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Cold exposure has been suggested to be advantageous for the spread and infection of the coronavirus, and the gut microbiota influences the severity of the infection by modulating host inflammatory and immune responses. However, it remains unclear whether the promotion of viral infection through cold exposure is linked to the gut microbiota.

With the development of structural topology optimization methods, some scholars had proposed strategies to integrate existing topology optimization methods to improve the manufacturability of topology optimization result. Specifically, a topology optimization method combined the Solid Isotropic Material Penalty（SIMP） method and the Moving Morphable Components（MMC） method was proposed. Firstly, the characteristics of power function in SIMP method was used to quickly obtain the main path of force transfer. Secondly, according to the gray-scale elements generated by the SIMP method, an Otsu threshold algorithm was proposed to maximize response of the binary topological structure. On this basis, morphological thought was used to construct a component, whose boundary was the inflection point of the skeleton, then the MMC method was used to complete the optimization to finally achieve the precise control of structure size. By calculating the minimum compliance topology optimization problem of the 2 D and 3 D numerical examples, the optimization results of smooth boundary and precise size of structure are obtained, verifying the effectiveness of proposed method.

Bacillus cereus endophthalmitis is a severe vision-threatening disease. This study aimed to analyze the clinical characteristics, antibiotic susceptibility, and risk factors for poor final visual acuity (VA) and enucleation or evisceration (ENEV) outcomes of B. cereus endophthalmitis patients. We retrospectively reviewed 52 cases (52 eyes) of culture-proven B. cereus endophthalmitis at Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center from January 2013 to December 2023. The mean age of the patients was 38.1 ± 20.1 years, and males composed the majority (90.4%) of the sample size; laborers (32.7%) and farmers (19.2%) were the primary occupations of the patients. All cases were caused by ocular trauma. Forty-one of 51 eyes (80.4%) had a final VA worse than the ability to count fingers (CFs), and 15 of the 52 total eyes (28.8%) underwent ENEV. Binary logistic forward (LR) regression analysis demonstrated that red eye (odds ratio [OR], 13.13; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.58–108.80; p = 0.017), eye pain (OR, 22.87; 95% CI, 1.00–522.72; p = 0.050), and corneal edema/ulcer (OR, 13.13; 95% CI, 1.58–108.80; p = 0.017) were significant risk factors for poor VA outcomes. Conjunctival sac purulent discharge (OR, 10.08; 95% CI, 2.11–48.12, p = 0.004) and white blood cell (WBC) count (OR, 1.35; 95% CI, 1.06–1.72, p = 0.016) were significant risk factors for ENEV outcomes. B. cereus showed susceptibility rates of 100.0% to vancomycin and ofloxacin; 98.0% to levofloxacin; 93.3% to ciprofloxacin; 87.5% to imipenem; and 78.9% to tobramycin. The susceptibility to azithromycin and clindamycin was 66.7% and 50.0%, respectively. In contrast, B. cereus was resistant to penicillin (susceptibility at 3.8%), cefuroxime (5.6%), and cefoxitin (37.1%). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) still has a very unfavorable prognosis with a very high mortality, which is complicated by a lack of prognostic biomarkers. In this study, CCA patients in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) cohort were categorized into two subtypes. Differentially expressed and methylated genes were identified, and the impact of DNA methylation in the trans‐regulation of gene expression was investigated. Finally, a CIMP‐related methylation signature specific for CCA (CMSC) was trained in GEO and validated in the Tongji cohort. A subset of patients with CIMP‐H was identified, which was correlated with an unfavorable prognosis. Gene enrichment analysis implied the potential mechanism of CIMP as a promoter of carcinogenesis by regulating proliferation. The trans‐regulation among differentially methylated CpG sites and genes with the same change trends was positively correlated, while the converse situation showed a negative correlation. Notably, CMSC based on four genes could significantly classify CCA patients into low‐ and high‐risk groups in the GEO cohort, and the robustness of CMSC was validated in the Tongji cohort. The results of receiver operating characteristic analysis further indicated that CMSC was capable of highly sensitive and specific prediction of the patient outcomes in CCA. In conclusion, our work highlights the clinical significance of CMSC in the prognosis of CCA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To assess the clinical value of serum matrix metalloproteinase-3 (MMP-3) in evaluating joint destruction and therapeutic effect in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients., Methods: The study included 109 RA patients and 23 healthy volunteers. Serum MMP3, C-reactive protein (CRP), rheumatoid factor (RF) and anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP) antibody levels were detected. All relevant clinical information of RA patients were recorded., Results: Serum RF, anti-CCP antibodies and MMP3 concentrations in RA patients were markedly higher than those in healthy controls, and serum anti-CCP antibodies and MMP3 levels significantly increased in active RA as compared with those in stable RA (P<0.05). Serum CRP, anti-CCP antibodies and MMP3 levels gradually rose with the progress of joint destruction, but only the increase of serum MMP3 was significant statistically (P<0.05). Serum MMP3 level was found positively correlated with serum CRP or RF levels or joint injury. After the combination treatment of TNF antagonist and methotrexate, DAS28 score, serum CRP, anti-CCP antibodies and MMP3 levels were markedly reduced (P<0.05), and the decrease of MMP3 level was the most obvious., Conclusion: Serum MMP3 was a good laboratory index to evaluate the joint injury status and therapeutic effect, which is superior to other traditional and routine laboratory indexes.