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Dimensional reduction~(DR) maps high-dimensional data into a lower dimensions latent space with minimized defined optimization objectives. The DR method usually falls into feature selection~(FS) and feature projection~(FP). FS focuses on selecting a critical subset of dimensions but risks destroying the data distribution (structure). On the other hand, FP combines all the input features into lower dimensions space, aiming to maintain the data structure; but lacks interpretability and sparsity. FS and FP are traditionally incompatible categories; thus, they have not been unified into an amicable framework. We propose that the ideal DR approach combines both FS and FP into a unified end-to-end manifold learning framework, simultaneously performing fundamental feature discovery while maintaining the intrinsic relationships between data samples in the latent space. In this work, we develop a unified framework, Unified Dimensional Reduction Neural-network~(UDRN), that integrates FS and FP in a compatible, end-to-end way. We improve the neural network structure by implementing FS and FP tasks separately using two stacked sub-networks. In addition, we designed data augmentation of the DR process to improve the generalization ability of the method when dealing with extensive feature datasets and designed loss functions that can cooperate with the data augmentation. Extensive experimental results on four image and four biological datasets, including very high-dimensional data, demonstrate the advantages of DRN over existing methods~(FS, FP, and FS\&FP pipeline), especially in downstream tasks such as classification and visualization., 14 pages, 7 figures

BACKGROUND: Physiological hypercoagulability is a well-known condition in older populations, whereas thrombosis, especially in renal veins, is a rare occurrence in teenagers. This paper presents a pediatric case of renal venous infarction and thrombosis. CASE DESCRIPTION: We report the case of an 11-year-old Chinese boy who presented with low back discomfort and was afraid to walk. Computed tomography (CT) revealed thrombosis in his renal veins and inferior vena cava. He was being treated for severe refractory mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia (MPP). He was treated with rivaroxaban and urokinase for thrombosis, and azithromycin for MPP. On day 2 after admission, his symptoms improved. Therefore, the dosage of rivaroxaban was decreased from 10 to 5 mg twice per day. On day 3 after admission, enhanced CT revealed new thromboses in the bilateral pulmonary trunks and arteries, inferior cava, right renal veins, bilateral common iliac veins, and internal iliac vein. The ultrasonography showed a strip hypoecho at the pulmonary artery bifurcation. All the above imaging suggested that antithrombotic therapy was insufficient. His plasma antithrombin (AT) III activity remained consistently low during hospitalization. The family history was re-examined and revealed that both his father and grandfather had experienced spontaneous pulmonary thrombosis around the age of 30. He was diagnosed with acquired and inherited thrombosis and inherited AT III deficiency. Following a medication regimen of piperacillin-tazobactam for 1 week and rivaroxaban (10 mg, twice daily), he was discharged and no thrombosis and other side effects or complications occurred in the following 3 months. CONCLUSIONS: This is a rare case of a teenager with inherited and acquired hypercoagulability. For refractory MPP pediatric patients with thrombosis, clinicians should consider whether hereditary factors, such as inherited AT III deficiency, are involved in thrombosis.

Eosinophilic granulomatosis with polyangiitis (EGPA), formerly called Churg-Strauss syndrome, is a rare chronic necrotizing eosinophilic granulomatous inflammatory disease characterized by eosinophil-rich granulomatous inflammation and small- to medium-size vessel vasculitis associated with bronchial asthma and eosinophilia, which is positive for anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA) in approximately 50-70% of cases. We report a case of a 23-year-old woman was admitted to our hospital because of a of small vesicles on both lower limbs and a 4-month history of small scattered skin rash with pruritus V6 on both lower limbs four-month history of scattered skin rash with pruritus. Laboratory data from peripheral blood revealed leukocytosis, eosinophilia, thrombocytosis, hyperfibrinolysis, and mild renal injury. Her ANCA was negative, and the skin pathological examination showed granuloma lesions with eosinophils, while elevated eosinophils were also found in the bone marrow. EGPA was diagnosed. On the other hand, the patient had 2-year-long rhinosinusitis, 9-month-long nephrotic syndrome, and 1-month-long dry cough, which might be a type of asthma. With steroid therapy followed by systemic immunomodulatory therapy, the patient's symptoms were relieved. Our case report and literature review highlight the importance of recognizing cough variant asthma as an initial presenting symptom of EGPA, providing an opportunity for early diagnosis and treatment to reduce the risk of further disease progression and morbidity.

