Cascaded Gravity-Driven Microfluidic Chip with Tilt-Actuated Siphon Valves for Rapid Detection of Typhimurium.

In recent years, urgent food safety issues have heightened the demand for rapid detection technologies for foodborne pathogens, especially biosensors featuring simplicity, rapidity, and high sensitivity. Yet despite a booming surge in related published studies, commercializing these biosensors remains a constant challenge and persistent objective for researchers. In this study, a gravity-driven microfluidic chip with tilt-actuated siphon valves was developed, integrating silica magnetic beads based nucleic acid separation and recombinase-aided amplification (RAA) detection of Typhimurium by simple operations along with a portable biosensing device.

Clinical efficacy and safety of proton radiotherapy for ocular conjunctival malignancies: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: The use of proton beam therapy (PBT) for treating ocular conjunctival malignancies is on the rise across numerous medical centers. This study conducts a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the effectiveness and safety of PBT in treating malignant conjunctival tumors.

Methods: We searched for studies on PBT for ocular conjunctival malignancies in PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science (WoS) databases up to November 25, 2023.

Statistical Methods for Analyzing EQ-5D in Randomized Clinical Trials - A Systematic Literature Review.

Objective: We conducted a systematic literature review to summarize the application of statistical methods for analyzing treatment effect on EQ-5D in RCTs.

Method: We searched two electronic databases (MEDLINE and EMBASE, from inception through 2021) and www.

Clinicaltrial: gov.

Bacterial Bioaerosol-Specific Capture and In Situ Detection Using an Immune ZIF-8-Melamine Foam-Functionalized Colorimetric Biosensor.

Bioaerosol infections containing pathogenic viruses and bacteria have resulted in significant economic losses and posed a serious threat to public health, as evidenced by outbreaks of coronavirus disease and avian influenza. Consequently, the sampling and screening of bioaerosols are crucial for the prevention of bioaerosol-borne diseases. In this study, an ultrasensitive biosensor based on zeolitic imidazolate framework-8-melamine foam (ZIF-8-MF) was innovatively developed for the specific capture and in situ detection of bioaerosols.

Efficacy and safety of proton radiotherapy in treating choroidal melanoma: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Proton beam therapy (PBT) has been gradually introduced for treating choroidal melanoma. This study systematically reviewed clinical reports to evaluate the efficacy and safety of PBT in choroidal melanoma patients.

Methods: This systematic review included all the primary studies involving PBT for choroidal melanoma patients through April 2024.

Acquisition of Speech Prosody in a Non-native Tone Language by Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Purpose: Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often show abnormal speech prosody. Tonal languages can pose more difficulties as speakers need to use acoustic cues to make lexical contrasts while encoding the focal function, but the acquisition of speech prosody of non-native languages, especially tonal languages has rarely been investigated.

Methods: This study aims to fill in the aforementioned gap by studying prosodic focus-marking in Mandarin by native Cantonese-speaking children with ASD (n = 25), in comparison with their typically developing (TD) peers (n = 20) and native Mandarin-speaking children (n = 20).

Allelopathic effects of six alfalfa varieties at three stubbles on the germination, seedling and root growth of green foxtail and barnyardgrass.

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa) is known to release allelopathic substances to affect the germination and growth of other plants, which have the potential to be applied in controlling weeds. Green foxtail (Setaria viridis) and barnyardgrass (Echinochloa crus-galli), as malignant weeds worldwide, also pose a serious threat to alfalfa in northern China. In this study, the sensitivity of the two weeds to the extracts from the first, second, and third stubbles of six varieties were investigated to further reveal the allelopathic interference of different varieties of alfalfa on notorious weeds.

Multi-UAV Collaborative Target Search Method in Unknown Dynamic Environment.

The challenge of search inefficiency arises when multiple UAV swarms conduct dynamic target area searches in unknown environments. The primary sources of this inefficiency are repeated searches in the target region and the dynamic motion of targets. To address this issue, we present the distributed adaptive real-time planning search (DAPSO) technique, which enhances the search efficiency for dynamic targets in uncertain mission situations.

Mn-Rich Induced Alteration on Band Gap and Cycling Stability Properties of LiMnFePO Cathode Materials.

