Health system delay and risk factors in pulmonary tuberculosis diagnosis before and during the COVID-19 epidemic: a multi-center survey in China.

Background: Understanding health system delay (HSD) in pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) diagnosis aids in tailoring interventions for case detection and curbing transmission. However, recent nationwide studies on HSD in PTB diagnosis have been scarce. This study assesses HSD and its risk factors in China, taking into account the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Residential greenness, air pollution, genetic predisposition and the risk of lung cancer.

Background: Growing evidence suggests that greenness is associated with multiple health outcomes, but its association with lung cancer risk remains limited and far from consistent. In particular, it is unclear whether this association varies across different types of lung cancer and whether it is influenced by factors such as genetics, air pollution, and physical activity.

Method: This prospective cohort study included 425108 participants aged 37-73 years from the UK Biobank.

Deciphering the Competitive Charge Storage Chemistry of Metal Cations and Protons in Aqueous MnO-Based Supercapacitors.

The complex charge storage mechanisms in aqueous MnO-based supercapacitors have posed significant challenges to a comprehensive understanding of their chemical behavior. In this study, we employed Au-core@MnO-shell nanoparticle-enhanced Raman spectroscopy, alongside electrochemical analysis and X-ray absorption, to systematically investigate the competitive charge storage chemistry of protons and cations within the inner and outer layers of δ-MnO under alkaline conditions. Our findings reveal that δ-MnO operates through a dual mechanism: the intercalation and deintercalation of metal cations dominate charge storage in the inner layer, while surface chemisorption of protons governs the outer layer.

Gd-doped PtCo Nanoparticles Embedded in Hollow Mesoporous Carbon Derived From Space-Confined Polymerization of Indene Boosting Oxygen Reduction Reaction.

Developing suitable carbon supports and efficient Pt-based nanoparticles for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is crucial for accelerating the commercialization of proton-exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). In this study, indene-derived hollow mesoporous carbon spheres are synthesized for the first time using space-confined polymerization and subsequent annealing. The incorporation of Gd-doped PtCo nanoparticles into the hollow mesoporous carbon spheres (Gd-PtCo@HMS) resulted in catalysts with an impressive mass activity (MA) of 1.

Head-to-head comparison of [F]FAPI-42 and [F]FDG PET/CT in the evaluation of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma.

Purpose: To investigate the clinical utility of [F]FAPI-42 PET/CT relative to [F]FDG PET/CT for tumor detection and staging in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) patients.

Methods: Patients with pathologically proven LSCC were prospectively enrolled. All patients underwent [F]FDG and [F]FAPI-42 PET/CT within 1 week.

PpSPL1 and PpSPL15 inhibit peach branching by increasing strigolactone synthesis.

PpSPL1 and PpSPL15 inhibit peach branching by directly binding to and upregulating the expression of strigolactone (SL) synthesis gene PpLBO1. Branch number is a crucial agronomic trait that influences tree architecture, directly affecting fruit yield and quality. It remains unknown whether SQUAMOSA PROMOTER BINDING PROTEIN-LIKE (SPL), an important transcription factor in determining plant architecture, is involved in the peach branching process.

VvARF19 represses VvLBD13-mediated cell wall degradation to delay softening of grape berries.

Fruit softening directly impacts its storage life, transportability, and customer acceptance. Auxin plays a key role during fruit ripening, but the underlying mechanisms of how auxin regulates fruit softening remain unclear. In this study, we investigated the regulatory roles of auxin on berry cell wall degradation during grape ( L.

Dissipative Estimating for Nonlinear Markov Systems With Protocol-Based Deception Attacks and Measurement Quantization.

This article investigates the asynchronous estimator design for the interval type-2interval type-2 (IT2) fuzzy Markov jump systems subject to dynamic quantization and deception attacks. From the perspective of the attacker, a novel protocol-based deception attackdeception attack (DA) strategy is proposed, which utilizes the information of quantized output to assess the importance degree of transmission signals. Furthermore, in order to conserve the limited energy of the adversary, the independent attack strategies are designed for different sensors.

Masked Vascular Structure Segmentation and Completion in Retinal Images.

