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BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE:Vessel wall imaging can identify intracranial atherosclerotic plaque and give clues about its components. We aimed to investigate whether the plaque hyperintensity in the middle cerebral artery on T2-weighted vessel wall imaging is associated with ischemic stroke. MATERIALS AND METHODS:We retrospectively reviewed our institutional vessel wall MR imaging data base. Patients with an acute ischemic stroke within 7-day onset in the MCA territory were enrolled. Patients with stroke and stenotic MCA plaque (stenosis degree, ≥50%) were included for analysis. Ipsilateral MCA plaque was defined as symptomatic, and contralateral plaque, as asymptomatic. Plaque was manually delineated on T2-weighted vessel wall imaging. The plaque signal was normalized to the ipsilateral muscle signal. The thresholds and volume of normalized plaque signal were investigated using logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic analysis to determine the association between normalized plaque signal and stroke. RESULTS:One hundred eight stenotic MCAs were analyzed (from 88 patients, 66 men; mean age, 58 ± 15 years), including 72 symptomatic and 36 asymptomatic MCA plaques. Symptomatic MCA plaque showed larger plaque hyperintensity volume compared with asymptomatic MCA plaque. The logistic regression model incorporating stenosis degree, remodeling ratio, and normalized plaque signal 1.3-1.4 (OR, 6.25; 95% CI, 1.90-20.57) had a higher area under curve in differentiating symptomatic/asymptomatic MCA plaque, compared with a model with only stenosis degree and remodeling ratio (area under curve, 0.884 versus 0.806; P =.008). CONCLUSIONS:The MCA plaque hyperintensity on T2-weighted vessel wall imaging is independently associated with ischemic stroke and adds value to symptomatic MCA plaque classification. Measuring the normalized signal intensity may serve as a practical and integrative approach to the analysis of intracranial atherosclerotic plaque.

A few patients who have recovered from COVID-19 develop persistent or new symptoms that last for weeks or months; this is called "long COVID" or "post-COVID-19 syndrome." Over time, awareness of the short- and long-term consequences of COVID-19 has increased. The pulmonary consequences are now fairly well established, but little is known about the extrapulmonary system of COVID-19, particularly its effects on bones. Current evidence and reports indicate a direct relationship between SARS-CoV-2 infection and bone health, with SARS-CoV-2 having a significant negative effect on bone health. In this review, we analyzed the impact of SARS-CoV-2 infection on bone health and assessed the impact of COVID-19 on the diagnosis and treatment of osteoporosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the study was to monitor the effects of exogenous geniposide (GD) on maize (Zea mays L.) and explore the mechanisms through which it mitigates saline-alkali stress to provide a theoretical basis for revealing the growth physiology and chemical regulation processes in maize. The control (CK) received nutrient solution culture while the group under saline-alkali stress(SAS) received 150mmol L-1 saline-alkali solution (molar concentration ratio NaCl:Na2SO4:NaHCO3:Na2CO3=1:9:9:1). ‘Jilong2’ (saline-alkali tolerant) and ‘Xinxuan58’ (saline-alkali sensitive) were chosen as experimental materials and were cultivated with hydroponic method. Maize received the saline-alkali solution 12 hours after GD treatment and saline-alkali solution was administered 3 times, every 12 hours. The GD and saline-alkali solution group constituted the S+G treatment which promoted maize and a significant increase was observed in fresh and dry weights, plant height and photosynthetic enzymes in the leaf along with a significant decrease in the root to shoot ratio compared with saline-alkali treatment. The indoleacetic acid (IAA), zeatin-riboside (ZR), gibberellin (GA), superoxide radical (O2-) generation rate, malonaldehy (MDA) and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) levels in roots were significantly lower than in the S+G treatment under saline-alkali stress, while the level of abscisic acid (ABA) and the activity of antioxidative enzymes increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of nano potassium silicate on amino acid components and family gene expression of nitrogen metabolism-related glutamine synthetase (GS) in Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa L. ssp. pekinensis). With ordinary potassium silicate (OKSi) and nano potassium silicate (NKSi) as different potassium fertilizers, the experiment set four potassium levels (K2O) of 0 (CK), 150, 300 and 450 kg·hm-2, respectively. Field experiments were adopted to investigate the effects of different forms and levels of potassium on the amino acid content of Chinese cabbage and GLN family gene expression in roots, stems and leaves. The total amount of essential amino acids was the highest in NKSi-300 treatment, which was 41.1% higher than that in the control (CK). In the stem of Chinese cabbage, the relative expression of GLN1.2, GLN1.3, GLN1.4 and GLN2 was up by 7.85, 3.46, 45.6 and 50.7 times compared with CK under NKSi-300 treatment. In Chinese cabbage leaves, GLN1.1, GLN1.2 and GLN1.3 had the highest relative expressions under NKSi-150 treatment, which were up by 1.984, 1.235 and 1.617 times, respectively compared to CK. GLN family gene expression was significantly or extremely significantly correlated with histidine, glycine, methionine, tyrosine and cysteine contents in the stem of Chinese cabbage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 100 mm thickness Ti-6Al-4V plates were welded by the electron beam (EBW) method. Microstructures and mechanical properties including tensile and fatigue fracture behavior of the joint have been studied. The results shown that the joint has obviously textural and mechanical heterogeneity in the thickness direction, the joint show excellent fatigue resistance though the middle layer of the joint has lower fatigue life at the same stress and survival rate. The fatigue crack initiates from the free surface of the specimen by the transgranular fracture mode. The fatigue deformation depicted by the dislocations of the joint in each layer is adapt to the planar-slip mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]