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Abstract Background Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) is a group of respiratory conditions affecting the lung interstitium often associated with progressive respiratory failure. There is increasing recognition of the need for improved epidemiological data to help determine best practice and improve standardisation of care. The Australasian ILD Registry (AILDR) is a bi-national registry of patients with all ILD subtypes designed to establish a clinically meaningful database reflecting real world practice in Australasia with an objective to improve diagnostic and treatment pathways through research and collaboration. Methods AILDR is a prospective observational registry recruiting patients attending ILD clinics at centres around Australia and New Zealand. Core and non-core data are stored on a secure server. The pilot phase was launched in 2016 consisting of four sites in Australia. Currently in its second phase a further 16 sites have been recruited, including three in New Zealand. Results A total of 1061 participants were consented during the pilot phase. Baseline data demonstrated a mean age 68.3 ± 12.5 (SD) years, mean FVC (%predicted) 79.1 ± 20.4 (SD), mean DLCO (%predicted) 58.5 ± 17.9 (SD) and nadir exertional SpO2 (%) 91 ± 6.9 (SD). Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (31%) and connective-tissue disease related ILD (21.7%) were the two most common subtypes. Baseline demographics and physiology were not significantly different across the four centres. Conclusion AILDR is an important clinical and research tool providing a platform for epidemiological data that will prove essential in promoting understanding of a rare cohort of lung disease and provide foundations for our aspiration to standardise investigation and treatment pathways of ILD across Australasia.

Sea cucumber species are abundant (>1400 species) and widely distributed globally. mtDNA sequencing is frequently used to identify the phylogenetic and evolutionary relationships among species. However, there are no reports on the mitochondrial genome of Phyllophorus liuwutiensis. Here, we performed mtDNA sequencing of P. liuwutiensis to examine its phylogenetic relationships with other echinoderms. Its mitochondrial genome (15 969 bp) contains 37 coding genes, including 13 protein‐coding genes, 22 tRNA genes and 2 rRNA genes. Except for one protein‐coding gene (nad6) and five tRNA genes encoded on the negative strand, all other genes were encoded on the positive strand. The mitochondrial bases of P. liuwutiensis were composed of 29.55% T, 22.16% C, 35.64% A and 12.64% G. The putative control region was 703 bp in length. Seven overlapping regions (1–10 bp) were found. The noncoding region between the genes ranged from 1 to 130 bp in length. One putative control region has been found in the P. liuwutiensis mitogenome. All of the tRNA genes were predicted to fold into a cloverleaf structure. In addition, we compared the gene arrangements of six echinoderms, revealing that the gene order of P. liuwutiensis was a new arrangement.

Abstract Backgrounds Cancer-related mortality in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) is predominantly caused by development of colorectal liver metastases (CLMs). How to screen the sensitive chemotherapy and targeted therapy is the key element to improve the prognosis of CLMs patients. The study aims to develop patient-derived organoids-based xenografted liver metastases (PDOX-LM) model of CRC, to recapitulate the clinical drug response. Methods We transplanted human CRC primary tumor derived organoids in murine spleen to obtain xenografted liver metastases in murine liver. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining, whole-exome and RNA sequencing, and drug response testing were utilized to identify the homogeneity in biological and genetic characteristics, and drug response between the PDOX-LM models and donor liver metastases. Results We successfully established PDOX-LM models from patients with CLMs. IHC staining showed that positive expression of CEA, Ki67, VEGF, FGFR2 in donor liver metastases were also well preserved in matched xenografted liver metastases. Whole-exon sequencing and transcriptome analysis showed that both xenografted and donor liver metastases were highly concordant in somatic variants (≥ 0.90 frequency of concordance) and co-expression of driver genes (Pearson’s correlation coefficient reach up to 0.99, P = 0.001). Furthermore, drug response testing showed that the PDOX-LM models can closely recapitulated the clinical response to mFOLFOX6 regiments. Conclusions This PDOX-LM model provides a more convenient and informative platform for preclinical testing of individual tumors by retaining the histologic and genetic features of donor liver metastases. This technology holds great promise to predict treatment sensitivity for patients with CLMs undergoing chemotherapy.

With a new therapy of keratoconus in recent years-corneal cross-linking, the pediatric keratoconus have characterized by corneal dilatation, central thinning, protrusion and conical shape in the children' eyes. By analyzing the epidemiological characteristics of keratoconus and the current methods of treating pediatric keratcoconus, this paper discusses the role of different CXL protocols in the clinical application of pediatric keratcoconus, thus providing some help for the choice of clinical treatment methods.

"AIM: To use the voxel-wise degree centrality (DC) method to explore the underlying functional network brain-activity in patients with ophthalmectomy. METHODS: A total of 32 ophthalmic surgery patients (10 women and 22 men), and 32 healthy subjects (10 women and 22 men) highly matched in gender, age, and the same operation method. Everyone experienced a resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. The spontaneous brain activity could be assessed by DC. Correlation analysis was used to explore the relationships between the average DC signal values and behavior performance in different regions. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was utilized to differentiate between ophthalmectomy patients and healthy controls (HCs). RESULTS: Compared with HCs, ophthalmectomy patients had greatly reduced DC values in left lingual gyrus, bilateral lingual lobe, left cingulate gyrus, and increased DC values of left cerebellum posterior lobe, left middle frontal gyrus1, right supramarginal gyrus, left middle frontal gyrus2, right middle frontal gyrus. However, we did not find that there was a correlation between the average DC values from various brain regions and clinical manifestations. CONCLUSION: Dysfunction may be caused by ophthalmectomy in lots of cerebral areas, which may show the potential pathological mechanism of ophthalmectomy and it is beneficial to clinical diagnosis."

