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Abstract Object detection in drone aerial images is challenging due to the difficulty of small object detection and complex backgrounds. To address these issues, this paper proposes an improved object detection model, perception and target capture detector (PTCDet), to increase detection accuracy and robustness in complex scenes. Specifically, the proposed multiple feature extraction attention (MFEA) module significantly enhances the ability of the model to detect small objects through multidimensional feature map augmentation. The weighted perceptive field augmentation (WPFA) module is designed to improve the contextual awareness and feature representation of the model, optimizing detection accuracy for small objects. Based on the multiscale feature fusion structure, an enhanced scale fusion detection (ESFD) module is used to improve small object detection by generating larger scale feature maps. Ultimately, the inner focaler IoU loss (INFL) function effectively accelerates the regression of detection bounding boxes, enhancing the generalization ability and overall detection performance of the model. The experimental results on three public datasets demonstrate that PTCDet outperforms other detection algorithms. For example, on the VisDrone dataset, compared with the baseline model YOLOv8, map@0.5 and map@0.5:0.95 are improved by 6.21% and 4.21%, respectively. PTCDet exhibits excellent performance in addressing complex backgrounds and small object detection, providing an effective and robust solution for object detection tasks in drone aerial images.

Abstract Rectal adenocarcinoma (READ) is a common malignant tumor of the digestive tract. Growing studies have confirmed Ras GTPase-activating proteins are involved in the progression of several tumors. This study aimed to explore the expression and function of Ras GTPase-activating proteins in READ. In this study, we analyzed RNA sequencing data from 165 patients with READ and 789 normal tissue samples, identifying 5603 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), including 2937 upregulated genes and 2666 downregulated genes. Moreover, we also identified two dysregulated genes, RASA4 and SYNGAP1, among six Ras GTPase-activating proteins. High NF1 expression was associated with longer overall survival, while high SYNGAP1 expression showed a trend towards extended overall survival. Further analysis revealed the mutation frequency and copy number variations of Ras GTPase-activating proteins in various cancer samples. Additionally, DNA methylation analysis demonstrated a negative correlation between DNA methylation of Ras GTPase-activating proteins and their expression. Moreover, among Ras GTPase-activating proteins, we focused on SYNGAP1, and experimental validation confirmed that the overexpression of SYNGAP1 in READ significantly suppressed READ cell proliferation and increased apoptosis via regulating the Wnt/β-Catenin signaling pathway. These findings underscored the potential significance of SYNGAP1 in READ and provide new insights for further research and treatment.

UAVs have entered various fields of life, and object tracking is one of the key technologies for UAV applications. However, there are various challenges in practical applications, such as the scale change of video images, motion blur and too high shooting angle leading to the tracked objects being too small, resulting in poor tracking accuracy. To cope with the problem that small targets are poorly tracked by UAVs due to less effective information output from the deep residual network, a SiamMFF tracking method that introduces an efficient multi-scale feature fusion strategy is proposed. The method aggregates features at different scales, and at the same time, replaces the ordinary convolution with deformable convolution to increase the sense field of convolution operation to enhance the feature extraction capability. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm improves the success rate and accuracy of small target tracking.

Abstract Background Cervical cancer is and will remain to be an important health problem in China, especially with an increasing proportion of younger patients who has more specific needs. In China, surgery to remove tumor burden followed by postoperative treatment with radiotherapy and chemotherapy based on clinicopathologic factors may be the best choice for stages IB3 and IIA2 patients. Radical hysterectomy in cervical cancer has been a classic landmark surgery in gynecology. The current trial is designed to evaluate whether there is a difference between laparoscopic RH and abdominal RH in cervical cancer (stages IB3 and IIA2) patient survival under stringent operation standards and consistent surgical oncologic principles. This paper reports the rationale, design, and implementation of the trial. Methods/design This is an investigator-initiated, prospective, randomized, open, blinded endpoint (PROBE) controlled trial. A total of 1104 patients with stage IB3 and IIA2 cervical cancer will be enrolled over a period of 3 years. Patients are randomized (1:1) to either the laparoscopic RH or the abdominal RH group. Patients will then be followed up for at least 5 years. The primary end point will be 5-year overall survival, and secondary endpoints include 5-year progression-free survival, recurrence, and quality of life measurements. Discussion The study results will provide more convincing evidence-based information for stages IB3 and IIA2 cervical cancer patients and their gynecologic cancer surgeons in their choice of surgical method. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT04939831 , retrospectively registered on 25 June 2021.

