infection in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region: Prevalence and analysis of related factors.

Background: C urea breath test (C UBT) and immunohistochemical staining (IHC) are widely used for detection () infection with different sensitivity, and there is a difference in infection rate in Uyghur and Han ethnic groups. Both need large cohort studies to evaluate the differences more accurately.

Aim: To analyze the difference between C UBT and IHC for detection in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and the difference between Uyghur and Han populations.

Research on the schemes formulation and optimization method of sponge reconstruction in a highway service area.

This study proposed a method for constructing a low impact development (LID) plan to improve the utilization rate of rainwater in a highway service area and solve the problem of waterlogging. Firstly, based on the theory of LID, taking the total runoff as the control goal, and combining it with the functional zoning of the highway service area and the characteristics of LID facilities, several LID schemes were proposed. Then, the evaluation system of the LID scheme in service area was established by the analytic hierarchy process (AHP).

Effects of vegetation restoration and environmental factors on understory vascular plants in a typical karst ecosystem in southern China.

Understory vegetation is an important component in most forest ecosystems. It is very important for soil and water conservation in karst region, study on understory will provide valuable information for understanding the interaction mechanism between understory flora and karst environment. Thirty-two plots were sampled in three vegetation types along with a restoration gradient (shrubland, forest-shrub transition, and mixed-species broadleaf forest) in typical karst mountains in Southwest Guangxi, China.

Multi-subject brain decoding with multi-task feature selection.

In the neural science society, multi-subject brain decoding is of great interest. However, due to the variability of activation patterns across brains, it is difficult to build an effective decoder using fMRI samples pooled from different subjects. In this paper, a hierarchical model is proposed to extract robust features for decoding.

Contrast response functions with wide-view stimuli in the human visual cortex.

In this manuscript, using a novel wide-view visual presentation system that we developed for vision research and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we studied contrast response functions in regions of the brain that are central and peripheral to the entire set of visual areas (V1, V2, V3, V3A, MT+), regions that have not been all investigated in previous vision research. Under the stimulus conditions which were 0-20 deg, 20-40 deg, and 40-60 deg eccentricity black-and-white checkerboard patterns, we measured the blood oxygenation level-dependent fMRI contrast response at five contrast levels (6, 12, 24, 48, and 96%) in the visual areas. On the basis of these data, the central and pericentral visual areas had low-contrast gain, whereas the peripheral visual areas had high-contrast gain.

[Natural regeneration of young Excentrodendron hsienmu in karst mountainous region in Southwest Guangxi, China].

A field survey was conducted in the karst mountainous region in Pingguo County of Southwest Guangxi, China to explore the structural characteristics, spatial distribution pattern, and growth dynamics of young Excentrodendron hsienmu as well as the main environmental factors affecting the natural regeneration of the E. hsienmu population. In the study area, the population structure of the young E.

Texture analysis and classification of ultrasound liver images.

Ultrasound as a noninvasive imaging technique is widely used to diagnose liver diseases. Texture analysis and classification of ultrasound liver images have become an important research topic across the world. In this study, GLGCM (Gray Level Gradient Co-Occurrence Matrix) was implemented for texture analysis of ultrasound liver images first, followed by the use of GLCM (Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix) at the second stage.

New approach to epileptic diagnosis using visibility graph of high-frequency signal.

A new nonlinear approach is presented for high-frequency electrocorticography (ECoG)-based diagnosis of epilepsy. The ECoG data from 3 patients with epilepsy are analyzed in this study. A recently developed algorithm in graph theory, visibility graph (VG), is applied in this research.

Analysis of frequency domain of EEG signals in clinical location of epileptic focus.

As a suddenly abnormal discharge of brain neurons, epilepsy can lead to encephalographic (EEG) abnormalities. Data of 3 epileptic patients recorded by depth intracranial electrodes are analyzed with time-frequency algorithms to observe the abnormal changes in different frequency ranges. Comparing the frequency domain of the normal and epileptic signals that contain several periods of clinical seizures and intervals, a remarkable range of high frequency is identified and corresponds to the seizure.

IB-LBM simulation of the haemocyte dynamics in a stenotic capillary.

To study the behaviour of a haemocyte when crossing a stenotic capillary, the immersed boundary-lattice Boltzmann method was used to establish a quantitative analysis model. The haemocyte was assumed to be spherical and to have an elastic cell membrane, which can be driven by blood flow to adopt a highly deformable character. In the stenotic capillary, the spherical blood cell was stressed both by the flow and the wall dimension, and the cell shape was forced to be stretched to cross the stenosis.

Potential therapeutic applications of differentiated induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

Difficulties in realizing persistent neurogenesis, inabilities in modeling pathogenesis of most cases, and a shortage of disease material for screening therapeutic agents restrict our progress to overcome challenges presented by neurodegenerative diseases. We propose that reprogramming primary somatic cells of patients into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) provides a new avenue to overcome these impediments. Their abilities in self-renewal and differentiation into various cell types will enable disease investigation and drug development.

Numerical simulation and comparative analysis of flow field in axial blood pumps.

The objective study was to estimate the rheological properties and physiological compatibility of the blood pump by simulating the internal flow field of the blood pump. In this study we use computational fluid dynamics method to simulate and analyse two models of axial blood pumps with a three-blade diffuser and a six-blade diffuser, named pump I and pump II, respectively, and to compare the flow patterns of these two kinds of blood pumps while both of them satisfy the conditions of the normal human blood differential pressure and blood flow. Results indicate that (i) the high shear force occurs between the diffuser and the rotor in which the crucial place leads to haemolysis and (ii) under the condition of 100 mmHg pressure head and 5 l/min flow rate, the difference between the two kinds of blood pumps, as far as the haemolytic performance is concerned, is notable.

An approach to determine myocardial ischemia by hidden Markov models.

A hidden Markov model (HMM) of electrocardiogram (ECG) signal is presented for detection of myocardial ischemia. The time domain signals that are recorded by the ECG before and during the episode of local ischemia were pre-processed to produce input sequences, which is needed for the model training. The model is also verified by test data, and the results show that the models have certain function for the detection of myocardial ischemia.

Theoretical approach to blood ejection from the human left ventricle.

An ejection dynamics mathematical model of human left ventricle (LV) based on physiological data of human heart is proposed in this study. The mathematical equations were expressed in terms of vorticity-stream function equations in a prolate spheroidal coordinate system. These equations combined with specified boundary conditions were numerically solved by using an alternating-direction-implicit (ADI) algorithm with second order accuracy.