Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus (SFTSV), an etiological agent causing febrile human disease was identified as an emerging tick-borne bunyavirus. The clinical disease characteristics ...and case fatality rates of SFTSV may vary across distinct regions and among different variant genotypes. From 2018 to 2022, we surveyed and recruited 202 severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) patients in Hubei Province, a high-incidence area of the epidemic, and conducted timely and systematic research on the disease characteristics, SFTSV diversity, and the correlation between virus genome variation and clinical diseases. Our study identified at least 6 genotypes of SFTSV prevalent in Hubei Province based on the analysis of the S, M, and L genome sequences of 88 virus strains. Strikingly, the dominant genotype of SFTSV was found to change during the years, indicating a dynamic shift in viral genetic diversity in the region. Phylogenetic analysis revealed the genetic exchange of Hubei SFTSV strains was relatively frequent, including 3 reassortment strains and 8 recombination strains. Despite the limited sample size, SFTSV C1 genotype may be associated with higher mortality compared to the other four genotypes, and the serum amyloid A (SAA) level, an inflammatory biomarker, was significantly elevated in these patients. Overall, our data summarize the disease characteristics of SFTSV in Hubei Province, highlight the profound changes in viral genetic diversity, and indicate the need for in-depth monitoring and exploration of the relationship between viral mutations and disease severity.
Objective
To investigate the association between mitochondrial DNA copy number (mtDNAcn) and semen quality.
Design
A cross‐sectional study.
Setting
Hubei Province Human Sperm Bank of China (from ...April 2017 to July 2018).
Population
A total of 1164 healthy male sperm donors with 5739 specimens.
Main outcome measures
Real‐time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) was used to measure sperm mtDNAcn. We also determined semen volume, concentration and motility parameters (progressive motility, nonprogressive motility and immotility).
Methods
Mixed‐effect models and general linear models were uses.
Results
After adjusting for relevant confounding factors, mixed‐effect models revealed diminished sperm motility (progressive and total), concentration, and total count across the quartiles of mtDNAcn (all P < 0.05). Compared with men in the lowest quartile, men in the highest quartile of mtDNAcn had lower progressive sperm motility, total motility, concentration and total count of −8.9% (95% CI −12.7% to −5.0%), −8.0% (95% CI −11.6% to −4.4%), −42.8% (95% CI −47.7% to −37.4%), and − 44.3% (95% CI −50.1% to −37.7%), respectively. These inverse dose–response relationships were further confirmed in the cubic spline models, where mtDNAcn was modelled as a continuous variable.
Conclusions
We found that mtDNAcn was inversely associated with semen quality in a dose‐dependent manner. Our results provide novel clues that sperm mtDNAcn may serve as a useful predictor of human semen characteristics.
Tweetable
Sperm mitochondrial DNA copy number was markedly associated with diminished sperm motility (progressive and total), concentration and total count.
Tweetable
Sperm mitochondrial DNA copy number was markedly associated with diminished sperm motility (progressive and total), concentration and total count.
To study the role of hsa_circ_0072995 in regulating the invasion and migration of breast cancer cells.
Hsa_circ_0072995 expression was confirmed by quantitative real-time PCR; evaluating the ...migration and invasion of breast cancer cells through transwell assay; predicating circRNA/microRNAs interaction using the miRanda and RNAhybrid software; identifying the relationship between hsa_circ_0072995 and miR-30c-2-3p by luciferase activity assay; detecting the location of hsa_circ_0072995 by Fluorescence
hybridization assay.
Hsa_circ_0072995 was significantly upregulated in MDA-MB-231 cells compared with MCF-7 cells. Hsa_circ_0072995 regulated the invasion and migration of breast cancer cells. Hsa_circ_0072995 existed in the nucleus and cytoplasm, and the proportion of the two was roughly equal. Hsa_circ_0072995 bound to miR-30c-2-3p. Overexpression of miR-30c-2-3p inhibited breast cancer cells migration and invasion. Low expression of miR-30c-2-3p was correlated with poor overall survival by The Cancer Genome Atlas database.