Early retinal vascular changes in diseases such as diabetic retinopathy often occur at a microscopic level. Accurate evaluation of retinal vascular networks at a micro-level could significantly improve our understanding of angiopathology and potentially aid ophthalmologists in disease assessment and management. Multiple angiogram-related retinal imaging modalities, including fundus, optical coherence tomography angiography, and fluorescence angiography, project continuous, inter-connected retinal microvascular networks into imaging domains.

Multi-dataset Collaborative Learning for Liver Tumor Segmentation.

Automatic segmentation of biomedical images has emerged due to its potential in improving real-world clinical processes and has achieved great success in recent years thanks to the development of deep learning. However, it is the limited availability of certain modalities of datasets and the scarcity of labels that still present challenges. In this work, we propose a workflow of MRI liver and tumor segmentation methods utilizing external publicly available datasets.

Dynamic Protocol-Based Control for Hidden Stochastic Jump Multiarea Power Systems in Finite-Time Interval.

A dynamic event-triggered load frequency control (LFC) is studied for interconnected multiarea power systems (IMAPSs) with stochastic semi-Markov parameters from the perspective of finite-time interval. To facilitate the sudden changes, the underlying semi-Markov process (SMP) is adopted to characterize the random behavior of IMAPSs. A dynamic event-triggered protocol (DETP) is developed to modulate the transmission frequency while maintaining predefined system performance.

Dynamic-Memory Protocol-Based Synchronization for Semi-Markov Jump Reaction-Diffusion CDNs.

This study investigates the synchronization of reaction-diffusion complex dynamical networks (CDNs) based on semi-Markov switching topology and an event-triggered protocol. The investigated model is rendered more practical via the introduction of a semi-Markov process for stochastic jump CDNs. Based on the internal dynamic variable history information, a dynamic-memory event-triggered strategy is proposed, wherein the primary novelty lies in its prior transmitted packets to enhance the control performance.

SEC62-dependent ER-phagy contributes to apelin-13/APJ-induced monocyte-vascular endothelial cell adhesion in atherosclerosis pathogenesis.

The monocyte adhesion to vascular endothelial cells constitutes a key step in atherosclerosis pathogenesis. We previously found that ROS-autophagy pathway participated in the monocyte-endothelial cell adhesion induced by angiotensin domain type 1 receptor-associated proteins (APJ) and its endogenous ligand apelin-13. In this study, we investigated what specific type of autophagy apelin-13 regulated in this process.

Aptamer-Conjugated Exosomes Ameliorate Diabetes-Induced Muscle Atrophy by Enhancing SIRT1/FoxO1/3a-Mediated Mitochondrial Function.

Background: Muscle atrophy is associated with Type 2 diabetes mellitus, which reduces the quality of life and lacks effective treatment strategies. Previously, it was determined that human umbilical cord mesenchymal stromal cell (hucMSC)-derived exosomes (EXOs) ameliorate diabetes-induced muscle atrophy. However, the systemic application of EXOs is less selective for diseased tissues, which reduces their efficacy and safety associated with their nonspecific biological distribution in vivo.

Temperature seasonality regulates organic carbon burial in lake.

Organic carbon burial (OCB) in lakes, a critical component of the global carbon cycle, surpasses that in oceans, yet its response to global warming and associated feedbacks remains poorly understood. Using a well-dated biomarker sequence from the southern Tibetan Plateau and a comprehensive analysis of Holocene total organic carbon variations in lakes across the region, here we demonstrate that lake OCB significantly declined throughout the Holocene, closely linked to changes in temperature seasonality. Process-based land surface model simulations clarified the key impact of temperature seasonality on OCB in lakes: increased seasonality in the early Holocene saw warmer summers enhancing ecosystem productivity and organic matter deposition, while cooler winters improved organic matter preservation.

The basic helix-loop-helix transcription factor PpeUNE12 regulates peach ripening by promoting polyamine catabolism and anthocyanin synthesis.

The basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors (TFs) play important roles in various plant developmental and biological processes. However, the precise mechanisms by which bHLH TFs regulate fruit ripening warrant further investigation. Polyamine oxidase (PAO) is crucial for polyamine (PA) catabolism and plays crucial roles in fruit ripening.

Comparison of the efficacy and adverse effects of long pulsed 1064 nm Nd: YAG laser and sclerotherapy in the treatment of pyogenic granuloma in children: a retrospective study.

