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Background:Hypertension is a highly prevalent disorder. A nomogram to estimate the risk of hypertension in Chinese individuals is not available.Methods:6201 subjects were enrolled in the study and randomly divided into training set and validation set at a ratio of 2:1. The LASSO regression technique was used to select the optimal predictive features, and multivariate logistic regression to construct the nomograms. The performance of the nomograms was assessed and validated by AUC, C-index, calibration curves, DCA, clinical impact curves, NRI, and IDI.Results:The nomogram140/90 was developed with the parameters of family history of hypertension, age, SBP, DBP, BMI, MCHC, MPV, TBIL, and TG. AUCs of nomogram140/90 were 0.750 in the training set and 0.772 in the validation set. C-index of nomogram140/90 were 0.750 in the training set and 0.772 in the validation set. The nomogram130/80 was developed with the parameters of family history of hypertension, age, SBP, DBP, RDWSD, and TBIL. AUCs of nomogram130/80 were 0.705 in the training set and 0.697 in the validation set. C-index of nomogram130/80 were 0.705 in the training set and 0.697 in the validation set. Both nomograms demonstrated favorable clinical consistency. NRI and IDI showed that the nomogram140/90 exhibited superior performance than the nomogram130/80. Therefore, the web-based calculator of nomogram140/90 was built online.Conclusions:We have constructed a nomogram that can be effectively used in the preliminary and in-depth risk prediction of hypertension in a Chinese population based on a 10-year retrospective cohort study.Funding:This study was supported by the Hebei Science and Technology Department Program (no. H2018206110).

Renal fibrosis is characterized by glomerulosclerosis and tubulointerstitial fibrosis in diabetic nephropathy (DN). We aimed to evaluate the effects of PP2 on renal fibrosis of DN. GSE33744 and GSE86300 were downloaded from the GEO database. Firstly, 839 DEGs were identified between nondiabetic and diabetic mice renal glomerular samples. COX-2 was selected to assess the effects of PP2 on renal glomerulosclerosis. In db/db mice, PP2 decreased the expression of COX-2, phosphorylated p65, and fibrotic proteins, accompanied with attenuated renal glomerulosclerosis. In cultured glomerular mesangial cells, high glucose- (HG-) induced p65 phosphorylation and COX-2 expression were attenuated by PP2 or NF-κB inhibitor PDTC. PP2, PDTC, or COX-2 inhibitor NS-398 ameliorated abnormal proliferation and expression of fibrotic proteins induced by HG. Secondly, 238 DEGs were identified between nondiabetic and diabetic mice renal cortex samples. UCP2 was selected to assess the effects of PP2 on renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis. In db/db mice, PP2 decreased the expression of PPARγ and UCP2, accompanied with attenuated renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis and EMT. In cultured proximal tubular cells, HG-induced PPARγ and UCP2 expression was inhibited by PP2 or PPARγ antagonist GW9662. PP2, GW9662, or UCP2 shRNA ameliorated HG-induced EMT. These results indicated that PP2 ameliorated renal fibrosis in diabetic mice.

Diabetic nephropathy (DN) is the leading cause of end-stage renal disease. Activation of the nucleotide binding and oligomerization domain-like receptor family pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome has been reported in diabetic kidney, yet the potential role of NLRP3 inflammasome in DN is not well known. In this study, we explored the role of NLRP3 inflammasome on inflammation and fibrosis in diabetic kidney using NLRP3 knockout mice. Renal expression of NLRP3, caspase-1 p10, interleukin-18 (IL-18) and cleaved IL-1β was increased in diabetic wild-type (WT) mice at 24 weeks. NLRP3 knockout (KO) improved renal function, attenuated glomerular hypertrophy, glomerulosclerosis, mesangial expansion, interstitial fibrosis, inflammation and expression of TGF-β1 and connective tissue growth factor (CTGF), as well as the activation of Smad3 in kidneys of STZ-induced diabetic mice. In addition, NLRP3 KO inhibited expression of thioredoxin-interacting protein (TXNIP) and NADPH oxidase 4 (Nox4) and superoxide production in diabetic kidneys. The diabetes-induced increase in urinary level of 8-hydroxydeoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) was attenuated in NLRP3 KO mice. In vitro experiments, using HK-2 cells, revealed that high glucose (HG)-mediated expression of TXNIP and Nox4 was inhibited by transfection with NLRP3 shRNA plasmid or antioxidant tempol treatment. Silencing of the NLRP3 resulted in reduced generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in HK-2 cells under HG conditions. Furthermore, we also found exposure of IL-1β to HK-2 cells induced ROS generation and expression of TXNIP and Nox4. Taken together, inhibition of NLRP3 inflammasome activation inhibits renal inflammation and fibrosis at least in part via suppression of oxidative stress in diabetic nephropathy.

