Diagnosis of high-Ni NCA/Gr-Si cells before rapid capacity drop by monitoring the heterogeneous degradation.

Understanding the degradation of lithium-ion batteries is of utmost significance for preventing unexpected capacity drops and addressing safety concerns. The manner in which batteries degrade during operation has a notable influence on their subsequent cycle performance. In particular, the rapid capacity drop related to the spatial heterogeneity of the anode degradation highlights the necessity of a health indicator for an accurate battery diagnosis. A novel health indicator established in this study, the Dominant degradation factors among Negative and Positive electrodes (DNP) scores, enables clear identification of degraded states despite comparable capacity levels. Specifically, batteries with heterogeneous anode degradation exhibited negative scores and the aggravation of the cycle performance. It is anticipated that this health indicator can provide a distinct evaluation of batteries based on their degraded states, supporting onboard battery management and the efficient allocation of resources for the battery reuse industry.

Therapeutic monitoring of rivaroxaban in dogs using thromboelastography and prothrombin time.

BACKGROUND: The chromogenic anti-Xa assay, the gold standard for monitoring the anti-Xa effect of rivaroxaban, is not available as a cage-side diagnostic test for use in a clinical setting. HYPOTHESIS/OBJECTIVES: To evaluate clinical modalities for measuring the anticoagulant effects of rivaroxaban using a point-of-care prothrombin time (PT) and thromboelastography (TEG). ANIMALS: Six healthy Beagle dogs. METHODS: Prospective, experimental study. Four different doses of rivaroxaban (0.5, 1, 2, and 4 mg/kg) were administered PO to dogs. Single PO and 3 consecutive dosing regimens also were assessed. Plasma rivaroxaban concentration was determined using a chromogenic anti-Xa assay, point-of-care PT, and TEG analysis with 4 activators (RapidTEG, 1 : 100 tissue factor [TF100], 1 : 3700 tissue factor [TF3700], and kaolin), and results were compared. Spearman correlation coefficients were calculated between ratios (peak to baseline PT; peak reaction time [R] of TEG to baseline [R] of TEG) and anti-Xa concentration. RESULTS: Anti-Xa concentration had a significant correlation with point-of-care PT (R = 0.82, P < .001) and RapidTEG-TEG, TF100-TEG, and TF3700-TEG (R = 0.76, P < .001; R = 0.82, P < .001; and R = 0.83, P < .001, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: Overall, a 1.5-1.9 × delay in PT and R values of TEG 3 hours after rivaroxaban administration is required to achieve therapeutic anti-Xa concentrations of rivaroxaban in canine plasma. The R values of TEG, specifically using tissue factors (RapidTEG, TF100, TF3700) and point-of-care PT for rivaroxaban can be used practically for therapeutic monitoring of rivaroxaban in dogs.

Effects of irradiation and leukoreduction on down-regulation of CXCL-8 and storage lesion in stored canine whole blood.

White blood cells (WBCs) and storage period are the main factors of transfusion reactions. In the present study, cytokine/chemokine concentrations after leukoreduction (LR) and irradiation (IR) in stored canine whole blood were measured. Red blood cell storage lesion caused by IR and LR were also compared. Blood samples from 10 healthy Beagles were divided into four groups (no treatment, LR-, IR-, and LR + IR-treated). Leukocytes were removed by filtration in the LR group and gamma radiation (25 Gy) was applied in the IR group. Immunologic factors (WBCs, interleukin-6 [IL-6], C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 8 [CXCL-8], and tumor necrosis factor-alpha) and storage lesion factors (blood pH, potassium, and hemolysis) were evaluated on storage days 0, 7, 14, 21, and 28. Compared to the treated groups, IL-6 and CXCL-8 concentrations during storage were significantly higher in the control (no treatment) group. LR did not show changes in cytokine/chemokine concentrations, and storage lesion presence was relatively mild. IR significantly increased CXCL-8 after 14 days of storage, but IR of leukoreduced blood did not increase CXCL-8 during 28 days of storage. Storage lesions such as hemolysis, increased potassium, and low pH were observed 7 days after IR and storage of blood, regardless of LR. IR of leukoreduced blood is beneficial to avoid immune reactions; however, storage lesions should be considered upon storage.

iMGEins: detecting novel mobile genetic elements inserted in individual genomes.

BACKGROUND: Recent advances in sequencing technology have allowed us to investigate personal genomes to find structural variations, which have been studied extensively to identify their association with the physiology of diseases such as cancer. In particular, mobile genetic elements (MGEs) are one of the major constituents of the human genomes, and cause genome instability by insertion, mutation, and rearrangement. RESULT: We have developed a new program, iMGEins, to identify such novel MGEs by using sequencing reads of individual genomes, and to explore the breakpoints with the supporting reads and MGEs detected. iMGEins is the first MGE detection program that integrates three algorithmic components: discordant read-pair mapping, split-read mapping, and insertion sequence assembly. Our evaluation results showed its outstanding performance in detecting novel MGEs from simulated genomes, as well as real personal genomes. In detail, the average recall and precision rates of iMGEins are 96.67 and 100%, respectively, which are the highest among the programs compared. In the testing with real human genomes of the NA12878 sample, iMGEins shows the highest accuracy in detecting MGEs within 20 bp proximity of the breakpoints annotated. CONCLUSION: In order to study the dynamics of MGEs in individual genomes, iMGEins was developed to accurately detect breakpoints and report inserted MGEs. Compared with other programs, iMGEins has valuable features of identifying novel MGEs and assembling the MGEs inserted.

