Three-dimensional schools of hydrodynamically axisymmetric swimmers self-propelling at a constant velocity are studied. We introduce a low-order model for the induced velocity based on the far-field approximation. We inquire if, by holding suitable relative positions in the three-dimensional space, the swimmers can reduce the overall energy consumption of the school in comparison with the same number of isolated individuals at the same velocity. We find a considerable (several per cent) energy saving achievable by chain formations. The benefit increases asymptotically with the number of individuals, towards a finite limit that is a function of the minimum allowed spacing between each pair of neighbours.

OBJECTIVES/GOALS: We modeled risk of reintubation within 48 hours of cardiac surgery using variables available in the electronic health record (EHR). This model will guide recruitment for a prospective, pragmatic clinical trial entirely embedded within the EHR among those at high risk of reintubation. METHODS/STUDY POPULATION: All adult patients admitted to the cardiac intensive care unit following cardiac surgery involving thoracotomy or sternotomy were eligible for inclusion. Data were obtained from operational and analytical databases integrated into the Epic EHR, as well as institutional and departmental-derived data warehouses, using structured query language. Variables were screened for inclusion in the model based on clinical relevance, availability in the EHR as structured data, and likelihood of timely documentation during routine clinical care, in the hopes of obtaining a maximally-pragmatic model. RESULTS/ANTICIPATED RESULTS: A total of 2325 patients met inclusion criteria between November 2, 2017 and November 2, 2019. Of these patients, 68.4% were male. Median age was 63.0. The primary outcome of reintubation occurred in 112/2325 (4.8%) of patients within 48 hours and 177/2325 (7.6%) at any point in the subsequent hospital encounter. Univariate screening and iterative model development revealed numerous strong candidate predictors (ANOVA plot, figure 1), resulting in a model with acceptable calibration (calibration plot, figure 2), c = 0.666. DISCUSSION/SIGNIFICANCE OF IMPACT: Reintubation is common after cardiac surgery. Risk factors are available in the EHR. We are integrating this model into the EHR to support real-time risk estimation and to recruit and randomize high-risk patients into a clinical trial comparing post-extubation high flow nasal cannula with usual care. CONFLICT OF INTEREST DESCRIPTION: REF has received grant funding and consulting fees from Medtronic for research on inpatient monitoring.

Four isonitrogenous and isoenergetic purified diets containing free arachidonic acid (ARA) or EPA (control group), 0·30 % ARA, 0·30 % EPA and 0·30 % ARA+EPA (equivalent) were designed to feed juvenile grass carp (10·21 (sd 0·10) g) for 10 weeks. Only the EPA group presented better growth performance compared with the control group (P<0·05). Dietary ARA and EPA were incorporated into polar lipids more than non-polar lipids in hepatopancreas but not intraperitoneal fat (IPF) tissue. Fish fed ARA and EPA showed an increase of serum superoxide dismutase and catalase activities, and decrease of glutathione peroxidase activity and malondialdehyde contents (P<0·05). The hepatopancreatic TAG levels decreased both in ARA and EPA groups (P<0·05), accompanied by the decrease of lipoprotein lipase (LPL) activity in the ARA group (P<0·05). Fatty acid synthase (FAS), diacylglycerol O-acyltransferase and apoE gene expression in the hepatopancreas decreased in fish fed ARA and EPA, but only the ARA group exhibited increased mRNA level of adipose TAG lipase (ATGL) (P<0·05). Decreased IPF index and adipocyte sizes were found in the ARA group (P<0·05). Meanwhile, the ARA group showed decreased expression levels of adipogenic genes CCAAT enhancer-binding protein α, LPL and FAS, and increased levels of the lipid catabolic genes PPAR α, ATGL, hormone-sensitive lipase and carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 (CPT-1) in IPF, whereas the EPA group only increased PPAR α and CPT-1 mRNA expression and showed less levels than the ARA group. Overall, dietary EPA is beneficial to the growth performance, whereas ARA is more potent in inducing lipolysis and inhibiting adipogenesis, especially in IPF. Meanwhile, dietary ARA and EPA showed the similar preference in esterification and the improvement in antioxidant response.

