•There are various forms of concurrent extrapulmonary tuberculosis (EPTB) in China.•In total, 22 association rules of concurrent EPTB were identified.•The association rules of concurrent EPTB varied ...with gender and age.
A high proportion of all patients with tuberculosis (TB) present with extrapulmonary TB (EPTB), including concurrent EPTB involving more than one extrapulmonary lesion site. However, previous reports only characterized lesions of single-site EPTB cases. This study aimed to investigate epidemiological characteristics and association rules of concurrent EPTB cases in China.
An observational multi-centre study of 208,214 patients with EPTB lesions was undertaken in China from January 2011 to December 2017. Multi-variable logistic regression analysis was used to identify associations between gender and concurrent EPTB, and age and concurrent EPTB. Association rules were analysed for significance using the Apriori algorithm.
The most common EPTB lesion was tuberculous pleurisy (49.8%), followed by bronchial TB (14.8%) and tuberculous meningitis (7.6%). The most common type of concurrent EPTB was tuberculous pleurisy concurrent with tuberculous peritonitis (1.80%). In total, 22 association rules, including 20 strong association rules, were identified; among these, the highest confidence rates were found for tuberculous myelitis concurrent with tuberculous meningitis, and sacral TB concurrent with lumbar vertebral TB. The association rules of EPTB concurrent with other EPTB types were found to vary with gender and age. The confidence rate of tuberculous myelitis concurrent with tuberculous meningitis was higher in females (83.67%) than males, and was highest in patients aged 25–34 years (87.50%).
Many types of concurrent EPTB were found. Greater awareness of concurrent EPTB disease characteristics is needed to ensure timely clinical diagnosis and treatment of this disease.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) can function as oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes and are involved in multiple processes in cancer development and progression. For example, miR-192 is dysregulated in multiple ...human cancers, including osteosarcoma (OS). However, the pathophysiological role of miR-192 and its relevance to OS cell growth and invasion has not yet been clarified. This study aimed to investigate the expression of miR-192 in OS and elucidate the molecular mechanisms by which miR-192 acts as a tumor suppressor in this disease. The qRT-PCR data identified significant down-regulation of miR-192 in 20 OS tissue samples and two OS cell lines when compared with adjacent normal tissues and a human osteoblast cell line, respectively. Furthermore, Western blot analysis revealed overexpression of T cell-specific transcription factor (TCF) 7 protein in tumor tissues compared with matched adjacent normal tissues. Further in vitro studies demonstrated that enforced expression of miR-192 inhibited U2OS and MG63 cell proliferation, invasion, and migration and induced apoptosis. Finally, Western blot and Luciferase assays identified TCF7 as a target of miR-192. Collectively, these findings suggest an important role for miR-192 in regulating the proliferation, migration, invasion, and apoptosis of OS cells through the regulation of TCF7.
Circular polarizers have essential applications in modern radar and communication systems. However, an online tunable wideband dual-circular polarizer with a power capability of more than 150 kW in ...the Ku band has not been reported yet, and it has recently become a fundamental problem for developing some high-power radar systems. This paper has designed an overmoded waveguide operating in the TE11 mode with a non-contact cutting-off choke to imply a high power capability. A high-precision stepping motor is used to control the rotation of an elliptical waveguide remotely, and then, the left-hand and right-hand circular polarizations can be switched online. The dual-circular polarizer has been fitted on a 150 kW gyro-TWT high-power test system, and the experimental results show a tremendous high-power capability. The microwave leakage caused by the non-contact gap is reduced to less than −35 dB. The polarization bandwidth exceeds 2.5 GHz in the Ku band, and the axial ratio is better than 1.3 dB. This design concept provides a reference for future high-power radar systems.
Background:
We investigated the prevalence, demographic and clinical features, and risk factors associated with drug-induced liver injury (DILI) during the treatment of brucellosis inpatients in a ...retrospective study.
Methods:
We collected the clinical data of 782 brucellosis inpatients admitted at the Shawan County People’s Hospital, Xinjiang, from 2015–2019. All cases were re-evaluated using the international consensus of DILI criteria and RUCAM rating scale. 71 patients were confirmed as DILI cases and compared with 523 other patients with normal liver function.
Results:
It was indicated that DILI occurred with a prevalence of about 9.08% among brucellosis inpatients receiving drug therapy. Hepatocellular injury was the most common type of DILI (61.97%, 95% confidence interval CI 50.34–72.37), followed by mixed (23.94%, 95% CI 15.52–35.04) and cholestatic types (14.08%, 95% CI 7.83–24.02). In addition, 13.64% of the hepatocellular DILI cases fulfilled Hy’s law criteria and only two cases (2.82%) progressed to severe DILI. Most patients adopted the combination of rifampicin, antipyretic analgesics, anti-infective agents, and traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of brucellosis, with all the 71 patients taking rifampicin as the drug of choice. Multivariable logistic regression analyses indicated that obesity, regular alcohol intake, and decreased serum albumin were the independent risk factors of DILI in patients with brucellosis after adjusting for gender, age, and ethnicity.
