A strategy for decreasing the viscosity variation in the process of CO2 capture by amino-functionalized ionic liquids (ILs) through the formation of intramolecular hydrogen bond was reported. ...Different with the dramatic increase in viscosity during CO2 uptake by traditional amino-functionalized ILs, slight increase or even decrease in viscosity was achieved through introducing a N or O atom as hydrogen acceptor into amino-functionalized anion, which could stabilize the active hydrogen of produced carbamic acid. Quantum chemical calculations and spectroscopic investigations demonstrated that the formation of intramolecular hydrogen bond between introduced hydrogen acceptor and carbamic acid was the key to avoid the dramatic increase in viscosity during the capture of CO2 by these amino-functionalized ILs.
Patients on dialysis were susceptible to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and were prone to severe clinical characteristics after infection; acute kidney injury was related to mortality in ...COVID-19 cases. Limited is known about the characteristics of COVID-19 patients with end-stage renal disease not requiring renal replacement therapy (RRT).
Evaluate clinical characteristics, course and outcomes of COVID-19 patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) who did not require RRT and those on dialysis.
A two-center retrospective study.
A total of 836 adult patients with COVID-19 (24 CKD not on dialysis; 15 dialysis-dependent CKD) were included. The study includes no patients with renal transplantation. Risk factors were explored.
CKD not requiring RRT is an independent risk factor for in-hospital death adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 7.35 (95% CI 2.41-22.44) and poor prognosis aOR 3.01 (95% CI 1.23-7.33). Compared with COVID-19 cases without CKD, those with CKD not requiring RRT showed similar percentage of initial moderate cases (75.00% vs. 73.65%) but higher incidence of in-hospital neutrophilia (50.00% vs. 27.30%) or death (50.00% vs. 9.03%). The odds ratio of dialysis associated to mortality in CKD patients was 2.00 (95% CI 0.52-7.63), suggesting COVID-19 patients with dialysis-dependent CKD were at greater risk of in-hospital death. For COVID-19 patients with CKD not requiring RRT, statins reduced the risk of neutrophilia OR 0.10 (95% CI 0.01-0.69) while diuretics increased the risk of neutrophilia OR 15.4 (95% CI 1.47-160.97), although both showed no association to mortality.
COVID-19 patients with CKD presented high incidence of neutrophilia, poor prognosis and in-hospital death, with dialysis patients being more vulnerable.
Antimicrobial susceptibility testing with the last‐resort antibiotics polymyxins (polymyxin B and colistin) is associated with several methodological issues. Currently, broth microdilution (BMD) is ...recommended for colistin and polymyxin B. BMD is laborious and the utility of alternative methods needs to be evaluated for polymyxin B susceptibility testing. In this study, using BMD as a reference method, the performance of agar dilution (AD) and MIC test strips (MTS) were evaluated in polymyxin B susceptibility testing. BMD, AD and MTS were used to determine MICs of 193 clinical isolates of Escherichia coli. Seventy‐nine were positive for the polymyxin resistance gene mcr‐1. Method performances were evaluated based on pair‐wise agreements with the reference method (BMD) and statistical testing. AD and MTS showed an unacceptable number of very major errors (VMEs) compared with BMD, 9·3 and 10·7%, respectively. The essential agreement (EA) was low for AD (49·7%), but high for MTS (97·8%). However, statistical testing showed that MTS tended to yield a one‐step lower MIC (P < 0·01) compared with BMD. The discordances observed with MTS and AD in comparison with BMD for polymyxin B susceptibility testing for E. coli suggest their inapplicability in routine testing. A large number of isolates clustered around the susceptibility breakpoint (2–4 mg l−1) and several mcr‐1 positive isolates (17%) were determined as susceptible with BMD. A screening breakpoint for mcr‐1 of 2 mg l−1 should also be considered.
Significance and Impact of the Study: Antimicrobial susceptibility testing with the last‐resort antibiotics polymyxins is associated with several methodological issues. The current reference method, broth microdilution (BMD), is laborious and the utility of alternative methods needs to be evaluated for polymyxin B susceptibility testing. Discordances in MIC test strips and agar dilution in comparison with BMD for polymyxin B susceptibility testing for Escherichia coli were observed, suggesting their inapplicability in routine testing.
ABSTRACT
We report the phase-connected timing ephemeris, polarization pulse profiles, Faraday rotation measurements, and Rotating-Vector-Model (RVM) fitting results of 12 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) ...discovered with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope (FAST) in the Commensal Radio Astronomy FAST survey (CRAFTS). The timing campaigns were carried out with FAST and Arecibo over 3 yr. 11 of the 12 pulsars are in neutron star–white dwarf binary systems, with orbital periods between 2.4 and 100 d. 10 of them have spin periods, companion masses, and orbital eccentricities that are consistent with the theoretical expectations for MSP–Helium white dwarf (He WD) systems. The last binary pulsar (PSR J1912−0952) has a significantly smaller spin frequency and a smaller companion mass, the latter could be caused by a low orbital inclination for the system. Its orbital period of 29 d is well within the range of orbital periods where some MSP–He WD systems have shown anomalous eccentricities, however, the eccentricity of PSR J1912−0952 is typical of what one finds for the remaining MSP–He WD systems.
First-degree relatives of patients with diabetes bear an increased risk of diabetes, overweight/obesity and cardiovascular disease. Accumulating evidence indicates that circulating concentrations of ...adipokines are altered in individuals with a first-degree family history of diabetes (FHD), but the adipokine adipocyte fatty acid binding protein (A-FABP) has been rarely studied in this population. The present study explored the association between a first-degree FHD and serum A-FABP levels.
