The effect of coupled plasma filtration adsorption (CPFA) for the treatment of sepsis or septic shock is controversial. A systematic review and meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the impact of ...CPFA on all-cause mortality in patients with sepsis or septic shock. We searched the PubMed, Cochrane, and Embase databases for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and cohort studies from inception to the 1st of May 2022. We included studies involving patients (Ë 14 years) with sepsis or septic shock. All authors reported our primary outcome of all-cause mortality (hospital mortality, 28-day mortality or 30-day mortality). Results were expressed as odds ratio (OR) with accompanying 95% confidence interval (CI). Six studies including 537 patients were included. The primary outcome of this meta-analysis showed that the all-cause mortality was about 54.2% (119/243 in the CPFA group and 172/294 in the control group). There was no statistically significant difference in the all-cause mortality between two groups (odds ratio OR = 0.75; 95% CI 0.53 to 1.06; P = 0.11; Chi.sup.2 = 14.04; I.sup.2 = 64%). The treatment of CPFA failed to decrease all-cause mortality of sepsis or septic shock patients. Further large-scale randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the ability of this therapy to improve clinical outcomes are still required to confirm these results.
Random network coding (RNC) is a promising solution for multicast services over wireless networks. In this paper, we consider the problem of deadline-constrained multimedia multicast from a single ...transmitter to multiple users over wireless erasure channels. A novel transmission scheduling strategy based on adaptive RNC is developed to maximize the throughput of multicast sessions under a deterministic delay constraint. Particularly, we optimize the number of multimedia data layers under different assumptions on users' feedback. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed methods.
miR-940 is a microRNA located on chromosome 16p13.3, which has varying degrees of expression imbalance in many diseases. It binds to the 3′ untranslated region (UTR) and affects the transcription or ...post-transcriptional regulation of target protein-coding genes. For a diversity of cellular processes, including cell proliferation, migration, invasion, apoptosis, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT), cell cycle, and osteogenic differentiation, miR-940 can affect them not only by regulating protein-coding genes but also long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) and circular RNAs (circRNAs) in pathways. Intriguingly, miR-940 participates in four pathways that affect cancer development, including the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway, PD-1 pathway, and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K)-Akt pathway. Importantly, the expression of miR-940 is intimately correlated with the diagnosis and prognosis of tumor patients, as well as to the efficacy of tumor chemotherapy drugs. In conclusion, our main purpose is to outline the expression of miR-940 in various diseases and the molecular biological and cytological functions of target genes in order to reveal its potential diagnostic and prognostic value as well as its predictive value of drug efficacy.
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miR-940 is dysregulated in many human cancers, participates in cancer development by regulating target mRNAs, lncRNAs, and circRNAs, and thus affects at least four signaling pathways related to cancer development. miR-940 expression may have a potential diagnostic and prognostic value for cancer patients as well as a predictive value of drug efficacy in cancer treatment.
A facile and low‐cost solution method is developed to fabricate large‐area organic 2D single crystals on a millimeter scale. The 2D crystals are prepared on arbitrary non‐crystalline substrates with ...thicknesses of a single molecular layer and perfect long‐range crystalline order. High‐performance OFETs are fabricated using the monolayer crystals as the semiconducting layer and the carrier mobility exhibits no thickness dependence, confirming the efficiency of the monolayer for charge transport.
High-performance air-stable n-type field-effect transistors based on single-crystalline submicro- and nanometer ribbons of copper hexadecafluorophthalocyanine (F16CuPc) were studied by using a novel ...device configuration. These submicro- and nanometer ribbons were synthesized by a physical vapor transport technique and characterized by the powder X-ray diffraction pattern and selected area electron diffraction pattern of transmission electron microscopy. They were found to crystallize in a structure different from that of copper phthalocyanine. These single-crystalline submicro- and nanometer ribbons could be in situ grown along the surface of Si/SiO2 substrates during synthesis. The intimate contact between the crystal and the insulator surface generated by the “in situ growing process” was free from the general disadvantages of the handpicking process for the fabrication of organic single-crystal devices. High performance was observed in devices with an asymmetrical drain/source (Au/Ag) electrode configuration because in such devices a stepwise energy level between the electrodes and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital of F16CuPc was built, which was beneficial to electron injection and transport. The field-effect mobility of such devices was calculated to be ∼0.2 cm2 V-1 s-1 with the on/off ratio at ∼6 × 104. The performances of the transistors were air stable and highly reproducible.
This study aimed to explore the changes of pharmacokinetic parameters after meropenem in patients with abdominal septic shock after gastrointestinal perforation, and to simulate the probability of ...different dosing regimens achieving different pharmacodynamic goals. The study included 12 patients, and utilized high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry to monitor the plasma concentration of meropenem. The probability of target attainment (PTA) for different minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values and %fT > 4MIC was compared among simulated dosing regimens. The results showed that in 96 blood samples from 12 patients, the clearance (CL) of meropenem in the normal and abnormal creatinine clearance subgroups were 7.7 ± 1.8 and 4.4 ± 1.1 L/h, respectively, and the apparent volume of distribution (Vd) was 22.6 ± 5.1 and 17.2 ± 5.8 L, respectively. 2. Regardless of the subgroup, 0.5 g/q6h infusion over 6 h regimen achieved a PTA > 90% when MIC ≤ 0.5 mg/L. 1.0 g/q6h infusion regimen compared with other regimen, in most cases, the probability of making PTA > 90% is higher. For patients at low MIC, 0.5 g/q6h infusion over 6 h may be preferable. For patients at high MIC, a dose regimen of 1.0 g/q6 h infusion over 6 h may be preferable. Further research is needed to confirm this exploratory result.
In this paper, an on-chip silicon polarization beam splitter using a particle-swarm-optimized counter-tapered directional coupler is proposed, designed, and fabricated. The coupling length of the ...proposed device is only 5 µm. As the waveguide width variation Δ W increases from −20 to 20 nm, the simulated polarization extinction ratio larger than 18.67 dB and the corresponding insertion loss lower than 0.17 dB are achieved. Measured experimental results achieved insertion loss <0.50 dB, TE polarization extinction between 16.68 to 31.87 dB, TM polarization extinction between 17.78 to 31.13 dB, over the wavelength range 1525 to 1600 nm.
•Hyperspectral reflectance at canopy-scale of apple-trees was measured using the portable spectroradiometer.•The spectra of apple tree canopy affected by floating dust particles were well ...preprocessed by SNV-FD.•Random frog (Rfrog) was used to extract feature bands for estimating leaf N content in apple-trees.•The combination of SNV-FD, Rfrog and ELM was feasible and reliable for estimating the leaf N content in apple-trees.
Rapid estimation of crop nitrogen (N) status is helpful for achieving precise N fertilizer management, so as to promote the collaborative improvement of yield, quality and N use efficiency. To establish a method for rapidly estimating N status of apple-trees based on hyperspectral remote sensing, a field experiment on apple trees with four levels of N application were conducted in Luochuan, Yan'an, China in 2018 and 2019. Hyperspectral data at apple tree canopy scale were obtained at different phenological stages. The outliers in the dataset were detected by Monte-Carlo cross-validation (MCCV). A total of 15 forms of spectral data were analyzed, including the raw spectrum (RS), Savitzky-Golay (SG) smoothing, normalization by the mean (NME), standard normal transformation (SNV), multiplicative scatter correction (MSC) and their combination with the first-order derivative (FD) or second-order derivative (SD). The results showed that SNV-FD was the best preprocessing method for apple tree canopy spectral data on the Loess Plateau. For SNV-FD data, competitive adaptive reweighted sampling (CARS), successive projection algorithm (SPA), random frog (Rfrog), and partial least squares (PLS) were used to extract feature variables. The feature wavelengths extracted by CARS, SPA and Rfrog were widely distributed in visible and near-infrared (VIS/NIR) range. The feature variables extracted by PLS were fewer, but had a strong interpretation. Based on these feature variables, linear and nonlinear models including partial least squares regression (PLSR), support vector machine (SVM), back-propagation artificial neural network (BPANN), extreme learning machine (ELM) and random forest (RF), were used to establish the prediction model. Among all the models, four nonlinear modeling methods were superior to the linear method. The model by Rfrog-ELM achieved the best results (R2P = 0.843, RMSEP = 2.461 g·kg−1, RPD = 2.508). This study demonstrated that the combination of SNV-FD, Rfrog and ELM was feasible and reliable for estimating the leaf N content in apple-trees on the Loess Plateau, China.
All-small-molecule organic solar cells with good batch-to-batch reproducibility combined with non-halogen solvent processing show great potential for commercialization. However, non-halogen solvent ...processing of all-small-molecule organic solar cells are rarely reported and its power conversion efficiencies are very difficult to improve. Herein, we designed and synthesized a small molecule donor BM-ClEH that can take advantage of strong aggregation property induced by intramolecular chlorine-sulfur non-covalent interaction to improve molecular pre-aggregation in tetrahydrofuran and corresponding micromorphology after film formation. Tetrahydrofuran-fabricated all-small-molecule organic solar cells based on BM-ClEH:BO-4Cl achieved high power conversion efficiencies of 15.0% in binary device and 16.1% in ternary device under thermal annealing treatment. In contrast, weakly aggregated BM-HEH without chlorine-sulfur non-covalent bond is almost inefficient under same processing conditions due to poor pre-aggregation induced disordered π-π stacking, indistinct phase separation and exciton dissociation. This work promotes the development of non-halogen solvent processing of all-small-molecule organic solar cells and provides further guidance.
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