To elucidate the accuracy, efficacy, and safety of percutaneous iliosacral screw (ISS) and trans-iliac trans-sacral screw (TITS) insertion using a single C-arm fluoroscopy intensifier. Additionally, ...the potential risk factors that might cause mal-positioned screws were identified. Patients with pelvic ring injuries who underwent percutaneous screw fixation in a single medical institute were divided into an ISS group (n = 59) and a TITS group (n = 62) and assessed. The angles deviated from ideal orientation (ADIO) of the implanted screw were measured, and potential risk factors for mal-positioned screws were analyzed. Overall, the reduction quality of the pelvic ring was good or excellent in 70 patients (82.4%) by Matta's criteria and in 48 patients (56.5%) by Lefaivre's criteria. ADIO measurements of the ISS and TITS groups via multi-planar computed tomography were 9.16° ± 6.97° and 3.09° ± 2.8° in the axial view, respectively, and 5.92° ± 3.65° and 2.10° ± 2.01° in the coronal view, respectively. Univariate statistical analysis revealed body mass index as the single potential risk factor of mal-positioned screws. With careful preoperative planning and intraoperative preparations, placing ISS and TITS under the guidance of single C-arm fluoroscopy intensifier is a reliable and safe technique. Caution should be exercised when performing this procedure in patients with a high body mass index.
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic remains a global public health crisis, presenting a broad range of challenges. To help address some of the main problems, the scientific community ...has designed vaccines, diagnostic tools and therapeutics for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. The rapid pace of technology development, especially with regard to vaccines, represents a stunning and historic scientific achievement. Nevertheless, many challenges remain to be overcome, such as improving vaccine and drug treatment efficacies for emergent mutant strains of SARS-CoV-2. Outbreaks of more infectious variants continue to diminish the utility of available vaccines and drugs. Thus, the effectiveness of vaccines and drugs against the most current variants is a primary consideration in the continual analyses of clinical data that supports updated regulatory decisions. The first two vaccines granted Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs), BNT162b2 and mRNA-1273, still show more than 60% protection efficacy against the most widespread current SARS-CoV-2 variant, Omicron. This variant carries more than 30 mutations in the spike protein, which has largely abrogated the neutralizing effects of therapeutic antibodies. Fortunately, some neutralizing antibodies and antiviral COVID-19 drugs treatments have shown continued clinical benefits. In this review, we provide a framework for understanding the ongoing development efforts for different types of vaccines and therapeutics, including small molecule and antibody drugs. The ripple effects of newly emergent variants, including updates to vaccines and drug repurposing efforts, are summarized. In addition, we summarize the clinical trials supporting the development and distribution of vaccines, small molecule drugs, and therapeutic antibodies with broad-spectrum activity against SARS-CoV-2 strains.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Photodynamic therapy (PDT) based on photosensitizers (PSs) constructed with nanomaterials has become popular in cancer treatment, especially oral carcinoma cell. This therapy is characterized by ...improved PS accumulation in tumor regions and generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) for PDT under specific excitation. In the selection of near‐infrared (NIR) window, 808 nm NIR light because it can avoid the absorption of water is particularly suitable for the application in PDT. Hence, multiband emissions under a single 808 nm near‐infrared excitation of Nd3+‐sensitized upconversion nanoparticles (808 nm UCNPs) have been applied for the PDT effect. 808 nm UCNPs serve as light converter to emit UV light to excite inorganic PS, graphitic carbon nitride quantum dots (CNQDs), thereby generating ROS. In this study, a nanocomposite consisting UCNPs conjugated with poly‐l‐lysine (PLL) to improve binding with CNQDs is fabricated. According to the research results, NIR‐triggered nanocomposites of 808 nm UCNP‐PLL@CNs have been verified by significant improvement in ROS generation. Consequently, 808 nm UCNP‐PLL@CNs exhibit high capability for ROS production and efficient PDT in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, the mechanism of PDT treatment by 808 nm UCNP‐PLL@CNs is evaluated using the cell apoptosis pathway.
