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Aim: Chromosome 14 open reading frame 166 (C14orf166) acts as a transcriptional repressor and is correlated with centrosome architecture manipulation. Nevertheless, the function of C14orf166 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression remains unclear. We aimed to investigate the role C14orf166 plays in HCC and further compared the prognostic value of C14orf166 with that of clinicopathological features. Methods: C14orf166 expression was evaluated in a human liver cell line, HCC cell lines, HCC tissues and adjacent noncancerous liver tissues with qRT-PCR, western blot and immunohistochemistry. Patients were divided into two different groups according to C14orf166 level. The relationship between C14orf166 expression and clinicopathological features was assessed by Pearson chi-squared test and receiver operating characteristic curves. Cumulative disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) curves were evaluated using the Kaplan–Meier method. Results: C14orf166 mRNA and protein expression is upregulated in HCC cell lines and tissues. The level of C14orf166 was correlated with serum alpha-fetoprotein level, lymph node metastasis, tumor size and recurrence, with high C14orf166 expression correlating with high HCC recurrence risk. The poor OS and DFS of HCC patients are partly due to the persistently high HCC recurrence risk. When combined with serum alpha-fetoprotein level, the predictive accuracy of C14orf166 for HCC recurrence was enhanced (AUC = 0.712, 95% CI 0.603–0.821; p = 0.001). Conclusions: This study demonstrated that C14orf166 is a high-risk biomarker and predictive factor for HCC recurrence, providing information for the selection of appropriate treatment strategies.

Abstract Background The ratio of CO2 mesophyll conductance (g m) to Ribulose-1, 5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (Rubisco) content has been suggested to positively affect photosynthetic nitrogen use efficiency (PNUE). The anatomical basis of g m has been quantified, but information on the relationship between cell-level anatomies and PNUE is less advanced. Here, hydroponic experiments were conducted in rice plants supplied with ammonium (NH4 +) and nitrate (NO3 −) under three N levels (low, 0.71 mM; intermediate, 2.86 mM; high, 7.14 mM) to investigate the gas exchange parameters, leaf anatomical structure and PNUE. Results The results showed a lower PNUE in plants supplied with high nitrogen and NH4 +, which was positively correlated with the g m/Rubisco ratio. A one-dimensional within-leaf model revealed that the resistance to CO2 diffusion in the liquid phase (r liq) dominated the overall mesophyll resistance (r m), in which CO2 transfer resistance in the cell wall, cytoplasm and stroma were significantly affected by nitrogen supply. The chloroplast surface area exposed to intercellular space (S c) per Rubisco rather than the g m/S c ratio was positively correlated with PNUE and was thus considered a key component influencing PNUE. Conclusion In conclusion, our study emphasized that S c was the most important anatomical trait in coordinating g m and PNUE with contrasting N supply.

Abstract Background High tibial osteotomy (HTO) has a history of nearly 60 years and has been widely used in clinical practice. Biplanar open wedge high tibial osteotomy (BOWHTO), which evolved from HTO, is an important therapy for the knee osteoarthritis. In our previous research, we found that the decrease of hemoglobin levels after high tibial osteotomy ranges from between 17 to 41 g/L, but this is highly inconsistent with the intraoperative bleeding and postoperative drainage observed in clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perioperative hidden blood loss (HBL) after biplanar open wedge high tibial osteotomy (BOWHTO), as well as to study the effect of the actual correction angle on blood loss. Methods A retrospective analysis was performed on 21 patients who underwent BOWHTO for osteoarthritis of the knee due to proximal tibia deformity. Gross equation was used to calculate the perioperative total blood loss (TBL) and HBL. The actual correction angle was measured by postoperative anteroposterior radiograph. The correlation between HBL and correction angle was determined through correlation analysis. Results The TBL was 823.5 ± 348.7 mL and the HBL was 601.6 ± 297.3 mL, total hemoglobin loss was 25.0 ± 10.7 g/L, and the mean HBL/patient’s blood volume (H/P) was 13.19 ± 5.56% for 21 patients. The correlation coefficient of correction angle and H/P is statistically significant (|r| = 0.678, P = 0.001). Conclusions The actual total blood loss after BOWHTO was significantly higher than the observed, and the HBL was objective existent after BOWHTO. The proportion of H/P is positively correlated with the correction angle.

Arsenic and antimony are common toxic metalloids found in associated minerals. These metalloids generally cause high-concentration pollution in non-ferrous metal smelting soils; however, few studies have investigated the pollution characteristics of these two metalloids at non-ferrous smelting sites using varying soil particle sizes. In this study, the valency distributions and geochemical fractions were investigated with varying soil particle sizes (≤ 0.05, 0.05–0.25, 0.25–1, and 1–2 mm). Soils were mainly concentrated in ≤ 0.05 and 0.05–0.25 mm with mass percentages of 32.97% and 29.02%, respectively. The highest total As and Sb concentrations in ≤ 0.05 mm were found to be 20,350 and 3655 mg/kg, respectively. In addition, As(Ⅲ), As(Ⅴ), Sb(Ⅲ), and Sb(Ⅴ) concentrations in this soil particle size were found to be 224, 19,813, 1036, and 24 mg/kg, respectively. The geochemical fractions of As and Sb in varying soil particle sizes were mainly residual, accounting for 50% and 90% in the ≤ 0.05 mm. Soil may bind ≤ 0.25 mm due to the disparity found in the geochemical compositions and valency distributions of arsenic and antimony. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive system analysis confirmed that arsenolite accumulated in particle sizes of ≤ 0.05 and 0.05–0.25 mm. The results of this study may provide a scientific reference for risk assessment and restoration strategies for non-ferrous metal smelting soils.

