Rationale: Radix scutellaria-Licorice drug pair (RSLDP), a frequently used herbal pair with the effect of clearing heat and detoxifying, is the commonly employed drug pair in TCM prescription for the treatment of COVID-19. Until now, the metabolism feature and anti-COVID-19 mechanism of RSLDP have not been fully elucidated. Methodology: In this study, a sensitive and rapid method was developed for the separation and identification of the absorbed constituents of RSLDP in the rat plasma by UHPLC-QTOF-MS. Besides, we optimized the conventional process ways of network pharmacology and proposed a new concept called target network pharmacology (T-NP). It used the absorbed constituents and the corresponding targets to generate compound-target network, and compare to the conventional network pharmacology, it could reduce the false positive results. Results: A total of 85 absorbed constituents were identified or tentatively characterized in dosed plasma,including 32 components in Radix Scutellaria,27 components in Licorice and 65 components in RSLDP. The results showed that the compatibility of Radix Scutellaria and Licorice increased the quantity of components in vivo. We found that 106 potential targets of 64 active compounds in RSLDP were related to COVID-19.And 12 targets (MAPK3,IL6,JUN,IL2,STAT3, AKT1,TNF,STAT1,EGFR,HSP9AA1,VEGFA,RELA) could be core targets for RSLDP in treating COVID-19. Conclusions: The metabolism feature of RSLDP in vivo was systematically uncovered. The combining use of the T-NP method could discover potential drug targets and disclose the biological processes of RSLDP, which will clarify the potential mechanisms of RSLDP in the treatment of COVID-19.

Abstract Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is an important ecological security barrier in China, and alpine ecosystem presents a trend of overall improvement under the influence of climate change and human activities, yet there are localized deteriorations. In order to improve the ecological function of the Tibetan Plateau, large-scale ecological restoration projects (ERPs) have been carried out in Tibetan Plateau over the past 30 years. From following the footstep of national ecological constructions to the implementation of projects specific to the plateau characteristics, the ERP of the plateau can be divided into three stages. Major ERPs focusing on four types of projects, i.e. forest protection and construction, grassland protection and construction, water and soil erosion control and desertification land management, with a total area of 850,000km 2 across the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The positive effect at sampling quadrat scale has been widely verified, and the responses of productivity and species diversity were inconsistent. The positive effect at the regional scale gradually emerges, yet the spatial difference is significant, and the quantification of driving forces is an important prerequisite. The positive and negative effects of existing ERP on biodiversity conservation are revealed, for instance, there is a significant increase of rare wild animals in natural reserves and in artificially planted areas it failed to effectively curb the loss of animal and plant diversity. The long-term effects of various ERPs on the biodiversity should be taken into account so as to optimize the ecological measures and build a sustainable management model after project restoration. By summarizing the achievements and problems of ERP across the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau in the past 30 years, we proposed to set stepwise ecological restoration and management scheme by different restoration goals and reference modes in three stages, i.e. “Environmental treatment—Ecological restoration projects—Adaptive management”.

Option pricing models are formulated based on mathematical theories. They are applied to estimate the fair value of an option. Among different pricing models, the linear Black-Scholes equation is very frequently used as option pricing model. Since assumptions of this linear model do not match precisely the real market conditions and do not allow to estimate the option price precisely there are developed more complicated non-linear Black-Scholes option pricing models. In these models volatility of underlying asset price or market risk free interest rate are assumed stochastic or time dependent. Moreover transaction costs are also taken into account. Quantum mechanics provides other approach to calculate option values using non-linear models. This approach is based on the similarity between the evolution of elementary particles in space and the volatility of the stock prices. In previous paper the authors have proposed non-linear Black-Scholes model to calculate option price based on quantum dynamics approach. This model has been obtained by suitable transformation of variables in non-linear Schrödinger equation with the external potential term. In this paper the non-linear quantum based option pricing model is numerically tested and verified. Based on this model, the calculation of European, Asian and American call option prices for market data is provided. The model parameters, especially the adaptive market potential, have been estimated based on market prices of European call options listed on Warsaw Stock Exchange as well as American call options prices based on the selected NYSE stock prices. The sensitivity of this model with respect to risk free interest rate has been investigated. For the sake of comparison non-linear Heston option pricing model has been also solved and calibrated using Monte Carlo method. The comparison of option pricing using the developed quantum based model, linear Black-Scholes model, Heston model, indicates higher precision and lower computational costs of the proposed enhanced non-linear model.

