A Report of Two Cases of Meningoencephalitis Caused by Streptococcus intermedius.

Objective: In this paper, we analyzed the clinical data of patients with meningoencephalitis caused by Streptococcus intermedius to understand better the clinical characteristics of the disease and recommend auxiliary diagnostic mode as well as treatment experience. Methods: We reviewed the clinical data of two patients admitted to our department in 2019 with meningoencephalitis caused by S. intermedius. Results: Two female patients were examined, one of whom had a history of radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma while the other had no underlying disease. These two patients were admitted with symptoms of meningoencephalitis. Cerebrospinal fluid examinations revealed elevated levels of leukocytes and protein. After treatment with meropenem, the condition improved for a brief time, but then worsened with a decline in mental status and limb movement. Blood and cerebrospinal fluid cultures demonstrated the absence of pathogenic bacteria, while genome sequencing of cerebrospinal fluids revealed the presence of S. intermedius. Cranial magnetic resonance imaging revealed multiple cerebral abscesses (CAs). After coadministration of linezolid as an anti-infective, clinical symptoms gradually improved, and the CAs shrank on follow-up imaging. The condition exhibited a pattern of improvement-deterioration-improvement. Conclusion: Meningoencephalitis caused by S. intermedius is complex and prone to fluctuation and formation of multiple CAs. The definitive clinical diagnosis of this disease can be aided by genome sequencing technology, and early clarification of the etiology combined with the use of potent antibiotics is effective.

[Rules of prescriptions for heart failure of dilated cardiomyopathy based on latent structure model and association rules].

The latent structure model and association rules analysis were employed to explore the compatibility rules of prescriptions for heart failure of dilated cardiomyopathy, with a view to providing theoretical support for the clinical treatment of this disease based on syndrome differentiation and the formulation of guidelines. The articles about the treatment of heart failure of dilated cardiomyopathy were retrieved from CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, and SinoMed. The database was established in Microsoft Excel 2019. Lantern 5.0 and Rstudio were used to analyze the latent structure and association rules of Chinese medicine with the frequency greater than 4.00%. Furthermore, the frequency structure model was used to mine the rules of prescriptions for heart failure of dilated cardiomyopathy. The study included 175 traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) prescriptions, involving 128 Chinese medicines, with the cumulative frequency of 1 847. High-frequency medicines included Astragali Radix, Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma, Poria, Cinnamomi Ramulus, Glycyrrhizae Radix et Rhizoma, with the main effects of tonifying, activating blood, resolving stasis, and releasing exterior. A total of 17 hidden variables, 34 hidden categories, and 6 comprehensive cluster models, along with 15 core prescriptions, were obtained. According to the prescriptions, the patients mainly had the syndromes of heart-Yang and Qi deficiency, Qi deficiency and blood stasis, heart-kidney Yang deficiency or Qi-Yin deficiency. Fifty-four strong association rules were obtained through association rule analysis. The highest degree of support was observed for the combination of Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma-Astragali Radix, while the highest degree of confidence was found for the combination of Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma-Cinnamomi Ramulus-Ophiopogonis Radix-Astragali Radix. The heart failure of dilated cardiomyopathy, characterized by internal deficiency and excess manifestations, is attributed to deficiency, stasis, and water. These factors are closely associated with the heart, lung, and spleen. The treatment should follow the principle of invigorating Qi and warming Yang, and meanwhile the method of activating blood and resolve stasis or moving Qi and promoting urination can be adopted according to the specific syndrome of patients.

An ultra-sensitive CRISPR-Cas12a and aptamer-based biosensor utilizing Entropy-driven catalytic DNA networks for precise detection of DNA Methyltransferase 1.

DNA Methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1) serves as a crucial biomarker associated with various diseases and is essential for evaluating DNA methylation levels, diagnosing diseases, and evaluating prognosis. As a result, a convenient, quantitative, and sensitive assay for detecting DNMT1 is in high demand. However, current techniques for DNMT1 detection struggle to balance accuracy, low cost, and high sensitivity, limiting their clinical usefulness. To address this challenge, we have developed a DNMT1 detection method (CAED), which combines aptamer-specific recognition with a highly programmable Entropy-driven catalysis DNA network and is further integrated with the CRISPR-Cas12a system. This innovative approach achieves a detection limit as low as 90.9 fmol/L. To demonstrate the clinical applicability and significance of our CAED method, we successfully measured DNMT1 levels in 10 plasma samples 10 cervical tissue samples. These results underscore the potential of our method as an accurate, affordable, and ultra-sensitive tool for evaluating DNMT1 levels. This innovative method offers a potent means for assessing DNMT1 levels and significantly advances disease diagnosis and health risk prediction. Plus, it establishes an innovative design framework for CRISPR-Cas12a-based biosensors, tailored explicitly for enzyme content quantification.

