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Tin halide perovskite's potential as a photovoltaic absorber has not been fully realized to date, largely due to its instability in ambient air. Here, we demonstrate by both experiments and simulations that the air instability of black-phase cesium tin iodide perovskite (γ-CsSnI3) could be greatly lessened by a controlled incorporation of bismuth (Bi) ions into the crystal lattice. Hall effect measurements on films of γ-CsSnI3 suggest the unwanted formation of a tin vacancy and p-type self-doping can be effectively suppressed by the Bi incorporation. Structural and optical results indicate that the Bi incorporation markedly enhances the air stability by impeding the direct conversion of γ-CsSnI3 to zero-dimensional Cs2SnI6. By using a stochastic surface walking (SSW) method integrating neural network (NN) potential and density functional theory (DFT), it is revealed that the remarkable enhanced stability could be attributed to a combination of factors originating from lattice-contraction-induced strain, a suppressed tin vacancy, and an increased energy barrier for the transformation of γ-CsSnI3 to Cs2SnI6. This study provides physical insights into the stabilization mechanism of tin perovskites by heterovalent B-site engineering, paving the way for realizing stable and efficient lead-free perovskite photovoltaics.

Background Whether hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection poses risk to patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in the intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) era remains unclear. Methods 953 patients with non-metastatic, newly diagnosed NPC who received detection of serologic hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and treated with IMRT were retrospectively reviewed. 171 patients had HBV infection (HBsAg seropositive). Propensity score matching method (PSM) and stabilized inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) were used to address confounding. The survival rates were evaluated by Kaplan-Meier analysis and the survival curves were compared by Log-rank test. Prognostic factors were explored by multivariate analysis. Results No significant survival differences were observed between HBsAg-negative group and HBsAg-positive group [5-year overall survival (OS), 87.7% vs. 83.9%, P=0.181; locoregional recurrence-free survival (LRFS), 83.5% vs. 78.3%, P=0.109; distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), 80.2% vs. 77.9%, P=0.446; progression-free survival (PFS), 77.4% vs. 71.4%, P=0.153], consistent with the results of PSM and IPTW analysis. Further analyses revealed that HBV infection was an independent prognostic factor for poor OS [multivariate analysis; hazard ratio (HR), 3.74; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.45–9.68; P=0.006], LRFS (HR, 2.86; 95% CI, 1.37–5.95); P=0.005] in patients with stage N1, DMFS (HR, 2.65; 95% CI, 1.15–6.09; P=0.022) and PFS (HR, 2.63; 95% CI, 1.34–5.14; P=0.005). Among HBsAg-positive patients, liver protection improved OS (90.3% vs. 77.2%; P=0.022). Conclusions HBV infection is an independent risk factor for patients with stage N1 NPC in the IMRT era. Hepatic protection may benefit the survival of HBsAg-positive patients.

This study examines the process of shifting from being a frontline worker to performing a supervisory role, focusing on the challenges faced by new supervisors during this transition. Semi-structur...

COVID-19 has highlighted the need for evidence-based behavioural health interventions that can be delivered remotely. This article provides within-group effect size benchmarks for randomised controlled trials of Internet-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for the treatment of adults with anxiety and depression. Effect sizes were calculated using the Glass approach, adjusted using Hedges g, then aggregated to produce separate benchmarks for measures of anxiety and depression. These benchmarks can be used by community-based treatment providers to evaluate the effectiveness of their web-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy intervention to determine if it should be continued, modified for the unique needs of their client population and practice setting, or discontinued.

Objective The present work was aimed to evaluate the effect of valproic acid (VPA)，Parathyroid hormone (1–34) (PTH)+VPA on Ti rods osseointegration in ovariectomized rats and further investigation of the possible mechanism. Methods The MC3T3-E1 cells were co-cultured with VPA，PTH ​+ ​VPA and induced to osteogenesis, and the cell viability，mineralization ability were observed by MTT and ALP staining，Alizarin Red staining and Western blotting. Twelve weeks after bilateral ovariectomy, all animals were randomly divided into four groups: group OVX and VPA，PTH ​+ ​VPA, and all the rats received Ti implants and animals belong to group VPA，PTH ​+ ​VPA received valproic acid (300 ​mg/day), valproic acid (300 ​mg/day) plus Parathyroid hormone (1–34) every 3 days (60 ​μg/kg), respectively, treatment until death at 12 weeks. Micro-CT, histology, biomechanical testing, bone metabolism index and Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) analysis were used to observe the therapeutic effect and explore the possible mechanism. Results Results shown that VPA decreased new bone formation around the surface of titanium rods and push-out force other than group OVX. Histology, Micro-CT and biochemical analysis results showed combined application of systemic VPA showed harmful effects than OVX group on bone formation in osteopenia rats, with the worse effects on CTX-1, P1NP and microarchitecture as well as biomechanical parameters by down-regulated gene expression of Runx2, OCN, Smad1, BMP-2 and OPG, while up-regulated RANKL. However, after PTH treatment, the above indicators were significantly improved. Conclusions The present study suggests that systemic use of VPA may bring harm to the stability of titanium implants in osteoporosis, PTH can reverse the negative effect of VPA on the osseointegration of titanium rods in ovariectomized rats. Translational potential of this article According to our research, when patients with epilepsy have osteoporotic fractures, after joint replacement or internal fixation, continue to use sodium valproate for anti-epileptic therapy, the possibility of postoperative loosening increases, again on the basis of It can be reversed with the anti-osteoporosis drug parathyroid hormone (1-34).

