoted the mineralization (27.0%–36.3%) of DOC and the degradation of chromophores (43.8%–48.0%) with low MW (<1 kDa); on another way, inhibited the formation of high MW fraction (>3 kDa) that was formed by BAC. Ozonation of BDFW resulted in a larger decrease of SUVA 254 than electron donating capacity (EDC), while the BAC treatment of BDFW and ozonated BDFW induced contrasting results. This was likely due to the different degradation patterns that O 3 decomposed DOM dominantly via the O 3 -addtion reactions, while biological process would simultaneously reduce low MW fractions with relatively higher EDC and form high MW fractions with lower EDC and more aromaticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Objective Prostate cancer (PCa) is one of the most prevalent cancers affecting men worldwide. However, the biological functions of circRNAs in PCa are still largely unknown. Methods Real-time PCR (RT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry were performed to characterize the circ-102004 expression in both human PCa tissues and cell lines. The apoptosis and cell cycle status of prostate immortalized cell lines that were overexpressed with circ-102004 by transfection was analyzed using flow cytometry. The scratch test and the Transwell assay were conducted to evaluate the ability of transfected cells to migrate and invade. RNA sequencing, pathway analysis, and Western blotting were performed to probe the associations of circ-102004 with the classical cancer signaling pathways after functionally evaluating circ-102004 in a xenograft tumor model. Results In the present study, circ-102004 expression was found to be significantly higher in PCa samples than in the matched normal tissues. In functional experiments, circ-102004 is shown to play an oncogenic role in PCa by stimulating cancer cell migration and invasion. Circ-102004 overexpression was also accompanied by significant alterations in many signaling pathways, such as ERK, JNK, and Hedgehog, which are known to cause different types of cancers. Conclusions Circ-102004 is a potential oncogenic gene that regulates the development and progression of PCa. This study provides a scientific basis for targeting circ-102004 for either diagnosis or therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract The EDGES Collaboration has recently announced the detection of the 21-cm spectrum with an absorption profile centred at 78 megahertz, of which the depth is deeper than that expected by the standard cosmological paradigm. To enrich the heating process of baryons due to scattering with dark matter during dark ages, we in this Letter explore the possibility of extra heat transfer between dark sector compositions and their observational signatures on the 21-cm cosmological spectrum. By parameterizing interaction models of the dark Universe, we find that the observational constraint on the parameter space of dark matter can be slightly relaxed but the discrepancy with the commonly predicted parameter space of weakly interacting massive particles remains. Our analyses also reveal that the interaction between dark compositions may leave observational signatures on the 21-cm spectrum during dark ages and thus would become detectable in the forthcoming 21-cm cosmology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TiO 2 shows great potential as anode materials for sodium-ion batteries (SIBs). However, its practical application has been deferred by the sluggish electronic/ionic transport. In this work, we report the controlled synthesis of ultrathin, carbon-bonded TiO 2 nanotubes with oxygen vacancies ( V o ) and hybridized amorphous/TiO 2 (B) phases via a hydrothermal reaction and heat-treatment. The introduction of V o and carbon in TiO 2 by C-Ti bonding effectively boosts its electron transport. Meantime, the ultrathin TiO 2 nanotubes (with diameter of ∼10 nm and tube thickness of ∼3 nm) enable a large electrode/electrolyte contact interface with shortened Na + diffusion distance. In addition, the formed coherent amorphous/TiO 2 (B) junctions further promote the charge transport and transfer at heterointerface. These synergic effects endow the resultant TiO 2 material with superior Na + storage capability in terms of high capacity (191 mA h/g at 0.2 C) and rate property (141 mA h/g at 10 C). Kinetics analysis further discloses a pseudocapacitive Na + storage exerts a significant contribution to the total capacity. The proposed strategy based on synergic engineering of vacancy defects, chemical bonding and phase composition can pave the way for exploration of novel electrode materials for beyond lithium-ion batteries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we address the problem of difficulty-controllable visual question generation, which is to generate questions that satisfy the given difficulty levels based on the images and target answer. The existing approach seems to generate questions following templates. For easy questions, the model presents