Booming aspiration of advanced energy storage equipment elevates lithium-ion batteries vastly. Whereas separator with inferior porous structure and compatibility mismatches battery internal medium and raises ion transference rampart. Herein, fumed SiO2 compound separator is designed via ingenious bidirectional drawing technique to optimize the porous structure and realize fumed SiO2 coating online construction during the pore formation process of β-crystal polypropylene (β-iPP) synchronously. Crystal structure measurement, pore construction diagnosis, and physical properties tests disclose that the fumed SiO2 thins coarse fibril structure and homogenizes porous construction of separator. The de-bonding of fumed SiO2/β-iPP interfaces also remains SiO2 on the top-surface and pore internal wall of separator and thus realizes the SiO2 coating online construction, which eliminate the steps required by coating after fabrication of the separator and greatly reduce the production difficulty and cost. Also, the prepared composite separators present reinforced thermal dimensional stability and electrolyte wettability benefited by the SiO2 coating. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and cycle tests further uncover that hydrophilic SiO2 nanoparticles lower lithium-ion migration rampart within separator and enhance compatibility with electrodes, which stifles cell resistances and gives LIBs superior high ratio discharge property and cycling durability.

Despite progress toward gender equality in the labor market over the past few decades, gender segregation in labor force composition and labor market outcomes persists. Evidence has shown that job advertisements may express gender preferences, which may selectively attract potential job candidates to apply for a given post and thus reinforce gendered labor force composition and outcomes. Removing gender-explicit words from job advertisements does not fully solve the problem as certain implicit traits are more closely associated with men, such as ambitiousness, while others are more closely associated with women, such as considerateness. However, it is not always possible to find neutral alternatives for these traits, making it hard to search for candidates with desired characteristics without entailing gender discrimination. Existing algorithms mainly focus on the detection of the presence of gender biases in job advertisements without providing a solution to how the text should be (re)worded. To address this problem, we propose an algorithm that evaluates gender bias in the input text and provides guidance on how the text should be debiased by offering alternative wording that is closely related to the original input. Our proposed method promises broad application in the human resources process, ranging from the development of job advertisements to algorithm-assisted screening of job applications.

Due to the rapid spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), there is an urgent requirement for the development of additional diagnostic tools for further analysis of the disease. The isolated nanobody Nb11-59 binds to the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) receptor-binding domain (RBD) with high affinity to neutralize the virus and block the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2- (ACE2-) RBD interaction. Here, we introduce a novel nanobody-based radiotracer named 68Ga-Nb1159. The radiotracer retained high affinity for the RBD and showed reliable radiochemical characteristics both in vitro and in vivo. Preclinical positron emission tomography (PET) studies of 68Ga-Nb1159 in mice revealed its rapid clearance from circulation and robust uptake into the renal and urinary systems. Fortunately, 68Ga-Nb1159 could specifically reveal the distribution of the RBD in mice. This study also helped to evaluate the pharmacodynamic effects of the neutralizing nanobody. Moreover, 68Ga-Nb1159 may be a promising tool to explore the distribution of the RBD and improve the understanding of the virus. In particular, this study identified a novel molecular radioagent and established a reliable evaluation method for specifically investigating the RBD through noninvasive and visual PET technology.

The stimuli-responsive polymer-based platform for controlled drug delivery has gained increasing attention in treating hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) owing to the fascinating biocompatibility and biodegradability, improved antitumor efficacy, and negligible side effects recently. Herein, a disulfide bond-contained polypeptide nanogel, methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)−poly(l-phenylalanine-co-l-cystine) [mPEG−P(LP-co-LC)] nanogel, which could be responsive to the intracellular reduction microenvironments, was developed to deliver lenvatinib (LEN), an inhibitor of multiple receptor tyrosine kinases, for HCC therapy. The lenvatinib-loaded nanogel (NG/LEN) displayed concise drug delivery under the stimulus of glutathione in the cancer cells. Furthermore, the intracellular reduction-responsive nanomedicine NG/LEN showed excellent antitumor effect and almost no side effects toward both subcutaneous and orthotopic HCC tumor-allografted mice in comparison to free drug. The excellent tumor-inhibition efficacy with negligible side effects demonstrated the potential of NG/LEN for clinical molecular targeted therapy of gastrointestinal carcinoma in the future.

Cinnamic acid (AC) and cinnamic aldehyde (AL) are two chemicals enriched in cinnamon and have been previously proved to improve glucolipid metabolism, thus ameliorating metabolic disorders. In this study, we employed transcriptomes and proteomes on AC and AL treated db/db mice in order to explore the underlying mechanisms for their effects. Db/db mice were divided into three groups: the control group, AC group and AL group. Gender- and age-matched wt/wt mice were used as a normal group. After 4 weeks of treatments, mice were sacrificed, and liver tissues were used for further analyses. Functional enrichment of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) were performed using Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) databases. DEPs were further verified by parallel reaction monitoring (PRM). The results suggested that AC and AL share similar mechanisms, and they may improve glucolipid metabolism by improving mitochondrial functions, decreasing serotonin contents and upregulating autophagy mediated lipid clearance. This study provides an insight into the molecular mechanisms of AC and AL on hepatic transcriptomes and proteomes in disrupted metabolic situations and lays a foundation for future experiments.

