Search

The function of natural killer (NK) cells has previously been implicated in hematopoietic-related diseases. Killer immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIR) play an important role in NK cells after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. To explore the immunogenetic predisposition of hematopoiesis-related diseases, herein, a multi-center retrospective study in China was conducted, analyzing and comparing 2519 patients with hematopathy (mainly, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, aplastic anemia, and myelodysplastic syndrome) to 18108 individuals without known pathology. Genotyping was performed by polymerase chain reaction with specific sequence primers (PCR-SSP). As a result, we discovered four genes including KIR2DL5 (OR: 0.74, 95% CI: 0.59–0.93; Pc = 0.0405), 2DS1 (OR: 0.74, 95% CI: 0.59–0.93; Pc = 0.0405), 2DS3 (OR: 0.58, 95% CI: 0.41–0.81; Pc = 0.0180), and 3DS1 (OR: 0.74, 95% CI: 0.58–0.94; Pc = 0.0405) to be protective factors that significantly reduce the risk of aplastic anemia. Our findings offer new approaches to immunotherapy for hematological-related diseases. As these therapies mature, they are promising to be used alone or in combination with current treatments to help to make hematopathy a manageable disease.

In the field of RFID, the reading performance of tags is an important performance indicator for measuring tag. Related studies have shown that the tags’ geometrical distribution has an important influence on the tags’ reading performance. In order to optimize the tags’ geometrical distribution and improve the tags’ reading performance, this paper proposes a tag distribution optimization method based on multi‐level wavelet‐CNN (MWCNN) and extreme learning machine (ELM). First, this paper designs a tag distribution optimization system based on stereo‐vision. Second, the stereo‐cameras are used to capture the images of the tags. Aiming at the degradation phenomenon in the acquired images, MWCNN is used to recover the degraded tag images. On the basis of the image restoration, the template matching method is used to obtain the 3D coordinates of the tags. Then, ELM is used to model and predict the nonlinear relationship between 3D coordinates of the tags and the corresponding reading distance. The results show that the average prediction relative error is 0.56% and the time cost is 2.0 s. The average prediction relative error of ELM is smaller than GA‐BP and PSO‐BP. The time cost of ELM is smaller than the wavelet neural network.

AIM: To evaluate the clinical effects of subconjunctival injection of vitamin C in the treatment of corneal ulcer by using Meta-analysis.METHODS: Using “vitamin C” and “corneal ulcer” as keywords, the randomized controlled trials(RCT)of subconjunctival injection of vitamin C in Embase, Cochrane library, Pubmed, CNKI and Wanfang database in the treatment of corneal ulcer was searched. Relevant reference published before February 2021. The risk bias tool provided by the Cochrane cooperation scale was used to assess the risk bias of included studies of RCTs. The publication bias of the included studies were assessed by the Egger's test with Stata software. Meta-analysis was performed with RevMan 5.3.RESULTS: A total of 32 eligible articles were included, all of which were Chinese literatures, with a total of 4 514 patients. The control group was treated with routine treatment, and the experimental group was treated with subconjunctival injection of vitamin C combined with routine treatment. The Meta-analysis showed that the experimental group was better than control group(OR=4.61, 95%CI:3.70, 5.74). The recurrence rate was lower than control group(OR=0.24, 95%CI: 0.18, 0.31). The cure time in experimental group was shorter than control group(MD= -6.29, 95%CI: -7.08, -5.51), 32 studies do not adequately report adverse drug reactions(ADR). Egger's test was performed on the total effective rate, recurrence rate and cure time. The results showed that there was publication bias in the total effective rate and cure time. Trim and fill method showed that the publication bias did not affect the results.CONCLUSION: Subconjunctival injection of vitamin C is feasible in the treatment of corneal ulcer. The clinical effect, cure time and recurrence rate were better than routine treatment. However, due to the low intensity of the included research evidence, more multicenter, randomized double-blind clinical trials are needed to improve the evidence intensity of vitamin C in the treatment of corneal ulcer.

