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Learning-related attention is one of the most important factors influencing learning. Although technologies have enabled the automatic detection of students' attention levels, previous studies mainly focused on colleges or high schools, lacking further validations in primary school students. More importantly, the detected attention might fail to be learning-related if students did not attend learning tasks in the first place, which is common in real-world learning. This phenomenon poses challenges to the practical application of automatic attention detection, especially at the primary school stage, which is crucial for students to develop learning attitudes/strategies. Inspired by the emerging inter-person perspective in neuroscience, we proposed an inter-brain attention coupling method to detect learning-related attention as an extension to the existing single-person-based method. To test this method, wearable electroencephalogram devices were used to monitor students' attention levels in a primary school classroom. We found that one's inter-brain attention coupling, defined as the degree to which an individual student's attention dynamics match the attention dynamics averaged across other classmates, was positively correlated with academic performance: higher performances are associated with higher coupling to the class-average attention dynamics. Moreover, the attention detection framework based on the inter-person perspective outperforms as an indicator of academic performance compared with the widely-used attention level within an individual. The results provide practical insights by extending the applications of detected attention levels from an inter-person perspective and demonstrating its feasibility in monitoring learning-related attention among primary school students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study intends to assess the reference range of lamotrigine concentration for treating childhood epilepsy. Methods: PubMed, Ovid-Embase, The Cochrane Library, CNKI, WanFang data and VIP databases were searched from database inception to January 2022. RCT, cohort study, case–control study, cross-sectional study that estimated the reference range of lamotrigine for children epilepsy treatment were included. The data extracted included basic information, statistical methods, data type, and results of reference range. Descriptive analysis was performed for them. Results: 8 studies were included and estimated the reference range, and all of them were calculated based on efficacy data and/or concentration data. Statistical methods including ROC curve, concentration-effect curve, mean ± standard deviation, 95% confidence interval and percentile interval were utilized. For lamotrigine monotherapy, the lower limits ranged from 2.06 mg/L to 3.99 mg/L, and the upper limits ranged from 8.43 mg/L to 9.08 mg/L, showing basic consistency. However, for lamotrigine concomitant with valproate, the lower limits ranged from 2.00 mg/L to 8.00 mg/L, and the upper limit was 11.50 mg/L, for lamotrigine concomitant with other antiepileptics, the lower limits ranged from 1.00 mg/L to 3.09 mg/L, and the upper limits varied from 5.90 mg/L to 16.24 mg/L, indicating inconsistency. Conclusion: Several studies have estimated the reference range of lamotrigine for childhood epilepsy, while controversy exist and no studies have determined the upper limit of the range based on safety data. To establish the optimal reference range, further high-quality studies are necessary that consider both efficacy and safety data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2020, novel coronavirus pneumonia has been spreading rapidly around the world, bringing tremendous pressure on medical diagnosis and treatment for hospitals. Medical imaging methods, such as computed tomography (CT), play a crucial role in diagnosing and treating COVID-19. A large number of CT images (with large volume) are produced during the CT-based medical diagnosis. In such a situation, the diagnostic judgement by human eyes on the thousands of CT images is inefficient and time-consuming. Recently, in order to improve diagnostic efficiency, the machine learning technology is being widely used in computer-aided diagnosis and treatment systems (i.e., CT Imaging) to help doctors perform accurate analysis and provide them with effective diagnostic decision support. In this paper, we comprehensively review these frequently used machine learning methods applied in the CT Imaging Diagnosis for the COVID-19, discuss the machine learning-based applications from the various kinds of aspects including the image acquisition and pre-processing, image segmentation, quantitative analysis and diagnosis, and disease follow-up and prognosis. Moreover, we also discuss the limitations of the up-to-date machine learning technology in the context of CT imaging computer-aided diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of nano-molybdenum disulfide (nano-MoS2) on the tribological behavior of polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) with a cobalt leaching depth of 422 μm were studied in this research. Ball-on-disk friction tests were conducted to evaluate the impact of nano-MoS2 concentration and bearing capacity on the lubrication effect of drilling fluid and the friction performance of PDC. The results demonstrated that the addition of nano-MoS2 enhanced the lubrication effect of drilling fluid and improved the friction performance of PDC. The study also discussed the lubrication mechanism of drilling fluid and the mechanism by which adding nano-MoS2 enhances tribological properties. These findings contribute to deepen the understanding of the friction and wear mechanism of PDC in lubricating environment, and provide a theoretical reference for the future application of PDC in the petroleum field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to improve the stock price prediction effect, based on the improved PSO algorithm, this paper constructs a stock price prediction model through neural network. Based on the idea of avoiding particles falling into the same local solution as much as possible and always keeping the particles with a certain diversity, in order to improve the global search ability of the algorithm in the early stage of evolution and the local search ability in the later stage of the evolution, the adaptive adjustment of inertial weight is proposed, and the algorithm is improved by combining with neural network. In addition, on the basis of the improved algorithm, this paper constructs a stock price prediction system based on neural network. Finally, this paper designs experiments to verify the function of the model from the perspectives of stock data collection and processing, and stock price prediction accuracy, and draw statistical graphs based on the statistical research results. The results of the research show that the system constructed in this paper has a certain practical effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs) consist of small-cell lung cancer (SCLC), large-cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC), typical carcinoid (TC), and atypical carcinoid (AC). We aimed to analyze the immunophenotypic, metastatic, and prognostic risk factors for PNETs. Materials and methods: A total of 266 patients with PNETs were enrolled, including 219 patients with SCLC, 18 patients with LCNEC, 11 patients with TC, and 18 patients with AC. Clinicopathological characteristics and immunophenotypes were compared among the subtypes of PNETs. Risk factors for metastasis, progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS) were analyzed. Results: Thyroid transcription factor-1 (TTF-1) and the Ki-67 index were significantly different among subtypes of PNETs (all P < 0.05). Smoking (OR, 2.633; P = 0.031), high pretreatment carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA > 5 ng/ml: OR, 3.084; P = 0.014), and poorly differentiated pathotypes (P = 0.001) were independent risk factors for lymph-node metastasis. Smoking (OR, 2.071; P = 0.027) and high pretreatment CEA (OR, 2.260; P = 0.007) were independent risk factors for distant metastasis. Results of the multivariate Cox regression model showed pretreatment CEA (HR, 1.674; P = 0.008) and lymphocyte–monocyte ratio (LMR) (HR = 0.478, P = 0.007) were significantly associated with PFS; BMI (P = 0.031), lymph-node metastasis (HR = 4.534, P = 0.001), poorly differentiated pathotypes (P = 0.015), platelet–lymphocyte ratio (PLR) (HR = 2.305, P = 0.004), and LMR (HR = 0.524, P = 0.045) were significantly associated with OS. Conclusions: PNETs are a group of highly heterogeneous tumors with different clinical manifestations, pathological features, and prognoses. Knowing clinicopathological characteristics and immunophenotypes of PNETs is significant for diagnosis. Pretreatment PLR, LMR, and CEA have certain value in the prognosis of PNETs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Infection with Brucella is characterized by the inhibition of host immune responses. MicroRNA-155 (miR-155) has been implicated in the immune response to many diseases. In this study, its expression during Brucella 16M infection of macrophages and mice was analyzed. Expression of miR-155 was significantly induced in macrophages at 24 h post infection. Further, an analysis of infected mice showed that miR-155 was inhibited at 7 and 14 days but induced at 28 days. Interestingly, this trend in induction or inhibition was reversed at 7 and 14 days in 16M△virB-infected mice. This suggested that decreased expression of miR-155 at an early stage of infection was dependent on intracellular replication. In humans with brucellosis, serum levels of miR-155 were significantly decreased compared to those in individuals without brucellosis and healthy volunteers. Significant correlations were observed between serum level of miR-155 and serum anti-Brucella antibody titers and the sweating symptom. This effect suggests that Brucella interferes with miR-155-regulated immune responses via a unique mechanism. Taken together, data from this study indicate that Brucella infection affects miR-155 expression and that human brucellosis patients show decreased serum levels of miR-155. