Clinical predictive model for identifying high-risk factors in pleurisy tuberculoma patients.

Introduction: Pleurisy tuberculoma (PTM) is a neoplastic lesion that primarily affects the pleural wall or internal organs. The majority of PTM cases are observed during the treatment of tuberculous pleural effusion(TPE), and although the precise pathogenesis remains unclear, there is a significant association between these two conditions. To identify high-risk factors for the development of PTM, we developed a clinical predictive model aimed at providing more insightful information for the development of PTM.

Geometric a priori informed bent-ray tracing for accelerated sound speed imaging in ultrasound computed tomography.

Bent-ray tracing ultrasound computed tomography (USCT) is a promising technique for breast cancer screening which quantitatively provides speed-of-sound (SOS) distribution in human breasts. In this modality, SOS images are reconstructed with an iterative process to match the measured time-of-flights and the ones predicted by Eikonal equation solved with the fast marching method (FMM). The Eikonal equation is meant to be applied in SOS heterogeneous media and its evaluation with FMM is an computational expensive process.

Autonomic Nervous System in Bone Remodeling: From Mechanisms to Novel Therapies in Orthopedic Diseases.

Recent literature has increasingly demonstrated the significant function of autonomic nerves in regulating physiological and pathological changes associated with the skeletal system. Extensive studies have been conducted to understand the contribution of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) to skeletal metabolic homeostasis and resistance to aseptic inflammation, specifically from the viewpoint of skeletal neurobiology. There have been plenty of studies on how the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), the two main branches of the ANS, regulate bone remodeling, which is the process of bone formation and resorption.

SP1 regulates porcine primary adipocyte differentiation by modulating BAMBI transcriptional activity.

Obesity is a critical metabolic disorder in modern society, necessitating urgent research and intervention. Compared to mice, pigs are increasingly been recognized as valuable model organisms for such studied due to their closer genetic similarity to humans. The BAMBI gene plays a pivotal role in adipocyte differentiation and adipose tissue development, rendering it a potent target for exploring the mechanisms of obesity and related metabolic disorders.

Phosphate Flame Retardants and Plasticizers and Their Association with Reproductive and Steroid Hormone Levels among Peripubertal-Aged Children: The Hokkaido Birth Cohort Study.

This cross-sectional study investigated associations between exposure to organophosphate flame retardants and plasticizers (PFRs) and reproductive and steroid hormones in peripubertal children from the Hokkaido Birth Cohort (429 children aged 9-12 years; between September 2017 and March 2020). Thirteen urinary PFR metabolites and 14 plasma steroid hormones were investigated using LC-MS/MS and four reproductive hormones were investigated using immunoassays. Linear regression for single PFR, quantile g-computation, and Bayesian machine kernel regression (BKMR) models for the PFR mixtures were used to examine the association between hormones and PFRs.

Pickering self-floating adsorbents: Natural tea polyphenol nanoparticle-based beads for efficient separation of cationic dyes with simple recovery.

Energy-efficient separation and recovery of adsorbents, particularly nano/micro-adsorbent materials, and effective adsorption of water-soluble ionic dyes continue to be crucial challenges in wastewater treatment. In this study, a novel water-suspended Pickering adsorbent with adsorption selectivity was developed using natural polyphenol nanomaterials. The preparation procedure is simple and cost-effective, involving ultrasonic emulsification and calcium alginate crosslinking without the use of complex equipment or expensive chemicals.

Optimizing the Recovery of Pediatric Tonsillectomy: Application of Opioid-Free Anesthesia and Analgesia.

Purpose: Opioids are considered the gold standard for controlling postoperative acute pain. However, side effects such as nausea, vomiting, respiratory depression, and pain sensitization have gained significant attention. The risks are higher in children with enlarged tonsils and sleep apnea, making effective pain management while minimizing analgesia-related side effects a pressing concern.

Radix Hedysari Polysaccharides modulate the gut-brain axis and improve cognitive impairment in SAMP8 mice.

