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Background: Hepatic infarction is a rare liver condition. The purpose of this study is to report a case of hepatic infarction caused by thrombus formation following portal vein stent implantation in a patient with hepatocellular carcinoma and portal vein tumor thrombus, and to explore the underlying causes. Case report: The patient in this study was a 52-year-old male admitted with diffuse hepatocellular carcinoma involving the right lobe and portal vein tumor thrombus. After undergoing portal vein stent implantation and 125I particle strand implantation treatment, the portal vein was patent, and the pressure decreased. However, multiple instances of hepatic artery chemoembolization combined with targeted immunotherapy resulted in gradual reduction in the diameter of the hepatic artery and affecting hepatic arterial blood flow. Two months post-stent implantation, thrombus formation within the stent was noted, and the patient’s condition did not improve with anticoagulant therapy, as evidenced by follow-up CT scans showing an increase in thrombi. Six months later, the patient suffered from gastrointestinal bleeding and, despite emergency esophagogastric variceal ligation and hemostatic treatment, developed hepatic parenchymal infarction and liver function failure. Conclusions: We reveal the underlying cause is that (1) thrombus formation within the portal vein stent, leading to portal vein embolism and obstructed blood flow due to exacerbate portal hypertension after various treatments; and (2) the effect of hepatic artery chemoembolization, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy on tumor angiogenesis, causing reduced hepatic artery diameter and impaired arterial blood flow. These factors disrupt the liver’s dual blood supply system, ultimately contributing to hepatic infarction. To our knowledge, this is the first report of hepatic infarction as a complication following portal vein stent implantation for hepatocellular carcinoma with portal vein tumor thrombus, and it holds significant reference value for guiding the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma with concurrent portal vein tumor thrombus in a clinical setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Northwest China (WTL) is an essential ecological barrier zone of China, an important node of the "Silk Road Economic Belt," and a crucial bearing area for China's execution of the "One Road and One Belt" and "Going Global" strategies. However, its ecology is exceedingly fragile and particularly vulnerable to climate change and human interference. This study explored the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of vegetation in WTL using NDVI data and investigated its drive mechanisms by geodetector, partial correlation analysis, and residual trend analysis methods. As well as forecasting the trend for vegetation changes. The findings demonstrated that (1) the change in NDVI manifested an overall improvement trend and the distribution in space of NDVI rose from the center to the periphery. 57.07% of the area had a sparse cover of vegetation (NDVI between 0 and 0.2). In addition, about 49% of regions had deterioration tendencies, which were mainly aggregated in HX, QCXDB, QCXDN, and the eastern of QCXQN and QCXXB. (2) The NDVI's shifting trend was unsustainability, and the region of uncertain future accounted for 57.45% of the total, with apparent unsustainability features. (3) The key parameters influencing NDVI spatial distribution were Pre (precipitation), vegetation type, land use type, and soil type. The interaction between two factors enhanced the influence of any single element, which appeared as bivariate and nonlinear enhancements. (4) Both climate variations and human activities have been recognized as key variables affecting NDVI growth. NDVI variance in 73.02% of areas was influenced by the combined effects of climate variations and human activities. However, human activities were the most influential element in NDVI growth, with the relative contributions of 80.28% (19.72% of which was caused by climate variations). These results can be conducive to deepening insights into the local vegetation status, identifying the mechanisms driving vegetation change, and providing scientific recommendations for WTL's ecosystem restoration measures based on actual situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clarifying the spatiotemporal variation of crop irrigation water requirement (IWR) under the background of climate change is an essential basis for water resource management, determining the irrigation quota and adjusting the planting structure. Using 61 years of climate data from 205 stations in Northwest China, this study investigated the spatiotemporal variations of climatic factors and IWR during the growth period of five main grain crops (spring wheat, winter wheat, spring maize, summer maize, and rice) and explored the dominant climatic driving factors of IWR variation. Results showed that (1) the IWR of grain crops showed distinct differences. Rice was the highest water consumption crop (mean of 753.78 mm), and summer maize was the lowest (mean of 452.90 mm). (2) The variation trends and average values of IWR of different grain crops have spatial heterogeneity across Northwest China. For most crops, high values and increasing trends of IWR were mainly located in eastern Xinjiang, western Gansu, and western Inner Mongolia. (3) Tmax (maximum temperature), Tmin (minimum temperature), and Peff (effective precipitation) showed an increasing trend during the growth period of each grain crop, while U10 (wind speed at 10 m height), SD (solar radiation), and RH (relative humidity) presented decreasing trends. (4) SD, Tmax, and U10 promoted the increase of grain crops' IWR, while Peff and RH inhibited it. The impacts of climatic factors on the grain crop IWR differed among different regions. Peff was the most influential factor to the IWR of all grain crops in most areas. Therefore, under the premise of a significant increase in T and uncertain precipitation mode in the future, it is urgent to take effective water-saving measures according to the irrigation needs of the region. To cope with the adverse impact of climate change on the sustainable development of agriculture in the northwest dry area, to ensure regional and national food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Patients with hematological malignancies are prone to invasive fungal disease due to long-term chemotherapy or radiotherapy. Voriconazole is a second-generation triazole broad-spectrum antibiotic used to prevent or treat invasive fungal infections. Many population pharmacokinetic (pop PK) models have been published for voriconazole, and various diagnostic methods are available to validate the performance of these pop PK models. However, most of the published models have not been strictly evaluated externally. The purpose of this study is to evaluate these models externally and assess their predictive capabilities. Methods: The external dataset consists of adults receiving voriconazole treatment at Fujian Medical University Union Hospital. We re-established the published models based on their final estimated values in the literature and used our external dataset for initial screening. Each model was evaluated based on the following outcomes: prediction-based diagnostics, prediction- and variability-corrected visual predictive check (pvcVPC), normalized prediction distribution errors (NPDE), and Bayesian simulation results with one to two prior observations. Results: A total of 237 samples from 166 patients were collected as an external dataset. After screening, six candidate models suitable for the external dataset were finally obtained for comparison. Among the models, none demonstrated excellent predictive performance. Bayesian simulation shows that all models' prediction precision and accuracy were significantly improved when one or two prior concentrations were given. Conclusions: The published pop PK models of voriconazole have significant differences in prediction performance, and none of the models could perfectly predict the concentrations of voriconazole for our data. Therefore, extensive evaluation should precede the adoption of any model in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Polyaniline/poly(vinyl alcohol)/TiO2 (PANI/PVA/TiO2) hybrid hydrogels with improved mechanical and electrochemical properties were fabricated via in situ oxidative polymerization of aniline (ANI) and in situ synthesized TiO2 with sol–gel method. Due to the combination of hydrogen bonds and electrostatic interactions among PANI, PVA, and TiO2, this inorganic hybrid crosslinking structures enabled the PANI/PVA/TiO2 hybrid hydrogel to possess reinforced tensile/compressive strength (26.5 kPa/8.2 MPa) and unprecedented self-healing performance. Moreover, with the optimized conductive pathways in the hybrid hydrogel, its conductivity was up to 1.38 S/m, which meets the requirement of being utilized as high-performance flexible solid-state supercapacitors. At current density of 0.5 A/g, the hydrogel-based supercapacitor provided a large capacitance of 41.0–127.5 F/g and a high energy density of 0.9–2.8 Wh/kg, which were superior to other flexible supercapacitors. The easily fabricated PANI/PVA/TiO2 conducting hydrogels provides a novel strategy to prepare hydrogel electrodes for flexible energy storage devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]