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To explore the efficacy and safety of rivaroxaban in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD), heart failure (HF) and sinus rhythm (SR). Methods: Comprehensive literature searches were conducted using the PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, CNKI and Wanfang databases from inception to February 2021. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) focusing on the efficacy and safety of new oral anticoagulant (NOAC) therapy in CAD and HF patients in SR were eligible. Statistical analyses were performed using R Programming Language. Results: Three RCTs included 10,658 adult patients treated with antiplatelet drugs with or without rivaroxaban were ultimately analysed. The average follow-up period was 20.4–24 months. Rivaroxaban had a favourable point estimate in myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke (MI rivaroxaban group (3.83%, 203/5306) vs. APT group (4.52%, 214/4731), RR = 0.78, 95% CI 0.65–0.94, P < 0.01, I2 = 0%), (stroke: rivaroxaban group (1.60%, 85/5306) vs. APT group (2.52%, 119/4731), RR = 0.64, 95% CI 0.49–0.85, P < 0.01, I2 = 12%) compared with the placebo. Rivaroxaban was comparable to the placebo for all-cause death and major bleeding (all-cause death: rivaroxaban group (12.27%, 688/5606) vs. APT group (14.59%, 737/5052), RR = 0.73, 95% CI 0.49–1.06, P > 0.05, I2 = 87%), (major bleeding: rivaroxaban group (1.52%, 85/5586) vs. APT group (1.37%, 69/5043), RR = 1.18, 95% CI 0.86–1.62, P > 0.05, I2 = 0%). Conclusions: In SR patients with CAD and HF, the rates of MI and stroke associated with rivaroxaban combined with APT were lower than those associated with APT alone, and the two treatments had similar rates of all-cause death and major bleeding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metformin (MET) and sitagliptin (STG) are widely used as the first-line and long-term oral hypoglycemic agents for managing type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). However, the current lack of convenient and rapid measurement methods poses a challenge for individualized management. This study developed a point-of-care (POC) assay method utilizing a miniature mass spectrometer, enabling rapid and accurate quantification of MET and STG concentrations in human blood and urine. By combining the miniature mass spectrometer with paper spray ionization, this method simplifies the process into three to four steps, requires minimal amounts of bodily fluids (50 μL of blood and 2 μL of urine), and is able to obtain quantification results within approximately 2 min. Stable isotope-labeled internal standards were employed to enhance the accuracy and stability of measurement. The MS/MS responses exhibited good linear relationship with concentration, with relative standard deviations (RSDs) below 25%. It has the potential to provide immediate treatment feedback and decision support for patients and healthcare professionals in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Class-specific cost regulation extreme learning machine (CCR-ELM) can effectively deal with the class imbalance problems. However, its key parameters, including the number of hidden nodes, the input weights, the biases and the tradeoff factors are normally generated randomly or preset by human. Moreover, the number of input weights and biases depend on the size of hidden layer. Inappropriate quantity of hidden nodes may lead to the useless or redundant neuron nodes, and make the whole structure complex, even cause the worse generalization and unstable classification performances. Based on this, an adaptive CCR-ELM with variable-length brain storm optimization algorithm is proposed for the class imbalance learning. Each individual consists of all above parameters of CCR-ELM and its length varies with the number of hidden nodes. A novel mergence operator is presented to incorporate two parent individuals with different length and generate a new individual. The experimental results for nine imbalance datasets show that variable-length brain storm optimization algorithm can find better parameters of CCR-ELM, resulting in the better classification accuracy than other evolutionary optimization algorithms, such as GA, PSO, and VPSO. In addition, the classification performance of the proposed adaptive algorithm is relatively stable under varied imbalance ratios. Applying the proposed algorithm in the fault diagnosis of conveyor belt also proves that ACCR-ELM with VLen-BSO has the better classification performances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this research was to study the precipitation of Sb and the stability of Sb2S3 during treatment of synthetic Sb(V) wastewater by sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB). We investigated the transformation and precipitation of Sb, as well as the re-dissolution of Sb2S3 under different pH and carbon sources. The results showed that the precipitation of aqueous Sb and the re-dissolution of Sb2S3 depend on the conversion between Sb(III)-S(-II) complexes and Sb2S3 precipitates. These processes were highly pH-dependent, and a decrease in pH enhanced reduction of Sb(V) and precipitation of Sb2S3 were observed. The newly formed Sb2S3 was found to be unstable and could re-dissolve through complexation with H2S due to the increase in pH. When pH decreased to approximately 6.5, Sb was almost completely transformed into Sb2S3 precipitates, and the Sb2S3 precipitates were relatively stable. Compared with lactate as a carbon source, ethanol resulted in a comparable H2S yield and a relatively low pH and was, therefore, more conducive to the removal of Sb(V). The results of this study suggest that when removing Sb(V) in wastewater by SRB, it is important to control the pH at a relatively low level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Crescent formation in immunoglobulin A nephropathy (IgAN) has been demonstrated to be a risk factor for worse outcomes. For IgAN patients with 0–25% crescentic glomeruli (C1), whether corticosteroids (CS) can improve the prognosis remains unclear. We tried to investigate the need for using CS in IgAN patients with C1 in different proteinuria levels. Methods: A total of 120 eligible IgAN patients with C1 from two academic medical centers were retrospectively studied, and 57 (47.5%) received CS. Patients were grouped according to with or without CS. The outcomes were the rate of estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) decline (ml/min per 1.73 m2/year) and a composite outcome (50% decrease in eGFR, end stage renal disease (ESRD) or death due to kidney disease). The progression of adverse outcome among them were analyzed in Kaplan–Meier curve. The independent significance of CS on renal outcome or eGFR decline rate were analyzed by multivariable Cox regression or linear regression. Results: Unadjusted Kaplan–Meier showed that the outcome of treated patients was better than that of the untreated patients. Multiple Cox regression and linear regression analysis found that CS independently protected the renal outcome and decreased the eGFR decline rate. In the subgroup analysis, multivariate linear regression showed that CS decreased the eGFR decline rate both in proteinuria ≥ 1 g/day and < 1 g/day. Conclusions: CS protected the renal outcome and slowed the eGFR decline rate of IgAN patients with C1, it also decreased the eGFR decline rate even in those with initial proteinuria < 1 g/day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: PABA/NO, O2-{2,4-dinitro-5-[4-(N-methylamino) benzoyloxy] phenyl} 1-(N, N-dimethylamino) diazen-1-ium-1,2-diolate, is a diazeniumdiolate-based NO-donor prodrug that releases exogenous nitric oxide at high concentrations to induce apoptosis in many tumor cell lines.Purpose: This study aimed to determine the effects of PABA/NO on hepatocellular carcinoma proliferation and apoptosis induction both in vitro and in vivo experiments.Results: PABA/NO dramatically inhibited the growth of Bel-7402 hepatocellular carcinoma cells and significantly induced apoptosis in a concentration-dependent manner, accompanied by down-regulation of Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL, up-regulation of Bax and Bad, release of Cyt c and activation of cleaved-caspase-9/3 and cleaved-PARP, which were related to suppressing PI3K/AKT/mTOR and MEK/ERK signaling pathways. LY294002 (a PI3K inhibitor) and U0126 (an ERK inhibitor) prior to PABA/NO were found to synergistically enhance PABA/NO-induced apoptosis. Carboxy-PTIO as a NO scavenger obviously attenuated PABA/NO-induced apoptosis. Additionally, H22 tumor-bearing mice experiments demonstrated that PABA/NO exerted good anti-tumor effects via reducing tumor volume, tumor weight and decreasing the expression of CD34. Furthermore, PABA/NO treatment strongly inhibited the phosphorylation of PI3K/AKT/mTOR and MEK/ERK signaling pathways in H22 hepatocellular carcinoma tissues.Conclusions: PABA/NO induced apoptosis through inhibition of PI3K/Akt/mTOR and MEK/ERK pathway in hepatocellular carcinoma cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To verify whether PsA-associated HLA alleles proposed in other populations are also related to PsA in Chinese Han population, a study of PsA susceptible alleles in the HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-C and HLA-DRB1 alleles was presented for Chinese Han population. Genotyping was performed by Illumina Miseq platform (Illumina, USA). 