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Objective. To investigate the clinical significance of left hemihepatectomy with left glissonian pedicle transverse method combined cholangiolithotomy via anterior bile duct wall to treat left hepatolithiasis. Methods. A retrospective analysis was performed on the clinical data of 12 patients who underwent laparoscopic anatomic left hemihepatectomy with left glissonian pedicle transverse method combined cholangiolithotomy via anterior bile duct wall to treat left hepatolithiasis from October 2021 to October 2022. Including general information (age, sex, BMI, preoperative diagnosis), operation-related information (intraoperative blood loss, hepatic function index, operation time, postoperative complications, drainage tubes removal time, postoperative hospital stay) and postoperative pathological diagnosis. Results. All patients, with an average age of (50±8.73) years and an average BMI of (23.61±2.47) kg/m^2, 1 male and 3 females, were successfully performed laparoscopic 0a0n6..atomic left hemihepatectomy by improved method. The median intraoperative blood loss was 150 (50, 200) mL, median operation time was 212.5 (175, 240) minutes. Hypoproteinemia occurred in 1 patient. The drainage tubes were removed on 6 (5, 9) days. The patients were discharged 8 (6, 10) days after surgery. All patients recovered well after operation. Conclusion. Left hemihepatectomy with left glissonian transverse method combined cholangiolithotomy via anterior bile duct wall provides a new entry point to treat left hepatic stones, which simplifies the operation process and is safer and more effective. This method especially suitable for the cases with multiple biliary tract operations and difficult dissection of hilum. It can greatly improve the surgical success rate of those who are new to start this kind of operation and lack of skillful suture technique.

Laparoscopic hepatectomy has been used widely due to its advantages as a minimally invasive surgery. However, multicenter, large-scale, population-based laparoscopic caudate lobe resection (LCLR) versus open caudate lobe resection (OCLR) has rarely been reported. We assessed the feasibility and safety of LCLR compared with OCLR using meta-analysis. Relevant literature was retrieved using PubMed, Embase, Cochrane, Ovid Medline, Web of Science, CNKI, and WanFang Med databases up to July 30th, 2020. Multiple parameters of feasibility and safety were compared between the treatment groups. Quality of studies was assessed with the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS). The data were analyzed by Review Manager 5.3. Results are expressed as odds ratio (OD) or mean difference (MD) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI) for fixed- and random-effects models. Seven studies with 237 patients were included in this meta-analysis. Compared with OCLR, the LCLR group had a lower intraoperative blood loss (MD − 180.84; 95% CI − 225.61 to − 136.07; P < 0.0001), shorter postoperative hospital stays (MD − 4.38; 95% CI − 7.07 to − 1.7; P = 0.001), shorter operative time (MD − 50.24; 95% CI − 78.57 to − 21.92; P = 0.0005), and lower rates in intraoperative blood transfusion (OR 0.12; P = 0.01). However, there were no statistically significant differences between LCLR and OCLR regarding hospital expenses (MD 0.92; P = 0.12), pedicle clamping (OR 1.57; P = 0.32), postoperative complications (OR 0.58; P = 0.15), bile leak (P = 0.88), ascites (P = 0.34), and incisional infection (P = 0.36). LCLR has multiple advantages over OCLR, especially intraoperative blood loss and hospital stays. LCLR is a very useful technology and feasible choice in patients with caudate lobe lesions.

Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) jet printing is a promising direct writing method to produce micro- and nano-scale dots due to its easy manipulation, high resolution, and low cost. The effect of printing conditions on the diameter of printed dots was widely studied by both experiments and simulations. However, positional precision is also important for EHD printing. There is no published work on numerical simulation for the trajectory analysis of the ejected droplet. In the present work, a finite element model was established to investigate the droplet trajectory. The influencing factors, such as nozzle size, nozzle angle, applied voltage, ink density, and charge number in one droplet, were considered during numerical simulation. The influence of influencing factors on the electric intensity, droplet speed, and deposition direction was analyzed. The proposed simulation model provides a useful tool to analyze the droplet formation process and optimize the printing parameters to improve the positional precision of EHD printing.