Background Depression is a psychiatric disorder with global public health concerns. Although a number of risk factors have been identified for depression, there is no clear relationship between biochemistry and depression. In this study, we assessed whether depressive disorders are significantly associated with biochemical indicators. Methods Our study included 17,561 adults (age ≥ 18 years) participating in the 2009-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The relationship between depression and biochemical and obesity indicators was analyzed by logistic regression. Results As compared to the control group, men with depression showed significantly higher levels of gamma-glutamyl transferase, glucose, and triglycerides, and lower levels of albumin and total bilirubin. The depressed group had higher levels of alkaline phosphatase, bicarbonate, and sodium than the control group. Conclusion Several biochemical and anthropometric indices were associated with depression in this study. It would be interesting to further analyze their cause-effect relationship. Limitations This study is a cross-sectional study. The population is less restricted and does not exclude people with diabetes, pregnancy, etc., so it is less significant for a specific population. Dietary information was not included, as diet plays an important role in many indicators.

Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) is an autoimmune systemic disorder characterized by arterial, venous, or small vessel thrombosis, and/or recurrent early pregnancy loss, fetal loss, or pregnancy morbidity. APS is induced by persistent positive antiphospholipid antibodies (aPL), the main being lupus anticoagulant (LA), and/or anticardiolipin (aCL) antibodies, and/or anti-beta 2 glycoprotein 1 (β2-GP1) antibodies. Some studies have shown that the incidence of APS is about 5 new cases per 100,000 persons per year, and the prevalence is around 40-50 cases per 100,000 persons. APS can be primary or secondary. Secondary APS often coexists with another autoimmune disorder, most commonly systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Behcet's disease (BD) is usually characterized by recurrent oral and genital aphthous ulcers and ocular involvement. It can occasionally affect the venous system. BD usually affects small vessels, but can sometimes affect large veins or even a variety of veins. Because most of APS is secondary to SLE, APS secondary to incomplete BD is quite rare. This report describes a case in which a 15-year-old male experienced bilateral leg swelling and pain. The patient had a long history of self-healing recurrent mouth ulcers. Laboratory tests revealed positive β2-GP1 immunoglobulin A (IgA). His symptoms improved by using steroids, prednisolone, uro-kinase, and hirudin. In this rare case of secondary APS, the patient was diagnosed with anti-β2-GP-1 IgA positive to incomplete BD. It is a rare case of secondary APS with positive anti-β2-GP1 IgA to incomplete BD. It is suggested that patients with recurrent mouth ulcers should be closely examined to prevent thrombosis, and more laboratory markers should be used to avoid a risk of misdiagnosing patients with APS.

Dimensionality reduction and visualization play an important role in biological data analysis, such as data interpretation of single-cell RNA sequences (scRNA-seq). It is desired to have a visualization method that can not only be applicable to various application scenarios, including cell clustering and trajectory inference, but also satisfy a variety of technical requirements, especially the ability to preserve inherent structure of data and handle with batch effects. However, no existing methods can accommodate these requirements in a unified framework. In this paper, we propose a general visualization method, deep visualization (DV), that possesses the ability to preserve inherent structure of data and handle batch effects and is applicable to a variety of datasets from different application domains and dataset scales. The method embeds a given dataset into a 2- or 3-dimensional visualization space, with either a Euclidean or hyperbolic metric depending on a specified task type with type static (at a time point) or dynamic (at a sequence of time points) scRNA-seq data, respectively. Specifically, DV learns a structure graph to describe the relationships between data samples, transforms the data into visualization space while preserving the geometric structure of the data and correcting batch effects in an end-to-end manner. The experimental results on nine datasets in complex tissue from human patients or animal development demonstrate the competitiveness of DV in discovering complex cellular relations, uncovering temporal trajectories, and addressing complex batch factors. We also provide a preliminary attempt to pre-train a DV model for visualization of new incoming data.

