Construction of a prognostic model for gastric cancer based on immune infiltration and microenvironment, and exploration of MEF2C gene function.

Background: Advanced gastric cancer (GC) exhibits a high recurrence rate and a dismal prognosis. Myocyte enhancer factor 2c (MEF2C) was found to contribute to the development of various types of cancer. Therefore, our aim is to develop a prognostic model that predicts the prognosis of GC patients and initially explore the role of MEF2C in immunotherapy for GC.

Nonacademic predictors of China medical licensing examination.

Background: National Medical Licensing Examination (NMLE) is the entrance exam for medical practice in China, and its general medical knowledge test (GMKT) evaluates abilities of medical students to comprehensively apply medical knowledge to clinical practice. This study aimed to identify nonacademic predictors of GMKT performance, which would benefit medical schools in designing appropriate strategies and techniques to facilitate the transition from medical students to qualified medical practitioners.

Methods: In 1202 medical students, we conducted the deletion-substitution-addition (DSA) and structural equation model (SEM) analyses to identify nonacademic predictors of GMKT performance from 98 candidate variables including early life events, physical conditions, psychological and personality assessments, cognitive abilities, and socioeconomic conditions.

The association between neutrophil to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio and gallstones: a cross-sectional study.

Objective: Several studies have discussed the relationship between cholesterol and gallstones, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) as a representative of this has been addressed in various diseases. The metric neutrophil to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio (NHR) derived from HDL-C has attracted much attention. The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between NHR and gallstones in a population of American adults.

Distinct detection and discrimination sensitivities in visual processing of real versus unreal optic flow.

We examined the intricate mechanisms underlying visual processing of complex motion stimuli by measuring the detection sensitivity to contraction and expansion patterns and the discrimination sensitivity to the location of the center of motion (CoM) in various real and unreal optic flow stimuli. We conducted two experiments (N = 20 each) and compared responses to both "real" optic flow stimuli containing information about self-movement in a three-dimensional scene and "unreal" optic flow stimuli lacking such information. We found that detection sensitivity to contraction surpassed that to expansion patterns for unreal optic flow stimuli, whereas this trend was reversed for real optic flow stimuli.

Catalytic-independent functions of the Integrator-PP2A complex (INTAC) confer sensitivity to BET inhibition.

Chromatin and transcription regulators are critical to defining cell identity through shaping epigenetic and transcriptional landscapes, with their misregulation being closely linked to oncogenesis. Pharmacologically targeting these regulators, particularly the transcription-activating BET proteins, has emerged as a promising approach in cancer therapy, yet intrinsic or acquired resistance frequently occurs, with poorly understood mechanisms. Here, using genome-wide CRISPR screens, we find that BET inhibitor efficacy in mediating transcriptional silencing and growth inhibition depends on the auxiliary/arm/tail module of the Integrator-PP2A complex (INTAC), a global regulator of RNA polymerase II pause-release dynamics.

Experiences of healthcare professionals returning to work post breast cancer diagnosis in China: A descriptive qualitative study.

Breast cancer survivors face employment challenges. How to promote BC's return to work is important for improving their quality of life and promoting recovery. Numerous studies have reported that BC survivors encounter employment challenges due to cognitive limitations, alongside factors.

Ultrafast Coherence-Based Power Doppler Estimation Using Nonlinear Compounding With Complementary Subset Transmit.

Objective: Conventional coherent plane wave compounding (CPWC) and sum-of-square power Doppler (PD) estimation lead to low contrast and high noise level in ultrafast PD imaging when the number of plane-wave angle and the ensemble length is limited. The coherence-based PD estimation using temporal-multiply-and-sum (TMAS) of high-lag autocorrelation can effectively suppress the uncorrelated noises but at the cost of signal power due to the blood flow decorrelation.

Methods: In this study, the TMAS PD estimation is incorporated with complementary subset transmit in nonlinear compounding (DMAS-CST) to leverage the signal coherence in both angular and temporal dimensions for improvement of PD image quality.

Amide proton transfer-weighted (APTw) imaging and derived quantitative metrics in evaluating gliomas: Improved performance compared to magnetization transfer ratio asymmetry (MTR).

