Congenital megaduodenum is a rare disorder; however, its prenatal diagnosis has not been reported previously. We report the case of an abdominal cystic mass in a fetus that was later diagnosed as ...megaduodenum.
An abdominal cystic mass was found during ultrasonography of a fetus at 11 weeks of gestation. The mass progressively enlarged with gestation. The amniotic fluid volume decreased and then returned to normal. During the last prenatal ultrasound examination, the mass was observed communicating with the stomach; therefore, duodenal dilation was suspected. Finally, the patient was diagnosed with megaduodenum caused by a developmental defect in the nerve plexus.
Congenital megaduodenum is a differential diagnosis of massive fetal abdominal cystic masses. Ultrasound examinations of such masses communicating with the stomach may help determine the diagnosis.
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is characterized by excessive deposition of extracellular matrix in the lung with fibroblast-to-myofibroblast transition, leading to chronically compromising lung ...function and death. However, very little is known about the metabolic alterations of fibroblasts in IPF, and there is still a lack of pharmaceutical agents to target the metabolic dysregulation. Here we show a glycolysis upregulation and fatty acid oxidation (FAO) downregulation in fibroblasts from fibrotic lung, and perturbation of glycolysis and FAO affects fibroblasts transdifferentiation. In addition, there is a significant accumulation of succinate both in fibrotic lung tissues and myofibroblasts, where succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) operates in reverse by reducing fumarate to succinate. Then succinate contributes to glycolysis upregulation and FAO downregulation by stabilizing HIF-1α, which promotes the development of lung fibrosis. In addition, we identify a near-infrared small molecule dye, IR-780, as a targeting agent which stimulates mild inhibition of succinate dehydrogenase subunit A (SDHA) in fibroblasts, and which inhibits TGF-β1 induced SDH and succinate elevation, then to prevent fibrosis formation and respiratory dysfunction. Further, enhanced cell retention of IR-780 is shown to promote severe inhibition of SDHA in myofibroblasts, which may contribute to excessive ROS generation and selectively induces myofibroblasts to apoptosis, and then therapeutically improves established lung fibrosis in vivo. These findings indicate that targeting metabolic dysregulation has significant implications for therapies aimed at lung fibrosis and succinate dehydrogenase is an exciting new therapeutic target to treat IPF.
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•Glycolysis upregulation and fatty acid oxidation (FAO) downregulation in fibroblasts lead to lung fibrosis.•Succinate contributes to metabolic dysregulation of fibroblasts by stabilizing HIF-1α.•Succinate dehydrogenase is an exciting new therapeutic target to treat IPF.•IR-780 can be a promising agent to control lung fibrosis by targeting succinate dehydrogenase.
The various vegetation types in the karst landscape have been considered the results of heterogeneous habitats. However, the lack of a comprehensive understanding of regional biodiversity patterns ...and the underlying ecological processes limits further research on ecological management. This study established forest dynamic plots (FDPs) of the dominant vegetation types (shrubland, SL; mixed tree and shrub forest, MTSF; coniferous forest, CF; coniferous broadleaf mixed forest, CBMF; and broadleaf forest, BF) in the karst landscape and quantified the species diversity patterns and potential ecological processes. The results showed that in terms of diversity patterns, the evenness and species richness of the CF community were significantly lower than other vegetation types, while the BF community had the highest species richness. The other three vegetation types showed no significant variation in species richness and evenness. However, when controlling the number of individuals of FDPs, the rarefied species richness showed significant differences and ranked as BF > SL > MTSF > CBMF > CF, highlighting the importance of considering the impacts of abundance. Additionally, the community assembly of climax communities (CF or BF) was dominated by stochastic processes such as species dispersal or species formation, whereas deterministic processes (habitat filtering) dominated the secondary forests (SL, MTSF, and CBMF). These findings proved that community assembly differs mainly between the climax community and other communities. Hence, it is crucial to consider the biodiversity and of the potential underlying ecological processes together when studying regional ecology and management, particularly in heterogeneous ecosystems.