Background Excessive generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the presence of a defective antioxidant system can induce cellular damage and disrupt normal physiological functions. Several studies have revealed the unfavorable role of ROS in promoting the growth, proliferation, migration, and survival of leukemia cells. In this review study, we summarize the mechanisms of ROS production and its role in leukemogenesis, counteractive effects of antioxidants, and implicate the current ROS-dependent anticancer therapies in acute myeloid leukemia. Body The dysregulation of the redox system is known to play a significant role in the pathogenesis of leukemia. Leukemia cells generate high levels of ROS, which further increases the levels through extra pathways, including mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic mutation, leukemic oncogene activation, increased nicotinamide adenine phosphate hydrogen (NADPH), and cytochrome P450 activities. Aforementioned pathways once activated have shown to promote genomic instability, induce drug resistance to leukemia medical therapy, disease relapse and reduce survival period. The current standard of treatment with chemotherapy employs the pro-oxidant approach to induce apoptosis and promote tumor regression. However, this approach retains several deleterious effects on the subject resulting in degradation of the quality of life. Nevertheless, the addition of an antioxidant as an adjuvant drug to chemotherapy alleviates treatment-related toxicity, increases chemotherapeutic efficacy, and improves survival rates of a patient. Conclusion Acute myeloid leukemia remains a daunting challenge to clinicians. The desire to achieve the maximum benefit of chemotherapy but also improve patient outcomes is investigated. ROS generated through several pathways promotes leukemogenesis, drug resistance, and disease relapse. Chemotherapy, the mainstay of treatment, further upregulates ROS levels. Therefore, the addition of an antioxidant to leukemia medical therapy alleviates toxicity and improves patient outcomes.

Wind tunnel test results of the aerodynamic coefficients of sector-shape iced eight bundle conductors varying with wind attack angles are presented. Then, by means of the user-defined cable elements, the aerodynamic loads are applied on the cable elements of each sub-conductor through the finite element method (FEM). In addition, the galloping responses of sector-shape iced eight bundle conductors are discussed. Finally, galloping responses, including dynamic responses (natural modes and frequencies), galloping orbits, and amplitudes of typical sector-shape iced eight bundle conductor transmission lines in the cases of different span lengths, wind velocities, and angles of wind attack are studied, respectively. These results provide useful references for a theoretical basis for the study of galloping and the technique of anti-galloping in cold regions.

AIM: To investigate the efficacy and safety of combined phacoemulsification and goniosynechialysis with or without endoscopic cyclophotocoagulation (PGE group and PG group) for the treatment of patients with coexisting primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG) and cataracts. METHODS: The clinical data of patients with PACG and cataract were retrospectively reviewed. There was a total of 88 eyes in the study and were divided into two groups, 42 eyes in PGE group and 46 eyes in PG group. Surgery success cumulative survival, preoperative and postoperative intraocular pressure (IOP), number of IOP-lowering medications, best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in the two groups were observed for more than 12mo and compared within each group and between two groups. RESULTS: The mean IOP in PGE group declined from 24.9 mm Hg preoperatively to 14.1 mm Hg at the first month after operation (P

Improving devices based on solution-processed halide perovskite nanocrystals (NCs) demands a deeper understanding of charge transport in this emerging new class of ionic semiconductor nanomaterials...

The goal of China’s new guidelines for physical education within universities is to promote greater levels of active engagement and an emphasis on the development and cultivation of students’ indiv...

