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To explore the clinical significance of the perioperative counts of circulating tumor cells (CTCs), mesenchymal CTCs (MCTCs), and CTC- white blood cells (WBCs) in renal cell carcinoma patients. A total of 131 patients with renal cancer who underwent operation excision from our hospital were enrolled. In addition, 20 patients with benign renal diseases were recruited as a control. Blood samples were collected from the 131 patients, before operation and 3 months after surgery. Samples were also obtained simultaneously from the control group. CanPatrol CTC detection technique was used to enrich and identify CTCs, MCTCs, and CTC-WBCs. All enrolled patients were T1-3N0M0. From these, 52 patients with renal cancer underwent radical resection, while other 79 patients underwent nephron-sparing surgery. The positive rate of CTC, MCTC, and CTC-WBC before surgery were 95.4% (125/131), 61.1% (80/131), and 11.5% (15/131), respectively. Preoperative total CTCs, MCTCs, or CTC-WBCs were poorly correlated with patients’ parameters. Preoperative CTC, MCTC, or CTC-WBC showed no association with progression-free survival (PFS). In contrast, postoperative total CTCs (≥6), positive MCTCs, and positive CTC-WBCs significantly correlated with recurrence and metastasis. These results remained independent indicators for worse PFS. In addition, the increased CTC and MCTC count after surgery also correlated with unfavorable PFS. The detection of six or more total CTCs, MCTC, or CTC-WBCs in peripheral blood after surgery might help to identify a subset of patients that have higher recurrent risk than the overall population of patients with at different stages of renal cancer.

Background Currently, the accepted effective method for assessing blood volume status, such as measuring central venous pressure (CVP) and mean pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP), is invasive. The purpose of this study was to explore the feasibility and validity of the ratio of the femoral vein diameter (FVD) to the femoral artery diameter (FAD) for predicting CVP and mPAP and to calculate the cut-off value for the FVD/FAD ratio to help judge a patient’s fluid volume status. Methods In this study, 130 patients were divided into two groups: in group A, the FVD, FAD, and CVP were measured, and in group B, the FVD, FAD, and mPAP were measured. We measured the FVD and FAD by ultrasound. We monitored CVP by a central venous catheter and mPAP by a Swan-Ganz floating catheter. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated. The best cut-off value for the FVD/FAD ratio for predicting CVP and mPAP was obtained according to the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results The FVD/FAD ratio was strongly correlated with CVP (R = 0.87, P P 2O, and an FVD/FAD ratio ≤ 1.467 had the best test characteristics to predict a CVP ≤ 10 cmH2O. An FVD/FAD ratio ≥ 2.03 had the best test characteristics to predict an mPAP ≥ 25 mmHg. According to the simple linear regression curve of the FVD/FAD ratio and CVP, when the predicted CVP ≤ 5 cmH2O, the FVD/FAD ratio was ≤ 0.854. Conclusion In this study, the measurement of the FVD/FAD ratio obtained via ultrasound was strongly correlated with CVP and mPAP, providing a non-invasive method for quickly and reliably assessing blood volume status and providing good clinical support.

The aim of this study was to analyze the role of blood biomarkers regarding preoperative inflammation and coagulation in predicting the postoperative in-hospital mortality of patients with type A acute aortic dissection (AAD). A total of 206 patients with type A AAD who had received surgical treatment were enrolled in this study. Patients were divided into two groups: the death group (28 patients who died during hospitalization) and the survival group (178 patients). Peripheral blood samples were collected before anesthesia induction. Preoperative levels of D-dimer, fibrinogen (FIB), platelet (PLT), white blood cells (WBC) and neutrophil (NEU) were compared between the two groups. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression analysis were utilized to identify the independent risk factors for postoperative in-hospital deaths of patients with type A AAD. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve were used to analyze the predictive value of these indices in the postoperative in-hospital mortality of the patients. Univariable logistic regression analysis showed that the P values of the five parameters including D-dimer, FIB, PLT, WBC and NEU were all less than 0.1, which may be risk factors for postoperative in-hospital deaths of patients with type A AAD. Further multivariable logistic regression analysis indicated that higher preoperative D-dimer and WBC levels were independent risk factors for postoperative in-hospital mortality of patients with type A AAD. ROC curve analysis indicated that application of combining FIB and PLT could improve accuracy in prediction of postoperative in-hospital mortality in patients with type A AAD. Both preoperative D-dimer and WBC in patients with type A AAD may be used as independent risk factors for the postoperative in-hospital mortality of such patients. The combination of FIB and PLT may improve the accuracy of clinical prognostic assessment.

Preexcitation cardiomyopathy is a rare cardiac anomaly but it can be life threatening. It may occur in type B preexcitation syndrome. A patients with this condition typically has an enlarged left ventricle and reduced systolic function without tachycardia-associated cardiomyopathy. Echocardiography plays an important role in diagnosis in identifying this condition by revealing the "rebounce" movement of the inter-ventricular septum (IVS). We report echocardiographic findings of five pediatric patients with preexcitation cardiomyopathy. All of them had a radiofrequency catheter ablation (RFCA) and recovered during the follow-up.

The deformation failure of a shield segment joint can lead to serious leakage, and the joint must therefore be reinforced in advance to control its deformation. The combination of a bolt and positioning tenon, as a new type of reinforcement, can quickly control the deformation of shield segment joints. Numerical simulation is conducted to analyze the variation characteristics of bolt stress, bolt groove stress, and deformation of segment displacement under the vertical load of a preloading bolt. Results indicate that the most important factor in resisting the deformation of segment displacement under a vertical external force is bolt preloading. Greater bolt preloading leads to greater friction resistance between segments and stronger resistance against segment displacement deformation. The positioning tenon can effectively reduce the displacement between shield segments, and the average displacement can be reduced to approximately 60%. The control of the deformation mechanical behavior of shield segment joints by a bolt and tenon provides a theoretical reference for practical engineering.

Objectives frail older adults may be more vulnerable to stressors, resulting in steeper declines in cognitive function. Whether the frailty–cognition link differs by cognitive domain remains unclear; however, it could lend insight into underlying mechanisms. Methods we tested whether domain-specific cognitive trajectories (clock-drawing test, (CDT), immediate and delayed recall, orientation to date, time, president and vice-president naming) measured annually (2011–2016) differ by baseline frailty (physical frailty phenotype) in the National Health and Aging Trends Study (n = 7,439), a nationally representative sample of older adult U.S. Medicare beneficiaries, using mixed effects models to describe repeated measures of each cognitive outcome. To determine if the association between frailty and subsequent cognitive change differed by education, we tested for interaction using the Wald test. Results we observed steeper declines for frail compared to non-frail participants in each domain-specific outcome, except for immediate recall. Largest differences in slope were observed for CDT (difference = −0.12 (standard deviations) SD/year, 95%CI: −0.15, −0.08). By 2016, mean CDT scores for frail participants were 1.8 SD below the mean (95%CI: −1.99, −1.67); for non-frail participants, scores were 0.8 SD below the mean (95%CI: −0.89, −0.69). Associations differed by education for global cognitive function (Pinteraction Conclusion frailty is associated with lower levels and steeper declines in cognitive function, with strongest associations for executive function. These findings suggest that aetiologies are multifactorial, though primarily vascular related; further research into its association with dementia sub-types and related pathologies is critical.