The association between osteoarthritis and sleep duration in Koreans: a nationwide cross-sectional observational study.

Osteoarthritis (OA) causes chronic pain, physical disability, and mental health deterioration and reduces the quality of life of patients. Sleep is an important factor in the recovery, and adequate sleep is important for quality of life. Several features of patients with OA can affect sleep time, and sleep also affects OA. We investigated the relationship between OA and sleep duration. Data for 2010-2012 were collected from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. We included 11,540 participants (4915 men and 6625 women). Patients with OA were defined as participants with knee/hip joint pain and radiographic changes of the knee/hip joints. Sleep time was divided into 4 sections as follows: (1) 0-3 h, (2) 4-5 h, (3) 6-7 h, and (4) ≥ 8 h. Sleep time of 6 and 7 h was the most frequent and set as the reference time. In the multiple logistic regression model, the patients who slept for 0-3 and 4-5 h had odds ratios (ORs) of 2.28 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.14-4.55) and 1.38 (95% CI 1.01-1.89) for men and 1.63 (95% CI 1.19-2.24) and 1.26 (95% CI 1.08-1.47) for women, respectively, for having OA. The prevalence of OA was lowest in the participants who had 6-7 h of sleep and progressively increased with shorter sleep time. Thus, sleep duration was significantly associated with OA.

Rapid exacerbation of renal function after administration of hydroxyethyl starch in a dog.

Hydroxyethyl starches (HES) are commonly used synthetic colloidal solution in veterinary medicine. Despite of possible adverse effect to kidney injury in human, there is no report about nephrotoxic effects of HES in dogs. HES was administered to a Golden retriever (4-year-old, intact male) with ascites in order to increase plasma osmolality. Initially, the dog was mild azotemic, however, kidney function was rapidly deteriorated after several days of HES administration. Finally, histopathological examination revealed remarkable osmotic nephrosis. In the case reported herein, acute kidney injury was remarkably developed after HES administration. Clinical and histopathologic findings of acute kidney injury support nephrotoxic effects of HES to a dog.

Diagnosis of Lymphoid Malignancy by PCR for Analysis of Antigen Receptor Rearrangement after Blood Transfusion in a Dog with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia.

Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) is uncommon lymphoid malignancy in dogs, and its diagnosis is challenging. A 14-year-old spayed female mixed breed dog was transferred to a veterinary medical teaching hospital for an immediate blood transfusion. The dog showed lethargy, pale mucous membranes, and a weak femoral pulse. Complete blood count revealed non-regenerative anemia and severe leukopenia with thrombocytopenia. ALL was tentatively diagnosed based on the predominance of immature lymphoblasts on blood film examination. For confirmation of lymphoid malignancy, PCR for antigen receptor rearrangement (PARR) on a peripheral blood sample and flow cytometry analysis were performed after blood transfusion. Flow cytometry analysis revealed that lymphocyte subsets were of normal composition, but PARR detected a T-cell malignancy. The dog was diagnosed with ALL and survived 1 wk after diagnosis. In conclusion, after blood transfusion, flow cytometry was not a reliable diagnostic method for an ALL dog, whereas PARR could detect lymphoid malignancy. Our results suggest that PARR should be the first-line diagnostic tool to detect canine lymphoid malignancy after a blood transfusion.

Compact variant-rich customized sequence database and a fast and sensitive database search for efficient proteogenomic analyses.

In proteogenomic analysis, construction of a compact, customized database from mRNA-seq data and a sensitive search of both reference and customized databases are essential to accurately determine protein abundances and structural variations at the protein level. However, these tasks have not been systematically explored, but rather performed in an ad-hoc fashion. Here, we present an effective method for constructing a compact database containing comprehensive sequences of sample-specific variants--single nucleotide variants, insertions/deletions, and stop-codon mutations derived from Exome-seq and RNA-seq data. It, however, occupies less space by storing variant peptides, not variant proteins. We also present an efficient search method for both customized and reference databases. The separate searches of the two databases increase the search time, and a unified search is less sensitive to identify variant peptides due to the smaller size of the customized database, compared to the reference database, in the target-decoy setting. Our method searches the unified database once, but performs target-decoy validations separately. Experimental results show that our approach is as fast as the unified search and as sensitive as the separate searches. Our customized database includes mutation information in the headers of variant peptides, thereby facilitating the inspection of peptide-spectrum matches.