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Based on the sample of A-share listed companies in China from 2013 to 2021, this paper explores the influence of economic policy uncertainty on cash dividend policy through random effect panel regression, and draws the following conclusions: First, the increase of economic policy uncertainty will make enterprises pay more cash dividends; Secondly, compared with enterprises with low financing constraints, enterprises with high financing constraints are more willing to pay more cash dividends in the face of increasing economic policy uncertainty; Finally, the higher the growth of enterprises, the more significant the impact of economic policy uncertainty on cash dividends of enterprises. The research of this paper not only further expands the research direction of economic policy uncertainty and cash dividend policy, but also has certain guiding role for enterprises to formulate more reasonable cash dividend policy.

As new ways to solve partial differential equations (PDEs), physics-informed neural network (PINN) algorithms have received widespread attention and have been applied in many fields of study. However, the standard PINN framework lacks sufficient seepage head data, and the method is difficult to apply effectively in seepage analysis with complex boundary conditions. In addition, the differential type Neumann boundary makes the solution more difficult. This study proposed an improved prediction method based on a PINN with the aim of calculating PDEs with complex boundary conditions such as Neumann boundary conditions, in which the spatial distribution characteristic information is increased by a small amount of measured data and the loss equation is dynamically adjusted by loss weighting coefficients. The measured data are converted into a quadratic regular term and added to the loss function as feature data to guide the update process for the weight and bias coefficient of each neuron in the neural network. A typical geotechnical problem concerning seepage phreatic line determination in a rectangular dam is analyzed to demonstrate the efficiency of the improved method. Compared with the standard PINN algorithm, due to the addition of measurement data and dynamic loss weighting coefficients, the improved PINN algorithm has better convergence and can handle more complex boundary conditions. The results show that the improved method makes it convenient to predict the phreatic line in seepage analysis for geotechnical engineering projects with measured data.

Introduction: In view of the vital implication of long noncoding RNAs in tumorigenesis, we possess the aim to determine the action effects and mechanisms of LINC01002 in prostate cancer (PCa). Methods: Expression level of LINC01002, miR-650, or filamin A (FLNA) in PCa tissues and cells was assessed using quantitative real-time PCR or Western blotting. Cell proliferative and migratory capacities were investigated by Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) and wound healing assays. Cell apoptosis was investigated by the levels of Bax and Bcl-2. Xenograft models were constructed to testify the role of LINC01002 in vivo. The anticipated binding of miR-650 to LINC01002 or FLNA was confirmed by dual-luciferase reporter or RNA binding protein immunoprecipitation assays. Results: Relatively poor expression of LINC01002 and FLNA, and high expression of miR-650 were identified in PCa tumor specimens and cells. Ectopic LINC01002 expression restrained PCa cell proliferation/migration and provoked apoptosis in vitro, and blocked solid tumor growth in Xenograft models. MiR-650 was directly targeted by LINC01002, and it also directly bound to FLNA. MiR-650 reintroduction in PCa cells overexpressing LINC01002 or FLNA partly reversed the anticancer effects of LINC01002 or FLNA overexpression, thus recovering PCa cell proliferation/migration and repressing apoptosis. Conclusion: LINC01002 deregulation was linked to PCa development. LINC01002 exerted potential anticancer effects in PCa via targeting the miR-650/FLNA pathway, which, at least in part, provided a basis for the involvement of LINC01002 as a therapeutic target in PCa.

The powder diameter affects the heat generation and further influences the quality of weldments when the MZA powder is used as laser-absorbents to carry out laser transmission welding (LTW). It is difficult to measure the temperature due to its extremely short duration. A mathematical model considering the multiple reflections of metal powder is established to predict heat generation. The mathematical model is verified and then used to describe the influence of line energy density and powder diameter on the temperature profile of the LTW process. The results demonstrate that the temperature from experiments and simulation are consistent. Therefore, the established model is suitable to predict the heat generation of metal powder laser-absorbents in the LTW process.

