Contributions to Constructing Forced-Choice Questionnaires Using the Thurstonian IRT Model.

Forced-choice questionnaires involve presenting items in blocks and asking respondents to provide a full or partial ranking of the items within each block. To prevent involuntary or voluntary response distortions, blocks are usually formed of items that possess similar levels of desirability. Assembling forced-choice blocks is not a trivial process, because in addition to desirability, both the direction and magnitude of relationships between items and the traits being measured (i.e., factor loadings) need to be carefully considered. Based on simulations and empirical studies using item pairs, we provide recommendations on how to construct item pairs matched by desirability. When all pairs contain items keyed in the same direction, score reliability is improved by maximizing within-block loading differences. Higher reliability is obtained when even a small number of pairs consist of unequally keyed items.

Development of a knowledge-based healthcare-associated infections surveillance system in China.

BACKGROUND: In the modern era of antibiotics, healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) have emerged as a prominent and concerning health threat worldwide. Implementing an electronic surveillance system for healthcare-associated infections offers the potential to not only alleviate the manual workload of clinical physicians in surveillance and reporting but also enhance patient safety and the overall quality of medical care. Despite the widespread adoption of healthcare-associated infections surveillance systems in numerous hospitals across China, several challenges persist. These encompass incomplete coverage of all infection types in the surveillance, lack of clarity in the alerting results provided by the system, and discrepancies in sensitivity and specificity that fall short of practical expectations. METHODS: We design and develop a knowledge-based healthcare-associated infections surveillance system (KBHAIS) with the primary goal of supporting clinicians in their surveillance of HAIs. The system operates by automatically extracting infection factors from both structured and unstructured electronic health data. Each patient visit is represented as a tuple list, which is then processed by the rule engine within KBHAIS. As a result, the system generates comprehensive warning results, encompassing infection site, infection diagnoses, infection time, and infection probability. These knowledge rules utilized by the rule engine are derived from infection-related clinical guidelines and the collective expertise of domain experts. RESULTS: We develop and evaluate our KBHAIS on a dataset of 106,769 samples collected from 84,839 patients at Gansu Provincial Hospital in China. The experimental results reveal that the system achieves a sensitivity rate surpassing 0.83, offering compelling evidence of its effectiveness and reliability. CONCLUSIONS: Our healthcare-associated infections surveillance system demonstrates its effectiveness in promptly alerting patients to healthcare-associated infections. Consequently, our system holds the potential to considerably diminish the occurrence of delayed and missed reporting of such infections, thereby bolstering patient safety and elevating the overall quality of healthcare delivery.

Gaussian noise level estimation for color image denoising.

Noise level is an important parameter in many visual applications, especially in image denoising. How to accurately estimate the noise level from a noisy image is a challenging problem. However, for color image denoising, it is not that the more accurate the noise level is, the better the denoising performance is, but that the noise level higher than the true noise can achieve a better denoising result. For better denoising, we propose a statistical iterative method based on low-rank image patches. We select the low-rank patches in the image and calculate the eigenvalues of the covariance matrix of these patches. Unlike the existing methods that take the smallest eigenvalue as the estimated noise level, the proposed method analyzes the relationship between the median value and the mean value of the eigenvalue according to the statistical property and selects an appropriate number of eigenvalues to average as the estimated noise level. Extensive experiments are conducted, demonstrating that our estimated noise level reaches the highest value of all comparison methods. And the denoising results on color images of our method outperform all the state-of-the-art methods and the true noise level.

Long non-coding RNA DDX11-AS1 promotes esophageal carcinoma cell proliferation and migration through regulating the miR-514b-3p/RBX1 axis.

Esophageal carcinoma (ESCA) is one of the most aggressive malignancies with extremely high morbidity and mortality. At present, limited advancement in ESCA treatment has achieved. Therefore, it is urgent to explore the pathogenesis and progression mechanism of ESCA to provide the basis for the formulation of novel therapeutic strategies. Previous studies have found that long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) DDX11-AS1 expression enhances the paclitaxel resistance of ESCA cells. However, the mechanisms underlying the drug resistance conferred by lncRNA DDX11-AS1 in ESCA remains to be elucidated. Our research aims to clarify the role and mechanism of lncRNA DDX11-AS1 in regulating the progression of ESCA. We found that the expression of lncRNA DDX11-AS1 in ESCA tissues and cell lines was significantly upregulated. Subsequently, silencing lncRNA DDX11-AS1 significantly inhibited the proliferation, migration and invasion of ESCA cells, and induced the level of cell apoptosis. In terms of mechanism, our data showed that miR-514b-3p/RING box protein 1 (RBX1) axis played a crucial role in the oncogenic function of lncRNA DDX11-AS1. LncRNA DDX11-AS1 expression impaired the inhibitory function of miR-514b-3p on RBX1 through sponging effect. Taken together, our data support the notion that lncRNA DDX11-AS1 promotes the progression of ESCA through miR-514b-3p/RBX1 axis. Our research uncovers the novel regulatory role of lncRNA DDX11-AS1 in ESCA and lays a theoretical basis for developing novel treatment strategy of ESCA.

Carbon Dots, Unconventional Preparation Strategies, and Applications Beyond Photoluminescence.