50 subtypes and 77 subtypes of HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-C and HLA-DRB1 with minor allele frequency (MAF) > 1% were genotyped from two-digit and four-digit resolution analysis in 111 PsA and 207 HCs (healthy controls) collected from Chinese Han population, respectively. Data handling, quality control and association analysis were performed using SPSS 25.0 software. In risk estimate, by mean of Bonferroni correction, a newfound four-digit allele HLA-A*01:01 [P = 5.5 × 10−4, OR 3.35 (1.69–6.66)], four-digit allele HLA-C*06:02 [P = 8.5 × 10−7, OR 3.80 (2.23–6.47)] and six two-digit alleles HLA-A*01 [P = 5.2 × 10−5, OR 3.43 (1.89–6.23)], HLA-B*13 [P = 4.0 × 10−6, OR 2.65 (1.76–4.01)], HLA-B*27 [P = 7.5 × 10−4, OR 5.84 (2.09–16.29)], HLA-B*57 [P = 5.8 × 10−5, OR 20.10 (4.65–86.83)], HLA-C*03 [P = 2.1 × 10−4, OR 0.40 (0.25–0.65)], HLA-C*06 [P = 1.9 × 10−12, OR 4.48 (2.95–6.81)] showed statistical significance by the univariate binary logistic regression analysis. Besides, in the binary logistic regression analysis with multiple variables, when the two alleles HLA-A*01:01 and HLA-C*06:02 were considered as covariates, HLA-A*01:01 [P = 2.7 × 10−3,OR 2.95 (1.46–5.98)] also showed significant association for PsA as risk factor, but may be not the main risk factor [HLA-C*06:02, P = 3.0 × 10−6, OR 3.68 (2.13–6.37)]. When all the above two-digit alleles were included as covariates, HLA-A*01 [P = 4.8 × 10−2, OR 2.00 (1.01–3.94)], HLA-B*13 [P = 4.2 × 10−5, OR 2.62 (1.65–4.16)], HLA-B*27 [P = 1.7 × 10−4, OR 7.62 (2.64–21.96)], HLA-B*57 [P = 2.97 × 10−4, OR 15.90 (3.55–71.18)], HLA-C*06 [P = 6.1 × 10−5, OR 2.70 (1.66–4.40)] showed significant for PsA as risk factors, HLA-C*03 [OR 0.65 (0.39–1.09), P = 0.10] showed no association with PsA. In conclusion, we assessed HLA-A, HLA-B, HLA-C and HLA-DRB1 alleles in PsA cohort of Chinese Han population, found HLA-A*01:01 and HLA-A*01 may be the susceptible genes associated with PsA, and also confirmed the association of four loci with PsA in Chinese Han population. These findings may extend the susceptibility HLA alleles of PsA and help in developing possible genetic markers to predict PsA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hospitalized medical patients undergoing transition of care by house staff teams at the end of a ward rotation are associated with an increased risk of mortality, yet best practices surrounding this transition are lacking.Aim: To assess the impact of a warm handoff protocol for end-of-rotation care transitions.Setting: A large, university-based internal medicine residency using three different training sites.Participants: PGY-2 and PGY-3 internal medicine residents.Program Description: Implementation of a warm handoff protocol whereby the incoming and outgoing residents meet at the hospital to sign out in-person and jointly round at the bedside on sicker patients using a checklist.Program Evaluation: An eight-question survey completed by 60 of 99 eligible residents demonstrated that 85% of residents perceived warm handoffs to be safer for patients (p < 0.001), while 98% felt warm handoffs improved their knowledge and comfort level of patients on day 1 of an inpatient rotation (p < 0.001) as compared to prior handoff techniques. Finally, 88% felt warm handoffs were worthwhile despite requiring additional time (p < 0.001).Discussion: A warm handoff protocol represents a novel strategy to potentially mitigate the known risks associated with end-of-rotation care transitions. Additional studies analyzing patient outcomes will be needed to assess the impact of this strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were in-situ deposited onto the ordered mesoporous carbon (OMC) to function as a novel SPME coating. The specific area, pore volumes and average pore diameter for OMC and AuNP/OMC were calculated to be 411 and 281 m g, 0.93 and 0.69 cm g, 7.1 and 6.8 nm, respectively. The results indicate that the introduction of AuNPs greatly enhances the extraction of anilines, probably due to the strong interaction between gold and amino groups. The composite material was coated onto a fiber which then gave enrichment factors in the range from 1143 to 3420 for anilines, 45 to 845 for alcohols and 86 to 545 for phenols, indicating its extraction selectivity towards aniline. Following desorption, four anilines were quantified by gas chromatography with flame ionization detection. The method has low limits of detection (0.072-0.18 μg L) and a good precision (1.9-3.8%). It was successfully applied to the analysis of anilines in river and drinking samples. Recoveries range from 83.9% to 107.7% and 94.0 to 113.1%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between plasma EBV-DNA load (PEDL) and Epstein–Barr virus (EBV)-encoded small RNA (EBER) during the early treatment of lymphoma remains unclear. We explored discrepancies in PEDL and variables associated with EBER and evaluated the consistency between EBER and qualitative analysis of PEDL (qPEDL). Serial measurements of PEDL were performed to determine the dynamic changes of PEDL in early treatment of lymphoma. As a result, the median PEDL of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma NKT cell subtype (NHL-NKT) was higher than that of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma B cell subtype (NHL-B), the median PEDL of extranodal NK/T cell lymphoma (ENKTCL) was higher than that of diffuse large B cell lymphoma (DLBCL), and the median PEDL of EBER positive was higher than that of EBER negative. Age, Ki-67 ≧ 80%, Bcl-2 ≧ 80%, p53, and qPEDL were related to EBER. The PEDL could distinguish NHL-B, DLBCL, NHL-NKT, and ENKTCL from other lymphoma subtypes. EBER-positive patients spent more time with viral "turn negative (TN)" and "continuous positive (CP)" and less time with viral "continuous negative (CN)." The median PEDL of CP was higher than that of TN. In conclusion, although EBER affects the levels of PEDL in general, it has poor concordance with qPEDL. Our results show, for the first time, that high PEDL and positive EBER present a strong association with viral recurrence and persistent infection in the early treatment of lymphoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The selective oxidation of vanillin to vanillic acid was achieved using gold nanoparticles supported on alumina and titania. Selectivities up to 99 % at conversions over 90 % were obtained with pressurized oxygen as green oxidant in alkaline aqueous media. Our studies showed that the addition of at least 2 equivalents of strong Brönsted base had a crucial role in suppressing vanillin degradation and achieving high selectivity and conversion. The highest activities involved turn-over frequency values up to 1300 h and were achieved using alumina supported catalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The traditional image quality assessment (IQA) methods are usually based on convolutional neural networks (CNNs). For these IQA methods using CNNs, limited by the feature size of the fully connected layer, the input image needs be tailored to a pre-defined size, which usually results in destroying the original structure and content of the input image and thus reduces the accuracy of the quality assessment. In this paper, a blind image quality assessment method (named CSPP-IQA), which is based on multi-scale spatial pyramid pooling, is proposed. CSPP-IQA allows inputting the original image when assessing the image quality without any image adjustment. Moreover, by facilitating the convolutional block attention module and image understanding module, CSPP-IQA achieved better accuracy, generalization and efficiency than traditional IQA methods. The result of experiments running on real-scene IQA datasets in this study verified the effectiveness and efficiency of CSPP-IQA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve the desulfurization performance of sorbents at a low cost, modified semicoke-supported zinc oxide sorbents were prepared for hot coal gas by calcining the precursors using microwave and conventional heating. The desulfurization performances of these sorbents were evaluated over a fixed-bed reactor. The effects of microwave-assisted calcination temperature and time on the properties of sorbents were also investigated. These sorbents were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and nitrogen adsorption. The results show that the sorbents calcined by microwave exhibited a much higher sorbent utilization and desulfurization efficiency than those heated by conventional method. Compared to conventional heating, even and rapid heating of microwave led to smaller crystal size and better dispersion of active species. The Brunauer-Emmett-Teller results confirm that microwave irradiation modified the microstructure improved the pore structure (an increase in the specific surface area and pore volume), thus facilitating the gas-solid interactions during the desulfurization processes. A higher concentration of elements Zn and O was observed on the surface of sorbents by XPS analysis, facilitating the reaction of active species with HS. The performance of the sorbents heated by microwave irradiation appeared to be stable over multiple sulfidation-regeneration cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Gallium-68 (68Ga)–labeled somatostatin analog (SSA) PET imaging has been widely used in clinical practice of neuroendocrine neoplasms (NENs). Compared with 68Ga, 18F has a great practical and economic advantage. Although a few studies have shown the characteristics of [18F] AlF-NOTA-octreotide ([18F]-OC) in healthy volunteers and small NEN patient groups, its clinical value needs further investigation. Herein, this retrospective study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of [18F]-OC PET/CT in detecting NENs, as well as to compare it with contrast-enhanced CT/MRI. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the data of 93 patients who had undergone [18F]-OC PET/CT and CT or MRI scans. Of these patients, there were 45 patients with suspected NENs for diagnostic evaluation, and 48 patients with pathologically confirmed NENs for detecting metastasis or recurrence. [18F]-OC PET/CT images were evaluated visually and semi-quantitatively by measuring maximum standardized uptake value of tumor (SUVmax), tumor-to-background SUVmax ratio (TBR), and SUVmax of hypophysis (SUVhypophysis). A total of 276 suspected NEN lesions were found in these 93 patients. The results of histopathology or radiographic follow-up served as the reference standard for the final diagnosis. Results: Forty-five patients with suspected NENs were confirmed by histopathological examination via resection or biopsy. [18F]-OC PET/CT showed high radiotracer uptake in the lesions of G1-G3 NENs. [18F]-OC PET/CT showed superior performance with 96.3% of sensitivity, 77.8% of specificity, and 88.9% of accuracy in diagnosing NENs compared to CT/MRI. When cutoffs of SUVmax, TBR, and SUVhypophysis were 8.3, 3.1, and 15.4, [18F]-OC PET/CT had the best equilibrium between sensitivity and specificity for differentiating NEN from non-NEN lesions. For a total of 276 suspected NEN lesions, the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of [18F]-OC PET/CT for diagnosis of NENs were 90.5%, 82.1%, and 88.8%, respectively, and were higher than those of CT and MRI. G1 and G2 NENs had higher TBR and lower CT enhancement intensity than G3. The SUVmax and TBR had a positive correlation with CT enhancement intensity in G2 rather than in G1 or G3. Conclusions: [18F]-OC PET/CT is a promising imaging modality for initial diagnosis and detecting metastasis or postoperative recurrence in NENs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual saliency detection and segmentation are widely used in many applications in image processing and computer vision. However, existing saliency detection methods have not fully taken the spatial information of salient regions into account. Inspired by the basic photographic composition rules, we present a novel saliency detection method, which utilizes the knowledge of photographic composition as priors to improve the saliency detection results. Moreover, an online parameter selection method is proposed when utilizing GrabCut to achieve the saliency segmentation result. Besides, to test the applicability of our method, we present a novel post-processing framework for the photographs to be more artistic. The salient region and depth map are firstly computed. The salient region keeps its sharpness, while other parts in the photograph get blurred based on the depth map. To our best knowledge, this is a novel image-based attempt to enhance aesthetics by post-processing a photograph via realistic blurring. We test our method on the 1,000 benchmark test images and dataset MSRA. Extensive experimental results show the applicability and effectiveness of our method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cryptography plays a key role in information systems of financial industry. With the rapid development of financial industry, the scale of the financial cryptographic services continues to expand, and the volume of terminal devices increased significantly, causing problems such as system complexity and extreme workload. The centralized data processing model enabled by cloud computing can ease these problems to some extent, but when the data produced by various kinds of devices (e.g. IoT devices) continues to increase rapidly, cloud computing-based services subsequentially cannot meet the demand of real-time and efficient data processing. The edge computing is an emerging computing model, which is capable of hierarchically managing the resource, and supporting the deployment of cryptographic services at the edge. The edge computing-based cryptographic service separates data encryption/ decryption processing and provides low-level interfaces for financial business systems. It could simplify the way financial business systems obtain cryptographic services. In this paper, we propose an edge oriented cryptographic key management service, which consists of system monitor module, key management module and security management module. The proposed service enables the management of the whole life cycle of cryptographic keys, and reconstructs the process of cryptographic key. In a 1-year continuous testing, the proposed system achieved a total of 36 million cryptographic key distributions, and each cryptographic key has a lifecycle of 1.5 days on average. The TPS reached 15,000, and the system availability reached 99.99% throughout the year. The proposed system now is officially available as a commercial cryptographic service platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To determine the relationship between basal metabolic rate (BMR) and multiple sclerosis (MS) susceptibility, we analyzed genome-wide association study (GWAS) summary statistics data from the International Multiple Sclerosis Genetics Consortium on a total of 115,803 participants of European descent, including 47,429 patients with MS and 68,374 controls. We selected 378 independent genetic variants strongly associated with BMR in a GWAS involving 454,874 participants as instrumental variables to examine a potential causal relationship between BMR and MS. A genetically predicted higher BMR was associated with a greater risk of MS (odds ratio [OR]: 1.283 per one standard deviation increase in BMR, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.108–1.486, P = 0.001). Moreover, we used the lasso method to eliminate heterogeneity (Q statistic = 384.58, P = 0.370). There was no pleiotropy in our study and no bias was found in the sensitivity analysis using the leave-one-out test. We provide novel evidence that a higher BMR is an independent causal risk factor in the development of MS. Further work is warranted to elucidate the potential mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: The benefit and safety of intravenous thrombolysis before endovascular thrombectomy in patients with acute ischemic stroke caused by basilar artery occlusion (BAO) remains unclear. This article aims to investigate the clinical outcomes and safety of endovascular thrombectomy with versus without intravenous thrombolysis in acute BAO stroke patients. Methods: We conducted a comprehensive search of PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, and Web of Science databases to identify relevant literature pertaining to patients with acute BAO who underwent endovascular thrombectomy alone or intravenous thrombolysis bridging with endovascular thrombectomy (bridging therapy), until January 10, 2024. The primary outcome was functional independence, defined as a score of 0–2 on the modified Rankin Scale at 90 days. The safety outcome was mortality at 90 days and symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage within 48 h. Effect sizes were computed as risk ratio (RR) with random-effect models. This study was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42023462293). Results: A total of 528 articles were obtained through the search and articles that did not meet the inclusion criteria were excluded. Finally, 2 RCTs and 10 cohort studies met the inclusion criteria. The findings revealed that the endovascular thrombectomy alone group had a lower rate of functional independence compared to the bridging therapy group (29% vs 38%; RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.68–0.88, p < 0.001), lower independent ambulation (39% vs 45%; RR 0.89, 95% CI 0.82–0.98, p = 0.01), and higher mortality (36% vs 28%, RR 1.22, 95% CI 1.08–1.37, p = 0.001). However, no differences were detected in symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage between the two groups (6% vs 4%; RR 1.12, 95% CI 0.74–1.71, p = 0.58). Conclusion: Intravenous thrombolysis plus endovascular thrombectomy seemed to led to better functional