Search

Media literacy education plays a vital role in college students’ ideological and political education in the new media era. The development and popularization of new media technology and the widespread use of the Internet and social media have significantly changed the way of acquiring, processing and disseminating information, and put forward new challenges and requirements for college students’ ideological and political education. In this context, an in-depth exploration of the effective way to integrate media literacy into college students’ ideological and political education can help enhance their media critical abilities and promote their overall development. This paper uses the three-dimensional media literacy curriculum model (visual culture, text analysis and individual competence) to design teaching strategies for integrating media literacy into civic and political education. Through a questionnaire survey of 2,000 college students and teachers, students’ media literacy scores increased from an average of 3.1159 to 3.4159 after applying the teaching strategy, with the most noticeable improvement in media awareness and comprehension, and Analysis and critical thinking. The study demonstrated a significant improvement in the ability of college students to analyze and evaluate online information by incorporating media literacy. Strengthening media literacy education, primarily through integrating the three-dimensional media literacy model of visual culture, text analysis and individual competence, can effectively enhance the media literacy of college students and provide necessary support for their healthy growth in the information society.

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) can cause a variety of malignancies. Ganciclovir (GCV) is one of the most efficient drugs against KSHV, but its non-specificity can cause other side effects in patients. Nucleic acid miR-34a-5p can inhibit the transcription of KSHV RNA and has great potential in anti-KSHV therapy, but there are still problems such as easy degradation and low delivery efficiency. Here, we constructed a co-loaded dual-drug nanocomplex (GCV@ZIF-8/PEI-FA+miR-34a-5p) that contains GCV internally and adsorbs miR-34a-5p externally. The folic acid (FA)-coupled polyethyleneimine (PEI) coating layer (PEI-FA) was shown to increase the cellular uptake of the nanocomplex, which is conducive to the enrichment of drugs at the KSHV infection site. GCV and miR-34a-5p are released at the site of the KSHV infection through the acid hydrolysis characteristics of ZIF-8 and the "proton sponge effect" of PEI. The co-loaded dual-drug nanocomplex not only inhibits the proliferation and migration of KSHV-positive cells but also decreases the mRNA expression level of KSHV lytic and latent genes. In conclusion, this co-loaded dual-drug nanocomplex may provide an attractive strategy for antiviral drug delivery and anti-KSHV therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Optical coherence tomography (OCT) or OCT angiography (OCTA) has been investigated in few research studies of psychiatric disorders. No research has been done using OCT or OCTA in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Methods: OCTA measured foveal avascular zone (FAZ), macular vessel density (MVD), and peripapillary vessel density (PVD). OCT measured the peripapillary retinal fiber layer (RNFL) and central retinal thickness (CRT). The study utilized the Ottawa Self‐Injury Inventory, Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA), and Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) to assess the symptom characteristics of individuals with BPD. Results: Fifty‐nine eyes of BPD patients and 58 eyes of normal subjects were analyzed, MVD of the superficial retinal capillary plexus declined noticeably in most subfields (p < 0.05). Significant differences were observed in the whole inner ring and outer ring index between BPD and HC groups (p < 0.05). The patients with BPD exhibited lower RNFL and CRT, the difference was significant (p < 0.05). CRT indicated a significant negative correlation with the Ottawa Self‐Injury Inventory (p < 0.05). In addition, we observed that there was a negative correlation identified between the MVD of the inner ring and HAMA (p < 0.05). Meanwhile, the MVD of the outer ring was positively correlated with GAF (p < 0.05). The areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUROCs) for distinguishing BPD and HC eyes in OCTA were the highest for fovea MVD (0.679), followed by outer ring MVD (0.669), inner ring MVD (0.641), FAZ (0.579). In OCT, CRT was highest for BPD (0.711), followed by RNFL (0.625). Conclusion: The OCT and OCTA can non‐invasively detect microvascular and morphology changes of the retina in BPD patients compared to healthy control subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Covalent organic frameworks (COFs), which are constructed by linking organic building blocks via dynamic covalent bonds, are newly emerged and burgeoning crystalline porous copolymers with features including programmable topological architecture, pre‐designable periodic skeleton, well‐defined micro‐/meso‐pore, large specific surface area, and customizable electroactive functionality. Those benefits make COFs as promising candidates for advanced electrochemical energy storage. Especially, for now, structure engineering of COFs from multi‐scale aspects