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In order to resolve the bilateral land border issue, from 1964 to 2004, the governments of China and the Soviet Union (Russia) held four rounds of diplomatic negotiations, and finally resolved this historical issue that affects the healthy development of bilateral relations by delimiting the border between China and Russia which is about 4,300 kilometers long. Due to its special nature and historical status, the issue of Heixiazi Island has always been an important factor affecting the historical process and even the outcome of Sino-Soviet (Russian) border negotiations. This article mainly reviews the negotiation history of the Heixiazi Island issue and analyzes the positions and viewpoints held by China and the Soviet Union during the negotiations. A brief comment is also made on the settlement of the Heixiazi Island issue through negotiations from the perspective of international law.

Anorectal manometry may be useful to objectively evaluate anorectal function following definitive pullthrough for Hirschsprung Disease (HD) but there is little published data. Our study aims to investigate anorectal manometry findings and their association with bowel function.This was a prospective observational study. Convenience sampling method was used to recruit all HD patients who had definitive pullthrough from January 2019 to December2020 in our institution. High-resolution anorectal manometry (HRAM) was used to record anal resting pressure (ARP), length of high-pressure zone (HPZ), and presence/absence of recto-anal inhibitory reflex (RAIR). The Paediatric Incontinence/Constipation Scoring System (PICSS) was scored for all participants. PICSS is a validated questionnaire with scores mapped to an age-specific normogram to denote constipation, incontinence, and their combinations. Non-parametric and chi-square tests at significance p0.05 were conducted to examine the relationship between PICSS categories and manometry findings. Ethical approval was obtained.There were 32 participants (30 boys). Median age at participation was 26.5 months (range: 13.8-156). Twenty-four (75%) had transanal pullthrough, 8(25%) underwent Duhamel procedure. PICSS scored 10(31.3%) as normal, 8(25%) as constipation, 10(31.3%) as incontinent, and 4(12.5%) as mixed. RAIR was present in 12 patients (37.5%). HPZ, maximum ARP, mean ARP were comparable across all PICSS groups without statistically significant differences. Presence of RAIR was not significantly associated with any PICSS groups (p = 0.13).Bowel function does not appear to be significantly associated with HRAM findings after definitive pullthrough for HD, but our study is limited by small sample size. RAIR was present in 37.5% patients after pullthrough.Level II.

This paper investigated anti-icing behavior and wettability of droplets on superhydrophobic polymercoatings between lotus effect and petal effect, which were prepared on surfaces of 2021 aluminum alloy with 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-heptafluorodecyl (FAS-17). The prepared surfaces displayed excellent hydrophobicity with contact angles of 154.9° ± 1.5°and 139.8° ± 1.3°, while rolling angles are 4° ± 1.0° (lotus effect) and 30° ± 1.5° (petal effect). Thus, the present study focused on the different characterizations and the anti-icing potential of the superhydrophobic polymersurfaces were analyzed based on three parameters including the icing delay time, the crystallization temperature of water droplets, and contact time of impinging droplets on the cold superhydrophobic polymer coatings (−15 °C). Furthermore, the anti-icing of superhydrophobic coatings between lotus effect and petal effect with freezing time and crystallization temperature experimental phenomena were consistent with the thermodynamic analysis. It is also proved that the droplets have different bounce behavior on different polymercoating surfaces by droplet impact experiment. The study offers a comprehensive perspective on polymercoatings of different wetttablility for anti-icing behavior applications.

A highly enantioselective palladium-catalyzed hydrosilylation of 1,3-diynes with dihydrosilanes was established for the facile preparation of Si-stereogenic enynes and an enyne-linked chiral polymer (polyenyne) in good yields with excellent ees.

An engineered hCRBPII protein binds a coumarin-based fluorophore to yield a photoswitchable system via Michael/retro-Michael addition of a cysteine residue. Alternate UV/visible light irradiation accesses the two optical states.

Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by fungi, which have serious effects on humans and animals. In this study, we selected the monodispersed polystyrene fluorescent microspheres with good luminescence performance and strong stability as markers to conjugate with four mycotoxins antibodies for preparing fluorescent probes. We have developed a fluorescent microsphere based immunochromatographic assay (FMICA) to detect sensitively and quickly zearalenone (ZEN), aflatoxin BUnder optimal experimental conditions, the procedure of this method can be completed within 10 min. The limit of detection (LOD) of FMICA for ZEN, AFBThe developed FMICA has good accuracy, high sensitivity, simplicity, convenience, rapidity, and low cost, and it could be employed for sensitive and quantitative detecting of mycotoxins in cereal on-site.

