Restenosis remains a significant problem in endovascular therapy for hemodialysis vascular access. Drug-coated balloon (DCB) angioplasty decreases restenosis in peripheral and coronary artery ...diseases. The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis is to assess the patency outcomes following DCB angioplasty, as compared to conventional balloon (CB) angioplasty for the stenosis of hemodialysis vascular access.
A comprehensive search in the MEDLINE, EMBASE, and CENTRAL databases was conducted in order to identify eligible randomized controlled trials evaluating DCB angioplasty for hemodialysis vascular access dysfunction. The primary endpoint was the 6-month target lesion primary patency and the secondary endpoints were 12-month target lesion primary patency and procedure-related complications. Risk ratios (RR) were pooled and relevant subgroups were analyzed separately.
Eleven randomized controlled trials comprised of 487 patients treated with DCB angioplasty and 489 patients treated with CB angioplasty were included. There were no significant differences in the target lesion primary patency at 6 months RR, 0.75; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.56, 1.01; p = 0.06 and at 12 months (RR 0.89; 95% CI, 0.79, 1.00; p = 0.06). The absence of benefit for the DCB group remained, even in the arteriovenous fistula subgroup or the subgroup of studies excluding central vein stenosis. The risk of procedure-related complication did not differ between the two groups (RR 1.00; 95% CI 0.98, 1.02; p = 0.95).
DCB angioplasty did not demonstrate significant patency benefit for the treatment of hemodialysis vascular access dysfunction. Wide variations in patency outcomes across studies were noted. Further studies focusing on specific types of access or lesions are warranted to clarify the value of DCB for hemodialysis vascular access. (PROSPERO Number CRD42019119938).
This study aimed to identify the trends in the incidence of thymic cancer, i.e., thymoma, thymic carcinoma, and thymic neuroendocrine tumor, in the United States. Data from the United States Cancer ...Statistics (USCS) database (2001-2015) and those from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database (SEER 9 1973-2015, SEER 13 1992-2015, and SEER 18 2000-2015) were used in this study. All incidences were per 100,000 population at risk. The trends in incidence were described as annual percent change (APC) using the Joinpoint regression program. Data from the USCS (2001-2015) database showed an increase in thymic cancer diagnosis with an APC of 4.89% from 2001 to 2006, which is mainly attributed to the significant increase in the incidence of thymoma and thymic carcinoma particularly in women. The incidence of thymic cancer did not increase from 2006 to 2015, which may be attributed to the increase in the diagnosis of thymic carcinoma from 2004 to 2015, with a concomitant decrease in thymoma from 2008 to 2015. Before declining, the age-specific incidence of thymic cancer peaked at ages 70-74 years, with a peak incidence at 1.06 per 100,000 population, and decreased in older age groups. The incidence of thymic cancer was higher in men than in women. Asian/Pacific Islanders had the highest incidence of thymoma, followed by black and then white people. The incidence of thymic carcinoma increased from 2004 to 2015, with a concomitant decrease in thymoma from 2008 to 2015. Asian/Pacific Islanders had the highest incidence of thymoma than other races.
This study uses occluded text as a visual cue and hypothesizes that a deliberately incomplete advertisement headline or product name enhances visual attention. An experiment on tea packaging and ...advertisement is applied to investigate whether visual attention and, even viewer preference enhancement, will be affected by occluded text. The experiment contains two parts: first, an eye tracker observes the differences in the participant’s visual attention between samples of incomplete and complete text; second, a questionnaire records the participants’ preferences between the two samples. The result validates our hypothesis that incomplete text elicits a certain level of visual attention as long as viewers can recognize the text; alternatively, if the occlusion causes difficulty in text recognition, the occluded text will fail to attract visual attention and viewer preference. This is particularly true for advertisement headlines. The experiment results of visual attention and viewer preference for the occluded product name on tea packaging are consistent. As for the occluded advertisement headline, however, it attracts only visual attention but is not able to enhance viewer preference. This could be attributed to the fact that participants are affected by different amounts of received information and their complexities when examining experiment samples.
•Matagenome analysis of PCE/TCE-contaminated groundwater.•Bacterial community of PCE/TCE-contaminated site using RDP and LCA methods was assessed.•SPRS caused the variation of bacterial ...community.•The detection of some genes related to TCE degradation pathway using KEGG analysis.
