Youla-Kucera parameterized adaptive tracking control for optical data storage systems

In the next generation optical data storage systems, the tolerance of the tracking error will become even smaller under various unknown working situations. However, the unknown external disturbances caused by vibrations make it difficult to maintain the desired tracking precision during normal disk operation. It is proposed in this paper to use an adaptive regulation approach to maintain the tracking error below its desired value despite these unknown disturbances. The design of the regulator is formulated by augmenting a base controller into a Youla-Kucera (Q) parameterized set of stabilizing controllers so that both the deterministic and the random disturbances can be deal with properly. The adaptive algorithm is developed to search the desired Q parameter which satisfies the Internal Model Principle and thus the exact regulation against the unknown deterministic disturbance can be achieved. The performance of the proposed control approach is evaluated with experimental results that illustrate the capability of the proposed adaptive regulator to attenuate the unknown disturbances and achieve the desired tracking precision

The diagnostic effectiveness of serum sialic acid predicts both qualitative and quantitative prostate cancer in patients with prostate-specific antigen between 4 and 20 ng/mL

IntroductionThis study aimed to evaluate the predictive value of the serum biochemical index, including alkaline phosphatase (AKP), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), α-L-fucosidase (AFU), serum sialic acid (SA), and fibrinogen (FIB), for prostate cancer (PCa) and clinically significant prostate cancer (CSPCa) in patients with a prostate-specific antigen (PSA) value between 4 and 20 ng/mL.Patients and methodsThis study retrospectively examined the clinical data of 408 eligible patients who underwent prostate biopsies in our hospital between March 2015 and July 2022. CSPCa was defined as a “Gleason grade group of≥2”. For analyzing the association between PCa/CSPCa and serum biochemical index, univariable logistic regression and multivariable logistic regression were conducted. Based on the multivariable logistic regression model, we constructed models and compared the area under the curve (AUC). We generated the nomogram, the ROC curve, the DCA curve, and the calibration curve for PCa.ResultsOverall, we studied 271 patients with PCa (including 155 patients with CSPCa) and 137 non-PCa patients. Patients with PCa were more likely to consume alcohol, have higher total PSA (TPSA) values, and have lower free PSA (FPSA) and free/total PSA (f/T) values. There were higher TPSA values and lower f/T values in the CSPCa group when compared with the non-CSPCa group. The univariate logistic regression analyses did not show significant results. However, AKP, AFU, SA, TPSA, and FPSA all retain significant significance when all factors are included in multifactor logistic regression analysis. This finding suggests that the exposure factor exhibited an independent effect on the outcome after controlling for other factors, including the potential confounding effects that may have been underestimated. Through ROC curves, we found that SA and TPSA levels are more powerful predictors. In contrast, there is a lack of excellent predictive value for PCA and CSPCa using Age, AFU, FIB, and FPSA.ConclusionIn our study, serum biochemical index is a potential prediction tool for PCa and CSPCa for patients with PSA values between 4 and 20 ng/mL. Additionally, the new serum biochemical index SA is also useful when diagnosing PCa and CSPCa, as we conclude in our study

ALGO: Synthesizing Algorithmic Programs with LLM-Generated Oracle Verifiers

Large language models (LLMs) excel at implementing code from functionality descriptions but struggle with algorithmic problems that require not only implementation but also identification of the suitable algorithm. Moreover, LLM-generated programs lack guaranteed correctness and require human verification. To address these challenges, we propose ALGO, a framework that synthesizes Algorithmic programs with LLM-Generated Oracles to guide the generation and verify their correctness. ALGO first generates a reference oracle by prompting an LLM to exhaustively enumerate all the combinations of relevant variables. This oracle is then utilized to guide an arbitrary search strategy in exploring the algorithm space and to verify the synthesized algorithms. Our study shows that the LLM-generated oracles are correct for 88% of the cases. With the oracles as verifiers, ALGO can be integrated with any existing code generation model in a model-agnostic manner to enhance its performance. Experiments show that when equipped with ALGO, we achieve an 8x better one-submission pass rate over the Codex model and a 2.6x better one-submission pass rate over CodeT, the current state-of-the-art model on CodeContests. We can also get 1.3x better pass rate over the ChatGPT Code Interpreter on unseen problems. The problem set we used for testing, the prompts we used, the verifier and solution programs, and the test cases generated by ALGO are available at https://github.com/zkx06111/ALGO.Comment: NeurIPS 202

