A systematic review and -analysis of the efficacy of N95 respirators and surgical masks for protection against COVID-19.

Former -analyses concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to determine the effect of surgical masks and N95 respirators. We collected randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and conducted a systematic review and -analysis to evaluate the efficacy of N95 respirators and surgical masks for protection against COVID-19. We retrieved relevant RCTs published between January 2019 and January 2023 by searching the PubMed, EMBASE, and Cochrane CENTRAL.

Application of triphenylphosphine organic compounds constructed with O, S, and Se in aluminum ion batteries.

Due to their high reactivity and theoretical capacity, chalcogen elements have been favored and applied in many battery studies. However, the high surface charge density and high solubility of these elements as electrode materials have hindered their deeper exploration due to the shuttle effect. In this article, organic structural triphenylphosphine is used as a molecular main chain structure, and chalcogen elements O, S, and Se are introduced to combine with P as active sites.

Dual Protection Strategy by Constructing MXene-Coated CuSe-CuSe Heterojunction and CMK-3 Modification for High-Performance Aluminum-Ion Batteries.

The fabrication of cathode materials with ideal kinetic behavior is important to improve the electrochemical performance of aluminum-ion batteries (AIBs). Transition metal selenides have the advantages of abundant reserves and high discharge specific capacity and discharge voltage plateau, which makes them a promising material for rechargeable AIBs. It is well-known that the low structural stability and relatively poor reaction kinetics pose a considerable challenge to the development of AIBs.

Metal-Organic Framework Structure with Fe-Co-Se (MIL-88A/Fe-Co@Se) as a Cathode for Aluminum Batteries.

Rechargeable aluminum-ion batteries have received more and more attention because of their high theoretical energy density, high safety, and reasonable price. The cathode material of aluminum batteries is one of the key bottlenecks that limits their development. Although there are many reports on aluminum battery cathode materials, many of these reports fail to simultaneously solve the poor cycling stability and low specific capacity of aluminum batteries.

The efficacy of fish oil in preventing coronary heart disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the most common causes of death and disease burden in the world. Current fish oil aiming to prevent and treat CHD have shown a large variety of effects with low levels of evidence.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of fish oil for protection against CHD, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the use of fish oil for protection against CHD.

Multiecho complex total field inversion method (mcTFI) for improved signal modeling in quantitative susceptibility mapping.

Purpose: Typical quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) reconstruction steps consist of first estimating the magnetization field from the gradient-echo images, and then reconstructing the susceptibility map from the estimated field. The errors from the field-estimation steps may propagate into the final QSM map, and the noise in the estimated field map may no longer be zero-mean Gaussian noise, thus, causing streaking artifacts in the resulting QSM. A multiecho complex total field inversion (mcTFI) method was developed to compute the susceptibility map directly from the multiecho gradient echo images using an improved signal model that retains the Gaussian noise property in the complex domain.

Neonatal Kawasaki disease: Case report and literature review.

Rationale: Kawasaki Disease (KD) is a self-limiting and acute systemic vasculitis of childhood that leads to coronary artery abnormality in about 25% of untreated cases. KD is extremely rare in neonates. The purpose of this paper is to explore the clinical features and diagnosis and treatment of Neonatal Kawasaki Disease for early identification.

Preventive Effect of Bifidobacterium Supplementation on Neonatal Cholestasis in Preterm Neonates with Very Low Birth Weight.

Background: Cholestasis is a common but serious clinical condition in preterm neonates. The current management for preterm neonatal cholestasis has limitations. The aim of this study was to determine effects of Bifidobacterium supplementation on the prevention and alleviation of cholestasis in preterm infants with very low birth weight.

Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping: MRI at 7T versus 3T.

Background And Purpose: Ultrahigh-field 7T promises more than doubling the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 3T for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), particularly for MRI of magnetic susceptibility effects induced by B . Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) is based on deconvolving the induced phase (or field) and would therefore benefit substantially from 7T. The purpose of this work was to compare QSM performance at 7T versus 3T in an intrascanner test-retest experiment with varying echo numbers (5 and 10 echoes).

Prospective and retrospective high order eddy current mitigation for diffusion weighted echo planar imaging.

Purpose: The proposed method is aimed at reducing eddy current (EC) induced distortion in diffusion weighted echo planar imaging, without the need to perform further image coregistration between diffusion weighted and T2 images. These ECs typically have significant high order spatial components that cannot be compensated by preemphasis.

Theory And Methods: High order ECs are first calibrated at the system level in a protocol independent fashion.

Reliability and precision of pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling perfusion MRI on 3.0 T and comparison with 15O-water PET in elderly subjects at risk for Alzheimer's disease.

Arterial spin labeling (ASL) offers MRI measurement of cerebral blood flow (CBF) in vivo, and may offer clinical diagnostic utility in populations such as those with early Alzheimer's disease (AD). In the current study, we investigated the reliability and precision of a pseudo-continuous ASL (pcASL) sequence that was performed two or three times within one hour on eight young normal control subjects, and 14 elderly subjects including 11 with normal cognition, one with AD and two with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI). Six of these elderly subjects including one AD, two MCIs and three controls also received (15)O-water positron emission tomography (PET) scans 2 h before their pcASL MR scan.

A statistical approach to SENSE regularization with arbitrary k-space trajectories.

SENSE reconstruction suffers from an ill-conditioning problem, which increasingly lowers the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as the reduction factor increases. Ill-conditioning also degrades the convergence behavior of iterative conjugate gradient reconstructions for arbitrary trajectories. Regularization techniques are often used to alleviate the ill-conditioning problem.

The phase shift index for marking functional asynchrony in Alzheimer's disease patients using fMRI.