Objective: The technological conditions of ultrasonic-assisted deep eutectic solvent extraction of proanthocyanidins from Korean pine bark were optimized, and the extraction kinetics equation was fitted. The purpose was to provide theoretical and technical reference for the development and utilization of proanthocyanidins from Korean pine bark. Method: Taking the yield of procyanidins as the index, the best deep eutectic solvent system was selected. The main technological parameters of ultrasonic-assisted deep eutectic solvent extraction of proanthocyanidins from Korean pine bark were further optimized by single factor combined with response surface methodology. Through the change of the yield of proanthocyanidins under different temperature and time during the extraction process, the best kinetic model of proanthocyanidins extraction was fitted and verified. Result: The results showed that deep eutectic solvent with the molar ratio of choline chloride, glycerol and water of 1:1:4 was the best solvent for extracting proanthocyanidins from Korean pine bark. The best process parameters optimized by response surface methodology were as follows: The ratio of liquid to material was 16 mL/g, ultrasonic time was 50 min, ultrasonic temperature was 55 ℃, and ultrasonic power was 480 W. The extraction effect of proanthocyanidins from Korean pine bark was the best, and the yield of proanthocyanidins was 4.11%. Boltzman model could well fit the kinetic process of ultrasonic-assisted deep eutectic solvent extraction of proanthocyanidins (R2≥0.9768), and the validation value of the model was highly ansistent with the prediction value (R2≥0.9442). Conclusion: Ultrasonic-assisted deep eutectic solvent could effectively promote the mass transfer of proanthocyanidins from Korean pine bark, and Boltzman model was determined to be the best kinetic model for extraction of proanthocyanidins. The extraction process could also provide reference for the extraction of relevant natural active substances.

The YOLO-B infrared target detection algorithm is proposed to address the problems of incomplete extraction of detailed features and missed and wrong detection of infrared targets by YOLOv5s. The algorithm improves the SPPF of YOLOv5s feature extraction network by proposing the CSPPF structure to increase the sensory field of the model. The Bifusion Neck structure is invoked to fuse the shallow location information with deep semantic information to enhance the feature extraction capability of the model. Taking fully into account the different information of concern for classification and localization, the efficient decoupled head is used as the prediction head of this algorithm, which reduces the latency while maintaining the accuracy. WIoUv3 loss is used as a bounding box regression loss function to reduce the harmful gradient generated by low-quality examples and reduce the competitiveness of high-quality anchor frames. Comparative experiments were conducted for each of the four improvement points, and the experimental results showed that each improvement point had the highest detection accuracy in the comparative experiments of the same category. All improvement points are fused in turn and ablation experiments are performed. The YOLO-B algorithm improves 1.9% in accuracy, 7.3% in recall, 3.8% in map_0.5, and 4.6% in map_0.5:0.95 compared to YOLOv5s. When compared with YOLOv7 and YOLOv8s, the proposed algorithm has better performance in terms of the number of parameters and detection accuracy.

Diabetes mellitus is a widely prevalent chronic disease, and effective treatments for it remain limited. Allicin has anti-diabetic effect, however, the detailed mechanism has not been well investigated. The diabetic rats were treated with allicin for 6 weeks, and then the fecal samples, serum and tissues were collected for measurement of gut microbiota (GM), bile acids (BAs) and other indexes. Allicin decreased the blood glucose levels, serum lipid levels, and alleviated hepatic lipid deposition of the diabetic rats. Simultaneously, allicin changed the composition of GM and increased secondary BAs in serum. Interestingly, allicin significantly increased the glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) content in colon homogenate, and reduced the protein expression of fibroblast growth factor 15 (FGF15) in ileum. Moreover, allicin increased 7α-hydroxylase 1 (CYP7A1) expression in liver. The study demonstrated that allicin ameliorates metabolisms in the diabetic rats though modulating gut microbiota, bile acids, and inhibiting enterohepatic FGF15-CYP7A1 signaling.

In recent years, allergic reactions caused by eating nuts have been reported frequently, which has become an important food safety problem that affects and threatens human health. This paper introduces the properties and hazards of common allergens in nuts, lists the main technologies, characteristics and applications used in nut allergen detection at home and abroad, compares and analyzes the desensitization effects, advantages and disadvantages of different treatment methods on allergens in nuts, and points out the shortcomings and future development prospects of allergen detection and desensitization technology in nuts, in order to provide a theoretical basis for nut processing and consumption, and promote the development of the nut industry.

The information of cropland is obtained efficiently and accurately as the basis for achieving precision agriculture (PA). As the boundary between cropland and other types of land in remote sensing images with different resolutions is fuzzy, the characteristics of cropland are easily confused when extracting cropland, resulting in inaccurate identification and extraction of cropland under large and complex backgrounds and rough localization of marginal areas. We proposed a two-path multiscale attention self-supervised network with the perception of four directions in pixel space, called the multiscale bilateral spatial direction-aware network (MBSDANet), to solve these problems and improve the model’s ability to extract cropland in small samples. One path extracts attentional feature maps by spatial directions to preserve detailed direction-aware information and generate high-resolution features; the other path obtains local-to-global information through pyramid pooling and attention awareness to capture dense multiscale cropland features to separate targets in complex contexts. The features of the two branches at different levels are fused by weighting the multi-aware information. Triangular self-supervised and boundary-aware losses are used to achieve fine segmentation and extraction of cropland in small samples. We tested the extraction method on cropland in Denmark and the Hebei Province of China, demonstrating its effectiveness and generalization. Compared to other neural network models, MBSDANet achieves better accuracy with a precision of 0.9481, an IoU of 0.8937, and an F1 score of 0.9438.