The compositions of bacterial community in one site contaminated with PCE/TCE after the slow polycolloid-releasing substrate (SPRS) (contained vegetable oil, cane molasses, and surfactants) addition were analyzed. Results show that SPRS caused a rapid enhancement of reductive dechlorination of TCE. The transformation of PCE/TCE into ethene was observed after 20 days of operation. To compare the change of bacterial communities before and after SPRS addition, 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing using the metagenome analysis was performed. Results demonstrated the detection of the increased amounts of Dehalogenimonas by 2.2-fold, Pseudomonas by 3.4-fold and Sulfuricurvum by 4-fold with the analysis of the ribosomal database project (RDP). Metagenomic DNA was extracted from PCE/TCE-contaminated groundwater after SPRS addition, and subjected to sequencing. Results obtained from metagenomic sequencing indicate that genes from Dehalococcoides mccartyi was ranked as the second abundant bacteria among all of the detected bacteria via the analysis of the lowest common ancestor (LCA). Abundance of these bacterial groups, as shown above suggests their role in TCE biodegradation. Functional analysis of the metagenome, with the specific reference to chloroalkane and chloroalkene degradation, revealed the presence of some genes responsible for TCE biodegradation. Overall, results of this study provided new insights for a better understanding of the potential of biostimulation on TCE-contaminated sites.
With the population ageing in Taiwan, it is projected that elder care robots incorporating smart technologies will play an essential role in ambient assisted living. This research has two purposes: ...(1) to investigate whether older adults' colour‐emotion associations and colour preferences for robot appearance affect their perceptual judgements; and (2) to explore gender differences in their judgements. Phase I of this research uses a questionnaire to investigate 91 participants' preferences for robot style and their emotional trigger words for the role of robots. Phase II experiments were performed on another 60 older adults to identify whether their colour‐emotion associations and colour preferences affect their perceptual judgements. The research results show that, regardless of gender difference, participating older adults prefer a robot with non‐human–like features. The results also show that there is no significant difference between males and females in terms of the effect of colour‐emotion association on a robot's appearance. Older adults tend to associate warm colours with emotional semantics, such as friendly, comfortable, reassuring, gentle and lively. Preferred colours include red, white and yellow. Black and grey are almost never preferred by older adults. There are significant differences by gender in the preferences for the colours white and purple. Older females prefer purple more, while white is preferred by older males. For the other colours, there were no significant differences between males and females. Colour attributes do not have any effect on colour‐emotion association, whereas colour preference is highly positively correlated with b*.
This study aimed to compare stent graft with balloon tamponade for ruptured dialysis access during percutaneous transluminal angioplasty. Patients over an 8-year period (2010-2018) were identified ...from a database of 11,609 procedures. The primary endpoint was target lesion primary patency at 12 months. A total of 143 patients who had rupture dialysis access were enrolled, of whom 52 were salvaged by stent grafts and 91 were salvaged by balloon tamponade. The 6-month target lesion primary patency was greater in the stent graft group than in the balloon tamponade group (66.7% vs. 29.5%, P < 0.001). The benefit of stent grafts was sustained for 12 months (52.5% vs. 9.0%, P < 0.001). The stent grafts increased the median time from the index procedure to the next intervention in the ruptured area by 171 days (260 vs. 89 days) at 12 months. There was no significant difference in the access circuit patency rates at 6 months (25.5% vs. 19.8%, P = 0.203) and 12 months (12.0% vs. 5.8%, P = 0.052). The patency results of the stent grafts remained after the multivariable adjustment analysis. Compared to balloon tamponade alone, stent grafts provided superior target lesion primary patency at 6 and 12 months. The access circuit patency rates were similar.
Most cases of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) develop from visible oral potentially malignant disorders (OPMDs). The latter exhibit heterogeneous subtypes with different transformation ...potentials, complicating the early detection of OSCC during routine visual oral cancer screenings. To develop clinically applicable biomarkers, we collected saliva samples from 96 healthy controls, 103 low-risk OPMDs, 130 high-risk OPMDs, and 131 OSCC subjects. These individuals were enrolled in Taiwan’s Oral Cancer Screening Program. We identified 302 protein biomarkers reported in the literature and/or through in-house studies and prioritized 49 proteins for quantification in the saliva samples using multiple reaction monitoring-MS. Twenty-eight proteins were successfully quantified with high confidence. The quantification data from non-OSCC subjects (healthy controls + low-risk OPMDs) and OSCC subjects in the training set were subjected to classification and regression tree analyses, through which we generated a four-protein panel consisting of MMP1, KNG1, ANXA2, and HSPA5. A risk-score scheme was established, and the panel showed high sensitivity (87.5%) and specificity (80.5%) in the test set to distinguish OSCC samples from non-OSCC samples. The risk score >0.4 detected 84% (42/50) of the stage I OSCCs and a significant portion (42%) of the high-risk OPMDs. Moreover, among 88 high-risk OPMD patients with available follow-up results, 18 developed OSCC within 5 y; of them, 77.8% (14/18) had risk scores >0.4. Our four-protein panel may therefore offer a clinically effective tool for detecting OSCC and monitoring high-risk OPMDs through a readily available biofluid.
