Search

(1) Background: The accurate diagnosis of esophageal strictures is quite critical for optimizing medical intervention. However, the diagnosis of suspicious malignant esophageal strictures with intact mucosa appearance and negative biopsy results is challenging. This study aimed to evaluate the role of endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration (EUS-FNA) in the diagnosis of suspicious esophageal strictures. (2) Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the cases with suspicious malignant esophageal strictures that underwent EUS-FNA, with or without rapid on-site evaluation (ROSE), in our hospital from April 2017 to September 2022. Their clinical manifestations, imaging examinations, gastroscopic examinations, EUS-FNA results, and therapeutic strategies were retrospectively recorded and analyzed. (3) Results: A total of 23 patients (15 male and 8 female) were enrolled in this study. Based on EUS-FNA results, 18 patients were diagnosed with malignancies, including 16 cases of primary esophageal cancer (13 squamous carcinomas and 3 adenocarcinomas), 1 case of mediastinal cancer, and 1 case of metastatic esophageal cancer; 1 case of tuberculosis was also confirmed by EUS-FNA. Among 4 cases of ambiguous diagnosis with EUS-FNA, 1 was diagnosed with an esophageal glomus tumor after surgical removal, and 2 patients survived for several years without medical intervention, which hinted at the possibility of benign esophageal strictures. No major complications, including bleeding or perforation, were observed. (4) Conclusions: EUS-FNA may serve as a safe and effective diagnostic tool in suspicious malignant esophageal strictures with accurate specimen acquisition, especially for biopsy-negative cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) has emerged as a promising biomarker for many kinds of tumors. However, whether ctDNA could be an accurate diagnostic biomarker in colorectal cancer (CRC) remains to be clarified. The aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of ctDNA in CRC. (2) Methods: PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane databases were searched to identify studies reporting the use of ctDNA to screen and diagnose CRC, and all relevant studies published until October 2022 were enrolled for our analysis. These studies were divided into three primer subgroups: the subgroup of quantitative or qualitative analysis of ctDNA and the subgroup of septin9 (SEPT9) methylation assay. (3) Results: A total of 79 qualified articles with 25,240 subjects were incorporated into our meta-analysis. For quantitative studies, the combined sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE), and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were 0.723 (95% CI: 0.623–0.803), 0.920 (95% CI: 0.827–0.966), and 23.305 (95% CI: 9.378–57.906), respectively, yielding an AUC of 0.860. The corresponding values for qualitative studies were 0.610 (95% CI: 0.566–0.651), 0.891 (95% CI: 0.878–0.909), 12.569 (95% CI: 9.969–15.848), and 0.823, respectively. Detection of SEPT9 methylation depicted an AUC of 0.879, with an SEN of 0.679 (95% CI: 0.622–0.732), an SPE of 0.903 (95% CI: 0.878–0.923), and a DOR of 20.121 (95% CI:14.404–28.106), respectively. (4) Conclusion: Blood-based ctDNA assay would be a potential novel biomarker for CRC screening and diagnosis. Specifically, quantitative analysis of ctDNA or qualitative analysis of SEPT9 methylation exhibited satisfying diagnostic efficiency. Larger sample studies are needed to further confirm our conclusions and to make the ctDNA approach more sensitive and specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fungi from unique environments exhibit special physiological characters and plenty of bioactive natural products. However, the recalcitrant genetics or poor transformation efficiencies prevent scientists from systematically studying molecular biological mechanisms and exploiting their metabolites. In this study, we targeted a guanophilic fungus Amphichorda guana LC5815 and developed a genetic transformation system. We firstly established an efficient protoplast preparing method by conditional optimization of sporulation and protoplast regeneration. The regeneration rate of the protoplast is up to about 34.6% with 0.8 M sucrose as the osmotic pressure stabilizer. To develop the genetic transformation, we used the polyethylene glycol-mediated protoplast transformation, and the testing gene AG04914 encoding a major facilitator superfamily transporter was deleted in strain LC5815, which proves the feasibility of this genetic manipulation system. Furthermore, a uridine/uracil auxotrophic strain was created by using a positive screening protocol with 5- fluoroorotic acid as a selective reagent. Finally, the genetic transformation system was successfully established in the