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Chiral metasurfaces have attracted considerable attention because of their immense potential for diverse applications requiring chiral light-matter interactions. Recently, boosted by a mechanism based on the concept of bound states in the continuum (BICs), high Q factor chiroptical resonances have been exhibited by breaking the inversion symmetries of planar metasurfaces. However, the optical chirality of these chiral metasurfaces is generally intolerable with respect to the structural geometries, especially the geometric asymmetry. Here, we present a novel chiral quasi-BIC with strong optical chirality in an all-dielectric metasurface. By simultaneously breaking the in-plane C 2 rotational and mirror symmetries, the chiral metasurface shows enhanced chiroptical resonances with near-unity CD (∼0.996) and high Q factors (∼2274) at terahertz frequencies. Further analyses based on numerical simulations reveal that the CD of the chiroptical resonance depicts exceptional remarkable tolerableness to the geometry asymmetry δ when δ are present in a broad range, while the corresponding Q factor is modulated accordingly. The results may develop a novel approach to manipulating the advanced optical chirality for potential applications requiring strong CD with enhanced light-matter interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Patient education contributes to improve public awareness of Helicobacter pylori. Large language models (LLMs) offer opportunities to revolutionize patient education transformatively. This study aimed to assess the quality of patient educational materials (PEMs) generated by LLMs and compared with physician sourced. Materials and Methods: Unified instruction about composing a PEM about H. pylori at a sixth‐grade reading level in both English and Chinese were given to physician and five LLMs (Bing Copilot, Claude 3 Opus, Gemini Pro, ChatGPT‐4, and ERNIE Bot 4.0). The assessments of the completeness and comprehensibility of the Chinese PEMs were conducted by five gastroenterologists and 50 patients according to three‐point Likert scale. Gastroenterologists were asked to evaluate both English and Chinese PEMs and determine the accuracy and safety. The accuracy was assessed by six‐point Likert scale. The minimum acceptable scores were 4, 2, and 2 for accuracy, completeness, and comprehensibility, respectively. The Flesch–Kincaid and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook scoring systems were employed as readability assessment tools. Results: Accuracy and comprehensibility were acceptable for English PEMs of all sources, while completence was not satisfactory. Physician‐sourced PEM had the highest accuracy mean score of 5.60 and LLM‐generated English PEMs ranged from 4.00 to 5.40. The completeness score was comparable between physician‐sourced PEM and LLM‐generated PEMs in English. Chinese PEMs from LLMs proned to have lower score in accuracy and completeness assessment than English PEMs. The mean score for completeness of five LLM‐generated Chinese PEMs was 1.82–2.70 in patients' perspective, which was higher than gastroenterologists' assessment. Comprehensibility was satisfactory for all PEMs. No PEM met the recommended sixth‐grade reading level. Conclusion: LLMs have potential in assisting patient education. The accuracy and comprehensibility of LLM‐generated PEMs were acceptable, but further optimization on improving completeness and accounting for a variety of linguistic contexts are essential for enhancing the feasibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of image inpainting is to fill in damaged areas according to certain rules based on information about the adjacent positions of missing areas and the overall structure of the image, a technique that plays a key role in various tasks in computer vision. With the rapid development of deep learning, researchers have combined it with image inpainting and achieved excellent performance. To gain insight into the techniques involved, this paper summarizes the latest research advances in the field of image inpainting. Firstly, existing classical image inpainting methods are reviewed, and traditional image inpainting methods and their advantages and disadvantages are introduced. Secondly, three classical network models are outlined, and the image inpainting methods are classified into single-stage, multi-stage and a priori condition-guided approaches according to different network types and model structures. Representative algorithms among them are selected and their important technical improvement ideas are analyzed and summarized. Then, the common datasets commonly used in image inpainting tasks and the evaluation metrics used to evaluate inpainting results are introduced. The paper presents a comprehensive summary of the various algorithms in terms of network models and inpainting methods, and selects representative algorithms for quantitative and qualitative comparative analysis. Finally, the future