Search

The relationship between C-reactive protein (CRP) levels and prolonged intensive care unit (ICU) length of stay (LoS) has not been well defined.To explore the association between CRP levels at ICU admission and prolonged ICU LoS in gastrointestinal cancer (GC) patients after major surgery.A retrospective study was performed to quantify serum CRP levels and to establish their association with prolonged ICU LoS (≥ 72 h) in GC patients admitted to the ICU. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses were conducted, and restricted cubic spline curves with four knots (5%, 35%, 65%, 95%) were used to explore non-linearity assumptions.A total of 408 patients were enrolled. Among them, 83 (20.3%) patients had an ICU LoS longer than 72 h. CRP levels were independently associated with the risk of prolonged ICU LoS [odds ratio (OR) 1.47, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.00-2.17]. Restricted cubic spline analysis revealed a non-linear relationship between CRP levels and OR for the prolonged ICU LoS (Among the GC patients, CRP levels at ICU admission were non-linearly associated with prolonged ICU LoS in survivors. An admission CRP level2.6 (log transformed mg/L) was associated with increased risk of prolonged ICU LoS.

Inhibition of histone deacetylase (HDAC) has been demonstrated to be an effective strategy for cancer treatment. In this work, we have developed a new agent Ir-VPA, which exhibits the cell death mode switching between apoptosis and autophagy due to the distinct level of HDAC6 inhibition. Ir-VPA indicates the best anticancer activity to HeLa cells, and could be hydrolyzed due to the high expression of the esterase in HeLa cells. Ir-VPA could accumulate in nuclei, induce severe DNA damages and cell cycle arrest at G2/M phase. The anticancer mechanism of Ir-VPA to HeLa cells was dependent on the HDAC6 inhibitory performance, as the caspase dependent apoptosis at low concentration (IC50) and autophagy with the autophagy flux blockage at high concentration (2xIC50). This is resulted from the distinct inhibitory levels of HDAC6, as moderate/complete inhibition at the concentration of IC50 /2xIC50.In the presence of autophagic inhibitor chloroquine, the apoptotic population elevated from 32.7% to 61.7%, indicating that Ir-VPA could activate apoptotic process through the autophagolysosome fusion inhibition. Ir-VPA also exhibits excellent antiproliferative behavior to 3D HeLa multicellular tumor spheroids (MCTSs). This work not only provided a new HDAC6 inhibitor and novel anticancer mechanism for the effective treatment of cervical cancer, but also demonstrated the strategy to conjugate the metal fragment with active organic drug to enhance the anticancer performance.

Metabolic adaptations can help cancer cells to escape from chemotherapeutics, mainly involving autophagy and ATP production. Herein, we report a new rhein-based cyclometalated Ir

We propose a method of climbing pipe with different diameter, which enables snake robot to divide itself into 3 parts to complete transition on the pipe according to the joints’ state for now. To avoid controlling the robot from building dynamic model, a gait-based open-loop control framework is adopted. An extended kalman filter (EKF) is applied here to estimate the adaptive parameter of gait-based function for different 3 parts and corresponding joints. The adaptive parameter will help snake robot perceive the environment better and climb the pipe more steadily.

In order to reduce false alarm rate and empty alarm rate of the fiber-optic fence warning system in intrusion detection, the paper proposes a kind of fiber-optic fence warning system with distributed video real-time display function, focuses mainly on the network formation of the warning system, fiber-optic fence detector terminals design, fiber-optic fence and video linkage real-time display function model design and soft- ware system design.

Word alignment is an essential step for machine translation. According to the over-fitting of traditional word alignment model and the weakness for the context description, the deep learning hidden HMM word alignment combined a multi-layer neural network with an undirected probabilistic graph model, use the similarity of the word and context information word alignment to be a more precise modeling. Experimental results show that, compared with the reference system, this model can significantly improve the effect of word alignment, which is applicable.

To study the contribution of medial or lateral stabilizer to the stability of the patella, to explore the function and effect of releasing the LPR clinically and to provide a biomechanical basis for the clinical treatment of patellar instability(PI).The quadriceps femoris of 6 fresh human cadaver knees were loaded to simulate a normal condition of muscle strength. First the loading force was measured and recorded, which subluxated the patella with the different degrees of knee flexion. Intervention 1:released the medial patellar retinaculum(MPR) to simulate pathologic conditions, then repeated the above manipulates and recorded the loading force. Intervention 2:released the LPR furthermore to simulate clinical surgical treatment, then repeated the above manipulates and recorded the loading force.After releasing the MPR, the loading force which subluxated the patella were decreased obviously, and there were significant differences between the two groups(MPR plays an important role in maintaining the stability of the patella and in the normal trajectory of the patellofemoral joint. The attention should be paid to the repair or reconstruction of the MPR in the treatment for patella recurrent lateral dislocation subluxation. Releasing the LPR is not a best choice.