Fibrotic skin disease represents a major global healthcare burden, characterized by fibroblast hyperproliferation and excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix. Fibroblasts are found to be heterogeneous in multiple fibrotic diseases, but fibroblast heterogeneity in fibrotic skin diseases is not well characterized. In this study, we explore fibroblast heterogeneity in keloid, a paradigm of fibrotic skin diseases, by using single-cell RNA-seq. Our results indicate that keloid fibroblasts can be divided into 4 subpopulations: secretory-papillary, secretory-reticular, mesenchymal and pro-inflammatory. Interestingly, the percentage of mesenchymal fibroblast subpopulation is significantly increased in keloid compared to normal scar. Functional studies indicate that mesenchymal fibroblasts are crucial for collagen overexpression in keloid. Increased mesenchymal fibroblast subpopulation is also found in another fibrotic skin disease, scleroderma, suggesting this is a broad mechanism for skin fibrosis. These findings will help us better understand skin fibrotic pathogenesis, and provide potential targets for fibrotic disease therapies., Fibroblasts are found to be heterogeneous in multiple fibrotic diseases, but fibroblast heterogeneity in fibrotic skin diseases is not well characterized. Here the authors employ scRNA-seq to explore fibroblast heterogeneity in keloid, a paradigm of fibrotic skin diseases.

Background:. More and more scholars have called for the cumulative live birth rate (CLBR) of a complete ovarian stimulation cycle as a key indicator for assisted reproductive technology. This research aims to study the CLBR of the first ovarian hyperstimulation cycles and analyze the related prognosis factors that might affect the CLBR. Methods:. Our retrospective study included first in vitro fertilization or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (IVF/ICSI) cycles performed between January 2013 to December 2014. A total of 17,978 couples of first ovarian hyperstimulation IVF/ICSI cycles were included. The study was followed up for 4 years to observe the CLBR. The multivariable logistic regression model was used to analyze the prognosis factor, P value of

Qi-Ge Qi,1,* Ya Tuo,2,* Li-Xue Liu,2,* Cong-Xiang Yu,2,* Ai-Ning Wu2 1Department of Clinical Laboratory and Pathology, The 969th Hospital of P.L.A., Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, 010051, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical University, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, 010050, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Ai-Ning WuDepartment of Obstetrics and Gynecology, The Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical University, Inner Mongolia University, No. 1 Of Tongdao North Road, Hui District, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, 010050, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 0471-6636630Email wuaining_vu@163.comObjective: The present study aimed to evaluate and analyze the results of karyotyping by amniocentesis and next generation sequencing (NGS)-based noninvasive prenatal DNA testing (NIPT) for the prenatal diagnosis of fetal chromosomal disorders.Methods: A total of 2267 high-risk pregnant females with the indications for prenatal diagnosis who met the enrollment criteria between January 2015 and May 2019 at the Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical University were included and underwent NGS-based NIPT in the present study. Amniocentesis, chromosome karyotyping by cell culture, and follow-up of the pregnancy outcomes were also conducted in the NIPT-positive pregnant females to assess the consistency between NIPT and results of karyotyping by amniocentesis.Results: Among the 2267 cases, 29 cases were positive for NIPT, including 10 cases with a high risk of trisomy 21, 2 cases with a high risk of trisomy 18, 2 cases with a high risk of chromosome 13, and 20 cases with sex chromosome abnormalities. All the above NIPT-positive cases underwent amniocentesis, and 20 cases were eventually diagnosed. The sensitivity and specificity of NIPT for the diagnosis of trisomy 21, trisomy 13, and trisomy 18 were 100%, 99.96%, 100%, and 99.96%, 100%, 100%, respectively, and the positive predictive values were 91.67%, 66.67%, and 100%, respectively.Conclusion: NGS of the fetal free DNA from the peripheral blood of pregnant females was an important complement to the prenatal diagnosis of chromosomal disorders represented by fetal chromosome aneuploidy with high sensitivity and specificity. In combination with the traditional karyotyping by amniocentesis, it could improve the diagnostic efficacy for fetal chromosomal disorders.Keywords: next generation sequencing, karyotyping by amniocentesis, prenatal diagnosis, prenatal screening, fetal free DNA

The traditional disease-oriented model of healthcare is inadequate to address the needs of the older population. Greater attention should be given to strategies that promote healthy aging. Recently proposed constructs of intrinsic capacity (IC) and physical resilience (PR) hold great potential to reshape geriatric medicine and aging research. These constructs accentuate the positive health attributes of older people in contrast to the popular frailty construct that is centered on functional deficits. IC was introduced by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a composite of all the physical and mental capacities. WHO has emphasized enhancement of IC throughout the life course so as to maintain functional ability in old age. PR, recently highlighted by the National Institute on Aging, is the ability to successfully cope with stressors. High levels of resilience can result in desirable clinical and functional outcomes after stressors. Therefore, it is important to understand the underlying physiology of PR and the risk factors contributing to diminished PR. The main goal of this article is to explore the potential relationship between IC and PR. Based on a classical theory of aging, we postulate that IC is a determinant of PR and is also a high-level integrative measure of physiologic reserve which is the fundamental factor underlying one's ability to withstand stressors. A major implication of our postulates is that even though IC is only one of the many determinants of PR, it could serve as an important intervenable target for enhancing resilience in older adults.

Background Due to the biological heterogeneity, 60%-70% of patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) do not respond to or achieve remission from first-line antidepressants. Predicting neuroimaging biomarkers for early antidepressant treatment could guide initial antidepressant therapy. Purpose To assess for neuroimaging biomarkers for antidepressant selection in early antidepressant treatment. Study type Prospective. Subjects A total of 85 MDD patients from the major site and 33 MDD patients from an out-of-sample test site. Field strength/sequence A 3.0 T, T1-weighted imaging using a magnetization-prepared rapid acquisition gradient-echo sequence and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) using an echo-planar sequence. Assessment Baseline DTI data of patients who achieved early improvement after 2-weeks of antidepressant treatment (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors [SSRI] or serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors [SNRI]) were analyzed. An ensemble model was constructed using data from the major site and then applied to assess the early response of patients at the out-of-sample test site. Statistical tests Support vector machine combined with leave-one-out cross-validation were applied to construct the whole model from individual base models from different brain regions. Discriminative biomarkers were evaluated by calculating the changes in sensitivity and specificity obtained when removing a single base model from the whole model, the base model being removed changing in each run. Results Training performance over MDD patients at the major site achieved 75% accuracy while performance with accuracy of 70% was achieved in the out-of-sample test site. Assessing sensitivity and specificity changes following the removal of single base models from the prominent model highlighted the functions of two neural circuitries: SSRI-related emotion regulation circuitry, centered on the hippocampus (sensitivity changes: 10%) and amygdala (sensitivity changes: 11%); and SNRI-related emotion and reward circuitry, centered on the putamen (specificity changes: 8%) and orbital part of superior frontal gyrus (specificity changes: 12%). Data conclusion These findings support future research on clinical antidepressant selection for MDD. Evidence level 1 TECHNICAL EFFICACY: Stage 2.

