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Wei Ji,1 Yunlong Xing,2 Jinshu Ma,3 Zhuo Zhao,4 Hongqin Xu,5 Shuang Zheng,6 Wei Li,1 Xu Li5 1Cancer Center, The First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of China; 2Plastic Surgery, China-Japan Union Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Pathology, China-Japan Union Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of China; 4Cardiology Department, The Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Hepatology, The First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of China; 6Department of Radiology, The First Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Xu LiDepartment of Hepatology, The First Hospital of Jilin University, No. 71, Xinmin Street, Changchun, 130021, People’s Republic of ChinaTel +86 158 0430 1765Email jdyylx@jlu.edu.cnBackground: Primary liver sarcomatoid carcinoma (PLSC) is rare. To improve the understanding of PLSC, cases were described and reviewing the literature.Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on 14 cases of PLSC diagnosed by pathology in Northeastern China from 2010 to 2020. An individual participant data analysis based on reported cases was conducted to determine epidemiological characteristics, clinical characteristics, and prognoses of PLSC.Results: A total of 136 cases involved our 14 cases and 122 cases from previous reports. The percentages of sarcomatoid hepatocellular carcinoma, sarcomatoid cholangiolocellular carcinoma, and mixed and unclassified types were 36.8%, 41.9%, 5.9%, and 15.4%, respectively. A total of 95.6% PLSC was found in Asia. There was a lower percentage of hepatitis-infected patients in Japan, when compared with the Republic of Korea (38.5% vs 70.0%, P< 0.05). Five cases were initially misdiagnosed as a hepatic abscess by imaging. A total of 36.7% cases had metastases when being diagnosed, and 68.9% cases relapsed during the follow-up. The median disease-free survival and overall survival (OS) were 3 months and 5 months, respectively. Only radical surgery (hazard ratio = 0.308, 95% confidence interval 0.186– 0.512, P< 0.001) indicated a better OS.Conclusion: PLSC was more prevalent in Asia and there were possibilities of misdiagnoses. Surgery is still an effective treatment and can significantly prolong the OS. Only limited strategies for recurrent or advanced PLSC, immunotherapy may be possible treatment.Keywords: liver, sarcomatoid carcinoma, pathology, immunotherapy

Objective To investigate the longitudinal associations of serum inflammatory markers and adipokines with joint symptoms and structures in participants with knee OA. Methods Two hundred participants (46.5% female, mean age 63.1 years, mean BMI 29.5 kg/m2) from Tasmania, part of the VIDEO (Vitamin D Effect on OA) study, were randomly selected in the current study. Serum levels of 19 biomarkers, scores of WOMAC and MRI-assessed knee structures were evaluated at baseline and month 24. The patterns of biomarkers were derived from principal component analysis and their association with knee symptoms and structures were examined using adjusted generalized estimating equations. Results Five components explained 78% of the total variance. IL-1β, -2, -4, -6, -8, -17 A, -17 F, -21, -22 and -23 loaded the highest on the first component, which was associated with increased bone marrow lesions (BMLs) and WOMAC dysfunction score. IL-10, -12 and GM-CSF loaded on the second component, which was associated with increased cartilage volume, and decreased effusion synovitis and WOMAC scores. Leptin, adipsin and CRP loaded on the third component, which was positively associated with WOMAC scores. Resistin loaded on the fourth component, which was associated with increased BMLs and cartilage defects. Apelin-36 and adiponectin loaded on the fifth component, which was associated with increased BMLs. Conclusion Various inflammatory and metabolic components were associated differently with joint symptoms and structural changes in knee OA, suggesting a complex inflammatory and metabolic interrelationship in the pathogenesis of knee OA.

Objective The present study was undertaken to determine whether vitamin D supplementation or maintaining sufficient vitamin D level reduces foot pain over 2 years in patients with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis (OA). Methods A post hoc study was conducted from a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial named the Vitamin D Effect on Osteoarthritis (VIDEO) study. Symptomatic knee OA patients with serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels between 12.5 nmoles/liter and 60 nmoles/liter were included and randomly allocated to either monthly vitamin D3 or placebo treatment (1:1) for 2 years. Manchester Foot Pain and Disability Index (MFPDI) was used to evaluate foot pain and disabling foot pain was defined as at least 1 of the 10 functional limitation items (items 1-9 and 11) being documented as on "most/every day(s)" in the last month. A repeated-measures, mixed-effects model was used to analyze the change of MFPDI scores between groups adjusting for potential confounders. Results A total of 413 patients with a mean age of 63.2 years (49.7% males) were enrolled and 340 completed the study. The mean MFPDI score was 22.8 ± 7.3, with 23.7% of participants having disabling foot pain at baseline. There were significant differences in MFPDI scores change between groups over 2 years, with more improvements in the vitamin D group than in the placebo group (-0.03 versus 1.30; P = 0.013) and more improvement in those maintaining sufficient vitamin D levels (n = 226) than those who did not (n = 114) (-0.09 versus 2.19; P = 0.001). Conclusion Vitamin D supplementation and maintenance of sufficient vitamin D levels may improve foot pain in those with knee OA.

Objective To describe the associations of blood pressure and arterial stiffness with knee cartilage volume in patients with knee OA. Methods A secondary analysis was performed on the data from participants in a randomized controlled trial that identified the effects of vitamin D supplementation on knee structures and symptoms among patients with symptomatic knee OA. Brachial and central blood pressure, arterial stiffness indicators and knee cartilage volume were measured at baseline and the 2 year follow-up. Associations were assessed using generalized estimating equations. Results Among 231 participants (average age 63.2 years), 48.9% were females. Higher supine systolic and diastolic pressures were significantly associated with lower tibial cartilage volume (systolic: lateral β −6.23, medial β −5.14, total β −11.35 mm3/mmHg; diastolic: lateral β −10.25, medial β −11.29, total β −21.50 mm3/mmHg). Higher supine systolic pressure was associated with lower femoral cartilage volume (lateral β −17.35, total β −28.31 mm3/mmHg). Central systolic pressure and arterial stiffness indicators (including pulse wave velocity, central pulse pressure and peripheral pulse pressure) were largely not associated with knee cartilage volume; however, higher augmentation index was associated with lower tibial and femoral cartilage volume (tibial: medial β −8.24, total β −19.13 mm3/%; femoral: lateral β −23.70, medial β −26.42, total β −50.12 mm3/%). Conclusions Blood pressure and arterial stiffness are associated with knee cartilage volume at several sites in knee OA patients. This supports that blood pressure and arterial stiffness may involve in the progression of knee OA.

