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Abstract Background Temporomandibular disorder (TMD) is a grouping of heterogeneous disorders with multifactorial origins. Stabilization splints (SS) have demonstrated an acceptable treatment effect in TMD. The possible changes at the skeletal, dental, and soft tissue levels need to be addressed to evaluate the benefit/risk ratio of this therapeutic procedure. Accordingly, this study aimed to three‑dimensionally evaluate skeletal, dentoalveolar and soft tissue changes after SS treatment for patients with TMD. Methods This retrospective study included 74 adult patients with myofascial and/or intra-articular disorders (25 males and 49 females), with an average age of 22.88 ± 4.8 years, who underwent SS treatment. Pre- and post-treatment Cone beam computed tomography were analysed using Invivo 6.0.3 software. The primary outcome was the vertical skeletal and dentoalveolar changes, while the secondary outcomes were the anteroposterior skeletal, dentoalveolar and soft tissue changes. Paired t-test and Wilcoxon rank sum test were used for statistical analyses. Results For the primary outcome; skeletally, there was a significant increase in mandibular plane inclination (difference: 0.82°±1.37), decrease facial height ratio (difference: 0.45%±1.07) and at the dentoalveolar level, the inclination of the functional (FOP-SN, FOP-FH) and bisecting (BOP-SN, BOP-FH) occlusal planes exhibited a significant increase too (difference: 0.38 ± 1.43°, 0.49 ± 1.62°, 0.44 ± 1.29° and 0.41 ± 1.17°, respectively) and also a decrease in the overbite (difference: -0.54 ± 0.83). For the secondary outcomes; there was a significant decrease in mandibular position (SNB) (difference: 1.60 ± 1.36°) and increase in the overjet (difference: 0.93 ± 1.04, p

Combining physiological measures with observational data (e.g., video or self-reports) to further capture and understand the temporal and cyclical process of social regulation has become a trend in the field. Synchronized physiological arousal is a particularly meaningful situation in collaboration. However, little attention has been given to synchronized physiological arousal episodes and their relationship with the social regulatory process. In addition, only a few research utilized heart rate (HR) as a physiological measure in the current collaboration literature. More research is necessary to reveal the potential of HR to expand the diversity of physiological indicators in the field. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore what synchronized physiological arousal can further reveal about the social regulatory process. To achieve this goal, this study designed a collaborative argumentation (CA) activity for undergraduates (mean age 20.3). It developed an arousal-regulation analysis platform, which could automatically detect synchronized physiological arousal in HR and align them with coding challenges and social regulation based on the timeline. In total, 14 four-member groups were recruited. After analyzing both videos and HR data, several findings were obtained. First, only one-third of episodes were synchronized physiological arousal episodes, and the situations where four members were all in arousal states were rare during CA. Second, synchronized physiological arousal was more sensitive to socio-emotional aspects of collaboration as the shared physiological arousal more frequently co-occurred with socio-emotional challenges and socio-emotional regulation, while it happened the least under motivational challenges. Third, synchronized physiological arousal has also been found to be associated with the challenges being regulated. Finally, pedagogical implications were suggested.

Freshwater pearl mussels and marine pearl oysters are major producers of cultured pearls. With the development of pearl farming, pearl bivalve mollusks have attracted significant research attention over the past 25 years. To provide an overview of this research, we conducted a bibliometric analysis of publications from the Web of Science Core Collection database from 1995 to 2020. A network map generated by VOSviewer software was used to evaluate studies of pearl bivalve mollusks in terms of author, country, organization, journal, and keywords. A total of 2,288 publications were obtained, showing an annual increase in the number of papers. Researchers based in China were a major contributor to the field and there was active cooperation among authors. Research focused on mussel and oyster developmental biology, growth, culture mode, molecular biology, and ecological conservation. In recent years, hot topics, such as growth performance and traits, pearl formation and biomineralization, and immune response, have been widely discussed. Genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabonomics analyses were commonly used to analyze the regulatory mechanism of coding and non-coding genes. The interaction between the environment and farming activities showed the importance of sustainable development. Interdisciplinary research could solve some of the issues facing the pearl bivalve mollusk farming. In conclusion, our findings could serve as another way to understand research trends in pearl bivalve mollusks and contribute to future studies.

