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Gastric cancer (GC) is a leading cause of cancer-related morbidity and mortality globally. This meta-analysis was conducted to assess the impact of nutritional interventions on clinical outcomes in GC patients.

Objective To analyze the cardiac safety of trastuzumab on HER2 positive breast cancer patients. Methods Trastuzumab was administrated every three weeks in 185 patients with HER2 positive breast cancer. The initial dose was 8 mg/kg, and the subsequent dose was 6 mg/kg, for 4-36 cycles. The cardiotoxicity of these patients was analyzed. Results The median treatment was 17 cycles in Her-2 positive breast cancer patients who received trastuzumab. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) level dropped in 88 cases (47.6%) after trastuzumab treatment; 74 patients (40.0%) occurred valvular regurgitation (new+ aggravation); 16 patients (8.0%) occurred the reduction of diastolic function of left ventricle; 88 patients (47.6%) experienced cardiotoxicity, among which 83 patients experienced gradeⅠcardiotoxicity and five patients experienced grade Ⅱ cardiotoxicity, no patient experienced grade Ⅲ cardiotoxicity. Conclusion The treatment of trastuzumab on Chinese patients with HER2 positive breast cancer shows a satisfactory cardiac safety. However, the potential cardiotoxicity of trastuzumab should be carefully monitored during therapy.

Abstract Background Hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) is endemic in Liaoning Province, China, and this province was the most serious area affected by HFRS during 2004 to 2005. In this study, we conducted a spatial analysis of HFRS cases with the objective to determine the distribution of HFRS cases and to identify key areas for future public health planning and resource allocation in Liaoning Province. Methods The annual average incidence at the county level was calculated using HFRS cases reported between 2000 and 2005 in Liaoning Province. GIS-based spatial analyses were conducted to detect spatial distribution and clustering of HFRS incidence at the county level, and the difference of relative humidity and forestation between the cluster areas and non-cluster areas was analyzed. Results Spatial distribution of HFRS cases in Liaoning Province from 2000 to 2005 was mapped at the county level to show crude incidence, excess hazard, and spatial smoothed incidence. Spatial cluster analysis suggested 16 and 41 counties were at increased risk for HFRS (p < 0.01) with the maximum spatial cluster sizes at ≤ 50% and ≤ 30% of the total population, respectively, and the analysis showed relative humidity and forestation in the cluster areas were significantly higher than in other areas. Conclusion Some clustering of HFRS cases in Liaoning Province may be etiologically linked. There was strong evidence some HFRS cases in Liaoning Province formed clusters, but the mechanism underlying it remains unknown. In this study we found the clustering was consistent with the relative humidity and amount of forestation, and showed data indicating there may be some significant relationships.

This paper explores whether it is feasible to use the RGB color information in images of wheat canopies that were exposed to low temperatures during the growth season to achieve fast, non-destructive, and accurate determination of the severity of any freeze injury it may have incurred. For the study presented in this paper, we compared the accuracy of a number of algorithmic classification models using either meteorological data reported by weather services or the color gradation skewness-distribution from high-definition digital canopy images acquired in situ as inputs against a reference obtained by manually assessing the severity of the freeze injury inflicted upon wheat populations at three experimental stations in Shandong, China. The algorithms we used to construct the models included in our study were based on either K-means clustering, systematic clustering, or naïve Bayesian classification. When analyzing the reliability of our models, we found that, at more than 85%, the accuracy of the Bayesian model, which used the color information as inputs and involved the use of prior data in the form of the reference data we had obtained through manual classification, was significantly higher than that of the models based on systematic or the K-means clustering, which did not involve the use of prior data. It was interesting to note that the determination accuracy of algorithms using meteorological factors as inputs was significantly lower than that of those using color information. We also noted that the determination accuracy of the Bayesian model had some potential for optimization, which prompted us to subject the inputs of the model to a factor analysis in order to identify the key independent leaf color distribution parameters characterizing wheat freeze injury severity. This optimization allowed us to improve the determination accuracy of the model to over 90%, even in environments comprising several different ecological zones, as was the case at one of our experimental sites. In conclusion, our naïve Bayesian classification algorithm, which uses six key color gradation skewness-distribution parameters as inputs and involves the use of prior data in the form of manual assessments, qualifies as a contender for the development of commercial-grade wheat freeze injury severity monitoring systems supporting post-freeze management measures aimed at ensuring food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Parkinson's disease (PD) is a profoundly incapacitating neurodegenerative disorder, which presents a substantial challenge to the economic sustainability of the global healthcare system. The present study seeks to clarify the factors that contribute to the costs associated with PD hospitalization and analyze the economic burden it imposes. Methods: We examined data of 19,719 patients with a primary diagnosis of PD who were admitted to hospitals in Hubei Province, China, during the study period. Healthcare data were obtained from the database of electronic medical records. The study presents a comprehensive analysis of the demographic characteristics and investigates the factors that affect their healthcare expenditure. Results: The cohort consisted of 10,442 (53.0%) males and 9,277 (47.0%) females. The age-group of 66–70 years experienced the highest incidence of hospitalization among PD patients, with a mortality rate of 0.76‰. The average length of stay for patients was 9.9 ± 8.6 days and the average cost per patient was USD 1,759.9 ± 4,787.7. Surgical interventions were conducted on a mere 2.0% of the total inpatient population. The primary cost component for these interventions was material expenses, accounting for 70.1% of the total. Non-surgical patients primarily incurred expenses related to diagnosis and medication. Notably, surgical patients faced a substantial out-of-pocket rate, reaching up to 90.6%. Surgery was identified as the most influential factor that negatively affected both length of stay and hospitalization costs. Inpatients exhibited significant associations with prolonged length of stay and increased medical expenditure as age increased. Male patients had significantly longer hospital stays and higher medical costs than did females. Additionally, patient's occupation and type of medical insurance exerted significant effects on both length of stay and medical expense. Conclusion: Age significantly affects PD hospitalization costs. Given the prevailing demographic shift toward an aging population, the government's medical insurance burden related to PD will continue to escalate. Meanwhile, high treatment expenses and out-of-pocket rates impose substantial financial burdens on patients, limiting surgical intervention access to a small fraction of patients. Addressing these issues is of utmost importance in order to ensure comprehensive disease management for the majority of individuals affected by PD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laser ablation in liquids (LAL) is an emerging laser technique for rapidly producing surfactant-free nanoparticles (NPs), which require minimal postprocessing and purification. Current work employing LAL has primarily focused on the generation of metal oxides and NPs composed of a single element. Here, we show that the ablation of hafnium (Hf) foil in different organic liquids allows for the controlled synthesis of HfO2 and HfC in selected ratios, resulting in a synthetic scheme for the rational design of materials relevant for high temperature and plasma applications. Additionally, the physical properties of the organic solvents can dictate the overall NP size distribution; specifically, solvents with low boiling points produce a large dispersity of NPs. This work indicates that the material-formation process is much more complicated than previous studies have indicated and paves the way for a pulsed-laser synthesis methodology that is tunable for desired properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient and robust bifunctional non-precious metal electrocatalysts, used for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) and hydrogen evolution reaction (HER), are crucial to develop water splitting commercial applications. Herein, a bottom-up self-assembly strategy is proposed to construct ternary electrocatalysts of nitrogen-doped graphene-like carbon layers encapsulated Mo x C (x = 1, 2) and Ni 3 Fe alloy nanoparticles (Mo x C/Ni 3 Fe@GL) for efficient water electrolysis. The optimized sample (0.27Mo x C/Ni 1.5 Fe@GL, 0.27 represent the mass of ammonium molybdate in the precursor) requires overpotentials (η 10) of 88 and 150, 265 mV in 0.5 M H 2 SO 4 for HER and 1.0 M KOH for HER and OER, respectively. Furthermore, as a bifunctional electrocatalyst in a two-electrode cell, 0.27Mo x C/Ni 1.5 Fe@GL requires only 1.523 V at 10 mA cm−2, which surpasses the noble metal RuO 2 (+)||Pt/C(−) in 1.0 M KOH electrolyte, and shows excellent stability by working at 20 mA cm−2 long as 150 h. The superior electrocatalytic performance can mainly originate from Mo x C and Ni 3 Fe alloys synergistically effected results. The partial doping of Ni or Fe atoms into Mo 2 C optimizes the electronic structure, making the intrinsic activity enhanced. On the other hand, the incorporation of Mo x C heterophases effectively inhibits the Ni 3 Fe nanoparticles agglomeration, benefitting to expose more active sites. Moreover, the protection of encapsulated thin N-doped graphene-like carbon layers for the nanoparticles against corrosion, guarantees the long-time durability. This work provides a potential general bottom-up self-assembly approach to construct high-performance electrocatalysts with multiphase heterostructures with enriched abundant active sites and enhanced intrinsic activity for energy coversion fields. Ternary Mo x C (x = 1, 2) and Ni 3 Fe alloy nanoparticles encapsulated in N-doped graphene-like carbon layers (Mo x C/Ni 3 Fe@GL) are synthesized by a bottom-up self-assembly method. Mo x C/Ni 3 Fe@GL exhibits efficient and stable electrocatalytic water splitting performance. [Display omitted] • Mo x C/Ni 3 Fe@GL was prepared by a facile bottom-up self-assembly strategy. • The synergistic effect of Mo x C and Ni 3 Fe alloy enhanced the intrinsic activity. • N-doped graphene-like thin carbon layers improved the conductivity and stability. • Water splitting required only 1.523 V to reach 10 mA cm−2 and stably for 150 h. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extremely important for water electrolysis are the rational design and investigation of oxygen evolution reaction (OER) electrocatalysts with excellent performance and long-term durability and that are precious metal-free. Herein, we demonstrate the convenient synthesis of a nitrogen-doped carbon-wrapped nickel cobalt alloy (NiCo2@NC) by pyrolysis of the metal complex. The results indicate that the ideal Ni/Co ratio and NC wrapping can provide high Cdl, low charge transfer resistance, and long-term durability for electrocatalysts, which are all reasons for significant OER performance. The optimal NiCo2@NC composite exhibits rapid OER reaction kinetics, which require a comparatively low overpotential of 288 mV at 10 mA cm–2 and a relatively small Tafel slope of 66 mV dec–1 in the alkaline electrolyte. Furthermore, I–t experiments were performed to demonstrate its better long-term catalytic endurance. In short, this study may provide guidance for the rational construction and design of carbon-coated bimetallic alloy materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrocatalysts with a high oxygen evolution reaction (OER) activity are very important for electrochemical water oxidation, but they are also challenging. In this study, N-doped graphene-like supported highly dispersed bimetallic NiCoP NPs as an efficient electrocatalyst for water oxidation were prepared by using cation exchange resin as a carbon source and by loading cobalt and nickel on D001 by a high-temperature calcination method. The designed electrocatalyst with bimetallic phosphide as the active center shows excellent OER catalytic performance, with an overpotential of 324 mV at 10 mA cm−2 and a corresponding Tafel slope of 97.28 mV dec−1. The increase in NiCoP-3@GL activity may be due to the increase in surface area (933.49 m2 g−1) caused by the irregular morphology, rich interface contact, and porous structure. In addition, the strong combination of NiCoP and GL improves the structural stability and durability of the electrocatalyst. After 5000 cyclic voltammetry tests, the performance of the catalyst decreased by 16.9 %. This work provides a new idea for designing efficient bimetallic phosphide electrocatalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Nance–Horan syndrome (NHS) is a rare and often overlooked X‐linked dominant disorder characterized by dense congenital cataracts, dental abnormalities, and mental retardation. The majority of NHS variations include frameshift mutations, nonsense mutations, microdeletions, and insertions. Methods: Copy number variation sequencing was performed to determine the microdeletion. The expression of NHS was detected by RT‐PCR. Four family members were tested for X chromosome inactivation. Results: In this study, all members were examined for systemic examinations and genetic testing of four members and two affected subjects are observed. We identified a heterozygous microdeletion of −0.52 Mb at Xp22.13 in a female proband presenting NHS phenotypically. The microdeletion contains the REPS2 and NHS genes and was inherited from a phenotypically normal mother. Of interest, the expression NHS of proband was reduced and the skewed X chromosome inactivation rate reached more than 85% compared with her mother and the control. It was concluded that the haploinsufficiency of the NHS gene may account for the majority of clinical symptoms in the affected subjects. The variability among female carriers presumably results from nonrandom X chromosome inactivation. Conclusion: Our findings broaden the spectrum of NHS mutations and provide molecular insight into NHS clinical prenatal genetic diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crop leaf color is tightly connected with its meteorological environment. Color gradation skewness-distribution (CGSD) parameters can describe the information of leaf color more accurately, systematically, and comprehensively from five dimensions. We took photographs of pepper growing in the greenhouse at a fixed time every day and observed the meteorological factors. The results showed that the CGSD parameters were significantly correlated with meteorological factors, especially with the accumulated temperature, which showed the strongest correlation. Since the relationship between canopy leaf color and accumulated temperature is nonlinear, the piecewise inversion models were constructed by taking the stationary point of the high-order response model of Gskewness to accumulated temperature as the point of demarcation. The rate of outliers had decreased by 57.72%; moreover, the overall inversion accuracy had increased by 3.31% compared with the linear model directly constructed by the stepwise regression. It was observed that the pepper in the greenhouse had a different response to the same meteorological environmental stimulus before and after the stationary point. This study will provide a new method for constructing crop growth models in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the safety, efficiency, and cost expenditure of remote programming in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) after deep brain stimulation (DBS). Methods: A total of 74 patients who underwent DBS at the Department of Neurosurgery, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University between June 2018 and June 2020 were enrolled in this study. There were 27 patients in the remote programming group and 47 patients in the outpatient programming group. Clinical data, programming efficiency, adverse events, expenditure, and satisfaction were compared between the two groups. Results: A total of 36 times of remote programming were performed on the 27 patients in the remote programming group, and four had mild adverse events during programming, and the adverse events disappeared within 1 week. The satisfaction questionnaire showed that 97.3% of the patients were satisfied with the surgical effect. The patients in the remote programming group (88.9%) were more likely to receive long-term