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Abstract Background This study aimed to establish the standardized procedure of trans‐areola single site endoscopic parathyroidectomy (TASSEP), and to compare the performance of TASSEP with that of conventional open parathyroidectomy (COP). Methods This study enrolled 40 patients with primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT) who underwent TASSEP, and included 40 of 176 PHPT patients who underwent COP based on propensity score matching. The retrospective analysis was conducted based on prospectively collected data. Perioperative outcomes, including surgical profile, surgical burden and cosmetic results and follow‐up were reported. The learning curve was described using a cumulative sum (CUSUM) analysis. Results 40 TASSEPs were completed successfully without conversions or severe complications. There was no statistically significant difference in operation time between TASSEP and COP groups (80.83 ± 11.95 vs. 76.95 ± 7.30 min, p = 0.084). Experience of 17 cases was necessitated to reach the learning curve of TASSEP. Postoperative pain score and traumatic index (C‐reactive protein and erythrocyte sedimentation rate) in TASSEP were apparently lower than those in COP group (p

Abstract Background Limited attempts have been made in trans‐areola single‐site endoscopic thyroidectomy (TASSET) due to technical challenges and the lengthy time for proficiency. This study aimed to define the learning curve of TASSET and to describe improvements in operative performance over time. Methods Based on 222 consecutive TASSET procedures, the learning curve was established according to the operation time by using cumulative sum analysis (CUSUM). The end‐point of learning curve was defined as the number of cases necessitated to reach the initial surgical proficiency stage. The demographic information, surgical and oncological outcomes, surgical stress, and postoperative complications were also analyzed. Results There were 70 cases of simple lobectomy for benign nodules and 152 cases of lobectomy with central neck dissection (CND) for malignancy. The mean operative time was 106.54 ± 38.07 min (range: 46–274 min). The learning curve identified two phases: the skill acquisition phase (Case 1–Case 41) and the proficiency phase (Case 42–Case 222). There were no significant differences in demographic information, drainage amount and duration, oncological outcomes, and postoperative complications between the two phases (p > 0.05). Both operation time and postoperative hospitalization decreased significantly in Phase 2 (154.63 ± 52.21 vs. 95.64 ± 22.96 min, p

Background Oral tongue cancer is an extremely malignant tumor with high rate of lymphatic metastasis. Little is known about its invasion and metastasis mechanisms so far. Methods To clarify the main role of CCL2 in tongue cancer progression, we performed Transwell migration assay to confirm the effects of different concentrations of CCL2 on the migration and invasion of tongue cancer cells. Next, by siRNA interference of RhoA and Rac1 in LNMTca8113 cells, we are able to observe that these two molecules block the effect of CCL2 on cell migration and cytoskeleton reorganization by laser confocal microscopy. Moreover, the AKT phosphorylation level of PI3K downstream molecule under the action of CCL2 also be detected by qRT-PCR and western blot, so as to determine whether CCL2 affects the proliferation of LNMTca8113 cells through PI3K/AKT pathway. Finally, we analyzed the relationship between plasma CCL2 level and various clinicopathological parameters in patients with tongue cancer. Results: We found that tongue cancer cells treated with CCL2 migrate faster at first. CCL2 may enhance the invasion and migration of LNMTca8113 cells by activating RhoA and Rac1 to promote cytoskeleton reorganization. Promotion of LNMTca8113 migration induced by CCL2 was inhibited by silence of RhoA and Rac1. CCL2 could increase the phosphorylation of downstream Akt/PI3K signal and promoted the proliferation. Plasma concentration confirmed that the CCL2 level was closely related to the clinical stage of tongue cancer. Patients with lower CCL2 levels had a relatively longer progression-free survival and total survival time. Results After adding CCL2, the number of proliferation and migration of tongue cancer cells increased and the expression of RhoA and Rac1 rose up in LNMTca8113 cell line. The cytoskeleton reorganization was notable. Patients with higher serum levels of CCL2 had shorter progression-free survival than those with lower levels of CCL2 (P < 0.0001). Conclusions CCL2 promotes the invasion and metastasis of tongue cancer by PI3K/Akt pathway. The plasma level of CCL2 may predict prognosis of tongue cancer patients. CCL2 can serve as a potential therapeutic target for tongue cancer treatment.

