Infection is one of the most commonly described complications, and a major cause of morbidity and mortality in pediatric patients treated using central venous catheters (CVCs). Taurolidine lock ...solutions have been used to decrease catheter-related bloodstream infections (CRBSIs) in both adult and pediatric patients. The purpose of this study was to systematically search the literature and conduct a meta-analysis to determine the efficacy of taurolidine in reducing CRBSI in children. We conducted an electronic search of the PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, TRIP Database, CINAHL, and Google Scholar databases for articles published up to 1st November 2019. Eligible studies included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) comparing the effects of taurolidine with control for preventing CRBSI in pediatric patients. Four studies were included. Our results indicated a statistical significant reduction in the total number of CRBSI with taurolidine as compared to control (RR: 0.23; 95% CI:0.13, 0.40; I2 = 0%; P<0.00001). The pooled analysis also indicated a statistical significant reduction in the incidence of CRBSI (defined as the number of CRBSI events/1000 catheter days) in the taurolidine group (MD: -1.12; 95% CI:-1.54, -0.71; I2 = 1%; P<0.00001). The number of catheters removed due to infection or suspected infection was not significantly different between the two groups (RR: 0.68; 95% CI:0.22, 2.10; I2 = 56%; P = 0.50) (Fig 5). The quality of the included studies was not high. The use of taurolidine as a catheter locking solution may significantly reduce CRBSI in pediatric patients. However, the quality of current evidence is not high and further high-quality large scale RCTs are needed to corroborate our results.
Carbon dots (CDs) are luminescent nanomaterials with unique properties that show great potential in many applications. Herein, hollow CDs (HCDs) are prepared from bovine serum albumin by solvothermal ...reaction. The obtained HCDs are ca. 6.8nm in diameter and have a quantum yield of 7%. Their bright photoluminescence means they can be used for cellular imaging. Structure and composition analyses indicate that the HCDs possess a hollow structure with a pore size of ca. 2nm. The HCDs are used as a delivery system for doxorubicin (DOX). The DOX-HCD drug delivery system exhibits pH-controlled release, and is rapidly taken up by cells. Because of their specific nanostructure and photoluminescence properties, the multifunctional HCDs prepared here show potential for application in both cell imaging and cancer therapy.
Abstract
Cervical carcinoma is the second most common cancer in women worldwide with greater than 99% of the cases caused by human papillomaviruses (HPVs). Early detection of HPVs especially the high ...risk types (HR-HPVs) are essential to prevent the disease progression. The existing methods for HPV detection, such as qPCR are of high sensitivity and specificity, but the need for expensive machinery and well-trained personnel slow down the disease detection. The emerging Cas12a-based method presents a new technique for nucleic acid detection. However, it is time-consuming and labor-intensive when used for HPV detection, as several reactions are required in order to identify multiple HPV infections. We herein present a non-genotyping method for 13 types of HR-HPV detection in a single reaction by combining the isothermal recombinase polymerase amplification (RPA) method with CRISPR-Cas12a technology. The result could be achieved in 35 min with high sensitivity (500 copies per reaction). This assay represents great advances for the application of RPA-Cas12a system and holds a great potential to address the key challenges facing the HPV diagnostics.
► Erickson (1995), Feichtinger et al. (1994), and Sethi (1977) reviewed relevant models appearing before 1995. ► The interest in such problems has continued to grow since 1995. ► Such models include ...Nerlove–Arrow, Vidale–Wolfe, Lanchester, diffusion, and other differential models. ► We suggest potential research areas which have been overlooked by researchers.
A variety of continuous-time differential functions have been developed to investigate dynamic advertising problems in business and economics fields. Since major dynamic models appearing before 1995 have been reviewed by a few survey papers, we provide a comprehensive review of the dynamic advertising models published after 1995, which are classified into six categories: (i) Nerlove–Arrow model and its extensions, (ii) Vidale–Wolfe model and its extensions, (iii) Lanchester model and its extensions, (iv) the diffusion models, (v) dynamic advertising-competition models with other attributes, and (vi) empirical studies for dynamic advertising problems. For each category, we first briefly summarize major relevant before-1995 models, and then discuss major after-1995 models in details. We find that the dynamic models reviewed in this paper have been extensively used to analyze various advertising problems in the monopoly, duopoly, oligopoly, and supply chain systems. Our review reveals that the diffusion models have not been used to analyze advertising problems in supply chain operations, which may be a research direction in the future. Moreover, we learn from our review that very few publications regarding dynamic advertising problems have considered the supply chain competition. We also find that very few researchers have used the diffusion model to investigate the dynamic advertising problems with product quality as a decision variable; and, the pricing decision has not been incorporated into any extant Lanchester model. The paper ends with a summary of our review and suggestions on possible research directions in the future.