both answers and it becomes a choice question; while for hard questions, the answer set is not part of the question. In fact, question difficulty should be reflected by the objects and their relationships in the question. Towards this end, we propose a graph-based model with three concrete modules: Difficulty-controllable Graph Convolutional Network (DGCN) module, fusion module and difficulty-controllable decoder, to generate questions with a controllable level of difficulty. We first define a difficulty label based on the difficult index from the education area to represent the difficulty of a question. Next, a DGCN module is proposed to learn image representations that capture relations between objects in an image conditioned on a given difficulty label. Then, we use a fusion module to jointly attend the image representations and answer representations to capture answer-related image features. Finally, a difficulty-controllable decoder combines difficulty information into decoder initialization and input at each time step to control the difficulty of generated questions. Experimental results demonstrate that our framework not only achieves significant improvements on several automatic evaluation metrics, but also can generate difficulty-controllable questions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work discusses general principles of high-resolution linear time-of-flight (TOF) mass spectrometers across a wide m/z range. Conventional instrument designs are unable to offer adequate performance across a wide m/z range due to inappropriate calculation. Based on big data analyses conducted using comprehensive flight-time topological calculations, high mass resolving power (R m) is available when instrument dimensions and extraction parameters satisfy several preconditions. The result indicates that a longer flight distance does not necessarily provide higher R m. The possibility to achieve high R m for ions of m/z range 100–100,000 are high when the relative length of extraction and acceleration regions to overall instrument length satisfies specific ratios that distinct from conventional designs. With adequate instrument dimensions, achieving optimal R m needs to optimize the voltages and extraction delay in the ion source. Simulation shows that a 900 mm-long instrument of ideal design can enhance R m by more than 250 times (to the order of >100,000) in comparison to the extreme condition of conventional design for ions of m/z 100,000. This general principle can be applied to other TOF instruments of different sizes. The method to finding the ultimate parameters is thoroughly described. [Display omitted] • Comprehensive theoretical principle of high-resolution linear MALDI-TOFMS in wide m/z ranges is described. • Optimum dimension ratios of three major sections of instrument for different m/z ranges are determined for the first time. • Experimental parameters providing high resolution in various m/z ranges are specified. • Limitations in conventional design and practical applications are analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2′- O -methylation (2OM) is an omnipresent post-transcriptional modification in RNAs. It is important for the regulation of RNA stability, mRNA splicing and translation, as well as innate immunity. With the increase in publicly available 2OM data, several computational tools have been developed for the identification of 2OM sites in human RNA. Unfortunately, these tools suffer from the low discriminative power of redundant features, unreasonable dataset construction or overfitting. To address those issues, based on four types of 2OM (2OM-adenine (A), cytosine (C), guanine (G), and uracil (U)) data, we developed a two-step feature selection model to identify 2OM. For each type, the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) combined with mutual information (MI) was proposed to rank sequence features for obtaining the optimal feature subset. Subsequently, four predictors based on eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) or support vector machine (SVM) were presented to identify the four types of 2OM sites. Finally, the proposed model could produce an overall accuracy of 84.3 % on the independent set. To provide a convenience for users, an online tool called i2OM was constructed and can be freely access at i2om.lin-group.cn. The predictor may provide a reference for the study of the 2OM. • Prediction of 2′- O -methylation sites based on four types of nucleotide • Two-step feature selection to find the optimal feature subset • Developed a user-friendly web server for predicting 2′- O -methylation in human RNA [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Seven new tetrahydrofuran lignans with unusual isopentenyl substitutions, along with 14 known ones, were isolated from Zanthoxylum nitidum. • Tetrahydrofuran-core lignan 3 showed higher activity than furan-core lignan 4 in osimertinib-resistant non-small cell lung cancer cells. • Compound 3 