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Background and objective Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) offers a fast, non-invasive, and low-cost alternative for cervical cancer diagnosis. We aim to develop a method for screening precancerous lesions based on DRS. Material and methods Characteristic parameters of cervical tissue were extracted from spectra, including optical characteristic parameters such as absorption and scattering coefficients, and some slope and area parameters of the spectrum. Data were randomly divided into training (60%) and test (40%) sets. Of the 210 included patients, 166 were healthy, 22 had erosion of the cervix, and 31 had cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). The support vector machine (SVM) algorithm was used to classify normal and abnormal cervical tissue based on 11 characteristic parameters. Results The SVM with linear kernel function, applied on the training data, could distinguish tissue with lesions from healthy tissue with an accuracy of 1.00. When the classifiers were applied to the test set, erosion of cervix and CIN could be discriminated from healthy tissue with an accuracy of 0.95 ( ± 0.03). Conclusions This research shows that the diagnostic algorithm can be valuable for non-invasive diagnosis of cervical cancer. This is a significant step toward the development of a tool for tissue assessment of cervical cancer.

SummaryBackgroundHundreds of millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered globally, but progress in vaccination varies considerably between countries. We aim to provide an overall picture of COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, including policy, coverage, and demand of COVID-19 vaccines.MethodsWe conducted a descriptive study of vaccination policy and doses administered data obtained from multiple public sources as of 23 October 2021. We used these data to develop coverage indicators and explore associations of vaccine coverage with socioeconomic and healthcare-related factors. We estimated vaccine demand as numbers of doses required to complete vaccination of countries’ target populations according to their national immunization program policies.FindingsUse of both mRNA and adenovirus vectored vaccines was the most commonly used COVID-19 vaccines formulary in high-income countries, while adenovirus vectored vaccines were the most widely used vaccines worldwide (176 countries). Almost all countries (98.3%, 173/176) have authorized vaccines for the general public, with 53.4% (94/176) targeting individuals over 12 years and 33.0% (58/176) targeting those ≥18 years. Forty-one and sixty-seven countries have started additional-dose and booster-dose vaccination programs, respectively. Globally, there have been 116.5 doses administered per 100 target population, although with marked inter-region and inter-country heterogeneity. Completed vaccination series coverage ranged from 0% to more than 95.0% of country target populations, and numbers of doses administered ranged from 0 to 239.6 per 100 target population. Doses administered per 100 total population correlated with healthcare access and quality index (R2 = 0.58), socio-demographic index (R2 = 0.56), and GDP per capita (R2 = 0.65). At least 5.54 billion doses will be required to complete interim vaccination programs – 4.65 billion for primary immunization and 0.89 billion for additional/booster programs. Globally, 0.84 and 0.96 dose per individual in the target population are needed for primary immunization and additional/booster programs, respectively.InterpretationThere is wide country-level disparity and inequity in COVID-19 vaccines rollout, suggesting large gaps in immunity, especially in low-income countries.FundingKey Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the US National Institutes of Health.Research in contextEvidence before this studyWe searched PubMed for articles in any language published up to October 21, 2021, using the following search terms: (“COVID-19” OR “SARS-CoV-2”) AND (“vaccination” OR “vaccine”) AND (“inequalit*” OR “inequity” OR “disparit*” OR “heterogeneity”). We also searched for dashboards associated with vaccine rollout from public websites. We identified several studies on tracking global inequalities of vaccine access, one of which constructed a COVID-19 vaccine dashboard (Our World in Data), and another that explored disparities in COVID-19 vaccination among different-income countries. However, we found no studies that depict global COVID-19 vaccination policies country-by-country and estimate demand for vaccine necessary to completely vaccinate countries’ designated target populations.Added value of this studyTo our knowledge, our study provides the most recent picture of COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, focusing on global vaccination policy and target-population demand. We found a diverse portfolio of vaccines in five technical platforms being administered globally, with 173 countries having authorized administration of vaccines to the general public in various age groups. We observed inter-region and inter-country heterogeneity in one-or-more-dose and full-dose coverage; countries with higher socio-demographic or health resource-related levels had higher coverage. We estimated dose-level demand for completing primary immunization programs and additional/booster dose programs separately.Implications of all the available evidenceWorldwide disparity and inequity of vaccine rollout implies that susceptibility among unvaccinated populations in some countries may impede or reverse pandemic control, especially in face of the emergence of variants and the dilemma of waning antibodies. Our findings suggest that global-level responses to the pandemic - financially, politically, and technically - are needed to overcome complex challenges that lie ahead.

