bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Randomised controlled trial to investigate the effectiveness of thoracic epidural and paravertebral blockade in reducing chronic post-thoracotomy pain (TOPIC): a pilot study to assess feasibility of a large multicentre trial
Authors: Yeung Joyce , Middleton Lee , Tryposkiadis Kostas , Kerr Amy , Daniels Jane , Naidu Babu , Melody Teresa , Goebel Andreas , Wilson Matthew , Kumar Sajith , Szentgyorgyi Lajos , Flanagan Sarah , Shah Rajesh , Worrall Antony , Gao Fang
Published: July 2019

Objectives

Thoracotomy is considered one of the most painful surgical procedures. The incidence of chronic post-thoracotomy pain (CPTP) is up to 50%. Paravertebral blockade (PVB) may be superior to thoracic epidural blockade (TEB) in preventing CPTP. The specific objective of this pilot study was to assess the feasibility of conducting a larger trial to determine whether PVB at thoracotomy is more effective in reducing CPTP compared with TEB.

Design

A randomised, parallel, external pilot study was conducted to assess whether a large randomised trial of TEB and PVB with CPTP as the primary outcome is feasible.

Setting

Two adult thoracic centres in the UK.

Participants

All adult patients admitted for elective open thoracotomy. Participants were excluded if they were American Society of Anesthesiologists physical status IV or V; or if there is contraindication to local anaesthetics; infection near the proposed puncture site; coagulation/thoracic spine disorders; required chest wall resection or emergency thoracic surgery or had a previous thoracotomy.

Results

All patients presenting for thoracotomy were screened over a 12-month period with 194 found to be eligible. Of these, 69 (36%) were randomised (95% CI 29% to 42%). Discounting five participants who died, 54 of 64 participants (84%) returned questionnaire booklets at 6 months. The number of participants indicating at least a moderate level of chest pain at 6 months was lower with PVB but with high levels of uncertainty (RR: 0.7; 95% CI 0.3 to 1.7 for worst pain; RR: 0.3; 95% CI 0.0 to 2.8 for average pain). There were no safety concerns.

Conclusions

A large, multicentre randomised controlled trial of PVB versus TEB is feasible as it is possible to randomise and follow up participants with high fidelity. Pain scores were lower on average with PVB compared with TEB but a much larger trial is required to confirm this reliably.

Trial registration number

ISRCTN45041624
Predicting asthma attacks in primary care: protocol for developing a machine learning-based prediction model
Authors: Tibble Holly , Tsanas Athanasios , Horne Elsie , Horne Robert , Mizani Mehrdad , Simpson Colin R , Sheikh Aziz
Published: July 2019

Introduction

Asthma is a long-term condition with rapid onset worsening of symptoms (‘attacks’) which can be unpredictable and may prove fatal. Models predicting asthma attacks require high sensitivity to minimise mortality risk, and high specificity to avoid unnecessary prescribing of preventative medications that carry an associated risk of adverse events. We aim to create a risk score to predict asthma attacks in primary care using a statistical learning approach trained on routinely collected electronic health record data.

Methods and analysis

We will employ machine-learning classifiers (naïve Bayes, support vector machines, and random forests) to create an asthma attack risk prediction model, using the Asthma Learning Health System (ALHS) study patient registry comprising 500 000 individuals across 75 Scottish general practices, with linked longitudinal primary care prescribing records, primary care Read codes, accident and emergency records, hospital admissions and deaths. Models will be compared on a partition of the dataset reserved for validation, and the final model will be tested in both an unseen partition of the derivation dataset and an external dataset from the Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Effectiveness II (SIVE II) study.

Ethics and dissemination

Permissions for the ALHS project were obtained from the South East Scotland Research Ethics Committee 02 [16/SS/0130] and the Public Benefit and Privacy Panel for Health and Social Care (1516–0489). Permissions for the SIVE II project were obtained from the Privacy Advisory Committee (National Services NHS Scotland) [68/14] and the National Research Ethics Committee West Midlands–Edgbaston [15/WM/0035]. The subsequent research paper will be submitted for publication to a peer-reviewed journal and code scripts used for all components of the data cleaning, compiling, and analysis will be made available in the open source GitHub website (https://github.com/hollytibble).
The (un)availability of prognostic information in the last days of life: a prospective observational study
Authors: White Nicola , Reid Fiona , Harries Priscilla , Harris Adam J L , Minton Ollie , McGowan Catherine , Lodge Philip , Tookman Adrian , Stone Patrick
Published: July 2019

Objectives

The aims of this study were (1) to document the clinical condition of patients considered to be in the last 2 weeks of life and (2) to compare patients who did or did not survive for 72 hours.

Design

A prospective observational study.

Setting

Two sites in London, UK (a hospice and a hospital palliative care team).

Participants

Any inpatient, over 18 years old, English speaking, who was identified by the palliative care team as at risk of dying within the next 2 weeks was eligible.

Outcome measures

Prognostic signs and symptoms were documented at a one off assessment and patients were followed up 7 days later to determine whether or not they had died.

