Atypical imaging of spinal tuberculosis: a case report and review of literature

This is a case report of spinal tuberculosis combined with sacroiliac joint tuberculosis, pulmonary tuberculosis, chest wall tuberculosis and tuberculous pleurisy and the image of the patient is rare, special and not typical and it looks like a halo sign. It has an important reference value for the diagnosis of spine tuberculosis although it is a rare imaging manifestation and diagnosis was confirmed by pathology after the surgery. Therefore atypical imaging is often appeared in clinical practice and it is meaningful and necessary for the diagnosis of atypical spinal tuberculosis combined with multiple organ tuberculosis.Pan African Medical Journal 2016; 2

Theoretical and Experimental Research on The Optimal Displacement Ratio of Rotary Two-Stage Inverter Compressor With Vapor Injection

Displacement ratio is one of the most important parameters of designing rotary two-stage inverter compressor with vapor injection, which decides the COP (Coefficient of Performance) of the compressor. The optimal displacement ratio can bring about the highest COP. The mathematical model of the optimal displacement ratio of rotary two-stage inverter compressor with vapor injection has been developed and verified with the test data. It can be seen from theoretical and experimental research that the optimal displacement ratio of compressors in different working conditions can be obtained accurately by the mathematical model introduced in this paper

Abrupt Motion Tracking via Nearest Neighbor Field Driven Stochastic Sampling

Stochastic sampling based trackers have shown good performance for abrupt motion tracking so that they have gained popularity in recent years. However, conventional methods tend to use a two-stage sampling paradigm, in which the search space needs to be uniformly explored with an inefficient preliminary sampling phase. In this paper, we propose a novel sampling-based method in the Bayesian filtering framework to address the problem. Within the framework, nearest neighbor field estimation is utilized to compute the importance proposal probabilities, which guide the Markov chain search towards promising regions and thus enhance the sampling efficiency; given the motion priors, a smoothing stochastic sampling Monte Carlo algorithm is proposed to approximate the posterior distribution through a smoothing weight-updating scheme. Moreover, to track the abrupt and the smooth motions simultaneously, we develop an abrupt-motion detection scheme which can discover the presence of abrupt motions during online tracking. Extensive experiments on challenging image sequences demonstrate the effectiveness and the robustness of our algorithm in handling the abrupt motions.Comment: submitted to Elsevier Neurocomputin

A new method for identifying micro fractures and characterizing fractures of different scales

Oil and gas exploration professionals have begun to focus more on unconventional oil and gas reserves in recent years as a result of their increased efforts. Fractures have a significant impact on the permeability and connectivity of reservoirs as a crucial component of rock mechanics and hydraulics, which directly affects the production of oil and gas. The identification of fracture development zones or micro faults, as well as how to adequately define the fracturing model, have thus become crucial and pressing issues in the forecast of oil and gas reservoirs. In this study, we decompose the three-dimensional seismic data volume in a site in order to obtain the single frequency data volume that can be calculated using the ant tracking technique. We do this by taking advantage of the synchronous extrusion improvement of short time Fourier transform in time-frequency focusing. Coupled with the advanced DFN model, the extracted data are calibrated in various rock attributes to restore the morphology and characteristics of fractures. The findings demonstrate that this method is capable of providing not only a precise outline of micro fractures but also a reflection of the characteristics of fractures at various scales, including structure and associated properties. The precision and applicability of this method are confirmed in this paper, which is significant as a reference for the oil and gas exploration industry

Optimizing the thermoelectric performance of zigzag and chiral carbon nanotubes

Using nonequilibrium molecular dynamics simulations and nonequilibrium Green's function method, we investigate the thermoelectric properties of a series of zigzag and chiral carbon nanotubes which exhibit interesting diameter and chirality dependence. Our calculated results indicate that these carbon nanotubes could have higher ZT values at appropriate carrier concentration and operating temperature. Moreover, their thermoelectric performance can be significantly enhanced via isotope substitution, isoelectronic impurities, and hydrogen adsorption. It is thus reasonable to expect that carbon nanotubes may be promising candidates for high-performance thermoelectric materials

Panax Quinquefolius Saponin of Stem and Leaf Attenuates Intermittent High Glucose-Induced Oxidative Stress Injury in Cultured Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells via PI3K/Akt/GSK-3 β

Panax quinquefolius saponin of stem and leaf (PQS), the effective parts of American ginseng, is widely used in China as a folk medicine for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases treatment. In our previous studies, we have demonstrated that PQS could improve the endothelial function of type II diabetes mellitus (T2DM) rats with high glucose fluctuation. In the present study, we investigated the protective effects of PQS against intermittent high glucose-induced oxidative damage on human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and the role of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase kinase (PI3K)/Akt/GSK-3β pathway involved. Our results suggested that exposure of HUVECs to a high glucose concentration for 8 days showed a great decrease in cell viability accompanied by marked MDA content increase and SOD activity decrease. Moreover, high glucose significantly reduced the phosphorylation of Akt and GSK-3β. More importantly, these effects were even more evident in intermittent high glucose condition. PQS treatment significantly attenuated intermittent high glucose-induced oxidative damage on HUVECs and meanwhile increased cell viability and phosphorylation of Akt and GSK-3β of HUVECs. Interestingly, all these reverse effects of PQS on intermittent high glucose-cultured HUVECs were inhibited by PI3K inhibitor LY294002. These findings suggest that PQS attenuates intermittent-high-glucose-induced oxidative stress injury in HUVECs by PI3K/Akt/GSK-3β pathway

Protection against H1N1 influenza challenge by a DNA vaccine expressing H3/H1 subtype hemagglutinin combined with MHC class II-restricted epitopes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Multiple subtypes of avian influenza viruses have crossed the species barrier to infect humans and have the potential to cause a pandemic. Therefore, new influenza vaccines to prevent the co-existence of multiple subtypes within a host and cross-species transmission of influenza are urgently needed.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Here we report a multi-epitope DNA vaccine targeted towards multiple subtypes of the influenza virus. The protective hemagglutinin (HA) antigens from H5/H7/H9 subtypes were screened for MHC II class-restricted epitopes overlapping with predicted B cell epitopes. We then constructed a DNA plasmid vaccine, pV-H3-EHA-H1, based on HA antigens from human influenza H3/H1 subtypes combined with the H5/H7/H9 subtype Th/B epitope box.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Epitope-specific IFN-γ ELISpot responses were significantly higher in the multi-epitope DNA group than in other vaccine and control groups (<it>P </it>< 0.05). The multi-epitope group significantly enhanced Th2 cell responses as determined by cytokine assays. The survival rate of mice given the multi-epitope vaccine was the highest among the vaccine groups, but it was not significantly different compared to those given single antigen expressing pV-H1HA1 vaccine and dual antigen expressing pV-H3-H1 vaccine (<it>P </it>> 0.05). No measurable virus titers were detected in the lungs of the multi-epitope immunized group. The unique multi-epitope DNA vaccine enhanced virus-specific antibody and cellular immunity as well as conferred complete protection against lethal challenge with A/New Caledonia/20/99 (H1N1) influenza strain in mice.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This approach may be a promising strategy for developing a universal influenza vaccine to prevent multiple subtypes of influenza virus and to induce long-term protective immune against cross-species transmission.</p