Abstract Lung cancer is prone to metastasis to various organs. Although intraocular metastasis (IOM) occurs at a later stage than metastasis to other organs, it often adversely affects the quality of life and suggests a poor prognosis. In this study, we selected 1608 patients with lung cancer who had metastasis to at least one site and explored clinical differences between those with IOM and non‐IOM (NIOM). An independent t test and chi‐squared test were used to analyze the clinical features of the patients. The statistically significant parameters were analyzed by binary logistic regression to determine the risk factors for IOM. A receiver operating characteristic curve was constructed to assess their diagnostic value in IOM. The results showed that no significant differences were noted in age, gender, and pathological type between the IOM and NIOM groups. However, the IOM group had higher levels of alpha‐fetoprotein, carcinoembryonic antigen, cancer antigen (CA)‐125, CA‐153, cytokeratin fragment 19 (CYFRA 21‐1), and total prostate‐specific antigen, compared with the NIOM group. Binary logistic regression indicated that CA‐153 and CYFRA 21‐1 were risk factors for IOM in patients with MLC (P

A sliding mode robust control law based on Hamilton-Jacobi Inequality (HJI) theory and a disturbance observer is proposed for a wire-driven parallel robot (WDPR) used in a wind- tunnel test. First, the wire-driven parallel robot is described, and its kinematics model established. Second, according to the uncertainty, external disturbance, and redundant drive of the system, the dynamic model of the end-effector and drive system, and the overall dynamic model of the system are established. Hamilton-Jacobi Inequality theory and the designed disturbance observer are applied to the designed sliding mode robust control law, and the anti-interference ability of the WDPR is verified. The stability of the closed-loop system is analyzed by Lyapunov's second method, and the results show that the closed-loop system tends to be asymptotically stable. Finally, taking the dynamic trajectory simulation of compound motion and six-degree-of-freedom motion as examples, the designed sliding mode robust control law is verified by simulation, and the contrastive simulation analysis shows that the disturbance observer can effectively reduce the switching gain, thus effectively reducing chattering and improving the control accuracy of the system. The simulation results show that the designed sliding mode robust control law can effectively suppress the influence of external disturbance on the control error. The control input and the length of the wire change in a certain range. They also prove that the pose error is small, and the control accuracy is high. All of the foundings lay a theoretical foundation and technical support for the practical application of the prototype in a wind-tunnel test.

Glioma is the most common malignant brain tumor and has high lethality. This tumor generated a robust inflammatory response that results in the deterioration of the disease. However, the prognostic role of systemic cellular inflammatory indicators in gliomas remains controversial. This meta‐analysis aimed to assess the prognostic significance of preoperative neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet/lymphocyte ratio (PLR), lymphocyte/monocyte ratio (LMR), red cell distribution width (RDW), and prognostic nutritional index (PNI) in patients with gliomas. Databases of PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and The Cochrane Library were systematically searched for all studies published up to January 2019. Study screening and data extraction followed established Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses guidelines. The Newcastle–Ottawa Scale was used to assess the quality of studies. Eighteen studies containing 3,261 patients were included. The analyses showed an increased NLR or RDW was found to be an independent predictor of worse survival in patients with gliomas (hazard ratio (HR): 1.38; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.09–1.74; P = 0.008; and HR: 1.40; 95% CI: 1.13–1.74; P = 0.002, respectively). Furthermore, a higher PNI indicates a better overall survival (OS; HR: 0.57; 95% CI: 0.42–0.77; P = 0.0002). For the evaluation of PLR and LMR, none of these variables correlated with OS (P = 0.91 and P = 0.21, respectively). Our meta‐analysis indicates the NLR, RDW, and PNI rather than PLR and LMR are the independent index for predicting the OS of gliomas. Pre‐operative NLR, RDW, and PNI can help to evaluate disease progression, optimize treatment, and follow‐up in patients with gliomas.

Recent studies have indicated that prostate cancer (PCa) with BRCA2 mutations is more aggressive. However, these reports mostly focused on Caucasus populations, and large-scale studies on BRCA mutations in Chinese PCa populations remain limited. Herein, we screened, from multiple centers in China, a total of 172 patients with PCa carrying BRCA1/2 germline mutations. The variant distribution and type, associated somatic variant, and frequency of the BRCA germline variants in these patients were analyzed retrospectively. We found that Chinese patients with PCa carrying BRCA1/2 germline mutations were diagnosed at an earlier age, i.e., 67 years (range, 34–89 years), and most had metastatic castration-resistant PCa (mCRPC) (54.65%, 94/172). The top three BRCA variants were frameshift, missense, and splicing variants. The overall pathogenic rates of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 variants were 17.46% (11/63) and 56.55% (82/145), respectively. Among the somatic mutations associated with BRCA2 germline mutations, the highest frequency was for FOXA1 (circulating tumor DNA [ctDNA] sequencing, 7.4%; tissue samples, 52%) and NCOR2 mutations (ctDNA sequencing, 7.4%; tissue samples, 24%); TP53 was the dominant somatic mutation associated with BRCA1 germline mutations (ctDNA sequencing, 25%; tissue samples, 17%). Ultimately, in Chinese patients, PCa with BRCA1/2 germline mutations tends to be more aggressive. Compared with BRCA1, BRCA2 has a higher frequency of germline pathogenic mutations. FOXA1, NCOR2, and TP53 somatic mutations associated with higher BRCA1/2 germline pathogenic mutations. Our description of BRCA germline mutations in the Chinese PCa patients provides more reference data for the precise diagnosis and treatment of Chinese PCa patients.

Reliable lasers on Si with large bandwidth are desirable for high-performance data communication systems on Si-photonics platforms. Here, we report short optical pulses generated by gain-switched InP-based 1.55 µm quantum dash (Qdash) lasers directly grown on (001) Si. The laser performance and related physical parameters were investigated by carrying out a gain-switching test for lasers on both Si and native InP substrates. The shortest pulses obtained were 217 and 252 ps for the lasers on InP and Si, respectively. By varying the electrical bias and pulse duration systematically, the evolution of the generated optical pulse duration and peak power was studied. The impact of cavity size on the optical pulse was also examined. Parameters were extracted using established equations fitted with our measurement results to gain insight into the underlying physics and correlation with the observed behavior. The obtained results indicate that the pulse width is limited by the low differential gain and strong gain compression of the active material. Our results indicate that Qdash lasers on Si can demonstrate comparable performance to those on a native InP substrate and manifest its potential application in an Si-based photonics chip for optical on-chip communications.