The transition-metal-catalyzed synthesis of chiral silacycles is a challenging processes in organosilicon chemistry. Herein, we report a facile and regioselective synthesis of a novel class of 2,3-dihydrosilole derivatives with good yields via the palladium-catalyzed Heck-type reaction of silacyclopentenes (SCPs) with aryl iodides. Preliminary investigations on the enantioselective version of this palladium-catalyzed Heck-type process reveal that the presence of N-Boc-l-proline allows the diastereo- and enantioselective formation of chiral 2,3-dihydrosilole derivatives bearing both carbon and silicon-stereogenic centers.

We present a learning-based approach for removing unwanted obstructions, such as window reflections, fence occlusions, or adherent raindrops, from a short sequence of images captured by a moving camera. Our method leverages motion differences between the background and obstructing elements to recover both layers. Specifically, we alternate between estimating dense optical flow fields of the two layers and reconstructing each layer from the flow-warped images via a deep convolutional neural network. This learning-based layer reconstruction module facilitates accommodating potential errors in the flow estimation and brittle assumptions, such as brightness consistency. We show that the proposed approach learned from synthetically generated data performs well to real images. Experimental results on numerous challenging scenarios of reflection and fence removal demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method., Project page: https://alex04072000.github.io/SOLD/ Code: https://github.com/alex04072000/SOLD Extension of the CVPR 2020 paper: arXiv:2004.01180

Overall survival of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients significantly increased in recent decades, however, the relative risk of mortality is still high. Long-term survival outcome of pediatric SLE remains unclear. This study aims to explore the long-term survival rate and its predictors in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).A retrospective, hospital-based cohort study was performed between 2004 and 2018 in a tertiary referral medical center in Taiwan. Data on comorbidities, medications, and causes of admission were collected for risk factor analysis using time-dependent multivariate Cox proportional hazards models.A total of 2392 adults and 115 pediatric SLE patients were enrolled (female, n = 2157 and 95, respectively). The 10-year survival rates were 93.2%, 90.2%, 98.9%, and 100% in adult women, adult men, girls, and boys with SLE, respectively. The overall mortality rate was 2.09 case/100 patient-years (PY) for male SLE and 1.39 case/100 PY for female SLE patients. Male SLE patients did not have a statistically significantly higher mortality rate than female SLE patients in each age stratification. Infectious disease (n = 119), heart failure (n = 21), and cerebrovascular accident (n = 14) were the leading causes of death in adult SLE patients. Advanced age (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.04, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.03-1.05), treatment with mean dosage of systemic glucocorticoid equivalent to10 mg/d of prednisolone (HR: 1.71, 95% CI: 1.14-2.57), comorbidities with malignancy (HR: 1.94, 95% CI: 1.22-3.09), chronic kidney disease (HR: 1.86, 95% CI: 1.25-2.77), hypertension (HR: 1.42, 95% CI: 1.01-1.98), and admission due to bacterial pneumonia (HR: 1.92, 95% CI: 1.12-3.31) and sepsis (HR: 2.78, 95% CI: 1.51-5.13) were independent risk factors for mortality in SLE patients.SLE patients with advanced age, malignancy, chronic kidney disease, hypertension, treated with a higher average dosage of glucocorticoids, and admission due to bacterial pneumonia and sepsis have an increased risk of mortality.

In this modern technological era today, green materials are highly regarded as one of the most important elements when designing and conducting an environmentally sustainable construction project. The cement that is utilized in conventional concrete today is one of the culprits for the high levels of carbon dioxide generated, which is damaging to the environment. Many researchers have shown and suggested that cement substitution is a favorite technique for minimizing the generation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as substituting unused raw materials with concrete. The concept of green concrete promotes sustainable development as it utilizes the least natural resources during production and mainly depends on recyclable waste materials as its main raw material. This paper displays the various designs of green concrete in developed countries by partially replacing cement with recyclable materials such as fly ash, demolished waste from construction sites, electronic waste, carpet fiber waste, palm oil fuel ash, and others. Green concrete endorses the innovative and sustainable use of waste aggregate and unconventional alternative materials to substitute cement within concrete. It is crucial to adopt the use of green concrete, especially in developed countries, as they have the capacity and financial strength to ensure adequate training, public awareness, further research and demonstration projects, as well as suitable standards to be applied to endorse the global application of green concrete in infrastructure projects.

Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by progressive motor and nonmotor deficits concomitant with degenerative pathophysiological changes within the cerebellum. The cerebellum is topographically organized into cerebello-cerebral circuits that create distinct functional networks regulating movement, cognition, and affect. SCA3-associated motor and nonmotor symptoms are possibly related not only to intracerebellar changes but also to disruption of the connectivity within these cerebello-cerebral circuits. However, to date, no comprehensive investigation of cerebello-cerebral connectivity in SCA3 has been conducted. The present study aimed to identify cerebello-cerebral functional connectivity alterations and associations with downstream clinical phenotypes and upstream topographic markers of cerebellar neurodegeneration in patients with SCA3. This study included 45 patients with SCA3 and 49 healthy controls. Voxel-based morphometry and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were performed to characterize the cerebellar atrophy and to examine the cerebello-cerebral functional connectivity patterns. Structural MRI confirmed widespread gray matter atrophy in the motor and cognitive cerebellum of patients with SCA3. We found reduced functional connectivity between the cerebellum and the cerebral cortical networks, including the somatomotor, frontoparietal, and default networks; however, increased connectivity was observed between the cerebellum and the dorsal attention network. These abnormal patterns correlated with the CAG repeat expansion and deficits in global cognition. Our results indicate the contribution of cerebello-cerebral networks to the motor and cognitive impairments in patients with SCA3 and reveal that such alterations occur in association with cerebellar atrophy. These findings add important insights into our understanding of the role of the cerebellum in SCA3.

We present here a method for measuring the temporal Bakehausen scaling exponent in a two-dimensional thin film. The scaling exponent with long-range interaction is observed to be consistent with theoretical and experimental results. In addition, we demonstrate the characteristic exponent with short-range interaction. Our method contributes to the understanding of DW dynamics and helps to optimize spintronic devices.

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) results from upper airway remodeling, which has been suggested to alter sensory and motor neuron function due to hypoxia or snore vibration. This study investigated whether OSA was associated with the risk of flavor disorder (FD).Seven thousand and eight hundred sixty-five patients with OSA and 7865 propensity score-matched controls without OSA were enrolled between 1999 and 2013 through a nationwide cohort study. The propensity score matching was based on age, sex, comorbidities including hypertension, hyperlipidemia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, ankylosing spondylitis, and Charlson comorbidity index, and co-medications during the study period, including statins and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors. The adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) of incident FD following OSA was derived using a Cox proportional hazard model. A log-rank test was used to evaluate the time-dependent effect of OSA on FD. Age, sex, comorbidities, and co-medications were stratified to identify subgroups susceptible to OSA-associated FD.Patients with OSA were at a significantly great risk of FD (aHR = 1.91, 95% CI = 1.08-3.38), which was time-dependent (log-rank test p = 0.013). Likewise, patients with hyperlipidemia were at a significant great risk of FD (aHR = 2.99, 95% CI = 1.33-6.69). Subgroup analysis revealed that female patients with OSA were at higher risks of FD (aHR = 2.39, 95%CI = 1.05-5.47).Patients with OSA were at significantly great risk of incident FD during the 15-year follow-up period, especially in female patients with OSA.Timely interventions for OSA may prevent OSA-associated FD.