Accumulating evidence indicates that patient-derived organoids (PDOs) can predict drug responses in the clinic, but the ability of PDOs to predict responses to chemoradiation in cancer patients ...remains an open question. Here we generate a living organoid biobank from patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiation (NACR) enrolled in a phase III clinical trial. Our co-clinical trial data confirm that rectal cancer organoids (RCOs) closely recapitulate the pathophysiology and genetic changes of corresponding tumors. Chemoradiation responses in patients are highly matched to RCO responses, with 84.43% accuracy, 78.01% sensitivity, and 91.97% specificity. These data imply that PDOs predict LARC patient responses in the clinic and may represent a companion diagnostic tool in rectal cancer treatment.
Display omitted
•Living biobank with 80 tumor organoids was derived from treatment-naive CRC patients•Tumor organoids recapitulate histological and genetic features of original tumors•Interpatient variability in the PDO response to chemoradiation treatments•PDOs can predict locally advanced rectal cancer patient responses in the clinic
Yao et al. generated a patient-derived organoid (PDO) biobank from patients with locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC) and reported that organoids had similar molecular profiles to those of the patient tumor and that PDOs can predict LARC patient chemoradiation responses, reinforcing their value as a companion diagnostic tool in LARC treatment.
Microbial factors that mediate microbes-host interaction in ulcerative colitis (UC), a chronic disease seriously affecting human health, are not fully known. The emerging oncobacterium Fusobacterium ...nucleatum (Fn) secretes extracellular vesicles carrying several types of harmful molecules in the intestine which can alter microbes-host interaction, especially the epithelial homeostasis in UC. However, the mechanism is not yet clear. Previously, we isolated EVs by the ultracentrifugation of Fn culture media and characterized them as the potent inducer of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Here, we examined the mechanism in detail. We found that in macrophage/Caco-2 co-cultures, FnEVs significantly promoted epithelial barrier loss and oxidative stress damage, which are related to epithelial necroptosis caused by the activation of receptor-interacting protein kinase 1 (RIPK1) and receptor-interacting protein kinase 3 (RIPK3). Furthermore, FnEVs promoted the migration of RIPK1 and RIPK3 into necrosome in Caco2 cells. Notably, these effects were reversed by TNF-α neutralizing antibody or Necrostatin-1 (Nec-1), a RIPK1 inhibitor. This suggested that FADD-RIPK1-caspase-3 signaling is involved in the process. Moreover, the observed effects were verified in the murine colitis model treated with FnEVs or by adoptive transfer of FnEVs-trained macrophages. In conclusion, we propose that RIPK1-mediated epithelial cell death promotes FnEVs-induced gut barrier disruption in UC and the findings can be used as the basis to further investigate this disease.
The effect of weak magnetic field (WMF) on Se(IV) removal by zero valent iron (ZVI) was investigated as functions of pH and initial Se(IV) concentrations. The presence of WMF significantly ...accelerated Se(IV) removal and extended the working pH range of ZVI from 4.0-6.0 to 4.0-7.2. The WMF induced greater enhancement in Se(IV) removal by ZVI at lower initial Se(IV) concentrations. The influence of WMF on Se(IV) removal by ZVI was associated with a more dramatic drop in ORP and a more rapid release of Fe(2+) compared to the case without WMF. SEM and XRD analysis revealed that WMF accelerated the corrosion of ZVI and the transformation of amorphous iron (hdyr)oxides to lepidocrocite. XANES analyses showed that WMF expedited the reduction of Se(IV) to Se(0) by ZVI at pH 6.0 when its initial concentration was ≤20.0 mg L(-1). Se(IV) dosed at 40.0 mg L(-1) was removed by ZVI via adsorption followed by reduction to Se(0) at pH 7.0 but via adsorption at 7.2 in the presence of WMF. Regardless of WMF, Se(IV) applied at 40.0 mg L(-1) was removed by reduction at pH 4.0-6.0. The WMF-induced improvement in Se(IV) removal by ZVI may be mainly attributable to the Lorentz force and magnetic field gradient force. Employing WMF to enhance Se(IV) removal by ZVI is a promising and environmental-friendly method since it does not need extra energy and costly reagents.
