Background
Amide proton transfer‐weighted imaging (APTWI) and intravoxel incoherent motion imaging (IVIM) are valuable MRI techniques applied to cancer.
Purpose
To compare APTWI and IVIM in the ...diagnosis of benign and malignant breast lesions and to evaluate the correlations between different parameters (MTRasym 3.5 ppm, D, D*, and f) and prognostic factors for breast cancer.
Study Type
Retrospective.
Population
In all, 123 breast lesions were studied before treatment, including 58 benign lesions and 65 malignant lesions.
Field Strength/Sequence
Conventional MRI (T1WI, T2WI, and diffusion‐weighted imaging DWI), APTWI, and IVIM MRI at 3T.
Assessment
The magnetization transfer ratio asymmetry at 3.5 ppm (MTRasym 3.5 ppm), diffusion coefficient (D), pseudo diffusion coefficient (D*), and perfusion fraction (f) values were compared between the benign and malignant groups and between groups with different expression levels of prognostic factors.
Statistical Tests
Individual sample t‐test, χ2 test, Spearman correlation, logistic regression, and the Delong test.
Results
The D and MTRasym (3.5 ppm) values of the malignant group were lower than those of the benign group; however, D* and f values were higher than those of the benign group (all P < 0.05). The areas under the curve (AUCs) of D, MTRasym (3.5 ppm), D*, and f were 0.809, 0.778, 0.670, and 0.766, respectively; however, only the difference between AUC (D) and AUC (D*) was significant (Z = 2.374, P < 0.05). The D value showed a low correlation with the pathological grade and Ki‐67 expression (| r | = 0.294, 0.367); the f value showed a low correlation with estrogen receptor (ER) expression (| r | = 0.382); and the MTRasym (3.5 ppm) value showed a low correlation with pathological grade (| r | = 0.371).
Data Conclusion
This analysis revealed that both IVIM and APTWI could be used for the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant breast lesions, and APTWI‐derived MTRasym (3.5 ppm), IVIM‐derived D, D*, and f values showed correlations with some prognostic factors for breast cancer.
Level of Evidence
2
Technical Efficacy Stage
2 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2020;52:1175–1186.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
Background
Stroke affects 3–4% of adults and kills numerous people each year. Recovering blood flow with minimal reperfusion-induced injury is crucial. However, the mechanisms underlying ...reperfusion-induced injury, particularly inflammation, are not well understood. Here, we investigated the function of miR-19a/b-3p/SIRT1/FoxO3/SPHK1 axis in ischemia/reperfusion (I/R).
Methods
MCAO (middle cerebral artery occlusion) reperfusion rat model was used as the in vivo model of I/R. Cultured neuronal cells subjected to OGD/R (oxygen glucose deprivation/reperfusion) were used as the in vitro model of I/R. MTT assay was used to assess cell viability and TUNEL staining was used to measure cell apoptosis. H&E staining was employed to examine cell morphology. qRT-PCR and western blot were performed to determine levels of miR-19a/b-3p, SIRT1, FoxO3, SPHK1, NF-κB p65, and cytokines like TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1β. EMSA and ChIP were performed to validate the interaction of FoxO3 with
SPHK1
promoter. Dual luciferase assay and RIP were used to verify the binding of miR-19a/b-3p with SIRT1 mRNA.
Results
miR-19a/b-3p, FoxO3, SPHK1, NF-κB p65, and cytokines were elevated while SIRT1 was reduced in brain tissues following MCAO/reperfusion or in cells upon OGD/R. Knockdown of SPHK1 or FoxO3 suppressed I/R-induced inflammation and cell death. Furthermore, knockdown of FoxO3 reversed the effects of SIRT1 knockdown. Inhibition of the miR-19a/b-3p suppressed inflammation and this suppression was blocked by SIRT1 knockdown. FoxO3 bound SPHK1 promoter and activated its transcription. miR-19a/b-3p directly targeted SIRT1 mRNA.