To identify predictive factors for the development of sepsis/septic shock postdecompression of calculi-related ureteric obstruction using the Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score and to compare clinical outcomes and odd risk ratios of patients developing sepsis/septic shock following the insertion of percutaneous nephrostomy (PCN) versus insertion of retrograde ureteral stenting (RUS).Clinico-epidemiological data of patients who underwent PCN and/or RUS in two institutions for calculi-related ureteric obstruction were retrospectively collected from January 2014 to December 2020.537 patients (244 patients in PCN group, 293 patients in RUS group) from both institutions were eligible for analysis based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Patients with PCN were generally older, had poorer Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group status, and larger obstructive ureteral calculi compared to patients with RUS. Patients with PCN had longer durations of fever, the persistence of elevated total white cell and creatinine, and longer hospitalization stays compared with patients who had undergone RUS. RUS up-front has more unsuccessful interventions compared with PCN. There were no significant differences in the change in SOFA score postintervention between the two interventions. In multivariate analysis, the higher temperature just prior to the intervention (adjusted odds ratio [OR]: 2.039, p = 0.003) and Cardiovascular SOFA score of 1 (adjusted OR:4.037, p = 0.012) were significant independent prognostic factors for the development of septic shock postdecompression of ureteral obstruction.Our study reveals that both interventions have similar overall risk of urosepsis, septic shock and mortality rate. Despite a marginally higher risk of failure, RUS should be considered in patients with lower procedural risk. Patients going for PCN should be counseled for a longer stay. Post-HDU/-ICU monitoring, inotrope support postdecompression should be considered for patients with elevated temperature within 1 h preintervention and cardiovascular SOFA score of 1.

Exploring novel growth regulators for premature senescence regulation is important for tobacco production. In the present study, chlorine dioxide (ClO

Periconception folic acid supplementation has been suggested to protect against congenital heart disease (CHD), but the association between maternal red blood cell (RBC) folate, the gold-standard biomarker of folate exposure, and subsequent offspring CHD risk is lacking.To quantify the association between periconception maternal RBC folate and offspring CHD risk.Prospective, nested, case-control study and 1-sample Mendelian randomization. (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02737644).29 maternity institutions in 12 districts of Greater Shanghai, China.All 197 mothers of offspring with CHD and 788 individually matched mothers of unaffected offspring from the SPCC (Shanghai Preconception Cohort).Maternal RBC folate was measured before or at early pregnancy. Odds ratios [ORs] were estimated using conditional logistic regression after adjustment for covariates. Mendelian randomization was done using the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (Case patients had lower median maternal RBC folate concentrations than control participants (714 nmol/L [interquartile range, 482 to 1008 nmol/L] vs. 788 nmol/L [557 to 1094 nmol/L]). Maternal RBC folate concentrations were inversely associated with offspring CHD (adjusted OR per 100 nmol/L, 0.93 [95% CI, 0.89 to 0.99]). The adjusted OR for mothers with periconception RBC folate of 906 nmol/L or more (vs.906 nmol/L) was 0.61 (CI, 0.40 to 0.93). Mendelian randomization showed that each 100-nmol increase in maternal RBC folate concentrations was significantly associated with reduced offspring CHD risk (OR, 0.75 [CI, 0.61 to 0.92]).Potential confounding due to unmeasured covariates in the nested case-control study.Higher maternal RBC folate is associated with reduced offspring CHD risk. For primary CHD prevention, higher target RBC folate levels than currently recommended for neural tube defect prevention may be needed and warrant further study.National Key Research and Development Program of China, National Natural Science Foundation of China, China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Innovation Fund for Medical Sciences.

Prescribing a ketogenic diet (KD) is a century-old dietary intervention mainly used in the context of intractable epilepsy. The classic KD and its variants regained popularity in recent decades, and they are considered potentially beneficial in a variety of neurological conditions other than epilepsy. Many patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) have attempted diet modification for better control of their disease, although evidence thus far remains insufficient to recommend a specific diet for these patients. The results of 3 pilot clinical trials of KD therapy for MS, as well as several related studies, have been reported in recent years. The preliminary findings suggest that KD is safe, feasible, and potentially neuroprotective and disease-modifying for patients with MS. Research on corresponding rodent models has also lent support to the efficacy of KD in the prevention and treatment of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis and toxin-induced inflammatory demyelinating conditions in the brain. Furthermore, the animal studies have yielded mechanistic insights into the molecular mechanisms of KD action in relevant situations, paving the way for precision nutrition. Herein we review and synthesize recent advances and also identify unresolved issues, such as the roles of adipokines and gut microbiota, in this field. Hopefully this panoramic view of current understanding can inform future research directions and clinical practice with regard to KD in MS and related conditions.

