Metal oxides of the spinel family have shown great potential towards the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), but the fundamental OER mechanism of spinel oxides is still far from being completely ...understood, especially for the role of the metal ions. Owing to various coordinated sites of divalent/trivalent metals ions and surface conditions (morphology and defects), it is a great challenge to have a fair assessment of the electrocatalytic performance of spinel systems. Herein, we demonstrated a series of MFe
2
O
4
(M = Fe, Co, Ni, Zn) with a well-controlled morphology to achieve a comprehensive study of electrocatalytic activity toward OER. By utilizing several
in situ
analyses, we could conclude a universal rule that the activities for OER in the metal oxide systems were determined by the occurrence of a phase transformation, and this structural transformation could work well in both crystallographic sites (T
d
and O
h
sites). Additionally, the divalent metal ion significantly dominated the formation of oxyhydroxide through an epitaxial relationship, which depended on the atomic arrangement at the interface of spinel and metal oxyhydroxide, while trivalent metal ions remained unchanged as a host lattice. The metal oxyhydroxide was formed during a redox reaction rather than being formed during OER. The occurrence of the redox reaction seems to accompany a remarkable increase in resistance and capacitance might result from the structural transformation from spinel to metal oxyhydroxide. We believe that the approaching strategies and information obtained in the present study can offer a guide to designing a promising electrocatalytic system towards the oxygen evolution reaction and other fields.
Various metal oxides of the spinel family have shown great potential towards the oxygen evolution reaction, but this behavior only works in specific cases.
Abstract Background To evaluate the combined diagnostic accuracy of coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA) and computed tomography derived fractional flow reserve (FFRct) in patients with ...suspected or known coronary artery disease (CAD). Methods PubMed, The Cochrane library, Embase and OpenGray were searched to identify studies comparing diagnostic accuracy of CCTA and FFRct. Diagnostic test measurements of FFRct were either extracted directly from the published papers or calculated from provided information. Bivariate models were conducted to synthesize the diagnostic performance of combined CCTA and FFRct at both “per-vessel” and “per-patient” levels. Results 7 articles were included for analysis. The combined diagnostic outcomes from “both positive” strategy, i.e. a subject was considered as “positive” only when both CCTA and FFRct were “positive”, demonstrated relative high specificity (per-vessel: 0.91; per-patient: 0.81), high positive likelihood ratio (LR +, per-vessel: 7.93; per-patient: 4.26), high negative likelihood ratio (LR-, per-vessel: 0.30; per patient: 0.24) and high accuracy (per-vessel: 0.91; per-patient: 0.81) while “either positive” strategy, i.e. a subject was considered as “positive” when either CCTA or FFRct was “positive”, demonstrated relative high sensitivity (per-vessel: 0.97; per-patient: 0.98), low LR + (per-vessel: 1.50; per-patient: 1.17), low LR- (per-vessel: 0.07; per-patient: 0.09) and low accuracy (per-vessel: 0.57; per-patient: 0.54). Conclusion “Both positive” strategy showed better diagnostic performance to rule in patients with non-significant stenosis compared to”either positive” strategy, as it efficiently reducing the proportion of testing false positive subjects.
There are notable similarities between velocardiofacial syndrome and schizophrenia in terms of neurocognitive deficits and brain structural abnormalities. These similarities have supported the role ...of the armadillo repeat gene deleted in velocardiofacial syndrome (ARVCF) as a susceptibility gene in schizophrenia. This study investigated the relationships between haplotypes of the ARVCF gene and specific intermediate phenotypes in schizophrenia. We hypothesized that ARVCF gene haplotypes influence caudate nucleus volume, fractional anisotropy, and neurocognitive functioning in schizophrenia.
Between May 2006 and November 2009, 200 Chinese participants (125 patients with DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia and 75 controls) were genotyped using blood samples, and a subset of 166 participants (99 patients with DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia and 67 controls) underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging, diffusion tensor imaging, and completed neuropsychological testing.
The haplotype T-G-A-T-T-G-G-C-T-G-T (ARVCF-Hap1) was significantly associated with fractional anisotropy of the caudate nucleus and executive functioning in patients. Specifically, patients with more copies of ARVCF-Hap1 have lower white matter integrity in caudate nucleus (P = .0008) and greater perseverative errors (P = .00003) on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. A trend of lower caudate volume (P = .015) in patients with more copies of ARVCF-Hap1 was also observed.