Results

Fifty participants were recruited and 24/50 (48%) died within 72 hours of assessment. The most prevalent prognostic features observed were a decrease in oral food intake (60%) and a rapid decline of the participant’s global health status (56%). Participants who died within 72 hours had a lower level of consciousness and had more care needs than those who lived longer. A large portion of data was unavailable, particularly that relating to the psychological and spiritual well-being of the patient, due to the decreased consciousness of the patient.

Conclusions

The prevalence of prognostic signs and symptoms in the final days of life has been documented between those predicted to die and those who did not. How doctors make decisions with missing information is an area for future research, in addition to understanding the best way to use the available information to make more accurate predictions.
Climatic and community sociodemographic factors associated with remote Indigenous Australian smoking rates: an ecological study of health audit data
Authors: Carroll Suzanne Jane , Dale Michael J , Bailie Ross , Daniel Mark
Published: July 2019

Australian Indigenous smoking rates are highest in remote communities but likely vary between communities; few studies have assessed community features in relation to Indigenous smoking rates.

Design and objective

This ecological study evaluated the associations between smoking rates, and community sociodemographic and climatic characteristics for a large sample of remote Indigenous communities.

Setting and sample

Records (n=2689) from an audit of community health centres in the Northern Territory and Queensland were used to estimate smoking rates dichotomised at the median for 70 predominantly Indigenous remote communities. Community characteristics were similarly dichotomised.

Methods

Cross-tabulations were used to calculate the odds of a community classified as high for a sociodemographic or climatic factor also being high for smoking rate. Additional cross-tabulations, stratified by sociodemographic, region (coastal or central) and geographic connectivity levels, were performed to assess potential confounding.

Results

Community smoking rates ranged from 25% to 96% (median 60.2%). Moderately strong relationships were observed between community smoking rate and population size (OR 6.25,(95% CI 2.18 to 17.95)), education level (OR 3.67 (1.35–10.01)), income (2.86 (11.07–7.67)) and heat (2.86 (1.07–7.67)).

Conclusions

Smoking rates in Australian remote Indigenous communities are universally high. Smoking rates are associated with greater community-level socioeconomic status and size, most likely reflecting greater means of accessing tobacco with mass of smokers sufficient to sustain a normative influence. Severe heat was also associated with high smoking rates suggesting such a stressor might support smoking as a coping mechanism. Community sociodemographic and climatic factors bear consideration as context-level correlates of community smoking rates.
The p-value and model specification in statistics
Authors: Wang Bokai , Zhou Zhirou , Wang Hongyue , Tu Xin M , Feng Changyong
Published: July 2019

The p value has been widely used as a way to summarise the significance in data analysis. However, misuse and misinterpretation of the p value is common in practice. Our result shows that if the model specification is wrong, the distribution of the p value may be inappropriate, which makes the decision based on the p value invalid.
Accuracy of an automated three‐dimensional technique for the computation of femoral angles in dogs
Authors: Longo Federico , Savio Gianpaolo , Contiero Barbara , Meneghello Roberto , Concheri Gianmaria , Franchini Federico , Isola Maurizio
Published: July 2019

Aims: The purpose of the study was to evaluate the accuracy of a three‐dimensional (3D) automated technique (computer‐aided design (aCAD)) for the measurement of three canine femoral angles: anatomical lateral distal femoral angle (aLDFA), femoral neck angle (FNA) and femoral torsion angle.

Methods:Twenty‐eight femurs equally divided intotwo groups (normal and abnormal) were obtained from 14 dogs of different conformations (dolicomorphic and chondrodystrophicCT scans and 3D scanner acquisitions were used to create stereolithographic (STL) files, which were run in a CAD platform. Two blinded observers separately performed the measurements using the STL obtained from CT scans (CT aCAD) and 3D scanner (3D aCAD), which was considered the gold standard method. C orrelation coefficients were used to investigate the strength of the relationship between the two measurements.

Results: A ccuracy of the aCAD computation was good, being always above the threshold of R2 of greater than 80 per cent for all three angles assessed in both groups. a LDFA and FNA were the most accurate angles (accuracy >90 per cent).

Conclusions: The proposed 3D aCAD protocol can be considered a reliable technique to assess femoral angle measurements in canine femur. The developed algorithm automatically calculates the femoral angles in 3D, thus considering the subjective intrinsic femur morphology. The main benefit relies on a fast user‐independent computation, which avoids user‐related measurement variability. The accuracy of 3D details may be helpful for patellar luxation and femoral bone deformity correction, as well as for the design of patient‐ specific, custom‐made hip prosthesis implants.
State-space modeling of multidecadal mark–recapture data reveals low adult dispersal in a nursery-dependent fish metapopulation
Authors: Lecomte Jean-Baptiste , Le Pape Olivier , Baillif Hélène , Nevoux Marie , Vermard Youen , Savina Marie , Veron Matthieu , Lehuta Sigrid , Hunter Ewan , Rivot Etienne
Published: July 2019