Increasing evidences showed that ovulatory dysfunction, possibly caused by luteinized unruptured follicular follicle syndrome (LUFS), is one of the reasons for endometriosis-related infertility. The present study was conducted to explore the potential effect of elevated progesterone in follicular fluid (FF) on ovulation in endometriosis. A prospective study including 50 ovarian endometriosis patients and 50 control patients with matched pairs design was conducted with alterations in FF and peritoneal fluid (PF) components identified by metabolomics analyses and differentially expressed genes in granulosa cells (GCs) identified by transcriptome analysis. Patients with endometriosis exhibited a significantly higher progesterone level in serum, FF, and PF. Granulosa cells from endometriosis patients revealed decreased expression of HPGD, COX-2, and suppressed NF-ĸB signaling. Similarly, progesterone treatment in vitro downregulated HPGD and COX2 expression and suppressed NF-ĸB signaling in granulosa tumor-like cell line KGN (Bena Culture Collection, China) and primarily cultured GCs, as manifested by decreased expressions of IL1R1, IRAK3, reduced pIĸBα/IĸBα ratio, and nucleus translocation of p65. On the contrary, TNF-α treatment increased expression of IL1R1, IRAK3, pIĸBα, p65, and HPGD in GCs. One potential p65 binding site was identified in the promoter region of HPGD by chromatin immunoprecipitation. In conclusion, we found that intrafollicular progesterone might downregulate HPGD and COX-2 in GCs via suppressing the NF-ĸB signaling pathway, shedding light on the mechanism underlying the endometriosis-related ovulatory dysfunction.

DHA-enriched phosphatidylserine could likely be used as a functional food supplement for the prevention of high fat diet-induced jejunum injury in mice by modulating gut microbiota.

With the development of economy and society, cast-in-place buildings have brought many unexpected side effects, which affect our living environment. The emergence of "assembled" building makes up for the shortcomings of cast-in-place building such as high cost, unfriendly materials, long construction period and short life span, etc. With the support of BIM technology (BIM+assembly), it makes up for the shortcomings of assembled building which requires secondary pouring and large workload. BIM technology simplifies the design and review of drawings in the early stage of the assembled building; the assembled building shortens the construction and acceptance cycle in the later stage. The combination of "BIM+assembly" is a form of construction worth studying and promoting. It can better realize efficient and accurate design, green, low-carbon, energy-saving, environmental protection, time-saving and intelligent construction.

Based on the limitations of traditional soil analyzers, this paper proposes an auxiliary feeding device and feeding method of soil element analyzer, including an outer cylinder with a discharge port and a hollow structure, and a material conveying device in the outer cylinder. The outer cylinder is also provided with a feeding device coaxially, and the feeding device is provided with a plurality of storage silos, and the feeding device rotates the materials placed in the storage silo into the material conveying device in turn, and is transported to the discharge port by the material conveying device; The feeding device is set on the sliding bracket, the outer cylinder is set on the base, and the sliding bracket is sliding connected with the base. This method can realize a large number of automatic feeding at one time, which greatly reduces the labor intensity of the staff.

PurposeThe existing consensus reaching mechanisms ignore the influence of social triangle structure on the decision-makers’ (DMs') weights, and the consensus reaching process (CRP) fails to fully reflect the DMs' subjectivity and can be time consuming and costly. To solve these issues, a novel CRP for multi-criteria group decision-making (MCGDM) problems with intuitionistic grey linguistic numbers (IGLNs) is proposed in this paper.Design/methodology/approachFirst, a weight calculation method is proposed by analysing the triangle structure of DMs' social network and scale of adjacent nodes. Then, a consensus degree index based on three-level polygon area is defined and applied to identify the inconsistent DMs. Finally, the feedback mechanism based on particle swarm optimisation (PSO) algorithm under grey linguistic environment is developed, where subjective trust relationships in social network is utilised to determine the adjustment coefficient.FindingsThe advantages of the proposed method are highlighted by two practical applications of the evaluation of tunnel construction method and the selection of a hotel for the centralised isolation. Comparision analysis and numerical simulation are performed to reveal the effectiveness and applicability of the method.Practical implicationsThe proposed model can not only reflect the effect of triangle structure in social network on DMs' weights, but also reduce the time and cost of decision-making.Originality/valueThe main contribution of this paper is to propose a new MCGDM model based on intuitionistic grey linguistic numbers, which can handle the problem of inconsistency of information more effectively.