Objective: Radix Hedysari Polysaccharides (RHP) are the principal bioactive constituents of the traditional Chinese medicinal herb Radix Hedysari. This study aims to evaluate the neuroprotective effects of RHP in both cellular and animal models of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to elucidate the underlying molecular mechanisms.

Methods: HT22 cells subjected to Aβ-induced cytotoxicity were pretreated with RHP, followed by assessments of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, mitochondrial superoxide (mSOX) levels, and mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm).

Rethinking Appearance-Based Deep Gait Recognition: Reviews, Analysis, and Insights From Gait Recognition Evolution.

Gait recognition is a prominent biometric recognition technique extensively employed in public security. Appearance-based and model-based gait recognition are two categories of methods commonly used. Specifically, appearance-based methods, which use silhouettes to represent body information, typically outperform model-based methods that rely on skeleton data, making them more popular.

Deep Beamforming for Real-time 3D Passive Acoustic Mapping with Row-Column-Addressed Arrays.

Passive acoustic mapping (PAM) is a promising tool to monitor acoustic cavitation activities for focused ultrasound (FUS) therapies. While 2D matrix arrays allow three-dimensional (3D) PAM, the high channel count requirement and the complexity of the receiving electronics limit their practical value in real-time imaging applications. In this regard, row-column-addressed (RCA) arrays have shown great potentials in addressing the difficulties in real-time 3D ultrasound imaging.

Engineered mitochondria in diseases: mechanisms, strategies, and applications.

Mitochondrial diseases represent one of the most prevalent and debilitating categories of hereditary disorders, characterized by significant genetic, biological, and clinical heterogeneity, which has driven the development of the field of engineered mitochondria. With the growing recognition of the pathogenic role of damaged mitochondria in aging, oxidative disorders, inflammatory diseases, and cancer, the application of engineered mitochondria has expanded to those non-hereditary contexts (sometimes referred to as mitochondria-related diseases). Due to their unique non-eukaryotic origins and endosymbiotic relationship, mitochondria are considered highly suitable for gene editing and intercellular transplantation, and remarkable progress has been achieved in two promising therapeutic strategies-mitochondrial gene editing and artificial mitochondrial transfer (collectively referred to as engineered mitochondria in this review) over the past two decades.

Optimizing phage therapy for carbapenem-resistant bacteremia: insights into dose and timing.

The increase in multidrug-resistant (MDR) complex (ECC) infections, particularly those resistant to carbapenems, underscores the urgent need for alternative therapies. Phage therapy, with its specific bactericidal action, offers a promising solution. However, there remains a shortage of well-characterized ECC-targeting phages, and dosing and timing optimization for ECC-specific phage cocktails is largely unexplored.

Global, regional, and national burden of pulmonary arterial hypertension and related heart failure from 1990 to 2021, with predictions to 2050: insights from the global burden of disease study 2021.

Background: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and PAH-related heart failure (PAH-HF) have undergone significant epidemiological changes since 1990. However, large-scale studies are scarce. This study evaluates global epidemiologic trends from 1990 to 2021 and projects them to 2050 to inform public health policies.

Responsive hydrogel modulator with self-regulated polyphenol release for accelerating diabetic wound healing precise immunoregulation.

Nonhealing chronic wounds are intractable clinical complications of diabetes and are characterized by high protease activity, severe oxidative stress and sustained inflammatory response. In this case, the development of functional hydrogel dressings to modulate the immune microenvironment is a well-known strategy, where the precise stimuli-responsive and spatiotemporally controlled release of bioactive molecules remains a huge challenge. Herein, we developed responsive hydrogels with self-regulated bioactive molecule release based on the protease activity in diabetic wound sites, to serve as a smart immune microenvironment modulator for accelerating wound healing.

An experimental study on the lytic bacteriophage MSP15 with wide-spectrum targeting methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Background: Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is identified as one of the main drug-resistant pathogens, increasing the risk of no antibiotic availability in clinical settings and necessitating the urgent search for alternative antibacterial treatments. Phage therapy has been proposed as a therapeutic approach for bacterial infections, offering numerous advantages and broad application prospects. However, the efficacy of phage therapy in treating drug-resistant infections in humans remains uncertain.