Quantifying connectivity within fish metapopulations is an important component in understanding population dynamics and providing an evidence base for assessment and management. We investigate metapopulation connectivity of the common sole (Solea solea) in the Eastern English Channel (EEC). The EEC common sole stock is currently assessed as a single and spatially homogeneous population, but connectivity induced through adult movements within this stock and with nearby stocks remains unknown. To fill this knowledge gap, we developed a state-space mark–recovery model, designed to estimate adult connectivity using mark–recapture data from multiple release experiments from 1970 to 2018 across the EEC and adjacent management areas. The model estimates seasonal fish movements between five predefined areas, Western English Channel, Eastern English Channel (split into three discrete sub-areas), and North Sea. Over 32 000 fish were tagged, 4036 of which were recovered via fisheries. Our results suggest minimal large-scale adult movements between these areas; movements among spatial units within the EEC were very low with even lower levels of immigration from areas adjoining the EEC. Our results support the hypothesis of segregated populations within the EEC. The importance of accommodating population substructure in the fisheries management is considered.
Research on Sensitivity of Speckle Center Coordinate Values by Contour and Background Noise and Elimination Method
Authors: Yin Junyao , Zhu Xinglong
Published: July 2019

The accuracy of measuring the target object displacement is greatly influenced by the offset of central coordinate value in a laser speckle contour (CCVLSC) due to the defects obtained in background or on measuring surface, as a measuring combination of both monocular vision and laser speckle is used. In this paper, the theoretical principle of displacement measurement is first presented by a combination of monocular vision and laser speckle. Then, a model between object displacement and CCVLSC (particularly, [Formula: see text] coordinate value) is derived. Finally, a denoising algorithm with competitive protection of contour effective points is proposed, on the basis of effects of noises coming from background and contour edge on CCVLSC. The algorithm includes ellipse fitting to laser speckle contour, calculating offsets between all contour points and the fitted eclipse, eliminating noise points with higher deviation (generally about 5% of all contour points) by using competitive strategy, ellipse refitting, and recalculating and re-eliminating until the deviation is below a specified threshold. It is shown that the algorithm can not only eliminate the fixed noise points in each round but also protect the number of effective points to the greatest extent. Finally, the feasibility of the algorithm is verified by two ways. One is an ideal data validation. It proves that the algorithm can guarantee the convergence towards the ideal center coordinate value. Another is an experimental verification. An experimental system is built up based on the relationship between object displacement and Y coordinate value of CCVLSC for obtaining relevant dada. It is shown by the comparison between predictions and experimental data that the algorithm has a better robustness and a higher accuracy of distance measurement than other typical algorithms.
A Joint Approach to Detect Malicious URL Based on Attention Mechanism
Authors: Peng Yongfang , Tian Shengwei , Yu Long , Lv Yalong , Wang Ruijin
Published: July 2019

To improve the accuracy and automation of malware Uniform Resource Locator (URL) recognition, a joint approach of Convolutional neural network (CNN) and Long-short term memory (LSTM) based on the Attention mechanism (JCLA) is proposed to identify and detect malicious URL. Firstly, the URL features including texture information, lexical information and host information are extracted and filtered, and pre-processed with encode. Then, the feature matrix more relevant to the output are chose according to the weight of the attention mechanism and input to the constructed parallel processing model called CNN_LSTM, combinating CNN and LSTM to get local features. Next, the extracted local features are merged to calculate the global features of the URLs to be detected. Finally, the URLs are classified by the SoftMax classifier using global features, the accuracy of the model in malicious URL recgonition is 98.26%. The experimental results show that the JCLA model proposed in this paper is better than the traditional deep learning model or CNN_LSTM combined model for detecting malicious URLs.
THE NEXUS BETWEEN ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AND GROWTH: APPLICATION TO VIETNAM
Authors: NGUYEN HA MINH , BUI NGOC HOANG , VO DUC HONG
Published: July 2019

The paper examines the relationship between the economic integration and growth nexus in Vietnam using powerful quantitative methods, specifically the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and the Granger causality test. The study focuses on three types of economic integration, including overall integration, financial integration and trade integration, which affected economic growth in Vietnam from 1986 to 2015. The key finding from this study is that when three types of economic integration are considered together, integration provides positive impacts on economic growth. In addition, causal relationship exists between overall integration and financial integration, and between trade integration and financial integration. As such, financial integration is absolutely important to economic growth in Vietnam. On the grounds of these findings, the Vietnamese government should carefully outline socio-economic development strategies to maintain political stability and to derive benefits from economic integration and globalization.
Running Wheel: How an exergame can motivate people to perform repetitive, tedious exercises
Authors: Nedel Luciana , Moni Rodrigo , Nunes Mateus
Published: July 2019

Running on a treadmill or cycling on an exercise bike are often monotonous and hard-to-keep habits. Comparatively, social relationships in team sports play an important role to motivate participants. What happens when you combine both activities into one virtual environment?
Modeling and Analyzing Incremental Natures of Developing Software
Authors: Jiang Jian-Min , Hong Zhong , Chen Yangyang
Published: July 2019