Bloodstream infection (BSI) is a serious systemic infectious disease. This study aimed to investigate the application of the clearance rate of interleukin-6, procalcitonin, and C-reactive protein for the evaluation of antimicrobial efficacy in adult bacterial BSI without other inflammatory factors.Patients with positive blood culture and without other inflammatory factors in The First Hospital of Hebei Medical University from January 2017 to December 2019, who received continuous detection interleukin-6, procalcitonin, and C-reactive protein, were selected. The clearance rate of these inflammatory markers was calculated, and the consistency test (kappa test) was performed to analyze the clinical outcomes (cure, improvement, delay, deterioration, or death).For adult patients with bacterial BSI without other inflammatory factors, the testing speculation based on the clearance rate of interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein was consistent with the clinical outcome of the patients, with kappa values of 0.784 and 0.714, respectively (P=0.000). The testing speculation based on the procalcitonin clearance rate was generally consistent with the clinical outcome, with a kappa value of 0.685 (P=0.000). The testing speculation based on the procalcitonin clearance rate showed good consistency with the clinical outcome of patients with Gram-positive cocci infection, kappa =0.813 (P=0.000); for patients with gram-negative bacilli infection, the consistency of clinical outcomes was general, kappa =0.649 (P=0.000).In adult patients with bacterial BSI without other inflammatory factors, the clearance rate of interleukin-6, procalcitonin, and C-reactive protein can predict the clinical outcome within 24 hours, among which the procalcitonin clearance rate can better predict the clinical outcome of patients with Gram-negative bacilli infection. This approach can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-infection treatment in early-stage BSI.

This paper explores the relationship between the clinical value of vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VASP) in lung cancer tissue and its diagnosis and severity. Totally 100 patients who were clinically diagnosed with lung cancer from January 2018 to December 2020 were enrolled in our study. They were assigned into two groups according to the presence of lymph node metastasis. The VASP levels were measured by flow cytometry. The correlation between the expression of VASP in tumor tissue and the clinical characteristics and prognosis in patients was analyzed. The diagnostic efficacy of plasma VASP with squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC), neuron-specific enolase (NSE), cytokeratin-19 fragment (CYFRA21-1), prosecretin-releasing peptide (proGRP), and lung cancer was analyzed. The results were compared with APACHE III score to evaluate the accuracy of VASP in determining the severity of patients. This paper finds that the value of VASP in the non-lymph node metastasis group was significantly higher than that in the healthy control group, and the VASP level in the lymph node metastasis group was significantly higher than that in the non-lymph node metastasis group and the healthy control group (all p values p value p values 0.05). Similar accuracy was observed in VASP and APACHE III score in predicting mortality of lung cancer (84.37% vs. 85.77%, p value>0.05). This paper concludes that the level of VASP correlates to the severity of the lung cancer and survival of the patients.

Purpose. To investigate the clinical value of interleukin 2 (IL-2), interleukin 4 (IL-4), interleukin 6 (IL-6), interleukin 10 (IL-10), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), and interferon-γ (IFN-γ) in diagnosis and severity assessment of lung cancer. Methods. In this observational study, 50 physical examination healthy subjects were included in the control group and 100 lung cancer patients were included in the study group. In the study group, 53 cases with pleural effusion were subgrouped to the pleural effusion group (n = 53), while 47 patients were assigned to the nonpleural effusion group (n = 47). Plasma cytokines IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α, IFN-γ, and Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) scores of all eligible subjects were collected and compared. Results. The study group showed significantly higher levels of plasma cytokines IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α, and IFN-γ versus healthy subjects ( P < 0.05 ). Deterioration of lung cancer was associated with increased plasma cytokine levels and APACHE II scores. The combination assay of the above plasma cytokines showed significantly better diagnostic efficacy for lung cancer versus the single assay of the cytokines. Dead patients had higher plasma cytokine levels versus survived patients. The accuracy of plasma IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α, and IFN-γ levels in the severity assessment of lung cancer was comparable with that of the APACHE II scale. Conclusion. The plasma cytokines IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α, and IFN-γ are effective markers for the diagnosis of lung cancer. The combined assay contributes to the early diagnosis of lung cancer patients, and the persistent elevation of cytokines suggests an increased risk of death in lung cancer patients, so the detection of cytokine levels facilitates the severity assessment of lung cancer.