The weakness in corrosion resistance and low load-carrying efficiency of steel cables have become the obstacles to the development of suspension bridge with longer spans. The CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer) with special characteristics, such as light weight and excellent corrosion resistance, shows great advantages for the cable system of longer suspension bridge. In this paper, calculation methods for the key cable parameters including cable saddle pre-bias, the sag of cable, the coordinate of cable clamps in free-cable stage are investigated analytically, and a calculation program for these parameters is compiled with MATLAB and FORTRAN. Then, two types of suspension bridge with the main span of 2000m to 5000m, with CFRP cable system and steel cable system respectively are designed and taken as numerical examples. The numerical analysis results indicate that the cable saddle pre-bias and the variation of cable sag will increase obviously throughout the bridge erection if steel cable system was replaced with CFRP cable system, which may bring some new construction and design problems. Further discussion based on the results shows these cases should owe to the reduction of the self-weight and the elastic modulus of CFRP cables.

To detect the hypermethylation status of RASSF1A promoter in serum DNA of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patient and evaluate its correlation with clinicopathological parameters.Serum DNA was extracted from the peripheral blood of 75 NSCLC patients and another 35 patients with benign pulmonary disease and 15 healthy donors. The methylation status of RASSF1A promoter was determined using methylation-specific PCR (MSP), and the correlation of methylation profiles with clinicopathological parameters was statistically analyzed.Aberrant methylation of RASSF1A was detected in 23 of 75 (30.7%) cancer patients, but in none of patients with benign pulmonary disease or in healthy donors (P0.001). RASSF1A hypermethylation status was found to be correlated with late stage and poor differentiation (P0.05), but not with gender, age or histopathology in NSCLC patients.Hypermethylated RASSF1A promoter is frequently found in the serum DNA of non-small cell lung cancer patient, and RASSF1A may become a promising novel biomarker for diagnosis and prognosis prediction in lung cancer.

AIM: To evaluate the diagnostic role of serum RASSF1A promoter hypermethylation in gastric and colorectal adenocarcinoma. METHODS: Methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction (MSPCR) was used to examine the promoter methylation status of the serum RASSF1A gene in 47 gastric adenocarcinoma patients, 45 colorectal adenocarcinoma patients, 60 patients with benign gastrointestinal disease (30 with benign gastric disease and 30 with benign colorectal disease), and 30 healthy donor controls. A paired study of RASSF1A promoter methylation status in primary tumor, adjacent normal tissue, and postoperative serum were conducted in 25 gastric and colorectal adenocarcinoma patients who later were underwent surgical therapy. RESULTS: The frequencies of detection of serum RASSF1A promoter hypermethylation in gastric (34.0%) and colorectal (28.9%) adenocarcinoma patients were significantly higher than those in patients with benign gastric (3.3%) or colorectal (6.7%) disease or in healthy donors (0%) (P < 0.01). The methylation status of RASSF1A promoter in serum samples was consistent with that in paired primary tumors, and the MSPCR results for RASSF1A promoter methylation status in paired preoperative samples were consistent with those in postoperative serum samples. The serum RASSF1A promoter hypermethylation did not correlate with patient sex, age, tumor differentiation grade, surgical therapy, or serum carcinoembryonic antigen level. Although the serum RASSF1A promoter hypermethylation frequency tended to be higher in patients with distant metastases, there was no correlation between methylation status and metastasis. CONCLUSION: Aberrant CpG island methylation within the promoter region of RASSF1A is a promising biomarker for gastric and colorectal cancer.

RASSF1A is a novel putative tumor suppressor gene located in 3p21.3 region. The most common inactivation mechanism of RASSF1A is promoter hypermethylation, which is observed in multiple solid tumors including lung cancer. In the present study, we identified the methylation status of RASSF1A in lung cancer sera using methylation-specific PCR and analyzed its clinicopathological significance. Hypermethylation of RASSF1A was detected in 27 of 80 (33.8%) cancer patients but no benign pulmonary disease patients or healthy donors (P