Research on strain testing method and accuracy evaluation of spacecraft in heat and force field.

Ground experimentation is an important method to verify the performance and quality of spacecraft structures. How to simulate the force and heat fields that a spacecraft may be subjected to during flight is a challenge for experiment design. In this paper, the static strength experimental method of spacecraft in the combined force and heat fields is studied. Furthermore, the coupling cases of the spacecraft during the flight process are simulated using an airbag and a resistive heater. Finally, it can be concluded that the accuracy of the proposed experimental method as well as the structural strength of the spacecraft can meet technical requirements during flight.

Autotaxin: A Potential biomarker for primary biliary cholangitis.

Background: In some patients especially those AMA negative, the diagnosis may be a challenge requiring liver biopsy. This study determined whether autotaxin, a secreted lysophospholipase D encoded by the exonucleotide pyrophosphatase phosphodiesterase 2 gene, can be used as a serum biomarker for primary biliary cholangitis. Methods: Plasma samples were collected from 103 patients with PBC and 74 healthy controls. autotaxin levels were determined by Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and its predictive value for diagnosing primary biliary cholangitis was analysed. The relationship between autotaxin and the clinical data was also evaluated. Results: Autotaxin levels in patients with primary biliary cholangitis were significantly higher than those in healthy control (median: 60.7 ng/ml vs. 32.6 ng/ml, P < 0.001). The cut-off value of autotaxin in patients with primary biliary cholangitis was 38.5 ng/ml, and the positivity rate was 33.9 %, calculated twice. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were 54.3 %, 93.1 %, 84.4 %, and 74.8 %, respectively, and the area under the curve was 0.73. Autotaxin level positively correlated with immunoglobulin M level (r = -0.22, P < 0.05) and Ludwig's classification (r = 0.76, P < 0.01) in patients with primary biliary cholangitis. The positivity rate of autotaxin (50.0 %) was higher than that of anti-sp100 (16.7 %) and anti-gp210 (11.1 %) antibodies in anti-mitochondrial antibody -negative patients with primary biliary cholangitis. Conclusions: Autotaxin may be an effective noninvasive biomarker used in diagnosis, prognosis of primary biliary cholangitis, particularly in anti-mitochondrial antibody -negative patients.

ASSOCIATION OF DIABETIC MACULAR EDEMA WITH QUALITY OF LIFE IN PATIENTS WITH TYPE 2 DIABETES: The Fushun Diabetic Retinopathy Cohort Study.

PURPOSE: To report the vision-related quality of life in patients with diabetic macular edema (DME) in a population-based study. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, we analyzed 1,659 subjects with type 2 diabetes. Questionnaires were administered to assess the patient's vision-related quality of life. Diabetic macular edema severity was graded according to the established protocols. A subject's DME score ranged from 1 (no DME in either eye) to 7 (severe bilateral DME) using predefined criteria. RESULTS: Composite 25-item National Eye Institute Visual Function Questionnaire (NEI-VFQ-25) scores for participants with DME were 88.9 (interquartile range [IQR]: 76.2-94.9) compared with 92.0 (IQR: 82.7-96.0) for those without DME ( P < 0.001). Locally weighted scatterplot smoothing plots depicted a consistent decline in composite NEI-VFQ-25 scores corresponding to the escalation of bilateral DME severity: starting from 88.59 for no DME in either eye, progressing through 86.65, 85.83, 85.31, 84.91, 83.85, and culminating at 82.71 for bilateral severe DME. Notably, the locally weighted scatterplot smoothing plots highlighted significant NEI-VFQ-25 composite score reduction at unilateral mild DME (slope m = -1.94). CONCLUSION: Significant changes in vision-related quality of life manifest in the early stage of DME. Therefore, early identification and intervention for these patients are crucial clinical objectives.

Undiagnosed diabetic retinopathy in Northeast China: prevalence and determinants.