Varicella is an acute infectious disease caused by the varicella zoster virus. It mainly occurs in infants and preschool children, the morbidity is only 2% in adults. Adult chickenpox is a self-limited disease, which is easier to control the development of rashes to some certain extent, shorten the course of the disease, reduce or avoid long-term complications. We present the case of a 23-year-old man with varicella. He had a two-day fever and four-hour erythematous rashes. The rashes spread around the face, two arms, and trunk. No special finding was in laboratory examination but low immunity. Computed tomography of the chest revealed obvious pneumonia manifestation of two lungs. Varicella pneumonia was considered and antiviral therapy, as well as Chinese patent drug of inhibiting lung-energy and dispersing heat, were applied. Fourteen days later, he was fully recovered. Varicella pneumonia was one of the severe forms, especially in hypoimmunity patients while low immunity may be its main cause. All patients with varicella should detect immunity-related laboratory tests included in lymphocyte subsets, which was important to help their recovery and cut costs.

BACKGROUND Respiratory function usually worsens in the elderly with aging. This study aimed to retrospectively investigate tracheal changes caused by "normal aging" through use of low-dose CT (LDCT) in non-smoking asymptomatic urban residents and the related factors influencing tracheal changes. MATERIAL AND METHODS A total of 733 Chinese subjects who underwent LDCT were recruited. The trachea shape, width, and calcification degree of the tracheal wall were measured and compared between males and females and among different age groups. The effects of age, sex, trachea morphology, BMI, BP, GLU, TC, TG, HDL, and LDL on the width and calcification of tracheal wall were analyzed by multiple linear regression. RESULTS Significant sex differences in trachea shape were found, as type II and type I were found mainly in the males and females, respectively. The values of anterior-posterior inner diameter (AP), left-right inner diameter (LR), width, and calcification score of tracheae in the males were higher than that in the females. In both males and females, trachea AP, wall width, and calcification scores increased with age, but this trend was not observed in tracheal LR. Age, sex, and trachea shape had significant effects on the width and calcification scores of tracheal walls, and trachea calcification was one of the factors influencing tracheal wall width. CONCLUSIONS Tracheal aging can be evaluated by measuring trachea shape, thickness, and the degree of calcification of the tracheal wall by LDCT, while sex and age should be taken into consideration comprehensively for judging normal trachea aging. In addition, obesity may aggravate trachea aging.

Thrombocythemia is an important cause for thrombogenesis and can be classified as essential or secondary according to the etiology. Secondary thrombocythemia (ST), also called reactive thrombocytosis, is caused by a disorder that triggers increased production by normal platelet-forming cells and is characterized in terms of abnormal increased number of platelet in blood and megakaryocytes in bone marrow. Previous reports have found that complications from malignant tumors, chronic inflammation, acute inflammation, acute hemorrhage, spleen resection etc. to be the common causes of ST. A 53-year-old Chinese male with right lower limb arterial ischemic embolism developed recurring arterial thrombosis at the previous site after operation. During his hospitalization, the patient had a platelet count that was positively correlated with alanine transaminase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), α-hydroxybutyrate dehydrogenase (α-HBDH), creatine kinase (CK), and creatine kinase isoenzyme MB (CK-MB) while his thromboelastogram (TEG) and platelet aggregation test obtained by sequential platelet count showed inconsistent platelet function. We describe a case in which ischemia-reperfusion injury caused ST and recurrent thrombosis and analyse the probable cause of contradictory results of different platelet function tests. In thrombolytic therapy, we recommend adding platelet count and two more platelet aggregation tests to the routine laboratory items to aid in the prevention of recurrent thrombosis.