By enabling very high bandwidth for radio communications, the millimeter-wave (mmWave), which can easily be integrated with massive-multiple-input-multiple-output (massive-MIMO) due to small antenna ...size, has been attracting growing attention as a candidate for the fifth-generation (5G) and 5G-beyond wireless communications networks. On the other hand, the communication over the orthogonal states/modes of orbital angular momentum (OAM) is a subset of the solutions offered by massive-MIMO communications. Traditional massive-MIMO-based mmWave communications did not concern the potential spectrum-efficiency-gain (SE-gain) offered by the orthogonal states of OAM. However, the highly expected maximum SE-gain for OAM and massive-MIMO communications is the product of SE-gains offered by OAM and multiplexing-MIMO. In this paper, we propose the OAM-embedded-MIMO (OEM) communication framework to obtain the multiplicative SE-gain for joint OAM and massive-MIMO-based mmWave wireless communications. We design the parabolic antenna for each uniform circular array antenna to converge OAM signals. Then, we develop the mode-decomposition and multiplexing-detection scheme to obtain the transmit signal on each OAM-mode of each transmit antenna. Also, we develop the OEM-water-filling power allocation policy to achieve the maximum multiplicative SE-gain for OEM communications. The extensive simulations obtained validate and evaluate our developed a parabolic antenna-based converging method, a mode-decomposition and multiplexing-detection scheme, and an OEM-water-filling policy, showing that our proposed OEM mmWave communications can significantly increase the SE as compared with the traditional massive-MIMO-based mmWave communications.
The sequestration of Se(IV) by zero-valent iron (ZVI) is strongly influenced by the coupled effects of aging ZVI and the presence of a weak magnetic field (WMF). ZVI aged at pH 6.0 with MES as ...buffer between 6 and 60 h gave nearly constant rates of Se(IV) removal with WMF but with rate constants that are 10- to 100-fold greater than without. XANES analysis showed that applying WMF changes the mechanism of Se(IV) removal by ZVI aged for 6–60 h from adsorption followed by reduction to direct reduction. The strong correlation between Se(IV) removal and Fe2+ release suggests direct reduction of Se(IV) to Se(0) by Fe0, in agreement with the XANES analysis. The numerical simulation of ZVI magnetization revealed that the WMF influence on Se(IV) sequestration is associated mainly with the ferromagnetism of ZVI and the paramagnetism of Fe2+. In the presence of the WMF, the Lorentz force gives rise to convection in the solution, which narrows the diffusion layer, and the field gradient force, which tends to move paramagnetic ions (esp. Fe2+) along the higher field gradient at the ZVI particle surface, thereby inducing nonuniform depassivation and eventually localized corrosion of the ZVI surface.
Disordered intestinal flora and discordant immune response are associated with the development of ulcerative colitis (UC). Recent work has described the ability of macrophages to undergo ...repolarization toward a proinflammatory M1 or anti-inflammatory M2 phenotype in response to particular bacterium-derived signals.
(
) is a species of intestinal commensal bacteria with potential pathogenicity, but its association with UC and how it may contribute to progression of UC is largely unknown. In this study, we provide new evidence that
accumulated heavily in the intestine of UC patients and was accompanied by the secretion of IFN-γ and the skewing of M1 macrophages. Mechanistically, our data showed that
aggravated dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced colitis in the production of Th1-related cytokines IFN-γ through the AKT2 signaling pathway
and
. To further confirm the disease-relevance of these shifts in macrophage repolarization in response to
, stimulated bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) were transferred into recipient mice with DSS colitis. This transfer resulted in increased disease activity and inflammatory cytokine production. Taken together, we show clearly that
can promote the progression of UC via proinflammatory M1 macrophage skewing, and targeting
or AKT2 signaling may be a viable means of blocking development of UC.
PDF