Researchers are increasingly calling for more computational thinking (CT) teaching tools and activities designed for young children. Considering young children's need to draw on their bodily experiences to learn abstract concepts, this study applied the embodied cognition perspective to design an unplugged (non-computer-based) toolkit with activities that foster CT. This study aimed to explore young children's experiences in unplugged activities. Specifically, children's perceptions about the activities were investigated, and their embodied interactions during the activities were analyzed to reveal how CT emerges as an embodied phenomenon. Results indicate that children had positive perceptions about the activities. In addition, young children's algorithmic thinking and debugging emerged most frequently. Furthermore, this study found that CT extended to both the unplugged toolkit and children's bodies and emerged in perception-action loops. This research provides insight into the instructional design of young children's CT and helps researchers understand how young children develop CT from an embodied cognition perspective.

Background Elderly hemodialysis (HD) patients have a high risk of death. The effect of different types of HD membranes on survival is still controversial. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between the use of low-flux or high-flux membranes and all-cause and cardiovascular mortality in elderly hemodialysis patients.Methods This was a retrospective clinical study involving maintenance hemodialysis patients which were categorized into low-flux and high-flux groups according to the dialyzer they were using. Propensity score matching was used to balance the baseline data of the two groups. Survival rates were compared between the two groups, and the risk factors for death were analyzed by multivariate Cox regression.Results Kaplan–Meier survival analysis revealed no significant difference in all-cause mortality between the low-flux group and the high-flux group (log-rank test, p = 0.559). Cardiovascular mortality was significantly greater in the low-flux group than in the high-flux group (log-rank test, p = 0.049). After adjustment through three different multivariate models, we detected no significant difference in all-cause mortality. Patients in the high-flux group had a lower risk of cardiovascular death than did those in the low-flux group (HR = 0.79, 95% CI, 0.54–1.16, p = 0.222; HR = 0.58, 95% CI, 0.37–0.91, p = 0.019).Conclusions High-flux hemodialysis was associated with a lower relative risk of cardiovascular mortality in elderly MHD patients. High-flux hemodialysis did not improve all-cause mortality rate. Differences in urea distribution volume, blood flow, and systemic differences in solute clearance by dialyzers were not further analyzed, which are the limitations of this study.

The environment of the roadbed and pavement often has a significant impact on its dynamic performance. The stability of the strata in the Hilly Area is poor, and long-term complex environmental impacts will cause significant damage to the pavement. This article tests the dynamic response characteristics of semi rigid and inverted asphalt pavement through road load tests, and measures the humidity data of the roadbed during on-site rainfall. In addition, the variation of pore water pressure in the transition layer under the coupling effect of humidity and dynamic load was analyzed, revealing the influence of seasonal factors on the dynamic response of the pavement and roadbed. The test results indicate that the humidity inside the roadbed is greatly influenced by seasonal factors, and the humidity conditions of the roadbed and pavement vary significantly due to differences in measurement point depth, season, and rainfall. Graded crushed stone cushion is beneficial for improving the humidity conditions of the roadbed. The pore water pressure of the graded crushed stone transition layer did not show significant pore water reabsorption throughout the entire loading process. Meanwhile, the thickness of the surface layer and the magnitude of the load have a significant impact on the measurement of pore water pressure in the transition layer. The measured values of the dynamic response indicators of the pavement are greatly influenced by seasonal factors. The research in this article will provide theoretical and guiding significance for the dynamic response characteristics of pavement under the influence of multiple factors in the southwestern hilly area.

