•Investigating the processing of emotional faces in MDD patients.•Both the N170 and EPN were significantly lower inMDD patients.•The emotional effect of EPN was not evident in MDD patients.
In order ...to investigate the processes of emotional faces in major depressive disorder (MDD) patients, we recorded and analyzed the N170 and early posterior negativity (EPN) components elicited by schematic faces with happy and angry expressions. It was found that the N170 was significantly reduced in depressive patients than that in the control group, regardless of happy or angry faces. Neither MDD patients nor controls showed the affective effects of N170. The EPN was significantly delayed and lower in MDD patients than that in the control group. In controls, the EPN was significantly enhanced for happy than angry faces, but this emotional effect was not evident in MDD patients. These data provide further electrophysiological evidence for the dysfunction of processing emotional faces in MDD patients.
Ionogels are promising materials for flexible electronics due to their continuous conductive phase, high thermal and chemical stability. However, a large amount of ionic liquid is required to get ...high conductivity, resulting in a sharp decline in the mechanical properties. Therefore, it is a great challenge to prepare ionogels with both high conductivity and mechanical properties, which is important for their practical applications. Herein, ionogels with high mechanical strength and stretchability, extraordinary ionic conductivity, excellent transparency, outstanding durability, and stability are fabricated with crosslinked polymer, ionic liquid, and lithium salt. The adoption of lithium salt can significantly improve both the mechanical strength and stretchability, which is a common dilemma in material science, and simultaneously, address the conflict between mechanical strength and ionic conductivity in ionogels. It is primarily corresponding to the microphase‐separation effects induced by the lithium bonds formed between lithium ions and carbonyl groups on the polymer networks. Ionotronics including resistance‐type sensors for strain and temperature sensing and triboelectric nanogenerators with stable output performance are fabricated. Moreover, ionogel‐based microcircuit and sensing arrays with high resolution and accuracy are fabricated through digital light processing printing technology. The ionogels have great promise for various ionotronics in many fields.
Ionogels with extraordinary mechanical strength, stretchability, and ionic conductivity are fabricated with crosslinked polymer, ionic liquid, and lithium salt. The adoption of lithium salt can significantly improve the mechanical strength, stretchability, and ionic conductivity simultaneously through microphase separation effect. Ionotronics including resistance‐type sensors and triboelectric nanogenerators are fabricated and digital light processing printing technology is applied to construct microcircuit and sensing arrays.
Objective
The inflammatory microenvironment has been implicated in differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC). Inflammatory stimuli induce the release of components of neutrophils into extracellular space, ...leading to formation of neutrophil extracellular trap (NET), which can stimulate growth and progression of cancer. Generation of activated factor XII and thrombin is also involved in cancer progression. This study attempted to determine whether the level of circulating markers of NET, activated factor XII, and endogenous thrombin potential may be useful for detecting the recurrence of DTC.
Methods
A total of 122 patients with DTC were recruited during the postoperative follow-up period. Measurement of the levels of circulating markers of NET (neutrophil elastase, histone–DNA complex, cell-free dsDNA), activated factor XII, and endogenous thrombin potential was performed.
Results
A significantly elevated level of neutrophil elastase was detected in patients with recurrence (
n
= 12) compared to those without recurrence (
n
= 110), while significant elevation of the levels of other markers was not observed. The value for area under the curve (0.717,
P
= 0.018) of neutrophil elastase for detecting recurrence of DTC was superior to that (0.661,
P
= 0.051) of serum thyroglobulin. An elevated level of neutrophil elastase was significantly associated with recurrence of DTC independent of serum thyroglobulin.
Conclusions
Because an elevated level of neutrophil elastase was detected in patients with recurrence of DTC and showed a significant association with recurrence of DTC, it can be proposed as a novel biomarker for use in detecting recurrence of DTC along with other tests.
Despite the behaviors of ZnO nanoparticles (ZnO NPs) in wastewater treatment processes have been widely explored, the impacts of ZnO NPs on the activated sludge's flocculation and sedimentation ...performances for solid-liquid separation have rarely been involved yet. In this study, ZnO NPs were observed to exert a dose-dependent negative effect on the sludge's flocculation performance but did not significantly impact the sludge’ sedimentation behaviors. Furthermore, it was NPs themselves rather than the dissolved Zn2+ who impaired on the sludge flocculation performance because the Zn2+ alone would not compromise the sludge's flocculation efficiency. In addition, the sludge flocculation performance was revealed to be inversely related to the extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) content in the sludge and the direct contacts between ZnO NPs and the cells in the sludge should be the prerequisite to stimulate the secretion of the sludge EPS. The poor sludge flocculation performance could also be caused by the reduced protein/polysaccharide (PN/PS) ratio and the zeta (ζ) potential in the loosely bound (LB-EPS) after the sludge exposure to ZnO NPs. Fourier transform-infrared spectra (FT-IR) and three dimensional - excitation emission fluorescence spectra (3D-EEM) analysis further revealed that the decrease of the tyrosine PN-like substance level in the LB-EPS was probably the key reason for the decreased PN/PS ratio and ζ potential in the LB-EPS, which eventually induced the decline of the sludge flocculation performance under the ZnO NP stress. These results could potentially expand the knowledge on sludge flocculation and sedimentation in the presence of ZnO NPs.
