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Macrophages are crucial immune cells within the tumor microenvironment (TME), involved in regulating tumor proliferation, invasion, metastasis, ECM remodeling, angiogenesis, and immunosuppression. Although more and more experimental evidence and clinical data indicate that macrophages are involved in the onset and progression of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), the exact pathogenesis of OSCC associated with macrophages has not been fully elucidated. Enhanced knowledge of the molecular mechanisms involving macrophages in OSCC will aid in the creation of treatments targeted specifically at macrophages. This review outlines the pro-tumoral and anti-tumoral effects of macrophages in OSCC, emphasizing the interaction between OSCC cells and macrophages. It can provide theoretical basis for the establishment of complex regulatory network centered on macrophages and explore novel therapeutic strategies for OSCC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Individuals who suffer from simple snoring rarely go to a doctor due to a lack of medical knowledge, but simple snoring can reduce the individual's quality of life and may cause social problems to the bed partner/family members. Objectives: The aims of the present study are to explore the effects of online modified oropharyngeal exercises on the individuals with simple snoring and to provide a rehabilitation method for individuals with simple snoring. Methods: This study is a double‐blinded, two‐arm, randomized controlled trial. Participants were enrolled and randomly assigned to the intervention group (n = 33) or the control group (n = 33). The participants in the control group received health education on snoring, while the participants in the intervention group received the modified oropharyngeal exercise besides health education on snoring. The intervention duration was 4 weeks. The primary outcomes included snoring index, snoring loudness, and snoring quantity. The secondary outcomes included self‐reported snoring, sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, and quality of life. All outcomes were measured at baseline, 4 weeks, and 8 weeks. Results: Generalized estimating equations (GEE) analyses showed significant differences between the intervention group and the control group on snoring index, loudness, and quantity (p <.001). Moreover, modified oropharyngeal exercise had effects on sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, and quality of life in individuals with simple snoring (p <.001). Self‐reported snoring also improved at 8 weeks. Conclusion: The modified oropharyngeal exercises were effective in improving simple snoring. It could also improve sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, anxiety symptoms, depression symptoms, and quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OsNRAMP5 is a pivotal gene involved in the uptake and transport of cadmium and manganese in rice plants. While the knockout of OsNRAMP5 has significantly decreased cadmium accumulation in rice grains, its impact on the adaptability of indica hybrid rice and its paternal parent still needs to be more adequately explored. This study conducted a three-year field experiment with two of the OsNRAMP5 knockout lines (indica hybrid rice LYDG-1 and its paternal parent DG-1) and their wild-type at four distinct locations in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Their adaptability was evaluated by cadmium and manganese accumulation, yield traits, and grain quality. The findings reveal that OsNRAMP5 knockout lines, when grown in mildly and moderately Cd-contaminated paddies, exhibit significantly and stably lower cadmium and manganese accumulation compared with the wild-type. However, there were no significant differences in cadmium and manganese content between LYDG-1 and DG-1. Regarding yield traits, OsNRAMP5 knockout lines did not show a significant reduction compared with the wild-type, except for DG-1 in soil with lower manganese content. For grain quality, the quality of the appearance of OsNRAMP5 knockout lines significantly improved compared with the wild-type. However, the milling quality of DG-1 significantly reduced compared with the wild-type, while this negative impact for LYDG-1 was only observed in soils with lower manganese content. Overall, the indica hybrid rice with an OsNRAMP5 knockout exhibits better adaptability than its paternal parent in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. These findings offer valuable insights into the potential application and promotion of OsNRAMP5 mutant rice varieties in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optically pumped magnetometers (OPMs) are a promising sensor technology for non-invasive measurement of human electrophysiological signals, in particular the magnetoencephalogram (MEG). OPMs do not need cryogenic cooling and can be placed conformal to the subject's scalp, thus greatly reducing the sensor-to-source distance and improving signal sensitivity. OPMs, however, require near-zero background magnetic field to achieve linearity and minimize signal distortion. Prior work has proposed the use of biplanar field nulling coils to remove the uniform and gradient components of the background magnetic field. Biplanar coils have been expensive to construct, involving tedious error-prone manual winding of over 1000 m of copper wire. In this work, we designed and fabricated background field nulling coils (three uniform and three gradient components) on