independence, independent ambulation, and lower risk of mortality without increasing the incidence of intracranial hemorrhage compared to endovascular thrombectomy alone. However, given the non-randomized nature of this study, further studies are needed to confirm these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ferroptosis is involved in various pathophysiological diseases, including triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Targeting ferroptosis is considered as a novel anti-TNBC strategy. Nevertheless, the regulatory mechanism of ferroptosis during TNBC progression is unclear. Here, the role of WTAP in ferroptosis during TNBC progression was investigated. The clinicopathological significance of WTAP, NUPR1 and LCN2 was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier method. Cell viability was assessed using MTT assay. Transwell assay was employed to analyze cell migration and invasion. GSH/GSSG and Fe2+ levels in TNBC cells were analyzed using kits. m6A level was examined using m6A dot blot assay. NUPR1 mRNA stability was analyzed using RNA degradation assay. RIP was performed to analyze the interaction between eIF3a and NURP1. Herein, our results revealed that WTAP, NUPR1 and LCN2 expressions were significantly elevated in TNBC. NUPR1 silencing inhibited TNBC cell proliferation, migration and invasion by inducing ferroptosis. NUPR1 positively regulated LCN2 expression in TNBC cells, and LCN2 knockdown induced ferroptosis to suppress TNBC cell malignant behaviors. Our molecular study further revealed that WTAP promoted NUPR1 expression in an m6A-EIF3A mediated manner. And, as expected, WTAP knockdown promoted ferroptosis to suppress TNBC cell malignant behaviors, which were abrogated by NUPR1 overexpression. WTAP upregulated LCN2 by regulation of NUPR1 m6A modification, thereby suppressing ferroptosis to contribute to accelerate TNBC progression. Our study revealed the cancer-promoting effect of WTAP, NUPR1 and LCN2 in TNBC and clarified the relevant mechanism, providing a theoretical basis for developing novel diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for TNBC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pyruvate (PYR) dehydrogenase complex (PDC) is an enzymatic system that plays a crucial role in cellular metabolism as it controls the entry of carbon into the Krebs cycle. From a structural point of view, PDC is formed by three different subunits (E1, E2 and E3) capable of catalyzing the three reaction steps necessary for the full conversion of pyruvate to acetyl-CoA. Recent investigations pointed out the crucial role of this enzyme in the replication and survival of specific cancer cell lines, renewing the interest of the scientific community. Here, we report the results of our molecular dynamics studies on the mechanism by which posttranslational modifications, in particular the phosphorylation of three serine residues (Ser-264-α, Ser-271-α, and Ser-203-α), influence the enzymatic function of the protein. Our results support the hypothesis that the phosphorylation of Ser-264-α and Ser-271-α leads to (1) a perturbation of the catalytic site structure and dynamics and, especially in the case of Ser-264-α, to (2) a reduction in the affinity of E1 for the substrate. Additionally, an analysis of the channels connecting the external environment with the catalytic site indicates that the inhibitory effect should not be due to the occlusion of the access/egress pathways to/from the active site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ferroelectric ceramic capacitors show great potential in pulse power devices for their fast charging-discharging characteristics and immense power density. As a relaxation ferroelectric material, Sr0.7Bi0.2TiO3 has the advantage of high energy storage efficiency. Nevertheless, its low breakdown strength limits its energy storage performance. Herein, Sr0.7Bi0.2Ti(1–1.25x)TaxO3 (SBT-T) ceramics were synthesized by introducing Ta2O5 with a broad bandgap. On the one hand, the B-site ion disorder enhanced the relaxor behavior of the SBT-T ceramics. On the other hand, the introduction of Ta boosted the impedance and activation energy of the SBT-T ceramics, thus significantly improving their breakdown strength. With the increase in Ta content, the critical electric fields of SBT-T ceramics were monotonically increased from 240 to 370 kV/cm (increased by 54%), and splendid Wrec = 2.33 J/cm3 and high η = 91.76% were achieved when x = 0.04 under 290 kV/cm. Additionally, the SBT-0.04T ceramics demonstrated excellent pulse charge–discharge speed (t0.9 of 81.69 ns) and power density (PD of 153.39 MW/cm3). This research revealed that Ta doping was an effective approach to strengthening breakdown strength, which might provide ideas for improving the energy storage performance of dielectric capacitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beauveria bassiana is an environmentally friendly alternative to chemical insecticides against various agricultural insect pests and vectors of human diseases. However, its application has been limited due to slow kill and sensitivity to abiotic stresses. Understanding of the molecular pathogenesis and physiological characteristics would facilitate improvement of the fungal performance. Loss-of-function mutagenesis is the most powerful tool to characterize gene functions, but it is hampered by the low rate of homologous recombination and the limited availability of selectable markers. Here, by combining the use of uridine auxotrophy as recipient and donor DNAs harboring auxotrophic complementation gene ura5 as a selectable marker with the blastospore-based transformation system, we established a highly efficient, low false-positive background and cost-effective CRISPR/Cas9-mediated gene editing system in B. bassiana. This system has been demonstrated as a simple and powerful tool for targeted gene knock-out and/or knock-in in B. bassiana in a single gene disruption. We further demonstrated that our system allows simultaneous disruption of multiple genes via homology-directed repair in a single transformation. This technology will allow us to study functionally redundant genes and holds significant potential to greatly accelerate functional genomics studies of B. bassiana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The light response range, reusability, and durability of photocatalyst are the key issues for its practical application. To address these problems, the C-doped TiO2/carbon nanofibrous (CTCNF) film with incorporation of C-doped TiO2 nanoparticles into carbon nanofibers was prepared by electrospinning and calcination (pre-oxidation and carbonization). All the obtained CTCNF films exhibited a promising light absorption in ultraviolet-visible region. With optimization of carbonization temperature, the CTCNF film carbonized at 800 °C (CTCNF-800) showed a strongest light absorption. Consequently, the CTCNF-800 possessed a highest photocatalytic degradation efficiency of 94.2% for degradation of rhodamine B. In addition, the CTCNF-800 possessed excellent flexibility and deserved mechanical strength, and hence, the CTCNF-800 could be easily segregated from solution and recycled. Satisfyingly, its degradation efficiency still exceeded 92% after using for six cycles, implying that the CTCNF had excellent reusability and well stability. Besides, the degradation efficiency was over 90% after the CTCNF-800 kept in air without illumination for 1 year, indicating its outstanding durability. The CTCNF film photocatalyst demonstrates tremendous potential in practical application for purification of wastewater. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A novel phosphomolybdate material has been prepared using chemical precipitation method by means of doping silver ion and sodium fluorescein. This hybrid material exhibits extremely rare spindle morphology in polyoxometalate based materials. Control experiments are carried out to explore the impact factors of this peculiar shape in self-assembly process. Interestingly, the microspindle exhibits a dual-emission spectrum with the peaks centered at 467 and 512 nm, corresponding to the phosphomolybdate and sodium fluorescein related photoluminescence, respectively. Therefore, the successful preparations in this work not only enrich the structural diversity, but also provide us with an enlightening synthetic strategy for the functionalization of polyoxometalate based materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autism (MIM 209850) is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by social communication impairments and restricted repetitive behaviors. It has a high heritability, although much remains unclear. To evaluate genetic variants of GRIN2B in autism etiology, we performed a system association study of common and rare variants of GRIN2B and autism in cohorts from a Chinese population, involving a total sample of 1,945 subjects. Meta-analysis of a triad family cohort and a case-control cohort identified significant associations of multiple common variants and autism risk (Pmin = 1.73 × 10−4). Significantly, the haplotype involved with the top common variants also showed significant association (P = 1.78 × 10−6). Sanger sequencing of 275 probands from a triad cohort identified several variants in coding regions, including four common variants and seven rare variants. Two of the common coding variants