Electrical impedance tomography (EIT), a noninvasive and radiation-free medical imaging technique, has been used for continuous real-time regional lung aeration. However, adhesive electrodes could ...cause discomfort and increase the risk of skin injury during prolonged measurement. Additionally, the conductive gel between the electrodes and skin could evaporate in long-term usage and deteriorate the signal quality. To address these issues, in this work, textile electrodes integrated with a clothing belt are proposed to achieve EIT lung imaging along with a custom portable EIT system. The simulation and experimental results have verified the validity of the proposed portable EIT system. Furthermore, the imaging results of using the proposed textile electrodes were compared with commercial electrocardiogram electrodes to evaluate their performance.
Ultrafast Kerr effect switching in near‐infrared two‐photon absorption (TPA)‐free and free‐carrier‐absorption (FCA)‐free nonstoichiometric silicon carbide (SixC1−x) microring waveguides is performed ...and investigated. With pulsed return‐to‐zero on–off‐keying (PRZ‐OOK) stream for the Si‐rich SixC1−x‐based all‐optical switches, the inversely modulated probe reveals an asymmetric bit shape data extinction ratio (ER) of only 8.7 dB owing to the TPA + FCA effect. By eliminating the FCA effects in nearly stoichiometric SixC1−x microring waveguide, the high‐speed wavelength conversion of a data stream with an ER of 14 dB can be observed when coinciding the probe wavelength with the transmission dip. Slightly deviating the probe wavelength from the transmission dip, most probe power still remains in bus waveguide to cause a strong FCA effect to degrade the ER down to 7.4 dB. A symmetrically converted and inverted data stream with high on/off extinction can be observed in the C‐rich SixC1−x‐based microring waveguide with completely suppressed trailing‐edge response. To further approach the upper limitation on bandwidth, the wavelength‐converted and sign‐reversible PRZ‐OOK data switching at a bit rate up to 12 Gbit s−1 can be obtained with similar ER of better than 20 dB, as contributed mainly by the enhanced Kerr nonlinearity in the C‐rich SixC1−x.
All‐optical cross‐wavelength switching induced data‐format conversion and inversion in SixC1−x microring waveguide demonstrate the possibility of all‐optical CMOS logic circuit.
Background Outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, have negative impacts on bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (BCPR) for fear of transmission while breaking social ...distancing rules. The latest guidelines recommend hands-only cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and facemask use. However, public willingness in this setup remains unknown. Methods A cross-sectional, unrestricted volunteer Internet survey was conducted to assess individuals' attitudes and behaviors toward performing BCPR, pre-existing CPR training, occupational identity, age group, and gender. The raking method for weights and a regression analysis for the predictors of willingness were performed. Results Among 1,347 eligible respondents, 822 (61%) had negative attitudes toward performing BCPR. Healthcare providers (HCPs) and those with pre-existing CPR training had fewer negative attitudes (p < 0.001); HCPs and those with pre-existing CPR training and unchanged attitude showed more positive behaviors toward BCPR (p < 0.001). Further, 9.7% of the respondents would absolutely refuse to perform BCPR. In contrast, 16.9% would perform BCPR directly despite the outbreak. Approximately 9.9% would perform it if they were instructed, 23.5%, if they wore facemasks, and 40.1%, if they were to perform hands-only CPR. Interestingly, among the 822 respondents with negative attitudes, over 85% still tended to perform BCPR in the abovementioned situations. The weighted analysis showed similar results. The adjusted predictors for lower negative attitudes toward BCPR were younger age, being a man, and being an HCP; those for more positive behaviors were younger age and being an HCP. Conclusions Outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, have negative impacts on attitudes and behaviors toward BCPR. Younger individuals, men, HCPs, and those with pre-existing CPR training tended to show fewer negative attitudes and behaviors. Meanwhile, most individuals with negative attitudes still expressed positive behaviors under safer measures such as facemask protection, hands-only CPR, and available dispatch instructions.
Nickel compounds are associated with lung and skin cancer incidence increase and accumulation of nickel in the body contributes to carcinogenesis. Upregulation of certain integrins in the primary ...tumor is associated with cancer metastasis and poor prognosis. However, the molecular mechanisms of nickel‐induced cancer metastasis are still unclear. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of nickel chloride (NiCl2) on the progression of cancer during metastasis. The results of showed that NiCl2 induces the expression of integrin β3 mRNA and protein in a dose‐ and time‐dependent manner. Inhibition of integrin αvβ3 activation by ITGB3 ligand mimetics and GR144053, as well as downregulation of ITGB3 by lentiviral shRNA gene silencing, diminished NiCl2‐induced secretion of vascular endothelial growth factor‐a (VEGF‐a). Furthermore, pretreatment with type I TGF‐β receptor inhibitor, SB525334, suppressed the expression of ITGB3 at cell surface and secretion of VEGF‐a in NiCl2‐treated cells. In conclusion, NiCl2 induces the expression of ITGB3 through TGF‐β signaling activation, followed by increasing VEGF‐a secretion, revealing a novel role for ITGB3 in nickel compound‐induced cancer metastasis and tumor angiogenesis.