This study is devoted to proposing a useful intelligent prediction model to distinguish the severity of COVID-19, to provide a more fair and reasonable reference for assisting clinical diagnostic decision-making. Based on patients' necessary information, pre-existing diseases, symptoms, immune indexes, and complications, this article proposes a prediction model using the Harris hawks optimization (HHO) to optimize the Fuzzy K-nearest neighbor (FKNN), which is called HHO-FKNN. This model is utilized to distinguish the severity of COVID-19. In HHO-FKNN, the purpose of introducing HHO is to optimize the FKNN's optimal parameters and feature subsets simultaneously. Also, based on actual COVID-19 data, we conducted a comparative experiment between HHO-FKNN and several well-known machine learning algorithms, which result shows that not only the proposed HHO-FKNN can obtain better classification performance and higher stability on the four indexes but also screen out the key features that distinguish severe COVID-19 from mild COVID-19. Therefore, we can conclude that the proposed HHO-FKNN model is expected to become a useful tool for COVID-19 prediction.

Optical selective switch based on silicon photonics offers the advantages of compactness, low power consumption and flexible data management in future optical communication networks. Multi-dimensional (mode, polarization, wavelength) multiplexing transmission has become increasingly important for capacity scaling, while the multi-dimensional selective switch is still full of challenges, especially the integrated solution. Here, we propose and demonstrate on-chip multi-dimensional $1\times \text{N}$ selective switch with simultaneous mode-, polarization- and wavelength-division multiplexing. The monolithic integration on a single silicon chip consists of building blocks of cascaded asymmetrical directional couplers for mode/polarization (de)multiplexing, cascaded microring resonators for wavelength (de)multiplexing, and cascaded thermal-tuning Mach-Zehnder interferometers for selective switching. A multi-dimensional $1\times 4$ selective switch chip on silicon platform is fabricated for proof-of-concept demonstration of simultaneous mode, polarization and wavelength selective switching. The inter-mode/inter-polarization crosstalk and intra-mode/inter-port crosstalk are characterized in the experiment, showing favorable performance with worst crosstalk values of −15.6 and −25.38 dB, respectively. The demonstrations may open up new perspectives for on-chip solutions to multi-dimensional optical signal processing for superior capacity scalable optical communication systems.

To investigate the renal microstructure changes and hypoxia changes in type 2 diabetic patients and the relationship between them and glucose using both diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and blood oxygenation level-dependent magnetic resonance imaging (BOLD MRI). After measuring morning fasting blood glucose, DWI and BOLD MRI were performed in 57 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM group) and 14 healthy volunteers (NC group). According to the fasting blood glucose levels, diabetic patients were divided into a normoglycemic diabetes group (group A), a less hyperglycemic diabetes group (group B) and a more hyperglycemic diabetes group (group C). The renal parenchymal apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), renal cortical R2* (CR2*), and medullary R2* (MR2*) were measured, and the R2* ratio between the medulla and cortex (MCR) was calculated. To test for differences in ADC, R2*, and MCR among the four groups, the data were analyzed by separate one-way ANOVAs. The correlations between ADC, R2*, and MCR and the clinical index of renal function were analyzed. Groups B and C had significantly lower ADC values in the renal parenchyma (P = 0.048, 0.002) and significantly higher MR2* and MCR values (P

Endometriosis is a prevalent chronic disease that affects approximately 6% to 10% of reproductive-aged women. Although numerous researchers have endeavored to explore the etiology of endometriosis over a century, its etiology still remains an enigma. The exploration of pathophysiologic mechanism and novel therapy for endometriosis depends on ideal endometriotic models. In the previous decade, various endometriotic models have been established; therefore, we made a conclusion for available information on these models. This review summarized the common experimental models used in endometriotic studies, including their origins, characteristics, applications, and limitations. Endometriotic models played an important role in studying etiologies and novel treatments of endometriosis during the last decades. Among them, animal models and endometriotic cell lines were viewed as most common studying tools to explore the intrinsic entities of endometriosis. In addition, endometrial organoid also emerged and was regarded as an ideal studying tool for endometriosis research. Different research models collectively complement each other to advance the endometriosis research. The successful establishment of endometrial organoids means that organoids are expected to become an ideal model for studying endometriosis in the future.

Photonic integrated circuits (PICs) have recently attracted extensive attention in advanced photonic signal processing to meet the ever-increasing demands on high-speed and ultracompact data signal...

Background Butorphanol, a synthetic opioid partial agonist analgesic, has been widely used to control perioperative pain. However, the ideal dose and availability of butorphanol for gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy are not well known. The aim of this study was to evaluated the 95% effective dose (ED95) of butorphanol and sufentanil in GI endoscopy and compared their clinical efficacy, especially regarding the recovery time. Methods The study was divided into two parts. For the first part, voluntary patients who needed GI endoscopy anesthesia were recruited to measure the ED95 of butorphanol and sufentanil needed to achieve successful sedation before GI endoscopy using the sequential method (the Dixon up-and-down method). The second part was a double-blind, randomized study. Two hundred cases of painless GI endoscopy patients were randomly divided into two groups (n = 100), including group B (butorphanol at the ED95 dose) and group S (sufentanil at the ED95 dose). Propofol was infused intravenously as the sedative in both groups. The recovery time, visual analogue scale (VAS) score, hand grip strength, fatigue severity scores, incidence of nausea and vomiting, and incidence of dizziness were recorded. Results The ED95 of butorphanol for painless GI endoscopy was 9.07 μg/kg (95% confidence interval: 7.81–19.66 μg/kg). The ED95 of sufentanil was 0.1 μg/kg (95% CI, 0.079–0.422 μg/kg). Both butorphanol and sufentanil provided a good analgesic effect for GI endoscopy. However, the recovery time for butorphanol was significantly shorter than that for sufentanil (P Conclusions Butorphanol at 9.07 μg/kg was more effective than sufentanil for GI endoscopy sedation and notably reduced the recovery time. Trial registration Chinese Clinical Trail Registry (Registration number # ChiCTR1900022780; Date of Registration on April 25rd, 2019).

Waveshaper, a programmable optical processor providing a variety of optical filtering and switching functions, has attracted great attention in the past decade, especially in optical communications...