Overexpression of CISD2 alleviates septic acute kidney injury via activating Sonic Hedgehog signaling pathway.

Patients with sepsis are often complicated by acute kidney injury (AKI), which greatly increases mortality. In this study, our purpose was to explore the expression and function of CDGSH iron sulfur domain 2 (CISD2) in septic AKI, and the underlying molecular mechanism. Western blot and quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) were employed to detect protein and mRNA levels in cells. The inflammation level of cells was evaluated by detecting the content of inflammatory factors (TNF-α, IL-1ß, IL-6). Apoptosis of cells was evaluated by Caspase-3 activity assay, flow cytometry and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP Nick-End Labeling (TUNEL) staining. CISD2 was down-regulated in HK-2 cells treated with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). LPS treatment increased the level of inflammatory factors, the activity of Caspase-3, and the rate of apoptosis in HK-2 cells. However, overexpression of CISD2 significantly suppressed these effects. Moreover, overexpression of CISD2 activated the Sonic Hedgehog (SHH) signaling pathway. The use of cyclopamine (Cyc), a SHH signaling pathway inhibitor, eliminated the effect of overexpressing CISD2, that is, inhibiting LPS-induced inflammation and apoptosis of HK-2 cells. LPS treatment down-regulated CISD2 in HK-2 cells, and overexpression of CISD2 could inhibit LPS-induced inflammation and apoptosis of HK-2 cells by activating the SHH signaling pathway.

Clinical outcomes of pomalidomide-based and daratumumab-based therapies in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma: A real-world cohort study in China.

BACKGROUND: Comparative investigations evaluating the efficacy of pomalidomide-based (Pom-based) versus daratumumab-based (Dara-based) therapies in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) remain scarce, both in randomized controlled trials and real-world studies. METHODS: This retrospective cohort study included 140 RRMM patients treated with Pom-based or Dara-based or a combination of pomalidomide and daratumumab (DPd) regimens in a Chinese tertiary hospital between December 2018 and July 2023. RESULTS: The overall response rates (ORR) for Pom-based (n = 48), Dara-based (n = 68), and DPd (n = 24) groups were 57.8%, 84.6%, and 75.0%, respectively (p = 0.007). At data cutoff on August 1, 2023, the median progression-free survival (PFS) was 5.7 months (95% CI: 5.0-6.5) for the Pom-based group, 10.5 months (5.2-15.8) for the Dara-based group, and 6.7 months (4.0-9.3) for the DPd group (p = 0.056). Multivariate analysis identified treatment regimens (Dara-based vs. Pom-based, DPd vs. Pom-based) and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (ECOG PS) as independent prognostic factors for PFS. In the subgroups of patients aged >65 years, with ECOG PS ≥2, lines of therapy ≥2, extramedullary disease or double-refractory disease (refractory to both lenalidomide and proteasome inhibitors), the superiority of Dara-based regimens over Pom-based regimens was not evident. A higher incidence of infections was observed in patients receiving Dara-based and DPd regimens (Pom-based 39.6% vs. Dara-based 64.7% vs. DPd 70.8%, p = 0.009). CONCLUSIONS: In real-world settings, Pom-based, Dara-based, and DPd therapies exhibited favorable efficacy in patients with RRMM. Dara-based therapy yielded superior clinical response and PFS compared to Pom-based therapy.

Choroidal Layer Analysis in OCT images via Ambiguous Boundary-aware Attention.

Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a commonly used retina imaging technique, and it is capable of revealing the morphology of the choroid. However, the segmentation and quantitative analysis of the sublayers and vessels in choroid are rarely explored, primarily due to the indistinct boundaries of choroidal sublayers, and imbalanced distribution of vessels observed in OCT imagery. In this paper, we propose a novel two-stage architecture called Choroidal Layer Analysis network (CLA), that may be considered the first attempt in this research community for joint segmentation of choroidal sublayers and choroidal vessels in OCT images. CLA employs the encoder-decoder network with the residual U-shape module as the backbone. In order to empower the ability of the segmentation model to identify the inconspicuous boundaries of choroidal sublayers, we introduce an Ambiguous Boundary Attention block (ABA) into the bottleneck of the encoder-decoder network in the first stage. For more accurate segmentation of large choroidal vessels with ambiguous contours and imbalanced spatial distribution, the second stage introduces an active contour-based loss to refine the contours of choroidal vessels simultaneously with precise identification of each vessel via contextual modeling. To train, test and validate the proposed model, we conducted a choroidal segmentation dataset containing 800 OCT images, with their sublayers and large choroidal vessels manually annotated. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach compared with other state-of-the-art segmentation networks in large margins. It is worth noting that we also reconstructed the large choroidal vessels in three-dimensional (3D) based on the segmentation results, and multiple 3D morphological parameters were calculated. The statistical analysis of these parameters demonstrates significant differences between the healthy control and high myopia group, and this further confirms the proposed work may facilitate subsequent disease understanding and clinical decision-making.

Individual quality, insecure organizational attachment, and formalistic task completion: Social cognitive perspective.

Formalistic tasks are widely utilized in modern companies due to their ability to increase productivity and contribute to the achievement of corporate goals at a lower cost. However, these tasks are often meet with resistance from individuals because they do not provide direct short-term rewards for their efforts. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this study examined the influence of individual quality and organizational attachment on the completion of formalistic tasks. To address this, the study conducted a questionnaire survey to collect data from 602 Chinese respondents and built a structural equation model for data analysis. Through empirical research, the study confirmed the positive role of individual quality, including knowledge and personality, in the completion of formalistic tasks. Furthermore, the study proved that avoidant attachment could significantly weaken the effect of some components of individual quality on formalistic task completion. This paper is the first to reveal the influence of individual and environmental factors on individuals' completion of formalistic tasks, progressing from bottom to top. The implications of these results are discussed.

Aging related obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus suppress neuromuscular communication and aggravate skeletal muscle dysfunction in rhesus monkeys.

Age-related functional deterioration in skeletal muscle raises the risk for falls, disability, and mortality in the elderly, particularly in obese people or those with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D). However, the response of the skeletal muscle to transitioning from obesity to diabetes remains poorly defined, despite that obesity is classified as a stage of pre-diabetes. We screened and selected spontaneously obese and diabetic rhesus monkeys and examined altered protein expression in skeletal muscle of healthy aging (CON), obesity aging (OB), and type 2 diabetes mellitus aging (T2D) rhesus monkeys using Tandem Mass Tags (TMT)-based quantitative proteomic analysis. In total, we identified 142 differentially expressed proteins. Muscle-nerve communication proteins were firstly suppressed at obese-stage. With the disintegration of skeletal muscle, mitochondrial complex I and other energy homeostasis relate proteins were significantly disordered at T2D stage. Indicating that aging related obesity suppressed muscle-nerve communication and contribute to T2D related functional deterioration of skeletal muscles in elderly rhesus monkeys. Some alterations of muscular functional regulator are detected in both obesity and T2D samples, suggesting some T2D related skeletal muscular hypofunctions are occurring at obesity or pre-obesity stage. Muscle-nerve communication proteins and muscular function related proteins could be potential therapy target or early diagnose marker of for skeletal muscular hypofunctions in aging obesity populations.

Recycled PET/PA6 Fibers from Waste Textile with Improved Hydrophilicity by In-Situ Reaction-Induced Capacity Enhancement.

Due to the increasing amounts of textile waste, textile to textile recycling is of prime concern. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) represents the most extensively used type of chemical fiber. Its spinnability suffers from impurities and degradation in the processing, which limits its recycling to new fibers. Here, recycled polyester is blended with a small amount of recycled nylon, and the regenerated fibers, which demonstrated good mechanical properties, were obtained via a melt spinning machine. The mechanical properties, thermal properties, rheological properties, and chemical structure of the modified recycled fibers were investigated. It was found that when compared with rPET-T fibers, the elongation at break of rPET-Ax fibers increased to 17.48%, and the strength at break decreased to 3.79 cN/dtex. The compatibility of PET and PA6 copolymer were enhanced by copolymers produced by in-situ reaction in the processing. Meanwhile, the existence of PA6 increases the crystallization temperature and improves the hydrophilicity of the fibers. This study realized the high-value recycling of waste PET fabric to new fibers, which opens a door for the large utilization of waste textiles.

