[Changes of serum calcium and bone turnover markers in maintenance hemodialysis patients treated with denosumab]

A total of 20 patients (8 males and 12 females) aged (64.8±13.9) years who underwent regular hemodialysis and had bone loss or osteoporosis in Peking University People's Hospital from July to December 2021 were recruited. Sixty milligrams of denosumab were given subcutaneously. The average serum calcium decreased by 0.31 mmol/L and 40% (8/20) of the patients had hypocalcemia one month after treatment. The markers of bone turnover began to decrease 3 days after treatment, and continued to decrease until 5 months after denosumab medication. Multivariate logistic regression analysis failed to detect any independent risk factor for hypocalcemia (R²=0.516, P=0.021). Therefore, denosumab can significantly inhibit bone turnover in hemodialysis patients, however, patients with denosumab medication are more prone to hypocalcemia.

Combined NK-CIK and PD-1 inhibitor (nivolumab), an effective immunotherapy for treating intrahepatic lymphoepithelioma-like cholangiocarcinoma unassociated with EBV infection: Two case reports and a literature review

Intrahepatic lymphoepithelioma-like cholangiocarcinoma (LELCC) is a very rare malignant tumor arising from the biliary epithelium. To date, there has been a lack of evidence on the radiographical features, clinicopathological features, and treatment modalities of LELCC, with less than 28 cases of LELCC without Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection having been reported worldwide. The treatment of LELCC remains unexplored. Here, we present two cases of patients with LELCC without EBV infection who were treated by liver resection, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy and who achieved long survival time. The patients received surgery to remove the tumors and then adjuvant chemotherapy using the GS regimen and combined immunotherapy involving natural killer-cytokine-induced killer (NK-CIK) and nivolumab were performed. Both patients had a good prognosis with a survival time of more than 100 months and 85 months.

Online-Dynamic-Clustering-Based Soft Sensor for Industrial Semi-Supervised Data Streams

In the era of big data, industrial process data are often generated rapidly in the form of streams. Thus, how to process such sequential and high-speed stream data in real time and provide critical quality variable predictions has become a critical issue for facilitating efficient process control and monitoring in the process industry. Traditionally, soft sensor models are usually built through offline batch learning, which remain unchanged during the online implementation phase. Once the process state changes, soft sensors built from historical data cannot provide accurate predictions. In practice, industrial process data streams often exhibit characteristics such as nonlinearity, time-varying behavior, and label scarcity, which pose great challenges for building high-performance soft sensor models. To address this issue, an online-dynamic-clustering-based soft sensor (ODCSS) is proposed for industrial semi-supervised data streams. The method achieves automatic generation and update of clusters and samples deletion through online dynamic clustering, thus enabling online dynamic identification of process states. Meanwhile, selective ensemble learning and just-in-time learning (JITL) are employed through an adaptive switching prediction strategy, which enables dealing with gradual and abrupt changes in process characteristics and thus alleviates model performance degradation caused by concept drift. In addition, semi-supervised learning is introduced to exploit the information of unlabeled samples and obtain high-confidence pseudo-labeled samples to expand the labeled training set. The proposed method can effectively deal with nonlinearity, time-variability, and label scarcity issues in the process data stream environment and thus enable reliable target variable predictions. The application results from two case studies show that the proposed ODCSS soft sensor approach is superior to conventional soft sensors in a semi-supervised data stream environment.

A Financial Management Platform Based on the Integration of Blockchain and Supply Chain

Internet of Things (IoT) finance extends financial services to the whole physical commodity society with the help of IoT technology to realize financial automation and intelligence. However, the security of IoT finance still needs to be improved. Blockchain has the characteristics of decentralization, immutability, faster settlement, etc., and has been gradually applied to the field of IoT finance. Blockchain is also considered to be an effective way to resolve the problems of the traditional supply chain finance industry, such as the inability to transmit core enterprise credit, the failure of full-chain business information connections and the difficulty of clearing and settlement. Supply chain finance allows the strongest enterprise in the supply chain to apply for credit guarantee from the bank to obtain bank loans, and use the funds for circulation in the supply chain to ensure that each enterprise in the whole supply chain can obtain working capital to realize profits, so as to maximize common interests. In this paper, a financial management platform based on the integration of blockchain and supply chain has been designed and implemented. Blockchain is used to integrate supply chain finance to synchronize the bank account payment system, realize the automatic flow of funds, process supervision and automatically settle account periods based on smart contracts. The four functional modules of the system are designed using unified modeling language (UML), and the model view controller (MVC) architecture is selected as the main architecture of the system. The results of the system test show that the proposed platform can effectively improve the system security, and can use the information in the blockchain to provide multi-level financing services for enterprises in supply chain finance.

Acoustic Vector Sensor Multi-Source Detection Based on Multimodal Fusion

The direction of arrival (DOA) and number of sound sources is usually estimated by short-time Fourier transform and the conjugate cross-spectrum. However, the ability of a single AVS to distinguish between multiple sources will decrease as the number of sources increases. To solve this problem, this paper presents a multimodal fusion method based on a single acoustic vector sensor (AVS). First, the output of the AVS is decomposed into multiple modes by intrinsic time-scale decomposition (ITD). The number of sources in each mode decreases after decomposition. Then, the DOAs and source number in each mode are estimated by density peak clustering (DPC). Finally, the density-based spatial clustering of applications with the noise (DBSCAN) algorithm is employed to obtain the final source counting results from the DOAs of all modes. Experiments showed that the multimodal fusion method could significantly improve the ability of a single AVS to distinguish multiple sources when compared to methods without multimodal fusion.

