Effect of C-type lectin 16 on dengue virus infection in salivary glands.

C-type lectins (CTLs) are a family of carbohydrate-binding proteins and an important component of mosquito saliva. Although CTLs play key roles in immune activation and viral pathogenesis, little is known about their role in regulating dengue virus (DENV) infection and transmission. In this study, we established a homozygous knockout mutant line using CRISPR/Cas9 to study the interaction between and viruses in mosquito vectors.

Integrating predictive coding and a user-centric interface for enhanced auditing and quality in cancer registry data.

Data curation for a hospital-based cancer registry heavily relies on the labor-intensive manual abstraction process by cancer registrars to identify cancer-related information from free-text electronic health records. To streamline this process, a natural language processing system incorporating a hybrid of deep learning-based and rule-based approaches for identifying lung cancer registry-related concepts, along with a symbolic expert system that generates registry coding based on weighted rules, was developed. The system is integrated with the hospital information system at a medical center to provide cancer registrars with a patient journey visualization platform.

A novel open-source CADs platform for 3D CT pulmonary analysis.

Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems play vital roles in the early detection of pulmonary nodules for reducing lung cancer mortality rates. To provide better services for professional doctors, this paper proposes an efficient open-source CAD platform with flexible equipments, user-friendly interfaces, and completed functions for 3D CT pulmonary nodule analysis. For the platform's design and implementation, we fully consider application scenarios and system requirements.

Admittance analysis of broadband omnidirectional near-perfect absorber in epsilon-near-zero mode.

In this paper, we propose a broadband omnidirectional near-perfect absorber that transforms light energy into heat. In contrast to previous research on structural metamaterials, this study focuses on light absorption in the epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) layers without any structural patterns. Chromium (Cr) thin films were applied as ENZ layers.

Varying stress of SiOC thin films deposited by plasma polymerization.

SiOC thin films were deposited by plasma polymerization. The stress of the deposited SiOC thin films can be modified by adjusting the beam current, the anode voltage, and the flow rate of hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) gas and oxygen. Reducing the beam current or increasing the flow rate of HMDSO gas increased the linear/cage structure ratio and turned the stress of the SiOC thin films from compressive to tensile.

Endocytosis of PEGylated agents enhances cancer imaging and anticancer efficacy.

PEGylated nanoparticles and macromolecules are increasingly used in cancer imaging and anticancer treatment. The role of receptor-mediated endocytosis in the efficacy of these agents, however, has not been clearly defined. Here, we developed a matched pair of endocytic and nonendocytic receptors to directly and unambiguously assess this issue.

Measurement of poly(ethylene glycol) by cell-based anti-poly(ethylene glycol) ELISA.

Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) is increasingly used in clinical and experimental medicine. However, quantification of PEG and PEGylated small molecules remains laborious and unsatisfactory. In this report, we stably expressed a functional anti-PEG antibody on the surface of BALB 3T3 cells (3T3/alphaPEG cells) to develop a competitive enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for PEG quantification.

The nature of international health security.

Health issues occasionally intersect security issues. Health security has been viewed as an essential part of human security. Policymakers and health professionals, however, do not share a common definition of health security.