Aims The aim of this study was to look at effectiveness of SET as a single session in the treatment of depression associated with PTSD. Method A cohort of 82 subjects were assessed using the Beck Depression Inventory at the start of the single-session and at the conclusion of the single-session. Single session SET consisting of recording baseline measures, administration of four clinical exercises, questionnaire administration and results analysis. Results Results of the tests (n=82) showed clinically significant therapeutic effects from SET in a single therapy session with 76.82% improvement. Conclusions Results for the in-person single shot two hour SET depression intervention demonstrated clinically significant impact on depression symptoms associated with PTSD.

Numbers that can be expressed as (r 2 (r+1)) /2 for all r ≥ 1 are called pentagonal pyramidal numbers. Assume G to be a graph with p vertices and q edges. Let Φ: V(G) →{0, 1, 2… B c} where B c is the c ℎ number with a pentagonal pyramid, be an injective function. Define the function Φ* :E(G) →{1,6,18,.., B c } such that Φ * (ab) = |Φ(a)- Φ(b)| which is true for each and every edge abϵE(G). If Φ*(E(G)) represents a sequential arrangement of non-identical successive pentagonal pyramidal numbers {B 1, B 2, …, B c}, then Φ can be regarded as the pentagonal pyramidal graceful labeling. The graph permitting labeling of such kind can be referred to as a pentagonal pyramidal graceful graph. This study examines some unique pentagonal pyramidal elegant graph labeling outcomes.

Mechanical property of biological cells can act as an indicator for the health state of a human being. Mathematical modelling of cells help to understand and predict the cell deformation patterns that might provide insightful finding for cell mechanics. Many models have been developed that tries to explain the cell mechanics at the cellular level. We propose an analytical model that considers the poroelastic nature of cells to understand their deformation behavior. The validity of the model is tested by comparing the predicted cell deformations against the experimental observations reported by Raj et al. (2017). Also, a computational study is performed, where we employ an in house Python code along with MS Excel GRG solver which incorporates the cell deformation predictions from developed poroelastic model and predicts the Young’s modulus value of the cells. The predictions using GRG based approach showed a good match with the experimental results with a maximum error of 12.09% in the case of MDA MB-231 cells. Further, we present an artificial neural network model to predict the Young’s modulus and viscosity of cells based on the experimentally measured input parameters such as entry time, transit velocity, initial cell diameter and extension ratio from the cell migration process through a micro-constriction channel. It was found that the neural network with architecture of 4-5-1 was best suited for the MCF-10A cells while the 4-8-1 architecture was giving better results for the MDA MB-231 cells. The developed ANN model is further tested for Young’s Modulus prediction of HeLa cells with completely new set of data. The predictions from ANN based model for HeLa cells matched well the experimental prediction within 4.5 % of error.