Conventional plasma synthetic jet actuators rely only on jet orifice for suction when functioning for long durations. A limited supplementary gas leads to jet velocity reduction and weakening of the flow control ability. Therefore, this study proposes an air-supplied actuator with a check valve externally connected to the cavity to improve its gas-supplying ability and jet performance. A quartz glass discharge chamber is developed to clarify the internal working mechanism of the air-supplied actuator. High-speed schlieren is employed to photograph the internal flow field of the discharge chamber. The results reveal that the inhalation airflow velocity of the jet orifice is doubled when the actuator is continuously working in the effective frequency band under the combined action of additional air supply from the check valve in the inhalation recovery stage. The gas pressure in the cavity is closer to the initial discharge state, discharge breakdown voltage is higher, discharge energy is stronger, and the process of gas expansion to generate a jet is less affected by the core defect of the heat source, thereby significantly increasing the jet velocity and saturation operating frequency of the actuator. The obtained results have important implications for the performance optimization of the air-supplied actuator.

Abstract Background Previous studies reported that URB597 (URB) had therapeutic potential for treating chronic cerebral hypoperfusion (CCH)-induced neuroinflammation and autophagy dysfunction. However, the interaction mechanisms underlying the CCH-induced abnormal excessive autophagy and neuroinflammation remain unknown. In this study, we investigated the roles of impaired autophagy in nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor family pyrin domain-containing (NLRP) 3 inflammasome activation in the rat hippocampus and the underlying mechanisms under the condition of induced CCH as well as the effect of URB treatment. Methods The CCH rat model was established by bilateral common carotid artery occlusion (BCCAo), and rats were randomly divided into 11 groups as follows: (1) sham-operated, (2) BCCAo; (3) BCCAo+autophagy inhibitor 3-methyladenine (3-MA), (4) BCCAo+lysosome inhibitor chloroquine (CQ), (5) BCCAo+microglial activation inhibitor minocycline, (6) BCCAo+ROS scavenger N-acetylcysteine (NAC), (7) BCCAo+URB, (8) BCCAo+URB+3-MA, (9) BCCAo+URB+CQ, (10) BCCAo+URB+minocycline, (11) BCCAo+URB+NAC. The cell localizations of LC3, p62, LAMP1, TOM20 and NLRP3 were assessed by immunofluorescence staining. The levels of autophagy-related proteins (LC3, p62, LAMP1, BNIP3 and parkin), NLRP3 inflammasome-related proteins (NLRP3, CASP1 and IL-1β), microglial marker (OX-42) and proinflammatory cytokines (iNOS and COX-2) were evaluated by western blotting, and proinflammatory cytokines (IL-1β and TNF-a) were determined by ELISA. Reactive oxygen species (ROS) were assessed by dihydroethidium staining. The mitochondrial ultrastructural changes were examined by electron microscopy. Results CCH induced microglial overactivation and ROS accumulation, promoting the activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome and the release of IL-1β. Blocked autophagy and mitophagy flux enhanced the activation of the NLRP3-CASP1 inflammasome pathway. However, URB alleviated impaired autophagy and mitophagy by decreasing mitochondrial ROS and microglial overactivation as well as restoring lysosomal function, which would further inhibit the activation of the NLRP3-CASP1 inflammasome pathway. Conclusion These findings extended previous studies indicating the function of URB in the mitigation of chronic ischemic injury of the brain.

ObjectiveTo develop and validate a new strategy based on radiomics features extracted from intra- and peritumoral regions on CT images for the prediction of atypical responses to the immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) in cancer patients.MethodsIn total, 135 patients derived from five hospitals with pathologically confirmed malignancies receiving ICI were included in this retrospective study. Atypical responses including pseudoprogression (PsP) and hyperprogression disease (HPD) were identified as their definitions. A subgroup of standard progression disease (sPD) in 2018 was also involved in this study. Based on pretreatment CT imaging, a total of 107 features were extracted from intra- and peri-tumoral regions, respectively. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) algorithm was used for feature selection, and multivariate logistic analysis was used to develop radiomics signature (RS). Finally, a total of nine RSs, derived from intra-tumoral, peri-tumoral, and combination of both regions, were built respectively to distinguish PsP vs. HPD, PsP vs. sPD, and HPD vs. sPD. The performance of the RSs was evaluated with discrimination, calibration, and clinical usefulness.ResultsNo significant difference was found when compared in terms of clinical characteristics of PsP, HPD, and sPD. RS based on combined regions outperformed those from either intra-tumoral or peri-tumoral alone, yielding an AUC (accuracy) of 0.834 (0.827) for PsP vs. HPD, 0.923 (0.868) for PsP vs. sPD, and 0.959 (0.894) for HPD vs. sPD in the training datasets, and 0.835 (0.794) for PsP vs. HPD, 0.919 (0.867) for PsP vs. sPD, and 0.933 (0.842) for HPD vs. sPD in the testing datasets. The combined RS showed good fitness (Hosmer–Lemeshow test p > 0.05) and provided more net benefit than the treat-none or treat-all scheme by decision curve analysis in both training and testing datasets.ConclusionPretreatment radiomics are helpful to predict atypical responses to ICI across tumor types. The combined RS outperformed those from either intra- or peri-tumoral alone which may provide a more comprehensive characterization of atypical responses to ICI.

