Search

The complex and variable oceanic environment challenges channel modeling of Underwater Wireless Optical Communication (UWOC) systems. Most of the classical modeling methods focus mainly on the water environment and ignore the effect of communication equipment on signal transmission, thus making it difficult to model the UWOC channel’s complicated characteristics comprehensively. In this work, a UWOC channel emulator based on Deep Convolutional Conditional Generative Adversarial Networks is established and verified to address the challenge, which can effectively learn the characteristics of channel response and generate emulated signals with randomness like a real UWOC system in a practical application environment. Compared with the approaches based on multi-layer perceptron and convolutional neural network, the experimental results of the proposed method indicate outstanding performances in time domain, frequency domain and universality with different turbidity levels, respectively. This approach provides a new idea for applying deep learning techniques to the field of UWOC channel modeling.

BackgroundMalaria remains a severe life-threatening disease caused by plasmodium parasites. Microscopy is widely used for malaria diagnosis. However, it relies heavily on the skills and experience of inspectors. Due to low-level medical services and the lack of skilled inspectors, misdiagnoses are frequently made in some areas.MethodsIn recent years, many successful applications of CNN models have been reported. Unlike images in the ImageNet, the image of plasmodium only has a tiny defect area with a large amount of information. In addition, the dataset is extremely unbalanced: the number of positive samples is much less than that of negative samples. This paper proposes a classification network by combining attention mechanism and ResNeSt for plasmodium detection and using self-supervised learning to pre-train the network. First, the positive samples were adopted to pre-train the network. Then, attention modules were taken to highlight the feature area. To support current and future research, we also constructed a plasmodium dataset with Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium ovale, and Plasmodium malaria and non-Plasmodium. Through self-supervised learning, a large amount of unlabeled data is used to mine the representational features, thus improving the feature extraction capability of the model and achieving higher accuracy, while saving the physician’s labeling time and improving the classification accuracy.ResultsThe experiments show that our model exhibits an excellent performance and that the test accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity attain 97.8%, 96.5%, and 98.9%, respectively.ConclusionThe AI classification method proposed in this paper can effectively assist clinicians in the diagnosis and provide a basis for the automatic detection of malaria parasites in the future.

Non-infectious chronic diseases, especially inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), hypertension, and diabetes mellitus, are characterized by a prolonged and multisystemic course, and their incidence increases annually, usually causing serious economic burden and psychological stress for patients. Therefore, these diseases deserve scientific and consistent disease management. In addition, the lack of a comprehensive “early disease clues tracking—personalized treatment system—follow-up” model in hospitals also exacerbates this dilemma. Based on these facts, we propose an individualized prediction management system for IBDs based on chronic diseases, focusing on the established IBDs-related prediction models and summarizing their advantages and disadvantages. We call on researchers to pay attention to the integration of models with clinical practice and the continuous correction of models to achieve truly individualized medical treatment for chronic diseases, thus providing substantial value for the rapid diagnosis and adequate treatment of chronic diseases such as IBDs, which follow the “relapse-remission” disease model, and realizing long-term drug use and precise disease management for patients. The goal is to achieve a new level of chronic disease management by scientifically improving long-term medication, precise disease management, and individualized medical treatment, effectively prolonging the remission period and reducing morbidity and disability rates.

The 44 years (1979–2022) of satellite-derived sea ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic reveals the details and new trends in the process of polar sea ice coverage changes. The speed of Arctic sea ice extent reduction and the interannual difference significantly increased after 2004. Trend analysis suggests that the Arctic Ocean may experience an ice-free period around 2060. The maximum anomaly of Arctic sea ice extent has gradually transitioned from September to October, indicating a trend of prolonged melting period. The center of gravity of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is biased towards the Pacific side, and the spatial distribution pattern of sea ice is greatly influenced by the Atlantic warm current. The dynamism of the sea ice extent on the Atlantic side is significantly greater than in other regions. Since 2014, the Antarctic sea ice extent has shifted from slow growth to a rapid decreasing trend; the sea ice extent reached a historical minimum in 2022, decreasing by 2.02 × 106 km2 compared to 2014. The Antarctic experiences seven months of ice growth each year and five months of ice melting period, the annual change patterns of sea ice extent in the Arctic and Antarctic are slightly different.

This article studies the emission reduction mechanism of high-tiered carbon taxes under green and low-carbon behavior in single and two-stage supply chains. First, based on the Cournot game model, it explores the impact of high-tiered carbon tax policies on supply chain carbon reduction decisions in the green exchange market. By analyzing the effects of implementing a high-tiered carbon tax policy, the basic characteristics of its implementation are identified, and the advantages of a high-tiered carbon tax compared to a unified carbon tax are summarized. Second, it establishes a carbon reduction technology investment cost-sharing model and a carbon tax cost-sharing model under the high-tiered carbon tax policy. It analyzes and studies the impact of high-tiered carbon tax policies on balancing the relationship between members of the two-level supply chain through optimal decision-making of the two-level supply chain under two cost-sharing strategies, revealing the emission reduction mechanism of the two-level supply chain under high-tiered carbon tax policies. The results indicate that there are extreme points in the emission reduction rates of producers in the green exchange market under both the high-tiered carbon tax policy and the unified carbon tax policy. It shows that the two cost-sharing strategies can effectively alleviate the cost burden for producers, increase their marginal profits, and promote further improvement in emission reduction. It explores the emission reduction mechanism of high-tiered carbon taxes and future research should delve into the emission reduction mechanism of high-tiered carbon taxes in different carbon emission departments and regions.

Abstract Background Increasing studies suggest that circular RNAs (circRNAs) are critical regulators of cancer development and progression. However, the biological roles and mechanisms of circRNAs in gastric cancer (GC) remain largely unknown. Methods We identified the differentially expressed circRNAs in GC by analyzing Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) datasets. We explored the biological roles of circRNAs in GC by in vitro functional assays and in vivo animal studies. We performed tagged RNA affinity purification (TRAP), RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP), mass spectrometry (MS), RNA sequencing, luciferase reporter assays, and rescue experiments to investigate the mechanism of circRNAs in GC. Results Downregulated expression of circular RNA EIF4G3 (circEIF4G3; hsa_circ_0007991) was found in GC and was associated with poor clinical outcomes. Overexpression of circEIF4G3 suppressed GC growth and metastasis through the inhibition of β-catenin signaling, whereas knockdown of circEIF4G3 showed the opposite effects. Mechanistic studies revealed that circEIF4G3 bound to δ-catenin protein to promote its TRIM25-mediated ubiquitin degradation and interacted with miR-4449 to upregulate SIK1 expression. Conclusion Our findings uncovered a tumor suppressor function of circEIF4G3 in GC through the regulation of δ-catenin protein stability and miR-4449/SIK1 axis. CircEIF4G3 may act as a promising prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target for GC.

