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Abstract Accumulating evidence has shown an increased risk of suicide among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). However, few studies have explored the risk factors associated with completed suicide among PLWHA. This study aimed to identify the characteristics and causes of completed suicide among PLWHA to guide future targeted suicide prevention and intervention programs. A 1:1 matched case–control psychological autopsy study was conducted among PLWHA in Hunan Province. We recruited 63 PLWHA who died by suicide from January 1, 2013, to December 31, 2019, and 63 living controls matched for age, gender, and employment. Two informants for each participant were interviewed to collect data on participants’ sociodemographic characteristics, depressive symptoms, HIV-related stress, hopelessness, and social support. The median survival time from HIV diagnosis to completed suicide was 3.9 months (IQR: 0.57–14.13). Most completed suicides occurred within six months of HIV diagnosis (71.4%), with poisoning (34.9%) and hanging (22.2%) as the primary methods. After controlling for confounding factors, we identified four risk factors of completed suicide: not receiving antiretroviral treatment (OR = 6.805; 95% CI: 1.227 to 37.738), receiving low-income subsidy (OR = 16.272; 95% CI: 3.245 to 81.598), HIV-related stress (OR = 1.332; 95% CI: 1.089 to 1.629), and hopelessness (OR = 2.910; 95% CI: 1.378 to 6.144). PLWHA are at a high risk of suicide within the first six months of HIV diagnosis, indicating an urgent need for immediate suicide screening and timely intervention. Suicide risk is affected by multiple factors, including sociodemographic, clinical, and psychological factors, indicating the need for a multifactorial approach to suicide prevention, which may involve early initiation of ART treatment and provision of economic and psychosocial support.

Objective: To investigate the effects of acupotomy on skeletal muscle fibrosis and collagen deposition in a rabbit knee osteoarthritis (KOA) model. Methods: Rabbits (n = 18) were randomly divided into control, KOA, and KOA + acupotomy (Apo) groups (n = 6). The rabbits in the KOA and Apo groups were modeled using the modified Videman's method for 6 weeks. After modeling, the Apo group was subjected to acupotomy once a week for 3 weeks on the vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, rectus femoris, biceps femoris, and anserine bursa tendons around the knee. The behavior of all animals was recorded, rectus femoris tissue was obtained, and histomorphological changes were observed using Masson staining and transmission electron microscopy. The expression of transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1), Smad 3, Smad 7, fibrillar collagen types I (Col-I) and III (Col-III) was detected using Western blot and real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Results: Histological analysis revealed that acupotomy improved the microstructure and reduced the collagen volume fraction of rectus femoris, compared with the KOA group (P = .034). Acupotomy inhibited abnormal collagen deposition by modulating the expression of fibrosis-related proteins and mRNA, thus preventing skeletal muscle fibrosis. Western blot and RT-PCR analysis revealed that in the Apo group, Col-I, and Col-III protein levels were significantly lower than those in the KOA group (both P

Objective: To investigate whether acupotomy could inhibit subchondral bone remodeling in knee osteoarthritis (KOA) rabbits by regulating the activity of osteoblasts and osteoclasts. Methods: KOA rabbits were prepared by immobilization for 6 and 9 weeks by Videman method. Nine groups of rabbits (control, 6 weeks and 9 weeks model, 6 weeks and 9 weeks acupotomy, 6 weeks and 9 weeks electroacupuncture, and 6 weeks and 9 weeks drug groups) received acupotomy, electroacupuncture and risedronate sodium intervention, respectively, for 3 weeks. Results: Acupotomy can inhibit the activity of osteoclasts and osteoblasts in subchondral bone by reducing the proteins expression of cathepsin K (CK) and tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP) and decreasing the proteins expression of osteocalcin (OCN) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP), to intercept the abnormal bone resorption and bone formation of subchondral bone in 6-week and 9-week immobilization-induced KOA rabbits. Conclusion: These findings indicated that acupotomy may be more advantageous than risedronate sodium intervention in modulating subchondral bone remodeling in KOA rabbits, especially in 9-week immobilization-induced KOA rabbits.

Background: There is a large group of deaf-mutes in the world, and sign language is their major communication tool. Therefore, it’s necessary for the deaf-mutes to communicate with hearing-speech people and the hearing-speech people also have needed to understand sign language, which produces a great demand for sign language teaching. Even though there have already been a large number of books for sign language, it is low efficient to learn sign language with books, even teaching videos. To solve this problem, we develop a smartphone-based interactive Chinese sign language teaching systemfor sign language learning. Methods: The system provides a learner with some kinds of learning modes and captures the learner’s actions from its front camera of the smartphone. Right now the system provides a vocabulary set with 1000 frequently used words, and the learner can evaluate his/her sign action by subjective or objective comparison. In the mode of word recognition, the users can play any word within the vocabulary and the system will turn the top three retrieved candidates, so it can remind the learners what the sign is. Results: This system provides interactive learning for a user to learn sign language high efficiently. The systemadopts an algorithm based on point cloud recognition to evaluate a user’s sign and costs about 700ms inference time for each sample, which meets the real-time requirements. Conclusion: This interactive learning system decreases the communication barriers between the deaf-mutes and hearing-speechers.

Several studies have found that the decrease of photovoltaic (PV) cell temperature would increase the solar-to-electricity conversion efficiency. Water type PV/thermal (PV/T) system was a good choice but it could become freezing in cold areas of Northern China. This paper proposed a simple combination of common-used PV panel and heat pipe, called PV-heat pipe (PV-HP) solar collector, for both electrical and thermal energy generation. A simplified one-dimensional steady state model was developed to study the electrical and thermal performance of the PV-HP solar collector under different solar radiations, water flow rates, and water temperatures at the inlet of manifold. A testing rig was conducted to verify the model and the testing data matched very well with the simulation values. The results indicated that the thermal efficiency could be minus in the afternoon. The thermal and electrical efficiencies decreased linearly as the inlet water temperature and water flow rate increased. The thermal efficiency increased while the electrical efficiency decreased linearly as the solar radiation increased.