Rationale And Objectives: Isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) status, glioma subtypes and tumor proliferation are important for glioma evaluation. We comprehensively compare the diagnostic performance of amide proton transfer-weighted (APTw) MRI and its related metrics in glioma diagnosis, in the context of the latest classification.

Materials And Methods: Totally 110 patients with adult-type diffuse gliomas underwent APTw imaging.

Bisphenol A Exacerbates Colorectal Cancer Progression through Enhancing Ceramide Synthesis.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a typical environmental endocrine disruptor which have been broadly confirmed to be associated with malignant tumors, including colorectal cancer (CRC). Lipid metabolism reprogramming performed important biological effects in cancer progression. While the role of lipid metabolism in CRC progression upon BPA exposure remain elusive.

Exploration of the molecular mechanism of Wufu Yin in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis based on network pharmacology and experimental validation.

Wufu Yin (WFY) exhibits significant clinical effectiveness in knee osteoarthritis (KOA) treatment, yet its therapeutic mechanisms are still unclear. This study aimed to explore the active ingredients and potential mechanism of WFY in the treatment of KOA. The network pharmacology-based approach was adopted to investigate the underlying mechanism of WFY in treating KOA.

Getting closer to the coronary arteries: A bibliometric analysis of CT-based adipose tissue imaging in coronary artery disease.

The aim of this study is to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of CT-based adipose tissue imaging related to coronary artery disease (CAD) to investigate the dynamic development of this field. Web of Science Core Collection was used as our data source to identify relevant documents limited to articles or review articles and written in English with no time restrictions. Then we analyzed the whole trend of publications and utilized VOSviewer and Bibliometrix to conduct a bibliometric analysis including citations, keywords, countries, institutions, authors as well as co-citation analyses of cited references and sources.

Sirolimus as a repurposed drug for tendinopathy: A systems biology approach combining computational and experimental methods.

Background: Effective drugs for tendinopathy are lacking, resulting in significant morbidity and re-tearing rate after operation. Applying systems biology to identify new applications for current pharmaceuticals can decrease the duration, expenses, and likelihood of failure associated with the development of new drugs.

Methods: We identify tendinopathy signature genes employing a transcriptomics database encompassing 154 clinical tendon samples.

High quantum yield copper nanoclusters integrated with nitrogen-doped carbon dots for off-on ratiometric fluorescence sensing of S and Zn.

Pursuing nanomaterials with high fluorescence quantum yields is of great significance in the fields of bioimaging, medical diagnosis, and food safety monitoring. This work reports on orange-emitting aggregation-induced emission (AIE) copper nanoclusters (Cu NCs) integrated with blue-emitting nitrogen-doped carbon dots (N-CDs), which enables highly sensitive detection of S and Zn ions through an off-on ratiometric fluorescence method. The highly emissive Cu NCs was doped by Ce with a high quantum yield of 51.

Development of fluorescent-photothermal probe based on photoinduced energy transfer: A dual-readout immunosensor for the detection of illegal additive.

The development of advanced optical probes for point-of-care testing holds great importance in the field of diagnostic technologies. This study focused on the synthesis of a probe featuring both fluorescent and photothermal responses with single excitation wavelength, which was achieved through the combination of oxidized camellia oleifera shell powder (OC) and Prussian blue nanoparticles (PBNPs). Notably, OC derived from the direct processing of raw material showed fluorescent and phosphorescent emissions simultaneously, and the positions of the two peaks overlapped with the absorbance range of PBNPs, making the fluorescent and phosphorescent emissions of OC effectively quenched by PBNPs.

Integrated ecological-health risk assessment of ofloxacin.

Antibiotics are emerging contaminants of significant concern, while previous research has mostly focused on their ecological or health impacts in isolation. This limited systematic research on its overall risk and the uncertainty relating to the risk evaluation is also unclear. This study addressed this gap by examining both ecological or health impacts by integrating interspecies correlation models, species sensitivity distribution curves, and health risk evaluation.

PADS-Net: GAN-based radiomics using multi-task network of denoising and segmentation for ultrasonic diagnosis of Parkinson disease.