In December 2019, a novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) caused an outbreak in Wuhan, China, and soon spread to other parts of the world. It was believed that 2019-nCoV was transmitted through respiratory tract and then induced pneumonia, thus molecular diagnosis based on oral swabs was used for confirmation of this disease. Likewise, patient will be released upon two times of negative detection from oral swabs. However, many coronaviruses can also be transmitted through oral–fecal route by infecting intestines. Whether 2019-nCoV infected patients also carry virus in other organs like intestine need to be tested. We conducted investigation on patients in a local hospital who were infected with this virus. We found the presence of 2019-nCoV in anal swabs and blood as well, and more anal swab positives than oral swab positives in a later stage of infection, suggesting shedding and thereby transmitted through oral–fecal route. We also showed serology test can improve detection positive rate thus should be used in future epidemiology. Our report provides a cautionary warning that 2019-nCoV may be shed through multiple routes.

To investigate the cross-sectional associations between suprapatellar pouch effusion-synovitis and serum levels of cartilage oligomeric matrix protein (COMP), high sensitivity C-reaction protein (hs-CRP), knee symptom, and structural changes in patients with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis (OA).A total of 173 subjects were included. The osteophytes, joint space narrowing (JSN), and radiographic severity of OA were determined using X-ray. Cartilage defects, bone marrow lesions (BMLs), and suprapatellar pouch effusion-synovitis were assessed using magnetic resonance imaging. Serum levels of COMP and hs-CRP were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The knee joint symptom was self-reported using visual analogue scale.In this OA cohort, after adjustment for age, sex, and BMI, the presence of pathological effusion-synovitis was associated with serum levels of COMP (β: 30.98, P = 0.018), and suprapatellar pouch effusion-synovitis maximum areas were associated with serum hs-CRP levels. Both suprapatellar pouch effusion-synovitis maximum area and grade were associated with osteophytes and Kellgren-Lawrence scores (ORs: 1.29-1.54, all P 0.05). In patients with high tertile of hs-CRP, both suprapatellar pouch effusion-synovitis maximum area and grade were associated with cartilage defects at lateral and medial tibiofemoral sites (ORs: 3.01-8.41, all P 0.05) after adjustment for covariates. In female patients, the significant associations were present between suprapatellar pouch effusion-synovitis and medial tibiofemoral BMLs (ORs: 1.43-1.53, all P 0.05) after adjustment for covariates.Suprapatellar pouch effusion-synovitis was associated with serum levels of COMP as well as hs-CRP and knee structural abnormalities in patients with knee OA. These suggested that effusion-synovitis may play a role in knee OA.Key Points• Suprapatellar pouch effusion-synovitis is associated with serum levels of COMP in patients with knee OA.• Suprapatellar pouch effusion-synovitis is associated with cartilage defects in knee OA patients with high systemic inflammation.

Multiple-operators (multi-OPs) spectrum sharing mechanism can effectively improve the spectrum utilization in fifth-generation (5G) wireless communication networks. The secondary users are introduced to opportunistically access the licensed spectrum of idle operators (OPs). However, the identity privacy and data security issues raise great concerns about the secure spectrum sharing among multi-OPs. To address these challenges, a permissioned blockchain trust framework is proposed for the spectrum sharing in multi-OPs wireless communication networks in this paper. The Multi-OPs Spectrum Sharing (MOSS) smart contract is designed on the constructed permissioned blockchain to implement the spectrum trading among multi-OPs. Without the need of trustless spectrum broker, the MOSS smart contract enforces multi-OPs to share the spectrum truthfully and designs a punishment mechanism to punish malicious OPs. The MOSS smart contract is tested on the Remix integrated development environment (IDE) and the gas costs of MOSS smart contract is estimated. The performance analysis of the proposed permissioned blockchain trust framework demonstrates that the privacy, openness and fairness of the proposed solution are better than traditional spectrum allocation solutions.

The study aimed to determine the associations between the morphological types of proximal tibiofibular joint (PTFJ) and the risk of total knee replacement (TKR) in a cohort of participants with progressive osteoarthritis. A nested case-control design was performed in Osteoarthritis Initiative study. The case knees were those with TKR at 24-60 months follow up (cases), and were 1:1 matched with control knees by age, sex, and Kellgren-Lawrence grade at baseline. The morphological type of each PTFJ was identified according to the coronal and sagittal MR images. Conditional logistic regression models were used to examine the association of the PTFJ types with the risk of TKR at baseline and the time point before TKR (T0 ). A total of 193 case knees at baseline and 148 case knees at T0 time point had matched controls between 12 and 60 M. Seven types of the PTFJ were identified and classified into three categories: plane, trochoid, and irregular types. The prevalence of the irregular type was higher in case knees than in controls both at baseline (cases vs. controls, 35.8% vs. 26.9%) and at T0 time point (cases vs. controls, 33.1% vs. 27.0%). The irregular type of the PTFJ at baseline (odds ratio: 1.62, 95% confidence interval: 1.01-2.59) rather than at T0 time point was significantly associated with increased odds of TKR. The irregular types of the PTFJ at baseline are associated with increased risk of TKR, suggesting PTFJ may play a role in knee osteoarthritis.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the gait characteristics of bilateral limbs after unilateral total knee arthroplasty (TKA) using three-dimensional (3D) dynamic capture technology. Forty-two patients who underwent TKA were selected from the Orthopedic Medical Center of The Second Hospital of Jilin University from November 2018 to May 2019. We used a 3D dynamic capture system to measure the gait characteristics of patients at 3 months after TKA. The data, including relative position and direction of different body parts, the force between feet and ground, spatial and temporal relationship of the lower limb muscles, were measured. Besides, the surface electromyogram signal and the force plate analog signal were also collected. The walking ability, knee 3D kinematic, and kinetic characteristics were analyzed by the Cortex software. Spatial and temporal parameters, including stride frequency, double support phase, single support phase, step length, step time, step width, stride length, gait cycle, velocity, were no significant difference in bilateral lower extremities (P > .05). The reaction force of hip, knee, and ankle joint in the operation side were less than that of the healthy side, but the difference was not statistically significant (P > .05). However, when compared with the healthy side, the hip joint in operation side had a larger maximum extension angle (P

Named entity recognition (NER) is a basic technology of Natural Language Processing (NLP). It is mainly used to identify entities and entity types. Compared with traditional entity recognition, fine-grained entity recognition can provide more precise semantics. In order to improve the effect of fine-grained Chinese N ER, w e propose a model based on RoBERTa-WWM-BiLSTM-CRF and compare it with other high-quality models. The experimental results show that this model has better effect on the CLUENER2020 dataset of fine-grained Chinese NER.