A defect in the intestinal barrier is one of the characteristics of Crohn's disease (CD). The tight junction (TJ) changes and death of epithelial cells caused by intestinal inflammation play an important role in the development of CD. DHA, a long-chain PUFA, has been shown to be helpful in treating inflammatory bowel disease in experimental models by inhibiting the NF-κB pathway. The present study aimed at investigating the specific effect of DHA on the intestinal barrier function in IL-10-deficient mice. IL-10-deficient mice (IL-10− / −) at 16 weeks of age with established colitis were treated with DHA (i.g. 35·5 mg/kg per d) for 2 weeks. The severity of their colitis, levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines, epithelial gene expression, the distributions of TJ proteins (occludin and zona occludens (ZO)-1), and epithelial apoptosis in the proximal colon were measured at the end of the experiment. DHA treatment attenuated the established colitis and was associated with reduced infiltration of inflammatory cells in the colonic mucosa, lower mean histological scores and decreased levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-17, TNF-α and interferon-γ). Moreover, enhanced barrier function was observed in the DHA-treated mice that resulted from attenuated colonic permeability, rescued expression and corrected distributions of occludin and ZO-1. The results of the present study indicate that DHA therapy may ameliorate experimental colitis in IL-10− / − mice by improving the intestinal epithelial barrier function.

There is increasing evidence to show that 2-cell stage mouse blastomeres have differing developmental properties. Additionally, it has been suggested that such a difference might be due to their distribution of mRNA and/or protein asymmetry. However, to date, the exact genes that are involved in the orientation and order of blastomere division are not known. In this study, some differentially expressed transcripts were identified. Axin1, cell division cycle 25 homolog C (Cdc25c) and cyclin-dependent inhibitor 2D (Cdkn2d) were selected for validation by real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based on published data. Our real-time PCR results demonstrated that Axin1, Cdc25c and Cdkn2d genes had different levels of expression among blastomeres of the mouse 2-cell embryo i.e. the level of Axin1 mRNA was significantly higher in one blastomere when compared with the other blastomeres of the 2-cell embryo (p < 0.05). The variation in Cdc25c (p < 0.05) and Cdkn2d (p < 0.01) mRNA expression followed a similar trend to that of Axin1. In addition, the highest levels of expression of these three genes were detected in the same blastomere in the 2-cell embryo. We confirmed that there was an asymmetrical distribution pattern for Axin1, Cdc25c and Cdkn2d transcripts in 2-cell embryos. In conclusion, this study demonstrated clearly that there is embryonic asymmetry at the 2-cell stage and that these differentially expressed genes may result in differentiation in expression in embryo development.

Vinpocetine has long been used for cerebrovascular disorders and cognitive impairment. Based on the evidence that the translocator protein (TSPO, 18 kDa) was expressed in activated microglia, while Vinpocetine was able to bind TSPO, we explored the role of Vinpocetine on microglia treated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) and oxygen–glucose deprivation (OGD) in vitro. Our results show that both LPS and OGD induced the up-regulation of TSPO expression on BV-2 microglia by RT-PCR, western blot and immunocytochemistry. Vinpocetine inhibited the production of nitrite oxide and inflammatory factors such as interleukin-1β (IL-1β), IL-6 and tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) in BV-2 microglia, in which cells were treated with LPS or exposed to OGD, regardless of the time Vinpocetine was added. Next, we measured cell death-related molecules Akt, Junk and p38 as well as inflammation-related molecules nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) and activator protein-1 (AP-1). Vinpocetine did not change cell death-related molecules, but inhibited the expression of NF-κB and AP-1 in LPS-stimulated microglia, indicating that Vinpocetine has an anti-inflammatory effect by partly targeting NF-κB/AP-1. Next, conditioned medium from Vinpocetine-treated microglia protected from primary neurons. As compared with in vitro, the administration of Vinpocetine in hypoxic mice also inhibited inflammatory molecules, indicating that Vinpocetine as a unique anti-inflammatory agent may be beneficial for the treatment of neuroinflammatory diseases.

Objective: To evaluate the role of transoesophageal echocardiography and problems related to safety during the surgical repair of congenital cardiac malformations in children. Methods: We examined the transoesophageal recordings made in 350 children with congenital cardiac diseases, aged from 2 months to 17 years and 9 months, with a median age of 2.7 years, tracings having been taken both before and after cardiopulmonary bypass. All patients had been scanned by transthoracic echocardiography before the operative procedures. Results: Preoperative transoesophageal echocardiography added additional findings, or changed the diagnoses made using transthoracic echocardiography, in 33 cases (9.4%), among which the findings had therapeutic significance in 23 cases (6.6%) that altered the planned surgical procedures. Residual problems or sequels were detected by postoperative transoesophageal echocardiography in 57 cases (16.3%), with 13 patients (3.7%) requiring instant intervention or return to bypass for modifications of the surgical procedures. We encountered no severe complications due to the performance of transoesophageal echocardiography. Mild complications occurred in only 2 patients (0.6%). Conclusions: Transoesophageal echocardiography is a useful tool with which to determine the strategies for treatment in the perioperative period, and to improve the quality of surgical procedures in children with congenital cardiac diseases. Complications were few, but still deserved careful attention to detail.