Impact of myelofibrosis on patients with myelodysplastic syndromes following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

BACKGROUND: The prognostic significance of myelofibrosis (MF) grade in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) following an allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT) remains elusive. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed data from 153 patients with MDS who underwent allo-HSCT and divided the patients into the MF-0/1 (N = 119) and MF-2/3 (N = 34) cohorts to explore the impact of MF on outcomes of allo-HSCT. RESULTS: The 2-year rates of relapse, non-relapse mortality (NRM), overall survival (OS), and progression-free survival (PFS) were 10.9% (95% confidence interval [CI] 5.9%-17.7%), 16.3% (95% CI 10.2%-23.6%), 76.6% (95% CI 69.0%-85.1%), and 72.8% (95% CI 65.0%-81.5%) in the MF-0/1 cohort, and 16.9% (95% CI 5.8%-32.9%), 14.7% (95% CI 5.3%-28.7%), 71.8% (95% CI 57.6%-89.6%), and 68.4% (95% CI 53.6%-87.2%) in the MF-2/3 cohort, respectively. No significant difference in the outcomes of allo-HSCT was observed between the two cohorts. Both univariate and multivariate analyses confirmed that MF-2/3 in patients with MDS had no effect on the prognosis of transplantation. In addition, major/bidirectional ABO blood type between donors and recipients was an independent risk factor for OS (hazard ratio [HR], 2.55; 95% CI 1.25-5.21; P = 0.010) and PFS (HR, 2.21; 95% CI 1.10-4.42; P = 0.025) in the multivariate analysis. In the subgroup of patients diagnosed with MDS with increased blasts (MDS-IB), it was consistently demonstrated that the clinical outcomes of the MF-2/3 cohort were comparable with those of the MF-0/1 cohort. The risk factors for OS and PFS in patients with MDS-IB were non-complete remission at transplantation and major/bidirectional ABO blood type. CONCLUSIONS: In conclusion, MF grade had no significant effect on prognosis of allo-HSCT in patients diagnosed with MDS. Major/bidirectional ABO blood type should be carefully considered in the context of more than one available donor.

Improved visualization of median, ulnar nerves, and small branches in the wrist and palm using contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance neurography.

Background: Magnetic resonance imaging of peripheral nerves in the wrist and palm is challenging due to the small size, tortuous course, complex surrounding tissues, and accompanying blood vessels. The occurrence of carpal palmar lesions leads to edema, swelling, and mass effect, which may further interfere with the display and identification of nerves. Objective: To evaluate whether contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance neurography (ceMRN) improves the visualization of the morphology and pathology of the median, ulnar nerves, and their small branches in the wrist and palm. Design: An observational study. Methods: In total 57 subjects, including 36 volunteers and 21 patients with carpal palmar lesions, were enrolled and underwent ceMRN and non-contrast MRN (ncMRN) examination at 3.0 Tesla. The degree of vascular suppression, nerve visualization, diagnostic confidence, and lesion conspicuity was qualitatively assessed by two radiologists. Kappa statistics were obtained for inter-reader agreement. The signal-to-noise ratio, contrast ratio (CR), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of the median nerve were measured. The subjective ratings and quantitative measurements were compared between ncMRN and ceMRN. Results: The inter-reader agreement was excellent (k > 0.8) for all qualitative assessments and visualization assessment of each nerve segment. Compared with ncMRN, ceMRN significantly improved vascular suppression in volunteers and patients (both p < 0.001). The ceMRN significantly enhanced nerve visualization of each segment (all p < 0.05) and diagnostic confidence in volunteers and patients (both p < 0.05). The ceMRN improved lesion conspicuity (p = 0.003) in patients. Quantitatively, ceMRN had significantly higher CRs of nerve versus subcutaneous fat, bone marrow, and vessels and CNR of nerve versus vessel than ncMRN (all p < 0.05). Conclusion: The ceMRN significantly improves the visualization of peripheral nerves and pathology in the wrist and palm by robustly suppressing the signals of fat, bone marrow, and especially vessels in volunteers and patients.