has been conducted to enable optimal overall electrochemical performance in terms of structure durability, electrical conductivity, redox activity, and charge storage. In this review, we give a fundamental and insightful study on the correlations between multi‐scale structure engineering and eventual electrochemical properties of COFs, started with introducing their basic chemistries and charge storage principles. The careful discussion on the significant achievements in structure engineering of COFs from linkages, redox sites, polygon skeleton, crystal nanostructures, and composite microstructures, and further their effects on the electrochemical behavior of COFs are presented. Finally, the timely cutting‐edge perspectives and in‐depth insights into COF‐based electrode materials to rationally screen their electrochemical behaviors for addressing future challenges and implementing electrochemical energy storage applications are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Alterations in neuronal activity and cerebral hemodynamics have been reported in idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) patients, possibly resulting in neurovascular decoupling; however, no neuroimaging evidence confirmed this disruption. This study aimed to investigate the possible presence of neurovascular decoupling and its clinical implications in childhood IGE using resting‐state fMRI and arterial spin labeling imaging. Methods: IGE patients and healthy participants underwent resting‐state fMRI and arterial spin labeling imaging to calculate degree centrality (DC) and cerebral blood flow (CBF), respectively. Across‐voxel CBF‐DC correlations were analyzed to evaluate the neurovascular coupling within the whole gray matter, and the regional coupling of brain region was assessed with the CBF/DC ratio. Results: The study included 26 children with IGE and 35 sex‐ and age‐matched healthy controls (HCs). Compared with the HCs, the IGE group presented lower across‐voxel CBF‐DC correlations, higher CBF/DC ratio in the right posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus, middle frontal gyrus, and medial frontal gyrus (MFG), and lower ratio in the left inferior frontal gyrus. The increased CBF/DC ratio in the right MFG was correlated with lower performance intelligence quotient scores in the IGE group. Conclusion: Children with IGE present altered neurovascular coupling, associated with lower performance intelligence quotient scores. The study shed a new insight into the pathophysiology of epilepsy and provided potential imaging biomarkers of cognitive performances in children with IGE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Household food waste (HFW) is the main component of municipal solid waste (MSW). Appropriate HFW management strategies could reduce the environmental burdens and economic costs to society. Life-cycle thinking is an effective decision-making tool for MSW management. This paper compares the three main environmental and economic assessment methodologies, i.e., societal life-cycle costing (societal LCC), environmental cost-effectiveness (ECE) analysis, and multicriteria analysis (MCA) in terms of the definitions, method frameworks, and their advantages/disadvantages. Most reviewed studies applied the environmental life-cycle costing (ELCC) method, a simplified ECE, which does not involve interactive quantitative comparisons between environmental and economic benefits. Further attention should be paid to the coordination between life-cycle assessment (LCA) and life-cycle costing (LCC), the monetization coefficient in external cost calculation of societal LCC, and the standardization and evaluation approaches of ECE. HFW prevention is rarely considered in the reviewed literature but was demonstrated as the best route over treatment or utilization. Anaerobic digestion is environmentally preferable to composting and landfilling; it is comparable to biodiesel production, feeding conversation, and incineration. From the perspective of economic costs (including societal LCC), the ranking of treatment technologies varied a lot from one study to another, attributable to the diverse evaluation methods and different data sources. To improve the environmental and economic assessment approaches to HFW management, an inventory database (e.g., food waste properties, technical treatment parameters, material flow, and fund flow data) suitable for HFW should be constructed. When establishing the system boundaries, the processes of source sorting, collection and transportation, and by-product handling should be coherent with the investigated treatment technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To describe and evaluate the application of a new 3‐D printing‐assisted personalized macular buckle for patients with myopic foveoschisis (MFS). Methods: Twelve eyes of 12 patients with MFS were included in this study. Preoperative MRI images were subsequently measured after marker implantation and imported into the MIMICS software for the 3‐D reconstruction of a virtual model of an eyeball and a marker. The virtual eyeball model was designed according to the degree of retinoschisis, which was measured using optical coherence tomography preoperatively. A macular buckle was designed using a titanium stent, assisted by 3‐D printing; furthermore, it was surgically placed in combination with pars plana vitrectomy. Visual