These findings are consistent with known ARVCF gene effects on neurodevelopment in terms of cellular arrangement, migration, and intracellular signaling involving the striatum and may involve interactions with other brain networks such as prefrontal cortex, and they underscore the importance of imaging-genetic studies to elucidate the genetic influences underlying intermediate phenotypes in complex neurobehavioral disorders.
Previous studies examining brain effects of duration of illness in schizophrenia have focused on either cortical or subcortical structures. Hence this study sought to elucidate the regional grey ...matter changes (both cortical and subcortical) and neurocognitive correlates with increased duration of illness in a large sample of patients with schizophrenia using voxel-based morphometry.
Ninety patients (72 males and 18 females) with DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia were recruited and assessed using magnetic resonance imaging and a battery of neuropsychological tests.
A longer duration of illness was associated with smaller grey matter volumes in the left superior frontal gyrus, bilateral putamen, right superior temporal gyrus, right superior occipital gyrus as well as the right thalamus. No region showed increased grey matter volume above threshold with longer duration of illness. Longer duration of illness was correlated with poorer attention.
The grey matter reductions in different brain regions highlighted that a distributed network of cortical and subcortical regions was associated with duration of illness. This is consistent with neural models that implicate involvement of thalamo-cortical circuitry as the disruption in these neural pathways can result in specific deficits such as poorer attention. The results have implications for the understanding of brain changes in schizophrenia, and with further studies, may guide better tailored and targeted clinical management in terms of reducing the impact of duration of illness on neural substrates in schizophrenia in the future.
To assess the effect of axial length (AL) on the prevalence of pathologic myopia (PM) and associated myopic features in a Singaporean hospital-based cohort of patient with high myopia (HM).
In total, ...923 HM eyes from 495 individuals were recruited from the Myopic and Pathologic Eyes in Singapore (MyoPES) cohort and underwent ocular biometry, fundus photography, fundus autofluorescence, and swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT). Images were analyzed for the presence of myopic macular degeneration (MMD), myopic choroidal neovascularization (mCNV), myopic traction maculopathy (MTM), peripapillary atrophy (PPA), myopic tilted disc, posterior staphyloma (PS), dome-shaped macula (DSM), vitremacular adhesions (VMA), and the epiretinal membrane (ERM). Eyes were stratified into quartiles based on ALs to determine cut-off values to perform comparisons between shorter-length and longer-length groups. A χ
-test was done to determine the difference in the prevalence of pathologies between groups.
Overall, mean AL was 29.2 ± 2.2 mm (range 25.0-36.7 mm). Myopic macular degeneration, PPA, myopic tilted disc, and ERM have AL threshold of ≥27.5 mm, whereas MTM has an AL threshold of ≥29.0 mm. We found that there was a significantly higher prevalence of MMD (88.2 vs. 49.4%;
< 0.001), PPA (98.1 vs. 80.1%;
< 0.001), myopic tilted disc (72.7 vs. 50.2%;
< 0.001), and ERM (81.4 vs. 17.3%;
= 0.003) in eyes with AL ≥ 27.5 mm vs. eyes without AL <27.5 mm. Prevalence of MTM (34.7 vs. 32.1%;
< 0.001), mCNV (17.4 vs. 12.1%;
= 0.03), PS (43.4 vs. 34.7%;
= 0.012), DSM (21.3 vs. 13.2%;
= 0.002), and VMA (5.9 vs. 2.6%;
= 0.014) in eyes with AL ≥ 29.0 mm compared with AL < 29.0 mm.
Our study describes the overall prevalence of PM and related pathologies among patients with HM in our hospital-based cohort. Longer eyes even among HM eyes had a significantly higher prevalence of PM-associated pathologies studied. This supports the premise that eyes with longer AL, even among HM eyes may be at greater risk of vision-threatening changes and therefore merit regular follow-up.
Abstract Growing interest in cognitive deficits associated with schizophrenia has led to the need for a clinician-friendly cognitive instrument. The Schizophrenia Cognition Rating Scale (SCoRS), ...recognized for its brevity and ease of administration, has proven to be a valid and reliable measure of overall cognition in schizophrenia patients. However, there has been no such validation in an Asian context. This SCoRS validation study involved 103 patient and 48 control subjects within an Asian population. Test–retest reliability, sensitivity of the instrument to cognitive differences between patients with schizophrenia and healthy controls as well as validity by comparing with a standardised performance-based cognitive battery, the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia (BACS) were assessed. Our findings indicated that SCoRS is highly reliable (ICC = 0.984) and sensitive to cognitive dysfunction. SCoRS is significantly correlated with BACS composite scores and predicted functional outcomes as measured by Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) and World Health Organisation-Quality of Life (WHO QOL) within an Asian population. SCoRS represents a clinician-friendly cognitive assessment tool that incorporates third-party feedback and might be employed in clinical practice to better evaluate and manage schizophrenia.