Cisplatin chemotherapy is standard care for many cancers but is toxic to the kidneys. How this toxicity occurs is uncertain. In this study, we identified apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 2 (APE2) as a critical molecule upregulated in the proximal tubule cells (PTC) following cisplatin-induced nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA damage in cisplatin-treated C57B6J mice. The APE2 transgenic mouse phenotype recapitulated the pathophysiological features of C-AKI (acute kidney injury, AKI) in the absence of cisplatin treatment. APE2 pulldown-MS analysis revealed that APE2 binds myosin heavy-Chain 9 (MYH9) protein in mitochondria after cisplatin treatment. Human MYH9-related disorder is caused by mutations in MYH9 that eventually lead to nephritis, macrothrombocytopenia, and deafness, a constellation of symptoms similar to the toxicity profile of cisplatin. Moreover, cisplatin-induced C-AKI was attenuated in APE2-knockout mice. Taken together, these findings suggest that cisplatin promotes AKI development by upregulating APE2, which leads to subsequent MYH9 dysfunction in PTC mitochondria due to an unrelated role of APE2 in DNA damage repair. This postulated mechanism and the availability of an engineered transgenic mouse model based on the mechanism of C-AKI provides an opportunity to identify novel targets for prophylactic treatment of this serious disease. Significance: These results reveal and highlight an unexpected role of APE2 via its interaction with MYH9 and suggest that APE2 has the potential to prevent acute kidney injury in patients with cisplatin-treated cancer.

The impact of reverse left ventricular remodeling (r-LVR) on clinical outcomes after surgical correction of anomalous left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery (ALCAPA) remains unclear. This study aims to examine the prognostic significance of r-LVR in patients with ALCAPA after surgery. We prospectively identified 61 patients undergoing surgical correction for ALCAPA; 54 patients had adequate echocardiographic image quality with quantitative biplane analysis performed both at baseline and at 30-day postoperative follow-up. Postoperative r-LVR was defined as a reduction of ≥ 10% in left ventricular end-diastolic volume index during follow-up. Cox proportional-hazards regression was used to investigate the independent association of r-LVR and all-cause mortality. Among 54 patients (age: 21.2 ± 7 months; 37% females), r-LVR occurred in 35 patients (64.8%) after surgery. Compared to patients with r-LVR, patients without r-LVR had significantly higher level of N-terminal pro B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) [2176 (711, 4219) vs 998 (623, 2145) P < 0.001] and lower survival rate (47.3% vs 82.9%, HR = 5.72 [1.96 to 17.20], P < 0.001) at 1-year follow-up. NT-proBNP (OR = 2.27 [1.67 to 18.3], P = 0.02) was an independent predictor of r-LVR in multivariate analysis. Moreover, r-LVR was significantly associated with a lower rate of all-cause mortality (HR = 0.27 [0.08 to 0.98], P = 0.03) in multivariate analysis, even after adjustment for clinical and echocardiographic variables. R-LVR occurred in more than half of patients with ALCAPA undergoing surgical correction and it was associated with better clinical outcomes. NT-proBNP is an independent predictor of r-LVR.

Background Prostate cancer (PC) is the most common form of cancer in males and accounts for many cancer-related deaths. Human cell division cycle associated 5 (CDCA5) may be a useful marker for predicting tumor metastasis and therapeutic target for the treatment of PC patients. In this study, we investigated the role of CDCA5 in prostate cancer progression. Immunohistochemistry was performed on 20 prostate cancer tissue samples. Method We performed immunohistochemistry on 20 prostate cancer tissue samples. CDCA5, a gene that is differentially expressed in prostate cancer, was screened with The Cancer Genome Atlas database. In both DU145 and PC-3 cells, CDCA5 levels consistently affected cell proliferation, colony formation, apoptosis, migration, and invasion. Result CDCA5 knockdown significantly inhibited PC cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. Furthermore, the apoptosis of DU145 and PC-3 cells was significantly increased after CDCA5 downregulation. Further investigations revealed that CDCA5 may participate in the development of PC through interaction with TWIST1, CDH1, and CDH2. Conclusion The present results provide a novel insight into the important and multifaceted role of CDCA5 in PC, indicating that CDCA5 is a promising biomarker and therapeutic target for PC.

This study presents a correction algorithm to remove the backlobe intrusion from the hot-load reflector of microwave radiation imager (MWRI) on-board China FengYun-3C (FY-3C) meteorological satellite. Discontinuities in the radiometric gain of MWRI, due to inaccurate backlobe spillover of the hot-load reflector, have been diagnosed. A physical correction method, relating the radiometric gain difference between two distinct backlobe scenes to the spillover of the hot-load reflector, is thus established to estimate the in-orbit spillover factor of the MWRI hot-load reflector. Meanwhile, it is found that brightness temperature (TB) at each 1° × 1° grid could not address the backlobe pattern appropriately, leading to abrupt changes in the radiometric gain occurring near the coastlines. To better represent the backlobe spillover, the effective backlobe TB is now averaged over a 4° × 4° area from advanced microwave scanning radiometer-observed TBs, which is now in a finer resolution of 0.25° × 0.25°. With the adjusted spillover for the hot-load reflector, anomalous behaviors of the radiometric gain are mitigated effectively and the improvement at the coastlines is pronounced, inducing TB variation up to 2 K in magnitude at the 10.65 GHz channel. Although the algorithm presented in this study is only restricted to channel frequencies up to 23.8 GHz due to its accuracy limitation, it could tackle similar issues for those microwave radiometers not capable of in-orbit backlobe maneuvers and receiving the radiances inevitably from the outer edge of the hot-load or cold-sky reflectors.

Multi-organ segmentation from whole-body computed tomography (CT) scans has gained increasing research interest over recent years. While the learning-based segmentation algorithm has lately achieved tremendous success, the need for detailed annotation of multiple organs further increases the manual burden. With a limited number of annotated volumetric datasets, it would be beneficial to apply the trained model from such a set to CT images acquired from other sites with different scanners. Nevertheless, the discrepancy among training and testing images significantly deteriorates segmentation performance. While there are many domain adaptation efforts, in this work we proposed a filtered back-projection based algorithm for performing domain adaptation for CT imagery. An optimal CT reconstruction kernel was obtained by minimizing the disparity between two images. Furthermore, since the Gaussian kernel is an eigen-function of the Fourier transformation, the adaptation computation was proven to be simple linear filtering. The proposed method was tested and compared with multiple methods to demonstrate improvement by employing such a model/theory-based adaptation approach. The proposed method, used in conjunction with a common convolutional neural network, such as the U-Net or V-Net, with or without the domain adaptation, achieves high accuracy in a multiple-organ segmentation task. Approximately 30% of data was used for training, 70% was used for testing, and an average dice of 0.88 was achieved in 8 organs.

Objectives To investigate the rate and patterns of accumulation of frailty manifestations in relationship to all-cause mortality and whether there is a point in the progression of frailty beyond which the process becomes irreversible and death becomes imminent (a.k.a. point of no return). Design Longitudinal observational study. Setting Community or a non-nursing home residential care setting. Participants Two thousand five hundred and fifty seven robust older adults identified at baseline in 2011 with follow-up for all-cause mortality between 2011 and 2018. Measurements Frailty was measured by the physical frailty phenotype. Cox models were used to study the relationships of the number of frailty criteria (0-5) at each point in time and its accumulation patterns with all-cause mortality. Markov state-transition models were used to study annual transitions between health states (i.e., frailty, recovery, and death) after becoming frail among those with frailty onset (n = 373). Results There was a nonlinear association between greater number of frailty criteria and increasing risk of mortality, with a notable risk acceleration after having accumulated all five criteria (hazard ratio (HR) = 32.6 vs none, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 15.7-67.5). In addition, the risk of one-year mortality tripled, and the likelihood of recovery (i.e., reverting to be robust or pre-frail) halved among those with five frailty criteria compared to those with three or four criteria. A 50% increase in mortality risk was also associated with frailty onset without (vs with) a prior history of pre-frailty (HR = 1.51, 95% CI = 1.20-1.90). Conclusion Both the number and rate of accumulation of frailty criteria were associated with mortality risk. Although there was insufficient evidence to declare a point of no return, having all five-frailty criteria signals the beginning of a transition toward a point of no return. Ongoing monitoring of frailty progression could aid clinical and personal decision-making regarding timing of intervention and eventual transition from curative to palliative care.

