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Osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) is proposed to be critical for bone tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. However, the current approach for evaluating osteogenic differentiation mainly involves immunohistochemical staining of specific markers which often can be detected at day 5–7 of osteogenic inducing. Deep learning (DL) is a significant technology for realizing artificial intelligence (AI). Computer vision, a branch of AI, has been proved to achieve high-precision image recognition using convolutional neural networks (CNNs). Our goal was to train CNNs to quantitatively measure the osteogenic differentiation of MSCs. To this end, bright-field images of MSCs during early osteogenic differentiation (day 0, 1, 3, 5, and 7) were captured using a simple optical phase contrast microscope to train CNNs. The results showed that the CNNs could be trained to recognize undifferentiated cells and differentiating cells with an accuracy of 0.961 on the independent test set. In addition, we found that CNNs successfully distinguished differentiated cells at a very early stage (only 1 day). Further analysis showed that overall morphological features of MSCs were the main basis for the CNN classification. In conclusion, MSCs differentiation detection can be achieved early and accurately through simple bright-field images and DL networks, which may also provide a potential and novel method for the field of cell detection in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To compare oral adhesive bandages with the classic compression method and evaluate the clinical efficacy of this wound dressing material in improving postoperative comfort, wound healing, and hemostasis in tooth extraction. Materials and methods: The study was designed as a randomized controlled clinical trial. A total of 120 patients were recruited and randomly assigned to the study group and the control group. In the study group, oral adhesive bandages were used as wound dressing. In the control group, patients bit on cotton balls and gauze, as usual. Hemorrhage, comfort, and healing levels were evaluated at postoperative 1 h, 24 h, and 7 days. The adhesion time of the oral adhesive bandages was also recorded. Results: The average adhesion time of the oral adhesive bandages was 26.6 h. At postoperative 1 and 24 h, the hemostatic levels of the oral adhesive bandage group were significantly higher than those of the control group. The oral adhesive bandage group also reported significantly higher comfort scores than the control group. Both groups had similar healing levels and side effects. But the mean score for wound healing was slightly higher in the oral adhesive bandage group. Conclusions: Oral adhesive bandages were more effective than cotton balls and gauze in providing hemostatic and comfort effects on extraction wounds. Clinical relevance: Oral adhesive bandages possess clinical value in the management of extraction wounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatially resolved transcriptomics (SRT) is a vital technique in biology that allows for gene expression measurement at the resolution of individual spots while preserving spatial information. However, owing to technical limitations, single-spot resolution often includes data from multiple cells, leading to suboptimal results and opportunities for improvement. In this study, we propose a deep learning-based, plug-and-play method for enhancing spot resolution to obtain higher-resolution SRT data. Our approach involves training a convolutional neural network (CNN) model and introducing a shift-predict operation to obtain superresolution spots. Using a human breast cancer SRT dataset, we demonstrate that our method achieves 9 × superresolution, outperforming traditional superresolution techniques. Crucially, our method decreased the mean squared error (MSE) to 1.379 for all genes, 2.287 for tumor-related genes at 4 × superresolution, 1.866 for all genes, and 3.371 for tumor-related genes at 9 × superresolution, reflecting substantial improvements compared to the traditional approaches, including Gaussian RBF, multiquadric RBF, linear RBF, resize-predict, bilinear, and bicubic methods. Furthermore, we verify our method's effectiveness using external and simulated datasets. Our proposed method offers a substantial advancement in SRT by enabling higher-resolution gene expression data generation. By providing a deeper understanding of gene expression patterns and their underlying biological significance, this method contributes to progress in biology and medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The laryngeal tissue carries most of the heat during inhalation injury. This study aims to explore the heat transfer process and the severity of injury inside laryngeal tissue by horizontally studying the temperature rise process at various anatomical layers of the larynx and observing the thermal damage in various parts of the upper respiratory tract. Methods: The 12 healthy