Mitogen‐activated protein kinase kinase kinase (MAPKKK) are the first components of MAPK cascades, which play pivotal roles in signaling during plant development and physiological processes. The ...genome of rice encodes 75 MAPKKKs, of which 43 are Raf‐like MAPKKKs. The functions and action modes of most of the Raf‐like MAPKKKs, whether they function as bona fide MAPKKKs and which are their downstream MAPKKs, are largely unknown. Here, we identified the osmapkkk43 mutant, which conferred broad‐spectrum resistance to Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo), the destructive bacterial pathogen of rice. Oryza sativa (Os)MAPKKK43 encoding a Raf‐like MAPKKK was previously known as Increased Leaf Angle 1 (OsILA1). Genetic analysis indicated that OsILA1 functioned as a negative regulator and acted upstream of the OsMAPKK4–OsMAPK6 cascade in rice–Xoo interactions. Unlike classical MAPKKKs, OsILA1 mainly phosphorylated the threonine 34 site at the N‐terminal domain of OsMAPKK4, which possibly influenced the stability of OsMAPKK4. The N‐terminal domain of OsILA1 is required for its homodimer formation and its full phosphorylation capacity. Taken together, our findings reveal that OsILA1 acts as a negative regulator of the OsMAPKK4–OsMAPK6 cascade and is involved in rice–Xoo interactions.
The rice Raf‐like MAPKKK INCREASED LEAF ANGLE 1 (OsILA1) negatively modulates broad‐spectrum resistance to bacterial blight. OsILA1 mainly directly phosphorylates the T34 residue in the N terminus of OsMAPKK4 and reduces its protein stability, thereby negatively regulating the OsMAPKK4‐OsMAPK6 cascade.
Abstract
Background
It is challenging to predict the outcome of the pregnancy when fetal heart activity is detected in early pregnancy. However, an accurate prediction is of importance for ...obstetricians as it helps to provide appropriate consultancy and determine the frequency of ultrasound examinations. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of the convolutional neural network (CNN) in the prediction of spontaneous miscarriage risk through the analysis of early ultrasound gestational sac images.
Methods
A total of 2196 ultrasound images from 1098 women with early singleton pregnancies of gestational age between 6 and 8 weeks were used for training a CNN for the prediction of the miscarriage in the retrospective study. The patients who had positive fetal cardiac activity on their first ultrasound but then experienced a miscarriage were enrolled. The control group was randomly selected in the same database from the fetuses confirmed to be normal during follow-up. Diagnostic performance of the algorithm was validated and tested in two separate test sets of 136 patients with 272 images, respectively. Performance in prediction of the miscarriage was compared between the CNN and the manual measurement of ultrasound characteristics in the prospective study.
Results
The accuracy of the predictive model was 80.32% and 78.1% in the retrospective and prospective study, respectively. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) for classification was 0.857 (95% confidence interval CI, 0.793–0.922) in the retrospective study and 0.885 (95%CI, 0.846–0.925) in the prospective study, respectively. Correspondingly, the predictive power of the CNN was higher compared with manual ultrasound characteristics, for which the AUCs of the crown-rump length combined with fetal heart rate was 0.687 (95%CI, 0.587–0.775).
Conclusions
The CNN model showed high accuracy for predicting miscarriage through the analysis of early pregnancy ultrasound images and achieved better performance than that of manual measurement.