Objective: We aimed to observe the effects of loganin (Log) on serum glycolipid levels and probe the mechanisms focusing on intestinal flora and AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) signaling in obese mice. Methods: A high-fat diet was given for 12 consecutive weeks to generate the obesity model in institute of cancer research (ICR) mice. Body weight was measured weekly and fasting blood glucose (FBG) was determined every 2 weeks. Both the oral glucose tolerance test and the intraperitoneal insulin tolerance test were performed. The serum levels of total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride, high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), and free fatty acids (FFA) were measured. The expression of key proteins in the AMPK signaling pathway in skeletal muscle tissue was detected by immunoblotting, and gut microbiota were characterized using 16S rDNA sequencing. Results: Log significantly decreased the body weight and the FBG in obese mice (P

Objective: To compare the 6-dimensional errors of different immobilization devices and body regions based on 3-dimensional cone beam computed tomography for image-guided radiotherapy and to further quantitatively evaluate the impact of rotational corrections on translational shifts and dose distribution based on anthropomorphic phantoms. Materials and Methods: Two hundred ninety patients with cone beam computed tomographies from 3835 fractions were retrospectively analyzed for brain, head & neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis, and breast cases. A phantom experiment was conducted to investigate the impact of rotational errors on translational shifts using cone beam computed tomography and the registration system. For the dosimetry study, pitch rotations were simulated by adjusting the breast bracket by ±2.5°. Roll and yaw rotations were simulated by rotating the gantry and couch in the planning system by ±3.0°, respectively. The original plan for the breast region was designed in the computed tomography image space without rotation. With the same planning parameters, the original plan was transplanted into the image space with different rotations for dose recalculation. The effect of these errors on the breast target and organs at risk was assessed by dose-volume histograms. Results: Most of the mean rotational errors in the breast region were >1°. A single uncorrected yaw of 3° caused a change of 2.9 mm in longitudinal translation. A phantom study for the breast region demonstrated that when the pitch rotations were −2.5° and 2.5° and roll and yaw were both 3°, the reductions in the planning target volumes-V 50 Gy were 20.07% and 29.58% of the original values, respectively. When the pitch rotation was +2.5°, the left lung V 5 Gy and heart Dmean were 7.49% and 165.76 Gy larger, respectively, than the original values. Conclusions: Uncorrected rotations may cause changes in the values and directions of translational shifts. Rotational corrections may improve the patient setup and dose distribution accuracy.

PurposeTo explore the changes of bacterial flora in anophthalmic patients wearing ocular prosthesis (OP) and the microbiome diversity in conditions of different OP materials.MethodsA cross-sectional clinical study was conducted, involving 19 OP patients and 23 healthy subjects. Samples were collected from the upper, lower palpebral, caruncle, and fornix conjunctiva. 16S rRNA sequencing was applied to identify the bacterial flora in the samples. The eye comfort of each OP patient was determined by a questionnaire. In addition, demographics information of each participant was also collected.ResultsThe diversity and richness of ocular flora in OP patients were significantly higher than that in healthy subjects. The results of flora species analysis also indicated that in OP patients, pathogenic microorganisms such as Escherichia Shigella and Fusobacterium increased significantly, while the resident flora of Lactobacillus and Lactococcus decreased significantly. Within the self-comparison of OP patients, compared with Polymethyl Methacrylate (PMMA), prosthetic material of glass will lead to the increased colonization of opportunistic pathogens such as Alcaligenes, Dermabacter and Spirochaetes, while gender and age have no significant impact on ocular flora.ConclusionsThe ocular flora of OP patients was significantly different from that of healthy people. Abundant colonization of pathogenic microorganisms may have an important potential relationship with eye discomfort and eye diseases of OP patients. PMMA, as an artificial eye material, demonstrated potential advantages in reducing the colonization of opportunistic pathogens.

The present study was carried on assess the lifespan extension of Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) by astaxanthin (AST) and its related molecular mechanisms. The effect of AST on the lifespan of wild-type (WT) nematodes was observed, the relative expression of antioxidant (sod-3, ctl-1) and autophagy-related genes (bec-1, lgg-1) in WT nematodes was detected by qRT-PCR, the effect of AST on ROS levels in WT nematodes was detected by DCFH-DA fluorescent probe, the effect of AST on LGG-1::GFP fluorescent protein expression in DA2123 nematodes was detected by Western blot, and after oxidative stress was induced by juglone, the mRNA expression levels of bec-1 and lgg-1 in WT nematodes under oxidative stress were detected by qRT-PCR, and the effect of AST on the lifespan of C. elegans under oxidative stress was further examined. The results showed that AST could prolong the lifespan of WT nematodes, up-regulate the mRNA expression levels of sod-3, ctl-1, bec-1, and lgg-1 genes, scavenge excessive ROS in nematodes, up-regulate autophagy levels and prolong nematode lifespan under oxidative stress. Therefore, AST might prolong nematode lifespan by regulating ROS levels in C. elegans and then regulating autophagy.

The cocktail party problem can be more effectively addressed by leveraging the speaker’s visual and audio information. This paper proposes a method to improve the audio’s separation using two visual cues: facial features and lip movement. Firstly, residual connections are introduced in the audio separation module to extract detailed features. Secondly, considering the video stream contains information other than the face, which has a minimal correlation with the audio, an attention mechanism is employed in the face module to focus on crucial information. Then, the loss function considers the audio-visual similarity to take advantage of the relationship between audio and visual completely. Experimental results on the public VoxCeleb2 dataset show that the proposed model significantly enhanced SDR, PSEQ, and STOI, especially 4 dB improvements in SDR.

This article introduces a novel counter-directional pump/signal combiner with a built-in mode field adapter. This combiner offers additional functionality to address the problem of mode field mismatch between the gain fiber and delivery fiber, which occurs when using a large-core (50 μm) signal fiber to suppress stimulated Raman scattering. The combiner exhibits negligible degradation in beam quality as a result of implementing mode field matching and employing an effective feedback alignment technique. The beam quality of the mode field adapter integrated in the combiner is improved by 10%, compared to the conventional approach, thanks to the reduction in splicing points and the prevention of fusion loss caused by tapering-induced cladding diameter mismatch. The combiner demonstrates an average pump coupling efficiency of 98.5% and a temperature rise coefficient of less than 10 °C/kW without active cooling. Furthermore, an integrated device based on the combiner is fabricated to shorten the length of delivery fiber, therefore mitigating the effects of stimulated Raman scattering. All those techniques mentioned above are utilized in a narrow linewidth laser system, resulting in an output of approximately 5840 W with a nearly single-mode characteristic.

This article proposes a novel variable-flux spoke-type permanent magnet synchronous motor (VFS-PMSM), whose air gap flux density can be adjusted by “swiveling” magnetic pole directions in permanent magnet (PM). This is distinctive from conventional methods that require a large magnetizing field to magnetize and demagnetize (or partially) rotor PM along the same axis for variable flux motors. This paper first compares the proposed VFS-PMSM with two other typical types, i.e., series and parallel arrangements combining high- and low-coercivity PMs to achieve variable flux. It is found that the magnetic circuit of the proposed motor is identical to that of the series type at flux enhancing and to that of the parallel type at flux weakening. Therefore, the wide flux regulation range of the parallel type motors and the excellent on-load demagnetization-resisting capability of the series type motors can both be achieved in the proposed design. Another benefit of the proposed design is that the flux produced by the low-coercivity magnet constantly or aligns with that produced by the high-coercivity one whether the motor is flux enhanced or weakened. This allows the low-coercivity magnet to maintain its operating point within a safe range. These features make the proposed design suitable for electric vehicle tractions. Finite element analysis is used to compare the performance of various types of motors and highlight the advantages of the proposed VFS-PMSM. Experiments are conducted to validate the feasibility of the low-coercivity magnet to be magnetized with the method proposed in this paper. It is found that the field strength to magnetize or demagnetize the rotor can be significantly reduced, which improves the feasibility of this design.

With the change of climate issues and the needs of economic development, the idea of practicing green and low-carbon behaviors sinks deeper and deeper into people's hearts. This paper based on the social cost of carbon (SCC) model, this paper constructs a new carbon social cost model by adding the impact of green low-carbon behavior. Classify climate states, based on Bayesian statistical knowledge, study the posterior probability distribution of climate state transitions, and discuss the optimal carbon policy for different climate states by balancing emission utility costs and utility weighted carbon marginal products. This article also discusses the damage caused by rising temperatures and explores their impact on carbon price policies. then, the paper calculates SCC under four kinds of climate states, which will be visually displayed with graphs. Finally, we compare SCC obtained in this paper with that in other researches. The results show that: (1) Climate status has a significant impact on carbon policy, and carbon price predictions will dynamically change with climate status. (2) Green low-carbon behavior has a positive impact on climate status. (3) There are differences in the impact of the three types of damage caused by rising temperatures on carbon price policies. (4) Green development is conducive to stabilizing the value of SCC. (5) Close monitoring of the climate state helps to update the probability of damage in time so that we can precisely adjust the corresponding policies on SCC. This study provides theoretical and empirical reference for the government to formulate carbon price policies and promote the development of social green behavior.

