Liver cancer most commonly develops in patients with chronic liver disease, the etiology of which includes viral hepatitis (B and C), alcohol, obesity, dietary carcinogens, and so forth. The current ...treatment modalities, including surgical resection and liver transplantation, have been found far from effective. Hence, there is an obvious critical need to develop alternative strategies for the treatment of it. In this review, we discuss the formation process and therapeutic targets of liver cancer. Currently, targeted therapy is limited to sorafenib, lenvatinib, regorafenib, ramucirumab and cabozantinib which leads to a survival benefit in patients, but on the other hand is hampered by the occurrence of drug resistance. Pleasingly and importantly, there are multiple natural products undergoing clinical evaluation in liver cancer, such as polyphenols like icaritin, resveratrol, and silybin, saponins including ginsenoside Rg3 and glycyrrhizinate, alkaloid containing irinotecan and berberine and inorganic compound arsenic trioxide at present. Preclinical and clinical studies have shown that these compounds inhibit liver cancer formation owing to the influence on the anti-viral, anti-inflammation, anti-oxidant, anti-angiogenesis and anti-metastasis activity. Furthermore, a series of small molecule derivatives inspired by the aforementioned compounds are designed and synthesized according to structure-activity relationship studies. Drug combination and novel type of drug-targeted delivery system thereof have been well developed. This article is ended by a perspective remark of futuristic development of natural product-based therapeutic regimen for liver cancer treatment. We expect that this review is an account for current status of natural products as promising anti-liver cancer treatments and should contribute to its understanding.
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•Natural products inhibit liver cancer formation owing to their influence on the early hepatocarcinogenesis.•We summarize the potential therapeutic targets of natural products in the formation of liver cancer.•We analyzed the structure-activity relationships of the above natural products.
Long-term monitoring of constructed anti-slide piles can help in understanding the processes by which anti-slide piles are subjected to the thrust of landslides. This paper examined the landslide ...control project of Badong No. 3 High School. The internal force of an anti-slide pile subjected to long-term action of landslide thrust was studied by Distributed Optical Fiber Sensing (DOFS) technology. The BP neural network was used for model training on the monitored strain values and the calculated bending moment values. The results show the following: (1) The monitoring results of the sensor fibers reflect the actual situation more accurately than steel rebar meters do and can locate the position of the sliding zone more accurately. (2) The bending moments distributed along the anti-slide pile have staged characteristics under the long-term action of landslide thrust. Three stages can be summarized according to the development trend of the bending moment values. These three stages can be divided into two change periods of landslide thrust. (3) The model produced by the BP neural network training can predict the bending moment values. In this paper, the sensing fibers monitoring over a long time interval provides a basis for long-term performance analysis of anti-slide piles and stability evaluation of landslides. Using the BP neural network for training relevant data can provide directions for future engineering monitoring. More novel methods can be devised and utilized that will be both accurate and convenient.
To gain insight into the perceptions, and beliefs of patients with advanced cancer coping with chronic pain and to identify their attitudes and demands on pain management.
From July to September ...2022, 17 patients with advanced cancer living with chronic pain were recruited from a tertiary cancer hospital in Hunan Province, China. Qualitative and semi-structured interviews were conducted individually, with 30-45 minutes for each. The Colaizzi 7-step analysis method in phenomenological research was used for data analysis.
The experience of pain acceptance by advanced cancer patients with chronic pain was summarized into four themes: pain catastrophizing (unable to ignore the pain, try various methods to relieve the pain, exaggerating pain perception, and lack of knowledge about proper pain management), rumination (compulsive rumination and worrying rumination), avoidance coping (situational avoidance and repressive avoidance) and constructive action (setting clear value goal and taking reciprocal action).
Most patients with advanced cancer had low pain acceptance and negative attitudes. Feeling helpless in the face of pain and suffering alone were their norm. Long-term negative emotions could lead to gradual depression and loss of hope for treatment, resulting in pain catastrophizing and persistent rumination. Nevertheless, a few patients accepted pain with positive attitudes. Medical professionals should pay more attention to the psychological status of advanced cancer patients with chronic pain, and employ alternative therapies, for example, cognitive behavioral therapy. More efforts are needed to reduce patients' pain catastrophizing, and promote their pain acceptance by a better understanding of pain through health education.