The combined transarterial and transvenous onyx embolization of dural arteriovenous fistula of hypoglossal canal via the external jugular vein and facial vein: A case report

Dural arteriovenous fistulas of the hypoglossal canal (HCDAVFs) involving the anterior condylar confluence (ACC) and anterior condylar vein (ACV) are infrequent. Although transvenous embolization through the internal jugular vein (IJV) is the preferred treatment option for type I and II fistulas, it can be difficult if the IJV is unavailable. Here we report a rare case of HCDAVF in which the most common transvenous embolization access via IJV was not available. The patient underwent transarterial and transvenous onyx embolization. Transarterial embolization (TAE) aimed at controlling the arterial inflow and subsequently TVE was performed via the external jugular vein (EJV), the facial vein, the ophthalmic vein, the cavernous sinus, ACC, and ultimately to the fistula pouch. Complete obliteration of the HCDAVF was achieved without complications. We suggest that transvenous embolization (TVE) via the EJV and the facial vein can be effective in cases where trans-IJV is not possible.

Swelling-Mediated Mechanical Stimulation Regulates Differentiation of Adipose-Derived Mesenchymal Stem Cells for Intervertebral Disc Repair Using Injectable UCST Microgels

Mechanical stimulation is an effective approach for controlling stem cell differentiation in tissue engineering. However, its realization in in vivo tissue repair remains challenging since this type of stimulation can hardly be applied to injectable seeding systems. Here, it is presented that swelling of injectable microgels can be transformed to in situ mechanical stimulation via stretching the cells adhered on their surface. Poly(acrylamide-co-acrylic acid) microgels with the upper critical solution temperature property are fabricated using inverse emulsion polymerization and further coated with polydopamine to increase cell adhesion. Adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADSCs) adhered on the microgels can be omnidirectionally stretched along with the responsive swelling of the microgels, which upregulate TRPV4 and Piezo1 channel proteins and enhance nucleus pulposus (NP)-like differentiation of ADSCs. In vivo experiments reveal that the disc height and extracellular matrix content of NP are promoted after the implantation with the microgels. The findings indicate that swelling-induced mechanical stimulation has great potential for regulating stem cell differentiation during intervertebral disc repair.

Chlorin e6-loaded goat milk-derived extracellular vesicles for Cerenkov luminescence-induced photodynamic therapy

PURPOSE

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a promising cancer treatment strategy with rapid progress in preclinical and clinical settings. However, the limitations in penetration of external light and precise delivery of photosensitizers hamper its clinical translation. As such, the internal light source such as Cerenkov luminescence (CL) from decaying radioisotopes offers new opportunities. Herein, we show that goat milk-derived extracellular vesicles (GEV) can act as a carrier to deliver photosensitizer Chlorin e6 (Ce6) and tumor-avid 18F-FDG can activate CL-induced PDT for precision cancer theranostics.

METHODS

GEV was isolated via differential ultracentrifugation of commercial goat milk and photosensitizer Ce6 was loaded by co-incubation to obtain Ce6@GEV. Tumor uptake of Ce6@GEV was examined using confocal microscopy and flow cytometry. To demonstrate the ability of 18F-FDG to activate photodynamic effects against cancer cells, apoptosis rates were measured using flow cytometry, and the production of 1O2 was measured by reactive oxygen species (ROS) monitoring kit. Moreover, we used the IVIS device to detect Cherenkov radiation and Cerenkov radiation energy transfer (CRET). For animal experiments, a small-animal IVIS imaging system was used to visualize the accumulation of the GEV drug delivery system in tumors. PET/CT and CL images of the tumor site were performed at 0.5, 1, and 2 h. For in vivo antitumor therapy, changes of tumor volume, survival time, and body weight in six groups of tumor-bearing mice were monitored. Furthermore, the blood sample and organs of interest (heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, and tumor) were collected for hematological analysis, immunohistochemistry, and H&E staining.

RESULTS

Confocal microscopy of 4T1 cells incubated with Ce6@GEV for 4 h revealed strong red fluorescence signals in the cytoplasm, which demonstrated that Ce6 loaded in GEV could be efficiently delivered into tumor cells. When Ce6@GEV and 18F-FDG co-existed incubated with 4T1 cells, the cell viability plummeted from more than 88.02 ± 1.30% to 23.79 ± 1.59%, indicating excellent CL-induced PDT effects. In vivo fluorescence images showed a peak tumor/liver ratio of 1.36 ± 0.09 at 24 h after Ce6@GEV injection. For in vivo antitumor therapy, Ce6@GEV + 18F-FDG group had the best tumor inhibition rate (58.02%) compared with the other groups, with the longest survival rate (35 days, 40%). During the whole treatment process, neither blood biochemical analysis nor histological observation revealed vital organ damage, suggesting the biosafety of this treatment strategy.

CONCLUSIONS

The simultaneous accumulation of 18F-FDG and Ce6 in tumor tissues is expected to overcome the deficiency of traditional PDT. This strategy has the potential to extend PDT to a variety of tumors, including metastases, using targeted radiotracers to provide internal excitation of light-responsive therapeutics. We expect that our method will play a critical role in precision treatment of deep solid tumors.

Collagen Niches Affect Direct Transcriptional Conversion toward Human Nucleus Pulposus Cells via Actomyosin Contractility

Cellular niches play fundamental roles in regulating cellular behaviors. However, the effect of niches on direct converted cells remains unexplored. In the present study, the specific combination of transcription factors is first identified to directly acquire induced nucleus pulposus-like cells (iNPLCs). Next, tunable physical properties of collagen niches are fabricated based on various crosslinking degrees. Collagen niches significantly affect actomyosin cytoskeleton and then influence the maturation of iNPLCs. Using gain- and loss of function approaches, the appropriate physical states of collagen niches are found to significantly enhance the maturation of iNPLCs through actomyosin contractility. Moreover, in a rat model of degenerative disc diseases, iNPLCs with collagen niches are transplanted into the lesion to achieve significant improvements. As a result, overexpression of transcription factors in human dermal fibroblasts are efficiently converted into iNPLCs and the optimal collagen niches affect cellular cytoskeleton and then facilitate iNPLCs maturation toward human nucleus pulposus cells. These findings encourage more in-depth studies toward the interactions of niches and direct conversion, which would contribute to the development of direct conversion.

