The relationship between lactate dehydrogenase and Apolipoprotein A1 levels in patients with severe pneumonia.

Background: To investigate the relationship between lactate dehydrogenase and apolipoprotein A1 levels and the condition and prognosis of patients with severe pneumonia. Methods: Data was collected from 204 patients with severe pneumonia who were hospitalized from January 1, 2019 to December 1, 2021 in Zhaotong First People's Hospital (respiratory intensive care unit (RICU)), and divided into survival group (160 patients) and death group (44 patients) according to their hospitalization outcome. The relationship between lactate dehydrogenase and apolipoprotein A1 levels and general information, disease, and treatment needs of patients with severe pneumonia was analyzed, and lactate dehydrogenase, apolipoprotein A1, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, hematocrit, C-reactive protein, calcitoninogen, D-dimer, Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Status Rating System II, and Pneumonia Severity Index scores were compared between the survival and death groups. The value of these indicators in determining the prognosis of patients was analyzed using subject operating characteristic (ROC) curves. Logistic regression was used to analyze the risk factors for death from severe pneumonia.

Rare-Earth Metalloligands for Low-Valent Cobalt Complexes: Fine Electronic Tuning via Co→RE Dative Interactions.

Rare-earth metalloligand supported low-valent cobalt complexes were synthesized by utilizing a small-sized heptadentate phosphinomethylamine LsNH3 and a large-sized arene-anchored hexadentate phosphinomethylamine LlArH3 ligand precursors. The RE(III)-Co(-I)-N2 (RE = Sc, Lu, Y, Gd, La) complexes containing rare-earth metals including the smallest Sc and largest La were characterized by multinuclear NMR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, electrochemistry, and computational studies. The Co(-I)→RE(III) dative interactions were all polarized with major contributions from the 3dz2 orbital of the cobalt center, which was slightly affected by the identity of rare-earth metalloligands. The IR spectroscopic data and redox potentials obtained from cyclic voltammetry revealed that the electronic property of the Co(-I) center was finely tuned by the rare-earth metalloligand, which was revealed by variation of the ligand systems containing LsN, LmN, and LlAr. Unlike the direct alteration of the electronic property of metal center via an ancillary ligand, such a series of rare-earth metalloligand represents a smooth strategy to tune the electronic property of transition metals.

Convex Dual Theory Analysis of Two-Layer Convolutional Neural Networks With Soft-Thresholding.

Soft-thresholding has been widely used in neural networks. Its basic network structure is a two-layer convolution neural network with soft-thresholding. Due to the network's nature of nonlinear and nonconvex, the training process heavily depends on an appropriate initialization of network parameters, resulting in the difficulty of obtaining a globally optimal solution. To address this issue, a convex dual network is designed here. We theoretically analyze the network convexity and prove that the strong duality holds. Extensive results on both simulation and real-world datasets show that strong duality holds, the dual network does not depend on initialization and optimizer, and enables faster convergence than the state-of-the-art two-layer network. This work provides a new way to convexify soft-thresholding neural networks. Furthermore, the convex dual network model of a deep soft-thresholding network with a parallel structure is deduced.

Effect of ropivacaine combined with sufentanil epidural anesthesia in abdominal surgery.

To explore and analyze the effect of ropivacaine plus sufentanil for epidural anesthesia during abdominal surgery, a total of 120 patients who underwent abdominal surgery at our institution between May 2019 and November 2020 were recruited and randomly assigned at a 1:1 ratio to receive either ropivacaine alone for epidural anesthesia (control group) or ropivacaine plus sufentanil (observation group). The total anesthesia effect in the observation group was significantly higher than that in the control group (96.66% vs 78.33%) (P<0.05). The combined anesthesia resulted in significantly lower visual analogue scale (VAS) scores (1.51±0.84, 1.63±0.56, 1.69±0.63, 1.54±0.42) in patients at 4h, 8h, 16h and 24h postoperatively versus ropivacaine alone (2.35±0.88, 2.49±0. 69, 2.47±0.78, 2.39±0.58) (P<0.05). The Ramsay sedation score (RSS) scores (1.98±0.81, 2.44±0.62, 2.18±0.62, 2.51±0.37) of the observation group at 4h, 8h, 16h and 24h after operation were significantly lower than those of the control group (1.42±0.52, 1.73±0.71, 1.47±0.66, 1.68±0.62) (P<0.05). Patients receiving ropivacaine plus sufentanil were associated with a lower incidence of adverse reactions than those given ropivacaine only (5.00% vs 30.00%) (P<0.05). In abdominal surgery, ropivacaine plus sufentanil epidural anesthesia resulted in reduced postoperative pain, enhanced sedative effects and a lower risk of adverse reactions versus ropivacaine alone.