Study on the improvement of magnetic resonance imaging and lesion display of small nerves in the wrist and palm using contrast agents Why was the study done? Because the nerves and branches in the wrist and palm are numerous, small, tortuous, and surrounded by muscles, fat, bones, blood vessels and other tissues, it is difficult to show their complete shape with conventional magnetic resonance imaging. Hand lesions often lead to swelling, edema and masses, which interfere with the display of nerves. Therefore, it is difficult to directly diagnose the relationship between the lesions and nerves in clinical practice. What did the researchers do? The research team used contrast agent plus three-dimensional high-resolution magnetic resonance sequence to display the nerves of volunteers and patients with hand lesions, and used subjective and objective evaluation methods to compare the display effect of the sequence on the nerves before and after the use of contrast agent. What did the researchers find? The imaging method of contrast agent plus three-dimensional high-resolution magnetic resonance sequence can reduce the interference of fat, blood vessels, etc. on nerve display, improve the display effect of each nerve segment of the wrist and palm, increase readers' confidence in identifying nerves, and improve the detection of lesions. What do the findings mean? This study verified the feasibility and advantages of using contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging of nerves in the wrist and palm. It provides a new method for clinical and imaging diagnosis of hand lesions, which can simultaneously display the morphological characteristics of nerves and lesions, reducing the difficulty of clinical diagnosis and improving the efficiency of imaging diagnosis.

Exploring the complex trade-offs and synergies of global ecosystem services.

The trade-off and synergy relationship of ecosystem services is an important topic in the current assessment. The value of each service provided by the ecosystem is substantially affected by human activities, and conversely, its changes will also affect the relevant human decisions. Due to varying trade-offs among ecosystem services and synergies between them that can either increase or decrease, it is difficult to optimize multiple ecosystem services simultaneously, making it a huge challenge for ecosystem management. This study firstly develops a global Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) accounting framework. It uses remote sensing data with a spatial resolution of 1 km to estimate the ecosystem services of forests, wetlands, grasslands, deserts, and farmlands in 179 major countries in 2018. The results show that the range of global GEP values is USD 112-197 trillion, with an average value of USD 155 trillion (the constant price), and the ratio of GEP to gross domestic product (GDP) is 1.85. The trade-offs and the synergies among different ecosystem services in each continent and income group have been further explored. We found a correspondence between the income levels and the synergy among ecosystem services within each nation. Among specific ecosystem services, there are strong synergies between oxygen release, climate regulation, and carbon sequestration services. A trade-off relationship has been observed between flood regulation and other services, such as water conservation and soil retention services in low-income countries. The results will help clarify the roles and the feedback mechanisms between different stakeholders and provide a scientific basis for optimizing ecosystem management and implementing ecological compensation schemes to enhance human well-being.

Synthesis, and Insecticidal Activities of Propargyloxy-Diphenyl Oxide-Sulfonamide Derivatives.

Agricultural pests are the primary contributing factor to crop yield reduction, particularly in underdeveloped regions. Despite the significant efficacy of pesticides in pest control, their extensive use has led to the drug-fast of insecticide resistance. Developing of new environmentally friendly plant-based pesticides is an urgent necessity. In this study, a series of diaryl ether compounds containing propargyloxy and sulfonamide groups were designed. The synthesis of these 36 compounds primarily relied on nuclear magnetic resonance for structure determination, while single-crystal X-ray diffraction was employed for certain compounds. Meanwhile, the insecticidal activities against Mythimna separata were also assessed. Some of the compounds exhibited significantly enhanced activity, the LC50 value of the highest activity compound TD8 (0.231 mg/mL) demonstrating respective increases by 100-fold compared to the plant pesticide celangulin V (23.9 mg/mL), and a 5-fold increase with the positive control L-1 (1.261 mg/mL). The interaction between the target compound and the target, as well as the consistency of the target, were verified through symptomological analysis and molecular docking. The structure-activity relationships were also conducted. This study offered a novel trajectory for the advancement and formulation of future pesticides.

Formamidinium Lead Iodide-Based Inverted Perovskite Solar Cells with Efficiency over 25 % Enabled by An Amphiphilic Molecular Hole-Transporter.

