Unraveling the Impact of Curvature on Electrocatalytic Performance of Carbon Materials: A State-of-the-Art Review

Curvature of carbon materials has gained significant attention as catalysts due to their distinctive properties and potential applications. This review comprehensively summarizes how the bending of carbon materials can improve electrocatalytic performance, with special attention to the applications of various bent carbon materials (such as carbon nanotubes, graphene, and fullerene) in electrocatalysts and a large number of related density functional theory (DFT) theoretical calculations. Extensive mechanism research has provided a wealth of evidence indicating that the curvature of carbon materials has a profound impact on catalytic activity. This improvement in catalytic performance by curved carbon materials is attributed to factors like a larger active surface area, modulation of electronic structure, and better dispersal of catalytic active sites. A comprehensive understanding and utilization of these effects enable the design of highly efficient carbon-based catalysts for applications in energy conversion, environmental remediation, and chemical synthesis.

Mutual learning with reliable pseudo label for semi-supervised medical image segmentation

Semi-supervised learning has garnered significant interest as a method to alleviate the burden of data annotation. Recently, semi-supervised medical image segmentation has garnered significant interest that can alleviate the burden of densely annotated data. Substantial advancements have been achieved by integrating consistency-regularization and pseudo-labeling techniques. The quality of the pseudo-labels is crucial in this regard. Unreliable pseudo-labeling can result in the introduction of noise, leading the model to converge to suboptimal solutions. To address this issue, we propose learning from reliable pseudo-labels. In this paper, we tackle two critical questions in learning from reliable pseudo-labels: which pseudo-labels are reliable and how reliable are they? Specifically, we conduct a comparative analysis of two subnetworks to address both challenges. Initially, we compare the prediction confidence of the two subnetworks. A higher confidence score indicates a more reliable pseudo-label. Subsequently, we utilize intra-class similarity to assess the reliability of the pseudo-labels to address the second challenge. The greater the intra-class similarity of the predicted classes, the more reliable the pseudo-label. The subnetwork selectively incorporates knowledge imparted by the other subnetwork model, contingent on the reliability of the pseudo labels. By reducing the introduction of noise from unreliable pseudo-labels, we are able to improve the performance of segmentation. To demonstrate the superiority of our approach, we conducted an extensive set of experiments on three datasets: Left Atrium, Pancreas-CT and Brats-2019. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach achieves state-of-the-art performance. Code is available at: https://github.com/Jiawei0o0/mutual-learning-with-reliable-pseudo-labels.

Revealing underlying regulatory mechanisms of LINC00313 in Osimertinib-resistant LUAD cells by ceRNA network analysis

BACKGROUND

Osimertinib, a third-generation epidermal growth factor receptor-tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI), is the preferred treatment for EGFR-mutated lung cancer. However, acquired resistance inevitably develops. While non-coding RNAs have been implicated in lung cancer through various functions, the molecular mechanisms responsible for osimertinib resistance remain incompletely elucidated.

METHODS

RNA-sequencing technology was employed to determine differentially expressed lncRNAs (DE-lncRNAs) and mRNAs (DE-mRNAs) between H1975 and H1975OR cell lines. Starbase 2.0 was utilized to predict DE-lncRNA and DE-mRNA interactions, constructing ceRNA networks. Subsequently, functional and pathway enrichment analysis were performed on target DE-mRNAs to identify pathways associated with osimertinib resistance. Key target DE-mRNAs were then selected as potential risk signatures for lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) prognostic modeling using multivariate Cox regression analyses. The Quantitative Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) and immunohistochemistry staining were used for result validation.

RESULTS

Functional analysis revealed that the identified DE-mRNAs primarily enriched in EGFR-TKI resistance pathways, especially in the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, where their concerted actions may lead to osimertinib resistance. Specifically, upregulation of LINC00313 enhanced COL1A1 expression by acting as a miR-218-5p sponge, triggering an upstream response that activates the PI3K/Akt pathway, potentially contributing to osimertinib resistance. Furthermore, the expressions of LINC00313 and COL1A1 were validated by qRT-PCR, and the activation of the PI3K/Akt pathway was confirmed by immunohistochemistry staining.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that the LINC00313/miR-218-5p/COL1A1 axis potentially contributes to osimertinib resistance through the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, providing novel insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying acquired osimertinib resistance in LUAD. Additionally, our study may aid in the identification of potential therapeutic targets for overcoming resistance to osimertinib.

Accurate detection and grading of pterygium through smartphone by a fusion training model

BACKGROUND/AIMS

To improve the accuracy of pterygium screening and detection through smartphones, we established a fusion training model by blending a large number of slit-lamp image data with a small proportion of smartphone data.

METHOD

Two datasets were used, a slit-lamp image dataset containing 20 987 images and a smartphone-based image dataset containing 1094 images. The RFRC (Faster RCNN based on ResNet101) model for the detection model. The SRU-Net (U-Net based on SE-ResNeXt50) for the segmentation models. The open-cv algorithm measured the width, length and area of pterygium in the cornea.

RESULTS

The detection model (trained by slit-lamp images) obtained the mean accuracy of 95.24%. The fusion segmentation model (trained by smartphone and slit-lamp images) achieved a microaverage F1 score of 0.8981, sensitivity of 0.8709, specificity of 0.9668 and area under the curve (AUC) of 0.9295. Compared with the same group of patients' smartphone and slit-lamp images, the fusion model performance in smartphone-based images (F1 score of 0.9313, sensitivity of 0.9360, specificity of 0.9613, AUC of 0.9426, accuracy of 92.38%) is close to the model (trained by slit-lamp images) in slit-lamp images (F1 score of 0.9448, sensitivity of 0.9165, specificity of 0.9689, AUC of 0.9569 and accuracy of 94.29%).

CONCLUSION

Our fusion model method got high pterygium detection and grading accuracy in insufficient smartphone data, and its performance is comparable to experienced ophthalmologists and works well in different smartphone brands.

[Construction of an evaluation index system for the capability of comprehensive control of mountain - type zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis based on the One Health concept]

OBJECTIVE

To construct an evaluation index system for the capability of comprehensive control of mountain-type zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis based on the One Health concept, so as to provide insights into the control and elimination of mountain-type zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis using the One Health approach.

