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Objective: To understand the situation and epidemic characteristics of injury deaths among children aged 5 to 24 years in Jiangsu Province from 2012 to 2021 and the trend of annual changes. Methods: The main injury mortality data of children and adolescents was collected, and the crude and standardized mortality rates of road traffic accidents, drowning, suicide, and accidental falls among children and adolescents over a decade and the annual average percentage of change (AAPC) were calculated. The main injury mortality characteristics and trends of children and adolescents of different age groups and genders were analyzed. Results: The total number of injury deaths among 5 to 24 adolescents in Jiangsu Province was 16 052, with a standardized mortality rate of 9.58/100 000. There was no significant trend in the overall standardized mortality rate of injuries (AAPC=-3.450%, P =0.055). The standardized mortality rate of road traffic injuries among children and adolescents showed a decreasing trend over the past decade, with statistical significance (AAPC=-9.406%, P <0.001). The standardized suicide mortality rate showed an upward trend over the past decade, with statistical significance (AAPC=9.000%, P =0.001). The overall injury mortality rate showed an upward trend with age. Suicide rates in males and females were on the rise and both have statistical significance (AAPC=9.420% and AAPC=9.607%, both P <0.05). The standardized mortality rates of female traffic accidents, drowning, and male traffic accidents showed a decreasing trend and were statistically significant (AAPC for female traffic accidents=-7.364%, AAPC for female drowning=-5.352%, and AAPC for male traffic accidents=-10.242%, all P <0.05). The standardized mortality rate of urban and rural traffic accidents showed a decreasing trend and was statistically significant(AAPC=-7.899% and AAPC=-9.421%, both P <0.001). The standardized suicide mortality rate showed an upward trend and statistical significance (AAPC=11.009% and AAPC=7.528%, both P <0.05). Conclusions: The overall injury situation of children and adolescents in Jiangsu Province improved in the past decade from 2012 to 2021, but the suicide mortality rate was on the rise. It is necessary to focus on the mental health issues of this age group and to strengthen the prevention and control of suicide among children and adolescents, in Jiangsu.

Background: There are many risk factors for severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) complicated with acute gastrointestinal injury (AGI), but few reports on the interaction between these risk factors., Aim: To analyze the risk factors for SAP complicated with AGI and their interactive effects., Methods: We selected 168 SAP patients admitted to our hospital between December 2019 and June 2022. They were divided into AGI group and non-AGI group according to whether AGI was present. Demographic data and laboratory test data were compared between the two groups. The risk factors for SAP with concomitant AGI were analyzed using multifactorial logistic regression, and an analysis of the interaction of the risk factors was performed., Results: The percentage of patients with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome, acute physiological and chronic health scoring system II (APACHE II) score, white blood cell count and creatinine (CRE) level was higher in the AGI group than in the non-AGI group. There was a statistically significant difference between the two groups ( P < 0.05). Logistic regression analysis indicated that an APACHE II score > 15 and CRE > 100 µmol/L were risk factors for SAP complicating AGI. The interaction index of APACHE II score and CRE level was 3.123., Conclusion: An APACHE II score > 15 and CRE level > 100 µmol/L are independent risk factors for SAP complicated with AGI, and there is a positive interaction between them., Competing Interests: Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest for this article., (©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To understand the epidemiological characteristics and influencing factors of elderly unintentional fall-related injuries (EUFI) in Jiangsu from 2006 to 2021 and provide a scientific basis for the prevention of falls in the elderly and the formulation of related policies. Methods: Data on EUFI was collected from the first diagnosed cases in the injury surveillance hospitals in Jiangsu from 2006 to 2021, and epidemiological characteristics of injuries were analyzed. logistic regression was performed to identify the risk factors for EUFI. Results: The number of EUFI increased from 2006 to 2021, ranked as the first cause of elderly unintentional injuries during these years. The proportion of EUFI among elderly unintentional injuries increased in the same period. The male-to-female ratio is 1∶1.4. Falls mainly occurred during 8:00-10:00 am (32.7%). The most common place where falls occurred was at home (63.6%). From 2006 to 2014, leisure activities (62.1%), housework/study (23.1%), and work (5.2%) were the top three activities when injuries occurred. During 2015-2021, leisure activities (41.7%), housework/study (22.6%) and walking (20.5%) were the top three activities when injuries occurred. The major fall-related injuries were fractures (39.9%), with the injured parts at low limbs (32.5%), of which most were mild injuries (60.3%), and the primary outcome was hospitalization after treatment (74.1%). logistic regression showed that the risk factors of EUFI were female, old age, immigrants, winter, public residence, housework/study, and leisure activities. Higher education, occupation of household and production and transportation equipment operators were protective factors (all P <0.05). Conclusions: Fall is the leading cause of unintentional injuries in the elderly in Jiangsu, especially the elderly female population. Corresponding measures should be taken to prevent and intervene in falls in the elderly in the community according to the distribution characteristics.

