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Abstract In the past decades, substantial progress has been made in human action recognition. However, most existing studies and datasets for human action recognition utilise still images or videos as the primary modality. Image‐based approaches can be easily impacted by adverse environmental conditions. In this paper, the authors propose combining RGB images and point clouds from LiDAR sensors for human action recognition. A dynamic lateral convolutional network (DLCN) is proposed to fuse features from multi‐modalities. The RGB features and the geometric information from the point clouds closely interact with each other in the DLCN, which is complementary in action recognition. The experimental results on the JRDB‐Act dataset demonstrate that the proposed DLCN outperforms the state‐of‐the‐art approaches of human action recognition. The authors show the potential of the proposed DLCN in various complex scenarios, which is highly valuable in real‐world applications.

BackgroundNegative emotions in college students are a significant factor affecting mental health, with suicide behaviors caused by negative emotions showing an annual increasing trend. Existing studies suggest that physical exercise is essential to alleviate negative feelings, yet the intrinsic mechanisms by which it affects negative emotions have not been fully revealed.ObjectiveNegative emotions in college students represent a significant issue affecting mental health. This study investigates the relationship between physical exercise and negative emotions among college students, incorporating sleep quality and self-rated health (SRH) as mediators to analyze the pathway mechanism of how physical exercise affects students’ negative emotions.MethodsA cross-sectional study design was utilized, employing online questionnaires for investigation. The scales included the Physical Activity Rating Scale-3 (PARS-3), the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21), the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and the 12-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-12), resulting in the collection of 30,475 valid questionnaires, with a validity rate of 91%. Chain mediation tests and Bootstrap methods were applied for effect analysis.ResultsThe proportions of university students engaged in low, medium, and high levels of physical exercise were 77.6, 13.1, and 9.3%, respectively. The proportions of students experiencing “very severe” levels of stress, anxiety, and depression were 4.5, 10.9, and 3.6%, respectively. Physical exercise was significantly positively correlated with self-rated health (r = 0.194, p

Building on our innovative approach to combatting cancer, this study explores the development of a sophisticated hybrid nanocarrier system leveraging the unique properties of allyl oxide cucurbit[6]uril with galactose clusters (AOQ[6]@Gal) to modify ZIF-8 nanoparticles. These nanoparticles are designed to encapsulate and efficiently deliver the anticancer drugs doxorubicin (DOX) and curcumin (CUR), enhancing their water solubility and stability, while also providing active targeting towards hepatocellular carcinoma cells. The comprehensive characterization of AOQ[6]@Gal@ZIF-8@Drug nanoparticles revealed promising outcomes, including drug loading efficiencies of 9.7% for DOX and 8.3% for CUR, alongside a pH-responsive release profile that ensures effective drug delivery in the tumor microenvironment. Cytotoxicity studies underscored the hybrid system's superior safety profile, exhibiting minimal toxicity towards normal hepatocytes HL7702 and pronounced cytotoxic effects against hepatocellular carcinoma cells HepG2. These results highlight the hybrid nanocarrier's potential as a targeted, efficient, and safe platform for the delivery of chemotherapy agents in the treatment of liver cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Studies suggest that neuron-specific enolase (NSE) levels in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and serum play an important role in childhood epilepsy. However, these investigations remain controversial due to inconsistent clinical results. The present study aimed to quantitatively summarize and assess whether CSF and serum NSE levels are associated with epilepsy in children.Methods : A systematic search of the Harvard Hollis+, Clinicaltrials, Open Gray, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang databases was performed. Studies investigating NSE and epilepsy were identified and retrieved. Original studies with data overlapping those from other investigations and those lacking the necessary data were excluded. The included studies were extracted and synthesized, and data were analyzed using a random-effects model in R Studio and Comprehensive Meta-Analysis version 3 (Biostat, Englewood, NJ, USA).Results: Random-effects meta-analysis of 26 studies, including 1,360 patients, and 1,256 healthy control, revealed that childhood epilepsy exhibited meaningfully increased CSF and serum levels of NSE compared with controls [Hedges' g = 1.962 (95% confidence interval, 1.413–2.512); P < 0.001]. No single study meaningfully influenced the overall association between CSF and serum levels of NSE and epilepsy after sensitivity analysis. Subgroup analyses according to sample source and assay type revealed a significant association between NSE levels and epilepsy. Stratified analysis confirmed that NSE levels were significantly correlated with the severity of neurological compromise. Metaregression analyses revealed that sample size, mean age, and sex may contribute to effect-size reductions; however, sample source, assay type, and country did not moderate effect size. Funnel plots constructed using the trim-and-fill method confirmed that the outcome of the meta-analysis could not be due to publication bias.Conclusion: The results demonstrated that childhood epilepsy exhibits significantly elevated levels of NSE in the CSF and serum, thus strengthening the association between increased NSE levels and epilepsy.