Conclusion
miR-19a/b-3p promotes inflammatory responses during I/R via targeting SIRT1/FoxO3/SPHK1 axis.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients have an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). The present study aimed to investigate the gut microbiota and blood trimethylamine-N-oxide ...concentration (TMAO) in Chinese CKD patients and explore the underlying explanations through the animal experiment. The median plasma TMAO level was 30.33 μmol/L in the CKD patients, which was significantly higher than the 2.08 μmol/L concentration measured in the healthy controls. Next-generation sequence revealed obvious dysbiosis of the gut microbiome in CKD patients, with reduced bacterial diversity and biased community constitutions. CKD patients had higher percentages of opportunistic pathogens from gamma-Proteobacteria and reduced percentages of beneficial microbes, such as Roseburia, Coprococcus, and Ruminococcaceae. The PICRUSt analysis demonstrated that eight genes involved in choline, betaine, L-carnitine and trimethylamine (TMA) metabolism were changed in the CKD patients. Moreover, we transferred faecal samples from CKD patients and healthy controls into antibiotic-treated C57BL/6 mice and found that the mice that received gut microbes from the CKD patients had significantly higher plasma TMAO levels and different composition of gut microbiota than did the comparative mouse group. Our present study demonstrated that CKD patients had increased plasma TMAO levels due to contributions from both impaired renal functions and dysbiosis of the gut microbiota.
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IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Although lithium‐metal electrodes have very high capacities, their use as negative electrodes in batteries is associated with stability and safety problems due to formation of dendrites, mossy as ...well as dead lithium. These problems generally result from the difficulty to ensure that the deposition and stripping of lithium occur homogeneously on the entire electrode surface. As a result, the lithium‐metal electrode is gradually transformed into a thick, porous, and poorly performing electrode. It is therefore essential to develop approaches that facilitate the attainment of homogeneous (i.e., 2D) lithium nucleation and growth. It is also important to note that if the lithium electrode is oxidized on the first half‐cycle, the formed oxidation pits will control the subsequent lithium deposition step. Herein, it is shown that the performance of lithium‐metal electrodes can be straightforwardly improved by introducing a short (e.g., 1 s long) potentiostatic pulse so that the first oxidation step takes place more homogeneously on the lithium surface. This surface activation step gives rise to a large number of preferential lithium nucleation sites facilitating the subsequent attainment of a uniform lithium deposition step. The experimental results indicate that this straightforward pulse approach can significantly increase the lifetime of lithium‐metal electrodes.
A short potentiostatic oxidation/stripping pulse included prior to the first galvanostatic stripping step enables the formation of homogeneously distributed pits which then serve as preferential nucleation sites during the subsequent lithium deposition step. This pulse strategy prevents the deposition from taking place only at the most electrochemically active sites on the lithium‐metal electrodes which improves the stability of the electrodes.
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FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
This study evaluated risks of the emergency room visits (ERV) for cerebrovascular diseases, heart diseases, ischemic heart disease, hypertensive diseases, chronic renal failure (CRF), diabetes ...mellitus (DM), asthma, chronic airway obstruction not elsewhere classified (CAO), and accidents associated with the ambient temperature from 2000 to 2009 in metropolitan Taipei.
The distributed lag non-linear model was used to estimate the cumulative relative risk (RR) and confidence interval (CI) of cause-specific ERV associated with daily temperature from lag 0 to lag 3 after controlling for potential confounders.
This study identified that temperatures related to the lowest risk of ERV was 26 °C for cerebrovascular diseases, 18 °C for CRF, DM, and accidents, and 30 °C for hypertensive diseases, asthma, and CAO. These temperatures were used as the reference temperatures to measure RR for the corresponding diseases. A low temperature (14°C) increased the ERV risk for cerebrovascular diseases, hypertensive diseases, and asthma, with respective cumulative 4-day RRs of 1.56 (95% CI: 1.23, 1.97), 1.78 (95% CI: 1.37, 2.34), and 2.93 (95% CI: 1.26, 6.79). The effects were greater on, or after, lag one. At 32°C, the cumulative 4-day RR for ERV was significant for CRF (RR = 2.36; 95% CI: 1.33, 4.19) and accidents (RR = 1.23; 95% CI: 1.14, 1.33) and the highest RR was seen on lag 0 for CRF (RR = 1.69; 95% CI: 1.01, 3.58), DM (RR = 1.69; 95% CI: 1.09, 2.61), and accidents (RR = 1.19; 95% CI: 1.11, 1.27).