Botanical preparations, usually from non-host plants, can be used to manipulate the behaviour of insect pests and their natural enemies. In this study, the effects of extracts of Chrysanthemum morifolium, a non-host plant of the diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (Linnaeus), on the olfactory and oviposition responses of this phytophagous insect and on levels of parasitism by its specialist parasitoid Cotesia plutellae (Kurdjumov) were examined, using Chinese cabbage Brassica campestris L. ssp. pekinensis as the test host plant. Olfactometer tests showed that volatiles of chrysanthemum extract-treated host plants were less attractive to P. xylostella females than those from untreated host plants; and in contrast, volatiles of the chrysanthemum extract-treated host plants were more attractive to females of its parasitoid C. plutellae than those from untreated host plants. Oviposition preference tests showed that P. xylostella females laid only a small proportion of their eggs on chrysanthemum extract-treated host plants, while ovipositing parasitoid females parasitized a much higher proportion of host larvae feeding on the treated host plants than on untreated host plants. These results suggest that certain non-host plant compounds, when applied onto a host plant, may render the plant less attractive to a phytophagous insect but more attractive to its parasitoids. Application of such non-host plant compounds can be explored to develop push-pull systems to reduce oviposition by a pest insect and at the same time enhance parasitism by its parasitoids in crops.

In the present paper, we consider a wave system that is fixed at one end and a boundary control input possessing a partial time delay of weight $(1-\mu)$ is applied over the other end. Using a simple boundary velocity feedback law, we show that the closed loop systemgenerates a C 0 group of linear operators. After a spectral analysis, we show that the closed loop system is a Riesz one, that is, there is a sequence of eigenvectors andgeneralized eigenvectors that forms a Riesz basis for the state Hilbert space.Furthermore, we show that when the weight $\mu>\frac{1}{2}$ , for any time delay,we can choose a suitable feedback gain so that the closed loop system is exponentially stable. When $\mu=\frac{1}{2}$ , we show that the system is at most asymptotically stable. When $\mu<\frac{1}{2}$ , the system is always unstable.

The arterial supply of the digits of the forelimb of the Bactrian camel is described. The arteries supplying the digits were the palmar metacarpal and common palmar digital arteries III. The palmar metacarpal artery III was the continuation of the deep medial proximal metacarpal branch which was derived from the medial branch of the radial artery. It gave rise to a nutrient branch, medial branch, lateral branch and distal perforating palmar branch at the proximal end of the distal sixth of the cannon bone (fused third and fourth metacarpal bones). The common palmar digital artery III was the continuation of the median artery, which divided into medial and lateral branches. The medial branch of common palmar digital artery III which occasionally arose from the axial palmar proper digital artery III, after giving rise to the axial proximal proximal phalangeal branch, divided into the axial and abaxial palmar proper digital arteries III. The axial palmar proper digital artery III gave off the dorsoaxial distal proximal phalangeal, dorsoaxial proximal middle phalangeal, dorsoaxial distal middle phalangeal, palmoaxial middle phalangeal, palmoaxial distal phalangeal, dorsoaxial distal phalangeal branches, coronal artery and some digital tori branches. The abaxial palmar proper digital artery III gave rise to the abaxial proximal proximal phalangeal, dorsoabaxial distal proximal phalangeal, dorsoabaxial middle phalangeal, palmoabaxial middle phalangeal, palmoabaxial distal phalangeal, dorsoabaxial distal phalangeal branches, coronal artery and some digital tori branches. The lateral branch of the common palmar digital artery III in its origin, course, branching pattern and supply in the fourth digit was similar to the medial branch of common palmar digital artery III in the third digit.

PLT(28) thin films deposited on glass substrates were studied by two sputtering processes. One is an in situ magnetron sputtering and the other is a low-temperature magnetron sputtering. The sintered PLT ceramic powders are used as a sputtering target for both processes. The influences of sputtering and annealing conditions on structure and crystallinity of the films were investigated. The electro-optic (E-O) properties of PLT(28) thin films prepared by the two processes were determined by a technique according to Faraday effect. The researches showed the E-O properties were strongly affected by the sputtering process. The film with larger grains exhibits stronger E-O effect. The quadratic E-O coefficient of PLT(28) thin film varies in the range of 0.1 × 10−16 to 1.0 × 10−16 (m/v)2.