Qinbo Wang,1– 3,&ast; Zongyan Li,1,&ast; Xiaojia Huang,1 Xiaoyan Fu,1 Qian Li,1 Haiyan Li1,3 1Department of Breast Surgery, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Pharmacy, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Graceland Medical Center, The Sixth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Haiyan Li, Department of Breast Surgery, the Sixth Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, 26# Erheng Road, Yuan Village, Tianhe District, Guangzhou, 510655, People’s Republic of China, Email lihy27@mail.sysu.edu.cnPurpose: Traditional standardized training in ultrasound-guided minimally invasive breast surgery (UMIBS) focused on lecture-based learning (LBL) resulted in students’ insufficient analysis, limited spatial visual conversion ability, and poor practical application. This study examined the effects of the step-by-step (SBS) method combined with a simulation model in UMIBS education.Subjects and Methods: A total of 84 residents participated in this study. The residents were divided into the SBS group (experience group, n=42) and the LBL group (control group, n=42), and the same teacher taught the two groups to ensure a comparable result. Based on the pork simulation model, two experts evaluated student performance scores, and the total time taken by each student was also counted. The participants were surveyed with 7 questions after the training, and each answer was assigned a score of 1, 2 or 3 to compare the participants’ satisfaction.Results: The average value of the surgical skills for SBS group were significantly higher than LBS group, which was 82.8± 4.4 and 72.7± 4.0 (t=4.27, P< 0.001), the time spend of neoplasm localization by the experience group was significantly less than the control group, which was 17.9± 1.6 and 20.9± 1.2 secs, (t=1.58, P< 0.001), and there were significant differences in puncture accuracy and excision integrity between the two groups (P< 0.05). In addition, the results of the questionnaire survey showed that learning interest, surgical ability and satisfaction were better in the SBS group than in the LBS group (P< 0.05), and there were no significant differences in clinical thinking and learning pressure between the two groups.Conclusion: The SBS teaching method may help to improve the surgical skills and learning interest, as well as reduce adverse reactions and cultivate clinical thinking of the students in UMIBS training. Future studies could consider multicenter clinical research to further confirm the practicality of this teaching method and reduce the risk of deviation.Keywords: ultrasound, minimally invasive, step by step, lecture-based learning, simulation

It is pointed out that with the economic development and social progress, China's historical cultural heritage has been gradually discovered and slowly changed by modern civilization and the general environment. Through the people's brainstorming, China has made great efforts in the protection of cultural heritage and promoted the development of various heritage protection measures. The contradictions between cultural heritage conservation and construction are analyzed, and measures for active conservation, holistic creation, and renovation and improvement of old cities are proposed in order to provide a reference for the conservation of heritage and innovation of cultural environment.

The present study sought to investigate the amelioration effects of enzymatically synthesized docosahexaenoic acid-enriched phosphatidylserine (DHA-PS) on the high-fat diet (HFD)-induced kidney injury in mice. After 6 weeks of DHA-PS intervention, the mice's body weight in the 20 and 40 mg/kg DHA-PS groups decreased by 7.09% and 9.71%, respectively, compared to the HFD group. Especially, compared to the HFD group, 40 mg/kg DHA-PS treatment effectively reduced the levels of serum urea nitrogen by 68.48%, creatinine by 38.98%, kidney lipid accumulation (total cholesterol, triglycerides, and nonesterified fatty acids levels by 26.19%, 51.00%, and 26.11%), kidney or serum proinflammatory cytokines and enhanced the levels of kidney or serum oxidative stress parameters, except for malondialdehyde (MDA). Moreover, 40 mg/kg DHA-PS treatment decreased the expression levels of toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) by 18.63%, IKKα by 31.81%, and p-p65 by 40.73% in the nuclear factor kappa-B pathway, thereby upregulating the expression levels of p-AMPKα by 64.93%, HSL by 99.60%, ATGL by 344.50%, PPARα by 162.02%, CPT1 by 167.95%, p-ACC1 by 144.92%, and p-SREBP1 by 1172.95%, and downregulating the expression levels of SREBP1 by 38.80%, ACC1 by 18.10%, and FAS by 82.28% in the AMPK pathway. Furthermore, our results also suggested that improving serum or kidney parameters and regulating intestinal microbial could affect each other after DHA-PS treatment. These results elucidated that DHA-PS could be a potential dietary supplement to alleviate HFD-induced kidney injury. PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Our results elucidated that DHA-PS could be a potential dietary supplement to alleviate HFD-induced kidney injury.