Tubular injury is one of the crucial determinants of progressive renal failure in diabetic nephropathy (DN), while epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) of tubular cells contributes to the accumulation of matrix protein in the diabetic kidney. Activation of the nucleotide binding and oligomerization domain-like receptor family pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome leads to the maturation of interleukin (IL)-1B and is involved in the pathogenic mechanisms of diabetes. In this study, we explored the role of NLRP3 inflammasome on high glucose (HG) or transforming growth factor-B1 (TGFB1)-induced EMT in HK-2 cells. We evaluated EMT through the expression of α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and E-cadherin as well as the induction of a myofibroblastic phenotype. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) was observed using the confocal microscopy. HG was shown to induce EMT at 48 h, which was blocked byNLRP3silencing or antioxidant N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC). We found thatNLRP3interference could inhibit HG-induced ROS. Knockdown ofNLRP3could prevent HG-induced EMT by inhibiting the phosphorylation of SMAD3, P38 MAPK and ERK1/2. In addition, P38 MAPK and ERK1/2 might be involved in HG-induced NLRP3 inflammasome activation. Besides, TGFB1 induced the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome and the generation of ROS, which were blocked byNLRP3interference or NAC. Tubular cells exposed to TGFB1 also underwent EMT, and this could be inhibited byNLRP3shRNA or NAC. These results indicated that knockdown ofNLRP3antagonized HG-induced EMT by inhibiting ROS production, phosphorylation of SMAD3, P38MAPK and ERK1/2, highlighting NLRP3 as a potential therapy target for diabetic nephropathy.

Drought events show a continuous spatiotemporal structure. The evolution of drought and its probabilistic modeling from a three-dimensional perspective are important for drought mitigation and risk management. This study therefore aimed to extract hydrological drought variables using a three-dimensional identification method in the Upstream of Heihe River Basin (UHHRB) in Northwest China during 1961–2014. Then, the spatiotemporal dynamic evolution of hydrological drought event was quantified, and drought frequency was evaluated using copula functions. Results showed that the spatiotemporal structure of drought can be satisfactorily reflected using the three-dimensional framework. The most severe drought originated in the middle part of the basin, and propagated towards the eastern part with variable migration velocity. The Gumbel copula was the most suitable model for determining the joint distribution of drought duration, severity, and area. The conditional probability of drought variables with a given conditional factors decreases as the values of factor increase, and the increasing trend had no significant effect on reducing the probability of drought occurrence for a relatively higher value of drought variable. Drought risks would be underestimated (or overestimated) if simply the ‘and’ (or ‘or’) case return periods were considered. Drought frequency analysis considering the spatiotemporal drought features can be regarded as a reliable method. This study could help to better understand the spatiotemporal dynamic evolution of drought and to facilitate water resources allocation and drought mitigation.

MoSi2-based materials are considered potentially useful for making high-temperature structural parts. In this work, (Mo, W)Si2-SiC composites have been successfully prepared in situ by microwave reaction sintering of the elemental reactants. Benefiting from the lower sintering temperature and faster densification procedure, the as-prepared composites have finer microstructures compared to the analogs prepared by conventional reaction sintering, resulting in a significant improvement of mechanical properties. The flexural strength, Vickers hardness and fracture toughness of 10%SiC/10%WSi2/80%MoSi2 are as high as 302.81 MPa, 8.55 GPa and 8.90 MPa m1/2, respectively, which are also better than those of monolithic MoSi2 and 10%SiC/90%MoSi2 composite due to the synergistic strengthening and toughening effects of W alloying and SiC second phase.

The transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1)/connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) pathway plays an important role in the pathogenesis and progression of chronic kidney disease. Oxidative stress is also involved in TGF-β1 signalling. Sirtuin 1 (Sirt1) exerts a number of pleiotropic effects, protecting against renal disease, including inhibiting fibrosis and oxidative metabolism. In this study, we investigated the role of the Sirt1 activator, SRT1720, in unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO)-induced tubulointerstitial fibrosis and aimed to determine whether this role depends on the inhibition of oxidative stress and the TGF-β1/CTGF pathway. Renal fibrosis was induced by UUO in CD1 mice. SRT1720 (100 mg/kg) was administered by intraperitoneal injection for 3 days prior to UUO and this was continued for 7 days following UUO. Histological changes were examined by Masson's trichrome staining. The expression of fibrosis-related factors was evaluated by immunohistochemistry, western blot analysis and RT-qPCR. Apoptosis was also examined. We also examined the superoxide dismutase (SOD), malondialdehyde (MDA), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and reduced glutathione (GSH) levels. UUO induced renal fibrosis and apoptosis and decreased Sirt1 expression. The administration of SRT1720 increased the Sirt1 levels and partially attenuated UUO-induced renal fibrosis and apoptosis. Furthermore, SRT1720 attenuated the levels of oxidative stress (it decreased the MDA levels, and increased the SOD, GPx and GSH levels), which suggests that it protected the cells against ROS-induced damage. Moreover, SRT1720 effectively inhibited the levels of TGF-β1/CTGF induced by UUO. On the whole, these findings indicate that the Sirt1 activator, SRT1720, exerts protective effects against UUO-induced tubulointerstitial fibrosis. The mechanisms of action of SRT1720 may include, at least in part, the suppression of renal oxidative stress and the TGF-β1/CTGF signalling pathway. The Sirt1 activator may therefore be prove to be a potent therapeutic agent for the treatment of fibrotic kidney disease.

