Long-Term Outcomes of Regional Morphology in Spring-Assisted Surgery and Cranial Vault Remodeling.

Background: Spring-assisted surgery (SAS) and cranial vault remodeling (CVR) are widely used surgical techniques to correct sagittal craniosynostosis (SC). The authors evaluated changes in regional morphology of patients with SC who had undergone SAS or CVR, using the frontal bossing index (FBI), occipital bulleting index, vertex narrowing index (VNI), and scaphocephalic severity index (SCI) to capture differences in anterior protrusion, posterior protrusion, width restriction, and global dysmorphology, respectively.

Methods: Indices were measured on computed tomography and 3-dimensional photographs (n = 788) of 257 patients with SC from 2001 through 2022 who underwent SAS (n = 177) or CVR (n = 80).

Innate immune cells in vascular lesions: mechanism and significance of diversified immune regulation.

Angiogenesis is a complex physiological process. In recent years, the immune regulation of angiogenesis has received increasing attention, and innate immune cells, which are centred on macrophages, are thought to play important roles in vascular neogenesis and development. Various innate immune cells can act on the vasculature through a variety of mechanisms, with commonalities as well as differences and synergistic effects, which are crucial for the progression of vascular lesions.

Dual intermittent aerations enhance nitrogen removal via anammox in anoxic/oxic biofilm process for carbon limited wastewater treatment.

Efficient nitrogen removal after organic capture is challenging through conventional nitrification-denitrification process. Two biofilm-based anoxic/oxic reactors, with a single intermittent zone (R1) or dual intermittent zones (R2), were compared in treating carbon-limited wastewater. Intermittent aeration integrated partial nitrification-anammox (PNA), partial denitrification-anammox (PDA), and denitrification, with anammox-related pathways contributing over 75% nitrogen removal in both reactors.

Unveiling emerging polycyclic aromatic compounds in the urban atmospheric particulate matter.

Despite the ubiquity and complexity of atmospheric polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs), many of these compounds are largely unknown and lack sufficient toxicity data for comprehensive risk assessments. In this study, nontarget screening assisted by in-house and self-developed spectra databases was, therefore, employed to identify PACs in atmospheric particulate matter collected from multiple outdoor settings. Additionally, absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity properties were evaluated to indicate PAC's overall abilities to cause adverse outcomes and incorporated into a novel health risk assessment model to assess their inhalation risks.

Long-term stability of comammox Nitrospira under weakly acidic conditions and their acid-adaptive mechanisms revealed by genome-centric metatranscriptomics.

Despite their widespread presence in acidic environments, the stability and adaptative mechanisms of complete ammonia oxidization (comammox) bacteria remain poorly understood. In this three-year study, comammox Nitrospira consistently dominated both abundance and activity in an acidic nitrifying reactor (pH = 6.3-6.