This paper has collected more than one hundred papers about resilience at home and abroad, summarised and analysed the meaning and evaluation methods of resilience and then summarised the key issues. Through research on these papers, we found that the current evaluation method for the water supply system seismic resilience is divided into two aspects: on the one hand, it’s based on the seismic performance of water supply system, where the system itself evaluates the resilience absorbs the earthquake resistance level. On the other hand, the assessment is based on the post-earthquake recovery ability of the water supply system, namely the recovery time, recovery degree, recovery path and the resilience level of resources input. Based on past seismic safety of the water supply system and research on post-earthquake recovery ability, the meaning of water supply system in seismic resilience should include two aspects of seismic safety and post-earthquake recovery ability. From using the seismic safety evaluation method also and post-earthquake recovery ability in two angles, this paper gives a comprehensive multiple evaluation index framework of the evaluation model and points out that water system earthquake state resilience evaluative criteria and the requirements of the current seismic code should match.

The algorithm used is based on the Faster R-CNN network. It uses resnet101_vd as the backbone network to extract navel orange image features. It minimizes the error between the inferred bounding box and the actual labeled bounding box through the RPN network and the ROI Pooling layer and non-maximum suppression method. The AP during model training reached 92.34% on sunny days, 96.84% on cloudy days, and 90.05% on foggy days. When evaluating the model, it reached 92.34% on sunny days, 96.89% on cloudy days, and 89.2% on foggy days. The processing time of this model is 63.84fps on sunny days, 68.6fps on cloudy days, and 56.29fps on foggy days. It meets the requirements of rapid and accurate identification in actual picking. In addition, it compares this model with the Faster RCNN with vgg16 as the backbone network and YOLO-v4 models. It effectively improves detection accuracy and speed. Moreover, it reduces the number of false detection and missed detection of navel orange detection. It im-proves position accuracy. This paper realizes the efficient detection of ripe navel orange fruits on trees in various weather. &nbsp

Two new phenolic glycosides (1 and 2), one known analogue (3), along with a new diterpene glucoside (4) were obtained from ethanolic extract of the stems of Eurya chinensis R. Br. The structures of these isolated compounds were identified by extensive analysis of HRESIMS and NMR spectroscopic data. The cytotoxicities of these compounds were evaluated on MCF-7, A549, HepG2, CaCo2 and 5-8 F cell lines by MTT method, but no obvious activities were observed.

Two new withaphysalin-type withanolides (18-O-ethylwithaphysalin R and 5-O-ethylphysaminimin C, 1 and 2), along with twelve known withanolides (3–14), were purified and identified from Physalis peruviana L. The chemical structures of these new isolates were elucidated through analyzing spectroscopic and HRESIMS data. All the obtained metabolites were appraised for their potential antiproliferative activity against the human breast cancer cell line MCF-7. Compound 7 was discovered to exhibit potent activity with an IC50 value of 3.51 µM and compounds 2, 6 and 14 showed weak cytotoxic effect.

Knowledge Graph Embedding (KGE) aims to learn representations for entities and relations. Most KGE models have gained great success, especially on extrapolation scenarios. Specifically, given an unseen triple (h, r, t), a trained model can still correctly predict t from (h, r, ?), or h from (?, r, t), such extrapolation ability is impressive. However, most existing KGE works focus on the design of delicate triple modeling function, which mainly tells us how to measure the plausibility of observed triples, but offers limited explanation of why the methods can extrapolate to unseen data, and what are the important factors to help KGE extrapolate. Therefore in this work, we attempt to study the KGE extrapolation of two problems: 1. How does KGE extrapolate to unseen data? 2. How to design the KGE model with better extrapolation ability? For the problem 1, we first discuss the impact factors for extrapolation and from relation, entity and triple level respectively, propose three Semantic Evidences (SEs), which can be observed from train set and provide important semantic information for extrapolation. Then we verify the effectiveness of SEs through extensive experiments on several typical KGE methods. For the problem 2, to make better use of the three levels of SE, we propose a novel GNN-based KGE model, called Semantic Evidence aware Graph Neural Network (SE-GNN). In SE-GNN, each level of SE is modeled explicitly by the corresponding neighbor pattern, and merged sufficiently by the multi-layer aggregation, which contributes to obtaining more extrapolative knowledge representation. Finally, through extensive experiments on FB15k-237 and WN18RR datasets, we show that SE-GNN achieves state-of-the-art performance on Knowledge Graph Completion task and performs a better extrapolation ability. Our code is available at https://github.com/renli1024/SE-GNN., Comment: Accepted by AAAI'22