Abstract Background Sleep problems are widespread among college students around the globe, especially in China. This study was designed to investigate the prevalence of poor sleep quality and identify associated factors among college students in Jilin Province, China. Methods A total of 6284 participants were completely collected by stratified cluster sampling in 2016. Information on basic demographics, lifestyles, social and family support, and subjective sleep quality was collected by questionnaire. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) is a self-administered questionnaire used to assess sleep for one month. Results 1951 (31.0%) participants were classified into poor sleep quality group, as defined by a PSQI score > 5. Males scored significantly higher than females on sleep duration and use of sleep medication, while females scored significantly higher than males on PSQI total and sleep disturbances. The results of the multivariate logistic regression show the following factors to be significant predictors of poor sleep quality: freshman (OR = 1.523, 95% CI: 1.168–1.987), alcohol use (OR = 1.634, 1.425–1.874), gambling behaviors (OR = 1.167, 95% CI: 1.005–1.356), exercised for more than 30 min a week on less than one day (OR = 1.234, 95% CI: 1.016–1.498), the feelings of satisfied with parental love (OR = 1.849, 95% CI: 1.244–2.749), and harmonious/neutral relationship with classmates (OR = 2.206, 95% CI: 1.312–3.708; OR = 1.700, 95% CI: 1.414–2.045),. No study pressure of this academic year (OR = 0.210, 95% CI: 0.159–0.276), no truancy in the past month (OR = 0.510, 95% CI: 0.354–0.735), never had self-injurious behaviors (OR = 0.413, 95% CI: 0.245–0.698), very harmonious family relationship (OR = 0.377, 95% CI: 0.219–0.650), frequent communication with parents (OR = 0.524, 95% CI: 0.312–0.880), the feelings of satisfied with maternal love (OR = 0.432, 95% CI: 0.257–0.725), and frequent excursions to gymnasium (OR = 0.770, 95% CI: 0.659–0.899) were the protective factors. Conclusions The implication of the present study may be that college students must be made aware of the consequences of inadequate sleep quality and risk factors could be improved if students tried to change their behavior and subjective consciousness.

Based on the test data of vehicle load test on asphalt pavement, the significance of dynamic response index of different asphalt pavement to axle load change of single and double rear axle trucks is analyzed. The changes of horizontal strain at the bottom of asphalt layer, vertical compressive stress at the top of subgrade, and vertical displacement of transition layer and bottom compressive stress before and after laying of middle and upper layers are revealed. The test results show that reducing the thickness of asphalt layer or increasing the vehicle axle load can lead to the more unfavorable stress-strain distribution in asphalt pavement under driving load. The influence of the fluctuation of truck axle load or asphalt layer thickness on the stress-strain distribution in asphalt pavement varies with the type of pavement structure, pavement response index, vehicle driving speed, vehicle type, and the horizon of the measuring point. The transverse strain at the bottom of the asphalt layer is more affected by the axle load and the thickness of the asphalt layer than the longitudinal strain at the bottom of the asphalt layer. The measured value of the dynamic response index of the semirigid asphalt pavement is more affected by the axle load than that of the inverted asphalt pavement. However, the measured value of the dynamic response index of the semi-rigid asphalt pavement is less affected by the thickness of the asphalt layer when the thickness of the asphalt layer changes within a certain range. The tensile strain part of the longitudinal strain at the bottom of the asphalt layer and the compressive strain part of the transverse strain at the bottom of the asphalt layer are greatly affected by the thickness of the asphalt layer. The sensitivity of fatigue life of asphalt pavement of inverted structure to driving speed and axle load is less than that of semirigid structure. The research results can provide reference for the analysis of the asphalt pavement disease mechanism and provide guidance for asphalt pavement structural design and service life analysis.

