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ObjectiveThe purpose of this study is to examine the changes in supportive care needs, quality of life and social support during different chemotherapy cycles among elderly colorectal cancer patients.MethodsThis prospective longitudinal study recruited 160 elderly colorectal cancer patients using convenience sampling at a hospital in Guangxi between August 2023 and April 2024. To assess supportive care needs, quality of life, and social support, we used a short form of the Supportive Care Needs Survey (SCNS-SF34), a Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-colorectal (FACT-C), and a perceived social support scale (PSSS) prior to chemotherapy, as well as after the first, third, and sixth cycles. Repeated measures analysis of variance was used to validate the changes over time in supportive care needs, quality of life, and social support.Results155 participants completed all questionnaire sessions across the six cycles. From pre-chemotherapy until after the sixth cycle of chemotherapy, the extent of physical and daily living requirements among all respondents fluctuated between 47.23% and 88.26%, psychological needs ranged from 60.84% to 97.67%, patient care and support needs ranged from 83.75% to 99.35%, healthcare system and information needs varied from 85.98% to 99.00%, while the level of sexual needs decreased from 1.51% to 0.65%. The mean SCNS-SF34 scores for these participants ranged between 103.81 ± 2.28 and 144.10 ± 1.08. Significant increases over time were seen for all domains of SCNS-SF34 (F=126.99, 347.41, 65.00, 72.34, 160.15, p

Abstract BackgroundIncentive salience processes are important for the development and maintenance of addiction. Eye characteristics such as gaze fixation time, pupil diameter, and spontaneous eyeblink rate (EBR) are theorized to reflect incentive salience and may serve as useful biomarkers. However, conventional cue exposure paradigms have limitations that may impede accurate assessment of these markers. ObjectiveThis study sought to evaluate the validity of these eye-tracking metrics as indicators of incentive salience within a virtual reality (VR) environment replicating real-world situations of nicotine and tobacco product (NTP) use. MethodsNTP users from the community were recruited and grouped by NTP use patterns: nondaily (n=33) and daily (n=75) use. Participants underwent the NTP cue VR paradigm and completed measures of nicotine craving, NTP use history, and VR-related assessments. Eye-gaze fixation time (attentional bias) and pupillometry in response to NTP versus control cues and EBR during the active and neutral VR scenes were recorded and analyzed using ANOVA and analysis of covariance models. ResultsGreater subjective craving, as measured by the Tobacco Craving Questionnaire–Short Form, following active versus neutral scenes was observed (F1,106PF1,106PF1,102P ConclusionsThis study provides additional evidence for attentional bias, as measured via eye-gaze fixation time, and pupillometry as useful biomarkers of incentive salience, and partially supports theories suggesting that incentive salience diminishes as nicotine dependence severity increases.

As China’s anti-corruption campaign intensifies, several of those involved in various capacities in the public sector are demonstrating slackness, a lack of moral awareness, and a weakened sense of responsibility. This study analyzes the multiple mechanisms influencing the responsible behavior of public sector personnel by combining certain key factors, such as managers’ moral leadership style, psychological security, and the notion of interactive justice. Based on social information processing theory and social exchange theory, this study constructs a dual mediation model (psychological security and interactive justice) to explore the mediating psychological mechanism of moral leadership influencing employees’ responsible behavior. The results of a two-stage paired survey and structural equation modeling analysis of civil servants from 48 departments and eight units in Shandong and Henan provinces show that moral leadership positively impacts responsible behavior. Moreover, psychological security and interactive justice play a mediating role between them. Furthermore, this study elaborates upon the mechanism of moral leadership affecting the responsible behavior of employees, which is of great value for improving the efficiency of government management and guiding civil servants to behave more responsibly.