METHODS

A preliminary evaluation index system was constructed based on literature review, panel discussions and field surveys. Thirty-three experts were selected from 7 provincial disease control and prevention centers in Beijing Municipality, Hebei Province, Shanxi Province, Henan Province, Sichuan Province, Shaanxi Province and Gansu Province where mountain-type zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis was endemic, and two rounds of expert consultations were conducted to screen the indicators. The positive coefficient, degree of concentration, degree of coordination, and authority of the experts were calculated, and the normalized weights of each index were calculated with the analytic hierarchy process.

RESULTS

The response rates of questionnaires during two rounds of expert consultation were both 100.00% (33/33), and the authority coefficients of the experts were 0.86 and 0.88, respectively. The coefficients of coordination among experts on the rationality, importance, and operability of the indicators were 0.392, 0.437, 0.258, and 0.364, 0.335, 0.263, respectively (all P values < 0.05). Following screening, the final evaluation index system included 3 primary indicators, 17 secondary indicators, and 50 tertiary indicators. The normalized weights of primary indicators "external environment", "internal support" and "comprehensive control" were 16.98%, 38.73% and 44.29%, respectively. Among the secondary indicators of the primary indicator "external environment", the highest weight was seen for natural environment (66.67%), and among the secondary indicators of the primary indicator "internal support", the lowest weight was seen for the scientific research for visceral leishmaniasis control (8.26%), while other indicators had weights of 12.42% to 13.38%. Among the secondary indicators of the primary indicator "comprehensive control", the weight was 16.67% for each indicator.

CONCLUSIONS

An evaluation index system has been constructed for the capability of comprehensive control of mountain-type zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis based on the One Health concept. In addition to assessment of the effect of conventional mountain-type zoonotic visceral leishmaniasis control measures, this index system integrates the importance of top-level design, organizational management, and implementation of control measures, and includes indicators related to multi-sectoral cooperation.

Dietary supplementation of proteases on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood characteristics and gut microbiota of growing pigs fed sorghum-based diets

Low-tannin sorghum is an excellent energy source in pig diets. However, sorghum contains several anti-nutritional factors that may have negative effects on nutrient digestibility. The impacts of proteases on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood parameters, and gut microbiota of growing pigs fed sorghum-based diets were studied in this study. Ninety-six pigs (20.66 ± 0.65 kg BW) were allocated into three groups (eight pens/group, four pigs/pen): (1) CON (control diet, sorghum-based diet included 66.98% sorghum), (2) PRO1 (CON + 200 mg/kg proteases), (3) PRO2 (CON + 400 mg/kg proteases) for 28 d. No differences were observed in growth performance and apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of nutrients between CON and PRO1 groups. Pigs fed PRO2 diet had increased (P < 0.05) BW on d 21 and 28, and increased (P < 0.05) average daily gain during d 14-21 and the overall period compared with pigs fed CON diet. In addition, pigs fed PRO2 diet had improved (P < 0.05) ATTD of gross energy, CP, and DM compared with pigs fed CON and PRO1 diets. Pigs fed PRO2 diet had lower (P < 0.05) plasma globulin (GLB) level and higher (P < 0.05) plasma glucose, albumin (ALB) and immunoglobulin G levels, and ALB/GLB ratio than pigs fed CON and PRO1 diets. Furthermore, pigs fed PRO2 diet had decreased (P < 0.05) the relative abundance of Acidobacteriota at the phylum level and increased (P < 0.05) the relative abundance of Prevotella_9 at the genus level. The linear discriminant analysis effect size analysis also showed that pigs fed PRO2 diet had significantly enriched short-chain fatty acid-producing bacteria, such as Subdoligranulum and Parabacteroides. In conclusion, protease supplementation at 400 mg/kg improved the growth performance of growing pigs fed sorghum-based diets, which may be attributed to the improvement of nutrient digestibility, host metabolism, immune status and associated with the altered gut microbiota profiles.

Cleaved SPP1-rich extracellular vesicles from osteoclasts promote bone regeneration via TGFβ1/SMAD3 signaling

Bone remodeling is a tightly coupled process between bone forming osteoblasts (OBs) and bone resorbing osteoclasts (OCs) to maintain bone architecture and systemic mineral homeostasis throughout life. However, the mechanisms responsible for the coupling between OCs and OBs have not been fully elucidated. Herein, we first validate that secreted extracellular vesicles by osteoclasts (OC-EVs) promote osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and further demonstrate the efficacy of osteoclasts and their secreted EVs in treating tibial bone defects. Furthermore, we show that OC-EVs contain several osteogenesis-promoting proteins as cargo. By employing proteomic and functional analysis, we reveal that mature osteoclasts secrete thrombin cleaved phosphoprotein 1 (SPP1) through extracellular vesicles which triggers MSCs osteogenic differentiation into OBs by activating Transforming Growth Factor β1 (TGFβ1) and Smad family member 3 (SMAD3) signaling. In conclusion, our findings prove an important role of SPP1, present as cargo in OC-derived EVs, in signaling to MSCs and driving their differentiation into OBs. This biological mechanism implies a paradigm shift regarding the role of osteoclasts and their signaling toward the treatment of skeletal disorders which require bone formation.

Impact of COVID-19 infection experience on mental health status of intensive care unit patients' family members: a real-world study

PURPOSE

Family members of patients hospitalized in intensive care unit (ICU) are susceptible to adverse psychological outcomes. However, there is a paucity of studies specifically examining the mental health symptoms in ICU patients' family members with a prior history of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection.

AIM

This study aimed to investigate mental health status and its influencing factors of ICU patients' family members with previous COVID-19 infection experience in China.

DESIGN

Nationwide, cross-sectional cohort of consecutive participants of family members of ICU patients from 10 provinces randomly selected in mainland China conducted between October 2022 and May 2023.

METHODS

The basic information scale, Self-rating depression scale, Self-rating Anxiety Scale, Impact of Event Scale-Revised, Pittsburgh sleep quality index, Perceived Stress Scale, Connor-Davidson resilience scale, Simplified Coping Style Questionnaire were employed to explore mental health status among participants.