Background: To investigate how changes in expression of glial genes relate to a progression of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) pathology, and how anti-Aβ immunotherapy impact these changes, we conducted a transcriptomic analysis for brains from cohorts of 2-, 10-, and 20 month old 3xTg-AD mice, and a cross-sectional study in groups of 20 month-old mice treated with active DNA Aβ42 immunization, passive immunotherapy, untreated, and wild-type (wt) controls. Methods: Twenty-four Formalin-Fixed Paraffin-Embedded (FFPE) mouse brain sections were used for the gene expression analyses (nanostring). Adjacent sections from these and additional mouse brains were stained for microglia using antibodies detecting IbaI and Gal3. For a semi-quantitative analysis of increased tau and amyloid pathology with aging and disease progression, a comparison of ELISA results from brains of 12 and 20 months old 3xTg-AD mice were shown. Results: Based on the different comparisons of transcript numbers found the 3xTg-AD age groups with the senescent 20 months old wt control mouse brains, and the 20 months old 3xTg-AD mouse brains with the 20 months old wt control mouse brains, genes were assigned as upregulated due to aging, or due to disease progression, or due to both. The immunohistochemistry of microglia markers revealed that Gal3 might be an important marker for phagocytosing microglia around amyloid plaques. The comparison of the two anti-Aβ immunotherapy approaches showed a differential downregulation of inflammatory glial genes. Conclusion: These results are relevant for future clinical trials using active anti-amyloid immunotherapy.

As the core carrier and organizational bodies of the regional industrial space, the study of the location of industrial enterprises and the formation of their economic location is related to the rational development of regional industries, the coordination of humans and the environment, and the effective allocation of resources. Taking Chongqing, one of the six old industrial bases in China, as an example, this study analyzed the spatial distribution characteristics, economic location characteristics, and formation laws of industrial enterprises based on the Points of interest data (POI), and investigation data. The results showed that industrial enterprises in Chongqing show obvious spatial clustering characteristics. About 93.50%, 60.34%, 96.67%, 97.57%, 73.57%, 64.83% of industrial enterprises were distributed within the spatial range of 10 Km from the motorways, national highways, provincial highways, county highways, main streams of rivers and central towns, and 93.48% of industrial enterprises were distributed at an altitude of 800 m or less. In order to further reveale the economic location characteristics of industrial enterprises in Chongqing, this study further quantified the spatial differentiation law of industrial economic location based on Geographically weighted regression (GWR). The results showed that factors such as the Distance to National Highways (DNH), Distance to County Highways (DCH), Distance to Central Towns (DCC), Distance to River systems (DR), and Population Density (POP) had significant positive impacts on the formation of economic locations of industrial enterprises, while the Distance to Motorway (DMW) exerted a certain negative influence, but the effectiveness sees strong spatial heterogeneity according to the type of industry and the actual regional industrial development, with factors such as transportation accessibility, environment, and labor force playing a moderating role.

Preeclampsia (PE) is a severe placenta-related pregnancy disease that has been associated with maternal systemic inflammation and immune system disorders. However, the distribution and functional changes in immune cells of the maternal–placental interface have not been well characterized. Herein, cytometry by time-of-flight mass spectrometry (CyTOF) was used to investigate the immune atlas at the decidua, which was obtained from four PE patients and four healthy controls. Six superclusters were identified, namely, T cells, B cells, natural killer (NK) cells, monocytes, granulocytes, and others. B cells were significantly decreased in the PE group, among which the reduction in CD27+CD38+ regulatory B cell (Breg)-like cells may stimulate immune activation in PE. The significantly increased migration of B cells could be linked to the significantly overexpressed chemokine C-X-C receptor 5 (CXCR5) in the PE group, which may result in the production of excessive autoantibodies and the pathogenesis of PE. A subset of T cells, CD11c+CD8+ T cells, was significantly decreased in PE and might lead to sustained immune activation in PE patients. NK cells were ultimately separated into four subsets. The significant reduction in a novel subset of NK cells (CD56-CD49a-CD38+) in PE might have led to the failure to suppress inflammation at the maternal–fetal interface during PE progression. Moreover, the expression levels of functional markers were significantly altered in the PE group, which also inferred that shifts in the decidual immune state contributed to the development of PE and might serve as potential treatment targets. This is a worthy attempt to elaborate the differences in the phenotype and function of CD45+ immune cells in the decidua between PE and healthy pregnancies by CyTOF, which contributes to understand the pathogenesis of PE, and the altered cell subsets and markers may inspire the immune modulatory therapy for PE.

Dynamic stochastic resonance (DSR) has been proved to be able to enhance the shadow region of HSIs. However, DSR can only be used for the enhancement on the spatial or spectral dimensions respectively, which destroy the correlation and integrality of HSI. Therefore, in this paper, to maintain the 3D characteristic of HSI, the spatial and spectral enhanced HSI has been fused. Furthermore, to make full use of two-modal information of HSI, a multimodal convolutional neural net-work () has been proposed for classification. In both 2D spatial modal and 3D tensor information can be integrated to improve the classification. Firstly, the shadow areas of HSI could be enhanced by DSR from spatial and spectral dimensions to get spatial enhanced HIS and spectral enhanced HSI respectively. Secondly, the enhanced HIS can be obtained by fuzing and in different proportions. Finally, can be classified by Two scenes containing shadow areas of a real-world HSI have been used in the experiment to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. The results have shown that the proposed method has a promising prospect in the classification of HSI with shadow.

Introduction Low anterior resection syndrome (LARS) involves bowel dysfunction after sphincter-preserving surgery for rectal resection that significantly impacts patients’ quality of life (QoL). The improvement of LARS largely depends on patient self-management behaviour; however, insufficient information about supportive care and weak awareness of self-management lead to poor self-management behaviour. Motivational interviewing (MIs) explore and change patients’ ambivalence during the conversation, thereby changing and maintaining healthy behaviours to enhance effective participation. In recent years, mobile health has been widely used in clinical practice, providing continuous information support and remote interaction. However, current online information on LARS is suboptimal, websites are highly variable, important content is often lacking and the material is too complex for patients. Therefore, this study will evaluate the impacts of a remote LARS interaction management intervention based on a WeChat applet (‘e-bowel safety’) and MIs on patients with LARS.Methods and analysis This study will be a single-blind, two-arm randomised controlled trial involving patients with LARS in three tertiary grade A general hospitals who will be randomised into two groups. The intervention group will use the ‘e-bowel safety’ applet and the intervention team will conduct a monthly MI about syndrome management. The control group will receive an information booklet that contains the same information as that provided in the ‘e-bowel safety’ informational module. The intervention will last for 3 months, followed by 3 months of follow-up. The primary outcome will be global QoL; the secondary outcomes will include bowel function, social support, self-management measured at the baseline, 3 months and 6 months for three times and patients’ thinkings at the end of the intervention (at 3 months).Ethics and dissemination Ethics approval was granted by the Clinical Medical Research Ethics Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University (PJ2022-07-53).Trial registration number Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (ChiCTR2200061317).

Studies have shown that letrozole cotreatment can improve clinical outcomes in high and poor responders in GnRH-antagonist protocol. However, whether letrozole is also beneficial to normal responders is not known. To investigate the clinical value of letrozole cotreatment during ovarian stimulation in vitro fertilization for normal ovarian reserve patients who were treated with the GnRH antagonist protocol, we conducted a retrospective study that based data from 1 January to 31 December 2017 for all IVF–ICSI GnRH-antagonist protocols. A total of 252 women who aged 6 were included in the analysis (96 in the letrozole group and 156 in the no-letrozole group). The cumulative live-birth rate was calculated as the first live birth achieved after all cycles having an embryo transfer (cycles using fresh embryos and frozen–thawed embryos) among both groups. The initial gonadotropin (Gn) dosage and total Gn dosage were significantly lower and the number of days of Gn treatment was significantly fewer in the letrozole group than the non-letrozole group (p < 0.05). There were also significant between-group differences in luteinizing hormone, estradiol, and progesterone concentrations; and the number of metaphase II oocytes on the day of human chorionic gonadotropin treatment (p < 0.05). There was a significant difference in the implantation rate between the two groups that the letrozole group higher than the non-letrozole group (39.79 vs. 27.96%, p = 0.006), but there was no significant difference in the cumulative live-birth rate. The combination of letrozole with a GnRH antagonist may have no effect on the clinical pregnancy rate or cumulative live-birth rate in patients with a normal ovarian reserve. However, letrozole may increase the rate of embryo implantation and may reduce the requirement for exogenous gonadotrophins and, consequently, the cost of an IVF treatment cycle. In addition, the decreased estradiol level in the ovarian simulation by letrozole supports letrozole can be a safe solution for fertility preservation in estrogen-related cancer patients.

As the basic pathological changes of diabetic retinopathy (DR), the destruction of the blood-retina barrier (BRB) and vascular leakage have attracted extensive attention. Without timely intervention, BRB damage will eventually lead to serious visual impairment. However, due to the delicate structure and complex function of the BRB, the mechanism underlying damage to the BRB in DR has not been fully clarified. Here, we used single-cell RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) technology to analyze 35,910 cells from the retina of healthy and streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats, focusing on the degeneration of the main cells constituting the rat BRB in DR and the new definition of two subpopulations of Müller cells at the cell level, Ctxn3+Müller and Ctxn3−Müller cells. We analyzed the characteristics and significant differences between the two groups of Müller cells and emphasized the importance of the Ctxn3+Müller subgroup in diseases. In endothelial cells, we found possible mechanisms of self-protection and adhesion and recruitment to pericytes. In addition, we constructed a communication network between endothelial cells, pericytes, and Müller subsets and clarified the complex regulatory relationship between cells. In summary, we constructed an atlas of the iBRB in the early stage of DR and elucidate the degeneration of its constituent cells and Müller cells and the regulatory relationship between them, providing a series of potential targets for the early treatment of DR.

Abstract Background Cerebral fat embolism (CFE) is a subtype of fat embolism syndrome which tends to cause ischemic cerebral infarction. Fat embolism in the cerebral venous system have not been reported. We hereby present a rare case of fat embolus formed in the cerebral venous system 10 days after cosmetic surgery, and describe our management of this patient. Case presentation A 26-year-old woman with the disturbance of consciousness and recurrent convulsions of the right upper extremity over a 21-h period was admitted to our hospital. The patient was initially diagnosed with haemorrhagic infarction, and cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) was suspected based on computed tomography (CT). A diagnosis of CFE was confirmed based on surgical findings. Breast and hip augmentation performed 10 days ago was considered the underlying cause. Drug-induced hypothermia, low molecular weight heparin, atorvastatin, dexamethasone, piperacillin/tazobactam, valproic acid, and mannitol were applied. On hospital day 30, she was discharged with a Montreal Cognitive Assessment score of 25. Conclusions Fat embolism can occur in the cerebral venous system, and may mimic CVT symptoms rather than CFE symptoms. Early identification of the nature of the embolus is essential. The use of heparin may prevent secondary thrombus formation, and accelerate fat embolus decomposition.

ObjectivesThis study aimed to explore the effect of maternal iodine status on the brain development of offspring in rats. Since in human studies, the interference of environmental factors and other nutrients cannot be removed.Materials and methodsA total of 48 female Wistar rats were randomly divided into four groups: low iodine (LI), normal iodine (NI), 10-fold high iodine (10HI), and 50-fold high iodine (50HI). The rats were killed on the 15th day of pregnancy and lactation after collecting 24-h urine. The iodine concentration in 24-h urine, blood, and placenta of pregnant rats, and 24-h urine, milk, blood, and mammary glands of lactating rats was determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. The thyroid hormone of pregnant and lactating rats was detected by chemiluminescence. The offspring were subjected to the Morris water maze on the 10th day after birth. Serum was collected to detect the thyroid hormone of offspring. The protein expression of neuroendocrine-specific protein (NSP)-A and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the offspring brain were studied.ResultsIodine storage in the placenta during pregnancy and mammary glands during lactation was positively correlated with iodine intake, and iodine storage in the placenta and mammary glands in the 50HI group was significantly higher than that in the NI group (P = 0.045 and P = 0.040). Compared with the NI group, the offspring thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) level was significantly higher in the 10HI group (P = 0.046), and the FT4 level was significantly lower in the 50HI group (P = 0.032). The Morris water maze showed that LI and 50HI groups required longer time and distance to find the platform than the NI group (P < 0.001). The platform crossing numbers in the LI and 50HI groups decreased significantly (P < 0.001). The expression of NSP-A in offspring brain was lower in the 10HI and 50HI groups than in the NI group (P = 0.026 and P = 0,008). BDNF expression levels were significantly lower in the LI, 10HI, and 50HI groups than in the NI group (P < 0.001).ConclusionMaternal iodine intake affects iodine storage in the placenta and lactating mammary gland, which in turn affects thyroid function and BDNF and NSP-A expression in the offspring.

Background: The cure rates of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) treatment using a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) are gradually decreasing due to antibiotic resistance, poor compliance, high gastric acidity, and cytochrome P450 2C19 (CYP2C19) polymorphism, and the effects of PPI depend on metabolic enzymes, cytochrome P450 enzymes. The aim of this meta-analysis was to determine whether CYP2C19 polymorphisms affect H. pylori cure rates in patients treated with different proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) according to stratified analysis.Materials and methods: The literature was searched with the key words “H. pylori” and “CYP2C19” in PubMed, CNKI, and Wanfang up to 31 May 2022, and the studies were limited to clinical observational or randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Finally, seven RCTs and 29 clinical observational studies met the inclusion criteria and were used for the meta-analysis via STATA version 16.Results: The cure rates were significantly different between genotypes of homozygous extensive metabolizers (EM) and poor metabolizers (PM) (OR = 0.58, 95% CI: 0.47–0.71) and between EM and heterozygous extensive metabolizers (IM) (OR = 0.71, 95% CI: 0.59–0.86), but not between IM and PM. Moreover, there was a significantly lower H. pylori cure rate in EM subjects than that in IM subjects when treated with omeprazole (66.4% vs. 84.1%), lansoprazole (76.1% vs. 85.6%), but not rabeprazole, esomeprazole, or pantoprazole. In addition, there was a significantly lower H. pylori cure rate in EM subjects than that in IM subjects when treated with a PPIs for 7 days (77.4% vs. 82.1%), but not 14 days (85.4% vs. 90.0%).Conclusion: Carriers of CYP2C19 loss-of-function variant alleles (IM and PM) exhibit a significantly greater cure rate of H. pylori than noncarriers (EM) regardless of other factors (84.7% vs. 79.2%). In addition, pantoprazole- and rabeprazole-based quadruple therapy for H. pylori treatment is less dependent on the CYP2C19 genotype and should be prioritized in Asian populations with H. pylori.