Multifunctional LiNbO3 material plays an important role in domain wall microelectronics and nonlinear optoelectronics. However, the material is hard and relatively inert, and hence is quite difficultly etched. A new oblique method to etch LiNbO3 memory cells at the surface of X-cut bulk crystals was proposed in this study. The process includes mask fabrication, oblique etching, and wet corrosion cleaning. The etching angle highly approaches 83° to achieve better polarization retention than others with etching angles of 0° and 70°. Meantime, the measured domain switching hysteresis loops become more symmetrical along the voltage axis than others with the presence of a strong imprint field. The horizontal electric field simulation along the polar Z axis exhibits the enhanced nucleating fields of the domains located at two edges of each memory cell in contact to Pt electrodes under the same applied voltage. The depolarization field was better screened in the memory with a higher etching angle. The new oblique method can improve the performance of the ferroelectric domain wall memory significantly.

In order to improve the parameter estimation accuracy of three-parameter Weibull distribution, a novel parameter estimation method using chaos simulated annealing particle swarm optimization (CSAPSO) algorithm is proposed. The simulated annealing (SA) algorithm is used to update the inertia weight of particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm according to the Metropolis acceptance criteria. The Chebyshev mapping is introduced into PSO according to the properties of chaos to make adaptively chaos mutate for premature particle. Moreover, in order to reduce the search range of PSO and improve the speed of parameter estimation, the initial estimation obtained by graphical parameter estimation method is taken as the initial solution of PSO. The proposed CSAPSO algorithm is compared with genetic algorithm (GA), PSO and SAPSO. These four algorithms are used to estimate the parameters of three sets of sample data which are conform to the Weibull distribution. The mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), correlation coefficient $$\rho $$ , Anderson Darling (AD) test value and the number of convergence step are used as evaluation indexes. The experimental results show that compared with the other three algorithms, the proposed CSAPSO algorithm has best parameter estimation accuracy for different number of samples and different setting parameters of three-parameter Weibull distribution.

Conducting domain walls created through the local domain 180° reversal within LiNbO3 mesa-like cells fabricated at the surface of a single-crystal LiNbO3 thin film have enabled ferroelectric domain wall memories, transistors, and sensors, where volatile switching in the domains within the interfacial layers near two side electrodes can rectify diode-like wall conduction under an applied voltage higher than an onset voltage. The diodes at interfaces not only can perform NOT, NAND, and NOR gate logic functions for in-memory computing, but can also work as embedded selectors for the fabrication of crossbar arrays of the memories in adjustable onset voltages that are proportional to the thicknesses of interfacial layers. Here, we develop a method to estimate the interfacial-layer thickness through the measurements of voltage-dependent domain switching times across two interfacial layers and an entire memory cell, respectively. Both dependences can be fitted according to the Merz law using an identical activation field from which we derived the equivalent electrical thickness of the interfacial layer. This non-destructive estimation paves the way to tailoring onset voltages of the diodes through the regulation of interfacial-layer thicknesses within various domain wall nanodevices.

From a biodiversity survey of a subterranean habitat near Sinan County, Guizhou Province, southwestern China, a new atyid shrimp of the genus Caridina H. Milne Edwards, 1837, C. sinanensissp. nov. was discovered. The new species can be separated from other congeners based on a combination of characters including depigmentation in body and reduction of eyes, small pigment spot at the centre of the cornea, the shape of rostrum and the endopod of the 1st male pleopod, and the relatively longer appendix interna on the appendix masculina of the 2nd pleopod. Mitochondrial COI and 16S rRNA gene sequences also support the establishment of the new species. Information on the habitat, and the levels of threat are discussed to guide the conservation of C. sinanensissp. nov.

The aircraft power supply system provides power for all the electrical equipment on the aircraft. Its normal operation is the key to ensure the safe flight of the aircraft. So, identifying the hazards in aircraft power supply system is necessary and critically important. In this paper, a hazard identification system for APSS based on the combined simulation of SIMPLORER and MATLAB is proposed. First, the different main fault modes in the aircraft power supply system are set on the control interface. Then, through the simulation model established on SIMPLORER, the aircraft power supply system power supply logic simulation is realized in the set fault mode. Finally, the simulation result is sent to the MATLAB to complete an identification process by using support vector machine method. The final state of each component and the identification result are shown in the control interface. The hazard identification system proposed in this paper has strong data interactivity and it can be applied to online hazard identification.