Nickel compounds are associated with lung and skin cancer incidence increase and accumulation of nickel in the body contributes to carcinogenesis. NiCl2 induces the expression of ITGB3 through TGF‐β signaling activation, followed by increasing vascular endothelial growth factor‐a secretion, revealing a novel role for ITGB3 in nickel compound‐induced cancer metastasis and tumor angiogenesis
Background and Aim
Local complications of acute pancreatitis (AP) carry risks of morbidity/mortality. This study aimed to assess whether urinary trypsinogen‐2 levels and Bedside Index for Severity in ...Acute Pancreatitis (BISAP) score on admission predicted subsequent local complications.
Methods
One hundred and forty‐four consecutive patients with AP were prospectively followed till 6 months after discharge. Urinary trypsinogen‐2 levels were measured within 24 h of admission. Local complications (acute peripancreatic fluid collection, acute necrotic collection, pseudocyst, and walled‐off necrosis) were diagnosed by abdominal computed tomography. Cut‐off for trypsinogen‐2 level was assessed using receiver operating characteristic curve, and predictors of local complications were analyzed by logistic regression.
Results
Thirty‐seven (25.7%) patients developed local complications. Urinary trypsinogen‐2 levels were significantly higher in patients with local complications compared with those without local complications (median interquartile range, 3210 620–9764.4 μg/L vs 627.3 72.3–5895 μg/L, P = 0.006). Urinary trypsinogen‐2 significantly outperformed BISAP score in predicting local complications (area under the receiver operating characteristic curve 0.65 95% CI: 0.55–0.75 vs 0.48 95% CI: 0.38–0.58, P = 0.005). At the optimal cut‐off of 500 μg/L, the sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of trypsinogen‐2 level were 78.4%, 45.8%, 33.3%, and 86.0%, respectively. Urinary trypsinogen‐2 level > 500 μg/L was an independent predictor of local complications (adjusted odds ratio, 3.72; 95% CI: 1.42–9.76; P = 0.007). By contrast, BISAP score ≥ 3 and pleural effusion predicted organ failure but not local complications.
Conclusion
In a prospective cohort, urinary trypsinogen‐2 level > 500 μg/L independently predicted local complications of AP.
To realize the superiority of data transmission with reduced modal dispersion in OM4- and OM5-mulitmode fiber (MMF), a single transverse mode (SM) vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL), ...directly encoded with large-capacity data formats for transmissions in OM5-MMF and OM4-MMF, are compared. The SM-VCSEL contains a 12-μm mesa formed by double-oxidized AlGaAs layers, which confines a current-flow area within an aperture of 3 μm. The SM-VCSEL is lasing with a carrier-to-noise ratio of 34.4 dB and a linewidth of 0.05 nm. The SM-VCSEL is biased at 10Ith to provide a modulation bandwidth of 21.4 GHz and a relative intensity noise of -138 dBc/Hz. By encoding the SM-VCSEL with four-level pulse amplitude modulation (PAM-4) at 64 Gbit/s, the bit error ratio (BER) of 32-GBaud PAM-4 data is improved from 7.9 × 10 -5 to 4.9 × 10 -5 under a KP4-FEC criterion by replacing OM4-MMF with OM5-MMF. After OM5-MMF transmission, a bathtub BER plot shows bottom-eye, middle-eye, and top-eye jitter tolerances of 9.3, 10.6, and 7.1 ps, which are much wider than 6.9, 10.1, and 6.5 ps for OM4-MMF, respectively. When encoding the 16-QAM OFDM at 100 Gbit/s, OM5-MMF allows data transmission at 96-Gbit/s with a corresponding error vector magnitude, signal-to-noise ratio, and BER of 16.7%, 15.4 dB, and 3.6 × 10 -3 under preleveling at a slope of 0.3 dB/GHz. Because of the high effective modal bandwidth and low modal dispersion of the OM5-MMF, a relatively low receiving power penalty of 0.1 dB between 100-m and back-to-back (BtB) transmissions is obtained with either the pre-emphasized PAM-4 or the preleveled QAM-OFDM data format. By contrast, the receiving power penalty is 1.04 dB between 100 m and BtB cases during OM4-MMF transmission.
