• Wind and Structures
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.445-457
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• 2020

The buffeting response is a vital consideration for long-span bridges in typhoon-prone areas. In the conventional analysis, the turbulence and structural vibrations are assumed as stationary processes, which are, however, inconsistent with the non-stationary features observed in typhoon winds. This poses a question on how the stationary assumption would affect the evaluation of buffeting responses under non-stationary wind actions in nature. To figure out this problem, this paper presents a comparative study on buffeting responses of a long-span cable-stayed bridge based on stationary and non-stationary perspectives. The stationary and non-stationary buffeting analysis frameworks are firstly reviewed. Then, a modal analysis of the example bridge, Sutong Cable-stayed Bridge (SCB), is conducted, and stationary and non-stationary spectral models are derived based on measured typhoon winds. On this condition, the buffeting responses of SCB are finally analyzed by following stationary and non-stationary approaches. Although the stationary results are almost identical with the non-stationary results in the mean sense, the root-mean-square value of buffeting responses are underestimated by the stationary assumption as the time-varying features existing in the spectra of turbulence are neglected. The analytical results highlights a transition from stationarity to non-stationarity in the buffeting analysis of long-span bridges.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.175-179
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• 2015

Rad51, a key factor in the homologous recombination pathway for the DNA double-strand break repair, plays a vital role in genesis of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In recent years, more and more studies indicate that high expression of Rad51 is of great relevance to resistance of NSCLC to chemotherapeutic agents and ionizing radiation. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the role of single Rad51 on cell viability in vitro. Our results show that depletion of endogenous Rad51 is sufficient to inhibit the growth of the A549 lung cancer cell line, by accumulating cells in G1 phase and inducing cell death. We conclude that independent Rad51 expression is critical to the survival of A549 cells and can be an independent prognostic factor in NSCLC patients.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.7
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• pp.3313-3317
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• 2012

Prostate cancer is a highly prevalent disease in older men of the western world. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small RNA molecules that regulate gene expression via posttranscriptional inhibition of protein synthesis. To identify the diagnostic potential of miRNAs in prostate cancer, we downloaded the miRNA expression profile of prostate cancer from the GEO database and analysed the differentially expressed miRNAs (DE-miRNAs) in prostate cancerous tissue compared to non-cancerous tissue. Then, the targets of these DE-miRNAs were extracted from the database and mapped to the STRING and KEGG databases for network construction and pathway enrichment analysis. We identified a total of 16 miRNAs that showed a significant differential expression in cancer samples. A total of 9 target genes corresponding to 3 DE-miRNAs were obtained. After network and pathway enrichment analysis, we finally demonstrated that miR-20 appears to play an important role in the regulation of prostate cancer onset. MiR-20 as single biomarker or in combination could be useful in the diagnosis of prostate cancer. We anticipate our study could provide the groundwork for further experiments.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.4671-4673
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• 2013

Objectives: To study variation in T lymphocyte subgoups and its clinical significance in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: Levels of CD3+, CD4+, CD8+, CD4+/CD8+, NK and Treg cells in peripheral blood of NSCLC cases and healthy adults were determined by flow cytometry. Results: CD3+, CD4+ and CD4+/CD8+ ratio and NK cells in NSCLCs were decreased significantly in comparison with the control group (P < 0.01), and decreased with increase in the clinical stage of NSCLC, while CD8+ cells demonstrated no significant change (P > 0.05). Treg cells were significantly more frequent than in the control group (P < 0.01), and increased with the clinical stage of NSCLC. Conclusion: The cellular immune function of the NSCLC patients is lowered. It is important to detect change of T lymphocyte subgroups by flow cytometry for the diagnosis, treatment and prognostic assessment of NSCLC patients.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.693-703
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• 2018

To better understand the influence of hollow ratio on the hollow concrete-filled circular steel tubular (H-CFT) stub columns under axial compression and to propose the design formula of ultimate bearing capacity for H-CFT stub columns, 3D finite element analysis and laboratory experiments were completed to obtain the load-deformation curves and the failure modes of H-CFT stub columns. The changes of the confinement effect between core concrete and steel tube with different hollow ratios were discussed based on the finite element results. The result shows that the axial stress of concrete and hoop stress of steel tube in H-CFT stub columns are decreased with the increase of hollow ratio. AfteGr the yield of steel, the reduction rate of longitudinal stress and the increase rate of circumferential stress for the steel tube slowed down. The confinement effect from steel tube on concrete also weakened slowly with the increase of hollow ratio. Based on the limit equilibrium method, a simplified formula of ultimate bearing capacity for the axially loaded H-CFT stub columns was proposed. The predicted results showed satisfactory agreement with the experimental and numerical results.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.9
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• pp.5269-5273
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• 2013

