Comprehensive Analysis of Risk Factors for Bronchopulmonary Dysplasia in Preterm Infants in Taiwan: A Four-Year Study.

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) is a major respiratory condition mainly affecting premature infants. Although its occurrence is global, risk factors may differ regionally. This study, involving 3111 infants with birth weight ≤ 1500 gm or gestational age (GA) < 30 weeks, aimed to identify risk factors for BPD and BPD/mortality in Taiwan using data from the Taiwan Neonatal Network. The BPD criteria were based on the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development standards. Average GA was 27.5 weeks, with 23.7% classified as small for GA (SGA). Multivariate analysis highlighted low GA, low birth weight, and other perinatal factors as significant risk indicators for BPD. For moderate-to-severe BPD, additional risk factors included male gender and SGA, endotracheal intubation (ETT) or cardiopulmonary cerebral resuscitation (CPCR) in initial resuscitation. In the moderate-to-severe BPD/death group, SGA and ETT or CPCR in initial resuscitation remained the only additional risk factors. The study pinpoints male gender, SGA and ETT or CPCR as key risk factors for moderate-to-severe BPD/death in low-birth-weight infants in Taiwan, offering a basis for focused interventions and further research.

Integrins and Actions of Androgen in Breast Cancer.

Androgen has been shown to regulate male physiological activities and cancer proliferation. It is used to antagonize estrogen-induced proliferative effects in breast cancer cells. However, evidence indicates that androgen can stimulate cancer cell growth in estrogen receptor (ER)-positive and ER-negative breast cancer cells via different types of receptors and different mechanisms. Androgen-induced cancer growth and metastasis link with different types of integrins. Integrin αvß3 is predominantly expressed and activated in cancer cells and rapidly dividing endothelial cells. Programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) also plays a vital role in cancer growth. The part of integrins in action with androgen in cancer cells is not fully mechanically understood. To clarify the interactions between androgen and integrin αvß3, we carried out molecular modeling to explain the potential interactions of androgen with integrin αvß3. The androgen-regulated mechanisms on PD-L1 and its effects were also addressed.

The Effect of Ramadan Fasting on the Coping Strategies Used by Male Footballers Affiliated with the Tunisian First Professional League.

This study aimed to discover coping strategies among professional male Tunisian footballers during the Ramadan 2021 fast. One hundred and eighty footballers who belong to twelve Tunisian professional clubs (age: 25.54 ± 4.41 years, weight: 77.19 ± 5.99 kg; height: 180.54 ± 7.28 cm; BMI: 23.67 ± 0.58) were tested during three sessions: one week before Ramadan, during the last week of Ramadan, and one week after Ramadan 2021. The footballers completed the Arabic version of the Inventory of Coping Strategies for Competitive Sport (ICSCS) scale in each session. Responses were recorded retrospectively one hour after a competition. The analysis of variance revealed a significant effect of Ramadan fasting on the adaptation profile of footballers (F = 3.51; p-value = 0.0001). Before and after Ramadan fasting, active coping dominates the adaptation profile of Tunisian professional footballers. During Ramadan, footballers use an irregular and unbalanced coping profile. The lifestyle change induced by the Ramadan fast significantly and negatively affected the adaptation profile of Tunisian professional footballers. Under the effect of the month of Ramadan, footballers developed a different coping profile from that of normal months.

Single LED positioning scheme based on angle sensors in robotics.

Indoor robotic localization is one of the most active areas in robotics research nowadays. Visible light positioning (VLP) is a promising indoor localization method, as it provides high positioning accuracy and allows for leveraging the existing lighting infrastructure. Apparently, accurate positioning performance is mostly shown by the VLP system with multiple LEDs, while such strict requirement of LED numbers is more likely to lead to VLP system failure in actual environments. In this paper, we propose a single-LED VLP system based on image sensor with the help of angle sensor estimation, which efficiently relaxes the assumption on the minimum number of simultaneously captured LEDs from several to one. Aiming at improving the robustness and accuracy of positioning in the process of continuous change of robot pose, two methods of visual-inertial message synchronization are proposed and used to obtain the well-matched positioning data packets. Various schemes of single-LED VLP system based on different sensor selections and message synchronization methods have been listed and compared in an actual environment. The effectiveness of the proposed single-LED VLP system based on odometer and image sensor as well as the robustness under LED shortage, handover situation and background non-signal light interference, are verified by real-world experiments. The experimental results show that our proposed system can provide an average accuracy of 2.47 cm and the average computational time in low-cost embedded platforms is around 0.184 s.