adult beagles were randomly divided into four groups, and inhaled room temperature air (control group), dry hot air of 80 °C (group I), 160 °C (group II), and 320 °C (group III) for 20 min, respectively. The temperature changes of the glottic mucosal surface, the inner surface of the thyroid cartilage, the external surface of the thyroid cartilage, and subcutaneous tissue were measured every minute. All animals were immediately sacrificed after injury, and pathological changes in various parts of laryngeal tissue were observed and evaluated under a microscope. Results: After inhaling hot air of 80 °C, 160 °C and 320 °C, the increase of laryngeal temperature in each group was ΔT = 3.57 ± 0.25 °C, 7.83 ± 0.15 °C, 11.93 ± 0.21 °C. The tissue temperature was approximately uniformly distributed, and the difference was not statistically significant. The average laryngeal temperature–time curve showed that the laryngeal tissue temperature in group I and group II showed a trend of "first decrease and then increase", except that the temperature of group III directly increased with time. The prominent pathological changes after thermal burns mainly concluded necrosis of epithelial cells, loss of the mucosal layer, atrophy of submucosal glands, vasodilatation, erythrocytes exudation, and degeneration of chondrocytes. Mild degeneration of cartilage and muscle layers was also observed in mild thermal injury. Pathological scores indicated that the pathological severity of laryngeal burns increased significantly with the increase of temperature, and all layers of laryngeal tissue were seriously damaged by 320 °C hot air. Conclusions: The high efficiency of tissue heat conduction enabled the larynx to quickly transfer heat to the laryngeal periphery, and the heat-bearing capacity of perilaryngeal tissue has a certain degree of protective effect on laryngeal mucosa and function in mild to moderate inhalation injury. The laryngeal temperature distribution was in accordance with the pathological severity, and the pathological changes of laryngeal burns provided a theoretical basis for the early clinical manifestations and treatment of inhalation injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most common form of kidney cancer in adults. Despite new therapeutic modalities, the outcomes for RCC patients remain unsatisfactory. Rho-associated coiled-coil forming protein kinase 2 (ROCK2) has previously been shown to be upregulated in RCC, and its expression was negatively correlated with patient survival. However, the precise molecular function of ROCK2 has remained unclear. Herein, using RNA-seq analysis of ROCK2 knockdown and control cells, we identified 464 differentially expressed genes, and 1287 alternative splicing events in 786-O RCC cells. Furthermore, mapping of iRIP-seq reads in 786-O cells showed a biased distribution at 5' UTR, intronic and intergenic regions. By comparing ROCK2-regulated alternative splicing and iRIP-seq data, we found 292 overlapping genes that are enriched in multiple tumorigenic pathways. Taken together, our work defined a complex ROCK2-RNA interaction map on a genomic scale in a human RCC cell line, which deepens our understanding of the molecular function of ROCK2 in cancer development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The quality control of variants from whole-genome sequencing data is vital in clinical diagnosis and human genetics research. However, current filtering methods (Frequency, Hard-Filter, VQSR, GARFIELD, and VEF) were developed to be utilized on particular variant callers and have certain limitations. Especially, the number of eliminated true variants far exceeds the number of removed false variants using these methods. Here, we present an adaptive method for quality control on genetic variants from different analysis pipelines, and validate it on the variants generated from four popular variant callers (GATK HaplotypeCaller, Mutect2, Varscan2, and DeepVariant). FVC consistently exhibited the best performance. It removed far more false variants than the current state-of-the-art filtering methods and recalled ~51-99% true variants filtered out by the other methods. Once trained, FVC can be conveniently integrated into a user-specific variant calling pipeline. FVC is a method for calling specific gene variants from whole genome data, for potential use in clinical diagnosis and human genetics research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urea is an important raw material in the chemical industry and is widely used as a nitrogen source in chemical fertilizers. The current industrial urea synthesis not only requires harsh reaction conditions, but also consumes most of the NH3 obtained through artificial synthesis. The conversion of N2 and CO2 into urea through electrochemical reactions under ambient conditions represents a novel green urea synthesis method. However, the large-scale promotion of this method is limited by the lack of suitable electrocatalysts. Here, by means of density functional theory computations, we systematically study the