Ruxolitinib add-on in corticosteroid-refractory graft-vs-host disease after allogeneic stem cell transplantation: Results from a retrospective study on 38 Chinese patients

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to address challenging issues in protecting researchers in risky situations. Method: A case study addressed the importance of risk prevention and researcher safety. In six interviews, a social scientist shared feelings of vulnerability when she conducted ethnographic research with sex workers and gang members. Results: Qualitative results explain the concerns from the eyes of a vulnerable researcher in six factors: Support, Safety, System Connection, Situations, and Struggles. The vulnerable researcher phenomenon is defined as the emotional labor faced by the researcher in situations that are dangerous and risky. Implications: While taking care of the research subjects’ well-being, researchers must also be reminded that ethical behaviors in their field also include self-protection. Social scientists must advocate for a standard protocol in IRB applications to include protecting researcher safety and ensuring identity privacy.

Background Modified sutureless and glue-free method is an effective and novel surgical approach for pterygium. We aim to evaluate optical quality in pterygium treated with the new method and investigate the clinical application of the Optical Quality Analysis System (OQAS) and Anterior segment optical coherence tomography (AS-OCT) to evaluate the pterygium surgery. Methods A total of 52 eyes of 52 patients with pterygium were randomly divided into 2 groups. After surgical excision, the bare sclera was placed with a tight fit limbal conjunctival autograft fixed via the modified sutureless and glue-free method in group 1 (26 eyes) and conventional sutures in group 2 (26 eyes). Objective scattering index (OSI), modulation transfer function (MTF) and Strehl ratio (SR) were measured using OQAS in both groups during the perioperative period. Pterygium diameter was measured on AS-OCT. Ocular surface disease index (OSDI) questionnaire also was used. Results The group 1 had significantly lower mean OSI, higher mean MTF, and higher mean SR at 1 month and 3 months after surgery (p p p > 0.05). Pterygium diameter positively correlated with OSI (r = 0.528, p r = − 0.501, p r = − 0.174, p = 0.217) before operation. Conclusions The modified sutureless and glue-free method might be more advantageous in improving the optical quality during early postoperative recovery times and pterygium diameter affected optical quality. OQAS can be reliably used to evaluate postoperative outcomes.

Background and purpose: Diagnosis of dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is highly challenging, primarily due to a lack of valid and reliable diagnostic tools. To date, there is no report of qualitative signature for the diagnosis of DLB. We aimed to develop a blood-based qualitative signature for differentiating DLB patients from healthy controls.Methods: The GSE120584 dataset was downloaded from the public database Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). We combined multiple methods to select features based on the within-sample relative expression orderings (REOs) of microRNA (miRNA) pairs. Specifically, we first quickly selected miRNA pairs related to DLB by identifying reversal stable miRNA pairs. Then, an optimal miRNA pair subset was extracted by random forest (RF) and support vector machine-recursive feature elimination (SVM-RFE) methods. Furthermore, we applied logistic regression (LR) and SVM to build several prediction models. The model performance was assessed using the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis. Lastly, we conducted bioinformatics analyses to explore the molecular mechanisms of the discovered miRNAs.Results: A qualitative signature consisted of 17 miRNA pairs and two clinical factors was identified for discriminating DLB patients from healthy controls. The signature is robust against experimental batch effects and applicable at the individual levels. The accuracies of the-signature-based models on the test set are 82.61 and 79.35%, respectively, indicating that the signature has acceptable discrimination performance. Moreover, bioinformatics analyses revealed that predicted target genes were enriched in 11 Go terms and 2 KEGG pathways. Moreover, five potential hub genes were found for DLB, including SRF, MAPK1, YWHAE, RPS6KA3, and KDM7A.Conclusion: This study provided a blood-based qualitative signature with the potential to be used as an effective tool to improve the accuracy of DLB diagnosis.

Condyloma acuminatum (CA) is a sexually transmitted disease caused by human papillomavirus (HPV) often with high recurrence rate after treatment. This study aimed to construct and evaluate a nomogram model containing three clinical parameters to predict the recurrence risk of CA after 5-aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT). A predictive model was established based on a training cohort of 346 CA patients treated with ALA-PDT between January 2013 and July 2018. A validation cohort of 123 CA patients was recruited from August 2018 to December 2019. The least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression model was used to optimize the clinical feature selection. A nomogram predicting the recurrence of CA after ALA-PDT was constructed based on the predictors identified by LASSO regression. C-index and area under the curve (AUC) values were used to evaluate the discrimination. Calibration was evaluated with a calibration curve. The net benefit was performed via decision curve analysis (DCA). In the training cohort, 55 (15.89%) patients experienced recurrences after ALA-PDT. Predictors selected by LASSO regression were concomitant human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection [Hazard ratio (HR) = 4.4; 95% confidence interval (CI), 2.5-7.9; p