Formamidinium lead iodide (FAPbI3) represents an optimal absorber material in perovskite solar cells (PSCs), while the application of FAPbI3 in inverted-structured PSCs has yet to be successful, mainly owing to its inferior film-forming on hydrophobic or defective hole-transporting substrates. Herein, we report a substantial improvement of FAPbI3-based inverted PSCs, which is realized by a multifunctional amphiphilic molecular hole-transporter, (2-(4-(10H-phenothiazin-10-yl)phenyl)-1-cyanovinyl)phosphonic acid (PTZ-CPA). The phenothiazine (PTZ) based PTZ-CPA, carrying a cyanovinyl phosphonic acid (CPA) group, forms a superwetting hole-selective underlayer that enables facile deposition of high-quality FAPbI3 thin films. Compared to a previously established carbazole-based hole-selective material (2-(3,6-dimethoxy-9H-carbazol-9-yl)ethyl)phosphonic acid (MeO-2PACz), the crystallinity of FAPbI3 is enhanced and the electronic defects are passivated by the PTZ-CPA more effectively, resulting in remarkable increases in photoluminescence quantum yield (four-fold) and Shockley-Read-Hall lifetime (eight-fold). Moreover, the PTZ-CPA shows a larger molecular dipole moment and improved energy level alignment with FAPbI3, benefiting the interfacial hole-collection. Consequently, FAPbI3-based inverted PSCs achieve an unprecedented efficiency of 25.35 % under simulated air mass 1.5 (AM1.5) sunlight. The PTZ-CPA based device shows commendable long-term stability, maintaining over 90 % of its initial efficiency after continuous operation at 40 °C for 2000 hours.

Diversifying the benzenesulfonamide scaffold for potential V-ATPase inhibitors: synthesis and insecticidal activity evaluation.

Celangulin V is a natural ß-dihydroagarofuran derivative isolated from Celastrus angulatus which shows insecticidal activity in many agricultural pests. Using celangulin V as a molecular probe, we find out a new pesticide target: subunit H of V-ATPase. To explore the potential application of this novel target, lead sulfonamides have been found through virtual screening. Combined with the previous work, 46 sulfonamide derivatives are designed and synthesized. All target compounds are first screened for their insecticidal activities against Mythimna separata. The results of bioassay reveal that most of the designed compounds exhibit significant insecticidal activities against third-instar larvae of M. separata under the concentration of 10 mg/mL, and compound 8.4 shows the highest activity with LC50 value of 1.72 mg/mL, 15-fold smaller than that of celangulin V (25.89 mg/mL). Molecular docking results further indicated that compound 8.4 might serve as a potential inhibitor of the subunit H of V-ATPase. This study provides a potential sulfonamide candidate compound for the M. separata control.

Effect of Weight Loss on the Apnea Hypopnea Index is Related to Waist Circumference in Chinese Adults with Overweight and Obesity.

Purpose: The present study aimed to evaluate the efficiency of traditional anthropometric and body composition parameters in predicting apnea hypopnea index (AHI) change after weight loss. Patients and Methods: Chinese adults with overweight and obesity were included into this study containing two parts. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 137 individuals using the baseline data from two weight loss intervention trials. The second part was the weight-loss intervention study conducted in 60 overweight and obese patients with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). All participants underwent physical examination, bioelectrical impedance analysis and overnight polysomnography. Multivariate linear regression models were used to identify the most accurate parameters to predict AHI and the mediation analysis to evaluate the mediators between weight loss and AHI reduction. Results: Waist circumference (WC), body mass index and fat mass were positively associated with AHI after adjusting multiple collinearities in the cross-sectional study. After weight-loss intervention, body weight decreased from 94.6 ± 15.3 to 88.0 ± 13.9 kg, and AHI decreased from 41.9 (13.0,66.9) to 20.7 (8.7,51.2) events/h. Among these parameters, only percentage changes in WC and AHI across the intervention were positively intercorrelated after controlling for covariates (adjusted r = 0.271, P = 0.041). The mediation analysis supported WC as a mediator between weight loss and AHI reduction (standardized indirect effect [95% CI] = 4.272[0.936,7.999]). Conclusion: Both general and abdominal obesity are of high prognostic value for OSA. WC as an easily accessible parameter mediates the effects of weight loss in decreasing OSA severity.

