Aims
Malnutrition is common in patients with heart failure (HF) and is associated with poorer quality of life and increased mortality; however, an effective screening tool for malnutrition and its ...impact on the readmission of patients with HF is uncertain. Our objectives were to study (i) the nutritional status of Chinese hospitalized patients with HF and its impact on readmission and (ii) the validity of seven malnutrition screening tools.
Methods and results
In this study, univariate and multivariate analyses of Cox proportional hazards regression were used to determine important predictors of readmission. The endpoint was readmission due to HF or non‐HF. A total of 402 patients were included (66.4% male, median age 62 years range: 20–92 years, median NT‐proBNP 5,229 ng/L). During a median follow‐up of 159 days, 150 patients (37%) were readmitted to the hospital. After adjusting for confounders, only malnutrition assessed using the Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) nutrition score was independently associated with readmission (P = 0.0293). A base model for predicting readmission with a C‐statistic of 0.680 and subsequent addition of various nutritional screening tools improved its performance over the base model. Patients with malnutrition had a twofold increased risk of readmission.
Conclusions
We found that the prevalence of malnutrition among hospitalized patients with HF in China is very high and that malnutrition significantly increases the risk of readmission in these patients. CONUT is a validated screening tool for malnutrition and may provide valuable prognostic information.
The impact of COVID-19 on the world is still ongoing, and it is currently under regular management. Although most infected people have flu-like symptoms and can cure themselves, coexisting pathogens ...in COVID-19 patients should not be taken lightly. The present study sought to investigate the coexisting pathogens in SARS-CoV-2 infected patients and identify the variety and abundance of dangerous microbes to guide treatment strategies with a better understanding of the untested factors.
We extracted total DNA and RNA in COVID-19 patient specimens from nasopharyngeal swabs to construct a metagenomic library and utilize Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) to discover chief bacteria, fungi, and viruses in the body of patients. High-throughput sequencing data from Illumina Hiseq 4000 were analyzed using Krona taxonomic methodology for species diversity.
We studied 56 samples to detect SARS-CoV-2 and other pathogens and analyzed the species diversity and community composition of these samples after sequencing. Our results showed some threatening pathogens such as
,
,
, and some previously reported pathogens. SARS-CoV-2 combined with bacterial infection is more common. The results of heat map analysis showed that the abundance of bacteria was mostly more than 1000 and that of viruses was generally less than 500. The pathogens most likely to cause SARS-CoV-2 coinfection or superinfection include
,
,
,
, and
.
The current coinfection and superinfection status is not optimistic. Bacteria are the major threat group that increases the risk of complications and death in COVID-19 patients and attention should be paid to the use and control of antibiotics. Our study investigated the main types of respiratory pathogens prone to coexisting or superinfection in COVID-19 patients, which is valuable for identifying and treating SARS-CoV-2.
Objective
Approximately 20%–30% of mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) patients got unfavorable seizure control after surgery, and there was a discrepancy about the reasons for the surgical failure. ...The functional connectivity (FC) patterns obtained from stereo‐electroencephalography (SEEG) reveal information about the dynamics of the epileptic brain and the added value of extracting information that was not identifiable in the SEEG data using FC analysis. This study aims to find out the patterns of the potential epileptogenic network of failure patients and the electrophysiological predictors of reoperation.
Methods
From January 2012 to December 2019, the MTLE patients with surgical failure were reviewed, and all patients underwent SEEG‐guided reoperation. The epileptogenic network was quantified by calculating FC indicators, including phase slope index (PSI), mutual information (MI) strength, imaginary coherence (icoh), and Granger causality.
Results
Ten patients with 13 seizures were included in the analysis, and 7 of them achieved a favorable outcome after the SEEG‐guided reoperation. The surgical zone (SZ) with a favorable prognosis showed greater outward information flow than the non‐SZ, whereas the SZ with an unfavorable prognosis showed greater inward information flow. The recurrent patients with favorable prognosis had strong connectivity between the posterior hippocampus, temporal neocortex, and insula, whereas the patients with unfavorable prognosis showed strong functional connectivity between the insula and temporal–parietal‐occipital junction. The power spectrum of patients with favorable prognosis was significantly lower than that of patients with unfavorable prognosis, especially showing a more oscillation power of low frequency.
Significance
The SEEG‐guided reoperation could achieve favorable seizure control outcomes for recurrent patients. The FCs were a potential indicator to help construct the temporal epileptic network and predictor for the reoperative prognosis in the recurrent patients.