Methods The study included 59 patients with normal fetal heart structure, blood flow, and heart rhythm (fetal abnormality-negative group) and 50 patients with abnormal fetal heart structure, blood flow, and/or heart rhythm (fetal abnormality-positive group). aCMQ was performed in both groups to obtain left and right ventricular endocardial global longitudinal strain (GLSendo), mid-myocardial global longitudinal strain (GLSmid), and epicardial global longitudinal strain (GLSepi). Parameters between the two groups were compared and correlation analyses performed. A deformation analysis was performed by two trained observers, and reproducibility was assessed. Results The fetal left ventricular and right ventricular global longitudinal strain (LV-GLS and RV-GLS, respectively) decreased in a gradient from the endocardium to the epicardium. LV-GLS and RV-GLS of all myocardial layers were lower in the fetal abnormality-positive than -negative group (all P0.05), whereas left ventricular GLSendo, GLSmid, and GLSepi were negatively correlated with gestational age in the fetal abnormality-positive group (r=−0.39 to −0.44, all P0.75 (all P

A phase junction fabricated by two crystalline phases of the same semiconductor is a promising photocatalyst with efficient charge transfer and separation. However, the weak light absorption and uncontrolled phase junction interface limit the generation and separation of photogenerated carriers. Herein, a two-dimensional (2D)/2D phase junction was prepared by growing orthorhombic WO3 ultrathin nanosheets on hexagonal WO3 nanosheets through a one-step hydrothermal method. The orthorhombic/hexagonal WO3 possesses large-area phase junction interfaces, rich reactive sites, and built-in electric field, which greatly accelerate the photogenerated charge separation and transfer. Thus, the orthorhombic/hexagonal WO3 displayed excellent photocatalytic hydrogen generation activity from water splitting under light irradiation (λ > 420 nm), which is 2.16 and 2.85 times those of orthorhombic and hexagonal WO3 phase components. Furthermore, Au nanoparticles (about 4.5 nm in diameter) were deposited on both orthorhombic and hexagonal WO3 nanosheets to form a plasmon-mediated phase junction. The hybrids exhibit prominent visible-light absorption and efficient charge transfer, leading to a further improved photocatalytic hydrogen generation activity. Further characterization studies demonstrate that superior photoactivity arises from the excellent visible-light-harvesting ability, appropriate band structure, and high-efficiency and multichannel transferring processes of photogenerated carriers.

The NovaSAR-1 S-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) mission is an international partnership designed to offer a new source of satellite SAR imagery. Australia has secured a 10% capacity share in this mission, providing the nation with a first-ever sovereign civilian EO satellite capability. One objective of Australia's involvement in this mission is the use of the data for natural hazard applications - predominantly the mapping and assessment of bushfires and floods. Full operations of NovaSAR-1 commenced in December 2019, and over the first 12 months of operations, several natural hazard events have been investigated with this new satellite capability. Here we present initial observations from three bushfires in Eastern Australia: Jervis Bay, Tumbarumba and Fraser Island. In doing so we compare S-band NovaSAR-1 and C-band Sentinel-1 SAR imagery, using Sentinel-2 multispectral imagery as a source of validation information in the absence of ground-truth data. NovaSAR-1 is the only spaceborne S-band SAR in operation, and data acquired under Australia's share of the mission will be made free and open-access to the international community, as described here, to stimulate further use of these data for hazard and other applications.

Aminolevulinic acid photodynamic therapy (ALA-PDT) has been widely used in the treatment of condyloma acuminatum (CA), but there is a lack of reports on clinical factors related to CA relapse after photodynamic therapy.The clinical data of patients with CA treated with ALA-PDT from April 2018 to December 2019 were retrospectively analyzed, including HPV type, follow-up time and recurrence within 6 months after treatment. The patients were classified into single-type HPV infection and multiple-type HPV infection groups. Besides, the patients were also classified into high-risk HPV infection, low-risk HPV infection, and low + high-risk HPV infection groups. Univariate and multivariate COX regression was performed to analyze whether HPV type was related with CA relapse after photodynamic therapy.A total of 161 CA patients who underwent ALA-PDT were analyzed in this study. CA recurred in 20 patients within 6 months after treatment, with a recurrence rate of 12.4%. Of them, the patients with multiple-type HPV infection made up 85%. Multivariate COX regression analysis revealed that multiple-type HPV infection was associated with CA recurrence (HR:5.0; 95% CI: 1.1-21.4; P = 0.032). Of the patients with CA recurrence, 70% developed low + high-risk infections, a proportion significantly higher than that in patients without CA relapse (16.3%, P0.001). Using low-risk infection as a reference, low + high-risk infection was positively correlated with postoperative recurrence (HR: 6.7; 95% CI: 1.6-26.2; P = 0.006).Multiple-type HPV infection were closely associated with CA recurrence after photodynamic therapy.