Chronic psychological stress is closely correlated with breast cancer growth and metastasis. Sini San (SNS) formula is a classical prescription for relieving depression-related symptoms in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Current researches have suggested that chronic psychological stress is closely correlated with cancer stem cells (CSCs) and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress. This study aimed to investigate the effects of chronic psychological stress on ER stress-mediated breast cancer stemness and the therapeutic implication of SNS. Chronic psychological stress promoted lung metastasis in 4T1 breast tumor-bearing mice and increased the stem cell-like populations and stemness-related gene expression. Meanwhile, GRP78, a marker of ER stress, was significantly increased in the breast tumors and lung metastases under chronic psychological stress. As a biochemical hallmark of chronic psychological stress, cortisol dramatically enhanced the stem cell-like populations and mammospheres formation by activating GRP78 transcriptionally. However, GRP78 inhibitors or shRNA attenuated the stemness enhancement mediated by cortisol. Similarly, SNS inhibited chronic psychological stress-induced lung metastasis and stemness of breast cancer cells, as well as reversed cortisol-induced stem cell-like populations and mammospheres formation by attenuating GRP78 expression. Co-localization and co-immunoprecipitation experiments showed that SNS interrupted the interaction between GRP78 and LRP5 on the cell surface, thus inhibiting the Wnt/β-catenin signaling of breast CSCs. Altogether, this study not only uncovers the biological influence and molecular mechanism of chronic psychological stress on breast CSCs but also highlights SNS as a promising strategy for relieving GRP78-induced breast cancer stemness via inhibiting GRP78 activation.

To enhance the network coverage and capacity, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication has become a promising technology thanks to the high mobility and the flexible deployment of UAVs. However, the consistency of the service is not guaranteed due to the limitation single UAV base station (BS), leading to the research for the user-centric UAV swarm networks. This paper derives the semi-closed-form expressions of coverage probability and average achievable rate for the user-centric UAV swarm networks to characterize the performance gain obtained from the increased UAV swarm diversity. Especially, the user-centric UAV swarm networks organize a dynamic UAV swarm for each user consisting of potential serving UAVs in user's vicinity, which gives the design of boundaryless cells to serve each user seamlessly without user's involvement. By modeling the locations of the UAVs as Poisson point process (PPP) and modeling the channel fading as Nakagami-$m$ distribution, the analytical results are calculated under two transmission modes, depending on whether cell coordination is considered or not. The results show that the coverage performance can be improved by 30% without cell coordination and 50% with cell coordination in comparison with traditional cell-centric networks when the UAV altitude is 100 m and SINR threshold is 0 dB.

By organizing a dynamic transmission point group, user-centric networks (UCNs) are considered as a feasible solution to mine the potentials of dense networks where the densification gain is blocked by strong interference and frequent handovers. However, the state-of-art studies mostly focus on improving throughput performance. In this paper, user-centric multi-connectivity architecture is proposed, where multiple small cells serve the user as a user-specific active set to reduce the number of radio link failures (RLFs) and to increase the throughput gain, especially for cell-edge users. Especially, master eNodeB (MeNB) is chosen in the active set as a mobility anchor to control its neighboring small cells that are termed as slave eNodeBs (SeNBs), which reduces signaling overheads during handovers. To provide user-centric service, the active set follows the user's trajectory by adding new SeNB that provides strong signal strength and releasing serving SeNB that is far away from the user. Moreover, the design of key mobility management procedures for active set forming/reforming is taken into consideration. The results show that compared with single connectivity, the RLF in the proposed architecture shows a decrease of more than 50% when user speed is 3 km/h, and the average user throughput achieves an increase of around 74% gains when TP density is 2000 TPs/km2.

Based on the modulus inversion theory and the equivalent principle of deflection basin, by analyzing the deflection basin data of each structure layer measured by the FWD, the obtained equivalent resilient moduli of different structural layers in three different structures (a semirigid type Asphalt pavement and two inverted asphalt pavements) were compared. At the same time, the calculated equivalent resilient modulus of the top surface of the structural layer based on the inversion method was used to modify the existing theory formula. The results show that, with the inversion method and the theoretical calculation method, the calculated equivalent resilient modulus of the top surface of the cushion layer has a small error, but the theoretical calculation method overestimates the equivalent resilient modulus of the top surface of the cement stabilized crushed stone layer and the top surface of the graded crushed stone transition layer, especially for the inverted asphalt pavement; by contrast, the corresponding result of the inversion method is closer to the value in actual engineering. While determining the equivalent resilient modulus of the cushion layer, the influence of the thickness of the cement stabilized crushed stone layer needs to be considered, and the inverted asphalt pavement structure should adopt a thicker asphalt layer to reduce the modulus deviation; at the same time, the more the structural layers and the larger the difference in the interlayer modulus ratio, the larger the deviation of equivalent resilient modulus of the top surface of the base layer; for the inverted asphalt pavement and semirigid asphalt pavement, the correction coefficients of the calculation formula of the equivalent resilient modulus of the top surface of cement stabilized gravel layer are 0.35∼0.55 and 0.65∼0.75, respectively. The inversion method can be used to determine the equivalent resilient modulus of each structural layer of the inverted asphalt pavement and semirigid asphalt pavement, and its results can provide a basis for the design of the structure reconstruction of asphalt pavement.

