...optimal diagnosis and management necessitate a multidisciplinary team. The authors used T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging to investigate alterations in brain nuclei by three automated ...analysis methods and found that children with PWS had significant atrophy in several brain regions, whereas no significant difference was found between the other two groups. Overall, the study provides insight into the molecular mechanisms underlying high-risk neuroblastoma and highlights the potential of using multi-omics analysis to identify gene signatures that can predict prognosis and guide treatment decisions.
Marine oil spills have induced severe water pollution and threatened sea ecosystems, which also result in a loss of energy resources. To deal with this problem, much work has been done for using ...superhydrophobic or superhydrophilic mesh for oil-water separation. Nevertheless, there are still great challenges in the rapid fabrication of extremely durable mesh with superwetting properties, particularly considering the highly efficient oil-water separation. In this study, we present a simple, efficient method to fabricate superhydrophilic and underwater superoleophobic stainless steel mesh surfaces with one-step femtosecond laser induced periodic nanoripple structures. The as-prepared mesh shows high separation efficiency, which is higher than 99% for various oil-water mixtures. More importantly, the wettability and the separation efficiency of the fabricated mesh show no obvious change after the abrasion tests and corrosion tests, indicating that the as-prepared samples possess robust stability. This study provides an efficient route for constructing durable and highly efficient separation mesh, which can be applied in the cleanup of large-scale oil spills in the near future.
Water scarcity is a serious global challenge, especially in arid and desert regions. Functional devices for directional water transport and fog collection have received increasing attention. Existing ...methods and technologies suffer from low fog-collecting efficiencies, complicated fabrication processes, and high fabrication costs. Herein, we report a simple and low-cost method to rapidly fabricate nanoparticle-covered microstructures on one side of a copper foam surface, using one-step femtosecond laser direct writing technology, which enormously improved processing efficiency. The resulting foam exhibits superhydrophilic/hydrophobic Janus properties. The foam allows water droplets to pass from the hydrophobic side to the superhydrophilic side, but not in the opposite direction. The Janus foam can therefore be used for harvesting water in fog environments, and the maximum water-collecting efficiency is 3.7 g cm–2 h–1, which is much better than existing data. The Janus foam exhibits excellent stability during abrasion and hydraulic wash tests. This water-collecting design may provide an efficient route for overcoming future water shortages.
Genome sequencing is used to make genetic diagnoses in critically ill infants with rapid turnaround time (TAT). Herein, to delineate the value of a genetic diagnosis, we provide the results from 130 ...pediatric patients in a large, comprehensive children’s hospital in China. This study was performed using an optimized trio genome sequencing (OTGS) test. The sequencing depth for patients was 40–50 × and for their parents, it was 8–10 × . Patients from the pediatric or neonatal intensive care unit (PICU/NICU) with complicated clinical features were enrolled between June 2018 and December 2018, each with a phenotype suggesting an underlying genetic disorder. OTGS testing identified pathogenic variants in 62 of 130 individuals, resulting in a diagnosis rate of 47.7%. The TAT varied from 72 to 120 h, with an average of 94 h and a median of 90 h. Of the 62 infants with diagnoses, 48 (77.4%) had pathogenic single-nucleotide variants (SNVs), 12 (19.4%) had pathogenic copy number variations (CNVs) or structure variants (SVs), and 2 (3.2%) had small deletions in one allele plus pathogenic variants in another allele of autosomal recessive genes. Therapeutic strategies for 48.4% (30/62) of the diagnosed patients were modified and included transplantation, dietary recommendations, or change of drugs, which avoided morbidity and improved prognosis. This study provided high-capacity OTGS testing in detecting SNVs and chromosomal abnormalities with fast response, higher diagnostic yield, and lower cost. OTGS demonstrates the potential to be the first-tier of genetic testing used in critically ill infants in developing countries.