Sympathetic stimulated-cardiac fibrosis imposes great significance on both disease progression and survival in the pathogenesis of many cardiovascular diseases. However, there are few effective therapies targeting it clinically. The cardioprotective effect of aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) has been explored in many pathological conditions, whether it can exert benefit effects on chronic sympathetic stimulus-induced cardiac fibrosis remains unclear. In this study, we determined to explore the role of ALDH2 on isoproterenol (ISO)-induced cardiac fibroblasts (CF) proliferation and cardiac fibrosis. It was found that ALDH2 enzymatic activity was impaired in ISO-induced HCF proliferation and Aldh2 deficiency promoted mouse CF proliferation. Alda-1, an ALDH2 activator, exerted obvious suppressive effect on ISO-induced HCF proliferation, together with the induction of cell cycle arrest at G0/G1 phase and decreased expression of cyclin E1 and cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (CDK2). Mechanistically, the inhibitory role of Alda-1 on HCF proliferation was achieved by decreasing mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, which was partially reversed by rotenone, an inducer of ROS. In addition, wild-type mice treated with Alda-1 manifested with reduced fibrosis and better cardiac function after ISO pump. In summary, Alda-1 alleviates sympathetic excitation-induced cardiac fibrosis via decreasing mitochondrial ROS accumulation, highlighting ALDH2 activity as a promising drug target of cardiac fibrosis.

In this paper, we propose a deep semantic segmentation-based multiple description coding (DSSMDC). In the proposed scheme, the input image is divided into two different subsets and getting two descriptions, which is named multiple description pre-processing (MDP). Then, two descriptions are encoded and decoded respectively by utilizing the deep semantic segmentation codec, in which the semantic segmentation label is as side information for improving image reconstruction quality. We can get one side reconstruction, when only one description is received at the decoder. If both descriptions are received at the decoder, we can get the central reconstruction. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme achieves better performance than other existing compression methods.

Background The prognosis of prostate cancer (PCa) is related to tumor metastasis, among which 80% were bone metastasis. In this study, we investigated the correlation between diverse clinical factors and bone metastasis in PCa patients and identified potential biomarkers of bone metastasis in PCa patients. Methods The clinical data of 150 PCa patients were reviewed consecutively from January 2015 to March 2020 in this study. The relationships between clinical characteristics, serum biomarkers and bone metastasis in PCa patients were analyzed, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was applied to identify potential markers of bone metastasis in prostate cancer. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to explore the diagnostic values of potential biomarkers. Results Compared with the PCa patients without bone metastasis, the serum levels of CA-125, T-PSA, F-PSA, CYFRA21-1 and ProGRP were significantly elevated in PCa patients with bone metastasis. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that T-PSA (OR 1.014, P = 0.021), F-PSA (OR 1.124, P = 0.016) and Pro-gastrin-releasing peptide (ProGRP) (OR 1.057, P = 0.026) were significantly associated with the bone metastasis of PCa patients. ROC curves indicated that T-PSA, F-PSA and ProGRP could effectively discriminate bone metastasis from non-bone metastasis PCa patients, and the AUCs (area under the curves) were 0.885, 0.919 and 0.752, respectively. According to the Youden index, the cut-off values of T-PSA, F-PSA and ProGRP were defined as 56.50 ng/ml, 6.96 ng/ml and 31.60 pg/ml, respectively. T-PSA, F-PSA and ProGRP produced a sensitivity of 78.30%, 81.70% and 61.70%, a specificity of 93.30%, 88.90% and 82.20%, respectively. The AUC for the combination of T-PSA, F-PSA with ProGRP was 0.941 with 90.00% sensitivity, much better than that of any single biomarker or two biomarkers combinate. Conclusions Serum ProGRP might be a potential tumor marker of bone metastasis in prostate cancer, which may contribute to the early diagnosis of bone metastasis when used alone or in combination with other commonly used biomarkers.

The development of latent fingerprints on long-circulated RMB banknotes has been one of the challenging task in forensic science research. In this work, time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) was used to perform chemical imaging of latent fingerprints on the surface of the substrate due to its advantages such as in-situ, quasi-nondestructive, high-throughput, simultaneous analysis of multi-components and high spatial resolution. The developing effect of TOF-SIMS was firstly compared with that of several traditional methods, and the reasons for the unique advantages of TOF-SIMS were discussed. Its applicability was further discussed from the perspective of universality, sensitivity and fingerprint three-level feature acquisition capability. Finally, exogenous substances in fingerprints were also analyzed by using this technology to detect the molecular ions (m/z 92.06) and fragment ion peaks (m/z 43.02) of glycerol in the moisture lotion and developed clear fingerprint images. Preliminary research results showed that TOF-SIMS technology could provide an effective method for the development of latent fingerprints on long-circulated RMB banknotes and was expected to be used for the detection of substances in fingerprints on the surface of various substrates.

In this study, the level of serum anti-angiotensin II type 1 receptor autoantibodies (AT1-AA) was determined. It was found that the positive rate of AT1-AA in serum of infertile women is higher than that of healthy non-pregnant women. Spearman correlation analysis showed that AT1-AA was negatively correlated with oocyte maturation rate (r = -0.29, P 0.01) and AT1-AA was positively correlated with IL-6 (r = 0.68, P 0.01). Logistic regression analysis showed that age, BMI, type of infertility, years of infertility, history of poor pregnancy outcome, condition of fallopian tube, and polycystic ovary syndrome were not factors influencing the level of AT1-AA in the serum of infertile patients. The results indicated that AT1-AA was involved in the pathological changes of infertile women. AT1-AA may be related to oocyte maturation disorder, ovulation disorder. Interestingly it appears to induce an inflammatory reaction, although the specific mechanism is not clear. However, the level of AT1-AA is not affected by individual differences in infertile patients.

This work attempted to explore the causes of incomplete cleaning on the top of rectangular flat pleated filter cartridges, and designed newly developed slit nozzle to remove the caked-on dust of the dead zone. In this study, 7 slit holes (length 39 mm × width 1 mm) were designed to compare the peak pressures on the surface of the filter with circular nozzle (7 holes per pipe and the diameter of each hole is 7 mm) under the pulse pressures of 0.3 and 0.4 MPa, the jet distances of 20–100 mm, the filtration velocity of 0.8 m/min and the dust mass concentration of 20 g/m3. The experimental results showed that the optimum distance of circular nozzle was 20 mm, while that of slit nozzle was 20–40 mm, which can enlarge the application range of jet distance. Under the optimum distance, the pressure difference between the upper measuring point P1 and P4 was above 1000 Pa with circular nozzle, while that between the point P1 and P4 was below 400 Pa at the same conditions with slit nozzle. The experimental results also showed when the jet distance was less than 40 mm, the residual dust and systematic resistance under slit nozzle were lower than those of circular nozzle. The newly developed slit nozzle overcame the cleaning difficulty on the top of the filter cartridge and was beneficial for the industrial application.

