An aluminium adjuvant compound with ginseng stem leaf saponins enhances the potency of inactivated Pseudomonas plecoglossicida vaccine in large yellow croaker (Larimichthys crocea).

Large yellow croaker (Larimichthys crocea) farm industry in China suffered from huge economic loss caused by Pseudomonas plecoglossicida infection. Due to multi-antibiotic resistance, efficient vaccines are urgent to be developed to combat this pathogen. In this study, an inactivated vaccine was developed with an aluminium adjuvant (Alum) plus ginseng stem and leaf saponins (GSLS). As a result, the relative percentage survival (RPS) against P. plecoglossicida was up to 67.8 %. Comparatively, RPS of groups that vaccinated with only inactivated vaccine and vaccine containing Alum or Montanide™ 763A as adjuvant were 21.8 %, 32.2 % and 62.1 %, respectively. Assays for total serum protein and serum lysozyme activity in group vaccinated with inactivated vaccine plus Alum + GSLS adjuvant were significantly higher than that in control group. Moreover, specific antibody in serum elicited a rapid and persistent level. According to the expression of some immune related genes, inactivated vaccine plus Alum + GSLS adjuvant induced a stronger cellular immune response which was vital to defend against P. plecoglossicida. In conclusion, our study demonstrated that the compound Alum and GSLS adjuvant is a potential adjuvant system to develop LYC vaccine.

Clinical Effect of PRP with DPASB on Full-Thickness Rotator Cuff Tears and Its Role in VAS, SST, and Constant Scores of Patients.

BACKGROUND: The aim of the study is to probe the effects of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) plus double-row anchor suture bridge (DRASB) under shoulder arthroscopy on the postoperative VAS, SST and Constant scores, rotator cuff tendonbone healing, and re-tear of patients with full-thickness rotator cuff tear (RCT). METHODS: A total of 60 patients with full-thickness RCT treated in our institution from August 2019 to January 2020 were picked and assigned to either group A (n = 30) or group B (n = 30) on a voluntary basis. Group B received DRASB under shoulder arthroscopy, whereas group A underwent DRASB under shoulder arthroscopy plus PRP. We compared the curative effects of both groups. RESULTS: Week 2, 4, 8, 12 after surgery and 6 months after surgery, VAS scores of patients in both groups declined saliently, whereas SST and Constant scores elevated, and the decrease/increase amplitude of patients in group A was sharply higher than that in group B (p < 0.05). At T2 and T3, abduction 90° external rotation, abduction 90° internal rotation, abduction and anteflexion in both groups increased strikingly, and group A harbored a brilliantly higher increase than group B (p < 0.05). At T2 and T3, serum NO and IL-6 contents were prominently dwindled in both groups, and group A held a plainly higher decrease than group B (p < 0.05). At T3, in comparison to group B, the rotator cuff tendonbone healing rate and quality of life scores in group A were higher (p < 0.05), whereas retear rate was dramatically lower (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: DRASB under shoulder arthroscopy plus PRP therapy can blatantly meliorate the curative effect of patients with full-thickness tear, improve the shoulder joint function and tendonbone healing rate, reduce the postoperative pain degree and the incidence of retear, and can be more broadly promoted and applied clinically.

Comparing the efficacy of pain managements after total hip arthroplasty: A network meta-analysis.

The aim of our current study is to compare efficiency of various interventions implemented for pain management after total hip arthroplasty (THA). PubMed and EMBASE were searched for randomized clinical trials (RCTs) reporting the pain scales for evaluate the efficacy of pain control after THA including at least one pair of direct control groups. Pain scale values and the associated 95% credible interval (CrI) were used to describe efficacy. Surface under the cumulative ranking curve (SUCRA) of each means of pain control was calculated to compare the relative ranking of different interventions. Thirty-five eligible literatures were involved in data analysis. The interventions for postoperative pain management we examined were psoas compartment block (PCB), posterior nerve block (PNB), fascia iliaca block (FIB), periarticular injection (PAI), femoral nerve block (FNB), lumbar plexus block (LPB), spinal anesthesia (SA), epidural analgesia (EPI), intrathecal morphine (IA), intravenous patient-controlled analgesia (IV-PCA), patient-controlled analgesia (PCA), onsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), local infiltration analgaesia (LIA), and reverse LIA (rLIA). In 0 to 6 hours analysis, patients under SA were found to have significantly lower pain score and SA was ranked the best. In 6 to 12 hours analysis, SA was found to be significantly more effective than other interventions and its SUCRA was the highest. No intervention showed a significant effect on reducing pain score for 12 to 24 hours and 24 to 48 hours after THA. SA is the best intervention to reduce THA postoperative pain in the first 24 hours. LPB is a better choice to reduce pain 12 to 48 hours after THA.