Objective: To report the prevalence and contributing factors of undiagnosed diabetic retinopathy (DR) in a population from Northeastern China. Subjects/Methods: A total of 800 subjects from the Fushun Diabetic Retinopathy Cohort Study were enrolled. A questionnaire assessing incentives and barriers to diagnosis of DR was administered. Logistic regression was used to identify clinical and sociodemographic factors associated with undiagnosed DR. In a prespecified subgroup analysis, we divided patients into vision-threatening diabetic retinopathy (VTDR) and non-VTDR (NVTDR) subgroups. Results: Among 800 participants with DR, 712 (89.0%) were undiagnosed. Among 601 with NVTDR, 566 (94.2%) were undiagnosed. Among 199 with VTDR, 146 (73.4%) were undiagnosed. The risk factors affecting the timely diagnosis of NVTDR and VTDR exhibit significant disparities. In multivariate models, factors associated with undiagnosed VTDR were age over 60 years (OR = 2.966; 95% CI = 1.205-7.299; P = 0.018), duration of diabetes over 10 years (OR = 0.299; 95% CI = 0.118-0753; P = 0.010), visual impairment or blindness (OR = 0.310; 95% CI = 0.117-0.820; P = 0.018), receiving a reminder to schedule an eye examination (OR = 0.380; 95% CI = 0.163-0.883; P = 0.025), and the belief that "people with diabetes are unlikely to develop an eye disease" (OR = 4.691; 95% CI = 1.116-19.724; P = 0.035). However, none of the factors were associated with undiagnosed NVTDR (all P ≥ 0.145). Conclusion: Our research has uncovered a disconcerting trend of underdiagnosis in cases of DR within our population. Addressing determinants of undiagnosed DR may facilitate early detection.

Advances in natural products and antibody drugs for SLE: new therapeutic ideas.

Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune systemic disease with a wide range of clinical symptoms, complex development processes, and uncertain prognosis. The clinical treatment of SLE is mainly based on hormones and immunosuppressants. Research on novel therapy strategies for SLE has flourished in recent years, especially the emergence of new targeted drugs and natural products that can modulate related symptoms. This review discusses the current experience including B-cell targeted drugs (belimumab, tabalumab, blisibimod, atacicept, rituximab, ofatumumab, ocrelizumab, obexelimab, and epratuzumab), T-cell targeted drugs (abatacept, dapirolizumab, and inhibitor of syk and CaMKIV), cytokines targeted drugs (anifrolumab and sifalimumab), and natural products (curcumin, oleuropein, punicalagin, sulforaphane, icariin, apigenin, and resveratrol). The aim of this paper is to combine the existing in vitro and in vivo models and clinical research results to summarize the efficacy and mechanism of natural drugs and targeted drugs in SLE for the reference and consideration of researchers.

Evaluation of clinical efficacy of tumor necrosis factor­α inhibitors in treatment of distal extremity swelling with pitting edema in psoriatic arthritis of inadequate response to conventional therapy: A 10­year retrospective study.

Distal extremity swelling with pitting edema in psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a rare rheumatological condition, whose management presents a challenge. The aim of the present study was to identify the clinical characteristics of, and formulate a standardized management strategy for, patients with distal extremity swelling with pitting edema in PsA. The medical records of consecutive patients with PsA, with or without distal extremity swelling with pitting edema, were systematically analyzed over a ~10-year period (between September 2008 and September 2018) in a single center and a comprehensive review (pathogenic mechanisms, clinical manifestations, and treatments) was undertaken. A total of 167 patients with PsA were evaluated, and distal extremity swelling with pitting edema was recorded in 16 of these patients. In three of the 16 patients, distal extremity swelling with pitting edema occurred as the first, isolated manifestation of PsA. The upper and lower extremities were affected, predominantly asymmetrically. Female patients with PsA were more likely to be affected with pitting edema and the blood test results revealed that the patients with PsA and pitting edema also presented with a significantly higher erythrocyte sedimentation rate and concentration of C-reactive protein. The onset of pitting edema was associated with the activity of the disease. Lymphoscintigraphy and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans revealed that edema might have resulted from inflammation of the tenosynovial structures. Furthermore, treatment with tumor necrosis factor-α inhibitor (TNFi) elicited improvements in patients with pitting edema that were not responsive to conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drug therapy. In conclusion, distal extremity swelling with pitting edema, also termed atypical remitting seronegative symmetrical synovitis with pitting edema (RS3PE) syndrome, may represent the initial isolated manifestation of PsA. The atypical RS3PE syndrome in PsA was attributable to inflammation of the tenosynovial structures, and TNFi may serve as a potential treatment.