Experimental and theoretical studies have established that the transition to turbulent from laminar flow (promoting the drag coefficient) may be prevented/delayed by the fluid suction from the boundary layer to the plate. Due to such an active role of laminar flow control in plummeting drag ensuing improvement in the power of vehicle by a considerable amount, this work aims to analyze periodic suction impact on 3-dimensional unsteady oscillatory flow of Jeffery fluid flowing laminarly along an infinite porous plate lying horizontally with transverse sinusoidal suction. The free stream velocity swings to and fro about a constant mean in time. The flow becomes 3-dimensional because of transverse direction of the periodic suction velocity. Approximate solutions are attained for velocity components, shear stresses and pressure. On these physical quantities the impact of dimensionless parameters budding in the problem under consideration are graphically visualized and analytically conferred. The x-component of velocity is noted to be increasing for rising values of Re which causes the decay in boundary layer thickness. Further, the velocity component u is found to be reducing with increasing values of β because of the fluid thickening. It is also observed that an enhancement in Re causes to reduce the pressure. On the contrary, α causes to rise the pressure. The shear stress along the z-direction is augmented by increasing the suction parameter. The shear stress in the z-direction also increases by increasing the elastic parameter because of the thickening of the fluid. The results of present study agree to published work in limiting sense. This study is advantageous in manufacturing and designing LFCS (laminar flow control system) to improve the vehicle power necessity.

In this paper, we analyse results of the 1 5 th International Henryk Wieniawski Violin Competition by comparing the properties of its results network to the properties of generic networks of votings. Suppose that a competition Comp is given. In this competition, k contestants are rated by n jurors. Suppose that the Borda count is used as a voting method, i.e. every juror gives k points for the best contestant, k−1 points for the second best contestant, and so on. In particular, the worts contestant gets 1 point. For such a competition, we create a weighted network N ( Comp ) in the following way. The node set of N ( Comp ) corresponds to jurors and the link set of N ( Comp ) consists of all links { J s , J t : s ≠ t } . For link l st connecting nodes J s and J t , we assign the weight w ( l st ) = w st , where w st = LF 2 ( α s α t − 1 ) . Here LF 2 is a Lehmer norm on the permutation group S k , whereas α s and α t denotes the votes of jurors J s and J t , respectively. In particular, for i = 1 , 2 , . . . , k , α s ( i ) is the number of points given to the i-th contestant by juror J s . The similar holds for juror J t . Note that α s and α t can be considered as elements of S k . Suppose now that the probability measure P is given on space V of all possible votings of a single juror, i.e. on space S k . Suppose that every juror votes independently according to P. We repeat such a voting process 100 times and for every j = 1 , 2 , . . . , 1 0 0 , we create a network N j in the way described above. In this paper, we compare some statistical properties of networks N j , for probability measures P being the convex combinations of two Dirac probability measures and a uniform probability measure, to the properties of network of jurors’ votings in the 2016 Wieniawski Competition.

Some common physical diseases, such as diabetes and hypertension, require comprehensive diagnosis with ophthalmology in clinical practice. However, the huge number of patients has led to insufficient medical supply in many underdeveloped areas. Therefore, this work proposes a novel deep learning framework based on binocular fundus image pairs for the detection of 8 diseases related to the eyes and body. For the first time, the framework improves its basic capabilities by pre-training external fundus datasets and then uses the Multi-scale Dilated Convolution (MDC) module to fuse binocular features to realize the binocular diagnosis. To verify the effectiveness of the method, 4 different convolutional neural network (CNN) architectures are selected as the backbone and tested on the multi-label classification benchmark. Through extensive experimental comparisons, it is found that the innovations proposed in this paper improve the performance of all CNN architectures and achieve state-of-the-art results in the field.

Understanding and analyzing heterogeneous reactions in packed bed reactors is important in many applications. Here we present a computational model to investigate the impact of surface texturing on enzyme immobilizing scaffolds in a packed bed environment. It was hypothesized that the implementation of surface texturing would increase the overall reactive surface area of the bed and thus improve reactor efficiency. The model utilizes computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to solve the transport, multi-component flow, and reaction kinetic equations. A stochastic algorithm for random packing of sphere-like particles was also implemented to mimic the random packing that exists in a typical packed bed. This model analyzes the many coupled forms of transport and reaction kinetics that exist in a packed bed reactor with the goal of improved resolution and understanding of the system. The impact of form drag as it relates to scaffold geometry on outlet product concentration is included.

