Ancient Mitogenomes Reveal the Maternal Genetic History of East Asian Dogs.

Recent studies have suggested that dogs were domesticated during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in Siberia, which contrasts with previous proposed domestication centers (e.g. Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia). Ancient DNA provides a powerful resource for the study of mammalian evolution and has been widely used to understand the genetic history of domestic animals. To understand the maternal genetic history of East Asian dogs, we have made a complete mitogenome dataset of 120 East Asian canids from 38 archaeological sites, including 102 newly sequenced from 12.9 to 1 ka BP (1,000 years before present). The majority (112/119, 94.12%) belonged to haplogroup A, and half of these (55/112, 49.11%) belonged to sub-haplogroup A1b. Most existing mitochondrial haplogroups were present in ancient East Asian dogs. However, mitochondrial lineages in ancient northern dogs (northeastern Eurasia and northern East Asia) were deeper and older than those in southern East Asian dogs. Results suggests that East Asian dogs originated from northeastern Eurasian populations after the LGM, dispersing in two possible directions after domestication. Western Eurasian (Europe and the Middle East) dog maternal ancestries genetically influenced East Asian dogs from approximately 4 ka BP, dramatically increasing after 3 ka BP, and afterwards largely replaced most primary maternal lineages in northern East Asia. Additionally, at least three major mitogenome sub-haplogroups of haplogroup A (A1a, A1b, and A3) reveal at least two major dispersal waves onto the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in ancient times, indicating eastern (A1b and A3) and western (A1a) Eurasian origins.

Three-Way k-Means Model: Dynamic Optimal Sensor Placement for Efficient Environment Monitoring in Pig House.

Sensors were of paramount importance in the context of poultry and livestock farming, serving as essential tools for monitoring a variety of production management parameters. The effective surveillance and optimal control of the swine facility environment critically depend on the implementation of a robust strategy for situating the optimal number of sensors in precisely the right locations. This study presents a dynamic sensor placement approach for pigsties using the three-way k-means algorithm. The method involves determining candidate sensor combinations through the application of the k-means algorithm and a re-clustering strategy. The optimal sensor locations were then identified using the Joint Entropy-Based Method (JEBM). This approach adjusts sensor positions based on different seasons (summer and winter) to effectively monitor the overall environment of the pigsty. We employ two clustering models, one based on particle swarm optimization and the other on genetic algorithms, along with a re-clustering strategy to identify candidate sensor combinations. The joint entropy-based method (JEBM) helps select the optimal sensor placement. Fused data from the optimal sensor layout undergo a fuzzy fusion process, reducing errors compared to direct averaging. The results show varying sensor needs across seasons, and dynamic placement enhances pigsty environment monitoring. Our approach reduced the number of sensors from 30 to 5 (in summer) and 6 (in winter). The optimal sensor positions for both seasons were integrated. Comparing the selected sensor layout to the average of all sensor readings representing the overall pigsty environment, the RMSE were 0.227-0.294 and the MAPE were 0.172-0.228, respectively, demonstrating the effectiveness of the sensor layout.

Advanced navigation technology enables endobronchial brachytherapy for peripheral lung cancer: An old technique plays a new role.

PURPOSE: To investigate the feasibility of super-selectively endobronchial brachytherapy in the treatment of peripheral lung cancer guided by advanced navigation technology. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Six patients with peripheral lung tumors successfully underwent treatment with super-selectively endobronchial brachytherapy guided by advanced navigation technology following pathway planning and were subsequently followed up to assess survival and treatment-related toxicities. RESULTS: The endobronchial applicators were successfully placed inside the tumors of all patients using advanced navigation techniques according to the pretreatment plan, and brachytherapy was delivered at curative doses after evaluation using radiotherapy planning software. None of the patients showed local progression of the treated lesions during the follow-up for a duration ranging from 11 months to 35 months, with a median follow-up time of 23 months. The patient with the longest follow-up, nearly 3 years, exhibited a stable condition. After undergoing endobronchial brachytherapy, patients predominantly experienced localized fibrosis as indicated. No significant alterations in cardiopulmonary function were detected during the follow-up, and no other adverse effects were found. CONCLUSIONS: The use of endobronchial brachytherapy for the curative treatment of peripheral lung cancers is feasible. Furthermore, the development of novel bronchial navigation techniques has the potential to broaden the application of endobronchial brachytherapy.