The competitive performance of neural machine translation (NMT) critically relies on large amounts of training data. However, acquiring high-quality translation pairs requires expert knowledge and is costly. Therefore, how to best utilize a given dataset of samples with diverse quality and characteristics becomes an important yet understudied question in NMT. Curriculum learning methods have been introduced to NMT to optimize a model's performance by prescribing the data input order, based on heuristics such as the assessment of noise and difficulty levels. However, existing methods require training from scratch, while in practice most NMT models are pre-trained on big data already. Moreover, as heuristics, they do not generalize well. In this paper, we aim to learn a curriculum for improving a pre-trained NMT model by re-selecting influential data samples from the original training set and formulate this task as a reinforcement learning problem. Specifically, we propose a data selection framework based on Deterministic Actor-Critic, in which a critic network predicts the expected change of model performance due to a certain sample, while an actor network learns to select the best sample out of a random batch of samples presented to it. Experiments on several translation datasets show that our method can further improve the performance of NMT when original batch training reaches its ceiling, without using additional new training data, and significantly outperforms several strong baseline methods., Comment: Accepted as full paper by AAAI-2020 (oral presentation)

This paper presents our submissions to CCMT 2020 Quality Estimation (QE) sentence-level task for both Chinese-to-English (ZH-EN) and English-to-Chinese (EN-ZH). We propose new methods based on the predictor-estimator architecture. For the predictor, we propose XLM-predictor and Transformer-predictor. XLM-predictor novelly produces two kinds of contextual token representation, i.e., mask-XLM and non-mask-XLM. For the estimator, both RNN-estimator and Transformer-estimator are conducted and two novel strategies, i.e. top-K strategy and multi-head attention strategy, are proposed to enhance the sentence feature representation. We also propose new effective ensemble technique for sentence-level predictions.

Thioredoxin-interacting protein (TXNIP), is identified as an inhibitor of the thiol oxidoreductase thioredoxin that acts endogenously, and is increased by high glucose (HG). In this study, we investigated the potential function of TXNIP on apoptosis of podocytes and its potential mechanism in vivo and in vitro in diabetic nephropathy (DN). TXNIP silencing attenuated HG-induced apoptosis and obliterated the activation of signaling pathways of mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) in conditionally immortalized mouse podocytes. Furthermore, the Raptor and Rictor shRNAs, mTOR specific inhibitor KU-0063794 and p38 MAPK inhibitor SB203580 were used to assess the role of mTOR or p38 MAPK pathway on podocyte apoptosis induced by HG. The Rictor and Raptor shRNAs and KU-0063794 appeared to reduce HG-induced apoptosis in podocytes. Simultaneously, SB203580 could also restrain HG-induced apoptosis in podocytes. Streptozotocin rendered equivalent diabetes in TXNIP-/- (TKO) and wild-type (WT) control mice. TXNIP deficiency mitigated renal injury in diabetic mice. Additionally, TXNIP deficiency also descended the apoptosis-related protein and Nox4 levels, the mTOR signaling activation and the p38 MAPK phosphorylation in podocytes of diabetic mice. All these data indicate that TXNIP deficiency may mitigate apoptosis of podocytes by inhibiting p38 MAPK or mTOR signaling pathway in DN, underlining TXNIP as a putative target for therapy.

In order to enhance wear properties of Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy parts, Al2O3-MoO2-SiO2 composite ceramic coatings are formed on Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy by the DC micro-arc oxidation (MAO) method in the silicate electrolyte with sodium molybdate. Effects of sodium molybdate concentration on the structure characteristics and wear resistance of the composite ceramic coatings are analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and the wear test, respectively. Analyses indicate that the composite coating consists of different states of Al2O3, MoO2 and mullite phase. With the addition of molybdate in the electrolyte, the morphology and structure are changed. The tribological behavior is greatly affected by the surface characteristics and hardness of the coatings. The composite coatings formed by adding 3 g/L of sodium molybdate electrolyte have the best wear resistance.

In this communication, a bis-silane prepolymer was used to modify epoxy resin, aiming to enhance the corrosion resistance of epoxy coatings on aluminum alloy substrates. The bis-silane prepolymer was prepared by tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) and γ-glycidoxypropyl trimethoxysilane (GPTMS). The corrosion behavior of silane-epoxy coatings was studied. Compared with silane monomer-modified epoxy coatings, bis-silane-modified epoxy coatings have lower coating capacitance (Cc), higher charge transfer resistances (Rdl), and lower double layer capacitance (Cdl) during long-time immersion. It indicates that bis-silane-modified epoxy coating has stronger waterproof permeability and substrate corrosion protection ability. In addition, due to the leaching of the silane component and cross-linking reaction between different silanes during the immersion process, the bis-silane-modified epoxy coatings exhibit much stronger “self-healing” ability.

