3- to 24-month Follow-up on COVID-19 with Pulmonary Tuberculosis Survivors after Discharge: Results from a Prospective, Multicenter Study.

Objective: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and tuberculosis (TB) are major public health and social issues worldwide. The long-term follow-up of COVID-19 with pulmonary TB (PTB) survivors after discharge is unclear. This study aimed to comprehensively describe clinical outcomes, including sequela and recurrence at 3, 12, and 24 months after discharge, among COVID-19 with PTB survivors. Methods: From January 22, 2020 to May 6, 2022, with a follow-up by August 26, 2022, a prospective, multicenter follow-up study was conducted on COVID-19 with PTB survivors after discharge in 13 hospitals from four provinces in China. Clinical outcomes, including sequela, recurrence of COVID-19, and PTB survivors, were collected via telephone and face-to-face interviews at 3, 12, and 24 months after discharge. Results: Thirty-two COVID-19 with PTB survivors were included. The median age was 52 (45, 59) years, and 23 (71.9%) were men. Among them, nearly two-thirds (62.5%) of the survivors were moderate, three (9.4%) were severe, and more than half (59.4%) had at least one comorbidity (PTB excluded). The proportion of COVID-19 survivors with at least one sequela symptom decreased from 40.6% at 3 months to 15.8% at 24 months, with anxiety having a higher proportion over a follow-up. Cough and amnesia recovered at the 12-month follow-up, while anxiety, fatigue, and trouble sleeping remained after 24 months. Additionally, one (3.1%) case presented two recurrences of PTB and no re-positive COVID-19 during the follow-up period. Conclusion: The proportion of long symptoms in COVID-19 with PTB survivors decreased over time, while nearly one in six still experience persistent symptoms with a higher proportion of anxiety. The recurrence of PTB and the psychological support of COVID-19 with PTB after discharge require more attention.

Effects of different nitrification inhibitors on nitrification, maize yield, and nitrogen use efficiency in red soil.

We examined the effects of nitrification inhibitors (NIs) on soil nitrification, maize yield and nitrogen use efficiency (NUE), aiming to screen out high efficiency stabilized ammonium chloride fertilizer in red soil. Nitrification inhibitors 2-chloro-6-trimethyl-pyridine (CP), 3, 4-dimethyl-pyrazolate phosphate (DMPP), and dicyandiamide (DCD) and their combinations were added into ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) to make six stabilized nitrogen fertilizers. With blank (CK) and NH4Cl (N) as the controls, we conducted a maize pot experiment with the same amount of nitrogen addition. The results showed that compared with the treatment of N, soil ammonium content in CP+DMPP and DMPP+DCD increased by 56%-62%, which was significantly higher than that in CP, DMPP, and DCD, while the apparent nitrification rate of red soil was significantly reduced by 33%-34%. All the six treatments with nitrification inhibitors and their combinations significantly improved biomass and nitrogen absorption efficiency of maize. Compared with the N treatment, the application of adding NIs alone was significantly higher than that of the treatments of NIs combinations, with an average of 1.3 times increase. DCD was the most efficient one in improving maize yield, nitrogen uptake, and nitrogen adsorption efficiency, which increased by 4.1, 6.3 and 4.4 times, respectively. Comprehensively, DCD performed the best in reducing cost and improving yield and nitrogen use efficiency in red soil.

[Application effect of high efficiency and stability urea added with biochemical inhibitors and humic acid in loess]. / æ·»åŠ ç”ŸåŒ–æŠ‘åˆ¶å‰‚å’Œè æ¤é ¸çš„ç¨³å®šæ€§å¢žæ•ˆå°¿ç´ åœ¨é»„åœŸä¸­çš„æ–½ç”¨æ•ˆæžœ.

We carried out pot experiment to investigate nitrogen transformation characteristics, yield increasing effect, and apparent utilization rate of nitrogen fertilizer in loess soils by combining chemi-cal inhibitor and biostimulant humic acid to investigate the application effect and provide a theoretical basis for new type highly efficient and stable urea in loess soil. In this study, blank (CK) and urea (N) were set as controls, and humic acid alone (F), N-butyl thiophosphate-triamine (NBPT), 3,4-dimethyl-pyrazolate phosphate (DMPP), 2-chloro-6-trimethyl-pyridine (CP) and humic acid were respectively combined with three biochemical inhibitors to urea. The results showed that compared with N treatment, F, NBPT+F, DMPP+F, CP+F treatments significantly increased maize yield, chlorophyll content, leaf area index and nitrogen uptake, and had obvious effects on soil available nitrogen contents. The addition of humic acid increased chlorophyll content of maize leaves in all cases compared to the application of biochemical inhibitors alone. Compared with CP treatment, CP+F treatment could significantly increase nitrogen uptake, chlorophyll content, and nitrogen adsorption efficiency of maize. Addition of humic acid with NBPT increased nitrification inhibition rate by 10.7% compared with NBPT alone, but decreased yield, leaf area index, nitrogen uptake, nitrogen use efficiency. Compared with DMPP treatment, DMPP+F treatment significantly reduced maize yield, leaf area index, nitrogen uptake, nitrogen use efficiency and nitrification inhibition rate. Considering maize yield, plant N uptake, N fertilizer uptake rate and soil ammonium N and nitrate N contents, the addition of humic acid and CP is recommended for urea application in loess areas to enhance urea performance, yield, and fertilizer utilization.

[Effect of urease/nitrification inhibitor on urea nitrogen conversion in black soil and cinnamon soil.] / è„²é ¶/ç¡åŒ–æŠ‘åˆ¶å‰‚åœ¨é»‘åœŸå’Œè¤åœŸä¸­å¯¹å°¿ç´ æ°®è½¬åŒ–çš„è°ƒæŽ§æ•ˆæžœ.