Importance: Accumulating evidence suggests that serum levels of S100B may play a role in epilepsy.Objective: We performed a meta-analysis to quantitatively summarize the serum S100B data available for patients with epilepsy.Data source: Two independent researchers conducted a systematic investigation of the Harvard Hollis+, Open Gray, Clinicaltrials, Wanfangdata, and CNKI databases through Dec 6, 2018, for all studies published in English and Chinese. The search terms included S100B and calcium-binding protein B in combination with epilepsy.Study selection: Original studies and reported data from these search terms are included. Studies where data overlapped with other studies were excluded.Data extraction and synthesis: investigators extracted, pooled and analyzed data from the included studies using a fixed-effects model in the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis3.3 and R software.Main outcomes and measures: Peripheral blood levels of S100B in patients with epilepsy compared with controls. Aberrations in peripheral blood levels of S100B were hypothesized to be related to epilepsy.Results: a fixed-effects meta-analysis of all 18 studies, including 1,057 unique participants, indicated that patients with epilepsy had significantly increased peripheral blood levels of S100B compared to controls (Hedges g = 1.568, 95% CI =1.431–1.706, P < 0.001). Sensitivity analysis showed that no single study significantly influenced the overall association of peripheral blood levels of S100B and epilepsy. Most of the subgroup analyses, including those of country, assay type and publication language, demonstrated a statistically significant association between peripheral blood levels of S100B and epilepsy. Meta-regression analyses indicated that gender (regression coefficient [SE], −0.2524 [0.0641]; 95%CI, −0.3781 to −0.1267; P = 0.0001) and mean age (regression coefficient [SE], −0.1224 [0.0426]; 95% CI, −0.2058 to −0.0390; P = 0.0040) might present serum S100B reductions, but sample size, years, assay type, publication language and country did not show moderating effects on the effect sizes. Furthermore, the trim-and-fill method used to adjust for funnel plot asymmetry in our meta-analysis confirmed that a positive outcome is unlikely to be due to publication bias.Conclusion and relevance: the results of this meta-analysis provide evidence for a significant increase in serum S100B levels in patients with epilepsy. Serum S100B is the most worthwhile biomarker of epilepsy, which is helpful for the clinical diagnosis and prognosis of epilepsy.