were located in the autism-related linkage disequilibrium (LD) block, and both were significantly associated with autism (P < 9 × 10−3) using an independent control cohort. Burden analysis and case-only analysis of rare coding variants identified by Sanger sequencing did not find this association. Our study for the first time reveals that common variants and related haplotypes of GRIN2B are associated with autism risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The acid strength is one of the most important issues in solid acid. Herein, we report an efficient strategy for controlling the acid strength of sulfonated polystyrene (PS-SOH) within mesosilica hollow nanospheres. The sulfonation of PS@SiO core-shell nanospheres with surfactant un-removed, partially removed and totally removed results in the formation of PS-SOH@SiO with core-shell, yolk-shell and hollow nanostructures, respectively. The results of P MAS NMR using triethylphosphine oxide as a base probe molecule show that the acid strength of solid acids depends on their nanostructures. The yolk-shell and hollow nanostructures respectively afford the strongest and the weakest acid strength, suggesting the different aggregation degree of PS-SOH confined in nanospace during the sulfonation process. All the solid catalysts afford much higher activity than Amberlyst resin in esterification reaction. The yolk-shell nanostructured solid acid with the strongest acid strength shows the highest activity, suggesting the positive effect of the acid strength on the catalytic activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency associated liver disease (AATD-LD) is a rare genetic disorder and not well-recognized. Predicting the clinical outcomes of AATD-LD and defining patients more likely to progress to advanced liver disease are crucial for better understanding AATD-LD progression and promoting timely medical intervention. We aimed to develop a tailored machine learning (ML) model to predict the disease progression of AATD-LD. This analysis was conducted through a stacking ensemble learning model by combining five different ML algorithms with 58 predictor variables using nested five-fold cross-validation with repetitions based on the UK Biobank data. Performance of the model was assessed through prediction accuracy, area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC), and area under the precision-recall curve (AUPRC). The importance of predictor contributions was evaluated through a feature importance permutation method. The proposed stacking ensemble ML model showed clinically meaningful accuracy and appeared superior to any single ML algorithms in the ensemble, e.g., the AUROC for AATD-LD was 68.1%, 75.9%, 91.2%, and 67.7% for all-cause mortality, liver-related death, liver transplant, and all-cause mortality or liver transplant, respectively. This work supports the use of ML to address the unanswered clinical questions with clinically meaningful accuracy using real-world data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) can intercellularly transmit a wide range of bioactive molecules, and these cargoes may potentially serve as therapeutic biomarkers for preeclampsia. Herein, the current study aims to elucidate the mechanism underlying the human trophoblast cell-derived EV-mediated miRNA-mRNA network that could potentially influence the development of preeclampsia based on microarray datasets from publicly available GEO databases. Preeclampsia-related genes were retrieved from the GeneCards and CTD databases, which were then subjected to GO and KEGG enrichment analyses in an effort to identify key pathways in preeclampsia. The obtained results suggested an important role of the immune- and inflammation-related pathways in preeclampsia. Infiltration proportion of 22 immune cells was subsequently analyzed using the CIBERSORT algorithm. Placental tissues of patients with preeclampsia presented with increased proportion of resting NK cells and resting dendritic cells, while there was a reduction in the proportion of activated NK cells. Differentially expressed mRNAs were additionally predicted in the preeclampsia-related datasets retrieved from the GEO database, and then intersected with preeclampsia-related genes to identify the key genes. HLA-G was indicated as a key target gene in the development of preeclampsia and further associated with hypoxia, immune, and inflammatory pathways. The upstream microRNAs (miRNAs/miRs) of the key genes were further predicted and intersected with differentially expressed miRNAs in the human trophoblast cell-derived EV-related datasets from the GEO database to obtain the key miRNAs. EVs secreted by human trophoblast cells under hypoxic conditions were associated with 3 key upstream miRNAs of HLA-G, namely miR-1273d, miR-4492, and miR-4417, which might be implicated in the development of preeclampsia via targeting of HLA-G. Collectively, our findings highlighted that EVs secreted by human trophoblast cells under hypoxic conditions transferred miR-1273d, miR-4492, and miR-4417, all of which targeted HLA-G, thus orchestrating immune- and inflammation-related pathways and consequently promoting the development of preeclampsia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The original vivid red color of fresh grapefruit slices had faded considerably after freeze-drying, affecting visual enjoyment. The purpose of the study was to inquire the effect of high voltage electrostatic field for enzyme inactivation and gelatin-gum Arabic composite film for pigment retention on the color protection of freeze-dried grapefruit slices; the key cause of color fading was also analyzed. After being treated with high voltage electrostatic field at 5 kV/cm for 24 h, grapefruit slices were dipped in 0.4% (w/v) gelatin-gum Arabic solution containing 0.3% (w/v) tea polyphenols; the excess solution was then wiped. A series of physicochemical indicators and microstructure characteristics of freeze-dried grapefruit slices were investigated. Correlation analysis, principal component analysis, and cluster hierarchy analysis were established to derive the intrinsic causes affecting fading; both polyphenol oxidase (PPO) enzyme activity and water activity (aw) were highly significant positive correlated with △E (p < 0.01), and PPO enzyme activity was highly significant positive correlated with aw (p < 0.01), so lowering the value of PPO enzyme activity or aw could contribute significantly to the color preservation effect. The freeze-dried grapefruit slices pretreated by high voltage electrostatic field and gelatin-gum Arabic composite film containing 0.3% (w/v) tea polyphenols had the best color (△E = 29.61 ± 1.90). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to study the chemical oscillatory behavior and mechanism of a new chlorine dioxide-iodine-acetylacetone reaction system, a series of experiments were carried out by using UV-Vis and online FTIR spectrophotometric methods. The initial concentrations of acetylacetone, chlorine dioxide, iodine, sulfuric acid, and the pH value have considerable influence on the oscillations observed at wavelength of 350 nm for the starch-triiodide ion complex ( $${\text{QI}{_{3}^-}}$$ ). There is a pre-oscillatory or induction stage, the amplitude and the number of oscillations are associated with the initial concentration of reactants. Equations were obtained for the starch-triiodide ion complex ( $${\text{QI}{_{3}^-}}$$ ) reaction rate change with reaction time and the initial concentrations in the oscillation stage. The oscillation reaction can be accelerated by increasing the reaction temperature. The apparent activation energies at the induction stage and the oscillation stage are 45.64 and 12.39 kJ·mol, respectively. The intermediates were detected by the online FTIR analysis. Based upon the experimental data in this work and in the literature, a plausible reaction mechanism was proposed for the oscillation reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of our study was to analyze the characteristics of patients with autoimmune encephalitis (AE) to identify prognostic factors associated with the development of drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE).In this retrospective observational cohort study, we enrolled adult patients with AE between January 2016 and December 2022. The patients were categorized into two groups based on the presence or absence of DRE at the last follow-up. The predictors of the development of DRE were investigated using logistic regression analysis.Among 121 AE patients, 75.2% (n = 91) experienced acute symptomatic seizures, and 29.8% (n = 36) developed DRE at the last follow-up. On multivariate regression analysis, the factors associated with DRE were antibody negativity (OR 3.628, 95% CI 1.092–12.050, p = 0.035), focal seizure (OR 6.431, 95% CI 1.838–22.508, p = 0.004), refractory status epilepticus (OR 8.802, 95% CI 2.445–31.689, p = 0.001), interictal epileptiform discharges on EEG (OR 6.773, 95% CI 2.206–20.790, p = 0.001), and T2/FLAIR hyperintensity in the limbic system (OR 3.286, 95% CI 1.060–10.183, p = 0.039).In this study, the risk of developing DRE was mainly observed among AE patients who were negative for antibodies or had focal seizures, refractory status epilepticus, interictal epileptiform discharges on EEG, and T2/FLAIR hyperintensity in the limbic system.Methods: The aim of our study was to