As the traditional manual classification method has some shortcomings, including high subjectivity, low efficiency, and high misclassification rate, we studied an approach for classifying koi varieties. The main contributions of this study are twofold: (1) a dataset was established for thirteen kinds of koi; (2) a classification problem with high similarity was designed for underwater animals, and a KRS-Net classification network was constructed based on deep learning, which could solve the problem of low accuracy for some varieties that are highly similar. The test experiment of KRS-Net was carried out on the established dataset, and the results were compared with those of five mainstream classification networks (AlexNet, VGG16, GoogLeNet, ResNet101, and DenseNet201). The experimental results showed that the classification test accuracy of KRS-Net reached 97.90% for koi, which is better than those of the comparison networks. The main advantages of the proposed approach include reduced number of parameters and improved accuracy. This study provides an effective approach for the intelligent classification of koi, and it has guiding significance for the classification of other organisms with high similarity among classes. The proposed approach can be applied to some other tasks, such as screening, breeding, and grade sorting.

The accuracy with which a neural network interprets a point cloud depends on the quality of the features expressed by the network. Addressing this issue, we propose a multi-level feature extraction layer (MFEL) which collects local contextual feature and global information by modeling point clouds at different levels. The MFEL is mainly composed of three independent modules, including the aggregated GAPLayer, the spatial position perceptron, and the RBFLayer, which learn point cloud features from three different scales. The aggregated GAPLayer aggregates the geometry features of neighboring points in a local coordinate system to centroid by graph convolution. Then, the spatial position perceptron independently learns the position features of each point in the world coordinate system. Finally, the RBFLayer aggregates points into pointsets according to the correlation between features, and extracts features from the pointset scale through the quantization layer. Based on the MFEL, an end-to-end classification and segmentation network, namely the MFNet and MFNet-S, is proposed. In the proposed network, the channel-attention mechanism is employed to better aggregate multi-level features. We conduct classification and semantic segmentation experiments on four standard datasets. The results show that the proposed method outperforms the compared methods on the multiple datasets, resulting in 93.1% classification accuracy in ModelNet40. Furthermore, the mIoU of part semantic segmentation in ShapeNet is 85.4%, and the mIoU for semantic segmentation in S3DIS and Semantic3D is 62.9% and 71.9%, respectively.

Upon tangential ultrafiltration and asymmetric flow field analyses, seawater nanoparticle size distribution and the associations with the total number of bacteria and plankton diversity were evaluated. Of the nanoparticles in the Jiulong River Estuary, 79% were from 1 to 6 nm (C1). C2 (6–20 nm) was correlated with dissolved organic carbon, while C2 and C3 (>20 nm) were associated with dissolved inorganic nitrogen, suggesting that C2 and C3 were impacted by biogenic elements. The total number of bacteria was correlated with C1 and C3. The correlations of Shannon's diversity index (H′) and C3, richness (d), and C1 suggested a link of particle size with phytoplankton biodiversity. Significant correlations of the H′ of zooplankton and C3, and of Pielou's evenness index (J) and C3, suggested C3 as a primary digestion product of zooplankton. The negative correlations of nano-organic carbon (NOC) with d and J suggested NOC as a carbon source for zooplankton. Biodiversity was associated with seawater nanoparticle size distribution. Biological activities regulated the nanoparticle size distribution, which impacted the estuarine nutrient cycling, in turn affecting the stability and balance of biodiversity. Correlation analysis of the size distribution of seawater nanoparticles and the plankton diversity index provided a potential tool for evaluating ecological effects.

Dry eye syndrome refers to a general term for various diseases in which tear fluid quality orabnormality or kinetic abnormality is caused by any cause, resulting in decreased tear film stability, accompanied by ocular discomfort and/or ocular surface tissue lesion characteristics. Dry eye syndrome is a multifactorial disease that is greatly affected by age and environmental factors. Among them, oxidative stress is closely related to age-related dry eye. In this article, based on animal experiments, the role of oxidative stress in dry eye syndrome was pointed out by establishing animal models of oxidative stress and monitoring the levels of biomarkers and antioxidant defenses indicative of oxidative damage in ocular surface tissue. In addition, some interventional studies have shown that oxidative stress may be a direct target for local treatment of dry eye. Certain substances may effectively reduce oxidative stress damage, thereby achieving the effect of treating dry eye. Further research on oxidative stress in recent years has shown that oxidative stress has an increasingly important role in dry eye, providing a basis for clinical intervention against oxidative stress.

Macular corneal dystrophy(MCD)refers to corneal stromal dystrophy, which can cause progressive visual field defects. MCD belongs to autosomal recessive disease. Mutation of CHST 6 gene is considered to be a pathogenic factor. In general, full-thickness penetrating keratoplasty has become a standard treatment for improving vision. Now more advanced surgical interventions such as deep anterior lamellar keratoplasty(DALK)and phototherapeutic keratectomy(PTK)have also been shown to be important in the treatment of MCD. Some new technologies, such as gene targeting therapy and enzyme replacement therapy, are also being studied as potential permanent solutions for MCD. The pathogenesis, genetic basis, clinical manifestations, treatment and prognosis of this disease are reviewed in this paper.

Abstract A suspended monolayer graphene has only about 2.3% absorption rate in visible and infrared band, which limits its optoelectronic applications. To significantly increase graphene’s absorption efficiency, a tunable dual-band and polarization-insensitive coherent perfect absorber (CPA) is proposed in the mid-infrared regime, which contains the silicon array coupled in double-layers graphene waveguide. Based on the FDTD methods, dual-band perfect absorption peaks are achieved in 9611 nm and 9924 nm, respectively. Moreover, due to its center symmetric feature, the proposed absorber also demonstrates polarization-insensitive. Meanwhile, the coherent absorption peaks can be all-optically modulated by altering the relative phase between two reverse incident lights. Furthermore, by manipulating the Fermi energies of two graphene layers, two coherent absorption peaks can move over a wide spectrum range, and our designed CPA can also be changed from dual-band CPA to narrowband CPA. Thus, our results can find some potential applications in the field of developing nanophotonic devices with excellent performance working at the mid-infrared regime.