Dinitrogen Complexes of Cobalt(-I) Supported by Rare-Earth Metal-Based Metalloligands.

Sequential reactions of heptadentate phosphinoamine LH3 with rare-earth metal tris-alkyl precursor (Me3SiCH2)3Ln(THF)2 (Ln = Sc, Lu, Yb, Y, Gd) and a low-valent cobalt complex (Ph3P)3CoI afforded rare-earth metal-supported cobalt iodide complexes. Reduction of these iodide complexes under N2 allowed the isolation of the first series of dinitrogen complexes of Co(-I) featuring dative Co(-I) → Ln (Ln = Sc, Lu, Yb, Y, Gd) bonding interactions. These compounds were characterized by multinuclear NMR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, electrochemistry, and computational studies. The correlation of N-N vibrational frequencies with the pKa of [Ln(H2O)6]3+ showed that strongest activation of N2 was achieved with the least Lewis acidic Gd(III) ion. Interestingly, these Ln-Co-N2 complexes catalyzed silylation of N2 in the presence of KC8 and Me3SiCl with turnover numbers (TONs) up to 16, where the lutetium-supported Co(-I) complex showed the highest activity within the series. The role of the Lewis acidic Ln(III) was crucial to achieve catalytic turnovers and tunable reactivity toward N2 functionalization.

Risk-factor model for postpartum hemorrhage after cesarean delivery: a retrospective study based on 3498 patients.

This study aimed to investigate the risk factors of patients with postpartum hemorrhage (PPH) after cesarean delivery (CD) and to develop a risk-factor model for PPH after CD. Patients were selected from seven affiliated medical institutions of Chongqing Medical University from January 1st, 2015, to January 1st, 2020. Continuous and categorical variables were obtained from the hospital's electronic medical record systems. Independent risk factors were identified by univariate analysis, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator and logistic regression. Furthermore, logistic, extreme gradient boosting, random forest, classification and regression trees, as well as an artificial neural network, were used to build the risk-factor model. A total of 701 PPH cases after CD and 2797 cases of CD without PPH met the inclusion criteria. Univariate analysis screened 28 differential indices. Multi-variable analysis screened 10 risk factors, including placenta previa, gestational age, prothrombin time, thrombin time, fibrinogen, anemia before delivery, placenta accreta, uterine atony, placental abruption and pregnancy with uterine fibroids. Areas under the curve by random forest for the training and test sets were 0.957 and 0.893, respectively. The F1 scores in the random forest training and test sets were 0.708. In conclusion, the risk factors for PPH after CD were identified, and a relatively stable risk-factor model was built.

Evaluation of Tracheal Stenosis in Rabbits Using Multispectral Optoacoustic Tomography.

Objective: Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) and multispectral optoacoustic tomography (MSOT) are evolving technologies that are capable of delivering real-time, high-resolution images of tissues. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of using PAT and MSOT for detecting histology in a rabbit tracheal stenosis model. Method: A total of 12 rabbits (9 stenosis and three control) were randomly divided into four groups (A, B, C and D). Each group consisted of three rabbits, which were staged at the first, fourth, and eighth weeks of stenosis progression, respectively. PAT/MSOT images and corresponding histology from these experimental animals were compared, for analyzing the morphologic features and quantitative tracheal measurements in different tracheal stenosis stage. Result: Both the PAT images and corresponding histology indicated the most severe degree of stenosis in group C. MSOT images indicated notable differences in tracheal contents of group B and D. Conclusion: This study suggests that PAT/MSOT are potentially valuable non-invasive modality which are capable of evaluating tracheal structure and function in vivo.

Analgesic effects of different concentrations of ropivacaine in transversalis fascia plane block during laparotomy.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the analgesic effects of different concentrations of ropivacaine in transversalis fascia plane (TFP) block during laparotomy. METHODS: Ninety patients who underwent laparotomy admitted to our hospital from March 2019 to March 2020 were selected as the study subjects and were divided equally into a low concentration group, a medium concentration group, and a high concentration group according to the randomized grouping method. The low concentration group adopted 0.4% ropivacaine 40 ml, the medium concentration group was given 0.5% ropivacaine 40 ml, and the high concentration group was given 0.6% ropivacaine 40 ml. The hemodynamic indexes and the incidence of adverse reactions in the two groups were compared. The Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) was used to assess the postoperative pain in the three groups, the Bruggrmann comfort scale (BCS) was used to assess the comfort level in the three groups, and the Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE) was used to evaluate the postoperative cognitive function of the three groups of patients. RESULTS: The mean artery pressure (MAP) and heart rate (HR) levels at T1 and T2 were significantly lower in the medium concentration group than in the other two groups (P < 0.05). The low concentration group had a significantly higher NRS score at T2 than the medium concentration group and the high concentration group (P < 0.05). A significantly higher BCS score was observed in the high concentration group than the other two groups (P < 0.05). There were significantly higher Ramsay scores and MMSE scores in the medium concentration group than in the low concentration and high concentration groups (P < 0.05). The overall incidence of adverse reactions of the high concentration group was significantly higher than that of the low concentration group (P < 0.05), but showed similar results with the medium concentration group. CONCLUSION: The medium concentration group exhibits a better analgesic effect than the low concentration group and higher safety than the high concentration group. Therefore, the use of medium concentration ropivacaine in TFP block may provide a referential basis for clinical treatment.

