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The hemispherical head is prevalent in Gryllinae crickets, so the rare crickets that have a unique form of head will be extremely unusual. In previous studies, this special feature can be one of the important features to distinguish and identify these crickets. But does this particular head shape truly reflect a clear-cut taxonomic relationship? The species of the genus Loxoblemmus have a typical truncate head; species of the genus Stephoblemmus have a more exaggerated truncate head, with the frontal end even extending into a lamellar. The genus Mitius is relatively unusual in that species of this genus have both globose or truncate heads. How are these species related? Does the cephalic shape perfectly reflect the natural classification of these species? Based on these questions, the study applied species definition and morphological classification to explore the intergeneric and intrageneric species relationships of the genera Mitius, Stephoblemmus, and Loxoblemmus, and derived the following main conclusions: (1) Mitius and Stephoblemmus are related and distinct from Loxoblemmus; (2) Mitius species bear two types of frons (truncated and rounded), but this feature disallows them to be classified as natural groups; (3) one genus synonym and three species synonyms are raised (Mitius Gorochov, 1985 syn. n., Mitius splendens (Shiraki, 1930) syn. n., Mitius eryuanensis Yuan, Xie & Liu, 2021 syn. n. and Mitius brevipennis Yuan, Ma & Gu, 2022 syn. n.), and seven new status combinations are proposed (Stephoblemmus blennus (Saussure, 1877) comb. n., Stephoblemmus castaneus (Chopard, 1937) comb. n., Stephoblemmus enatus Gorochov, 1994 comb. n., Stephoblemmus flavipes (Chopard, 1928) comb. n., Stephoblemmus minor (Shiraki, 1911) comb. n., Stephoblemmus minutulus (Yang & Yang, 1995) comb. n. and Stephoblemmus vaturu (Otte & Cowper, 2007) comb. n.). The studies indicated that frons shapes that appear to be significantly different might not always reflect the correct Gryllinae species relationships and a combination of more taxonomic features and taxonomic techniques is needed often to reveal the true taxonomic relationships.

Summary: The retrosplenial cortex (RSC) is a vital area for storing remote memory and has recently been found to undergo broad changes after peripheral nerve injury. However, little is known about the role of RSC in pain regulation. Here, we examine the involvement of RSC in the pain of mice with nerve injury. Notably, reducing the activities of calcium-/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase type II-positive splenial neurons chemogenetically increases paw withdrawal threshold and extends thermal withdrawal latency in mice with nerve injury. The single-cell or single-nucleus RNA-sequencing results predict enhanced excitatory synaptic transmissions in RSC induced by nerve injury. Local infusion of 1-naphthyl acetyl spermine into RSC to decrease the excitatory synaptic transmissions relieves pain and induces conditioned place preference. Our data indicate that RSC is critical for regulating physiological and neuropathic pain. The cell type-dependent transcriptomic information would help understand the molecular basis of neuropathic pain.

Abstract Medical image processing has proven to be effective and feasible for assisting oncologists in diagnosing lung, thyroid, and other cancers, especially at early stage. However, there is no reliable method for the recognition, screening, classification, and detection of nodules, and even deep learning-based methods have limitations. In this study, we mainly explored the automatic pre-diagnosis of lung nodules with the aim of accurately identifying nodules in chest CT images, regardless of the benign and malignant nodules, and the insertion path planning of suspected malignant nodules, used for further diagnosis by robotic-based biopsy puncture. The overall process included lung parenchyma segmentation, classification and pre-diagnosis, 3-D reconstruction and path planning, and experimental verification. First, accurate lung parenchyma segmentation in chest CT images was achieved using digital image processing technologies, such as adaptive gray threshold, connected area labeling, and mathematical morphological boundary repair. Multi-feature weight assignment was then adopted to establish a multi-level classification criterion to complete the classification and pre-diagnosis of pulmonary nodules. Next, 3-D reconstruction of lung regions was performed using voxelization, and on its basis, a feasible local optimal insertion path with an insertion point could be found by avoiding sternums and/or key tissues in terms of the needle-inserting path. Finally, CT images of 900 patients from Lung Image Database Consortium and Image Database Resource Initiative were chosen to verify the validity of pulmonary nodule diagnosis. Our previously designed surgical robotic system and a custom thoracic model were used to validate the effectiveness of the insertion path. This work can not only assist doctors in completing the pre-diagnosis of pulmonary nodules but also provide a reference for clinical biopsy puncture of suspected malignant nodules considered by doctors.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence characteristics of human papillomavirus (HPV) infections in 29,508 female cases in Jinshan District, Shanghai. Materials and methods: The current research represents a retrospective study that included 29,508 women who received cervical screening in the Jinshan Branch of Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital from 2010 to 2020. The overall prevalence, distribution types, age-specific prevalence and annual trends were analysed. Results: The overall HPV infection rate among the patients was 21.97%. They were primarily high-risk HPV (HR-HPV) infections (20.30%) and single HPV infections (15.91%). A general decline in HPV and HR-HPV prevalence was observed with time from 33.52% to 25.45% in 2011 to 21.47% and 20.18% in 2020. The most common HPV genotypes were HPV52, HPV16, HPV58, HPV51, HPV53 and HPV68. The infection rates of HPV genotypes, including HPV6, HPV11, HPV16, HPV18, HPV31, HPV33, HPV35, HPV39, HPV42, HPV43, HPV66 and HPV68, showed overall declines across different years. The age-specific prevalence of total HPV and HR-HPV infections formed an approximate U-shaped curve with two peaks, one in the ≥55 age group (29.75%, 28.43%) and the other in the