AIM:To explore the effect of amniotic lacrimal stent graft on castrated male rabbits of dry eye. METHODS: Thirty-six adult male rabbits were divided into two groups. Group A was treated with false castration, group B was pseudo-implantation group, and group C was implanted with lacrimal canal. Fluorescein(FL)staining and scoring and SⅠt examination, and confocal microscopy were performed at 2, 4, 6wk after implantation.RESULTS: The cornea of group A was smooth and clear, and the FL staining was not obvious. In group B, the cornea was rough, and the corneal epithelium was spotted with stained spots. The corneal surface of group C was smoother and more transparent than that of sham operation group and the punctate staining was not obviously. The FL staining scores and SⅠt examination were significant(PCONCLUSION: The amniotic lacrimal duct stent can significantly improve the symptoms and signs of castrated castrated male rabbit dry eye syndrome, and has a therapeutic effect.

AIM: To explore the application effect of “diversified two-stage” teaching mode in the cultivation of master students in ophthalmology.METHODS: A total of thirty-two master students of ophthalmology from 2017 to 2019 were randomly divided into 2 groups, 16 in each group. The study group used the “diversified two-stage” teaching mode; the control group used the traditional teaching mode. The teaching content of the same group of graduate students is the same, the teaching teachers are the same, the teaching period was 33mo of clinical practice, the research time is from 2014 to 2019, the differences between the two groups were compared in the clinical professional assessment, scientific research ability assessment, comprehensive assessment, student satisfaction and dream anxiety self-rating scores with the same examination content and the uniform scoring standard. RESULTS: The average score of student satisfaction in the study group is(101.38±6.29), the comprehensive assessment is 84.22±4.58, and the dream anxiety score is 17.31±5.20. The average score of satisfaction in the control group is 59.13±9.61, the comprehensive assessment is 75.72±5.14, and the dream anxiety score is 25.75±3.32. The scores of clinical professional assessment, scientific research ability assessment and comprehensive assessment in the study group were higher than the control group, while the dream anxiety score was lower than the control group(both Pr=-0.746, -0.618, both PCONCLUSION: The “diversified two-stage” teaching mode improves the comprehensive quality of master students' theoretical knowledge, scientific research innovation, physical and mental health. It is the best teaching mode for the master students in ophthalmology.

Acupuncture therapy has been adopted in more than 183 countries and regions around the world.With the rapid development of robot technology,research and development of intelligent acupuncture robot become possible,based on its core technology related research,that the point of automatic positioning and intelligent distribution point is the key technology and difficulty in research and development of intelligent acupuncture robot was pointed out in this paper,and thus,the concept of communion robot potential application value to the development of medical robot was also discussed.The latest research results of intelligent acupoint matching were also provided.

Abstract Background Avian influenza A (H5N6) virus poses a great threat to the human health since it is capable to cross the species barrier and infect humans. Although human infections are believed to largely originate from poultry contaminations, the transmissibility is unclear and only limited information was available on poultry environment contaminations, especially in Fujian Province. Methods A total of 4901 environmental samples were collected and tested for Avian Influenza Virus (AIV) from six cities in Fujian Province through the Fujian Influenza Surveillance System from 2013 to 2017. Two patient-related samples were taken from Fujian’s first confirmed H5N6 human case and his backyard chicken feces in 2017. Chi-square test or Fisher’s exact probability test was used to compare the AIV and the viral subtype positive rates among samples from different Surveillance cities, surveillance sites, sample types, and seasons. Phylogenetic tree analysis and molecular analysis were conducted to track the viral transmission route of the human infection and to map out the evolutions of H5N6 in Fujian. Results The overall positive rate of the H5 subtype AIVs was 4.24% (208/4903). There were distinctive differences (p

AIM: Optical coherence tomography angiography was used to explore the effect of erlotinib on the thickness of corneal epithelium and cornea in mice. METHODS: Totally 20 mice were randomly divided into experimental group and PBS group. Erlotinib eye drops was prepared. Erlotinib eye drops and PBS were applied to the two groups of mice at 8, 12, 16 and 20 o'clock each day. OCTA was used to measure the 17 regions of the epithelium and corneal thickness at 1wk, 2wk and 3wk before and after the eye droppings.RESULTS: There was no significant difference in the thickness of corneal epithelium and cornea between the experimental group and PBS group(all P>0.05). Two weeks after eye dropping, the areas of M, T5, IT5, I5, IN5, N5, T6, IT6, IN6 and N6 in the epithelium and corneal of experimental group were significantly thicker than those of PBS group(all PPPPCONCLUSION: Using OCTA, it can be found that ellotini has the effect of thickening corneal epithelium and cornea, and the effect is more obvious with the increase of application times.

Abstract The constructive interference of bright and dark plasmonic modes results in plasmon-induced absorption (PIA) effect. Here, we theoretically investigate PIA effect, which is realized by the constructive interference between a Fabry-Perot (F-P) resonance mode and a graphene quasi-guided mode. Numerical simulation reveals at least three advantages of our structure over previous ones. First, the extinction ratio can reach ~ 99.999%, resulting in the ultra-high figure of merit* (FOM*) as high as 106. Second, the intensity of this pronounced PIA effect can be optimized by adjusting the coupling distance. Third, the resonance frequency can be easily tunable by tuning the graphene Fermi level. This system may have potential applications in dynamically optical switching and biochemical sensing.

AIM: To study the changes of the resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) between acute eye pain (EP) subjects and healthy controls (HCs) in the two hemispheres by using voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC) method. METHODS: Totally 20 patients with EP and 20 HCs were enrolled, sex, age, and education were matched, and all subjects were examined by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans at resting-state. The changes of rsFC between the hemispheres were evaluated by the VMHC method according to Gaussian random field (GRF) theory. In order to identify the VMHC, as biomarkers for distinguishing EP and from HC, the receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) had been analyzed. The relationships were evaluated with Pearson correlation analysis between the mean VMHC signal values and clinical features in these patients. RESULTS: By comparing with health subjects, the significant decreased VMHC values was observed in lingual/calcarine (Brodmann area, BA 30), precentral/postcentral gyrus (PreCG/PosCG; BA 4) and medial frontal gyrus (MFG; BA 8) (false discovery rate corrected