Maternal Age, the Disparity across Regions and Their Correlation to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in Taiwan: A Nationwide Cohort Study.

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has always been a regrettable issue for families. After sleeping in the supine position was proposed, the incidence of SIDS declined dramatically worldwide. However, SIDS still accounts for the top 10 causes of infant deaths in Taiwan. Recognizing the risk factors and attempting to minimize these cases are imperative. We obtained information on cases with SIDS from the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan and interconnected it with the Taiwan Maternal and Child Health Database to acquire infant-maternal basal characteristics between 2004 and 2017. The SIDS subjects were matched 1:10 considering gestational age to normal infants. After case selection, a total of 953 SIDS cases were included. Compared with healthy infants, SIDS infants had younger parents, lower birth weight, and lower Apgar scores. After adjusting for potential confounders, infants with mothers aged <20 years had 2.81 times higher risk of SIDS. Moreover, infants in the non-eastern region had a significantly lower risk of SIDS than those in the eastern region. We concluded that infants of young mothers (especially maternal age <20 years) and infants in the eastern region of Taiwan had a higher risk of SIDS than their counterparts.

Rab25 acts as an oncogene and participates in the regulation of aerobic glycolysis via PKM2 in gastric adenocarcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Rab25, a hub node of protein-protein interaction networks, has become one of the most popular tumor-associated proteins. Pyruvate kinase (PK) is the main rate-limiting enzyme in the glycolysis pathway and plays a significant role in the regulation of Warburg effect. In this study, we aimed to characterize the expression and function of Rab25 in gastric adenocarcinoma (GAC) and verify our hypothesis experimentally that Rab25 may participate in the regulation of aerobic glycolysis via PKM2 (a subtype of PK) in GAC. METHODS: The impact of Rab25 expression on patient overall survival was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method. Rab25 expression was silenced or increased respectively by lentivirus-mediated transfection. To assess the role of Rab25 in cell viability in vitro, cell proliferation and migration experiments were performed. Levels of pyruvate and lactic acid were detected by kits. Immunofluorescence analysis and Co-Immunoprecipitation were performed to explore the interaction between Rab25 and PKM2 protein. RESULTS: High Rab25 expression was associated with reduced patient overall survival. Silencing Rab25 inhibits GAC cells proliferation and overexpressing Rab25 promotes cell proliferation and migration in gastric cells in vitro. The study revealed that Rab25 participates in the positive regulation of aerobic glycolysis in GAC cells. Rab25 protein and PKM2 protein co-located on the cell membrane and could bind to each other in GAC cells. Rab25 is a positive regulator of PKM2 and Rab25 up-regulation promotes phosphorylation of PKM2. CONCLUSIONS: In human GAC, Rab25 predicts poor prognosis and regulates aerobic glycolysis via phosphorylating PKM2-Y105.

Comparison of prognostic factors in different age groups and prognostic significance of neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio in patients with gastric cancer.