We studied the effects of urease/nitrification inhibitor combinations on urea hydrolysis and nitrification, aiming to screen out the effective inhibitor combinations for black soil and cinnamon soil in Northeast China. Urease inhibitor, N-butyl thiophosphate-triamine (NBPT), and its combination with nitrification inhibitor dicyandiamide (DCD), 3, 4-dimethylpyrazole phosphate (DMPP), 2-chloro-6 (trichloromethyl)-pyridine (CP), 2-amino-4-chloro-6-methylpyrimidine (AM) and 3-methylpyrazole (MP) were added to urea separately. Samples were collected 15 times in each of all the treatments during 125 days. We examined the changes of urea nitrogen, ammo-nium, nitrate, and nitrification inhibition rate in the two soils. Our results showed the hydrolysis of urea in black soil and cinnamon soil was about 7 d, and the addition of NBPT with or without diffe-rent nitrification inhibitors slowed down the hydrolysis to 21 d at least. Compared with the treatment with common urea, inhibitor addition significantly increased soil NH4+-N, decreased soil NO3--N, and maintained the high NH4+-N content in soil for a longer time. In black soil, application with nitrification inhibitor inhibited soil nitrification significantly and lasted for more than 125 d. DMPP and CP combined with NBPT increased the NH4+-N content in black soil by 1.6-1.8 times, while the nitrification inhibition rate was 47.9% and 24.1% at 125 d, respectively. In the cinnamon soil, the application of nitrification inhibitor could prolong the duration of ammonium oxidation from 80 d to 110 d. DCD and DMPP combined with NBPT increased the NH4+-N content in cinnamon soil by 2.1-3.4 times, while the nitrification inhibition rates at 125 d were 25.3% and 23.2%, respectively. Therefore, NBPT+DMPP combination with urea was recommended for utilization in black soil, followed by NBPT+CP. In cinnamon soil, NBPT+DCD combination with urea was recommended, followed by NBPT+DMPP.

Compare the epidemiological and clinical features of imported and local COVID-19 cases in Hainan, China.

BACKGROUND: Effective management of imported cases is an important part of epidemic prevention and control. Hainan Province, China reported 168 coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), including 112 imported cases on February 19, 2020, but successfully contained the epidemic within 1 month. We described the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 in Hainan and compared these features between imported and local cases to provide information for other international epidemic areas. METHODS: We included 91 patients (56 imported and 35 local cases) from two designated hospitals for COVID-19 in Haikou, China, from January 20 to February 19, 2020. Data on the demographic, epidemiological, clinical and laboratory characteristics were extracted from medical records. Patients were followed until April 21, 2020, and the levels of antibodies at the follow-ups were also analysed by the Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed ranks test. RESULTS: Of the 91 patients, 78 (85.7%) patients were diagnosed within the first three weeks after the first case was identified (Day 1: Jan 22, 2020), while the number of local cases started to increase during the third week. No new cases occurred after Day 29. Fever and cough were two main clinical manifestations. In total, 15 (16.5%) patients were severe, 14 (15.4%) had complicated infections, nine (9.9%) were admitted to the intensive care unit, and three died. The median duration of viral shedding in feces was longer than that in nasopharyngeal swabs (19 days vs 16 days, P = 0.007). Compared with local cases, imported cases were older and had a higher incidence of fever and concurrent infections. There was no difference in outcomes between the two groups. IgG was positive in 92.8% patients (77/83) in the follow-up at week 2 after discharge, while 88.4% patients (38/43) had a reduction in IgG levels in the follow-up at week 4 after discharge, and the median level was lower than that in the follow-up at week 2 (10.95 S/Cut Off (S/CO) vs 15.02 S/CO, P <  0.001). CONCLUSION: Imported cases were more severe than local cases but had similar prognoses. The level of IgG antibodies declined from week 6 to week 8 after onset. The short epidemic period in Hainan suggests that the epidemic could be quickly brought under control if proper timely measures were taken.

[Pleiotrophin stimulates growth and albumin secretion of rat hepatocytes in culture].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the influence of pleiotrophin (PTN) on the growth of rat hepatocytes. METHODS: Primary rat hepatocytes were isolated from male Sprague-Dawley rats and divided into three groups: group A (negative control), cultivated in normal culture medium; group B (positive control), cultivated with culture medium supplemented with supernatant from the embryonic fibroblast 3T3 cell line; group C (experimental), cultivated with culture medium supplemented with human recombinant (hr) PTN (100 ng/ml). The hepatocytes' growth rate and level of secreted albumin (ALB) were evaluated by microscopy and biochemical assay, respectively. Significance of between-group differences were assessed by one-way ANOVA, and pairwise comparisons were performed by the least significant difference test. RESULTS: The growth rates of hepatocytes in groups A, B and C were 2.800+/-0.084%, 4.300+/-0.132% and 3.800+/-0.053%, respectively. The growth rate of group B was significantly higher than the other two groups (F = 333.735, P less than 0.05). For all groups, the highest levels of secreted ALB were detected between the second and sixth day of culture, with g/L concentrations at day 2, 4 and 6 of: group A, 0.550+/-0.010, 0.900+/-0.030 and 0.300+/-0.040; group B, 0.900+/-0.030, 1.300+/-0.020 and 1.400+/-0.030; group C, 0.900+/-0.010, 1.160+/-0.010 and 0.700+/-0.050. The secreted ALB of group B was significantly higher than that of the other two groups (F = 651.355, 338.831 and 863.205, P less than 0.05 ). CONCLUSION: PTN can benefit in vitro culturing of rat hepatocytes by stimulating growth and enhancing their ability to secrete albumin.