This study focuses on overcoming challenges in classifying eye diseases using color fundus photographs by leveraging deep learning techniques, aiming to enhance early detection and diagnosis accuracy. We utilized a dataset of 6392 color fundus photographs across eight disease categories, which was later augmented to 17,766 images. Five well-known convolutional neural networks (CNNs)-efficientnetb0, mobilenetv2, shufflenet, resnet50, and resnet101-and a custom-built CNN were integrated and trained on this dataset. Image sizes were standardized, and model performance was evaluated via accuracy, Kappa coefficient, and precision metrics. Shufflenet and efficientnetb0demonstrated strong performances, while our custom 17-layer CNN outperformed all with an accuracy of 0.930 and a Kappa coefficient of 0.920. Furthermore, we found that the fusion of image features with classical machine learning classifiers increased the performance, with Logistic Regression showcasing the best results. Our study highlights the potential of AI and deep learning models in accurately classifying eye diseases and demonstrates the efficacy of custom-built models and the fusion of deep learning and classical methods. Future work should focus on validating these methods across larger datasets and assessing their real-world applicability.

Secoisolariciresinol (SECO) is one of the major lignans occurring in various grains, seeds, fruits, and vegetables. The gut microbiota plays an important role in the biotransformation of dietary lignans into enterolignans, which might exhibit more potent bioactivities than the precursor lignans. This study aimed to identify, synthesize, and evaluate the microbial metabolites of SECO and to develop efficient lead compounds from the metabolites for the treatment of osteoporosis. SECO was fermented with human gut microbiota in anaerobic or micro-aerobic environments at different time points. Samples derived from microbial transformation were analyzed using an untargeted metabolomics approach for metabolite identification. Nine metabolites were identified and synthesized. Their effects on cell viability, osteoblastic differentiation, and gene expression were examined. The results showed that five of the microbial metabolites exerted potential osteogenic effects similar to those of SECO or better. The results suggested that the enterolignans might account for the osteoporotic effects of SECO in vivo. Thus, the presence of the gut microbiota could offer a good way to form diverse enterolignans with bone-protective effects. The current study improves our understanding of the microbial transformation products of SECO and provides new approaches for new candidate identification in the treatment of osteoporosis.

Objectives: To study the efficacy and safety of rituximab combined with chemotherapy in the treatment of children and adolescents with mature B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (B-NHL) through a Meta analysis., Methods: The databases including PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, ClinicalTrials.gov, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Data, and Weipu were searched to obtain 10 articles on rituximab in the treatment of mature B-NHL in children and adolescents published up to June 2022, with 886 children in total. With 3-year event-free survival (EFS) rate, 3-year overall survival (OS) rate, complete remission rate, mortality rate, and incidence rate of adverse reactions as outcome measures, RevMan 5.4 software was used for Meta analysis, subgroup analysis, sensitivity analysis, and publication bias analysis., Results: The rituximab+chemotherapy group showed significant increases in the 3-year EFS rate ( HR =0.38, 95% CI : 0.25-0.59, P <0.001), 3-year OS rate ( HR =0.29, 95% CI : 0.14-0.61, P =0.001), and complete remission rate ( OR =3.72, 95% CI : 1.89-7.33, P <0.001) as well as a significant reduction in the mortality rate ( OR =0.31, 95% CI : 0.17-0.57, P <0.001), as compared with the chemotherapy group without rituximab. There was no significant difference in the incidence rate of adverse reactions between the two groups ( OR =1.28, 95% CI : 0.85-1.92, P =0.24)., Conclusions: The addition of rituximab to the treatment regimen for children and adolescents with mature B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma can bring significant survival benefits without increasing the incidence of adverse reactions.