Jiangtang Sanhao formula (JTSHF), one of the prescriptions for treating the patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) in traditional Chinese medicine clinic, has been demonstrated to effectively ameliorate the clinical symptoms of diabetic patients with overweight or hyperlipidemia. The preliminary studies demonstrated that JTSHF may enhance insulin sensitivity and improve glycolipid metabolism in obese mice. However, the action mechanism of JTSHF on skeletal muscles in diabetic mice remains unclear. To this end, high-fat diet (HFD) and streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic mice were subjected to JTSHF intervention. The results revealed that JTSHF granules could reduce food and water intake, decrease body fat mass, and improve glucose tolerance, lipid metabolism, and insulin sensitivity in the skeletal muscles of diabetic mice. These effects may be linked to the stimulation of GLUT4 expression and translocation via regulating AMPKα/SIRT1/PGC-1α signaling pathway. The results may offer a novel explanation of JTSHF to prevent against diabetes and IR-related metabolic diseases.

Subject: Perioperative regulation of coagulation function through heparin in patients undergoing cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass is an important part of performing cardiac surgery, and postoperative bleeding due to abnormal coagulation function caused by differences in heparin sensitivity in different individuals is an independent risk factor for postoperative complications and death.Method: Using an online database, 10 miRNAs interacting with AT-III and FX genes were predicted. Patients were divided into three groups according to the difference in activated clotting time (ACT) after the first dose of heparin (2.5 mg kg−1): group A: hyposensitive group (ACT < 480 s); group B: sensitive group (480 s ≤ ACT ≤ 760 s); and group C: hypersensitive group (ACT > 760 s). Perioperative and 24 h postoperative blood loss and other clinical data of patients in the three groups were recorded. Blood samples were collected before surgery, and RT-PCR was used to detect the levels of AT-III and FX gene mRNA and the levels of predicted 10 miRNAs.Result: Heparin sensitivity was positively correlated with AT-III mRNA levels and negatively correlated with FX gene mRNA levels in the three groups, and the blood loss in group B was significantly lower than that in groups A and C, which was statistically significant (p < 0.05). miR-3064-5p and miR-4745-5p expression levels were significantly different among group A, group B, and group C (p < 0.05) and were closely correlated with AT-III and FX gene mRNA expression levels, respectively.Conclusion: Differences in heparin sensitivity in patients undergoing cardiac surgery were associated with the mRNA expression of AT-III and FX genes, and the expression levels of miR-3064-5p and miR-4745-5p were found to be closely related to the AT-III and FX gene mRNA, respectively, indicating that miR-3064-5p and miR-4745-5p affect the differences in heparin sensitivity among different individuals by regulating the mRNA expression levels of AT-III and FX genes.Clinical Trial Registration:http://www.chictr.org.cn/abouten.aspx, identifier registration number: ChiCTR-2100047348

Absract: Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been widely used in China and other Asia countries for thousands of years to treat or prevent human diseases. Chinese herbal medicine, one of the most important components of TCM, has unique diversities in chemical components, and thus results in a wide range of biological activities. However, pharmaceutical industry is facing a major challenge to develop a large population of novel natural products and drugs, and considerable efforts have not resulted in high-volume of novel drug discovery and productivity. At present, increasing attention has been paid to Chinese herb medicine modernization in combination with the cutting-age technologies of drug discovery, especially the high throughput selection. High content imaging is an image-based high throughput screening method by using automated microscopy and image analysis software to capture and analyze phenotypes at a large scale to investigate multiple biological features simultaneously in the biological complex. Here, we described the pipeline of the state-of-the-art high content imaging technology, summarized the applications of the high content imaging technology in drug discovery from traditional Chinese herbal medicine, and finally discussed the current challenges and future perspectives for development of high throughput image-based screening technology in novel drug research and discovery.

AIM: To systematically assess the effect of intravitreal injection of Aflibercept or Ranibizumab in the treatment of diabetic retinopathy(DR)by using Meta-analysis.METHODS: PubMed, MEDLINE, Web of Science, Cochrane, Nature Series, ScienceDirect, and ESI Databases were searched until May 2019. Ten studies included a total of 1 240 participants with DR had been administered in the Meta-analysis. Aflibercept or Ranibizumab via intravitreal injection. After selecting useful information, we used RevMan 5.3 to further analysis. Systematic review and Meta-analysis were used to design.RESULTS: The pooled results showed that central macular thickness(CMT)was significantly reduced(P

BackgroundAccumulating evidence shows that m6A regulates oncogene and tumor suppressor gene expression, thus playing a dual role in cancer. Likewise, there is a close relationship between the immune system and tumor development and progression. However, for glioblastoma, m6A-associated immunological markers remain to be identified.MethodsWe obtained gene expression, mutation, and clinical data on glioblastoma from The Cancer Genome Atlas and Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas databases. Next, we performed univariate COX–least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO)–multivariate COX regression analyses to establish a prognostic gene signature and develop a corresponding dynamic nomogram application. We then carried out a clustering analysis twice to categorize all samples according to their m6A-regulating and m6A-associated immune gene expression levels (high, medium, and low) and calculated their m6A score. Finally, we performed quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, cell counting kit-8, cell stemness detection, cell migration, and apoptosis detection in vitro assays to determine the biological role of CD81 in glioblastoma cells.ResultsOur glioblastoma risk score model had extremely high prediction efficacy, with the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve reaching 0.9. The web version of the dynamic nomogram application allows rapid and accurate calculation of patients’ survival odds. Survival curves and Sankey diagrams indicated that the high-m6A score group corresponded to the groups expressing medium and low m6A-regulating gene levels and high m6A-associated prognostic immune gene levels. Moreover, these groups displayed lower survival rates and higher immune infiltration. Based on the gene set enrichment analysis, the pathophysiological mechanism may be related to the activation of the immunosuppressive function and related signaling pathways. Moreover, the risk score model allowed us to perform immunotherapy benefit assessment. Finally, silencing CD81 in vitro significantly suppressed proliferation, stemness, and migration and facilitated apoptosis in glioblastoma cells.ConclusionWe developed an accurate and efficient prognostic model. Furthermore, the correlation analysis of different stratification methods with tumor microenvironment provided a basis for further pathophysiological mechanism exploration. Finally, CD81 may serve as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker in glioblastoma.

N6-methylandrostenedione (m6A) methylation plays a very important role in the development of malignant tumors. The immune system is the key point in the progression of tumors, particularly in terms of tumor treatment and drug resistance. Tumor immunotherapy has now become a hot spot and a new approach for tumor treatment. However, as far as the stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) is concerned, the in-depth research is still a gap in the m6A-associated immune markers. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases is extremely important for our research, where we obtained gene mutation, gene expression data and relevant clinical information of STAD patients. Firstly, the samples from GEO were used as external validation groups, while the TCGA samples were divided into a training group and an internal validation group randomly. Using the way of Single factor COX-LASSO- and multi-factor Cox to construct the prognostic model. Then, all samples were subjected to cluster analysis to generate high and low expression groups of immune gene. Meanwhile, we also collected the correlation between these types and tumor microenvironment. On this basis, a web version of the dynamic nomogram APP was developed. In addition, we performed microenvironmental correlation, copy number variation and mutation analyses for model genes. The prognostic model for STAD developed here demonstrated a very strong predictive ability. The results of cluster analysis manifested that the immune gene low expression group had lower survival rate and higher degree of immune infiltration. Therefore, the immune gene low expression group was associated with lower survival rates and a higher degree of immune infiltration. Gene set enrichment analysis suggested that the potential mechanism might be related to the activation of immunosuppressive functions and multiple signaling pathways. Correspondingly, the web version of the dynamic nomogram APP produced by the DynNom package has successfully achieved rapid and accurate calculation of patient survival rates. Finally, the multi-omics analysis of model genes further enriched the research content. Interference of RAB19 was confirmed to facilitate migration of STAD cells in vitro, while its overexpression inhibited these features. The prognostic model for STAD constructed in this study is accurate and efficient based on multi-omics analysis and experimental validation. Additionally, the results of the correlation analysis between the tumor microenvironment and m6Ascore are the basics of further exploration of the pathophysiological mechanism in STAD.