Background The aim of the study was to compare the benefits and drawbacks of laparoscopic left hepatectomy (LLH) in patients with previous abdominal surgery (PAS) with those in patients without PAS and confirm the safety and feasibility of LLH as a treatment for patients with hepatolithiasis and PAS. Materials and methods This retrospective comparative study included 111 patients who underwent LLH for hepatolithiasis (with PAS, n = 41; without PAS, n = 70) from August 2017 to August 2019. Patients' general information, surgical outcomes, hospital stay duration, hospitalisation cost, post-operative laboratory data and post-operative complications were evaluated. Results No statistically significant difference was noted in the post-operative laboratory data between patients with and without PAS (P > 0.05). Longer operative times were required for patients with PAS than for those without PAS (P = 0.025). Hospitalisation cost, hospital stay duration, blood loss, open conversion and post-operative complications were not significantly different between patients with and without PAS (P > 0.05). No cases of mortality were noted. Conclusions LLH is a safe and feasible treatment for patients with hepatolithiasis and PAS.

T helper cell 22 are abundant in Hepatitis B Virus-related hepatocellular carcinoma tissue, and the main cytokine interleukin 22 produced by Th22 cells is closely related to the initiation and development of HCC. Understanding the role of Th22/IL-22 in the progression of HBV-related HCC will facilitate new therapeutic development. Th22 cells were isolated from peripheral blood of healthy donors and co-cultured with HBV positive HepG2.2.15 cells. IL-22 secretion and HepG2.2.15 cell proliferation and apoptosis were monitored. Expressions of p-STAT3, Cyclin D1, Bcl-2, and cleaved caspase 3 were detected by Western blot analysis. Th22 cells significantly promoted the proliferation and inhibited the apoptosis of HepG2.2.15 cells; up-regulated expression of p-STAT3, Cyclin D1 and Bcl-2, and down-regulated cleaved caspase 3 in HepG2.2.15 cells. These effects were significantly attenuated when IL-22 and STAT3 was knockdown in Th22 and HepG2.2.15 cells, respectively. Our data suggests that HBV induces host Th22 cells to overexpress IL-22, which in turn triggers over-activation of STAT3 and its downstream signaling proteins to promote HCC progression. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10616-021-00517-9.

Micro–nanofluidic chips have been widely applied in biological and medical fields. In this paper, a simple and low-cost fabrication method for micro–nano fluidic chips is proposed. The nano-channels are fabricated by thermal nano-imprinting on an SU-8 photoresist layer followed by thermal bonding with a second SU-8 photoresist layer. The micro-channels are produced on the second layer by UV exposure and then thermal bonded by a third layer of SU-8 photoresist. The final micro–nano fluidic chip consists of micro-channels (width of 200.0 ± 0.1 μm and, depth of 8.0 ± 0.1 μm) connected by nano-channels (width of 533 ± 6 nm and, depth of 372 ± 6 nm), which has great potential in molecular filtering and detection.

Laparoscopic hepatectomy has been used widely in liver disease due to its advantages as a minimally invasive surgery. However, laparoscopic caudate lobe resection (LCLR) has been reported rarely. We aimed to investigate the safety and feasibility of LCLR by comparing it with open liver surgery. A retrospective study was performed including all patients who underwent LCLR and open caudate lobe resection (OCLR) between January 2015 and August 2019. Twenty-two patients were involved in this study and divided into LCLR (n = 10) and OCLR (n = 12) groups based on preoperative imaging, tumor characteristics, and blood and liver function test. Patient demographic data and intraoperative and postoperative outcomes were compared between the two groups. There were no significant inter-group differences between gender, age, preoperative liver function, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) grade, and comorbidities (P > 0.05). The LCLR showed significantly less blood loss (50 vs. 300 ml, respectively; P = 0.004), shorter length of hospital stay (15 vs. 16 days, respectively; P = 0.034), and shorter operative time (216.50 vs. 372.78 min, respectively; P = 0.012) than OCLR, but hospital expenses (5.02 vs. 6.50 WanRMB, respectively; P = 0.208) showed no statistical difference between groups. There was no statistical difference in postoperative bile leakage (P = 0.54) and wound infection (P = 0.54) between LCLR and OCLR. Neither LCLR nor OCLR resulted in bleeding or liver failure after operation. There were no deaths. LCLR is a very useful technology, and it is a feasible choice in selected patients with benign and malignant tumors in the caudate lobe.

