Predictive Value of Plasma MicroRNA-216a/b in the Diagnosis of Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a common human malignancy with poor survival, which was usually diagnosed at an advanced stage. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a class of single stranded noncoding RNAs with only 17-25 ribonucleotides, were demonstrated to play an important role in lots of cancers. In the recent years, increasing evidence revealed that circulating miRNAs exhibited great potential in the diagnosis of various types of cancers. The present study was designed to evaluate the diagnostic value of plasma miRNA-216a/b for ESCC. Our results showed that the expression level of plasma miRNA-216a/b was significantly lower in ESCC patients compared with that of healthy controls. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis yielded an area under the ROC curve (AUC) value of 0.877 [95% CI (confidence interval): 0.818-0.922] for miRNA-216a and 0.756 (95% CI: 0.685-0.819) for miRNA-216b. Clinical data indicated that plasma miRNA-216a/b were inversely correlated with lymph node metastasis and TNM stage. Additionally, the plasma miRNA-216b expression level was significantly upregulated in postoperative samples compared to preoperative samples. Our study, for the first time, demonstrated that plasma miRNA-216a/b might serve as potential biomarkers for the diagnosis of ESCC and dysregulation of miRNA-216a/b might be involved in the progression of ESCC

Vision-Based Real-Time Traversable Region Detection for Mobile Robot in the Outdoors

Environment perception is essential for autonomous mobile robots in human-robot coexisting outdoor environments. One of the important tasks for such intelligent robots is to autonomously detect the traversable region in an unstructured 3D real world. The main drawback of most existing methods is that of high computational complexity. Hence, this paper proposes a binocular vision-based, real-time solution for detecting traversable region in the outdoors. In the proposed method, an appearance model based on multivariate Gaussian is quickly constructed from a sample region in the left image adaptively determined by the vanishing point and dominant borders. Then, a fast, self-supervised segmentation scheme is proposed to classify the traversable and non-traversable regions. The proposed method is evaluated on public datasets as well as a real mobile robot. Implementation on the mobile robot has shown its ability in the real-time navigation applications

Research and Design of Cross-Language Vertical Search Engine for Special Agricultural E-commerce Platform

Based on the research of vertical search engine and cross-language information retrieval, a crosslanguage vertical search engine design for e-commerce platform is proposed. It aims to solve the problem that it is difficult for Internet users to quickly, efficiently, and comprehensively search for valuable products, especially ethnic minority netizens. Cross-language in this article mainly refers to the conversion of Chinese, English, and Tibetan. Using dictionary-based query translation method to translate query words to achieve cross-language function. Improved Heritrix designed a web crawler information collection method. Using HtmlParser to achieve structured information extraction, and using Lucene to build an index and achieve retrieval

Research and Design of Cross-Language Vertical Search Engine for Special Agricultural E-commerce Platform

Based on the research of vertical search engine and cross-language information retrieval, a crosslanguage vertical search engine design for e-commerce platform is proposed. It aims to solve the problem that it is difficult for Internet users to quickly, efficiently, and comprehensively search for valuable products, especially ethnic minority netizens. Cross-language in this article mainly refers to the conversion of Chinese, English, and Tibetan. Using dictionary-based query translation method to translate query words to achieve cross-language function. Improved Heritrix designed a web crawler information collection method. Using HtmlParser to achieve structured information extraction, and using Lucene to build an index and achieve retrieval

