Description: As life expectancy continues to increase around the world, the use of minimally invasive surgery (MIS) could be beneficial for octogenarian and older gastric cancer patients.

Description: Fast steering mirror is a device used for controlling the beam direction precisely. Due to the short travel of the push-pull FSM, a compound fast steering mirror system driven by both limited-angle voice coil motor and push-pull FSM together is proposed. In the compound FSM system, limited-angle voice coil motor quickly swings at wide angle, while the push-pull FSM do high frequency movement in a small range, which provides the system with the high bandwidth and long travel. In the control strategy, the method of combining feed-forward control in Kalman filtering with auto-disturbance rejection control is used to improve trajectory tracking accuracy. The simulation result shows that tracking accuracy measured by the compound method can be improved by more than 5 times than that of the conventional PID.

Description: Background: The rs17145738 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) near MLX interacting protein-like/transducin (beta)-like 2 (MLXIPL/TBL2) loci is associated with serum lipid levels, but the results are inconsistent in diverse ethnic/racial groups. The current study was to investigate the association of MLXIPL/TBL2 rs17145738 SNP and several environmental factors with serum lipid profiles in the Guangxi Mulao and Han populations. Methods: A total of 649 subjects of Mulao nationality and 712 participants of Han nationality aged 16--84 years were randomly selected from our previous stratified randomized samples. Genotyping was performed by polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism combined with gel electrophoresis, and then confirmed by direct sequencing. Results: Serum apolipoprotein (Apo) B levels were higher in Mulao than in Han (P 〈 0.001). There were no significant differences in the genotypic and allelic frequencies of the MLXIPL/TBL2 rs17145738 SNP between the two ethnic groups or between males and females. The T allele carriers had higher triglyceride (TG) and ApoB levels in Mulao, and higher total cholesterol (TC) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels in Han than the T allele non-carriers (P 〈 0.05 for all). Subgroup analyses showed that the T allele carriers had higher ApoB levels in both Mulao and Han females than the T allele non-carriers, but the T allele carriers had lower ApoB levels in Han males than the T allele non-carriers (P 〈 0.05, respectively). The T allele carriers in Han had higher TC, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels and ApoA1/ApoB ratio and lower TG levels in males, and higher LDL-C levels and lower ApoA1/ApoB ratio in females than the T allele non-carriers (P 〈 0.05 for all). Serum TC levels in the combined population of the two ethnic groups and in Han, and HDL-C levels in Han males were correlated with genotypes (P 〈 0.05 for all). Serum lipid parameters were also correlated with several environmental factors (P 〈 0.05-0.01). Conclusions: The association of MLXIPL/TBL2 rs17145738 SNP and serum lipid profiles is different between the Mulao and Han populations. There is a sex-specific association in the both ethnic groups.

Description: Privacy and security are very important in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). VANETs are negatively affected by any malicious user’s behaviors, such as bogus information and replay attacks on the disseminated messages. Among various security threats, privacy preservation is one of the new challenges of protecting users’ private information. Existing authentication protocols to secure VANETs raise challenges, such as certificate distribution and reduction of the strong reliance on tamper-proof devices. In 2011, Yeh et al. proposed a PAACP: a portable privacy-preserving authentication and access control protocol in vehicular ad hoc networks. However, PAACP in the authorization phase is breakable and cannot maintain privacy in VANETs. In this paper, we present a cryptanalysis of an attachable blind signature and demonstrate that the PAACP’s authorized credential (AC) is not secure and private, even if the AC is secretly stored in a tamper-proof device. An eavesdropper can construct an AC from an intercepted blind document. Any eavesdropper can determine who has which access privileges to access which service. For this reason, this paper copes with these challenges and proposes an efficient scheme. We conclude that an improving authentication scheme and access control protocol for VANETs not only resolves the problems that have appeared, but also is more secure and efficient.

Description: Analytical Chemistry DOI: 10.1021/ac5001898

Description: The effects of the fermentation conditions on both the biomass yield and the organic selenium yield of Thelephora ganbajun zang were studied. The components most suitable for the submerged fermentation medium were examined using the orthogonal array method; they comprised sucrose at 30 g L −1 , carbamide 1 g L −1 , corn steep liquor 8 g L −1 , MgSO 4 ·7H 2 O 0.3 g L −1 , KH 2 PO 4 0.5 g L −1 , and NaCl 5 g L −1 . The optimum cultivation conditions that resulted in maximal biomass yield were obtained using the response surface methodology (RSM). The conditions were as follows: initial pH, 5.84; temperature, 26.16 °C; and rotation speed, 170 rpm. Feeding sucrose led to a higher biomass yield, with a maximum of 21.20 g L −1 . The biomass yield and the organic Se yield of T. ganbajun could reach 10.8 g L −1 and 3256.07 mg kg −1 , respectively, in a culture medium supplemented with 200 mg L −1 sodium selenite (Na 2 SeO 3 ), which was added to the medium at 36 h after inoculation. Application of the orthogonal array method and RSM gave rise to a significant enhancement in the biomass yield of T. ganbajun . The results of these experiments indicate that T. ganbajun is a promising microorganism for selenium enrichment.