In this article, a short-term distribution network reconfiguration problem is solved by considering the protection coordination as a constraint to improve the voltage profile in peak load emergencies. The prevailing view of this paper is that without focus on coordination of the final network topology, it allows the protective devices to pick up currents temporarily beyond their limits caused by switchings during a temporary peak load. Using an evolutionary search method, this article tries to solve the distribution network reconfiguration problem by minimizing the voltage deviations, switching time and switching numbers. It significantly considers distance-dependent time-lapses to satisfy the constraint of time-current characteristics of the protective devices during switchings. The proposed approach is investigated on a 16-bus sample network coordinated by fuses with the satisfactory improvement of the voltages with least interruption in comparison with reconfigurations ignoring this protection constraint.

\ref{408840}The myths of romantic love are so deeply rooted in our culture that they have shaped the way we conceive relationships. These myths have been linked to intimate partner violence, beginning in teen dating relationships. Since these myths are present throughout socialization, it is possible that their acceptance is associated with a higher perpetration of abuse, but also with its acceptance because of its normalization. This study explored the relationship of romantic love myths with the commission and tolerance of violent behavior in a sample of 70 participants between 13 and 17 years of age. The results showed a considerable acceptance of the myths of romantic love between adolescents, and a relationship between the myths and abusive behavior (both perpetrated and experienced), being psychological and relational abuse the most common. No gender differences were observed, which may support the hypothesis of bidirectionality, that is, boys and girls engage in abusive behavior in dating relationships. The implications of these results for prevention are discussed.Keywords:  dating violence, myths, romantic love, bidirectionality, adolescents

The clinical assessment of patients with disorders of consciousness (DoC) relies on the observation of behavioral responses to standardized sensory stimulation. However, several medical comorbidities may directly impair the production of reproducible and appropriate responses, thus reducing the sensitivity of behavior-based diagnoses. One of these is Akinetic Mutism (AM), a rare neurological syndrome characterized by the inability to initiate volitional motor responses, sometimes associated with clinical presentations overlapping with those of DoC. Here we describe the case of a patient with large bilateral mesial frontal lesions showing a prolonged behavioral unresponsiveness and a severe disorganization of electroencephalographic (EEG) background, compatible with a vegetative state/unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (VS/UWS). By applying an unprecedented battery of multimodal longitudinal measurements encompassing spontaneous EEG, evoked potentials, event-related potentials, transcranial magnetic stimulation-evoked potentials, and structural and functional MRI, we provide (i) a demonstration of the preservation of consciousness despite unresponsiveness in the context of a complete AM, (ii) a plausible neurophysiological explanation of behavioral unresponsiveness and of its subsequent recovery during rehabilitation stay and (iii) novel insights into the relationships between DoC, AM and parkinsonism. The present case provides proof-of-principle evidence supporting the clinical utility of a multimodal hierarchical workflow combining conventional and advanced techniques to detect covert signs of consciousness in unresponsive patients.

This paper describes a gesture interface for the control of a mobile robot equipped with a manipulator. The interface uses a camera to track a person and recognize gestures involving arm motion. A fast, adaptive tracking algorithm enables the robot to track and follow a person reliably through environments with changing lighting conditions. Two alternative methods for gesture recognition are compared: a template based approach and a neural network approach. Both are combined with the Viterbi algorithm for the recognition of gestures defined through arm motion (in addition to static arm poses). Results are reported in the context of an interactive clean-up task, where a person guides the robot to specific locations that need to be cleaned and instructs the robot to pick up trash. Service robotics is currently a pivotal research area in robotics, with enormous societal potential. Since service robots directly interact with people, ending "natural" and easy-to-use user interfaces is of fundamental importance. While past work has predominately focussed on issues such as navigation and manipulation, relatively few robotic systems are equipped with exible user interfaces that permit controlling the robot by "natural" means.

Colorectal cancer is a fatal disease that is steadily increasing. Herein, we report a 36-year-old male with a seven-month history of colon adenocarcinoma, who presented with a painless, exophytic, bilateral scrotal mass, mimicking lymphangioma in shape. To our knowledge, cutaneous metastasis mimicking lymphangioma is rarely described in the literature.