PurposeTriple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), the most aggressive subtype of breast cancer, is associated with high invasiveness, high metastatic occurrence and poor prognosis. Protein tyrosine kinase 7 (PTK7) plays an important role in multiple cancers. However, the role of PTK7 in TNBC has not been well addressed. This study was performed to evaluate the role of PTK7 in the progression of TNBC.MethodsCorrelation of PTK7 expression with clinicopathological parameters was assessed using tissue microarray immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining in 280 patients with breast cancer. PTK7 expression in TNBC (MDA-MB-468, MDA-MB-436 and MDA-MB-231) and non-TNBC (MCF7 and SK-BR-3) breast cancer cell lines were examined using immunoblotting assay. PTK7 correlated genes in invasive breast carcinoma were analyzed using cBioPortal breast cancer datasets including 1,904 patients. PTK7 overexpressed or knockdown TNBC cell lines (MDA-MB-468 and MDA-MB-436) were used to analyze the potential roles of PTK7 in TNBC metastasis and tumor progression. A TNBC tumor bearing mouse model was established to further analyze the role of PTK7 in TNBC tumorigenicity in vivo.ResultsPTK7 is highly expressed in breast cancer and correlates with worse prognosis and associates with tumor metastasis and progression in TNBC. Co-expression analysis and gain- or loss-of-function of PTK7 in TNBC cell lines revealed that PTK7 participates in EGFR/Akt signaling regulation and associated with extracellular matrix organization and migration genes in breast cancer, including COL1A1, FN1, WNT5B, MMP11, MMP14 and SDC1. Gain- or loss-of-function experiments of PTK7 suggested that PTK7 promotes proliferation and migration in TNBC cell lines. PTK7 knockdown MDA-MB-468 cell bearing mouse model further demonstrated that PTK7-deficiency inhibits TNBC tumor progression in vivo.ConclusionThis study identified PTK7 as a potential marker of worse prognosis in TNBC and revealed PTK7 promotes TNBC metastasis and progression via EGFR/Akt signaling pathway.

In order to realize the analysis of the emotional tendency of the product user reviews. This paper proposes a method for analyzing the sentiment orientation of product reviews based on the BERT-BiLSTM-ATT model. First, use the BERT model to obtain the feature representation of the product review text, and then input the obtained feature representation into the BiLSTM network to extract the emotional features of the product review. Add an Attention layer before the output layer of the normal BiLSTM model to further improve the classification accuracy, and finally combine with Softmax The classifier classifies the extracted features. To validate the algorithm, the design and LSTM, BiLSTM, BiLSTM-ATT, BERTBiLSTM comparative model experiments, experimental results show that the algorithm accuracy on test set are improved 6.17%, 3.75%, 2.83%, 1.03%, to prove the effectiveness of this method in the relevant classification task.

As a new network paradigm, Software-defined networking (SDN) realizes centralized management of the network by separating the control plane and the data plane. While SDN greatly improves network management capabilities, it also brings some security risks such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. How to effectively detect abnormal traffic has always been a hot issue in the field of network security. This paper proposes an improved attack detection model SSAE-BiLSTM based on deep learning. The stacked sparse autoencoder (SSAE) is used to extract high-dimensional features of data, and bidirectional long short-term memory (BiLSTM) is used to classify network traffic. This model can effectively detect network attacks with higher accuracy and lower false alarm rate on the benchmark dataset UNSW-NB15.

Accurate measuring of subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) and visceral adipose tissue (VAT) is vital for the research of many diseases. The localization and quantification of SAT and VAT by computed tomography (CT) expose patients to harmful ionizing radiation. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a safe and painless test. The aim of this paper is to explore a practical method for the segmentation of SAT and VAT based on the iterative decomposition of water and fat with echo asymmetry and least square estimation‑iron quantification (IDEAL-IQ) technology and machine learning. The approach involves two main steps. First, a deep network is designed to segment the inner and outer boundaries of SAT in fat images and the peritoneal cavity contour in water images. Second, after mapping the peritoneal cavity contour onto the fat images, the assumption-free K-means++ with a Markov chain Monte Carlo (AFK-MC2) clustering method is used to obtain the VAT content. An MRI data set from 75 subjects is utilized to construct and evaluate the new strategy. The Dice coefficients for the SAT and VAT content obtained from the proposed method and the manual measurements performed by experts are 0.96 and 0.97, respectively. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method and the manual measurements exhibit high reliability.

In order to investigate the influence of laser wavelength on the detection of the metals in Artemisia annua, pulsed lasers operating at wavelengths of 1064 nm and 532 nm for laser induced breakdown...

NUT carcinoma (NC) is a rare and poorly differentiated tumor, with highly aggressive and fatal neoplasm. NC is characterized by chromosomal rearrangement involving NUTM1 gene, but lack of specific clinical and histomorphological features. It is more common in midline anatomic sites, such as head and neck, mediastinum, and other midline organs. NC may occur at any age, but mainly in children and young adults. In addition, male and female are equally affected. Most clinicians lack a clear understanding of the disease, and NC diagnostic reagents are still not widely used; therefore, misdiagnosis often occurs in clinic. Due to the highly aggressive nature of the disease and the insensitivity to nonspecific chemotherapy or radiotherapy, many patients have died before the confirmation of NC. In fact, the true incidence of NC is much higher than the current statistics. In recent years, targeted therapy for NC has also made some progress. This article aims to summarize the molecular mechanisms, clinicopathological characteristics, and treatment of NC.

Cylindrical vector (CV) beams are highly desirable for wide applications ranging from manipulation to communications. Despite diverse schemes of CV beam emitters, the efficient generation of vector...

The 2- $\mu$ m spectral window is emerging as a promising candidate for the next generation communication. We present a 2 × 2 Mach–Zehnder interferometric thermo-optic switch at 2- $\mu$ m waveband. The device is fabricated on a 220 nm thick silicon-on-insulator wafer with standard complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process. We demonstrate an over 30 dB extinction ratio under the power consumption of 32.3 mW, with an average switching time of ∼15 μs. This proof of principle optical switch paves a way toward full silicon-based chip-scale interconnects in the 2- $\mu$ m waveband.