Blockchain is a technology to enable decentralized collaboration among un-trusted entities. Academia and industry are rushing to uncover its potential for their field of interest. Due to the novelty of the technology and its diverse applications, there are some ambiguities in approaches and trends. In this paper, we analyze the scientific publications and patents from the past five years to identify the trends for blockchain integration with healthcare. For this purpose, we have adopted a quantitative (clustering) and qualitative (theme extraction) approach to discover themes and temporal dynamics in academia and industry. Our results shed light on the potential challenges and vision for future works.

As the most fundamental material for microelectronics, silicon (Si) has bourgeoned in the past more than half a century. However, given the indirect bandgap of Si, the use of Si in optoelectronics is relatively limited due to its mediocre optical absorption and rather poor optical emission. During many years of efforts for extending the use of Si in optoelectronics Si nanocrystals (NCs) that are one type of the most important Si nanostructures have attracted significant attention owing to their remarkable electronic and optical properties. Si NCs are actually crystalline Si nanoparticles, which may be called Si quantum dots if their size is smaller than ∼10 nm. With the manipulation of the size, surface and doping of Si NCs great tunability for the light emission from Si NCs with the quantum yield of more than 60% has been realized. Based on the efficient light emission from Si NCs high-performance Si-NC light-emitting devices have been demonstrated. In the meantime, the efficient light emission from Si NCs has also been utilized for synaptic simulations in neuromorphic computing and down-shifting in photovoltaics. Broadband optical absorption ranging from the ultraviolet to mid-infrared has been recently obtained for Si NCs mainly by taking advantage of doping. This has enabled the use of Si NCs in novel solar cells, photodetectors and optoelectronic synaptic devices. The continuous improvement of the electronic and optical properties of Si NCs has made Si NCs unfading Si materials for optoelectronics, contributing to the development of Si-based optoelectronic integration.

PURPOSE To compare the advantages and disadvantages of a modified sutureless and glue-free method with those of conventional sutures for conjunctival autograft fixation in pterygium surgery. METHODS A prospective randomized controlled study was performed on 73 eyes with primary nasal pterygium. After pterygium excision, the bare sclera was covered with a limbal conjunctival autograft, which was fixed using a modified sutureless and glue-free method in group 1 (39 eyes) and sutures in group 2 (34 eyes). The main outcome measures were operative time, autograft stability, postoperative discomfort, autograft thickness, pterygium recurrence, and complications. RESULTS The mean operative time was significantly shorter in group 1 (11.9 ± 1.3 minutes) than in group 2 (24.3 ± 6.1 minutes, P < 0.0001). On day 2 postsurgery, the average conjunctival autograft thickness was significantly higher in group 1 (861 ± 340 μm) than in group 2 (577 ± 287 μm, P = 0.034). Subsequently, conjunctival autograft thickness gradually decreased, with no significant difference between groups after 1 week. There were no significant differences in postoperative discomfort between groups, except for a greater foreign body sensation on day 2 and an itching sensation in 1 week in group 2 compared with group 1. Autograft side displacement occurred in 4 patients (10.3%) in group 1; 2 of these 4 developed a granuloma. There was 1 recurrence (2.9%) in group 2. CONCLUSIONS The modified sutureless and glue-free limbal conjunctival autograft fixation method might be effective and efficient for primary pterygium surgery, with potentially decreased recurrence and postoperative discomfort.