Pyogenic granuloma (PG) is benign vascular lesions of the skin and mucous membranes that often involve the skin and mucous membranes, which often trouble patients due to its frequent bleeding. The traditional treatment is surgical removal, but its bleeding, pain, and trauma have led doctors to look for more minimally invasive methods. Between June 1, 2022 to March 1, 2024, we retrospectively analyzed 72 children with PG who were seen and treated in our department for long pulsed 1064 nm Nd: YAG laser (Gentle Nd: YAG laser) and sclerotherapy, respectively.

A Case Report of Infective Endocarditis Complicated With Pneumonia.

Psittacosis is a zoonotic disease caused by and is commonly found in birds and poultry. Human infection is uncommon, and most cases are sporadic. Infection of extrapulmonary organs by is extremely rare.

Phages adapt to recognize an O-antigen polysaccharide site by mutating the "backup" tail protein ORF59, enabling reinfection of phage-resistant .

Phages demonstrate remarkable promise as antimicrobial agents against antibiotic-resistant bacteria. However, the emergence of phage-resistant strains poses challenges to their effective application. In this paper, we presented the isolation of a phage adaptive mutant that demonstrated enhanced and sustained antibacterial efficacy through the co-evolution of () 111-2 and phage ZX1Δint .

Propensity Score Matching Analysis for Alcohol-Related Liver Disease.

Objectives: This study aims to investigate the impact of comorbidity with chronic hepatitis B (CHB) on the survival rates and incidence of liver cancer in patients with alcohol-related liver disease (ARLD).

Methods: Patients with ARLD and those with ARLD co-morbid with CHB were included in this study and designated as the ARLD group and the ARLD + HBV group, respectively. Propensity score matching (PSM) was then employed to compare survival rates and liver cancer development between these two groups.

A new therapy for microcystic lymphatic malformations: the combination of intralesional laser thermolysis and percutaneous sclerotherapy.

Background: Over the past few decades, percutaneous sclerotherapy has been proven to be efficacy in treating macrocystic lymphatic malformations (LMs). Unfortunately, there still remains challenging in the treatment of microcystic LMs given their size. We introduce the intralesional laser thermolysis (ILT) technique, a novel enhancement technique for the traditional percutaneous sclerotherapy in the treatment of microcystic LMs.

Spatial correlation of desorption events accelerates water exchange dynamics at Pt/water interfaces.

The altered solvation structures and dynamical properties of water molecules at the metal/water interfaces will affect the elementary step of an electrochemical process. Simulating the interfacial structure and dynamics with a realistic representation will provide us with a solid foundation to make a connection with experimental studies. To surmount the accuracy-efficiency tradeoff and provide dynamical insights, we use state-of-the-art machine learning molecular dynamics (MLMD) to study the water exchange dynamics, which are fundamental to adsorption/desorption and electrochemical reaction steps.

Dielectric profile at the Pt(111)/water interface.

The dielectric constant, although a simplified concept when considering atomic scales, enters many mean-field, electrochemical interface models and constant potential models as an important parameter. Here, we use ab initio and machine-learned molecular dynamics to scrutinize the behavior of the electronic contribution to ɛr(z) as a function of distance z from a Pt(111) surface. We show that the resulting dielectric profile can largely be explained as a sum of the metallic response and the density-scaled water response at the interface.

Primary pulmonary meningioma: a case report and literature review.

Introduction: Primary pulmonary meningioma is a rare disease. There have been only a little over 50 cases of primary pulmonary meningioma (PPM) reported in previous literature. The pathogenesis of PPM is still unclear.

Regulation of Vascular Injury and Repair by P21-Activated Kinase 1 and P21-Activated Kinase 2: Therapeutic Potential and Challenges.

The PAK (p21-activated kinases) family is a class of intracellular signal transduction protein kinases that regulate various cellular functions, mainly through their interactions with small GTP enzymes. PAK1 and PAK2 in the PAK kinase family are key signal transduction molecules that play important roles in various biological processes, including morphological changes, migration, proliferation, and apoptosis, and are involved in the progression of many diseases. Abnormal expression or dysregulation of PAK1 and PAK2 may be associated with several diseases, including cancer, neurological diseases, etc.