suppressed the c-Met/JAK1/STAT3 and PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway in the HCC827-osi cells. • Osimertinib and 3 exhibited synergistic anticancer effects in HCC827-osi cells, and 3 suppressed STAT3 protein level stronger than osimertinib. Seven previously undescribed tetrahydrofuran lignans with different configurations and unusual isopentenyl substitutions, nitidumlignans D-J (corresponding to compounds 1 , 2 , 4 , 6 , 7 , 9 and 10), along with 14 known lignans, were isolated from Zanthoxylum nitidum. Notably, compound 4 is an uncommon naturally occurring furan-core lignan derived from tetrahydrofuran aromatization. The antiproliferation activity of the isolated compounds (1 – 21) was determined in various human cancer cell lines. The structure–activity study revealed that the steric positioning and chirality of the lignans exert important effects on their activity and selectivity. In particular, compound 3 (sesaminone) exhibited potent antiproliferative activity in cancer cells, including acquired osimertinib-resistant non-small-cell lung cancer (HCC827-osi) cells. Compound 3 also inhibited colony formation and induced the apoptotic death of HCC827-osi cells. The underlying molecular mechanisms revealed that 3 downregulated the activation of the c-Met/JAK1/STAT3 and PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathways in the HCC827-osi cells. In addition, the combination of 3 and osimertinib exhibited synergistic effects on the antiproliferative activity against HCC827-osi cells. Overall, these findings inform the structure elucidation of novel lignans isolated from Z. nitidum, and sesaminone was identified as a potential compound for exerting antiproliferative effects on osimertinib-resistant lung cancer cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Protein kinase C (PKC) constitutes the main signal transduction pathway, and participates in the signal pathway of cell proliferation and movement in mammals. In this study, PKC-ɑ was obtained from Epinephelus coioides , an important marine fish cultivated in the coastal areas of southern China and Southeast Asia. The full length cDNA of PKC-ɑ was 3362 bp in length containing a 23 bp 5′UTR, a 1719 bp 3′UTR, and a 1620 bp open reading frame encoding 539 amino acids. It contains three conservative domains including protein kinase C conserved region 2 (C2), Serine/Threonine protein kinases, catalytic domain (S_TKc) and ser/thr-type protein kinases (S_TK_X). Its mRNA can be detected in all 11 tissues examined of E. coioides , and the expression was significantly upregulated response to Singapore grouper iridovirus (SGIV) infection, one of the important pathogens of marine fish. Upregulated E. coioides PKC-ɑ significantly inhibited the activation of nuclear factor kappa-B (NF-κB) and activator protein-1 (AP-1), and SGIV-induced cell apoptosis. The results indicated that the PKC-ɑ may play an important role in pathogenic stimulation. • Protein kinase C-ɑ (PKC-ɑ) from Epinephelus coioides was identified and characterized. • The expression of E. coioides Hsp27 was up-regulated during SGIV infection. • Overexpression E. coioides Hsp27 inhibited SGIV-induced cell apoptosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we put forward a novel phenomenological paradigm in which particle physics beyond the Standard Model may be tested by radio astronomy if these are related to a first order phase transition in the early Universe. For this type of Dark Matter models, the first order phase transition takes place at keV scales, and hence, induces the production of a stochastic gravitational waves background that can be detected from Pulsar timing measurements. We demonstrate this hypothetical feasibility by studying a class of Majoron Dark Matter models, which are related to a first order phase transition of the U ( 1 ) L or U ( 1 ) B − L symmetry and are consequently dubbed as violent Majorons . These phenomena are expected to be examined by the ongoing and forthcoming radio experiments, including FAST, SKA and IPTA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The working temperature of an LED chip has a great influence on its photoelectric properties. It is urgently necessary to develop an adaptive cooling device for LEDs’ heat management. This paper proposes a “multi-needle-to-mesh” ionic wind generator for enhanced heat transfer in high-power LEDs (HPLED). Experiments were conducted to evaluate the cooling performance of HPLEDs under multiple working conditions. The electric field intensity (EFI) distribution, the charge density, and the dynamic pressure of ionic wind were measured. We also investigated the thermal resistance, the mean heat transfer coefficient, and the output luminous flux of HPLEDs. The results indicate that the EFI distribution is inhomogeneous and there was a reduction in EFI from the needle tip to the collecting electrode of up to 90%. Furthermore, the density of discharges was proportional to the overvoltage but inversely