analyze the characteristics of patients with autoimmune encephalitis (AE) to identify prognostic factors associated with the development of drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE).In this retrospective observational cohort study, we enrolled adult patients with AE between January 2016 and December 2022. The patients were categorized into two groups based on the presence or absence of DRE at the last follow-up. The predictors of the development of DRE were investigated using logistic regression analysis.Among 121 AE patients, 75.2% (n = 91) experienced acute symptomatic seizures, and 29.8% (n = 36) developed DRE at the last follow-up. On multivariate regression analysis, the factors associated with DRE were antibody negativity (OR 3.628, 95% CI 1.092–12.050, p = 0.035), focal seizure (OR 6.431, 95% CI 1.838–22.508, p = 0.004), refractory status epilepticus (OR 8.802, 95% CI 2.445–31.689, p = 0.001), interictal epileptiform discharges on EEG (OR 6.773, 95% CI 2.206–20.790, p = 0.001), and T2/FLAIR hyperintensity in the limbic system (OR 3.286, 95% CI 1.060–10.183, p = 0.039).In this study, the risk of developing DRE was mainly observed among AE patients who were negative for antibodies or had focal seizures, refractory status epilepticus, interictal epileptiform discharges on EEG, and T2/FLAIR hyperintensity in the limbic system.Results: The aim of our study was to analyze the characteristics of patients with autoimmune encephalitis (AE) to identify prognostic factors associated with the development of drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE).In this retrospective observational cohort study, we enrolled adult patients with AE between January 2016 and December 2022. The patients were categorized into two groups based on the presence or absence of DRE at the last follow-up. The predictors of the development of DRE were investigated using logistic regression analysis.Among 121 AE patients, 75.2% (n = 91) experienced acute symptomatic seizures, and 29.8% (n = 36) developed DRE at the last follow-up. On multivariate regression analysis, the factors associated with DRE were antibody negativity (OR 3.628, 95% CI 1.092–12.050, p = 0.035), focal seizure (OR 6.431, 95% CI 1.838–22.508, p = 0.004), refractory status epilepticus (OR 8.802, 95% CI 2.445–31.689, p = 0.001), interictal epileptiform discharges on EEG (OR 6.773, 95% CI 2.206–20.790, p = 0.001), and T2/FLAIR hyperintensity in the limbic system (OR 3.286, 95% CI 1.060–10.183, p = 0.039).In this study, the risk of developing DRE was mainly observed among AE patients who were negative for antibodies or had focal seizures, refractory status epilepticus, interictal epileptiform discharges on EEG, and T2/FLAIR hyperintensity in the limbic system.Conclusions: The aim of our study was to analyze the characteristics of patients with autoimmune encephalitis (AE) to identify prognostic factors associated with the development of drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE).In this retrospective observational cohort study, we enrolled adult patients with AE between January 2016 and December 2022. The patients were categorized into two groups based on the presence or absence of DRE at the last follow-up. The predictors of the development of DRE were investigated using logistic regression analysis.Among 121 AE patients, 75.2% (n = 91) experienced acute symptomatic seizures, and 29.8% (n = 36) developed DRE at the last follow-up. On multivariate regression analysis, the factors associated with DRE were antibody negativity (OR 3.628, 95% CI 1.092–12.050, p = 0.035), focal seizure (OR 6.431, 95% CI 1.838–22.508, p = 0.004), refractory status epilepticus (OR 8.802, 95% CI 2.445–31.689, p = 0.001), interictal epileptiform discharges on EEG (OR 6.773, 95% CI 2.206–20.790, p = 0.001), and T2/FLAIR hyperintensity in the limbic system (OR 3.286, 95% CI 1.060–10.183, p = 0.039).In this study, the risk of developing DRE was mainly observed among AE patients who were negative for antibodies or had focal seizures, refractory status epilepticus, interictal epileptiform discharges on EEG, and T2/FLAIR hyperintensity in the limbic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pineapple is the most important economic plant in the family Bromeliaceae and the third-most economically important tropical fruit in the world. It has become an important tropical fruit in Guangdong, Hainan, and Guangxi, which are suitable areas for its cultivation. However, modern and well-organized breeding systems have not yet been established for pineapple. In this review, we describe the current status of the geographical distribution, industrial development, and breeding of pineapple in China. The current status of pineapple breeding is introduced, including traditional breeding methods, such as crossbreeding, mutagenesis breeding, and biotechnology breeding, combining cell engineering and gene engineering. In addition, the research progress on assisted breeding technology based on genetic map construction and molecular marker development is presented. New challenges and perspectives for obtaining high fruit quality are discussed in the context of breeding programs for pineapple. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When halogen lamps are used as the excitation source in long pulse thermography (LPT) of composite materials, the non-uniform surface temperature distribution will appear in the thermographic image recorded by the infrared camera and so the performance of the LPT technology will be affected severely. To address this issue, a simple method is proposed in this work to enhance the defect detectability for the LPT technique. In this method, the locations of the pixels in the non-defective area are firstly determined by an empirical rule, and then the thermal data of these non-defective areas is selected for estimating the non-uniform surface temperature distribution by a second order polynomial curve-fitting model. Finally, the thermal image sequences after non-uniform background removal are analyzed using thermographic signal reconstruction coefficients to enhance the quality of thermal images for damage detection further. To assess the performance of the method proposed in this paper, the defect detection experiment for the carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) using this method is carried out. Experimental results show that this method proposed in this paper can effectively remove the temperature non-uniformity, and it can reveal 11 out of 12 defects on the CFRP sample with a high signal-to-noise ratio of 9.09, where all the defects with aspect ratio ≥ 2.5 can be detected, and 1 illegible defect with aspect ratio of 1.67 can also be detected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solid polymer electrolytes can significantly improve the safety and energy density of sodium-ion batteries compared with the liquid electrolytes. However, the low ionic conductivity and poor mechanical properties inhibit the practical application. In this paper, poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) solid polymer electrolytes with enhanced ion conductivity are demonstrated by introducing inorganic solid electrolyte (beta-alumina) filler. With the presence of conductive beta-alumina filler, the ion conductivity of the resultant PEO polymer electrolyte is enhanced from 2.5*10–4 to 3.95*10–4 S cm−1. Applied in sodium-ion batteries (SIBs), the cell delivers an initial discharge capacity of 93.1 mAh g−1 and acceptable cycling performance (77.8 mAh g−1 after 100 cycles), which are significantly superior to that of the PEO solid polymer electrolyte without beta-alumina filler modification. The presented results prove that the ion conductivity of PEO polymer electrolyte can be enhanced by adding conductive beta-alumina, promoting its practical application in Na-ion all-solid-state batteries or other electrochemical energy storage systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In the clinical management of patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC), the early identification of poor and good responders after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (N-CRT) is essential. Therefore, we developed and validated predictive models including MRI findings from the structured report template, clinical and radiomics parameters to differentiate between poor and good responders in patients with locally advanced rectal cancer who underwent neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy. Methods: Preoperative multiparametric MRI from 183 patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (122 in the training cohort, 61 in the validation cohort) was included in this retrospective study. After preprocessing, radiomic features were extracted and two methods of feature selection was applied to reduce the number of radiomics features. Logistic regression (LR) and random forest (RF) machine learning classifiers were trained to identify good responders from poor responders. Multivariable logistic regression analysis was used to incorporate the radiomic signature and clinical risk factors into a nomogram. Classifier performance was evaluated using the area under the curve (AUC), accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV). Results: For the differentiation of poor and good responders, the radiomics model with an LR classifier achieved AUCs of 0.869 and 0.842 