A total of 1962 normoglycemic participants were divided into subgroups of men, premenopausal women and postmenopausal women. Serum A-FABP levels were measured using a sandwich enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay. Abdominal fat distribution, including visceral fat area and subcutaneous fat area, was assessed by magnetic resonance imaging.
Totals of 792 men, 544 premenopausal women and 626 postmenopausal women were enrolled. Serum A-FABP levels were much higher in subjects with a first-degree FHD than in those without an FHD in all subgroups (all P<0.05). Logistic regression analysis revealed an independent and positive relationship between a first-degree FHD and serum A-FABP levels in men (P=0.029), premenopausal women (P=0.036) and postmenopausal women (P=0.008). Multiple stepwise regression analysis showed that a first-degree FHD was an independent factor positively associated with serum A-FABP levels in men (standardized β=0.068, P=0.029), premenopausal women (standardized β=0.090, P=0.018) and postmenopausal women (standardized β=0.102, P=0.004).
Serum A-FABP levels were increased significantly in normoglycemic individuals with a first-degree FHD. The contribution of the first-degree FHD to the elevated serum A-FABP levels was independent of total body fat content and abdominal fat distribution. Thus, use of serum A-FABP as a biomarker in the first-degree relatives of patients with diabetes may result in overestimation of the risk of obesity-induced metabolic disease and cardiovascular disease.
Aims
SIRT1 deficiency has been associated with diabetes, and a variant of the
SIRT1
gene has been found to be involved in human autoimmune diabetes; however, it is unclear whether this genetic ...variation exists in Han Chinese with type 1 diabetes (T1D) and whether it contributes to development of T1D. Therefore, we aimed to explore the association of the
SIRT1
gene single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) rs10997866 and rs3818292 in a Han Chinese population with T1D.
Methods
This study recruited 2653 unrelated Han Chinese individuals, of whom 1289 had T1D and 1364 were healthy controls. Allelic and genotypic distributions of
SIRT1
polymorphisms (rs10997866 and rs3818292) were determined by MassARRAY. Basic characteristics, genotype and allele frequencies of selected SNPs were compared between the T1D patients and healthy controls. Further genotype–phenotype association analysis of the SNPs was performed on the T1D patients divided into three groups according to genotype. Statistical analyses included the chi-square test, Mann‒Whitney U test, Kruskal‒Wallis H test and logistic regression.
Results
The allelic (G vs. A) and genotypic (GA vs. AA) distributions of
SIRT1
rs10997866 were significantly different in T1D patients and healthy controls (
P
= 0.039,
P
= 0.027), and rs10997866 was associated with T1D susceptibility under dominant, overdominant and additive models (
P
= 0.026,
P
= 0.030 and
P
= 0.027, respectively). Moreover, genotype–phenotype association analysis showed the GG genotype of rs10997866 and the GG genotype of rs3818292 to be associated with higher titers of IA-2A (
P
= 0.013 and
P
= 0.038, respectively).
Conclusion
SIRT1
rs10997866 is significantly associated with T1D susceptibility, with the minor allele G conferring a higher risk of T1D. Moreover,
SIRT1
gene rs10997866 and rs3818292 correlate with the titer of IA-2A in Han Chinese individuals with T1D.
To investigate the diagnostic value of ultrasound elastography (UE) for benign and malignant axillary lymph nodes.
A literature search was conducted from PubMed, Cochrane EMBASE, and Medline. ...Fourteen studies including 1,186 patients with 1,411 lymph nodes were enrolled. Overall, diagnostic descriptive statistics included pooled sensitivity, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were generated by random effect model. Subgroup analyses were performed in (real-time elastography RTE versus shear wave elastography SWE) and (conventional ultrasound versus combination of traditional ultrasound and elastography). Meta-regression was used to explore potential sources of heterogeneity.
The overall pooled sensitivity, specificity, and AUC of UE was 0.79 (95% CI: 0.71–0.86), 0.90 (95% CI: 0.83–0.95), and 0.91 (95% CI: 0.88–0.93), respectively. In the subgroup analysis of the two UE techniques, the pooled sensitivity, specificity, and AUC of SWE was higher than that of RTE (sensitivity: 0.82>0.77; specificity: 0.91>0.89; AUC: 0.94>0.89). The pooled diagnostic value of ultrasound combined with UE were significantly improving compared with traditional ultrasound (sensitivity: 0.87>0.82, specificity: 0.83>0.78, and AUC: 0.91>0.87). No independent heterogeneous factor was found in meta-regression.
The results indicate that UE was an effective technique for identifying malignant axillary lymph nodes due to its high diagnostic efficiency, which can provide useful information for surgical procedure selection.
•Ultrasound elastography can identify benign and malignant axillary lymph nodes.•The diagnostic performance of SWE was higher than that of RTE.•Ultrasound elastography has added value in differential diagnosis.
A strategy for improving the capture of CO2 was developed through the entropic effect by tuning the geometric construction of anion-functionalized ionic liquids. Several kinds of anion-functionalized ...ionic liquids with the amino group at the para or ortho position were designed and applied for the capture of CO2, which indicates that the former exhibited both higher capacity and lower enthalpy, resulting in the efficient and energy-saving CO2 capture. Viscosity measurements, spectroscopic investigations, and quantum chemical calculations showed that such a unique behavior originated from the entropic effect, which was induced by the intermolecular hydrogen bonding in these ionic liquids. The entropic control for gas separation developed by this work provides an efficient strategy to both increased capacity and reduced enthalpy.
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