Background All countries are facing decisions about which population groups to prioritize for access to COVID-19 vaccination after the first vaccine products have been licensed, at which time supply shortages are inevitable. Our objective is to define the key target populations, their size, and priority for a COVID-19 vaccination program in the context of China. Methods On the basis of utilitarian and egalitarian principles, we define and estimate the size of tiered target population groups for a phased introduction of COVID-19 vaccination, considering evolving goals as vaccine supplies increase, detailed information on the risk of illness and transmission, and past experience with vaccination during the 2009 influenza pandemic. Using publicly available data, we estimated the size of target population groups, and the number of days needed to vaccinate 70% of the target population. Sensitivity analyses considered higher vaccine coverages and scaled up vaccine delivery relative to the 2009 pandemic. Results Essential workers, including staff in the healthcare, law enforcement, security, nursing homes, social welfare institutes, community services, energy, food and transportation sectors, and overseas workers/students (49.7 million) could be prioritized for vaccination to maintain essential services in the early phase of a vaccination program. Subsequently, older adults, individuals with underlying health conditions and pregnant women (563.6 million) could be targeted for vaccination to reduce the number of individuals with severe COVID-19 outcomes, including hospitalizations, critical care admissions, and deaths. In later stages, the vaccination program could be further extended to target adults without underlying health conditions and children (784.8 million), in order to reduce symptomatic infections and/or to stop virus transmission. Given 10 million doses administered per day, and a two-dose vaccination schedule, it would take 1 week to vaccinate essential workers but likely up to 7 months to vaccinate 70% of the overall population. Conclusions The proposed framework is general but could assist Chinese policy-makers in the design of a vaccination program. Additionally, this exercise could be generalized to inform other national and regional strategies for use of COVID-19 vaccines, especially in low- and middle-income countries.

GLP-1 receptor agonists, such as exenatide, have been proven to attenuate nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in vivo and in vitro. However, the efficiency of exenatide had interindividual differences. PNPLA3 is a major susceptibility gene for NAFLD and its I148M polymorphism increases the risk of all disorders of the NAFLD spectrum. Whether this variant contributes to variability in exenatide response is still unclear. PNPLA3 148I knockin HepG2 cells were constructed using the Cas9/sgRNA system. Oil Red O staining combined with TG quantification was used to evaluate lipid accumulation. Western blotting and qRT-qPCR were conducted, respectively, to measure the protein and mRNA expression of lipid metabolic and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress-related inflammatory markers. PNPLA3 I148M was genotyped in type 2 diabetics using Sanger sequencing. The exenatide-induced changes in liver fat content and other clinical parameters were compared between PNPLA3 I148M genotypes. Lipid deposition increased in both PNPLA3 148I/I and 148M/M HepG2 cells treated with palmitoleic acid, while cells with 148M/M had a higher TG content than those with 148I/I. Exendin-4 treatment was showed to be more significant in 148I/I cells than in 148M/M cells in terms of reducing the intrahepatic fat content, inhibiting SREBP-1c and ER stress-related inflammation, and activating AMPK-ACC lipid oxidation pathway. In patients with type 2 diabetes, 24-week treatment with exenatide improved liver fat content in patients carrying PNPLA3 148I/I better than in patients with 148M/M. PNPLA3 I148M might modify the anti-NAFLD response to exenatide.

Background: Dyspnea is one of the most common symptoms in patients with advanced disease and terminal illness, associated with poorer quality of life. The efficacy of fan therapy to pallia...

Brain-storm optimization (BSO), which is a population-based optimization algorithm, exhibits a poor search performance, premature convergence, and a high probability of falling into local optima. To address these problems, we developed the adaptive mechanism-based BSO (ABSO) algorithm based on the chaotic local search in this study. The adjustment of the search space using the local search method based on an adaptive self-scaling mechanism balances the global search and local development performance of the ABSO algorithm, effectively preventing the algorithm from falling into local optima and improving its convergence accuracy. To verify the stability and effectiveness of the proposed ABSO algorithm, the performance was tested using 29 benchmark test functions, and the mean and standard deviation were compared with those of five other optimization algorithms. The results showed that ABSO outperforms the other algorithms in terms of stability and convergence accuracy. In addition, the performance of ABSO was further verified through a nonparametric statistical test.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Whether or not migraine can cause cumulative brain alterations due to frequent migraine-related nociceptive input in patients is largely unclear. The aim of this study was to characterize longitudinal changes in brain activity between repeated observations within a short time interval in a group of female migraine patients, using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. METHODS Nineteen patients and 20 healthy controls (HC) participated in the study. Regional homogeneity (ReHo) and functional interregional connectivity were assessed to determine the focal and global features of brain dysfunction in migraine. The relationship between changes in headache parameters and longitudinal brain alterations were also investigated. RESULTS All patients reported that their headache activity increased over time. Abnormal ReHo changes in the patient group relative to the HC were found in the putamen, orbitofrontal cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, brainstem, and thalamus. Moreover, these brain regions exhibited longitudinal ReHo changes at the 6-week follow-up examination. These headache activity changes were accompanied by disproportionately dysfunctional connectivity in the putamen in the migraine patients, as revealed by functional connectivity analysis, suggesting that the putamen plays an important role in integrating diverse information among other migraine-related brain regions. CONCLUSIONS The results obtained in this study suggest that progressive brain aberrations in migraine progress as a result of increased headache attacks.