Analyzing topic evolution is an effective way to monitor the overview of topic spreading. Existing methods have focused either on the intensity evolution of topics along a timeline or the topic evolution path of technical literature. In this paper, we aim to study topic evolution from a micro perspective, which not only captures the topic timeline but also reveals the topic status and the directed evolutionary path among topics. Firstly, we construct a word network by co-occurrence relationship between feature words. Secondly, Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model is used to automatically extract topics and capture the mapping relationship between words and topics, and then a 'word-topic' coupling network is built. Thirdly, based on the 'word-topic' coupling network, we describe the topic intensity evolution over time and measure topic status considering the contribution of feature words to a topic. The concept of topic drifting probability is proposed to identify the evolutionary path. Experimental results conducted on two real-world data sets of "COVID-19" demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.

In situ grazing experiments were carried out using fluorescent tracer, microscopy and flow cytometry to retrieve active bacterivores in situ, including mixotrophic and heterotrophic eukaryotes.18S rRNA gene metabarcoding was applied to retrieve overall eukaryotic community structure and taxa with mixotrophic potentials in the studied region of estuary-coastal east China Sea. This dataset accompanies the manuscript ‘Relative importance of bacterivorous mixotrophs in an estuary-coast environment’ by Li et al.

Background To determine whether transrectal ultrasound and urologist_dually guided pelvic floor muscle exercise is associated with immediate, early and long-term urinary continence after radical prostatectomy. Materials and methods Data from 114 patients with localized prostate cancer (PC) who underwent RP at Henan Cancer Hospital from November 2018 to April 2021 were included in the retrospective study. Of the 114 patients, 50 patients in the observation group underwent transrectal ultrasound and urologist_dually guided PFME, and 64 patients in the control group underwent verbally_guided PFME. Contractile function of the external urinary sphincter was in the observation group was evaluated. The immediate, early and long-term urinary continence rates were assessed in both groups, and the factors affecting urinary continence were analyzed. Results The urinary continence rate at 2 weeks and 1, 3, 6 and 12 months in the observation group after RP was significantly higher than that in the control group (52.0% vs. 29.7%, 70.0% vs. 39.1%, 82% vs. 57.8, 88% vs. 70.3%, 98.0 vs. 84.4%, p Conclusions Transrectal ultrasound and urologist_dually guided PFME had a significant role in improving immediate, early and long-term urinary continence after RP and acted as an independent prognostic factor.

Bone metastasis is one of the main complications of lung cancer and most important factors that lead to poor life quality and low survival rate in lung cancer patients. However, the regulatory mechanisms underlying lung cancer bone metastasis are still poor understood. Here, we report that microRNA-182 (miR-182) plays a critical role in regulating osteoclastic metastasis of lung cancer cells. We found that miR-182 was significantly upregulated in both bone-metastatic human non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell line and tumor specimens. We further demonstrated that miR-182 markedly enhanced the ability of NSCLC cells for osteolytic bone metastasis in nude mice. Mechanistically, miR-182 promotes NSCLC cells to secrete Interleukin-8 (IL-8) and in turn facilitates osteoclastogenesis via activating STAT3 signaling in osteoclast progenitor cells. Importantly, systemically delivered IL-8 neutralizing antibody inhibits NSCLC bone metastasis in nude mice. Collectively, our findings identify the miR-182/IL-8/STAT3 axis as a key regulatory pathway in controlling lung cancer cell-induced osteolytic bone metastasis and suggest a promising therapeutic strategy that targets this regulatory axis to interrupt lung cancer bone metastasis.