Dental implants are key components in treating dental diseases and correcting dental defects, and they have gained widespread utilisation in various medical operations. However, traditional screw thread implants have been associated with certain drawbacks, including issues such as poor consistency with the alveolar bone and difficulty in customisation. Root analogue implants (RAI) are considered a promising substitute; however, they are not widely applied until now as their geometry design needs more improvements. The utilisation of porous structures, such as triply periodic minimal surfaces, in dental implants can reduce the elastic modulus, increase interconnectivity, and allow for strictly controllable structural characteristics. To achieve optimal initial and long-term stability, it is essential to have a moderate geometry that promotes a proper fit between the dental implants and the natural bone. Different porous and macro-retention structures of RAIs have been investigated due to the above two demands. However, owing to their complex porosity, such structures can only be effectively manufactured using additive manufacturing techniques. Various additive manufacturing technologies have been employed for the fabrication of dental implants and have provided good surface quality and mechanical properties. In vivo tests have demonstrated that their performance is similar to that of commercial implants fabricated using subtractive manufacturing techniques. In this review, we comprehensively examine the design concepts and processes involved in the development of dental implants, along with the application of additive manufacturing methods for their fabrication, while also offering recommendations for the future advancement of dental implant designs.

Abstract Both the accurate distance measurement and positioning information at the nanoscale are important for the analysis of micro/nano interactions. Plasmon ruler has been an indispensable optical tool to detect the chemical and biological dynamic processes via distance‐dependent plasmon coupling in the nearly aggregated state. But it cannot disclose the detailed and accurate information of positions and dynamic movements of its two plasmonic components owing to the inherent diffraction limit. Herein, a plasmonic locator is presented which consists of a heterotypic pair of red/blue plasmonic components with significant wavelength difference (∼150 nm). Attributed to the detuned energy (∼0.64 eV) of the two components, the plasmonic locator has the ability of sub‐diffraction‐limited resolution (center to center, 30 nm) and accurate positioning under conventional dark‐field microscopy, making the relative dynamic information of nearby red/blue components be recorded accurately at video rate. As an important complement to the current aggregate science and technology of plasmonics, this newly developed plasmonic locator presents a facile means to realize super‐resolution imaging, accurate positioning, and continuous tracing in chemical and biological interactions at the single‐molecule level.

Abstract Background Anaplastic thyroid carcinoma (ATC) is one of the most aggressive tumours. We previously confirmed that apatinib has potential therapeutic effects on ATC via regulated cell death (RCD). As a newly identified RCD, pyroptosis demonstrates direct antitumour activity different from apoptosis or autophagy. Therefore, the clinical significance, regulatory role and underlying mechanisms of pyroptosis in ATC were focused on in this study. Methods In a phase II trial, patients with anaplastic or poorly differentiated thyroid carcinoma received apatinib 500 mg once daily. Multiple assays were implemented to evaluate the antitumour efficacy of apatinib and/or melittin in vitro and in vivo. High‐throughput sequencing was applied to analyse differential mRNAs expression in ATC cells treated by apatinib with or without melittin. In situ Hoechst 33342/PI double‐staining, LDH release assay and enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) were employed to determine pyroptosis. In mechanism exploration, quantitative RT‐PCR, Western blotting and si‐RNA knocking down were executed. Results Seventeen patients were evaluable. Apatinib showed a promising therapeutic effect by a disease control rate (DCR) of 88.2%; however, treatment was terminated in 23.5% of patients due to intolerable toxicity. To reduce adverse events, a pyroptosis‐mediated synergistic antitumour effect of apatinib and melittin was identified in treatment of ATC in vitro and in vivo. The caspase‐1–gasdermin D (GSDMD) axis‐mediated pyroptosis was the key to extra antitumour effect of the combination of apatinib and melittin. Moreover, caspase‐3–gasdermin E (GSDME) pyroptosis pathway also functioned importantly in addition to caspase‐1–GSDMD pathway. Evidenced by in vitro and in vivo study, a two‐way positive feedback interaction was innovatively confirmed between caspase‐1–GSDMD and caspase‐3–GSDME axes. Conclusions Through pyroptosis mediated by caspase‐1–GSDMD and caspase‐3–GSDME axes synchronically, low‐dosage apatinib and melittin could synergistically achieve a comparable therapeutic potential with reduced AEs. More importantly, a two‐way positive feedback interaction is innovatively proposed between these two axes, which provide a new prospect of targeted therapy.

The EicC (The highly polarized Electron-ion collider in China) project proposes a scheme with different numbers of bunches in the two rings, which leads to an asymmetric beam-beam effect, also known as the gear-change effect. In order to investigate the feasibility of asymmetric collision in EicC, a self-consistent simulation program named athenagpu, which uses GPU for high-performance computing, was developed. A linearized matrix model is used to account for the dipole instability that occurs in the simulation. The simulation results in different collision modes show that asymmetric collision can lead to instability, and the beam can be stabilized by adjusting the nominal tunes. In the process of scanning the beam intensity, instability may occur as the beam intensity decreases, and this instability can be suppressed by compensating the nominal tunes. Offset collision simulations show that the decoherence time of the displaced bunch is shorter in the asymmetric collision than in the symmetric collision. The study in this paper suggests that asymmetric collision is promising for EicC when only the beam-beam effect is considered.