Platelets play important roles in thrombosis, hemostasis, inflammation, and infection. We aimed to evaluate the association between platelet count and its variation trend and prognosis of patient with infectious diseases in intensive care units (ICUs). This retrospective cohort study extracted 4,251 critically ill adult patients with infectious diseases from the eICU Collaborative Research Database, whose platelet counts were measured daily during the first 7 days after admission. In the survivors, platelet counts decreased in the first days after admission, reached a nadir on day 3, and then returned and continued to rise above the admission value. In non-survivors, the platelet counts decreased after admission, without a subsequent upturn. We defined three subgroups according to the nadir platelet counts within 7 days: ≤50, 50–130, and ≥130 × 109/L, corresponding to high, intermediate, and low ICU mortality. A decreased platelet count was associated with increased ICU mortality (intermediate vs. low: 1.676 [1.285–2.187]; high vs. low: 3.632 [2.611–5.052]). In conclusion, during the first 7 days, platelet counts decreased after ICU admission, while increased subsequently in the survivors but not in the non-survivors. ICU mortality risk increased as nadir platelet count decreased below 130 × 109/L, and further boosted when it reached below 50 × 109/L.

Kynurenic acid (KYNA) is an endogenous catabolite of tryptophan that has been found to demonstrate neuroprotective properties in psychiatric disorders. Recently, accumulating data have suggested that KYNA may also play a significant role in various metabolic diseases by stimulating energy metabolism in adipose tissue and muscle. However, whether KYNA can serves as an anti-diabetes agent has yet to be studied. In this study, we investigated the potential anti-diabetic effects of administering KYNA orally through drinking water in pre-diabetic Goto-Kakizaki rats and examined how this treatment may influence energy metabolism regulation within the liver. We found that hyperglycemic Goto-Kakizaki rats showed lower plasmatic KYNA levels compared to normal rats. Oral administration of KYNA significantly delayed the onset of diabetes in Goto-Kakizaki rats compared to untreated animals. Moreover, we found that KYNA treatment significantly increased respiration exchange ratio and promoted the energy expenditure by stimulating the expression of uncoupling protein (UCP). We confirmed that KYNA stimulated the UCP expression in HepG2 cells and mouse hepatocytes at mRNA and protein levels. Our study reveals that KYNA could potentially act as an anti-diabetic agent and KYNA-induced UCP upregulation is closely associated with the regulation of energy metabolism. These results provide further evidence for the therapeutic potential of KYNA in diabetes.

Background: Diabetic liver disease is one of the main complications that leads to the aggravation of diabetes, but it has not received sufficient attention. This study aimed to provide a better understanding of the altered molecular networks in in diabetic rats with liver damage after stem cell therapy. To a certain extent, our research would be instructive, since almost no studies of this kind have been performed on patients with diabetic liver disease after stem cell therapy. Methods: Streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats were treated with adipose-derived stem cells. RNA-Seq analysis was performed on the liver tissues of these animals, and key pathway factors were further identified and validated. Results: RNA-Seq analysis revealed numerous affected signaling pathways and functional categories. The results showed that the network of dual specificity phosphatase 1 (DUSP1), an oxidative stress-related gene, was prominently activated in the liver after stem cell therapy, and the enrichment of genes associated with liver damage, steatosis and fibrosis was also detected. The extracellular regulated protein kinase (ERK)/signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) signaling pathway may be involved in this process by regulating the nucleotide-binding and oligomerization domain-like receptor family pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome. Conclusions: These data provide novel insights into liver biology, suggest common alterations in the molecular networks during diabetic liver damage, and show the advantages of stem cell therapy, indicating its further application potential for early treatment of diabetic liver damage and delaying the progression of liver fibrosis in the later stage.

In order to improve the information transmission rate of the communication and ranging composite system and realize the complete data-sequence mapping,the parallel combinatory spread spectrum (PCSS) technology was applied to the composite system,so that an improved r[KG-*2]_[KG-*3]combinatory data-sequence mapping method was proposed.The proposed mapping method was used to implement the data spreading transmission at the transmitter,and an improved generalized cross-correlation algorithm was adopted to estimate the transmission time delay and data despreading at the receiver then the information transmission and distance measuring were implemented at the same time.The simulation results show that the improved data-sequence mapping method realizes the uniqueness of mapping,improves the data mapping efficiency and the information transmission rate of the PCSS communication and ranging composite system.The improved generalized cross-correlation algorithm has better delay estimation performance under low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).Therefore,the proposed method makes the PCSS communication and ranging composite system accomplish ranging tasks and communication tasks more effectively,which provides a reference for the theoretical research and engineering application of the composite system.

