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International travel may facilitate the spread of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID‐19). The study describes clusters of COVID‐19 cases within Chinese tour groups travelling in Europe January 16–28. We compared characteristics of cases and non‐cases to determine transmission dynamics. The index case travelled from Wuhan, China, to Europe on 16 January 2020, and to Shanghai, China, on 27 January 2020, within a tour group (group A). Tour groups with the same outbound flight (group B) or the same tourism venue (group D) and all Chinese passengers on the inbound flight (group C) were investigated. The outbreak involved 11 confirmed cases, 10 suspected cases and six tourists who remained healthy. Group A, involving seven confirmed cases and six suspected cases, consisted of familial transmission followed by propagative transmission. There was less pathogenicity with propagative transmission than with familial transmission. Disease was transmitted in shared outbound flights, shopping venues within Europe and inbound flight back to China. The novel coronavirus caused clustered cases of COVID‐19 in tour groups. When tourism and travel opens up, governments will need to improve screening at airports and consider increased surveillance of tour groups—particularly those with older tour members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many different materials have been used as alternative counter electrodes (CEs) for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) mainly due to the high cost of Pt CEs. So far the majority of reported work has focused on the modulation of conductivity and morphology of the CEs. The working mechanism is still unclear, specifically that of the electrocatalysis. Here it is elucidated for the first time by using polypyrrole (PPy) as the target material. The electrocatalysis is mainly comprised of formation of the weakly and strongly bonded iodine species, and formation and reduction of the intermediates. This mechanism may be valid for other CEs too. We envision that this work can help to better understand and optimize the performance of DSSCs fabricated using alternative CEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polycrystalline LuFe2O4ceramics was synthesized by solid state reactions at 1200°C with a mixed gas flow of CO2and H2. The temperature dependence of zero-field cooled and field-cooled magnetization measurements indicates a clear paramagnetic to ferromagnetic transition in our LuFe2O4samples. The temperature relaxation behavior of LuFe2O4ceramics was investigated by an impendence analyzer in the frequency range from 20 Hz to 1 MHz. The contributions of grain boundaries, bulks, and electrodes to the ac conductivity and relaxation processes were identified by fitting the impendence data with an equivalent circuit model. When the temperature is lower than around 220 K, the bulk effect dominates over the contributions of grain boundaries and electrodes on the dielectric relaxation process. However, when the temperature is higher than 220 K, the electrode effect becomes dominant. The polycrystalline LuFe2O4also show a temperature dependent activation energies for ac conductivities which may relate to non-stoichiometric oxygen deficiency in our samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: A significant proportion of young at-risk patients and nonsmokers are excluded by the current guidelines for lung cancer (LC) screening, resulting in low-screening adoption. The vision of the US National Academy of Medicine to transform health systems into learning health systems (LHS) holds promise for bringing necessary structural changes to health care, thereby addressing the exclusivity and adoption issues of LC screening., Objective: This study aims to realize the LHS vision by designing an equitable, machine learning (ML)-enabled LHS unit for LC screening. It focuses on developing an inclusive and practical LC risk prediction model, suitable for initializing the ML-enabled LHS (ML-LHS) unit. This model aims to empower primary physicians in a clinical research network, linking central hospitals and rural clinics, to routinely deliver risk-based screening for enhancing LC early detection in broader populations., Methods: We created a standardized data set of health factors from 1397 patients with LC and 1448 control patients, all aged 30 years and older, including both smokers and nonsmokers, from a hospital's electronic medical record system. Initially, a data-centric ML approach was used to create inclusive ML models for risk prediction from all available health factors. Subsequently, a quantitative distribution of LC health factors was used in feature engineering to refine the models into a more practical model with fewer variables., Results: The initial inclusive 250-variable XGBoost model for LC risk prediction achieved performance metrics of 0.86 recall, 0.90 precision, and 0.89 accuracy. Post feature refinement, a practical 29-variable XGBoost model was developed, displaying performance metrics of 0.80 recall, 0.82 precision, and 0.82 accuracy. This model met the criteria for initializing the ML-LHS unit for risk-based, inclusive LC screening within clinical research networks., Conclusions: This study designed an innovative ML-LHS unit for a clinical research network, aiming to sustainably provide inclusive LC screening to all at-risk populations. It developed an inclusive and practical XGBoost model from hospital electronic medical record data, capable of initializing such an ML-LHS unit for community and rural clinics. The anticipated deployment of this ML-LHS unit is expected to significantly improve LC-screening rates and early detection among broader populations, including those typically overlooked by existing screening guidelines., (©Anjun Chen, Erman Wu, Ran Huang, Bairong Shen, Ruobing Han, Jian Wen, Zhiyong Zhang, Qinghua Li. Originally published in JMIR AI (https://ai.jmir.org), 11.09.2024.)

Competing Interests: Competing interests: Please see research paper for full details of researcher’s COIs. CK is the founder of AbScent, a non-profit patient support group for people with olfactory dysfunction.

Objective: To construct recombinant Mycobacterium smegmatis (MS) expressing heparin-binding hemagglutinin (HBHA) (rMS-HBHA) and identify its impact on autophagy in the A549 cells., Methods: The HBHA was cloned into the shuttle expression plasmid pMV261. The HBHA recombinant vector was constructed and electrotransformed into MS. Western blotting was performed to detect the expression level of the microtubule-associated protein light chain 3 (LC3) in A549 cells infected with rMS-HBHA, and the LC3-II/LC3I ratio was calculated to evaluate the level of autophagy. Then, autophagosomes were detected using monodansylcadaverine (MDC) staining and identified through laser confocal microscopy. Finally, the A549 cells that were infected with MS and rMS-HBHA for 18 hours were measured for the intracellular survival MS and rMS., Results: HBHA protein was successfully expressed in rMS-HBHA under 42 °C heat-induction. Compared with wild-type MS, rMS-HBHA significantly inhibited the expressions of LC3I and LC3II in A549 cells. And LC3II/LC3I ratio of the rMS-HBHA group (0.625) was significantly lower than that of the MS group (2.025), indicating that autophagosome formation of the rMS-HBHA group was inhibited. In addition, the intracellular survival rMS-HBHA (6.3 × 10⁶) was significantly higher than that of the MS group (1 × 10⁵) in the infected A549 cells after 18 hours., Conclusion: The exogenous HBHA could enhance the infection ability of MS in A549 cells through inhibiting autophagy.