AimsThe incidence of atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia (AVNRT) is higher in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) patients than in the general population. AVNRT is reportedly associated with a larger coronary sinus (CS) ostium (CSo). However, the correlation between AVNRT and CSo size in PAH patients is poorly investigated. We aimed to investigate the impact of CSo size on AVNRT and identify its risk factors in PAH.Methods and ResultsOf 102 PAH patients with catheter ablation of supraventricular tachycardia (SVT), twelve with a confirmed AVNRT diagnosis who underwent computed tomographic angiography were retrospectively enrolled as the study group. The control group (PAH without SVT, n = 24) was matched for sex and BMI at a 2:1 ratio. All baseline and imaging data were collected. Mean pulmonary artery pressure was not significantly different between the two groups (65.3 ± 16.8 vs. 64.5 ± 17.6 mmHg, P = 0.328). PAH patients with AVNRT were older (45.9 ± 14.8 vs. 32.1 ± 7.6 years, P = 0.025), had a larger right atrial volume (224.4 ± 129.6 vs. 165.3 ± 71.7 cm3, P = 0.044), larger CSo in the left anterior oblique (LAO) plane (18.6 ± 3.3 vs. 14.8 ± 4.0 mm, P = 0.011), and larger CSo surface area (2.08 ± 1.35 vs. 1.45 ± 0.73 cm2, P = 0.039) and were more likely to have a windsock-shape CS (75% vs. 16.7%, P = 0.001) than those without AVNRT. A linear correlation was shown between CSo diameter in the LAO-plane and the atrial fractionation of the ablation target for AVNRT (R2 = 0.622, P = 0.012).ConclusionAnatomical dilation of the CSo is a risk factor for AVNRT development in patients with PAH.

A fully integrated Chen chaotic oscillation system using operational amplifiers (OAs) and multipliers is designed and verified in this paper. Unlike the conventional breadboard-based Chen chaotic system using off-the-shelf discrete components, the fully integrated Chen chaotic oscillation circuit presented in this paper is realized using GlobalFoundries’ 0.18 μm CMOS 1P6M process, and all the circuit components are integrated in a chip. The fully integrated Chen chaotic oscillation system is verified using Cadence IC Design Tools, and the post-layout simulation results indicate that the presented integrated Chen chaotic oscillation system only consumes 148 mW from ± 2.5 V supply voltage, and its chip area is 6.15 mm2.

Hypercholesterolemia is associated with lipid peroxidation induced reactive dicarbonyl adducts. Here the authors show that the dicarbonyl scavenger, 2-hydroxybenzylamine(2-HOBA), decreases reactive dicarbonyl modifications of LDL and HDL, improves HDL function, reduces atherosclerosis and promotes features of stable plaques in a mouse model of hypercholestrolemia.

Objective The 3D motion capture system was used to measure the upper limb bradykinesia in Parkinson's disease (PD) to make up for the lack of artificial measurement. Methods Ninteen patients with PD (PD group) and 10 healthy subjects (control group) were recruited from June to December 2019 in Tianjin Huanhu Hospital. All the subjects completed the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating ScaleⅢ (UPDRS⁃Ⅲ) evaluation in the room equipped with 3D motion capture system. The thumb and index finger of the subjects were fixed with reflective markers to collect motion information. In this study, only the action of finger tapping was evaluated digitally, and five parameters were extracted from the evaluation results: 1) average maximum amplitude of finger taps (amp). 2) Average finger tapping interval (intval). 3) Average zero⁃crossing occurrences of acceleration (zc). 4) Average of the forward maximum velocity (v1). 5) Average of the negative maximum velocity (v2). Using receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) to evaluate the value of intval, zc and their combination indexes in the diagnosis of upper limb bradykinesia in PD. Results In PD group, UPDRS⁃Ⅲ score was 33.79±13.14, bradykinesia score was 13.61±5.26, upper limb bradykinesia score was 6.61±2.65, finger tapping score was 1.68±0.78. Intval (P=0.001) and zc (P=0.004) in PD group were higher than those in control group, and the difference was statistically significant. The ROC curves of intval and zc for upper limb bradykinesia showed that the AUC of them were 0.858 (95%CI: 0.743-0.973, P=0.000) and 0.799 (95%CI: 0.642-0.955, P=0.008); the sensitivity was 0.737, 0.921, and the specificity was 0.900 and 0.600, respectively. After the combination ofintvaland zc,the AUC was 0.858(95%CI:0.752-0.964, P=0.001),the sensitivity and specificity were 0.711and0.100,respectively. Conclusions The digital evaluation of upper limb bradykinesia in PD can be realized by using 3D motion capture system, which makes up for the deficiency of manual evaluation to a certain extent. The extracted parameters intval and zc have high sensitivity and specificity, which are expected to be used as characteristic indicators for early screening of PD. DOI：10.3969/j.issn.1672⁃6731.2020.08.012

Abstract Background Differentiation of suprasellar meningiomas (SSMs) from non-functioning pituitary macroadenomas (NFPMAs) is useful for clinical management. We investigated the utility of 13N-ammonia combined with 18F-FDG positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) in distinguishing SSMs from NFPMAs retrospectively. Methods Fourteen NFPMA patients and eleven SSM patients with histopathologic diagnosis were included in this study. Every patient underwent both 18F-FDG and 13N-ammonia PET/CT scans. The tumor to gray matter (T/G) ratios were calculated for the evaluation of tumor uptake. Results The uptake of 18F-FDG was higher in NFPMAs than SSMs, whereas the uptake of 13N-ammonia was obviously lower in NFPMAs than SSMs. The differences of 18F-FDG and 13N-ammonia uptake between the two groups were significant respectively (0.92[0.46] vs 0.59[0.29], P

