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Background: Globally implemented for breast augmentation, polyacrylamide hydrogel (PAAG) always leads to breast deformity upon its removal. Despite a pressing need for breast reconstruction following PAAG removal to address aesthetic issues, the optimal timing remains controversial. Methods: A retrospective cohort study analyzed patients who underwent PAAG removal between 2003 and 2023. They were categorized into three cohorts: immediate (IBR), delayed (DBR), or no breast reconstruction (NBR) post-PAAG removal. Complication rates, re-operation frequencies, risk factors, and BREAST-Q scores were assessed. Results: A total of 436 breasts were identified and divided into IBR (n = 126), DBR (n = 48), and NBR (n = 262). Complication rates were 50.0 % (IBR), 31.3 % (DBR), and 26.7 % (NBR) (P

Pilomatrixomas are benign tumors derived from hair stromal cells; however, their exact etiology is unknown. A 31-year-old woman presented with a subcutaneous mass located precisely above the left eyebrow, with shedding of eyebrow hair around the mass, and the shedding area gradually expanded. Surgical removal of the mass failed to prevent eyebrow loss, and the entire left eyebrow shed 6 months postoperatively. Pathology and histology of the biopsy specimen revealed a pilomatrixoma comprising basaloid cells and ghost cells, with basaloid cells expressing high bcl-2 levels. Instead of apoptosis, the emergence and growth of pilomatrixoma-induced microinflammation around the hair follicles of the eyebrow may lead to eyebrow loss.

Abstract Neonatal Jaundice is a common occurrence in neonates. High excess bilirubin would lead to hyperbilirubinemia, leading to irreversible adverse damage such as kernicterus. Therefore, it is necessary and important to monitor neonates’ bilirubin levels in real-time for immediate intervention. However, current screening protocols have their inherent limitations, necessitating more convenient measurements. In this proof-of-concept study, we evaluated the feasibility of using machine learning for the screening of hyperbilirubinemia in neonates from smartphone-acquired photographs. Different machine learning models were compared and evaluated to gain a better understanding of feature selection and model performance in bilirubin determination. An in vitro study was conducted with a bilirubin-containing tissue phantom to identify potential biological and environmental confounding factors. The findings of this study present a systematic characterization of the confounding effect of various factors through separate parametric tests. These tests uncover potential techniques in image pre-processing, highlighting important biological features (light scattering property and skin thickness) and external features (ISO, lighting conditions and white balance), which together contribute to robust model approaches for accurately determining bilirubin concentrations. By obtaining an accuracy of 0.848 in classification and 0.812 in regression, these findings indicate strong potential in aiding in the design of clinical studies using patient-derived images.

The gains of phase-locked-loop (PLL) have significant impacts on the power transfer limits for the voltage source converter (VSC) connected to weak AC system. Therefore, in this paper, an improved PLL control, respectively, with alternative damping factors for rectifier and inverter is proposed. First, it is proved that the impedance angle of AC system has a great impact on the small-signal stability of the VSC system. With the same variation tendency of Thévenin equivalent resistance, the limits of power transmission are changing in opposite trends for rectifier and inverter. Second, the improved PLL with alternative damping factors is proposed based on the participation factor analysis. Third, the optimal damping factors of the improved PLL control for rectifier and inverter are calculated. Simulations and calculations validated the following three conclusions: (1) in rectifying operation, the equivalent system resistance has a negative impact on the stability of the system and this is not the case for inverting operation; (2) adding the alternative damping factors to PLL control shows similar results compared with changing the impedance angle of AC system; (3) the proposed optimal damping factors of PLL can effectively extend the power transfer limits under both rectifier and inverter modes.

To evaluate the influence of gamma irradiation on adsorption of 99Mo on AG1-×8 resin, three irradiated AG1-×8 resin with absorbed doses of 37.5 kGy, 275 kGy and 825 kGy were chosen to investigate the adsorption properties of Mo(Ⅵ) on AG1-×8 resin via the static absorption and the dynamic adsorption experiments. The experimental results showed that no difference of the surface of AG1-×8 resin was observed compared to non-irradiated resin. The static distribution coefficient of Mo(Ⅵ) adsorbed by resin decreased with the increase of absorbed doses, and the static distribution coefficient of Mo(Ⅵ) adsorbed by irradiated and non-irradiated resin was not variable in different concentration of NH4OH but decreased with increasing the concentration of HNO3, NaOH, and (NH4)2CO3. The sorption on irradiated and non-irradiated resin both followed Langmuir isotherm model, indicating that each of these adsorption processes was spontaneous and endothermic in nature, and the static saturated adsorption capacity was 74.07 mg/g, 71.02 mg/g, 70.97 mg/g and 57.57 mg/g in 1 mol/L NH4OH, respectively. While Mo(Ⅵ) was adsorbed in NH4OH and desorbed with 1 mol/L (NH4)2CO3, the recovery yield of Mo(Ⅵ) decreased with the increase of absorbed doses.