Reirradiation of Whole Brain for Recurrent Brain Metastases: A Case Report of Lung Cancer With 12-Year Survival.

Whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT) for brain metastases (BMs) was considered to be dose limited. Reirradiation of WBRT for recurrent BM has always been challenged. Here, we report a patient with multiple BMs of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), who received two courses of WBRT at the interval of 5 years with the cumulative administration dose for whole brain as 70 Gy and a boost for the local site as 30 Gy. Furthermore, after experiencing relapse in the brain, he underwent extra gamma knife (GK) radiotherapy for local brain metastasis for the third time after 5 years. The overall survival was 12 years since he was initially diagnosed with NSCLC with multiple brain metastases. Meanwhile, each time of radiotherapy brought a good tumor response to brain metastasis. Outstandingly, during the whole survival, he had a good quality of life (QoL) with Karnofsky Performance Score (KPS) above 80. Even after the last GK was executed, he had just a mild neurocognitive defect. In conclusion, with the cautious evaluation of a patient, we suggest that reirradiation of WBRT could be a choice, and the cumulative radiation dose of the brain may be individually modified.

Analysis of drug sensitivity of Escherichia Coli O157H7.

Sensitive and rapid tests of Escherichia coli drug sensitivity is very important for health of human and animals. An E. coli immunosensor was built based on electrochemical detection and immune detection technologies, through pretreating screen-printed electrodes, and analyzing the optimal reaction concentration of antigen antibody binding with the AC impedance method. Based on the detection system combining the immunosensor and electrochemical workstation, tests were carried out to measure the accuracy of E. coli concentration and drug sensitivity, and error of the detection system was calibrated in accordance with data from the electrochemical workstation. E. coli O157:H7 can be detected in the range of 103 cfu/ml ~ 1012 cfu/ml, and the detection error controlled within 5%. Results from the electrochemical workstation and those from the detection device were consistent, and both demonstrated a greater inhibitory effect of antibiotics on E. coli than on Bacillus subtilis. The electrochemical detection system is highly efficient and accurate, and could be widely applied to E. coli drug sensitivity tests in clinical medicine.

Author Correction: Proteome-wide identification and functional analysis of ubiquitinated proteins in peach leaves.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Proteome-wide identification and functional analysis of ubiquitinated proteins in peach leaves.

Ubiquitination is a critical post-translational modification machinery that governs a wide range of cellular functions by regulating protein homeostasis. Identification of ubiquitinated proteins and lysine residues can help researchers better understand the physiological roles of ubiquitin modification in different biological systems. In this study, we report the first comprehensive analysis of the peach ubiquitome by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry-based diglycine remnant affinity proteomics. Our systematic profiling revealed a total of 544 ubiquitination sites on a total of 352 protein substrates. Protein annotation and functional analysis suggested that ubiquitination is involved in modulating a variety of essential cellular and physiological processes in peach, including but not limited to carbon metabolism, histone assembly, translation and vesicular trafficking. Our results could facilitate future studies on how ubiquitination regulates the agricultural traits of different peach cultivars and other crop species.

Fully Automatic Sliding Motion Compensated and Simultaneous 4D-CBCT via Bilateral Filtering.