A panoramic overview of subtractive, additive, and formative manufacturing of functional glass micro/nanostructures for a broad range of applications, highlighting the development lines and future ...trends of different glass micro/nanomanufacturing technologies. SM: subtractive manufacturing; AM: additive manufacturing; FM: formative manufacturing; USM: ultrasonic machining; IBM: ion beam machining; LBM: laser beam machining; EBM: electron beam machining; AJM: Abrasive jet machining; fs LAWE: femtosecond laser-assisted wet etching; LAFLD: liquid-assisted fs laser drilling; LIBE: laser-induced backside etching; PE: plasma etching; SLS: selective laser sintering; DED: directed energy deposition; DIW: direct ink writing; DIW: direct ink writing; SLM: selective laser melting; FDM: fused deposition modeling; SLA: stereolithography; SL: sheet lamination; DLP: digital light processing; TPP: two-photon polymerization; Micro-CAL: microscale computed axial lithography; SI: soft lithography; NI: nanoimprinting; UV: ultrasonic vibration; PGM: precision glass molding; IM: injection molding; EUV: extreme ultraviolet; FIB: focused ion beam; FEB: focused electron beam; FPB: focused proton beam; Tg: glass transition temperature.
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•A panoramic overview of glass micro/nanomanufacturing techniques is presented, covering subtractive, additive and formative manufacturing.•Essential features of glass micro/nanomanufacturing techniques are evaluated to highlight their fabrication capabilities and current challenges.•Future prospects are discussed to highlight potential opportunities to push glass manufacturing toward higher resolution, accuracy and efficiency.
The ever-increasing demands for miniature integrated optics, mechanics, electronics, and biofluidics have generated great interest in high-performance glass components featuring functional micro/nanostructures. Focusing on micro/nanostructuring of optical glass, many landmark processing techniques have been developed. However, due to notable differences in the capabilities of these techniques, researchers often encounter difficulties in selecting the appropriate glass feedstock or determining the optimal/complementary strategy for achieving a specific production task with desired resolution, accuracy, and efficiency. To shed light on potential solutions, this paper presents a state-of-the-art review that covers subtractive, additive, and formative manufacturing of functional micro/nanostructures using the broadest forms of glass feedstocks (including blocks, powders, and precursors). Initiating with a complete technical classification, the fundamentals, developments, and recent breakthroughs in micro/nanostructuring of glass are comprehensively outlined. Subsequently, the essential features (including spatial resolution, surface finish, accuracy, and efficiency) of the collected glass micro/nanomanufacturing techniques are comparatively evaluated, followed by detailed discussions of their capabilities and current challenges. Finally, future prospects are summarized to highlight potential opportunities and directions in glass micro/nanofabrication. This review will offer a panoramic guideline to the selection and innovation of glass materials and processing strategies for application-oriented precision and efficient manufacturing of diverse glass-based functional micro/nanostructures.
Cataract is the major cause of blindness across the world. Many epidemiologic studies indicated that hypertension might play an important role in the development of cataract, while others not. We ...therefore conducted this meta-analysis to determine the relationship between risk of cataract and hypertension.
Retrieved studies on the association of hypertension with cataract risk were collected from PubMed, Web of Science and the Cochrane Library during June 2014 and were included into the final analysis according to the definite inclusion criteria. Odds ratio (OR) or risk ratio (RR) were pooled with 95% confidence interval (CI) to evaluate the relationship between hypertension and cataract risk. Subgroup analyses were carried out on the basis of cataract type, race and whether studies were adjusted for main components of metabolic syndrome (MS).
The final meta-analysis included 25 studies (9 cohort, 5 case-control and 11 cross-sectional) from 23 articles. The pooled results showed that cataract risk in populations with hypertension significantly increased among cohort studies (RR 1.08; 95% CI: 1.05-1.12) and case-control or cross-sectional studies (OR 1.28; 95% CI: 1.12-1.45). This association was proved to be true among both Mongolians and Caucasians, and the significance was not altered by the adjustment of main components of MS. Subgroup analysis on cataract types indicated that an increased incidence of posterior subcapsular cataract (PSC) resulted among cohort studies (RR 1.22; 95% CI: 1.03-1.46) and cross-sectional/case-control studies (OR 1.23; 95% CI: 1.09-1.39). No association of hypertension with risk of nuclear cataract was found.
