Search

The article presents a case study of a 55-year-old man has presented with fever, cough, expectoration, chest pain, and depressed mood. Topics include the patient was previously diagnosed with tuberculosis by three hospitals mainly due to acid‑fast stained positive bacilli detected in the bronchial lavage fluid, the no significant effect had been achieved in antituberculosis treatment, and the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid showed acid‑fast positive bacteria similar to tuberculosis bacilli.

Overexposure to ultraviolet (UV) light can pose a threat to human health and lead to the photodegradation of organic materials, thereby there is great interest in the development of UV-shielding and UV-to-visible light converting materials. In this study, a novel polymer microsphere with both UV-shielding and blue-light-emitting characteristics was fabricated by grafting disodium 4,4′-bis[(4-anilino-6-hydroxyethylamino-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl) amino] stilbene-2,2′-disulphonate (VBL) onto poly (maleic anhydride-co-α-methyl styrene) (PMAS) microspheres via an esterification reaction. The as-prepared PMAS-VBL microspheres were then incorporated into polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to prepare composite films. The introduction of PMAS-VBL endowed PVA with excellent UV-shielding and fluorescent properties, which are mainly derived from the UV-to-blue light converting ability of VBL. PVA films containing 7 wt% PMAS-VBL microspheres can block almost 100% UV light while the visible light transmittance was maintained at 66.9% and the absolute quantum yield of the films reached up to 74.26%. This work opens up a new pathway for fabricating UV filters and blue light converters, which are very promising for a diversity of UV-shielding and fluorescence-based applications. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early second language (L2) experience influences the neural organization of L2 in neuro-plastic terms. Previous studies tried to reveal these plastic effects of age of second language acquisition (AoA-L2) and proficiency-level in L2 (PL-L2) on the neural basis of language processing in bilinguals. Although different activation patterns have been observed during language processing in early and late bilinguals by task-fMRI, few studies reported the effect of AoA-L2 and high PL-L2 on language network at resting state. In this study, we acquired resting-state fMRI (R-fMRI) data from 10 Cantonese (L1)-Mandarin (L2) early bilinguals (acquired L2: 3years old) and 11 late bilinguals (acquired L2: 6years old), and analyzed their topological properties of language networks after controlling the language daily exposure and usage as well as PL in L1 and L2. We found that early bilinguals had significantly a higher clustering coefficient, global and local efficiency, but significantly lower characteristic path length compared to late bilinguals. Modular analysis indicated that compared to late bilinguals, early bilinguals showed significantly stronger intra-modular functional connectivity in the semantic and phonetic modules, stronger inter-modular functional connectivity between the semantic and phonetic modules as well as between the phonetic and syntactic modules. Differences in global and local parameters may reflect different patterns of neuro-plasticity respectively for early and late bilinguals. These results suggested that different L2 experience influences topological properties of language network, even if late bilinguals achieve high PL-L2. Our findings may provide a new perspective of neural mechanisms related to early and late bilinguals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non-hemolytic enterotoxin (NHE), a tri-partite, proteinaceous toxin encoded by contiguous nheA, nheB and nheC genes of Bacillus cereus sensu lato ( B. cereus s.l.), is considered to be associated with the foodborne diarrheic syndrome. However, B. cereus s.l. includes a number of closely related strains, and the occurrence of NHE among them, and other members of Bacillus is unclear. Consequently, we aimed to determine the distribution and evolution of NHE within Bacillus by confirming the presence of the nheA, B and C sequences and variation within them using published data, and to analyze the genomic and genetic diversity. The phylogenetic tree of NHE proteins (NheA, NheB and NheC) from 81 different B. cereus s.l. strains was constructed. And on the genetic determinants of the NHE toxin did not bring any obvious link between the nheABC genes sequence of a strain and its virulence in the diarrhoeal pathogenesis. Analysis of the genomic diversity of the nheA, B and C loci revealed that their upstream regions were more conserved than the downstream sequences. Multilocus sequence typing schemes (MLST) based on seven concatenated housekeeping genes and nheA, B and C genes of the 75 strains were developed. The neighbor joining phylogenetic tree based on seven housekeeping genes together with nheA, B and C genes was similiar to published Bacillus phylogenetic trees. And on the genetic determinants of the NHE toxin did not bring any obvious link between the nheABC genes sequence of a strain and its virulence in the diarrhoeal pathogenesis.The results indicate that nheA, B and C genes do not affect the diversity of housekeeping genes, and this specific NHE protein does not participate in the diarrheic syndrome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale and Objectives: Intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasms (IPMNs) are precancerous lesions of the pancreas. Computed tomography (CT) has been recommended to screen the malignant potential of IPMNs. However, data evaluating the use of CT to differentiate categories of IPMN based on disease progression are limited. This study aimed to explore the correlation between CT characteristics and pathology in IPMN associated with invasive carcinoma.Materials and Methods: A total of 31 patients with intraductal papillary mucinous carcinoma (IPMC) treated at one local regional hospital in Shanghai, China, were enrolled in this study. Patients were divided into two groups based on invasion component and characterized as follows: group A, an invasive component of less than 50% (IPMC-I); and group B, with invasion of 50% or greater and defined as pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma associated with IPMN (PDAC-IPMN). First, we analyzed the imaging information of the 31 patients retrospectively. Then, we compared the imaging differences between the two groups.Results: Fifteen patients with IPMC-1 and 16 patients with PDAC-IPMN were identified. There was no statistically significant difference in sex, age, lesion location, radiologic type, tumor size, mural nodule size, and lymphatic metastasis between the two groups. However, the arterial increased CT values were significantly different between the two groups (P < .01), with values of 29.2 ± 12.4 HU for group A and 14.2 ± 8.8 HU for group B. The venous increased CT values were 44.6 ± 12.0 HU for group A and 28.4 ± 12.3 HU for group B, and these were significantly different between the two groups (P < .01). In group A, 13 cases (86.7%) were classified as T1 or T2 stage, and in group B, eight cases (50.0%) were classified as T1 and T2 stage. There was a statistically significant difference in tumor classification between group A and group B patients (P < .05).Conclusions: IPMC-I and PDAC-IPMN have different characteristics in CT imaging, and we demonstrated that CT scans based on blood supply and lymphatic metastasis could be used to evaluate and potentially screen for variation in IPMC disease outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Acute acne flare happened following the administration of isotretinoin is hard to treat. • 5-Aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) is an effective, safety treatment for isotretinoin-induced acute acne flare, with excellent cosmetic result. The acne flare occurs in a small proportion of patients at the initiation of oral isotretinoin. The traditional therapy is oral corticosteroids. But for particular patients it also can be accompanied by side effects, such as metabolic disorder, inhibition of immune function among other effects. Here, we report a young man with acute acne flare following isotretinoin administration treated by 5-aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT). 5-ALA cream (5%) was applied on all skin lesions and kept under a black plastic film for 2 h, and then the skin lesions were exposed toLED PDT illumination with a wavelength of 633 ± 6 mm, power density of 42 mW/cm2, irradiation duration of 30 min for each light spot and light dose of 75.6 J/cm2, for each treated area. A total of seven treatments were provided, with complete clearance and excellent cosmetic result. Here, ALA-PDT as a novel therapeutic option in acne flare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]