PURPOSE: To incorporate the bilateral filtering into the Deformable Vector Field (DVF) based 4D-CBCT reconstruction for realizing a fully automatic sliding motion compensated 4D-CBCT. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Initially, a motion compensated simultaneous algebraic reconstruction technique (mSART) is used to generate a high quality reference phase (e.g. 0% phase) by using all phase projections together with the initial 4D-DVFs. The initial 4D-DVF were generated via Demons registration between 0% phase and each other phase image. The 4D-DVF will then kept updating by matching the forward projection of the deformed high quality 0% phase with the measured projection of the target phase. The loss function during this optimization contains an projection intensity difference matching criterion plus a DVF smoothing constrain term. We introduce a bilateral filtering kernel into the DVF constrain term to estimate the sliding motion automatically. The bilateral filtering kernel contains three sub-kernels: 1) an spatial domain Guassian kernel; 2) an image intensity domain Guassian kernel; and 3) a DVF domain Guassian kernel. By choosing suitable kernel variances, the sliding motion can be extracted. A non-linear conjugate gradient optimizer was used. We validated the algorithm on a non-uniform rotational B-spline based cardiac-torso (NCAT) phantom and four anonymous patient data. For quantification, we used: 1) the Root-Mean-Square-Error (RMSE) together with the Maximum-Error (MaxE); 2) the Dice coefficient of the extracted lung contour from the final reconstructed images and 3) the relative reconstruction error (RE) to evaluate the algorithm's performance. RESULTS: For NCAT phantom, the motion trajectory's RMSE/MaxE are 0.796/1.02 mm for bilateral filtering reconstruction; and 2.704/4.08 mm for original reconstruction. For patient pilot study, the 4D-Dice coefficient obtained with bilateral filtering are consistently higher than that without bilateral filtering. Meantime several image content such as the rib position, the heart edge definition, the fibrous structures all has been better corrected with bilateral filtering. CONCLUSION: We developed a bilateral filtering based fully automatic sliding motion compensated 4D-CBCT scheme. Both digital phantom and initial patient pilot studies confirmed the improved motion estimation and image reconstruction ability. It can be used as a 4D-CBCT image guidance tool for lung SBRT treatment.

Proteomics-Based Mechanistic Investigation of Escherichia coli Inactivation by Pulsed Electric Field.

The pulsed electric field (PEF) technology has been widely applied to inactivate pathogenic bacteria in food products. Though irreversible pore formation and membrane disruption is considered to be the main contributing factor to PEF's sterilizing effects, the exact molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. In this study, by using mass spectrometry (MS)-based label-free quantitative proteomic analysis, we compared the protein profiles of PEF-treated and untreated Escherichia coli. We identified a total of 175 differentially expressed proteins, including 52 candidates that were only detected in at least two of the three samples in one experiment group but not in the other group. Functional analysis revealed that the differential proteins were primarily involved in the regulation of cell membrane composition and integrity, stress response, as well as various metabolic processes. Quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) analysis was conducted on the genes of selected differential proteins at varying PEF intensities, which were known to result in different cell killing levels. The qRT-PCR data confirmed that the proteomic results could be reliably used for further data interpretation, and that the changes in the expression levels of the differential candidates were, to a large extent, caused directly by the PEF treatment. The findings of the current study offered valuable insight into PEF-induced cell inactivation.

Multiplex polymerase chain reaction detection of Curvularia lunata, Bipolaris maydis, and Aureobasidium zeae in infected maize leaf tissues.

Multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a method for simultaneous identification and detection of multiple pathogenic fungi, however, its complexity limits its application. To simplify the protocol and to improve the effectiveness, three-level designs for six factors (three primers, Taq DNA polymerase, dNTP, Mg2+ ) were constructed to optimize the multiplex PCR system by using the orthogonal design method and the annealing temperature of the PCR reactions was also optimized. Finally, a multiplex PCR system for the simultaneous detection of these three pathogens of maize was successfully established. The reaction volume was 25 µl and the annealing temperature was 57℃. The optimal conditions for multiplex PCR reaction contained 0.48 µmol/L Cl-1/Cl-2, 0.72 µmol/L Bm-1/Bm-2, 0.24 µmol/L Az-1/Az-2, 1.5 U polymerase, 0.35 mmol/L dNTP, and 1.25 mmol/L MgCl2 . The multiplex PCR system can detect Curvularia lunata, Bipolaris maydis, and Aureobasidium zeae in infected plant tissues rapidly with the sensitivity at 10 pg DNA/µl.

Video versus direct laryngoscopy on successful first-pass endotracheal intubation in ICU patients.