Acknowledgements: This publication is part of the Human Cell Atlas. The authors thank the Sanger Cellular Generation and Phenotyping (CGaP) Core Facility and the Sanger Core Sequencing pipeline for support with sample processing and sequencing library preparation; A. Surani for supplying the TSC lines; H. Okae and T. Arima for sharing permission; R. Argelaguet, V. Kleshchevnikov, S. van Dongen, M. Prete and S. Murray for insightful comments and web portal support; T. Porter and the Cellular Genetics wet lab team for experimental support; A. Garcia for graphical images; and A. Maartens for editing. Placental material was provided by the Joint MRC–Human Cell Atlas (MR/S036350/1). The authors are grateful to patients for donating tissue for research. We thank D. Moore and M. Maquinana and staff at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, UK. Supported by Wellcome Sanger core funding (WT206194 and 220540/Z/20/A) and the Wellcome Trust grant ‘Wellcome Strategic Support Science award’ (grant no. 211276/Z/18/Z). M.Y.T. held the Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship (DH160216) and Research Grant for Research Fellows (RGF\R1\180028) during this study and is also supported by funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement 853546). A.M. is in receipt of a Wellcome Trust Investigator Award (200841/Z/16/Z)., The relationship between the human placenta-the extraembryonic organ made by the fetus, and the decidua-the mucosal layer of the uterus, is essential to nurture and protect the fetus during pregnancy. Extravillous trophoblast cells (EVTs) derived from placental villi infiltrate the decidua, transforming the maternal arteries into high-conductance vessels1. Defects in trophoblast invasion and arterial transformation established during early pregnancy underlie common pregnancy disorders such as pre-eclampsia2. Here we have generated a spatially resolved multiomics single-cell atlas of the entire human maternal-fetal interface including the myometrium, which enables us to resolve the full trajectory of trophoblast differentiation. We have used this cellular map to infer the possible transcription factors mediating EVT invasion and show that they are preserved in in vitro models of EVT differentiation from primary trophoblast organoids3,4 and trophoblast stem cells5. We define the transcriptomes of the final cell states of trophoblast invasion: placental bed giant cells (fused multinucleated EVTs) and endovascular EVTs (which form plugs inside the maternal arteries). We predict the cell-cell communication events contributing to trophoblast invasion and placental bed giant cell formation, and model the dual role of interstitial EVTs and endovascular EVTs in mediating arterial transformation during early pregnancy. Together, our data provide a comprehensive analysis of postimplantation trophoblast differentiation that can be used to inform the design of experimental models of the human placenta in early pregnancy.

Defining the mechanisms safeguarding cell fate identity in differentiated cells is crucial to improve 1) - our understanding of how differentiation is maintained in healthy tissues or altered in a disease state, and 2) - our ability to use cell fate reprogramming for regenerative purposes. Here, using a genome-wide transcription factor screen followed by validation steps in a variety of reprogramming assays (cardiac, neural and iPSC in fibroblasts and endothelial cells), we identified a set of four transcription factors (ATF7IP, JUNB, SP7, and ZNF207 [AJSZ]) that robustly opposes cell fate reprogramming in both lineage and cell type independent manners. Mechanistically, our integrated multi-omics approach (ChIP, ATAC and RNA-seq) revealed that AJSZ oppose cell fate reprogramming by 1) - maintaining chromatin enriched for reprogramming TF motifs in a closed state and 2) - downregulating genes required for reprogramming. Finally, KD of AJSZ in combination with MGT overexpression, significantly reduced scar size and improved heart function by 50%, as compared to MGT alone post-myocardial infarction. Collectively, our study suggests that inhibition of barrier to reprogramming mechanisms represents a promising therapeutic avenue to improve adult organ function post-injury.

Anti-contactin-1 (CNTN1) IgG4 antibody-associated nodopathies is an autoimmune antibody-mediated peripheral neuropathy with a unique clinical presentation, pathophysiology, electrophysiology, and therapeutic response. The critical histopathological features are a dense lymphoplasmacytic infiltrate, a storiform pattern of fibrosis, and obliterative phlebitis. Here, a 62-year-old male patient presented with subacute unilateral limb onset, progressive exacerbation, marked weakness of the extremities, cranial, and autonomic nerve involvement. Neurophysiology showed slowed motor nerve conduction velocity (MCV), prolonged distal motor delay (DML), slowed sensory nerve conduction velocity (SCV), decreased sensory nerve activity potential (SNAP) amplitude, decreased amplitude of bilateral neuromotor conduction, abnormal cutaneous sympathetic response (SSR) in both lower extremities, axonal damage, prolonged F-wave latency, and discrete waves. In the initial phase, there was a response to intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), and corticosteroids and rituximab were also effective. After 1 year follow-up, the patient improved significantly. This article reports on a patient with nodular disease with anti-contactin-1 (CNTN1) IgG4 antibodies and reviews the literature to improve clinicians' understanding of the disease.