Hsa_circ_0072995 may be a novel biomarker for breast cancer, and may function in metastasis of breast cancer.
► The anion-exchange or adsorption of Cl− on CO32-–hydrotalcite was illustrated. ► It indicates that Cl− cannot substitute CO32- just in NaCl solution. ► Cl− could insert into the CO32-–hydrotalcite ...interlayer after eliminating CO32-. ► The corrosion mechanism of hydrotalcite film on AZ31 alloy was discussed.
The corrosion mechanism of Mg–Al–CO32− hydrotalcite film is discussed based on its corrosion behavior and the anion-exchange or adsorption effect of Cl−. The results demonstrate that the film is very compact and acts as a barrier against Cl− attack in the early stage. Then the surface of the film is dissolved gradually due to its instability in aqueous solutions. Only after eliminating CO32−, Cl− can insert into the hydrotalcite interlayer to balance charges. Cl− cannot substitute CO32− just in NaCl solution, but can adsorb on active spots of the film to accelerate the decomposition.
We consider the holographic QCD model with a planar horizon in the D dimensions with different consistent metric solutions. We investigate the black hole thermodynamics, phase diagram and equations ...of state (EoS) in different dimensions. The temperature and chemical potential dependence of the drag force and diffusion coefficient also have been studied. From the results, the energy loss of heavy quark shows an enhancement near the phase transition temperature in D dimensions. This finding illustrates that the energy loss of heavy quark has a nontrivial and non-monotonic dependence on temperature. Furthermore, we find the heavy quark may lose less energy in higher dimension. The diffusion coefficient is larger in higher dimension.
The rapid growth in global electric vehicles (EVs) sales has promoted the development of Co-free, Ni-rich layered cathodes for state-of-the-art high energy-density, inexpensive lithium-ion batteries ...(LIBs). However, progress in their commercial use has been seriously hampered by exasperating performance deterioration and safety concerns. Herein, a robust single-crystalline, Co-free, Ni-rich LiNi0.95Mn0.05O2 (SC-NM95) cathode is successfully designed using a molten salt-assisted method, and it exhibits better structural stability and cycling durability than those of polycrystalline LiNi0.95Mn0.05O2 (PC-NM95). Notably, the SC-NM95 cathode achieves a high discharge capacity of 218.2 mAh g−1, together with a high energy density of 837.3 Wh kg−1 at 0.1 C, mainly due to abundant Ni2+/Ni3+ redox. It also presents an outstanding capacity retention (84.4%) after 200 cycles at 1 C, because its integrated single-crystalline structure effectively inhibits particle microcracking and surface phase transformation. In contrast, the PC-NM95 cathode suffers from rapid capacity fading owing to the nucleation and propagation of intergranular microcracking during cycling, facilitating aggravated parasitic reactions and rock-salt phase accumulation. This work provides a fundamental strategy for designing high-performance single-crystalline, Co-free, Ni-rich cathode materials and also represents an important breakthrough in developing high-safe, low-cost, and high-energy LIBs.
Robust single-crystalline Co-free Ni-rich LiNi0.95Mn0.05O2 (SC-NM95) cathode successfully designed by molten salt-assisted method exhibits the enhanced structural stability and cycling durability compared with that of polycrystalline LiNi0.95Mn0.05O2 (PC-NM95) cathode. Display omitted
•Single-crystalline Co-free Ni-rich LiNi0.95Co0.05O2 cathode was firstly designed and systematically explored.•The SC-NM95 cathode presents outstanding structural stability and cycling durability.•The performance degradations of PC-NM95 were attributed to the microcracking formation and structural transformations.•It provides insights into the fundamental design of high-performance single-crystalline Co-free Ni-rich cathodes.
Opioid use disorder is a cause for concern globally. This study aimed to optimize methadone dose adjustments using mixed modeling and machine learning.