Ultra-thin and broadband tunable metamaterial graphene absorber.

A broadband tunable metamaterial graphene absorber is investigated in this paper. The unit cell of the proposed metamaterial graphene absorber is composed of four patch resonators. By tuning the chemical potential of graphene and the geometric size of each patch, the simulated total reflectivity is less than -10 dB from 22.02 to 36.61 THz and with the total thickness of 0.76 um (only 0.09λ at the lowest frequency). The analysis of the surface current, magnetic field and power flow distributions has been performed to better understand the absorption mechanism. Moreover, this proposed absorber achieves its bandwidth tunable characteristics through a voltage biasing of the graphene's Fremi level. This proposed metamaterial graphene absorber (MGA) could be used as smart absorbers, photovoltaic devices and tunable sensors.

A tradeoff between the losses caused by computer viruses and the risk of the manpower shortage.

This article addresses the tradeoff between the losses caused by a new virus and the size of the team for developing an antivirus against the virus. First, an individual-level virus spreading model is proposed to capture the spreading process of the virus before the appearance of its natural enemy. On this basis, the tradeoff problem is modeled as a discrete optimization problem. Next, the influences of different factors, including the infection force, the infection function, the available manpower, the alarm threshold, the antivirus development effort and the network topology, on the optimal team size are examined through computer simulations. This work takes the first step toward the tradeoff problem, and the findings are instructive to the decision makers of network security companies.

A dynamic discount pricing strategy for viral marketing.

Viral marketing has been one of the main marketing modes. However, theoretical study of viral marketing is still lacking. This paper focuses on the problem of developing a cost-effective dynamic discount pricing strategy for a viral marketing campaign. First, based on a novel word-of-mouth propagation model, we model the original problem as an optimal control problem. Second, we show that the optimal control problem admits an optimal control and present the optimality system for solving the optimal control problem. Next, we solve some optimal control models to get their respective optimal dynamic discount pricing strategies. Finally, we examine the effect of some factors on the maximum marketing profit. These results contribute to gaining insight into viral marketing.

Reducing the Spectral Radius of a Torus Network by Link Removal.

The optimal link removal (OLR) problem aims at removing a given number of links of a network so that the spectral radius of the residue network obtained by removing the links from the network attains the minimum. Torus networks are a class of regular networks that have witnessed widespread applications. This paper addresses three subproblems of the OLR problem for torus networks, where two or three or four edges are removed. For either of the three subproblems, a link-removing scheme is described. Exhaustive searches show that, for small-sized tori, each of the proposed schemes produces an optimal solution to the corresponding subproblem. Monte-Carlo simulations demonstrate that, for medium-sized tori, each of the three schemes produces a solution to the corresponding subproblem, which is optimal when compared to a large set of randomly produced link-removing schemes. Consequently, it is speculated that each of the three schemes produces an optimal solution to the corresponding subproblem for all torus networks. The set of links produced by each of our schemes is evenly distributed over a network, which may be a common feature of an optimal solution to the OLR problem for regular networks.

The Rationality of Four Metrics of Network Robustness: A Viewpoint of Robust Growth of Generalized Meshes.

There are quite a number of different metrics of network robustness. This paper addresses the rationality of four metrics of network robustness (the algebraic connectivity, the effective resistance, the average edge betweenness, and the efficiency) by investigating the robust growth of generalized meshes (GMs). First, a heuristic growth algorithm (the Proximity-Growth algorithm) is proposed. The resulting proximity-optimal GMs are intuitively robust and hence are adopted as the benchmark. Then, a generalized mesh (GM) is grown up by stepwise optimizing a given measure of network robustness. The following findings are presented: (1) The algebraic connectivity-optimal GMs deviate quickly from the proximity-optimal GMs, yielding a number of less robust GMs. This hints that the rationality of the algebraic connectivity as a measure of network robustness is still in doubt. (2) The effective resistace-optimal GMs and the average edge betweenness-optimal GMs are in line with the proximity-optimal GMs. This partly justifies the two quantities as metrics of network robustness. (3) The efficiency-optimal GMs deviate gradually from the proximity-optimal GMs, yielding some less robust GMs. This suggests the limited utility of the efficiency as a measure of network robustness.