RESULTS

A total of 463 participants, comprising 156 individuals in Covid-19 family member cohort (infection group) and 307 individuals in control family member cohort (control group), met inclusion criteria. The infection group exhibited significantly higher incidence of composite mental health symptoms compared to control group (P = 0.017). Multivariable logistic regression analysis revealed that being female, engaging in physical/mental labor, residing in rural areas, and having children were identified as risk factors for the development of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, while medical history of surgery was protective factor. A predictive model demonstrated a favorable discriminative ability and excellent calibration.

CONCLUSION

COVID-19 infection experience regarded as new traumatic stressors worsen mental health status of ICU patients' family members.

Butyrate Inhibits Dendritic Cell Activation and Alleviates Periodontitis

Dendritic cells (DCs) can mediate inflammation-related bone resorption that is crucial in the development of periodontitis. Butyrate is a critical by-product of microbes with antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. Here, we found that butyrate inhibited the activation of lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced DCs and generation of inflammatory cytokines by DCs. Moreover, butyrate regulated glycolysis in LPS-induced DCs via the G-protein-coupled receptor/hypoxia-inducible factor-1α pathway. In addition, butyrate inhibited the maturation of CD11c+MHC-II+ DCs in vivo, suppressing local inflammatory infiltration and ultimately alleviating bone resorption in a periodontitis model. Our results imply that butyrate suppresses the activation of LPS-induced DCs by modulating their metabolism, highlighting its potential as a therapeutic agent for inflammatory diseases.

Impacts of pregnancy and menopause on COVID-19 severity: a systematic review and meta-analysis of 4.6 million women

BACKGROUND

Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is still a public health emergency of international concern. However, whether pregnancy and menopause impact the severity of COVID-19 remain unclear.

AIM

This study is performed to investigate the truth.

DESIGN

Study appraisal and synthesis follows PRISMA guideline. Meta-analysis is performed in random-effects model.

METHODS

PubMed, Embase, Cochrane database, Central, CINAHL, ClinicalTrials.gov, WHO COVID-19 database and WHO-ICTRP are searched until 28 March 2023.

RESULTS

In total, 57 studies (4 640 275 COVID-19 women) were analyzed. Pregnant women were at a lower risk of severe COVID-19, intensive care unit (ICU) admission and disease mortality compared to those nonpregnant women with comparable comorbidities. In contrast, pregnant women with more prepregnancy comorbidities were at a higher risk of severe COVID-19, ICU admission and invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV). In addition, pregnant women with pregnancy complications had a significantly increased risk of severe COVID-19 and ICU admission. Menopause increased COVID-19 severity, IMV requirement and disease mortality. Hormone replacement therapy inhibited COVID-19 severity in postmenopausal women. Premenopausal and postmenopausal women had a lower chance of severe illness than age-matched men. The impact of pregnancy on COVID-19 severity was significant in Americans and Caucasians, whereas the effect of menopause on COVID-19 severity was only significant in Chinese.

CONCLUSIONS

Pregnancy and menopause are protective and risk factors for severe COVID-19, respectively. The protective role of pregnancy on COVID-19 is minimal and could be counteracted or masked by prepregnancy or pregnancy comorbidities. The administration of estrogen and progesterone may prevent severe COVID-19.

A Fully Automatic Estimation of Tear Meniscus Height Using Artificial Intelligence

Purpose

Accurate quantification measurement of tear meniscus is vital for the precise diagnosis of dry eye. In current clinical practice, the measurement of tear meniscus height (TMH) relies on doctors' manual operation. This study aims to propose a novel automatic artificial intelligence (AI) system to evaluate TMH.

Methods

A total of 510 photographs obtained by the oculus camera were labeled. Three thousand and five hundred images were finally attained by data enhancement to train the neural network model parameters, and 60 were used to evaluate the model performance in segmenting the cornea and tear meniscus region. One hundred images were used to test generalization ability of the model. We modified a segmentation model of the cornea and the tear meniscus based on the UNet-like network. The output of the segmentation model is followed by a calculation module that calculates and reports the TMH.

Results

Compared with ground truth (GT) manually labeled by clinicians, our modified model achieved a Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC) and Intersection over union (Iou) of 0.99/0.98 in the corneal segmentation task and 0.92/0.86 for the detection of tear meniscus on the validation set, respectively. On the test set, the TMH automatically measured by our AI system strongly correlates with the results manually calculated by the ophthalmologists.

Conclusions

We developed a fully automated and reliable AI system to obtain TMH. After large-scale clinical testing, our method could be used for dry eye screening in clinical practice.

Workplace bullying and suicidal ideation and behaviour: a systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVES

Suicidal ideation and behaviour are potential outcomes of workplace bullying. This review aimed to determine the extent of the association between workplace bullying and suicidal ideation and behaviour.

STUDY DESIGN

The study incorporated a systematic review and meta-analysis.

METHODS

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses statement was followed to conduct a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis. A combination of subject terms and free words was used to search nine electronic databases. Two reviewers independently screened articles and extracted information according to the inclusion criteria. A meta-analysis was performed with averaged weighted correlations across samples using the STATA software (version 16.0) from pooled estimates of the main results from all studies.

RESULTS

In total, 25 articles of high or medium quality were included in the systematic review; 15 of these were included in the meta-analysis. The prevalence of suicidal ideation and behaviour was 18% and 4%, respectively. Individuals who experienced workplace bullying had 2.03-times and 2.67-times higher odds of reporting suicidal ideation and behaviour, respectively, after adjustment for confounding factors. Moderating and mediating factors may help reduce the risk of suicidal ideation and behaviour for individuals experiencing workplace bullying.

CONCLUSION

This study indicated that exposure to workplace bullying significantly increased the risk of suicidal ideation and behaviour.