Objectives To evaluate the effects of a home-based disability prevention program on life-space and falls efficacy among low-income older adults. Design Single-blind two-arm randomized controlled trial. Setting Participants' homes. Participants Participants were low-income cognitively intact older adults (≥65 years old) with restricted daily activities. Our analytic sample for life-space (n = 194) and falls efficacy (n = 233) varied as the life-space measure was introduced 4 months after the trial began. Intervention Up to six 1-hour home visits with an occupational therapist; up to four 1-hour home visits with a registered nurse; and up to $1,300 worth of home repairs, modifications, and assistive devices with a handyman, during a course of 4 months. Measurements Life-space was measured by the Homebound Mobility Assessment; falls efficacy was measured using the 10-item Tinetti Falls Efficacy Scale at baseline and 5 months. Results Participants were on average 75 years old, predominantly Black (86%) and female (85%-86%). Compared with participants in the control group, participants receiving the intervention were more likely to have improved versus decreased life-space in areas of bathroom (adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 3.95; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.20-12.97), front or back porch, patio, or deck (adjusted OR = 2.67; 95% CI = 1.05-6.79), stairs (adjusted OR = 4.09; 95% CI = 1.34-12.48), leaving the house for any reason other than for health care (adjusted OR = 2.40; 95% CI = 1.01-5.73), and overall life-space (adjusted OR = 2.15; 95% CI = 1.10-4.19). Participants who received the intervention also had an 11% improvement in falls efficacy in performing daily activities (exponentiated coefficient = 1.12; 95% CI = 1.04-1.21). Conclusion Life-space and falls efficacy were improved through a multicomponent, person-directed, home-based disability prevention intervention. Findings suggest that this intervention should be translated into different settings to promote independent aging.

Aim To explore nurses’ experiences in natural disaster response. Background Nurses are key to disaster response. There is a growing body of qualitative research exploring this emerging nursing issue. However, there is a need to synthesise and summarise this body of knowledge to identify the overarching elements of how nurses experience working in disaster situations to reflect on their experiences so that we may help shape future clinical practice, research and education. Design Qualitative meta‐synthesis Method Following PROSPERO guidelines (Moher et al, 2015), an exhaustive and systematic literature search and quality appraisal was undertaken in December 2019 to reveal nurses’experiences during natural disaster response. Sandelowski and Barroso’s systematic retrieval, analysis, and interpretation of findings method was used to produce a meta‐summary of findings from 10 papers evaluating experiences across 9 disasters. A meta‐aggregation was used to synthesise the findings from the studies and was methodically quality assessed with PRISMA and CASP. Results Our findings aggregated data from 42 sub‐themes, into the following four themes to capture nurses’ experiences after responding to disasters. These included; agile response; leadership and innovative problem solving; building resilience; positive communication and need for psychological /emotional support. Discussion This meta‐synthesis provides evidence to illustrate nurses’ resilience and leadership capabilities as means to manage and perceive their disaster relief response. Factors such as emotional intelligence, capacity to react to changing situations, to manage scant resources in extreme situations were highlighted in nurses practising in highly stressful environments. Managers can use these examples to support ways to improve disaster management policies, but also, to engage in support for their staff. Relevance to clinical practice The role of nursing staff in disaster rescue is receiving significant attention. Understanding nurses’ experiences during disaster rescue can help future leaders to improve capacity to respond and nursing preparedness through education, training and management, but also for continuing emotional support after the event.

Background/objectives To obtain national and regional estimates of prevalence of frailty with or without cognitive impairment, and cognitive impairment with or without frailty among older adults in the United States, and to identify profiles of characteristics that distinguish their joint versus separate occurrence. Design Cross-sectional. Setting Community or non-nursing home residential care settings. Participants A U.S. nationally representative sample of 7,497 older adults aged 65 and older from the National Health and Aging Trends Study. Measurements Frailty was measured by the physical frailty phenotype. Cognitive impairment was assessed by cognitive performance testing of executive function and memory or by proxy reports. Multinomial logistic regression was used to identify profiles of demographic, socioeconomic, health, behavioral, and psychosocial characteristics that distinguish four subgroups: not-frail and cognitively intact ("neither"), not-frail and cognitively impaired ("Cog. only"), frail and cognitively intact ("frailty only"), and frail and cognitively impaired ("both"). Results The prevalence of "Cog. only," "frailty only," and "both" was 25.5%, 5.6%, and 8.7%, respectively. Individuals with"frailty only" had the highest prevalence of obesity, current smoking, comorbidity, lung disease, and history of surgery. The "both" group had the highest prevalence of dementia, depression, cardiovascular diseases, and disability. No significant differences were found between the "Cog. only" group and the "neither" group with respect to history of surgery and comorbidity burden. The prevalence of dementia in the "Cog. only" was less than half of that in the "both" group. Conclusion The finding of sizable subgroups having physical frailty but not cognitive impairment, and vice versa, suggests that the two cannot be considered necessarily as antecedent or sequela of one another. The study provided empirical data supporting the prioritization of comorbidity, obesity, surgery history, and smoking status in clinical screening of frailty and cognitive impairment before formal diagnostic assessments.

Deep learning has proven to be a powerful method with applications in various fields including image, language, and biomedical data. Thanks to the libraries and toolkits such as TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Keras, researchers can use different deep learning architectures and data sets for rapid modeling. However, the available implementations of neural networks using these toolkits are usually designed for a specific research and are difficult to transfer to other work. Here, we present autoBioSeqpy, a tool that uses deep learning for biological sequence classification. The advantage of this tool is its simplicity. Users only need to prepare the input data set and then use a command line interface. Then, autoBioSeqpy automatically executes a series of customizable steps including text reading, parameter initialization, sequence encoding, model loading, training, and evaluation. In addition, the tool provides various ready-to-apply and adapt model templates to improve the usability of these networks. We introduce the application of autoBioSeqpy on three biological sequence problems: the prediction of type III secreted proteins, protein subcellular localization, and CRISPR/Cas9 sgRNA activity. autoBioSeqpy is freely available with examples at https://github.com/jingry/autoBioSeqpy.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: The extent to which the prevalence of muscle weakness in the US population varies by different putative grip strength constructs developed by the Sarcopenia Definitions and Outcomes Consortium (SDOC) has not been described. DESIGN: Cross-sectional analysis. SETTING: Two nationally representative cohorts-2010 and 2012 waves of the Health and Retirement Survey and round 1 (2011) of the National Health and Aging Trends Survey. PARTICIPANTS: Adults aged 65 years and older (n = 12,984) were included in these analyses. MEASUREMENTS: We analyzed three constructs of muscle weakness developed by the SDOC, and found to be associated with mobility disability for men and women, respectively: absolute grip strength (

Objective: To explore the effect of Orff vocal therapy on BODE index and quality of life of patients with low lung function after non-small cell lung cancer surgery. Methods: From March 2014 to March 2019, 231 patients with NSCLC postoperative (their pulmonary functions FEV1 [Formula: see text] of the expected value) in the Huashan Hospital, Fudan University were selected and randomly divided into observation groups and control group. On the basis of conventional treatment of NSCLC, the control group used lung rehabilitation training, and the observation group used the Orff music therapy. They carry out vocal and breath training step by step, using a combination of online and offline methods, 1[Formula: see text]h per day online interactive training, 2[Formula: see text]h of offline group vocal therapy once a week, continuous intervention for 12 months. The patient’s BODE index and FACT-L scores were monthly follow-up. Results: Compared with the control group, the BODE index and FACT-L scores improved more significantly in the vocal therapy group ([Formula: see text]). Especially in the FEV1pred, family/society module and functional status module, the improvement was most significant, compared with the control group ([Formula: see text]). And the loss of follow-up rate in the vocal therapy group was lower than that in the lung rehabilitation group ([Formula: see text]). Conclusion: Orff vocal therapy can improve the BODE index and quality of life of patients with low lung function after non-small cell lung cancer surgery, and its compliance and intervention effects are better than ordinary lung rehabilitation training.