Abnormal neural activity in the cerebellum has been implicated in hearing impairments, but the effects of long-term hearing loss on cerebellar function are poorly understood. To further explore the ...role of long-term bilateral sensorineural hearing loss on cerebellar function, we investigated hearing loss-induced changes among neural networks within cerebellar subregions and the changes in cerebellar-cerebral connectivity patterns using resting-state functional MRI. Twenty-one subjects with long-term bilateral moderate-to-severe sensorineural hearing loss and 21 matched controls with clinically normal hearing underwent MRI scanning and a series of neuropsychological tests targeting cognition and emotion. Voxel-wise functional connectivity (FC) analysis demonstrated decreased couplings between the cerebellum and other cerebral areas, including the temporal pole (TP), insula, supramarginal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), medial frontal gyrus, and thalamus, in long-term bilateral sensorineural hearing loss patients. An ROI-wise FC analysis found weakened interregional connections within cerebellar subdivisions. Moreover, there was a negative correlation between anxiety and FC between the left cerebellar lobe VI and left insula. Hearing ability and anxiety scores were also correlated with FC between the left cerebellar lobe VI and left TP, as well as the right cerebellar lobule VI and left IFG. Our results suggest that sensorineural hearing loss disrupts cerebellar-cerebral circuits, some potentially linked to anxiety, and interregional cerebellar connectivity. The findings contribute to a growing body showing that auditory deprivation caused by cochlear hearing loss disrupts not only activity with the classical auditory pathway but also portions of the cerebellum that communicates with other cortical networks.
As reported herein, we have designed an effective way to achieve in-situ loading of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) into the pores of activated γ-Al2O3 particles to prepare low-cost, easy-to-obtain ...and high-yield granular MOFs composites (GMCs). MOF-5, ZIF-8, Ni-BTC, and Co-BTC have been selected to prepare GMCs via in-situ synthesis methods, thereby leading to the GMCs MOF-5-X@γ-Al2O3, ZIF-8-X@γ-Al2O3, Ni-BTC-X@γ-Al2O3, and Co-BTC-X@γ-Al2O3 (X = NO3 or OAc), respectively. The physical and chemical properties of the as-prepared MOF@γ-Al2O3 GMCs were characterized in detail. The results show that MOF-5-X@γ-Al2O3 and ZIF-8-X@γ-Al2O3 exhibit selective adsorption behavior for anionic dye. The adsorption capacities of MOF-5-X@γ-Al2O3 are 1388.01 mg g−1 (for CR and X = NO3), 1431.25 mg g−1 (for CR and X = OAc), 406.50 mg g−1 (for MO and X = NO3), and 234.16 mg g−1 (for MO and X = OAc), respectively, while the adsorption capacities of ZIF-8-X@γ-Al2O3 are 1426.85 mg g−1 (for CR and X = NO3), 1543.91 mg g−1 (for CR and X = OAc), 477.03 mg g−1 (for MO and X = NO3), and 451.02 mg g−1 (for MO and X = OAc), respectively. Moreover, ZIF-8-X@γ-Al2O3 has high adsorption performance for iodine molecules in solution, and the adsorption capacity reaches 630.63 mg g−1 for ZIF-8-NO3@γ-Al2O3 and 583.92 mg g−1 for ZIF-8-OAc@γ-Al2O3, respectively. This method is universal and can be used as an effective approach to prepare GMCs. In addition, the materials prepared by this method can be widely used in the adsorption of small molecules.
•An effective way has been designed by in situ loading MOFs into γ-Al2O3 particles.•The physical and chemical properties of the GMCs are characterized in detail.•ZIF-8-X@γ-Al2O3 has high adsorption performance for iodine molecules in solution.•Both MOF-5-X@γ-Al2O3 and ZIFs-8-X@γ-Al2O3 display selective adsorption anionic dyes.
Objective Schizophrenia is one of the most devastating neuropsychiatric disorders. Genetic epidemiological studies have confirmed that schizophrenia is a genetic disease. Genes promoting ...neurodevelopment may be potential candidates for schizophrenia. As an adaptor linking a number of tyrosine kinase receptors in multiple intracellular signaling cascades, Src homology 2 domain containing transforming protein 3 (SHC3) is a member of the Shc-like adaptor protein family, and expressed predominantly in the mature neurons of the central nervous system (CNS). In the present study, we aimed to investigate the association of SHC3 and schizophrenia.Methods An independent case-control association study was performed in a sample including 710 schizophrenia patients and 1314 healthy controls from a Northeast Chinese Han population.Results The allelic and genotypic association analyses showed that four SNPs in SHC3 significantly associated with schizophrenia (rs2316280, rs4877041, rs944485 and rs7021743). The haplotype composing of these four SNPs also showed significantly individual and global association with schizophrenia.Conclusion Our present results suggest SHC3 as a susceptibility gene for schizophrenia.