A faunistic and ecological survey was conducted to document the diversity of freshwater atyid shrimps of Dawanshan Island. Two species of Caridina that occur on this island were documented and discussed. One of these, Caridina tetrazonasp. nov. is described and illustrated as new to science. It can be easily distinguished from its congeners based on a combination of characters, which includes a short rostrum, the shape of the endopod of the male first pleopod, the segmental ratios of antennular peduncle and third maxilliped, the slender scaphocerite, and the absence of a median projection on the posterior margin. Live individuals of the new species display a unique coloration pattern with four dark blue transverse bands on the body, and can be easily recognized in the field. So far, despite considerable surveying efforts made on neighboring islands, this species has only been found from a small stream on Dawanshan Island, which suggests that it may have a very limited range, probably endemic to Dawanshan Island. Molecular characteristics of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) demonstrate that this species shows sufficient interspecific divergence from its congeners, including C. serrata Stimpson, 1860, which was found in four streams on Dawanshan Island, and has been previously reported on the neighboring islands of Hong Kong, Dong’ao, Wailingding, and Guishan.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a growth factor that plays vital roles in the neuron survival, growth, and neuroplasticity. Alteration to BDNF expression is associated with major depressive disorder. However, the BDNF translational machinery in depression remains unknown. Herein, we pointed that Pdcd4, a suppressor oncogene, acted as an endogenous inhibitor for the translation of BDNF, and selectively repressed the translation of BDNF splice variant IIc mRNA in an eIF4A-dependent manner. Chronic restraint stress (CRS) up-regulated Pdcd4 expression in hippocampus via decreasing mTORC1-mediated proteasomes degradation pathway, which resulted in the reduction of BDNF protein expression. Moreover, over-expression of Pdcd4 in the hippocampus triggered spontaneous depression-like behaviors under the non-stressed conditions in mice, while systemic or neuron-specific knockout of Pdcd4 reverses CRS-induced depression-like behaviors. Importantly, administration of Pdcd4 siRNA or an interfering peptide that interrupts the Pdcd4-eIF4A complex substantially promoted BDNF expression and rescued the behavioral disorders which were caused by CRS. Overall, we have discovered a previously unrecognized role of Pdcd4 in controlling BDNF mRNA translation, and provided a new method that boosting BDNF expression through blocking the function of Pdcd4 in depression, indicating that Pdcd4 might be a new potential target for depressive disorder therapy.

The aircraft electrical system provides power for the normal operation of the aircraft. Its normal operation is critical to ensure the safe flight of the aircraft. Therefore, it is very important to identify the hazards in the aircraft electrical system. In this paper, a hazard identification and prediction system which can intelligently identify potential hazards in aircraft electrical system is proposed. The proposed hazard identification and prediction system mainly includes three processes: variable selection, hazard identification, and hazard prediction. In the process of variable selection, the stepwise regression analysis is used to select 8 main parameters that have the major influence on the DC bus voltage value from 18 parameters. In the process of hazard identification, support vector machine is used to identify pre-existing hazards in electrical system based on the status of all components. The identification accuracy of the support vector machine is 92.3%. When the electrical system does not have unacceptable hazards, a prediction of the variation range of the DC bus voltage value in the aircraft electrical system is performed. The average prediction relative error of support vector machine is only 0.86%. Overall, the identification accuracy and average prediction relative error show that the proposed hazard identification and prediction system can accurately and effectively identify and predict the hazards in the aircraft electrical system.

