The impact of age at diagnosis on central lymph node metastasis in clinically low-risk papillary thyroid microcarcinoma patients.

Background: Age is an independent risk factor for central lymph node metastasis (CLNM) in clinically negative lymph node (cN0) papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) patients. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of age on CLNM in clinically low-risk PTMC patients.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on patients with clinically low-risk PTMC who underwent surgery between January 2016 and December 2018.

Constructing a Nursing Programme to Manage Intra-Abdominal Pressure in Neurocritical Care Patients: A Modified Delphi Study.

Aim: To construct a nursing programme to manage intra-abdominal pressure (IAP) in neurocritical care patients.

Design: The consensus of 16 experts was collected using a two-round Delphi method.

Methods: First, we developed the early stages of the nursing programme for managing IAP in neurocritical care patients through preliminary study and relevant literature internationally.

MUSE and PROPELLER DWI for ADC in parasagittal dura: insights from high-resolution and reduced-distortion DWI.

The parasagittal dura (PSD) is a thin channel along the sagittal sinus vein at the brain's upper convexities. Previous studies have shown that cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flows directly into the PSD, with PSD dimensions and tracer clearance rates associated with aging and brain disorders. Since slow lymphatic drainage is sensitive to water diffusion, PSD circulation may be evaluated using diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI).

Ornithine decarboxylase antizyme 2 (OAZ2) in human colon adenocarcinoma: a potent prognostic factor associated with immunity.

Despite few studies focusing on the OAZ2 gene in colorectal cancer, its potential role in colon adenocarcinoma (COAD) prognosis and immune modulation remains underexplored. This study examines the expression and mechanistic involvement of OAZ2 in COAD using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and additional laboratory experiments. We employed uni- and multivariate Cox hazard regression analyses to evaluate its prognostic significance and gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) to identify related signaling pathways.

Ultra-high dose rate radiotherapy overcomes radioresistance in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Radiotherapy (RT) resistance in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) significantly hampers local control and patient prognosis. This study investigated the efficacy and molecular mechanisms of high-energy X-ray-based ultra-high dose rate radiotherapy (UHDR-RT) in overcoming RT resistance. The established RT-resistant HNSCC cell lines and animal models were subjected to UHDR-RT or conventional RT (Conv-RT) via a high-power rhodotron accelerator.

An intercity investment network dataset of China based on the enterprise registration records (2000-2020).

Intercity investment activities among enterprises reflect the flow of capital between cities, thereby directly illustrating the economic connections between them. However, there is currently no publicly available dataset that captures this important feature. In this study, we introduce an intercity investment network (IIN) dataset for China, covering the period from 2000 to 2020, based on 17,273,411 large-scale enterprise registration records.

Sleep traits causally affect epigenetic age acceleration: a Mendelian randomization study.

Sleep disorders (SDs) are a common issue in the elderly. Epigenetic clocks based on DNA methylation (DNAm) are now considered highly accurate predictors of the aging process and are associated with age-related diseases. This study aimed to investigate the causal relationship between sleep traits and the epigenetic clock using Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.

Elevated COMMD1 Contributes to Cardiomyocyte Copper Efflux in Chronic Myocardial Ischemia: Insights From Rhesus Monkey.

Copper deficiency, commonly observed in myocardial infarction, leads to cardiomyocyte loss and cardiac dysfunction, yet the mechanism driving copper efflux remains unclear. To further elucidate the relationship between copper transporters and cardiac copper efflux during chronic myocardial ischemia, a rhesus monkey model was established by performing the permanent ligation of the left anterior descending coronary artery. A dramatic decrease in copper concentration within ischemic cardiomyocytes was observed alongside declining cardiac function.

Assessment of the effects of dry and wet aging on dark-cutting Nellore beef meat by TD-NMR and H NMR approaches.

This study assessed the physicochemical parameters, water distribution, and metabolic profiles of wet- and dry-aged dark-cutting Nellore beef meat using TD-NMR and H NMR techniques alongside chemometric analysis. We analysed eight Nellore carcasses (Longissimus lumborum) aged for 28 days using both wet and dry methods. Post-aging, we noted significant reductions in water activity and moisture content in dry-aged samples, while lipid levels remained largely unchanged compared to unaged samples.

