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The use of 3D printing technology for prosthetic treatment of forefoot bone defects is relatively uncommon. In December 2021, our research team successfully treated a patient presenting with a bone defect in the fifth metatarsal of the right foot, along with accompanying soft tissue and tendon defects. Following an initial debridement treatment, in April 2022, the patient underwent a right foot flap transfer repair. This procedure, performed under general anaesthesia, also included the implantation of a 3D‐printed titanium metatarsophalangeal joint replacement for the fifth toe. After a 12‐month post‐operative assessment, the donor site displayed normal characteristics and the affected foot exhibited a complete and intact appearance. The patient reported no pain or discomfort during weight‐bearing activities and exhibited a normal gait pattern without signs of limping. Both aesthetic and functional recovery outcomes were deemed satisfactory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: As the main type of stroke, the incidence of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) has been rising. However, the comprehensive mechanisms behind it remain unclear. Thus, the multi‐omics study is required to investigate the mechanism after CVT and elucidate the characteristic pathology of venous stroke and arterial stroke. Methods: Adult rats were subjected to CVT and MCAO models. Whole‐transcriptome sequencing (RNA‐seq) and untargeted metabolomics analysis were performed to construct the transcriptome and metabolism profiles of rat brains after CVT and also MCAO. The difference analysis, functional annotation, and enrichment analysis were also performed. Results: Through RNA‐seq analysis, differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were screened. 174 CVT specific genes including Il1a, Ccl9, Cxxl6, Tnfrsf14, etc., were detected. The hemoglobin genes, including both Hba and Hbb, were significantly downregulated after CVT, compared both to the MCAO and Sham groups. Metabolism analysis showed that CVT had higher heterogeneity of metabolism compared to MCAO. Metabolites including N‐stearoyltyrosine, 5‐methoxy‐3‐indoleaceate, Afegostat, pipecolic acid, etc. were specially regulated in CVT. Through the immune infiltration analysis, it was found that CVT had a higher immune response, with the abundance of certain types of immune cells increased, especially T helper cells. It was important to find the prevalence of the activation of inflammatory chemokine, cytokine, NOD‐like pathway, and neutrophil extracellular trap. Conclusion: We explored and analyzed the gene expression and metabolomic characteristics of CVT, revealed the specific inflammatory reaction mechanism of CVT and found the markers in transcriptome and metabolism levels. It points out the direction for CVT early diagnosis and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Herein, a novel conducting polymer complex PEDOT:CF3SO2(x)PSS(1‐x) [denoted as S‐PEDOT:CF3SO2(x)PSS(1‐x), where PEDOT is poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene) and PSS is poly(styrene sulfonate)], is fabricated with the assistance of zinc di[bis(trifluoromenthylsulfonyl) imide][Zn(TFSI)2] (CFE). The introduction of CF3SO2− group is expected to bring better stability of PEDOT:CF3SO2 than PEDOT:PSS due to its strong Coulomb force. Electrochemical measurement shows that a high specific capacitance of 194 F cm−3 was achieved from the novel complex S‐PEDOT:CF3SO2(x)PSS(1‐x), the highest value reported so far. An all‐solid‐state supercapacitor assembly with a structure of S‐PEDOT:CF3SO2(x)PSS(1‐x)/H2SO4:polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)/S‐PEDOT:CF3SO2(x)PSS(1‐x) shows a record specific capacitance of 70.9 F cm−3 and a maximum energy density of 6.02 mWh cm−3 at a power density of 397 mW cm−3. This supercapacitor device demonstrates excellent electrochemical stability with a capacitance retention rate of 98 % after 10 000 cycles and extreme air stability of 96 % capacitance retention rate after 10 000 cycles, even if the device is exposed to air over 2880 h, much better than that of PEDOT:PSS based supercapacitors. Excellent capacitance can be achieved from PEDOT:CF3SO2(x)PSS(1‐x) electrode under electrolyte‐free conditions. This work provides a novel method for high performance stable supercapacitors and may pave the way for the commercialization of PEDOT based supercapacitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, researchers have proven the therapeutic properties of copper nanoparticles as a