two-layer Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs). We used an open-source software (bfieldtools) to determine the current loops needed to produce the target magnetic field in a 50-cm-diameter spherical volume. We developed a software-based approach to connect the discrete current loops into a continuous conducting path traversing the two layers of the PCB. For ease of manufacture, the designed (1.5 × 1.5 m 2 ) coils were cut along the symmetry axis and printed as pairs of 1.5 × 0.75 m 2 PCBs (2 oz Cu), soldered together and mounted on a sliding aluminum frame. The efficiency of the coils (1.3 - 7.1 nT/mA) was similar or higher than previously reported in the literature. We mapped the field inside the target region after field nulling inside our single-layer shielded room and were able to reduce the largest component of the background field from 21 to 2 nT. Using our nulling coil system, we were able to operate OPMs in a lightly shielded room (background field varying from 6.5 to 108 nT in the floor-to-ceiling direction) to record somatosensory evoked fields (SEFs) comparable to those measured using SQUID-based MEG in a 3-layer shielded room. We disseminate the software and hardware as an open-source package opmcoils. This work will facilitate access to more affordable field nulling coils for OPM-MEG and help to realize the potential of OPM-MEG as an accessible sensor technology for use in human neuroscience., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Objective: Due to the recognition for the importance of early intervention in Alzheimer's disease (AD), it is important to focus on prevention and treatment strategies for mild cognitive impairment (MCI). This study aimed to establish a risk prediction model for AD among MCI patients to provide clinical guidance for primary medical institutions., Methods: Data from MCI subjects were obtained from the NACC. Importance ranking and the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) method for the Random Survival Forest (RSF) and Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) algorithms in ensemble learning were adopted to select the predictors, and hierarchical clustering analysis was used to mitigate multicollinearity. The RSF, XGBoost and Cox proportional hazard regression (Cox) models were established to predict the risk of AD among MCI patients. Additionally, the effects of the three models were evaluated., Results: A total of 3674 subjects with MCI were included. Thirteen predictors were ultimately identified. In the validation set, the concordance indices were 0.781 (RSF), 0.781 (XGBoost), and 0.798 (Cox), and the Integrated Brier Score was 0.087 (Cox). The prediction effects of the XGBoost and RSF models were not better than those of the Cox model., Conclusion: The ensemble learning method can effectively select predictors of AD risk among MCI subjects. The Cox proportional hazards regression model could be used in primary medical institutions to rapidly screen for the risk of AD among MCI patients once the model is fully clinically validated. The predictors were easy to explain and obtain, and the prediction of AD was accurate., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interests The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Yuhai Zhang reports financial support was provided by National Natural Science Foundation of China. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2025. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS.)

Background: Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) JingYinGuBiao formula (JYGB) was recommended by the Expert consensus on Traditional Chinese Medicine diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 infection in Shanghai. We evaluated the safety and efficacy of JYGB in treating mild COVID-19 patients. Methods: A prospective, double-blind, randomized, controlled trial was conducted (ClinicalTrial.gov registration number: ChiCTR2200058695). A total of 885 patients were randomized into the treatment group (administration of JYGB,n=508) or the control group (administration of TCM placebo, n=377) with 7-day treatment. The primary outcomes were the negative conversion rate and negative conversion time of SARS-CoV2 RNA. Secondary outcomes included the hospitalized days and symptom improvement. Results: A total of 490 and 368 patients in the treatment and control groups completed the study. The cumulative negative conversion rates at 2 days, 3 days, 4 days, and 6 days post randomization in the treatment group were all markedly higher than those in the control group (13.88% vs. 9.24%, P =0.04; 32.24% vs. 16.58%, P <0.001; 51.43% vs. 36.14%, P <0.001; 77.76% vs. 69.84%, P =0.008). Compared with the control group, after JYGB treatment, the median negative conversion time (4.0 [3.0-6.0] vs. 5.0 [4.0-7.0] days, P <0.001) and hospitalized days (6.0 [4.0-8.0] vs. 7.0 [5.0-9.0] days, P <0.001) were reduced. While the symptoms were improved, there were no significant differences in symptom disappearance rates between both groups. In addition, further sub-group analysis showed that for patients with interval time ≤4 days or patients≤ 60 years, the clinical effects of JYGB were more remarkable with an increase in cumulative negative conversion rates, a decrease in negative conversion time and hospitalized days. JYGB was well tolerated without any severe side effects. Conclusion: JYGB, a TCM prescription, improves the negative conversion rate of SARS-CoV2 in mild COVID-19 patients., Competing Interests: Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interest exists., (© The author(s).)