The basic premise of iterative and evolutionary project management is that a project is divided into early, frequent, and short duration delivery steps. Each step attempts to deliver some real value to stakeholders. The increment size and iteration length usually depend on profitability, finance, deadline, and so on, rather than the functionality of a developing system. It is difficult to guarantee the correctness in every iteration step. In this article, we propose a method of ensuring the correctness of iterative design in terms of deadlock-freedom of the behavior of software. The method first obtains the correct (deadlock-free) atomic subsystems of a system using a decomposition approach. In the iterative development process, the method then requires that one atomic subsystem or the composition of multiple atomic subsystems should be regarded as one increment. Every increment is naturally correct and can be completely independently developed, independently deployed, and independently maintained. The currently released system in each iteration step is naturally guaranteed to be correct. It is not necessary for developers to consider the composition of the increment and the previously released system may cause flaws and errors. We also discuss the approach for ensuring correctness when design modifications are made in an iteration step. Finally, we explore the automatic decomposition of a system into multiple atomic subsystems and present the corresponding algorithm. A case demonstrates these results.
ZoneTier
Authors: Xie Xuchao , Xiao Liquan , Du David H.C.
Published: July 2019

Integrating solid-state drives (SSDs) and host-aware shingled magnetic recording (HA-SMR) drives can potentially build a cost-effective high-performance storage system. However, existing SSD tiering and caching designs in such a hybrid system are not fully matched with the intrinsic properties of HA-SMR drives due to their lacking consideration of how to handle non-sequential writes (NSWs). We propose ZoneTier, a zone-based storage tiering and caching co-design, to effectively control all the NSWs by leveraging the host-aware property of HA-SMR drives. ZoneTier exploits real-time data layout of SMR zones to optimize zone placement, reshapes NSWs generated from zone demotions to SMR preferred sequential writes, and transforms the inevitable NSWs to cleaning-friendly write traffics for SMR zones. ZoneTier can be easily extended to match host-managed SMR drives using proactive cleaning policy. We implemented a prototype of ZoneTier with user space data management algorithms and real SSD and HA-SMR drives, which are manipulated by the functions provided by libzbc and libaio. Our experiments show that ZoneTier can reduce zone relocation overhead by 29.41% on average, shorten performance recovery time of HA-SMR drives from cleaning by up to 33.37%, and improve performance by up to 32.31% than existing hybrid storage designs.
Time Protection in Operating Systems and Speaker Legitimacy Detection
Authors: Colyer Adrian
Published: July 2019

Timing-based side-channel attacks are a particularly tricky class of attacks to deal with because the very thing you’re often striving for can give you away. There are always more creative new instances of attacks to be found, so you need a principled way of thinking about defenses that address the class, not just a particular instantiation. That’s what Ge et al. give us in "Time Protection, the Missing OS Abstraction." Just as operating systems prevent spatial inference through memory protection, so future operating systems will need to prevent temporal inference through time protection. It’s going to be a long road to get there. The second paper chosen for this edition comes from NDSS’19 (Network and Distributed System Security Symposium) and studies the physiological and social implications of the ever-improving abilities of voice-imitation software. It seems people may be especially vulnerable to being fooled by fake voices. "The crux of voice (in)security: a brain study of speaker legitimacy detection," by Neupane et al., is a fascinating study with implications far beyond just the technology.
Diagnostic roles of urinary kidney injury molecule 1 and soluble C5b-9 in acute tubulointerstitial nephritis
Authors: Zhao Wen-Ting , Huang Jun-Wen , Sun Ping-Ping , Su Tao , Tang Jia-Wei , Wang Su-Xia , Liu Gang , Yang Li
Published: July 2019

Acute tubulointerstitial nephritis (ATIN) is a common cause of acute kidney injury characterized by inflammatory cells infiltrating in the interstitium. The present study aimed to explore noninvasive biomarkers that might indicate activity of pathological injuries and help direct treatment. Fifty-four patients with clinical-pathologically diagnosed ATIN from January 1, 2014, to June 30, 2016, at Peking University First Hospital were enrolled. Urine samples were collected on the morning of renal biopsy and assessed for urinary kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1) and urinary soluble C5b-9 (sC5b-9). Immunofluorescence staining for KIM-1 and C5b-9 was performed in biopsied kidney sections from ATIN cases. The clinical and pathological relevance of the two urinary biomarkers was analyzed. Both urinary KIM-1 and sC5b-9 values were significantly elevated in patients with ATIN compared with healthy controls. The urinary KIM-1 level positively correlated with urinary N-acetyl-β-d-glucosaminidase ( r = 0. 542, P = 0.001) and the pathological tubular injury score ( r = 0.469, P < 0.001), whereas the urinary sC5b-9 level was related to pathological activity scores for tubular injury ( r = 0.413, P = 0.002), interstitial inflammation ( r = 0.388, P = 0.004), and treatment response ( r = 0.564, P < 0.001). Urinary KIM-1 tended to have better diagnostic value for tubular injury than urinary sC5b-9, whereas only urinary sC5b-9 was able to demonstrate severe interstitial inflammation. A combination of urinary KIM-1 and sC5b-9 had an area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve of 0.864 (95% confidence interval: 0.766–0.963, P < 0.001, sensitivity: 75%, specificity: 88%) for acute tissue injury in ATIN. KIM-1 expression was markedly increased in renal tubular cells in both ATIN and acute tubular necrosis conditions, whereas a significant upregulation of C5b-9 was only detected in the tubular cells and interstitial cells in ATIN cases. Urinary KIM-1 is a specific biomarker for renal tubular injury in ATIN, whereas urinary sC5b-9 is valuable in demonstrating severe interstitial inflammation. The combination of these two biomarkers helps identify patients at an acute injury stage and, therefore, might facilitate clinical evaluation and guide immunosuppressive therapy.
Mixed-polarity random-dot stereograms alter GABA and Glx concentration in the early visual cortex
Authors: Rideaux Reuben , Goncalves Nuno R. , Welchman Andrew E.
Published: July 2019