High efficiency adsorption of uranium by magnesia-silica-fluoride co-doped hydroxyapatite.

Hydroxyapatite has a high affinity to uranium, and element doping can effectively improve its adsorption performance. In this study, magnesia-silica-fluoride co-doped hydroxyapatite composite was prepared by hydrothermal method, and the effect of single-phase and multiphase doping on the structure and properties of the composites was investigated. The results showed that the specific surface area of Mg-Si-F-nHA composites increased by 63.01% after doping. Comparing with nHA, U(VI) adsorption capacity of Si-nHA, Mg-Si-nHA and Mg-Si-F-nHA composites increased by 13.01%, 17.39% and 22.03%, respectively. The adsorption capacity of Mg-Si-F-nHA composite reached 1286.76 mg/g. Adsorbent dosage and pH obviously affected U(VI) adsorption, and the experimental data can be fitted well by PSO and Sips models. The physicochemical characterization before and after adsorption suggested that complexation, ion exchange and precipitation participated in uranium adsorption. In conclusion, different elements doping can effectively improve the uranium adsorption properties of hydroxyapatite composites.

Molecular Symmetry of Small-Molecule Passivating Agents Improves Crystal Quality of Perovskite Solar Cells.

Direct interaction with the defect sites of perovskite, functional groups have become the focal point of attention as passivating agents. However, the molecular parent nucleus determines the overall physical properties of the molecule, including the push-pull electronic characteristics of the functional groups, which poses significant challenges in terms of selectivity. Here, we discovered that the binary acid structure based on thiophene as the parent nucleus, due to changes in molecular symmetry, caused significant changes in the molecular dipole moment, resulting in significant changes in the passivation effects on under-coordinated Pb2+ in perovskite solar cells. For the axially symmetric thiophen-2,5-dicarboxylic acid (TPDC), the high dipole moment formed a concentrated surface negative potential on the carboxyl group, showing significant superiority over the centrally symmetric thieno[3,2-b] thiophene-2,5-dicarboxylic acid (TTDC) in forming high-quality perovskite crystals, suppressing charge recombination, enhancing effective charge transport, and raising internal electric fields. The power conversion efficiencies of the fully printable mesoscopic perovskite solar cells based on TPDC and TTDC were 17.15 % and 14.79 %, respectively, exhibiting important research value in the field of small molecule passivation mechanism research.

Comparing univariate filtration preceding and succeeding PLS-DA analysis on the differential variables/metabolites identified from untargeted LC-MS metabolomics data.

BACKGROUND: PLS-DA of high-dimensional metabolomics data is frequently employed to capture the most pertinent features to sample classification. But the presence of numerous insignificant input features could distort the PLS-DA model, blow up and scramble the selected differential features. Usually, univariate filtration is subsequently complemented to refine the selected features, but often giving unstable results. Whereas by precluding insignificant features through univariate data prefiltration assessed by FDR adjusted p-value, PLS-DA can generate more stable and reliable differential features. We explored and compared these two data analysis procedures to gain insights into the underlying mechanisms responsible for the disparate results. RESULTS: The effect of univariate data filtration preceding and succeeding PLS-DA analysis on the identified discriminative features/metabolites was investigated using LC-MS data acquired on the samples of human serum and C. elegans extracts, with and without metabolite standards spiked to simulate the treated and control groups of biological samples. It was shown that the univariate data prefiltration before PLS-DA usually gave less but more stable and likely more reliable and meaningful differential features, while PLS-DA applied directly to the original data could be affected by the presence of insignificant features and orthogonal noise. Large number of insignificant variables and orthogonal noise could distort the generated PLS-DA model and affect the p(corr) value, and artificially inflate the calculated VIP values of relevant features due to the increased total number of input features for model construction, thus leading to more false positives selected by the conventional VIP threshold of 1.0. SIGNIFICANCE AND NOVELTY: Univariate data filtration preceding PLS-DA was important for the identification of reliable differential features if using a conventional threshold of VIP of 1.0. Presence of insignificant features could distort the PLS-DA model and inflate VIP values. Appropriate VIP threshold is associated with the numbers of input features and the model components. For PLS-DA without univariate prefiltration, threshold of VIP larger than 1.0 is recommended for the selection of discriminative features to reduce the false positives.