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The purpose of this study is to delineate cross-sectional associations between qualitative and quantitative measures of the infrapatellar fat pad (IPFP) and knee symptoms, structure, kinematics, and kinetics in older adults. Ninety eligible subjects (90 knees, mean age 54.0 years, 68.9% female) were examined at our center. We used T2-weighted fat-suppressed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to evaluate signal intensity alteration, maximum sagittal area, and depth of the IPFP. Symptomatic osteoarthritis (SOA) was a pain subscale score greater than 0 on the Western Ontario McMaster Osteoarthritis Index. A Kellgren-Lawrence grade ≥ 2 identified incident radiographic osteoarthritis (iROA). Three-dimensional gait data were employed to analyze knee joint kinematics and kinetics. Correlation and regression analyzes assessed associations between IPFP measurements and SOA, iROA, kinematics, and kinetics. There were strong and positive associations between IPFP signal intensity alteration and both SOA and iROA in multivariable regression analyzes [OR (95% CI): 2.849 (1.440 to 5.636), 2.356 (1.236 to 4.492), respectively]. Conversely, a significant negative correlation was observed between IPFP maximum area and flexion angle [B (95%CI): − 1.557 (−2.549 to −0.564)]. Moreover, adjusting for covariates did not reveal any significant correlation between IPFP parameters and other indicators (P > 0.05, respectively). IPFP signal intensity alteration and area were associated with knee clinical symptoms, structural abnormalities, and flexion angle in adults over 40, respectively. These findings suggest that IPFP may be a crucial imaging biomarker in early and middle knee osteoarthritis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, due to the insufficient resources of renewable natural gas, the development of renewable pathways to integrate into the natural gas-industry portfolio can reduce many concerns about the reserves depletion and the environmental crises. In the present article a structure-oriented framework for gas networks is developed to compare and prioritize different investment scenarios for renewable natural gas production projects. In this regard, different pathways to produce renewable natural gas through the waste-to-natural gas process were discussed and compared based on different waste feedstocks. To discuss and compare different pathways, a decision-making structure and framework under life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) and life cycle environmental analysis (LCEA) is employed to choose the appropriate pathway for the waste-to-natural gas process. The optimal pathway is identified through different multi-variable decision-making scenarios (under different geographical conditions, access to different feedstocks, and different interests of stakeholders). From the outcomes, under the neutral and Pro-economic scenarios, the renewable natural gas production pathway driven by landfill gas integrated with the pressure swing adsorption- biogas upgrading unit is the optimal and desirable option. While under an Eco-friendly scenario, the pathway driven by animal manure integrated with the pressure swing adsorption-upgrading unit is an optimal and desirable pathway. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic impedance spectroscopy is a powerful tool to investigate the temporal development of reaction kinetics in electrochemical systems, where the reactive species may undergo irreversible changes during the measurement. In this work we redefined dynamic impedance based on quadrature filters and underwent an analysis of multisine waveforms for the measurement of the dynamic impedance spectra during cyclic voltammetry. We proposed a quasi-triangular wave in order to minimize the interactions between the dc and ac signals. We showed on both simulated and experimental data that a proper design of the multisine wave allows accessing spectra with large number of frequencies and quasi-triangular waves with high values of scan rate. The key point is the frequency distribution of the multisine, optimized according to the implicit time variation of the system. Moreover, we quantify the non-linear artifacts as a function of both multisine amplitude and number of frequencies. Backed up by numerical simulation, we show how to recover simultaneously high quality impedance spectra and pristine voltammograms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to analyze the clinicopathological and ultrasound characteristics of triple-negative breast cancers (TNBCs) and compare these findings with those for hormone receptor-positive (HR-positive)/human epidermal growth factor receptor-2-negative (HER-2-negative) tumors. Seventy-five TNBCs and 135 HR-positive/HER-2-negative breast cancers were reviewed. Data from conventional ultrasound, Doppler vascularity and elastography were included in the analysis. TNBCs had a higher histologic grade and Ki-67 level. On ultrasound, TNBCs often appeared as microlobulated, markedly hypo-echoic masses with an abrupt interface boundary, posterior acoustic enhancement, absence of calcifications and more characteristics of surrounding tissue. Results from multivariate regression analysis revealed that margin, posterior acoustic features and surrounding tissue features of tumors were independent predictive factors in differentiating TNBCs from HR-positive/HER-2-negative tumors. Our results suggest that a thorough evaluation of sonographic findings might be useful in discriminating between TNBCs and HR-positive/HER-2-negative tumors, which may provide accurate evidence for clinical early diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biomechanics