IntroductionAllicin is a wide spectrum prebiotic for human health, but whether it can attenuate blood in diabetes patients is rarely reported. In this study, we built a rat model and investigated the effect of allicin on diabetes mellitus type 2 (T2DM). We found that allicin could effectively reduce blood glucose levels, regulate intestinal microbiota, reduce lipid and body weight accumulation, and systemic inflammation in T2DM rats.MethodsThe rat model of type 2 diabetes was made by streptozotocin, and different doses of allicin were given orally by gavage. The intestinal contents of diabetes rats were sequenced and analyzed by 16S technology, and the clinical indicators of rats were detected for joint analysis.ResultsAllicin can improve the intestinal flora of type 2 diabetes rats, enrich beneficial metabolites, reduce blood glucose, improve blood lipids, reduce systemic inflammation, and improve type 2 diabetes.DiscussionIntestinal microbiome analysis showed that allicin gavage significantly regulated the structure and main components of the intestinal microbiota in T2DM rats. Allicin increased the abundance of probiotic microbes, such as Lactobacillus, Clostridium and Akkermansia, while it reduced pathogenic microbes, such as Enterobacter, Erysipelatoclostridium and Colidextribacter. Allicin gavage increased the abundance of intestinal short-chain fatty acids, such as acetic acid and propionic acid. Correlation analysis showed that the increased gut microbes by allicin gavage were significantly associated with health physiological parameters but negatively related to serum inflammatory factors such as interleukin-6 (IL-6), tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a), and hypersensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP). In addition, our study also suggests that allicin may have prebiotic effects on chronic liver injury. This study shows that allicin can regulate various clinical symptoms of T2DM and is a potential therapeutic drug for T2DM.

As an important component of solid tumors, mast cells show specific phenotypes in various tumor microenvironments. However, the precise mechanism of mast cell accumulation and the phenotypic features of thyroid cancer (TC) remain largely unknown. Here, we found that mast cells were obviously recruited to tumor tissue by TC-derived stem cell factor (SCF). With tumor progression, mast cell levels increased gradually. In addition, intratumoral mast cells expressed higher levels of the immunosuppressive molecule galectin-9, which effectively suppresses CD8+ T-cell antitumor immunity in vitro. Blocking galectin-9 on tumor-infiltrating mast cells reversed the immunosuppression of CD8+ T cells. In conclusion, our data elucidated novel protumorigenic and immunosuppressive roles of mast cells in TC. In addition, our results indicated that blocking mast cells may impede tumor progression and ameliorate the prognosis of TC patients.

Abstract Background Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1D) is a worldwide health priority due to autoimmune destruction and is associated with an increased risk of multiorgan complications. Among these complications, effective interventions for liver injury, which can progress to liver fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma, are lacking. Although stem cell injection has a therapeutic effect on T1D, whether it can cure liver injury and the underlying mechanisms need further investigation. Methods Sprague–Dawley rats with streptozotocin (STZ)-induced T1D were treated with adipose-derived stem cell (ADSC) or PBS via the tail vein formed the ADSC group or STZ group. Body weights and blood glucose levels were examined weekly for 6 weeks. RNA-seq and PCR array were used to detect the difference in gene expression of the livers between groups. Results In this study, we found that ADSCs injection alleviated hepatic oxidative stress and injury and improved liver function in rats with T1D; potential mechanisms included cytokine activity, energy metabolism and immune regulation were potentially involved, as determined by RNA-seq. Moreover, ADSC treatment altered the fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) and transforming growth factor β (TGF-β) levels in T1D rat livers, implying its repair capacity. Disordered intracellular energy metabolism, which is closely related to mitochondrial stress and dysfunction, was inhibited by ADSC treatment. PCR array and ingenuity pathway analyses suggested that the ADSC-induced suppression of mitochondrial stress is related to decreased necroptosis and apoptosis. Moreover, mitochondria-related alterations caused liver inflammation, resulting in liver injury involving the T lymphocyte-mediated immune response. Conclusions Overall, these results improve our understanding of the curative effect of ADSCs on T1D complications: ADSCs attenuate liver injury by inhibiting mitochondrial stress (apoptosis and dysfunctional energy metabolism) and alleviating inflammation (inflammasome expression and immune disorder). These results are important for early intervention in liver injury and for delaying the development of liver lesions in patients with T1D.