Digital light processing 3D printing for microfluidic chips with enhanced resolution via dosing- and zoning-controlled vat photopolymerization

Conventional manufacturing techniques to fabricate microfluidic chips, such as soft lithography and hot embossing process, have limitations that include difficulty in preparing multiple-layered structures, cost- and labor-consuming fabrication process, and low productivity. Digital light processing (DLP) technology has recently emerged as a cost-efficient microfabrication approach for the 3D printing of microfluidic chips; however, the fabrication resolution for microchannels is still limited to sub-100 microns at best. Here, we developed an innovative DLP printing strategy for high resolution and scalable microchannel fabrication by dosing- and zoning-controlled vat photopolymerization (DZC-VPP). Specifically, we proposed a modified mathematical model to precisely predict the accumulated UV irradiance for resin photopolymerization, thereby providing guidance for the fabrication of microchannels with enhanced resolution. By fine-tuning the printing parameters, including optical irradiance, exposure time, projection region, and step distance, we can precisely tailor the penetration irradiance stemming from the photopolymerization of the neighboring resin layers, thereby preventing channel blockage due to UV overexposure or compromised bonding stability owing to insufficient resin curing. Remarkably, this strategy can allow the preparation of microchannels with cross-sectional dimensions of 20 μm × 20 μm using a commercial printer with a pixel size of 10 μm × 10 μm; this is significantly higher resolution than previous reports. In addition, this method can enable the scalable and biocompatible fabrication of microfluidic drop-maker units that can be used for cell encapsulation. In general, the current DZC-VPP method can enable major advances in precise and scalable microchannel fabrication and represents a significant step forward for widespread applications of microfluidics-based techniques in biomedical fields.

First Observation of the β3αp Decay of ^{13}O via β-Delayed Charged-Particle Spectroscopy

The β-delayed proton decay of ^{13}O has previously been studied, but the direct observation of β-delayed 3αp decay has not been reported. Rare 3αp events from the decay of excited states in ^{13}N^{⋆} provide a sensitive probe of cluster configurations in ^{13}N. To measure the low-energy products following β-delayed 3αp decay, the Texas Active Target (TexAT) time projection chamber was employed using the one-at-a-time β-delayed charged-particle spectroscopy technique at the Cyclotron Institute, Texas A&M University. A total of 1.9×10^{5} ^{13}O implantations were made inside the TexAT time projection chamber. A total of 149 3αp events were observed, yielding a β-delayed 3αp branching ratio of 0.078(6)%. Four previously unknown α-decaying excited states were observed in ^{13}N at 11.3, 12.4, 13.1, and 13.7 MeV decaying via the 3α+p channel.

Pharmacokinetics and safety of Padsevonil in healthy Chinese subjects and comparison of two sampling methods for Padsevonil quantification

OBJECTIVE

Padsevonil (PSL) is a novel antiepileptic drug candidate that inhibits seizure activity in both presynaptic and postsynaptic ways. The pharmacokinetic (PK) profiles and volumetric absorptive microsampling (VAMS) application of PSL in the Chinese population are limited. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the PK profile of PSL and its 2 metabolites, the safety of PSL, and compare the PK profile of PSL from samples collected using the VAMS technique with that of conventional venous samples in healthy Chinese subjects.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS

In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled single-dose study, the participants received either 200 mg PSL or placebo. Blood samples for the PK variables were collected using both the traditional venous method and the VAMS Mitra® technique at the scheduled time points. The PK parameters of PSL and 2 metabolites were calculated, and the concentration agreement of VAMS and venous samples were also evaluated.

RESULTS

A total of 14 subjects were enrolled. The concentration-time profile of PSL showed rapid absorption with a median tmax of 1.25 h (range: 0.5 to 3.0), followed by an apparent biphasic disposition. For PSL, the geometric means of AUC(0-t), AUC, Cmax, and t1/2 were 6,573 h*ng/mL, 6,588 h*ng/mL, 1,387 ng/mL, and 5.275 h, respectively. The geometric mean body weight-normalized AUC(0-t), AUC, and Cmax were 5,712 h*ng/mL, 5,725 h*ng/mL, and 1,205 ng/mL, respectively. The AUC(0-t), AUC, Cmax of PSL and metabolites in VAMS-dried blood were all lower than those in plasma. The Passing-Bablok regression showed that the PSL and metabolite concentrations obtained by VAMS analysis were comparable to those obtained by plasma at some time points. The most frequently reported treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) were somnolence and dizziness. There were no serious TEAEs, severe TEAEs, discontinuations due to TEAEs, or deaths reported during this study. No clinically significant laboratory, vital signs, electrocardiograph (ECG), or physical examination results were reported.

CONCLUSIONS

PSL has a favorable PK profile after single-dose oral administration and good safety properties in healthy Chinese volunteers. The regression analysis results of VAMS and plasma indicated that the application of VAMS for therapeutic drug monitoring in novel antiepileptic drug development is promising and needs further validation.

Prevalence and risk factors of erectile dysfunction in COVID-19 patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis

PURPOSE

Studies have found that erectile dysfunction (ED) may be a short-term or long-term complication in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, but no relevant studies have completed a pooled analysis of this claim. The purpose of the review was to comprehensively search the relevant literature, summarize the prevalence of ED in COVID-19 patients, assess risk factors for its development, and explore the effect of the COVID-19 infection on erectile function.

METHODS

Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Library was performed from database inception until April 14, 2022. Heterogeneity was analyzed by χ² tests and I² was used as a quantitative test of heterogeneity. Subgroup analyses, meta-regression, and sensitivity analyses were used to analyze sources of heterogeneity.

RESULTS

Our review included 8 studies, 4 of which functioned as a control group. There were 250,606 COVID-19 patients (mean age: 31-47.1 years, sample size: 23-246,990). The control group consisted of 10,844,200 individuals (mean age: 32.76-42.4 years, sample size 75-10,836,663). The prevalence of ED was 33% (95% CI 18-47%, I² = 99.48%) in COVID-19 patients. The prevalence of ED based on the international coding of diseases (ICD-10) was 9% (95% CI 2-19%), which was significantly lower than the prevalence of ED diagnosed based on the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF-5) (46%, 95% CI 22-71%, I² = 96.72%). The pooling prevalence of ED was 50% (95% CI 34-67%, I² = 81.54%) for articles published in 2021, significantly higher than that for articles published in 2022 (17%, 95% CI 7-30%, I² = 99.55%). The relative risk of developing ED was 2.64 times in COVID-19 patients higher than in non-COVID-19 patients (RR: 2.64, 95% CI 1.01-6.88). The GRADE-pro score showed that the mean incidence of ED events in COVID-19 patients was 1,333/50,606 (2.6%) compared with 52,937/844,200 (0.4%) in controls; the absolute impact of COVID-19 on ED was 656/100,000 (ranging from 4/100,000 to 2352/100,000). Anxiety (OR: 1.13, 95% CI 1.03-1.26, I² = 0.0%) in COVID-19 patients was a risk factor for ED.

CONCLUSION

COVID-19 patients have a high risk and prevalence of ED, mainly driven by anxiety. Attention should be paid to patient's erectile functioning when treating COVID-19.

Towards Robust Person Re-Identification by Defending Against Universal Attackers

Recent studies show that deep person re-identification (re-ID) models are vulnerable to adversarial examples, so it is critical to improving the robustness of re-ID models against attacks. To achieve this goal, we explore the strengths and weaknesses of existing re-ID models, i.e., designing learning-based attacks and training robust models by defending against the learned attacks. The contributions of this paper are three-fold: First, we build a holistic attack-defense framework to study the relationship between the attack and defense for person re-ID. Second, we introduce a combinatorial adversarial attack that is adaptive to unseen domains and unseen model types. It consists of distortions in pixel and color space (i.e., mimicking camera shifts). Third, we propose a novel virtual-guided meta-learning algorithm for our attack-defense system. We leverage a virtual dataset to conduct experiments under our meta-learning framework, which can explore the cross-domain constraints for enhancing the generalization of the attack and the robustness of the re-ID model. Comprehensive experiments on three large-scale re-ID benchmarks demonstrate that: 1) Our combinatorial attack is effective and highly universal in cross-model and cross-dataset scenarios; 2) Our meta-learning algorithm can be readily applied to different attack and defense approaches, which can reach consistent improvement; 3) The defense model trained on the learning-to-learn framework is robust to recent SOTA attacks that are not even used during training.

[Malaria control knowledge and behaviors and their influencing factors among residents in Banlao Township, Cangyuan County, Yunnan Province]

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the awareness of malaria-related knowledge, the use of mosquito nets and their influencing factors among residents in Banlao Township, Cangyuan County, Yunnan Province.

METHODS

In August 2020, 19 settlement sites in Banlao Township, Cangyuan County, Lincang City, Yunnan Province were selected as study areas, and permanent residents at ages of 10 years and older were enrolled for a questionnaire survey, including residents' demographics, family economic status, malaria control knowledge and use of mosquito nets. In addition, the factors affecting the use of mosquito nets in the night prior to the survey were identified using multivariate logistic regression analysis.

RESULTS

A total of 320 questionnaires were allocated, and all were recovered (a 100% recovery rate). There were 316 valid questionnaires, with an effective recovery rate of 98.75%. The 316 respondents included 152 men and 164 women and 250 Chinese respondents and 66 foreign respondents. The awareness of clinical syndromes of malaria was significantly higher among Chinese residents (71.60%) than among foreign residents (50.00%) (χ² = 11.03, P < 0.01), and the proportions of Chinese and foreign residents sleeping under mosquito nets were 46.00% and 69.70% on the night prior to the survey, respectively (χ² = 11.73, P < 0.01). Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified ethnicity group and type of residence as factors affecting the use of mosquito nets in the night prior to the survey.

CONCLUSIONS

The awareness of malaria control knowledge, the coverage and the use of mosquito nets were low among residents in Banlao Township, Cangyuan County, Yunnan Province. Targeted health education is recommended to improve the awareness of malaria control knowledge and self-protection ability. In addition, improving the allocation of long-lasting mosquito nets and health education pertaining to their uses and increasing the proportion of using mosquito nets correctly is needed to prevent re-establishment of imported malaria.

AES-CSFS: an automatic evaluation system for corneal sodium fluorescein staining based on deep learning

Background

Corneal fluorescein sodium staining is a valuable diagnostic method for various ocular surface diseases. However, the examination results are highly dependent on the subjective experience of ophthalmologists.

Objectives

To develop an artificial intelligence system based on deep learning to provide an accurate quantitative assessment of sodium fluorescein staining score and the size of cornea epithelial patchy defect.

Design

A prospective study.

Methods

We proposed an artificial intelligence system for automatically evaluating corneal staining scores and accurately measuring patchy corneal epithelial defects based on corneal fluorescein sodium staining images. The design incorporates two segmentation models and a classification model to forecast and assess the stained images. Meanwhile, we compare the evaluation findings from the system with ophthalmologists with varying expertise.

Results

For the segmentation task of cornea boundary and cornea epithelial patchy defect area, our proposed method can achieve the performance of dice similarity coefficient (DSC) is 0.98/0.97 and Hausdorff distance (HD) is 3.60/8.39, respectively, when compared with the manually labeled gold standard. This method significantly outperforms the four leading algorithms (Unet, Unet++, Swin-Unet, and TransUnet). For the classification task, our algorithm achieves the best performance in accuracy, recall, and F1-score, which are 91.2%, 78.6%, and 79.2%, respectively. The performance of our developed system exceeds seven different approaches (Inception, ShuffleNet, Xception, EfficientNet_B7, DenseNet, ResNet, and VIT) in classification tasks. In addition, three ophthalmologists were selected to rate corneal staining images. The results showed that the performance of our artificial intelligence system significantly outperformed the junior doctors.

Conclusion

The system offers a promising automated assessment method for corneal fluorescein staining, decreasing incorrect evaluations caused by ophthalmologists' subjective variance and limited knowledge.