In order to improve the accuracy of modulus inversion of the pavement structure layer, a layer-by-layer inversion method was proposed to be compared with the traditional inversion method by inverting the modulus of each structural layer of the inverted asphalt pavement and semirigid asphalt pavement. The results show that the influence of cushion modulus on the modulus of inverted subgrade and modulus of cement-stabilized crushed stone is restricted by the cushion modulus and pavement structure characteristics, and the thicker cement-stabilized crushed stone layer is beneficial for improving inverted modulus of subgrade; besides, for the inverted asphalt pavement, the modulus of the graded crushed stone transition layer has a significant influence on the modulus inversion of cement-stabilized crushed stone. The modulus of the graded gravel transition layer inverted by these two methods is underestimated, the modulus of cement-stabilized gravel is overestimated using the traditional inversion method, and the inversion result of the inverted asphalt pavement is more significantly affected by the inversion method than the semirigid base asphalt pavement. Moreover, the modulus of the pavement structural layer is determined by the material and structural characteristics, and its recommended empirical value or the value in the indoor test does not conform to the actual value of the site; by contrast, the inversion modulus obtained using the layer-by-layer inversion method is closer to the actual value, which can be used in the design of similar pavement structures to accumulate data for determining the material modulus or the pavement structure adjustment coefficient in the pavement structure.

Background: Although autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can currently be diagnosed at the age of 2 years, age at ASD diagnosis is still 40 months or even later. In order to early screening for ASD with more objective method, behavioral videos were used in a number of studies in recent years.Method: The still-face paradigm (SFP) was adopted to measure the frequency and duration of non-social smiling, protest behavior, eye contact, social smiling, and active social engagement in high-risk ASD group (HR) and typical development group (TD) (HR: n = 45; TD: n = 43). The HR group was follow-up until they were 2 years old to confirm final diagnosis. Machine learning methods were used to establish models for early screening of ASD.Results: During the face-to-face interaction (FF) episode of the SFP, there were statistically significant differences in the duration and frequency of eye contact, social smiling, and active social engagement between the two groups. During the still-face (SF) episode, there were statistically significant differences in the duration and frequency of eye contact and active social engagement between the two groups. The 45 children in the HR group were reclassified into two groups after follow-up: five children in the N-ASD group who were not meet the criterion of ASD and 40 children in the ASD group. The results showed that the accuracy of Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification was 83.35% for the SF episode.Conclusion: The use of the social behavior indicator of the SFP for a child with HR before 2 years old can effectively predict the clinical diagnosis of the child at the age of 2 years. The screening model constructed using SVM based on the SF episode of the SFP was the best. This also proves that the SFP has certain value in high-risk autism spectrum disorder screening. In addition, because of its convenient, it can provide a self-screening mode for use at home.Trial registration: Chinese Clinical Trial Registry, ChiCTR-OPC-17011995.

With the network densification, frequent handovers may degrade mobility reliability, cause heavy signaling load thus blocking the improvement of network capacity. This paper aims at reducing cost in terms of handover in dense networks, deriving compact expressions of network performance metric, including handover probabilities as well as the mobility-aware downlink data rate, under a multi-connectivity mobility model in user-centric ultra-dense networks (UUDNs). Specifically, the nearest M access points (APs) in mobile user's vicinity serve the user for data transmission, while the best one among them is for control, which reduces handover probability and network overheads without a loss in the throughput performance gain. Based on the scheme, handover probabilities are derived for arbitrary movement trajectory in the UUDN, where the locations of APs are modeled as a homogeneous Poisson point process, and then is included in handover cost to derive the downlink rate for mobile users. It is shown that the handover probability in control-plane can considerably be decreased by at least 30% compared with the traditional single connectivity network. What is more, the downlink rate can be improved significantly by 2× compared with single connectivity.