programming after DBS than the patients in the outpatient programming group (74.5%). The Parkinsonism symptoms improved in both programming groups. The majority (18/27) of patients in the remote programming group lived away from the programming center, while the majority (27/47) of patients in the outpatient programming group lived in Wuhan, where the programming center was located (P = 0.046). The cost per patient per programming was US$ 43.5 in the remote programming group and $59.5 (56–82.7) in the outpatient programming group (P < 0.001). The median time cost for each visit was 30 min (25–30) in the remote programming group and 150 min (135–270.0) in the outpatient programming group (P < 0.001). Conclusion: Remote programming is safe and effective after DBS in patients with Parkinson's disease. Moreover, it reduces expenditure and time costs for patients and achieves high satisfaction, particularly for patients living far from programming centers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic materials with controllable molecular design and sustainable resources are promising electrode materials. Crystalline quinones have been investigated in a variety of rechargeable battery chemistries due to their ubiquitous nature, voltage tunability and environmental friendliness. In acidic electrolytes, quinone crystals can undergo proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET), resulting in charge storage. However, the detailed mechanism of this phenomenon remains elusive. To model PCET in crystalline quinones, force field-based methods are not viable due to variable redox states of the quinone molecules during battery operation and computationally efficient quantum mechanical methods are strongly desired. The semi-empirical density functional tight-binding (DFTB) method has been widely used to study inorganic crystalline systems and biological systems but has not been comprehensively benchmarked for studying charge transport in quinones. In this work, we benchmark the third order variant of DFTB (DFTB3) for the reduction potential of quinones in aqueous solution, energetics of proton transfer between quinones and between quinones and water, and structural and electronic properties of crystalline quinones. Our results reveal the deficiencies of the DFTB3 method in describing the proton affinity of quinones and the structural and electronic properties of crystalline quinones, and highlight the need for further development of the DFTB method for describing charge transport in crystalline quinones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Tyrosinase-positive oculocutaneous albinism (OCA, type II, OCA2) is an autosomal recessive genetic disease in which the biosynthesis of melanin decreases in the skin, hair, and eyes. OCA2 disease is caused by mutations in OCA2 gene. The gene product plays a role in regulating the pH of melanosomes. Up to now, hundreds of OCA2 mutations have been reported and novel variants are still being discovered. Methods: In this study, we reviewed the records of OCA2 patients who had conducted albinism genetic testing, and then analyzed the clinical and genetic information of 28 OCA2 patients who had been genetically diagnosed by using Sanger sequencing and next-generation sequencing. Results: In this study, we reported 31 variants screened from 28 Chinese OCA2 families, and characterized the detailed molecular and clinical presentations. There were 12 novel variants among all detected variants, including 3 missense variants (p.G393V, p.T482A, and p.R720P), 4 frameshift variants (p.R53Gfs∗49, p.N279Kfs∗17, p.I469Lfs∗4, p.I655Nfs∗12), 2 splicing variants (c.1637-2A > G, c.1951 + 1G > C), 2 stopgain variants (p.L278X, p.W652X) and 1 insertion variants (p.P315LinsT). One potential cluster of missense variants was implicated indicating the important roles of the underlying domains in OCA2 pathogenesis. Conclusion: Our results were beneficial for diagnosis and precision clinical management for OCA2 -related disorder, and this study expanded the mutation spectrum of oculocutaneous albinism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Open-phase fault (OPF) in the permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) drive system is one of the most prevalent failures due to the resulting large electromagnetic torque ripples and serious mechanical vibration. To improve the reliability of the PMSM drive system, several OPF diagnosis methods were studied and were mainly focused on vector control system. Recently, model predictive control (MPC) has been emerging as a popular control method for the PMSM drive system owing to its simple structure and excellent dynamic performance. However, so far, there are no special OPF diagnosis methods for the model predictive controlled PMSM drive system. Hence, this article first proposes a cost function-based OPF diagnosis method for the model predictive controlled PMSM drive system, considering the characteristics of MPC system. The dc component and second harmonic component in the cost function are used for the OPF diagnosis, and the initial phase angle differences are defined to locate the faulty phase. The experimental results show that, by the proposed fault diagnosis method, not only the OPF can be rapidly detected, but also the faulty phase can be effectively located. Moreover, the proposed method can be implemented simply and is robust against the operating point and parameter variations of the PMSM drive system. This article proposes an OPF diagnosis method for the model predictive controlled PMSM drive system based on cost function, taking into account the characteristics of the MPCC system. The experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. From the theoretical analysis and experimental results, the following works and conclusion are drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]