Observation of Non-Abelian Charged Nodes Linking Nonadjacent Gaps

Nodal links are special configurations of band degeneracies in the momentum space, where nodal line branches encircle each other. In PT symmetric systems, nodal lines can be topologically characterized using the eigenvector frame rotations along an encircling loop and the linking structure can be described with non-Abelian frame charges involving adjacent bands. While the commutation rules between the frame charges are well established, the underlying relationship between distant band gap closing nodes remains to be explored. In this Letter, we present a photonic multiple nodal links system, where the nodal lines of nonadjacent bands are investigated with symmetry constraints on frame charges. Through an orthogonal nodal chain, the nodal line from the lower two bands predicts the existence of nodal lines formed between the higher bands. We designed and fabricated a metamaterial, with which the multiple nodal links and the topological connection between nonadjacent nodal lines are experimentally demonstrated.

[Exploration of pathogenesis and clinical diagnosis and treatment for portal vein thrombosis formation]

Portal vein thrombosis (PVT) refers to the thrombosis of the main portal vein and/or branches, with or without mesenteric vein and splenic vein thrombosis, and is the most common cause of extrahepatic portal vein obstruction. It is latent under chronic conditions and is often detected accidentally during physical examinations or liver cancer screenings. Notably, the understanding of PVT management is still limited, both at home and abroad. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to provide a reference for clinical diagnosis and treatment of PVT formation by summarizing the basis and standards for clinical diagnosis and treatment based on representative research with a large sample size and new perspectives with recent guidelines and consensus.

[Evaluation of diagnostic efficacy of digital liquid chip method for detection of specific antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies]

To explore the clinical diagnostic efficacy of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody associated vasculitis (AAV) by comparing the consistency and coincidence rate of serum anti-myeloperoxidase (MPO) antibody and anti-protease 3 (PR3) antibody detected by digital liquid chip method (DLCM) and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). To provide reference for the selection of detection methods of anti-MPO antibody and anti-PR3 antibody in clinical laboratory. This study is a cross-sectional study, a total of 307 cases of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies were detected in the Department of Clinical Immunology, West China Hospital of Sichuan University from January to March 2021. The serum samples and related clinical information were collected. At the same time, the levels of anti-MPO antibody and anti-PR3 antibody in serum samples were detected by ELISA and DLCM, indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) was used to re-test the differential samples between the two methods. SPSS 26.0 was used to analyze the test results, Cohen's kappa coefficient analysis was used to compare the consistency of the two methods, and paired chi-square test was used to compare the sensitivity and specificity of the two methods to AAV. The results showed that the positive cases of anti-MPO antibody detected by ELISA and DLCM were 63 and 44, and the negative cases were 244 and 263; the positive cases of anti-PR3 antibody detected by ELISA and DLCM were 34 and 28, and the negative cases were 273 and 279. The results of anti-MPO antibody and anti-PR3 antibody detected by the two methods had good consistency and coincidence rate, in which the total coincidence rate of anti-MPO antibody was 92.51%, the positive coincidence rate was 66.67%, and the negative coincidence rate was 99.18%. The results of consistency analysis showed that kappa=0.741 had well consistency. The total coincidence rate of anti-PR3 antibody is 96.74%, the positive coincidence rate is 76.47%, and the negative coincidence rate is 99.27%. The consistency analysis results show that kappa=0.821 had strong consistency. The results of IIF re-test of differential samples showed that the coincidence rate between DLCM and IIF was higher. The results of comparative analysis of anti-MPO antibody and anti-PR3 antibody showed that the specificity of DLCM was better than that of ELISA, and its sensitivity was lower than that of ELISA. In conclusion, the results of anti-MPO antibody and anti-PR3 antibody detected by DLCM were consistent with those of ELISA. In the combined detection of anti-MPO antibody and anti-PR3 antibody, the specificity of DLCM is better than that of ELISA.

A few-shot learning-based eye diseases screening method

OBJECTIVE

This study aims to construct a brand-new ophthalmic disease screening task and establish a practically valuable ophthalmic disease screening model in the case of insufficient data.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The main methods are as follows: firstly, we mixed data from different sources (these data may come from different cameras, including different fundus diseases) to get a new dataset. Based on this dataset, we conducted subsequent experiments on fundus multi-disease screening. However, in the past public datasets, each dataset often only corresponded to the screening diagnosis of one disease. Secondly, we proposed a method to simulate the characteristics of different fundus cameras by using a method based on style transfer, and to augment the training data, so that the model could learn the features of ophthalmic diseases in a more comprehensive way. Finally, a robust disease screening model based on few-shot learning was constructed on the combined dataset, and compared with benchmark algorithms.

RESULTS

We focused on the study of eye disease screening methods based on the metric-based few-shot learning model, data augmentation methods, and focus on key technologies such as data augmentation based on style transfer. Experiments have shown that our method can significantly improve the generalization ability of the disease screening model.

CONCLUSIONS

By introducing few-shot learning theory and data augmentation based on style transfer into ophthalmic disease screening, the generalization ability of the model is greatly improved, and it has certain practical value.