Gallium oxide (Ga2O3) is a highly promising ultrawide‐bandgap semiconductor for power electronics that emerged about a decade ago. Epitaxial growth Ga2O3 at the small scale is demonstrated. In order ...to develop scalable manufacturing of high‐performance epitaxial structures, in‐depth understanding of the fundamental growth processes, control parameters, and mechanism is imperative. This review discusses the recent progress in epitaxial growth of β‐Ga2O3 films and highlights challenges in obtaining high growth rate, low defects, and high carrier mobilities. Compared with the other epitaxy methods, metal–organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) offers a wider growth window and precursor selection option, to minimize the tradeoff between crystal quality and growth rate. Growth rate is inversely proportional to temperature, within a certain temperature window, because of the unavoidable premature gas‐phase reactions and desorption of the highly volatile gallium suboxide (Ga2O) at elevated temperatures. Growth defects, background impurity incorporation, and carrier mobilities can be affected by the choice of MOCVD precursors, nucleation, and adsorption/desorption/diffusion of adatoms on substrate surfaces of different orientations, including the effect of growing on cleavage and noncleavage planes. This review summarizes the current status of the epitaxial growth of β‐Ga2O3 and analyzes the major factors that enhance mobility and reduce background doping concentration. The insights gained help advance the manufacturability of device‐grade epitaxial thin films.
Gallium oxide (Ga2O3) is a highly promising ultrawide‐bandgap semiconductor for power electronics. This review discusses the recent progress in epitaxy of β‐Ga2O3 films and highlights the challenges in obtaining high growth rate, low defects, and high carrier mobilities, including the effect of precursors and substrate orientations. The insights gained help advance the manufacturability of device quality structures.
Galectin-1 (Gal-1) is a pleiotropic homodimeric β-galactoside-binding protein with a single carbohydrate recognition domain. It has been implicated in several biological processes that are important ...during tumor progression. Several lines of evidence have indicated that Gal-1 is involved in cancer immune escape and induces T cell apoptosis. These observations all emphasized Gal-1 as a novel target for cancer immunotherapy. Here, we developed a novel Gal-1-targeting DNA aptamer (AP-74 M-545) and demonstrated its antitumor effect by restoring immune function. AP-74 M-545 binds to Gal-1 with high affinity. AP-74 M-545 targets tumors in murine tumor models but suppresses tumor growth only in immunocompetent C57BL/6 mice, not in immunocompromised non-obese diabetic (NOD)/severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice. Immunohistochemistry revealed increased CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in AP-74 M-545-treated tumor tissues. AP-74 M-545 suppresses T cell apoptosis by blocking the binding of Gal-1 to CD45, the main receptor and apoptosis mediator of Gal-1 on T cells. Collectively, our data suggest that the Gal-1 aptamer suppresses tumor growth by blocking the interaction between Gal-1 and CD45 to rescue T cells from apoptosis and restores T cell-mediated immunity. These results indicate that AP-74 M-545 may be a potential strategy for cancer immunotherapy.
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Rationale, Aims, and Objectives
A more effective allocation of critical care resources is important as the cost of intensive care increases. A model has been developed to predict the probability of ...in‐hospital death among patients who received extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). Cost‐effectiveness analyses (CEA) were performed regarding the relationship between hospitalization expenses and predicted survival outcomes.
Methods
Adult patients who received ECMO in a medical center in Taiwan (2005–2016) were included. A logistic regression model was applied to a spectrum of clinical measures obtained before and during ECMO institutions to identify the risk variables for in‐hospital mortality. CEA were reported as a predictive risk in quintiles and defined as the cost of each quality‐adjusted life‐year (QALY). The distribution of the cost‐effectiveness ratio (CER) was measured by the ellipse and acceptability curve methods.
Results
A total of 919 patients (659 males, mean age: 53.7 years) were enrolled. Ten variables emerged as significant predictors of in‐hospital death. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.75 (95% confidence interval: 0.72–0.79). In‐hospital and total follow‐up times were 40,366 and 660,205 person‐days, respectively. The total in‐hospital expense was $31,818,701 USD and the total effectiveness was 1687.3 QALY. For the lowest to the highest risk quintile, the mean mortality risks were 0.30, 0.48, 0.61, 0.75, and 0.88, and mean adjusted CER were $24,230, $43,042, $54,929, $84,973, and $149,095 per QALY, respectively.
Conclusions
The efficient allocation of limited and costly resources is most important when one is forced to decide between groups of critically ill patients. The current analyses of ECMO outcomes should assist in identifying candidates with the greatest prospect for survival while avoiding futile treatments.
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