This retrospective study was conducted at ...Taichung Veterans General Hospital between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020. Overall, 40,530 daily dosing records and 1,508 urine opiate test results were collected from 96 patients with opioid use disorder. A two-stage approach was used to create a model of the optimized methadone dose. In Stage 1, mixed modeling was performed to analyze the association between methadone dose, age, sex, treatment duration, HIV positivity, referral source, urine opiate level, last methadone dose taken, treatment adherence, and likelihood of treatment discontinuation. In Stage 2, machine learning was performed to build a model for optimized methadone dose.
Likelihood of discontinuation was associated with reduced methadone doses (
= 0.002, 95% CI = 0.000-0.081). Correlation analysis between the methadone dose determined by physicians and the optimized methadone dose showed a mean correlation coefficient of 0.995 ± 0.003, indicating that the difference between the methadone dose determined by physicians and that determined by the model was within the allowable range (
< 0.001).
We developed a model for methadone dose adjustment in patients with opioid use disorders. By integrating urine opiate levels, treatment adherence, and likelihood of treatment discontinuation, the model could suggest automatic adjustment of the methadone dose, particularly when face-to-face encounters are impractical.
Multi-temporal remote sensing images are the primary sources for change detection. However, it is difficult to obtain comparable multi-temporal images at the same season and time of day with the same ...sensor. Considering texture homogeneity among objects belonging to the same category, this paper presents a new change detection approach using a texture feature space outlier index from mono-temporal remote sensing images and vector data. In the proposed approach, a texture feature contribution index (TFCI) is defined based on information gain to select the optimal texture features, and a feature space outlier index (FSOI) based on local reachability density is presented to automatically identify outlier samples and changed objects. Our approach includes three steps: (1) the sampling method is designed considering spatial distribution and topographic properties of image objects extracted by segmenting the recent image with existing vector map. (2) Samples with changed categories are refined by an iteration procedure of texture feature selection and outlier sample elimination; and (3) the changed image objects are identified and classified using the refined samples to calculate the FSOI values of the image objects. Three experiments in the two study areas were conducted to validate its performance. Overall accuracies of 95.94%, 96.36%, and 96.28% were achieved, respectively, while the omission and commission errors for every category were all very low. Four widely used methods with two-temporal images were selected for comparison, and the accuracy of the proposed method is higher than theirs. This indicates that our approach is effective and feasible.
Clonality assessment, which can detect neoplastic T cells by identifying the uniquely recombined T-cell receptor (TCR) genes, provides important support in the diagnosis of T-cell lymphoma (TCL). ...BIOMED-2 is the gold standard clonality assay and has proven to be effective in European TCL patients. However, we failed to prove its sensitivity in Taiwanese TCL patients, especially based on the TCRβ gene. To explore potential impact of genetic background in the BIOMED-2 test, we analyzed TCRβ sequences of 21 healthy individuals and two TCL patients. This analysis suggests that genetic variations in the BIOMED-2 primer sites could not explain the difference in sensitivity. The BIOMED-2 test results of the two TCL patients were positive and negative, respectively. Interestingly, a higher percentage (>81%) of non-recombined TCRβ sequences was observed in the test-negative patient than those of the test-positive patient and all healthy individuals (13~66%). The result suggests a new TCR target for enhancing TCL diagnosis. To further explore the hypothesis, we proposed a cost-effective digital PCR assay that quantifies the relative abundance of non-recombined TCRβ sequences containing a J2-2P~J2-3 segment. With the digital PCR assay, bone marrow specimens from TCL patients (n=9) showed a positive outcome (i.e., the relative abundance of the J2-2P~J2-3 sequences ≧5%), whereas non-TCL patients (n=6) gave a negative result. As five of nine TCL patients had a negative BIOMED-2 test result, the J2-2P~J2-3 sequences may improve TCL detection. This is the first report showing the capability of characterizing non-recombined TCR sequences as a supplementary strategy for the BIOMED-2 clonality test.
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