Purpose
Developmental abnormalities in B cells is one of the key players in autoimmune diabetes, but little is known about its role in latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA). This study aimed to ...investigate the distribution of B cell subsets in different types of diabetes and to analyze their correlations with other biochemical parameters.
Methods
A total of 140 participants were prospectively enrolled from January 2021 to December 2022. Diabetes-related autoantibodies and laboratory indicators were tested. Flow cytometry was used to analyze the percentage of circulating B cell subsets and T follicular cells. The correlation of B cell subsets with different indicators was assessed by Spearman’s correlation method.
Results
We observed that the Naïve phenotype cells tended to be less frequent in patients with diabetes than in healthy controls. The frequency of plasmablasts (PB) and Breg cell-related phenotype (B10) were significantly higher in LADA. Notably, the percentage of PB was positively associated with levels of islet cell antibody (ICA) and insulin autoantibody (IAA), but inversely associated with fasting C-peptide (FCP), further indicating that PB may promote the destruction of β-cell in patients with diabetes.
Conclusions
This study showed that patients with LADA had significantly altered frequencies of B cell subsets, particularly in the naïve to memory B cell ratio. Our study provided valuable information on the distribution characteristics of B cell subsets in LADA and suggested the feasibility of B-cell targeted therapy in LADA patients.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Atriums have recently been applied with increasing frequency for natural illumination, though they produce a harsh indoor thermal environment. Cooling energy consumption is extremely huge in atriums ...due to the hot summer in certain regions of China. Accordingly, this paper mainly focused on the ratio of skylight to atrium to optimize the thermal environment without compromising the natural lighting. The study quantitatively analyzed the impacts of two geometric parameters, the area ratio (AR) and section aspect ratio (SAR) of the skylight to the roof, on the lighting and thermal environments of atriums by simulation. These models are calibrated with the data measured in a library in Guangzhou, China, to obtain the most appropriate models and boundary conditions. The SAR range of models was set in SAR<4 to be universal through the investigation of buildings. From the results revealed, the AR is the critical factor affecting the diffuse skylight in atriums, whereas the SAR is not. It was when the AR≥1/5.5 that atriums with square plane can meet the natural lighting requirements. The atrium thermal environment was assessed comprehensively from the aspects of air temperature, surface temperature, and vertical temperature difference. It generally became better as the AR decreases and the SAR increases until to AR<1/5. Thus, the optimal nondimensional combination of the atrium configuration was AR = 1/5 and SAR = 4. The temperature distribution characteristics were explained by the theories of heat pressure and air flow, extending the application scope and prospects of this research.
•The measured temperature distribution of one atrium was compared with CFD simulation.•The atrium scales conformed to natural lighting requirements were determined.•The thermal environment was optimized by changing ratios of skylight to atrium.•The rules of temperature distribution were explained via heat pressure and air flow.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Video Anomaly detection, aiming to detect the abnormal behaviors in surveillance videos, is a challenging task since the anomalous events are diversified and complicated in different situations. And ...this makes it difficult to use one single static network architecture to extract useful information from diverse abnormal patterns. Therefore, in this article, we propose a novel Dynamic Self-Supervised Network (DSS-Net) to explore both spatial and temporal anomalous information. In our DSS-Net, we design a dynamic network to adaptively select suitable network architecture to extract latent features from different anomalous patterns and normal patterns. Specifically, we generate spatial and temporal pseudo-abnormal data as the input of the dynamic network to conduct self-supervised learning. And we have a specific design on Hybrid Anomaly Dynamic Convolution (HAD-Conv) to extract features for diversified anomalous events adaptively. We utilize both normal and pseudo-abnormal data to encourage the dynamic network to mine the discriminative information. Furthermore, we design a feature separation loss to maximize the difference between the anomalous and normal videos. We evaluate our proposed method on four public anomaly detection datasets and achieve competitive results compared with the state-of-the-art approaches.