Objective: To investigate the clinical characteristics, treatment and prognosis of malignant rhabdoid tumor (MRT) in children. Methods: Clinical data total of 18 children with MRT treated in the Department of Hematology and Oncology, Children's Hospital, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University between June 2015 to June 2021 were analyzed retrospectively. The patients were grouped according to age, gender, tumor type, clinical stage and other factors.Progression free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were calculated by Kaplan-Meier method, survival differences among different groups were compared by Log-rank test, and prognostic factors were analyzed by Cox regression model. Results: Among the 18 patients, there were 5 males and 13 females. The age of disease onset was 30.5 (12.0, 75.0) months, the tumor diameter was (80±29) mm, and no integrase interactor 1 (INI-1) expression was detected by immunohistochemistry. There were 7 cases of malignant rhabdoid tumor of the kidney (MRTK), 6 cases of atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor (ATRT) and 5 cases of extrarenal extracranial rhabdoid tumor (EERT). At the time of early diagnosis, 12 patients were clinically stage Ⅲ-Ⅳ, 11 patients had local or distant metastasis, and 4 patients had metastasis during treatment. Surgical excision is the preferred treatment. There were 3 cases with preoperative puncture biopsy, 13 cases with complete resection, 4 cases with partial resection, and 1 case without operation. Thirteen patients were treated with the domestic conventional chemotherapy regimen for Wilms' tumor, medulloblastoma and rhabdomyosarcoma, and 5 patients were treated with the international conventional chemotherapy regimen. Nine patients received radiotherapy, including 1 case of MRTK, 4 cases of ATRT and 4 cases of EERT. By the end of follow-up in January 2022, 7 patients survived and 11 patients died. The 3-year PFS and OS rates were (8±8) % and (14±12) %. Log-rank test showed that the 5-year OS of EERT group was higher than ATRT and MRTK groups (χ²=16.31, P< 0.001), the tumor diameter <80 mm group was higher than that of the ≥80 mm group (χ²=4.49, P =0.034), and the radiotherapy group was higher than no radiotherapy group (χ²=3.97, P =0.046). The differences were statistically significant. There was no significant difference in the influence of tumor type, age, tumor diameter, radiotherapy and chemotherapy on OS by Cox regression model (all P> 0.05). Log-rank test showed that the 3-year PFS of EERT group was higher than ATRT and MRTK groups (χ²=11.14, P =0.004),>3 years group was higher than ≤3 years group (χ²=10.10, P =0.001), the differences were statistically significant. Tumor type, clinical stage, tumor diameter, age, tumor rupture and radiotherapy were included in the Cox regression model, and the results showed that clinical stage ( HR =0.49, 95% CI 0.26-0.94, P =0.031), tumor diameter ( HR =8.67, 95% CI 1.84-40.89, P =0.006), age ( HR =0.01, 95% CI 0.00-0.15, P =0.001) had statistical significance on PFS. Conclusions: MRT is one of the most aggressive and fatal cancers in early childhood and infancy. There is no standard treatment and the prognosis is extremely poor. Clinical stage, tumor size and age are risk factors for disease progression.

Objectives: To study the clinical features and chemotherapy response of Burkitt's lymphoma (BL) in children and the influence of rituximab on the prognosis of children with BL., Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed for the medical data of 62 children with BL, including clinical features, therapeutic efficacy, and prognostic factors. The Cox regression model was used to identify the factors associated with poor prognosis in children with BL. According to whether rituximab was used, the children with advanced (stage III/IV) BL were divided into two groups: chemotherapy plus rituximab and chemotherapy alone. The prognosis was compared between the two groups., Results: For these 62 children, the median age of onset was 5 years (range 1-14 years), and there were 58 boys (94%) and 4 girls (6%). The primary site was abdominal cavity in 41 children (66%), and head and neck in 16 children (26%). There were 1 child with stage I BL (2%), 8 with stage II BL (13%), 33 with stage III BL (53%), and 20 with stage IV BL (32%). The median follow-up time was 29 months, with progression/recurrence observed in 15 children (24%), and the 3-year overall survival (OS) rate and event-free survival (EFS) rate were 82.8%±5.2% and 77.3%±5.8%, respectively. For the children with stage III/IV BL, there was a significant difference in the 3-year the OS rate between the chemotherapy plus rituximab group (16 children) and the chemotherapy alone group (30 children) (93.3%±6.4% vs 65.6%±9.9%, P =0.042), while there was no significant difference in the 3-year EFS rate between the two groups (86.2%±9.1% vs 61.8%±10.1%, P >0.05). The Cox regression analysis showed that central nervous system involvement, lactate dehydrogenase >1 000 U/L, and early incomplete remission were the factors associated with poor prognosis ( P <0.05)., Conclusions: Chemotherapy combined with rituximab can improve the prognosis of children with stage III/IV BL. Central nervous system involvement, elevated lactate dehydrogenase level, and early incomplete remission may indicate a poor prognosis in children with BL.

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of children's developmental coordination disorder (DCD) and its distribution based on different family socioeconomic characteristics in China, in order to provide a theoretical basis for early prevention, diagnosis, and intervention for DCD. Methods: From June to October, 2016, 1 887 children aged 3-10 years from 20 kindergartens and 10 elementary schools from 8 cities in seven geographic areas of China using a stratified cluster sampling method were recruited. With a cross-sectional design, parents were asked to report on their basic information. Children' s motor ability was assessed using the movement assessment battery for children-second edition (MABC-2). Children were grouped by age, sex, body mass index (BMI), one-child status, and family structure. Chi-square test and one-way ANOVA were used to compare family socioeconomic characteristics of children between different groups. Results: Among the 1 887 children, there were 1 110 (58.8%) preschool children (3-6 years of age) and 777 (41.2%) school-aged children (7-10 years of age). There were 982 males (52.0%) and 905 females (48.0%). A total of 5.5% (104 cases) children were diagnosed with DCD, 10.4% (197 cases) with suspected DCD, and 84.1% (1 586 cases) as typical motor developing children. There were no significant differences in prevalence of diagnosed and suspected DCD among different regions (χ²=17.342 and 4.877, P =0.173 and 0.560), total motor coordination score ( F =2.759, P <0.05), and the scores of all dimensions (manual dexterity, positioning and grabbing, balance: F =9.276, 5.277, 3.706, all P <0.01). The prevalence of DCD in preschool children was significantly higher than that in school-age children (χ²=11.891, P <0.01). Girls were significantly better than boys in total motor coordination, manual dexterity, and balance (all P <0.01). Boys were significantly better than girls in positioning and grabbing ( P <0.01). The prevalence of DCD in boys was significantly higher than that in girls (70 boys (7.1%) and 34 girls (3.8%), χ²=28.508, P <0.01). The total motor coordination ability, manual dexterity and balance of children who are overweighted (BMI>18 kg/m 2 ) were significantly lower than those of children of normal weight (BMI≤18 kg/m 2 ) (all P <0.01). The prevalence of suspected DCD children who are overweighted was significantly higher than that of children of normal weight (χ²=4.369, P <0.05). The difference of total motor coordination ability ( F =6.811, P <0.01) and the prevalence of DCD (χ²=14.902, P <0.01) among different family structures were statistically significant. The total motor coordination ability and balance ability of children from multi-child family were better than those of children from one-child family (both P <0.05). Conclusion: The motor coordination ability of Chinese children is well-developed, with differences among different regions, gender, age, BMI, and family structure.

