Objective: In this study, a wearable actigraphy recording device with low sampling rate (1 Hz) for power saving and data reduction and a high accuracy wake-sleep scoring method for the assessment of ...sleep were developed. Methods: The developed actigraphy recorder was successfully applied to overnight recordings of 81 subjects with simultaneous polysomnography (PSG) measurements. The total length of recording reached 639.8 h. A wake-sleep scoring method based on the concept of movement density evaluation and adaptive windowing was proposed. Data from subjects with good (N = 43) and poor (N = 16) sleep efficiency (SE) in the range of 52.7-97.42% were used for testing. The Bland-Altman technique was used to evaluate the concordance of various sleep measurements between the manual PSG scoring and the proposed actigraphy method. Results: For wake-sleep staging, the average accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, and kappa coefficient of the proposed system were 92.16%, 95.02%, 71.30%, and 0.64, respectively. For the assessment of SE, the accuracy of classifying the subject with good or poor SE reached 91.53%. The mean biases of SE, sleep onset time, wake after sleep onset, and total sleep time were -0.95%, 0.74 min, 2.84 min, and -4.3 min, respectively. Conclusion: These experimental results demonstrate the robustness and reliability of our method using limited activity information to estimate wake-sleep stages during overnight recordings. Significance: The results suggest that the proposed wearable actigraphy system is practical for the in-home screening of objective sleep measurements and objective evaluation of sleep improvement after treatment.
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•Microorganisms and enzymes are more sensitive to litter addition than litter removal.•Microbial biomass exhibits positive responses to both litter addition and removal.•Most ...enzymatic activities generally exhibit negative responses to litter removal.•Enzymatic stoichiometry depended on soil depth but not on litter manipulation.•Internal associations among microbial and enzymatic variables vary with soil depth.
Litter manipulation alters soil microbial community biomass and extracellular enzymatic activities due to the alteration of carbon and nutrient inputs. However, it is unclear whether adding or removing litter more significantly effects these characteristics and how they interact with depth and associated soil properties in subtropical Chinese fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) forests. Soils were collected along 60 cm soil profiles in a Chinese fir plantation that was treated for 6.5 years with litter removal, litter addition, or no treatment (controls) using a completely randomized block experiment. Soil abiotic properties, the biomass of predominant microbial communities, and the activities of five hydrolytic enzymes were measured in 0–10 cm, 10–20 cm, 20–40 cm, and 40–60 cm soil layers. Litter addition generally resulted in positive effects on soil abiotic factors, microbial communities, and enzymatic activities, respectively, while litter removal tended to result in neutral, positive, and negative effects on these properties. Soil nutrients, microbial functional groups, and various enzymatic activities were generally more sensitive to litter addition than litter removal. In contrast, enzymatic stoichiometry depended more on soil depth than litter manipulation. Soil nutrients, microbial biomass, and enzymatic activities, in addition to their internal associations, decreased with increasing profile depths. Soil microbial communities and enzymatic activities exhibited asynchronous responses to litter manipulation with increasing profile depth. Our findings highlight the mechanistic interactions among soil abiotic properties, microbial community characteristics, and enzymatic properties that vary with soil depth.
A dysfunctional immune response in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients is a recurrent theme impacting symptoms and mortality, yet a detailed understanding of pertinent immune cells is not ...complete. We applied single-cell RNA sequencing to 284 samples from 196 COVID-19 patients and controls and created a comprehensive immune landscape with 1.46 million cells. The large dataset enabled us to identify that different peripheral immune subtype changes are associated with distinct clinical features, including age, sex, severity, and disease stages of COVID-19. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) RNA was found in diverse epithelial and immune cell types, accompanied by dramatic transcriptomic changes within virus-positive cells. Systemic upregulation of S100A8/A9, mainly by megakaryocytes and monocytes in the peripheral blood, may contribute to the cytokine storms frequently observed in severe patients. Our data provide a rich resource for understanding the pathogenesis of and developing effective therapeutic strategies for COVID-19.