•ZnO NPs exposure impaired the sludge flocculation rather than its sedimentation performance.•Sludge flocculation performance inhibition could be attributed to the NPs themselves.•EPS content increased by direct contacts between the ZnO NPs and the sludge cells.•Sludge flocculation performance was positively correlated with the PN/PS ratio and the ζ potential in the LB-EPS.•ZnO NPs induced the decrease of the tyrosine PN-like substance content in the LB-EPS.
Apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease 1/redox factor-1 (APE1/Ref-1) is a multifunctional protein involved in DNA repair and redox modulation. Recently, serum and urinary APE1/Ref-1 levels were reported ...to be increased in patients with bladder cancer. Genetic variations of APE/Ref-1 are associated with the risk of cancer. However, the effect of APE1/Ref-1 variants on its secretory activity is yet unknown.
APE1/Ref-1 variants were evaluated by DNA sequencing analysis of reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction products in coding DNA sequences (CDS) of APE1/Ref-1 in bladder tissue samples from patients with bladder cancer (n=10). Secretory activity of APE1/Ref-1 variants was evaluated with immunoblot and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay of the culture medium supernatants.
Four different substitution mutants (D148E, I64V/D148E, W67R/D148E, and E86G/D148E) of APE1/Ref-1 were identified in bladder cancer specimens. However, deletion mutants of APE1/Ref-1 CDS were not found. The secretory activity of the APE1/Ref-1 variants (D148E, I64V/D148E, and E86G/D148E) was increased compared to that of wild type APE1/Ref-1. Furthermore, the secretory activity in basal or hyperacetylated conditions was much higher than that in APE1/Ref-1 D148E-transfected HEK293 cells.
Taken together, our data suggest that the increased secretory activity of D148E might contribute to increased serum levels of APE1/Ref-1 in patients with bladder cancer.
To explore the potential targets underlying the effect of rosuvastatin on heart failure (HF) by utilizing a network pharmacology approach and experiments to identify the results. PharmMapper and ...other databases were mined for information relevant to the prediction of rosuvastatin targets and HF-related targets. Then, the rosuvastatin-HF target gene networks were created in Cytoscape software. Eventually, the targets and enriched pathways were examined by Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis. Furthermore, we constructed an HF animal model and used rosuvastatin to treat them, identifying the changes in heart function and related protein expression. We further used different cells to explore the mechanisms of rosuvastatin. Thirty-five intersection targets indicated the therapeutic targets linked to HF. GO analysis showed that 481 biological processes, 4 cellular components and 23 molecular functions were identified. KEGG analysis showed 13 significant treatment pathways. In animal experiments, rosuvastatin significantly improved the cardiac function of post-myocardial infarction mice and prevented the development of HF after myocardial infarction by inhibiting IL-1Β expression. Cell experiments showed that rosuvastatin could reduce the expression of IL-1B in HUVEC and THP-1 cells. The therapeutic mechanism of rosuvastatin against HF may be closely related to the inhibition of the expression of apoptosis-related proteins, inflammatory factors, and fibrosis-related genes. However, IL-1Β is one of the most important target genes.
Purpose
To perform a comprehensive meta-analysis of all available evidence on the efficacy and safety of catheter-based renal denervation for heart failure with reduced ejection fraction.
Methods
We ...searched English and Chinese databases and calculated the weighted mean difference or standardized mean difference and 95% confidence intervals to estimate the efficacy and safety of renal denervation for heart failure. All relevant studies were screened and a meta-analysis was conducted using Review Manager 5.4.
Results
A total of 11 studies were identified for the meta-analysis. For the primary outcomes, the results showed that renal denervation significantly improved ejection fraction (weighted mean difference 6.42), left ventricular end-systolic diameter (weighted mean difference −3.95), left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (weighted mean difference −4.17) and left atrial diameter (weighted mean difference −4.09). For the secondary outcomes, renal denervation reduced the B-type natriuretic peptide level, heart rate, systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure. However, further analysis revealed that renal denervation improved heart function but did not further reduce the heart rate and blood pressure compared with the control group.
Conclusion
Treatment with renal denervation can significantly improve heart function and structure in patients with heart failure. In addition, the level of B-type natriuretic peptide can be reduced after renal denervation treatment. Renal denervation did not further reduce heart rate and blood pressure compared with the control group. Therefore, the treatment of heart failure with renal denervation is effective and safe.
Evaluation metrics such as precision, recall and normalized discounted cumulative gain have been widely applied in
ad hoc
retrieval experiments. They have facilitated the assessment of system ...performance in various topics over the past decade. However, the effectiveness of such metrics in capturing users’ in-situ search experience, especially in complex search tasks that trigger interactive search sessions, is limited. To address this challenge, it is necessary to adaptively adjust the evaluation strategies of search systems to better respond to users’ changing information needs and evaluation criteria. In this work, we adopt a taxonomy of search task states that a user goes through in different scenarios and moments of search sessions, and perform a meta-evaluation of existing metrics to better understand their effectiveness in measuring user satisfaction. We then built models for predicting task states behind queries based on in-session signals. Furthermore, we constructed and meta-evaluated new state-aware evaluation metrics. Our analysis and experimental evaluation are performed on two datasets collected from a field study and a laboratory study, respectively. Results demonstrate that the effectiveness of individual evaluation metrics varies across task states. Meanwhile, task states can be detected from in-session signals. Our new state-aware evaluation metrics could better reflect in-situ user satisfaction than an extensive list of the widely used measures we analyzed in this work in certain states. Findings of our research can inspire the design and meta-evaluation of user-centered adaptive evaluation metrics, and also shed light on the development of state-aware interactive search systems.
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