With the development of remote sensing technology, classification has become a meaningful way to explore the rich information in hyperspectral images (HSIs). However, various environmental factors may cause noise and shadow areas in HSIs, resulting in weak signals and difficulties in fully utilizing information. In addition, classification methods based on deep learning have made considerable progress, but features extracted from most networks have much redundancy. Therefore, a method based on two-dimensional dynamic stochastic resonance (2D DSR) shadow enhancement and convolutional neural network (CNN) classification combined with an attention mechanism (AM) for HSIs is proposed in this paper. Firstly, to protect the spatial correlation of HSIs, an iterative equation of 2D DSR based on the pixel neighborhood relationship was derived, which made it possible to perform matrix SR in the spatial dimension of the image, instead of one-dimensional vector resonance. Secondly, by using the noise in the shadow area to generate resonance, 2D DSR can help increase the signals in the shadow regions by preserving the spatial characteristics, and enhanced HSIs can be obtained. Then, a 3DCNN embedded with two efficient channel attention (ECA) modules and one convolutional block attention module (CBAM) was designed to make the most of critical features that significantly affect the classification accuracy by giving different weights. Finally, the performance of the proposed method was evaluated on a real-world HSI, and comparative studies were carried out. The experimental results showed that the proposed approach has promising prospects in HSIs’ shadow enhancement and information mining.

Nowadays, fiber laser has been widely used in industrial processing, especially in welding, cutting and other fields, and the appearance of adjustable ring-mode fiber laser improves effectively the quality of processing. In this paper, a (6 + 1) × 1 adjustable ring-mode fiber signal combiner is developed based on the technology of fiber cladding corrosion. The test results show that under the same injection condition, the beam quality transmitted through the central port of the combiner is degraded by only 8.3% compared with that transmitted through a single 50/250 μm fiber. It is proven to be feasible to maintain the beam quality of the (6 + 1) × 1 combiner by fiber corrosion technology. In order to improve the power of the central port of the (6 + 1) × 1 adjustable ring-mode combiner, a 3 × 1 fiber signal combiner and the central port of (6 + 1) × 1 combiner are cascaded. The output beam quality is M2 = 4.45 and the overall transmission efficiency is greater than 95%. This combiner can choose the mode of the output beam according to the actual application requirements, so as to achieve a better application effect.

Objective: To determine the effects of ginsenoside rg3 on the body weight of C57BL/6J obese mice and to investigate its underlying weight loss mechanisms with a focus on white fat browning-related factors. Methods: Eight-week-old C57BL/6J male mice were fed a high-fat diet for 12 successive weeks to construct the obese model. C57BL/6J male mice were fed a standard chow diet to construct normal control group. After 8 weeks of intervention with ginsenoside rg3, the food intake, body weight, body fat mass, blood sugar, and lipid profiles of the mice in each group were detected. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining was used to observe the histological morphology of the adipose tissues. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and Western blotting (WB) were applied to detect the gene and protein expression levels of peroxisome proliferators-activated receptor gama (PPARγ), Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma coactivator -1alpha (PGC-1α), PR domain containing 16 (PRDM16), and uncoupling protein 1 (UCP-1). Results: Compared to normal control group mice, the body weight, food intake, body fat composition, and blood lipid levels of model group mice increased significantly. After 8 weeks of intervention with ginsenoside rg3, body weight, body fat composition, food intake, and blood lipid profiles decreased. HE staining showed that ginsenoside rg3 can improve white adipocyte hypertrophy to a certain extent. RT-PCR and WB demonstrated that ginsenoside rg3 can increase the mRNA and protein expression levels of PPARγ, PGC-1α, PRDM16, and UCP-1 in the adipose tissues of obese mice. Conclusion: The weight reduction effect of ginsenoside rg3 may be related to the promotion of white fat browning.

Abstract Background The clinical characteristics and outcomes of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pneumonia are different in Hubei compared to other regions in China. But there are few comparative studies on the differences between imported and local patients which may provide information of the different courses of the virus after transmission. Methods We investigated 169 cases of COVID-19 pneumonia in two centers in Hunan Province, and divided them into two groups according to epidemiological history, "imported patients" refers to patient with a clear history of travel in Wuhan within 14 days before onset, and " local patients” refers to local resident without a recent history of travel in Wuhan, aiming to analyze the difference in clinical characteristics and outcomes between the two groups. All the epidemiological, clinical, imaging, and laboratory data were analyzed and contrasted. Results The incidence of fever on admission in imported patients was significantly higher than local patients. There was a significantly higher proportion of abnormal pulmonary signs, hypokalemia, hyponatremia, prolonged PT, elevated D-dimer and elevated blood glucose in imported patients. Compared with local patients, the proportion using antibiotics, glucocorticoids and gamma globulin were significantly higher in imported patients. The moderate type was more common in local patients, and the severe type were more frequent in imported patients. In addition, the median duration of viral clearance was longer in imported patients. Conclusions In summary, we found that imported cases were more likely to develop into severe cases, compared with local patients and required more powerful treatments. Trial registration Registered 21st March 2020, and this study has been approved by the Medical Ethics Committee (Approved Number. 2020017).

Background and AimsWe aim to develop a diagnostic tool for pathological-image classification using transfer learning that can be applied to diverse tumor types.MethodsMicroscopic images of liver tissue with and without hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) were used to train and validate the classification framework based on a convolutional neural network. To evaluate the universal classification performance of the artificial intelligence (AI) framework, histological images from colorectal tissue and the breast were collected. Images for the training and validation sets were obtained from the Xiamen Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and those for the test set were collected from Zhongshan Hospital Xiamen University. The accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity values for the proposed framework were reported and compared with those of human image interpretation.ResultsIn the human–machine comparisons, the sensitivity, and specificity for the AI algorithm were 98.0, and 99.0%, whereas for the human experts, the sensitivity ranged between 86.0 and 97.0%, while the specificity ranged between 91.0 and 100%. Based on transfer learning, the accuracies of the AI framework in classifying colorectal carcinoma and breast invasive ductal carcinoma were 96.8 and 96.0%, respectively.ConclusionThe performance of the proposed AI framework in classifying histological images with HCC was comparable to the classification performance achieved by human experts, indicating that extending the proposed AI’s application to diagnoses and treatment recommendations is a promising area for future investigation.

Background: Stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) is one of the most common tumors. Tumor mutation burden (TMB) has been linked to immunotherapy response. We wanted to see if there was any link between TMB and cancer prognosis.Methods: The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases were used to obtain mutation data, gene expression profiles, and clinical data. We looked at the differences in gene expression and immune markers between low and high TMB groups, built an immune prognostic model, and created a dynamic nomograph App that may be used in the clinic. Simultaneously, We ran the immunotherapy prediction and model comparison at the same time. Finally, model gene mutation and copy number variation (CNV) were displayed. The cellular functional experiments were used to investigate the potential role of GLP2R in gastric cancer.Results: Firstly, basic mutation information and differences in immune infiltration in STAD are revealed. Secondly, the prognostic model developed by us has good accuracy, and the corresponding dynamic nomograph Apps online and immunotherapy prediction facilitate clinical transformation. Furthermore, GLP2R knockdown significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration of gastric cancer cells in vitro.Conclusion: Our findings imply that TMB plays a significant role in the prognosis of STAD patients from a biological perspective. GLP2R may serve as a potential target for gastric cancer.