Abstract Background Excessive gestational weight gain (GWG), which is associated with adverse long-term effects on the health of the offspring, has become a major clinical problem. Accumulating evidence indicates that the ovary kisspeptin/GPR54 system directly participates in a series of physiological activities. We used a model of high-fat diet (HFD) during gestational to investigate offspring’s ovarian function and whether kisspeptin/GPR54 system is involved. Methods After introducing the male and confirmation of mating by checking a vaginal sperm plug, female rats were randomized into two groups: control diet called NCD group and high-fat diet called HFD group. After birth, all rats were changed into a control diet and litter size was adjusted to 12 pups per litter. Ovaries were collected for assessment at postnatal day (PND) 4 and PND 30. The timing of vaginal opening was recorded, and the estrous cyclicity was monitored for 2 consecutive weeks immediately. Primary granulosa cells and ovaries which were taken from PND 4 were collected for determination of the direct effect of kisspeptin-10 (kp-10) in vitro. Results Neonatal rats exposed to HFD during gestation had a lower number of secondary follicles in the ovary. The expression of follicle-stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR) and kisspeptin was not altered. At prepuberty, the number of antral follicles and preovulatory follicles was elevated with decreased type III follicles in the HFD group. While the expression of ovulation-related genes was decreased, the expression levels of follicular growth-related genes and steroidogenesis synthesis related genes were elevated. A significant increase in kiss1 mRNA and kisspeptin protein was detected without changes in kiss1r mRNA and GPR54. Maternal high-fat diet during gestation resulted in a significant advanced puberty onset and an irregular estrous cycle in offspring rats. In addition, the administration of kp-10 produced an increase in viability of primary granulosa cells and enlarged the size of oocytes. Conclusions HFD exposure during maternal gestation had a long-term effect on reproductive function in the offspring and the increased ovarian kisspeptin/GPR54 system might be involved.

Abstract Objective Middle‐age patients with retinal detachment (RD) exhibit a loss of visual information, and previous studies of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have demonstrated abnormal spontaneous activity in the RD brain. Therefore, this study assessed changes in local functional connectivity density (lFCD) and long‐range functional connectivity density (longFCD) in middle‐age RD patients during resting‐state FC. Methods In total, 32 middle‐age patients with RD (18 men and 14 women), and 32 age‐, sex‐, and education‐matched normal controls (NCs) (18 men and 14 women) were recruited and underwent functional magnetic resonance examination in the resting state. Two‐sample t test was performed to compare lFCD and longFCD between groups. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated to distinguish middle‐age RD patients from NCs. Results Compared with NCs, middle‐age RD patients demonstrated increased lFCD values in the right inferior temporal gyrus, and increased longFCD values in the bilateral inferior frontal gyri, left superior and middle frontal gyrus, bilateral inferior temporal gyri, and left cerebellum posterior lobe. Middle‐age RD patient exhibited decreased lFCD values in the left cuneus, right lingual gyrus, and left middle frontal gyrus. They also had lower longFCD values in the left lingual gyrus and left inferior occipital gyrus. ROC curve analysis showed excellent accuracy of the specific areas under the curve. Conclusion Our results reveal that middle‐age RD patients exhibited variations of binarized lFCD and longFCD in specific brain areas, which provides insight into the pathological mechanism of RD patients with acute visual loss.

Prostate cancer is the most common malignancy among men worldwide. Platinum (II)-based chemotherapy has been used to treat a number of malignancies including prostate cancer. However, the potential of cisplatin for treating prostate cancer is restricted owing to its limited efficacy and toxic side effects. Combination therapies have been proposed to increase the efficacy and reduce the toxic side effects. In the present study, we investigated how isoalantolactone (IATL), a sesquiterpene lactone extracted from the medicinal plant Inula helenium L., acts synergistically with cisplatin on human prostate cancer cells. We show that IATL significantly increased cisplatin-induced growth suppression and apoptosis in human prostate cancer cells. Mechanistically, the combined treatment resulted in an excessive accumulation of intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS), which leads to the activation of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and the JNK signaling pathway in human prostate cancer cells. Pretreatment of cells with the ROS scavenger N-acetylcysteine (NAC) significantly abrogated the combined treatment-induced ROS accumulation and cell apoptosis. In addition, the activation of ER stress and the JNK signaling pathway prompted by IATL and cisplatin was also reversed by NAC pretreatment. In vivo, we found that IATL combined with cisplatin showed the strongest antitumor effects compared with single agents. These results support the notion that IATL and cisplatin combinational treatment may be more effective for treating prostate cancer than cisplatin alone.

The accumulation of cadmium (Cd) in Oryza sativa L., the world’s most significant staple crop, is a health threat to millions of people. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of commercially available biofertilizers (with high (BF2) and low organic matter (OM) content (BF1)) on Cd accumulation in two types of soils and to determine the bacterial community responses by high-throughput sequencing. The study was conducted in the form of pot experiment in greenhouse in 2018. Four treatments were set: BF1, BF2, organic fertilizer (OF), and control (CK) and the amendments were applied before the rice cultivation. The results showed that the addition of biofertilizers immobilized or mobilized Cd in soils, depending on the soil type and the OM content in biofertilizers. The exogenous OM in biofertilizers was the driving factor for the difference in pH and Cd accumulation in rice grains. The application of biofertilizers with high OM content was effective in reducing Cd accumulation in the rice grains (19.7% lower than CK) by significantly increasing soil pH (from 6.02 to 6.67) in acid silt loam soil (TZ). The consumption of acid fermentation products by soil chemoorganotrophs and the complexation of organic anions in the biofertilizer treatment tended to buffer the pH drop in the drainage and decrease the Cd availability. However, in the weak acid silty clay loam soil (SX), the addition of biofertilizer with high OM significantly increased Cd accumulation in rice grains (21.9% higher than CK), probably owing to the release of acid substances, resulting from the significant increase of the predominant bacteria Chloroflexi. The addition of biofertilizer with low OM content did not significantly change Cd accumulation in rice grains or affect the soil microbial structures in both soils. In conclusion, the effects of biofertilizer on rice Cd accumulation were related to the OM content and soil bacterial community. Biofertilizers with high organic matter may not be suitable for amendments in the paddy soils with high clay content to reduce Cd accumulation in rice grains.