To describe the trends and patterns of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) therapy and photodynamic therapy (PDT) use for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in the National Eye ...Centre in Singapore over a 4-year period.
Data on the total number of intravitreal anti-VEGF injections and PDT treatment over a 4-year period at the Singapore National Eye Centre were obtained from centralized electronic records. Patients aged 40 years and older treated for AMD were included. Data retrieved included the annual treatment load in terms of number of new patients and total treatment episodes, and treatment burden for patients was studied in terms of number of injections per year and cumulative injection numbers over 3 years. Potential influence on retreatment by choice of drug, use of adjunct PDT, and diagnosis of polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy were further analyzed.
From 2009 to 2012, a total of 6157 injections were performed on 1380 unique individual patients. The total number of injections performed per calendar year increased from 962 in 2009 to 2278 in 2012. The number of unique incident cases increased from 287 in 2009 to 446 in 2012. The mean number of injections over the first year increased from 2.62 in 2009 to 3.19 in 2012 (p < 0.001). Choice of anti-VEGF therapy did not significantly alter the cumulative injections required. Patients diagnosed as having polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy had similar injection episodes (p = 0.178), whereas choice of anti-VEGF and adjunct PDT had no effect on the overall treatment.
Anti-VEGF treatment of AMD continues to increase substantially year on year in the past few years, in alignment with experience from other countries. However, the cumulative number of injections per patient remains low, and many patients discontinue treatment within the first year. These data demonstrate that undertreatment remains a significant concern in clinical settings.
Adoptive cell therapy is an emerging treatment strategy for a number of serious diseases. Regulatory T (Treg) cells represent 1 cell type of particular interest for therapy of inflammatory ...conditions, as they are responsible for controlling unwanted immune responses. Initial clinical trials of adoptive transfer of Treg cells in patients with graft-versus-host disease were shown to be safe. However, obtaining sufficient numbers of highly pure and functional Treg cells with minimal contamination remains a challenge. We developed a novel approach to isolate "untouched" human Treg cells from healthy donors on the basis of negative selection using the surface markers CD49d and CD127. This procedure, which uses an antibody cocktail and magnetic beads for separation in an automated system (RoboSep), was scaled up and adapted to be compatible with good manufacturing practice conditions. With this setup we performed 9 Treg isolations from large-scale leukapheresis samples in a good manufacturing practice facility. These runs yielded sufficient numbers of "untouched" Treg cells for immediate use in clinical applications. The cell preparations consisted of viable highly pure FoxP3-positive Treg cells that were functional in suppressing the proliferation of effector T cells. Contamination with CD4 effector T cells was <10%. All other cell types did not exceed 2% in the final product. Remaining isolation reagents were reduced to levels that are considered safe. Treg cells isolated with this procedure will be used in a phase I clinical trial of adoptive transfer into leukemia patients developing graft-versus-host disease after stem cell transplantation.
Dengue fever (DF) is a major public health issue. However, it is unclear whether different dengue virus serotypes (DENV) are associated with different clinical manifestations and outcomes. This study ...investigated the association between viral serotype and clinical manifestations of DF.
Adult patients with DENV-2 and DENV-3 who were treated at Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital and Kaohsiung Municipal Hsiao-Kang Hospital, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, from January 1998 to September 2007 were enrolled. The patients' demographic data, underlying diseases, clinical manifestations, laboratory data, and disease outcomes were retrospectively analyzed.
294 patients had DENV-2 and 91 had DENV-3. The median age was 50 years, and 45.7% of patients were men. Patients with DENV-3 were more likely to have a malignancy (p = 0.011), myalgia (p = 0.03), skin rash (p < 0.001), ascites (p = 0.04), and fever (p = 0.003) than patients with DENV-2. Patients with DENV-3 had their lowest levels of white blood cells and platelets, and peak plasma activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) 1 day later than patients with DENV-2. DENV-2 infection was associated with a higher monocyte count and more prolonged aPTT early in the clinical course. Infection by DENV-2 more commonly occurred as a secondary infection, while infection by DENV-3 was more common as a primary infection (p < 0.001). There were no differences between the groups in organ involvement, disease severity, duration of hospital stay, and medical expenditure.
The symptoms, signs, and laboratory findings appear to be different for patients infected with DENV-2 and DENV-3, but there is no difference in outcomes.