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•Detailed COVID-19 immune landscape depicted by integrated 1.46 million single cells•Peripheral immune subtypes differentially associated with distinct clinical features•SARS-CoV-2 RNA is present in diverse epithelial and immune cells•Megakaryocytes and monocyte subsets may contribute to cytokine storms
Analysis of the immune landscape in the lung and peripheral blood of COVID patients across different regions in China at the single-cell level documents the presence of viral RNAs in diverse cell types and highlights the potential contribution of megakaryocytes and monocyte subsets to cytokine storms.
Two kinds of inorganic gadolinium(III)‐hydroxy “ladders”, 2×n and 3×n, were successfully trapped in succinate (suc) coordination polymers, Gd2(OH)2(suc)2(H2O)n⋅ 2n H2O (1) and ...Gd6(OH)8(suc)5(H2O)2n⋅4n H2O (2), respectively. Such coordination polymers could be regarded as alternating inorganic–organic hybrid materials with relatively high density. Magnetic and heat capacity studies reveal a large cryogenic magnetocaloric effect (MCE) in both compounds, namely (ΔH=70 kG) 42.8 J kg−1 K−1 for complex 1 and 48.0 J kg−1 K−1 for complex 2. The effect of the high density is evident, which gives very large volumetric MCEs up to 120 and 144 mJ cm−3 K−1 for complexes 1 and 2, respectively.
Climbing the ladder: Two Gd‐OH ladders (2×n and 3×n) are stabilized by succinates into two novel 3D coordination polymers. A large magnetocaloric effect is found in the cryogenic region, which is further optimized by the relatively high density in the volumetric regard (see figure).
The electronic structures at band edges play an important role in the physical properties of few‐layer and monolayer WSe2. In this study, polarization‐dependent diffraction anomalous near‐edge ...structure (DANES) is applied to measure and analyse the electronic orbitals of few‐layer WSe2. By selecting diffraction geometries with the electric field perpendicular or parallel to the c axis of few‐layer WSe2, this method can separately probe the in‐plane and out‐of‐plane orbital components involved at the band edges. The WSe2 (00.8) surface normal was aligned and the preferred orientation of few‐layer WSe2 grown on an Al2O3 (00.1) substrate was identified. DANES was then performed for Se K‐edge WSe2 00.8 and 11.0 reflections to examine the W 5d orbitals hybridized with the Se 4p orbitals: these two DANES spectra exhibit fairly anisotropic valence orbital characteristics in few‐layer WSe2. Coupled with first‐principles calculations, these results allow the identification of the in‐plane and out‐of‐plane orbital distribution and hybridization in WSe2. At the conduction band edge, the contributions of px and py orbitals are predominant over pz and the splitting of the p‐orbital energy levels has been confirmed. Hence DANES is shown to be a useful synchrotron X‐ray technique that can help identify the valence orbital structure of various 2D transition metal dichalcogenides.
This work demonstrates the capability of polarization‐dependent diffraction anomalous near‐edge structure to differentiate and analyse the valence orbital structure of few‐layer WSe2 around the band edge.
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an effective treatment for movement disorders and neurological/psychiatric disorders. DBS has been approved for the control of Parkinson disease (PD) and epilepsy.
A ...systematic review and possible future direction of DBS system studies is performed in the open loop and closed-loop configuration on PD and epilepsy.
We searched Google Scholar database for DBS system and development. DBS search results were categorized into clinical device and research system from the open-loop and closed-loop perspectives.
We performed literature review for DBS on PD and epilepsy in terms of system development by the open loop and closed-loop configuration. This study described development and trends for DBS in terms of electrode, recording, stimulation, and signal processing. The closed-loop DBS system raised a more attention in recent researches.
We overviewed development and progress of DBS. Our results suggest that the closed-loop DBS is important for PD and epilepsy.
Background & aims
Immunotherapy with hepatitis B virus (HBV)-specific TCR redirected T (HBV-TCR-T) cells in HBV-related hepatocellular carcinoma (HBV-HCC) patients after liver transplantation was ...reported to be safe and had potential therapeutic efficacy. We aim to investigate the safety of HBV-TCR-T-cell immunotherapy in advanced HBV-HCC patients who had not met the criteria for liver transplantation.