Abstract Background A retrospective study and a randomized controlled trial published in a high quality journal in late 2018 have shown that laparoscopic radical hysterectomy (RH) was associated with worse survival than abdominal RH among patients with early stage cervical cancer. Radical hysterectomy in cervical cancer has been a classic landmark surgery in gynecology, therefore this conclusion is pivotal. The current trial is designed to reconfirm whether there is a difference between laparoscopic RH and abdominal RH in cervical cancer (stage IA1 with LVSI, IA2) patient survival under stringent operation standards and consistent tumor-free technique. This paper reports the rationale, design, and implementation of the trial. Methods This is an investigator-initiated, prospective, randomized, open, blinded endpoint (PROBE) controlled trial. A total of 690 patients with stage IA1 (with intravascular), and IA2 cervical cancer will be enrolled over a period of three years. Patients are randomized (1:1) to either the laparoscopic RH or the abdominal RH group. Patients will then be followed-up for at least five years. The primary endpoint will be 5-year progression-free survival. Secondary endpoints will include 5-year overall survival rates, recurrence rates, operation time, intraoperative blood loss, surgery-related complications, and quality of life. Discussion The results of the trial will provide valuable evidence for guiding clinical decision of choosing appropriate treatment strategies for stage IA1 (LVSI) and stage IA2 cervical cancer patients. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov ( NCT04934982 , Registered on 22 June 2021).

Abstract Background A retrospective study and a randomized controlled trial published in late 2018 have shown that laparoscopic radical hysterectomy (RH) was associated with worse survival than abdominal RH among patients with early-stage cervical cancer. Radical hysterectomy in cervical cancer has been a classic landmark surgery in gynecology; therefore, this conclusion is pivotal. The current trial is designed to reconfirm whether there is a difference between laparoscopic RH and abdominal RH in cervical cancer (stages IB1, IB2, and IIA1) patient survival under stringent operation standards and consistent surgical oncologic principles. Methods/design This is an investigator-initiated, Prospective, Randomized, Open, Blinded End-point (PROBE)-controlled non-inferiority trial. A total of 780 patients with stage IB1, IB2, and IIA1 cervical cancer will be enrolled over a period of 3 years. Patients are randomized (1:1) to either the laparoscopic RH or the abdominal RH group. Patients will then be followed up for at least 5 years. The primary endpoint will be 5-year progression-free survival, and secondary endpoints include 5-year overall survival, recurrence, and quality of life measurements. Discussion The debate on laparoscopic versus abdominal RH is still ongoing, and high-quality evidences are needed to guide clinical practice. The study results will provide more convincing evidence-based information for early-stage cervical cancer patients and their gynecologic cancer surgeons in their choice of surgical method. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04929769 . Registered on 18 June 2021

Natural waxes have demonstrated exceptional potential as oil gels for saturated and trans fatty acids, but their application has been limited by issues such as temperature sensitivity, lack of stability and durability, and compatibility. In this study, three types of wax (Beeswax (BW), Rice bran wax (RBW), and Carnauba wax (CW)) were combined with calcium hydroxide to produce calcified wax. The calcified Korean pine seed oil gel obtained by heating and stirring with Korean pine seed oil is responsive to temperature and has environmental adaptability. The effects of critical gel concentration, temperature regulation, texture properties, microstructure, oil-holding capacity, and FT-IR on the quality parameters of oil gel were investigated. Additionally, an in vitro digestion model was developed to comprehend the decomposition rate of fat during gel structure digestion and transportation. The results demonstrated a close correlation between the critical gelation concentration and calcium ion content. Furthermore, after calcification, the hardness followed the order BW > CW > RBW. Moreover, there was an approximate 10 °C increase in wax melting point. Conversely, BW:Ca exhibited the lowest oil leakage. The microstructures revealed that the oil gels formed post-wax calcification exhibited similar fractal dimension (Db) values (

In agricultural remote sensing monitoring, climate often affects the quality of optical remote sensing image data acquisition. The acquired satellite imagery results usually contain cloud information, leading to a lack of ground data information. Unlike thick clouds, the semi-transparent nature of thin clouds prevents thin clouds from completely obscuring the ground scene. In order to remove thin clouds in the cultivated land and restore the actual ground information as much as possible, we proposed a cloud removal method of spatial information fusion self-attention generative adversarial network (SI-SA GAN) based on multi-directional perceptual attention and self-attention mechanism. The proposed method identifies and focuses on cloud regions using spatial attention, channel attention, and self-attention mechanism, which can enhance image information. The modules of the discriminator utilize residual networks and self-attention non-local neural networks to guide image information output. The generative adversarial network (GAN) is applied to remove clouds and restore the corresponding irregular occlusion area according to the depth characteristics of the input information. A gradient penalty is applied to improve the robustness of the generative network. In this paper, we compared the evaluation indexes of other advanced models. The qualitative and quantitative results of Sentinel-2A and public RICE datasets confirmed that the proposed method could enhance image quality effectively after cloud removal. The model has excellent thin cloud removal performance with small-scale training data.