Tianqi Yizhi Granule alleviates cognitive dysfunction and neurodegeneration in SAMP8 mice via the PKC/ERK pathway.

Background: Given the lack of satisfactory clinical treatments for Alzheimer's disease (AD), a neurodegenerative condition detrimental to health, developing alternative therapies is critical. Tianqi Yizhi Granule (TQYZ) is a preparation used to treat AD based on traditional Chinese medicine theory, the latent mechanisms of which await elucidation.

Purpose: This study sought to investigate the neuroprotective properties of TQYZ while exploring its potential therapeutic mechanisms using network pharmacology analyses and experimental validation.

Nociceptive neurons promote gastric tumour progression via a CGRP-RAMP1 axis.

Cancer cells have been shown to exploit neurons to modulate their survival and growth, including through the establishment of neural circuits within the central nervous system. Here we report a distinct pattern of cancer-nerve interactions between the peripheral nervous system and gastric cancer. In multiple mouse models of gastric cancer, nociceptive nerves demonstrated the greatest degree of nerve expansion in an NGF-dependent manner.

Recent progress in two-dimensional material/group-III nitride hetero-structures and devices.

Two-dimensional (2D) material (graphene, MoS2, MXene, etc.) /group-III nitride (GaN, AlN, and their compounds) hetero-structures have been given special attention, on account of their prospective applications in remarkable performance broadband photodetectors, light-emitting diodes, solar cells, etc. The utilization of advantages of the above two kind materials provides a solution to the dilemma of the degradation of device performance and reliability caused by carrier mobility, lattice mismatch, interface, etc.

Impacts of construction land expansion on cultivated land fragmentation in China, 2000-2020.

The construction land expansion (CLE) in China, based on the occupation of cultivated land, has resulted in a notable alteration of the landscape of cultivated land, leading to an increase in cultivated land fragmentation (CLF) in China. However, previous studies have devoted minimal attention to CLF due to CLE, thereby constraining the coordination of CLE and cultivated land conservation. Accordingly, the study examined the impact mechanism of CLE on CLF utilizing land use/cover datasets and the geographically weighted regression model from 2000 to 2020 in China.

Safety issues of Donepezil combined with Memantine in Alzheimer's disease population: real-world pharmacovigilance.

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia. The combination of Donepezil and Memantine is the only FDA-approved therapy for AD, but its adverse drug reactions (ADRs) lack systematic analysis. This study carried out drug combination analysis for AD population to provide evidence support for clinical safety of drug use.

Unexpected HBsAg decrease after nucleoside analogues retreatment among HBeAg positive postpartum women: a pilot study.

Background: Mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) is one of the main routes of transmission of HBV, and previous studies focused on the efficacy and safety of nucleoside analogues (NAs) in preventing MTCT. There are limited data on virologic changes of chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients after discontinuing treatment postpartum and the efficacy of retreatment.

Methods: A retrospective-prospective real-world pilot cohort study on pregnant women with CHB was conducted.

Low-dose ionizing radiation and the exposure-lag response: protocol for a prospective cohort study on The Health Effects of Chongqing Occupational Radiation Workers.

Introduction: Although the effects of ionizing radiation on radiation workers have been extensively studied in China, no prospective cohort study has been conducted in Chongqing. Furthermore, previous cohorts have not provided a broad-gauge assessment of the temporal relationship between low-dose occupational radiation exposure and the risk of health outcomes.

Methods: A prospective cohort study will be carried out focusing on radiation workers in Chongqing.

The comorbidity burden of diabetes and stroke: a retrospective study in Beijing, China.

Background: The high costs associated with diabetes management, coupled with the increasing prevalence of comorbidities, present a significant challenge to China's healthcare system, with cardiovascular complications being particularly prominent. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the comorbidities of diabetic patients with stroke in Beijing from 2016 to 2018 and the impact on treatment options and associated costs.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study included diabetic patients enrolled in Beijing's medical insurance with outpatient medical records.