This paper presents our study on the emergency resource-planning problem, particularly on the development of a new approach to resource planning through contraflow techniques with consideration of ...the repair of damaged infrastructures. The contraflow technique is aimed at reversing traffic flows in one or more inbound lanes of a divided highway for the outbound direction. As opposed to the current literature, our approach has the following salient points: (1) simultaneous consideration of contraflow and repair of repair of roads; (2) classification of victims in terms of their problems and urgency in sending them to a safe place or place to be treated; and (3) consideration of multiple destinations for victims. A simulated experiment is also described by comparing our approach with some variations of our approach. The experimental results show that our approach can lead to a reduction in evacuation time by more than 50%, as opposed to the original resource operation on the damaged transportation network, and by about 20%, as opposed to the approach with resource replanning (only) on the damaged network. In addition, the multiobjective optimization algorithm to solve our model can be generalized to other network resource-planning problems under infrastructure damage.
Intraventricular hemorrhage (IVH) is a common complication in preterm infants and is related to neurodevelopmental outcomes. Infants with severe IVH are at higher risk of adverse neurological ...outcomes and death, but the effect of low-grade IVH remains controversial. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of different degrees of IVH on mortality and neurodevelopmental outcomes in very preterm infants.
Preterm infants with a gestational age of <30 weeks admitted to neonatal intensive care units were included. Cerebral ultrasound was examined repeatedly until discharge or death. All infants were followed up to 18-24 months of corrected age. The impact of different grades of IVH on death and neurodevelopmental disability was assessed by multiple logistic regression.
A total of 1,079 preterm infants were included, and 380 (35.2%) infants had grade I-II IVH, 74 (6.9%) infants had grade III-IV IVH, and 625 (57.9%) infants did not have IVH. The mortality in the non-IVH, I-II IVH, and III-IV IVH groups was 20.1, 19.7, and 55.2%, respectively (
< 0.05), and the incidence of neurodevelopmental disabilities was 13.9, 16.1, and 43.3%, respectively (
< 0.05), at 18-24 months of corrected age. After adjusting for confounding factors, preterm infants with III-IV IVH had higher rates of cerebral palsy 26.7 vs. 2.4%, OR = 6.10, 95% CI (1.840-20.231),
= 0.003, disability 43.3 vs. 13.9%, OR = 2.49, 95% CI (1.059-5.873),
= 0.037, death 55.2 vs. 20.1%, OR = 3.84, 95% CI (2.090-7.067),
< 0.001, and disability + death 73.7 vs. 28.7%, OR = 4.77, 95% CI (2.518-9.021),
< 0.001 compared to those without IVH. However, the mortality and the incidence of neurodevelopmental disability in infants with I-II IVH were similar to those without IVH (
> 0.05).
Severe IVH but not mild IVH increased the risk of mortality and neurodevelopmental disability in very preterm infants.
Clip domain serine proteases (CLIPs), characterized by one or more conserved clip domains, are essential components of extracellular signalling cascades in various biological processes, especially in ...innate immunity and the embryonic development of insects. Additionally, CLIPs may have additional non‐immune functions in insect development. In the present study, the clip domain serine protease gene Bombyx mori serine protease 95 (BmSP95), which encodes a 527‐residue protein, was cloned from the integument of B. mori. Bioinformatics analysis indicated that BmSP95 is a typical CLIP of the subfamily D and possesses a clip domain at the N terminus, a trypsin‐like serine protease (tryp_spc) domain at the C terminus and a conserved proline‐rich motif between these two domains. At the transcriptional level, BmSP95 is expressed in the integument during moulting and metamorphosis, and the expression pattern is consistent with the fluctuating 20‐hydroxyecdysone (20E) titre in B. mori. At the translational level, BmSP95 protein is synthesized in the epidermal cells, secreted as a zymogen and activated in the moulting fluid. Immunofluorescence revealed that BmSP95 is distributed into the old endocuticle in the moulting stage. The expression of BmSP95 was upregulated by 20E. Moreover, expression of BmSP95 was downregulated by pathogen infection. RNA interference‐mediated silencing of BmSP95 led to delayed moulting from pupa to moth. These results suggest that BmSP95 is involved in integument remodelling during moulting and metamorphosis.