Tuberculosis (TB) is a leading global public health problem; however, the mechanisms underlying the immunopathology of TB progression are not well understood. It is currently believed that ...Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infection can modify natural killer (NK) cell phenotypic signatures. Hence, our study was designed to investigate the diversity of circulating NK cells in patients with different TB infection status. NK subsets, as well as their expression of activating and inhibitory receptors between active TB (ATB) and latent TB infection (LTBI) were evaluated. There were significant differences in NK cell phenotypes between ATB, LTBI and healthy controls. Notably, the proportion of KLRG1 in NK cells (P = 0.036), as well as in their subsets CD56DimCD16+ (P = 0.046) and CD27+ (P = 0.027) NK cells, increased significantly in LTBI group than in ATB group; while Mtb specific IFN-γ+CD56BrightCD16Dim NK cells expressed higher KLRG1 in ATB than in LTBI (P = 0.027). However, the expression of activating receptor NKG2D in NK subsets showed no significant difference among the study groups. Our results suggest that different TB infection status are coupled with the diversity of NK cell compartments, and the expression of KLRG1 in NK cells may be a specific phenotype that modulates the progression of TB from latent to active.
•Different TB infection status are coupled with the diversity of NK cell compartments.•KLRG1+ NK is an important component affecting the immune balance between host and Mtb to keep TB latent.•Mtb antigen-responsive NK cells tend to up-regulate KLRG1 expression during TB progression.•The expression of NKG2D is associated with cytokine producing in TB-infected individuals.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Interferon gamma release assays (IGRAs) for tuberculosis (TB) remain limited in their ability to discriminate between active TB (ATB) and latent TB infection (LTBI). The objective of our study was to ...evaluate the value of additional cytokines/chemokines other than interferon gamma (IFN-γ) as biomarkers to identify different TB infection status. A total of 128 subjects were enrolled to detect the quantification of IL-2, IP-10, MCP-1 and RANTES in the supernatants of QuantiFERON®-TB (QFT-TB). Area under the curve (AUC) was used to evaluate the diagnostic efficiency. Notably, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) induced cytokines/chemokines of ATB patients were significantly higher than those of the LTBI, other lung related diseases (ORD) and healthy controls (HC). Moreover, ROC analysis indicated that all cytokine/chemokine parameters detected were more capable of distinguishing ATB from LTBI than IFN-γ, especially IL-2. The diagnostic model including TB specific IL-2 and RANTES improved the performance in distinguishing ATB from LTBI, which was superior to single cytokines/chemokines in QFT-TB supernatants. Our results suggest that the combination of Mtb specific cytokines/chemokines has great prospects in the diagnosis of ATB, and the diagnostic model based on IL-2 and RANTES can be used as an alternative to distinguish ATB from LTBI.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
To reduce energy consumption, green office buildings have been proposed and promoted as a popular trend. In office buildings, perfect indoor air quality can improve work efficiency, while protecting ...the health of office staff. However, few investigations of the indoor air quality of green office buildings have been reported. In this study, green buildings with one-to three-star ratings, as well as ordinary buildings, were selected to conduct a field survey using air quality measurements. The results indicated that the three types of star buildings had superior air quality, as the carbon dioxide and particulate matter concentrations in green buildings were lower than those in ordinary buildings. However, the total volatile organic compounds concentration in green buildings was higher than that in ordinary buildings. The air quality levels of different types of buildings were evaluated based on the grey method. Consequently, the indoor air quality of the three-star buildings was reported to be excellent.