Anticeramide Improves Sjögren's Syndrome by Blocking BMP6-Induced Th1

T-cell dysfunction has been shown to play an important role in the pathogenesis of Sjögren's syndrome (SS). In recent studies, the increased expression of BMP6 has been reported to be related to SS. However, the roles that BMP6 plays in immune homeostasis in the development of SS as well as the downstream signals activated by BMP6 remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the effects and molecular mechanisms of BMP6 on naive CD4⁺ T cells, showing that BMP6 could upregulate interferon (IFN)-γ secretion from CD4⁺ T cells through a ceramide/nuclear factor-κB pathway, with no effect on T-cell activation or proliferation. Moreover, an in vivo study showed that anticeramide treatment (myriocin) for an SS animal model (NOD/LtJ mice) could significantly decrease the IFN-γ expression and Th1 frequency in the salivary glands and suppress the inflammation infiltration in salivary glands and maintain the salivary flow rates, both of which reflect SS-like symptoms. This study identifies a promising target that could effectively attenuate the abnormal state of CD4⁺ T cells and reverse the progression of SS.

Seroprevalence of antibodies to classical swine fever virus and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus in healthy pigs in Hunan Province, China

Classical swine fever (CSF) and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) are responsible for major economic losses and represent a threat to the swine industry worldwide. Routine surveillance serology for CSF and PRRS viruses is critical to maintaining the health status of sow farms in Hunan Province, which is one of the top pig production provinces in China. The aim of our study was to investigate the serological statistics of CSF virus (CSFV) and PRRS virus (PRRSV) in Hunan Province. The cohort serum samples were collected from vaccinated and unvaccinated pigs. Our findings showed that the average rates of CSFV and PRRSV antibody seropositivity were 82.2% (95% CI: 80.1-84.3) and 84.8% (95% CI: 82.5-87.1), respectively, in the immunized group and that these rates were higher than those in the unvaccinated group (58.6% for CSFV and 47.8% for PRRSV). Additionally, the level of CSFV antibody in piglet serum declined gradually with age, whereas PRRSV-specific antibody level increased initially (1 to 2 weeks old) and then declined with age (2 to 4 weeks old). In summary, we investigated the difference in CSFV/PRRSV antibody levels among piglets at various weeks old (1 to 4 weeks) to further establish the duration of maternal immunity in piglets. In addition, routine monitoring of CSFV/PRRSV antibodies in immunized pigs was carried out to evaluate the efficacy of vaccination.

Joint Representation Learning and Keypoint Detection for Cross-View Geo-Localization

In this paper, we study the cross-view geo-localization problem to match images from different viewpoints. The key motivation underpinning this task is to learn a discriminative viewpoint-invariant visual representation. Inspired by the human visual system for mining local patterns, we propose a new framework called RK-Net to jointly learn the discriminative Representation and detect salient Keypoints with a single Network. Specifically, we introduce a Unit Subtraction Attention Module (USAM) that can automatically discover representative keypoints from feature maps and draw attention to the salient regions. USAM contains very few learning parameters but yields significant performance improvement and can be easily plugged into different networks. We demonstrate through extensive experiments that (1) by incorporating USAM, RK-Net facilitates end-to-end joint learning without the prerequisite of extra annotations. Representation learning and keypoint detection are two highly-related tasks. Representation learning aids keypoint detection. Keypoint detection, in turn, enriches the model capability against large appearance changes caused by viewpoint variants. (2) USAM is easy to implement and can be integrated with existing methods, further improving the state-of-the-art performance. We achieve competitive geo-localization accuracy on three challenging datasets, i. e., University-1652, CVUSA and CVACT. Our code is available at https://github.com/AggMan96/RK-Net.

Analysis of the lncRNA–miRNA–mRNA Network Reveals a Potential Regulatory Mechanism of EGFR-TKI Resistance in NSCLC

Epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) are widely used for patients with EGFR-mutated lung cancer. Despite its initial therapeutic efficacy, most patients eventually develop drug resistance, which leads to a poor prognosis in lung cancer patients. Previous investigations have proved that non-coding RNAs including long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), circular RNAs (circRNAs), and microRNAs (miRNAs) contribute to drug resistance by various biological functions, whereas how they regulate EGFR-TKI resistance remains unclear. In this study, we examined gene expression using the microarray technology on gefitinib-resistant NSCLC cells to obtain differentially expressed (DE) lncRNAs and mRNAs. A total of 45 DE-lncRNAs associated with overall survival and 1799 target DE-mRNAs were employed to construct a core lncRNA–miRNA–mRNA network to illustrate underlying molecular mechanisms of how EGFR-TKI resistance occurs in NSCLC. We found that target DE-mRNAs were mainly enriched in pathways involved in EGFR-TKI resistance, especially the target DE-mRNAs regulated by LINC01128 were significantly enriched in the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, where the synergy of these target DE-mRNAs may play a key role in EGFR-TKI resistance. In addition, downregulated LINC01128, acting as a specific miRNA sponge, decreases PTEN via sponging miR-25-3p. Furthermore, signaling reactions caused by the downregulation of PTEN would activate the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, which may lead to EGFR-TKI resistance. In addition, a survival analysis indicated the low expression of LINC01128, and PTEN is closely related to poor prognosis in lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD). Therefore, the LINC01128/miR-25-3p/PTEN axis may promote EGFR-TKI resistance via the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, which provides new insights into the underlying molecular mechanisms of drug resistance to EGFR-TKIs in NSCLC. In addition, our study sheds light on developing novel therapeutic approaches to overcome EGFR-TKI resistance in NSCLC.

Microstructure and mechanical properties of dissimilar NiTi and 304 stainless steel joints produced by ultrasonic welding

Superelastic NiTi alloy and 304 stainless steel (304 SS) were joined with a Cu interlayer by ultrasonic spot welding (USW) using different welding energy inputs. The surface morphology, interfacial microstructure, mechanical properties, and fracture mechanisms of the dissimilar NiTi/304 SS USWed joints were studied. The results showed that the surface oxidation intensified with increasing ultrasonic welding energy due to mutual rubbing between tools and sheets. The weld interface microstructure exhibited voids or unbonded zones at low energy inputs, while an intimate contact was established at the joining interface when applying a higher energy input of 750 J. With increasing energy input to 750 J, the weld interface shows two interfaces due to the behavior of plastic flow of Cu interlayer. The lap-shear load of the joints first increased, achieving a maximum value of ∼690 N at an energy input of 750 J, and then decreased with further increase in welding energy. Interfacial failure was observed at NiTi/Cu interface at all energy inputs, and no intermetallic compounds were found on the fracture surfaces of both the NiTi/Cu and Cu/304 SS interfaces.