Assessment of Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice Regarding Diabetic Retinopathy in an Urban Population in Northeast China.

Objective: This study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of diabetic subjects with diabetic retinopathy (DR) and those without DR (NDR) in an urban community in Northeast China, as well as their risk factors in subjects with DR and NDR. Methods: A community-based survey involving 1,662 subjects was conducted in Fushun, China, between July 2012 and May 2013. The subjects included diabetics with DR (n = 783) and those NDR (n = 879), and questionnaires were completed to collect information about their sociodemographic and healthcare characteristics. A Chi-square test and multiple logistic analyses were performed to analyze the data. Results: Among the DR group, 21.88% had a good knowledge of DR, 94.15% had a positive attitude, and 68.07% followed good practice, whereas 20.98% of the NDR group had a good knowledge of DR, 94.18% had a positive attitude, and 66.92% followed good practice. There was no significant difference in the KAP of the two groups of subjects. In the NDR group, a good level of knowledge was associated with a high-level of education (OR = 0.1, 0.2; p < 0.05), a good attitude was associated with retirement (OR = 0.2; p < 0.05), and good practice was associated with being female, having a high-level of education, and the type of treatment (OR = 0.5, 0.4, 2.3, 3.1; p < 0.05). In the DR group, good practice was associated with older age and retirement (OR = 0.6, 0.4; p < 0.05). Conclusions: There was no significant difference between the DR and NDR subjects in the overall levels of KAP, but both groups showed a poor level of knowledge. Age, gender, education, occupation, and type of treatment were the main factors associated with the KAP scores, more risk factors in the NDR group than in the DR group. There is an urgent need for coordinated educational campaigns with a prioritized focus on the northeast region of China, especially NDR group.

Effect of LncRNA XIST on Immune Cells of Primary Biliary Cholangitis.

Objective: Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is an autoimmune disease with significant gender difference. X chromosome inactivation (XCI) plays important roles in susceptibility to diseases between genders. This work focuses on the differences of LncRNA XIST in several defined immune cells populations as well as its effects on naive CD4+ T cells proliferation and differentiation in patients with PBC. Methods: NKs, B cells, CD4+ T, and CD8+ T cells were separated by MicroBeads from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of PBC patients and healthy control (HC). The expression levels of LncRNA XIST in these immune cells were quantified by qRT-PCR and their subcellular localized analyzed by FISH. Lentivirus were used to interfere the expression of LncRNA XIST, and CCK8 was used to detect the proliferation of naive CD4+ T cells in PBC patients. Finally, naive CD4+ T cells were co-cultured with the bile duct epithelial cells (BECs), and the effects of LncRNA XIST on the typing of naive CD4+ T cells and related cytokines were determined by qRT-PCR and ELISA. Results: The expression levels of LncRNA XIST in NKs and CD4+ T cells in PBC patients were significantly higher than those in HC, and were primarily located at the nucleus. LncRNA XIST could promote the proliferation of naive CD4+ T cells. When naive CD4+ T cells were co-cultured with BECs, the expressions of IFN-γ, IL-17, T-bet and RORγt in naive CD4+ T cells were decreased. Conclusion: LncRNA XIST was associated with lymphocyte abnormalities in patients with PBC. The high expression of LncRNA XIST could stimulate proliferation and differentiation of naive CD4+ T cells, which might account for the high occurrence of PBC in female.