Colletotrichum fructicola infects pear leaves, resulting in two major symptoms: tiny black spots (TS) followed by severe early defoliation and big necrotic lesions (BnL) without apparent damage depending on the pathotypes. How the same fungal species causes different symptoms remains unclear. To understand the molecular mechanism underlying the resulting diseases and the diverse symptoms, two C. fructicola pathogenetic strains (PAFQ31 and PAFQ32 responsible for TS and BnL symptoms, respectively) were inoculated on Pyrus pyrifolia leaves and subjected to transcriptome sequencing at the quiescent stage (QS) and necrotrophic stage (NS), respectively. In planta, the genes involved in the salicylic acid (SA) signaling pathway were upregulated at the NS caused by the infection of each strain. In contrast, the ethylene (ET), abscisic acid (ABA), and jasmonic acid (JA) signaling pathways were specifically related to the TS symptoms caused by the infection of strain PAFQ31, corresponding to the yellowish and early defoliation symptoms triggered by the strain infection. Correspondingly, SA was accumulated in similar levels in the leaves infected by each strain at NS, but JA was significantly higher in the PAFQ31-infected as measured using high-performance liquid chromatography. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis also reveals specific genes, pathways, phytohormones, and transcription factors (TFs) associated with the PAFQ31-associated early defoliation. Taken together, these data suggest that specific metabolic pathways were regulated in P. pyrifolia in response to the infection of two C. fructicola pathotypes resulting in the diverse symptoms: JA, ET, and ABA accumulated in the PAFQ31-infected leaves, which negatively affected the chlorophyll metabolism and photosynthesis pathways while positively affecting the expression of senescence-associated TFs and genes, resulted in leaf yellowing and defoliation; whereas SA inhibited JA-induced gene expression in the PAFQ32-infected leaves, which led to hypersensitive response-like reaction and BnL symptoms.

AIM:To systematically evaluate the effect of trypan blue capsule staining on corneal endothelial cells in phacoemulsification. METHODS: RCTs on the use of trypan blue for capsular staining in phacoemulsification were retrieved from China Knowledge Network(CNKI), Wanfang Database, Weipu Database, SinoMed, PubMed, SpringerLink, Clinicalkey, Medline, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, OVID, Embase. The search time was from the establishment of the databases to April 2019.The Meta-analysis of the included literature was made by Revman 5.3 and R 3.7.RESULTS: Eight trials included 378 eyes were selected. Meta-analysis showed that the number of corneal endothelial cell loss between 0.02%, 0.06% or 0.1% trypan blue capsule staining group(193 eyes)and non-stained or placebo staining group(185 eyes)changed without statistical significance \〖Within 1mo after operation(WMD=-10.47, 95% CI=-26.44-5.61, P=0.20); 1mo after operation(WMD=-60.72, 95% CI=-170.92-49.49, P=0.28)\〗. The percentage of corneal endothelial hexagonal cell loss at 1mo after operation changed without statistical significance(WMD=0.50, 95% CI=-2.09-3.09, P=0.71). The central corneal thickness(CCT)at 1mo after operation changed without statistical significance(WMD=3.10, 95% CI=-5.77-11.98, P=0.49). The coefficient of variation(CV)changed without statistical significance(WMD=-1.00, 95% CI=-2.86-0.86, P=0.29).CONCLUSION: 0.02%, 0.06% or 0.1% trypan blue capsule staining in phacoemulsification have no significant effect on the number and function of corneal endothelial cells.

Abstract Background Patients with acute pancreatitis usually exhibit dyslipidemia and oxidative stress. However, the significance of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) level, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) level and the HDL-C/LDL-C ratio (H/L ratio) as markers for disease progression remain unknown. Aim The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of HDL-C levels, LDL-C levels and the H/L ratio as markers of disease progression in patients admitted to the intensive cate unit with acute pancreatitis. Methods This retrospective study was conducted at a tertiary critical care center in China. Plasma HDL-C and LDL-C levels were measured in 166 patients with acute pancreatitis. The associations between HDL-C, LDL-C, H/L ratio, as well as other inflammatory index and mortality, were analyzed. Multivariate cox analysis based on two models was used to determine the independent prognostic factor. Predictive ability of in-hospital mortality for variables was determined using the receiver operating characteristics curves. Results Significantly higher H/L ratios at admission were observed in patients with acute pancreatitis who died compared with survivors (0.93 vs. 0.64, p

This study investigates the sources of water under four modes, namely, normal fields, Raised Fields, single agriculture in Raised Fields, and agroforest system in Raised Fields, by using a combination of δ18O, δ2H and δ13C and their effects on crop yield and water use efficiency. The results show that the soil electrical conductivity of Raised Fields during summer maize seasons was lower than that during winter wheat seasons, and that in the marginal regions was higher than in the central regions, because of the Water Sources. Under agroforest conditions in Raised Fields, Soil Salinity can be reduced because approximately 10% of the water originates from tree trunks. The biomass yield and intrinsic water use efficiency of winter crops under agroforest was 15.1% and 5.5% higher than that under single agriculture, respectively. Thus, soil salinization can be reduced and productivity can be increased by controlling the Water Sources in ecosystems.

Chronic prostatitis is a very common and very difficult disease. Based on the mobile medical system, this paper carried out a correlation analysis on the psychological factors and the evaluation of premature ejaculation in patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia. The article first analyzes the application in the field of mobile medical and then introduces the prostate image segmentation method based on the geometric active contour model. The emergence of automatic organ tissue segmentation technology is timely; it can help clinicians save a lot of manual segmentation time and has better reversibility and objectivity, and the theory of curve evolution is analyzed. Finally, this paper introduces the experimental research object and purpose, makes a statistical analysis of the symptoms of benign prostatic hyperplasia, and compares the incidence of psychological symptoms in patients with prostatitis under different factors. The experimental results of this paper show that 90% of prostatitis patients have mild psychological problems, and 10% have moderate psychological problems. Among them, the main reason for the psychological disorder of patients is depression, for which we should strengthen the care for patients.

Presently, there are no few anticancer drugs that have been used clinically due to their poor targeting ability, short half-life period, non-selective distributions, generation of vasculogenic mimicry (VM) channels, high metastasis, and high recurrence rate. This study aimed to explore the effects of R8 modified epirubicin–dihydroartemisinin liposomes that could target non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells, destroy VM channels, inhibit tumor metastasis, and explain the possible underlying mechanism. In vitro assays indicated that R8 modified epirubicin–dihydroartemisinin liposomes with ideal physicochemical characteristics could exhibit not only powerful cytotoxicity on A549 cells, but also the effective suppression of VM channels and tumor metastasis. Mechanistic studies manifested that R8 modified epirubicin–dihydroartemisinin liposomes could down-regulate the levels of VE-Cad, TGF-β1, MMP-2, and HIF-1α. In vivo assays indicated that R8 modified epirubicin–dihydroartemisinin liposomes could both increase the selective accumulation of chemotherapeutic drugs at tumor sites and show a targeting conspicuous of antitumor efficacy. In conclusion, the R8 modified epirubicin–dihydroartemisinin liposomes prepared in this study provide a treatment strategy with high efficiency for NSCLC.