Introduction
In the era of precision preventive medicine, susceptible genetic markers for oro‐/hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) have been investigated for genome‐wide associations.
...Materials and Methods
A case–control study including 659 male head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients, including 331 oropharyngeal cancer, treated between March 1996 and December 2016 and 2400 normal controls was performed. A single‐nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array was used to determine genetic loci that increase susceptibility to OPSCC.
Results
We analyzed the allele frequencies of 664,994 autosomal SNPs in 659 HNSCC cases; 7 SNPs scattered in loci of chromosomes 5, 7, 9, 11, and 19 were significant in genome‐wide association analysis (Pc < 1.0669 × 10−7). In OPSCCs (n = 331), two clustered regions in chromosomes 4 and 6 were significantly different from the controls. We successfully identified a missense alteration of the SNP region in alcohol dehydrogenase 1B (ADH1B) (https://genome.ucsc.edu; hg38); the top correlated locus was rs1229984 (p = 1 × 10−11). Adjusted for environmental exposure, including smoking, alcohol, and areca quid, a region in chromosome 12, related to alcohol metabolism, was found to independently increase the susceptibility to OPSCC. The ADH1B rs1229984 AA genotype had better overall survival compared to the AG and GG genotypes (p = 0.042) in OPSCC. The GG genotype in rs1229984 was significantly associated with a younger age of onset than other genotypes (p = 0.001 and <0.001, respectively) in OPSCC patients who consumed alcohol.
Conclusion
ADH1B was an important genetic locus that significantly correlated with the development of OPSCCs and patient survival.
This is a large genome wide association study for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) in areca‐quid endemic region. Germline genetic variations in oro‐/hypopharyngeal cancer different from other HNSCCs. Alcohol dehydrogenase 1B (ADH1B) single‐nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) important in the susceptibility of oro‐ and hypopharyngeal cancer.
Human activities have exacerbated the global greenhouse effect, resulting in extreme climate changes that have caused disasters and food and water shortages in recent years. Transportation is one of ...the main causes of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. Therefore, policy makers must develop feasible strategies to reduce GHG emission. One of Taiwan's policy is to replace traditional diesel fuel urban buses with alternative energy buses. This paper uses a case study of city bus route No. 2 in Tainan City following the international standard ISO/TS 14067:2013 to measure the carbon footprint of different energy buses. The bus carbon footprints measured from high to low as: LNG buses, 63.14 g CO2e/pkm; traditional diesel buses, 54.6 g CO2e/pkm; liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) buses, 47.4 g CO2e/pkm; plug-in electric buses, 37.82 g CO2e/pkm, and hydrogen fuel cell buses, 29.17 g CO2e/pkm. If all urban area public buses in Taiwan were switched to hydrogen fuel cell buses, this would reduce CO2e footprint by 227,832.39 t annually. This reduction is equivalent to planting 22.78 million trees.
•Following the ISO/TS 14067:2013 to measure the carbon footprint of different energy city buses.•City buses' carbon footprints of hydrogen fuel cell is 29.17 g CO2e/pkm.•Using hydrogen fuel cell buses to replace diesel buses, footprint decreases by 47%.•The effect of using hydrogen fuel cell is equivalent to planting 22.78 million trees per year.
A 13-year-old spayed female Labrador Retriever was presented with severe progressive tetraparesis. The neuroanatomic localization was the C1–C5 spinal cord segments with brainstem or cranial nerve ...involvement. Magnetic resonance imaging revealed diffuse T1-weighted and T2-weighted hyperintense lesions with strong contrast enhancement spreading through meninges of the cervical spinal cord and the brain. Few small round areas showing T1-weighted hyperintensity and T2-weighted hypointensity were scattered within the lesions. Cerebrospinal fluid analysis revealed neoplastic round cells and possible melanocytes. Malignant melanoma was suspected. At necropsy, the brain and the entire spinal cord were covered with thick, dark membranous tissue. Based on histopathologic findings, a positive response against Melan-A, and no melanoma identified outside the central nervous system, primary meningeal melanomatosis was diagnosed.
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