Positron emission tomography (PET) can provide functional images and identify abnormal metabolic regions of the whole-body to effectively detect tumor presence and distribution. The filtered back-projection (FBP) algorithm is one of the most common images reconstruction methods. However, it will generate strike artifacts on the reconstructed image and affect the clinical diagnosis of lesions. Past studies have shown reduction in strike artifacts and improvement in quality of images by two-dimensional morphological structure operators (2D-MSO). The morphological structure method merely processes the noise distribution of 2D space and never considers the noise distribution of 3D space. This study was designed to develop three-dimensional-morphological structure operators (3D MSO) for nuclear medicine imaging and effectively eliminating strike artifacts without reducing image quality. A parallel operation was also used to calculate the minimum background standard deviation of the images for three-dimensional morphological structure operators with the optimal response curve (3D-MSO/ORC). As a result of Jaszczak phantom and rat verification, 3D-MSO/ORC showed better denoising performance and image quality than the 2D-MSO method. Thus, 3D MSO/ORC with a 3 × 3 × 3 mask can reduce noise efficiently and provide stability in FBP images.

Anesthesia assessment is most important during surgery. Anesthesiologists use electrocardiogram (ECG) signals to assess the patient's condition and give appropriate medications. However, it is not easy to interpret the ECG signals. Even physicians with more than 10 years of clinical experience may still misjudge. Therefore, this study uses convolutional neural networks to classify ECG image types to assist in anesthesia assessment. The research uses Internet of Things (IoT) technology to develop ECG signal measurement prototypes. At the same time, it classifies signal types through deep neural networks, divided into QRS widening, sinus rhythm, ST depression, and ST elevation. Three models, ResNet, AlexNet, and SqueezeNet, are developed with 50% of the training set and test set. Finally, the accuracy and kappa statistics of ResNet, AlexNet, and SqueezeNet in ECG waveform classification were (0.97, 0.96), (0.96, 0.95), and (0.75, 0.67), respectively. This research shows that it is feasible to measure ECG in real time through IoT and then distinguish four types through deep neural network models. In the future, more types of ECG images will be added, which can improve the real-time classification practicality of the deep model.

Breast tumor has become one of the malignant tumors with the highest incidence, and is a serious threat to human health, especially to women. Chemotherapy is an important anti-breast tumor therapy, which can be used in almost every stage of breast tumor therapy alone or in the combination with surgery and radiation therapy. Alkaloids are a kind of ubiquitous natural products, and important active components of various medicinal plants. A large number of studies have shown that alkaloids could exert an anti-breast tumor effect by inhibiting proliferation, metastasis and angiogenesis, resisting mitosis, promoting apoptosis and autophagy, and triggering cell cycle arrest. The extensive anti-breast tumor effect makes alkaloids an important candidate drug source. This paper reviews the anti-breast tumor mechanism of natural products of alkaloids.

Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) has been employed to detect Parkinson's disease (PD). However, analysis of the SPECT PD images was mostly based on the region of interest (ROI) approach. Due to limited size of the ROI, especially in the multi-stage classification of PD, this study utilizes deep learning methods to establish a multiple stages classification model of PD. In the retrospective study, the 99mTc-TRODAT-1 was used for brain SPECT imaging. A total of 202 cases were collected, and five slices were selected for analysis from each subject. The total number of images was thus 1010. According to the Hoehn and Yahr Scale standards, all the cases were divided into healthy, early, middle, late four stages, and HYS I~V six stages. Deep learning is compared with five convolutional neural networks (CNNs). The input images included grayscale and pseudo color of two types. The training and validation sets were 70% and 30%. The accuracy, recall, precision, F-score, and Kappa values were used to evaluate the models' performance. The best accuracy of the models based on grayscale and color images in four and six stages were 0.83 (AlexNet), 0.85 (VGG), 0.78 (DenseNet) and 0.78 (DenseNet).