The offset between images projected onto the left and right retina (binocular disparity) provides a powerful cue to the three-dimensional structure of the environment. It was previously shown that depth judgements are better when images comprise both light and dark features, rather than only light or only dark elements. Since Harris and Parker ( Nature 374: 808–811, 1995) discovered the “mixed-polarity benefit,” there has been limited evidence supporting their hypothesis that the benefit is due to separate bright and dark channels. Goncalves and Welchman ( Curr Biol 27: 1403–1412, 2017) observed that single- and mixed-polarity stereograms evoke different levels of positive and negative activity in a deep neural network trained on natural images to make depth judgements, which also showed the mixed-polarity benefit. Motivated by this discovery, we seek to test the potential for changes in the balance of excitation and inhibition that are produced by viewing these stimuli. In particular, we use magnetic resonance spectroscopy to measure Glx and GABA concentrations in the early visual cortex of adult humans during viewing of single- and mixed-polarity random-dot stereograms (RDS). We find that participants’ Glx concentration is significantly higher, whereas GABA concentration is significantly lower, when mixed-polarity RDS are viewed than when single-polarity RDS are viewed. These results indicate that excitation and inhibition facilitate processing of single- and mixed-polarity stereograms in the early visual cortex to different extents, consistent with recent theoretical work (Goncalves NR, Welchman AE. Curr Biol 27: 1403–1412, 2017).

NEW & NOTEWORTHY Depth judgements are better when images comprise both light and dark features, rather than only light or only dark elements. Using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, we show that adult human participants’ Glx concentration is significantly higher whereas GABA concentration is significantly lower in the early visual cortex when participants view mixed-polarity random-dot stereograms (RDS) compared with single-polarity RDS. These results indicate that excitation and inhibition facilitate processing of single- and mixed-polarity stereograms in the early visual cortex to different extents.
The 24-h savings of adaptation to novel movement dynamics initially reflects the recall of previous performance
Authors: Nguyen Katrina P. , Zhou Weiwei , McKenna Erin , Colucci-Chang Katrina , Bray Laurence C. Jayet , Hosseini Eghbal A. , Alhussein Laith , Rezazad Meena , Joiner Wilsaan M.
Published: July 2019

Humans rapidly adapt reaching movements in response to perturbations (e.g., manipulations of movement dynamics or visual feedback). Following a break, when reexposed to the same perturbation, subjects demonstrate savings, a faster learning rate compared with the time course of initial training. Although this has been well studied, there are open questions on the extent early savings reflects the rapid recall of previous performance. To address this question, we examined how the properties of initial training (duration and final adaptive state) influence initial single-trial adaptation to force-field perturbations when training sessions were separated by 24 h. There were two main groups that were distinct based on the presence or absence of a washout period at the end of day 1 (with washout vs. without washout). We also varied the training duration on day 1 (15, 30, 90, or 160 training trials), resulting in 8 subgroups of subjects. We show that single-trial adaptation on day 2 scaled with training duration, even for similar asymptotic levels of learning on day 1 of training. Interestingly, the temporal force profile following the first perturbation on day 2 matched that at the end of day 1 for the longest training duration group that did not complete the washout. This correspondence persisted but was significantly lower for shorter training durations and the washout subject groups. Collectively, the results suggest that the adaptation observed very early in reexposure results from the rapid recall of the previously learned motor recalibration but is highly dependent on the initial training duration and final adaptive state.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY The extent initial readaptation reflects the recall of previous motor performance is largely unknown. We examined early single-trial force-field adaptation on the second day of training and distinguished initial retention from recall. We found that the single-trial adaptation following the 24-h break matched that at the end of the first day, but this recall was modified by the training duration and final level of learning on the first day of training.
A Selective Biogeography-Based Optimizer Considering Resource Allocation for Large-Scale Global Optimization
Authors: Cui Meiji , Li Li , Shi Miaojing
Published: July 2019