Aims Aortic aneurysm/dissection (AAD) is a life-threatening disorder lacking effective pharmacotherapeutic remedies. Aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) polymorphism is tied with various risk factors for AAD including hypertension, atherosclerosis, and hypercholesterolaemia although direct correlation between the two remains elusive. Methods and results Two independent case–control studies were conducted involving 307 AAD patients and 399 healthy controls in two geographically distinct areas in China. Our data revealed that subjects carrying mutant ALDH2 gene possessed a ∼50% reduced risk of AAD compared with wild-type (WT) alleles. Using 3-aminopropionitrile fumarate (BAPN)- and angiotensin II (Ang II)-induced AAD animal models, inhibition of ALDH2 was found to retard development of AAD. Mechanistically, ALDH2 inhibition ablated pathological vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) phenotypical switch through interaction with myocardin, a determinant of VSMC contractile phenotype. Using microarray and bioinformatics analyses, ALDH2 deficiency was found to down-regulate miR-31-5p, which further altered myocardin mRNA level. Gain-of-function and loss-of-function studies verified that miR-31-5p significantly repressed myocardin level and aggravated pathological VSMC phenotypical switch and AAD, an effect that was blunted by ALDH2 inhibition. We next noted that ALDH2 deficiency increased Max expression and decreased miR-31-5p level. Moreover, ALDH2 mutation or inhibition down-regulated levels of miR-31-5p while promoting myocardin downstream contractile genes in the face of Ang II in primary human VSMCs. Conclusions ALDH2 deficiency is associated with a lower risk of AAD in patients and mice, possibly via suppressing VSMC phenotypical switch in a miR-31-5p-myocardin-dependent manner. These findings favour a role for ALDH2 and miR-31-5p as novel targets for AAD therapy.

Introduction Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitors have long been known in the treatment of B -cell malignancies. Recently, BTK inhibitors have also become promising novel treatment reagents for prostate cancer. The current study was designed to investigate expression of BTK in prostate cancer tissues in comparison with benign hyperplasia and effect of BTK inhibitor on prostate cancer cell proliferation, migration and invasion. Methods BTK expression was assessed by immunohistochemistry; migration and invasion prostate cancer cell lines (DU145 and PC3) were assessed by Transwell migration and wound -healing assay; cancer cell proliferation was assessed using MTT assay kit; expression of matrix metalloproteinases-2 and -9 (MMP-2 and MMP-9) was assessed by immunoblotting. Results Strong expression of BTK was detected in the prostate cancer tissues, especially in the tumors from prostate cancer patients with bone metastasis. BTK inhibitor (Ibrutinib) significantly inhibited cell proliferation, migration and invasion of prostate cancer cells as well as protein synthesis of MMP-2 and MMP-9 by the tumor cells. Overexpressing BTK could partially but significantly block the inhibitory effect of Ibrutinib on cell proliferation, migration and invasion, and protein synthesis of MMP-2 and MMP-9 of the cancer cells. Conclusion These findings suggested that BTK could serve as not only a biomarker but also a therapeutic target for the prostate cancer and that Ibrutinib may be applied as a therapeutic drug for the prostate cancer.

Objectives: To assess the performance of elastography (ES) and ultrasound (US) in predicting the malignancy of breast lesions and to compare their combined diagnostic value with that of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Materials and Methods: The study prospectively enrolled 242 female patients with dense breasts treated in 35 heath care facilities in China between November 2018 and October 2019. Based on conventional US and elastography, radiologists classified the degree of suspicion of breast lesions according to the US Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) criteria. The diagnostic value was compared between US BI-RADS and MRI BI-RADS, with pathological results used as the reference standard. Results: The results demonstrated that irregular tumor shape, a nonparallel growth orientation, indistinct margins, angular contours, microcalcifications, color Doppler flow and ES score on US imaging were significantly related to breast cancer in dense breasts (P=0.001; P=0.001; P=0.008; P

Objectives To develop an evidence-based definition of sarcopenia that can facilitate identification of older adults at risk for clinically relevant outcomes (eg, self-reported mobility limitation, falls, fractures, and mortality), the Sarcopenia Definition and Outcomes Consortium (SDOC) crafted a set of position statements informed by a literature review and SDOC's analyses of eight epidemiologic studies, six randomized clinical trials, four cohort studies of special populations, and two nationally representative population-based studies. Methods Thirteen position statements related to the putative components of a sarcopenia definition, informed by the SDOC analyses and literature synthesis, were reviewed by an independent international expert panel (panel) iteratively and voted on by the panel during the Sarcopenia Position Statement Conference. Four position statements related to grip strength, three to lean mass derived from dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA), and four to gait speed; two were summary statements. Results The SDOC analyses identified grip strength, either absolute or scaled to measures of body size, as an important discriminator of slowness. Both low grip strength and low usual gait speed independently predicted falls, self-reported mobility limitation, hip fractures, and mortality in community-dwelling older adults. Lean mass measured by DXA was not associated with incident adverse health-related outcomes in community-dwelling older adults with or without adjustment for body size. Conclusion The panel agreed that both weakness defined by low grip strength and slowness defined by low usual gait speed should be included in the definition of sarcopenia. These position statements offer a rational basis for an evidence-based definition of sarcopenia. The analyses that informed these position statements are summarized in this article and discussed in accompanying articles in this issue of the journal. J Am Geriatr Soc 68:1410-1418, 2020.

We demonstrate a structural modulation method of GaN nanowires (NWs) by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition. This method is based on the self-assembled growth mode without a harmful gas sour...

Background exposures in childhood and adolescence may impact the development of diseases and symptoms in late life. However, evidence from low- and middle-income countries is scarce. In this cross-sectional study, we examined the association of early life risk factors with frailty amongst older adults using a large, nationally representative cohort of community-dwelling Chinese sample. Methods we included 6,806 participants aged $\ge$60 years from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study. We measured 13 risk factors in childhood or adolescence through self-reports, encompassing six dimensions (education, family economic status, nutritional status, domestic violence, neighbourhood and health). We used multinomial regression models to examine the association between risk factors and frailty. We further calculated the absolute risk difference for the statistically significant factors. Results persons with higher personal and paternal education attainment, better childhood neighbourhood quality and better childhood health status had lower risk of being frail in old age. Severe starvation in childhood was associated with higher risk of prefrailty. The risk differences of being frail were 5.6% lower for persons with a high school or above education, 1.5% lower for those whose fathers were literate, 4.8% lower for the highest neighbourhood quality and 2.9% higher for worse childhood health status compared to their counterparts. Conclusions unfavorable socioeconomic status and worse health condition in childhood and adolescence may increase the risk of late-life frailty amongst Chinese older adults.

Background/Aims:: Recent evidence has shown that Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) patients have reduced vestibular function relative to healthy controls. In this study, we evaluated whether patients with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) also have reduced vestibular function relative to controls, and compared the level of vestibular impairment between MCI and AD patients. Methods:: Vestibular physiologic function was assessed in 77 patients (26 MCI, 51 AD) and 295 matched controls using 3 clinical vestibular tests. The association between vestibular loss and cognitive impairment was evaluated using conditional logistic regression models. Results:: Individuals with vestibular impairment had a 3 to 4-fold increased odds of being in the MCI vs. control group (p-values < 0.05). MCI patients had a level of vestibular impairment that was intermediate between controls and AD. Conclusion:: These findings suggest a dose-response relationship between vestibular loss and cognitive status, and support the hypothesis that vestibular loss contributes to cognitive decline.