Objective: To understand the prevalence of carotid plaque (CP) in population at high-risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Jiangsu province and identify related influencing factors. Methods: Based on the China Patient-centered Evaluative Assessment of Cardiac Events Million Persons Project from 2015 to 2016, a total of 11 392 persons at high-risk for CVD were selected from six project areas in Jiangsu province for the questionnaire survey, physical measurement, laboratory test and bilateral ultrasound examination of carotid arteries. The prevalence of CP and influencing factors of abnormal carotid arteries, CP and plaque burden (CP≥2) were analyzed. Results: Among the persons surveyed, 4 821 (42.3 % ) were males. The age of the persons surveyed was (59.4±8.9) years. There were 5 971 abnormal carotid arteries cases (52.4 % ), including 1 782 carotid intima-media thickness thickening cases (15.6 % ), 3 811 CP cases (33.5 % ) and 378 carotid stenosis cases (3.3 % ). Older age ( OR =2.253, 95 %CI : 2.127-2.386), urban residence ( OR =2.622, 95 %CI : 2.375-2.895), hypertension ( OR =1.439, 95 %CI : 1.195-1.732), smoking ( OR =1.441, 95 %CI : 1.259- 1.650), pulse pressure difference ( OR =1.270, 95 %CI : 1.198-1.347), fasting plasma glucose (FPG) ( OR =1.109, 95 %CI : 1.059-1.161) and LDL-C/HDL-C ( OR =1.225, 95 %CI : 1.164-1.288) were possible risk factors of CP in population at high risk for CVD. Being women ( OR =0.558, 95 %CI : 0.494-0.630), high BMI ( OR =0.948, 95 %CI : 0.904-0.994), higher levels of education ( OR =0.708, 95 %CI : 0.531-0.945), and higher annual household income ( OR =0.773, 95 %CI : 0.669-0.894) were the possible protective factors. Conclusions: Over half of the population at high-risk for CVD in Jiangsu showed abnormal carotid arteries. High blood pressure, high blood glucose, high blood lipids and smoking were the main factors that could be changed.

The B-mode ultrasound usually contains scattering speckle noise which reduces the detailed resolution of the target and is regarded as an intrinsic noise that interferes with diagnostic precision. The aim of this study was to classify hepatic steatosis through applying attenuation correction with a phantom to reduce speckle noise in liver ultrasound tomography in patients. This retrospective study applied three randomized groups signifying different liver statuses. A total of 114 patients' effective liver ultrasound images-30 normal, 44 fatty, and 40 cancerous-were included. The proposed depth attenuation correction method was first applied to images. Three regions of interest were manually drawn on the images. Next, five feature values for the regions of interest were calculated. Finally, the hybrid method of logistic regression and support vector machine was employed to classify the ultrasound images with 10-fold cross-validation. The accuracy, kappa statistic, and mean absolute error of the proposed hybrid method were 87.5%, 0.812, and 0.119, respectively, which were higher than those of the logistic regression method-75.0%, 0.548, and 0.280-or those of the support vector machine method-75.7%, 0.637, and 0.293-respectively. Therefore, the hybrid method has been proven to be more accurate and have better performance and less error than either single method. The hybrid method provided acceptable accuracy of classification in three liver ultrasound image groups after depth attenuation correction. In the future, the deep learning approaches may be considered for the application in classifying liver ultrasound images.

Increasing CO 2 levels are speculated to change the effects of engineered nanomaterials in soil and on plant growth. How plants will respond to a combination of elevated CO 2 and nanomaterials stress has rarely been investigated, and the underlying mechanism remains largely unknown. Here, we conducted a field experiment to investigate the rice ( Oryza sativa L. cv. IIyou) response to TiO 2 nanoparticles (nano-TiO 2 , 0 and 200 mg kg -1 ) using a free-air CO 2 enrichment system with different CO 2 levels (ambient ∼370 μmol mol -1 and elevated ∼570 μmol mol -1 ). The results showed that elevated CO 2 or nano-TiO 2 alone did not significantly affect rice chlorophyll content and antioxidant enzyme activities. However, in the presence of nano-TiO 2 , elevated CO 2 significantly enhanced the rice height, shoot biomass, and panicle biomass (by 9.4%, 12.8%, and 15.8%, respectively). Furthermore, the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathway enrichment analysis revealed that genes involved in photosynthesis were up-regulated while most genes associated with secondary metabolite biosynthesis were down-regulated in combination-treated rice. This indicated that elevated CO 2 and nano-TiO 2 might stimulate rice growth by adjusting resource allocation between photosynthesis and metabolism. This study provides novel insights into rice responses to increasing contamination under climate change.