Background High mobility group box-1 (HMGB1) is an endogenous danger signal that mediates activation of the innate immune response including NLR pyrin domain containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome activation and pro-inflammatory cytokine release. Although HMGB1 and NLRP3 have been implicated in the pathophysiology of seizures, the correlation between HMGB1 and NLRP3 has not been determined in children with febrile seizures (FS). To explore the relationship between extra-cellular HMGB1 and NLRP3 in children with FS, we analyzed serum HMGB1, NLRP3, Capase-1, and pro-inflammatory cytokines of patients with FS. Methods Thirty FS children and thirty age-matched febrile controls were included in this study. Blood was obtained from the FS children within 1 hour of the time of the seizure; subsequently, the content of HMGB1, NLRP3, Capase-1, interleukin (IL)-1β, interleukin (IL)-6, and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. The Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare serum cytokine levels between FS patients and controls. The Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was calculated to detect significant correlations between cytokine levels. Results Serum levels of HMGB1, NLRP3, Capase-1, IL-1β, IL-6, and TNF-α were significantly higher in FS patients than febrile controls (p p p p

We implemented MDI-QKD with a novel polarization compensation scheme using discarded bits without reducing the key-sharing cycle or demanding additional resources. Polarization drift was maintained below 0.13 rad over a 40 km unisolated fibre spool for four hours, and the average secret key rate generated was 7.45 ×10 − 6 bits per pulse.

Background: Breast cancer has the highest incidence among malignant tumors in women, and its prevalence ranks first in global cancer morbidity.Aim: This study aimed to explore the feasibility of a prognostic model for patients with breast cancer based on the differential expression of genes related to fatty acid metabolism.Methods: The mRNA expression matrix of breast cancer and paracancer tissues was downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas database. The differentially expressed genes related to fatty acid metabolism were screened in R language. The TRRUST database was used to predict transcriptional regulators related to hub genes and construct an mRNA–transcription factor interaction network. A consensus clustering approach was used to identify different fatty acid regulatory patterns. In combination with patient survival data, Lasso and multivariate Cox proportional risk regression models were used to establish polygenic prognostic models based on fatty acid metabolism. The median risk score was used to categorize patients into high- and low-risk groups. Kaplan–Meier survival curves were used to analyze the survival differences between both groups. The Cox regression analysis included risk score and clinicopathological factors to determine whether risk score was an independent risk factor. Models based on genes associated with fatty acid metabolism were evaluated using receiver operating characteristic curves. A comparison was made between risk score levels and the fatty acid metabolism-associated genes in different subtypes of breast cancer. The differential gene sets of the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes for screening high- and low-risk populations were compared using a gene set enrichment analysis. Furthermore, we utilized CIBERSORT to examine the abundance of immune cells in breast cancer in different clustering models.Results: High expression levels of ALDH1A1 and UBE2L6 prevented breast cancer, whereas high RDH16 expression levels increased its risk. Our comprehensive assessment of the association between prognostic risk scoring models and tumor microenvironment characteristics showed significant differences in the abundance of various immune cells between high- and low-risk breast cancer patients.Conclusions: By assessing fatty acid metabolism patterns, we gained a better understanding of the infiltration characteristics of the tumor microenvironment. Our findings are valuable for prognosis prediction and treatment of patients with breast cancer based on their clinicopathological characteristics.