The objective of the present study was to investigate the potential role of immunization against INH on follicular development, serum reproductive hormone (FSH, E2, and P4) concentrations, and reproductive performance in beef cattle. A total of 196 non-lactating female beef cattle (4-5 years old) with identical calving records (3 records) were immunized with 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, or 2.0 mg [(T1, n = 58), (T2, n = 46), (T3, n = 42) and (T4, n = 36), respectively] of the pcISI plasmid. The control (C) group (n = 14) was immunized with 1.0 mL 0.9% saline. At 21d after primary immunization, all beef cattle were boosted with half of the primary immunization dose. On day 10 after primary immunization, the beef cattle immunized with INH DNA vaccine evidently induced anti-INH antibody except for the T1 group. The T3 group had the greatest P/N value peak among all the groups. The anti-INH antibody positive rates in T2, T3 and T4 groups were significantly higher than that in C and T1 groups. RIA results indicated that serum FSH concentration in T2 group increased markedly on day 45 after booster immunization; the E2 amount in T3 group was significantly increased on day 10 after primary immunization, and the levels of E2 also improved in T2 and T3 groups after booster immunization; the P4 concentration in T2 group was significantly improved on day 21 after primary immunization. Ultrasonography results revealed that the follicles with different diameter sizes were increased, meanwhile, the diameter and growth speed of ovulatory follicle were significantly increased. Furthermore, the rates of estrous, ovulation, conception, and twinning rate were also significantly enhanced. These findings clearly illustrated that INH DNA vaccine was capable of promoting the follicle development, thereby improving the behavioral of estrous and ovulation, eventually leading to an augment in the conception rates and twinning rate of beef cattle.

BackgroundThe geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI) has been wildly used to predict the prognosis of patients with solid cancer, but it’s value in postoperative complications remains unclear. The aim of our study was to systematically explore the value of the GNRI in postoperative complications in patients with solid cancer.MethodThe study conducted a systematic literature search using electronic databases to investigate the influence of the GNRI on postoperative complications in patients with solid cancer. The search covered articles published up until May 2023. The odds ratio (OR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) was employed to assess the effect of GNRI on postoperative complications.ResultA total of 11 studies with 11,002 patients were enrolled in our meta-analysis. The results suggested that patients with a low GNRI have a higher risk of experiencing postoperative complications (OR=2.51, 95%CI 2.05–3.02, z=9.86, p

Abstract The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is one of the most climate-sensitive regions around the world. Aerosols imported from adjacent regions reach their peak during the pre-monsoon season and play a vital role in the TP environment. However, the strong interannual variation in aerosols transported to the TP has not been fully understood. Here, we show that the interannual variability of pre-monsoon aerosols transported to the TP is influenced more by rainfall over the southern Himalayas than near-surface wind. Rainfall modulates fire events and biomass burning emissions and reduces aerosols over the TP by wet scavenging. Contrary to the role of wind in increasing aerosol transport, the positive correlation between wind and aerosols in the TP reported in previous studies is contributed by the negative interannual correlations between wind and rainfall and between rainfall and fire events over the southern Himalayas. This study highlights the co-variability of wind and rainfall and their confounding impacts on aerosols in the southern Himalayas and over the TP. With pre-monsoon rainfall projected to increase in adjacent regions of southern TP, aerosol transport to the TP may be mitigated in the future.

Abstract Background Various nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) against COVID-19 continue to have an impact on socioeconomic and population behaviour patterns. However, the effect of NPIs on notifiable infectious diseases remains inconclusive due to the variability of the disease spectrum, high-incidence endemic diseases and environmental factors across different geographical regions. Thus, it is of public health interest to explore the influence of NPIs on notifiable infectious diseases in Yinchuan, Northwest China. Methods Based on data on notifiable infectious diseases (NIDs), air pollutants, meteorological data, and the number of health institutional personnel in Yinchuan, we first fitted dynamic regression time series models to the incidence of NIDs from 2013 to 2019 and then estimated the incidence for 2020. Then, we compared the projected time series data with the observed incidence of NIDs in 2020. We calculated the relative reduction in NIDs at different emergency response levels in 2020 to identify the impacts of NIPs on NIDs in Yinchuan. Results A total of 15,711 cases of NIDs were reported in Yinchuan in 2020, which was 42.59% lower than the average annual number of cases from 2013 to 2019. Natural focal diseases and vector-borne infectious diseases showed an increasing trend, as the observed incidence in 2020 was 46.86% higher than the estimated cases. The observed number of cases changed in respiratory infectious diseases, intestinal infectious diseases and sexually transmitted or bloodborne diseases were 65.27%, 58.45% and 35.01% higher than the expected number, respectively. The NIDs with the highest reductions in each subgroup were hand, foot, and mouth disease (5854 cases), infectious diarrhoea (2157 cases) and scarlet fever (832 cases), respectively. In addition, it was also found that the expected relative reduction in NIDs in 2020 showed a decline across different emergency response levels, as the relative reduction dropped from 65.65% (95% CI: -65.86%, 80.84%) during the level 1 response to 52.72% (95% CI: 20.84%, 66.30%) during the level 3 response. Conclusions The widespread implementation of NPIs in 2020 may have had significant inhibitory effects on the incidence of respiratory infectious diseases, intestinal infectious diseases and sexually transmitted or bloodborne diseases. The relative reduction in NIDs during different emergency response levels in 2020 showed a declining trend as the response level changed from level 1 to level 3. These results can serve as essential guidance for policy-makers and stakeholders to take specific actions to control infectious diseases and protect vulnerable populations in the future.