Recommendations for use of extracorporeal shockwave therapy in sports medicine: an international modified Delphi study.

Objectives: While extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ESWT) may be an efficacious adjunctive treatment option for musculoskeletal injuries, current research is limited by significant heterogeneity within treatment protocols. This study aims to establish international expert consensus recommendations on ESWT terminology, parameters, procedural considerations, contraindications and side effects in the application of ESWT to sports injuries.

Methods: A systematic literature search was performed on the use of ESWT for musculoskeletal and sports medicine injuries to identify potential panellists, followed by the development of a steering committee-led questionnaire.

Regional and population-scale trends in human inhalation exposure to airborne microplastics: Implications for health risk assessment.

Growing evidence shows that breathing microplastics (MPs)-polluted air increases the risk of pulmonary health effects. However, a complete understanding of how inhaled MPs distribute within the human respiratory tract (HRT) remains insufficient. This study developed a physiologically-based kinetic HRT model to evaluate the deposition and clearance of MPs over time and at varying concentrations based on their aerodynamic diameter (AD).

Safety and onset time of modified Yupingfeng nasal spray versus mometasone furoate nasal spray on house dust mites-induced moderate to severe allergic rhinitis: A prospective, multicenter, randomized, open-label, parallel-group clinical trial.

Ethnopharmacological Relevance: House dust mite (HDM)-induced allergic rhinitis (AR) is a significant global health issue, leading to considerable illness and disability worldwide. In traditional Chinese medicine, Modified Yupingfeng Nasal Spray (MYN) is believed to support defense systems, and regulate immune defense systems.

Aim Of The Study: Previous research has shown that both MYN and mometasone furoate nasal spray (MFN) can alleviate symptoms of HDM-induced AR.

Pancreas-targeted lipid nanoparticles for relatively non-invasive interleukin-12 mRNA therapy in orthotopic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) represents 90 % of pancreatic cancers and shows limited response to immune therapy owing to the highly immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME). Cytokine-encoded mRNA therapy demonstrates a great promise in converting "cold" tumors into "hot" ones, while it is typically administered through intratumoral injection and applicable only to superficial tumors, which limites their application in PDAC. In this study, we design and develop a lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery system capable of targeting pancreatic tissue via intraperitoneal (I.

Extracellular TatD from Listeria monocytogenes displays DNase activity and contributes to biofilm dispersion.

TatD is evolutionarily conserved in a variety of organisms and has been implicated in DNA repair, apoptosis, and the disruption of extracellular traps. The aim of our study was to investigate the effects of TatD on L. monocytogenes biofilms.

Hierarchical AttentionShift for Pointly Supervised Instance Segmentation.

Pointly supervised instance segmentation (PSIS) remains a challenging task when appearance variances across object parts cause semantic inconsistency. In this article, we propose a hierarchical AttentionShift approach, to solve the semantic inconsistency issue through exploiting the hierarchical nature of semantics and the flexibility of key-point representation. The estimation of hierarchical attention is defined upon key-point sets.

A Dual-Modal Fusion Framework for Detection of Mild Cognitive Impairment Based on Autobiographical Memory.

This paper introduces a dual-modal early cognitive impairment detection system based on autobiographical memory (AM) tests, and our approach is to automatically extract pre-defined acoustic features and self-designed embeddings to enhance linguistic representation of the spontaneous speech data. By integrating dual-modal data, we effectively enrich the features that aid in model learning, especially addressing the subtle symptoms exhibited by individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), an intermediate stage between healthy individuals and those with Alzheimer's disease (AD). To account for spontaneous speech's unstructured and implicit nature, two additional embeddings, namely, speaker embedding and conversation embedding, are introduced to augment the information available for model learning, thus enriching the feature set for improving the model accuracy.

A compact monocular dual-view 3D endoscope imaging system based on dichroic prism for minimally invasive surgery.

Objective: During minimally invasive surgery (MIS), three-dimensional (3D) endoscopes provide valuable 3D perception of the patient's internal structures. However, due to the requirement of two cameras and a relatively large baseline distance, the imaging front-end of the conventional binocular 3D (CB3D) endoscope usually lacks compactness. We aim to develop a novel compact monocular dual-view 3D (MDV3D) endoscope imaging system.