Abstract Objective The purpose of this study is to explore the underlying functional network brain activity changes of patients in middle‐aged with retinitis pigmentosa (RP) and the relationships with clinical features such as depression scale and visual functioning using voxel‐wise degree centrality (DC) method. Methods We included 16 patients with RP (11 men, 5 women) and 16 healthy controls (HCs; 11 men, 5 women). Participants were matched in terms of age, weight, gender and handedness (age and weight between the two groups were compared using independent sample t‐tests, gender and handedness were compared using chi‐square test). We use the voxel‐wise DC method to assess spontaneous brain activity. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was performed to distinguish between RP patients and HCs. Correlation analysis was used to examine the relationships between mean DC values in various brain regions and clinical features (such as depression scale and visual functioning) in RP patients. Results Compared with HCs, the DC values of patients with RP were reduced in the right medial frontal gyrus, bilateral cuneus, bilateral precuneus, and bilateral superior frontal gyrus, and increased in the right cerebellum posterior lobe, left inferior temporal gyrus, and right fusiform gyrus. The mean DC values in the bilateral cuneus negatively correlated with the depression scale, and those in the bilateral precuneus positively correlated with the Visual Functioning Questionnaire‐25. Conclusions Middle‐aged patients with RP exhibit abnormal brain network activity in various brain regions, and this may underlie the pathological mechanism of RP.

Background: The outcomes of patients with postmenopausal breast cancer(PBC) can be improved through the early detection of intraocular metastases(IOMs). In this study, we investigated patients with PBC, and compared those with IOMs with those with non-intraocular metastases(NIOMs) in terms of blood lipid levels, and then differentiated the risk factors associated with IOMs. Methods: Student’s t-test and a chi-square test were used to discriminate between the IOMs and NIOMs groups. After establishing a Poisson regression model to analyze risk factors, we plotted receiver operating characteristic curves(ROC) to assess the quality of risk factors predicting IOMs. Results: The incidence of IOMs in PBC was 1.16%. There was no significant difference in terms of histopathology between the 2 groups. The levels of total cholesterol (TC), apolipoprotein A1(APOA1) and low-density lipoprotein(LDL) in IOMs were significantly lower than in NIOMs groups. Poisson regression suggested that low levels of APOA1 and LDL were risk factors for IOMs (P = 0.002 and P < 0.001, respectively). ROC curve analysis demonstrated that the cut-off values of APOA1 and LDL were 1.025 g/L and 2.415 mmol/L. The highest prediction accuracy for IOMs involved the combination of APOA1 and LDL (AUC = 0.881, P < 0.001). Conclusion: Our research demonstrates that low levels of APOA1 and LDL efficiently predict IOMs in PBC as risk factors, and the combination of APOA1 and LDL was more predictive than single factors.

In this study, the complete mitogenome of Lysmata vittata (Crustacea: Decapoda: Hippolytidae) has been determined. The genome sequence was 22003 base pairs (bp) and it included thirteen protein-coding genes (PCGs), twenty-two transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), two ribosomal RNA genes (rRNAs) and three putative control regions (CRs). The nucleotide composition of AT was 71.50%, with a slightly negative AT skewness (-0.04). Usually the standard start codon of the PCGs was ATN, while cox1, nad4L and cox3 began with TTG, TTG and GTG. The canonical termination codon was TAA, while nad5 and nad4 ended with incomplete stop codon T, and cox1 ended with TAG. The mitochondrial gene arrangement of eight species of the Hippolytidae were compared with the order of genes of Decapoda ancestors, finding that the gene arrangement order of the Lebbeus groenlandicus had not changed, but the gene arrangement order of other species changed to varying degrees. The positions of the two tRNAs genes (trnA and trnR) of the L. vittata had translocations, which also showed that the Hippolytidae species were relatively unconserved in evolution. Phylogenetic analysis of 50 shrimp showed that L. vittata formed a monophyletic clade with Lysmata/Exhippolysmata species. This study should be helpful to better understand the evolutionary status, and population genetic diversity of L. vittata and related species.

Graph neural networks (GNNs) have demonstrated a remarkable ability in the task of semi-supervised node classification. However, most existing GNNs suffer from the nonrobustness issues, which poses a great challenge for applying GNNs into sensitive scenarios. Some researchers concentrate on constructing an ensemble model to mitigate the nonrobustness issues. Nevertheless, these methods ignore the interaction among base models, leading to similar graph representations. Moreover, due to the deterministic propagation applied in most existing GNNs, each node highly relies on its neighbors, leaving the nodes to be sensitive to perturbations. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a novel framework of graph ensemble learning based on knowledge passing (called GEL) to address the above issues. In order to achieve interaction, we consider the predictions of prior models as knowledge to obtain more reliable predictions. Moreover, we design a multilayer DropNode propagation strategy to reduce each node’s dependence on particular neighbors. This strategy also empowers each node to aggregate information from diverse neighbors, alleviating oversmoothing issues. We conduct experiments on three benchmark datasets, including Cora, Citeseer, and Pubmed. GEL outperforms GCN by more than 5% in terms of accuracy across all three datasets and also performs better than other state-of-the-art baselines. Extensive experimental results also show that the GEL alleviates the nonrobustness and oversmoothing issues.