BACKGROUND: Airway management in intensive care unit (ICU) patients is challenging. The aim of this study was to compare the rate of successful first-pass intubation in the ICU by using the direct laryngoscopy (DL) and that by using the video laryngoscopy (VL). METHODS: A randomized, non-blinded trial comparing first-pass success rate of intubation between VL and DL was performed. Patients were recruited in the period from August 2014 to August 2016. All physicians working at ICU received hands-on training in the use of the video and direct laryngoscope. The primary outcome measure was the first-pass intubation success. RESULTS: A total of 163 ICU patients underwent intubation during the study period (81 patients in VL group and 82 in DL group). The rate of successful first-pass intubation was not significantly different between the VL and the DL group (67.9% vs. 69.5%, P=0.824). Moreover, the overall intubation success and total number of attempts to achieve intubation success did not differ between the two groups. In patients with successful first-pass intubation, the median duration of the intubation procedure did not differ between the two groups. The Cormack-Lehane grades and the percentage of glottic opening score were similar, and no significant differences were found between the two groups. There were no statistical differences between the VL and the DL group in intubation complications (all P>0.05). CONCLUSION: Among ICU patients requiring intubation, there was no significant difference in the rate of successful first-pass intubation between VL and DL.

Predictive parameters for selection of electronic tissue compensation radiotherapy in early-stage breast cancer patients after breast-conserving surgery.

Electronic tissue compensation (eComp) is an external beam planning technique allowing user to manually generate dynamic beam fluence to produce more uniform or modulated dose distribution. In this study, we compared the effectiveness between conventional three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3DCRT) and eComp for whole breast irradiation. 3DCRT and eComp planning techniques were used to generate treatment plans for 60 whole breast patients, respectively. The planning goal was to cover 95% of the planning target volume (PTV) with 95% of the prescription dose while minimizing doses to lung, heart, and skin. Comparing to 3DCRT plans, on the average, eComp treatment planning process was about 7 minutes longer, but resulted in lower lung V20Gy, lower mean skin dose, with similar heart dose. The benefits were more pronounced for larger breast patients. Statistical analyses were performed between critical organ doses and patient anatomic features, i.e., central lung distance (CLD), maximal heart distance (MHD), maximal heart length (MHL) and breast separation (BS) to explore any correlations and planning method selection. It was found that to keep the lung V20Gy lower than 20% and mean skin dose lower than 85% of the prescription dose, eComp was the preferred method for patients with more than 2.3 cm CLD or larger than 22.5 cm BS. The study results may be useful in providing a handy criterion in clinical practice allowing us to easily choose between different planning techniques to satisfy the planning goal with minimal increase in complexity and cost.

New 9, 19-cycloartane triterpenoid from the root of Cimicifuga foetida.

AIM: To study the 9, 19-cycloartane triterpenes from the roots of Cimicifuga foetida. METHOD: Chromatographic separations by silica gel, C18 reversed phase silica gel, and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) were used. All of the structures were elucidated on the basis of spectroscopic analysis and chemical methods. RESULTS: Five 9, 19-cycloartane triterpenes, (3ß, 12ß, 15α, 24R)-12, 2'-diacetoxy-24, 25-epoxy-15-hydroxy-16, 23-dione-3-O-α-L-arabinopyranoside (1), actein (2), 23-epi-26-deoxyactein (3), asiaticoside B (4), and 12ß-hydroxycimigenol (5) were isolated from the roots of Cimicifuga foetida. CONCLUSION: Compound 1 is a new triterpene with two acetoxy groups at C-2' and C-12.

[Multivariate analysis on the association between acquired multi-drug resistant organism infection and ventilator-associated pneumonia:evidence from a nested case-control study of eight ICUs].

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to explore the association between acquired multi-drug resistant organism (MDRO) and ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) in patients hospitalized at the intensive care unit(ICU). METHODS: Real-time monitoring system for hospital infection was used to track VAP patients. The period of study was from January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013. Both a nested case-control study design and logistic multivariable regression model were performed to explore the association. RESULTS: A total of 142 VAP cases and 342 non-VAP controls were available in this study. Duration of Hospital stay, ICU stay and mechanical days were statistically significant between the case and the control group (P≤0.001). Compared with MDRO negative patient, the MDRO colonization or infection patients showed an 3.05-time increase on the risk of VAP (adjusted OR = 4.05, 95% CI:2.51-5.46). Remarkably,MDRO-positive patients were significantly associated with increased duration of mechanical ventilation and antimicrobial drug use (P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: MDRO colonized and infection patients would significantly increase the risks of VAP, with prolonged hospitalization and ICU stay. Effective measures should be taken to promote and control patient's safety at the hospital.