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ObjectiveThere is currently no non-invasive examination that can fully determine the diagnosis of osteomyelitis. SPECT/CT tomographic fusion imaging can provide both local metabolic activity and anatomical information to determine the condition and location. This study evaluates the diagnostic efficacy of 99mTc-MDP SPECT/CT in bone infections, compared to MRI.MethodsIn this multicenter retrospective study, 363 patients with suspected bone and joint infections or osteomyelitis were included. Participants underwent 99mTc-MDP SPECT/CT and/or MRI examinations, supplemented by pathogenic bacterial cultures and histopathological analysis.ResultsOnly SPECT/CT was tested in 169 patients, and only MRI was used in 116. 78 people have implemented both inspections and have detailed information. The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of SPECT/CT for infection were 96% and 92% respectively, with an accuracy of 96%. For MRI, these figures were 88%, 84%, and 87% respectively.ConclusionThis represents the largest global study to date evaluating osteomyelitis and bone infection diagnosis using 99mTc-MDP SPECT/CT tomographic fusion imaging. The findings indicate that 99mTc-MDP SPECT/CT fusion imaging offers superior diagnostic accuracy compared to MRI. This is particularly evident in cases involving metallic implants and chronic infections. 99mTc-MDP SPECT/CT fusion imaging emerges as a highly suitable non-invasive diagnostic modality, facilitating enhanced clinical follow-up and treatment.

The Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) based on Spatial Modulation (SM-MIMO-NOMA) system has been proposed to achieve better spectral efficiency with reduced radio frequency chains comparing to the traditional MIMO-NOMA system. To improve the performance of SM-MIMO-NOMA systems, we extend them to generalized spatial modulation scenarios while maintaining moderate complexity and fairness. In this paper, system spectral efficiency and transmission quality improvements are proposed by investigating a sum-rate maximization resource allocation problem that is subject to the total transmitted power, user grouping, and resource block constraints. To solve this non-convex and difficult problem, a graph-based user grouping strategy is proposed initially to maximize the mutual gains of intragroup users. An auxiliary-variable approach is then adopted to transform the power allocation subproblem into a convex one. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has better performance in terms of bit error rate and sum rates.

BackgroundRectal cancer has a high risk of recurrence and metastasis, with median survival ranging from 24 months to 36 months. K-RAS mutation is a predictor of poor prognosis in rectal cancer. Advanced rectal cancer can be stopped in its tracks by pelvic exenteration.Case summaryA 51-year-old woman was diagnosed with advanced rectal cancer (pT4bN2aM1b, stage IV) with the KRAS G12D mutation due to a change in bowel habits. The patient had experienced repeated recurrences of rectal cancer after initial radical resection, and the tumor had invaded the ovaries, sacrum, bladder, vagina and anus. Since the onset of the disease, the patient had undergone a total of seven surgeries and long-term FOLFIRI- or XELOX-based chemotherapy regimens, with the targeted agents bevacizumab and regorafenib. Fortunately, the patient was able to achieve intraoperative R0 resection in almost all surgical procedures and achieve tumor-free survival after pelvic exenteration. The patient has been alive for 86 months since her diagnosis.ConclusionsPatients with advanced rectal cancer can achieve long-term survival through active multidisciplinary management and R0 surgery.

Deep learning can improve the effect of signal detection by extracting the inherent characteristics of wireless communication data.To solve the tradeoff between the performance and complexity of MIMO system signal detection, an end-to-end MIMO system signal detection scheme based on deep learning was proposed.The encoder and the decoder based on residual deep neural network replace the transmitter and the receiver of the wireless communication system respectively, and they were trained in an end-to-end manner as a whole.Firstly, the features of the input data were extracted by encoder, then the communication model was established and was sent to the zero forcing detector for preliminary detection.Finally, the detection signal was reconstructed through the decoder.Simulation results show that the proposed detection scheme is superior to the same type of algorithm, and the detection performance is significantly better than that of the MMSE detection algorithm at the expense of a certain time complexity.