A Novel Graph-Based Trajectory Predictor With Pseudo-Oracle

Pedestrian trajectory prediction in dynamic scenes remains a challenging and critical problem in numerous applications, such as self-driving cars and socially aware robots. Challenges concentrate on capturing pedestrians' motion patterns and social interactions, as well as handling the future uncertainties. Recent studies focus on modeling pedestrians' motion patterns with recurrent neural networks, capturing social interactions with pooling- or graph-based methods, and handling future uncertainties by using the random Gaussian noise as the latent variable. However, they do not integrate specific obstacle avoidance experiences (OAEs) that may improve prediction performance. For example, pedestrians' future trajectories are always influenced by others in front. Here, we propose the Graph-based Trajectory Predictor with Pseudo-Oracle (GTPPO), an encoder-decoder-based method conditioned on pedestrians' future behaviors. Pedestrians' motion patterns are encoded with a long short-term memory unit, which introduces temporal attention to highlight specific time steps. Their interactions are captured by a graph-based attention mechanism, which draws OAE into the data-driven learning process of graph attention. Future uncertainties are handled by generating multimodal outputs with an informative latent variable. Such a variable is generated by a novel pseudo-oracle predictor, which minimizes the knowledge gap between historical and ground-truth trajectories. Finally, the GTPPO is evaluated on ETH, UCY, and Stanford Drone datasets, and the results demonstrate state-of-the-art performance. Besides, the qualitative evaluations show successful cases of handling sudden motion changes in the future. Such findings indicate that GTPPO can peek into the future.

Outer membrane vesicles-transmitted virulence genes mediate the emergence of new antimicrobial-resistant hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae

Hypervirulent Klebsiella pneumoniae (hvKp) is a notorious clinical pathogen that is more likely to cause severe primary and metastatic abscesses. The dissemination of antimicrobial-resistant hvKp isolates has been reported worldwide, posing a great challenge and severe clinical threat. However, the mechanisms of antimicrobial-resistant hvKp isolates prevalent worldwide are not well precise. Outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) secreted from gram-negative bacteria are an important vehicle for delivering effector molecules inter- and intra-species. To explore whether OMVs as the vector of virulence genes horizontal transfer among Klebsiella pneumoniae and to explain the potential mechanism for the development of antimicrobial-resistant hvKp isolates, we isolated OMVs from hvKp and classical Klebsiella pneumoniae (cKp) by sequential differential centrifugation, respectively. Then, the characteristics and contents of hvKp-OMVs and cKp-OMVs were analyzed. These hvKp-OMVs contain virulence genes, which could be transferred from hvKp horizontally to extended-spectrum beta lactamase (ESBL)-producing cKp, leading to the production of antimicrobial-resistant hypervirulent transformants. Further experiments confirmed the transformants exhibited antimicrobial resistance and hypervirulent phenotypes in vitro and in vivo. In short, this work demonstrated that hvKp-OMVs facilitated virulence genes transfer, allowing an increase in the virulence level of ESBL-producing cKp and providing a new mechanism for the emergence of antimicrobial-resistant hvKp isolates.

Accelerated Fatigue Model for Predicting Composite Restoration Failure

An empirical method is proposed to predict the clinical performance of resin composite dental restorations by using laboratory data derived from simple specimens subjected to chemical degradation and accelerated cyclic fatigue. Three resin composites were used to fill dentin disks (2-mm inner diameter, 5-mm outer diameter, and 2 mm thick) made from bovine incisor roots. The specimens (n = 30 per group) were aged with different durations of a low-pH challenge (0, 24, and 48 h under pH 4.5) before being subjected to diametral compression with either a monotonically increasing load (fast fracture) or a cyclic load with a continuously increasing amplitude (accelerated fatigue). The data from 1 material were used to establish the relationship between laboratory time (number of cycles) and clinical time to failure (years) via the respective survival probability curves. The temporal relationship was then used to predict the clinical rates of failure for restorations made of the other 2 materials, and the predictions were compared with the clinical data to assess their accuracy. Although there were significant differences in the fast fracture strength among the groups of materials or durations of chemical challenge, fatigue testing was much better at separating the groups. Linear relationships were found between the laboratory and clinical times to failure for the first material (R2 = 0.90, 0.90, and 0.62 for the 0-, 24-, and 48-h low-pH groups, respectively). The clinical life of restorations made of the other 2 materials was best predicted with data from the 48-h low-pH groups. In conclusion, an accelerated fatigue model was successfully calibrated and applied to predict the clinical failure of resin composite restorations, and the predictions based on data obtained from chemically aged specimens provided the best agreement with clinical data.

Thrombectomy Using the EmboTrap Clot-Retrieving Device for the Treatment of Acute Ischemic Stroke: A Glimpse of Clinical Evidence

BACKGROUND

The EmboTrap Recanalization Device is a novel stent retriever for thrombectomy in the setting of acute ischemic stroke due to large-vessel occlusion.

PURPOSE

Our aim was to summarize the safety and efficacy of the EmboTrap Recanalization Device in acute ischemic stroke-large-vessel occlusion through a systematic review and meta-analysis.

DATA SOURCES

Medline, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Google Scholar were searched up to April 2022.

STUDY SELECTION

Nine observational studies using the EmboTrap Recanalization Device were selected.

DATA ANALYSIS

We adapted effect size with 95% CIs for dichotomous data. P value <.05 was statistically significant.

DATA SYNTHESIS

The estimated rate of successful recanalization (modified TICI 2b-3) was 90% (95% CI, 86%-95%; I ² = 82.4%); 90-day favorable outcome (mRS 0-2), 53% (95% CI, 42%-63%; I ² = 88.6%); modified first-pass effect, 43% (95% CI, 35%-51%; I ² = 63.7%); and first-pass effect, 36% (95% CI, 29%-46%; I ² = 10.7%). The rate of any intracerebral hemorrhage was 19% (95% CI, 16%-22%; I ² = 0.0%); symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage, 5% (95% CI, 1%-8%; I ² = 84.6%); and 90-day mortality, 14% (95% CI, 9%-19%; I ² = 79.3%). Subgroup analysis showed higher rates of complete recanalization for EmboTrap II than for the EmboTrap System.

LIMITATIONS

The included studies are single-arm without direct comparison with other stent retrievers. Some of the studies recruited had a small sample size and were limited by the retrospective study design. In addition, the uncertain heterogeneity among studies was high.

CONCLUSIONS

The EmboTrap Recanalization Device is safe and efficient in treating acute ischemic stroke due to large-vessel occlusion.

Retraction Note: Knockdown of long non-coding RNA LUCAT1 reverses high glucose-induced cardiomyocyte injury via targeting CYP11B2

The article "Knockdown of long non-coding RNA LUCAT1 reverses high glucose-induced cardiomyocyte injury via targeting CYP11B2, by Y. Yin, Z.-F. Yang, X.-H. Li, L.-Q. Zhou, Y.-J. Zhang, B. Yang, published in Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci 2019; 23 (19): 8560-8565-DOI: 10.26355/eurrev_201910_19171-PMID: 31646588" has been retracted by the authors as they cannot ensure the reproducibility of the data. The third party who provided some data turned out to be unreliable. The same manuscript was also questioned on PubPeer after publication. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. https://www.europeanreview.org/article/19171.

Blind Remote Sensing Image Deblurring Based on Overlapped Patches' Non-Linear Prior

The remote sensing imaging environment is complex, in which many factors cause image blur. Thus, without prior knowledge, the restoration model established to obtain clear images can only rely on the observed blurry images. We still build the prior with extreme pixels but no longer traverse all pixels, such as the extreme channels. The features are extracted in units of patches, which are segmented from an image and partially overlap with each other. In this paper, we design a new prior, i.e., overlapped patches' non-linear (OPNL) prior, derived from the ratio of extreme pixels affected by blurring in patches. The analysis of more than 5000 remote sensing images confirms that OPNL prior prefers clear images rather than blurry images in the restoration process. The complexity of the optimization problem is increased due to the introduction of OPNL prior, which makes it impossible to solve it directly. A related solving algorithm is established based on the projected alternating minimization (PAM) algorithm combined with the half-quadratic splitting method, the fast iterative shrinkage-thresholding algorithm (FISTA), fast Fourier transform (FFT), etc. Numerous experiments prove that this algorithm has excellent stability and effectiveness and has obtained competitive processing results in restoring remote sensing images.

Isolated hand weakness due to brain lesion

When hand weakness is linked to a brain lesion, there is risk of misdiagnosis. A case of hand weakness related to stroke is presented. The electromyography report indicated a segmental lesion of the median nerve at the wrist. Thus, the patient was initially diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome, and was referred to the orthopedic department for release surgery. Because the symptom was immediate and did not include hand numbness, the orthopedic surgeon ruled out the previous diagnosis and ordered a head CT scan, which revealed stroke. Aspirin and other medications were given. Percutaneous carotid balloon angioplasty with stent implantation and percutaneous vertebral artery balloon angioplasty were performed. The weakness of the left hand was greatly improved. So far, only a few cases suggest that hand weakness may be linked to stroke. Therefore, physicians should pay attention to physical examination.

Aminooxyacetic acid hemihydrochloride inhibits osteoclast differentiation and bone resorption by attenuating oxidative phosphorylation

Osteoclasts undergo active metabolic reprogramming to acquire the energy needed during differentiation and bone resorption. Compared with immature osteoclasts, mature osteoclasts comprise higher levels of electron transport chain enzymes and more metabolically active mitochondria. Of all energy metabolism pathways, oxidative phosphorylation is considered to be the most efficient in supplying energy to osteoclasts. We found that the malate-aspartate shuttle inhibitor aminooxyacetic acid hemihydrochloride inhibits osteoclastogenesis and bone resorption by inhibiting exchange of reducing equivalents between the cytosol and the mitochondrial matrix and attenuating mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation in vitro. The weakening of the oxidative phosphorylation pathway resulted in reduced mitochondrial function and inadequate energy supply along with reduced reactive oxygen species production. Furthermore, treatment with aminooxyacetic acid hemihydrochloride helped recover bone loss in ovariectomized mice. Our findings highlight the potential of interfering with the osteoclast intrinsic energy metabolism pathway as a treatment for osteoclast-mediated osteolytic diseases.

Intra- and Inter-Self-Assembly of Identical Supramolecules on Silver Surfaces

Self-assembly of identical organometallic supramolecules into ordered superstructures is of great interest in both chemical science and nanotechnology due to its potential to generate neoteric properties through collective effects. In this work, we demonstrate that large-scale self-organization of atomically precise organometallic supramolecules can be achieved through cascaded on-surface chemical reactions, by the combination of intra- and inter-supramolecular interactions. Supramolecules with defined size and shape are first built through intramolecular reaction and intermolecular metal coordination, followed by the formation of well-ordered two-dimensional arrays with the assistance of Br atoms by -C-H···Br interactions. The mechanism of this process has been investigated from the perspectives of thermodynamics and kinetics.

Effect of ultrasound assisted collagen peptide of chicken cartilage on storage quality of chicken breast meat

This study investigated the effect of ultrasound assisted chicken cartilage collagen peptide (CP) treatment on the storage quality of chicken breast meat. There were five meat groups at 4 °C for 60 min as follows: untreatment (Control), immersing in deionized water (DW), ultrasound treatment in DW (UDW), immersing in CP (0.15 g/100 mL) solution and immersing in ultrasound combined with CP (UCP). The results showed that the drip and cooking loss of meat decreased significantly in UCP at4and -18 °Cwith the extension of storage time. A large amount of non-flowing water transformed into free water in the 4 °C for 5 d, and the smallest degree of water migration was observed at -18 °C in UCP. The texture parameters of UCP group were significantly improved, especially for decreased hardness and increased elasticity. Furthermore, there had no significant effect on the color of chicken breast.

Lactation time influences the composition of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus at species level in human breast milk

Human breast milk is a source of microorganisms for infants that play an important role in building infant gut health and immunity. The bacterial composition in human breast milk is influenced by lactation time. This study aimed to investigate the influence of lactation time on bacteria in breast milk at the genus level and the species levels of Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus on days 2-4, 8, 14, and 30. Eighteen individuals were recruited and 60 milk samples were collected. The 16S rRNA gene, and the bifidobacterial groEL and lactobacilli groEL genes were used for amplicon sequencing. The results revealed that the alpha diversities of colostrum and transition 1 (day 8) milk were lower than that of transition 2 (day 14) and mature milk. PCoA analysis showed that bacterial composition in colostrum and transition 1 milk differed from transition 2 and mature milk. A lower relative abundance of Blautia was found in colostrum and transition 1 milk compared with mature milk and lower abundances of Ruminococcus, Dorea, and Escherichia-Shigella were found in transition 1 compared with mature milk. Bifidobacterium ruminantium, Limosilactobacillus mucosae, and Ligilactobacillus ruminis were the predominant species across all four lactation stages, while Bifidobacterium bifidum was lower in transition 1, and Bifidobacterium pseudocatenulatum and Bifidobacterium pseudolongum were higher in transition 1 milk. This study indicated that the bacterial composition in colostrum was more similar to that of transition 1 milk, whereas the bacterial community in transition 2 milk was similar to that of mature milk which suggests that bacterial composition in human breast milk shows stage-specific signatures even within a short period at both genus level and Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus species levels, providing insights into probiotic supplementation for the nursing mother.

Lawson Criterion for Ignition Exceeded in an Inertial Fusion Experiment

For more than half a century, researchers around the world have been engaged in attempts to achieve fusion ignition as a proof of principle of various fusion concepts. Following the Lawson criterion, an ignited plasma is one where the fusion heating power is high enough to overcome all the physical processes that cool the fusion plasma, creating a positive thermodynamic feedback loop with rapidly increasing temperature. In inertially confined fusion, ignition is a state where the fusion plasma can begin "burn propagation" into surrounding cold fuel, enabling the possibility of high energy gain. While "scientific breakeven" (i.e., unity target gain) has not yet been achieved (here target gain is 0.72, 1.37 MJ of fusion for 1.92 MJ of laser energy), this Letter reports the first controlled fusion experiment, using laser indirect drive, on the National Ignition Facility to produce capsule gain (here 5.8) and reach ignition by nine different formulations of the Lawson criterion.

Multi-granularity scenarios understanding network for trajectory prediction

Understanding agents’ motion behaviors under complex scenes is crucial for intelligent autonomous moving systems (like delivery robots and self-driving cars). It is challenging duo to the inherent uncertain of future trajectories and the large variation in the scene layout. However, most recent approaches ignored or underutilized the scenario information. In this work, a Multi-Granularity Scenarios Understanding framework, MGSU, is proposed to explore the scene layout from different granularity. MGSU can be divided into three modules: (1) A coarse-grained fusion module uses the cross-attention to fuse the observed trajectory with the semantic information of the scene. (2) The inverse reinforcement learning module generates optimal path strategy through grid-based policy sampling and outputs multiple scene paths. (3) The fine-grained fusion module integrates the observed trajectory with the scene paths to generate multiple future trajectories. To fully explore the scene information and improve the efficiency, we present a novel scene-fusion Transformer, whose encoder is used to extract scene features and the decoder is used to fuse scene and trajectory features to generate future trajectories. Compared with the current state-of-the-art methods, our method decreases the ADE errors by 4.3% and 3.3% by gradually integrating different granularity of scene information on SDD and NuScenes, respectively. The visualized trajectories demonstrate that our method can accurately predict future trajectories after fusing scene information.

habCluster: identifying the geographical boundary among intraspecific units using community detection algorithms in R

Conservation management for a species generally rests on intraspecific units, while identification of their geographic boundaries is necessary for the implementation. Intraspecific units can be discriminated using population genetic methods, yet an analytical approach is still lacking for detecting their geographic boundaries. Here, based on landscape connectivity, we present a raster-based geographical boundary delineation method, habCluster, using community detection algorithms. Community detection is a technique in graph theory used to identify clusters of highly connected nodes within a network. We assume that the habitat raster cells with better connections tend to form a continuous habitat patch than the others, thus making the range of an intraspecific unit. The method was tested on the gray wolf (Canis lupus) habitat in Europe and the giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) habitat in China. The habitat suitability index (HSI) maps for gray wolves and giant pandas were evaluated using species distribution models. Each cell in the HSI raster is treated as a node and directly connected with its eight neighbor cells. The edge weight between nodes is the reciprocal of the relative distance between the centers of the nodes weighted by the average of their HSI values. We implement habCluster using the R programming language with the inline C++ code to speed up the computing. We found that the boundaries of the clusters delineated using habCluster could serve as a good indicator of habitat patches. In the giant panda case, the clusters match generally well with nature reserves. habCluster can provide a spatial analysis basis for conservation management plans such as monitoring, translocation and reintroduction, and population structure research.

Asymmetrically Enhanced Coplanar-Electrode Electroluminescence for Information Encryption and Ultrahighly Stretchable Displays

Traditional alternating-current-driven electroluminescent (AC-EL) devices adopting a sandwich structure are commonly used in solid-state lighting and displays, while the emerging coplanar-electrode alternating-current-driven light-emitting variants manifest excellent application prospects in intelligent, multifunctional, and full-color displays, and sensing purposes. In this work, an asymmetrically enhanced coplanar-electrode AC-EL device with a universal and straightforward architecture is designed based on the impedance adjustment strategy. This newly devised asymmetric structure extends the functionalities of the coplanar-electrode AC-EL devices by overcoming the bottlenecks of complicated patterning procedures and high driving voltages of symmetric configuration. The developed device design enables a new type of information encryption and ultrahighly stretchable patterned displays. Notably, the novel encryption appliances demonstrate feasible encryption/decryption features, multiple encryptions, and practical applicability; the biaxially stretchable display devices achieve the highest tensile performance in the field of stretchable electroluminescent pattern displays, and outperform the ultrahighly stretchable sandwich devices in terms of simple patterning process, higher brightness, wider color gamut, and long-term stability. The proposed configuration opens up new avenues for AC-EL devices toward a plethora of smart applications in wearable electronics with intelligent displays, dynamic interaction of human-machine interface, and soft robotics.

Efficacy, safety and immunogenicity of hexavalent rotavirus vaccine in Chinese infants

A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled multicenter trial was conducted in healthy Chinese infants to assess the efficacy and safety of a hexavalent live human-bovine reassortant rotavirus vaccine (HRV) against rotavirus gastroenteritis (RVGE). A total of 6400 participants aged 6–12 weeks were enrolled and randomly assigned to either HRV (n ​= ​3200) or placebo (n ​= ​3200) group. All the subjects received three oral doses of vaccine four weeks apart. The vaccine efficacy (VE) against RVGE caused by rotavirus serotypes contained in HRV was evaluated from 14 days after three doses of administration up until the end of the second rotavirus season. VE against severe RVGE, VE against RVGE hospitalization caused by serotypes contained in HRV, and VE against RVGE, severe RVGE, and RVGE hospitalization caused by natural infection of any serotype of rotavirus were also investigated. All adverse events (AEs) were collected for 30 days after each dose. Serious AEs (SAEs) and intussusception cases were collected during the entire study. Our data showed that VE against RVGE caused by serotypes contained in HRV was 69.21% (95%CI: 53.31–79.69). VE against severe RVGE and RVGE hospitalization caused by serotypes contained in HRV were 91.36% (95%CI: 78.45–96.53) and 89.21% (95%CI: 64.51–96.72) respectively. VE against RVGE, severe RVGE, and RVGE hospitalization caused by natural infection of any serotype of rotavirus were 62.88% (95%CI: 49.11–72.92), 85.51% (95%CI: 72.74–92.30) and 83.68% (95%CI: 61.34–93.11). Incidences of AEs from the first dose to one month post the third dose in HRV and placebo groups were comparable. There was no significant difference in incidences of SAEs in HRV and placebo groups. This study shows that this hexavalent reassortant rotavirus vaccine is an effective, well-tolerated, and safe vaccine for Chinese infants.

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A multicenter, double-blind, phase III clinical trial for the efficacy and safety of hexavalent rotavirus vaccine (HRV).

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The vaccine efficacy against rotavirus gastroenteritis caused by serotypes contained in HRV was 69.21%.

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The efficacy against severe rotavirus gastroenteritis and hospitalization caused by serotypesin HRV were 91.36% and 89.21%.

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No significant difference between the incidences of adverse events and severe adverse events in HRV and placebo group.

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This hexavalent live human-bovine reassortant rotavirus vaccine iseffective, well tolerated and safe in Chinese infants.

XIST as a valuable biomarker for prognosis and clinical parameters in diverse tumors: a comprehensive meta- and bioinformatics analysis

Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) X inactivate-specific transcript (XIST) has been found dysregulated in a variety of human tumors and influenced the clinicopathologic characteristics in cancer patients. Therefore, we systematically searched relevant literature that has identified the correlation of lncRNA XIST expression and clinical outcomes of tumor patients and conducted this meta-analysis to elucidate the clinical prognostic value of long noncoding RNA XIST in human tumors. A comprehensive literature search was performed from PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, and Cochrane library databases up to August 1, 2019. Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) or odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence interval (95% Cl) were calculated to evaluate the prognosis, as well as the clinicopathological parameters of XIST, respectively. We also further validated this meta-analysis using The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset. Results The outcome revealed that XIST overexpression in tumor tissue was interacted to a poor overall survival (OS) (HR = 0.52, 95% CI: 0.44-0.61, p < 0.0001), disease-free survival (DFS) (HR = 0.50; 95% CI: 0.36-0.69, p < 0.0001), tumor type (digestive system malignancies, HR = 0.53; 95% CI: 0.44-0.63, p < 0.0001); nondigestive system malignancies, HR = 0.48; 95% CI: 0.34-0.67, p < 0.0001), lymph node metastasis(LNM) (OR = 0.61, 95% CI: 0.37-1.00; p = 0.048), differentiation (OR = 1.46; 95% CI 0.94-2.29; p=0.096), distant metastasis (DM) (OR=0.48, 95% CI: 0.31-0.75; p = 0.001), tumor size (OR = 0.59, 95% CI: 0.38-0.92; p = 0.019), and tumor stage (OR = 2.36; 95% CI: 1.62-3.43; p < 0.001). Conclusions XIST could have potential value in early diagnosis and result in prediction and provided a novel view for the therapeutic target in clinical application.

Landscape-scale giant panda conservation based on metapopulations within China's national park system

Historically, giant panda conservation in China has been compromised by disparate management of protected areas. It is thus crucial to address how giant panda populations can be managed cohesively on a landscape scale, an opportunity offered by China's newly established Giant Panda National Park. Here, we evaluated giant panda populations in a metapopulation context, based on range-wide data from the Fourth National Giant Panda Survey. We delineated metapopulations by geographic range, relative abundance, and relative density and assessed the extent of human disturbance each metapopulation faced. We found density-dependent and disturbance-influenced effects on habitat selection across metapopulations. We determined the main effects faced by each metapopulation regarding area sensitivity, population size, intraspecific competition, and disturbance. To enhance the landscape-scale conservation of giant pandas and various other wildlife across China's national park system, we propose that metapopulation management incorporates population status along with density-dependent and disturbance-related effects on habitat selection.