Traditional prediction methods of legal judgment rarely work well on few-shot charge prediction task, which is intended to predict possible crimes, laws and terms according to a given few-shot case description. A major challenge in developing an efficient few-shot charge prediction algorithm is how to effectively use all available features contained in the typical cases. To this end, we proposed a novel few-shot charge prediction method based on deep learning framework, named Semi-supervised Learning with BERT-text-Convolutional neural network (i.e. SLBCNN), which utilizes the Attribute-Tri-Training method to extract the features from the few-shot case data. Experiments on three datasets of Criminal-S, Criminal-M, and Criminal-L demonstrate that SLBCNN achieves the state-of-the-art performance, boosting the F1 by 5.2%, 4.2%, and 1.5%, respectively.

Background: Frailty, originally characterized in community-dwelling older adults, is increasingly being studied and implemented for adult patients with end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) of all ages (>18 years). Frailty prevalence and manifestation are unclear in younger adults (18–64 years) with ESKD; differences likely exist based on whether the patients are treated with hemodialysis (HD) or kidney transplantation (KT). Methods: We leveraged 3 cohorts: 378 adults initiating HD (2008–2012), 4,304 adult KT candidates (2009–2019), and 1,396 KT recipients (2008–2019). The frailty phenotype was measured within 6 months of dialysis initiation, at KT evaluation, and KT admission. Prevalence of frailty and its components was estimated by age (≥65 vs. Results: In all 3 cohorts, frailty prevalence was higher among older than younger adults (HD: 71.4 vs. 47.3%; candidates: 25.4 vs. 18.8%; recipients: 20.8 vs. 14.3%). In all cohorts, older patients were more likely to have slowness and weakness but less likely to report exhaustion. Among candidates, older age (odds ratio [OR] = 1.79, 95% CI: 1.47–2.17), non-Hispanic black race (OR = 1.30, 95% CI: 1.08–1.57), and dialysis type (HD vs. no dialysis: OR = 2.06, 95% CI: 1.61–2.64; peritoneal dialysis vs. no dialysis: OR = 1.78, 95% CI: 1.28–2.48) were associated with frailty prevalence, but sex and Hispanic ethnicity were not. These associations did not differ by age (pinteractions > 0.1). Similar results were observed for recipients and HD patients. Conclusions: Although frailty prevalence increases with age, younger patients have a high burden. Clinicians caring for this vulnerable population should recognize that younger patients may experience frailty and screen all age groups.

With the rapid development of e-commerce and the modern fast-paced life in large Chinese cities, food delivery services have become an important part of daily life and inevitably result in significant amount of food delivery waste (FDW) and environmental impacts. However, the scales, patterns, and impacts of FDW remain hitherto poorly understood. This study, based on direct weighing method (810 samples) and questionnaire survey (889 samples), aims to address such gaps with a case study for Wuhan, a typical first-tier city in central China. Our results showed that Wuhan's total FDW added up to 177.6 (± 52.9) kilotons in 2019, in which white-collar workers contribute the most (58%) and packaging waste takes up a significant share (32%). When packaging waste is excluded, the amount of FDW varied significantly among consumer groups, i.e., 154 ± 69, 187 ± 97, and 249 ± 124 g/cap/order for urban residents, college students, and white-collar workers, respectively, indicating the predominant role of consumer characteristics on FDW generation. Wuhan's total FDW related carbon emissions were approximately 168.3 kilotons CO2e; and this can be reduced by 25% if waste-to-energy technology can be implemented as planned and by 55% if the avoidable part of FDW can be prevented. Raising awareness and encouraging thriftiness (e.g., via education and public campaigns), nudging and pricing to minimize irrational food purchase, and reducing unnecessary packing and use of disposal dishware, are suggested as important FDW reduction strategies.

BACKGROUND: This study was aimed to compare the sensitivity of transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) guided systematic biopsy (TRUS-SB), superb microvascular imaging guided targeted biopsy (SMI-TB), and elastography ultrasound guided targeted biopsy (EU-TB) in detecting prostate cancer (PCa). METHODS: One hundred and eighty-four patients with suspicious PCa were randomly divided into two groups, SMI-TB group (n=92) and EU-TB group (n=92). All the patients received a 2-core SMI-TB or a 2-core EU-TB before receiving a 12-core TRU-SB depending on the group. The 2-core SMI-TB was conducted at the most increased vascularity areas rated by a radiologist on a semi-quantitative criterion. The 2-core EU-TB was performed at the dark blue areas that identified as suspicious areas. The PCa detection rate was compared among TRUS-SB, SMI-TB, and EU-TB in the total population and in two groups. RESULTS: PCa was detected in 65 out of 184 patients. The SMI-TB group patients received 1,272 cores in total with a positive rate of 23.81% (40/168) for SMI-TB cores and 4.17% (46/1,104) for TRUS-SB cores. The EU-TB group patients received a total of 1,262 cores with a positive rate of 31.01% (49/158) for EU-TB cores and 5.34% (59/1,104) for TRUS-SB cores. Targeted cores (27.30%, 89/326) achieved significantly higher sensitivity in PCa detection than systematic cores (4.76%, 105/2,208) (SMI-TB vs. TRUS-SB: OR 7.188, P

Resveratrol (RV) is a well-known polyphenolic compound in various plants, including grape, peanut, and berry fruits, which is quite famous for its association with several health benefits such as anti-obesity, cardioprotective neuroprotective, antitumor, antidiabetic, antioxidants, anti-age effects, and glucose metabolism. Significantly, promising therapeutic properties have been reported in various cancer, neurodegeneration, and atherosclerosis and are regulated by several synergistic pathways that control oxidative stress, cell death, and inflammation. Similarly, RV possesses a strong anti-adipogenic effect by inhibiting fat accumulation processes and activating oxidative and lipolytic pathways, exhibiting their cardioprotective effects by inhibiting platelet aggregation. The RV also shows significant antibacterial effects against various food-borne pathogens (Listeria, Campylobacter, Staphylococcus aureus, and E. coli) by inhibiting an electron transport chain (ETC) and F0F1-ATPase, which decreases the production of cellular energy that leads to the spread of pathogens. After collecting and analyzing scientific literature, it may be concluded that RV is well tolerated and favorably affects cardiovascular, neurological, and diabetic disorders. As such, it is possible that RV can be considered the best nutritional additive and a complementary drug, especially a therapeutic candidate. Therefore, this review would increase knowledge about the blend of RV as well as inspire researchers around the world to consider RV as a pharmaceutical drug to combat future health crises against various inhumane diseases. In the future, this article will be aware of discoveries about the potential of this promising natural compound as the best nutraceuticals and therapeutic drugs in medicine.