BackgroundImmunotherapy has been widely used to treat Colorectal cancer but has also observe some immune-related adverse effects. With proper treatment, most irAE can be solved and the effect of immunotherapy will not be affected by temporary immunosuppression. However, there are few reports about corneal irAE, and the current understanding of irAE is incomplete. Here we report a metastatic colorectal cancer case of immune-related keratitis caused by nivolumab and to explore the occurrence of immune-related keratitis.Case descriptionHere we report the case of a 49-year-old man with mCRC who had no previous ocular disease but developed immune-related ulcerative keratitis after treatment with nivolumab. We summarize a large amount of literature to discuss the mechanism of immune-related keratitis. In addition, we conclude a method that may be used to detect the occurrence of immune keratitis, by monitoring MMPs and maspin in patients treated with nivolumab. We believe immune-related keratitis may be a rare complication of nivolumab in the treatment of mCRC. The effect of simple anti-infective therapy and repair-promoting drugs was not obvious, but the effect of glucocorticoid combined with autologous serum was significant.ConclusionThe mechanism of immune-related keratitis is that nivolumab destroys the immune microenvironment and ACAID, and affects corneal healing. Patients who use nivolumab can prevent immune keratitis by testing MMPs and maspin. The occurrence of immune keratitis may be a good indicator of the efficacy of ICI, and further study can be done in the follow-up.

Abstracts Recent evidence suggests that CD147 serves as a novel receptor for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. Blocking CD147 via anti-CD147 antibody could suppress the in vitro SARS-CoV-2 replication. Meplazumab is a humanized anti-CD147 IgG2 monoclonal antibody, which may effectively prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. Here, we conducted a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled phase 1 trial to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of meplazumab in healthy subjects, and an open-labeled, concurrent controlled add-on exploratory phase 2 study to determine the efficacy in COVID-19 patients. In phase 1 study, 59 subjects were enrolled and assigned to eight cohorts, and no serious treatment-emergent adverse event (TEAE) or TEAE grade ≥3 was observed. The serum and peripheral blood C max and area under the curve showed non-linear pharmacokinetic characteristics. No obvious relation between the incidence or titer of positive anti-drug antibody and dosage was observed in each cohort. The biodistribution study indicated that meplazumab reached lung tissue and maintained >14 days stable with the lung tissue/cardiac blood–pool ratio ranging from 0.41 to 0.32. In the exploratory phase 2 study, 17 COVID-19 patients were enrolled, and 11 hospitalized patients were involved as concurrent control. The meplazumab treatment significantly improved the discharged (P = 0.005) and case severity (P = 0.021), and reduced the time to virus negative (P = 0.045) in comparison to the control group. These results show a sound safety and tolerance of meplazumab in healthy volunteers and suggest that meplazumab could accelerate the recovery of patients from COVID-19 pneumonia with a favorable safety profile.

To improve the transmission flexibility of emergency communication scenarios,a joint user grouping and power allocation algorithm was proposed for UAV-aided non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system.A sum-rate maximization resource allocation algorithm was formulated under the constraints of the maximum transmit power and the user grouping.To solve the non-convex problem,a graph-based user grouping algorithm was proposed to minimize the relative distance between the UAV and users.Based on the grouping result,the power allocation sub-problem was transformed into a convex one by using the auxiliary-variable approach.Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm has better performance in terms of sum rates.