Addition is a fundamental computer arithmetic operation that is widely performed in microprocessors, digital signal processors, and application-specific processors. The design of a high-speed and energy-efficient adder is thus useful and important for practical applications. In this context, this paper presents the designs of novel asynchronous carry look-ahead adders (CLAs) viz. a standard CLA (SCLA) and a block CLA (BCLA). The proposed CLAs are monotonic, dual-rail encoded, and are realized according to return-to-zero handshake (RZH) and return-to-one handshake (ROH) protocols using a 28-nm CMOS process technology. The proposed BCLA has a slight edge over the proposed SCLA, and the proposed BCLA reports the following optimizations in design metrics such as cycle time (delay), area, and power compared to a recently presented state-of-the-art asynchronous CLA for a 32-bit addition: (i) 32.6% reduction in cycle time, 29% reduction in area, 4.3% reduction in power, and 35.5% reduction in energy for RZH, and (ii) 31.4% reduction in cycle time, 28.9% reduction in area, 4.4% reduction in power, and 34.4% reduction in energy for ROH. Also, the proposed BCLA reports reductions in cycle time and power/energy compared to many other asynchronous adders.

Background: Existing evidence suggests that mumps epidemics, a global public health issue, are associated with meteorological factors and air pollutants at the population scale. However, the interaction effect of meteorological factors and air pollutants on mumps remains underexplored.Methods: Daily cases of mumps, meteorological factors, and air pollutants were collected in Ningxia, China, from 2015 to 2019. First, a distributed lag nonlinear model (DLNM) was employed to assess the confounding-adjusted relationship between meteorological factors, ambient air pollutants, and mumps incidences. According to the results of DLNM, stratification in both air pollutants and meteorological factors was adopted to further explore the interaction effect of particulate matter less than or equal to 2.5 μm in aerodynamic diameter (PM2.5) and ground-level ozone (O3) with temperature and relative humidity (RH).Results: We reported significant individual associations between mumps incidences and environmental factors, including temperature, relative humidity, PM2.5, and O3. Evident multiplicate and additive interactions between meteorological factors and PM2.5 were found with interaction relative risk (IRR) of 1.14 (95%CI: 1.01, 1.29) and relative excess risk due to interaction (RERI) of 0.17 (95%CI: 0.02, 0.32) for a moderate level of temperature at 12°C, and IRR of 1.37 (95%CI: 1.14, 1.66), RERI of 0.36 (95%CI: 0.11, 0.60) for a high level of temperature at 20°C, respectively. These results indicated that PM2.5 and temperature have a significant synergistic effect on the cases of mumps, while no interaction between relative humidity and PM2.5 is observed. Regarding O3 and meteorological factors (temperature = 12°C, 20°C), IRR and RERI were 1.33 (95%CI: 1.17, 1.52) and 0.30 (95%CI: 0.16, 0.45), 1.91 (95%CI: 1.46, 2.49) and 0.69 (95%CI: 0.32, 1.07), respectively. And IRR of 1.17 (95%CI: 1.06, 1.29), RERI of 0.13 (95%CI: 0.04, 0.21) for a middle level of relative humidity at 48%.Conclusion: Our findings indicated that meteorological factors and air pollutants imposed a significantly lagged and nonlinear effect on the incidence of mumps. The interaction between low temperature and O3 showed antagonistic effects, while temperature (medium and high) with PM2.5 and O3 presented synergistic effects. For relative humidity, the interaction with O3 is synergistic. These results provide scientific evidence to relevant health authorities for the precise disease control and prevention of mumps in arid and semi-arid areas.