Abstract To determine the impact of initial vancomycin trough concentration (VTC) on mortality in adult patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) undergoing vancomycin therapy. During their first ICU stay, patients with initial VTC records after vancomycin treatment were recruited from the eICU Collaborative Research Database to this multicenter retrospective cohort study, and classified into four groups according to VTC: less than 10, 10–15, 15–20, and greater than 20 mg/L. Multivariable logistic regression and sensitivity analyses were performed to explore the association of VTC, as a continuous and categorical variable, with mortality. This study enrolled 7220 patients from 335 different ICUs at 208 hospitals. Multivariable logistic regression models indicated that VTC was positively correlated with ICU (odds ratio [OR], 1.028, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.019–1.037) and hospital (OR 1.028, 95% CI, 1.020–1.036) mortalities. Moreover, compared with VTC less than 10 mg/L, VTCs of 10–15, 15–20, and greater than 20 mg/L were associated with a higher risk of ICU mortality (OR, 1.330, 95% CI, 1.070–1.653; OR, 1.596, 95% CI, 1.265–2.015; abd OR, 1.875, 95% CI, 1.491–2.357, respectively), and VTCs of 15–20 and greater than 20 mg/L were also correlated with increased hospital mortality (OR, 1.482, 95% CI, 1.225–1.793; and OR, 1.831, 95% CI, 1.517–2.210, respectively). Similar results persisted in patients with different Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation Ⅳ scores, creatinine clearance levels, ages, and body mass indexes. Our findings indicated a potential relationship of initial VTC with ICU and hospital mortalities in patients in the ICU. However, due to the retrospective nature of this study, future prospective studies or randomized controlled trials are needed to validate those results.

Alternative protein sources for the human diet may help overcome the growing food pressure. Plants with abundant resources and high protein content are potential sources. In this article, graded proteins and isolated proteins from Corylus mandshurica Maxim kernels were extracted by the Osborne procedure and the alkali-solution and acid-isolation method, respectively, and the contents of the five proteins, and the differences in nutritional value and structural properties of the main proteins, were investigated. Amino acid analysis revealed that the total essential amino acids in the five proteins ranged from 249.58 to 324.52 mg/g. The essential amino acid profiles in the proteins were similar to those of FAO/WHO except for the alcohol-soluble protein. The essential amino acid indices ranged from 58.59 to 72.19 and the biological values ranged from 52.16 to 66.99, and the highest nutritional indices were found for the isolate and water-soluble protein, which were 41.68 and 55.78, respectively. The molecular weight pattern distribution of the protein isolates of the Corylus mandshurica Maxim kernel was more similar to that of the water-soluble proteins by SDS–PAGE. The β-sheet and α-helix were the main secondary structures in the two protein fractions. The fluorescence spectra showed that the maximum fluorescence intensity of the two proteins and their λmax were also somewhat different. From the perspective of microscopic morphology, the two proteins are mainly compact and irregular lamellar structures, but the surface of the water-soluble protein is more flat and regular. Both proteins have good solubility, and the water-soluble protein has higher solubility. In general, the protein isolates of the Corylus mandshurica Maxim kernel and the water-soluble protein showed their potential as plant protein resources.

BackgroundDecreased serum albumin level (SAL) is associated with adverse clinical outcomes. We designed the present study to further assess the prognostic value of SAL in critically ill patients based on data from large intensive care unit (ICU) databases.MethodsThis retrospective cohort study recruited 18,353 patients from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV (MIMIC-IV) database. Restricted cubic splines (RCS) were performed to visualize the association of SAL at admission with ICU and hospital mortalities. The prognostic value of SAL was analyzed using logistic regression models and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves in overall patients and subgroups.ResultsRestricted cubic splines revealed rapid increasing risks in ICU and hospital mortalities when SAL declined to below 30 g/l. Patients with SAL

ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to establish a nomogram model for predicting the risk of short-term recurrence in glioma patients.MethodsThe clinical data of recurrent glioma patients were summarized and analyzed in this study. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to analyze the correlation between clinical data and the risk of short-term recurrence after operation. A nomogram was established based on the multivariate logistic regression model results.ResultsA total of 175 patients with recurrent glioma were enrolled, with 53 patients in the short-term recurrence (STR) group (recurrent time ≤6 months) and 122 patients in the long-term recurrence (LTR) group (recurrent time ≥36 months). Univariate analysis revealed that age at diagnosis, Karnofsky performance scores (KPSs), tumor location, glioma grade, glioma type, extent of resection (EOR), adjuvant chemotherapy (ad-CT), concurrent chemotherapy (co-CT), and isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) status were significantly associated with the short-term glioma recurrence. Multivariate analyses revealed that age at diagnosis, KPS, glioma grade, EOR, and IDH were independent risk factors for short-term glioma recurrence. A risk nomogram for the short-term recurrence of glioma was established, with the concordance index (C-index) of 0.971. The findings of calibration and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves showed that our nomogram model had good performance and discrimination to estimate short-term recurrence probability.ConclusionThis nomogram model provides reliable information about the risk of short-term glioma recurrence for oncologists and neurosurgeons. This model can predict the short-term recurrence probability and give assistance to decide the interval of follow-up or formulate individualized treatment strategies based on the predicted results. A free online prediction risk tool for this nomogram is provided: https://rj2021.shinyapps.io/Nomogram_ recurrence-risk/.