Abnormal lipid metabolism contributes to the renal lipid accumulation, which is associated with diabetic kidney disease, but its precise mechanism remains unclear. The growing evidence demonstrates that thioredoxin-interacting protein is involved in regulating cellular glucose and lipid metabolism. Here, we investigated the effects of thioredoxin-interacting protein on lipid accumulation in diabetic kidney disease. In contrast to the diabetic wild-type mice, the physical and biochemical parameters were improved in the diabetic thioredoxin-interacting protein knockout mice. The increased renal lipid accumulation, expression of acetyl-CoA carboxylase, fatty acid synthase and sterol regulatory element binding protein-1, and phosphorylated Akt and mTOR associated with diabetes in wild-type mice was attenuated in diabetic thioredoxin-interacting protein knockout mice. Furthermore, thioredoxin-interacting protein knockout significantly increased the expression of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-α, acyl-coenzyme A oxidase 1 and carnitine palmitoyltransferaser 1 in diabetic kidneys. In vitro experiments, using HK-2 cells, revealed that knockdown of thioredoxin-interacting protein inhibited high glucose-mediated lipid accumulation, expression of acetyl-CoA carboxylase, fatty acid synthase and sterol regulatory element binding protein-1, as well as activation of Akt and mTOR. Moreover, knockdown of thioredoxin-interacting protein reversed high glucose-induced reduction of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-α, acyl-coenzyme A oxidase 1 and carnitine palmitoyltransferaser 1 expression in HK-2 cells. Importantly, blockade of Akt/mTOR signaling pathway with LY294002, a specific PI3K inhibitor, replicated these effects of thioredoxin-interacting protein silencing. Taken together, these data suggest that thioredoxin-interacting protein deficiency alleviates diabetic renal lipid accumulation through regulation of Akt/mTOR pathway, thioredoxin-interacting protein may be a potential therapeutic target for diabetic kidney disease.

Oxidative stress is an important contributory factor resulting the development of kidney injury in patients with diabetes. Numerous in vitro and in vivo studies have suggested that anthocyanins, natural phenols commonly existing in numerous fruits and vegetables, exhibit important anti-oxidative, anti-inflammatory and antihyperlipidemic effects; however, their effects and underlying mechanisms on diabetic nephropathy (DN) have not yet been fully determined. In the present study, the regulation of apoptosis metabolism and antioxidative effects exhibited by anthocyanins [grape seed procyanidin (GSPE) and cyanidin-3-O-β-glucoside chloride (C3G)] were investigated, and the molecular mechanism underlying this process was investigated in vivo and in vitro. GSPE administration was revealed to suppress renal cell apoptosis, as well as suppress the expression of Bcl-2 in diabetic mouse kidneys. Furthermore, GSPE administration was demonstrated to suppress the expression of thioredoxin interacting protein (TXNIP), in addition to enhancing p38 mitogen-activation protein kinase (MAPK) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) oxidase activity in diabetic mouse kidneys. In vitro experiments using HK-2 cells revealed that C3G suppressed the generation of HG-mediated reactive oxygen species, cellular apoptosis, the expression of cleaved caspase-3 and the Bax/Bcl-2 ratio; and enhanced the expression of cytochrome c released from mitochondria. Furthermore, treatment with C3G was revealed to suppress the expression of TXNIP, in addition to the phosphorylation of p38 MAPK and ERK1/2 oxidase activity in HK-2 cells under HG conditions. In addition, treatment with C3G was revealed to attenuate the HG-induced suppression of the biological activity of thioredoxin, and to enhance the expression of thioredoxin 2 in HK-2 cells under HG conditions. In conclusion, the present study demonstrated that anthocyanins may exhibit protective effects against HG-induced renal injury in DN via antioxidant activity.

Tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) is suggested to induce mitochondrial dysfunction and apoptosis of renal tubular epithelial cells that possibly exacerbates renal function in chronic kidney disease (CKD). Here we investigated whether suppressor of cytokine signaling-1 (SOCS-1), an inhibitor of cytokine signaling, was involved in TNF-α-induced human renal tubular epithelial cells (HKCs) oxidative stress and apoptosis. TNF-α promoted the protein and mRNA expression of SOCS-1 in a time and dose dependent manner, along with increased cell apoptosis and activation of apoptosis signal regulating kinase-1(ASK1) in HKCs. Furthermore, overexpression of SOCS-1 in HKCs reduced TNF-α-mediated oxidative stress and apoptosis. Meanwhile, We also found that overexpression of SOCS-1 could regulate the activity of JAK/STAT signaling pathway. In addition, a specific JAK2 inhibitor, AG490, that both attenuated TNF-α-induced oxidative stress, also reduced apoptosis. Taken together, overexpression of SOCS-1 prevented TNF-α-mediated cell oxidative stress and apoptosis may be via suppression of JAK/STAT signaling pathway activation in HKCs.