Methods
We enrolled eight patients with advanced HBV-HCC and adoptively transferred short-lived autologous T cells expressing HBV-specific TCR to perform an open-label, phase 1 dose-escalation study (NCT03899415). The primary endpoint was to evaluate the safety of HBV-TCR-T-cell therapy according to National Cancer Institute Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (version 4.03) during the dose-escalation process. The secondary endpoint was to assess the efficacy of HBV-TCR-T-cell therapy by evaluating the anti-tumor responses using RECIST criteria (version 1.1) and the overall survival.
Results
Adverse events were observed in two participants among the 8 patients enrolled. Only one patient experienced a Grade 3 liver-related adverse event after receiving a dose of 1 × 10
5
HBV-TCR-T cells/kg, then normalized without interventions with immunosuppressive agents. Among the patients, one achieved a partial response lasting for 27.7 months. Importantly, most of the patients exhibited a reduction or stabilization of circulating HBsAg and HBV DNA levels after HBV-TCR-T-cell infusion, indicating the on-target effects.
Conclusions
The adoptive transfer of HBV-TCR-T cells into advanced HBV-HCC patients were generally safe and well-tolerated. Observations of clinical efficacy support the continued development and eventual application of this treatment strategy in patients with advanced HBV-related HCC.
Clinical trials registration
This study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03899415).
Two new three-dimensional isostructural lanthanide metal-organic frameworks (Ln(III)-MOFs), LnL(H2O)3·3H2O·0.75DMF (1-Ln; Ln = Dy(III) and Eu(III) ions, H3L = biphenyl-3'-nitro-3,4',5-tricarboxylic ...acid, DMF = N,N'-dimethylformamide), were synthesized and characterized. The appearance of temperature-dependent out-of-phase (χ″M) signal reveals that complex 1-Dy displays slow magnetic relaxation behavior with the energy barrier (ΔUeff) of 57 K and a pre-exponential factor (τ0) of 3.89 × 10-8 s at 1200 Oe direct current field. The luminescence explorations demonstrated that 1-Eu exhibits high quenching efficiency and low detection limit for sensing nitrobenzene and Cr2O72-. Meanwhile, the fluorescence intensity of the quenched 1-Eu samples will be resumed after washing with DMF or water, indicating that 1-Eu may be used as a highly selective and recyclable luminescence sensing material for sensing nitrobenzene and Cr2O72- anion.
Biotransformation mediated by microbes can affect the biogeochemical cycle of arsenic. However, arsenic biotransformation mediated by earthworm-related microorganisms has not been well explored, ...especially the role played by earthworm skin microbiota. Herein, we reveal the profiles of arsenic biotransformation genes (ABGs) and elucidate the microbial communities of the earthworm gut, skin, and surrounding soil from five different soil environments in China. The relative abundance of ABGs in the earthworm skin microbiota, which were dominated by genes associated with arsenate reduction and transport, was approximately three times higher than that in the surrounding soil and earthworm gut microbiota. The composition and diversity of earthworm skin microbiota differed significantly from those of the soil and earthworm gut, comprising a core bacterial community with a relative abundance of 96% Firmicutes and a fungal community with relative abundances of 50% Ascomycota and 13% Mucoromycota. In addition, stochastic processes mainly contributed to the microbial community assembly across all samples. Moreover, fungal genera such as Vishniacozyma and Oomyces were important mediators of ABGs involved in the biogeochemical cycle of arsenic. This is the first study to investigate earthworm skin as a reservoir of microbial diversity in arsenic biotransformation. Our findings broaden the current scientific knowledge of the involvement of earthworms in the arsenic biogeochemical cycle.
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•Profiles of ABG in the earthworm skin dominated by arsenate reduction and transport were observed.•The earthworm skin microbiota differed significantly from those of the soil and earthworm gut.•Stochastic processes strongly shaped the microbial community assembly of earthworm gut and skin.•The earthworm skin as a reservoir of microbial diversity played a vital role in arsenic biotransformation.
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