Intermittent Fasting: Potential Bridge of Obesity and Diabetes to Health?

Obesity has been an escalating worldwide health problem for decades, and it is likely a risk factor of prediabetes and diabetes. Correlated with obesity, the number of diabetic patients is also remarkable. A modest weight loss (5-10%) is critical to alleviate the risk of any other metabolic disease. Reduced energy intake has been an essential factor for weight loss reduction. As a new behavior intervention to lose weight, intermittent fasting (IF) attracts considerable attention and has become a popular strategy among young people. IF is a diet pattern that cycles between periods of fasting and eating on a regular schedule, involving various types, mainly Intermittent Energy Restriction and Time-Restricted Fasting. Accumulating evidence shows that short-term IF has a greatly positive effect in animal studies and contributes favorable benefits in human trials as well. Nevertheless, as an emerging, diverse, and relatively premature behavior intervention, there are still limited studies considering patients with obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus. It is also a controversial intervention for the treatment of metabolic disease and cancer. The risks and challenges appear consequently. Additionally, whether intermittent fasting can be applied to long-term clinical treatment, and whether it has side effects during the long-term period or not, demands more large-scale and long-term experiments.

CNN-LRP: Understanding Convolutional Neural Networks Performance for Target Recognition in SAR Images.

Target recognition is one of the most challenging tasks in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image processing since it is highly affected by a series of pre-processing techniques which usually require sophisticated manipulation for different data and consume huge calculation resources. To alleviate this limitation, numerous deep-learning based target recognition methods are proposed, particularly combined with convolutional neural network (CNN) due to its strong capability of data abstraction and end-to-end structure. In this case, although complex pre-processing can be avoided, the inner mechanism of CNN is still unclear. Such a "black box" only tells a result but not what CNN learned from the input data, thus it is difficult for researchers to further analyze the causes of errors. Layer-wise relevance propagation (LRP) is a prevalent pixel-level rearrangement algorithm to visualize neural networks' inner mechanism. LRP is usually applied in sparse auto-encoder with only fully-connected layers rather than CNN, but such network structure usually obtains much lower recognition accuracy than CNN. In this paper, we propose a novel LRP algorithm particularly designed for understanding CNN's performance on SAR image target recognition. We provide a concise form of the correlation between output of a layer and weights of the next layer in CNNs. The proposed method can provide positive and negative contributions in input SAR images for CNN's classification, viewed as a clear visual understanding of CNN's recognition mechanism. Numerous experimental results demonstrate the proposed method outperforms common LRP.

Co-occurrence of Wilson's disease and systemic lupus erythematosus: a case report and literature review.

BACKGROUND: Wilson's disease (WD) is a rare autosomal recessive disease associated with defective biliary excretion of copper. The simultaneous occurrence of WD and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) has seldom been reported. Therefore, this study aimed to report the co-occurrence of SLE and WD with hepatic involvement in a patient so as to improve the understanding of the coexistence of these two conditions. CASE PRESENTATION: A 35-year-old woman with SLE was found to have liver fibrosis during a routinely abdominal ultrasound examination. Her laboratory evaluation showed low serum ceruloplasmin and high 24 h urine copper levels. The slit-lamp examination revealed the presence of Kayseri-Fleischer ring in her cornea. Liver biopsy demonstrated the enlargement of the portal area with hyperplasia of the fibrous tissue, infiltration of lymphoid plasma cells, swelling of hepatocytes, and steatosis, demonstrating liver fibrosis. Ensuing genetic testing confirmed the diagnosis of WD. CONCLUSIONS: Clinicians should bear in mind that unexplained liver fibrosis in patients with SLE may be related to WD, so as to avoid a missed or delayed diagnosis.

Changes in physicochemical properties of organic matter by uranium irradiation: A case study from the Ordos Basin in China.