The aim of this study was to investigate whether intraplacental texture features from routine placental MRI can objectively and accurately predict invasive placentation. This retrospective study includes 99 pregnant women with pathologically confirmed placental invasion and 56 pregnant women with simple placenta previa. All participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging after 24 gestational weeks. The placenta was segmented in sagittal images from both turbo spin echo (TSE) and balanced turbo field echo (bTFE) sequences. Textural features were extracted from the both original and Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG)-filtered MRI images. An automated machine learning algorithm was applied to the extracted feature sets to obtain the optimal preprocessing steps, classification algorithm, and corresponding hyper-parameters. A gradient boosting classifier using all textual features from original and LoG-filtered TSE images and bTFE images identified by the automated machine learning algorithm achieved the optimal performance with sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and area under ROC curve (AUC) of 100%, 88.5%, 95.2%, and 0.98 in the prediction of placental invasion. In addition, textural features that contributed to the prediction of placental invasion differ from the features significantly affected by normal placenta maturation. Quantifying intraplacental heterogeneity using LoG filtration and texture analysis highlights the different heterogeneous appearance caused by abnormal placentation relative to normal maturation. The predictive model derived from automated machine learning yielded good performance, indicating the proposed radiomic analysis pipeline can accurately predict placental invasion and facilitate clinical decision-making for pregnant women with suspicious placental invasion. • The intraplacental texture features have high efficiency in prediction of invasive placentation after 24 gestational weeks. • The features with dominated predictive power did not overlap with the features significantly affected by gestational age.

Previous studies have demonstrated the damaging effect of alcohol (ALH) consumption on bone tissue and bone metabolism. Resveratrol (RES) promotes osteoblast proliferation and inhibits osteoclast proliferation and positively affects bone regeneration; however, reports about effects of RES on osseointegration in aged female rats with ALH consumption are limited. This study was designed to investigate the impact of treatment with RES on osseointegration for aged female rats with ALH consumption. This study included 30 female Sprague-Dawley rats (22 months old), weighing approximately 520 g. All animals were randomly divided into 3 groups of 10: a control group (CON) receiving saline, a group receiving ALH and a group receiving ALH + RES until death after 12 weeks. The results of enhanced osseointegration in senile female rats with RES consumption were evaluated by histology, microcomputerized tomography (micro-CT), gene expression analysis and a biomechanical test. The results of this study indicated that ALH + RES showed stronger effects on the improvement of osseointegration in senile female rats with ALH consumption. The ALH + RES produced stronger effects on bone volume per total volume (BV/TV), mean trabecular thickness (Tb.Th), mean trabecular number (Tb.N) and mean trabecular separation (Tb.Sp), connective tissue density (Conn.D) and maximum push-out force for implants, and regulation of osteogenesis and bone resorption-related gene expression. These results seem to indicate that RES intervention reverses the negative effect of alcohol on hydroxyapatite-coated implant osseointegration in senile female rats with ALH consumption.

Heterovalent doping of halide perovskite nanocrystals (NCs), offering potential tunability in optical and electrical properties, remains a grand challenge. Here, we report for the first time a controlled doping of monovalent Ag+ into CsPbBr3 NCs via a facile room-temperature synthesis method. Our results suggest that Ag+ ions act as substitutional dopants to replace Pb2+ ions in the perovskite NCs, shifting the Fermi level down toward the valence band and in turn inducing a heavy p-type character. Field effect transistors fabricated with Ag+-doped CsPbBr3 NCs exhibit 3 orders of magnitude enhancement in hole mobility at room temperature, compared with undoped CsPbBr3 NCs. Low-temperature electrical studies further confirm the influence of Ag+ doping on the charge-carrier transport. This work demonstrates the tunability of heterovalent doping on the electrical properties of halide perovskite NCs, shedding light on their future applications in versatile optoelectronic devices.

Purpose: To identify the association between ABO blood type and the survivals in nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients. Patients and methods: We retrospectively analyzed 2439 consecutive non-metastasis nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients between January 2001 and December 2004 at the Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center. Survival outcomes were compared using Kaplan-Meier method. Univariate and multivariate analysis was performed by Cox regression model. Chi-square test was performed to compare categorical variables. Results: In the whole patients, compared with non-O blood type (A, B, and AB) patients, O blood type patients had significantly lower 5-year distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) (adjusted hazard ratio (aHR)= 1.268, 95% CI 1.010-1.592, P=0.041). Moreover, we observed in female patients, O blood type patients had significantly lower 5-year overall survival (OS), disease-specific survival (DSS) and DMFS than those with non-O blood type (aHR=1.495, 95% CI 1.032-2.165, P=0.034 for OS; aHR=1.566, 95% CI 1.054-2.328, P=0.026 for DSS; aHR=1.779, 95% CI 1.056-2.998, P=0.030 for DMFS). In male patients, there was no significant difference observed between O blood type patients and non-O blood type patients in any survival endpoints. Conclusion: O blood type was associated with an unfavorable DMFS in female patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma in epidemic area, which might contribute to unfavorable OS and DSS in female patients, even contribute to a lower DMFS in the whole patients. It might be beneficial to predict metastasis so as to guide the treatment in female patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma in epidemic area.