Our previous study suggested that the functional magnetic resonance imaging MRI (fMRI) COSLOF Index (CI) could be used as a quantitative biomarker for Alzheimer's disease (AD). The fMRI CI was lowest in the AD group (0.13+/-0.

COmplex-Model-Based Estimation of thermal noise for fMRI data in the presence of artifacts.

Due to the presence of artifacts induced by fast-imaging acquisition in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, it is very difficult to estimate the variance of thermal noise by traditional methods in magnitude images. Moreover, the existence of incidental phase fluctuations impairs the validity of currently available solutions based on complex datasets. In this article, a time-domain model is proposed to generalize the analysis of complex datasets for nonbrain regions by incorporating artifacts and phase fluctuations.

Expectation modulates human brain responses to acute cocaine: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Background: Human expectation of psychoactive drugs significantly alters drug effects and behavioral responses. However, their neurophysiological mechanisms are not clear. This study investigates how cocaine expectation modulates human brain responses to acute cocaine administration.

Task-modulation of functional synchrony between spontaneous low-frequency oscillations in the human brain detected by fMRI.

Recent developments in functional MRI (fMRI) technology with high spatial and temporal resolution have made it possible to noninvasively detect spontaneous low-frequency oscillations (SLOs) and quantify their functional synchrony in the human brain. In the present fMRI study the dynamic characteristics of the functional synchrony between SLOs were quantitatively determined by the phase shift index (PSI). With the use of an fMRI-guided voxel-selection method, the SLOs and their functional synchrony were found to be modulated by different memory tasks.

Neural responses to acute cocaine administration in the human brain detected by fMRI.

An improved functional MRI (fMRI) method for the reduction of susceptibility artifacts has been utilized to measure blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) responses to acute cocaine administration in the human brain of cocaine users. Intravenous administration of cocaine (20 mg/70 kg) activated mesolimbic and mesocortical dopaminergic projection regions and showed temporal positive or negative BOLD responses. These results obtained from human cocaine users supported the involvement of the dopaminergic pathway in cocaine addiction from animal models.

Theoretical noise model for oxygenation-sensitive magnetic resonance imaging.

Contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) in blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) based functional MRI (fMRI) studies is a fundamental parameter to determine statistical significance and therefore to map functional activation in the brain. The CNR is defined here as BOLD contrast with respect to temporal fluctuation. In this study, a theoretical noise model based on oxygenation-sensitive MRI signal formation is proposed.

Opiate tolerance by heroin self-administration: an fMRI study in rat.

Functional MRI (fMRI) was employed to determine whether repeated heroin self-administration (SA) produces tolerance or sensitization in the brain of heroin-SA rats. Twelve rats were evenly divided into saline and heroin (0.06 mg/kg, 4 hr/day) SA groups.

Attenuation of brain response to heroin correlates with the reinstatement of heroin-seeking in rats by fMRI.

Thirty male Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into two groups and trained to self-administer either saline (n = 14) or heroin (0.1 mg/kg per injection, n = 16) for 10-12 days until a stable self-administration (SA) behavior was achieved. After 8-9 days of withdrawal, each group was divided into two subgroups for reinstatement tests and functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI) scanning, respectively, to determine the neural correlates of the reinstatement of heroin-seeking behavior.

Characterization of effects of mean arterial blood pressure induced by cocaine and cocaine methiodide on BOLD signals in rat brain.

A total of 45 male Sprague-Dawley rats were employed to determine whether cocaine or cocaine methiodide (CM) administration can induce a significant increase in mean arterial blood pressure (MABP) in rats, and whether such an increase in MABP can produce a global increase in blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) contrast in the rat brain detectable by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Cocaine methiodide is a quaternary derivative of cocaine that shares the same cardiovascular effects of cocaine, but does not penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB). Experimental results demonstrated that both CM (with doses of 2.

Transient relationships among BOLD, CBV, and CBF changes in rat brain as detected by functional MRI.

The transient relationship between arterial cerebral blood flow (CBF(A)) and total cerebral blood volume (CBV(T)) was determined in the rat brain. Five rats anesthetized with urethane (1.2 g/kg) were examined under graded hypercapnia conditions (7.

GABAergic mechanisms of heroin-induced brain activation assessed with functional MRI.

Heroin has been hypothesized to activate opiate receptors and inhibit gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) release from inhibitory GABAergic interneurons which, in turn, activates dopamine projection cells. Since the distal sites and consequences of this disinhibition are not well understood on a systems level, heroin-induced brain activity was measured using functional MRI (fMRI) in rats. A significant blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal increase was seen in cortical regions, including prefrontal cortex, cingulate, and olfactory cortex following acute heroin administration.

Alzheimer Disease: evaluation of a functional MR imaging index as a marker.

Purpose: To measure changes in functional synchrony in the hippocampus in patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer disease (AD).

Materials And Methods: Three subject groups (nine cognitively healthy elderly control subjects, 10 patients with probable AD, and five subjects with MCI) underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance (MR) imaging for measurement of functional synchrony in the hippocampus. Functional synchrony was defined and quantified as the mean of the cross-correlation coefficients of spontaneous low frequency (COSLOF) components between possible pairs of voxel time courses in a brain region, or the COSLOF index.

Multiecho segmented EPI with z-shimmed background gradient compensation (MESBAC) pulse sequence for fMRI.

A MultiEcho Segmented EPI with z-shimmed BAckground gradient Compensation (MESBAC) pulse sequence is proposed and validated for functional MRI (fMRI) study in regions suffering from severe susceptibility artifacts. This sequence provides an effective tradeoff between spatial and temporal resolution and reduces image distortion and signal dropout. The blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD)-weighted fMRI signal can be reliably obtained in the region of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC).