Value of Exhaled Nitric Oxide and FEF25–75 in Identifying Factors Associated With Chronic Cough in Allergic Rhinitis

Xiaofang Liu,Xiangdong Wang,Xiujuan Yao,Yuhong Wang,Yongchang Sun,Luo Zhang 대한천식알레르기학회 2019 Allergy, Asthma & Immunology Research Vol.11 No.6

Purpose: Chronic cough in allergic rhinitis (AR) patients is common with multiple etiologies including cough variant asthma (CVA), non-asthmatic eosinophilic bronchitis (NAEB), gastroesophageal reflux-related cough (GERC), and upper airway cough syndrome (UACS). Practical indicators that distinguish these categories are lacking. We aimed to explore the diagnostic value of the fraction of exhaled nitric oxide (FeNO) and forced expiratory flow at 25% and 75% of pulmonary volume (FEF25–75) in specifically identifying CVA and NAEB in these patients. Methods: Consecutive AR patients with chronic cough were screened and underwent induced sputum, FeNO, nasal nitric oxide, spirometry, and methacholine bronchial provocation testing. All patients also completed gastroesophageal reflux disease questionnaires. Results: Among 1,680 AR patients, 324 (19.3%) were identified with chronic cough, of whom 316 (97.5%) underwent etiology analyses. Overall, 87 (27.5%) patients had chronic cough caused by NAEB, 78 (24.7%) by CVA, 16 (5.1%) by GERC, and 81 (25.6%) by UACS. Patients with either NAEB or CVA (n = 165, in total) were further assigned to a common group designated as CVA/NAEB, because they both responded to corticosteroid therapy. Receiver operating characteristic curves of FeNO revealed obvious differences among CVA, NAEB, and CVA/NAEB (area under the curve = 0.855, 0.699, and 0.923, respectively). The cutoff values of FeNO at 43.5 and 32.5 ppb were shown to best differentiate CVA and CVA/NAEB, respectively. FEF25–75 was significantly lower in patients with CVA than in those with other causes. A FEF25–75 value of 74.6% showed good sensitivity and specificity for identifying patients with CVA. Conclusions: NAEB, CVA, and UACS are common causes of chronic cough in patients with AR. FeNO can first be used to discriminate patients with CVA/NAEB, then FEF25–75 (or combined with FeNO) can further discriminate patients with CVA from those with CVA/NAEB.

Investigation on the Dispersion Characteristics in Optical Fiber Telecommunication

Xiaofang Liu,Xiaohong Fan 보안공학연구지원센터 2014 International Journal of Future Generation Communi Vol.7 No.6

Dispersion is widely existed in the optical fiber. The reason is various, such as material dispersion, waveguide dispersion, mode dispersion, and so on. It will lead to the signal waveform distortion and pulse broadening and then limit the transmission capacity and bandwidth in the optical fiber. With the rapid development, transmission rate can reach even hundreds of Gb/s, and it may lead to many problems. Correspondingly, compensation methods have been paid much attention, and there are also many methods proposed for the compensation. However, we should know the characteristics of the dispersion in order to get compensation algorithms with much higher efficiency. Optical fiber systems with better performance will be designed and manufactured. In this paper, appropriate methods are adopted to analyze the photonic crystal fiber. With the adjusting of the structure parameters, we can design a highly nonlinear photonic crystal fiber with different dispersion characteristics. We study the characteristics of the dispersion of optical fiber communication. According to the analysis to obtain the dispersion characteristics of optical fiber under different parameters.

History and Practice of Thyroid Fine-Needle Aspiration in China, Based on Retrospective Study of the Practice in Shandong University Qilu Hospital

Zhiyan Liu,Dongge Liu,Bowen Ma,Xiaofang Zhang,Peng Su,Li Chen,Qingdong Zeng 대한병리학회 2017 Journal of Pathology and Translational Medicine Vol.51 No.6

Cytology in China developed from nothing and underwent a long journey from gynecologic cytology to that of all organs, laying a solid foundation for new developments in the 21st century. Thyroid fine-needle aspiration (FNA) was primarily developed in an endocrinology department and then in the clinical laboratory department or pathology department in the 1970–80s. Wrights staining is popular in endocrine and clinical laboratory departments, while hematoxylin and eosin staining is common in pathology. Liquid based cytology is not common in thyroid FNA cytology, while BRAFV600E mutation analysis has been the most popular molecular test. The history and practice of thyroid FNA practice in China were reviewed based on retrospective study of the practice in Qilu Hospital of Shandong University.