Carbonaceous debris (CD) are exclusively disseminated in sandstones of uranium-bearing strata from the Dongsheng uranium ore field of the northern Ordos Basin, northern China. Physicochemical properties of CD were investigated through a series of tests including element analyses, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (i.e., FTIR) and organic carbon isotope (i.e., δC13) as well as specific surface area. The results show that δC13 of the samples from uranium-bearing strata range from -22.86‰ to -25.82‰, indicating that the CD is from the same origin. The average values of C, H, O and N are 54.54%, 4.55%, 39.15% and 0.49%, respectively, and H/C as well as O/C atomic ratios vary from 0.77 to 1.26 and 0.36 to 1.72, respectively, implying that CD is mostly composed of C and O, followed by H, and is grouped into Type Ⅲ kerogen at an immature to low mature stage. Compared with the samples without uranium enrichment, C, H, N and δ13C of the uranium-bearing samples increase by 13.66%, 5.32%, 12.50% and 0.98‰, respectively, while decrease by 18.50%, 7.84% and 33.33%, respectively, for O, H/C as well as O/C atomic ratios. As the intensity of uranium enrichment increases, H/C atomic ratios and aliphaticity decrease, and aromaticity increases. Besides, uranium-bearing samples are of smaller specific surface area than those without uranium enrichment. Alpha irradiation energy released by uranium and its daughters could cause the crosslinking in n-alkanes and long-chain polymers through a free-radical mechanism, which is supported by a decrease in O, aliphaticity and an increase in aromaticity. Hence, it results in polycondensation of molecular structure with a decrease in side chain length, function groups as well as specific surface area, and changes in physicochemical properties of organic matter, which is instructive in prospecting.

High-Rise Building 3D Reconstruction with the Wrapped Interferometric Phase.

The great development of high-resolution SAR system gives more opportunities to observe building structures in detail, especially the advanced interferometric SAR (InSAR), which techniques attract more attention on exploiting useful information on urban infrastructures. Considering that the high-rise buildings in urban areas are quite common in big cities, it is of great importance to retrieve the three-dimension (3D) information of the urban high-rise buildings in urban remote sensing applications. In this paper, the 3D reconstruction of high-rise buildings using the wrapped InSAR phase image was studied, referring to the geometric modulation in very high resolution (VHR) SAR images, such as serious layover cause by high-rise buildings. Under the assumption of a rectangular shape, the high-rise buildings were detected and building façades were extracted based on the local frequency analysis of the layover fringe patterns. Then 3D information of buildings were finally extracted according to the detected façade geometry. Except for testing on a small urban area from the TanDEM-X data, the experiment carried on the single-pass InSAR wrapped phase in the wide urban scene, which was collected by the Chinese airborne N-SAR system, also demonstrated the possibility and applicability of the approach.

Micro-Doppler Feature Extraction of Inverse Synthetic Aperture Imaging Laser Radar Using Singular-Spectrum Analysis.

Different from microwave radar, laser radar could be more sensitive to the micro-Doppler (m-D) effect due to its wave length. This limits the application of conventional methods, such as time⁻frequency based approach, since the processing needs a receiver with much higher sampling frequency than microwave radar. In this paper, a micro-Doppler feature extraction algorithm is proposed for the inverse synthetic aperture imaging laser radar (ISAIL). Singular-spectrum analysis (SSA) is employed for separation and reconstruction of the micro-Doppler and rigid body signal. Clear ISAIL image is obtained by minimum entropy criteria after echo signal decomposition. After theoretical derivation, the computation efficiency and ability of the proposed method is proved by the results of simulation and real data of An-26.