for the training and validation cohorts, respectively. The nomogram showed the highest reproducibility and prognostic ability in the training and validation cohorts, with AUCs of 0.923 (95% confidence interval, 0.872–0.975) and 0.898 (0.819–0.978), respectively. Additionally, the nomogram achieved significant risk stratification of patients in respect to progression free survival (PFS). Conclusions: The nomogram accurately differentiated good and poor responders in patients with LARC undergoing N-CRT, and showed significant performance for predicting PFS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Kuroshio extension (KE) exhibits interdecadal variability, oscillating from a stable state to an unstable state. In this paper, ERA-Interim reanalysis data are used to discuss the possible reasons for the asymmetric response of the atmosphere to symmetric sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) during periods of differential KE states. The analysis has the following results: the SSTA presents a nearly symmetrical distribution with opposite signs during the KE stable and unstable periods. During the KE stable period, the storm track is located north of 40°N and is significantly enhanced in the northeast Pacific Ocean. The atmospheric response is similar to the West Pacific/North Pacific Oscillation teleconnection (WP/NPO like pattern) and presents a barotropic structure. The inversion results of the potential vorticity equation show that the feedback of transient eddy vorticity manifests a WP/NPO like pattern and presents a barotropic structure, which is the main reason for bringing about the response of the WP/NPO like pattern. The magnitude of the feedbacks of both diabatic heating and transient eddy heating is small, which can offset one another. During the KE unstable period, the main body of the storm track is located to the south of 40°N, and there is no significant response signal in the atmosphere, except near the west coast of North America. Compared with the KE stable period, the asymmetry of response of the transient eddy vorticity is the main reason for the asymmetric response of the atmosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Postoperative ileus (POI) is a temporary delay of coordinated intestinal peristalsis. Alvimopan, an oral peripherally acting mu-opioid receptor antagonist approved for accelerating gastrointestinal recovery, has never been studied specifically in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).Aim: To investigate the efficacy of alvimopan in preventing POI among IBD patients.Methods: A retrospective chart review was conducted on 246 IBD patients undergoing bowel surgery between 2012 and 2017. Data collected included demographics, IBD subtype, length of stay (LOS), postoperative gastrointestinal symptoms, and administration of alvimopan. The primary outcome was POI; secondary gastrointestinal recovery outcomes were: time to first flatus, time to first bowel movement, time to tolerating a liquid diet, time to tolerating solid food, and LOS.Results: When compared with the control group, patients in the alvimopan group had shorter times to tolerating liquids and solids, first flatus, and first bowel movements (p < 0.01). LOS was shorter in the alvimopan group when compared with controls (p < 0.01). The overall incidence of POI was higher in controls than in the alvimopan group (p = 0.07). For laparoscopic surgeries, the incidence of POI was also higher in controls than in the alvimopan group (p < 0.01). On multivariable analysis, alvimopan significantly decreased time to all gastrointestinal recovery endpoints when compared to controls (p < 0.01).Conclusions: Alvimopan is effective in accelerating time to gastrointestinal recovery and reducing POI in IBD patients. While the benefits of alvimopan have been demonstrated previously, this is the first study of the efficacy of alvimopan in IBD patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies indicated that Odorrana grahami (O. grahami) skin contains abundant antimicrobial peptides, and the skin was recognized as hostile habitat for microorganisms. In this study, the microbial community was evaluated by 16S rRNA gene sequencing, and two associated bacterial isolates were obtained and characterized from the skin of O. grahami. Sixteen bacterial genera were identified from the O. grahami skin by uncultured clone sequences. The dominant groups were Comamonas, Bacillus and Morganella, and the genus Comamonas was the most abundant group (41.7% of the total) of the community. Fortunately, strains CW-25T and CW-518 belonging to genus Comamonas were isolated by plating dilutions. The polyphasic taxonomy results indicated that strain CW-25T was a member of Comamonas aquatica, it showed much higher antimicrobials resistance than the closest C. aquatica strains of LMG 2370T, LMG5937 and LMG 6112 isolated from freshwater. Based on the polyphasic taxonomic studies and antimicrobials resistance characteristics, two subspecies of Comamonas aquatica subsp. aquatica nov. and Comamonas aquatica subsp. rana nov. were proposed. The super-antimicrobial resistance endows the strains of Comamonas aquatica subsp. rana inhabit the O. grahami skin, and the primary defense of O. grahami might be composed by the antimicrobial peptides and the native bacteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, g-C3N4/SnO2:Sb composite photocatalysts were fabricated by in situ loading Sb-doped SnO2 (SnO2:Sb) nanoparticles on graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanosheets via a facile hydrothermal method. The synthesized g-C3N4/SnO2:Sb composites delivered enhanced visible light photocatalytic performance for degradation of rhodamine B in comparison with g-C3N4/SnO2 composites without doping Sb. Various techniques including XRD, SEM, TEM, FTIR, XPS, PL and electrochemical method were employed to demonstrate the successful fabrication of g-C3N4/SnO2:Sb composite and to investigate the enhanced mechanism of photocatalytic activity. The improvement of visible light absorption and the promotion of separation efficiency and interfacial transfer of photogenerated carriers induced by Sb doping were responsible for the enhancement of photocatalytic activity. This study provides a simple and convenient method to synthesize a visible light responsive catalyst with promising performance for the potential application in environmental protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Autism is a childhood neurodevelopmental disorder with high heterogeneity. Following our genome-wide associated loci with autism, we performed sequencing analysis of the coding regions, UTR and flanking splice junctions of AMPD1 in 830 Chinese autism individuals as well as 514 unrelated normal controls. Fourteen novel variants in the coding sequence were identified, including 11 missense variants and 3 synonymous mutations. Among these missense variants, 10 variants were absent in 514 control subjects, and conservative and functional prediction was carried out. Mitochondria activity and lactate dehydrogenase assay were performed in 5 patients' lymphoblast cell lines; p.P572S and p.S626C showed decreased mitochondrial complex I activity, and p.S626C increased lactate dehydrogenase release in medium. Conclusively, our data suggested that mutational variants in AMPD1 contribute to autism risk in Han Chinese population, uncovering the contribution of mutant protein to disease development that operates via mitochondria dysfunction and cell necrosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: The safety of inflammatory bowel disease medications during lactation is of significant relevance to women of childbearing potential. Available data regarding the transfer of biologic agents for inflammatory bowel disease via breast milk are limited to case reports. The objective of this prospective postmarketing lactation study was to assess vedolizumab concentrations in breast milk from lactating vedolizumab-treated women with inflammatory bowel disease.Methods: Breast milk was serially collected throughout the dosing interval from 11 patients receiving established intravenous vedolizumab 300-mg maintenance therapy every 8, 6, or 4 weeks. Maternal safety was also assessed.Results: Vedolizumab was detectable in ~90% of milk samples collected from all patients. Following the day 1 dose, vedolizumab milk concentrations increased with a median of 3-4 days to peak concentration, and subsequently decreased exponentially. For the nine patients receiving vedolizumab every 8 weeks, the average relative infant dose was 20.9%. Using a mean trough serum concentration of 11.2 µg/mL from historical studies, the ratio of mean vedolizumab milk-to-serum concentration was ~ 0.4 to 2.2%, consistent with published data on vedolizumab and other monoclonal antibody therapeutics for inflammatory bowel disease. The maternal safety profile was similar to that observed in previous vedolizumab studies. Published vedolizumab studies also showed no adverse findings for infants breastfed by vedolizumab-treated mothers.Conclusions: Vedolizumab was present in human breast milk at a low level. The decision to use vedolizumab should balance the benefit of therapy to the mother and the potential risks to the infant.Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT02559713; registered 24 September, 2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]