Resistive strain sensors play a crucial role in the development of flexible and stretchable electronics because of their excellent sensitivity and conformability. However, such sensors suffer from poor durability because of the low adhesion strength between the solid conductive layer and polymer and the irreparable dry friction inside the conventional solid conductive layers. Here, inspired from the structures and excellent abrasion resistance of tear films on animal corneas, we demonstrate ultradurable strain sensors based on uniform self-healing wear-free liquid films formed on biomimetic microvilli made from modified polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Ethanol solutions containing ionic liquids (ILs) are added to PDMS microvilli, which are superlyophilic due to the surface chemistry and special structures. During evaporation, ILs are driven upward by Laplace pressure and join into continuous conductive films. As the sensing layer, when repeatedly stretched and released, the capillary-stabilized liquid film is lossless because of wet friction, and the cracks will recover completely after release due to the capillary-force-induced self-healing capability, allowing the strain sensors to exhibit high durability of over 22 500 loading-unloading cycles. This work presents an approach for the construction of ultradurable electronics.

Heart failure is induced by multiple pathological mechanisms, and current therapies are ineffective against heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). As there are limited animal models of HFpEF, its underlying mechanisms have not yet been elucidated. Here, we employed the descending aortic constriction (DAC) technique to induce chronic pressure overload in the left ventricles of Tibetan minipigs for 12 weeks. Cardiac function, pathological and cellular changes, fibrotic signaling activation, and gene expression profiles were explored. The left ventricles developed concentric hypertrophy from weeks 4 to 6 and transition to dilation starting in week 10. Notably, the left ventricular ejection fraction was maintained at >50% in the DAC group during the 12-week period. Pathological examination, biochemical analyses, and gene profile analysis revealed evidence of inflammation, fibrosis, cell death, and myofilament dephosphorylation in the myocardium of HFpEF model animals, together with gene expression shifts promoting cardiac remodeling and downregulating metabolic pathways. Furthermore, we noted the activation of several signaling proteins that impact cardiac fibrosis and remodeling, including transforming growth factor-β/SMAD family members 2/3, type I/III/V collagens, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase, extracellular signal-regulated kinase, matrix metalloproteinases 2 and 9, tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases 1 and 2, interleukins 6 and 1β, and inhibitor of κBα/nuclear factor-κB. Our findings demonstrate that this chronic pressure overload-induced porcine HFpEF model is a powerful tool to elucidate the mechanisms of this disease and translate preclinical findings.

Sentiment analysis has attracted increasing attention in e-commerce. The sentiment polarities underlying user reviews are of great value for business intelligence. Aspect category sentiment analysis (ACSA) and review rating prediction (RP) are two essential tasks to detect the fine-to-coarse sentiment polarities. %Considering the sentiment of the aspects(ACSA) and the overall review rating(RP) simultaneously has the potential to improve the overall performance. ACSA and RP are highly correlated and usually employed jointly in real-world e-commerce scenarios. While most public datasets are constructed for ACSA and RP separately, which may limit the further exploitation of both tasks. To address the problem and advance related researches, we present a large-scale Chinese restaurant review dataset \textbf{ASAP} including $46,730$ genuine reviews from a leading online-to-offline (O2O) e-commerce platform in China. Besides a $5$-star scale rating, each review is manually annotated according to its sentiment polarities towards $18$ pre-defined aspect categories. We hope the release of the dataset could shed some light on the fields of sentiment analysis. Moreover, we propose an intuitive yet effective joint model for ACSA and RP. Experimental results demonstrate that the joint model outperforms state-of-the-art baselines on both tasks., 11 Pages, 5 Figures, Accepted at NAACL 2021

The purpose is to minimize the substantial losses caused by public health emergencies to people’s health and daily life and the national economy. The tuberculosis data from June 2017 to 2019 in a city are collected. The Structural Equation Model (SEM) is constructed to determine the relationship between hidden and explicit variables by determining the relevant indicators and parameter estimation. The prediction model based on Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is constructed. The method’s effectiveness is verified by comparing the prediction model’s loss value and accuracy in training and testing. Meanwhile, 50 pieces of actual cases are tested, and the warning level is determined according to the T-value. The results show that comparing and analyzing ANN, CNN, and the hybrid network of ANN and CNN, the hybrid network’s accuracy (95.1%) is higher than the other two algorithms, 89.1 and 90.1%. Also, the hybrid network has sound prediction effects and accuracy when predicting actual cases. Therefore, the early warning method based on ANN in deep learning has better performance in public health emergencies’ early warning, which is significant for improving early warning capabilities.

International audience; In this work, we propose a novel framework for camouflaged object detection (COD), named D2C-Net, which contains two new modules: dual-branch features extraction (DFE) and gradually refined cross fusion (GRCF). Specifically, the DFE simulates the two-stage detection process of human visual mechanisms in observing camouflage scenes. For the first stage, a dense concatenation is employed to aggregate multi-level features and expand the receptive field. The first stage feature maps are then utilized to extract two-direction guidance information, which benefits the second stage. The GRCF consists of a self-refine attention unit and a cross-refinement unit, with the aim of combining the peer layer features and DFE features for an improved COD performance. The proposed framework outperforms 13 state-of-the-art deep learning-based methods upon three public datasets in terms of five widely used metrics. Finally, we show evidence for the successful applications of the proposed method in the fields of surface defect detection, medical image segmentation.

Manufacturer, as a dominated player, often sells products via competing dominant platforms (e.g., Amazon.com, Tmall.com, et al.). The investigation reveals that prices of same products on different platforms are sometimes the same and sometimes different. This phenomenon yields a novel research problem: Why these pricing strategies (consistent pricing and inconsistent pricing) exist? How should the weak manufacturer choose an appropriate one and protect his profits? We focus on it and model the problems by considering two important factors, i.e., competition between e-tailers and spillover effect from online channel to offline channel. By employing Stackelberg approach to our analysis where dominant e-tailers play as the leader and the manufacturer plays as the follower, we have two new findings: For the e-tailer, he always prefers inconsistent pricing regardless of spillover effect and platform competition. However, manufacturer prefers this strategy only when the spillover is negative. In case that the spillover is positive, manufacturer can use consistent pricing as a tool to mitigate competition between e-tailers, which improves not only online sales but also offline sales, and in turn increases manufacturer’s profits.