Ti–24Nb–4Zr–7.9Sn alloy was prepared by Powder Metallurgy (PM) method using titanium hydride powder, niobium powder, zirconium powder, and tin powder as raw materials. The effect of sintering processing on microstructure, mechanical properties, and corrosion resistance was investigated in details. The alloy possessed dominant β-matrix and a little α-precipitation. The mechanical properties of the alloy sintered at 1250 °C for 2 h were better than those of the alloys with other sintering processing, which would avoid stress shielding and thus prevent bone resorption in orthopedic implants applications. As long-term stability in biological environment is required, the electrochemical behaviors in a simulated body fluid (Hank’s solution and simulated saliva solution) were also evaluated. Potentiodynamic polarization curves exhibited that the sample sintered at 1250 °C for 2 h had better corrosion properties than those of other sintering processing. The good corrosion resistance combined with better mechanical biocompatibility made the Ti–24Nb–4Zr–7.9Sn alloy suitable for use as orthopedic implants.

Brachytherapy is an important radio-therapeutic modality for a variety of malignancies, including prostate cancer, cervix cancer, breast cancer, vagina cancer, endometrium cancer, head and neck cancer, and many more. This technique has been shown to be an effective and safe non-pharmaceutical treatment with fewer serious complications and better outcome than other treatments for breast cancer. Every year, hundreds of thousands of patients around the world benefit from brachytherapy, which reliably delivers a relatively higher radiation dose to the intended target. However, the follow-up time, patient eligibility criteria, treatment strategy, and radiation doses used in published studies are somewhat inconsistent, making it difficult to strictly compare and evaluate the performance of the treatment. More rigorous studies are required to confirm the safety of this technique and to make outcome data more comparable. In this review, we focus on recent advances in breast brachytherapy techniques and provide an overview of outcomes, cosmetic outcome, toxicity, complications, and limitations of brachytherapy for the treatment of breast cancer. We also summarize the clinical outcomes and toxicity results in patients receiving or not receiving brachytherapy.

With the rapid growth of semantic data, scalable reasoning has attracted more, more attention. However, most existing works about scalable reasoning focus only on RDFS/OWL ter Horst semantics, which are small fragments of OWL 2 RL,, have limitation in expressivity. As OWL 2 RL semantics extended with SWRL rules can be expressed by datalog language, materialization of datalog programs is widely adopted in traditional reasoners. In this paper, we propose a dependency-aware approach on parallel materialization of datalog programs for scalable reasoning. We first present an algorithm to automate the translation from a Datalog rule execution into MapReduce jobs,, make several optimizations for the algorithm to speed up the rule evaluation process. Since the rule execution order has significant impact on reasoning performance due to the dependencies among rules. We then propose a sampling-based method to capture rule dependency,, design a dependency-aware strategy to schedule rule evaluation. Finally, we establish a system to evaluate the proposed approach with a series of semantic rule sets on large synthetic, real knowledge bases. The experimental results show that the proposed optimizations have significant effectiveness, our system achieves approximately linear scalability.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic disease characterized by glucose metabolic disturbance. A number of transcription factors and coactivators are involved in this process. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1 alpha (PGC-1α) is an important transcription coactivator regulating cellular energy metabolism. Accumulating evidence has indicated that PGC-1α is involved in the regulation of T2DM. Therefore, a better understanding of the roles of PGC-1α may shed light on more efficient therapeutic strategies. Here, we review the most recent progress on PGC-1α and discuss its regulatory network in major glucose metabolic tissues such as the liver, skeletal muscle, pancreas and kidney. The significant associations between PGC-1α polymorphisms and T2DM are also discussed in this review.

Two types of molybdate/silane composite films were obtained on the surface of hot-dip galvanized steel sheets by either directly immersing in a solution containing silane and molybdate as additive (single-step process), or firstly immersing in a molybdate solution, then in a silane solution (two-step process). The chemical compositions and microstructures of the films were examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) and reflection absorption infrared spectroscopy (RAIR). The corrosion resistances were investigated by electrochemical measurements and neutral salt spray (NSS) test. The results showed that the molybdate/silane composite film formed in the single-step process had a similar double-layer structure as that obtained in the two-step process. The inner layer was composed mainly of the elements O, Mo, Zn, and P, similar to the single molybdate film; whereas the outer layer was composed mainly of the elements C, O and Si, similar to the single silane film. Compared with the single molybdate or silane film, the corrosion current of the composite films was reduced and the impedance of the films was increased. Accordingly, the corrosion resistance of the composite films was remarkably enhanced to a level which was comparable to or even surpassing that of the conventional chromate passivation film.

With the drastic development of semantic-driven applications, assessing the quality of ontologies has received more attention. Measuring and assessing the quality of ontologies can help ontology engineers to control project management and reduce the risk of project failures. However, most of the existing ontology metrics for measuring and assessing the quality of ontologies are defined based on ontology structure, and neglect the stability of ontology measurement. In this paper, we concentrate on stable ontology measurement by using semantically derived ontology metrics. We propose four ontology cohesion metrics, which fully consider the implicitly expressed semantic information and are defined based on ontological semantics rather than ontology structure. Before measuring and assessing an ontology, we materialize a pre-processing for stable ontology measurement by treating the ontology. The proposed ontology cohesion metrics are theoretically validated by the validation criteria of object-oriented software. The experimental results show that we can successfully collect more semantic knowledge from the testing ontologies for stable ontology measurement by using the proposed ontology cohesion metrics. The ontology cohesion metrics proposed in this paper can be reasonably used as a cogent complementarity of existing ontology metrics. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

MoSi2/WSi2 nanocrystalline powder has been successfully synthesized by the mechanical-assistant combustion synthesis method. This method includes a ball-milling process followed by combustion synthesis. The composition and microstructure of the as-milled powder mixture were detected by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy analyses. Their results show that the Mo(W) solid solution and Si nanocrystals could be obtained during the ball-milling process. Compared with normal powder mixture (Mo + Si + W), it could be easily ignited and high maximum combustion temperature was achieved. It was also confirmed that MoSi2/WSi2 solid solution powder with nanometric structure could be prepared through combustion synthesis method from the mechanical activated powder mixture.