guanophilic fungus strain LC5815, which lays the foundation for the molecular genetics research and will facilitate the exploitation of bioactive secondary metabolites in fungi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In existing forecasting research papers support vector regression with chaotic mapping function and evolutionary algorithms have shown their advantages in terms of forecasting accuracy improvement. However, for classical particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms, trapping in local optima results in an earlier standstill of the particles and lost activities, thus, its core drawback is that eventually it produces low forecasting accuracy. To continue exploring possible improvements of the PSO algorithm, such as expanding the search space, this paper applies quantum mechanics to empower each particle to possess quantum behavior, to enlarge its search space, then, to improve the forecasting accuracy. This investigation presents a support vector regression (SVR)-based load forecasting model which hybridizes the chaotic mapping function and quantum particle swarm optimization algorithm with a support vector regression model, namely the SVRCQPSO (support vector regression with chaotic quantum particle swarm optimization) model, to achieve more accurate forecasting performance. Experimental results indicate that the proposed SVRCQPSO model achieves more accurate forecasting results than other alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a framework for the hybrid omnidirectional and perspective robot vision system. Based on the hybrid imaging geometry, a generalized stereo approach is developed via the construction of virtual cameras. It is then used to rectify the hybrid image pair using the perspective projection model. The proposed method not only simplifies the computation of epipolar geometry for the hybrid imaging system, but also facilitates the stereo matching between the heterogeneous image formation. Experimental results for both the synthetic data and real scene images have demonstrated the feasibility of our approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Asian citrus psyllid Diaphorina citri (Hemiptera: Liviidae) is a major citrus pest spread around the world. It is also a vector of the bacterium 'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus', considered the cause of the fatal citrus disease huanglongbing (HLB). Insect ryanodine receptors (RyRs) are the primary target sites of diamide insecticides. In this study, full-length RyR cDNA from D. citri (named DcRyR) was isolated and identified. The 15,393 bp long open reading frame of DcRyR encoded a 5130 amino acid protein with a calculated molecular weight of 580,830 kDa. This protein had a high sequence identity (76–79%) with other insect homologs and a low sequence identity (43–46%) with mammals. An MIR domain, two RIH domains, three SPRY domains, four RyR repeat domains, an RIH-associated domain at the N-terminus, two consensus calcium-binding EF-hands, and six transmembrane domains were among the characteristics that DcRyR shared with insect and vertebrate RyRs. In expression analysis, the DcRyR gene displayed transcript abundance in all tissues and developmental stages as well as gene-differential and stage-specific patterns. In addition, diagnostic PCR experiments revealed that DcRyR had three potential alternative splice variants and that splicing events might have contributed to the various functions of DcRyR. However, diamide resistance-related amino acid residue mutations I4790M/K and G4946E were not found in DcRyR. These results can serve as the basis for further investigation into the target-based diamide pesticide resistance of D. citri. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To overcome the continuous decline in its gross domestic product growth rate, China has advocated new and old kinetic energy conversion (NOKEC) as a policy for sustainable economic development in the post-COVID-19 era. The innovation drivers of NOKEC are the key to promoting sustainable economic development. However, the innovation drivers have various orientations, and their selection requires multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM). This study proposes a modified Delphi method combined with the best–worst method (BWM) as a research framework for selecting and ranking innovation drivers. Our results show the validity of this integrated research framework on a case based in China in the post-COVID-19 era. The results reveal 21 innovation-driven factors of NOKEC with varying levels of relative importance. These results may provide a basis for policymakers and researchers with a useful further understanding of the importance and prioritizing of innovation drivers. In this study, BWM uses 4% fewer pairwise comparisons than AHP, and the consistency ratio is in the range of 0.00 to 0.24. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new highly selective and sensitive fluorescent probe for Cu2+, N-n-butyl-4-(1′-cyclooctene-1′,3′,6′-triazole)-1,8-naphthalimide (L), was synthesized and evaluated. The structure of compound L was characterized via IR, ¹H-NMR, 13C-NMR and HRMS. The fluorescent probe was quenched by Cu2+ with a 1:1 binding ratio and behaved as a "turn-off" sensor. An efficient and sensitive spectrofluorometric method was developed for detecting and estimating trace levels of Cu2+ in EtOH/H2O. The ligand exhibited excitation and emission maxima at 447 and 518 nm, respectively. The equilibrium binding constant of the ligand with Cu2+ was 1.57 × 104 M-1, as calculated using the Stern-Volmer equation. Ligand L is stable and can be used to detect Cu2+ in the range of pH from 7 to 12. The sensor responded to Cu2+ rapidly and a large number of coexisting ions showed almost no obvious interference with the detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with color vision deficiency (CVD) cannot observe the colorful world due to the damage of color reception nerves. In this work, we present an image enhancement approach to assist colorblind people to identify the colors they are not able to distinguish naturally. An image re-coloring algorithm based on eigenvector processing is proposed for robust color separation under color deficiency transformation. It is shown that the eigenvector of color vision deficiency is distorted by an angle in the λ , Y-B, R-G color space. The experimental results show that our approach is useful for the recognition and separation of the CVD confusing colors in natural scene images. Compared to the existing techniques, our results of natural images with CVD simulation work very well in terms of RMS, HDR-VDP-2 and an IRB-approved human test. Both the objective comparison with previous works and the subjective evaluation on human tests validate the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nuclear genetic alterations have been widely investigated in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC), however, the characteristics of the mitochondrial genome remain uncertain. We sequenced the entire mitochondrial genome of 66 PTCs, 16 normal thyroid tissues and 376 blood samples of healthy individuals. There were 2508 variations (543 sites) detected in PTCs, among which 33 variations were novel. Nearly half of the PTCs (31/66) had heteroplasmic variations. Among the 31 PTCs, 28 specimens harbored a total of 52 somatic mutations distributed in 44 sites. Thirty-three variations including seven nonsense, 11 frameshift and 15 non-synonymous variations selected by bioinformatic software were regarded as pathogenic. These 33 pathogenic mutations were associated with older age (p = 0.0176) and advanced tumor stage (p = 0.0218). In addition, they tended to be novel (p = 0.0003), heteroplasmic (p = 0.0343) and somatic (p = 0.0018). The mtDNA copy number increased in more than two-third (46/66) of PTCs, and the average content in tumors was nearly four times higher than that in adjacent normal tissues (p < 0.0001). Three sub-haplogroups of N (A4, B4a and B4g) and eight single-nucleotide polymorphisms (mtSNPs) (A16164G, C16266T, G5460A, T6680C, G9123A, A14587G, T16362C, and G709A) were associated with the occurrence of PTC. Here we report a comprehensive characterization of the mitochondrial genome and demonstrate its significance in pathogenesis and progression of PTC. This can help to clarify the molecular mechanisms underlying PTC and offer potential biomarkers or therapeutic targets for future clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The synthetic potential of stereoselective, palladium-catalyzed hydro(het)arylation reactions of bi-, tri- and tetracyclic (hetero)alkenes in the presence of phospines and arsines as highly efficient ligands was studied. The mechanism of this reductive Heck reaction becomes more complex in the case of benzonorbornenes. Hydroarylation of diazabicyclo-[2.2.1]heptenes provides a stereoselective access to aryldiaminocyclopentanes. Electrondeficient arylpalladium complexes shift the reaction towards the product of a formal 1,2-hydrazidoarylation reaction of 1,3-cyclopentadiene by a stereoselective C-N cleavage. Due to steric reasons, rigid bicyclo[2.2.2]octenes react slower in hydroarylation reactions than the corresponding bicyclo[2.2.1]heptenes. The more flexible bicyclo[4.2.2]decene system already tends to undergo domino-Heck reactions, even under reductive conditions. When a tetracyclic cis-allylcyclopropane is carbopalladated in the presence of formates, the neighboring cyclopropane ring is attacked in the first reported example of a p,s domino-Heck reaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]