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Epidemiologic studies have shown alcohol plays a pivotal role in the development of osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH). The aim of this study was to explore the underlying mechanism of alcohol-induced ONFH and the protective effect of pifithrin-α (PFTα). In vitro, we found ethanol treatment significantly activated p53, suppressed Wnt/β-catenin signaling and inhibited osteogenic-related proteins. Furthermore, by separating the cytoplasmic and nuclear proteins, we found ethanol inhibited osteogenesis by impairing the accumulation of β-catenin in both the cytoplasm and nucleus in human bone mesenchymal stem cells (hBMSCs), which resulted from activating glycogen synthase kinase-3β (GSK-3β). Therefore, PFTα, a p53 inhibitor, was introduced in this study to block the ethanol-triggered activation of p53 in hBMSCs and alcohol-induced ONFH in a rat model. In vivo, we established alcohol-induced ONFH in rats and investigated the protective effect of PFTα. Hematoxylin & eosin (H&E) staining combined with TdT-mediated dUTP nick end labeling (TUNEL), cleaved caspase-3 immunohistochemical staining, and micro-CT images revealed substantial ONFH in the alcohol-administered rats, whereas significantly less osteonecrosis developed in the rats injected with PFTα. Osteogenic-related proteins, including osteocalcin, osteopontin and collagen I, were significantly decreased in the alcohol-administered rats, whereas these results were reversed in the PFTα-injected rats. Fluorochrome labeling similarly showed that alcohol significantly reduced the osteogenic activity in the rat femoral head, which was blocked by the injection of PFTα. In conclusion, PFTα had an antagonistic effect against the effects of ethanol on hBMSCs and could be a clinical strategy to prevent the development of alcohol-induced ONFH.

Alcohol is considered a leading risk factor for osteopenia. Our previous research indicated that the Akt/GSK-3β/β-catenin pathway plays a critical role in the ethanol-induced antiosteogenic effect in bone mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs). PI3K/Akt is negatively regulated by the phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) phosphatase. In this study, we found that ethanol increased PTEN expression in the BMSCs and bone tissue of ethanol-treated Sprague-Dawley rats. PTEN upregulation impaired Akt recruitment to the plasma membrane and suppressed Akt phosphorylation at Ser473, thereby inhibiting Akt/GSK3β/β-catenin signaling and the expression of COL1 and OCN in BMSCs in vitro and in vivo. The results of in vivo assays indicated that PTEN inhibition protected bone tissue against ethanol. Interestingly, our data revealed that following ethanol stimulation, PTEN and PTEN pseudogene 1 (PTENP1) mRNA expression was increased in a time-dependent manner, resulting in an increased PTEN protein level. In addition, ethanol upregulated PTEN expression and decreased PTEN phosphorylation (p-PTEN), indicating an increase in functional PTEN levels. In summary, the ethanol-mediated transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation of PTEN impaired downstream Akt/GSK3β/β-catenin signaling and BMSC osteogenic differentiation. Therefore, we propose that Akt/GSK3β/β-catenin activation via PTEN inhibition may be a potential therapeutic approach for preventing the development of alcohol-induced osteopenia.

The motion commands to feed drives constitute a major source for excitation of the vibrations. In this paper the vibration of feed drive caused by the motion commands is simulated by using a mathematic method. The mechanical transmission system is modeled as a dual inertia system. Three typical trajectories are used to analyze the effect of motion profiles on feed drive vibration by using a simulation model of feed drive controller.

The development of shale gas can influence the land use and exacerbate the problem of land use. The drilling and fracturing of a well need a large well site. Taking all the coverage of road building, platforms and pipelines into account, the average coverage of every well is near 16.2 hectares. More than 80 shale gas wells have been drilled and covered 1296 hectares. According to the development plan of shale gas of China, more than 300 shale gas wells will be drilled and will occupy 6156 hectares land to 2015. To the end of 2020, about 1.6~1.7×104 shale gas wells will have been drilled and 27.54×104 hectares land will be occupied. The quality of land is damaged during the process of shale gas development, lowering the soil fertility and making the land reclamation more difficult. During the process of shale gas development, the assessment and supervision and management system of land use should be reinforced and land use and reclamation should be reasonably planned. The efficiency and sustainability of land use can be improved by technology innovation of well drilling.

Yi People Ancient Town of Chuxiong is a modern real estate development project with commercial, residential and cultural tourism. Based on inheriting traditional vernacular landscape features, its development and construction were built by modern technology, meanwhile, respected the original build system. This paper studied the Spatial Form of Yi People Ancient Town through the space analysis of street, node, building and spiritual culture from several aspects. This is very important reference value, academic value and practical significance for guiding the construction of modern urban environment scientifically.