To solve the mobility balance issue in nanosheet FETs (NSFETs) and complementary FETs (CFETs), the aggressive approach using hetero-oriented integration with Ge channels was demonstrated by low ...temperature hetero-layer bonding technology (LT-HBT). Good manufacturability of the hetero-oriented Ge platform was verified with XRD 2θ-ω scan, Raman spectra, Selected Area Diffraction (SAD), and Converged Beam Electron Diffraction (CBED). Balanced device performance in terms of C-V, I D -V G , I D -V D and ρ c for Ge (111) nFET and Ge (100) pFET was achieved, leading to better VTCs and voltage gains.
Trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO), a gut microbe-dependent metabolite of dietary choline and other trimethylamine-containing nutrients, is both elevated in the circulation of patients having heart ...failure and heralds worse overall prognosis. In animal studies, dietary choline or TMAO significantly accelerates atherosclerotic lesion development in ApoE-deficient mice, and reduction in TMAO levels inhibits atherosclerosis development in the low-density lipoprotein receptor knockout mouse.
C57BL6/J mice were fed either a control diet, a diet containing choline (1.2%) or a diet containing TMAO (0.12%) starting 3 weeks before surgical transverse aortic constriction. Mice were studied for 12 weeks after transverse aortic constriction. Cardiac function and left ventricular structure were monitored at 3-week intervals using echocardiography. Twelve weeks post transverse aortic constriction, myocardial tissues were collected to evaluate cardiac and vascular fibrosis, and blood samples were evaluated for cardiac brain natriuretic peptide, choline, and TMAO levels. Pulmonary edema, cardiac enlargement, and left ventricular ejection fraction were significantly (P<0.05, each) worse in mice fed either TMAO- or choline-supplemented diets when compared with the control diet. In addition, myocardial fibrosis was also significantly greater (P<0.01, each) in the TMAO and choline groups relative to controls.
Heart failure severity is significantly enhanced in mice fed diets supplemented with either choline or the gut microbe-dependent metabolite TMAO. The present results suggest that additional studies are warranted examining whether gut microbiota and the dietary choline → TMAO pathway contribute to increased heart failure susceptibility.
The precise measurement of the spectrum of protons, the most abundant component of the cosmic radiation, is necessary to understand the source and acceleration of cosmic rays in the Milky Way. This ...work reports the measurement of the cosmic ray proton fluxes with kinetic energies from 40 GeV to 100 TeV, with 2
/
years of data recorded by the DArk Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE). This is the first time that an experiment directly measures the cosmic ray protons up to ~100 TeV with high statistics. The measured spectrum confirms the spectral hardening at ~300 GeV found by previous experiments and reveals a softening at ~13.6 TeV, with the spectral index changing from ~2.60 to ~2.85. Our result suggests the existence of a new spectral feature of cosmic rays at energies lower than the so-called knee and sheds new light on the origin of Galactic cosmic rays.
To identify the association between the expression of lncRNA NEAT1 and clinicopathological characteristics of patients with HCC, and to explore the prognostic significance of lncRNA NEAT1 in ...predicting prognosis of HCC.
We retrospectively reviewed 86 patients with HCC (35 female, 51 male) managed in our institution between 2009 and 2014. The expression level of lncRNA NEAT1 was detected by real-time PCR. Prognostic factors were evaluated using Kaplan–Meier curves and Cox proportional hazards models.
For the entire cohort of 86 patients, we showed that the expression level of NEAT1 was significantly higher in HCC tissues compared with non-tumorous tissues and NEAT1 was increased obviously in the HCC cell lines including SMMC-7721, Huh-7 and Hep3B (P < 0.001). MTT assay showed that si-NEAT1 remarkably inhibited the cell proliferation in three HCC cell lines. Moreover, over-expression of lncRNA NEAT1 was closely related to liver cirrhosis (P = 0.026), microvascular invasion (MVI) (P = 0.023), and TNM stage (P = 0.017). After adjusting for competing risk factors, we identified that expression level of lncRNA NEAT1 was an independently risk factor associated with the prognosis of patients with HCC (P = 0.031).
In this study, we found NEAT1 expressed significantly higher in HCC tissues compared with non-tumorous tissues. Overexpression of lncRNA NEAT1 was an independently risk factor associated with the prognosis of patients with HCC.
