Differentiating Peripherally Located Pulmonary Noncalcified Hamartoma From Carcinoid Using CT Radiomics Approaches.

OBJECTIVE: This article aimed to differentiate noncalcified hamartoma from pulmonary carcinoid preoperatively using computed tomography (CT) radiomics approaches. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The unenhanced CT (UECT) and contrast-enhanced CT (CECT) data of noncalcified hamartoma (n = 73) and pulmonary carcinoid (n = 54; typical/atypical carcinoid = 13/41) were retrospectively analyzed. The patients were randomly divided into the training and validation sets. A total of 396 radiomics features were extracted from UECT and CECT, respectively. The features were selected by using the minimum redundancy maximum relevance and the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator to construct a radiomics model. Clinical factors and radiomics features were integrated to build a nomogram model. The performance of clinical factors, radiomics, and nomogram models on the differential diagnosis between noncalcified hamartoma and carcinoid were investigated. Diagnostic performance of radiologists was also explored. RESULT: In regard to distinguishing noncalcified hamartoma from carcinoid, the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves of the clinical, radiomics, and nomogram models were 0.88, 0.94, and 0.96 in the training set UECT, and were 0.85, 0.92, and 0.96 in the training set CECT, respectively. The areas under the curve of the 3 models were 0.89, 0.96, and 0.96 in the validation set UECT, and were 0.79, 0.90, and 0.94 in the validation set CECT, respectively. The nomogram model exhibited good calibration and was clinically useful by decision curve analysis. Nomogram did not show significant improvement compared with radiomics, neither for UECT nor for CECT. Diagnostic performance of radiologists was lower than both radiomics and nomogram model. CONCLUSIONS: Radiomics approaches may be useful in distinguishing peripheral pulmonary noncalcified hamartoma from carcinoid. Radiomics features extracted from CECT provided no significant benefit when compared with UECT.

Independent and combined effects of sepiolite and palygorskite on humus spectral properties and heavy metal bioavailability during chicken manure composting.

The effects of the independent and combined addition strategies of sepiolite and palygorskite on humification and heavy metals (HMs) during chicken manure composting were evaluated. Results showed that clay mineral addition showed a favorable effect on composting, prolonged the duration of the thermophilic phase (5-9 d) and improved the TN content (14%-38%) compared to CK. Independent strategy enhanced the humification degree in equal measures with the combined strategy. Carbon nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (13C NMR) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) confirmed that aromatic carbon species increased by 31%-33% during composting process. Excitation-emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence spectroscopy showed that humic acid-like compounds increased by 12%-15%. In addition, the maximum passivation rate of Cr, Mn, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, Pb and Ni were 51.35%, 35.98%, 30.39%, 32.46%, -87.02%, 36.61% and 27.62%, respectively. The independent addition of palygorskite exhibits the most potent effects for most HMs. Pearson correlation analysis indicated that pH and aromatic carbon were the key determinants of the HMs passivation. This study provided preliminary evidence and perspective of the application of clay minerals on the humification and safety of composting.

Impact of compost methods on humification and heavy metal passivation during chicken manure composting.

Livestock manure is one of the main sources of heavy metals (HMs) in agricultural soil. So, it is necessary to reduce its bioavailability before used as organic fertilizer. In this study, the passivation effect of HMs and the evolution of dissolved organic matter (DOM) during four composting processes were explored. Results showed that different composting methods had a great effect on HMs passivation rate and humification degree. HMs were released during the thermophilic phase, and were bound by resynthesized humus during the cooling period. The best passivation effect of HMs was found in FV + T treatment, the passivation rate of Cu, Zn, Cd and Pb reached 63.80%, 34.07%, 86.54% and 45.14%, respectively, then followed by the treatment of NV + T and SC. UV-Vis spectra and excitation-emission matrix (EEM) spectra indicated that humus precursors were produced during thermophilic phase and the accumulation of humus mainly occurred in cooling period. This study can be used as a theoretical support for the safe utilization livestock manure.

Preparation of ZIF-8 and Its Application in Determination of Pyridoxine and Pyridoxal in Ginkgo Seeds by Ultra-Performance Liquid Chromatography.

A new rapid and accurate method was developed for simultaneous determination of pyridoxine and pyridoxal in ginkgo seeds, using ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC) equipped with a fluorescence detector. Diluted hydrochloric acid solution was used as the extracting solvent. For the pretreatment of extracts, a zeolitic imidazolate framework material (ZIF-8) was prepared and characterized. An ODS-BP column (4.6 mm × 250 mm × 5 µm) was used for separation. The conditions of sample extraction, cleaning and separation were optimized. The linear correlation coefficient (R2) of the analyte was better than 0.9999, indicating good linearity. The limits of detection (LODs) of pyridoxal and pyridoxine were 0.0065 mg/kg and 0.0057 mg/kg, respectively, and limits of quantitation (LOQs) were 0.022 mg/kg and 0.019 mg/kg, respectively. The recovery of the two substances ranged from 86.2% to 110.4%, and the relative standard deviation (n = 6) was less than 7.5%. The method was applied to determine the contents of pyridoxine and pyridoxal in actual ginkgo seed samples with satisfactory results.