Strain-induced precipitation behaviors of 7Mo super-austenitic stainless steel

Strain-induced precipitation (SIP) behaviors of 7Mo super-austenitic stainless steel (SASS) were studied by strain relaxation test at 850 °C. Our results reveal that sigma (σ) phases are the predominant SIP of 7Mo SASS, with the chemical formula of (FeNi) (CrMo). SIP first precipitates in granular shape at HAGBs, such as deformed grain boundaries (SIP-GBs), interfaces between deformation twin layers and matrix (SIP-TW), and HAGBs inside deformed grains (SIP-HAGBs). This is attributed to the ability of HAGBs for providing high deformation stored energy, nucleation sites, and efficient element diffusion channels. When the nucleation sites at HAGBs become saturated with increasing holding time, needle-like SIPs (SIP-NL) are precipitated along closely packed planes of γ-Fe matrix. The specific orientation relationships between SIP-NL and matrix, namely (−111)γ-Fe//(00–1)σ, [0–11]γ-Fe//[-110]σ or (-1-1-1)γ-Fe//(00–1)σ, [0–11]γ-Fe//[-110]σ, and the needle-like shape are contribute to minimizing interfacial energy and elastic strain energy of SIP, respectively, thereby promoting SIP-NL. The absence of SIP on dislocations can be attributed to the large critical nucleus size of σ phase (about 4.87 nm), which poses challenges for SIP nucleation through dislocation distortion energy. Mo is the controlling element for the nucleation and growth of SIP. SIP can promote cDRX through particle-induced nucleation (PSN) mechanism during the deformation process, while residual high-density dislocations around SIP can also promote cSRX during the holding process. During holding process, the boundaries of recrystallized grains can also serve as nucleation sites for SIP, thereby promoting SIP, and finally form a multi-layer structure of “σ phase/Recrystallization/σ phase”

Exploring the mechanism of solid-state transformation σ → γ during homogenization in 7Mo super austenitic stainless steel

Topologically close-packed phases (TCP phase), with ordered dense-stacked structure, realize the atomic diffusion at high temperatures by forming the defects. In this study, we investigated the σ → γ transformation process at high temperature in cast 7Mo super austenitic stainless steel. Based on in-situ observation and microstructure analysis, it denoted that the modulated structure appeared in σ phase during the transformation process, which caused by the limited mobility of atoms. With extending homogenization time, the new γ phase formed at the boundaries of the modulated structure in σ phase. The size of the σ phase gradually decreased as new γ phase grew up. This discovery enriches the phase transformation mechanism of intermetallic compounds and provides a new sight for applying σ phase at high temperature

Evaluation of the Effect of Fiber Type, Length, and Content on Asphalt Properties and Asphalt Mixture Performance

Fiber-reinforced asphalt mixture has been widely used in pavement engineering to not only prevent asphalt binder leakage but also improve engineering properties of asphalt mixture. However, the research on three key parameters, namely fiber type, fiber length, and fiber content, which significantly affect the performance of fiber-reinforced asphalt mixture, have seldom been conducted systematically. To determine these three key parameters in the support of the application of fibers in mixture scientifically, three commonly used fibers were selected, basalt fiber, polyester fiber, and lignin fiber, and the testing on fibers, fiber-reinforced asphalt binders, and fiber-reinforced asphalt mixtures was conducted afterwards. The results showed: the favorable fiber type was basalt fiber; the favorable basalt fiber length was 6mm; the engineering properties including high temperature stability, low temperature crack resistance, and water susceptibility were clearly improved by the added basalt fiber, and the optimum basalt fiber content was 0.4 wt.%. The obtained results may be valuable from a practical point of view to engineers and practitioners

The roles of Ce and Mn on solidification behaviors and mechanical properties of 7Mo super austenitic stainless steel

Effect of Ce and Mn on solidification behaviors and mechanical properties of 7Mo super austenitic stainless steel was investigated via in-situ observations, thermodynamic calculations and microstructural characterization. The results show that the network eutectic microstructure had higher hardness compare with ordinary cast structure. And increasing Ce and Mn can both improve the hardness which could be attributed to the effect of Ce and Mn on the solidification microstructure. Analyses indicate that Ce acted as inclusions and atoms to shorten the solidification interval and refine the microstructure to reduce the σ phase. This finer microstructure increased the average hardness. While increasing Mn content modified Ce–O inclusions into Ce–Mn–O compound inclusions which reduced nucleation sites. Mn also promoted the segregation of Cr and Mo in the liquid to decrease the solidification rate, leading to microstructure coarsening and high content of σ phase. This study may provide a theoretical basis for the composition design and applications of the 7Mo super austenitic stainless steel