Current control of pathogenic bacteria at all biomaterial interfaces is poorly attuned to a broad range of disease-causing pathogens. Leading antimicrobial surface functionalization strategies with antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), defensins, have not shown their promised efficacy. One of the main problems is the lack of stability and swift clearance from the surface. Surface nanotopography bearing sharp protrusions is a non-chemical solution that is intrinsically stable and long-lasting. Previously, the geometrically ordered arrays of nanotipped spines repelled or rapidly ruptured bacteria that come into contact. The killing properties so far work on cocci and rod-like bacteria, but there is no validation of the efficacy of protrusional surfaces on pathogenic bacteria with different sizes and morphologies, thus broadening the utility of such surfaces to cover increasingly more disease entities. Here, we report a synthetic analogue of nanotipped spines with a pyramidal shape that show great effectiveness on species of bacteria with strongly contrasting shapes and sizes. To highlight this phenomenon in the field of dental applications where selective bacterial control is vital to the clinical success of biomaterial functions, we modified the poly(methyl)-methacrylate (PMMA) texture and tested it against Streptococcus mutans, Enterococcus faecalis, Porphyromonas gingivalis, and Fusobacterium nucleatum. These nanopyramids performed effectively at levels well above those of normal and roughened PMMA biomaterials for dentistry and a model material for general use in medicine and disease transmission in hospital environments.

Safety is an eternal issue in the civil aviation transportation. Once a civil aviation accident occurs, it will cause great casualties and economic losses. In order to ensure the civil aviation safety, the hazard identification and prediction of civil aircraft should be effectively and accurately realized. The civil aircraft uses Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) to interact with the ground during flight. The data generated by ACARS has a simple structure and strong timeliness. In view of the advantages of ACARS data, a hazard identification and prediction method based on support vector machine optimized by particle swarm optimization (PSO-SVM) and long short term memory (LSTM) neural networks which uses ACARS report as analysis data is proposed. First, in order to reduce the identification and prediction time cost, the SVM-based recursive feature elimination method with cross-validation algorithm (SVM-RFECV) is used to select the characteristic parameters. Then, the SVM optimized by PSO is used to identify hazard based on the selected parameters. According to the identification results, the LSTM is used to predict the trend of the selected parameters to realize hazard prediction. An A13 report of APU generated by ACARS is selected as analysis data for hazard identification and predication in this paper. The analysis results show that the proposed identification method based on PSO-SVM and SVM-RFECV has high identification speed and accuracy. The proposed prediction method based on LSTM has the best prediction performance. The proposed method can effectively identify hazards and accurately predict the trend of parameters to improve the safety of aircraft.

Modular multilevel converter (MMC) has great prospects in voltage source converter-based high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission. Although the typical half-bridge MMC can bring huge economic benefits, it is unable to clear dc fault. An MMC based on arm transfer (AT-MMC) and corresponding timing control are presented to effectively solve this drawback. Compared with the half-bridge MMC, the AT-MMC adds the arm-transferring branch to the each phase unit of the converter and adds the current-breaking branch and the energy-absorbing branch to the dc line. Through these branches cooperating with each other, the fault current is cleared. Referring to the half-bridge MMC with the same voltage grade, the AT-MMC has a good economy and its additional device cost is low and additional conduction loss is very small. A model of 51-level MMC–HVDC system is built in RT-LAB OP5600 to verify the effectiveness of the proposed solution.

Depression is one of the most common psychiatric disorders. Recently, studies demonstrate that antidepressants generating BDNF not only maintain synaptic signal transmission but also repress neuroinflammatory cytokines such as IL-6 and IL-1β. Therefore, promoting BDNF expression provides a strategy for the treatment of depression. Our recent research has indicated that programmed cell death 4 (Pdcd4) is a new target for antidepressant treatment by facilitating BDNF. Herein, we modified Pdcd4 specific small interfering RNA (siPdcd4) with the rabies virus glycoprotein peptide (RVG/siPdcd4) which enables it cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB). We found that RVG/siPdcd4 complex was selectively delivered to neurons and microglia and silenced the expression of Pdcd4, thereby up-regulating the level of BDNF and down-regulating IL-6 and IL-1β expression. More importantly, RVG/siPdcd4 injection attenuated synaptic plasticity impairment and protected mice from CRS-induced depressive behavior. These findings suggest that RVG/siPdcd4 complex is a potential therapeutic medicine for depression.