Abstract Background Ovarian cancer (OC) is a common female reproductive malignancy with a high mortality rate. Although LAMA4 was observed to be downregulated in OC cells, its mechanism in regulating OC metastasis is still unknown. This study aimed to investigate the effect of LAMA4 and its mechanism on OC. Methods To achieve this aim, a microarray analysis was performed to screen out the key genes involved in OC pathogenesis. Western-blot and qRT-PCR assays were also carried out to detect protein and mRNA expressions, respectively. A luciferase reporter assay was further used to confirm the direct interaction of miR-30e-3p with MEG3, and the direct interaction of miR-30e-3p with LAMA4 mRNA. Cytological experiments (CCK8, colony formation assay, wound-healing assay etc.) were then performed to explore the roles of miR-30e-3p, MEG3, and LAMA4 in OC cells. Results After carrying out microarray analysis, LAMA4 was confirmed as a key gene associated with OC pathogenesis. Research results proved that miR-30e-3p was markedly upregulated, while MEG3 and LAMA4 were noticeably downregulated in OC tissues and cells. The overexpression of LAMA4 significantly impaired the proliferation, migration, and invasion of OC cells. However, the upregulation of MEG3 increased the expression of LAMA4 by sponging miR-30e-3p, which alleviated the malignancy of OC cells. Conclusions Observations showed that forced LAMA4 overexpression could inhibit OC progression, which was regulated by MEG3 via sponging miR-30e-3p. The findings of this research could provide new insights into the mechanism by which MEG3 and LAMA4 exert their anti-oncogenic roles in OC progression. Trial registration Not applicable

Abstract A pulse tube refrigerator (PTR) was developed to operate at different cooling capacities to meet the requirements of various applications. Changes in the thermal loads or the long operating time of the PTR will influence the cold conditions (cold‐end temperature and heat load), leading to a deviation of the cooling performance from the optimal design conditions. The basic principles of the mass flow characteristics of the PTR are constructed based on enthalpy phase modulation, which is helpful for comprehending the relationships between cold‐end parameters and other parameters. A REGEN model is introduced in which different mass flows at the cold‐end are considered to simulate the effects of the cold‐end parameters on the performance of the regenerator. The influences of the cold‐end temperature and heat load on the cooling performance are investigated by using a coupling model of a DeltaEC model and a REGEN model. In addition, some experiments are performed on a PTR working at different cold‐end temperatures and heat load. The experimental results are in good agreement with the simulation results. The cooling performance of the PTR is influenced by the average pressure and operating frequency of different cooling states. Relative Carnot efficiencies of 12.2% for 4 W@60 K with a specific power of 33 W/W and 16.1% for 15 W @120 K with a specific power of 9 W/W can be achieved by the PTR using different operating parameters.

The eigenmodes of an inverse-parabolic graded index fiber under torsion were investigated by using the finite element method simulation. These eigenstates correspond to orbital angular momentum modes except for the two polarized-vortex modes. The design of appropriate core parameters can lead to the difference in the effective refractive indexes between all adjacent modes being greater than 10-4 over a bandwidth of 1.5 to 1.6 μm, which is expected to be an ideal method for the generation of multiple vortex modes in few-mode fiber for optical communication. The results showed that the separation of these modes changes with twist rate. Compared to the twisted air-hole ring-core fiber, the optimal twist rate of this fiber was found to be an order of magnitude smaller, which provides a more feasible scheme for the combination of mode division multiplexing and wavelength division multiplexing. We speculate that this study may have promising prospects in various applications such as particle manipulation, imaging, and quantum communication.

Affected by illumination, gesture, expression and other factor's variation, face image pattern is easy to be changed, so it is important to find a robust data representation for the correct classification of face pattern. In this paper, a face image recognition algorithm based on 2-D Gabor wavelet transform and Local Binary Pattern (LBP) is proposed. LBP is a local describe operator, which is invariant against illumination variation. 2-D Gabor wavelet transform have the invariant property against pose and expression variation. Experimental results show that the large scale 2-D Gabor wavelet representation could get good classification accuracy. Using LBP to describe 2-D Gabor wavelet representation of face image, together with image block, histogram statistics, PCA dimensionality reduction, nearestneighbors classification, we finally find this algorithm can get a better classification performance in different scales and directions.

Emergent quantum phenomena such as quantized anomalous Hall effect may be realized in magnetic topological materials. Here, Hu et al. discovered an intrinsic natural heterostructural Z2 antiferromagnetic topological insulator MnBi4Te7 with low out-of-plane saturation fields.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains a major cause of carcinoma‐related deaths worldwide. MicroRNA‐498 (miR‐498) modulates the development of a variety of biological events, including tumorigenesis. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether miR‐498 plays a role in CRC. This study was designed to elucidate the underlying mechanism and role of miR‐498 in modulation of the viability and invasiveness of CRC cells. We report that CRC tissues and cells exhibited decreased expression of miR‐498, and that overexpression of miR‐498 resulted in reduced proliferation of CRC cells, concomitant with increased apoptosis. Furthermore, bioinformatic prediction and dual‐luciferase reporter assay revealed that miR‐498 targeted the 3′‐UTR of Bcl‐2 for silencing. However, Bcl‐2 overexpression suppressed the proapoptosis of miR‐498 on CRC cells. In summary, we describe a possible role of miR‐498 in CRC, which may lead to the identification of new targets for treatment of this malignancy.

