A preliminary evaluation of the role of adiponectin and leptin in type 1 diabetes

Type 1 Diabetes (T1D), as a chronicle disease, has been an emerging issue in the field of public health. In juvenile T1D, the effect of insulin on adiponectin and leptin has not been well studied nor understood. In this thesis we focused on the question concerning patient’s adiponectin and leptin level changes over a 5 month period before and after the start of insulin therapy in children with newly diagnosed T1D. A substantial focus of this project was the assembling of an analytical data file that could be used for the initial analysis and for future in-depth studies once updated data becomes available. Data cleaning and verification were carried out on all data sets. All programming was done using SAS 9.3 (32). We found no statistically significant difference in adiponectin levels between days 0 and 1, days 0 and 3; however there was a statistically significant increase in adiponectin levels between days 0 and 5 (post insulin therapy). Adiponectin levels remained significantly elevated at the 3 month visit. During the first five days leptin levels did not significantly differ from each other. However, at the 3 month visit the values were significantly higher from baseline. Adiponectin and leptin levels may serve as a good indicator for insulin sensitivity and provide a better understanding into the relationship with insulin therapy, thereby providing improvements in treatment for juvenile T1D

Enhanced Quadratic Video Interpolation

With the prosperity of digital video industry, video frame interpolation has arisen continuous attention in computer vision community and become a new upsurge in industry. Many learning-based methods have been proposed and achieved progressive results. Among them, a recent algorithm named quadratic video interpolation (QVI) achieves appealing performance. It exploits higher-order motion information (e.g. acceleration) and successfully models the estimation of interpolated flow. However, its produced intermediate frames still contain some unsatisfactory ghosting, artifacts and inaccurate motion, especially when large and complex motion occurs. In this work, we further improve the performance of QVI from three facets and propose an enhanced quadratic video interpolation (EQVI) model. In particular, we adopt a rectified quadratic flow prediction (RQFP) formulation with least squares method to estimate the motion more accurately. Complementary with image pixel-level blending, we introduce a residual contextual synthesis network (RCSN) to employ contextual information in high-dimensional feature space, which could help the model handle more complicated scenes and motion patterns. Moreover, to further boost the performance, we devise a novel multi-scale fusion network (MS-Fusion) which can be regarded as a learnable augmentation process. The proposed EQVI model won the first place in the AIM2020 Video Temporal Super-Resolution Challenge.Comment: Winning solution of AIM2020 VTSR Challenge (in conjunction with ECCV 2020

Transient pressure analysis of a volume fracturing well in fractured tight oil reservoirs

This research was supported by the Ministry of Land and Resources Special Geological Survey: Upper Paleozoic Marine Shale Gas Geological Survey in Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi Region (DD20160178), The Key Laboratory of Unconventional Petroleum Geology of Geological Survey of China Open Fund and the Major National R&D Projects: Study on the Test Method for Shale Structure and Composition at Different Scales with project number: 2016ZX05034-003-006.Peer reviewedPostprin

An extended framework of privacy-preserving computation with flexible access control

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Research Progress in Finerenone in Cardiovascular Diseases

Mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRA) have significant therapeutic effects on heart failure, hypertension, chronic kidney disease and primary aldosteronism. However, steroid MRA can cause hyperkalemia, deterioration of renal insufficiency, menstrual disorder and male breast development, and consequently has found limited clinical applications. In recent years, basic and clinical studies have confirmed that finerenone is a new non-steroidal MRA with high receptor affinity and selectivity, which can decrease adverse effects such as hyperkalemia and exert powerful cardioprotective effects. Herein, the structure, function, pharmacological mechanism and adverse effects of finerenone are summarized, and its cardiovascular protective effects and clinical applications are described in detail, to aid in understanding of the roles of finerenone in treating cardiovascular diseases and to explore future directions

Advance in application of rapid non-destructive testing technology in the detection of apple mold heart disease

Apples are rich in vitamins and dietary fiber, and are one of the essential fruits and vegetables in People’s Daily diet. China is a big apple consumer, and with the improvement of people’s pursuit of quality of life and the improvement of nutrition and health requirements, the demand for high-quality apples has increased year by year. Apple mold heart disease is one of the main diseases affecting apple quality, this disease can not be identified from the outside, so the detection is very difficult, and spectral technology, electromagnetic technology and other non-destructive testing technology has accurate, efficient, convenient, non-destructive advantages, can greatly reduce the difficulty of detection of mold heart disease. This paper mainly analyzed the application of non-destructive testing technology in the detection of apple mold heart disease, combined with the current rapid development of AI technology to discuss the future development direction of each technology in the field of apple mold heart disease rapid detection

A Further Finite Element Stress Analysis of Angled Abutments for an Implant Placed in the Anterior Maxilla

To systematically measure and compare the stress distribution on the bone around an implant in the anterior maxilla using angled abutments by means of finite element analysis, three-dimensional finite element simplified patient-specific models and simplified models were created and analyzed. Systematically varied angled abutments were simulated, with angulation ranging from 0° to 60°. The materials in the current study were assumed to be homogenous, linearly elastic, and isotropic. Force of 100 N was applied to the central node on the top surface of the abutments to simulate the occlusal force. To simulate axial and oblique loading, the angle of loading was 0°, 15°, and 20° to the long axis of implant, respectively. There was the strong resemblance between the response curves for simplified patient-specific models and simplified models. Response curves under oblique loading were similar in both models. With abutments angulation increased, maximum von Mises stress firstly decreased to minimum point and then gradually increased to higher level. From a biomechanical point of view, favorable peri-implant stress levels could be induced by angled abutments under oblique loading if suitable angulation of abutments was selected

Genetically determined blood pressure, antihypertensive drug classes, and frailty: A Mendelian randomization study

Observational studies have suggested that the use of antihypertensive drugs was associated with the risk of frailty; however, these findings may be biased by confounding and reverse causality. This study aimed to explore the effect of genetically predicted lifelong lowering blood pressure (BP) through different antihypertensive medications on frailty. One‐sample Mendelian randomization (MR) and summary data‐based MR (SMR) were applied. We utilized two kinds of genetic instruments to proxy the antihypertensive medications, including genetic variants within or nearby drugs target genes associated with systolic/diastolic BP, and expression level of the corresponding gene. Among 298,618 UK Biobank participants, one‐sample MR analysis observed that genetically proxied BB use (relative risk ratios, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.65–0.90; p = 0.001) and CCB use (0.83; 0.72–0.95; p = 0.007), equivalent to a 10‐mm Hg reduction in systolic BP, was significantly associated with lower risk of pre‐frailty. In addition, although not statistically significant, the effect directions of systolic BP through ACEi variants (0.72; 0.39–1.33; p = 0.296) or thiazides variants (0.74; 0.53–1.03; p = 0.072) on pre‐frailty were also protective. Similar results were obtained in analyses for diastolic BP. SMR of expression in artery showed that decreased expression level of KCNH2, a target gene of BBs, was associated with lower frailty index (beta −0.02, p = 2.87 × 10−4). This MR analysis found evidence that the use of BBs and CCBs was potentially associated with reduced frailty risk in the general population, and identified KCNH2 as a promising target for further clinical trials to prevent manifestations of frailty

Enhancing heat stress tolerance in Lanzhou lily (Lilium davidii var. unicolor) with Trichokonins isolated from Trichoderma longibrachiatum SMF2

Lanzhou lily (Lilium davidii var. unicolor) is a renowned edible crop produced in China and relatively sensitive to high temperature (HT). Trichokonins (TKs) are antimicrobial peptaibols secreted from Trichoderma longibrachiatum strain SMF2. Here, we report that TKs application improves the thermotolerance of Lanzhou lily. The activity of the antioxidant enzyme system (SOD, CAT, and POD), the level of heat-resistance-associated phytohormones (ABA, SA, and JA), the relative water content (RWC), the content of chlorophyll (Chl), and the net photosynthetic rate (Pn) were promoted by TKs treatment in Lanzhou lily plants subjected to heat stress (HS). TKs treatment also mitigated cell injury as shown by a lower accumulation of malondialdehyde (MDA) and relative electrolyte leakage (REL) under HS conditions. RNA-seq data analysis showed that more than 4.5 times differentially expressed genes (DEGs) responded to TKs treatment under HS compared to non-HS, and TKs treatment reduced protein folding and enhanced cellular repair function under HS conditions. The analyses of DEGs involved in hormone (ABA, SA and JA) synthesis and signaling pathways suggested that TKs might improve Lanzhou lily heat tolerance by promoting ABA synthesis and signal transduction. TKs highly induced DEGs of the HSF-HSP pathway under HS, in which HSFA2 accounted for most of the HSF family. Furthermore, TKs treatment resulted in the upregulation of heat-protective genes LzDREB2B, LzHsfA2a, LzMBF1c, LzHsp90, and LzHsp70 involved in HSF-HSP signal pathway after long-term HS. LzHsfA2a-1 likely plays a key role in acquisition of TKs-induced thermotolerance of Lanzhou lily as evidenced by the sustained response to HS, the enhanced response to TKs treatment under long-term HS, and the high sequence similarity to LlHsfA2a which is a key regulator for the improvement of heat tolerance in Lilium longiflorum. Our results reveal the underlying mechanisms of TKs-mediated thermotolerance in Lanzhou lily and highlight an attractive approach to protecting crop plants from damage caused by HS in a global warming future