Clinical study of the clinical characteristics and prognosis of 1219 cases of endometrial cancer with lymph node metastasis

To analyze the clinical characteristics and prognosis of endometrial cancer patients with lymph node metastasis to provide a reference for lymphadenectomy in endometrial cancer. The data used in this study were extracted from a tertiary hospital in Guangxi, China based on the hospital information system. 1219 patients with endometrial malignancy who were treated in our hospital. The lymph node metastasis rate was 9.8%. The metastasis rate of the abdominal aorta + pelvic lymph nodes (56.7%) was significantly higher than that of the pelvic (24.2%) or para-aortic (19.2%) lymph nodes alone. The proportion of postmenopausal patients with lymph node metastasis was higher than that of premenopausal patients. The proportion of patients with lymph node metastasis with vaginal and uterus involvement, HPV detection, Thinprep Cytologic Testresults, CRP level <10 ug/mL, G3 tumor grade, postoperative pathology indicating cervical invasion, lymphovascular invasion, and muscular infiltration depth > 1/2 was higher than that of patients without lymph node metastasis. The proportion of endometrial cancer patients with lymph node metastasis with CA125 ≥ 35 U/ml was higher than that of those with CA125 < 35 U/ml. The lymph node-positive rate is related to tissue differentiation, lymphangitic infiltration, cervical invasion, muscle infiltration depth > 1/2, and CA125 level. The metastasis rate of pelvic and para-aortic lymph nodes is higher than that of pelvic lymph nodes or para-aortic lymph nodes alone. There was no statistically significant difference in the overall survival rate among the three groups.

[An optimized protocol of meniscus cell extraction for single-cell RNA sequencing]

OBJECTIVE

To optimize the protocol of meniscus cell extraction to enhance the efficiency of cell suspension preparation and maintain a high cell viability for single-cell RNA sequencing.

METHODS

We compared the efficiency of the routine cell extraction methods (short-time digestion and long-time digestion) and the optimized protocol for obtaining meniscus cell suspensions by evaluating the cell number obtained and the cell viability. Single-cell RNA sequencing datasets were analyzed to evaluate the stability of the cell suspension prepared using the optimized protocol. The reliability of the optimized protocol was assessed by comparing the single-cell RNA sequencing dataset obtained by the optimized protocol with published single-cell RNA sequencing datasets of the meniscus.

RESULTS

The optimized protocol harvested a greater number of cells (over 1×10⁵) than the routine protocols. The cell suspension prepared with the optimized protocol showed a cell viability higher than 80%, the highest among the 3 methods. Analysis of single-cell RNA sequencing datasets showed that the ratio of the mitochondrial genes was below 20% in over 80% of the cells. CD34⁺ cells, MCAM⁺ cells and COL1A1⁺ cells were identified in the datasets. Comparison with the publish datasets showed that the optimized protocol was capable of harvesting COL3A1⁺, COL1A1⁺, MYLK⁺, BMP2⁺, CD93⁺ and CDK1⁺ cells.

CONCLUSION

Single-cell suspension prepared from the meniscus can be stably obtained using the optimized protocol for single-cell RNA sequencing using the 10× Genomics platform.

[Surface modification of titanium implant with hBMP-2/hIGF-1 for promoting biocompatibility and osteogenesis]

OBJECTIVE

To prepare the human bone morphogenetic protein-2(hBMP-2)/human insulin-like growth factor-1(hIGF-1)coating titanium(Ti)and assess its performance as a dental implant material.

METHODS

hBMP-2 and hIGF-1 were coated to the smooth surface of a Ti plate, and its efficacy for promoting bone formation and bone integration was compared with a pristine Ti plate.The surface characteristics of the metal samples were evaluated using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and by contact angle measurement.MG63 cells were seeded on the surface of the Ti plates, and MTT assay and alizarin red staining was used to examine the cell proliferation and formation of calcified nodules, respectively.Alkaline phosphatase (ALP)secretion of the cells was examined with ELISA, and cellular expressions of osteocalcin and osteopontin were detected with Western blotting for assessing osteogenesis.

RESULTS

SEM examination showed that the surface of Ti with hBMP-2 and hIGF-1 coating presented with a radial pattern resembling snowflakes.The contact angles of non-coated Ti, hBMP-2-coated Ti, hIGF-1-coated, and hBMP-2/-hIGF-1-coated Ti samples were 83.2°, 54°, 56° and 54°, respectively.Compared with the non-coated Ti plate, the surface-modified Ti samples showed a significantly smaller contact angle (P=0.032, 0.029, and 0.028), indicating a good hydrophilicity of the samples.MTT assay showed that MG63 cells grew well on the surface of the coated Ti plates.The hBMP-2/IGF-1 coating significantly induced cellular secretion of ALP(P=0.021, 0.014)and obviously promoted osteogenesis of MG63 cells (P < 0.05).Western blotting results showed that hBMP-2/IGF-1 coating significantly enhanced the expressions of osteocalcin and osteopontin in the seeded cells (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

hBMP-2 and hIGF-1 coating of Ti material can promote osteogenesis of the cells seeded on its surface to improve the performance of such Ti material as dental implants.

Learning to Adapt Invariance in Memory for Person Re-Identification

This work considers the problem of unsupervised domain adaptation in person re-identification (re-ID), which aims to transfer knowledge from the source domain to the target domain. Existing methods are primary to reduce the inter-domain shift between the domains, which however usually overlook the relations among target samples. This paper investigates into the intra-domain variations of the target domain and proposes a novel adaptation framework w.r.t three types of underlying invariance, i.e., Exemplar-Invariance, Camera-Invariance, and Neighborhood-Invariance. Specifically, an exemplar memory is introduced to store features of samples, which can effectively and efficiently enforce the invariance constraints over the global dataset. We further present the Graph-based Positive Prediction (GPP) method to explore reliable neighbors for the target domain, which is built upon the memory and is trained on the source samples. Experiments demonstrate that 1) the three invariance properties are complementary and indispensable for effective domain adaptation, 2) the memory plays a key role in implementing invariance learning and improves the performance with limited extra computation cost, 3) GPP can facilitate the invariance learning and thus significantly improves the results, and 4) our approach produces new state-of-the-art adaptation accuracy on three re-ID large-scale benchmarks.