Degradation and Drug-release Behavior of Polylactic Acid (PLA) Medical Suture Coating with Tea Polyphenol (TP) -Polycaprolactone (PCL)/Polyglycolide (PGA)

Shuqiang Liu,Gaihong Wu,Xiaofang Zhang,Juanjuan Yu,Mingfang Liu,Yao Zhang,Peng Wang,Xiaolong Yin 한국섬유공학회 2019 Fibers and polymers Vol.20 No.2

The drug-release time of suture should meet with the healing time of wound, so it is needed to control the drugrelease performance of polylactic acid (PLA) suture. In this paper, two biodegradable polymers with different degradation rates, such as polycaprolactone (PCL) and polyglycolide (PGA), were applied to carry the drug of tea polyphenol (TP). The drug-loading finishing solution which is made of PCL/PGA carriers and TP, was coated on the PLA suture. The drug-release rate and time of PLA suture could be regulated by adjusting the proportion of PCL/PGA carriers. The results indicate that thesurface of drug-loaded PLA suture becomes rough. There is no obvious chemical reaction among the drug, carriers and PLA suture, just physical adhesion. With the increasing of PCL in drug-carriers, the strength of suture gradually increases. At 70/30 of PCL/PGA, the fracture elongation of suture reaches the highest point. In process of degradation, the surface of drugloaded PLA suture appears some holes after 25 weeks. The strength of sutures decreases gradually during degradation, and the effective strength time of sutures with various proportions of PCL/PGA is different. The drug-release rate of the suture isfast at early stage and slow at later stage and the higher the PGA proportion is, the faster the drug-release rate of the suture is.

Research of Forest Fire Smoke Recognition Method Based on Gray Bit Plane Technology

Xiaofang Sun,Liping Sun,Yaqiu Liu,Yinglai Huang 보안공학연구지원센터 2015 International Journal of Smart Home Vol.9 No.4

Apply the separation principle of the physical contradictions in TRIZ into the simulation of forest fire smoke and propose a forest fire smoke recognition algorithm based on gray bit-plane(short in FFSGBP) to change the problem of identifying the smoke into the analysis on the bit-plane images. To get eight images of moving smoke, the separation process on smoke moving images is necessary; use high-diagram image (the 7th,the 8th image) to extract contours, and extract the contour of the remaining images in the same position. Superimpose the information extracted, get the smoke model. By adding motion operators to the original image, we could simulate the motion of discrete smoke better, by using mean filter, we could reduce the influence of noise, and it can improve the reliability of the experiments. The results show that compared with the traditional method based on HSI model, the proposed algorithm can achieve the fire smoke detection quickly and obtain the contour model of the smoke inside efficiently and accurately.

SOME CLASSES OF REPEATED-ROOT CONSTACYCLIC CODES OVER _p_m+u_p_m+u²_p_m

Liu, Xiusheng,Xu, Xiaofang Korean Mathematical Society 2014 대한수학회지 Vol.51 No.4

Constacyclic codes of length $p^s$ over $R=\mathbb{F}_{p^m}+u\mathbb{F}_{p^m}+u^2\mathbb{F}_{p^m}$ are precisely the ideals of the ring $\frac{R[x]}{<x^{p^s}-1>}$. In this paper, we investigate constacyclic codes of length $p^s$ over R. The units of the ring R are of the forms ${\gamma}$, ${\alpha}+u{\beta}$, ${\alpha}+u{\beta}+u^2{\gamma}$ and ${\alpha}+u^2{\gamma}$, where ${\alpha}$, ${\beta}$ and ${\gamma}$ are nonzero elements of $\mathbb{F}_{p^m}$. We obtain the structures and Hamming distances of all (${\alpha}+u{\beta}$)-constacyclic codes and (${\alpha}+u{\beta}+u^2{\gamma}$)-constacyclic codes of length $p^s$ over R. Furthermore, we classify all cyclic codes of length $p^s$ over R, and by using the ring isomorphism we characterize ${\gamma}$-constacyclic codes of length $p^s$ over R.