is a small gram-negative (G-) microorganism that can be dangerous to human and animals. In this study, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of
infection in swine in China. From PubMed, ...ScienceDirect, Chinese Web of knowledge (CNKI), VIP Chinese journal database, and Wanfang database, we collected a total of 72 publications reported in 1985-2020. The prevalence of
was 22.48% in China. In the sampling year subgroup, the prevalence after 2011 was the highest (26.14%). In southern China, the prevalence was 30.97%. By contrast, the prevalence in northern China was only 10.79%. Also the difference was significant (
< 0.05). In the provincial level, Hubei had the highest rate of 36.23%. Boars had a higher prevalence (29.47%). The prevalence of
detection in pigs with reproductive disorders (21.86%) was higher than that without reproductive disorders. Among the three age groups, finishing pigs (21.43%) had the highest prevalence. The prevalence in large-scale farmed pigs (28.58%) was the highest in the subgroup of feeding methods. The prevalence in farms was 24.29%, which was the highest in the survey areas. The prevalence in spring was the highest with 40.51%. Other methods had the highest prevalence (39.61%) than enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and indirect hemagglutination assay. The prevalence of
18.41% was lower than the prevalence of
(41.35%). We also analyzed the impact of different climate factor subgroups (rainfall, temperature, and humidity) on the probability of pigs suffering from the disease. The results showed that
was widespread in pigs in China. We suggest that we should strengthen the detection of
in the semen of breeding pigs and pigs with reproductive disorders, and reasonably control the environment of large-scale pig farms, so as to reduce further infection of
in pigs.
The heterogeneous structure of various two-dimensional semiconductors has attracted widespread attention due to their tunable electronic properties and great application potential. In this paper, the ...electronic properties of GeC/BAs van der Waals (vdW) heterostructure are systematically studied using first-principles calculations, and the physical mechanisms of strain and electric field modulation are discussed. Our results show that this vdW heterostructure has an inherent type-II band arrangement and direct band gap. The band gap of the GeC/BAs vdW heterostructure decreases significantly with the increase of biaxial strain, further enhancing the photoexcitation electron transition. Under the appropriate applied electric field, there is a Stark effect in the band gap due to spontaneous polarization in the vdW heterostructure. In addition, the calculated light absorption curve shows that the GeC/BAs vdW heterostructure can exhibit good visible light absorption performance. We also considered the effects of different biaxial strains and applied electric fields on the optical properties of the GeC/BAs vdW heterostructure and found that they could effectively modulate the optical properties. Therefore, GeC/BAs heterostructure have potential applications in the fields of solar cells, nanoelectronics and optoelectronics.
•Efficient carrier separation is achieved in the GeC/BAs vdW heterostructure.•GeC/BAs vdW heterostructures exhibit good optical properties in the visible region.•GeC/BAs vdW heterostructures have great potential in the field of photodetectors.•The application of applied electric field and biaxial strain can effectively adjust the band structure of GeC/BAs heterojunction.
This retrospective study explored the quality of life (QoL) in Chinese patients with laryngeal cancer (LC) after radiotherapy.Fifty-nine eligible patients with Tis-T4 LC were included in this ...retrospective study. All patients received radiotherapy. Outcomes were measured by the core measure Questionnaire-C30 (QLQ-C30), and the disease-specific Head & Neck cancer module (QLQ-H&N35). All outcomes were assessed before and 3 months after the radiotherapy.Three months after the radiotherapy, all items of QLQ-C30 and QLQ-H&N35 scales changed significantly (P < .05), except the social functioning (P = .09), role activities (P = .81), and global (P = .12) in QLQ-C30 scale and social contacts (P = 1.00), teeth problems (P = .21), trismus (P = 1.00), and feeling ill (P = .07) in QLQ-H&N35 scale, compared with these items before the radiotherapy.The results of this study showed that most items of QoL changed significantly after 3 months of radiotherapy in Chinese patients with LC.
Main observation and conclusion
The investigation of Morinda officinalis led to the isolation of twelve compounds (1—12), including three new iridoid glycosides morindalins A—C (1—3) and nine known ...compounds (4—12). Their structural identifications were conducted using HRMS, 1D and 2D NMR, and electronic circular dichroism (ECD) spectra as well as quantum chemical computations. Compound 6 displayed the most significantly agonistic activity against farnesoid X receptor (FXR) with an EC50 value of 7.18 μM, and its agonistic effect was verified through the investigation of FXR downstream target genes including small heterodimer partner 1 (SHP1), bile salt export pump (BSEP), and organic solute transporter subunit alpha and beta (OSTα and OSTβ). The potential interaction of compound 6 with FXR was analyzed by molecular docking and molecular dynamics stimulation, revealing that amino acid residues Leu287, Thr288, and Ser332 played a crucial role in the activation of compound 6 towards FXR. These findings suggested that compound 6 could be regarded as a potential candidate for the development of FXR agonists.
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