Syphilis, a sexually transmitted infectious disease caused by the bacterium treponema pallidum, has re-emerged as a global public health issue with an estimated 12 million people infected each year. Understanding the impacts of health awareness and behaviors on transmission dynamics of syphilis can help to establish optimal control strategy in different regions. In this paper, we develop a multiple-stage SIRS epidemic model taking into account the public health awareness and behaviors of syphilis. First, the basic reproduction number R0 is obtained, which determines the global dynamics behaviors of the model. We derive the necessary conditions for implementing optimal control and the corresponding optimal solution for mitigation syphilis by using Pontryagin's Maximum Principle. Based on the data of syphilis in Ningxia from 2006 to 2018, the parameterizations and model calibration are carried out. The fitting results are in good agreement with the data. Moreover, sensitivity analysis shows that the public awareness induced protective behaviors Ce, compliance of condom-induced preventability ε and treatment for the primary syphilis m1 play an important role in mitigating the risk of syphilis outbreaks. These results can help us gain insights into the epidemiology of syphilis and provide guidance for the public health authorities to implement health education programs.

BackgroundCraving is a clinically important phenotype for the development and maintenance of nicotine addiction. Virtual reality (VR) paradigms are successful in eliciting cue-induced subjective craving and may even elicit stronger craving than traditional picture-cue methods. However, few studies have leveraged the advances of this technology to improve the assessment of craving. ObjectiveThis report details the development of a novel, translatable VR paradigm designed to both elicit nicotine craving and assess multiple eye-related characteristics as potential objective correlates of craving. MethodsA VR paradigm was developed, which includes three Active scenes with nicotine and tobacco product (NTP) cues present, and three Neutral scenes devoid of NTP cues. A pilot sample (N=31) of NTP users underwent the paradigm and completed subjective measures of nicotine craving, sense of presence in the VR paradigm, and VR-related sickness. Eye-gaze fixation time (“attentional bias”) and pupil diameter toward Active versus Neutral cues, as well as spontaneous blink rate during the Active and Neutral scenes, were recorded. ResultsThe NTP Cue VR paradigm was found to elicit a moderate sense of presence (mean Igroup Presence Questionnaire score 60.05, SD 9.66) and low VR-related sickness (mean Virtual Reality Sickness Questionnaire score 16.25, SD 13.94). Scene-specific effects on attentional bias and pupil diameter were observed, with two of the three Active scenes eliciting greater NTP versus control cue attentional bias and pupil diameter (Cohen d=0.30-0.92). The spontaneous blink rate metrics did not differ across Active and Neutral scenes. ConclusionsThis report outlines the development of the NTP Cue VR paradigm. Our results support the potential of this paradigm as an effective laboratory-based cue-exposure task and provide early evidence of the utility of attentional bias and pupillometry, as measured during VR, as useful markers for nicotine addiction.

Waterfront resources are an important support system for the social and economic development within the region along the Yangtze River. Container ports are an important component of the Yangtze River port system, as well as for the growth point of waterfront utilization. Based on the summary of remote sensing images and relevant data, this paper calculates the waterfront utilization of the container ports along the Yangtze River in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), analyzes the waterfront organization pattern and change characteristics, and puts forward the enlightenment and countermeasures for the sustainable development of the port waterfronts. Extending the study of port resources from coastal areas to inland areas is an academic contribution of this paper. At the same time, it has practical significance for the high-quality development of port and shipping and the development and protection of land resources along the Yangtze River. In the YRD, the waterfront utilization of container ports has increased along the Yangtze River, showing a decrease from downstream to upwards, and it has formed dense zones attached to the central cities and major manufacturing bases. The ports with higher length of waterfront are mostly located in the shipping central cities and the Yangtze River estuary. The development direction of container ports is large-scale and specialized. The utilization of the container port waterfront is approaching the periphery of the city and areas with convenient transportation. The utilization of container port shorelines will be close to the periphery of the city and convenient transportation areas. The container port waterfronts occupy the ecological reserve, and the conflicts are expanding with the development of shipping, mainly distributed in the Yangtze River estuary. Based on the empirical analysis, this paper puts forward four enlightenments. First, the exploitation and utilization of the port waterfront has experienced multiple stages of “exploitation—conflict—mitigation”. With the transformation of productive waterfront utilization, the pattern of sustainable development along the Yangtze River has changed. Secondly, the conflict between waterfront utilization and protection is inevitable. Additionally, it is necessary to face up to the temporary rapid rise of encroachment on the reserve. Third, through the horizontal coordination of the port system along the river, the original focus on the hub cities will be transferred to the comprehensive consideration of the port cities in the whole region, and the waterfront load of different types of container ports can be balanced. Fourth, the Yangtze River Delta integration mechanism can solve the barriers between higher and lower levels or between different departments and cities.