BACKGROUND: Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the most common malignant tumors in the world. Although in recent years tremendous progress has been made in its early detection, the postoperative overall survival (OS) of GC patients remains extremely low. A number of studies have shown that age, to varying degrees, affects the prognosis of patients with GC. Therefore, this study retrospectively analyzed the clinical and pathologic data of patients with GC to explore the differences in the clinical characteristics and prognostic factors in different age groups. AIM: To explore the difference in clinicopathological characteristics and prognostic factors in GC patients in different age groups. METHODS: In this retrospective study, we analyzed 1037 GC patients admitted to Renji Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine from May 2010 to January 2013. The patients were divided into two groups based on age: Younger group (less than 70 years old) and older group (no less than 70 years old). In the younger group, we subdivided the patients in two subgroups by a cut-off value of 45 years. The clinical features and prognostic factors were analyzed in both groups. Subsequently, we retrieved studies that evaluated the predictive role of neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) by searching two medical databases, PubMed and EMBASE, to conduct a meta-analysis. Random-effects model was used to pool the data. RESULTS: In the retrospective study, the mean OS time of the younger group (64.7 mo) was significantly longer than that of the older group (48.1 mo) (P < 0.001). Among patients under 70 years of age, hospitalization time, tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage, vascular invasion, and preoperative low pre-albumin were independently associated with OS (P < 0.005). In patients aged 70 years and above, TNM stage, esophageal invasion, histological type, and preoperative NLR were independent factors for OS (P < 0.05). The OS of these older patients was also significantly shorter (P < 0.05). In the meta-analysis, 19 retrieved studies included a total of 8312 patients, among whom 3558 had elevated NLR values. The results showed that high NLR value was a risk factor for the prognosis of GC (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: The OS of elderly patients is significantly worse than that of younger patients. There are significant differences in clinicopathological characteristics and prognostic factors between younger and older patients. NLR is a convenient, inexpensive, and reproducible marker that can be used as an important predictor of the prognosis of GC.

On the Anti-Corrosion Property of Dry-Gel-Conversion-Grown MFI Zeolite Coating on Aluminum Alloy.

MFI zeolite film coated on AA6061 alloy was prepared from fumed silica modified with/without n-octyldecyltrimethoxysilane (ODS) by means of dry gel conversion (DGC) method. The DGC-grown MFI zeolite film could form a strong barrier to protect AA6061 surface against the corrosion from NaCl solution. By using fumed silica as a starting material, the hydrophilicity and anti-corrosion capability of the MFI zeolite film declined with increasing humidity in the DGC synthesis. By silanization with ODS, the surface hydrophobicity of the MFI zeolite film increased, leading to substantial enhancement in anti-corrosion capability. On the other hand, MFI film grown from ODS-modified fumed silica exhibited low hydrophilicity and a much improved anti-corrosion protection property by four orders of magnitude, even stronger than the ODS post-treated MFI film. The strong anti-corrosion capability is attributed to the "thick layer" surface hydrophobicity of zeolite crystal.

Crystal structure and luminescence properties of the blue-green-emitting Ba9 (Lu, Y)2 Si6 O24 :Ce3+ phosphor.

Samples of the Ba9 (Lu2-x Yx )Si6 O24 :Ce3+ (x = 0-2) blue-green phosphors were synthesized by solid-state reactions. All the samples exhibited a rhombohedral crystal structure. As the Y3+ concentration increased, the diffraction peaks shifted to the small angle region and the lattice parameters increased due to the larger ionic radius of Y3+ (r = 0.900 Å) compared with that of Lu3+ (r = 0.861 Å). Under 400 nm excitation, samples exhibited strong blue-green emissions around 490 nm. The emission bands had a slight blue shift that resulted from weak crystal-field splitting with increasing Y3+ concentration. Luminescence intensity and quantum efficiency (QE) decreased with increasing Y3+ concentration. The internal QE decreased from 74 to 50% and the external QE decreased from 50 to 34% as x increased from 0 to 2. The thermal stability of the Lu series was better than that of the Y-series. The excitation band peak around 400 nm matched well with the emission light from the efficient near-ultraviolet (NUV) chip. These results indicate promising applications for these NUV-based white light-emitting diodes.

The Impact of dUTPase on Ribonucleotide Reductase-Induced Genome Instability in Cancer Cells.

The appropriate supply of dNTPs is critical for cell growth and genome integrity. Here, we investigated the interrelationship between dUTP pyrophosphatase (dUTPase) and ribonucleotide reductase (RNR) in the regulation of genome stability. Our results demonstrate that reducing the expression of dUTPase increases genome stress in cancer. Analysis of clinical samples reveals a significant correlation between the combination of low dUTPase and high R2, a subunit of RNR, and a poor prognosis in colorectal and breast cancer patients. Furthermore, overexpression of R2 in non-tumorigenic cells progressively increases genome stress, promoting transformation. These cells display alterations in replication fork progression, elevated genomic uracil, and breaks at AT-rich common fragile sites. Consistently, overexpression of dUTPase abolishes R2-induced genome instability. Thus, the expression level of dUTPase determines the role of high R2 in driving genome instability in cancer cells.