proportional to the square of the discharge gap. The ionic wind velocity was proportional to the overvoltage but inversely proportional to the discharge gap. An approximately 34% reduction of thermal resistance was observed as well. The final reducing rate of HPLED output luminous flux was 9.3%under the action of ionic wind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MSW field education in China has been adopting Western models. However, this adaptation cannot address all educational and professional training needs in China. This study used an exploratory qualitative study design and interviewed 54 MSW students regarding their field experiences at a university in Shanghai. Results revealed six key themes: field education curriculum design’s influence on student field experiences, faculty advisers’ influence on student field experiences, field agencies’ expectations toward MSW intern performance, field agencies’ capacity to host MSW interns, student perceptions of their professional competencies, and students’ coping strategies to manage challenges in field practicum. Competency-based social work field education is a potential solution to address the current social work field education challenges in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work discusses the correlation between the mass resolving power of matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass analyzers and extraction condition with an uneven sample morphology. Previous theoretical calculations show that the optimum extraction condition for flat samples involves an ideal ion source design and extraction delay. A general expression of spectral feature takes into account ion initial velocity, and extraction delay is derived in the current study. The new expression extends the comprehensive calculation to uneven sample surfaces and above 90% Maxell-Boltzmann initial velocity distribution of ions to account for imperfect ionization condition. Calculation shows that the impact of uneven sample surface or initial spatial spread of ions is negligible when the extraction delay is away from the ideal value. When the extraction delay approaches the optimum value, the flight-time topology shows a characteristic curve shape, and the time-domain mass spectral feature broadens with an increase in initial spatial spread of ions. For protonated 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid, the mass resolving power obtained from a sample of 3-µm surface roughness is approximately 3.3 times lower than that of flat samples. For ions of m/z 3000 coexpanded with 2,5-dihydroxybenzoic acid, the mass resolving power in the 3-µm surface roughness case only reduces roughly 7%. Comprehensive calculations also show that the mass resolving power of lighter ions is more sensitive to the accuracy of the extraction delay than heavier ions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this study is to develop a parameter with a clear physical meaning to estimate the surface roughness of rock discontinuities. This parameter must be closely related to the shear strength of rock discontinuities. The first part of this study focuses on defining and computing this parameter. The estimation formula for the shear strength of a triangle within a discontinuity surface is derived based on Patton’s model. The parameter, namely, the index of roughness (IR), is then proposed to quantitatively estimate discontinuity roughness. Based on laser scanning techniques, digital models of discontinuities and discontinuity profiles are constructed, and then their corresponding IR values are computed. In the second part of this study, the computational processes and estimated effects of the two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) IR values of the discontinuities are illustrated through several applications. Results show that the 2D and 3D IR values of these discontinuities indicate anisotropy and sampling interval effects. In addition, a strong linear correlation is detected between IR and the joint roughness coefficient (JRC) for seventy-four profiles and eleven discontinuity specimens, respectively. Finally, the proposed method, back analysis method, root mean square (Z2) method, and Grasselli’s method are compared to study the use of the parameter IR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Forward surgical teams (FSTs) have been used as highly mobile surgical facilities that provide "damage control" medical support in modern wars. FST regiments differ greatly in different armed services and nations. We systemically reviewed the utilization of FSTs around the world with an emphasis on the medical conditions and workloads encountered by FSTs in modern wars.Materials and Methods: We searched for terms related to FSTs, such as "Forward Surgical Team" and "Field Surgical Team," in the PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and MEDLINE databases and collected any articles that provided numerical data on the organization of medical