SiC reinforced MoSi 2 composite powder with nanostructure has been successfully synthesized by mechanical-assistant combustion synthesis method. This process includes a ball-milling process followed by combustion synthesis. The composition and microstructure of as-milled powder mixture were detected by XRD and SEM analysis. Results showed that Mo and Si nanocrystallites could be obtained during the ball-milling process. Compared with normal powder mixture (Mo +Si + C), it could be easily ignited and higher maximum combustion temperature was achieved. Based on XRD and SEM, it was confirmed that MoSi 2 /SiC composite powder with nanometric structure could be prepared through combustion method from the mechanical activated powder mixture. At last, the as-synthesized powder was pressureless sintered. The relative density, flexural strength, Vicker's hardness and fracture toughness of the sintered samples are up to 99%, 468.7 MPa, 15.5 GPa and 9.35 MPa m 1/2 , respectively.

As the volume of semantic data increases rapidly, semantic reasoning becomes a very challenging task. Existing scalable reasoners focus on fragments of OWL 2 RL (eg. RDFS, OWL Horst), and cannot support Semantic Web Rules Language (SWRL) rules, which are widely used in real-world knowledge-based applications. As reasoning of OWL 2 RL ontology extended with SWRL rules can be implemented by materialization of Datalog programs, we propose an approach on parallel materialization of Datalog programs with Spark for scalable reasoning. Since existing scalable reasoners aimed for deterministic rule sets, they used rule-specific strategies for translation of rule execution to parallel jobs and performance optimization techniques. Thus, they cannot be easily extended to support application-specific semantics. In this paper, we propose a rule-independent automatic translation strategy, and several optimization techniques including a dynamic data partition model, a duplication removing strategy and a dependency-aware rule scheduling strategy. These techniques can generalize to vast application-specific semantic rules. Finally, we evaluate our approach with both synthetic and real knowledge bases. The experimental results show our implementation is scalable and the reasoning speed is comparable with that of CiChild, the state-of-the-art scalable reasoner for RDFS/OWL Horst semantics using rule-specific optimizations.

The epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays an important role in the progression of diabetic nephropathy. Our recent study showed that ROS mediated high glucose (HG)-induced EMT in renal tubular epithelial cells. CD36, a class-B scavenger receptor, has been reported to mediate the production of ROS in chronic kidney disease. In the present study, we examined the effect of inhibition of CD36 with CD36 siRNA or sulfosuccinimidyl-oleate (SSO), a CD36 antagonist, on HG-induced EMT in HK-2 cells. HG induced CD36 expression in a time-dependent manner in HK-2 cells. HG was shown to induce EMT at 72 h. This was blocked by knockdown of CD36 or treatment with SSO. Meanwhile, we also found that knockdown of CD36 or treatment with SSO inhibited HG-induced ROS generation, activation of ERK1/2 and Smad2, expression of TGF-β1 and synthesis of fibronectin. These data suggest that inhibition of CD36 prevented HG-induced EMT in HK-2 cells, highlighting CD36 as a potential therapeutic target for diabetic nephropathy.

Yunzhuo Ren,* Chunyang Du,* Li Yan, Jingying Wei, Haijiang Wu, Yonghong Shi, Huijun Duan Department of Pathology, Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: Transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1) plays an important role in the pathogenesis and progression of chronic kidney disease. Connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) is a critical fibrogenic mediator of TGF-β1. Mammalian sirtuin 1 (Sirt1) is reported to attenuate renal fibrosis by inhibiting the TGF-β1 pathway. This study was designed to detect whether the delivery of CTGF siRNA in vivo directly ameliorates renal fibrosis. Furthermore, the relationship with Sirt1 underlying the protective effect of CTGF siRNA on interstitial fibrosis and apoptosis was explored. Here, we report that the expressions of CTGF and TGF-β1 were increased while Sirt1 expression and activity were both dramatically decreased in mouse kidneys with unilateral ureteral obstruction. Recombinant human TGF-β1 treatment in HK-2 cells increased CTGF levels and remarkably decreased Sirt1 levels and was accompanied by apoptosis and release of fibrosis-related factors. Recombinant human CTGF stimulation also directly induced apoptosis and fibrosis. The CTGF siRNA plasmid ameliorated tubular cell apoptosis and tubulointerstitial fibrosis, but did not affect Sirt1 expression and activity both in vivo and in vitro. Furthermore, overexpression of Sirt1 abolished TGF-β1-induced cell apoptosis and fibrosis, while Sirt1 overexpression suppressed CTGF expression via stimulation by TGF-β1. This study provides evidence that treatment strategies involving the delivery of siRNA targeting potentially therapeutic transgenes may be efficacious. Our results suggest that the decrease in Sirt1 is associated with the upregulated expression of CTGF in renal fibrosis, and may aid in the design of new therapies for the prevention of renal fibrosis. Keywords: ureteral obstruction, Sirt1, CTGF, fibrosis, apoptosis