808 nm near‐infrared light (NIR) mediated photodynamic therapy (PDT) conquers the issue of penetration. Graphitic carbon nitride quantum dots (CNQDs), as potential photosensitizers, exhibit good biocompatibility. The CNQDs combined with upconversion nanoparticles, NaYF4:Yb/Tm@NaYF4:Yb/Nd, transfer 808 nm NIR into high‐energy light and promote CNQDs to transfer oxygen into the reactive oxygen species and achieve the PDT process.
Insufficient physical activity is common in modern society. By estimating the energy expenditure (EE) of different physical activities, people can develop suitable exercise plans to improve their ...lifestyle quality. However, several limitations still exist in the related works. Therefore, the aim of this study is to propose an accurate EE estimation model based on depth camera data with physical activity classification to solve the limitations in the previous research. To decide the best location and amount of cameras of the EE estimation, three depth cameras were set at three locations, namely the side, rear side, and rear views, to obtain the kinematic data and EE estimation. Support vector machine was used for physical activity classification. Three EE estimation models, namely linear regression, multilayer perceptron (MLP), and convolutional neural network (CNN) models, were compared and determined the model with optimal performance in different experimental settings. The results have shown that if only one depth camera is available, optimal EE estimation can be obtained using the side view and MLP model. The mean absolute error (MAE), mean square error (MSE), and root MSE (RMSE) of the classification results under the aforementioned settings were 0.55, 0.66, and 0.81, respectively. If higher accuracy is required, two depth cameras can be set at the side and rear views, the CNN model can be used for light-to-moderate activities, and the MLP model can be used for vigorous activities. The RMSEs for estimating the EEs of standing, walking, and running were 0.19, 0.57, and 0.96, respectively. By applying the different models on different amounts of cameras, the optimal performance can be obtained, and this is also the first study to discuss the issue.
This study proposed a novel assembled sensorized glove combining nine-axis inertial measurement units (IMUs) and force sensing resistors (FSRs) to simultaneously measure hand kinematics and fingertip ...force. The sensorized glove was designed to have high flexibility and extensibility. The accuracy and reliability of the hand kinematics measurements were verified using four-finger flexion-extension tasks. The results reveal that the mean absolute errors (MAEs) of the joint angles of fingers are all <; 5°, thus indicating that the glove can precisely measure hand kinematics. The MAE of the fingertip force prediction was 1.47 N, thus revealing that the FSRs can accurately measure the fingertip force. Moreover, comprehensive evaluation was conducted to prove that the sensorized glove can not only simultaneously measure the hand kinematics and fingertip force but also distinguish between the subjects with distinct hand functions. Therefore, the sensorized glove proposed in this study is reliable and has a strong potential for application in practical rehabilitation settings.
Sensory gloves convert hand postures and movements of fingers into electric signals. Different technologies can be adopted to achieve this conversion, and different approaches can be used to evaluate ...its effectiveness. In this study, we adopted two types of sensory gloves based on two types of sensors, namely the Resistive Flex Sensor (RFS) and the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). We evaluated the conversion effectiveness in terms of repeatability, reproducibility and reliability of quasi-static measurements. In particular, to take into account the nonlinear characteristics of sensors, we propose an improvement of the usually adopted measurement test protocol used for assessing the performance of sensory gloves. According to our results, the two sensory gloves have similar reliability. However, the IMU-based glove provides better repeatability, and the RFS-based glove provides better reproducibility. Overall, the average range ± standard deviation and intraclass correlation coefficient of the RFS-based glove were 5.66° ± 2.22° and 0.73 ± 0.17, respectively, and those of the IMU-based glove were 7.80° ± 2.47° and 0.76 ± 0.14, respectively. All in all, the novelty of this work concerns the comparison of two types of sensory gloves in terms of quasi-static measurement reproducibility and reliability and the improvement of an existing standard protocol for sensory glove assessment aimed at providing a more comprehensive analysis.