Background & Aims: Claudin-7 (Cldn7) is a tight junction (TJ) membrane protein located at the apical TJ and basolateral side of intestinal epithelial cells. Deletion of Cldn7 by gene targeting leads to the inflammatory bowel disease–like phenotype in mice, which includes weight loss, diarrhea, mucosa ulceration, and severe intestinal epithelial damage. In this study, we test our hypothesis that Cldn7 plays a critical role in regulating intestinal crypt stem cell functions. Methods: Gene expression microarray, quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction, in situ hybridization, histologic examinations, immunoblotting, 3-dimensional organoid culture, and various treatments to rescue Cldn7-deficient organoid defects were conducted using global Cldn7 knockout mice and inducible, conditional Cldn7 knockout mice. Results: Gene deletion of Cldn7 in intestines showed significant alteration of expression profiles with striking down-regulation of intestinal crypt stem cell markers such as Olfm4, dislocated proliferative cells, and disrupted epithelial cell differentiation. In addition, the isolated Cldn7-deficient crypts where the stem cells reside were either unable to survive at all or formed defective spheroids, highlighting the functional impairment of crypt stem cells in the absence of Cldn7. Remarkably, the Cldn7-expressing organoids with buddings underwent rapid cell degeneration within days after turning off Cldn7 expression in the culture. We identified that activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling rescued the organoid defects caused by Cldn7 deletion. Conclusions: In this study, we show that Cldn7 is indispensable in controlling Wnt/β-catenin signaling–dependent intestinal epithelial stem cell survival, self-renewal, and cell differentiation. This study could open a door to study roles of TJ proteins in stem cell regulations in other tissues and organs.

Abstract. Background:. Artificial intelligence-assisted image recognition technology is currently able to detect the target area of an image and fetch information to make classifications according to target features. This study aimed to use deep neural networks for computed tomography (CT) diagnosis of perigastric metastatic lymph nodes (PGMLNs) to simulate the recognition of lymph nodes by radiologists, and to acquire more accurate identification results. Methods:. A total of 1371 images of suspected lymph node metastasis from enhanced abdominal CT scans were identified and labeled by radiologists and were used with 18,780 original images for faster region-based convolutional neural networks (FR-CNN) deep learning. The identification results of 6000 random CT images from 100 gastric cancer patients by the FR-CNN were compared with results obtained from radiologists in terms of their identification accuracy. Similarly, 1004 CT images with metastatic lymph nodes that had been post-operatively confirmed by pathological examination and 11,340 original images were used in the identification and learning processes described above. The same 6000 gastric cancer CT images were used for the verification, according to which the diagnosis results were analyzed. Results:. In the initial group, precision-recall curves were generated based on the precision rates, the recall rates of nodule classes of the training set and the validation set; the mean average precision (mAP) value was 0.5019. To verify the results of the initial learning group, the receiver operating characteristic curves was generated, and the corresponding area under the curve (AUC) value was calculated as 0.8995. After the second phase of precise learning, all the indicators were improved, and the mAP and AUC values were 0.7801 and 0.9541, respectively. Conclusion:. Through deep learning, FR-CNN achieved high judgment effectiveness and recognition accuracy for CT diagnosis of PGMLNs. Trial Registration:. Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, No. ChiCTR1800016787; http://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.aspx?proj=28515.

Abstract The biggest challenging issue in photocatalysis is efficient separation of the photoinduced carriers and the aggregation of photoexcited electrons on photocatalyst’s surface. In this paper, we report that double metallic co-catalysts Ti3C2 MXene and metallic octahedral (1T) phase tungsten disulfide (WS2) act pathways transferring photoexcited electrons in assisting the photocatalytic H2 evolution. TiO2 nanosheets were in situ grown on highly conductive Ti3C2 MXenes and 1T-WS2 nanoparticles were then uniformly distributed on TiO2@Ti3C2 composite. Thus, a distinctive 1T-WS2@TiO2@Ti3C2 composite with double metallic co-catalysts was achieved, and the content of 1T phase reaches 73%. The photocatalytic H2 evolution performance of 1T-WS2@TiO2@Ti3C2 composite with an optimized 15 wt% WS2 ratio is nearly 50 times higher than that of TiO2 nanosheets because of conductive Ti3C2 MXene and 1T-WS2 resulting in the increase of electron transfer efficiency. Besides, the 1T-WS2 on the surface of TiO2@Ti3C2 composite enhances the Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area and boosts the density of active site.

Abstract Background Culturomics can ascertain traces of microorganisms to be cultivated using different strategies and identified by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization–time-of-flight mass spectrometry or 16S rDNA sequencing. However, to cater to all requirements of microorganisms and isolate as many species as possible, multiple culture conditions must be used, imposing a heavy workload. In addition, the fast-growing bacteria (e.g., Escherichia) surpass the slow-growing bacteria in culture by occupying space and using up nutrients. Besides, some bacteria (e.g., Pseudomonas) suppress others by secreting antibacterial metabolites, making it difficult to isolate bacteria with lower competence. Applying inhibitors to restrain fast-growing bacteria is one method to cultivate more bacterial species from human feces. Results We applied CHIR-090, an LpxC enzyme inhibitor that has antibacterial activity against most Gram-negative bacteria, to culturomics of human fresh feces. The antibacterial activity of CHIR-090 was first assessed on five Gram-negative species of bacteria (Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus vulgaris, and Bacteroides vulgatus), all of which are commonly isolated from the human gut. Then, we assessed suitable concentrations of the inhibitor. Finally, CHIR-090 was applied in blood culture bottles for bacterial cultivation. In total, 102 species from five samples were identified. Of these, we found one new species, two species not reported previously in the human gut, and 11 species not previously isolated from humans. Conclusions CHIR-090 can suppress E. coli, P. aeruginosa, K. pneumoniae, Pro. vulgaris, but not B. vulgatus. Compared with the non-inhibitor group, CHIR-090 increased bacteria isolation by 23.50%, including four species not reported in humans and one new species. Application of LpxC enzyme inhibitor in culturomics increased the number of species isolated from the human gut.