Most mercury supplies nowadays are limited due to their toxicity and difficulty in treatment. If mercury is stored inappropriately, it will not only contaminate the environment but also pass along the food chain and eventually to humans. Therefore, addressing mercury waste is crucial for the environment and human health. This study aims to stabilize waste mercury using sulfur powder and generate mercury production through a ball mill and heat treatment. To begin with, sulfur powder, waste mercury (98%) from chemicals, and milling balls will be mixed in this step. The parameters in this process were milling temperature, milling time, ball/material ratio, and milling speed. Under the optimal parameters of 35 °C for milling temperature, 12 h for milling time, 46% for the ball/material ratio, and 300 rpm for milling speed, β-HgS was obtained, and α-HgS was subsequently acquired through dry distillation in a tubular furnace at 600 °C for 3 h. On the other hand, high-purity mercury (99.5%) could be recovered under the circumstances of heating α-HgS with oxygen at 600 °C for 3 h. In a nutshell, waste mercury (98%) could be treated appropriately under the state of α-HgS, and high-purity mercury (99.5%) could be produced and reused for other industries through this research. Both contribute to environmental remediation and resource recovery goals.

Fires in waste treatment facilities have significant social, economic, and environmental implications. Factors such as self-heating of lithium-ion batteries, thermal runaway, friction, human activities, technical errors, and unfavorable storage conditions contribute to these fires. High-risk categories include illegal dumping sites, recycle collection stations, and wood-related facilities. The frequency of fires in waste treatment facilities and the emergence of new waste types have led to public discontent. Regulatory challenges and oversight difficulties pose further obstacles. This study analyzes fire incidents in Kaohsiung City’s waste treatment facilities over the past five years, exploring their causes, regulatory frameworks, and practical challenges. Valuable insights and recommendations are provided to enhance fire safety and risk assessment. These measures aim to mitigate fires’ environmental and facility consequences and their impact. Prioritizing fire prevention and reducing potential economic, social, and environmental consequences are crucial for improving fire safety in waste treatment facilities. Addressing these challenges and prioritizing the safety and sustainability of the waste treatment industry is imperative.

Studies on the enantioselective transformation of silacyclobutanes (SCBs) have become an emerging topic in the recent decade, due to the feature of high ring strain, and manageable Si–C bond cleavage and formation. This short review summarizes the remarkable achievements in the asymmetric transition-metal-mediated reaction of silacyclobutanes and benzosilacyclobutanes, resulting in carbon- or silicon-stereogenic organosilanes with functional substituents. 1 Introduction2 Asymmetric Transition-Metal-Catalyzed Ring Expansion Reaction3 Asymmetric Transition-Metal-Catalyzed Ring-Opening Reaction4 Conclusion and Outlook

Visual recognition is currently one of the most important and active research areas in computer vision, pattern recognition, and even the general field of artificial intelligence. It has great fundamental importance and strong industrial needs, particularly the modern deep neural networks (DNNs) and some brain-inspired methodologies, have largely boosted the recognition performance on many concrete tasks, with the help of large amounts of training data and new powerful computation resources. Although recognition accuracy is usually the first concern for new progresses, efficiency is actually rather important and sometimes critical for both academic research and industrial applications. Moreover, insightful views on the opportunities and challenges of efficiency are also highly required for the entire community. While general surveys on the efficiency issue have been done from various perspectives, as far as we are aware, scarcely any of them focused on visual recognition systematically, and thus it is unclear which progresses are applicable to it and what else should be concerned. In this survey, we present the review of recent advances with our suggestions on the new possible directions towards improving the efficiency of DNN-related and brain-inspired visual recognition approaches, including efficient network compression and dynamic brain-inspired networks. We investigate not only from the model but also from the data point of view (which is not the case in existing surveys) and focus on four typical data types (images, video, points, and events). This survey attempts to provide a systematic summary via a comprehensive survey that can serve as a valuable reference and inspire both researchers and practitioners working on visual recognition problems.