The present meta-analysis suggests that hypertension increases the risk of cataract, especially PSC. Further efforts should be made to explore the potential biological mechanisms.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
A hybrid sensing configuration for simultaneous measurement of strain and temperature based on fiber Bragg grating (FBG) written in an offset multimode fiber (MMF) interferometer using femtosecond ...laser pulse is proposed and demonstrated. A Mach–Zehnder interferometer is formed by splicing a section of MMF between two single-mode fibers (SMFs) and a high interference fringe of up to 15 dB is achieved. The sensing experimental results show a strain sensitivity of −1.17 pm/με and 0.6498 pm/με for the dip of MZI and Bragg peak, while a temperature sensitivity of 42.84 pm/°C and 19.96 pm/°C is measured. Furthermore, the matrix analysis has found that the strain and temperature resolution of the sensor are as high as ±12.36 με and ±0.35 °C, respectively. In addition, the sensor has merits of simple fabrication, good spectral quality, and high resolution, which shows attractive potential applications in dual-parameter sensing.
Disruptive mutations in chromatin remodeler CHD8 cause autism spectrum disorders, exhibiting widespread white matter abnormalities; however, the underlying mechanisms remain elusive. We show that ...cell-type specific Chd8 deletion in oligodendrocyte progenitors, but not in neurons, results in myelination defects, revealing a cell-intrinsic dependence on CHD8 for oligodendrocyte lineage development, myelination and post-injury remyelination. CHD8 activates expression of BRG1-associated SWI/SNF complexes that in turn activate CHD7, thus initiating a successive chromatin remodeling cascade that orchestrates oligodendrocyte lineage progression. Genomic occupancy analyses reveal that CHD8 establishes an accessible chromatin landscape, and recruits MLL/KMT2 histone methyltransferase complexes distinctively around proximal promoters to promote oligodendrocyte differentiation. Inhibition of histone demethylase activity partially rescues myelination defects of CHD8-deficient mutants. Our data indicate that CHD8 exhibits a dual function through inducing a cascade of chromatin reprogramming and recruiting H3K4 histone methyltransferases to establish oligodendrocyte identity, suggesting potential strategies of therapeutic intervention for CHD8-associated white matter defects.
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•Autism-associated CHD8 required for oligodendrocyte development and survival•Chromatin regulator CHD8 required for OPC proliferation and remyelination•CHD8-BRG1-CHD7 cascade regulates oligodendroglial lineage progression•CHD8 recruits KMT2 histone methyltransferase to promote oligodendrocyte development
Mutations in chromatin regulator CHD8 are associated with autism and white matter abnormalities. Zhao et al. show that CHD8 functions in oligodendrocyte progenitors to promote oligodendrocyte lineage development, myelination, and post-injury remyelination by establishing an open chromatin landscape for a cascade of chromatin reprogramming events and recruiting KMT2 histone methyltransferase.
Retinal image contains rich information on the blood vessel and is highly related to vascular diseases. Fully automatic and accurate identification of arteries and veins from the complex background ...of retinal images is essential for analyzing eye-relevant diseases, and monitoring progressive eye diseases. However, popular methods, including deep learning-based models, performed unsatisfactorily in preserving the connectivity of both the arteries and veins. The results were shown to be disconnected or overlapped by the twos and thus manual calibration was needed to refine the results. To tackle the problem, this paper proposes a topological structure-constrained generative adversarial network (topGAN) to automatically identify and differentiate the arteries and veins from retinal images. The introduced topological structure term can automatically delineate the topological structure properties of retinal blood vessels and greatly improves the vascular connectivity of the entire arteriovenous classification results. We train and evaluate our model on both the AV-DRIVE public available dataset and the CVDG home-owned dataset, which consists of 40 images and 3119 images, respectively. Experiments demonstrate that integrating topological structure constraints can significantly improve the performance of arteriovenous classification. Our method achieves excellent performance with an accuracy of 94.3% on the AV-DRIVE dataset and 93.6% on the CVDG dataset.
A highly sensitive strain sensor based on a novel fiber in line Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) was demonstrated experimentally. The MZI was realized by splicing a section of photonic crystal fiber ...(PCF) with the same length of thin core fiber (TCF) between two single mode fibers (SMFs). The fringe visibility of MZI can reach as high as 20 dB in air. In particular, the strain sensitivity of -1.95 pm/με was achieved within a range from 0 to 4000 με. Furthermore, the strain properties of different length of MZI was investigated. It was found that the sensitivity was weekly dependent on the length of MZI. The strain sensitivities corresponding to the MZI with 35 mm PCF, 40 mm PCF and 45 mm PCF at 1550 nm band were -1.78 pm/με, -1.73 pm/με and -1.63 pm/με, respectively. Additionally, the sensor has advantages of simple fabrication, compact size and high sensitivity as well as good fringe visibility.
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