Objective: To investigate the prevalence, awareness, treatment and control of hypertension in adult residents in Jiangsu province and provide evidence for the prevention and control of hypertension. Methods: A population-based cardiovascular disease screening project was conducted during 2015-2018 in Jiangsu, a total of 95 348 community-dwelling adults aged 35-75 years from 6 project areas were included in the study. The prevalence rate of hypertension and rates of awareness, treatment and control of hypertension in the adults with different characteristics were analyzed. Multilevel model was applied to identify the influencing factors. Results: Among 95 348 adults surveyed, 54 407 were hypertensive, the standardized prevalence rate was 48.1 % . The prevalence rate was significantly higher in males than in females (62.1 % vs. 54.0 % , P <0.05). Among the hypertension patients, the rates of awareness, treatment and control of hypertension were 56.6 % , 45.3 % and 12.0 % (standardized rates: 52.2 % , 41.0 % and 11.2 % ), respectively, and all the rates were positively associated with age (all P <0.05). Multilevel model analysis showed that those who were males, at older age, lived in rural area, suffered from diabetes, had frequent alcohol drinking and those who were overweight/obese had higher risk for hypertension (all P <0.05). Among people with hypertension, those who had younger age, lower education level, lower household income level and those who had frequent alcohol drinking had lower awareness, treatment and control rates of hypertension (all P <0.05). Conclusions: The prevalence rate of hypertension was high, but related awareness, treatment and control rates were low in adult residents in Jiangsu province. Comprehensive measures should be taken to improve awareness, treatment and control of hypertension in whole population, especially in young adults, and those with low education or income levels.

The neuroimaging techniques such as dopaminergic imaging using Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) with 99m Tc-TRODAT-1 have been employed to detect the stages of Parkinson's disease (PD). In this retrospective study, a total of 202 99m Tc-TRODAT-1 SPECT imaging were collected. All of the PD patient cases were separated into mild (HYS Stage 1 to Stage 3) and severe (HYS Stage 4 and Stage 5) PD, according to the Hoehn and Yahr Scale (HYS) standard. A three-dimensional method was used to estimate six features of activity distribution and striatal activity volume in the images. These features were skewness, kurtosis, Cyhelsky's skewness coefficient, Pearson's median skewness, dopamine transporter activity volume, and dopamine transporter activity maximum. Finally, the data were modeled using logistic regression (LR) and support vector machine (SVM) for PD classification. The results showed that SVM classifier method produced a higher accuracy than LR. The sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, accuracy, and AUC with SVM method were 0.82, 1.00, 0.84, 0.67, 0.83, and 0.85, respectively. Additionally, the Kappa value was shown to reach 0.68. This claimed that the SVM-based model could provide further reference for PD stage classification in medical diagnosis. In the future, more healthy cases will be expected to clarify the false positive rate in this classification model.

With the increase of extreme weather events, the frequency and severity of urban flood events in the world are increasing drastically. Therefore, this study develops ARMT (automatic combined ground weather radar and CCTV (Closed Circuit Television System) images for real-time flood monitoring), which integrates real-time ground radar echo images and automatically estimates a rainfall hotspot according to the cloud intensity. Furthermore, ARMT combines CCTV image capturing, analysis, and Fourier processing, identification, water level estimation, and data transmission to provide real-time warning information. Furthermore, the hydrograph data can serve as references for relevant disaster prevention, and response personnel may take advantage of them and make judgements based on them. The ARMT was tested through historical data input, which showed its reliability to be between 83% to 92%. In addition, when applied to real-time monitoring and analysis (e.g., typhoon), it had a reliability of 79% to 93%. With the technology providing information about both images and quantified water levels in flood monitoring, decision makers can quickly better understand the on-site situation so as to make an evacuation decision before the flood disaster occurs as well as discuss appropriate mitigation measures after the disaster to reduce the adverse effects that flooding poses on urban areas.

Objective: To elucidate the possible role of human lysozyme-like protein 4 (LYZL4) in fertilization and characterize its enzymatic properties., Methods: The localization of LYZL4 in human spermatozoa was investigated by immunofluorescence staining, the sources of LYZL4 on the sperm surface examined by RT-PCR, and the role of LYZL4 in fertilization assessed by the zona-free hamster egg penetration test. The recombinant plasmid pPIC9K-LYZL4 was constructed and its expression induced with methanol after transformed into competent Pichia pastoris GS115. The recombinant LYZL4 protein (rLYZL4) was purified from the fermentation supernatant and subsequently identified by Western blot. The hyaluronan binding ability of rLYZL4 was determined by ELISA and the muramidase activity, hyaluronidase activity, and free radical scavenging ability examined by spectrophotometric methods., Results: Immunodetection with a specific antiserum localized LYZL4 on the acrosomal membrane of mature spermatozoa, which was exclusively secreted from the testis and epididymis as shown by RT-PCR. Immunoneutralization of LYZL4 significantly decreased the number of human spermatozoa bound to zona-free hamster eggs in a dose-dependent manner in vitro. The recombinant protein was expressed successfully by the P. pastoris strain GS115. Purified rLYZL4 exhibited a potent hyaluronan binding ability and a strong free radical scavenging ability but no muramidase or hyaluronidase activity., Conclusions: LYZL4 secreted from the testis and epididymis is localized on the acrosomal membrane of mature spermatozoa and plays a role in sperm-egg binding as well as in binding hyaluronan and scavenging free radicals, which suggests that it might be a multi-functional molecule contributive to sperm protection and sperm-egg binding.