Background To describe demographic and clinical factors associated with the presence and incidence of depression and explore the temporal relationship between depression and joint symptoms in patients with symptomatic knee osteoarthritis (OA). Methods Three hundred ninety-seven participants were selected from a randomized controlled trial in people with symptomatic knee OA and vitamin D deficiency (age 63.3 ± 7.1 year, 48.6% female). Depression severity and knee joint symptoms were assessed using the patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) and the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC), respectively, at baseline and 24 months. Results The presence and incidence of depression was 25.4 and 11.2%, respectively. At baseline, having younger age, a higher body mass index (BMI), greater scores of WOMAC pain (PR: 1.05, 95%CI:1.03, 1.07), dysfunction (PR: 1.02, 95%CI:1.01, 1.02) and stiffness (PR: 1.05, 95%CI: 1.02, 1.09), lower education level, having more than one comorbidity and having two or more painful body sites were significantly associated with a higher presence of depression. Over 24 months, being female, having a higher WOMAC pain (RR: 1.05, 95%CI: 1.02, 1.09) and dysfunction score (RR: 1.02, 95%CI: 1.01, 1.03) at baseline and having two or more painful sites were significantly associated with a higher incidence of depression. In contrast, baseline depression was not associated with changes in knee joint symptoms over 24 months. Conclusion Knee OA risk factors and joint symptoms, along with co-existing multi-site pain are associated with the presence and development of depression. This suggests that managing common OA risk factors and joint symptoms may be important for prevention and treatment depression in patients with knee OA. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT01176344. Anzctr.org.au identifier: ACTRN12610000495022.

BackgroundIn the early stages of the coronavirus disease pandemic, the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) and the antibiotic drug azithromycin (AZM) were widely used as emerging treatments. However, controversial cardiac toxicity results obtained from clinical trials and epidemic studies suggest that the cardiotoxicity of these two drugs should be re-evaluated. In the present study, we aimed to assess the impact of a short course of AZM or HCQ + AZM combination treatment on ECG and cardiac function in healthy guinea pigs.MethodsThirty-two male guinea pigs were randomly divided into four groups: control; AZM; HCQ; and HCQ + AZM groups. At 3, 6, and 9 days after treatment, electrocardiograms (ECGs) and echocardiographic techniques were used to determine important ECG parameters and cardiac functional parameters of the left ventricle (including posterior wall thickness, end systolic/end diastolic volume, ejection fraction, and fractional shortening).ResultsAlthough AZM decreased the heart rates of guinea pigs on day 9 (under anesthetized conditions), HCQ + AZM decreased heart rates on days 3, 6, and 9. The corrected QT intervals of guinea pigs after AZM and HCQ + AZM treatments were significantly increased, compared with CON and HCQ treatment respectively, on days 3, 6, and 9. However, QRS complex durations were not significantly different between the groups. AZM significantly decreased left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and left ventricular fraction shortening (LVFS) on days 3, 6, and 9, whereas HCQ + AZM only decreased LVEF and LVFS on day 9. Posterior wall thickness and of the left ventricle in the diastolic and systolic states were not significantly different between these groups. In addition, compared with CON, AZM and HCQ decreased the EDV. And, in comparison with HCQ treatment, HCQ + AZM treatment increased ESV on day 9.ConclusionsAccording to our study, AZM significantly prolongs the QT interval and damages cardiac function. Moreover, HCQ + AZM treatment increased the risk of cardiac dysfunction compared with HCQ treatment.

Internet of things (IoT) is a new technology connecting devices to the Internet from a wide variety of sectors. IoT devices can sense and collect massive data. Due to the limited computing ability of IoT devices, the edge computing is introduced to provide computing resources for IoT devices. However, how to ensure the security of interaction process between IoT devices and edge computing devices is a key issue. In this paper, the blockchain technology is introduced to realize the decentralized resource interaction between IoT devices and edge computing devices. A revenue function of edge computing device, which includes the revenue from providing the computing resources for IoT devices, and the revenue from participating in the consensus process of blockchain networks, is proposed. The numerical simulation results show that when the unit revenue of consensus computing is greater than that of IoT computing, the revenue of the blockchain-based resource allocation method is greater than that of the method without blockchain.

Introduction: Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) was a potential tumor immunotherapy target. IDO inhibitors showed inconsistent results in clinical trials, but no preclinical comparative study was reported. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the differences of representative IDO inhibitors (PCC0208009, INCB024360, NLG919) from the pharmacological perspective. Methods: In vitro experiments included: inhibition effects on IDO activity in cell and enzyme-based assay, effects on IDO expression in HeLa cells, and enhancement of proliferation and activation of peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC). In vivo experiments included: pharmacokinetics and tumor distribution in CT26-bearing mice, effects on Kyn/Trp and anti-tumor effect and immunological mechanism in CT26 and B16F10 tumor-bearing mice. Results: Compared with INCB024360 and NLG919, PCC0208009 effectively inhibited IDO activity at lower dose 2 nM and longer duration more than 72 h, had higher enhancements on PBMC proliferation and activation, and could inhibit the IDO expression in Hela cells. The pharmacokinetics characteristics of three IDO inhibitors were similar in CT26-bearing mice. In CT26 and B16F10 tumor-bearing mice, PCC0208009 and INCB024360 had similar effects in Kyn/Trp reduction, and more potent than NLG919; three IDO inhibitors had similar effects in tumor suppression, changes of the percentages of CD3+CD8+ and CD3+CD4+ T cells, and activation of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, while PCC0208009 had a better tendency than INCB024360 and NLG919. Conclusion: PCC0208009, INCB024360, and NLG919 were all effective IDO inhibitors, but the comprehensive pharmacological activity of PCC0208009 was better than INCB024360 and NLG919, which was basically consistent with the results or progresses of clinical trials.