Abstract Background Osteoblastoma (OB) is an intermediate lesion, which makes the accurate preoperative diagnosis very important. 99mTc-methylene diphosphonate (99mTc-MDP) bone scan and SPECT/CT imaging were evaluated for their diagnostic value in spinal OB. Methods This study was a retrospective analysis of patients with spinal OB lesions confirmed by pathology and diagnosed with bone scan and SPECT/CT for preoperative diagnosis from January 2008 to December 2018. The uptake levels of OB on planar bone scan were divided into low, medium, and high groups by visual assessment referring to the uptake of the normal rib, spine, and bladder. X-ray, CT, MRI, bone scan, and SPECT/CT imaging of the patients were analyzed for characteristics summary. Results Twenty-five patients were diagnosed for spinal OB (17 males and 8 females with a proportion of 2.1:1), and the average age was 26.8 ± 10.8 years (range 5~59). There were 8 lesions located in the cervical, 6 in the thoracic, and 11 in the lumbar vertebrae. Twenty-four lesions involved posterior elements, especially the pedicles (14/25). Symptoms were predominantly painful with a duration of 18.3 ± 13.9 months (range 0.5~60 months). The lesion size ranged from 9 to 35 mm. All the lesions were low to high uptake in the planar bone scan, and the percentages of low to high levels were 1 (4%), 8 (32%), and 16 (64%) cases. Conclusions Spinal OB mainly involved the posterior area, and elderly patients should be considered as well. SPECT/CT combined the characteristics of bone uptake and anatomical features of bone tumors, proving its one-in-all diagnostic value for spinal OB and other osteogenic tumors.

Conventional non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA)-based spatial modulation (SM) systems utilize only the real part of amplitude-phase modulation (APM) symbols for transmission, but quadrature spatial modulation (QSM) can extend this to two orthogonal components to improve the spectral efficiency. In this way, we propose a NOMA-based QSM system in multiple-input multiple-output scenarios, where APM symbols are divided into real and imaginary components for transmission and then these two components are sent by real and imaginary transmit antennas, respectively. To further improve the performance of our proposed system, we also propose a user grouping and a power allocation with relatively low complexity. Different from previous schemes, the user grouping scheme is designed for considering channel conditions, user locations, and channel correlations jointly. Moreover, the power allocation scheme is performed in each group to meet users' quality-of-service requirements, i.e., target-rate requirements. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed schemes by comparing with existing ones.

Waterlogging is a serious abiotic stressor that drastically hinders the growth and productivity of melon (Cucumis melo) around the world, due to the reduction in available oxygen levels in the waterlogged tissues. However, the mechanism underlying the responses to waterlogging stress in melon is largely unknown. In this study, physiological and transcriptome data of the waterlogging-sensitive accession ‘L39’ and the waterlogging-tolerant accession ‘L45’ were investigated under conditions of normal water supply and waterlogging stress. The results showed that ‘L45’ exhibited higher chlorophyll contents and lower REL (relative electrolyte leakage) and MDA (malondialdehyde) contents compared with ‘L39’ under waterlogging stress. Additionally, waterlogging stress only led to the stomatal closure and chloroplast damage of ‘L39’. In total, 1748 genes were differentially expressed in the leaves of waterlogging-stressed ‘L45’ compared with control, whereas 3178 genes were differentially expressed in ‘L39’. Further analysis indicated that genes related to chlorophyll synthesis and photosynthesis were more depressed in ‘L39’, while sugar cleavage, glycolysis, and fermentation genes were highly induced in ‘L39’ compared with ‘L45’. The expression of genes involved in ROS (reactive oxygen species) scavenging and hormone signaling significantly differed between ‘L39’ and ‘L45’ in their response to waterlogging stress. Moreover, a total of 311 differentially expressed transcription factors were waterlogging-responsive, among which members of the ERF (ethylene response factor), bHLH (basic helix-loop-helix), and WRKY families might play crucial roles in waterlogging tolerance in melon. This study unraveled the molecular responses to waterlogging stress in melon and could provide helpful candidate genes for further molecular breeding of waterlogging-tolerant melon varieties.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

To improve energy efficiency and robustness of heterogeneous wireless networks with wireless information and power transfer,the robust joint transmit power and power splitting resource allocation problem was studied.Based on mini-max probability machine and Dinkelbach method,the original NP-hard problem was transformed into a solvable convex optimization form,meanwhile a distributed dual resource allocation algorithm was proposed.Additionally,both computational complexity and robust sensitivity were analyzed.Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm can guarantee the quality of service requirements of macro cellular users and femtocell users under channel uncertainties.