Aim: We conducted a case-control matched study to investigate the role of IL-16 gene polymorphisms, rs4072111, rs1131445, rs4778889 and rs11556218, in the risk of gastric cancer in a Chinese population, also performing subgroup analysis by subsites. Methods: To test the hypothesis of involvement, we analyzed the four SNPs of IL16 in 347 cancer patients and 368 controls. Demographic data and other information were collected using a newly designed questionnaire. Genotyping of IL16 (rs4072111, rs1131445, rs4778889 and rs11556218) was performed in a 384-well plate format on the MassARRAY(R) platform. Results: In our study, we found the gastric cancer patients were more likely to be male and have a family history of cancer (P<0.05). We found the rs4778889 CC and rs11556218 GG genotype was significantly associated with 1.97 and 1.84-fold increased risk of non-cardia gastric cancer, while we did not find significant association between the four IL-16 SNPs and cardia gastric cancer. Conclusions: In conclusion, our study indicated that IL-16 rs4778889 CC and rs11556218 GG genotypes are associated with an increased risk of non-cardia gastric cancer in a Chinese population. Our results offer insights into the influence of IL-16 on development of gastric cancer.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1639-1649
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• 2016

This paper presents a family of soft-switching DC-DC converters with a simple auxiliary circuit consisting of a coupled winding and a pair of auxiliary switch and diode. The auxiliary circuit is activated in a short interval and thus the circulating conduction losses are small. With the auxiliary circuit, zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) and zero-current-switching are achieved for the main and auxiliary switches respectively, over wide input voltage range and load variation. In addition, the reverse-recovery problem of diodes is significantly alleviated because of the leakage inductor. Furthermore, the coupled inductor simultaneously serves as the main and auxiliary inductors, contributing to reduced magnetic component in comparison with the conventional zero-voltage-transition (ZVT) converters. Experimental results based on a 500 W prototype buck circuit validate the advantages and effectiveness of the proposed magnetic coupling ZVS converter.

• Journal of Communications and Networks
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.79-88
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• 2008

In this paper, we propose efficient peer assignment algorithms for low-latency transmission of scalable coded images in peer-to-peer networks, in which peers may dynamically join and leave the networks. The objective of our algorithm is to minimize the transmission time of a requested image that is scalable coded. When an image is scalable coded in different bit rates, the bit stream encoded in a lower bit rate is a prefix subset of the one encoded in a higher bit rate. Therefore, a peer with the same requested image coded in any bit rate, even when it is different from the requested rate, may work as a supplying peer. As a result, when a scalable coded image is requested, more supplying peers can be found in peer-to-peer networks to help with the transfer. However, the set of supplying peers is not static during transmission, as the peers in this set may leave the network or finish their transmission at different times. The proposed peer assignment algorithms have taken into account the above constraints. In this paper, we first prove the existence of an optimal peer assignment solution for a simple identity permutation function, and then formulate peer assignment with this identity permutation as a mixed-integer programming problem. Next, we discuss how to address the problem of dynamic peer departures during image transmission. Finally, we carry out experiments to evaluate the performance of proposed peer assignment algorithms.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.193-214
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• 2017

In this paper, we study the problem of network utility maximization in a CSMA based multi-hop wireless network. Existing work in this aspect typically adopted continuous time Markov model for performance modelling, which fails to consider the channel conflict impact in actual CSMA networks. To maximize the utility of a CSMA based wireless network with channel conflict, in this paper, we first model its weighted network capacity (i.e., network capacity weighted by link queue length) and then propose a distributed link scheduling algorithm, called CSMA based Maximal-Weight Scheduling (C-MWS), to maximize the weighted network capacity. We derive the upper and lower bounds of network utility based on C-MWS. The derived bounds can help us to tune the C-MWS parameters for C-MWS to work in a distributed wireless network. Simulation results show that the joint optimization based on C-MWS can achieve near-optimal network utility when appropriate algorithm parameters are chosen and also show that the derived utility upper bound is very tight.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.517-532
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• 2020

This paper firstly developed a new type of Double Skin Composite (DSC) beams using novel enhanced C-channels (ECs). The shear behaviour of novel ECs was firstly studied through two push-out tests. Eleven full-scale DSC beams with ECs (DSCB-ECs) were tested under four-point loading to study their ultimate strength behaviours, and the studied parameters were thickness of steel faceplate, spacing of ECs, shear span, and strength of concrete core. Test results showed that all the DSCB-ECs failed in flexure-governed mode, which confirmed the effective bonding of ECs. The working mechanisms of DSCB-ECs with different parameters were reported, analysed and discussed. The load-deflection (or strain) behaviour of DSCB-ECs were also detailed reported. The effects of studied parameters on ultimate strength behaviour of DSCB-ECs have been discussed and analysed. Including the experimental studies, this paper also developed theoretical models to predict the initial stiffness, elastic stiffness, cracking, yielding, and ultimate loads of DSCB-ECs. Validations of predictions against 11 test results proved the reasonable estimations of the developed theoretical models on those stiffness and strength indexes. Finally, conclusions were given based on these tests and analysis.