Biogeography-based optimization (BBO), a recent proposed metaheuristic algorithm, has been successfully applied to many optimization problems due to its simplicity and efficiency. However, BBO is sensitive to the curse of dimensionality; its performance degrades rapidly as the dimensionality of the search space increases. In this paper, a selective migration operator is proposed to scale up the performance of BBO and we name it selective BBO (SBBO). The differential migration operator is selected heuristically to explore the global area as far as possible whist the normal distributed migration operator is chosen to exploit the local area. By the means of heuristic selection, an appropriate migration operator can be used to search the global optimum efficiently. Moreover, the strategy of cooperative coevolution (CC) is adopted to solve large-scale global optimization problems (LSOPs). To deal with subgroup imbalance contribution to the whole solution in the context of CC, a more efficient computing resource allocation is proposed. Extensive experiments are conducted on the CEC 2010 benchmark suite for large-scale global optimization, and the results show the effectiveness and efficiency of SBBO compared with BBO variants and other representative algorithms for LSOPs. Also, the results confirm that the proposed computing resource allocation is vital to the large-scale optimization within the limited computation budget.
Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor Promotes the Interaction between the Tumor, Macrophages, and T Cells to Regulate the Progression of Chemically Induced Colitis-Associated Colorectal Cancer
Authors: Pacheco-Fernández Thalia , Juárez-Avelar Imelda , Illescas Oscar , Terrazas Luis I. , Hernández-Pando Rogelio , Pérez-Plasencia Carlos , Gutiérrez-Cirlos Emma B. , Ávila-Moreno Federico , Chirino Yolanda I. , Reyes José Luis , Maldonado Vilma , Rodriguez-Sosa Miriam
Published: July 2019

Colitis-associated colorectal cancer (CRC) development has been shown to be related to chronically enhanced inflammation. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is an inflammatory mediator that favors inflammatory cytokine production and has chemotactic properties for the recruitment of macrophages (Møs) and T cells. Here, we investigated the role of MIF in the inflammatory response and recruitment of immune cells in a murine model of chemical carcinogenesis to establish the impact of MIF on CRC genesis and malignancy. We used BALB/c MIF-knockout (MIF-/-) and wild-type (WT) mice to develop CRC by administering intraperitoneal (i.p.) azoxymethane and dextran sodium sulfate in drinking water. Greater tumor burdens were observed in MIF-/-mice than in WT mice. Tumors from MIF-/-mice were histologically identified to be more aggressive than tumors from WT mice. The localization of MIF suggests that it is also involved in cell differentiation. The relative gene expression ofil-17, measured by real-time PCR, was higher in MIF-/-CRC mice, compared to the WT CRC and healthy MIF-/-mice. Importantly, compared to the WT intestinal epithelium, lower percentages of tumor-associated Møs were found in the MIF-/-intestinal epithelium. These results suggest that MIF plays a role in controlling the initial development of CRC by attracting Møs to the tumor, which is a condition that favors the initial antitumor responses.
Multiscale Road Extraction in Remote Sensing Images
Authors: Wulamu Aziguli , Shi Zuxian , Zhang Dezheng , He Zheyu
Published: July 2019

Recent advances in convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have shown impressive results in semantic segmentation. Among the successful CNN-based methods, U-Net has achieved exciting performance. In this paper, we proposed a novel network architecture based on U-Net and atrous spatial pyramid pooling (ASPP) to deal with the road extraction task in the remote sensing field. On the one hand, U-Net structure can effectively extract valuable features; on the other hand, ASPP is able to utilize multiscale context information in remote sensing images. Compared to the baseline, this proposed model has improved the pixelwise mean Intersection over Union (mIoU) of 3 points. Experimental results show that the proposed network architecture can deal with different types of road surface extraction tasks under various terrains in Yinchuan city, solve the road connectivity problem to some extent, and has certain tolerance to shadows and occlusion.
Identification of Aberrantly Expressed Genes during Aging in Rat Nucleus Pulposus Cells
Authors: Cheng Shi , Li Xiaochuan , Lin Linghan , Jia Zhiwei , Zhao Yachao , Wang Deli , Ruan Dike , Zhang Yu
Published: July 2019