Ultrathin mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets with functional cyano group decoration and nitrogen-vacancy defects for an efficient selective CO2 photoreduction.

Graphitic carbon nitrides have CO2 photoreduction ability, but their activities are limited by the low potential and mobility of photogenerated carriers. Herein, ultrathin mesoporous graphitic carbon nitride nanosheets (CNNS) synchronously decorated with functional cyano groups and nitrogen vacancies were prepared by a facile molten salt route. The CNNS presented unprecedentedly excellent gas-phase CO2 photoreduction performance under visible light irradiation without any co-catalyst or a sacrificial agent, and have a CH4-yielding rate of 23.0 µmol g-1 h-1 and a selectivity of 97.9%. This boosted performance can be attributed to the synergistic effect of cyano group decoration, abundant nitrogen vacancies and extremely high surface area, which improve electron storage, charge carrier mobility, CO2 affinity, and optimize the energy band structure. This work demonstrates that a structural optimization combined with defect design of carbon nitride framework is a powerful approach to improve the photocatalytic activity, providing an accessible way to design highly efficient carbon-based photocatalysts.

Coil Combination of Multichannel Single Voxel Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy with Repeatedly Sampled In Vivo Data.

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), as a noninvasive method for molecular structure determination and metabolite detection, has grown into a significant tool in clinical applications. However, the relatively low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) limits its further development. Although the multichannel coil and repeated sampling are commonly used to alleviate this problem, there is still potential room for promotion. One possible improvement way is combining these two acquisition methods so that the complementary of them can be well utilized. In this paper, a novel coil-combination method, average smoothing singular value decomposition, is proposed to further improve the SNR by introducing repeatedly sampled signals into multichannel coil combination. Specifically, the sensitivity matrix of each sampling was pretreated by whitened singular value decomposition (WSVD), then the smoothing was performed along the repeated samplings' dimension. By comparing with three existing popular methods, Brown, WSVD, and generalized least squares, the proposed method showed better performance in one phantom and 20 in vivo spectra.

One-Spot Facile Synthesis of Single-Crystal LiNi0.5Co0.2Mn0.3O2 Cathode Materials for Li-ion Batteries.

The layered lithium-metal oxides are promising cathode materials for Li-ion batteries. Nevertheless, their widespread applications have been limited by the high cost, complex process, and poor stability resulting from the Ni2+/Li+ mixing. Hence, we have developed a facile one-spot method combining glucose and urea to form a deep eutectic solvent, which could lead to the homogeneous distribution and uniform mixing of transition-metal ions at the atomic level. LiNi0.5Co0.2Mn0.3O2 (NCM523) polyhedron with high homogeneity could be obtained through in situ chelating Ni2+, Co3+, and Mn4+ by the amid groups. The prepared material exhibits a relatively high initial electrochemical property, which is due to the unique single-crystal hierarchical porous nano/microstructure, the polyhedron with exposed active surfaces, and the negligible Ni2+/Li+ mixing level. This one-spot approach could be expanded to manufacture other hybrid transition-metal-based cathode materials for batteries.

NCAPH is negatively associated with Mcl­1 in non­small cell lung cancer.

Lung cancer has a high mortality rate worldwide. Non­SMC condensin I complex subunit H (NCAPH) has been identified to be one of the regulatory subunits of the condensin I complex, which is essential for the correct packaging and segregation of chromosomes in eukaryotes. NCAPH is abnormally overexpressed in various types of cancer. A pro­survival member of the Bcl­2 family, myeloid cell leukemia sequence 1 (Mcl­1) is also frequently overexpressed in multiple cancers and is associated with poorer clinical outcomes for patients. The association of NCAPH and Mcl­1 proteins with the clinical and pathological features of non­small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains to be elucidated. In the current study, the positive percentage of NCAPH in the non­cancerous lung tissues was revealed to be higher compared with that in NSCLC. However, the positive percentage of Mcl­1 in the non­cancerous lung tissues was lower compared with NSCLC. In addition, NCAPH high­expression patients had a higher overall survival rate compared with patients exhibiting low expression, whereas the Mcl­1 high­expression group had a lower survival rate. Pairwise association in 260 cases of NSCLC revealed that overexpression of the NCAPH protein was negatively associated with Mcl­1 expression and vice versa. The results of multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression analysis also indicated that NCAPH and Mcl­1 demonstrated potential as distinct prognostic factors that may be used in NSCLC. The expression of NCAPH and Mcl­1 may be associated with, and act as distinct molecular marks for the prediction of a poor prognosis in patients with NSCLC.

A N-doped porous carbon derived from deep eutectic solvent for adsorption of organic contaminants from aqueous or oil solution.

Porous N-doped carbon material (NCM) derived from deep eutectic solvent (DES) is successfully prepared. The preparation of NCM depends mainly on heating treatment and does not demand activation and filtration. The heating process contains three steps: (1) forming a DES that consists of glucose and urea at 100 °C; (2) preparing dried precursors by microwave; (3) and carbonizing the precursor. After heating, the resulting NCM can be obtained. The as-prepared NCM exhibits high specific surface area, rich micropores and strong Lewis basicity. Accordingly, NCMs show good adsorption performance for 4-nitrophenol or methylene blue in aqueous solution and thiophenic sulfurs in the oil phase. Apparently, NCM derived from DES not only possesses a simple preparation process, but also can remove a wide spectrum of organic pollutants. Therefore, the NCM prepared here may be promising for practical application.

Heterobimetallic scandium-group 10 metal complexes with LM → Sc (LM = Ni, Pd, Pt) dative bonds.

Heterobimetallic scandium complexes with whole group 10 metals were synthesized. All Sc-LM complexes were characterized by NMR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis and computational studies, which revealed notable LM → Sc (LM = Ni, Pd, Pt) dative bonding interactions in these heterobimetallic systems. Versatile coordination modes toward apical donors were observed in these heterobimetallic Sc-LM complexes, among which the Sc-Ni complexes 2 and 3 were reversibly bound to N2 and the Sc-Pt complex 5 was coordinated to an additional PPh3 ligand, while in the Sc-Pd complex 4 no apical donor was ligated.

Chromium Poisoning Effects on Surface Exchange Kinetics of La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-δ.

The presence of Cr has already been reported in literature to cause severe degradation to La0.6Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3-δ (LSCF). However, fundamental understanding of Cr effects on the surface exchange kinetics is still lacking. For the first time, in situ gas phase isotopic oxygen exchange was utilized to quantitatively determine Cr effect on oxygen exchange kinetics of LSCF powder as a function of temperature and water vapor. Our investigations revealed that the formation of secondary phases such as SrCrO4, Cr2O3, Cr-Co-Fe-O, and La-Co-Fe-O can affect both the oxygen dissociation step and overall surface exchange. Specifically, Cr-containing secondary phases on the surface not only decrease the active sites for surface reactions but also alter the nearby stoichiometry of the LSCF matrix, thereby limiting surface oxygen transport. In addition, water molecules actively participate in the surface reactions and can further block the active sites.

High intensity focused ultrasound ablation for submucosal fibroids: A comparison between type I and type II.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to compare high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) treatment for type I and type II submucosal fibroids. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From October 2011 to October 2013, 55 patients with submucosal fibroids were enrolled in this study. Based on submucosal fibroid classification, 27 patients were grouped as type I submucosal fibroids, and 28 patients were classified as type II submucosal fibroids. All patients received HIFU treatment and completed 1-, 6-, and 12-month follow-ups. Adverse effects were recorded. RESULTS: There were no significant differences in the baseline characteristics between the two groups (p > 0.05). Using similar sonication power, sonication time, and acoustic energy, the non-perfused volume (NPV) ratio was 83.0 ± 17.3% in the type I group, and 92.0 ± 9.5% in the type II group. All the patients tolerated the procedure well, and no serious adverse events occurred. During the follow-up intervals, the treated fibroids shrank and fibroid-related symptoms were relieved. No other reinterventional procedures were performed during the follow-up period. CONCLUSION: Based on our results with a small number of subjects, HIFU is suitable for both type I and type II submucosal fibroids. It seems that type II submucosal fibroids are more sensitive to HIFU ablation. Future studies with larger sample sizes and longer follow-up times to investigate the long-term results, including long-term symptom relief, pregnancy outcomes, and the recurrence rate as well as the reintervention rate are needed.