Objective: To evaluate the performance of transvaginal ultrasonography (TVS) in diagnosis of deep infiltrating endometriosis (DIE).Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 198 patients with pathological diagnosis of DIE in our hospital from January 2017 to December 2019 and assessed the performances of pre-operative TVS diagnosis of DIE with regarding to sensitivity (SE), specificity (SP), positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV), using the pathological diagnosis as the ground truth. We also characterized the ultrasonographic features of the DIE lesions.Results: Among all the 198 cases, 170 cases were uterosacral ligament (USL) involvement, SE: 96.47% and SP: 85.71%; 79 cases were intestinal involvement, SE: 94.94% and SP: 94.96%; 57 cases were vaginal rectal septum (VRS) involvement, SE: 73.68% and SP: 94.33%; 20 cases were vaginal involvement, SE: 50% and SP: 97.21%; three cases were bladder involvement, SE: 66.7% and SP: 100%; nine cases were ureter involvement, SE: 55.56% and SP: 100%; and 10 cases were broad ligament involvement, SE: 10% and SP: 100%.Conclusion: TVS showed high accuracy in diagnosing DIE.

Abstract In the current study, the characteristics of aerosol water‐soluble ions (WSI) were investigated via high‐time‐resolution observations as part of the nineth Chinese National Arctic Research Expedition (CHINARE) in 2018. WSI, including Cl−, SO42−, NO3−, NO2−, F−, Br−, Na+, NH4+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+, and Methanesulfonic acid (MSA−), were measured using an online ion chromatography system deployed on the Xuelong research vessel. Moreover, aerosol particle sources were analyzed in order to clarify the impacts of marine emissions and anthropogenic sources on atmospheric aerosols in the Arctic Ocean. Sea salt ions (Na+ and Cl−) were observed to be the most dominant compounds, accounting for 53.5% of the total WSI, followed by the secondary ions (SO42−, NH4+, and NO3−), which accounted for 36.0%. Furthermore, similar spatial distributions of MSA− and SO42− were observed during the measurement period. High levels of Na+ were observed in the areas close to the land and Central Arctic Ocean, attributed to wind speed. In the open ocean, NH4+ and NO3− concentrations were extremely low, however, high levels of NH4+ and NO3− were observed in the coastal area close to Alaska and Russia. This indicates that these aerosol particles were influenced by the anthropogenic sources in these regions. In addition, mean fluxes of NO3− and NH4+ were determined as 42 ± 41 and 347 ± 166 μg m−2 day−1 in the Arctic Ocean, respectively.

Abstract Background Visual deprivation can lead to abnormal and plastic changes in the brain's visual system and other systems. Although the secondary changes of gray matter in patients have been well studied, the study of white matter is rare. In fact, subtle changes in white matter may be revealed by diffusion tensor imaging, and tract‐based spatial statistics can be used to analyze DTI image data. Purpose In the present study, diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and tract‐based spatial statistics (TBSS) were used to investigate abnormal structural changes in the white matter (WM) of patients with monocular blindness (MB). Methods We recruited 16 healthy controls (HC) (fourteen males and two females) and 16 patients (fifteen males and one female) with right‐eye blindness (without differences in left‐eye vision). All patients were of similar age. Data acquisition was performed using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and DTI. Voxel‐based whole brain comparisons of fractional anisotropy (FA) and radial diffusivity (RD) of WM fibers in patients and HC were performed using the TBSS method. The mean FA and RD values for altered brain regions in MB patients were analyzed via the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Correlation analysis was performed to investigate the relationships between the average FA (RD) value of the whole brain and anxiety score, depression score, and visual function questionnaire score in MB patients. Results In MB patients, the mean FA of the whole brain was decreased versus HC. Moreover, the FA values of the corpus callosum, the corona radiata, the posterior thalamic radiation, and the right retrolenticular part of internal capsule were significantly decreased. In addition, the average RD value of the whole brain in MB patients was higher than that observed in HC. The mean FA and RD values of brain regions were analyzed using the ROC curve, and the results showed that the area under the ROC curve was more accurate. Furthermore, the average FA and RD values of the whole brain were significantly correlated with anxiety score, depression score, and visual function‐related quality of life score. Conclusion DTI and TBSS may be useful in examining abnormal spontaneous alterations in the WM of MB patients. The observed changes in FA and RD values may imply the larvaceous neurological mechanism involved in MB.

In the process of supplier selection for green supply chain management, uncertain information may appear in alternatives’ performances or experts’ preferences. The stochastic multicriteria acceptability analysis (SMAA) is a beneficial technique to tackling the uncertain information in such a problem and the MULTIMOORA is a robust technique to aggregate alternatives’ utilities. This study dedicates to proposing an SMAA-MULTIMOORA method by considering the advantages of both methods. The integrated method can accept uncertain information as inputs. The steps of the SMAA-MULTIMOORA are illustrated. A case study about the selection of green suppliers is given to show the validity and robustness of the SMAA-MULTIMOORA method.

Previous studies suggest locomotion training could be an effective non-invasive therapy after spinal cord injury (SCI) using primarily acute thoracic injuries. However, the majority of SCI patients have chronic cervical injuries. Regaining hand function could significantly increase their quality of life. In this study, we used a clinically relevant chronic cervical contusion to study the therapeutic efficacy of rehabilitation in forelimb functional recovery. Nude rats received a moderate C5 unilateral contusive injury and were then divided into two groups with or without Modified Montoya Staircase (MMS) rehabilitation. For the rehabilitation group, rats were trained 5 days a week starting at 8 weeks post-injury (PI) for 6 weeks. All rats were assessed for skilled forelimb functions with MMS test weekly and for untrained gross forelimb locomotion with grooming and horizontal ladder (HL) tests biweekly. Our results showed that MMS rehabilitation significantly increased the number of pellets taken at 13 and 14 weeks PI and the accuracy rates at 12 to 14 weeks PI. However, there were no significant differences in the grooming scores or the percentage of HL missteps at any time point. Histological analyses revealed that MMS rehabilitation significantly increased the number of serotonergic fibers and the amount of presynaptic terminals around motor neurons in the cervical ventral horns caudal to the injury and reduced glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP)-immunoreactive astrogliosis in spinal cords caudal to the lesion. This study shows that MMS rehabilitation can modify the injury environment, promote axonal sprouting and synaptic plasticity, and importantly, improve reaching and grasping functions in the forelimb, supporting the therapeutic potential of task-specific rehabilitation for functional recovery after chronic SCI.