Nucleus pulposus cells (NPCs) play a vital role in maintaining the homeostasis of the intervertebral disc (IVD). Previous studies have discovered that NPCs exhibited malfunction due to cellular senescence during disc aging and degeneration; this might be one of the key factors of IVD degeneration. Thus, we conducted this study in order to investigate the altered biofunction and the underlying genes and pathways of senescent NPCs. We isolated and identified NPCs from the tail discs of young (2 months) and old (24 months) SD rats and confirmed the senescent phenotype through SA-β-gal staining. CCK-8 assay, transwell assay, and cell scratch assay were adopted to detect the proliferous and migratory ability of two groups. Then, a rat Gene Chip Clariom™ S array was used to detect differentially expressed genes (DEGs). After rigorous bioinformatics analysis of the raw data, totally, 1038 differentially expressed genes with a fold change>1.5 were identified out of 23189 probes. Among them, 617 were upregulated and 421 were downregulated. Furthermore, Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway analysis were conducted and revealed numerous number of enriched GO terms and signaling pathways associated with senescence of NPCs. A protein-protein interaction (PPI) network of the DEGs was constructed using the Search Tool for the Retrieval of Interacting Genes (STRING) database and Cytoscape software. Module analysis was conducted for the PPI network using the MCODE plugin in Cytoscape. Hub genes were identified by the CytoHubba plugin in Cytoscape. Derived 5 hub genes and most significantly up- or downregulated genes were further verified by real-time PCR. The present study investigated underlying mechanisms in the senescence of NPCs on a genome-wide scale. The illumination of molecular mechanisms of NPCs senescence may assist the development of novel biological methods to treat degenerative disc diseases.
Experiment and Numerical Simulation of the Dynamic Response of Bridges under Vibratory Compaction of Bridge Deck Asphalt Pavement
Authors: Peng An-Ping , Dan Han-Cheng , Yang Dong
Published: July 2019

Vibratory compaction of bridge deck pavement impacts the structural integrity of bridges to certain degrees. In this study, we analyzed the dynamic response of different types of concrete‐beam bridges (continuous beam and simply supported beam) with different cross‐sectional designs (T‐beam and hollow‐slab beam) under vibratory compaction of bridge deck asphalt pavement. The dynamic response patterns of the dynamic deformation and acceleration of bridges under pavement compaction were obtained by performing a series of field experiments and a three‐dimensional finite element simulation. Based on the finite element model, the dynamic responses of bridge structures with different spans and cross‐sectional designs under different working conditions of vibratory compaction were analyzed. The use of different vibration parameters for different bridge structures was proposed to safeguard their structural safety and reliability.
Covert Intention to Answer “Yes” or “No” Can Be Decoded from Single-Trial Electroencephalograms (EEGs)
Authors: Choi Jeong Woo , Kim Kyung Hwan
Published: July 2019

Interpersonal communication is based on questions and answers, and the most useful and simplest case is the binary “yes or no” question and answer. The purpose of this study is to show that it is possible to decode intentions on “yes” or “no” answers from multichannel single-trial electroencephalograms, which were recorded while covertly answering to self-referential questions with either “yes” or “no.” The intention decoding algorithm consists of a common spatial pattern and support vector machine, which are employed for the feature extraction and pattern classification, respectively, after dividing the overall time-frequency range into subwindows of 200 ms × 2 Hz. The decoding accuracy using the information within each subwindow was investigated to find useful temporal and spectral ranges and found to be the highest for 800–1200 ms in the alpha band or 200–400 ms in the theta band. When the features from multiple subwindows were utilized together, the accuracy was significantly increased up to ∼86%. The most useful features for the “yes/no” discrimination was found to be focused in the right frontal region in the theta band and right centroparietal region in the alpha band, which may reflect the violation of autobiographic facts and higher cognitive load for “no” compared to “yes.” Our task requires the subjects to answer self-referential questions just as in interpersonal conversation without any self-regulation of the brain signals or high cognitive efforts, and the “yes” and “no” answers are decoded directly from the brain activities. This implies that the “mind reading” in a true sense is feasible. Beyond its contribution in fundamental understanding of the neural mechanism of human intention, the decoding of “yes” or “no” from brain activities may eventually lead to a natural brain-computer interface.
Experimental Investigation of Dynamic Characteristics of Subsea Sand‐Silt Mixtures
Authors: Feng Tugen , Tang Yu , Wang Qiyenan , Zhang Jian , Song Jian
Published: July 2019

In this paper, extensive resonant column tests were conducted to investigate dynamic responses of subsea sand‐silt mixtures. The effects of confining pressure, mixture ratio, curing age, and cement content were evaluated. For the test condition considered in this study, the measured damping ratio is the smallest when the ratio of subsea sand to silt is in a range of 1.5 to 2.0. Moreover, unsolidified subsea sand‐silt mixed at a ratio of 1.5 has almost the same maximum shear stiffness as the pure sand. For solidified subsea sand‐silt mixture, cement can significantly increase the dynamic shear stiffness when the curing age is less than 14 days. However, the increase of the maximum dynamic shear stiffness is negligible when the curing age is longer than 14 days. When the cement content is 2%, the damping ratio of the solidified mixtures is very close to that of the unsolidified mixture. When the cement content is higher than 4%, the damping ratio of the solidified mixtures reduces significantly. This is mainly due to hydration reactions occurring in the solidified mixtures.
Sonochemical Synthesis and Properties of YVO4:Eu3+ Nanocrystals for Luminescent Security Ink Applications
Authors: Trinh Chinh Dung , Thi Pham Hau Phuong , Dung Dang Thi My , Dang Chien Mau
Published: July 2019