Conclusion:
DILI occurred in a minority of inpatients diagnosed with brucellosis receiving rifampicin-based therapeutic regimen. In addition, obesity, alcohol abuse, and decreased serum albumin were valuable predictors of the risk of DILI in patients with brucellosis.
Therapeutic peptides, as active substances involved in a variety of cell functions in the organism, are essential participants to complete complex physiological activities of the body. Therefore, the ...prediction of therapeutic peptides is essential for researching on peptide-based therapies. The method of using biological experiments is considered to be time-consuming and labor-intensive. As a fast and accurate method, deep learning can process massive amounts of data on therapeutic peptides. In this research, we raise a deep learning model called Pep-CNN to accurately predict therapeutic peptides. Firstly, we represent the features of the peptide sequence based on the sequence position, the physicochemical property, and the evolutionary-derived feature and use the vectors to represent the sequence. After fusing the features, we use the improved classifier of Convolutional Neural Network (imCNN) to classify and predict eight kinds of peptides. The results show that, compared with other models, Pep-CNN can identify peptides more accurately, which is more conductive to the further research of therapeutic peptides by biomedical scientists. The codes and benchmark datasets are accessible at https://github.com/alivelxj/Pep-CNN.
•A new model called Pep-CNN was proposed to predict therapeutic peptides.•The different methods are applied to extract features from the dataset.•An improved convolutional neural network is used to classify the model.
Cavity‐enhanced superfluorescence (CESF) in quantum dot (QD) system is an ultrafast and intense lasing generated by combination of quantum coupling effect and optically stimulated amplification ...effect, which can provide a new idea for realizing high quality blue light sources and address the limitation of conventional inefficient blue light sources. Modifying halide composition is a straightforward method to achieve blue emission in perovskite QD system. However, the spectral instability introduced by photoinduced halide phase segregation and low coupling efficiency between QDs and optical cavities make it challenging to achieve stable blue CESF in such halide‐doped QD system. Herein, long‐range‐ordered, densely packed CsPbBr2Cl QD‐assembled superlattice microcavities in which the two core issues can be appropriately addressed are developed. The QD superlattice structure facilitates excitonic delocalization to decrease exciton‐phonon coupling, thus alleviating photoinduced phase segregation. By combination of theoretical analysis and temperature‐dependent photoluminescence (PL) measurements, the underlying photoinduced phase segregation mitigation mechanism in mixed halide superlattices is clarified. Based on the CsPbBr2Cl QD superlattices with regularly geometrical structures, in which the gain medium can be strongly coupled to the naturally formed microcavity, stable and ultrafast (3 ps) blue CESF with excellent optical performance (threshold ≈33 µJ cm−2, quality factor ≈1900) is realized.
Photoinduced phase segregation and low coupling efficiency between QDs and cavities make is challenging to achieve stable blue cavity‐enhanced superfluorescence in halide‐doped perovskite QD system. Here, long‐range‐ordered CsPbBr2Cl QD superlattices are developed, in which the two core issues can be appropriately addressed. Based on the CsPbBr2Cl QD superlattices with regularly geometrical structures, stable, and ultrafast blue cavity‐enhanced superfluorescence is realized.
Background. Tuberculosis (TB), a multisystemic disease with protean presentation, remains a major global health problem. Although concurrent pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) and extrapulmonary ...tuberculosis (EPTB) cases are commonly observed clinically, knowledge regarding concurrent PTB-EPTB is limited. Here, a large-scale multicenter observational study conducted in China aimed to study the epidemiology of concurrent PTB-EPTB cases by diagnostically defining TB types and then implementing association rules analysis. Methods. The retrospective study was conducted at 21 hospitals in 15 provinces in China and included all inpatients with confirmed TB diagnoses admitted from Jan 2011 to Dec 2017. Association rules analysis was conducted for cases with concurrent PTB and various types of EPTB using the Apriori algorithm. Results. Evaluation of 438,979TB inpatients indicated PTB was the most commonly diagnosed (82.05%) followed by tuberculous pleurisy (23.62%). Concurrent PTB-EPTB was found in 129,422 cases (29.48%) of which tuberculous pleurisy was the most common concurrent EPTB type observed. The multivariable logistic regression models demonstrated that odds ratios of concurrent PTB-EPTB cases varied by gender and age group. For PTB cases with concurrent EPTB, the strongest association was found between PTB and concurrent bronchial tuberculosis (lift = 1.09). For EPTB cases with concurrent PTB, the strongest association was found between pharyngeal/laryngeal tuberculosis and concurrent PTB (lift = 1.11). Confidence and lift values of concurrent PTB-EPTB cases varied with gender and age. Conclusions. Numerous concurrent PTB-EPTB case types were observed, with confidence and lift values varying with gender and age. Clinicians should screen for concurrent PTB-EPTB in order to improve treatment outcomes.