Summary Background & aims The evidence of benefiting from a high-quality diet for knee osteoarthritis (OA) joint structures, symptoms, and systemic abnormalities is limited. Clarifying the relationship between diet quality and knee OA could provide useful information for knee OA management. To investigate the associations between diet quality and knee joint structures, symptoms, lower limb muscle strength, depressive symptoms, and quality of life in people with knee OA. Methods This study was a post-hoc, exploratory analysis using data from a randomized controlled trial in symptomatic knee OA participants with a follow-up time of 24 months. In brief, eligible participants of the original study were aged 50–79 years, had symptomatic knee OA, and had a pain of 20–80 mm on a 100-mm visual analog scale. After excluding the patients without information on diet quality, 392 participants were included in this post-hoc analysis. Diet quality was assessed at baseline using the Australian Recommended Food Score (ARFS) which includes subscores of vegetable, fruit, grain, dairy products, fat, and alcohol. Knee joint structures (including cartilage volume, cartilage defect, bone marrow lesions, and effusion-synovitis volume assessed by magnetic resonance imaging), OA symptoms, lower limb muscle strength, depressive symptoms, and quality of life were assessed at baseline and follow up. Mixed-effects models were used to assess the associations of diet quality with those outcomes. Results Diet quality mainly reflect diet variety within the core food was not associated with knee structures and OA symptoms, but was associated with greater lower limb muscle strength (β = 0.66, P = 0.001), lower depressive symptom (β = -0.08, P = 0.001), and better quality of life (β = -0.06, P = 0.002). In further analyses of food group-based sub-scores, only the vegetable sub-score had the similar associations with lower limb muscle strength (β = 1.03, P = 0.004), depressive symptom (β = -0.17, P Conclusions Higher diet quality, mainly vegetable diet quality, is associated with greater lower limb muscle strength, less depressive symptoms, and higher quality of life in knee OA patients, suggesting higher diet quality may have protective effects on knee OA.

The association between proximal tibiofibular joint (PTFJ) and knee osteoarthritis (OA) has been understudied. The objective of this study was to determine whether the morphology of PTFJ has predictive value for the risk of total knee replacement (TKR). Case knees from Osteoarthritis Initiative participants with TKR at 24-60 months follow up (cases) were 1:1 matched with control knees (no TKR throughout 60 months) by baseline age, sex, and Kellgren-Lawrence grade. PTFJ morphological parameters, including coronal inclination angle (angle α), sagittal inclination angle (angle β), fibular contacting area (S), load-bearing area (Sτ), lateral stress-bolstering area (Sφ), and posterior stress-bolstering area (Sυ) were assessed using coronal and sagittal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), respectively. Associations of the morphological measures at baseline and the time point before TKR (T0 ) and their changes with TKR risks were examined using conditional logistic regression analyses. Two hundred and twenty-three knees of 193 participants received TKR between 12 and 60 months and therefore were matched with 223 control knees. Of these, 173 paired knees had MRI readings available both at baseline and T0 time point. While baseline angle α was positively associated with TKR risk, other measures at baseline and all measures at T0 were not significantly associated with TKR risk. Changes in S, Sτ, and Sυ were significantly and negatively associated with the risk of TKR (ΔS, odds ratio [OR] = 0.38, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.19-0.76; ΔSτ, OR = 0.37, 95% CI: 0.16-0.87; ΔSυ, OR = 0.22, 95% CI: 0.08-0.62, respectively). This data shows that morphological changes of PTFJ predict the risk of TKR, suggesting PTFJ may play a role in knee OA.

Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) platforms have attracted increasing interest for photonic integrated devices with an ultra-small footprint. The distinct feature is the strong light confinement in the silicon region due to a high refractive-index-contrast. In contrast, releasing the light field out of the silicon region is also of great significance for providing a useful supplement to existing light guiding mechanisms and for facilitating versatile applications. Here, subwavelength grating slot (SWGS) microring resonators, which can effectively release light out of the silicon region for athermal and sensing applications, are proposed and demonstrated. The mechanism of releasing light relies on the combination of a surface enhanced supermode in a slot waveguide and a Bloch mode in a subwavelength grating waveguide. Four types of racetrack microring resonators (strip, slot, strip-SWGS, and slot-SWGS) were fabricated for comparison. The slot-SWGS microring resonator shows the best performance for athermal and sensing applications. The demonstrations may be useful for new releasing-light-enabled devices and applications.

Summary Objectives To examine the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations of dietary patterns with knee symptoms and structures in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Methods Participants with symptomatic knee OA were recruited from a randomised, placebo-controlled trial conducted in Tasmania (N = 259) and Victoria (N = 133). Diet was assessed by the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria food frequency questionnaire. Factor analysis was used to identify dietary patterns. Knee symptoms were assessed using Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index (WOMAC) and structures using MRI. Multivariable linear regressions were used to examine associations. Results Three dietary patterns (“high-fat”, “healthy” and “mixed”) were identified in whole sample. Participants with higher “healthy pattern” score had lower total WOMAC, pain, function and stiffness scores at baseline but the associations were not significant over 24 months. Three (“western”, “vegetable and meat” and “mediterranean”) and two (“processed” and “vegetable”) patterns were identified in Tasmania and Victoria, respectively. Cross-sectionally, only “mediterranean pattern” and “vegetable pattern” scores were significantly and negatively associated with total WOMAC or function scores. Longitudinally, participants with higher “western pattern” had worsening function (β: 0.35, 95%CI: 0.03, 0.67) and total WOMAC (β: 0.40, 95%CI: 0.07, 0.72) scores; furthermore, “vegetable pattern” was associated with decreased WOMAC stiffness score (β: −0.47, 95%CI: −0.93, −0.02). In contrast, dietary patterns were largely not associated with structural changes. Conclusion Some healthy dietary patterns were associated with reduced joint symptoms but dietary patterns were not associated with joint structure in this sample with knee OA. Further studies are required to confirm these findings.

Background Aberrant activation of the NLRP 3 (nucleotide‐binding oligomerization domain, leucine‐rich repeat–containing receptor family pyrin domain‐containing 3) inflammasome is thought to play a causative role in atherosclerosis. NLRP 3 is kept in an inactive ubiquitinated state to avoid unwanted NLRP 3 inflammasome activation. This study aimed to test the hypothesis that pharmacologic manipulating of NLRP 3 ubiquitination blunts the assembly and activation of the NLRP 3 inflammasome and protects against vascular inflammation and atherosclerosis. Since genetic studies yielded mixed results about the role for this inflammasome in atherosclerosis in low‐density lipoprotein receptor– or apolipoprotein E–deficient mice, this study attempted to clarify the discrepancy with the pharmacologic approach using both models. Methods and Results We provided the first evidence demonstrating that tranilast facilitates NLRP 3 ubiquitination. We showed that tranilast restricted NLRP 3 oligomerization and inhibited NLRP 3 inflammasome assembly. Tranilast markedly suppressed NLRP 3 inflammasome activation in low‐density lipoprotein receptor– and apolipoprotein E–deficient macrophages. Through reconstitution of the NLRP 3 inflammasome in human embryonic kidney 293T cells, we found that tranilast directly limited NLRP 3 inflammasome activation. By adopting different regimens for tranilast treatment of low‐density lipoprotein receptor– and apolipoprotein E–deficient mice, we demonstrated that tranilast blunted the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis. Mice receiving tranilast displayed a significant reduction in atherosclerotic lesion size, concomitant with a pronounced decline in macrophage content and expression of inflammatory molecules in the plaques compared with the control group. Moreover, tranilast treatment of mice substantially hindered the expression and activation of the NLRP 3 inflammasome in the atherosclerotic lesions. Conclusions Tranilast potently enhances NLRP 3 ubiquitination, blunts the assembly and activation of the NLRP 3 inflammasome, and ameliorates vascular inflammation and atherosclerosis in both low‐density lipoprotein receptor– and apolipoprotein E–deficient mice.