This article examines how suppliers’ innovation in developing countries is affected by the interaction of vertical global supply chain relationships and horizontal market competition structure. We devised a bidirectional dynamic game model consisting of competing suppliers in a developing economy and an overseas buyer in a developed economy for innovation decision process in a suppliers cluster. Our research shows that global supply chain relationship is the primary factor to influence local cluster innovation and profit. Total innovation of the cluster is proved to be greater in global supply relationship with a powerful buyer than a non-powerful buyer. However, suppliers in a powerful buyer chain are not able to capture the value they created from innovation. Local competition structure plays its secondary role on cluster innovation through interaction with vertical chain relationship. Based on prior innovation research on either vertical supply chain power dynamics or horizontal competition intenseness, our study contributes as the first to employ a theoretical suppliers’ innovation model for an integrative analysis encompassing both global and local power dynamics. First published online 03 December 2021

Background: Little is known about the differences among ventricular arrhythmias (VAs) ablated in different subregions of the aortic sinuses of Valsalva (ASVs). We aim to investigate the distribution, precordial electrocardiographic patterns, and bipolar electrogram characteristics of VAs ablated in different subregions of the ASVs.Methods: We divided the right ASV and the left ASV into a total of 6 subregions and studied 51 idiopathic VAs ablated first time successfully in the ASVs.Results: These 51 VAs were inhomogeneously distributed among the 6 subregions, which comprised the right-lateral ASV (1/51), the right-anterior ASV (11/51), the regions along the right (13/51) and left (9/51) sides of the ASV junction, the left-anterior ASV (5/51), and the left-lateral ASV (12/51). Fractionated potentials were dominant (39/51, 76%) among the 3 types of target electrograms. From the right-lateral ASV to the left-lateral ASV, the percentage of fractionated potentials gradually decreased from 100 to 59%. A precordial rebound notch in V3-V4 or V4-V5 had sensitivity of 90.9%, specificity of 85.0%, and negative predictive value (NPV) of 97.1% to predict VAs ablated in the right-anterior ASV. A precordial rebound notch in V2-V3 had sensitivity of 50.0%, specificity of 94.9%, and NPV of 86.0% to predict VAs ablated in the left-lateral ASV.Conclusion: VA targets were mainly distributed in the anterior and the left-lateral ASVs. Fractionated potentials were common among target electrograms, especially in theright-anterolateral ASV. Precordial electrocardiographic rebound notch has high predictive accuracy in identifying different subregions of the ASVs as target ablation sites.

The major challenges of replacing noble-metal electrocatalysts for hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen evolution reaction in alkaline electrolytes are stability- and kinetics-related. Here we report the synthesis of MoNi4 electrocatalysts covered by MoO2 nanosheets on carbon cloth. Originating from the high intrinsic catalytic activity of MoNi4 nanoalloy, the 3D porous structure provides many exposed active sites and high conductivity. The sample exhibited high activity with an overpotential of 23 mV and 253 mV, a low Tafel slope of 47 mV dec−1 and 136 mV dec−1 at a current density of 10 mA cm−2 for HER and OER, respectively.

Background: A variety of supraventricular arrhythmias (SVAs) may occur in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). The characteristics and long-term ablation outcomes of different types of SVAs in HCM have not been comprehensively investigated.Methods: We retrospectively enrolled 101 consecutive patients with HCM who were referred to the electrophysiology and arrhythmia service from May 2010 to October 2020. The clinical features and ablation outcomes were analyzed.Results: Seventy-eight patients had SVAs, which comprised 50 (64.1%) cases of atrial fibrillation (AF), 16 (20.5%) of atrial flutter (AFL), 15 (19.2%) of atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia (AVRT), 11 (14.1%) of atrial arrhythmia (AT), and 3 (3.8%) of atrioventricular nodal reentrant tachycardia (AVNRT). Thirty-four patients underwent catheter ablation and were followed up for a median (interquartile range) of 58.5 (82.9) months. There was no recurrence in patients with non-AF SVAs. In patients with AF, the 1- and 7-year AF-free survival rates were 87.5 and 49.5%, respectively. A receiver operator characteristic analysis showed that a greater left ventricular end-diastolic dimension (LVEDD) was associated with a higher recurrence of AF, with an optimum cutoff value of 47 mm (c-statistic = 0.91, p = 0.011, sensitivity = 1.00, specificity = 0.82). In Kaplan–Meier analysis, patients with a LVEDD ≥ 47 mm had worse AF-free survival than those with a LVEDD

To implement Prognostics Health Management (PHM) for hydraulic pumps, it is very important to study the faults of hydraulic pumps to ensure the stability and reliability of the whole life cycle. The research on fault diagnosis has been very active, but there is a lack of systematic analysis and summary of the developed methods. To make up for this gap, this paper systematically summarizes the relevant methods from the two aspects of fault diagnosis and health management. In addition, in order to further facilitate researchers and practitioners, statistical and comparative analysis of the reviewed methods is carried out, and a future development direction is prospected.

