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Aims/Introduction: Serum amyloid A (SAA) is an acute phase reactive protein that plays a vital role in the early diagnosis, risk prediction, efficacy observation and prognosis evaluation of infectious diseases. This study aimed to assess the association between SAA levels and the prognosis of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) and diabetes. Materials and Methods: We carried out this retrospective cohort study from March 2022 to May 2022. The population was stratified by tertiles of SAA levels: low (<8.5 mg/L), medium (8.5–36 mg/L) and high (>36 mg/L). The primary outcome was whether the patient developed severe COVID‐19, and secondary outcomes included the need for invasive mechanical ventilation and length of hospital stay. Logistic regression analyses were carried out to identify risk factors affecting the prognosis of patients with COVID‐19 and diabetes. Results: We analyzed 910 diabetes patients with COVID‐19. The median age of the patients was 69 years, and 52.3% were men. As SAA levels increased, the proportion of severe COVID‐19 (6.3% vs 7.3% vs 22.8%, P < 0.001) and the proportion of invasive mechanical ventilation also increased among the three groups. Patients with high SAA levels had a longer length of hospital stay compared with patients with medium SAA and low SAA levels. Univariate logistic regression analysis showed that SAA >36 mg/L further increased the odds ratio to 4.423 (P < 0.001) for the development of severe COVID‐19 compared with low SAA. Multivariate logistic regression analysis, adjusted for age and sex, confirmed that SAA >36 mg/L remained an independent risk factor for the development of severe COVID‐19 (adjusted odds ratio 3.038, P < 0.001). Conclusions: SAA levels are strongly associated with poor prognosis in patients with COVID‐19 and diabetes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article focuses on the incorporation of an equity time-out halfway through the annual graduate medical education Quality Improvement and Patient Safety (QIPS) curriculum. Topics include background on inequities health care outcomes, the plan to modify existing QIPS curricular framework to ensure that equity is systematically contextualised within core QIPS methods, and how equity-focused activities can be distributed and integrated across the diagnostic, measurement and intervention stages.

We propose a wavelength-reuse wavelength-division multiplexing semipassive optical access network architecture with ring topology. Two access rings are controlled by one central office. The system capacity, as well as the network cover area, can be doubled with this proposal. When fiber failure occurs, the corresponding switches in remote nodes change to protection state to restore the network communication. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What's known on the subject? and What does the study add? Diabetes is known to be associated with a slightly lower risk of prostate cancer. Only a limited number of studies have examined the impact of diabetes on prostate cancer outcomes, with mixed results., This study builds on our prior work showing that on the whole, diabetes is not a risk factor for progression to metastases after surgery. However, intriguingly we found a significant interaction with obesity for modifying the relationship between diabetes and progression. If confirmed in future studies, this suggests the mechanisms by which diabetes alters prostate cancer aggressiveness may differ in obese and non-obese men., Objective To examine the association between diabetes and metastasis risk after radical prostatectomy ( RP) and to determine if race or obesity modifies this relationship., Patients and Methods Patients comprised 2058 US veterans with prostate cancer ( PCa) enrolled in the Shared Equal-Access Regional Cancer Hospital ( SEARCH) database and treated with RP between 1988 and 2010., The association of diabetes with metastasis risk or secondary treatment rates was examined using Cox proportional hazards, adjusting for preoperative and, separately, clinical and postoperative findings., The effect modification by race (black vs white) and obesity (body mass index [ BMI] ≥30 vs <30 kg/m2) was tested via interaction terms., Results Men with diabetes had higher BMIs and were more likely to be non-white (all P ≤ 0.001)., On multivariable analysis, diabetes was not associated with metastasis risk ( P ≥ 0.45), but, among men with diabetes, longer diabetes duration was associated with higher metastasis risk ( P ≤ 0.035)., When stratified by obesity, diabetes was linked with higher metastasis risk in obese but not in non-obese men ( P-interaction ≤ 0.037), but there was no significant interaction with race ( P-interaction ≥ 0.56)., Diabetes also predicted more aggressive secondary treatment among obese men but less aggressive treatment among non-obese men (hazard ratio 1.39 vs 0.63, P-interaction = 0.006)., Where applicable, results were similar for both pre- and postoperative models., Conclusions Diabetes was not associated with metastasis risk overall., Stratification by obesity yielded significant differences, with diabetes linked to a fourfold higher metastasis risk in obese men, despite predicting more aggressive secondary treatment. Longer diabetes duration was also associated with increased metastasis risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An abstract of the article "Synthesis of 4-Quinolones via Triflic Anhydride-Mediated Intramolecular Houben-Hoesch Reaction of ß-Arylamino Acrylonitriles" by authors including C. Wu, P. Huang, and Z. Sun is presented.