Risk Factors for Recurrence of Intracranial Aneurysm After Coil Embolization: A Meta-Analysis

Intracranial aneurysm is a severe cerebral disorder involving complicated risk factors and endovascular coiling is a common therapeutic selection for intracranial aneurysm. The recurrence is a clinical challenge in intracranial aneurysms after coil embolization. With this study, we provided a meta-analysis of the risk factors for the recurrence of intracranial aneurysm after coil embolization. Nine studies were included with a total of 1,270 studies that were retrieved from the database. The sample size of patients with intracranial aneurysms ranged from 241 to 3,530, and a total of 9,532 patients were included in the present meta-analysis. The intracranial aneurysms that occurred in middle cerebral artery (MCA) (OR = 1.09, 95% CI: 1.03–1.16, P = 0.0045) and posterior circulation (OR = 2.01, 95% CI: 1.55–2.60, P = 0.000) presented the significantly higher risk of recurrence after coil embolization. Meanwhile, intracranial aneurysms of size > 7 mm (OR = 5.38, 95%CI: 3.76–7.70, P = 0.000) had a significantly higher risk of recurrence after coil embolization. Moreover, ruptured aneurysm (OR = 2.86, 95% CI: 2.02–4.04, P = 0.000) and subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) (OR = 1.57, 95% CI: 1.20–2.06, P = 0.001) was positively correlated with the risk of recurrence after coil embolization. In conclusion, this meta-analysis identified the characteristics of intracranial aneurysms with MCA, posterior circulation, size > 7 mm, ruptured aneurysm, and SAH as the risk factors of recurrence after coil embolization for intracranial aneurysms.

Interferon-alpha responsible EPN3 regulates hepatitis B virus replication

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection remains a major health problem worldwide, and the current antiviral therapy, including nucleoside analogs, cannot achieve life-long cure, and clarification of antiviral host immunity is necessary for eradication. Here, we found that a clathrin-binding membrane protein epsin3 (EPN3) negatively regulates the expression of HBV RNA. EPN3 expression was induced by transfection of an HBV replicon plasmid, and reduced HBV-RNA level in hepatic cell lines and murine livers hydrodynamically injected with the HBV replicon plasmid. Viral RNA reduction by EPN3 was dependent on transcription, and independent from epsilon structure of viral RNA. Viral RNA reduction by overexpression of p53 or IFN-α treatment, was attenuated by knockdown of EPN3, suggesting its role downstream of IFN-α and p53. Taken together, this study demonstrates the anti-HBV role of EPN3. The mechanism how it decreases HBV transcription is discussed.

O083 A proof of principle study of cell targeted delivery of sirna guided by innate repair receptor epor/βcr highly expressed by injured tubular epithelial cells in porcine kidneys subjected to extended cold ischaemia times

Introduction

Small interfering RNA (siRNA) has been used in biological models for disease modification. Whilst challenges remain with targeted cell delivery, caspase-3, an executing enzyme of apoptosis and inflammation, plays a crucial role in acute kidney injury. Using caspase-3 siRNA or erythropoietin derived peptide CHBP, we have demonstrated renoprotection against ischaemia-reperfusion injury in isolated kidney preservation, and further applied the conjugate of both.

Methods

Porcine kidneys (n = 3) subjected to 10 minutes of warm ischemia were retrieved and perfused with 500 mL hyperosmolar citrate. In comparison with the control (Kidney 1) caspase-3 siRNAHBSP (Kidney 2) or CHBP (Kidney 3) conjugate was administered into the kidney and autologous blood and stored for 22 hours in ice. Organs were then preserved by normothermic perfusion (NP) for 3 hours using clinical-grade cardiopulmonary bypass. Functional parameters were recorded, and kidney biopsies were taken at time zero (pre-perfusion) and hourly intervals following NP.

Results

Preliminary findings showed increased arterial flow rate and urine output together with neutralised perfusate pH in the kidneys (2 and 3) receiving both conjugates compared to the control.

Conclusion

Improved physiological outcomes in kidneys subjected to the novel agent treatment suggest protective effects against ischaemia. We hypothesise outcomes should be transferrable to human kidneys, which may facilitate the use of marginal kidneys following prolonged ischaemia, otherwise deemed unsuitable for transplantation. Renal histological and molecular studies of the effect of the agent are underway.

Take-home message

Despite a small sample, this pilot proof of principle study suggests that caspase-3 inhibitors may have a role in limiting the detrimental effects of ischaemia on renal tissues subjected to prolonged cold ischaemic times. It is hoped that this may be beneficial if replicated in the human kidney model at increasing the deceased donor organ pool by enabling use of marginal kidneys subjected to prolonged ischaemic times.

Straight Photonic Nodal Lines with Quadrupole Berry Curvature Distribution and Superimaging "Fermi Arcs"

In periodic systems, nodal lines are loops in the three-dimensional momentum space with each point on them representing a band degeneracy. Nodal lines exhibit rich topological features, as they can take various configurations such as rings, links, chains, and knots. These line nodes are generally protected by mirror or PT symmetry and frequently accompanied by drumhead surface states. Here, we propose and demonstrate a novel type of photonic straight nodal lines in a D_{2D} metacrystal, which are protected by an unusual rotoinversion time (roto-PT) symmetry. These nodal lines are located at the central axis and hinges of the Brillouin zone. They appear as quadrupole sources of Berry curvature flux in contrast to the Weyl points, which are monopoles. Interestingly, topological surface states exist at all three cutting surfaces, as guaranteed by π-quantized Zak phases along all three directions. As frequency changes, the surface state equifrequency contours evolve from closed to open and become straight lines at a critical transition frequency, at which diffractionless surface wave propagations are experimentally demonstrated, paving the way toward development of superimaging topological devices.