Olivine-type LiMnFePO (LMFP) has inherited the excellent heat-stable structure of LiFePO (LFP) and the high-voltage property of LiMnPO (LMP), which shows great promise as a high-safety, high-energy-density cathode material. In order to combine the high energy density and excellent electrochemical performance, it is essential to consider the Mn/Fe ratio. This paper presents a theoretical investigation of the lattice structure parameters, embedded lithium voltage, local electron density, migration barrier, and lithium ion delithiation and lithiation mechanism of different LiMnFePO4 (0.

A Systematic Review and Quality Assessment of Cardiovascular Disease-Specific Health-Related Quality-of-Life Instruments: Part II Psychometric Properties.

Objectives: Health-related quality-of-life instruments for cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) have been commonly used to measure important patient-reported outcomes in clinical trials and practices. This study aimed to systematically identify and evaluate the psychometric properties of CVD-specific health-related quality-of-life instruments.

Methods: We searched cumulative index to nursing and allied health literature, Embase, and PubMed from inception to January 20, 2022.

Coalescence and Rebound Dynamics in Two Droplets Train Impacting on a Heterogeneous Wettability Surface.

Droplets that can be steered and rebound off surfaces are fundamentally interesting and important due to their promising potential in numerous applications, such as anti-icing and -fogging, spray coating, and self-cleaning. Heterogeneous wettability surfaces have been shown to be an effective means of droplet manipulation. This paper combines numerical simulation with theoretical analysis to investigate the dynamics of two droplets training impacting on and bouncing off a heterogeneous surface (superhydrophobic substrate decorated with a hydrophilic strip).

Validation of the Generic Version of China Health Related Outcomes Measures (CHROME-G) among individuals with type 2 diabetes in China.

Objective: The Generic Version of China Health Related Outcomes Measures (CHROME-G) was a new preference-based health-related quality of life (HRQoL) instrument designed specifically for the Chinese population. This study aimed to validate and compare measurement properties of CHROME-G with EuroQol-5 Dimensions-5 Levels (EQ-5D-5L), Short Form-6 Dimensions version 2 (SF-6Dv2), and Diabetes-Specific Quality of Life (DSQL) scales among the elderly Chinese population with type 2 diabetes.

Methods: A representative sample population was recruited across the country.

Optimization of Minocycline-Containing Bismuth Quadruple Therapy for Helicobacter pylori Rescue Treatment: A Real-World Evidence Study.

Background: The optimal dosage of minocycline remains unclear for Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) eradication. We aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of four different regimens with minocycline and metronidazole compared to classical bismuth quadruple therapy for H.

Vonoprazan-Amoxicillin Dual Therapy With Different Amoxicillin Administration Regimens for Helicobacter pylori Treatment: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: The effect of preprandial or postprandial administration of amoxicillin on the efficacy of vonoprazan-amoxicillin dual therapy (VA-dual therapy) for Helicobacter pylori treatment has not been studied. It is also unclear whether amoxicillin dosing four times daily is more effective than three times daily. We aimed to investigate the effect of different amoxicillin administration regimens on the efficacy of VA-dual therapy.

A Systematic Review and Quality Assessment of Cardiovascular Disease-Specific Health-Related Quality-of-Life Instruments Part I: Instrument Development and Content Validity.

Objectives: Health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL) instruments for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) have been commonly used to measure important patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in clinical trials and practices. This study aimed at systematically identifying and assessing the content validity of CVD-specific HRQoL instruments in clinical studies.

Methods: The research team searched Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Embase, and PubMed from inception to January 20, 2022.

Unsupervised OCT image despeckling with ground-truth- and repeated-scanning-free features.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) can resolve biological three-dimensional tissue structures, but it is inevitably plagued by speckle noise that degrades image quality and obscures biological structure. Recently unsupervised deep learning methods are becoming more popular in OCT despeckling but they still have to use unpaired noisy-clean images or paired noisy-noisy images. To address the above problem, we propose what we believe to be a novel unsupervised deep learning method for OCT despeckling, termed Double-free Net, which eliminates the need for ground truth data and repeated scanning by sub-sampling noisy images and synthesizing noisier images.

Numerical simulation of the distal stent graft-induced new entry after TEVAR.

The study aimed to investigate the mechanical factors for distal stent graft-induced new entry (dSINE) in aortic dissection patients and discussed these factors in conjunction with aortic morphology. Two patients (one dSINE and one non-dSINE), with the same age, gender, and type of implanted stent, were selected, then aortic morphological parameters were calculated. In addition, the stent material parameters used by the patients were also fitted.

High-accuracy 3D segmentation of wet age-related macular degeneration via multi-scale and cross-channel feature extraction and channel attention.

Wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of visual impairment and vision loss in the elderly, and optical coherence tomography (OCT) enables revolving biotissue three-dimensional micro-structure widely used to diagnose and monitor wet AMD lesions. Many wet AMD segmentation methods based on deep learning have achieved good results, but these segmentation results are two-dimensional, and cannot take full advantage of OCT's three-dimensional (3D) imaging characteristics. Here we propose a novel deep-learning network characterizing multi-scale and cross-channel feature extraction and channel attention to obtain high-accuracy 3D segmentation results of wet AMD lesions and show the 3D specific morphology, a task unattainable with traditional two-dimensional segmentation.

Toward Ground-Truth Optical Coherence Tomography via Three-Dimensional Unsupervised Deep Learning Processing and Data.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) can perform non-invasive high-resolution three-dimensional (3D) imaging and has been widely used in biomedical fields, while it is inevitably affected by coherence speckle noise which degrades OCT imaging performance and restricts its applications. Here we present a novel speckle-free OCT imaging strategy, named toward-ground-truth OCT ( t GT-OCT), that utilizes unsupervised 3D deep-learning processing and leverages OCT 3D imaging features to achieve speckle-free OCT imaging. Specifically, our proposed t GT-OCT utilizes an unsupervised 3D-convolution deep-learning network trained using random 3D volumetric data to distinguish and separate speckle from real structures in 3D imaging volumetric space; moreover, t GT-OCT effectively further reduces speckle noise and reveals structures that would otherwise be obscured by speckle noise while preserving spatial resolution.

High-precision Drosophila heart segmentation and dynamic cardiac parameter measurement for optogenetics-OCT-based cardiac function research.

Drosophila model has been widely used to study cardiac functions, especially combined with optogenetics and optical coherence tomography (OCT) that can continuously acquire mass cross-sectional images of the Drosophila heart in vivo over time. It's urgent to quickly and accurately obtain dynamic Drosophila cardiac parameters such as heartbeat rate for cardiac function quantitative analysis through these mass cross-sectional images of the Drosophila heart. Here we present a deep-learning method that integrates U-Net and generative adversarial network architectures while incorporating residually connected convolutions for high-precision OCT image segmentation of Drosophila heart and dynamic cardiac parameter measurements for optogenetics-OCT-based cardiac function research.

Management of chronic pain secondary to temporomandibular disorders: a systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised trials.

Objective: We explored the comparative effectiveness of available therapies for chronic pain associated with temporomandibular disorders (TMD).

Design: Systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised clinical trials (RCTs).

Data Sources: MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, CENTRAL, and SCOPUS were searched to May 2021, and again in January 2023.

Intravenous immunoglobulin for treatment of hospitalized COVID-19 patients: an evidence mapping and meta-analysis.

Background: The clinical efficacy and safety of intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIg) treatment for COVID-19 remain controversial. This study aimed to map the current status and gaps of available evidence, and conduct a meta-analysis to further investigate the benefit of IVIg in COVID-19 patients.

Methods: Electronic databases were searched for systematic reviews/meta-analyses (SR/MAs), primary studies with control groups, reporting on the use of IVIg in patients with COVID-19.

PROTOCOL: Effectiveness of home-based interventions to prevent child neglect: A systematic review.

This is the protocol for a Campbell systematic review. The objectives are as follows. The objectives of the present study are to answer the following questions: (1) What types of home-based interventions are currently being studied to prevent child neglect? (2) How effective are the different home-based interventions for preventing child neglect? (3) What are the causes of heterogeneity among included studies and their impact on study effects?