Background: The decline in the physical fitness of college students has become a serious social problem worldwide. Therefore, exploring the factors affecting the amount of exercise of college students is of great significance in improving college students' physique. According to the expectation value theory and previous studies, perceived exercise benefit and perceived severity of disease and weakness may have positive or negative impact on exercise behavior, and according to the self-efficacy theory, physical evaluation self-efficacy may be the most powerful motivational factors and it play a mediating role between other factors and exercise behavior. Therefore, this study was designed to determine the critical role of physical evaluation self-efficacy in the path of perceived exercise benefit and perceived severity of disease and weakness affecting the amount of exercise of college students.Methods: By means of Physical Fitness Health Belief of College Students Scale and Physical Activity Rating Scale (PARS-3), 801 undergraduate students were investigated in this study.Results: (1) When perceived exercise benefit, exercise self-efficacy, and severity of perceived disease and weakness predicted the amount of exercise separately, the first two have a positive effect on the amount of exercise, but the latter has no effect. However, when these three factors entered the regression equation at the same time, the perceived severity of disease and weakness had a negative effect on the amount of exercise. (2) The influence of physical evaluation self-efficacy on the college students' the amount of exercise was bigger than benefit of perceived exercise and the perceived severity of disease and weakness in both separated and simultaneous comparison conditions. (3) Physical evaluation self-efficacy completely mediated the positive effect of perceived exercise benefits on the amount of exercise and inhibited the negative effect of perceived severity of disease and weakness on the amount of exercise.Conclusion: Physical evaluation self-efficacy has a strong predictive power on the amount of exercise of college students. This was reflected in its ability to mediate the impact of expectation of exercise results and in its ability to suppress the adverse effects of concern about illness on exercise.

BackgroundElectroacupuncture (EA) produces analgesic effects on inflammatory pain partially via activating adenosine monophosphate (AMP)-activated protein kinase (AMPK) pathway in the spinal cord. However, it is unclear whether EA activates AMPK in peripheral tissues in inflammatory pain. This study was aimed at determining whether EA promotes autophagy by activating AMPK to inhibit the expression of inflammatory mediators IL-1β and iNOS in inflamed skin tissues. MethodsIn CFA-induced inflammatory pain in mice, mechanical allodynia and thermal hyperalgesia were tested 2 hours after EA treatment. The AMPK antagonist Compound C was injected intraperitoneally 30 minutes before EA treatment. The analgesic effects of AMPK activator 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxyamide ribonucleoside (AICAR) were determined and its effects on autophagy, IL-1β and iNOS expression were detected. Also, the effects of the autophagy inhibitor 3-methyladenine (3-MA) on EA analgesia and iNOS/IL-1β expression in inflamed skin tissues were examined. The phosphorylation of AMPK (Thr172) and total AMPK proteins, LC3BII/I, autophagy substrate protein p62, IL-1β and iNOS were detected using Western blotting. Co-labeling of macrophages (CD68) with IL-1β and iNOS was detected using immunofluorescence. In addition, after NR8383 macrophages were treated with CFA, the effects of AICAR and Compound C on autophagy were determined using stubRFP-sensGFP-LC3 Lentivirus..ResultsEA reduced CFA-induced inflammatory pain, activated AMPK and autophagy, and inhibited iNOS and IL-1β expression in inflamed skin tissues. AICAR also attenuated CFA-induced hyperalgesia, promoted autophagy and inhibited iNOS and IL-1β expression in vivo and in vitro. In addition, the AMPK inhibitor Compound C reversed the effect of EA on autophagy. Pretreatment with 3-MA, an inhibitor of autophagy, inhibited the effect of EA on inflammatory pain and expression of iNOS and IL-1β in inflamed skin tissues. ConclusionsEA treatment alleviated inflammatory pain by activation of AMPK, enhancing autophagy, and inhibiting iNOS and IL-1β expression in the inflamed skin tissues.

There is an integral research gap regarding whether there is a relationship between pain levels and low physical activity among older women. This is a secondary analysis of a longitudinal cohort study, the Women’s Health and Aging Study (WHAS) II. Our analyses included 436 community-dwelling women between the ages of 70 and 79, who were followed for 10.5 years. We employed marginal structural modeling, which controls for time-dependent confounding, with the aim of assessing the potential direct association between pain levels and low physical activity and assess a graded relationship. Compared to women with no pain, those with widespread pain were nearly half as likely to be moderately active versus low active (aOR: 0.46, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.22, 0.96). A graded association was observed across the four pain levels (no pain or mild pain, other pain, moderate or severe lower extremity pain, and widespread pain) on low physical activity. Our findings indicate that reducing chronic widespread pain in older women may increase moderate physical activity, and therefore reduce the downstream health risks of low physical activity, including morbidity and mortality risk.

Type III secretion systems (T3SSs) are bacterial membrane-embedded nanomachines that allow a number of humans, plant and animal pathogens to inject virulence factors directly into the cytoplasm of eukaryotic cells. Export of effectors through T3SSs is critical for motility and virulence of most Gram-negative pathogens. Current computational methods can predict type III secreted effectors (T3SEs) from amino acid sequences, but due to algorithmic constraints, reliable and large-scale prediction of T3SEs in Gram-negative bacteria remains a challenge. Here, we present DeepT3 2.0 (http://advintbioinforlab.com/deept3/), a novel web server that integrates different deep learning models for genome-wide predicting T3SEs from a bacterium of interest. DeepT3 2.0 combines various deep learning architectures including convolutional, recurrent, convolutional-recurrent and multilayer neural networks to learn N-terminal representations of proteins specifically for T3SE prediction. Outcomes from the different models are processed and integrated for discriminating T3SEs and non-T3SEs. Because it leverages diverse models and an integrative deep learning framework, DeepT3 2.0 outperforms existing methods in validation datasets. In addition, the features learned from networks are analyzed and visualized to explain how models make their predictions. We propose DeepT3 2.0 as an integrated and accurate tool for the discovery of T3SEs.

Background Self-reported low physical activity is a defining feature of phenotypic frailty but does not adequately capture physical activity performed throughout the day. This study examined associations between accelerometer-derived patterns of routine daily physical activity and frailty. Methods Wrist accelerometer and frailty data from 638 participants (mean age 77 [SD = 5.5] years; 44% women) were used to derive 5 physical activity metrics: active minutes/day, sedentary minutes/day, total activity counts/day, activity fragmentation (reciprocal of the average active bout length), and sedentary fragmentation (reciprocal of the average sedentary bout length). Robust, prefrail, and frail statuses were identified using the physical frailty phenotype defined as having 0, 1–2, or ≥3 of the following criterion: weight loss, exhaustion, slowness, self-reported low activity, and weakness. Frailty was collapsed into not frail (robust and prefrail) and frail, and each frailty criteria was dichotomized. Multiple logistic regression was used to model each accelerometer metric. Separate frailty criteria and interactions with age and sex were also examined. Results With higher amounts and intensity of daily activity (more active minutes, fewer sedentary minutes, higher activity counts) and lower activity fragmentation, the odds of frailty were lower compared to robust/prefrail states (p < .02 for all). For interactions, only an age by sedentary fragmentation interaction on the odds of frailty was observed (p = .01). For each separate criteria, accelerometer metrics were associated with odds of slowness, low activity, and weakness. Conclusion Less favorable patterns of objectively measured daily physical activity are associated with frailty and the components of slowness, low self-reported activity, and weakness.

Imagecompressionhasalonghistory, beingwidelyappliedinnumerousapplications. Yet, the commonly applied approach is based on traditional signal processing, such as JPEG. The lack of learning process in the approach limits the performance of those methods. Deep learning, recently, shows great performance in image compression, whose success may be attributed to various factors. Activation function is known as one of these influential factors. The present work is devoted to analyze the different effects of various activation functions, and the experimental results suggest that the generalized divisive normalization (GDN) is probably the best activation function in deep image approach-based image compression.