El gran canal en China.

Para el pueblo chino, el Gran Canal es un símbolo de la existencia de una cultura antigua. Ha pasado miles de años y ha sido testigo del reemplazo de innumerables dinastías y los cambios de innumerables vidas. Sin embargo, debido a la urbanización en las últimas décadas, la mayoría de ellos han sido destruidos, y la apariencia original de la ciudad se ha visto modificada. Debido a que el Gran Canal tiene una gran importancia histórica, espero que este proyecto pueda hacer que la memoria del Gran Canal se recupere. <br /

Construction of T cell exhaustion model for predicting survival and immunotherapy effect of bladder cancer based on WGCNA

IntroductionThe prognosis of bladder cancer (BLCA) and response to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are determined by multiple factors. Existed biomarkers for predicting the effect of immunotherapy cannot accurately predict the response of BLCA patients to ICIs.MethodsTo further accurately stratify patients’ response to ICIs and identify potential novel predictive biomarkers, we used the known T cell exhaustion (TEX)-related specific pathways, including tumor necrosis factor (TNF), interleukin (IL)-2, interferon (IFN)-g, and T- cell cytotoxicpathways, combined with weighted correlation network analysis (WGCNA) to analyze the characteristics of TEX in BLCA in detail, constructed a TEX model.ResultsThis model including 28 genes can robustly predict the survival of BLCA and immunotherapeutic efficacy. This model could divide BLCA into two groups, TEXhigh and TEXlow, with significantly different prognoses, clinical features, and reactivity to ICIs. The critical characteristic genes, such as potential biomarkers Charged Multivesicular Body Protein 4C (CHMP4C), SH2 Domain Containing 2A (SH2D2A), Prickle Planar Cell Polarity Protein 3 (PRICKLE3) and Zinc Finger Protein 165 (ZNF165) were verified in BLCA clinical samples by real-time quantitative chain reaction (qPCR) and immunohistochemistry (IHC).DiscussionOur findings show that the TEX model can serve as biological markers for predicting the response to ICIs, and the involving molecules in the TEX model might provide new potential targets for immunotherapy in BLCA

Few-femtosecond Electron Beam with THz-frequency Wakefield-driven Compression

We propose and demonstrate a novel method to produce few-femtosecond electron beam with relatively low timing jitter. In this method a relativistic electron beam is compressed from about 150 fs (rms) to about 7 fs (rms, upper limit) with the wakefield at THz frequency produced by a leading drive beam in a dielectric tube. By imprinting the energy chirp in a passive way, we demonstrate through laser-driven THz streaking technique that no additional timing jitter with respect to an external laser is introduced in this bunch compression process, a prominent advantage over the conventional method using radio-frequency bunchers. We expect that this passive bunching technique may enable new opportunities in many ultrashort-beam based advanced applications such as ultrafast electron diffraction and plasma wakefield acceleration.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Parameter design oriented analysis of the current control stability of the weak-grid-tied VSC

This paper studies the dynamic behaviors of weak-grid-tied VSCs with simplified transfer functions, which provides an accurate stability analysis and useful indications for tuning system parameters. A reduced-order multi-input multi-output (MIMO) transfer function that contains four single-input single-output (SISO) transfer functions for the weak-grid-tied VSC is first presented. It is found that the four SISO transfer functions share the same equivalent open-loop transfer function, i.e., the same stability conclusion. The Bode plots of the equivalent open-loop transfer function show that the inner current loop behaves as a band-pass filter whose maximum gain is approximately at the frequency of the PLL's bandwidth. By stability criterion, the harmonic amplification and instability occur when its maximum gain exceeds 0dB caused by high PLL's bandwidth, large grid impedance or high active power. It is also found that the target system is less stable when it works as an inverter than as a rectifier, due to the risk of the local positive feedback in the inverter mode. An effective criterion is further proposed to guide the selection of a proper PLL's bandwidth to ensure the stability of the VSC system. Simulation results validate the correctness of the analysis and the efficacy of the criterion

Protective effect of paeoniflorin against oxidative stress in human retinal pigment epithelium in vitro

Purpose: This study was conducted to determine whether paeoniflorin (PF) could prevent H(2)O(2)-induced oxidative stress in ARPE-19 cells and to elucidate the molecular pathways involved in this protection. Methods: Cultured ARPE-19 cells were subjected to oxidative stress with H(2)O(2) in the presence and absence of PF. The preventive effective of PF on reactive oxygen species (ROS) production and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cell death induced by H(2)O(2) was determined by 2&apos;, 7&apos;-dichlorodihydrofluorescein diacetate (H(2)DCFDA) fluorescence and 3-(4, 5dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5 diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The ability of PF to protect RPE cells against ROS-mediated apoptosis was assessed by caspase-3 activity and 4&apos;, 6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) staining. Furthermore, the protective effect of PF via the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway was determined by western blot analysis. Results: PF protected ARPE-19 cells from H(2)O(2)-induced cell death with low toxicity. H(2)O(2)-induced oxidative stress increased ROS production and caspase-3 activity, which was significantly inhibited by PF in a dose-dependent manner. Pretreatment with PF attenuated H(2)O(2)-induced p38MAPK and extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK) phosphorylation in human RPE cells, which contributed to cell viability in ARPE-19 cells. Conclusions: This is the first report to show that PF can protect ARPE-19 cells from the cellular apoptosis induced by oxidative stress. The results of this study open new avenues for the use of PF in treatment of ocular diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), where oxidative stress plays a major role in disease pathogenesis.Biochemistry &amp; Molecular BiologyOphthalmologySCI(E)PubMed1ARTICLE373-783512-35221