Multiple-target localization is extensively applied in wireless connected networks. However, sensor location uncertainty is known to degrade significantly the target localization accuracy. ...Fortunately, calibration emitters such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) with known location can be used to reduce the loss in localization accuracy due to sensor location errors. This paper is devoted to the use of UAV calibration emitters for time differences of arrival (TDOA) and frequency differences of arrival (FDOA) positioning of multiple targets. The study starts with deriving the Cramér-Rao bound (CRB) for TDOA/FDOA-based target location estimate when several UAV calibration signals are available. Subsequently, the paper presents an iterative constrained weighted least squares (ICWLS) estimator for multiple-target joint localization using TDOA/FDOA measurements from both target sources and UAV calibration emitters. The newly proposed method consists of two stages. In the first phase, the sensor locations are refined based on the calibration measurements as well as the prior knowledge of sensor locations. The second step provides the estimate of multiple-target locations by combining the measurements of target signals as well as the estimated values in the first phase. An efficient ICWLS algorithm is presented at each stage. Both the two algorithms are implemented by using matrix singular value decomposition (SVD), which is able to provide a closed-form solution and update the weighting matrix at every iteration. Finally, the convergence behavior and estimation mean-square-error (MSE) of the new estimator are deduced. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the developed method can improve the TDOA/FDOA localization accuracy obviously with the help of UAV calibration emitters.
The exchanges between cities and counties in the Northern Slope Economic Belt of Tianshan Mountains (NSEBTM) are increasingly frequent and the economic linkages are increasingly close, but the ...spatial distribution of economic development and linkages among the cities and counties within NSEBTM is uneven. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the evolution of spatial-temporal pattern of the economic linkage network of cities and counties on NSEBTM to promote the coordinated and integrated development of the regional economy on NSEBTM. In this study, we used the modified gravity model and social network analysis method to analyze the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of the economic linkage network structure of cities and counties on NSEBTM in 2000, 2010, and 2020. The results showed that the comprehensive development quality level of cities and counties on NSEBTM increased from 2000 to 2020, its growth rate also increased, and its gap between cities and counties continued expanding. Both the spatial distribution patterns of the comprehensive development quality level of cities and counties on NSEBTM in 2000 and 2010 were presented as “high in the middle and low at both ends”, while the spatial distribution pattern of 2020 was exhibited as “high value and low value staggered”. The total amount of external economic linkages of cities and counties on NSEBTM showed an obvious upward trend, and its gap between cities and counties continued expanding, also showing a pattern of “a strong middle section and weak ends”. The direction of economic linkages of NSEBTM existed obvious central orientation and geographical proximity. The density of economic linkage network of NSEBTM increased from 2000 to 2020, and the structure of economic linkage network changed from single-core structure centered with Urumqi City to multicore structure centered with Urumqi City, Karamay City, Shihezi City, and Changji City, shifting from unbalanced development to balanced development. In the future, we should accelerate the construction of urban agglomeration on NSEBTM, cultivate a modern Urumqi metropolitan area, improve the comprehensive development quality of the cities and counties at the eastern and western ends, strengthen the intensity of economic linkages between cities and counties, optimize the economic linkage network, and promote the coordinated and integrated development of regional economy.
Persistent right umbilical vein (PRUV) is characterized by atresia of the left umbilical vein while the right umbilical vein remains open. Given the limited sample size of most studies, the incidence ...of PRUV and the status of concomitant anomalies may not be fully reflected. Thus, we studied the incidence of fetal PRUV and its concomitant anomalies on a larger scale using our hospital database. This study hoped to address the following questions: Does PRUV increase the risk of fetal anomalies? If the PRUV fetus also has a single umbilical artery (SUA), does the risk of fetal anomaly increase further? What is the positive predictive value of PRUV for fetal anomalies?
This retrospective study analyzed 756 cases of fetal PRUV at our hospital from January 2007 to April 2017. Prenatal ultrasound and color Doppler images were assessed. All PRUV fetuses underwent echocardiography and detailed ultrasound examinations of other systems. Newborn status was obtained via the database or by telephone follow-up.
