New Classes of Partial Geometries and Their Associated LDPC Codes

The use of partial geometries to construct parity-check matrices for LDPC codes has resulted in the design of successful codes with a probability of error close to the Shannon capacity at bit error rates down to $10^{-15}$. Such considerations have motivated this further investigation. A new and simple construction of a type of partial geometries with quasi-cyclic structure is given and their properties are investigated. The trapping sets of the partial geometry codes were considered previously using the geometric aspects of the underlying structure to derive information on the size of allowable trapping sets. This topic is further considered here. Finally, there is a natural relationship between partial geometries and strongly regular graphs. The eigenvalues of the adjacency matrices of such graphs are well known and it is of interest to determine if any of the Tanner graphs derived from the partial geometries are good expanders for certain parameter sets, since it can be argued that codes with good geometric and expansion properties might perform well under message-passing decoding.Comment: 34 pages with single column, 6 figure

Effect of combination of parenteral edaravone and nimodipine on ischemic cerebral injury following cerebral hemorrhage

Purpose: To study the clinical effects of parenteral edaravone when  combined with nimodipine for the treatment of ischemic cerebral injury following cerebral hemorrhage, and its influence on D-dimer, brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and transcription factor kB (NF-kB) levels.Methods: A total of 102 cases of ischemic cerebral injury after cerebral hemorrhage seen in 215 Hospital of Nuclear Industry in Shanxi, China from January, 2016 to January, 2017 were included in this study. They were randomly divided into two groups, viz, fifty-two cases in control group and fifty cases in observation group. Control group received nimodipine, while the observation group was given edaravone. Before and after treatment, the two groups’ NIHSS scores were compared. Adverse reactions were recorded, and clinical effectiveness was evaluated. Enzyme-linked  immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to determin thee levels of serum D-dimmer, BNP and NF-kB in the two groups.Results: Before treatment, the two groups’ NIHSS scores did not show significant differences (p > 0.05). However, after treatment, the observation group’s NIHSS score was significantly lower than that of the control group (p < 0.05). Total effectiveness in the observation and control groups were 98.0 and 80.8 %, respectively. Clinical effectiveness in patients in the observation group was significantly better than that of the control group (p < 0.05). Before treatment, D-dimmer, BNP and NF-kB levels of patients in the two groups showed no significant difference (p > 0.05). However, compared with the control group, D-dimmer, BNP and NF-kB levels in the observation group post-treatment decreased significantly (p < 0.05).Conclusion: These results suggest that the combination of parenteral  edaravone and nimodipine has relatively high efficiency and safety, mitigates cerebral ischemia and cerebral edema, and controls inflammatory reactions. Thus, its potentials in this regard requires further investigation.Keywords: Edaravone, Nimodipine, Cerebral ischemia, Ischemic cerebral injur

The Value of Incorporating Review Tags into an Online Review System for User Review Generation

Online review mining has become an important way for businesses to understand consumer preferences and product characteristics. Many online review platforms have started to incorporate the extracted information as review tags to guide future reviews. In this study, we leverage a quasi-experiment from an online health service platform to investigate the value of incorporating the review tags (extracted from prior reviews) into the online review system in user review generation. Our preliminary results show that after the provision of review tags, more reviews are provided for doctors but the length of those reviews is shorter. Notably, we also find a decrease in sentiment and an increase in novel reviews. Our findings provide actionable managerial insights for platform managers to design online review systems

Influence of isoniazid on T lymphocytes, cytokines, and macrophages in rats

T lymphocytes, cytokines, and macrophages play important roles in the clearance of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) by the immune system. This study aimed to investigate the effects of isoniazid on the functions of both innate and adaptive immune cells. Healthy rats were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. Each group was randomly divided into three subgroups and named according to the duration of drug feeding, 1, 3, and 3 months followed by drug withdrawal for 1 month. The experimental groups were fed with isoniazid (12 mg/mL) and the control groups with normal saline. The percentage of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes, level of interleukin (IL)-12 and interferon (IFN)-γ, and function of macrophages were determined at these three time points. Isoniazid significantly increased the percentage of CD4+ T lymphocytes and the CD4+/CD8+ T lymphocyte cell ratio (P < 0.05). It transiently (<1 month) enhanced the functions of rat macrophages significantly (P < 0.05). In summary, isoniazid could increase the percentage of CD4+ T lymphocytes, CD4+/CD8+ T lymphocyte cell ratio, and enhance macrophage function in healthy rats

The resistance-compliance product of the pulmonary circulation varies in health and pulmonary vascular disease.

Pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) is traditionally used to describe pulmonary hemodynamic characteristics. However, it does not take into account pulmonary artery compliance (Ca) or pulsatile flow. The product of PVR and Ca is known as RC time. Previous studies assert that the PVR-Ca relationship is fixed and RC time is constant between health and disease states. We hypothesized that RC time was not constant in health and pulmonary vascular disease. Right heart catheterizations performed in Papworth Hospital over a 6 year period were analyzed. Subjects were divided into those with normal pulmonary hemodynamics (NPH group; n = 156) and pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH group; n = 717). RC time and the right ventricle (RV) oscillatory power fraction were calculated. RC time for the NPH group (0.47 ± 0.13 sec) is significantly lower than the PAH group (0.56 ± 0.16 sec; P < 0.0001). The RV oscillatory power fraction is lower in the NPH group (P < 0.0001). RC time correlates inversely with the RV oscillatory power fraction in each group. We conclude, there is an inverse relationship between PVR and Ca, however, this relationship is not always fixed. Consequently, RC time is significantly lower in health compared to disease with elevated pulmonary artery pressures. PAH leads to a decrease in cardiac efficiency

Functional characterization of the mitochondrial 12S rRNA C1494T mutation associated with aminoglycoside-induced and non-syndromic hearing loss

In this study, we report the biochemical characterization of the deafness-associated mitochondrial 12S rRNA C1494T mutation using 27 cybrid cell lines constructed by transferring mitochondria from 9 lymphoblastoid cell lines derived from a Chinese family into human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA)-less (ρ°) cells. Six cybrids derived from two asymptomatic members, and nine cybrids derived from three symptomatic members of the Chinese family carrying the C1494T mutation exhibited ∼38 and 43% decrease in the rate of mitochondrial protein labeling, respectively, compared with twelve cybrids derived from four Chinese control individuals. These defects are apparently a primary contributor to significant reductions in the rate of overall respiratory capacity or the rate of malate/glutamate promoted respiration, or succinate/G3P-promoted respiration, or TMPD/ascorbate-promoted respiration in mutant cybrid cell lines derived from either symptomatic or asymptomatic individuals. Furthermore, the very significant/nearly identical increase in the ratio of doubling times in DMDM medium in the presence/absence of high concentration of paromomycin was observed in symptomatic or asymptomatic cybrid cell lines carrying the C1494T mutation as compared with the average rate in control cell lines. These observations provide the direct biochemical evidences that the C1494T mutation is a pathogenic mtDNA mutation associated with aminoglycoside-induced and non-syndromic hearing loss. In addition, these data provide the first biochemical evidence that nuclear background plays a critical role in the phenotypic manifestation of non-syndromic hearing loss and aminoglycoside toxicity associated with the C1494T mutation

Anisotropic in-plane heat transport of Kitaev magnet Na2_2Co2_2TeO6_6

We report a study on low-temperature heat transport of Kitaev magnet Na$_2$Co$_2$TeO$_6$, with the heat current and magnetic fields along the honeycomb spin layer (the $ab$ plane). The zero-field thermal conductivity of $\kappa^a_{xx}$ and $\kappa^{a*}_{xx}$ display similar temperature dependence and small difference in their magnitudes; whereas, their magnetic field (parallel to the heat current) dependence are quite different and are related to the field-induced magnetic transitions. The $\kappa^a_{xx}(B)$ data for $B \parallel a$ at very low temperatures have an anomaly at 10.25--10.5 T, which reveals an unexplored magnetic transition. The planar thermal Hall conductivity $\kappa^a_{xy}$ and $\kappa^{a*}_{xy}$ show very weak signals at low fields and rather large values with sign change at high fields. This may point to a possible magnetic structure transition or the change of the magnon band topology that induces a radical change of magnon Berry curvature distribution before entering the spin polarized state. These results put clear constraints on the high-field phase and the theoretical models for Na$_2$Co$_2$TeO$_6$.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure