Solution treatment of vacuum high pressure die cast aluminum alloy A380.

High pressure die castings usually contain gas porosity mainly due to the entrapment of air or gas during melting due to very high speed injection of the molten metal into the cavity. Vacuum high pressure die casting technology has been proven to be an effective way of reducing gas porosity and pore sizes in castings. As a result, density and mechanical properties, particularly tensile strength and ductility, were improved markedly, and also make castings heat treatable. An investigation on the effect of solution heat treatment in high pressure vacuum die casting A380 alloy has been carried out using methods of microhardness measurement, tensile testing, optical, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction, and EDS analysis and fractography. The average ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 273.2 MPa is attained on the solution treated A380, which is 50% improvement over the vacuum as-cast one. Solution treatment of 480°C x 12hrs increases the average percent of elongation to 3.91% from 1.11% at the as-cast condition. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis2004 .W375. Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 43-01, page: 0298. Adviser: Henry Hu. Thesis (M.A.Sc.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 2004

ReFit: Recurrent Fitting Network for 3D Human Recovery

We present Recurrent Fitting (ReFit), a neural network architecture for single-image, parametric 3D human reconstruction. ReFit learns a feedback-update loop that mirrors the strategy of solving an inverse problem through optimization. At each iterative step, it reprojects keypoints from the human model to feature maps to query feedback, and uses a recurrent-based updater to adjust the model to fit the image better. Because ReFit encodes strong knowledge of the inverse problem, it is faster to train than previous regression models. At the same time, ReFit improves state-of-the-art performance on standard benchmarks. Moreover, ReFit applies to other optimization settings, such as multi-view fitting and single-view shape fitting. Project website: https://yufu-wang.github.io/refit_humans/Comment: ICCV 202

Is the health workforce distribution in Beijing, China perfectly equitable?

Background: The quantity and distribution of the health workforce is one of the most important aspects of a health care system. Inequality in the distribution of the health workforce is common in China and in many developing countries. This paper aimed to evaluate and discuss inequality in the distribution of the health workforce in Beijing, China, and explain the sources of the inequality.Methods: The study described and measured inequality in the distribution of the health workforce in Beijing using data from the Beijing Regional Statistical Yearbook 2017. The 16 districts of Beijing are divided into four divisions and the paper used methods from the economics literature, including the Lorenz curve, Gini coefficient and Theil L index, to measure inequality in the distribution of the health workforce at sub-provincial level in Beijing for three categories of health workers: doctors, nurses and all health workers.Results: There are inequalities in the densities of health workers at the district and division levels. In terms of the densities of all health workers, doctors and nurses, the Capital Core Functional Division is 3.95 times, 3.82 times and 4.13 times, respectively, higher than the Urban Development New Division. All the Gini coefficients are between than 0.2 to 0.3, which means that the health worker distribution is rather equitable. The Theil L index shows that the inequalities mainly come from the differences between the four divisions, and that nurses are more unequally distributed between divisions (0.28 for Gini coefficient and 0.380 for the Theil L index).Conclusions and recommendations: According to the study findings, the inequalities in health workforce distribution in Beijing could be addressed by increasing investment in the numbers and quality of nurses, as well as by establishing additional policies to attract more health workers to work in remote areas. Chinese governments need to think more carefully about the current distribution of health workers at the sub-provincial level. [Ethiop.J. Health Dev. 2019; 33(1):22-27]Key words: Health workforce distribution, equality, Beijing, health resource

Combinatorial regulation of transcription factors and microRNAs

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Gene regulation is a key factor in gaining a full understanding of molecular biology. <it>Cis</it>-regulatory modules (CRMs), consisting of multiple transcription factor binding sites, have been confirmed as the main regulators in gene expression. In recent years, a novel regulator known as microRNA (miRNA) has been found to play an important role in gene regulation. Meanwhile, transcription factor and microRNA co-regulation has been widely identified. Thus, the relationships between CRMs and microRNAs have generated interest among biologists.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We constructed new combinatorial regulatory modules based on CRMs and miRNAs. By analyzing their effect on gene expression profiles, we found that genes targeted by both CRMs and miRNAs express in a significantly similar way. Furthermore, we constructed a regulatory network composed of CRMs, miRNAs, and their target genes. Investigating its structure, we found that the feed forward loop is a significant network motif, which plays an important role in gene regulation. In addition, we further analyzed the effect of miRNAs in embryonic cells, and we found that mir-154, as well as some other miRNAs, have significant co-regulation effect with CRMs in embryonic development.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Based on the co-regulation of CRMs and miRNAs, we constructed a novel combinatorial regulatory network which was found to play an important role in gene regulation, particularly during embryonic development.</p

GART: Gaussian Articulated Template Models

We introduce Gaussian Articulated Template Model GART, an explicit, efficient, and expressive representation for non-rigid articulated subject capturing and rendering from monocular videos. GART utilizes a mixture of moving 3D Gaussians to explicitly approximate a deformable subject's geometry and appearance. It takes advantage of a categorical template model prior (SMPL, SMAL, etc.) with learnable forward skinning while further generalizing to more complex non-rigid deformations with novel latent bones. GART can be reconstructed via differentiable rendering from monocular videos in seconds or minutes and rendered in novel poses faster than 150fps.Comment: 13 pages, code available at https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~leijh/projects/gart

Comparison of Fatty Acid Composition, Phytochemical Profiles and Antioxidant Activities in Four Flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) Varieties

Abstract The present study was intendant to evaluate variations among flaxseed varities in terms of fatty acid composition, phytochemical profiles, and antioxidant activities determined by oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and ferrous ion reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays. Significant variations in the fatty acid composition, phenolic acids and lignan were observed in flaxseed varieties from different countries. Among these flaxseed verities, the unsaturated fatty acids accounted over four fifths of total fatty acid contents. The highest ratio of linolenic acid of total fatty acid was observed in USPEA, whereas the lowest one was found in Yexiao. USPEA showed the most contents of total phenolics, as well as flaxseed lignans. In general, total phenolics appeared to be the main contributors in the antioxidant capacity of flaxseed, which presented significant positive correlation. Our study revealed that both cultivar and origin of seeds significantly affect fatty acid composition, phenolic acids, lignans and subsequent antioxidant activities in flaxseed. The results provide new aspects of breeding resources of flaxseed cultivars by presenting their quality specification and possible commercial value

The LncRNA signature associated with cuproptosis as a novel biomarker of prognosis in immunotherapy and drug screening for clear cell renal cell carcinoma

Cuproptosis is a new form of cell death, the second form of metal ion-induced cell death defined after ferroptosis. Recently, cuproptosis has been suggested to be associated with tumorigenesis. However, the relationship between cuproptosis and patient prognosis in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) in the context of immunotherapy remains unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between cuproptosis-related long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) and ccRCC in terms of immunity as well as prognosis. Clinical information on lncRNAs associated with differences in cuproptosis genes in ccRCC and normal tissues was collected from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset. Univariate Cox regression was used to screen lncRNAs. A total of 11 lncRNAs closely associated with cuproptosis were further screened and established using the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) algorithm and multivariate Cox regression, and the samples were randomly divided into training and test groups. A risk prognostic model was constructed using the training group, and the model was validated using the test group. We investigated the predictive ability of the prognostic risk model in terms of clinical prognosis, tumor mutation, immune escape, immunotherapy, tumor microenvironment, immune infiltration levels, and tumor drug treatment of ccRCC. Using the median risk score, patients were divided into low and high-risk groups. Kaplan-Meier curves showed that the overall survival (OS) of patients in the high-risk group was significantly worse than low-risk group (p &lt; 0.001). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves further validated the reliability of our model. The model consistently and accurately predicted prognosis at 1, 3, and 5 years, with an AUC above 0.7. Tumor cell genes generally precede morphological abnormalities; therefore, the model we constructed can effectively compensate for the traditional method of evaluating the prognosis of patients with renal cancer, and our model was also clinically meaningful in predicting ccRCC staging. In addition, lower model risk scores determined by mutational load indicated a good chance of survival. The high-risk group had greater recruitment of immune cells, while the anti-immune checkpoint immunotherapy was less efficacious overall than that of the low-risk group. Tumor and immune-related pathways were enriched, and anti-tumor agents were selected to improve the survival of ccRCC. This prognostic risk model is based on the levels of cuproptosis-associated lncRNAs and provides a new perspective in the clinical assessment and precise treatment of ccRCC

Comparison of fatty acid composition, phytochemical profile and antioxidant activity in four flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) varieties

The present study evaluates variations among flaxseed varities in terms of fatty acid composition, phytochemical profile, and antioxidant activity determined by oxygen radical absorbance capacity (ORAC), 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and ferrous ion reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays. Significant variations in fatty acid composition, phenolic acids and lignan were observed in flaxseed varieties from different countries. Among them, unsaturated fatty acids accounted over 4/5 of total fatty acid content. The highest ratio of linolenic acid of total fatty acid was observed in USPEA, whereas the lowest one was found in Yexiao. USPEA showed the highest content of total phenolics, as well as flaxseed lignan. In general, total phenolics appeared to be the main contributors of antioxidant capacity of flaxseed, which presented significant positive correlation. Our study revealed that both cultivar and origin of seed significantly affected fatty acid composition, phenolic acids, lignans and subsequent antioxidant activity of flaxseed. These results provided new aspects of breeding resources of flaxseed cultivars by presenting their quality specification and possible commercial value

Evaluation of six satellite-based terrestrial latent heat flux products in the vegetation dominated Haihe river basin of north China

In this study, six satellite-based terrestrial latent heat flux (LE) products were evaluated in the vegetation dominated Haihe River basin of North China. These LE products include Global Land Surface Satellite (GLASS) LE product, FLUXCOM LE product, Penman-Monteith-Leuning V2 (PML_V2) LE product, Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model datasets (GLEAM) LE product, Breathing Earth System Simulator (BESS) LE product, and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) (MOD16) LE product. Eddy covariance (EC) data collected from six flux tower sites and water balance method derived evapotranspiration (WBET) were used to evaluate these LE products at site and basin scales. The results indicated that all six LE products were able to capture the seasonal cycle of LE in comparison to EC observations. At site scale, GLASS LE product showed the highest coefficients of determination (R2) (0.58, p 2), followed by FLUXCOM and PML products. At basin scale, the LE estimates from GLASS product provided comparable performance (R2 = 0.79, RMSE = 18.8 mm) against WBET, compared with other LE products. Additionally, there was similar spatiotemporal variability of estimated LE from the six LE products. This study provides a vital basis for choosing LE datasets to assess regional water budget

Recurrent renal secondary hyperparathyroidism caused by supernumerary mediastinal parathyroid gland and parathyromatosis: A case report

BackgroundSurgical parathyroidectomy (PTX) is necessary for patients with severe and progressive secondary hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) refractory to medical treatment. Recurrence of SHPT after PTX is a serious clinical problem. Both supernumerary mediastinal parathyroid gland and parathyromatosis are the rare causes of recurrent renal SHPT. We report a rare case of recurrent renal SHPT due to supernumerary mediastinal parathyroid gland and parathyromatosis.Case presentationA 53-year-old man underwent total parathyroidectomy with autotransplantation due to the drug-refractory SHPT 17 years ago. In the last 11 months, the patient experienced symptoms including bone pain and skin itch, and the serum intact parathyroid hormone (iPTH) level elevated to 1,587 pg/ml. Ultrasound detected two hypoechoic lesions located at the dorsal area of right lobe of the thyroid gland, and both lesions presented as characteristics of hyperparathyroidism in contrast-enhanced ultrasound. 99mTc-MIBI/SPECT detected a nodule in the mediastinum. A reoperation involved a cervicotomy for excising parathyromatosis lesions and the surrounding tissue and a thoracoscopic surgery for resecting a mediastinal parathyroid gland. According to a histological examination, two lesions behind the right thyroid lobe and one lesion in the central region had been defined as parathyromatosis. A nodule in the mediastinum was consistent with hyperplastic parathyroid. The patient remained well for 10 months with alleviated symptoms and stabilized iPTH levels in the range of 123–201 pg/ml.ConclusionAlthough rare, recurrent SHPT may be caused by a coexistence of both supernumerary parathyroid glands and parathyromatosis, which should receive more attention. The combination of imaging modalities is important for reoperative locations of parathyroid lesions. To successfully treat parathyromatosis, all the lesions and the surrounding tissue must be excised. Thoracoscopic surgery is a reliable and safe approach for the resection of ectopic mediastinal parathyroid glands