Ferroelectric LiNbO3 single crystals have wide applications in surface acoustic wave filters, pyroelectric sensors, and electro-optic modulators. Large-area LiNbO3 single-crystal thin films integrated on silicon are promising for high density integration of ferroelectric domain-wall resistance switching memories and transistors. However, the short-time operation of the memory often suffers from poor polarization retention due to the built-in imprint voltage. Here, we observed the strong polarization orientation-dependent imprint effect within either out-of-plane or in-plane LiNbO3 thin-film capacitors. The imprint effect can shift domain switching hysteresis loops toward positive/negative voltages seriously with written negative/positive polarizations that occur within a characteristic imprint time of 5.1 ms–360 s. Once the write time of the memory is shorter than the imprint time, the inverted domain is unstable and switches back into its previous orientation automatically after the termination of a write operation. However, the write failure can be avoided if the write time is longer than the imprint time, and the written domain can be deeply protected by the imprint field. A model of polarization-dependent charge injection at the interface is developed to explain the time-dependent imprint effect. For a mesa-like LiNbO3 memory cell in contact with two side electrodes fabricated at the film surface, the imprint time can be greatly shortened below 30 ns with the extension of one side electrode over the cell surface to screen the tail of the switched domain, enabling ferroelectric domain-wall resistance switching devices in excellent retention and high operation speeds.

Objective. Chronic low back pain is an overwhelming problem for a wide range of people and leads to tactile acuity deficits. We aimed to investigate the correlations among age, pain severity, disability, and tactile acuity in patients with chronic low back pain by using multiple tactile acuity tests. Methods. A total of 58 participants (36.40 ± 14.95 years) with chronic low back pain were recruited, and two-point discrimination, point-to-point test, and two-point estimation were performed on their painful low back areas. The correlations between age, pain intensity, disability, and tactile acuity were characterized with Pearson’s correlation coefficients. Subgroup analyses according to the median values of age, pain intensity, and disability were used to compare the intergroup difference in tactile acuity. Results. Results illustrated significant negative associations among age, pain intensity, disability, and tactile acuity. Subgroup analyses revealed that patients with below-the-median values of age, pain intensity, and disability had better performance in tactile acuity tests than those with above-the-median values. Conclusion. This study indicated that tactile acuity was negatively associated with age, pain intensity, and disability in young patients with chronic low back pain.

Hyper-inflammatory reaction plays a crucial role in the pathophysiology of depression and anxiety disorders. However, the mechanisms underlying inflammation-induced anxiety changes remain poorly understood. Here, we showed that in the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced anxiety model, Interleukin (IL)-33, a member of the IL-1 family, was up-regulated in the basolateral amygdala, and IL-33 deficiency prevent anxiety-like behavior. Overexpression of IL-33 in amygdalar astrocytes led to anxiety-like response via repressing brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) expression. Mechanically, IL-33 suppressed BDNF expression through NF-κB pathway to impair GABAergic transmission in the amygdala and NF-κB inhibitor abolished the effect of IL-33 on anxiety. Administration of an inverse GABAA receptor agonist increased the anxiety of IL-33- deficient mice. These results reveal that inflammatory response can activate anxiogenic circuits by suppressing BDNF and GABAergic neurons transmission, suggesting that IL-33 in basolateral amygdalar is a linker between inflammation and anxiety.

Evidence-based information is the foundation for addressing urgent global challenges in conservation and sustainable management of the freshwater biodiversity. The present study expands current knowledge of the genus Macrobrachium in Zaomu Mountain Forest Park, Guangdong Province based on the morphology, colouration, distribution, and molecular characteristics of Macrobrachiummaculatum, M.inflatum, M.nipponense, and an undescribed new species, M.laevis. Macrobrachiumlaevissp. nov. can be distinguished from its congeners by a combination of characters, which includes the shape of rostrum, smooth carapace, and male second pereiopod. Macrobrachiumlaevissp. nov. displays striking colour pattern, which could help to distinguish this species from other congeneric species in living specimen. Furthermore, the molecular characteristics of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) showed that this species has a sufficient interspecific divergence from its congeners.

Ion-exchanged glasses are widely used in optoelectronic devices due to its high strength and optical waveguide effects. The MgF2 films deposited on the ion-exchanged glasses and the ion-exchanged glasses bombarded by argon ions (100 eV) at 220 °C were investigated in the present work. The microstructure of MgF2 films and the structural and physico-chemical properties of the ion-exchanged glasses before and after deposition and bombardment were analyzed by grazing incident X-ray diffraction (GIXRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), electron probe micro analysis (EPMA), micro-Raman spectroscopy and surface stress meter. It is shown that MgF2 films exhibit a polycrystalline and microcolumnar structure. The peak of potassium ions concentration distribution in the ion-exchanged glasses, accompanied by outward diffusion of potassium ions, decreases and moves from glass surface to the inner part to different degrees during deposition and bombardment. The potassium ions concentration in the region near the surface of argon ion-bombarded glasses is almost the same as the MgF2-coated glasses. Furthermore, the position and intensity of Raman bands in the subsurface region of the ion-exchanged glasses show obvious changes before and after deposition and bombardment. The values of compressive stress and depth of layer in the MgF2-coated ion-exchanged glasses and the argon ion-bombarded ion-exchanged glasses are far away lower than that of its values obtained in the ion-exchanged glasses. Overall results have shown that variations of chemical composition, Raman bands and surface compressive stress in the exchanged region indicate subsurface modification of the ion-exchanged glasses induced by deposition and bombardment, which provide useful information for the use of the ion-exchanged glasses in further.

In the influencing factors of reading distance of RFID tags, the tags’ geometric spatial structures have an important aspect on the corresponding reading distance. In order to achieve the goal of improving the reading distance of RFID tags, a novel three-dimensional (3D) position measurement and structure prediction method for RFID tag group based on deep belief network (DBN) is proposed. First, a 3D structure prediction system for RFID tags, which is based on stereovision, is designed. Second, an image deblurring scheme which combines the knife-edge with Wiener filtering method is adopted to restore the blur image in the 3D position measurement process. Then, RFID tags’ 3D positions are acquired by using the image matching method. Finally, the relationship model between RFID tags’ 3D positions and reading distance is built by DBN. The experimental results show that the relationship between tag group’s 3D positions and reading distance can be well built by DBN. The established DBN can forecast the reading distance accurately. The MAPE and RMSE of DBN prediction results are 1.64% and 0.168. The DBN can find the best 3D spatial distribution structure of RFID tag group corresponding to the maximum reading distance, which can guide the 3D distribution of the tag group.

Lithium ore (mineralized) bodies in the area A of central Yunnan Province belong to a sedimentary-type, which are controlled by stratum. The studied ore (mineralized) body mainly occurs in the Middle Permian Liangshan Formation. This work described the morphology, structures, main ore types and geochemical characteristics of this ore body in detail, and discussed the ore-forming material source, occurrence state of lithium and the formation mechanism of lithium ores to clarify the prospecting marks. In the further exploration, comprehensive evaluation of the lithium resources of known bauxite ore bodies in central Yunnan Province should be strengthened, and the exploration of hidden lithium ore bodies should be intensified in order to discover more large and super-large lithium orebodies, which will fill the gap of the national demand for lithium resources, and promote the national defense construction and new energy industry development.

Ferroelectric devices have wide applications in nonvolatile random-access memories, sensors, actuators, and transducers. The built-in potential at the interfaces could result in poor polarization retention. Here, we found an effective way to independently adjust two coercive fields of LiNbO3 mesa-like domain wall devices in contact to two side electrodes at the surface. Taking advantage of the electrode shielding effect on the depolarization field across an interfacial layer, the near-zero coercive field increases almost linearly with respect to the extending length of one side electrode covering the tail of the reversed domain, enabling nonvolatile ferroelectric domain wall devices in good polarization retention and fast operation speeds.