A Global and Local Enhanced Residual U-Net for Accurate Retinal Vessel Segmentation

Retinal vessel segmentation is a critical procedure towards the accurate visualization, diagnosis, early treatment, and surgery planning of ocular diseases. Recent deep learning-based approaches have achieved impressive performance in retinal vessel segmentation. However, they usually apply global image pre-processing and take the whole retinal images as input during network training, which have two drawbacks for accurate retinal vessel segmentation. First, these methods lack the utilization of the local patch information. Second, they overlook the geometric constraint that retina only occurs in a specific area within the whole image or the extracted patch. As a consequence, these global-based methods suffer in handling details, such as recognizing the small thin vessels, discriminating the optic disk, etc. To address these drawbacks, this study proposes a Global and Local enhanced residual U-nEt (GLUE) for accurate retinal vessel segmentation, which benefits from both the globally and locally enhanced information inside the retinal region. Experimental results on two benchmark datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, which consistently improves the segmentation accuracy over a conventional U-Net and achieves competitive performance compared to the state-of-the-art.

APRIL: Anatomical prior-guided reinforcement learning for accurate carotid lumen diameter and intima-media thickness measurement

Carotid artery lumen diameter (CALD) and carotid artery intima-media thickness (CIMT) are essential factors for estimating the risk of many cardiovascular diseases. The automatic measurement of them in ultrasound (US) images is an efficient assisting diagnostic procedure. Despite the advances, existing methods still suffer the issue of low measuring accuracy and poor prediction stability, mainly due to the following disadvantages: (1) ignore anatomical prior and prone to give anatomically inaccurate estimation; (2) require carefully designed post-processing, which may introduce more estimation errors; (3) rely on massive pixel-wise annotations during training; (4) can not estimate the uncertainty of the predictions. In this study, we propose the Anatomical Prior-guided ReInforcement Learning model (APRIL), which innovatively formulate the measurement of CALD & CIMT as an RL problem and dynamically incorporate anatomical prior (AP) into the system through a novel reward. With the guidance of AP, the designed keypoints in APRIL can avoid various anatomy impossible mis-locations, and accurately measure the CALD & CIMT based on their corresponding locations. Moreover, this formulation significantly reduces human annotation effort by only using several keypoints and can help to eliminate the extra post-processing steps. Further, we introduce an uncertainty module for measuring the prediction variance, which can guide us to adaptively rectify the estimation of those frames with considerable uncertainty. Experiments on a challenging carotid US dataset show that APRIL can achieve MAE (in pixel/mm) of 3.02±2.23 / 0.18±0.13 for CALD, and 0.96±0.70 / 0.06±0.04 for CIMT, which significantly surpass popular approaches that use more annotations.

The Role of Human Leukocyte Antigen-DR in Regulatory T Cells in Patients with Virus-Induced Acute Exacerbation of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease

Background

This study assessed the role of different immune phenotypes of T cells in virus-induced acute exacerbation of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AECOPD).

Material/Methods

The study involved 103 participants, including individuals with virus-induced AECOPD (n=32), non-virus-induced AECOPD (n=31), and stable COPD (n=20) and individuals who were healthy smokers (n=20). The immune phenotypes of T cells in peripheral blood were evaluated via flow cytometry analysis, and the differences were analyzed.

Results

Patients with virus-induced AECOPD (virus group) had a higher COPD assessment test score on admission than those in the group with non-virus-induced AECOPD (nonvirus group; 25.6±3.8 vs 21.9±4.8, P=0.045). A lower CD4⁺ human leukocyte antigen-DR (HLA-DR)⁺ frequency was found in the peripheral blood of the virus group compared with the nonvirus group (2.2 vs 4.2, P=0.015), and the frequency of CD4⁺ CD25^high CD127^low HLA-DR⁺ in CD4⁺ in the virus group was lower than in the nonvirus group (1.1 vs 3.6, P=0.011). The CD3⁺, CD4⁺, CD8⁺, CD4⁺ central memory T cell, CD4⁺ effector memory T cell (Tem), CD4⁺ end-stage T cell, and CD8⁺ Tem levels in lymphocytes of peripheral blood were lower in exacerbation groups relative to those in the stable COPD and healthy smoking groups, but similar between exacerbation groups. Similar frequencies and levels of T cells between different stagings of COPD were also identified.

Conclusions

The expression of HLA-DR on the cell surface of CD4⁺ regulatory T cells (Tregs) was lower in the peripheral blood of patients with virus-induced AECOPD. The expression of HLA-DR in CD4⁺ Tregs suggested the effect of respiratory viruses on adaptive immunity of patients with AECOPD to some extent.

Limit theory of isv-functions and its application for rough sets

In this paper, limit theory of set-valued functions defined on an interval (for short, isv-functions) is preliminarily established. Firstly, the concept of isv-functions is introduced. Secondly, limits of isv-functions are proposed and their properties are obtained. Thirdly, point-wise continuity of isv-functions and continuous isv-functions are discussed. Finally, an application of this theory for rough sets is given.

LncRNA INHBA-AS1 promotes cell growth, migration, and invasion of oral squamous cell carcinoma by sponging miR-143-3p

Since this article has been suspected of research misconduct and the corresponding authors did not respond to our request to prove originality of data and figures, "LncRNA INHBA-AS1 promotes cell growth, migration, and invasion of oral squamous cell carcinoma by sponging miR-143-3p, by W.-Q. Ma, J. Chen, W. Fang, X.-Q. Yang, A. Zhu, D. Zhang, H.-L. Zhong, B. Yang, Z. Luo, published in Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci 2020; 24 (4): 1821-1828-DOI: 10.26355/eurrev_202002_20360-PMID: 32141551" has been withdrawn. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. https://www.europeanreview.org/article/20360.