Amber Light-Assisted CBI Endoscopy for Superior Deep Vascular Visualization and Blood-Containing Tissue Depth Differentiation.

Purpose: A novel compound band imaging (CBI) endoscopy system is introduced to enhance the visualization and depth differentiation of blood-containing tissues within mucosal structures. This system serves as a theranostics tool to supplement white light imaging (WLI), enabling more precise disease diagnosis and treatment.

Methods: The system utilizes a combination of green and red narrow-band light, alongside amber wide-band light, synchronized with a rapid switching strategy and a color CMOS sensor.

1,2,4-Trimethoxybenzene ameliorates depression-like behaviors by inhibiting the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome.

Our previous works identified that 1,2,4-Trimethoxybenzene (1,2,4-TTB) is an NOD-like receptor (NLR) family pyrin domain-containing-3 (NLRP3) inflammasome-specific inhibitor and ameliorates the severity of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis. This study explored whether 1,2,4-TTB has an antidepressive-like role, which depends on suppressing NLRP3 inflammasome. In the current study, the depression-like behaviors induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or fear conditioning were used to determine the antidepressive-like role of 1,2,4-TTB.

A Miniaturized MgO Multi-Sensor Device Based on A Flexible Printed Circuit Board for Glucose and pH Detection.

This study proposed a miniaturized multi-sensor device prepared using a flexible printed circuit board (FPCB) and applied to detect glucose (Glu) and pH value, where both the readout circuit board and the sensors possess flexible characteristics. Additionally, this work implemented the potentiometric readout circuit. It integrated the die onto the readout circuit board using wire bonding techniques, while the area of the readout circuit board is 5.

Scaling Spike-Driven Transformer With Efficient Spike Firing Approximation Training.

The ambition of brain-inspired Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) is to become a low-power alternative to traditional Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs). This work addresses two major challenges in realizing this vision: the performance gap between SNNs and ANNs, and the high training costs of SNNs. We identify intrinsic flaws in spiking neurons caused by binary firing mechanisms and propose a Spike Firing Approximation (SFA) method using integer training and spike-driven inference.

MaKAN-Mixer: Channel Interaction-Based Mamba Method for rPPG Extraction.

Remote photoplethysmography (rPPG) achieves non-contact heart rate monitoring by detecting subtle skin color variations in facial videos, offering significant potential in healthcare, fitness, and security applications.However, accurately extracting rPPG signals in complex environments-especially under variable lighting and motion artifacts-remains challenging. The main difficulties are capturing spatio-temporal dynamics and modeling long-term dependencies across channels.

Statistical shape modelling of the left ventricle for patients with HeartMate2 and HeartMate3 ventricular assist devices.

Left ventricular assist devices (LVADs) have demonstrated promising outcomes in the management of end-stage heart failure. However, the altered intraventricular flow dynamics following LVAD implantation can lead to non-physiological shear rates and stagnant or recirculating zones, which increase the risk of thrombosis around the inflow cannula. There are conflicting recommendations regarding the optimal inflow cannula design and its association with thrombosis risk, possibly due to anatomical variations among patients.

Image Quality Assessment: Exploring Joint Degradation Effect of Deep Network Features via Kernel Representation Similarity Analysis.

Typically, deep network-based full-reference image quality assessment (FR-IQA) models compare deep features from reference and distorted images pairwise, overlooking correlations among features from the same source. We propose a dual-branch framework to capture the joint degradation effect among deep network features. The first branch uses kernel representation similarity analysis (KRSA), which compares feature self-similarity matrices via the mean absolute error (MAE).

WAKE: Towards Robust and Physically Feasible Trajectory Prediction for Autonomous Vehicles With WAvelet and KinEmatics Synergy.

Addressing the pervasive challenge of imperfect data in autonomous vehicle (AV) systems, this study pioneers an integrated trajectory prediction model, WAKE, that fuses physics-informed methodologies with sophisticated machine learning techniques. Our model operates in two principal stages: the initial stage utilizes a Wavelet Reconstruction Network to accurately reconstruct missing observations, thereby preparing a robust dataset for further processing. This is followed by the Kinematic Bicycle Model which ensures that reconstructed trajectory predictions adhere strictly to physical laws governing vehicular motion.