Capturing hand motions for hand function evaluations is essential in the medical field. Various data gloves have been developed for rehabilitation and manual dexterity assessments. This study ...proposed a modular data glove with 9-axis inertial measurement units (IMUs) to obtain static and dynamic parameters during hand function evaluation. A sensor fusion algorithm is used to calculate the range of motion of joints. The data glove is designed to have low cost, easy wearability, and high reliability. Owing to the modular design, the IMU board is independent and extensible and can be used with various microcontrollers to realize more medical applications. This design greatly enhances the stability and maintainability of the glove.
Sensory gloves are devices capable of measuring finger movements and are useful in numerous applications, many of which require real-time data acquisition. However, the procedures explored in the ...literature to assess measurement repeatability and reliability mainly rely on static or quasi-static conditions. To overcome this limitation, here we propose a testing procedure for assessing measurements under dynamic conditions (slow, medium, and rapid finger joint movements). To this aim, we used two sensory gloves, one based on resistive flex sensors (RFSs) and another based on inertial measurement units (IMUs)-as two of the most adopted types. Our study demonstrated the feasibility of measuring dynamic finger movements and the differences in dynamic measurement repeatability and reliability between RFS- and IMU-based gloves when considering the angles (in degrees) of each finger joint. The RFS-based glove scored with an average range ± standard deviation (SD) of 6.84° ± 2.77° and an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.77 ± 0.14, whereas the IMU-based glove scored with an average range of 8.49° ± 2.72° and an ICC of 0.75 ± 0.14. Both gloves exhibited better repeatability and reliability at the slowest speed, with the RFS-based glove having a higher repeatability than the IMU-based one (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">p < 0.001 </tex-math></inline-formula>). Moreover, when compared to previous studies, the results (in terms of reliability and repeatability) here obtained under dynamic conditions are comparable to those obtained under static or quasi-static conditions. In summary, our results indicate that both proposed sensory gloves are suitable for most applications that require dynamic interactions.
A novel wearable multi-sensor data glove system is developed to explore the relation between finger spasticity and voluntary movement in patients with stroke. Many stroke patients suffer from finger ...spasticity, which is detrimental to their manual dexterity. Diagnosing and assessing the degrees of spasticity require neurological testing performed by trained professionals to estimate finger spasticity scores via the modified Ashworth scale (MAS). The proposed system offers an objective, quantitative solution to assess the finger spasticity of patients with stroke and complements the manual neurological test. In this work, the hardware and software components of this system are described. By requiring patients to perform five designated tasks, biomechanical measurements including linear and angular speed, acceleration, and pressure at every finger joint and upper limb are recorded, making up more than 1000 features for each task. We conducted a preliminary clinical test with 14 subjects using this system. Statistical analysis is performed on the acquired measurements to identify a small subset of features that are most likely to discriminate a healthy patient from patients suffering from finger spasticity. This encouraging result validates the feasibility of this proposed system to quantitatively and objectively assess finger spasticity.
Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) binding protein (LBP) is an acute-phase protein that initiates an immune response after recognition of bacterial LPS. Here, we report the crystal structure of murine LBP at ...2.9 Å resolution. Several structural differences were observed between LBP and the related bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein (BPI), and the LBP C-terminal domain contained a negatively charged groove and a hydrophobic “phenylalanine core.” A frequent human LBP SNP (allelic frequency 0.08) affected this region, potentially generating a proteinase cleavage site. The mutant protein had a reduced binding capacity for LPS and lipopeptides. SNP carriers displayed a reduced cytokine response after in vivo LPS exposure and lower cytokine concentrations in pneumonia. In a retrospective trial, the LBP SNP was associated with increased mortality rates during sepsis and pneumonia. Thus, the structural integrity of LBP may be crucial for fighting infections efficiently, and future patient stratification might help to develop better therapeutic strategies.
•Crystallographic study reveals the three-dimensional structure of LBP•Structural differences from BPI are key for LBP’s distinct function•A frequently occurring human LBP mutation strongly alters LBP function•Structural integrity of LBP is key for the course of infectious diseases in patients
PDF