development trends and research directions have prospected, and the current problems of image inpainting are summarized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Thoracolumbar compression fractures resulting from high‐energy injuries are a common type of spinal fracture. Satisfying reduction of compressive vertebra body is essential for the clinical outcome. However, traditional distraction technique may lead to complications including pedicle screw loosening, pedicle screw breakage, and postoperative back pain because of excessive distraction. In this study, we reported a novel technique for reduction. Additionally, the effect and postoperative radiological parameters of this technique were compared with those of traditional distraction technique. Methods: The clinical data of 80 patients who had been treated with posterior pedicle screw fixation from January 2019 to December 2020 was retrospectively analyzed. Thirty‐six patients were performed with the leverage technique, while 22 patients were treated with the traditional distraction technique. When pedicle screw fixation was performed with either the leverage technique or the traditional distraction technique, fracture reduction was completed with monoaxial pedicle screws using either the leverage maneuver or distraction of adjacent vertebrae. Clinical evaluation, including operation time, hospital stay, blood loss volume, and postoperative complications were collected. The American Spinal Injury Association (ASIA) score for neurological condition and the visual analog scale (VAS) score for pain were used to evaluate the patients' functional outcome. The radiographic analysis included local kyphotic angle (LKA), regional kyphotic angle (RKA), anterior vertebral height (AVH), posterior vertebral height (PVH), and sagittal compression (SC). The student t‐test and the χ2‐test (or the Fisher exact test) were used to compare the outcome measures between the two groups. Results: The leverage group comprised 36 patients, while 44 patients were included in the distraction group. No statistically significant differences were found in the demographic data. The VAS score in the leverage group (3.0 ± 0.8) was significantly lower than that in the distraction group (4.2 ± 0.6) on postoperative day 1. Total correction of the LKA in the leverage group (11.5 ± 2.5°) was significantly higher than that in the distraction group (7.1 ± 1.3°) (p = 0.0004). Total correction of the RKA was higher in the leverage group (12.1 ± 4.3°) than in the distraction group (6.1 ± 0.9°) (p = 0.005). The ratio of rear pillar /front pillar correction was 0.35 ± 0.13 and 0.89 ± 0.18 in the leverage and distraction groups, respectively (p = 0.014). Total correction of the upper and lower foraminal height in the leverage group was significantly less than that in the distraction group. The leverage group had significantly higher correction of the upper and lower intervertebral space height than the distraction group. Conclusions: Our novel leverage technique provided better kyphotic reduction and restoration than compared to conventional distraction technique in the surgical treatment of thoracolumbar compression fractures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maize is an important crop used for food, feed, and fuel. Abiotic stress is an important factor affecting maize yield. The EPF/EPFL gene family encodes class-specific secretory proteins that play an important role in the response to abiotic stress in plants. In order to explore and utilize the EPF/EPFL family in maize, the family members were systematically identified, and their chromosomal localization, physicochemical properties, cis-acting element prediction in promoters, phylogenetic tree construction, and expression pattern analysis were carried out using bioinformatics techniques. A total of 18 ZmEPF/EPFL proteins were identified in maize, which are mostly alkaline and a small portion acidic. Subcellular localization results showed that ZmEPF6, ZmEPF12, and ZmEPFL2 are localized in the nucleus and cytoplasm. Analysis of cis-acting elements revealed that members of the ZmEPF/EPFL family contain regulatory elements such as light response, anoxic, low temperature, and hormone response regulatory elements. RT-qPCR results showed that these family members are indeed responding to cold stress and hormone treatments. These results of this study provide a theoretical basis for improving the abiotic stress resistance of maize in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common critical illness in clinic, characterized by a sudden and continuous decline in kidney function. zebrafish, as a vertebrate model organism, is highly similar to human being in terms of kidney morphology, physiology and function, and is an ideal animal model for the study of kidney disease, which makes up for the deficiency of mammalian model. This review briefly described the structure and function of zebrafish kidney, the modeling methods and its application in AKI research.