In this work, the rational design of phosphidated MoS2 (P-MoS2) nanosheets decorated on CdS nanoparticles (NPs) is reported. First, the P-MoS2 nanosheets were obtained by the phosphidation of MoS2 at 300 °C and using NaH2PO2 as P source. Then, the coupling of P-MoS2 nanosheets with CdS NPs was completed by a hydrothermal treatment. The photocatalytic performance of resulted composite was evaluated by evolution of H2 from water splitting. The experimental results revealed that the P-MoS2/CdS composite containing 20% P-MoS2 exhibited an optimum H2 evolution rate as high as 58.9 µmol h−1, which was 2.9 and 2.3 times higher than that of the pristine CdS (20.5 µmol h−1) and 0.2MoS2/CdS (26.1 µmol h−1), respectively. The improved activity of P-MoS2/CdS composite compared to MoS2/CdS can be ascribed to (i) its enhanced visible-light absorption, (ii) its efficient electron-hole separation resulting from the enhanced conductivity of P-MoS2, the positive conduction band potential of P-MoS2 in comparison with that of MoS2, and (iii) the more exposed active sites on P-MoS2 resulting from the enlarged interlayer spacing. This work may open up a new avenue to explore other hybrid co-catalysts to enhance the charge separation and thus the photocatalytic H2-evolution performance of semiconductors.

To assess the longitudinal gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) changes between repeated observations 1 year apart in a group of the early clinical stage of migraine patients without aura, and to explore the relationship of such structural changes with headache activity, we studied patients newly diagnosed with episodic migraine lasting 8 to 14 weeks. Optimized voxel-based morphometry and tract-based spatial statistical analyses were used to evaluate changes in GM and WM by using 3-dimensional T1-weighted and diffusion-tensor imaging, respectively. At the 1-year follow-up examination, GM reduction was observed in the dorsolateral and medial part of the superior frontal gyrus, orbitofrontal cortex, hippocampus, precuneus, and primary and secondary somatosensory cortices. No significant differences were found in the fractional anisotropy and longitudinal, radial, and mean diffusivity of WM in migraine patients without aura within a year. Negative results were found for the association between changes in headache activity parameters and GM. Our results indicated that the GM and WM changed in different pathophysiological conditions of migraine patients without aura. The WM probably evolves slowly in the course of migraine chronicity. Perspective Our study found early involvement of GM reduction of sensory-discriminative brain regions in the pathologic process of migraine, but the WM did not exhibit significant changes in the same time interval. GM reduction in sensory-discriminative brain regions may characterize the pathophysiological features of migraine patients without aura in its early stage.

The Terrain Observation by Progressive Scans (TOPS) mode solves the problems existing in the conventional ScanSAR mode by steering the antenna along the azimuth direction. However, the antenna steering introduces a serious azimuth signal aliasing both in time-domain and frequency-domain, thus traditional imaging algorithms are not available for the TOPS mode. In order to solve the azimuth signal aliasing, an efficient TOPS imaging algorithm based on spectral analysis (SPECAN) is presented in this paper, which is improved by sub-apertures division in the azimuth processing part. Only few FFTs and complex multiplications are used in the whole imaging processing, thus the algorithm has a high efficiency. What's more, in the final focused image, different ranges have the same azimuth interval and the azimuth image resolution is alterable according to the application requirements. Finally, some simulations are conducted to verify the validity of the proposed method.

The mesh topology structure constituted by inter- satellite links(ISLs) along with longitude and latitude, as a feature of most LEO satellite constellations, has not been fully used. Additionally, most LEO networks design its routing protocol depending on path distance, which is only proportional to the propagation delay without consideration of the queue delay. In this paper, a low-complexity routing algorithm (LCRA) based on load balancing is proposed, which can obtain the best path by distributed computation with the location information of the current node and destination. There is no iteration process in the computation, thus saving the computational cost. Additionally, each node informs its neighbouring nodes of its congestion information so that packets can choose the next hop dynamically according to the status of links, so as to shorten the mean queue delay and reduce the packet loss rate. Results assessed by NS2 presents the superiority of LCRA in terms of end-to-end delay, throughput and packet loss rate in comparison with other routing algorithms.

The water of Wu Jia-dui Wetland park in Kunming come from the park dike outside Da-Guan river inferior V river water and the wastewater of more than 1200 persons in Wu Jiadui village. The water quantity for the 10000 m3/d,During the period of adopting Wetland engineering to manage, circulate a management, developped the biologic food chain of the integrity in the water body, Make the water quality of wetland engineering result show Good, The water is pure to see bottom, Water quality exceed discharge standard in 《Discharge standard of pollutants for municipal wastewater treatment plant》 (GB18918 - 2002), Attain or better than 《the earth's surface water environment quality standard》 (GB3838 - 2002) of V water standard.