The Pauwels angle has been used widely, however an accurate evaluation of this angle is difficult because of deformity of the affected lower extremity. Therefore we designed a new measurement of the orientation of femoral neck fracture and applied this in a retrospective study to assess: (1) its reproducibility, (2) its advantages compared with the Pauwels angle, (3) its relationship with the short-term prognosis treated with three cannulated compression screws.This new measurement is reproducible and has some reference meaning for the treatment of femoral neck fractures.Two hundred and twenty-eight patients with femoral neck fractures treated with three cannulated compression screws were retrospectively analyzed. The VN angle, which was the angle between the fracture line and the vertical of the neck axis, and the Pauwels angle were measured respectively. The method of ICC was performed to assess the reproducibility of the two angles, and the absolute value of difference in pre-operative and post-operative radiographs was used to evaluate the uniformity of the two angles. These fractures were divided into four groups according to VN angle (VN0° (n=92), 0°≤VN10° (n=82), 10°≤VN15° (n=26), VN≥15° (n=28)), and the short-term (within 6 months) fixation results of radiographs in these fractures were evaluated.The ICC of the VN angle and the Pauwels angle in pre-operative radiographs were 0.937 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.922-0.950) and 0.942 respectively (95% CI: 0.914-0.970), indicating both angles had a good inter-rater reproducibility. However, there was a great difference between the Pauwels angle in pre-operative and post-operative radiographs (P=0.037), the absolute difference was 10.66±6.47 (range: 1.72-38.48), while no statistical difference for the VN angle (P=0.084) and the absolute difference was 2.20±1.63 (range: 0.05-7.56). The overall fixation failure rate which was defined as screw loosening, varus collapse, obvious fracture displacement or femoral neck shortening was 11.84%, and the mean failure rates according to VN angles were respectively 0%, 3.24% (95% CI: 1.64-4.84), 22.69% (95% CI: 16.43-28.96), 65.45% (95% CI: 59.36-71.53). The mean failure rates of fractures according to post-operative Pauwels angle (30°, 30-50°,50°) were respectively 0%, 1.46% (95% CI: 1.42-1.50) and 36.24% (95% CI: 34.93-37.54).The VN angle has a good inter-rater reproducibility, a higher reliability than the Pauwels angle and is closely related to the short-term prognosis of femoral neck fractures treated with cannulated compression screws.Level IV, retrospective diagnostic study.

In the condition monitoring and fault diagnosis, useful information about the incipient fault features in the measured signal is always corrupted by noise. Fortunately, the Kalman filtering technique can filter the noise effectively, and the impending system fault can be revealed to prevent the system from malfunction. This paper has discussed recent progress of the Kalman filters for the condition monitoring and fault diagnosis. A case study on the rolling bearing condition monitoring and fault diagnosis using Kalman filter and support vector machine (SVM) has been presented. The analysis result showed that the integration of the Kalman filter and SVM was feasible and reliable for the rolling bearing condition monitoring and fault diagnosis and the fault detection rate was over 96.5%.

The impact of green purchasing on the enterprise performance was analyzed in this paper. An empirical study in the China textile and garment industry was carried out, and research results show that the five dimensions of green purchasing (Supply chain management, Ecological design, Operation management, External environment management and Environmental authentication) have significant impact on enterprise performance.

Background The Pauwels angle has been used widely, however an accurate evaluation of this angle is difficult because of deformity of the affected lower extremity. Therefore, we designed a new measurement of the orientation of femoral neck fracture and applied this in a retrospective study to assess: 1) its reproducibility, 2) its advantages compared with the Pauwels angle, 3) its relationship with the short-term prognosis treated with three cannulated compression screws. Hypothesis This new measurement is reproducible and has some reference meaning for the treatment of femoral neck fractures. Methods Two hundred and twenty-eight patients with femoral neck fractures treated with three cannulated compression screws were retrospectively analyzed. The VN angle, which was the angle between the fracture line and the vertical of the neck axis, and the Pauwels angle were measured respectively. The method of ICC was performed to assess the reproducibility of the two angles, and the absolute value of difference in pre-operative and post-operative radiographs was used to evaluate the uniformity of the two angles. These fractures were divided into four groups according to VN angle (VN n = 92), 0° ≤ VN n = 82), 10° ≤ VN n = 26), VN ≥ 15° ( n = 28)), and the short-term (within 6 months) fixation results of radiographs in these fractures were evaluated. Results The ICC of the VN angle and the Pauwels angle in pre-operative radiographs were 0.937 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.922–0.950) and 0.942 respectively (95% CI 0.914–0.970), indicating both angles had a good inter-rater reproducibility. However, there was a great difference between the Pauwels angle in pre-operative and post-operative radiographs ( P = 0.037), the absolute difference was 10.66 ± 6.47 (range, 1.72–38.48), while no statistical difference for the VN angle ( P = 0.084) and the absolute difference was 2.20 ± 1.63 (range, 0.05–7.56). The overall fixation failure rate which was defined as screw loosening, varus collapse, obvious fracture displacement or femoral neck shortening was 11.84%, and the mean failure rates according to VN angles were respectively 0%, 3.24% (95% CI 1.64–4.84) 22.69% (95% CI 16.43–28.96), 65.45% (95% CI 59.36–71.53). The mean failure rates of fractures according to post-operative Pauwels angle ( 50°) were respectively 0%, 1.46% (95% CI 1.42–1.50) and 36.24% (95% CI 34.93–37.54). Discussion The VN angle has a good inter-rater reproducibility, a higher reliability than the Pauwels angle and is closely related to the short-term prognosis of femoral neck fractures treated with cannulated compression screws. Level of evidence Level IV, retrospective diagnostic study.