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Research on bovine embryonic stem cells (bESCs) has been hampered because bESCs are cultured in conditions that are based on information obtained from culturing mouse and human inner cell ...mass (ICM) cells. The aim of this study was to compare gene expression in ICM and trophectoderm (TE) cell lineages of bovine embryos and to discuss the findings relative to information available for mice and humans. We separated a high‐purity (>90%) ICM and TE from bovine blastocysts by magnetic‐activated cell sorting and analysed their transcriptomes by single cell RNA‐seq. Differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were assessed using Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopaedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) databases. Finally, qRT‐PCR was performed to validate the RNA‐seq results. From 207 DEGs identified (adjusted p ≤ .05; fold change ≥2), 159 and 48 had greater expression in the ICM and TE cells respectively. We validated 27 genes using qRT‐PCR and found their expression patterns were mostly similar to those of RNA‐seq, including 12 novel ICM‐dominant (HNF4A, CCL24, FGFR4, IFITM3, PTCHD2, GJB5, FN1, KLK7, PRDM14, GRP, FGF19 and GCM1) and two novel TE‐dominant (SLC10A1 and WNT4) genes. Bioinformatics analysis showed that these DEGs are involved in many important pathways, such as MAPK and cancer cell pathways, and these pathways have been shown to play essential roles in mouse and human ESCs in the self‐renewal and pluripotent maintenance. As a conclusion, there were sufficient differences to allow us to conclude that the control of pluripotency in bovine ICM cells is species‐specific.
We use new deep NIR and MIR observations to analyze the 850 km image of the GOODS-N region. We show that much of the submillimeter background is picked out by sources with H(AB) or 3.6 km(AB) < 23.25 ...(1.8 kJy). These sources contribute an 850 km background of 24 c 2 Jy deg super(-2). This is a much higher fraction of the measured background (31-45 Jy deg super(-2)) than is found with current 20 cm or 24 km samples. Roughly one-half of these NIR-selected sources have spectroscopic identifications, and we can assign robust photometric redshifts to nearly all of the remaining sources using their UV to MIR SEDs. We use the redshift and spectral type information to show that a large fraction of the 850 km background light comes from sources with z = 0-1.5 and that the sources responsible have intermediate spectral types. Neither the elliptical galaxies, which have no star formation, nor the bluest galaxies, which have little dust, contribute a significant amount of 850 km light, despite the fact that together they comprise approximately half of the galaxies in the sample. The redshift distribution of the NIR-selected 850 km light lies well below that of the much smaller amount of light traced by the more luminous, radio-selected submillimeter sources. We therefore require a revised star formation history with a lower star formation rate at high redshifts. We use a stacking analysis of the 20 cm light in the NIR sample to show that the star formation history is relatively flat down to z 6 1 and that half of the total star formation occurs at z < 1.4.
Single cell trapping increasingly serves as a key manipulation technique in single cell analysis for many cutting-edge cell studies. Due to their inherent advantages, microfluidic devices have been ...widely used to enable single cell immobilization. To further improve the single cell trapping efficiency, this paper reports on a passive hydrodynamic microfluidic device based on the "least flow resistance path" principle with geometry optimized in line with corresponding cell types. Different from serpentine structure, the core trapping structure of the micro-device consists of a series of concatenated T and inverse T junction pairs which function as bypassing channels and trapping constrictions. This new device enhances the single cell trapping efficiency from three aspects: (1) there is no need to deploy very long or complicated channels to adjust flow resistance, thus saving space for each trapping unit; (2) the trapping works in a "deterministic" manner, thus saving a great deal of cell samples; and (3) the compact configuration allows shorter flowing path of cells in multiple channels, thus increasing the speed and throughput of cell trapping. The mathematical model of the design was proposed and optimization of associated key geometric parameters was conducted based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. As a proof demonstration, two types of PDMS microfluidic devices were fabricated to trap HeLa and HEK-293T cells with relatively significant differences in cell sizes. Experimental results showed 100% cell trapping and 90% single cell trapping over 4 × 100 trap sites for these two cell types, respectively. The space saving is estimated to be 2-fold and the cell trapping speed enhancement to be 3-fold compared to previously reported devices. This device can be used for trapping various types of cells and expanded to trap cells in the order of tens of thousands on 1-cm(2) scale area, as a promising tool to pattern large-scale single cells on specific substrates and facilitate on-chip cellular assay at the single cell level.
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