common product of nanotechnology science. Due to the excellent antioxidant potential of copper nanoparticles, it seems that they can be used for the treatment of infectious diseases and cutaneous wounds. Also, Allium eriophyllum Boiss leaf is used in Kurdish traditional medicine, as one of the popular medicines of the Iranian traditional medicines, for increasing the trend of wound healing. So, we decided to synthesize the copper nanoparticles containing A. eriophyllum leaf aqueous extract, and analyze their potentials in removing bacteria and fungi and healing of cutaneous wounds. After synthesizing the copper nanoparticles, they were characterized with common techniques of organic chemistry, i.e. UV–Vis, Fourier transform‐infrared, X‐ray diffraction, field emission‐scanning electron microscopy (FE‐SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). For investigating the antimicrobial properties of CuSO4, A. eriophyllum, and CuNPs@A. eriophyllum, we used the macro‐broth dilation test. Also, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) and minimum fungicidal concentration (MFC) of CuSO4, A. eriophyllum, and CuNPs@A. eriophyllum were gained to indicate the exact antimicrobial potentials of them. To survey the cutaneous wound‐healing effects of CuSO4, A. eriophyllum, and CuNPs@A. eriophyllum, the 0.2% ointments were formulated and compared with the control and untreated groups. All data of antimicrobial and cutaneous wound‐healing experiments were assessed by SPSS 22 software. The results of chemical characterization indicated that copper nanoparticles had been synthesized as the best form, and the size ranges were 25–35 and 30–35 nm in the FE‐SEM and TEM images, respectively. In the antimicrobial part of this study, CuNPs@A. eriophyllum indicated higher antifungal and antibacterial effects than all standard antibiotics (P ≤ 0.01). MIC, MBC and MFC of CuNPs@A. eriophyllum were 2−4 mg/ml against all fungi and bacteria tested. With regard to cutaneous wound healing, the use of CuNPs@A. eriophyllum ointment significantly (P ≤ 0.01) raised the wound contracture, vessel, hydroxyl proline, hexuronic acid, hexosamine, fibrocyte and fibrocytes/fibroblast rate, and significantly (P ≤ 0.01) decreased the wound area, total cells, neutrophils and lymphocytes compared with other groups in rats. According to the above findings, CuNPs@A. eriophyllum may be used for the treatment of infectious diseases and cutaneous wounds in humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Current methods for patient‐specific voxel‐level dosimetry in radionuclide therapy suffer from a trade‐off between accuracy and computational efficiency. Monte Carlo (MC) radiation transport algorithms are considered the gold standard for voxel‐level dosimetry but can be computationally expensive, whereas faster dose voxel kernel (DVK) convolution can be suboptimal in the presence of tissue heterogeneities. Furthermore, the accuracies of both these methods are limited by the spatial resolution of the reconstructed emission image. To overcome these limitations, this paper considers a single deep convolutional neural network (CNN) with residual learning (named DblurDoseNet) that learns to produce dose‐rate maps while compensating for the limited resolution of SPECT images. Methods: We trained our CNN using MC‐generated dose‐rate maps that directly corresponded to the true activity maps in virtual patient phantoms. Residual learning was applied such that our CNN learned only the difference between the true dose‐rate map and DVK dose‐rate map with density scaling. Our CNN consists of a 3D depth feature extractor followed by a 2D U‐Net, where the input was 11 slices (3.3 cm) of a given Lu‐177 SPECT/CT image and density map, and the output was the dose‐rate map corresponding to the center slice. The CNN was trained with nine virtual patient phantoms and tested on five different phantoms plus 42 SPECT/CT scans of patients who underwent Lu‐177 DOTATATE therapy. Results: When testing on virtual patient phantoms, the lesion/organ mean dose‐rate error and the normalized root mean square error (NRMSE) relative to the ground truth of the CNN method was consistently lower than DVK and MC, when applied to SPECT images. Compared to DVK/MC, the average improvement for the CNN in mean dose‐rate error was 55%/53% and 66%/56%; and in NRMSE was 18%/17% and 10%/11% for lesion and kidney regions, respectively. Line profiles and dose–volume histograms demonstrated compensation for SPECT resolution effects in the CNN‐generated dose‐rate maps. The ensemble noise standard deviation, determined from