In this paper, we present a novel broadband microwave absorber. Each unit in the metamaterial consists of a layer of dielectric material sandwiched between two layers of metal patches. Due to ...metal-dielectric-metal structures consist of symmetric resonators that have low co-polarization and cross-polarization as absorbers, the upper metal layer comprises a novel double-split ring resonator and a central octagonal ring pattern. Our simulation results show that the absorption of the proposed absorber is above 90% in the frequency range from 5.7 to 13.1 GHz. The absorption bandwidth over which the absorptivity exceeds 90% is approximately 7.4 GHz. The calculated relative bandwidth of 78.1% meets the standard for ultra-broadband absorption, and thus has prospects in applications. There are four main resonance frequencies at 6.07, 9.18, 12.75, and 13.11 GHz. And, the absorptivity is not significantly affected by the variation of the incident angle. We find that the resonance phenomenon becomes increasingly prominent as the incident wave frequency increases.
IntroductionWith the worsening of population ageing globally, the number of the elderly with chronic and incurable diseases such as malignant tumours is gradually increasing, and the need for ...palliative care is growing. As a primary task in the end-of-life phase, symptom management is an essential aspect of palliative care, which aims to alleviate distressing symptoms of terminally ill patients and improve their quality of life. Virtual reality (VR) technology, which allows the creation of simulated environments in which a three-dimensional experience is generated, has been increasingly used in palliative care for symptom management. Therefore, we aim to conduct a systematic review to investigate the effects of VR-based interventions on end-of-life patients.Methods and analysisThis protocol for conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis will be prepared following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses 2020 statement. We will conduct a series of searches from inception to 31 July 2022 in the following databases: PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, the Cochrane Library, JBI, EBSCO, CNKI, Wanfang and SinoMed. The key concepts of ‘virtual reality’ and ‘end-of-life’ will be combined in each database using both free-text terms and controlled vocabulary terms (eg, MeSH/Emtree terms), if available. Two independent reviewers will use raw data to explore the effectiveness of VR for symptom management in end-of-life patients. The Cochrane Risk-of-Bias tool will be used to assess the risk of bias of included studies. Disagreements will be resolved by a third independent reviewer to reach a consensus. For the included articles, Review Manager software will be used for data synthesis and I2 statistics will be used to measure the heterogeneity. Subgroup analyses and sensitivity analyses will be used to identify the source of heterogeneity.Ethics and disseminationAs this is a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis, patients will not be included in this study. For this reason, ethical approval is not required. In order to disseminate the research findings, the results and conclusions of this review will be submitted to a worldwide journal.PROSPERO registration numberCRD42022344679.
Gut-liver-brain axis is a three-way highway of information interaction system among the gastrointestinal tract, liver, and nervous systems. In the past few decades, breakthrough progress has been ...made in the gut liver brain axis, mainly through understanding its formation mechanism and increasing treatment strategies. In this review, we discuss various complex networks including barrier permeability, gut hormones, gut microbial metabolites, vagus nerve, neurotransmitters, immunity, brain toxic metabolites, β-amyloid (Aβ) metabolism, and epigenetic regulation in the gut-liver-brain axis. Some therapies containing antibiotics, probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), polyphenols, low FODMAP diet and nanotechnology application regulate the gut liver brain axis. Besides, some special treatments targeting gut-liver axis include farnesoid X receptor (FXR) agonists, takeda G protein-coupled receptor 5 (TGR5) agonists, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor antagonists and fibroblast growth factor 19 (FGF19) analogs. Targeting gut-brain axis embraces cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), antidepressants and tryptophan metabolism-related therapies. Targeting liver-brain axis contains epigenetic regulation and Aβ metabolism-related therapies. In the future, a better understanding of gut-liver-brain axis interactions will promote the development of novel preventative strategies and the discovery of precise therapeutic targets in multiple diseases.