The role of hypoxia-regulated long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) in the development of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) remains to be elucidated. In the current study, we initially screened hypoxia-regulated lncRNA in HNSCC cells by RNA-seq, before focusing on the rarely annotated lncRNA USP2 antisense RNA 1 (USP2-AS1). We determined that USP2-AS1 is a direct target of HIF1α and is remarkably elevated in HNSCC compared with matched normal tissues. Patients with a higher level of USP2-AS1 suffered a poor prognosis. Next, loss- and gain-of-function assays revealed that USP2-AS1 promoted cell proliferation and invasion in vitro and in vivo. Mechanically, RNA pulldown and LC–MS/MS demonstrated that the E3 ligase DDB1- and CUL4-associated factor 13 (DCAF13) is one of the binding partners to USP2-AS1 in HNSCC cells. In addition, we assumed that USP2-AS1 regulates the activity of DCAF13 by targeting its substrate ATR. Moreover, the knockdown of DCAF13 restored the elevated cell proliferation and growth levels achieved by USP2-AS1 overexpression. Altogether, we found that lncRNA USP2-AS1 functions as a HIF1α-regulated oncogenic lncRNA and promotes HNSCC cell proliferation and growth by interacting and modulating the activity of DCAF13.

Background: Anti-tumor immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitors induces several immune-related adverse events. Camrelizumab-related isolate abducens neuritis is rare. Case presentation: We report on a 67-year-old man with esophageal cancer who presented with acute-onset isolated right abducens cranial nerve palsy after ten cycles of Camrelizumab treatment. Magnetic resonance imaging examination revealed thickening and post-contrast enhancement at the cisternal segment of the right abducens nerve. The diagnosis was immune-related abducens neuritis caused by Camrelizumab. We put him on oral taper corticoids (methylprednisone) for neuritis treatment without Camrelizumab suspension. One month after treatment, he recovered completely. At the last follow-up, one year after the onset of diplopia, the patient was in good condition without neurological symptom recurrence. Conclusion: Abducens neuritis is a rare immune-related adverse outcome of Camrelizumab. The present case proves the efficacy and safety of using corticoids in the treatment of abducens neuritis.

Background: It remains unclear whether the mean vancomycin trough concentration (VTC) derived from the entire course of therapy is of potential benefit for critically ill patients. This study was conducted to explore the association between mean serum VTC and mortality in intensive care units (ICUs).Methods: 3,603 adult patients with two or more VTC records after receiving vancomycin treatment in the eICU Collaborative Research Database were included in this multicenter retrospective cohort study. Mean VTC was estimated using all measured VTCs and investigated as a continuous and categorical variable. Patients were categorised into four groups according to mean VTC: 20 mg/L. Multivariable logistic regression and subgroup analyses were performed to investigate the relationship of mean VTC with mortality.Results: After adjusting for a series of covariates, logistic regression analyses indicated that mean VTC, as a continuous variable, was positively correlated with ICU (odds ratio, 1.038, 95% confidence interval, [1.014–1.063]) and hospital (1.025 [1.005–1.046]) mortalities. As a categorical variable, mean VTC of 10–15 mg/L was not associated with reduced ICU (1.705 [0.975–2.981]) and hospital (1.235 [0.829–1.841]) mortalities. Mean VTC of 15–20 mg/L was not correlated with a lower risk of hospital mortality (1.370 [0.924–2.029]). Moreover, mean VTCs of 15–20 and >20 mg/L were significantly associated with higher ICU mortality (1.924 [1.111–3.332]; 2.428 [1.385–4.258]), and mean VTC of >20 mg/L with higher hospital mortality (1.585 [1.053–2.387]) than mean VTC of