Background The hypertensive disorders complicating pregnancy (HDCP) is common in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), yet the potential influencing factors remained unclear. We aimed to assess the independent risk factors of HDCP in patients with PCOS, to provide clinical evidences for the management of PCOS. Methods Pregnant PCOS patients treated in our hospital from June 1, 2018 to November 30, 2020 were approached. The personal and clinical characteristics of patients with and without gestational hypertension were evaluated. Logistic regressions were conducted to identify the independent risk factors of HDCP, Receiver operating characteristics (ROC)curve analysis was conducted to evaluate the predicting value. Results A total of 188 PCOS patients were included, the incidence of HDCP in patients with PCOS was 27.66 %. There were significant differences in the age, BMI, family history of hypertension, the history of adverse pregnancy, history of contraceptive pills use and family history of HDCP between HDCP group and no-HDCP group (all p p > 0.05). Age ≥ 27y(OR2.048, 95 %CI1.121 ~ 3.208), BMI ≥ 24 kg/m2(OR1.463, 95 %CI1.069 ~ 2.011), family history of hypertension(OR2.129, 95 %CI1.093 ~ 3.042), the history of adverse pregnancy(OR2.435, 95 %CI1.264 ~ 4.085), history of contraceptive pills use(OR3.806, 95 %CI1.184 ~ 6.102), family history of HDCP(OR1.934, 95 %CI1.016 ~ 2.774) were the independent risk factors of HDCP in patients with PCOS (all p Conclusions The incidence of HDCP in PCOS patients is relatively high. In clinical practice, medical workers should carry out early prevention and intervention measures for these risk factors to reduce the incidence of HDCP.

Background: Eccentric muscle contraction is an inherent component of numerous sporting movements but can result in muscle fatigue and injury, especially when engaging in unfamiliar exercise, which requires pharmacological intervention. Jilin ginseng root (GS) has been used to protect muscles and reduce the risk of exercise injury. Aim of the study: In this study, we sought to examine and demonstrate the effectiveness of using GS in preventing muscle stiffness and reducing the risk of exercise injury in women. Methods: Twenty females were randomly assigned to GS and placebo groups. Body composition, serum biochemistry index, kinematics, and endurance exercise tests were measured at two time point presupplementation and 6 weeks after supplementation. The major compounds of GS were characterized using a high-performance liquid chromatograph with a gradient delivery system (HPLC). Results: After 6 weeks of supplementation, the GS group exhibited significant increases in the serum levels of free fatty acids and glucose as well as greater maximum oxygen consumption (VO2 max, mL min−1 kg−1) compared with the placebo group in an exhaustive biking test. Following drop jump tests, the jump height and reactive strength index were increased in the GS group after completing 70 DJs. In addition, subjects in the GS group also showed decreased knee and ankle stiffness in DJs, leading to reduced fatigue associated with eccentric movement. Conclusions: GS supplementation leads to ameliorates drop jump muscle stiffness and fatigue in females and is to be used as a nutrient supplement to reduce the risk of musculoskeletal system injuries when performing drop jumps.

Background. Acupuncture can effectively enhance musculoskeletal rehabilitation, with effects such as reduced pain intensity and muscle tension and decreased disability. Objective. The purpose of this study was to determine the efficacy of traditional Chinese acupuncture (TCA) compared with sham acupuncture (SA) in explosive force production by the forearm muscles in females. Methods. A total of 32 subjects were included and randomly assigned to two groups: TCA group (n = 16): stimulated specific acupoints including Quchi (LI11), Shousanli (LI10), Hegu (LI4), Xiaohai (SI8), Tianjing (SJ10), and Waiguan (SJ5) for 15 minutes; SA group (n = 16): using superficial needle insertion at nonacupoints without stimulation. The subjects warmed up for the 3-time isokinetic test with an angular velocity of 30°/s and then performed a set of 15 full flexion (Flex) and extension (Ext) with an angular velocity of 180°/s using the CON-TREX isokinetic test training system recorded as the pretest. After acupuncture for 15 min, perform a set of the same isokinetic movement isokinetic records as the posttest. The average max torque, average work, average power, average peak power, average max speed, and total work were collected to evaluate the forearm explosive force changes. Use two-way repeated measures ANOVA to compare the difference before and after acupuncture between two groups. Results. The results showed that acupuncture conditions (sham acupuncture as well as true acupuncture) and the intervention times (not acupuncture or acupuncture for 15 min) have a significant interaction effect on forearm explosive force and joint stiffness ( P < 0.05 ). The simple main effect showed that the selected parameters of the TCA group increased significantly after acupuncture ( P < 0.05 ), while the SA group did not ( P > 0.05 ). We speculate that the activation of muscle may be related to the selected acupuncture points. Conclusion. Acupuncture can produce excitation in motor nerves and muscles, and nerve stimulation increases the recruitment of motor units, thus improving the muscle explosive force.