While modern family-related ideas and behaviors have become more widely accepted in contemporary China, Chinese Muslim minorities continue to hold on to traditional religious practices. Surprisingly, data from our survey conducted in Gansu province in China's northwestern borderlands reveal that Muslims of the Hui and Dongxiang ethnicities reported much higher rates of cohabitation experience than the secular majority Han. Based on follow-up qualitative interviews, we found the answer to lie in the interplay between the highly interventionist Chinese state and the robust cultural resilience of local Islamic communities. While the state maintains a high minimum legal age of marriage, the early marriage norm remains strong in Chinese Muslim communities, where religion constitutes an alternative and often more powerful source of legitimacy--at least in the private sphere of life. Using the 2000 census data, we further show that women in almost all 10 Muslim ethnic groups have higher percentages of underage births and premarital births than Han women, both nationally and in the northwest where most Chinese Muslims live. As the once-outlawed behavior of cohabitation became more socially acceptable during the reform and opening-up era, young Muslim Chinese often found themselves in "arranged cohabitations" as de facto marriages formed at younger-than-legal ages. In doing so, Chinese Muslim communities have reinvented the meaning of cohabitation. Rather than liberal intimate relationship based on individual autonomy, cohabitation has served as a coping strategy by which Islamic patriarchs circumvent the Chinese state's aggressive regulations aimed at "modernizing" the Muslim family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ag NPs were generated by reducing silver ions with sodium borohydride and then loaded into a zirconium-based MOF, PCN-222, resulting in a deep purple powder, PCN-222@AgNPs, which exhibited photocatalytic activity. The material was characterized and found to have Ag NPs uniformly dispersed in the pores of PCN-222, with a content of 6.0306%. PCN-222@AgNPs had rod-shaped structures of micrometer sizes with irregular spherical Ag NPs on their surfaces, as revealed by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. In experiments on Ag NPs release and reactive oxygen species (ROS) detection, PCN-222@AgNPs effectively released Ag NPs into an aqueous solution and promote ROS generation. Finally, the antibacterial activities of PCN-222@AgNPs against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus were assessed by in vitro experiments. Results indicated that PCN-222@AgNPs had lower minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) compared to PCN-222 in both light and dark environments. The MBC further decreased under light conditions due to the enhanced photocatalytic performance of the composite material and the promotion of Ag NPs release by ROS. These findings demonstrate that PCN-222@AgNPs have synergistic antibacterial effects under visible light irradiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some studies have investigated the effects of PM2.5 on cardiovascular diseases based on the population–average exposure data from several monitoring stations. No one has explored the short-term effect of PM2.5 on cardiovascular hospitalizations using individual-level exposure data. We assessed the short-term effects of individual exposure to PM2.5 on hospitalizations for myocardial infarction (MI) and stroke in Guangzhou, China, during 2014–2019. The population-based data on cardio-cerebrovascular events were provided by Guangzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Average annual percent changes (AAPCs) were used to describe trends in the hospitalization rates of MI and stroke. The conditional logistic regression model with a time-stratified case-crossover design was applied to estimate the effects of satellite-retrieved PM2.5 with 1-km resolution as individual-level exposure. Furthermore, we performed stratified analyses by demographic characteristics and season. There were 28,346 cases of MI, 188,611, and 36,850 cases of ischemic stroke (IS) and hemorrhagic stroke (HS), respectively, with an annual average hospitalization rate of 37.2, 247, and 48.4 per 100,000 people. Over the six-year study period, significant increasing trends in the hospitalization rates were observed with AAPCs of 12.3% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 7.24%, 17.6%), 13.1% (95% CI: 9.54%, 16.7%), and 9.57% (95% CI: 6.27%, 13.0%) for MI, IS, and HS, respectively. A 10 μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 was associated with an increase of 1.15% (95% CI: 0.308%, 1.99%) in MI hospitalization and 1.29% (95% CI: 0.882%, 1.70%) in IS hospitalization. A PM2.5-associated reduction of 1.17% (95% CI: 0.298%, 2.03%) was found for HS hospitalization. The impact of PM2.5 was greater in males than in females for MI hospitalization, and greater effects were observed in the elderly (≥ 65 years) and in cold seasons for IS hospitalization. Our study added important evidence on the adverse effect of PM2.5 based on satellite-retrieved individual-level exposure data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mutations, duplication and triplication of α-synuclein genes are linked to familial Parkinson's disease (PD), and aggregation of α-synuclein (α-syn) in Lewy bodies (LB) is involved in the pathogenesis of the disease. The targeted overexpression of α-syn in the substantia nigra (SN) mediated by viral vectors may provide a better alternative to recapitulate the neurodegenerative features of PD. Therefore, we overexpressed human wild-type α-syn using rAAV2/1 vectors in the bilateral SN of mouse and examined the effects for up to 12 weeks. Delivery of rAAV-2/1-α-syn caused significant nigrostriatal degeneration including appearance of dystrophic striatal neurites, loss of nigral dopaminergic (DA) neurons and dissolving nigral neuron bodies in a time-dependent manner. In addition, the α-syn overexpressed mice also developed significant deficits in motor function at 12 weeks when the loss of DA neurons exceeded a threshold of 50%. To investigate the sensitivity to neurotoxins in mice overexpressing α-syn, we performed an MPTP treatment with the subacute regimen 8 weeks after rAAV injection. The impact of the combined genetic and environmental insults on DA neuronal loss, striatal dopamine depletion, dopamine turnover and motor dysfunction was markedly greater than that of either alone. Moreover, we observed increased phosphorylation (S129), accumulation and nuclear distribution of α-syn after the combined insults. In summary, these results reveal that the overexpressed α-syn induces progressive nigrostriatal degeneration and increases the susceptibility of DA neurons to MPTP. Therefore, the targeted overexpression of α-syn and the combination with environmental toxins may provide valuable models for understanding PD pathogenesis and developing related therapies.

Salicylic acid gels were prepared in which salicylic acid was used as the active ingredient and the aqueous solution of 10% sodium hydroxide was used as the neutralizing agent. The optimal matrix for preparing the salicylic acid gel was screened. The stability, antibacterial activity and irritation were evaluated. The experimental results show that, the best gel matrixes are two kinds of cellulose polymers, i.e., hydroxyethyl cellulose and hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose, which show the best stability. Such matrixes can increase the solubility of salicylic acid in gel preparations, enhance the antibacterial activity and reduce the irritation. This work may provide a reference for the application of salicylic acid in cosmetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]