Pavement micro- and macro-texture have significant effects on roadway friction and driving safety. The influence of traffic polish on pavement texture has been investigated in many laboratory studies. This paper conducts field evaluation of pavement micro- and macro-texture under actual traffic polishing using three-dimensional (3D) areal parameters. A portable high-resolution 3D laser scanner measured pavement texture from a field site in 2018, 2019, and 2020. Then, the 3D texture data was decomposed to micro- and macro-texture using Fourier transform and Butterworth filter methods. Twenty 3D areal parameters from five categories, including height, spatial, hybrid, function, and feature parameters, were calculated to characterize pavement micro- and macro-texture. The results demonstrate that the 3D areal parameters provide an alternative to comprehensively characterize the evolution of pavement texture under traffic polish from different aspects.

ObjectiveWe performed a meta-analysis to evaluate the diagnostic value of positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) in the detection of para-aortic lymph node metastasis in cervical cancer.MethodsWe searched the PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, Chinese Biological Medicine (CBM), Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang and VIP databases in all languages from their inception to September 2018. Stat15.0 software was used to obtain pooled estimates of sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE), positive likelihood ratio (PLR), and negative likelihood ratio (NLR) as well as a summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curves. Deek's funnel plot was used to assess publication bias. QUADAS-2 was used to evaluate the quality of the studies. The protocol for this meta-analysis is registered in PROSPERO (CRD42019115330).ResultsWe obtained 14 studies, and the pooled estimates for sensitivity and specificity of PET/CT were 0.71 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.54-0.83) and 0.97 (95% CI = 0.93-0.98), respectively. Pooled PLR and NLR were 21.53 and 0.30, respectively. The diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) was70.59, and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.95.ConclusionPET/CT is an effective and important imaging method for the diagnosis of para-aortic lymph node metastasis in early cervical cancer.

Background Dyslipidemia contributes to the risk of many diseases, including stroke, cardiovascular disease and metabolic-related diseases. Previous studies have indicated that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are associated with different levels of serum lipid. Therefore, this study explored the relationship between the APOA1/C3/A4/A5-ZPR1-BUD13 gene cluster gene polymorphisms and dyslipidemia in the total sample population and stratified by genders in a northeast Chinese population. Methods A total of 3,850 participants from Jilin Province, China, were enrolled in our study, and their serum lipid levels were measured. Six functional SNPs (APOA1 rs5072, APOC3 rs5128, APOA4 rs5104, APOA5 rs651821, ZPR1 rs2075294 and BUD13 rs10488698) were genotyped using polymerase chain reaction and MALDI-TOF-MS. Logistic regression analysis was performed to explore the relationship of APOA1/C3/A4/A5-ZPR1-BUD13 gene cluster gene polymorphisms with dyslipidemia. Linkage disequilibrium and haplotype analyses were performed with the SNPStats program and Haploview software. Results All SNPs conformed to Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium. Logistic regression analysis revealed that rs5072, rs5128 and rs651821 were associated with hypertriglyceridemia, rs5104 and rs651821 were associated with low-HDL cholesterolemia in overall group. rs651821 was associated with hypertriglyceridemia and low-HDL cholesterolemia in both the male and female group. However, among females, rs5072 was observed to be associated with hypertriglyceridemia. Haplotype analysis showed that haplotypes TGCCGC and CAGCGC were associated with dyslipidemia in the overall, male and female groups. Conclusion SNPs in the APOA1/C3/A4/A5-ZPR1-BUD13 gene cluster were associated with dyslipidemia. Furthermore, the association of APOA1 rs5072 in this gene cluster with dyslipidemia differed between genders; thus, additional studies are needed to confirm this conclusion, and the mechanisms underlying these results warrant further exploration.