Nano-imprint technology is a method of nano-pattern reproduction, has the characteristics of high resolution, high throughput, and low-cost. It can reduce the complexity and cost of the equipment while improving the resolution, which considered a promising industrial production technology. The key to nanoimprinting lies in the mold, and the quality of the mold directly determines the quality of the imprinted graphics. Here, a method for fabricating sub-100 nm concave 2D silicon nano-mold by side etch lift-off is proposed. The effects of different wet etching time and the metal deposition angle on the width of nanochannels were studied. The measurement result of dry etching shows that on the entire 4 inch silicon wafer, the width of the nanochannel varies by 4% and the depth by 2%. The width of the nanochannel between chips varies by 0.7%, and the depth variation is 1%. With this new method, high-precision and large-scale silicon nano-mold can be produced, which has great potential for realizing high-precision and low-cost manufacturing of nano devices.

Nano-fluidic devices have great potential in the applications of biology, chemistry, and medicine. However, their applications have been hampered by their expensive or complicated fabrication methods. We present a new and simple approach to fabricate low-cost two-dimensional (2D) nano-mold based on ultraviolet (UV) lithography and wet etching. The influence of UV lithography parameters on the width dimension of AZ5214 photoresist was investigated. With the optimized parameters of UV lithography, the width dimension of photoresist patterns had sharply decreased from microscale to nano-scale. At the same time, the influences of etching time on the over-etching amount of SiO2 film and nano-mold depth were also analyzed for further reducing the width of nano-mold. In addition, the effect of photoresist mesas deformation on the nano-mold fabrication was also studied for improving the quality of nano-mold. By the proposed method, trapezoid cross-sectional 2D nano-mold with different dimensions can be obtained for supporting varied applications. The minimum nano-mold arrays we fabricated are the ones with the dimensions of 115[Formula: see text]nm in top edge, 284[Formula: see text]nm in bottom edge, and 136[Formula: see text]nm in depth. This method provides a low-cost way to fabricate high-quality and high-throughput 2D nano-mold.

The lithography contact/proximity printing technique is widely used in the fabrication of microelectronic components, optical devices, and micro-fluidic chips. However, the fabrication of nano-sized structures requires high-cost equipment. This paper proposes a low-cost method to manufacture nanostructures by ultraviolet proximity exposing lithography through a microphotomask on a conventional lithographic aligner. The influence of exposure distance on photoresist pattern size is studied, and the standing wave effect on the photoresist layer is reduced by post-baking. This cost effective method can be widely applied to fabricate patterns with a nanofeature size.

A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software package ANSYS Fluent was employed for simulation of ion transport at atmospheric pressure between a nano-electrospray ionization (nano-ESI) emitter and the mass spectrometer (MS) sampling inlet tube inside an improved air amplifier device incorporating a radiofrequency ion funnel. The flow field, electric field and the ion trajectory calculations were carried out in separate steps. Parallelized user-defined functions were written to accommodate the additional static and transient electric fields and the elastic ion-gas collisions with the Monte Carlo hard-sphere simulation abilities within Fluent’s environment. The ion transmission efficiency from a nano-ESI emitter to the MS sampling inlet was evaluated for different air amplifier and ion funnel operating conditions by tracking 250 sample reserpine ions. Results show that the high velocity gas stream and the external electric field cause a rapid acceleration of the ion beam and its dispersion along the centreline of the air amplifier which leads to reduction of the space-charge effect and the beam divergence. The radiofrequency potential applied to the ion funnel contributed to additional ion focusing.

An improved air amplifier design that takes advantage of the combined effects of aerodynamic and electrodynamic focusing was developed to couple a nanoelectrospray ionisation (nano-ESI) source and the heated mass spectrometer inlet to improve the sensitivity of a mass spectrometer. The new design comprises an electrodynamic ion funnel integrated into the main air pathway of the air amplifier to more effectively focus and transmit gas-phase ions from the nano-ESI source into the heated mass spectrometer inlet. Numerical computational fluid dynamics simulations were carried out using a commercial software package, ANSYS FLUENT, to provide more detailed information about the device's performance. The gas flow field as well as the electric field patterns and the Lagrangian ion motion were conveniently simulated using this single package and custom-written, user-defined functions. Experimental results show a nearly five-fold improvement in reserpine ion intensity with the air amplifier operated at a nitrogen gauge pressure of 40 kPa and no direct current (DC) or radiofrequency (RF) potentials applied to the ion funnel when the distance between the electrospray emitter and sampling inlet tube was 24 mm, as compared to direct sample infusion from the same distance without the air amplifier. More importantly, a nearly three-fold additional gain in ion intensity was measured when both DC and RF potentials were co-applied, resulting in more than a 13-fold overall ion intensity gain which could be attributed to the combined air amplifier aerodynamic and ion funnel electrodynamic focusing effect.