As the first discovered histone demethylase, LSD1 plays an important role in maintaining the function of normal and tumor cells. In previous studies, it has been found that LSD1 is highly expressed in a variety of tumor cells, such as acute myeloid leukemia, non-small cell lung cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and gastric cancer, etc. Therefore, targeting LSD1 is a promising strategy for the treatment of tumors. Cell stemness refers to the characteristics of self-replication, rapid proliferation, and multidirectional differentiation potential. Moreover, cancer stem cells could regulate self-renewal, cell proliferation, migration and malignant phenotype. Therefore, lowering the tumor cells stemness could inhibit their growth effectively and inhibition of stem cell characteristics has a bright prospect in the field of tumor therapy. Up to now, there exist many studies revealing the significant role of LSD1 in regulating the stemness characteristics such as embryonic stem cells differentiation and inhibition of LSD1 decreased the property of cancer cell stemness. However, there lacks a detailed review about the relationship of LSD1 and cancer cell stemness. Herein, in this review, we summarized the mechanisms of LSD1 in regulating cell stemness comprehensively, in addition, related inhibitors targeting LSD1 to inhibit the proliferation characteristics of cancer stem cells are also described.

Researchers suggest that exposure to greater lexical diversity provides toddlers and preschoolers better language outcomes, while shared book reading is known to facilitate the outcomes. This study examined whether reading to infants played a similar role and whether maternal lexical diversity during infancy is crucial for subsequent language development. Maternal language input at 6 months was videotaped during book reading and toy play and transcribed for analysis. Children’s expressive vocabulary was measured at 18 months. Results found that mothers used more diverse vocabulary and spoke more words with their 6-month-old infants during book reading compared to toy play interactions, with maternal lexical diversity at 6 months significantly predicting children’s expressive vocabulary at 18 months after maternal education and infants’ gestation week were controlled. These findings highlight the value of lexical diversity to preverbal infants while shared book reading is an effective way to boost the richness of parental language input.

Congenital heart disease is a risk factor for infective endocarditis. Ventricular septal defects and ventricular outflow tract obstructions are the most common causes of endocarditis in this population. We presented a patient diagnosed with leukocytoclastic vasculitis with renal and pulmonary involvement with right-sided infective endocarditis as an etiology for vasculitis.

Carcinoma arising in a thyroglossal duct cyst is rare and occurring with concomitant thyroid carcinoma even more so. We discuss a case of a man in his 50s with congenital blindness with papillary thyroid carcinoma of a thyroglossal duct cyst and the thyroid and the treatment considerations

Next-generation networks powered by millimetre wave (mmW) technology offer improved data rates in the range of a few Gigabits per second. Heterogeneous networks (HetNets) with mmWave capability must be reliable, adaptable, and energy-efficient. It is suggested to maximise the transmission power of small cells to get better performance. This leads to the use of intelligent techniques namely, Q-learning approach that will allow seamless connectivity. A higher degree of automation, cooperation, and intelligence in distributed HetNets are applied using Q-learning with Markov decision process (MDP) based technique. The first objective is to perform cooperative online learning scheme to allocate power based on MDP in the Two-tier HetNet. Maximizing energy efficiency through effective power distribution is the second objective. The suggested technique improves the network’s overall energy efficiency and capacity by optimizing judicious power usage based on the probability of an MDP state transition. Cooperative learning techniques and the right Markov state models can enhance both macrocell and femtocell service, enhancing user experience.