Background
This study explored the effects of personality factors on public behavioral decision‐making.
Methods
We examined the literature on personality theory based on triadic interaction decision ...theory, and summarized and compared the findings with studies of the Big Five personality characteristics. A literature review method was used to explore the implications of personality theory for public decision‐making in Chinese communities.
Results
Individuals with high neuroticism can be targeted by influential communicators. Individuals with high extraversion can influence decision‐making through interpersonal relationships. Individuals with high levels of openness can be influenced by the development of novel activities. Conscientious individuals respond to scientific and rational knowledge. Individuals with high agreeableness can be influenced by groups.
Conclusions
Personality traits can influence behavioral decisions and can have positive or negative effects on behavioral outcomes. For people with different personality traits, social actors and social activity communicators should formulate targeted measures according to the classification of personality traits. The current findings have implications for enriching research perspectives and approaches to public community decision‐making.
Background and aims: Dietary diversity change is associated with cognitive function, however, whether the effect still exists among the oldest-old (80+) is unclear. Our aim was to examine the effect ...of dietary diversity changes on cognitive impairment for the oldest-old in a large prospective cohort. Methods: Within the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Study, 6237 adults older than 80 years were included. The dietary diversity score (DDS) was assessed by a simplified food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Cognitive impairment was defined as a Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score lower than 18 points. Cognitive decline was defined as a reduction of total MMSE score ≥3 points, and cognitive decline of different subdomains was defined as a reduction of ≥15% in the corresponding cognitive domain. The multivariate-adjusted Cox proportional hazard model evaluated the effects of DDS change on cognitive decline. The linear mixed-effect model was used to test subsequent changes in MMSE over the years. Results: During 32,813 person-years of follow-up, 1829 participants developed cognitive impairment. Relative to the high–high DDS change pattern, participants in the low–low and high–low patterns were associated with an increased risk of cognitive impairment with a hazard ratio (95% confidential interval, CI) of 1.43 (1.25, 1.63) and 1.44 (1.24, 1.67), and a faster decline in the MMSE score over the follow-up year. Participants with the low–high pattern had a similar incidence of cognitive impairment with HRs (95% CI) of 1.03 (0.88, 1.20). Compared with the stable DDS status group (−1–1), the risk of cognitive impairment was higher for those with large declines in DDS (≤−5) and the HR was 1.70 (95% CI: 1.44, 2.01). Conclusions: Even for people older than 80, dietary diversity change is a simple method to identify those who had a high risk of cognitive decline. Keeping high dietary diversity is beneficial for cognitive function and its subdomain even in the final phase of life, especially for females and the illiterate oldest-old.
Physical layer key generation (PKG) technology leverages reciprocal channel randomness to generate shared secret keys. However, multipath fading at the receiver may degrade the correlation between ...legitimate uplink and downlink channels, resulting in a low key generation rate (KGR). In this paper, we propose a PKG scheme based on the pattern-reconfigurable antenna (PRA) to boost the secret key capacity. First, we propose a reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) based PRA architecture with the capability of flexible and reconfigurable antenna patterns. Then, we present the PRA-based PKG protocol to improve the KGR via mitigation of the effects of multipath fading. Specifically, a novel algorithm for estimation of the multipath channel parameters is proposed based on atomic norm minimization. Thereafter, a novel optimization method for the matching reception of multipath signals is formulated based on the improved binary particle swarm optimization (BPSO) algorithm. Finally, simulation results show that the proposed scheme can resist multipath fading and achieve a high KGR compared to existing schemes. Moreover, our findings indicate that the increased degree of freedom of the antenna patterns can significantly increase the secret key capacity.
This study proposes a three-layer focusing gradient metasurface for wavefront processing. The structure works in the frequency range of 15–25 GHz and has a central frequency of 19.6 GHz. The ...metasurface unit is organized in a square and has high-impedance elements that reflect the full range of phase shifts. When the microwave beam is incident on this metasurface, the high-impedance elements modulate the beam according to the gradient arrangement, to realize the focusing effect of the lens, and the efficiency reaches 82%. The simulation results are consistent with the theoretical results.
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