High-energy rechargeable Li metal batteries are hindered by dendrite growth due to the use of a liquid electrolyte. Solid polymer electrolytes, as promising candidates to solve the above issue, are expected to own high Li ion conductivity without sacrificing mechanical strength, which is still a big challenge to realize. In this study, a bifunctional solid polymer electrolyte exactly having these two merits is proposed with an interpenetrating network of poly(ether-acrylate) (ipn-PEA) and realized via photopolymerization of ion-conductive poly(ethylene oxide) and branched acrylate. The ipn-PEA electrolyte with facile processing capability integrates high mechanical strength (ca. 12 GPa) with high room-temperature ionic conductance (0.22 mS cm -1 ), and significantly promotes uniform Li plating/stripping. Li metal full cells assembled with ipn-PEA electrolyte and cathodes within 4.5 V vs Li + /Li operate effectively at a rate of 5 C and cycle stably at a rate of 1 C at room temperature. Because of its fabrication simplicity and compelling characteristics, the bifunctional ipn-PEA electrolyte reshapes the feasibility of room-temperature solid-state Li metal batteries.

Microspace-confined sulfur molecules as cathodes for lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have shown great significance in both scientific and technical aspects. A study of different microspace-confined sulfur will not only promote the advancement of Li-S batteries but also arouse a wide interest in sulfur chemistry and related applications. Herein, we choose two-dimensional (2D) graphene interlayer as host and construct 2D space-confined sulfur model systems by simple intercalation chemistry of graphite oxide. Two routes, including solvothermal method and interlamellar reaction approach, are developed, and sulfur can be easily intercalated into sub-nanometer-sized graphene interlayers, forming a graphene confined sulfur structure. The 2D space-confined sulfur can work well in a carbonate-based electrolyte and show similar electrochemical behaviors of small sulfur molecules, indicating the special molecular form of sulfur in graphene layers. The 2D space-confined sulfur concept will be helpful for further understanding the electrochemical character of confined sulfur molecules and designing a high-performance sulfur cathode., (© 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Soil bacteria play a key role in the ecological and evolutionary responses of agricultural ecosystems. Domestic herbivore grazing is known to influence soil bacterial community. However, the effects of grazing and its major driving factors on soil bacterial community remain unknown for different plant community compositions under increasing grazing intensity. Thus, to investigate soil bacterial community diversity under five plant community compositions (Grass; Leymus chinensis; Forb; L. chinensis & Forb; and Legume), we performed a four-year field experiment with different grazing intensity treatments (no grazing; light grazing, 4 sheep·ha-1; and heavy grazing, 6 sheep·ha-1) in a grassland in China. Total DNA was obtained from soil samples collected from the plots in August, and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) fingerprinting were used to investigate soil bacterial community. The results showed that light grazing significantly increased indices of soil bacterial community diversity for the Forb and Legume groups but not the Grass and L. chinensis groups. Heavy grazing significantly reduced these soil bacterial diversity indices, except for the Pielou evenness index in the Legume group. Further analyses revealed that the soil N/P ratio, electrical conductivity (EC), total nitrogen (TN) and pH were the major environmental factors affecting the soil bacterial community. Our study suggests that the soil bacterial community diversity was influenced by grazing intensity and plant community composition in a meadow steppe. The present study provides a baseline assessment of the soil bacterial community diversity in a temperate meadow steppe.

An optimized nanocarbon-sulfur cathode material with ultrahigh sulfur loading of up to 90 wt % is realized in the form of sulfur nanolayer-coated three-dimensional (3D) conducting network. This 3D nanocarbon-sulfur network combines three different nanocarbons, as follows: zero-dimensional carbon nanoparticle, one-dimensional carbon nanotube, and two-dimensional graphene. This 3D nanocarbon-sulfur network is synthesized by using a method based on soluble chemistry of elemental sulfur and three types of nanocarbons in well-chosen solvents. The resultant sulfur-carbon material shows a high specific capacity of 1115 mA h g(-1) at 0.02C and good rate performance of 551 mA h g(-1) at 1C based on the mass of sulfur-carbon composite. Good battery performance can be attributed to the homogeneous compositing of sulfur with the 3D hierarchical hybrid nanocarbon networks at nanometer scale, which provides efficient multidimensional transport pathways for electrons and ions. Wet chemical method developed here provides an easy and cost-effective way to prepare sulfur-carbon cathode materials with high sulfur loading for application in high-energy Li-S batteries.