catalytic activity of three experimentally available two-dimensional metal borides (MBenes), Mo2B2, Ti2B2, and Cr2B2 toward simultaneous electrocatalytic coupling of N2 and CO2 to produce urea under ambient conditions. According to our results, these three MBenes not only have superior intrinsic basal activity for urea formation, with limiting potentials ranging from −0.49 to −0.65 eV, but also can significantly suppress the competitive reaction of N2 reduction to NH3. In particular, 2D Mo2B2 and Cr2B2 possess superior capacity to suppress surface oxidation and self-corrosion under electrochemical reaction conditions, rendering them relatively promising electrocatalysts for urea production. Our work paves the way for the electrochemical synthesis of urea. The conversion of N2 and CO2 into urea through electrochemical reactions under ambient conditions represents a novel green urea synthesis method. Here, the authors demonstrate that two-dimensional transition metal borides can serve as effective catalysts for electrochemical urea synthesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: To compare the short-term complications between Onlay and Duckett urethroplasty and to analyze the various risk factors cause the complications. Methods: The children with hypospadias who underwent treatment with Onlay or Duckett urethroplasty from November 2014 to June 2016 were followed up. The difference in complications between the two groups was analyzed. Moreover, a single-factor ANOVA was performed to analyze the length and curvature of the penis and the length of the urethral defect. Results: 40 patients were treated by Duckett, while 54 by Onlay. In comparison to the Onlay group, the Duckett group showed the initial penile length was shorter (P = 0.044), the initial urethral defect (P = 0.024) and after the correction of chordee was longer (P < 0.001), and the initial penile curvature (P < 0.001) and after degloving (P < 0.001) was greater. Furthermore, the incidence of urethra percutaneous fistula (P = 0.041) and urethral stenosis (P < 0.001) in Duckett group was significantly higher. The analysis of risk factors showed that the age at the time of surgery, the initial penile curvature, the initial urethral defect, and the urethral defect after the correction of chordee were not correlated with the complications. The degree of penile curvature after skin degloving and urethra stenosis was significantly correlated (P = 0.019). Conclusion: The incidence of complications of urethra percutaneous fistula and urethral stenosis after 1 year of Duckett was higher than that by Onlay approach. The greater the curvature of the penis after skin degloving, the more likely the occurrence of urethral stenosis after surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In high-resolution remote sensing image processing, segmentation is a crucial step that extracts information within the object-based image analysis framework. Because of its robustness, mean-shift segmentation algorithms are widely used in the field of image segmentation. However, the traditional implementation of these methods cannot process large volumes of images rapidly under limited computing resources. Currently, parallel computing models are generally employed for segmentation tasks with massive remote sensing images. This paper presents a parallel implementation of the mean-shift segmentation algorithm based on an analysis of the principle and characteristics of this technique. To avoid the inconsistency on the boundaries of adjacent data chunks, we propose a novel buffer-zone-based data-partitioning strategy. Employing the proposed data-partitioning strategy, two intensively computation steps are performed in parallel on different data chunks. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm effectively improves the computing efficiency of image segmentation in a parallel computing environment. Furthermore, they demonstrate the practicality of massive image segmentation when computer resources are limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concentrations and flux of CO, Radon (Rn), and gaseous elemental mercury (Hg) in soil gas were investigated based on the field measurements in June 2010 at ten sites along the seismic rupture zones produced by the May 12, 2008, Wenchuan M 8.0 earthquake in order to assess the environmental impact of degassing of CO, Rn and Hg. Soil gas concentrations of 344 sampling points were obtained. Seventy measurements of CO, Rn and Hg flux by the static accumulation chamber method were performed. The results of risk assessment of CO, Rn and Hg concentration in soil gas showed that (1) the concentration of CO in the epicenter of Wenchuan M 8.0 earthquake and north end of seismic ruptures had low risk of asphyxia; (2) the concentrations of Rn in the north segment of seismic ruptures had high levels of radon, Maximum was up to level 4, according to Chinese code (GB 50325-2001); (3) the average geoaccumulation index I of soil Hg denoted the lack of soil contamination, and maximum values classified the