Stiffness-adjustable snake-like robots have been proposed for various applications, including minimally invasive surgery. Based on a variable neutral-line mechanism, previous works proposed a class of snake-like robots that can adjust their stiffness by changing the driving cables’ tensions. A constant curvature hypothesis was used to formulate such robots’ kinematics and was further verified by our previous work via rigorous force analysis and ADAMS simulations. However, all these models and analyses have ignored the effect of the robot links’ gravity, resulting in significant errors in real systems. In this paper, a static model considering gravity compensation is proposed for the stiffness-adjustable snake-like robots. The proposed model adopts a nonlinear Gauss–Seidel iteration scheme and consists of two parts: gravity update and pose estimation. In each iteration, the former updates the payload of each link caused by gravity, and the latter estimates the pose of the robot by refreshing the angle and position values. This iteration stops when the change in the tip position is less than a pre-set error ϵ. During the above process, the only dependent information is each cable’s tension. Simulations and experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model. The impact of gravity is found to increase with growing material densities in the simulations. The experimental results further indicate that compared with a model without gravity compensation, our model reduces the tip estimation error by 91.5% on average.

Prompt detection and isolation of COVID-19 cases is vital for preventing further viral transmission, and lateral flow or rapid antigen tests have been an important diagnostic tool in this pandemic. However, concerns have emerged regarding the sensitivity of these devices for the new BA.1, BA.2, and BA.4/5 omicron variants, which have greater transmissibility and extensive mutations in its spike (S) and nucleocapsid (N) proteins. N protein is an important target protein for existing lateral flow devices. This paper therefore aimed to provide a rapid review of available literature on the performance of the lateral flow tests for detecting the omicron coronavirus variant. A systematic literature search of PubMed, EMBASE, OVID Medline, and Google Scholar found six published studies and four preprints investigating the performance of existing lateral flow devices for the omicron variant, as compared to the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant. Overall, it appears that the devices have poorer performance for the omicron variant and when testing samples with cycle threshold (Ct) values greater than 25 and in asymptomatic individuals. As most available data were preliminary and had small sample sizes, it is recommended that these data be further studied to better inform and adapt our public health responses.

Titanium-containing carbide slag (TCS) is the product obtained by high-temperature carbothermal reduction in Titanium-bearing blast furnace slag (TBFS), which contains a large amount of TiC phase with excellent electrical conductivity. In this paper, conductive cement mortar was prepared with TCS as an aggregate and graphite as a conductive phase. The content of graphite on the compressive strength and electrical resistivity of the prepared cement mortar was investigated. The results showed that the replacement of standard sand with TCS as an aggregate not only significantly reduced the electrical resistivity of the cement mortar, but also improved its compressive strength. When the graphite content was 10 wt%, the cement mortar with TCS as the aggregate exhibited excellent comprehensive performance with the 28d compressive strength of 34.0 MPa and the electrical resistivity of 2.9 Ω m in dry condition, respectively. The results of this paper provided a new way both for the utilization of TBFS and the preparation of conductive cement mortars.

Despite its prevalence and disease burden, several chasms still exist with regard to the pharmacotherapy of bipolar disorder (BD). Polypharmacy is commonly encountered as a significant proportion of patients remain symptomatic, and the management of the depressive phase of the illness is a particular challenge. Gabapentin and pregabalin have often been prescribed off-label in spite of a paucity of evidence and clinical practice guidelines to support its use. This systematic review aimed to synthesize the available human clinical trials and inform evidence-based pharmacological approaches to BD management. A total of six randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) and 13 open-label trials involving the use of gabapentin and pregabalin in BD patients were reviewed. Overall, the studies show that gabapentin and its related drug pregabalin do not have significant clinical efficacy as either monotherapy or adjunctive therapy for BD. Gabapentin and pregabalin are probably ineffective for acute mania based on the findings of RCT, with only small open-label trials to support its potential adjunctive role. However, its effects on the long-term outcomes of BD remain to be elucidated. The evidence base was significantly limited by the generally small sample sizes and the trials also had heterogeneous designs and generally high risk of bias.