multiple Poisson realizations, was improved by 21%/27% compared to DVK/MC. In patients, potential improvements from CNN dose‐rate maps compared to DVK/MC were illustrated qualitatively, due to the absence of ground truth. The trained residual CNN took about 30 s on a single GPU (Tesla V100) to generate a 512×$\; \times \;$512×$\; \times \;$130 dose‐rate map for a patient. Conclusion: The proposed residual CNN, trained using phantoms generated from patient images, has potential for real‐time patient‐specific dosimetry in clinical treatment planning due to its demonstrated improvement in accuracy, resolution, noise, and speed over the DVK/MC approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, a new type of Caenorhabditis elegans associative learning was reported, where nematodes learn to reach a target arm in an empty T‐maze, after they have successfully located reward (food) in the same side arm of a similar, baited, training maze. Here, we present a simplified mathematical model of C. elegans chemosensory and locomotive circuitry that replicates C. elegans navigation in a T‐maze and predicts the underlying mechanisms generating maze learning. Based on known neural circuitry, the model circuit responds to food‐released chemical cues by modulating motor neuron activity that drives simulated locomotion. We show that, through modulation of interneuron activity, such a circuit can mediate maze learning by acquiring a turning bias, even after a single training session. Simulated nematode maze navigation during training conditions in food‐baited mazes and during testing conditions in empty mazes is validated by comparing simulated behaviour with new experimental video data, extracted through the implementation of a custom‐made maze tracking algorithm. Our work provides a mathematical framework for investigating the neural mechanisms underlying this novel learning behaviour in C. elegans. Model results predict neuronal components involved in maze and spatial learning and identify target neurons and potential neural mechanisms for future experimental investigations into this learning behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) is a common malignancy in thyroid tissue. However, the molecular mechanism of PTC tumor progression remains unknown. The hedgehog (Hh) pathway is thought to play a key role during PTC development. Here we investigate the effects of glioma‐associated oncogene protein‐2 (Gli2), an important transcription factor of the Hh‐signaling pathway, on PTC. Gli2 and forkhead box E1 (FOXE1) protein levels were upregulated in tissues of PTC patients and PTC cell lines. Using the PTC cell line TPC‐1, we show that Gli2 small interfering RNA (siRNA) reduces cell proliferation, migration, and invasion; whereas overexpression of FOXE1 produces the opposite effects. Moreover, Gli2 siRNA inhibited the expression of genes implicated in the Wnt/β‐catenin pathway and that FOXE1 overexpression produces the opposite effects. Thus, it was indicated that Gli2 promoted the proliferation, migration, and invasion of TPC‐1 cells by activating Wnt/β‐catenin and FOXE1 is involved in this process. Xenograft models of PTC were also constructed, the results showed that Gli2 siRNA reduced the rate of tumor growth, FOXE1 levels, and the expression of the Wnt/β‐catenin pathway but FOXE1 overexpression reversed that effects. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that Gli2 promotes the growth of PTC tumors and TPC‐1 cell proliferation, migration, and invasion by activating the Wnt/β‐catenin pathway via FOXE1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simultaneous manipulation of topological and chemical structures to induce ionic nanochannel formation within solid electrolytes is a crucial but challenging task for the rational design of high-performance electrochemical devices including proton exchange membrane fuel cell. Herein, a novel generic approach is presented for the construction of tunable ion-conducting nanochannels via direct assembly of graphene oxide (GO)/poly(phosphonic acid) core-shell nanosheets prepared by surface-initiated precipitation polymerization. Using this simple and rapid approach to engineer GO/polymer nanosheets at the molecular-level, ordered and continuous nanochannels with interconnected hydrogen-bonded networks having a favorable water environment can be created. The resulting membranes exhibit proton conductivities up to 32 mS cm−1 at 51% relative humidity, surpassing state-of-the-art Nafion membrane and all previously reported GO-based materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]