Multi-user space time block code systems have the problem of high decoding complexity.To ensure good system performance with low decoding complexity at the same time,low complexity integer-forcing (IF) detection algorithm was applied to multi-user space time block code.Then the upper bound of error probability for IF detection was derived by minimizing the equivalent noise power.To obtain good multi-user space time block code when decoded with IF detection,a full-diversity design criterion was proposed.It was proved that full diversity could be achieved if every user’s space time block code had property of non-vanishing singular value.Simulation result shows that the code gain is found related to the minimum singular value.

To improve energy efficiency and reduce the interference to macro users (MUs), this paper investigates the robust resource allocation (RA) problem for maximizing the interference efficiency of users (i.e., total rate/sum interference) in heterogeneous networks. Under perfect channel state information (CSI), the considered RA problem is formulated as a multivariate nonlinear programming problem with constraints on the maximum interference power of MUs, the minimum rate requirement of each femto user, and the maximum transmit power of the femto base station. The original fractional programming problem is converted into a convex optimization problem by using Dinkelbach's method, the logarithmic transformation method, and the successive convex approximation method, where the closed-form solution is obtained with the Lagrangian dual approach. Moreover, with imperfect CSI consideration, the original problem is reformulated as a robust RA problem that is transformed into a deterministic and convex optimization problem by using an inequality transformation approach. In addition, the computational complexity and the cost of robustness are also analyzed. The simulation results verify that the proposed algorithm has better interference efficiency and robustness by comparing with the existing algorithms.

Ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) are a growing class of natural products that benefited from genome sequencing technology in the past two decades. RiPPs are widely distributed in nature and show diverse chemical structures and rich biological activities. Despite the various structural characteristic of RiPPs, they follow a common biosynthetic logic: a precursor peptide containing an N-terminal leader peptide and a C-terminal core peptide; in some cases,a follower peptide is after the core peptide. The precursor peptide undergoes a series of modification, transport, and cleavage steps to form a mature natural product with specific activities. Sactipeptides (Sulfur-to-alpha carbon thioether cross-linked peptides) belong to RiPPs that show various biological activities such as antibacterial, spermicidal and hemolytic properties. Their common hallmark is an intramolecular thioether bond that crosslinks the sulfur atom of a cysteine residue to the α-carbon of an acceptor amino acid, which is catalyzed by a rSAM enzyme. This review summarizes recent achievements concerning the discovery, distribution, structural elucidation, biosynthesis and application prospects of sactipeptides.

Hengshun aromatic vinegar (HSAV), produced by typical solid-state or liquid-state fermentation techniques, is consumed worldwide as a food condiment. HSAV shows multiple bioactivities, but its activity in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and possible mechanisms have not been reported. In this study, the effects of HSAV against T2DM were evaluated in insulin-induced HepG2 cells and high-fat diet (HFD) and streptozotocin (STZ) induced T2DM rats. Then, the mechanisms of HSAV against T2DM were explored by Real-time PCR, Western blot, immunofluorescence assays, siRNA transfection and gene overexpression experiments. Results indicated that HSAV significantly improved glucose consumption and reduced triglycerides (TG) contents in metabolic disordered HepG2 cells. Meanwhile, HSAV obviously alleviated general status, liver and kidney functions of T2DM rats, and decreased hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia, improved insulin resistance, and reduced lipid accumulation in liver. Mechanism studies indicated that HSAV markedly down-regulated the expression of proliferator-activated receptor γ coactivator-1α (PGC-1α), then regulated peroxisome proliferators-activated receptor α (PPAR-α)/protein kinase B (AKT) signal pathway mediated gluconeogenesis and glycogen synthesis. Meanwhile, HSAV significantly up-regulated proliferator-activated receptor γ coactivator-1β (PGC-1β), and subsequently decreased sterol regulatory element binding protein-1c (SREBP-1c) pathway mediated lipogenesis. In conclusion, HSAV showed potent anti-T2DM activity in ameliorating dysfunction of glycolipid metabolism through regulating PGC-1α/PGC-1β pathway, which has a certain application prospect as an effective diet supplement for T2DM therapy in the future.