This paper proposes a three-dimensional (3D) human posture estimation system that locates 3D significant body points based on 2D body contours extracted from two cameras without using any depth sensors. The 3D significant body points that are located by this system include the head, the center of the body, the tips of the feet, the tips of the hands, the elbows, and the knees. First, a linear support vector machine- (SVM-) based segmentation method is proposed to distinguish the human body from the background in red, green, and blue (RGB) color space. The SVM-based segmentation method uses not only normalized color differences but also included angle between pixels in the current frame and the background in order to reduce shadow influence. After segmentation, 2D significant points in each of the two extracted images are located. A significant point volume matching (SPVM) method is then proposed to reconstruct the 3D significant body point locations by using 2D posture estimation results. Experimental results show that the proposed SVM-based segmentation method shows better performance than other gray level- and RGB-based segmentation approaches. This paper also shows the effectiveness of the 3D posture estimation results in different postures.

The study tested the hypothesis that transplantation of human neurotrophin-3 (hNT-3) over-expressing neural stem cells (NSCs) into rat striatum after a severe focal ischemia would promote functional recovery. Rat NSCs, transduced by Flag-tagged hNT-3 gene mediated by lentiviral vector (LV), were transplanted into the striatum ipsilateral to the injury of adult rats 7 days after 2-h occlusion of the middle cerebral artery (MCAO). From 3 days to 2 weeks after transplantation, the modified cells (NSCs-hNT3, as defined by Flag immunofluorencence staining) that survived the transplantation procedures could secrete significantly higher levels of neurotrophin-3 protein in the graft sites than controls (P<0.001). Furthermore, the rats that accepted NSCs-hNT3 exhibited enhanced functional recovery on neurological and behavioral tests, compared with controlled animals transplanted with saline or untransduced NSCs. This study suggests: (1) LV is an ideal vector to transduce foreign gene into the NSCs; (2) modified NSCs could carry therapeutic genes to disease tissues and express effectively; (3) modified cells could survive in the ischemic brains and continue to secrete neurotrophin-3 abundantly for over 2 weeks, which might have values for enhancing functional recovery after stroke.

Hesperidin is an abundant flavanone glycoside in citrus fruits and has been reported to possess a wide range of biological activities. However, hesperidin has poor bioavailability. Here, we tested the hypothesis that hesperetin found in chenpi will have a better bioavailability than hesperidin and that treatment of hesperidin with the glucosidase-like yeast Bg1A protein will increase its bioavailability. The results indicate that hesperidin in pure or extract form is hydrolyzed by BglA protein extracted from Sporobolomyces singularis or expressed in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). This biotransformation affected the plasma pharmacokinetics of total hesperetin in rats, in that the plasma T max was significantly shorter after administration of BglA protein-treated hesperidin than after administration of hesperidin extract. In addition, the area under the curve values for total hesperetin after administration of Bg1A-treated hesperidin were approximately 4-fold higher by oral administration and 3-fold higher by intravenous administration, respectively. In contrast, the plasma clearance value and volume of distribution after administration of Bg1A-treated hesperidin extract or pure hesperetin were significantly smaller than after administration of untreated hesperidin extract or pure hesperidin. This is the first study that systemically determines the absolute bioavailability of hesperidin and hesperetin simultaneously, shows clearly that hesperetin is more bioavailable than hesperidin regardless of the route of administration, and shows that prior transformation of hesperidin to hesperetin via fermentation should significantly increase its bioavailability because of the action of the yeast glycosidase-like protein BglA.

Chemical analyses and biological measurements were investigated in leaves of Vicia faba seedlings exposed to extraneous lead (Pb) at 0 to 2,000 mg/kg of soil for a month. The results showed that superoxide radical (O*(2)(-)) production, increased along with total Pb in leaves and available Pb in soil, resulted in enhancement of malondialdehyde and carbonyl groups. Antioxidant enzymes, including corresponding isoenzymes and heat shock protein 70 (hsp 70), were also enhanced to some extent. Significant changes were detected in the patterns and intensities of guaiacol peroxidase isoenzymes, while superoxide dismutase, catalase, and ascorbate peroxidase isoenzymes only changed intensities. Superoxide dismutase activities increased with the increase of extraneous Pb at 0 to 500 mg/kg of soil and tended to decline thereafter, which might be responsible for the decrease of hydrogen peroxide and accumulation of O*(2)(-). Guaiacol peroxidase and ascorbate peroxidase enzymes were upregulated to become major scavengers of excess hydrogen peroxide on the condition of decreased catalase activities. Levels of hsp 70 were well correlated with Pb contents in leaves (r=0.777), O*(2)(-) accumulation (r = 0.985, p<0.01), and carbonyl groups (r=0.920, p<0.01) under extraneous Pb at 0 to 250 mg/kg of soil, suggesting that hsp 70 induced by O*(2)(-) was possibly involved in disposal of denatured proteins. The results showed that O*(2)(-), hsp 70, and guaiacol peroxidase isoenzymes had the most sensitive responses in the seedlings and these parameters could be potential early biomarkers of soil Pb contamination.