Ning Liu,1 Min Ye,2 Qinya Zhu,2 Dingchao Chen,3 Mingmin Xu,4 Jia He,5 Qian Li,4 Jie Li6 1Outpatient Department, Zhejiang Rongjun Hospital, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, 314000, People’s Republic of China; 2Nursing Department, Zhejiang Rongjun Hospital, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, 314000, People’s Republic of China; 3Medical Department, Zhejiang Rongjun Hospital, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, 314000, People’s Republic of China; 4Ultrasonic Department, Zhejiang Rongjun Hospital, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, 314000, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Urology, Zhejiang Rongjun Hospital, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, 314000, People’s Republic of China; 6The Health Administration Center, Zhejiang Rongjun Hospital, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, 314000, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Jie Li, The Health Administration Center, Zhejiang Rongjun Hospital, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, 314000, People’s Republic of China, Email 65017341@qq.comBackground: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has developed into a worldwide pandemic, which presents several challenges for frontline health-care workers (HCWs). HCWs are highly prone to various skin diseases due to prolonged use of personal protective equipment (PPE). The most frequently used type of PPE is facemasks. To effectively control adverse skin reactions, there is an urgent need for a range of preventive practices.Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at 12 hospitals in Zhejiang province, China. HCWs were invited to participate in the web survey. Data were extracted by two independent reviewers using a predesigned data collection form and analyzed with SPSS 20.0.Results: A total of 1147 questionnaires were collected, and of these, 1090 (95.03%) were valid and returned. The incidence of chest tightness and shortness of breath and face eczema was significantly higher in HCWs wearing N95 facemasks (41.91%; 31.62%) than in the HCWs wearing medical facemasks (38.05%, P = 0.010; 21.91%, P = 0.012). The incidence of ear pain and indentation was significantly higher in HCWs wearing hang-facemasks (83.81%) than in HCWs wearing strains-facemasks (61.19%, P < 0.001). The incidence of ear pain and indentation was significantly higher in HCWs wearing undiscriminating size code facemasks (79.88%) than in the HCWs wearing discriminating size code facemasks (67.86%, P = 0.031). There was a significant reduction (P  <   0.001) in the incidence of HCWs without adverse reactions (ADRs) with increasing time wearing facemasks.Conclusion: Incidence of ADRs does not significantly increase with the durations of mask wear where wearing mask time exceeded 4 hours per day. The medical staff generally wore masks for more than 4 hours per day; therefore, we recommend taking 15 min of rest after 2 hours of mask-wearing. Results in this study support the conclusion that the type of strain-facemasks and discriminating size code facemasks has a lower incidence of ADRs than other type of medical facemasks.Keywords: facemask, health care, COVID-19, coronavirus, dermatitis, skin care, protective equipment

The microbiota-gut-brain axis is a key pathway perturbed by prolonged stressors to produce brain and behavioral disorders. Frontline healthcare workers (FHWs) fighting against COVID-19 typically experience stressful event sequences and manifest some mental symptoms; however, the role of gut microbiota in such stress-induced mental problems remains unclear. We investigated the association between the psychological stress of FHW and gut microbiota.We used full-length 16S rRNA gene sequencing to characterize the longitudinal changes in gut microbiota and investigated the impact of microbial changes on FHWs' mental status.Stressful events induced significant depression, anxiety, and stress in FHWs and disrupted the gut microbiome; gut dysbiosis persisted for at least half a year. Different microbes followed discrete trajectories during the half-year of follow-up. Microbes associated with mental health were mainly Faecalibacterium spp. and [Eubacterium] eligens group spp. with anti-inflammatory effects. Of note, the prediction model indicated that low abundance of [Eubacterium] hallii group uncultured bacterium and high abundance of Bacteroides eggerthii at Day 0 (immediately after the two-month frontline work) were significant determinants of the reappearance of post-traumatic stress symptoms in FHWs.The lack of metabolomic evidence and animal experiments result in the unclear mechanism of gut dysbiosis-related stress symptoms.The stressful event sequences of fighting against COVID-19 induce characteristic longitudinal changes in gut microbiota, which underlies dynamic mental state changes.

Causal inference methods are widely applied in various decision-making domains such as precision medicine, optimal policy and economics. Central to causal inference is the treatment effect estimation of intervention strategies, such as changes in drug dosing and increases in financial aid. Existing methods are mostly restricted to the deterministic treatment and compare outcomes under different treatments. However, they are unable to address the substantial recent interest of treatment effect estimation under stochastic treatment, e.g., "how all units health status change if they adopt 50\% dose reduction". In other words, they lack the capability of providing fine-grained treatment effect estimation to support sound decision-making. In our study, we advance the causal inference research by proposing a new effective framework to estimate the treatment effect on stochastic intervention. Particularly, we develop a stochastic intervention effect estimator (SIE) based on nonparametric influence function, with the theoretical guarantees of robustness and fast convergence rates. Additionally, we construct a customised reinforcement learning algorithm based on the random search solver which can effectively find the optimal policy to produce the greatest expected outcomes for the decision-making process. Finally, we conduct an empirical study to justify that our framework can achieve significant performance in comparison with state-of-the-art baselines., Comment: Under review for Neurocomputiong. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2105.12898