Renal tubular epithelial cells (RTEC) apoptosis, which plays a key role in the pathogenesis and progression of diabetic nephropathy (DN), is believed to be contributive to the hyperglycemia-induced kidney failure, though the exact mechanisms remain elusive. In this study, we investigated how inhibition of c-Src/p38 MAPK pathway would affect RTEC apoptosis. The c-Src inhibitor PP2 i.p. administered every other day for 8 weeks to diabetic db/db mice significantly reduced their kidney weights, daily urinary volumes, blood glucose, blood urea nitrogen, serum creatinine, triglyceride and urine albumin excretion, whereas deactivation of c-Src and p38 MAPK were also observed, along with decreases in both Bax/Bcl-2 ratio and cleaved caspase-3 level in the kidneys. In vitro, exposure of HK-2 cells (a human RTEC line), to high glucose (HG) promoted phosphorylation of c-Src and p38 MAPK, and subsequently, as revealed by western blotting, TUNEL assay and flow cytometry, increased cell death, which can be inhibited by PP2. Especially, a specific p38 MAPK inhibitor, SB203580, that both attenuated HG-induced c-Src activation and abrogated the expression of PPARγ and CHOP, also reduced apoptosis. Taken together, PP2 inhibits c-Src and therefore reduces apoptosis in RTEC, which at least in part, is due to suppressed p38 MAPK activation in diabetic kidney.

Organizations are always confronted with the challenge of eciently nding out suitable candidates from massive re- sumes. Traditional human resource management based on the information management system usually adopts SQL queries or keywords search, which cannot capture the im- plicit information, while the manual work is always time- consuming. To ll this gap, this paper presents SmartHR, a resume query and management system based on seman- tic web. Beneting from knowledge base, it can understand users' intentions more intelligently and search for suitable candidates more accurately. In this paper, we propose two key technical diculties which SmartHR meets, including the complexity of knowledge base construction and the time- consuming semantic search, and then give appropriate solu- tions respectively. Four channels are adopted to construct knowledge base, which are well illustrated. Furthermore, a variety of performance optimizations are employed and the eectiveness is evaluated on real datasets of up to million- s of triples and the results show a great improvement. As a representative application in semantic web, our practice in SmartHR provides useful experience and conclusions for developers.

Oxidative stress is implicated in the pathogenesis of diabetic kidney injury. SS-31 is a mitochondria-targeted tetrapeptide that can scavenge reactive oxygen species (ROS). Here, we investigated the effect and molecular mechanism of mitochondria-targeted antioxidant peptide SS-31 on injuries in diabetic kidneys and mouse mesangial cells (MMCs) exposed to high-glucose (HG) ambience. CD-1 mice underwent uninephrectomy and streptozotocin treatment prior to receiving daily intraperitoneal injection of SS-31 for 8 wk. The diabetic mice treated with SS-31 had alleviated proteinuria, urinary 8-hydroxy-2-deoxyguanosine level, glomerular hypertrophy, and accumulation of renal fibronectin and collagen IV. SS-31 attenuated renal cell apoptosis and expression of Bax and reversed the expression of Bcl-2 in diabetic mice kidneys. Furthermore, SS-31 inhibited expression of transforming-growth factor (TGF)-β1, Nox4, and thioredoxin-interacting protein (TXNIP), as well as activation of p38 MAPK and CREB and NADPH oxidase activity in diabetic kidneys. In vitro experiments using MMCs revealed that SS-31 inhibited HG-mediated ROS generation, apoptosis, expression of cleaved caspase-3, Bax/Bcl-2 ratio, and cytochrome c (cyt c) release from mitochondria. SS-31 normalized mitochondrial potential (ΔΨm) and ATP alterations, and inhibited the expression of TGF-β1, Nox4, and TXNIP, as well as activation of p38 MAPK and CREB and NADPH oxidase activity in MMCs under HG conditions. SS-31 treatment also could reverse the reduction of thioredoxin (TRX) biologic activity and upregulate expression of thioredoxin 2 (TRX2) in MMCs under HG conditions. In conclusion, this study demonstrates a protective effect of SS-31 against HG-induced renal injury via an antioxidant mechanism in diabetic nephropathy.

Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises benefits much from Service-oriented manufacturing, which utilizes the internet and service platform to arrange manufacturing resource and provides service according to the customers’ demands. On this platform, service selection is one of the key steps for customers to get the best services. This paper introduces a service selection approach in cloud manufacturing for Small- and Medium-size Enterprises. First, we build a service selection model, including service evaluation and service constraints. And then a service selection algorithm is presented based on the service selection model to identify the best service for a service buyer. Finally, a case study is given to illustrate how this approach works in Cloud Manufacturing Platform for Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (CMfg-SME).