Tuberculosis burden in China: a high prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis in household contacts with and without symptoms

Background: In the context of decreasing tuberculosis prevalence in China, we examined the effectiveness of screening household contacts of tuberculosis patients. Methods: A tuberculosis survey was conducted in 2008. All 3,355 household contacts of notified tuberculosis cases were examined with a questionnaire interview, chest X-ray and three sputum smear tests. The effectiveness was examined by comparing the prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis in household contacts with or without presenting clinical symptoms against the respective notification rates. Regression models were used to evaluate the factors associated with pulmonary tuberculosis. Results: Of the 3,355 household contacts, 92 members (2.7%) had pulmonary tuberculosis, among which 46 cases were asymptomatic. The prevalence of pulmonary tuberculosis and smear positive cases in household contacts without symptoms were 20 and 7 times higher than the notification rates in 2008, while those in household contacts with symptoms were 247 and 108 times higher than notification rates, respectively. The patients detected were mainly Index Cases’ spouses, sisters/brothers and those who were in contact with female Index Cases. Conclusions: The present study provides convincing evidence that household contacts of notified tuberculosis cases are at higher risk of developing tuberculosis. Routine screening for household contacts without any symptoms is recommended for sustained tuberculosis control in China as well as in the world

Fair Abstractive Summarization of Diverse Perspectives

People from different social and demographic groups express diverse perspectives and conflicting opinions on a broad set of topics such as product reviews, healthcare, law, and politics. A fair summary should provide a comprehensive coverage of diverse perspectives without underrepresenting certain groups. However, current work in summarization metrics and Large Language Models (LLMs) evaluation has not explored fair abstractive summarization. In this paper, we systematically investigate fair abstractive summarization for user-generated data. We first formally define fairness in abstractive summarization as not underrepresenting perspectives of any groups of people and propose four reference-free automatic metrics measuring the differences between target and source perspectives. We evaluate five LLMs, including three GPT models, Alpaca, and Claude, on six datasets collected from social media, online reviews, and recorded transcripts. Experiments show that both the model-generated and the human-written reference summaries suffer from low fairness. We conduct a comprehensive analysis of the common factors influencing fairness and propose three simple but effective methods to alleviate unfair summarization. Our dataset and code are available at https://github.com/psunlpgroup/FairSumm.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figure

Multiple compounds determination and fingerprint analysis of herbal preparation Shuang-Huang-Lian capsule by HPLC-DAD

The objective of this paper was to develop a high performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection both for chromatographic fingerprint and simultaneous determination of twelve analytes of Shuang-Huang-Lian (SHL) capsule. The chromatographic separation was performed on an Aglient Zorbax SB-C18 column with a gradient elution program using a mixture of acetonitrile and 0.2 % acetic acid as mobile phase within 110 min detected at 278 nm wavelength. For fingerprint analysis, 50 peaks were selected as the common peaks to evaluate the similarities of different samples collected from different pharmaceutical companies in China, and two kinds of data, relative retention time and relative peak area were used to identify the common peaks in samples for investigation. SHL capsules from different batches of the same manufacturer or different manufacturers showed a close similarity. For quantitative analysis, linear regressions, limit of detection and quantification, intra-day and inter-day precisions, recovery, repeatability and stability were all tested and good results were obtained to simultaneously determine the 12 marker compounds in the samples. The validated method coupled with multiple compounds determination and fingerprint analysis is a powerful and meaningful tool to comprehensively conduct the quality control of TCM.Colegio de Farmacéuticos de la Provincia de Buenos Aire

The change in blood glucose levels in tuberculosis patients before and during anti-tuberculosis treatment in China.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to observe (i) changes in fasting blood glucose (FBG) in tuberculosis (TB) patients before and during anti-TB treatment, (ii) whether FBG levels were stable or unstable and (iii) baseline characteristics associated with an unstable FBG. METHOD: TB patients consecutively attended six clinics or hospitals. FBG measurements were made at months 0, 2 and 6. Data analysis was performed using the chi-square test and multivariate logistic regression. RESULTS: Of 232 patients without diabetes mellitus (DM) whose initial FBG < 6.1 mmol/L, over 90% maintained FBG < 6.1 mmol/L during treatment and no patient developed DM. Of 17 patients without DM and initial FBG between 6.1 and 6.9 mmol/L, over half had FBG < 6.1 mmol/L during treatment and no patient had DM at the end of treatment. Eight DM patients with already known DM had their FBG controlled at < 7.0 mmol/L during treatment. There were 13 DM patients newly diagnosed with FBG ≥ 7.0 mmol/L, and 69% continued to have FBG ≥ 7.0 mmol/L. After adjustment for confounding, the odds for an unstable FBG were higher for HIV-positive status, already having DM, smoking and coming to hospitals rather than clinics. CONCLUSION: TB patients who do not have DM based on FBG measurements do not develop DM during anti-TB treatment. Those newly diagnosed with DM on screening in general maintain their DM status with high FBG and need to be better managed