Background. Using conventional esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) to evaluate the infrapapillary area is not feasible. The use of sedative EGD may enable endoscopists to investigate the infrapapillary condition of the duodenum. In this study, we aimed to evaluate lesions in the infrapapillary regions by using sedative EGD. Methods. In this retrospective observational study, we used the data of patients who underwent sedative EGD examinations at a tertiary hospital in southern Taiwan. The endoscopists evaluated the esophagus, stomach, and proximal duodenum and then attempted to explore the infrapapillary portion of the duodenum as deeply as possible. We assessed the success rate for the exploration of infrapapillary areas. Furthermore, we analyzed specific clinical findings of sedative EGD examination. Results. In total, 2973 patients underwent sedative EGD between November 1, 2010, and December 31, 2011. For 2632 of these patients, it was their first sedative EGD examination. In 2511 patients (95.4%), the exploration of the infrapapillary areas was successful. In approximately 10% of the patients, specific findings were detected over the infrapapillary region, and 7 of these patients exhibited clinically significant findings (i.e., gallbladder cancer with metastasis, periampullary Vater adenoma, natural killer cell enteropathy, villous adenoma with moderate dysplasia, infrapapillary duodenal adenoma with dysplasia, duodenal perforation with tumor-like formation, and follicular lymphoma). No patient experienced minor or major adverse reactions during the sedative EGD procedure. Conclusions. The current study provided evidence that sedative EGD examination enables a safe, comfortable, and effective endoscopic examination of deeper sections of the duodenum to evaluate the papillary and infrapapillary regions.

Two new guaianolide-type sesquiterpenoids chrysanthemulides K and L (1 and 2), together with six known analogues (3–8), were isolated from an CH2Cl2 extract of the aerial parts of Chrysanthemum indicum. The structures of new compounds 1 and 2 were established by extensive spectroscopic analysis, including UV, IR, MS, NMR and computational electronic circular dichroism (ECD) methods. Inhibitory effects of all compounds on nitric oxide production were investigated in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced RAW 264.7 cells. Results showed that compounds 1–8 displayed NO production inhibitory activity with IC50 values ranged from 3.5 to 34.3 µM.

The protective effects of maternal folate on neural tube defects are well-established. Emerging evidence has shown paternal folate also is related to pregnancy outcome and offspring health.This study aimed to assess the status of red blood cell (RBC) folate and serum folate, vitamin B-12, and homocysteine (Hcy) and their associated factors in a cohort of pregnancy-preparing couples.This was a cross-sectional study involving 14,178 participants from the extension of the Shanghai Preconception Cohort conducted in 2018-2021. Circulating biomarker concentrations were measured, and the prevalence of abnormal status was reported. Linear and logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine associations of demographic factors (age, education, and income), lifestyle factors (smoking, drinking, and folic acid supplement use), and BMI with concentrations of the folate-related biomarkers, abnormal status of folate (deficiency and insufficiency) and vitamin B-12 (deficiency and marginal deficiency), and hyperhomocysteinemia.The geometric mean (95% CI) concentrations of RBC folate, serum folate, vitamin B-12, and Hcy were 490 nmol/L (485, 496 nmol/L), 20.1 nmol/L (19.8, 20.3 nmol/L), 353 pmol/L (350, 357 pmol/L), and 7.54 μmol/L (7.48, 7.60 μmol/L) in females, respectively, and 405 nmol/L (401, 409 nmol/L), 13.5 nmol/L (13.4, 13.7 nmol/L), 277 pmol/L (274, 279 pmol/L), and 12.0 μmol/L (11.9, 12.2 μmol/L) in males, respectively. Prevalence of abnormal status was higher in males than females for the 4 folate-related biomarkers: RBC folate deficiency (340 nmol/L, 32.2% compared with 18.9%), serum folate deficiency (10.0 nmol/L, 26.5% compared with 7.3%), RBC folate insufficiency (906 nmol/L, 96.6% compared with 90.1%), serum folate insufficiency (15.9 nmol/L, 65.5% compared with 31.4%), vitamin B-12 marginal deficiency (148-221 pmol/L, 21.4% compared with 8.8%), and hyperhomocysteinemia (15.0 μmol/L, 22.1% compared with 2.5%).Most pregnancy-preparing couples failed to achieve the optimal RBC folate status (906 nmol/L) as recommended by the WHO. These findings call for attention to the insufficiency status of folate and promising strategies to improve the folate status of the pregnancy-preparing population not exposed to folic acid fortification.

Background: To improve the treatment outcomes of patients with schizophrenia, research efforts have focused on identifying brain-based markers of treatment response. Personal characteristics regard...