OBJECTIVE: Cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) is used prior to bariatric surgery in adolescents with obesity to assess surgical risk factors. Lack of normative equations for peak oxygen consumption (pVO2) for this population limits CPET interpretation. We aimed to use lean body weight (LBW) to predict pVO 2 and developed novel predictive equations for use in this population. METHODS: 446 participants with obesity ages 9-20 underwent CPET prior to bariatric surgery from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2019. Bioelectrical impedance analysis helped calculate LBW. Achieving peak heart rate > 90% predicted and RER of >1.1 were considered satisfactory effort. RESULTS: 107 CPET studies (29%) were satisfactory. Mean weight was 127 ± 21 kg, and BF% 49.7 ± 6.8, and LBW 63 ± 10, kg. Mean pVO 2 was 22.2 ± 3.2 mL/kg/min. The mean pVO 2 using LBW was 44.8 ± 8.7 mL/kg/min. Total body weight (TBW) estimated pVO 2 to be 50.7 ± 7.0 % predicted[(1)](#ref-0001), while LBW estimated it at 102.3 ± 17.6 % predicted. Linear regression yielded reference equations pVO 2=1571.6+12.2*TBW (males) and pVO2=1301.8+10.6*TBW (females). CONCLUSION: When pVO 2 is corrected for LBW, adolescents with obesity demonstrate normal pVO 2. A novel set of equations were developed to predict absolute pVO 2 using TBW.

Adolescent marriages and pregnancies are a great risk for both mother and baby, they can cause morbidity and mortality as well as psychiatric problems. Presentation of the cases of a girl who did not know her real date of birth and age, and a newborn who gave birth after a difficult and invasive delivery. Adolescent marriage and child motherhood is abuse that hinders growth, development and well-being. Both mother and newborn should be considered as child abuse, the event should not be normalized. These children should be treated as child abuse and psychiatric examination should be provided for each of them.

Introduction: Nasal continuous positive airway pressure (nCPAP) is one of the most commonly used non-invasive ventilation modes in neonates with transient tachypnea of the newborn (TTN). Non-invasive high frequency oscillatory ventilation (nHFOV) is an non-invasive ventilation mode that has been increasingly used in neonatal respiratory disorders. Based on the unique physiologic advantages that nHFOV offers, we hypothesized that nHFOV might result in a decrease in the duration of non-invasive positive pressure ventilation in neonates with TTN. Methods: Late preterm and term infants > 34 weeks’ gestation were included in the study. Infants were randomized into nHFOV or nCPAP groups. Treatment was started with standard settings in both groups. Infants who met treatment failure criteria were switched to nasal intermittent mandatory ventilation for further positive-pressure support. Results: Total of 60 infants were included in the study. Thirty of these infants were included in the nHFOV group and 30 were included in the nCPAP group. There was no difference between the groups in terms of duration of positive-pressure ventilation; however, it showed a decreasing trend in the nHFOV group (21 hours, IQR [16-68] vs 15 hours, IQR [11-33]; p=0.09). After adjusting for confounders, the nHFOV group had a shorter duration of positive-pressure ventilation compared with the nCPAP group (mean difference: 16.3 hours; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.7 to 31.9; p=0.04). Conclusion: Non-invasive high frequency oscillatory ventilation can shorten the duration of positive-pressure ventilation and supplemental oxygen in TTN.

Background Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is manifested by deformation of the chest wall, including a bell-shaped chest. We determined the ability of a novel non-ionizing, non-volitional method to measure and quantify bell-shaped chests in SMA. Methods A 3D depth camera and a chest X-ray (CXR) were used to capture chest images in 14 SMA patients and 28 controls. Euclidean and geodesic chest and abdominal distances were measured from the 3D images, and horizontal distances were measured from the CXR images. The ratio of the chest to abdominal distances was used to quantify chest shape in both the 3D depth camera and the CXR, and both were compared between healthy and SMA patients. Results The mean 3D Euclidian ratio of distances was 1.00 in the control group and 0.92 in the SMA group ( p = 0.01), the latter indicative of a bell-shaped chest. This result repeated itself in the geodesic measurements (0.99 vs. 0.89, respectively, p = 0.03). Conclusion The herein-described novel noninvasive 3D method for measuring the chest and abdominal distances was shown to distinguish the bell-shaped chest configuration in patients with SMA from the normal chests of controls. This method bears several advantages over CXR and may be readily applicable in clinical settings that manage children with SMA.