Improving effect of Platycodin D on ethanol-induced fatty liver via Keape-NRF2-are signal path

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IMPROVING EFFECT OF PLATYCODIN D ON ETHANOL-INDUCED FATTY LIVER VIA KEAP1-NRF2-ARE SIGNAL PATH

Background: Platycodin D (PD) is one of the important active ingredients in the root of the Platycodon grandiflorum (Jacq.) A. DC (PG), a traditional medicine with many pharmacological activities, especially hepatoprotective activity. There are some researches on the mechanism of liver protection, but it is not very clear. It is necessary to investigate it deeply. Materials and Methods: In order to evaluate the effect of PD on ethanol-induced fatty liver (EFL) and investigate the possible mechanism, the EFL models of rats and BRL-3A cells were set up and treated with PD of 20, 30 mg/kg body weight/day for four weeks, respectively. The hepatic histochemistry, liver function enzymes, oxidative stress levels, antioxidant enzymes and signal path enzymes were assayed. Results: PD significantly (

Molecular characterization of cathepsin B from Clonorchis sinensis excretory/secretory products and assessment of its potential for serodiagnosis of clonorchiasis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cathepsin cysteine proteases play multiple roles in the life cycle of parasites such as food uptake, immune invasion and pathogenesis, making them valuable targets for diagnostic assays, vaccines and drugs. The purpose of this study was to identify a cathepsin B of <it>Clonorchis sinensis </it>(<it>Cs</it>CB) and to investigate its diagnostic value for human helminthiases.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The predicted amino acid sequence of the cathepsin B of <it>C. sinensis </it>shared 63%, 52%, 50% identity with that of <it>Schistosoma japonicum</it>, <it>Homo sapiens </it>and <it>Fasciola hepatica</it>, respectively. Sequence encoding proenzyme of <it>Cs</it>CB was overexpressed in <it>Escherichia coli</it>. Reverse transcription PCR experiments revealed that <it>Cs</it>CB transcribed in both adult worm and metacercaria of <it>C. sinensis</it>. <it>Cs</it>CB was identified as a <it>C. sinensis </it>excretory/secretory product by immunoblot assay, which was consistent with immunohistochemical localization showing that <it>Cs</it>CB was especially expressed in the intestine of <it>C. sinensis </it>adults. Both ELISA and western blotting analysis showed recombinant <it>Cs</it>CB could react with human sera from clonorchiasis and other helminthiases.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our findings revealed that secreted CsCB may play an important role in the biology of C. sinensis and could be a diagnostic candidate for helminthiases.</p

Cellular immunotherapy as maintenance therapy prolongs the survival of the patients with small cell lung cancer in extensive stage

AbstractBackgroundSmall cell lung cancer (SCLC) is the most devastating type of human lung cancer. Patients usually present with disseminated disease to many organs (extensive stage). This study was to investigate the efficacy and safety of cellular immunotherapy (CIT) with autologous natural killer (NK), γδT, and cytokine-induced killer (CIK) cells as maintenance therapy for extensive-stage SCLC (ES-SCLC) patients.MethodsA pilot prospective cohort study was conducted with ES-SCLC patients who had responded to initial chemotherapy. Patients received either CIT as maintenance therapy (CIT group), or no treatment (control group). Progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), and adverse effects were compared.ResultsForty-nine patients were recruited in this study, with 19 patients in the CIT group and 30 patients in the control group. The patient characteristics of the 2 groups were comparable except for age, as patients in the CIT group were older than those in the control group (P < 0.05). PFS in the CIT group was superior to the control group (5 vs. 3.1 months, P = 0.020; HR, 0.489, 95% CI, 0.264–0.909, P = 0.024). OS of the CIT group was also longer than that of the control group (13.3 vs. 8.2 months, P = 0.044; HR, 0.528, 95% CI, 0.280–0.996, P = 0.048, respectively). No significant adverse reactions occurred in patients undergoing CIT.ConclusionsCIT maintenance therapy in ES-SCLC prolonged survival with only minimal side effects. Integrating CIT into the current treatment may be a novel strategy for ES-SCLC patients, although further multi-center randomized trials are needed