Semantic data analysis tasks benefit much from rule inference, which derives implicit knowledge from explicit information. Recently, available semantic data from the Web, sensor readings, semantic databases and ontologies exploded drastically. However, most of the existing approaches for semantic rule inference are either centralized, which cannot scale out to infer big semantic data; or rule-specific, which hinder their wildly use. In this paper, we propose a scalable approach for Horn-like rule inference of semantic data based on MapReduce, which can evaluate domain- and application-specific rules, and can be easily extended to evaluate RDFS and OWL ter Horst semantic rules. We first introduce a general rule-evaluation mechanism, which translates a Horn-like rule to one or more MapReduce jobs. To improve rule-evaluation performance, two optimization policies job-parallelization and job-reusing are then introduced. Using a large semantic data set generated by the LUBM benchmark, we give a detailed experimental analysis of the scalability and efficiency of our approaches.

Non-coding RNA (ncRNA) comprises a substantial portion of primary transcripts that are generated by genomic transcription, but are not translated into protein. The possible functions of these once considered ‘junk’ molecules have incited considerable interest and new insights have emerged. The two major members of ncRNAs, namely micro RNA (miRNA) and long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), have important regulatory roles in gene expression and many important physiological processes, which has recently been extended to programmed cell death. The previous paradigm of programmed cell death only by apoptosis has recently expanded to include modalities of regulated necrosis (RN), and particularly necroptosis. However, most research efforts in this field have been on protein regulators, leaving the role of ncRNAs largely unexplored. In this review, we discuss important findings concerning miRNAs and lncRNAs that modulate apoptosis and RN pathways, as well as the miRNA–lncRNA interactions that affect cell death regulation.

A kind of analysis method in which SVM is used for power transformer DGA is proposed in this paper. This method uses the SVM algorithm to classify the composition of DGA in transformer and diagnoses the fault of the transformer. At the same time, it introduces the fuzzy membership function, and it can eliminate unable diagnosis area when the discrete decision function is used. Then by using a example to test this method, it shows the SVM play excellent performance in the fault diagnosis of power transformer.

With the market economic development of our country, the image design and brand consciousness comes into all aspects in our life. Nowadays, in the higher education, because it develops rapidly, the universities? competitions are intense. University is similar to an enterprise more and more, needs to to carry on the university image design and strengthen the brand construction. It is really important for us to find the development target accurately and take effective measures to portray the brand images.

Chunyang Du,1,2,* Yonghong Shi,1,2,* Yunzhuo Ren,1,2 Haijiang Wu,1,2 Fang Yao,1,2 Jinying Wei,1,2 Ming Wu,1,2 Yanjuan Hou,1,2 Huijun Duan1,2 1Department of Pathology, Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, People’s Republic of China; 2Hebei Key Laboratory of Kidney Diseases, Shijiazhuang, People’s Republic of China *These authors contributed equally to this work Abstract: The dysregulation of cholesterol metabolism and inflammation plays a significant role in the progression of diabetic nephropathy (DN). Anthocyanins are polyphenols widely distributed in food and exert various biological effects including antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, and antihyperlipidemic effects. However, it remains unclear whether anthocyanins are associated with DN, and the mechanisms involved in the reciprocal regulation of inflammation and cholesterol efflux are yet to be elucidated. In this study, we evaluated the regulation of cholesterol metabolism and the anti-inflammatory effects exerted by anthocyanins (cyanidin-3-O-β-glucoside chloride [C3G] or cyanidin chloride [Cy]) and investigated the underlying molecular mechanism of action using high-glucose (HG)-stimulated HK-2 cells. We found that anthocyanins enhanced cholesterol efflux and ABCA1 expression markedly in HK-2 cells. In addition, they increased peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARα) and liver X receptor alpha (LXRα) expression and decreased the HG-induced expression of the proinflammatory cytokines intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM1), monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP1), and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGFβ1), as well as NFκB activation. Incubation with the PPARα-specific inhibitor GW6471 and LXRα shRNA attenuated the anthocyanin-mediated promotion of ABCA1 expression and cholesterol efflux, suggesting that anthocyanins activated PPARα-LXRα-ABCA1-dependent cholesterol efflux in HK-2 cells. Moreover, the knockout of LXRα abrogated the anti-inflammatory effect of anthocyanins, whereas the PPARα antagonist GW6471 does not have this effect. Further investigations revealed that LXRα might interfere with anthocyanin-induced decreased ICAM1, MCP1, and TGFβ1 expression by reducing the nuclear translocation of NFκB. Collectively, these findings suggest that blocking cholesterol deposition and inhibiting the LXRα pathway-induced inflammatory response might be one of the main mechanisms by which anthocyanins exert their protective effects in DN. Keywords: 3-O-β-glucoside chloride, cyanidin chloride, diabetic nephropathy, inflammation, liver X receptor alpha