Aromatic vinegar with abundant bioactive components can be used as a food additive to assist the treatment of various diseases. However, its effect on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is still unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate the mechanism of Hengshun aromatic vinegar in preventing NAFLD in vivo and in vitro. Aromatic vinegar treatment was applied to rats fed with a high-fat diet (HFD) and HepG2 cells challenged with palmitic acid (PA). Our results showed that aromatic vinegar markedly improved cell viabilities and attenuated cell damage in vitro. The levels of TC, TG, FFA, AST, ALT, and malondialdehyde (MDA) in HFD-induced rats were significantly decreased by aromatic vinegar. Mechanism investigation revealed that aromatic vinegar markedly up-regulated the level of silent information regulator of transcription 1 (Sirt1), and thereby inhibited inflammation of the pathway through down-regulating the expressions of high mobility group box 1, toll-likereceptor-4, nuclear transcription factor-κB, tumor necrosis factor receptor-associated factor-6, and inflammatory factors. Aromatic vinegar simultaneously increased the expression of farnesoid X receptor and suppressed expressions of lipogenesis related proteins, including fatty acid synthase, acetyl-CoA carboxylase-1, sterol regulatory element binding transcription factor 1, and stearoyl-CoA desaturase-1. These results were further validated by knockdown of Sirt1 using siRNAs silencing in vitro. In conclusion, Hengshun aromatic vinegar showed protective effects against NAFLD by enhancing the activity of SIRT1 and thereby inhibiting lipogenesis and inflammation pathways, which is expected to become a new assistant strategy for NAFLD therapy in the future.

With the development of ubiquitous networks and huge requirements of tele-medicine,an emerged new technology of body area network (BAN) has attracted extensive attention.BAN system could be used for medical,personal health and entertainment applications by implanting wireless sensors into or around the human body,which realized real-time detection and diagnosis of physical vital signs.However,BAN had more stringent requirements on power consumption,quality of service (QoS),security performance and other specifications.Based on its technological requirements,the research status and development trends of key technologies were discussed deeply,such as information perception of vital signs,wireless transmission,information security and integrated circuit design,and the faced challenges in applications were analyzed.

Emergency command Internet of things is an important part of the construction of smart cities.It is one of the application fields of the Internet of things,which benefits a wide range,require rich support technologies,drives the whole industry and has large demonstration effect of service.Starting from the construction of the disaster site rescue situation map,the emergency rescue command and command issue at the emergency incident site was focused.Referring to the joint search and rescue network in the battlefield and the tactical Internet system structure,the emergency command Internet of things system architecture was proposed,including body LAN,on-site command network and remote access network.The four key problems faced by the construction of emergency command the Internet of things was discussed,single soldier tracking and positioning,wearable vital signs monitoring,mobile self-organizing network and shortwave sky wave remote communication.The two scenarios of urban fire rescue and natural disaster rescue were used to analyze and design the integrated application system of the emergency command IoT system,which provided useful exploration for building a new generation of emergency command information system and promoting the construction of smart cities.

Abstract In this paper, the trade-off among system sum energy consumption and robustness is studied. In this regard, a robust power allocation problem is formulated for a two-tier heterogeneous network with uplink transmission mode and consideration of imperfect channel state information. The objective is to minimize the total transmit power of femtocell users (FUs), while the interference to macrocell user receiver is limited to a predefined interference level, the transmit power of each FU transmitter is kept within their power budgets, and the actual signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio of each femtocell receiver is above a minimum threshold. Considering the uncertainties of the interference links from FUs to macrocell base stations and forward transmission links of each FU, the robust power allocation problem is formulated as a semi-infinite programming problem (SIPP). By the worst-case approach, the SIPP is transformed into a convex optimization problem solved by the Lagrange dual decomposition method. Moreover, the feasible regions of constraints, computational complexity, and sensitivity degree of the proposed robust algorithm are also analyzed. Simulation results investigate the impact of channel uncertainties and the superiority of the proposed algorithm by comparing with non-robust algorithm.