Evaluation of Suitability for Green Tea Processing of Different Tea Cultivars Based on Multivariate Statistical Analysis

Principal component analysis (PCA) and multiple linear regression analysis (MLRA) were used to analyze and investigate the suitability of green tea for tea tree varieties in different tea cultivars. The fresh leaves of 63 tea cultivars planted in the same garden were processed into roasted green tea by the same method. The sensory and major physicochemical qualities (tea polyphenols, free amino acids, water extracts and chlorophyll) and the color (L*, a* and b*) of green tea were analyzed. To evaluate the suitability of the tested cultivars for green tea processing and its major influential factors, the data obtained were analyzed by PCA and MLRA. The results showed that the coefficient of variation (CV) of chlorophyll content in different cultivars was the highest (26.7%), followed by tea a* value (22.2%), sensory score for tea infusion color (17.1%) and sensory score for tea color (16.2%). A significant correlation was found between the polyphenol content of green tea and its color, tea infusion color and the color of infused tea leaves; between the chlorophyll content, |a*| and b* values of green tea and its color; between the chlorophyll content and |a*| value of green tea and the color of infused tea leaves; and between the |a*| and b* values of green tea and tea infusion color (P < 0.01). The PCA results showed that the contribution rate of the first five principal components (PCs) was 76.895%, and that of the first principal component was 31.918%, mainly pointing to the color quality. According to the evaluation model constructed based on the first five PCs, the top 10 cultivars were Zhongcha 108, Wuniuzao, Pingyangtezao, Mengshan 9, Soubeizhong, Fudingdabai, Jiukeng 16, Fudingdahao, Maolv, and Longjing 43. Using MLRA, the regression function between overall sensory score (Y) and |a*| value (x) was obtained as Y = 68.668 + 5.174x (R2 = 0.313) (P < 0.001). The top 10 varieties determined from this equation were highly consistent with the results of PCA, indicating that a* value is an important indicator for the evaluation of the suitability of tea cultivars for green tea processing

Searching for the nano-Hertz stochastic gravitational wave background with the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array Data Release I

Observing and timing a group of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) with high rotational stability enables the direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs). The GW signals can be identified from the spatial correlations encoded in the times-of-arrival of widely spaced pulsar-pairs. The Chinese Pulsar Timing Array (CPTA) is a collaboration aiming at the direct GW detection with observations carried out using Chinese radio telescopes. This short article serves as a `table of contents' for a forthcoming series of papers related to the CPTA Data Release 1 (CPTA DR1) which uses observations from the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST). Here, after summarizing the time span and accuracy of CPTA DR1, we report the key results of our statistical inference finding a correlated signal with amplitude \log A_{\rm c}= -14.4 \,^{+1.0}_{-2.8} for spectral index in the range of $\alpha\in [-1.8, 1.5]$ assuming a GW background (GWB) induced quadrupolar correlation. The search for the Hellings-Downs (HD) correlation curve is also presented, where some evidence for the HD correlation has been found that a 4.6-$\sigma$ statistical significance is achieved using the discrete frequency method around the frequency of 14 nHz. We expect that the future International Pulsar Timing Array data analysis and the next CPTA data release will be more sensitive to the nHz GWB, which could verify the current results.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, submitted to "Research in astronomy and astrophysics" 22nd March 202