Parkinson disease (PD) is a prevalent neurodegenerative disorder, and its accurate diagnosis is crucial for timely intervention. We propose the PArkinson disease Denoising and Segmentation Network (PADS-Net), to simultaneously denoise and segment transcranial ultrasound images of midbrain for accurate PD diagnosis. The PADS-Net is built upon generative adversarial networks and incorporates a multi-task deep learning framework aimed at optimizing the tasks of denoising and segmentation for ultrasound images.

Protective effects of Notoginsenoside R2 on reducing lipid accumulation and mitochondrial dysfunction in diabetic nephropathy through regulation of c-Src.

Background: The treatment options to delay the progression of diabetic nephropathy (DN), a key contributor to chronic kidney disease (CKD), are urgently needed. Previous studies reported that traditional Chinese medicine Panax notoginseng (PNG) exerted beneficial effects on DN. However, the renoprotective effects of Notoginsenoside R2 (NR2), an active component of PNG, on DN have not been investigated.

Two dimensional confinement induced discontinuous chain transitions for augmented electrocaloric cooling.

Overheating remains a major barrier to chip miniaturization, leading to device malfunction. Addressing the urgent need for thermal management promotes the development of solid-state electrocaloric cooling. However, enhancing passive heat dissipation through two-dimensional materials in electrocaloric polymers typically compromises the electrocaloric effect.

Proximal Oblique-Packing of Heptamethine Cyanines through Spiro-Connection Boosts Triplet State Generation in Near-Infrared.

Near-infrared (NIR) triplet dyes are the cornerstones of cutting-edge biomedical and material applications. The difficulty in rational development of triplet dyes increases exponentially as the absorption wavelength shifts deeper into the NIR range. Although classical H-/J-typed packing of NIR dyes has the potential to enhance intersystem crossing (ISC) compared with that in single-chromophore dyes, the triplet state quantum yields remain limited in such strategy.

In-Plane Polarization-Triggered WS-Ferroelectric Heterostructured Synaptic Devices.

To date, various kinds of memristors have been proposed as artificial neurons and synapses for neuromorphic computing to overcome the so-called von Neumann bottleneck in conventional computing architectures. However, related working principles are mostly ascribed to randomly distributed conductive filaments or traps, which usually lead to high stochasticity and poor uniformity. In this work, a heterostructure with a two-dimensional WS monolayer and a ferroelectric PZT film were demonstrated for memristors and artificial synapses, triggered by in-plane ferroelectric polarization.

CDK8 mediated inflammatory microenvironment aggravates osteoarthritis progression.

Introduction: Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 8 (CDK8), a CDK family member, regulates the development of inflammatory processes through transcriptional activation. The involvement of CDK8 in osteoarthritis (OA) progression is not yet understood.

Objectives: This study aims to investigate whether CDK8, through its transcriptional regulatory functions, collaborates with NF-κB in chondrocytes to regulate the transcription of senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) genes, thereby exacerbating the inflammatory microenvironment in the progression of osteoarthritis (OA), and to explore the specific mechanisms involved.

Machine learning-assisted assessment of municipal solid waste thermal treatment efficacy via rapid image recognition and visual analysis.

Decentralized thermal treatment is a common method for municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal in rural areas. However, evaluating the effect of incineration has always been challenging owing to the difficult and time-consuming measurements involved. Herein, this study presented a rapid image recognition method for assessing the effects of thermal treatment on MSW using a neural network algorithm and a BAEVA 1.

Biocatalytic Hydrogenation of Biomass-Derived Furan Aldehydes to Alcohols.

The biomass-derived furan aldehydes furfural (FF) and 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) are versatile platform chemicals used to produce various value-added chemicals through further valorization processes. Selectively reducing C═O in FF and HMF molecules to form furfuryl alcohol (FAL) and 2,5-bis(hydroxymethyl)furan (BHMF), represents an important research field in upgrading biomass-based furan compounds. Currently, the reduction of furan aldehydes to furan alcohols through chemical transformation often leads to unavoidable environmental issues and the formation of potential byproducts.