The size distribution of armor layer in mountain rivers is an important factor that affects the stability of the river bed. However, there are relatively few studies on the prediction of armor layer ...size distribution in the reconstruction process after the previous static armor layer becomes unstable. In response to the above challenges, this study considers the incipient probability of sediment particles as the starting point, and comprehensively considers the coupling relationship between the initial bed materials, bed structure, armor ratio, and flow intensity, using a simple calculation model for predicting the static armor layer size distribution after reconstruction of a gravel-river bed. This paper introduces the concept of critical incipient particle size
D
c
, and considers that sediment particles smaller than
D
c
will incipient easily, resulting in a higher probability of being washed out, whereas the incipient probability of sediment particles larger than
D
c
(this part of the large-particle sediment includes not only the original particles on the bed surface, but also the large sediment particles exposed by the erosion of the bed subsurface) is relatively small. At the same time, this model also uses the armor ratio to reflect the impact of the bed surface structure. This study cites data from five sets of laboratory flume experiments to verify the calculation model, and the experimental results show that the model calculation results are in good agreement with the experimentally measured data, especially in predicting the median diameter
D
50
of the static armor layer. Our calculation model provides theoretical guidance for the study of mountain riverbed stability, earthquake prevention and disaster reduction.
Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of modified Xiaoyao powder for postpartum depression (PPD) by conducting a systematic review of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Methods: The ...Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure Databases (CNKI), the Chinese Scientific Journals Database (VIP), Wanfang, Google Scholar, the SinoMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and PubMed databases were searched from their inception to April 25, 2023. The Cochrane Risk of Bias tool was used to assess the quality of the trials. We applied the risk ratio to present dichotomous data and the mean difference to present continuous data. Data with similar characteristics were pooled for meta-analysis and heterogeneity was assessed using I2. Results: This review included 35 trials involving 2848 participants. The quality of the included studies was low (unclear randomization processes and insufficient reporting of blinding). Participants treated with modified Xiaoyao powder plus Western medicine showed lower Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD) depression score than those who used Western medicine alone (mean difference = −2.15; 95% confidence interval:−2.52 to 1.78; P < .00001), and higher effective rate (relative risk = 1.19; 95% confidence interval: 1.15 to 1.24; P < .00001), When comparing modified Xiaoyao alone with Western medicine, the HAMD depression score remained low, however, the efficacy rate was higher in the modified Xiaoyao group. Regarding adverse events, the modified Xiaoyao group reported weight gain, nausea, and diarrhea, but no severe adverse events were reported. Conclusion: Modified Xiaoyao may help relieve depression in PPD when used alone or in combination with Western medicine, with minor side effects. Therefore, future high-quality, large-sample size RCTs are warranted.
Investigating the influences of different sterilization methods on overall juice quality is essential for the production of high-quality juice. The effects of ultra-high temperature instantaneous ...sterilization (UHT), thermosonication (TS), high hydrostatic pressure sterilization (HHP), and irradiation sterilization (IS) on the physicochemical properties, functional components, and color of Aronia melanocarpa juice (AMJ) were investigated. In addition, anthocyanin target metabolomics were used to explore the influences of different sterilization methods on the AMJ anthocyanin profile. All sterilization treatments effectively ensured the microbial safety of AMJ, and the AMJ viscosity was noticeably declined after sterilization (p < 0.05). Except for HHP, the other treatments aggravated AMJ browning (p < 0.05). Both TS and HHP treatments significantly enhanced or preserved the total polyphenols, flavonoids, and anthocyanins in AMJ and retained the original juice color, whereas UHT and IS treatments were not conducive to maintaining these characteristics. TS treatment significantly increased cyanidin-3-O-galactoside (C-3-O-gal) and cyanidin-3-O-arabinoside (C-3-O-ara) contents in AMJ by 7.98% and 5.90%, while IS resulted in a significant decrease of 15.74% and 10.46% (p < 0.05). C-3-O-gal and C-3-O-ara were the major reasons for the significant upregulation and downregulation of the total monomeric anthocyanins contents (TMAC) in the AMJ after TS and IS treatment, respectively. Malvidin-3-O-glucoside (M-3-O-glu), Cyanidin-3-O-(6-O-malonyl-β-D-glucoside) and Kaempferol-3-O-rutinoside (K-3-O-rut) might be markers of differential metabolites produced by the TS, HHP, and IS treatments, respectively. Correlation analysis indicated that Cyanidin-3-O-xyloside (C-3-O-xyl), C-3-O-ara, and Pelargonidin-3-O-arabinoside (P-3-O-ara) might be the principal contributed to the antioxidant capacity of AMJ. The research results are anticipated to supply technical reference for AMJ processing.
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