Background: 3D Pseudocontinuous Arterial Spin Labeling (3D-PCASL) MRI and optical coherence tomography angiography (OCTA) have been applied to detect ocular blood flow (BF). We aim to characterize the ocular BF in diabetic retinopathy (DR) using 3D-PCASL and OCTA, to discuss the relationship between ocular and cerebral BF, and to evaluate their potential utility to assess the severity of DR.Methods: A total of 66 participants (132 eyes) were included. Seventy-two eyes were classified in the proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) group, and 60 were in the non-proliferative diabetic retinopathy NPDR group. Ocular and cerebral BF values were detected by 3D-PCASL using a 3.0T MRI scanner with two post-labeling delays (PLDs). Vessel density (VD)/perfusion density (PD) of the macular or peripapillary area were detected by OCTA. Parameters and clinical characteristics were compared between the PDR and NPDR eyes utilizing two-sample t-tests and chi-square tests. Spearman's rank correlation analysis, logistic regression analysis, and receiver operating characteristic curves (ROC) analyses were performed to evaluate the factors' role in DR severity.Results: The perfusions of the retinal/choroidal plexus (RCP), optic nerve head (ONH)/optic nerve (ON), and VD/PD of macular/peripapillary area in the PDR group were significantly lower compared to the NPDR group (p < 0.05). They were protective factors for PDR [ORs = 0.842 for RCP (1.5 s PLD), 0.910 for ONH (1.5 s PLD), 0.905 for ON (both 1.5 and 2.5 s PLD), 0.707 for macular VD, 0.652 for peripapillary VD, p < 0.05, respectively]. Ocular BF had a positive correlation with BF of the occipital lobe (OL) and temporal lobe (TL) in the cerebrum. The BF of RCP (lower than 7.825 mL/min/100 g at 1.5 s PLD) indicated PDR [areas under the curve (AUCs) = 0.682, 95% CI: 0.588–0.777, sensitivity: 70.7% specificity: 63.9%]. The AUC of RCP (PLD = 1.5 s) BF combined with peripapillary VD was 0.841 (95% CI: 0.588–0.777, sensitivity: 75.9% specificity: 82.9%).Conclusions: 3D-pcASL and OCTA may be effective non-invasive methods to measure ocular blood flow in DR patients and assess the severity of DR.

Abstract Background Ionizing radiation (IR) therapy is the standard first-line treatment for newly diagnosed patients with glioblastoma (GBM), the most common and malignant primary brain tumor. However, the effects of IR are limited due to the aberrant radioresistance of GBM. Methods Transcriptome analysis was performed using RNA-seq in radioresistant patient-derived glioma stem-like cells (GSCs). Survival of glioma patient and mice bearing-brain tumors was analyzed by Kaplan–Meier survival analysis. Lipid droplet and γ-H2AX foci-positive cells were evaluated using immunofluorescence staining. Results Lipolytic inhibitor G0/G1 switch gene 2 (G0S2) is upregulated in radioresistant GSCs and elevated in clinical GBM. GBM patients with high G0S2 expression had significantly shorter overall survival compared with those with low expression of G0S2. Using genetic approaches targeting G0S2 in glioma cells and GSCs, we found that knockdown of G0S2 promoted lipid droplet turnover, inhibited GSC radioresistance, and extended survival of xenograft tumor mice with or without IR. In contrast, overexpression of G0S2 promoted glioma cell radiation resistance. Mechanistically, high expression of G0S2 reduced lipid droplet turnover and thereby attenuated E3 ligase RNF168-mediated 53BP1 ubiquitination through activated the mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR)-ribosomal S6 kinase (S6K) signaling and increased 53BP1 protein stability in response to IR, leading to enhanced DNA repair and glioma radioresistance. Conclusions Our findings uncover a new function for lipolytic inhibitor G0S2 as an important regulator for GSC radioresistance, suggesting G0S2 as a potential therapeutic target for treating gliomas.

The alignment problem of a rotating optical measurement system composed of a charge-coupled device (CCD) camera and a turntable is discussed. The motion trajectory model of the optical center (or projection center in the computer vision) of a camera rotating with the rotating device is established. A method based on camera calibration with a two-dimensional target is proposed to calculate the positions of the optical center when the camera is rotated by the turntable. An auxiliary coordinate system is introduced to adjust the external parameter matrix of the camera to map the optical centers on a special fictitious plane. The center of the turntable and the distance between the optical center and the rotation center can be accurately calculated by the least square planar circle fitting method. Lastly, the coordinates of the rotation center and the optical centers are used to provide guidance for the installation of a camera in a rotation measurement system. Simulations and experiments verify the feasibility of the proposed method.

In the original publication of this article [1], the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) accession code GSE79772 is wrong. The correct accession code should be GSE86213.

Background and objective Cathepsin X (Cat X) has been identified as a member of cathepsin family. Studies have shown that Cat X is involved in tumorigenesis and tumor development of various cancers. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the clinicopathological prognosis and the levels of Cat X and cystatin C in the serum of patients with lung cancer. Methods Blood samples were collected from 84 patients with lung cancer and 36 healthy control subjects. Cat X and cystatin C were determined by quantitative ELISA. Results Cat X and cystatin C levels were significantly higher in the patients with lung cancer than that in the healthy control subjects (P