plays a critical role in the modulation of chondrocyte function. The mechanisms by which mechanical loading is transduced into intracellular signals that regulate chondrocyte gene expression remain largely unknown. Histone deacetylase 4 (HDAC4) is specifically expressed in chondrocytes. Mice lacking HDAC4 display chondrocyte hypertrophy, ectopic and premature ossification, and die early during the perinatal period. HDAC4 has a remarkable ability to translocate between the cell's cytoplasm and nucleus. It has been established that subcellular relocation of HDAC4 plays a critical role in chondrocyte differentiation and proliferation. However, it remains unclear whether subcellular relocation of HDAC4 in chondrocytes can be induced by mechanical loading. In this study, we first report that compressive loading induces HDAC4 relocation from the cytoplasm to the nucleus of chondrocytes via stimulation of Ser/Thr-phosphoprotein phosphatases 2A (PP2A) activity, which results in dephosphorylation of HDAC4. Dephosphorylated HDAC4 relocates to the nucleus to achieve transcriptional repression of Runx2 and regulates chondrocyte gene expression in response to compression. Our results elucidate the mechanism by which mechanical compression regulates chondrocyte gene expression through HDAC4 relocation from the cell's cytoplasm to the nucleus via PP2A-dependent HDAC4 dephosphorylation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In this study we aimed to leverage deep learning to develop a computer aided diagnosis (CAD) system toward helping radiologists in the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 virus syndrome on Lung ultrasonography (LUS).Method: A CAD system is developed based on a transfer learning of a residual network (ResNet) to extract features on LUS and help radiologists to distinguish SARS-CoV-2 virus syndrome from healthy and non-SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia. A publicly available LUS dataset for SARS-CoV-2 virus syndrome consisting of 3909 images has been employed. Six radiologists with different experiences participated in the experiment. A comprehensive LUS data set was constructed and employed to train and verify the proposed method. Several metrics such as accuracy, recall, precision, and F1-score, are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed CAD approach. The performances of the radiologists with and without the help of CAD are also evaluated quantitively. The p-values of the t-test shows that with the help of the CAD system, both junior and senior radiologists significantly improve their diagnosis performance on both balanced and unbalanced datasets.Results: Experimental results indicate the proposed CAD approach and the machine features from it can significantly improve the radiologists' performance in the SARS-CoV-2 virus syndrome diagnosis. With the help of the proposed CAD system, the junior and senior radiologists achieved F1-score values of 91.33% and 95.79% on balanced dataset and 94.20% and 96.43% on unbalanced dataset. The proposed approach is verified on an independent test dataset and reports promising performance.Conclusions: The proposed CAD system reports promising performance in facilitating radiologists' diagnosis SARS-CoV-2 virus syndrome and might assist the development of a fast, accessible screening method for pulmonary diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A dual-ligand gold nanoparticle (DLGNP) was designed and synthesized to explore the therapeutic benefits of multivalent interactions between gold nanoparticles (GNPs) and cancer cells. DLGNP was tested on human epidermal cancer cells (KB), which had high expression of folate receptor. The cellular uptake of DLGNP was increased by 3.9 and 12.7 folds compared with GNP-folate or GNP-glucose. The enhanced cell recognition was due to multivalent interactions between both ligands on GNPs and cancer cells as shown by the ligand competition experiments. Furthermore, the multivalent interactions increased contrast between cells with high and low expression of folate receptors. The enhanced cell recognition enabled DLGNP to kill KB cells under X-ray irradiation at a dose that was safe to folate receptor low-expression (such as normal) cells. Thus DLGNP has the potential to be a cancer-specific nano-theranostic agent. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• We report a case of papillary fibroelastoma arising from the Chiari network. • Early recognition and surgical excision is essential for patients with cardiac papillary fibroelastoma (PFE). • Transesophageal echocardiography contributes to the early differential diagnosis. To improve our understanding of cardiac papillary fibroelastomaand provide evidence for its treatment and prognosis. We report a 54-year-old Chinese male who was hospitalized for a 14-day headache with a previous vertebral aneurysm history. A right atrial mass arising from the Chiari network was detected by echocardiography and complete tumor resection was performed finally. Pathologic findings confirmed the diagnosis of cardiac papillary fibroelastoma. The recovery of the patient was uneventful and follow-up echocardiographic examination revealed no recurrence of the tumor. Transthoracic echocardiography revealed a mobile, sessile mass in the right atrium without obstructing the orifice of the tricuspid valve. The subsequent transesophageal echocardiography confirmed the presence of a 1.56cm × 1.24cm mobile, sessile, irregular mass arising from the Chiari network (Fig. 1) and showed no evidence of patent foramen ovale. Early recognition and surgical excision is essential for patients with cardiac papillary fibroelastoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]