personnel combat casualty characteristics, including the casualty composition, injury types and locations, and mechanisms of injury, and surgical procedures performed. Technical articles, case reports of specific types of injury or disease, and literature reviews of previous experiences and logistical theories were discarded.Results: We identified 24 articles involving 29 FSTs that were included in the analysis. The FSTs were typically composed of 8-20 medical personnel and had limited medical capacity. Battle-related injuries constituted approximately two-thirds of all injury types treated by the FSTs. The extremities, torso, and head and neck were the three most frequently injured sites and accounted for approximately 51.1%, 16.6%, and 13.2% of all wounds, respectively. The three most frequent injury mechanisms were fragments or explosive injuries (44.8%), gunshot wounds (28.1%), and motor vehicle accidents/road traffic accidents (9.1%). Soft tissue surgeries (41.0%) and orthopedic operations (31.6%) were the two procedures that were most frequently performed by the FSTs. The average numbers of surgical procedures performed by small FSTs (1.27/unit·day) and full FSTs (1.28/unit·day) seemed to be comparable.Conclusion: Modern conflict may require more flexible small FSTs, especially during the initial phases of war. More orthopedic surgeons should be included in FSTs, and orthopedic skill training should be intensified before deployment. The utilization of FSTs and level III facilities must be evaluated within the context of the battlefield conditions, medical care requirements, and evacuation efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus which infects T lymphocyte of human body and causes immunodeficiency. Reverse transcriptase inhibitors (RTIs) can inhibit some functions of RT, preventing virus synthesis (double‐stranded DNA), so that HIV virus replication can be reduced. Experimental results indicate a series of benzimidazole‐based inhibitors which target HIV RT‐associated RNase to inhibit the reverse transcription of HIV virus. However, the allosteric mechanism is still unclear. Here, molecular dynamics simulations and dynamics fluctuation network analysis were used to reveal the binding mode between the inhibitors and RT‐associated RNase. The most active molecule has more hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions than the less active inhibitor. Dynamics correlation network analysis indicates that the most active inhibitor perturbs the network of RT‐associated RNase and decreases the correlation of nodes. 3D‐QSAR model suggests that two robust and reliable models were constructed and validated by independent test set. 3D‐QSAR model also shows that bulky negatively charged or hydrophilic substituent is favorable to bioactivity. These results reveal the allosteric mechanism of quinoline inhibitors and help to improve the bioactivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The working temperature of a LED chip has a great influence on its photoelectric properties. This paper is concerned with the application of ionic wind produced by corona discharge to cool a LED car headlamp. Both theoretical and experimental procedures are studied. A DC ‘needles-to-mesh’ ionic wind generator was designed for the experimental study. The mechanism of the association between optical and thermal properties was explored. The results indicated that the ionic wind could weaken the red shifting of the chromaticity coordinates and reduce the radiant power. It also showed a better working performance when the corona discharge power increased, but it only changed slightly as the corona power continued increasing. Ultimately, it would result in more symmetrical and uniform light distribution and the illumination gradient varied gently, which was more suitable for the driving beam lighting. The luminous flux was 1957.6 lm and the junction temperature was 29.8 °C after 6 min working of the ionic wind generator under a corona discharge power of 3 W. All the test values complied with the regulatory requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Behavioral difficulties associated with sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) improve after tonsillectomy, but surgery may lead to the development of short-term postoperative maladaptive behavioral changes (PMBCs). These PMBCs have not been compared between total and partial tonsillectomy patients. Methods SDB patients aged 1–6 years undergoing tonsillectomy were recruited. Parent phone surveys were conducted at 48–72 hours and 1–2 weeks postoperatively. Parents identified PMBCs using the Post-Hospital Behavior Questionnaire (PHBQ), scoring changes in behavior compared to baseline. PMBCs were defined by PHBQ scores >0 and compared by one-tailed t -test. Postoperative pain was categorized as mild, moderate, and severe pain using the Parents' Postoperative Pain Measure (PPPM). Differences in pain levels were analyzed by Chi-squared test. A p-value <0.05 was deemed statistically significant. Results Seventy-eight children completed the study, with 29 total tonsillectomy and 49 partial tonsillectomy patients. At both time points after surgery, PHBQ scores were higher in total tonsillectomy patients than in partial tonsillectomy patients (3.41 ± 3.53 versus 1.94 ± 2.25 at 2–3 days, p = .013). PMBCs were also more frequent in total than partial tonsillectomy patients (76% versus 59% at 2–3 days; 28% versus 7% at 1–2 weeks). Meanwhile, distribution of pain levels was similar between both partial and total tonsillectomy patients. Conclusions Our study indicates that total tonsillectomy patients more frequently experience PMBCs than do partial tonsillectomy patients despite similar distributions in pain levels postoperatively. This difference in PHBQ scores between total and partial tonsillectomy patients should be further explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A nonthermal optical emission spectrometric (OES) system is developed for the simultaneous multi-element determination of zinc, cadmium and mercury, with a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) microplasma generated on the nozzle of a pneumatic micronebulizer as the excitation source. After solution nebulization, zinc, cadmium and mercury are directly atomized and excited in the spray by a DBD microplasma for performing optical emission. The emission spectra are measured with a charge-coupled device (CCD) spectrometer. Various important parameters governing the analytical performance of the nonthermal OES system are scrutinized, encompassing the conditions of sample solution introduction, microplasma formation, signal collection and matrix matching for DBD-OES detection. With the characteristic emission lines of Zn 213.9 nm, Cd 228.8 nm and Hg 253.7 nm as the analytical lines for quantification, the detection limits for the simultaneous determination of Zn, Cd and Hg are 22, 1.6, and 10 μg L−1, respectively, and the corresponding linear ranges are 70–6000, 5–1000, and 35–2000 μg L−1, respectively. The accuracy of the present nonthermal OES system is confirmed by the determination of Zn, Cd and Hg in two certified reference materials, i.e., CRM 176 (city waste incineration ash) and GBW 08608 (water). The proposed nonthermal OES system provides a portable instrument for field analysis in emergency with low cost and low consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, network pharmacology-based methods were increasing proposed to screen synergistic or combinatorial compounds from herbal medicines (HMs), while these researches mainly focused on structural prediction or experiment-based interaction between single compound and target protein. The proportion of each chemical in the nature and their metabolic process was ignored, which might decide an optimized composition for their synergistic effect. To exact the effective combination of HMs, a metabolic distribution-oriented network regulation strategy was developed for the identification of effective combination. Firstly, comprehensive chemical profiling and metabolic exposure of HMs in a pathological state were conducted. Then the effective combination for HMs was screened by combining network regulation and the metabolic exposure level of HMs. Finally, with the extract of Ginkgo biloba (EGB) as a case, a combination of 12 active compounds was found for treating ischemia stroke, showing bioactivity equivalence with original herb. The results also indicated that beside the well-known ginkgolides and flavonoids, trace compounds might also play an important role of the holistic effect of EGB. This method can be used as an alternative for effective combination screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to investigate whether osteopontin (OPN) variants are associated with susceptibility to ankylosing spondylitis (AS) in a Chinese population. Polymorphisms at the 9175th position in exon 7 of OPN and rs17524488 were genotyped using direct sequencing in 186 unrelated AS patients and 188 ethnically matched healthy controls. Serum concentration of OPN was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in all participants. AS patients displayed significantly higher OPN serum levels than the controls (P<001). A heterozygous, novel 9175 T>A in exon 7 of the OPN gene was found in this study. In healthy controls, subjects carrying the rs17524488 G/G genotype of the OPN display significantly higher OPN serum levels than the GG/GG genotype (P<0.05). Plasma OPN level is implicated as an early diagnostic marker of AS. The novel 9175th- (exon 7) position polymorphism of OPN and rs17524488 were related to susceptibility to AS in a Chinese population, the rs17524488 G/G genotype may be involved in the pathogenesis of AS, and the precise molecular mechanism underlying the influence of OPN polymorphisms on the development of AS remains to be determined in the further prospective studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]