Carbon dots (C-dots) are generally separated into graphene quantum dots (GQDs) and carbon nanodots (CNDs) based on their respective top-down and bottom-up preparation processes. However, GQDs can be prepared by carbonization of small-molecule precursors as revealed with unconventional preparation strategies. Thus, it is their structures rather than their precursors and preparation strategy that govern whether C-dots are GQDs or CNDs. Here, the composites, structure, and electronic properties of C-dots are discussed. C-dots generally consist of a graphite-like core and amorphous oxygen-containing shell. When graphite becomes C-dots, its conduction and valence bands are separated, and the quantum confinement effect appears. Combined with the light-harvesting ability inherited from graphite, electrons in the core of C-dots are transferred from conduction to valence bands, leading to electron-hole pair formation upon light excitation. The photoexcitation activities, such as photovoltaic conversion, photocatalysis, and photodynamic therapy, are influenced by the electronic properties of the core. Different to the semiconductor properties of core, the C-dot shell is electrochemically active, leading to electrochemiluminescence (ECL). The oxygen-containing groups in shell can conjugate to functional species for use in imaging and therapy. The applications of C-dots beyond photoluminescence, including ECL, solar photovoltaics, photocatalysis, and theranostics, are reviewed.

GSH-activated MRI-guided enhanced photodynamic- and chemo-combination therapy with a MnO2-coated porphyrin metal organic framework.

Glutathione (GSH) in tumors consumes 1O2 and seriously inhibits the PDT effect. MnO2-coated porphyrin metal-organic frameworks are developed to realize the oxidation of GSH by MnO2 for enhanced PDT, activated MR imaging, and controllable release of DOX as magnetic resonance imaging guided drug-PDT dual-therapy.

Theranostic Mn-Porphyrin Metal-Organic Frameworks for Magnetic Resonance Imaging-Guided Nitric Oxide and Photothermal Synergistic Therapy.

Chemotherapy remains restricted by its toxic adverse effects and resistance to drugs. The treatment of nitric oxide (NO) combined with imaging-guided physical therapy is a promising alternative for clinical applications. Herein, we report nanoscale metal-organic framework (NMOF) systems to integrate magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, spatiotemporally controllable NO delivery, and photothermal therapy (PTT) as a new means of cancer theranostics. As a proof of concept, the NMOFs are prepared with biocompatible Zr4+ ions and Mn-porphyrin as a bridging ligand. By inserting paramagnetic Mn ions into porphyrin rings, Mn-porphyrin renders the NMOFs strong T1-weighted MR contrast capacity and high photothermal conversion for efficient PTT. S-Nitrosothiol (SNO) is conjugated to the surfaces of the NMOFs for heat-sensitive NO generation. Moreover, single near-infrared (NIR) light triggers the controllable NO release and PTT simultaneously for their efficient synergistic therapy with one-step operation. Upon intravenous injection, NMOF-SNO shows effective tumor accumulation as exposed by the MR images of the tumor-bearing mice. When exposed to the NIR laser, the tumors of mice injected with NMOF-SNO are completely inhibited, verifying the efficiency of NMOF-SNO. For the first time, Mn-porphyrin NMOFs are developed to be an effective theranostic system for MR imaging-guided controllable NO release and photothermal synergetic therapy under single NIR irradiation.

Anticounterfeiting Quick Response Code with Emission Color of Invisible Metal-Organic Frameworks as Encoding Information.

Counterfeiting is a global epidemic that is compelling the development of new anticounterfeiting strategy. Herein, we report a novel multiple anticounterfeiting encoding strategy of invisible fluorescent quick response (QR) codes with emission color as information storage unit. The strategy requires red, green, and blue (RGB) light-emitting materials for different emission colors as encrypting information, single excitation for all of the emission for practicability, and ultraviolet (UV) excitation for invisibility under daylight. Therefore, RGB light-emitting nanoscale metal-organic frameworks (NMOFs) are designed as inks to construct the colorful light-emitting boxes for information encrypting, while three black vertex boxes were used for positioning. Full-color emissions are obtained by mixing the trichromatic NMOFs inks through inkjet printer. The encrypting information capacity is easily adjusted by the number of light-emitting boxes with the infinite emission colors. The information is decoded with specific excitation light at 275 nm, making the QR codes invisible under daylight. The composition of inks, invisibility, inkjet printing, and the abundant encrypting information all contribute to multiple anticounterfeiting. The proposed QR codes pattern holds great potential for advanced anticounterfeiting.

Preparation and properties of CA/ATP-g-CDs gel fibers for simultaneous detection and adsorption of methylene blue.

To detect and adsorb methylene blue (MB) from wastewater simultaneously, a solid fluorescent and absorbent material was designed by immobilizing attapulgite (ATP) on calcium alginate (CA) and reacting with carbon dots (CDs) which were modified by the activation of γ-(2,3-epoxypropoxy) propyltrimethoxysilane (KH-560), then the CA/ATP-g-CDs gel fibers were prepared. The problem of CDs easily falling out of materials was solved. The structures of the gel fibers were characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), specific surface area (BET) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The thermal properties were analyzed by thermogravimetry (TG). The adsorption capacity was measured and the effect of initial pH was investigated. The results showed that ATP was successfully reacted with CA and the adsorption capacity was enhanced with the increase of the pH value. CA/ATP-g-CDs gel fibers were favorable materials to detect and adsorb MB simultaneously, and MB could be adsorbed by gel fibers and also the fluorescence of CA/ATP-g-CDs was weakened. At low concentrations of MB (1 µg L-1), the removal efficiency could even be as high as 100%.