acuity, axial length and anatomic outcomes were analysed pre‐ and postoperatively. Results: Macular schisis in all patients was completely resolved after the surgery without any postoperative complications. The mean postoperative best corrected visual acuity (LogMAR) improved significantly from 1.21 to 0.92 during the 6‐month follow‐up period (p < 0.001) and reached 0.9 (p < 0.001) after 2 years. The axial length was significantly shortened during the 2 years postoperatively follow‐up period (p < 0.01). The average axial lengths in all patients decreased from 30.62 mm preoperatively to 29.81 mm 1 month postoperatively and remained around 30.16 mm from 1 year after the surgery. Conclusion: The 3‐D printing technique is useful to predict the indentation height and position of the macular buckle. The 3D‐printing‐assisted macular buckle, in combination with vitrectomy, is an effective, safe and accurate treatment modality for MFS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The white-rot fungi Phanerochaete chrysosporium have been widely applied in heavy metal bioremediation, which commonly results in a stress exposure. Exposure studies showed that Cd bioaccumulation triggered H 2 O 2 generation. Thereafter, the H 2 O 2 , as signal molecules, activated the enzymatic antioxidant response in the case of the conjunction of SOD and CAT. High levels of R (SOD/CAT) were found initially under Cd exposure, and then a significant decline occurred in time-course Cd exposure. Antioxidant activities also provided an alternative as an indication of the existence of antioxidant response upon Cd exposure, via coupling H 2 O 2 level with the variation in antioxidant activities. This finding potentially has implications for the understanding of tolerance behavior and detoxification mechanisms, which is beneficial to expand the application of P. chrysosporium in bioremediation biotechnology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) can infect a variety of cells and cause malignant tumors. At present, the use of microRNA (miRNA) for anti-KSHV is a promising treatment strategy, but the instability and non-specific uptake of miRNA still limit its use in the treatment of KSHV. In the present study, we constructed a nano-drug delivery system employing chemical grafting and electrostatic adsorption to solve the problems of easy degradation and low cell uptake of miRNA during direct administration. This nano-drug delivery system is to graft 4-carboxyphenylboric acid (PBA) and lauric acid (LA) onto polyethylenimine (PEI) through amidation reaction, and then prepare cationic copolymer nanocarriers (LA-PEI-PBA). The drug-carrying nanocomplex LA-PEI-PBA/miR-34a-5p was formed after further electrostatic adsorption of miR-34a-5p on the carrier and could protect miR-34a-5p from nuclease and serum degradation. Modification of the drug-carrying nanocomplex LA-PEI-PBA/miR-34a-5p by targeted molecule PBA showed effective uptake, increase in the level of miR-34a-5p, and inhibition of cell proliferation and migration in KSHV-infected cells. In addition, the drug-carrying nanocomplex could also significantly reduce the expression of KSHV lytic and latent genes, achieving the purpose of anti-KSHV treatment. In conclusion, these cationic copolymer nanocarriers with PBA targeting possess potential applications in nucleic acid delivery and anti-KSHV therapy., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Li, Cao, Yao, Gu, Liu, Li and Cui.)

Background: To assess the diagnostic efficacy of optical coherence tomography (OCT) and OCT angiography (OCTA) in Parkinson's disease (PD)., Methods: OCT was used to obtain macular parameters and peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness. The macular superficial retinal vessel and foveal avascular zone (FAZ) were quantified with OCTA. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) indicated the diagnostic efficacy of the parameters., Results: Thirty-five eyes from 35 PD patients and 35 eyes from 35 age-matched healthy subjects who served as controls were evaluated. The mean RNFL thickness overall and the thicknesses of the other three quadrants were similar in PD patients compared with controls (P≥0.358). The RNFL thickness at the temporal quadrant, total macular volume (TMV), macular retinal thickness (MRT), and ganglion cell-inner plexiform layer complex (GCL-IPL) thickness were reduced in the eyes of PD patients (P≤0.046). There was no difference between the CMT of PD patients compared with control subjects (P=0.163). The vessel length density (VLD) in the central, inner and full regions; vessel perfusion density (VPD) in all regions; and the FAZ circularity index in PD patients were significantly lower than in controls (P≤0.049). The AUC of the VLD in PD in the central, inner and full regions were 0.712, 0.728, and 0.650, respectively; The VPD in the central, inner and full region were 0.711, 0.756, and 0.682, respectively. The mean RNFL thickness in the temporal quadrant, TMV and MRT revealed an AUC of 0.718, 0.693 and 0.699, respectively. The VPD in the outer region, FAZ circularity and GCL-IPL thickness did not have diagnostic ability in distinguishing PD from normal eyes (P≥0.05). The AUCs of a combination of the VLD in the inner region and TMV, the VLD in the inner region and MRT, the VPD in the inner region and TMV, and the VPD in the inner region and MRT, were 0.843, 0.849, 0.849, and 0.848, respectively (P≤0.001)., Conclusions: Decreased OCT and OCTA parameters were detected in the eyes of PD patients. Combined non-invasive measurements of OCT and OCTA had better diagnostic ability than either alone, and may provide an additional biomarker for PD progression., Competing Interests: Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/qims-20-460). The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare., (2020 Quantitative Imaging in Medicine and Surgery. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: We investigated the correlation between visual acuity (VA) and individual retinal layer thickness in the foveal, parafoveal, and perifoveal regions of patients with an idiopathic epiretinal membrane (ERM)., Methods: One hundred and five subjects presenting with unilateral idiopathic ERM were included in this study. We segmented each patient's optical coherence tomography (OCT) image into seven layers and calculated the mean layer thickness in the foveal, parafoveal, and perifoveal regions using the Iowa Reference Algorithm. In 105 patients with ERM, we detected correlations between their macular regions' individual retinal layer thickness and their best corrected VA. Thirty-one of the 105 patients with ERM underwent vitrectomy and completed six months of follow-up. We then compared the 31 surgical patients' preoperative and postoperative individual retinal layer thickness in each macular region. Additionally, the association between preoperative individual retinal layer thickness in each macular region and VA six months post-surgery in patients with ≥ two Snellen lines of visual improvement was determined., Results: Multiple linear regression analysis showed that the inner nuclear layer (INL) thickness in the foveal, parafoveal, and perifoveal region were all associated with VA in the 105 patients ( R 2  = 0.344, P  < 0.001; R 2  = 0.427, P  < 0.001; and R 2  = 0.340, P  < 0.001, respectively). Thirty-one surgical patients 6 months post-surgery showed significantly decreased thicknesses ( P  ≤ 0.012) of the foveal INL, inner plexiform layer (IPL), and outer nuclear layer (ONL); the parafoveal retina nerve fiber layer (RNFL), IPL, INL, and ONL; and the perifoveal RNFL, IPL, INL, ganglion cell layer (GCL), outer plexiform layer (OPL), and photoreceptor layer (PRL). We found a weak correlation between postoperative VA and preoperative foveal and perifoveal RNFL thickness ( r  = 0.404 and r  = 0.359, respectively), and a moderate correlation between postoperative VA and preoperative foveal and parafoveal INL thickness ( r  = 0.529 and r  = 0.583, respectively) in the 31 surgical patients ( P  ≤ 0.047). The preoperative INL thickness in the foveal, parafoveal, and perifoveal regions showed a moderate to strong correlation ( r  = 0.507, 0.644, and 0.548, respectively), with postoperative VA in patients with ≥ 2 lines of visual improvement ( P  ≤ 0.038)., Conclusion: We detected a correlation between retinal damage and VA in the parafoveal, perifoveal, and foveal regions. Our results suggest that INL thickness in all macular regions may be a prognostic factor for postoperative VA in ERM patients., Competing Interests: The authors declare there are no competing interests., (©2020 Zou et al.)

Introduction: Many studies suggest that Tai Chi exercise is a safe and appropriate mind-body exercise for older people and effectively slows down age-related cognitive decline. A set of bespoke Tai Chi exercise named 'Cognition Protecting Tai Chi' (CPT) has been created for older people with cognitive impairments by the research team of geriatricians, neurologists, rehabilitation specialists, experts of sports medicine and experienced practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine. This trial is designed to evaluate its effects on cognitive function, behaviour/moods, risk of falls and activities of daily living of the participants with mild dementia., Methods and Analysis: A randomised controlled study will be conducted. Eighty participants with mild dementia will be recruited and randomly allocated to an intervention group and a control group. The intervention group will practice the CPT exercise three times a week for 20 min each time under the guidance of professional therapists. The control group will continue receiving their routine treatments. The duration of this study will be 10 months. All participants will be assessed with a battery of neuropsychological and functional evaluations, which include Mini Mental State Examination, Montreal Cognitive Assessment, the WHO-University of California Los Angeles-Auditory Verbal Learning test (WHO-UCLA-AVLT), Trail Making Test (TMT), Geriatric Depression Scale, Neuropsychological Inventory and Barthel Index, at the baseline, 5 and 10 months during the study period. Fall incident will also be recorded. The primary outcome will be the WHO-UCLA-AVLT delayed recall score. The secondary outcome will be the TMT score., Ethics and Dissemination: This study has been approved by the ethical review committee of the Beijing Geriatric Hospital (protocol number: 2015-021). Informed consent will be obtained from all participants or their guardians. The authors intend to submit the findings of the study to peer-reviewed journals or academic conferences to be published., Trial Registration Number: ChiCTR-INR-16009872; Pre-results., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.)