A novel CaCO3/graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) photocatalyst was synthesized for the first time via a facile calcination method using CaCO3 and melamine as precursors. The as-prepared samples were characterized using various techniques, such as scanning and transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller analysis, as well as Fourier-transform infrared, X-ray photoelectron, photoluminescence, and UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The results of the experiments confirm the successful coupling of CaCO3 to g-C3N4. The photocatalytic activity of the synthesized CaCO3/g-C3N4 composites was evaluated by assessing their performance in the photocatalytic degradation of crystal violet (CV) in water under visible light irradiation. The analysis shows that CaCO3/g-C3N4 exhibits higher photocatalytic activity towards CV degradation (76.0%) than pristine g-C3N4 (21.6%) and CaCO3 (23.2%). Radical trapping and electron spin resonance experiments show that hydroxyl radicals (·OH) and holes (h+) are the key reactive species in the photocatalytic process. The enhanced photocatalytic activity of the composite is mainly attributed to the efficient separation rate of electron-hole pairs achieved through the incorporation of CaCO3. Keywords: CaCO3/g-C3N4, Calcination, Photocatalysis, Charge separation

Because of the low reflection value of the shadow regions in hyperspectral image (HSI), these regions were deleted directly or ignored in target detection or classification. There are some studies on improving the reflectivity of shadow regions, but it is still difficult to determine the actual substances contained in shadow regions. In this paper, an improved target detection method in shadow regions in HSI is proposed by combining the convolution neural network (CNN) and the adaptive cosine consistency estimation (ACE) of the spectral derivative image. Firstly, the derivative image could be obtained by deriving the original HSI in the spectral dimension. The following steps would be performed simultaneously on the original HSI and the derivative image. Next, the shadow regions in HSI could be determined through two-dimensional (2D) CNN model whose main parameters have been adjusted to optimize the network performance. Finally, the substances contained in the shadow regions would be detected by ACE algorithm. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated and analyzed on the real-world HSIs. The experiments show that the spectral derivation can help to improve the target detection and it is worth taking into account the shadow regions for processing HSI data.

This is a retrospective cohort study included 1021 patients underwent a flexible GnRH antagonist IVF protocol from January 2017 to December 2017 to explore the effect of a premature rise in luteinizing hormone (LH) level on the cumulative live birth rate. All patients included received the first ovarian stimulation and finished a follow-up for 3 years. A premature rise in LH was defined as an LH level >10 IU/L or >50% rise from baseline during ovarian stimulation. The cumulative live birth rate was calculated as the number of women who achieved a live birth divided by the total number of women who had either delivered a baby or had used up all their embryos received from the first stimulated cycle. In the advanced patients (≥37 years), the cumulative live birth rate was reduced in patients with a premature rise of LH (β: 0.20; 95% CI: 0.05–0.88; p=0.03), compared to patients (≥37 years) without the premature LH rise. The incidence of premature LH rise is associated with decreased rates of cumulative live birth rate in patients of advanced age (≥37 years) and aggravated the reduced potential of embryos produced by the advanced age, not the number of embryos.

PurposeImmunotherapy for gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) remains a clinical challenge. The present study aimed to explore the clinical and prognostic significance of immune cell infiltration and PD-L1 expression in GISTs.MethodsA total of 507 clinical tissue specimens of primary GISTs were collected for immunohistochemical analysis of immune cell infiltration and PD-L1 expression. Influencing factors of survival were evaluated by Kaplan–Meier analysis. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed using the Cox regression model.ResultsThere were significant differences in sex, tumor location, size, mitotic index, NIH risk grade, and cell morphology between different gene mutation types of GISTs. Immune cell infiltration in GISTs mainly involved macrophages and T cells. PD-1 was expressed in 48.5% of the tissue specimens, and PD-L1 expression was detected in 46.0% of the samples. PD-L1 expression was negatively correlated with the tumor size and mitotic index but positively correlated with the number of CD8+ T cells. There were significant differences in the number of CD8+ T cells between different gene mutation types. Wild type-mutant GISTs were enriched with CD8+ T cells as compared with KIT- and PDGFRA-mutant GISTs. The number of CD8+ T cells was higher in non-gastric GISTs. PD-L1 and CD8+ T cells were independent predictors for better relapse-free survival of GISTs.ConclusionsPD-L1 expression is a predictive biomarker for better prognosis of GISTs. Non-gastric GIST patients with wild-type mutations may be the beneficiaries of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors.

Significance: Perifoveal exudative vascular anomalous complex (PEVAC) is a unique clinical lesion. It manifests as isolated lesions and is easily misdiagnosed. Thus far, few PEVAC case reports have been published. PEVAC is typically inconsistent with other reported macular lesions.Purpose: To report our 24-month follow-up experience on the treatment of PEVAC with a micropulse laser (MPL).Case Report: A 56-year-old Chinese woman with no history of other diseases complained of decreased vision in her left eye that had persisted for more than 1 year. Comprehensive ophthalmic examinations were performed, including a vision test, slit lamp fundus exam, optical coherence tomography (OCT), optical coherence tomography angiography (OCT-A), fluorescein fundus angiography (FFA) and indocyanine green angiography (ICGA). Intravitreal injection of ranibizumab was ineffective, and bleeding, exudation and visual acuity were not improved. After two rounds of micropulse laser (MPL) treatment, the patient was followed up, and the prognosis was good.Conclusion: PEVAC is very rare, and early diagnosis is important, as the lesions readily cause irreversible damage. Our results indicate that an MPL can be used as an alternative treatment for PEVAC patients.

Methionine (Met) is the first limiting amino acid in broiler diets, but its unclear physiological effects hamper its effective use in the poultry production industry. This study assessed the effect of a Met-deficient (MD) diet on chicken liver and kidney health, exploring the associated mechanisms of antioxidant capacity and ileum mucosal immunity. Seventy-two broilers were administered either the control diet (0.46% Met in starter diet, 0.36% Met in grower diet) or the MD diet (0.22% Met in starter diet, 0.24% Met in grower diet). Liver and kidney samples were collected every 14 days for anatomical, histological, and ultrastructural analyses, accompanied by oxidative stress assessment. Meanwhile, T- and B-lymphocyte abundance and essential cytokine gene expression were measured in the ileum, the center of the gut–liver–kidney axis. Signs of kidney and liver injury were observed morphologically in the MD group at 42 days of age. Furthermore, aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase, creatinine, and uric acid levels were decreased in the MD group compared with the control group, accompanied by decreased superoxide dismutase activity, increased malondialdehyde content, decreased numbers of T and B lymphocytes, and decreased cytokine expression in the ileum, such as IL-2, IL-6, LITAF, and IFN-γ. These results suggest that MD can induce kidney and liver injury, and the injury pathway might be related to oxidative stress and intestinal immunosuppression.

BackgroundProstate cancer (PCa) is an immune-responsive disease. The current study sought to explore a robust immune-related prognostic gene signature for PCa.MethodsData were retrieved from the tumor Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and GSE46602 database for performing the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) cox regression model analysis. Immune related genes (IRGs) data were retrieved from ImmPort database.ResultsThe weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) showed that nine functional modules are correlated with the biochemical recurrence of PCa, including 259 IRGs. Univariate regression analysis and survival analysis identified 35 IRGs correlated with the prognosis of PCa. LASSO Cox regression model analysis was used to construct a risk prognosis model comprising 18 IRGs. Multivariate regression analysis showed that risk score was an independent predictor of the prognosis of PCa. A nomogram comprising a combination of this model and other clinical features showed good prediction accuracy in predicting the prognosis of PCa. Further analysis showed that different risk groups harbored different gene mutations, differential transcriptome expression and different immune infiltration levels. Patients in the high-risk group exhibited more gene mutations compared with those in the low-risk group. Patients in the high-risk groups showed high-frequency mutations in TP53. Immune infiltration analysis showed that M2 macrophages were significantly enriched in the high-risk group implying that it affected prognosis of PCa patients. In addition, immunostimulatory genes were differentially expressed in the high-risk group compared with the low-risk group. BIRC5, as an immune-related gene in the prediction model, was up-regulated in 87.5% of prostate cancer tissues. Knockdown of BIRC5 can inhibit cell proliferation and migration.ConclusionIn summary, a risk prognosis model based on IGRs was developed. A nomogram comprising a combination of this model and other clinical features showed good accuracy in predicting the prognosis of PCa. This model provides a basis for personalized treatment of PCa and can help clinicians in making effective treatment decisions.