Application and optimal design of the bionic guide vane to improve the safety serve performances of the reactor coolant pump

Liu Haoran,Wang Xiaofang,Lu Yeming,Yan Yongqi,Zhao Wei,Wu Xiaocui,Zhang Zhigang 한국원자력학회 2022 Nuclear Engineering and Technology Vol.54 No.7

As an important device in the nuclear island, the nuclear coolant pump can continuously provide power for medium circulation. The vane is one of the stationary parts in the nuclear coolant pump, which is installed between the impeller and the casing. The shape of the vane plays a significant role in the pump's overall performance and stability which are the important indicators during the safety serve process. Hence, the bionic concept is firstly applied into the design process of the vane to improve the performance of the nuclear coolant pump. Taking the scaled high-performance hydraulic model (on a scale of 1:2.5) of the coolant pump as the reference, a united bionic design approach is proposed for the unique structure of the guide vane of the nuclear coolant pump. Then, a new optimization design platform is established to output the optimal bionic vane. Finally, the comparative results and the corresponding mechanism are analyzed. The conclusions can be gotten as: (1) four parameters are introduced to configure the shape of the bionic blade, the significance of each parameter is herein demonstrated; (2) the optimal bionic vane is successfully obtained by the optimization design platform, the efficiency performance and the head performance of which can be improved by 1.6% and 1.27% respectively; (3) when compared to the original vane, the optimized bionic vane can improve the inner flow characteristics, namely, it can reduce the flow loss and decrease the pressure pulsation amplitude; (4) through the mechanism analysis, it can be found out that the bionic structure can induce the spanwise velocity and the vortices, which can reduce drag and suppress the boundary layer separation.

Measuring the Branching Angle for the Diagnosis of Hypertensive Retinopathy

Xiaofang Zhao,Huazhu Liu,Shanjin Wang,Tusheng Lin 보안공학연구지원센터 2016 International Journal of Multimedia and Ubiquitous Vol.11 No.11

The sizes and changes in the retinal arteries branching angles are an important characteristic for diagnose of hypertension, and also used as a preliminary index of the future location of the branch. An algorithm that can automatically calculate the branching angle which is defined according to vascular blood flow dynamics is presented. The result shows that the theoretical prediction and manual measurement have good agreement.

SOME CLASSES OF REPEATED-ROOT CONSTACYCLIC CODES OVER Fpm + uFpm + u2Fpm

Xiusheng Liu,Xiaofang Xu 대한수학회 2014 대한수학회지 Vol.51 No.4

Constacyclic codes of length ps over R = Fpm + uFpm + u2Fpm are precisely the ideals of the ring R[x]/(xps −1). In this paper, we investigate constacyclic codes of length ps over R. The units of the ring R are of the forms γ, α+uβ, α+uβ +u2γ and α+u2γ, where α, β and γ are nonzero elements of Fpm . We obtain the structures and Hamming distances of all (α+uβ)-constacyclic codes and (α+uβ+u2γ)-constacyclic codes of length ps over R. Furthermore, we classify all cyclic codes of length ps over R, and by using the ring isomorphism we characterize γ-constacyclic codes of length ps over R.

Protective association of Klotho rs495392 gene polymorphism against hepatic steatosis in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease patients

Wen-Yue Liu,Xiaofang Zhang,Gang Li,Liang-Jie Tang,Pei-Wu Zhu,Rafael S. Rios,Kenneth I. Zheng,Hong-Lei Ma,Xiao-Dong Wang,Qiuwei Pan,Robert J. de Knegt,Luca Valenti,Mohsen Ghanbari,Ming-Hua Zheng 대한간학회 2022 Clinical and Molecular Hepatology(대한간학회지) Vol.28 No.2

Background/Aims: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is closely associated with metabolic dysfunction. Among the multiple factors, genetic variation acts as important modifiers. Klotho, an enzyme encoded by the klotho (KL) gene in human, has been implicated in the pathogenesis of metabolic dysfunctions. However, the impact of variants in KL on NAFLD risk remains poorly understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of KL rs495392 C>A polymorphism on the histological severity of NAFLD. Methods: We evaluated the impact of the KL rs495392 polymorphism on liver histology in 531 Chinese with NAFLD and replicated that in the population-based Rotterdam Study cohort. The interactions between the rs495392, vitamin D, and patatin-like phospholipase domain containing 3 (PNPLA3) rs738409 polymorphism were also analyzed. Results: Carriage of the rs495392 A allele had a protective effect on steatosis severity (odds ratio [OR], 0.61; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.42–0.89; P=0.010) in Chinese patients. After adjustment for potential confounders, the A allele remained significant with a protective effect (OR, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.45–0.98; P=0.040). The effect on hepatic steatosis was confirmed in the Rotterdam Study cohort. Additional analysis showed the association between serum vitamin D levels and NAFLD specifically in rs495392 A allele carriers, but not in non-carriers. Moreover, we found that the rs495392 A allele attenuated the detrimental impact of PNPLA3 rs738409 G allele on the risk of severe hepatic steatosis. Conclusions: The KL rs495392 polymorphism has a protective effect against hepatic steatosis in patients with NAFLD.