Local feature matching is a part of many large vision tasks. Local feature matching usually consists of three parts: feature detection, description, and matching. The matching task usually serves a downstream task, such as camera pose estimation, so geometric information is crucial for the matching task. We propose the geometric feature embedding matching method (GFM) for local feature matching. We propose the adaptive keypoint geometric embedding module dynamic adjust keypoint position information and the orientation geometric embedding displayed modeling of geometric information about rotation. Subsequently, we interleave the use of self-attention and cross-attention for local feature enhancement. The predicted correspondences are multiplied by the local features. The correspondences are solved by computing dual-softmax. An intuitive human extraction and matching scheme is implemented. In order to verify the effectiveness of our proposed method, we performed validation on three datasets (MegaDepth, Hpatches, Aachen Day-Night v1.1) according to their respective metrics, and the results showed that our method achieved satisfactory results in all scenes.

Background: The vein of Marshall (VOM) ethanol infusion improves sinus rhythm maintenance in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). Distal collateral circulation of VOM can be a challenge to effective ethanol infusion. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility and efficacy of ethanol infusion in VOM with distal collateral circulation. Methods: Patients with AF scheduled for catheter ablation and VOM ethanol infusion were consecutively enrolled. During the procedure, non-occluded coronary sinus angiography was first performed for VOM identification. After VOM identification, an over-the-wire angioplasty balloon was used for cannulation and occluded angiography of the VOM. Those with distal VOM collateral circulation were included in this study. A method of slower ethanol injection (2 mL over 5 min) plus additional balloon occlusion time for 3 min after each injection was used. Results: Of 162 patients scheduled for VOM ethanol infusion, apparent distal VOM collateral circulation was revealed in seven (4.3%) patients. Five patients had collateral circulation to the left atrium, one to the right superior vena cava, and one to the great cardiac vein. Two patients did not undergo further ethanol infusion because of our inadequate experience during the early stage of the project. Five patients had successful VOM ethanol infusion with manifest localized myocardium staining. Conclusions: Ethanol infusion in VOM with distal collateral circulation can be solved by slow injection of ethanol and enough balloon occlusion time between multiple injections.

The next-generation FengYun-3H satellite carrying a greenhouse gas absorption spectrometer (GAS) is planned for launch by 2024 with a strengthened ability to help researchers understand the global carbon cycle. However, assessments of the atmospheric CO2-detection capabilities of GAS are still incomplete, mainly in the following aspects: previous studies on the spectral range of GAS instruments often used the weak absorption band of CO2 molecules (1.61 μm); research on the measurement accuracies of different atmospheric environments above oceans is lacking; and most studies considered land surfaces as the bottom boundaries. Here, we simulated high spectral CO2 absorption spectra in both the strong and weak bands (2.06 and 1.61 μm) while considering the effects of different instrumental (spectral resolution and sampling rate) and environmental (wind speed, visibility, and rough sea surface) parameters. This is the first atmospheric CO2 absorption spectrum study to consider rough-sea-surface effects. The preliminary results show that the root mean squared error (RMSE) and mean absolute difference (MAD) values of the atmospheric CO2 transmittance spectra of GAS are 0.031 and 0.011, respectively, in the 1.61 μm band and 0.05 and 0.033 in the 2.06 μm band, revealing that GAS is competitive among similar CO2 instruments. This study provides a design reference for next-generation GAS instruments and contributes to spectral data CO2 processing in the above-sea atmosphere.

Currently, using semantic segmentation networks to distinguish dynamic and static key points has become a mainstream designing method for semantic SLAM systems. However, the semantic SLAM systems must have prior semantic knowledge of relevant dynamic objects, and their processing speed is inversely proportional to the recognition accuracy. To simultaneously enhance the speed and accuracy for recognizing dynamic objects in different environments, a novel SLAM system without prior semantics called DGFlow-SLAM is proposed in this paper. A novel grid segmentation method is used in the system to segment the scene flow, and then an adaptive threshold method is used to roughly detect the dynamic objects. Based on this, a deep mean clustering segmentation method is applied to find potential dynamic targets. Finally, the results of grid segmentation and depth mean clustering segmentation are jointly used to find moving objects accurately, and all the feature points of the moving objects are removed on the premise of retaining the static part of the moving object. The experimental results show that on the dynamic sequence dataset of TUM RGB-D, compared with the DynaSLAM system with the highest accuracy for detecting moderate and violent motion and the DS-SLAM with the highest accuracy for detecting slight motion, DGflow-SLAM obtains similar accuracy results and improves the accuracy by 7.5%. In addition, DGflow-SLAM is 10 times and 1.27 times faster than DynaSLAM and DS-SLAM, respectively.