[Effect of kurarinol on peripheral blood CTL surface PD-1 expression of patients with chronic hepatitis B].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the anti-viral mechanism of kurarinol through studying its influence on cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) surface program death receptor-1 (PD-1) expression of patients with chronic hepatitis B (CHB). METHODS: 69 cases of CHB, HBV DNA > or = 10(4) copies/ml, HBeAg positive, human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A2 positive, alanine aminotransferase (ALT) > 2 x upper limit of normal value(ULN).69 cases were randomly divided into two groups:34 cases in treatment group,600 mg of kurarinol glucose injection was used for intravenous dripping, once a day, one month later, 200 mg of kurarinol capsule was used orally,three times a day and 200 mg of silybin meglumine tablet was used orally, three times a day. 35 cases in control group, only silibin meglumine tablet was used, method and dosage were the same as those of treatment group. Three months later, their peripheral blood HBV specific CTL surface PD-1 expression, non-specific CTL surface PD-1 expression and level of HBV specific CTL,HBV DNA and HBeAg negative rate and liver functions were analyzed and compared. RESULTS: 3 months after treatment, peripheral blood HBV specific CTL surface PD-1 expression of the treatment group decreased compared with that before treatment (t = 2.39, P < 0.05), it also decreased compared with that of the control group 3 months after treatment (t = 2.26, P < 0.05), HBV specific CTL increased compared with that before treatment( t = 3.01, P < 0.01), it also increased compared with that of the control group after treatment (t = 2.65, P < 0.05). There was no significant difference of non-specific CTL surface PD-1 expression compared with that before treatment (P > 0.05), and there was no significant difference compared with that of the control group after treatment (P > 0.05). HBV DNA of 11 cases (32.5%) turned negative ( HBV DNA < 500 copies/ ml), higher than that of the control group after treatment (2 cases, 5.71%) chi2 = 7.99, P < 0.01, HBeAg of 9 cases (26.47%) turned negative, higher than that of the control group after treatment (1 case, 2.86%), chi2 = 7.75, P < 0.01. CONCLUSION: Kurarinol can increase level of HBV specific CTL by down-regulating peripheral blood HBV specific CTL surface PD-1 expression of CHB patients, which may be one of the possible mechanisms that kurarinol can remove or inhibit HBV of CHB patients.

Isolated pulmonary arterial stenosis caused by Takayasu's arteritis in an elderly male.

Takayasu's arteritis has often been difficult to diagnose because of a lack of typical symptoms and other specific makers. We report here a case of Takayasu's arteritis in a 73-year-old man who was considered to exhibit isolated pulmonary artery involvement. Pulmonary hypertension and right heart failure and severe stenosis in the main trunk and left pulmonary artery were observed. There was nothing remarkable in his routine blood-sample tests other than increased CRP and ESR. There were neither infectious nor collagen diseases. Anti-cardiolipin antibody, Antiphospholipid Syndrome, PR3-ANCA and MPO-ANCA were negative. We diagnosed the patient as having Takayasu's arteritis based on chronic inflammation and the morphologic features of pulmonary artery lesion. However, other large vessels and the aorta were not involved. Treatment was started with glucocorticoids. The symptoms gradually improved, and pulmonary artery pressure estimated by echocardiography decreased along with inflammatiory markers. There were no remarkable changes in the stenotic lesions in the pulmonary artery but the flow limit in the left pulmonary artery was improved.

Construction of fingerprinting and genetic diversity of mulberry cultivars in China by ISSR markers.

The ISSR fingerprintings of 24 mulberry cultivars were constructed. Totally 80 bands were produced using 17 primers selected from 20 primers. Of them, 40 bands showed polymorphism. From the bands amplified, there were three independent ways to identify the mulberry varieties, such as unique ISSR markers, unique band patterns and a combination of the band patterns provided by different primers. ISSRs were very effective in differentiating the mulberry varieties. The mean genetic similarity coefficient, the mean Nei's gene diversity (h), and the mean Shannon's Information index (I) of mulberry cultivars were 0.8731, 0.1210, and 0.1942, respectively. This suggests that the genetic diversity of mulberry cultivars was low and the genetic base was narrow. Both UPGMA cluster and PCA (Principal Coordinates Analysis) analysis showed clear genetic relationships among the 24 mulberry cultivars. The major clusters were related to known pedigree relationships.