•Three kinds of green buildings were selected to conduct a field survey using air quality measurements.•The air quality levels of different types of buildings were evaluated based on the grey method.•The indoor air quality of the three-star buildings was reported to be excellent.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Some studies have examined the association between air pollution and semen quality. While it is less of evidence on the sperm quality after long-term air pollution exposure, especially the ...co-exposure of different air pollution components. Additionally, the role of DNA methylation in it hasn't been confirmed. This study aimed to investigate whether long-term exposure to air pollution was associated with semen quality, as well as to explore the effect of sperm DNA methylation in such association. From 2014 to 2016, 1607 fertile men were enrolled to evaluate 14 parameters of semen quality. Exposure window was defined as one-year before semen sampling. Multivariable linear regression and weighted quantile sum (WQS) regression model were used to investigate the association between six air pollutants co-exposure and semen quality. Sensitivity analysis regarding at the normal semen quality group was also conducted. Semen samples were randomly selected from 200 participants to detect the genomic 5-methylcytosine (5 mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5-hmC) levels in sperm. In the total population, PM10, PM2.5, SO2, and NO2 were negatively associated with sperm total motility (PM10: β = −2.67, P = 0.009; PM2.5: β = −2.86, P = 0.004; SO2: β = −2.32, P = 0.011; NO2: β = −2.21, P = 0.012). Results of the normal semen quality group were consistent with those from the whole population. WQS regression results indicated significant decreasing sperm total motility after the co-exposure of the six air pollutants (β = −1.64, P = 0.003) in whole participants. Wherein, PM10 accounted for largest proportion (43.4%). The 5-hmC level was positively associated with PM10 exposure (β = 0.002, P < 0.001). Long-term exposure to PM10, PM2.5, SO2, and NO2, as well as co-exposure to six air pollutants, reduced semen quality in fertile men. As the most significant contributor of air pollutant, PM10 exposure decreased sperm DNA methylation.
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•Long-term exposure to air pollution associated with decreased sperm total motility.•Co-exposure to six air pollutants reduced semen quality in fertile men.•Long-term exposure to air pollution affected DNA methylation 5-hmC levels in sperm.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
In addition to typical indoor and outdoor spaces, there are numerous transitional spaces in a building that are unlike indoor and outdoor spaces, where most people spend time for entertainment. There ...is a need to investigate the comparison between these three types of spaces, including indoor spaces, transitional spaces and outdoor spaces. In this study, the thermal responses and thermal environmental parameters of the indoor, outdoor and transitional spaces were simultaneously recorded. Values of standard effective temperature (SET*), physiologically equivalent temperature (PET) and universal thermal climate index (UTCI) were calculated, and relationships between mean thermal sensation vote (MTSV), SET*, PET and UTCI were also analysed. The results indicate that the air velocity fluctuation and mean radiant temperature of the outdoor space were more significant than those of other two spaces. The neutral thermal indices of the outdoor space were higher than those of the indoor and transitional spaces. Additionally, regression models between MTSV and thermal indices (SET*, PET and UTCI) were analysed. There are strong linear relationships between MTSV and SET* in all spaces. The linear relationships between MTSV were significant when compared with PET and UTCI. Thus, the adaption of thermal indices for evaluation of different spaces must be considered.
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NUK, OILJ, SAZU, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
As the global greenhouse effect intensifies, the urban heat island effect becomes increasingly severe; consequently, people are exposed to high-temperature and metabolically intensive thermal ...environments. The issue of thermal safety is becoming increasingly serious. This study investigated the human thermal comfort requirements at different temperatures and metabolic rates. Twenty participants were made to perform four tasks at four ambient temperatures (Ta; 28, 30, 32, and 34 °C) and metabolic rate levels (2.4, 3.2, 4.0, and 4.4 met), and their physiological reactions, symptoms, and responses to subjective thermal comfort were continuously measured. The results revealed that 15.2% of the participants exhibited adverse symptoms when Ta = 28 °C, whereas 53.2% of the participants exhibited adverse symptoms when Ta = 34 °C. The symptoms included intense sweating, facial heat, rapid heartbeat, dyspnea, chest tightness, feebleness, general weakness, blurry vision, skin sensitivity, and nausea. Prolonged exercise in high-temperature environments may affect the body's heat resistance, resulting in discomfort such as fatigue, headaches, and nausea. Furthermore, participants with high metabolic rates preferred higher wind speeds and lower humidity to improve their thermal comfort in warmer thermal environments. The results offer valuable insights towards mitigating heat exposure-related occupational health risks during work or exercise in high-temperature environments.
•The variation of human thermal comfort against high metabolic rate were investigated•The effects of four air temperature levels was considered•Prolonged exercise in high-temperature environments affect the body's heat resistance•Higher wind speeds and lower humidity environments can improve thermal comfort
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
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