Neuroimaging studies suggest disrupted connections of the brain white matter (WM) network in bipolar disorder (BD). A group of highly interconnected high-density structures, termed the ‘rich club,’ represents an important network for brain functioning. Recent works have revealed abnormal rich club organization in brain networks in BD. However, little is known regarding changes in the rich club organization of the hemispheric WM network in BD. Forty-nine BD patients and fifty-five age- and sex-matched normal controls (NCs) underwent diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Graph theory approaches were applied to quantify group-specific rich club organization and nodal degree of hemispheric WM networks. We demonstrated that rich club organization of hemispheric WM networks in BD was disrupted, with disrupted feeder and local connections among hub and peripheral regions located in the default mode network (DMN) and the control execution network (CEN). In addition, BD patients showed abnormal asymmetry in the feeder and local connections, involving the hub and peripheral regions associated with emotion regulation and visuospatial functions. Moreover, the clinical symptoms of BD showed a significant correlation with the aberrant asymmetry in the regional degree of peripheral regions. These findings reveal that BD is closely associated with disrupted feeder and local connections but no alteration in rich-club connections in the rich club organization of hemispheric WM networks and provide novel insight into the changes of brain functions in BD.

In the era of big data, the demand for secure data storage is rapidly increasing. To accelerate the complex encryption computation, both specific instructions and hardware accelerators are adopted in a large number of scenarios. However, the hardware accelerators are not so effective especially for small volume data due to the induced invocation costs, while the AES-NI (Intel®advanced encryption standard new instructions) is not so energy efficiency for big data. To satisfy the diversity performance/energy requirements for intensive data encryptions, a collaborative solution is proposed in this paper. We proposed a feasible hardware-software co-design methodology based on the stack file system eCryptfs, with quick assist technology, which is named adaptive crypto acceleration for secure data storage (ACA-SDS). ACA-SDS is able to choose the optimal encryption solution dynamically according to file operation modes and request characters. Adjustable parameters, such as α, β, and M are provided in our scheme to provide a better adaptability and tradeoff choices for encryption computation. Our evaluation shows that ACA-SDS can get 15%-25% performance improvement for big-data blocks compared with only software or hardware accelerations. Furthermore, our methodology provides a wide range of practical design concepts for the further research in this field.

According to the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors, improving characteristics of metal wires will no longer satisfy performance requirements, and new interconnect paradigms are needed. Radio frequency interconnect (RF-I) enjoys better CMOS compatibility compared with other alternatives, and is exploited as express shortcuts overlaid traditional network-on-chip (NoC) topologies. However, the efficient utilization of on-chip communication bandwidth provided by RF interconnects still remains an open problem. To make effective use of scarce on-chip RF-I for different traffic patterns, system model of NoC with shared RF-I (SRFNoC) is constructed first time in this paper, along with detailed design methodology. A light-weighted arbitration mechanism is utilized for sharing resource allocation, and a new mapping algorithm communication weight and simulated annealing is proposed for topology distribution. Both static and dynamic routings for SRFNoC are also discussed in detail. The results of experiment showed that, compared with the NoC with long-range wired links and representative network-on-chip with exclusive allocated radio frequency interconnect, the proposed network can get better communication efficiency with less resource overhead.