Solutions and redispersible powders of nanocrystalline, europium-doped YVO4, are prepared via a wet chemical method using the ultrasonic processor (sonochemical) and microwave and thermal stirring. From X-ray diffraction (XRD) results, YVO4:Eu3+ nanoparticles synthesized using sonochemical method have better crystallinity than those prepared using thermal stirring and microwave methods exhibiting the tetragonal structure known for bulk material. From field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results, it is found that the size of nanoparticles is around 25 nm and increasing after annealing at 900°C. From UV-Vis result, there is a peak at 270 nm corresponding to the absorption of VO43− groups. The photoluminescence (PL) results clearly show the strongest red emission peak at the wavelength around 618 nm. The highest luminescent intensity is obtained for the sample prepared by the sonochemical method at pH = 12 and annealing temperature at 900°C for 4 h. The average lifetimes of the Eu3+ ions in the samples annealed at 300, 600, and 900°C for 1 h at 618 nm emission under 275 nm excitation are 0.36, 0.62, and 0.64 ms, whereas sample annealed at 900°C for 4 h has lifetime of 0.70 ms. The security ink, containing synthesized YVO4:Eu3+ nanoparticles, is dispersed in glycerol and other necessary solvents. The experimental security labels are printed by inkjet using the electrohydrodynamic printing technique. The resulting lines represented to the security labels are analyzed by the 3D microscope equipment and UV 20 W mercury lamp with a wavelength of ∼254 nm. The seamless line of the printed security label has the value of the width at ∼230 μm, thickness at ∼0.68 μm, and distance between two adjacent lines at 800 μm. This result is compatible for producing security labels in small size (millimeter) in order to increase security property.
Hybrid Deep Neural Network Scheduler for Job-Shop Problem Based on Convolution Two-Dimensional Transformation
Authors: Zang Zelin , Wang Wanliang , Song Yuhang , Lu Linyan , Li Weikun , Wang Yule , Zhao Yanwei
Published: July 2019

In this paper, a hybrid deep neural network scheduler (HDNNS) is proposed to solve job-shop scheduling problems (JSSPs). In order to mine the state information of schedule processing, a job-shop scheduling problem is divided into several classification-based subproblems. And a deep learning framework is used for solving these subproblems. HDNNS applies the convolution two-dimensional transformation method (CTDT) to transform irregular scheduling information into regular features so that the convolution operation of deep learning can be introduced into dealing with JSSP. The simulation experiments designed for testing HDNNS are in the context of JSSPs with different scales of machines and jobs as well as different time distributions for processing procedures. The results show that the MAKESPAN index of HDNNS is 9% better than that of HNN and the index is also 4% better than that of ANN in ZLP dataset. With the same neural network structure, the training time of the HDNNS method is obviously shorter than that of the DEEPRM method. In addition, the scheduler has an excellent generalization performance, which can address large-scale scheduling problems with only small-scale training data.
Sterol Carrier Protein Inhibition-Based Control of Mosquito Vectors: Current Knowledge and Future Perspectives
Authors: Perera Hirunika , Wijerathna Tharaka
Published: July 2019

Cholesterol is one of the most vital compounds for animals as it is involved in various biological processes and acts as the structural material in the body. However, insects do not have some of the essential enzymes in the cholesterol biosynthesis pathway and this makes them dependent on dietary cholesterol. Thus, the blocking of cholesterol uptake may have detrimental effects on the survival of the insect. Utilizing this character, certain phytochemicals can be used to inhibit mosquito sterol carrier protein-2 (AeSCP-2) activity via competitive binding and proven to have effective insecticidal activities against disease-transmitting mosquitoes and other insect vectors. A range of synthetic compounds, phytochemicals, and synthetic analogs of phytochemicals are found to have AeSCP-2 inhibitory activity. Phytochemicals such as alpha-mangostin can be considered as the most promising group of compounds when considering the minimum environmental impact and availability at a low cost. Once the few limitations such as very low persistence in the environment are addressed successfully, these chemicals may be used as an effective tool for controlling mosquitoes and other disease-transmitting vector populations.
Research on Dynamic Response of Concrete‐Filled Steel Tube Columns Confined with FRP under Blast Loading
Authors: Dong Jing , Zhao Junhai , Zhang Dongfang , Li Yingping
Published: July 2019

Recently, a concrete‐filled steel tube confined with fiber‐reinforced polymer (FRP) has become a hot research issue as a new type of structure. These studies mainly focus on its static performance and seismic and impact behaviour, with little research on its blast resistance performance. In this study, the dynamic response of concrete‐filled steel tube columns confined with FRP under blast loading was investigated. Numerical analysis was implemented using multimaterial ALE method in the finite element analysis program LS‐DYNA. The proposed numerical model was validated by the SDOF result and available experimental data. And the effects of the number of FRP layers, concrete strength, and cross section were also discussed in detail based on the proposed numerical model. The results indicate that the constraints of FRP effectively enhance the blast resistance of the column, and the vulnerable parts mainly occur at the middle and two ends of the column. The blast resistance of the column can be enhanced by increasing the number of FRP layers or concrete strength. These results could provide a certain basis for blast resistance design of concrete‐filled steel tubes confined with FRP.