soil gas as moderately to strongly polluted in the epicenter. The investigation of soil gas CO, Rn and Hg degassing rate indicated that (1) the CO in soil gas was characterized by a mean $$\updelta^{13}C_{CO2}$$ of −20.4 ‰ and by a mean CO flux of 88.1 g m day, which were in the range of the typical values for biologic CO degassing. The maximum of soil CO flux reached values of 399 g m day in the epicenter; (2) the soil Rn had higher exhalation in the north segment of seismic ruptures, the maximum reached value of 1976 m Bq m s; (3) the soil Hg flux was lower, ranging from −2.5 to 18.7 n g m h and increased from south to north. The mean flux over the all profiles was 4.2 n g m h. The total output of CO and Hg degassing estimated along seismic ruptures for a survey area of 18.17 km were approximately 0.57 Mt year and 688.19 g year. It is recommended that land-use planners should incorporate soil gas and/or gas flux measurements in the environmental assessment of areas of possible risk. A survey of all houses along seismic ruptures is advised as structural measures to prevent the ingress of soil gases, including CO and Rn, were needed in some houses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concentration of gaseous elemental mercury (GEM) in the atmosphere of urban Beijing was measured from October 2003 to September 2004 to investigate the origins and spatial-temporal variations of atmospheric Hg. The mean value of Hg concentration is 17.1 ng⋅m-3 (n=653). The atmospheric Hg data showed spatial-temporal variations throughout the duration of our observation. The maximum GEM concentration (53.7 ng⋅m-3) was observed at Gucheng in the western area of urban Beijing. The GEM concentrations increased from the north to the south of the studied area, and were higher in winter than in summer. The highest and lowest monthly averages of GEM concentrations were measured to be 23.3 and 4.1 ng⋅m-3 in January and July, respectively. In addition, GEM concentrations are higher in the daytime than at night in Autumn and from 14 March to 15 April, but daily GEM variation showed an inverse pattern from 22 April to 22 May. In winter, two peak values of GEM concentrations occurred at 13:30 and 21:30. Daily variation of GEM concentrations in summer was the lowest in the four seasons. Mercury from coal combustion was estimated to be the main source of anthropogenic emissions in Beijing from October 2003 to September 2004. Additionally, Hg emission from natural gas burning was estimated to be another dominant source of atmospheric Hg in Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pyrolysis of lignite was conducted at high temperatures from 400 to 700 °C and high pressures of 1 and 3 GPa in a closed system in order to investigate pressure and temperature effects on organic matter maturation. The data indicated that the total yield of liquid hydrocarbons decreased with increasing pressure and the maximum of production was obtained at a higher temperature. The alkanes show more mature characteristics with increasing temperature at a given pressure, conversely, high pressure significantly hinders the thermal evolution of geological organic matter. The experimental results also demonstrated that the relative abundance of high molecular weight hydrocarbons may exist under the conditions of the lower lithosphere, which not only breaks through the traditional concept that alkanes mainly present at stage of "oil window", but also enhances the possibility to find the oil in the high temperature and pressure areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The release of radon in active fault zones is a sustained radioactive pollution source of the atmospheric environment. The species, concentration and flux of radon emitted in soil gas in active fault zones in the Capital of China were investigated by in-situ field measurements. Two main species of radon discharging from soil gas in active fault zones were identified, including radon diffused and dispersed from permeable soil, and upwelling from faults. Higher concentrations and flux of radon from faults were observed in the Bohai Bay Basin due to the accumulated uranium in the sandstone reservoirs and higher permeability of the strata and bed rocks. Increased radon released by strong earthquakes persists, with the max flux of 334.56 mBq m−2 s−1 observed in FN (Fengnan district) located at the epicenter of the 28 July, 1976 Tangshan MS 7.8 earthquake. The level of radon released in 8 of 22 locations within the Basin and Range Province (to the west of Taihangshan piedmont fault Zone) reached level 2, and 13 of 14 locations within the Bohai Bay Basin reached levels 2-4, according to the Chinese Code (GB 50325-2001, 2006). Corresponding protective and safety measures should be in place to protect the health of nearby residents, due to their exposure to radon emitted from the faults. Also, the concentration of radon in active fault zones should be investigated to assess the possible risk, before land-use is planned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]