Higher temperatures are associated with the increased ERV risks for CRF, DM, and accidents and lower temperatures with the increased ERV risks for cerebrovascular diseases, hypertensive diseases, and asthma in the subtropical metropolitan.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
This study examines the effect of online community's recognition on continued participation in idea competitions, and how personal winning record moderates such an influence. We reason that the ...motivating role of community recognition might either be reinforced or substituted by personal winning record, depending upon whether relational motives (psychological and social bonding) or individualistic motives (personal benefits, such as status and career enhancement) are the primary behavior driver. Through an event history analysis of data obtained from a platform of creative design contests, we find that although community recognition exerts a positive effect on the rate of continued participation for designers who are yet to win any competitions, this effect increasingly turns negative for designers who have won. Such findings indicate that the motivating role of community recognition might be substituted instead of reinforced by personal winning record, lending support to the individualistic view while rejecting the relational view. Although virtual social spaces represent an important means for modern competition platforms to attract and motivate participants, our study informs practitioners about online community's limitation in retaining “star” participants.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
A lithium-sulfur (Li-S) battery is regarded as the most promising candidate for next generation energy storage systems, because of its high theoretical specific capacity (1675 mA h g
) and specific ...energy (2500 W h kg
), as well as the abundance, low cost and environmental benignity of sulfur. However, the soluble polysulfides Li
S
(4 ≤ x ≤ 8) produced during the discharge process can cause the so-called "shuttle effect" and lead to low coulombic efficiency and rapid capacity fading of the batteries, which seriously restrict their practical application. Using porous materials as hosts to immobilize the polysulfides is proved to be an effective strategy. In this article, a dual functional cage-like metal-organic framework (Cu-MOF), Cu-TDPAT, combining the Lewis basic sites from the nitrogen atoms of the ligand H
TDPAT with the Lewis acidic sites from Cu(ii) open metal sites (OMSs), was employed as the sulfur host in a Li-S battery for lithium ions and polysulfide anions (S
). In addition, the size of nano-Cu-TDPAT was also optimized by microwave synthesis to reduce the internal resistance of the batteries. The electrochemical test results showed that the optimized Cu-TDPAT material can efficiently confine the polysulfides within the MOF, and the resultant porous S@Cu-TDPAT composite cathode material with the size of 100 nm shows good cycling performance with a reversible capacity of about 745 mA h g
at 1C (1C = 1675 mA g
) after 500 cycles, to the best of our knowledge, which is higher than those of all reported S@MOF cathode materials. The DFT calculation and XPS data indicate that the good cycling performance mainly results from the dual functional binding sites (that is, Lewis acid and base sites) in nanoporous Cu-TDPAT, providing the comprehensive and robust interaction with the polysulfides to overcome their dissolution and diffusion into the electrolyte. Clearly, our work provides a good example of designing MOFs with suitable interaction sites for the polysulfides to achieve S@MOF cathode materials with excellent cycling performance by multiple synergistic effects between nanoporous host MOFs and the polysulfides.
Bio-jet fuel currently represents one of the solutions for reducing the emissions from aircraft without engine modifications. This study mainly focused on producing the jet fuel blendstock from ...glyceride-based oil through hydro-processing and hydro-cracking/isomerization. The palm oil was selected as the glyceride-based feedstock and was first converted into hydro-processed alkanes within the diesel range through hydro-processing, which has been reported in the authors’ previous work. The hydro-processed alkanes, in this paper, were turned into jet fuel range products through hydro-cracking/isomerization over the nickel-silver (NiAg) supported on silico-aluminio-phosphates (SAPO-11) catalyst. Catalyst characterizations were first performed through XRD for the fresh and used catalysts for understanding the performance of the catalyst during the reaction. The effects of the reaction parameters such as temperature, pressure, and liquid hourly space velocity (LHSV) on the carbon distributions, isomer-to-normal (I-to-N) alkane ratios and aromatics contents were investigated to find the proper conditions for producing bio-jet fuel over the NiAg/SAPO-11 catalyst.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
An area-efficient voltage-sensing readout circuit employing chopped voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO)-based continuous-time delta-sigma modulator (CTDSM) is presented in this paper. This VCO-based ...CTDSM features direct connection to sensors to eliminate pre-amplifier for achieving better hardware efficiency. The VCO is designed as a trans-conductor current-controlled oscillator, which is a fully differential G m stage cascaded with two CCOs, to provide a high-input impedance to sense the voltage signals from sensors. Analysis shows that the main noise and offset contributor is the G m stage. This problem is mitigated by employing choppers at critical location within the circuit. The VCO-based CTDSM is implemented in a 40-nm CMOS process. The power consumption is 17 μW under 1.2V supply. With a 4-mV p (8-mV pp ) input, it achieves 61.85-dB signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio over a 5-kHz bandwidth and the total harmonic distortion is -70.8 dB. The input-referred noise is 32 nV/√Hz. The chip area is only 0.0145 mm 2 .
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