Human mitochondrial transcription termination factor 1 (MTERF1) has been demonstrated to play an important role in mitochondrial gene expression regulation. However, the molecular mechanism of MTERF1 in colorectal cancer (CRC) remains largely unknown. Here, we found that MTERF1 expression was significantly increased in colon cancer tissues compared with normal colorectal tissue by Western blotting, immunohistochemistry, and tissue microarrays (TMA). Overexpression of MTERF1 in the HT29 cell promoted cell proliferation, migration, invasion, and xenograft tumor formation, whereas knockdown of MTERF1 in HCT116 cells appeared to be the opposite phenotype to HT29 cells. Furthermore, MTERF1 can increase mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) replication, transcription, and protein synthesis in colorectal cancer cells; increase ATP levels, the mitochondrial crista density, mitochondrial membrane potential, and oxygen consumption rate (OCR); and reduce the ROS production in colorectal cancer cells, thereby enhancing mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) activity. Mechanistically, we revealed that MTERF1 regulates the AMPK/mTOR signaling pathway in cancerous cell lines, and we also confirmed the involvement of the AMPK/mTOR signaling pathway in both xenograft tumor tissues and colorectal cancer tissues. In summary, our data reveal an oncogenic role of MTERF1 in CRC progression, indicating that MTERF1 may represent a new therapeutic target in the future.

Hyperspectral image classification methods based on deep learning have led to remarkable achievements in recent years. However, these methods with outstanding performance are also accompanied by problems such as excessive dependence on the number of samples, poor model generalization, and time-consuming training. Additionally, the previous patch-level feature extraction methods have some limitations, for instance, non-local information is difficult to model, etc. To solve these problems, this paper proposes an image-level feature extraction method with transfer learning. Firstly, we look at a hyperspectral image with hundreds of contiguous spectral bands from a sequential image perspective. We attempt to extract the global spectral variation information between adjacent spectral bands by using the optical flow estimation method. Secondly, we propose an innovative data adaptation strategy to bridge the gap between hyperspectral and video data, and transfer the optical flow estimation network pre-trained with video data to the hyperspectral feature extraction task for the first time. Thirdly, we utilize the traditional classifier to achieve classification. Simultaneously, a vote strategy combined with features at different scales is proposed to improve the classification accuracy further. Extensive, well-designed experiments on four scenes of public hyperspectral images demonstrate that the proposed method (Spe-TL) can obtain results that are competitive with advanced deep learning methods under various sample conditions, with better time effectiveness to adapt to new target tasks. Moreover, it can produce more detailed classification maps that subtly reflect the authentic distribution of ground objects in the original image.

The rich −SO3H groups enable sulfonated poly (ether ether ketone) (SPEEK) to possess excellent proton conductivities in proton exchange membrane (PEM), but cause excessive water absorption, resulting in the decline of dimensional stability. It is a challenge to resolve the conflict between conductivity and stability. Owing to its unique structural designability, covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have been used to regulate the performances of PEMs. The authors propose the use of COFs with acidic and basic groups for meeting the requirements of proton conductivity and dimensional stability. Herein, COFs containing different groups (sulfoacid, pyridine, and both) were uniformly dispersed into the SPEEK matrix by in situ synthesis, and the effects on the properties of SPEEK matrix PEMs were revealed. The sulfoacid group significantly improves proton conductivities. At 60 °C, under 95% RH, the conductivity of the SPEEK/TpPa−SO3H-20 composite membrane was 443.6 mS·cm−1, which was 3.3 times that of the pristine SPEEK membrane. The pyridine group reduced the swelling ratio at 50 °C from 220.7% to 2.4%, indicating an enhancement in dimensional stability. Combining the benefits of sulfoacid and pyridine groups, SPEEK/TpPa−(SO3H-Py) composite membrane has a conductivity of 360.3 mS·cm−1 at 60 °C and 95% RH, which is 1.86 times that of SPEEK, and its swelling ratio is 11.8%, about 1/20 of that of SPEEK membrane. The method of in situ combination and regulation of groups open up a way for the development of SPEEK/COFs composite PEMs.

The same doses of anesthesia may yield varying depths of anesthesia in different patients. Clinical studies have revealed a possible causal relationship between deep anesthesia and negative short- and long-term patient outcomes. However, a reliable index and method of the clinical monitoring of deep anesthesia and detecting latency remain lacking. As burst-suppression is a characteristic phenomenon of deep anesthesia, the present study investigated the relationship between burst-suppression latency (BSL) and the subsequent burst-suppression ratio (BSR) to find an improved detection for the onset of intraoperative deep anesthesia. The mice were divided young, adult and old group treated with 1.0% or 1.5% isoflurane anesthesia alone for 2 h. In addition, the adult mice were pretreated with intraperitoneal injection of ketamine, dexmedetomidine, midazolam or propofol before they were anesthetized by 1.0% isoflurane for 2 h. Continuous frontal, parietal and occipital electroencephalogram (EEG) were acquired during anesthesia. The time from the onset of anesthesia to the first occurrence of burst-suppression was defined as BSL, while BSR was calculated as percentage of burst-suppression time that was spent in suppression periods. Under 1.0% isoflurane anesthesia, we found a negative correlation between BSL and BSR for EEG recordings obtained from the parietal lobes of young mice, from the parietal and occipital lobes of adult mice, and the occipital lobes of old mice. Under 1.5% isoflurane anesthesia, only the BSL calculated from EEG data obtained from the occipital lobe was negatively correlated with BSR in all mice. Furthermore, in adult mice receiving 1.0% isoflurane anesthesia, the co-administration of ketamine and midazolam, but not dexmedetomidine and propofol, significantly decreased BSL and increased BSR. Together, these data suggest that BSL can detect burst-suppression and predict the subsequent BSR under isoflurane anesthesia used alone or in combination with anesthetics or adjuvant drugs. Furthermore, the consistent negative correlation between BSL and BSR calculated from occipital EEG recordings recommends it as the optimal position for monitoring burst-suppression.