Publications by authors named "Ke Pang"

The global diversity of Proterozoic eukaryote fossils is poorly quantified despite its fundamental importance to the understanding of macroevolutionary patterns and dynamics on the early Earth. Here we report a new construction of fossil eukaryote diversity from the Paleoproterozoic to early Cambrian based on a comprehensive data compilation and quantitative analyses. The resulting taxonomic richness curve verifies Cryogenian glaciations as a major divide that separates the "Boring Billion" and Ediacaran periods, with the former characterized by a prolonged stasis, and the latter by greater diversity, more-rapid turnover, and multiple radiations and extinctions.

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Article Synopsis
  • Breath analysis has a long history in diagnosing diseases, but volatile organic compounds (VOCs) haven't been fully validated as biomarkers for specific illnesses yet.
  • This review focuses on the potential of VOC breath tests for diagnosing non-cancerous diseases, specifically precancerous conditions like GERD and Barrett's esophagus, inflammatory bowel diseases, and chronic liver diseases.
  • The analysis is based on 24 studies, discussing various factors such as analytical platforms and diagnostic parameters, and emphasizes the need for refined research methods to enhance the use of breath tests as non-invasive diagnostic tools.
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Volatile organic compounds have drawn significant attention in recent years as a novel tool for non-invasive detection of a wide range of diseases, including gastrointestinal cancers, for which the need for effective, affordable, and non-invasive screening methods is substantial. Sample preparation is a fundamental step that greatly influences the quality of results and the feasibility of wide-range applications. This review summarizes sampling methods used in studies aiming at testing the diagnostic value of volatile organic compounds in gastrointestinal cancers, discussing in detail some of the recent advancements in automated sampling techniques.

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Context: The mechanisms for the formation of the first C - C bond and lower olefins on methanol to olefins (MTO) conversion on H-ZSM-5 had been focused in dispute. In this paper, density functional theory has been used to study the reaction mechanisms of methanol to olefins on ZSM-5. The configurations of reactants, intermediates, products and transition state of the numerous reactions involved in such a process have been optimized, as well as the elementary reactions related to these configurations were determined by the calculation of corresponding activation energy barriers and reaction heats.

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Sponges are the most basal metazoan phylum and may have played important roles in modulating the redox architecture of Neoproterozoic oceans. Although molecular clocks predict that sponges diverged in the Neoproterozoic era, their fossils have not been unequivocally demonstrated before the Cambrian period, possibly because Precambrian sponges were aspiculate and non-biomineralized. Here we describe a late-Ediacaran fossil, Helicolocellus cantori gen.

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Background: Acute non-variceal upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) is challenging in patients at high risk of re-bleeding in whom standard endoscopic treatment (ST) has limited effectiveness. Over-the-scope clips (OTSC) have shown promise in these patients although their precise role remains uncertain.

Aims: To confirm the role of OTSC in patients with UGIB at high risk of re-bleeding.

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Background: Gastrointestinal (GI) angiodysplasias is a potential cause of life-threatening bleeding. Thalidomide may have a certain effect on the treatment.

Objectives: We aim to evaluate the efficacy and safety of thalidomide and used trial sequential analysis (TSA) to assess the need for further randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

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Objectives: Observational studies suggested a potential correlation between dietary intake and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), but conflicting findings exist and causality remains unclear. Here, we performed a Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to evaluate the causal impact of relative intake of (i) carbohydrate, (ii) fat, and (iii) protein on ALS risk.

Methods: The genome-wide association summary statistics of three dietary macronutrient intake traits and ALS were obtained.

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Primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) is a cholestatic liver disease characterized by immune-mediated injury to small bile ducts. Although PBC is an autoimmune disease, the effectiveness of conventional immunosuppressive therapy is disappointing. Nearly 40% of PBC patients do not respond to the first-line drug UDCA.

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Bile acid diarrhea (BAD) is a multifaceted intestinal disorder involving intricate molecular mechanisms, including farnesoid X receptor (FXR), fibroblast growth factor receptor 4 (FGFR4), and Takeda G protein-coupled receptor 5 (TGR5). Current diagnostic methods encompass bile acid sequestrants (BAS), 48-h fecal bile acid tests, serum 7α-hydroxy-4-cholesten-3-one (C4), fibroblast growth factor 19 (FGF19) testing, and Selenium HomotauroCholic acid test (SeHCAT). Treatment primarily involves BAS and FXR agonists.

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Background: Previous observational studies suggested an association between sepsis and neurodegenerative diseases, but causality remains unclear.

Objective: Determining the causal association between sepsis and four neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and Lewy body dementia) through bidirectional two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.

Methods: Genome-wide association study summary statistics for all traits were obtained from publicly available databases.

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Background: Previous observational studies suggested a correlation between particulate matter 2.5 (PM) and infectious diseases, but causality remained uncertain. This study utilized Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis to investigate causal relationships between PM concentrations and various infectious diseases (COVID-19 infection, hospitalized COVID-19, very severe COVID-19, urinary tract infection, bacterial pneumonia, and intestinal infection).

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While emerging evidence highlights the significance of gut microbiome in gastrointestinal infectious diseases, treatments like Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT) and probiotics are gaining popularity, especially for diarrhea patients. However, the specific role of the gut microbiome in different gastrointestinal infectious diseases remains uncertain. There is no consensus on whether gut modulation therapy is universally effective for all such infections.

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Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have demonstrated potential in both clinical and pre-clinical research for mitigating tissue damage and inflammation associated with acute pancreatitis (AP) via paracrine mechanisms. Hence, there has been a recent surge of interest among researchers in utilizing MSC cultured medium (CM) and its components for the treatment of AP, which is recognized as the primary cause of hospitalization for gastrointestinal disorders globally. A systematic review was conducted by searching the MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Web of Science databases.

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Microservice architecture is a programming method that decomposes a single application into various smaller services and then executes them. However, this approach introduces new challenges in communication between services because of the different data structures and technology types among the multiple services. Therefore, interprocess communication (IPC) between services has become one of the important challenges facing microservice architecture.

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Context: How to elucidate the effect of alkali metal promoters on gold-catalyzed water-gas shift reaction intrinsically remains a challenging, because that the complex synergy effects such as strong metal-support interactions, interfacial effects, and charge transfer of supported metal catalysts makes people difficulty in the understanding the alkali promotion phenomenon in nature. Herein, we report a systematically study of whole water-gas shift reaction mechanism on pure and the K-modified defected-Au(211) (i.e.

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Macrofossils with unambiguous biogenic origin and predating the one-billion-year-old multicellular fossils Bangiomorpha and Proterocladus interpreted as crown-group eukaryotes are quite rare. Horodyskia is one of these few macrofossils, and it extends from the early Mesoproterozoic Era to the terminal Ediacaran Period. The biological interpretation of this enigmatic fossil, however, has been a matter of controversy since its discovery in 1982, largely because there was no evidence for the preservation of organic walls.

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Background: Hyperglycemia has been reported to be associated with the outcomes of patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). However, the relationship between hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) and long-term or short-term mortality in the ICU is still unknown. This study used the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC)-IV database to investigate the relationship between HbA1c and long-term or short-term mortality among ICU patients without a diabetes diagnosis.

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A crucial part of the malignant processes of soft tissue sarcoma (STS) is played by cuproptosis and lncRNAs. However, the connection between cuproptosis-related lncRNAs (CRLs) and STS is nevertheless unclear. As a result, our objective was to look into the immunological activity, clinical significance, and predictive accuracy of CRLs in STS.

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Bone and soft tissue sarcomas with complex and varied clinical, imaging, and pathological characteristics cannot be diagnosed and treated by a single discipline, as each discipline has some limitations. This study aimed to explore the role of a multidisciplinary team (MDT) in the diagnosis and treatment of bone and soft tissue sarcomas over the past four consecutive years. The subjects were 269 patients discussed during MDT meetings at a Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcomas Center in South China.

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Background: The brain contains the highest level of cholesterol in the body, and the total amount of serum cholesterol in the blood has a huge impact on brain aging and cognitive performance. However, the association of total serum cholesterol with cognitive function remains uncertain. This study determines whether there is an association between the total amount of cholesterol in the blood and cognitive performance in elderly females without a history of stroke.

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Denosumab is a monoclonal antibody that targets and inhibits the osteoclast activating factor receptor activator for nuclear factor-κB ligand (RANKL). It has been widely used in the treatment of osteoporosis, giant cell tumors of bone, and in the prevention of malignant skeletal-related events (SREs). We collected the research results and related MeSH terms of denosumab from 2011 to 2021 through the Web of Science and PubMed, respectively.

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Objective: Recent studies have indicated that patients (both with and without diabetes) with elevated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) have a higher rate of acute kidney injury (AKI) following cardiac surgery. However, whether HbA1c could help to predict post-operative AKI in patients after non-cardiac surgery is less clear. This study aims to explore the predictive value of pre-operative HbA1c for post-operative AKI in non-cardiac surgery.

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