The Three Kingdoms Culture and the City of Chengdu

The Three Kingdoms Culture is regarded as the most influential part in the colorful traditional cultures of Chengdu. In this paper, the relationship between the Three Kingdoms Culture and the City of Chengdu is discussed in three respects based on the definition of Three Kingdoms: (1) Chengdu is the core of the original culture of the Three Kingdoms; (2) it is the center for inheritance of the Culture; (3) it is the research center of the Culture. The research of the Three Kingdoms Culture is a topic worth considering in the process of Chengdu’s growing into an International metropoli

Searching for the nano-Hertz stochastic gravitational wave background with the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array Data Release I

Observing and timing a group of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) with high rotational stability enables the direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs). The GW signals can be identified from the spatial correlations encoded in the times-of-arrival of widely spaced pulsar-pairs. The Chinese Pulsar Timing Array (CPTA) is a collaboration aiming at the direct GW detection with observations carried out using Chinese radio telescopes. This short article serves as a `table of contents' for a forthcoming series of papers related to the CPTA Data Release 1 (CPTA DR1) which uses observations from the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). Here, after summarizing the time span and accuracy of CPTA DR1, we report the key results of our statistical inference finding a correlated signal with amplitude \log A_{\rm c}= -14.4 \,^{+1.0}_{-2.8} for spectral index in the range of $\alpha\in [-1.8, 1.5]$ assuming a GW background (GWB) induced quadrupolar correlation. The search for the Hellings-Downs (HD) correlation curve is also presented, where some evidence for the HD correlation has been found that a 4.6-$\sigma$ statistical significance is achieved using the discrete frequency method around the frequency of 14 nHz. We expect that the future International Pulsar Timing Array data analysis and the next CPTA data release will be more sensitive to the nHz GWB, which could verify the current results.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, submitted to "Research in astronomy and astrophysics" 22nd March 202

Adenoid lymphocyte heterogeneity in pediatric adenoid hypertrophy and obstructive sleep apnea

IntroductionAdenoid hypertrophy is the main cause of obstructive sleep apnea in children. Previous studies have suggested that pathogenic infections and local immune system disorders in the adenoids are associated with adenoid hypertrophy. The abnormalities in the number and function of various lymphocyte subsets in the adenoids may play a role in this association. However, changes in the proportion of lymphocyte subsets in hypertrophic adenoids remain unclear.MethodsTo identify patterns of lymphocyte subsets in hypertrophic adenoids, we used multicolor flow cytometry to analyze the lymphocyte subset composition in two groups of children: the mild to moderate hypertrophy group (n = 10) and the severe hypertrophy group (n = 5).ResultsA significant increase in naïve lymphocytes and a decrease in effector lymphocytes were found in severe hypertrophic adenoids.DiscussionThis finding suggests that abnormal lymphocyte differentiation or migration may contribute to the development of adenoid hypertrophy. Our study provides valuable insights and clues into the immunological mechanism underlying adenoid hypertrophy

Ethanolamine-phosphate phospho-lyase (ETNPPL) contributes to the diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy of hepatocellular carcinoma

Background Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is characterized by high mortality, difficulty in early screening, relapse, and poor prognosis. This study aimed to explore the expression of ethanolamine-phosphate phospho-lyase (ETNPPL) and its clinical significance in HCC. Methods Differentially expressed mRNAs were screened using microarray analysis. Functional enrichment was performed using GO (Gene Ontology) and KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) analysis. We used qRT-PCR to measure the expression of ETNPPL in HCC tissues and paired paracarcinoma tissues. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and Kaplan-Meier curve were conducted to assess the diagnostic and prognostic values. Cell behaviors were evaluated using a scratch test and transwell assay. Results The results showed that numerous mRNAs are abnormally expressed in HCC. ETNPPL was decreased in HCC tissues and cells. The area under curve (AUC) of ETNPPL was 0.9089, demonstrating that ETNPPL had diagnostic value. Low expression of ETNPPL was related to poor prognosis for patients with HCC. Moreover, the over-expression of ETNPPL inhibited HCC cell migration and invasion. Conclusions In conclusion, downregulated ETNPPL was found in HCC and is related to poor patient prognosis and the promotion of cell metastasis. This suggests that ETNPPL serves both as a promising diagnosis and prognosis biomarker, and a therapy target of HCC

Air-SAGD technology for super-heavy oil reservoirs

The air oxidation of super-heavy oil at low temperature was studied in laboratory and its influences on oil viscosity, component and steam sweep efficiency before and after air-injection were analyzed. The feasibility, operation mode and air flooding effect at the late stage of steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) were investigated by numerical simulation. The experimental results show for vertical-horizontal well pair SAGD test area of Xing VI Formation in Block Du 84 of Liaohe Oilfield, the low temperature oxidation occurred between 150–250 °C (steam chamber temperature), the oil viscosity increased greatly after low temperature oxidation, consequently, the oil displacement efficiency dropped sharply. Three development methods in the late stage of SAGD were simulated, i.e., steam + air low temperature oxidation, only air low temperature oxidation and only air high temperature oxidation. By comparing production dynamic curves and residual oil distribution etc., high temperature oxidation reduced the heat loss in late stage of SAGD, recovered the residual oil effectively, and prolonged reservoir development time. Key words: super heavy oil, SAGD, air injection, low temperature oxidation, high temperature oxidatio

Machine learning-based prediction models for parathyroid carcinoma using pre-surgery cognitive function and clinical features

Abstract Patients with parathyroid carcinoma (PC) are often diagnosed postoperatively, due to incomplete resection during the initial surgery, resulting in poor outcomes. The aim of our study was to investigate the pre-surgery indicators of PC and try to develop a predictive model for PC utilizing machine learning. Evaluation of pre-surgery neuropsychological function and confirmation of pathology were carried out in 133 patients with primary hyperparathyroidism in Beijing Chaoyang Hospital from December 2019 to January 2023. Patients were randomly divided into a training cohort (n = 93) and a validating cohort (n = 40). Analysis of the clinical dataset, two machine learning including the extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression were utilized to develop the prediction model for PC. Logistic regression analysis was also conducted for comparison. Significant differences in elevated parathyroid hormone and decreased serum phosphorus in PC compared to (BP). The lower score of MMSE and MOCA was observed in PC and a cutoff of MMSE < 24 was the optimal threshold to stratify PC from BP (area under the curve AUC 0.699 vs 0.625). The predicted probability of PC by machine learning was similar to the observed probability in the test set, whereas the logistic model tended to overpredict the possibility of PC. The XGBoost model attained a higher AUC than the logistic algorithms and LASSO models. (0.835 vs 0.683 vs 0.607). Preoperative cognitive function may be a probable predictor for PC. The cognitive function-based prediction model based on the XGBoost algorithm outperformed LASSO and logistic regression, providing valuable preoperative assistance to surgeons in clinical decision-making for patients suspected PC

Measuring Spectral Inconsistency of Multispectral Images for Detection and Segmentation of Retinal Degenerative Changes

Abstract Multispectral imaging (MSI) creates a series of en-face fundus spectral sections by leveraging an extensive range of discrete monochromatic light sources and allows for an examination of the retina’s early morphologic changes that are not generally visible with traditional fundus imaging modalities. An Ophthalmologist’s interpretation of MSI images is commonly conducted by qualitatively analyzing the spectral consistency between degenerated areas and normal ones, which characterizes the image variation across different spectra. Unfortunately, an ophthalmologist’s interpretation is practically difficult considering the fact that human perception is limited to the RGB color space, while an MSI sequence contains typically more than ten spectra. In this paper, we propose a method for measuring the spectral inconsistency of MSI images without supervision, which yields quantitative information indicating the pathological property of the tissue. Specifically, we define mathematically the spectral consistency as an existence of a pixel-specific latent feature vector and a spectrum-specific projection matrix, which can be used to reconstruct the representative features of pixels. The spectral inconsistency is then measured using the number of latent feature vectors required to reconstruct the representative features in practice. Experimental results from 54 MSI sequences show that our spectral inconsistency measurement is potentially invaluable for MSI-based ocular disease diagnosis

Seizure freedom in epilepsia partialis continua (EPC) through vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) therapy: A case report

AbstractVagus nerve stimulation (VNS) is generally considered as a palliative treatment for patients with drug-resistant partial-onset epilepsy. We report a case in which a patient with drug-resistant epilepsia partialis continua (EPC), became seizure-free for 15months with VNS combined with antiepileptic medication regimens. To our knowledge, similar cases have not been reported previously