Background Lipid abnormality and obesity have been proposed to be associated with lumbar disc degeneration, but little is known about the effect of ‘lipid healthy but obese’ (LH-O) and ‘lipid abnormal but not obese’ (LA-NO) phenotypes on lumbar disc degeneration in Chinese. The study aims to determine the impact and distinction of LH-O and LA-NO phenotypes on lumbar disc degeneration in Chinese, and to identify the association of related factors with risk of lumbar disc degeneration. Methods A total of 678 individuals were included with lumbar magnetic resonance imaging, serum lipid levels and anthropometric measurements. Obesity was defined on the basis of body mass index or waist to hip ratio (WHR). Pfirrmann score and Weishaupt’s scale were utilized to assess the degree of disc degeneration and facet joint degeneration. Results The incidence of the LH-O and LA-NO phenotypes were 11.4% and 18.1%, respectively. LA-NO phenotype demonstrates a high incidence for disc degeneration (P 0.05). Elevated triglycerides and greater WHR may be the risk factors for lumbar disc degeneration in Chinese. Conclusion LH-O and LA-NO phenotypes are common with different status of disc degeneration in Chinese. Elevated triglycerides and abdominal obesity appear to play crucial roles in the development of lumbar disc degeneration.

Intensive research in photonics has discovered many original and fascinating optical phenomena associated with the physics of Fano resonances. Here we extend the research of Fano resonance to on-chip multiple modes and high-order mode, which can be called multimode Fano resonance. By exploiting both wavelength and mode degrees of freedom, we demonstrate a compact structure to engineer wavelength- and shape-controlled multimode Fano resonances on an integrated photonic platform. Both simulated and experimental results indicate that the unambiguous asymmetric spectra line shapes for both transverse electric modes ( T E 0 and T E 1 ) can be further applied to low-power mode switching. The demonstrated on-chip multimode Fano resonances scheme may provide a new perspective for exploring the advantages and applications of multimode Fano resonances in integrated photonics.

Based on InP platform, we design and optimize a compact integrated device to realize efficient lasing of azimuthally polarized beam. Single-mode selection, emission and high speed can be achieved under electrical pumping.

Wind power generation has great randomness because of its randomness and uncontrollability. Due to the instability of wind energy, the power system access to large-scale wind power will pose a serious threat to the system. The accuracy of wind power prediction is very important to the security and stability. In this paper, a prediction model of electric power based on wavelet and BP neural network is proposed. The wavelet can further refine the periodic and nonlinear characteristics of electric power, and it solves many uncontrollable features when testing with BP neural network alone. The simulation shows that the prediction results of this method is better than that of BP neural network.

The modulation recognition of digital signal is widely used in the field of communication. In this paper, a decision tree modulation recognition algorithm based on feature extraction and a conventional classifier recognition based on SVM are proposed. 9 kinds of common digital signals are identified and simulated. The results show that the recognition rate of SVM classifier and decision tree is high at low SNR.

Following acute infection, individuals COVID-19 may still shed SARS-CoV-2 RNA. However, limited information is available regarding the active shedding period or whether infectious virus is also shed. Here, we monitored the clinical characteristics and virological features of 38 patients with COVID-19 (long-term carriers) who recovered from the acute disease, but still shed viral RNA for over 3 months. The median carrying history of the long-term carriers was 92 days after the first admission, and the longest carrying history was 118 days. Negative-positive viral RNA-shedding fluctuations were observed. Long-term carriers were mostly elderly people with a history of mild infection. Infectious SARS-CoV-2 was isolated from the sputum, where high level viral RNA was found. All nine full-length genomes of samples obtained in March–April 2020 matched early viral clades circulating in January–February 2020, suggesting that these patients persistently carried SARS-CoV-2 and were not re-infected. IgM and IgG antibodies and neutralizing-antibody profiles were similar between long-term carriers and recovered patients with similar disease courses. In summary, although patients with COVID-19 generated neutralizing antibodies, they may still shed infectious SARS-CoV-2 for over 3 months. These data imply that patients should be monitored after discharge to control future outbreaks.

Summary Objectives To validate a method to measure the morphological parameters of the proximal tibiofibular joint (PTFJ) in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Methods 408 participants were examined in this cross-sectional subject-based study. We calculated the fibular contacting area of PTFJ (S) and its projection areas onto the horizontal plane (load-bearing area, Sτ), the sagittal plane (lateral stress-bolstering area, Sφ) and the coronal plane (posterior stress-bolstering area, Sυ). Joint space narrowing (JSN) and osteophyte was measured using radiographs. Cartilage defects, bone marrow lesions (BMLs) and cartilage volume were evaluated using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Results The average PTFJ fibular contacting area was 2.4 cm2 (SD, ±0.7 cm2). Intra-observer and inter-observer reliabilities of measures of PTFJ morphological parameters were excellent (≥0.90). S, Sτ and Sφ were significantly associated with JSN in the medial tibiofemoral compartment (PR: 1.40, 95% CI 1.10–1.78; PR: 1.65, 95% CI 1.25–2.18 and PR: 0.53, 95% CI 0.29–0.97, respectively). There was a significantly positive association between S, Sτ and medial and/or femoral tibial cartilage defects. S, Sτ and Sυ were significantly and positively associated with medial and/or femoral tibial BMLs (PR: 1.36, 95% CI 1.12–1.64; PR: 1.47, 95% CI 1.17–1.83; and PR: 1.39, 95% CI 1.06–1.82, respectively) after adjustment. S and Sτ were significantly and negatively associated with medial tibial cartilage volume. Conclusions This novel method to assess the morphological parameters of PTFJ in MRI is reproducible. These parameters are associated with knee radiographic and MRI-based OA-related structural abnormalities, suggesting clinical construct validity. Its predictive validity needs to be examined in future longitudinal studies.