Global metabolic profiling of hemorrhagic shock and resuscitation.

Hemorrhagic shock (HS) is a medical emergency during trauma. Significant loss of tissue perfusion may result in cellular hypoxia, organ damage and death. The primary treatment of HS is control of the source of bleeding as soon as possible and fluid replacement (crystalloid solutions and blood transfusion). Metabolomics can identify novel biomarkers for various functional and organic diseases. Therefore, systematic exploration of the biological mechanisms of HS and blood transfusion enables the optimization of treatments for HS to reduce the occurrence of organ damage. In this study, a global metabolic profiling strategy is applied to evaluate metabolic changes in the HS rat model. A serum metabolic network with 58 significant metabolites was constructed for HS and resuscitation. Our investigation will offer insights into the pathogenesis.

Automatic visual inspection of a missing split pin in the China railway high-speed.

The split pin (SP) on the caliper brake is a vital component of the brake system of a bogie traveling along the China railway high-speed (CRH), and the absence of the SP could cause serious train accidents. A new automatic visual inspection method is proposed for the quick and accurate detection of SP faults of the CRH. The proposed approach is based on the histogram of gradient (HOG) combined with the complete local binary pattern (CLBP). First, a fast pyramid template matching technique is presented for localizing the region of interest to reduce the searching scope. Under the multiresolution pyramid model for target localization, a coarse-to-fine strategy is employed to ensure that the recognizing speed of the SP for the entire image is increased significantly. Second, a hierarchical framework is adopted at the localizing and inspecting stages of the SP to automatically implement the inspection tasks. To increase the robustness to the outside complex illumination, the HOG feature for localizing the target and the CLBP feature for examining the state of the SP (i.e., missing or not-missing) are extracted in the Sobel gradient domain. The localization and recognition stages are both fulfilled through the use of their respective intersection kernel support vector machine classifiers and corresponding features. In conclusion, experimental results indicate that the inspection system achieves a high accuracy rate of more than 99.0% and a real-time speed, thus proving that the proposed method is effective for the fault inspection of the SP and can satisfy the requirements of CRH's actual application.

The Effect of Dexmedetomidine on the Prognosis of Mechanically Ventilated Patients with Sepsis: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.

Background: Dexmedetomidine (Dex), as a new and highly selective α2 adrenergic receptor agonist, has been widely used in mechanically ventilated patients. In the present study, we used meta-analysis to study the effect of Dex on the prognosis of mechanically ventilated patients with sepsis. Methods: We searched PubMed, Cochrane clinical trial, EMBASE, Web of Science, and Chinese biomedical literature database to analyze relevant literature published from January 2000 to January 2021. We conducted the quality evaluation and data extraction for studies that met the inclusion criteria. RevMan 5.3 software was used to perform a meta-analysis of the 28-day mortality, hospital mortality, the length of ICU stay, and other adverse indicators. Results: Ten randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that met the inclusion criteria were finally included, including 9 RCTs in English and one in Chinese, with a total of 892 patients. Our meta-analysis results found that in mechanically ventilated patients with sepsis, Dex could significantly reduce the length of ICU stay (P=0.02), but did not reduce the patients' 28-day mortality (P=0.06), hospital mortality (P=0.17) and ventilator-free days (P=0.33). Furthermore, our meta-analysis results also found that Dex had no significant effect on the respiratory rate (P=0.53), heart rate (P=0.02), mean arterial pressure (P=0.63), the level of creatinine (P=0.82) and continuous renal replacement therapy (P=0.39) in mechanically ventilated patients with sepsis. Conclusion: In mechanically ventilated patients with sepsis, Dex can reduce the length of ICU stay, but which cannot reduce the 28-day mortality, hospital mortality, and ventilator-free days.

Navigating Chinese cities to achieve sustainable development goals by 2030.

Achieving the 17 United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs) in China largely depends on the transition of cities toward sustainable development. However, significant knowledge gaps exist in evaluating the SDG index at the city scale and in understanding how to simulate pathways to achieve the 17 SDGs for Chinese cities by 2030. This study aimed to quantify the SDG index of 285 Chinese cities and developed a forecasting model to simulate the performance of each SDG in each city until 2030 using varied scenarios. The results indicated that although the SDG index in Chinese cities increased by 33.97% during 2005-2016, Chinese cities, which continued their past paths, achieved an average of only five SDGs by 2030. To promote the joint achievement of all SDGs, we designed different paths for all SDGs of each of the 285 cities and simulated their SDG index until 2030. Under the scenarios, 216 Chinese cities (75.79%) could achieve 9-13 more SDGs in 2030 and the overall SDG index can improve from 74.57 in 2030 to 97.49 (target score 100) by adopting more intensive path adjustment. We lastly determined a cost-effective path for each SDG of each city to promote joint achievement of all SDGs by 2030. The proposed simulation model and cost-effective path serve as a foundation for other countries to simulate SDG progress and develop pathways for achieving SDGs in the future.

Computer simulation study on the self-assembly of tethered nanoparticles with tunable shapes.

We built a tethered nanoparticle (TNP) model that is composed of a nanoparticle with a hydrophobic tethered polymer chain. The shape of the nanoparticle can be tuned from a pure rigid cube to a soft sphere, mimicking the increase of grafting density on the nanocube surfaces. With this model, we study the self-assembly of TNPs in dilute solution using a dissipative particle dynamics simulation technique, and especially focus on the influence of particle shape, tethered chain length, and grafting density on the self-assembly structures. Some intriguing aggregates such as spherical micelles, pearl-necklace-like structures, cubic columnar structures, handshake structures, core-shell-corona micelles, and four-patch micelles have been observed when varying the interactions between cubes and solvents and the lengths of tethered chain. Modifying the nanocube surface with some hydrophilic grafted chains helps the TNPs form small micelles. Increased steric repulsion due to chain overlapping at larger grafting densities results in shape transformation of the nanoparticle from a rigid cube to a soft sphere. In these cases, the self-assembled structures are characterized by the packing of nanoparticles on the micelle surface, and the typical packing mode turns from rectangular (typical for cubes) to hexagonal (typical for spheres).