The genome of Streptomyces encodes a high number of natural product (NP) biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). Most of these BGCs are not expressed or are poorly expressed (commonly called silent BGCs) under traditional laboratory experimental conditions. These NP BGCs represent an unexplored rich reservoir of natural compounds, which can be used to discover novel chemical compounds. To activate silent BGCs for NP discovery, two main strategies, including the induction of BGCs expression in native hosts and heterologous expression of BGCs in surrogate Streptomyces hosts, have been adopted, which normally requires genetic manipulation. So far, various genome editing technologies have been developed, which has markedly facilitated the activation of BGCs and NP overproduction in their native hosts, as well as in heterologous Streptomyces hosts. In this review, we summarize the challenges and recent advances in genome editing tools for Streptomyces genetic manipulation with a focus on editing tools based on clustered regularly interspaced short palindrome repeat (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein (Cas) systems. Additionally, we discuss the future research focus, especially the development of endogenous CRISPR/Cas-based genome editing technologies in Streptomyces.

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) cannot achieve accurate positioning and navigation in the indoor environment. Therefore, efficient indoor positioning technology has become a very active research topic. Bluetooth beacon positioning is one of the most widely used technologies. Because of the time-varying characteristics of the Bluetooth received signal strength indication (RSSI), traditional positioning algorithms have large ranging errors because they use fixed path loss models. In this paper, we propose an RSSI real-time correction method based on Bluetooth gateway which is used to detect the RSSI fluctuations of surrounding Bluetooth nodes and upload them to the cloud server. The terminal to be located collects the RSSIs of surrounding Bluetooth nodes, and then adjusts them by the RSSI fluctuation information stored on the server in real-time. The adjusted RSSIs can be used for calculation and achieve smaller positioning error. Moreover, it is difficult to accurately fit the RSSI distance model with the logarithmic distance loss model due to the complex electromagnetic environment in the room. Therefore, the back propagation neural network optimized by particle swarm optimization (PSO-BPNN) is used to train the RSSI distance model to reduce the positioning error. The experiment shows that the proposed method has better positioning accuracy than the traditional method.

Some necessary global optimality conditions and sufficient global optimality conditions for nonconvex minimization problems with a quadratic inequality constraint and a linear equality constraint are derived. In particular, global optimality conditions for nonconvex minimization over a quadratic inequality constraint which extend some known global optimality conditions in the existing literature are presented. Some numerical examples are also given to illustrate that a global minimizer satisfies the necessary global optimality conditions but a local minimizer which is not global may fail to satisfy them.

Objective: There is currently no non-invasive examination that can fully determine the diagnosis of osteomyelitis. SPECT/CT tomographic fusion imaging can provide both local metabolic activity and anatomical information to determine the condition and location. This study evaluates the diagnostic efficacy of 99mTc-MDP SPECT/CT in bone infections, compared to MRI. Methods: In this multicenter retrospective study, 363 patients with suspected bone and joint infections or osteomyelitis were included. Participants underwent 99mTc-MDP SPECT/CT and/or MRI examinations, supplemented by pathogenic bacterial cultures and histopathological analysis. Results: Only SPECT/CT was tested in 169 patients, and only MRI was used in 116. 78 people have implemented both inspections and have detailed information. The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of SPECT/CT for infection were 96% and 92% respectively, with an accuracy of 96%. For MRI, these figures were 88%, 84%, and 87% respectively. Conclusion: This represents the largest global study to date evaluating osteomyelitis and bone infection diagnosis using 99mTc-MDP SPECT/CT tomographic fusion imaging. The findings indicate that 99mTc-MDP SPECT/CT fusion imaging offers superior diagnostic accuracy compared to MRI. This is particularly evident in cases involving metallic implants and chronic infections. 99mTc-MDP SPECT/CT fusion imaging emerges as a highly suitable non-invasive diagnostic modality, facilitating enhanced clinical follow-up and treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]