A total of 435,428 pregnant women underwent prenatal ultrasonography at 16-40 weeks, the incidence of fetal PRUV was 0.17%, and 102 fetuses (13.5%) developed other anomalies. Two complicated cases had trisomy 18. PRUV was associated with a higher incidence of fetal anomalies. When fetal anomalies were classified by body systems, PRUV was associated with a higher incidence of cardiovascular, nervous, urinary, skeletal, digestive, and respiratory system anomalies. The positive predictive values of a PRUV for any fetal anomalies and cardiovascular anomalies were 13.5% (95%CI, 11.2-16.2%) and 5.4% (95%CI, 4.0-7.3%), respectively. SUA further increases the risk of PRUV fetuses with other anomalies and cardiovascular anomalies.
Detailed prenatal ultrasonography and echocardiography should be performed in fetuses with PRUV to rule out anomalies in other systems. When the PRUV is combined with SUA, echocardiography is particularly important. Fetuses with complicated PRUV should undergo chromosomal examination. Although isolated fetal PRUV prognosis is good, complicated PRUV prognosis depends on the type and severity of the concomitant anomalies.
Different operation phases in batch processes cover distinguishing behaviors, so establishing statistical models for each identical phase become an effective way for batch monitoring. In this paper, ...a new adaptive phase partition and online fault detection method is proposed, which can track the phase's transition by time sequence and has less reliance on parameters' selection. The discussion and analysis of this proposed method follows. In this proposed method, the information contained in every sample time will be evaluated, and the change tendency of feature is demonstrated on a batch prospect. Then, two control bounds are designed for the feature tendency, the stable, and the transitional phases that have a different feature level and play certainly roles in process operation, will be identified automatically. For online monitoring, the new fault detection strategy is composed of modeling the PCA and PLS statistical methods for each identified phase, three statistics are established to ensure the data-decomposing reliable. The proposed method is applied to the industrial penicillin fermentation process, and the experimental result shows better performance in phase partition and fault detection.
Background and objectives
Accurate identification and evaluation of the parathyroid glands (PGs) intraoperatively is critical to reduce the incidence of postoperative hypoparathyroidism after total ...thyroidectomy. Near-infrared fluorescence imaging (NIFI), including the autofluorescence (AF) and indocyanine green fluorescence (ICGF) imaging, is a promising technique to protect PGs. This study aimed to assess whether the combined use of AF and ICGF could reduce the incidence of postoperative hypoparathyroidism and improve the identification and evaluation of PGs during total thyroidectomy.
Methods
This randomized controlled trial enrolled 180 patients who were randomized into two groups and underwent total thyroidectomy with unilateral or bilateral central lymph node dissection. In the control group, the PGs were identified and evaluated by the naked eye. In the NIFI group, AF was used to identify the PGs and ICGF was applied to assess the blood perfusion of the PGs
in situ
. The primary outcome was the incidence of postoperative hypoparathyroidism. The secondary outcomes included the number of identified PGs, autotransplanted PGs, and known preserved PGs
in situ
.
Results
The incidence of postoperative transient hypoparathyroidism was significantly lower in the NIFI group than in the control group (27.8% vs. 43.3%,
P
= 0.029). More PGs were identified in the NIFI group than in the control group (3.6 ± 0.5 vs. 3.2 ± 0.4,
P
< 0.001). No significant difference was observed in the number of autotransplanted PGs between the two groups (
P
= 0.134). Compared with the control group, a greater number of known PGs were preserved
in situ
in the NIFI group (1.3 ± 0.6 vs. 1.0 ± 0.5,
P
< 0.001). In the NIFI group, only 4.5% of the patients with at least one well-perfused PG (ICG score of 2) developed postoperative hypoparathyroidism, which was significantly lower than that of the control group (34.6%,
P
< 0.001).
Conclusion
Combined use of AF and ICGF during total thyroidectomy reduces the risk of transient postoperative hypoparathyroidism, enhances the ability to identify and preserve PGs, and improves the accuracy of evaluating the perfusion of PGs during surgery.
Clinical Trial Registration
Chinese Clinical Trial Register (
www.chictr.org.cn
), identifier ChiCTR2100045320. Registered on April 12, 2021.
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