Bi2WO6 powders were synthesized by the molten salt method at 250-350 ºC using the mixture of Bi(NO3)3·5H2O and Na2WO4·2H2O as a precursor, and the mixture of LiNO3 and NaNO3 with a molar ratio of 27:33 as a molten salt, respectively. The effects of temperature and salt amount on the phase composition, morphology and photocatalytic activity under the visible light irradiation were investigated. The results revealed that pure phase Bi2WO6 powders could be synthesized at 350 ºC as the weight of molten salts were 2‒5 times as many as the precursor. Bi2WO6 powder synthesized with lower salt amount exhibited larger surface area, more abundant pores, narrower bandgap and lower PL intensity, all of which contributed a higher photocatalytic activity. The synthesized Bi2WO6 powder could degrade 0.01 mol/L Rhodamine-B solution by 97% after irradiation under visible light for 60 min. The obtained Bi2WO6 powder had a good photochemical stability and reusability, revealing potential application in environmental treatment.

Due to the micro-vibration of flywheels, the imaging quality of a high-resolution optical remote sensing satellite will be deteriorated, and the micro-vibration effect on the payload is complicated, so it is essential to establish a reasonable and accurate theoretical simulation model for it. This paper presents a method of full-closed-loop time-domain integrated modeling to estimate the impacts of micro-vibration generated by flywheels on optical satellites. The method consists of three parts. First, according to the satellites’ micro-vibration influence mechanism in orbit, this paper establishes a full-closed-loop model framework. The overall model input is the instructions received and the output is the image shift. Second, in order to meet the requirements of time-domain simulation, this paper proposes a time-domain vibration source subsystem model in the form of cosine harmonic superposition, and it integrates vibration source, structural, control, and optical subsystem models to create a full-closed-loop time-domain analysis model that can obtain the responses of micro-vibration in time and frequency domains. Lastly, the author designs a ground experiment and compares simulation results with experiment results. Compared with the ground experiment, frequency error is less than 0.4% at typical responses. Although the amplitude error is large at some typical responses, the mean root square error is less than 35%. Based on the data, the proposed integrated modeling method can be considered as an accurate methodology to predict the impacts of micro-vibration.

The present study uses a method to address microvibrations effects on an optical satellite by combining simulations and experiments based on high-precision acceleration sensors. The displacement and angular displacement of each optical component can be obtained by introducing flywheel perturbation data from a six-component test bench to the finite element model of the optical satellite. Combined with an optical amplification factor inferred from the linear optical model, the pixel offset of the whole optical system is calculated. A high accuracy and broad frequency range for a new microvibration measurement experimental system is established to validate the simulation. The pixel offset of the whole optical system can be measured by testing the acceleration signals of each optical component and calculating optical amplification factors. The results are consistent with optical imaging test results, indicating correctness of the experimental scheme and the effectiveness of the simulation. The results suggest that the effect of microvibrations on a camera can be verified by using mechanical simulators instead of a whole optical camera for the experiment scheme, which is demonstrated to be an effective way for increasing efficiency in jitter measurements.

In this paper, a liquid multi-parameter decoupling method with only one Lamb wave sensor is presented. In a Lamb wave sensor, antisymmetric modes (A01 mode for low frequency, A03 mode for high frequency) and symmetric modes (S0 mode) are used to detect multiple parameters of a liquid, such as its density, sound velocity, and viscosity. We found they can play very different roles in the detections. For example, the A01 mode is very sensitive to the liquid’s density but the A03 mode is sensitive to the sound velocity. Here, the A0 mode is used to identify the density of the detected liquid and with this density value we obtained the viscosity by the amplitude shifts of the S0 mode. This could be a way to distinguish an unknown liquid with high sensitivity or to solve the problem of selectivity of label-free detection on biosensors.

Background. The bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (BM-MSCs) have demonstrated great potential as regenerative medicine in different therapeutic applications. This study aims to pool previous controlled clinical trials to make an update assessment of the effectiveness of BM-MSC transplantation on end-stage liver cirrhosis. Methods. Relevant studies published between January 1990 and June 2014 were searched among Pubmed, Embase, and ClinicalTrial.gov. A meta-analysis was performed to assess the effect of BM-MSCs on liver function indicators, including Models of End-Stage Liver Disease (MELD) score, serum albumin (g/L), total bilirubin (mg/dl), Prothrombin concentration (%), and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) (U/L). Results. BM-MSCs therapy could significantly improve liver function in patients with end-stage liver cirrhosis, in terms of MELD score, serum albumin, total bilirubin, and prothrombin concentration, at least during the half year after transplantation. Conclusions. Due to BM-MSCs’ immunomodulatory functions and the potential to differentiate into hepatocytes, they are a promising therapeutic agent to liver cirrhosis. Considering currently available evidence, this therapy is relatively safe and effective in improving liver function. However, how different variables should be controlled to optimize the therapeutic effect is still not clear. Thus, future mechanism studies and clinical trials are required for this optimization.