Depression is a common co-morbidity in asthma, worsening asthma control and impairing quality of life. Previous studies have reported a higher risk of cognitive deficit in depression, yet little research has focused on the level of cognition in asthmatic patients with depression. Evidence shows that inflammation may play an important role in both asthma and depression. Cerebral white matter injury, possibly induced by inflammation, has been associated with depression. This study assesses cognitive function in patients with asthma and a depression comorbidity, compared to patients with asthma only or depression only.Four groups were studied: Asthma comorbid Depression group (A + D,A + D group showed the highest incidence of cognitive deficit, with the cognitive domain particularly affected. Compared to N group, serum levels of IL-6, HMGB1, Netrin-1, MBP and MOG were significantly elevated in A + D group. MOG level negatively correlated with the MoCA score.Patients with comorbidities presented with more severe cognitive deficits and higher levels of inflammatory cytokines. Cerebral white matter injury may account for the cognitive deficit in patients and MOG could be a potential biomarker for this process.

Launched in September 2018, NovaSAR-1 is a novel Earth Observation (EO) satellite hosting the only operational spaceborne S-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), plus an Automatic Identification System receiver for use in ship tracking. Australia's 10% capacity share in this new satellite mission provides the nation with a first-ever sovereign civilian EO satellite capability. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) operates this service as a National Facility for research, supporting science projects that are scoping the application of S-band SAR to an array of terrestrial and marine environments, and implementing background mapping of the continent, which will be key to supporting a wide range of existing research. Utilising a suite of newly designed and implemented acquisition modes, CSIRO have (since October 2019) captured NovaSAR-1 imagery in all Australian states and territories and throughout parts of the neighbouring Pacific region. For Australia, this mission provides significant opportunities to gain experience in satellite operations and creates new opportunities in the field of remote sensing, advancing Australia's imaging radar capability and further developing national EO data analytics expertise.

NovaSAR-1 is a low-cost spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) technology demonstrator developed by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd, UK (SSTL), and Airbus Defence and Space Ltd, with funds of the UK Government [1]. After the successful launch of NovaSAR-1 satellite in September 2018 and completion of the commission phase in August 2019, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) are able to task, capture and access the unique S-band NovaSAR-1 imagery under the partnership of Australia's 10% capacity share in this new satellite mission [2], [3]. In the paper, we introduce the NovaSAR-1 data processing, and present initial results of NovaSAR-1 data performance evaluation and the recent emergency observations of extensive Australian bushfires.

Background and objective The number of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients treated with hemodialysis (HD) has significantly increased, but the prognosis remains poor. Time-series features have been included in only a few studies to predict HD patient survival, and how to utilize such features effectively remains unclear. This article aims to develop a more accurate, interpretable, and clinically practical personalized survival prediction model for HD patients. Methods This study proposed and evaluated an attention-based Bi-GRU network using time-series features for survival prediction. A distance-based loss function was proposed to improve performance. We used data from 1232 ESRD patients who received regular hemodialysis treatment for ≥ 3 months from 2007 to 2016 at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University. The proposed model was compared with representative sequence modeling deep learning architectures and existing survival analysis methods in terms of the C-index and IBS value. Post hoc tests were used to test statistical significance. The attention map was used to assess feature importance over time. The impact of time-series changes on survival was investigated after controlling initial values (using BMI as an example). Results The proposed method outperformed other sequence modeling architectures and the state-of-the-art survival analysis approaches in terms of the C-index and the integrated Brier score (IBS) value. Our method achieved a C-index of 0.7680 (95% confidence intervals [CI]: 0.7645, 0.7716) and an IBS of 0.1302 (95% confidence intervals [CI]: 0.1292, 0.1313), showing an improvement of up to 5.4% in terms of the C-index and a decrease of 3.2% in terms of the IBS value. The addition of the distance-based loss function improved the performance. The predicted risk and actual risk levels closely agreed. This study also found that even after controlling the initial body mass index (BMI) values, different 3-month BMI trends could produce different survival outcomes. Conclusions This study proposed a more effective and interpretable method to use time-series information in survival analysis. The proposed method may help promote personalized medicine and improve patient prognosis.

Summary In late December 2019, COVID-19 was firstly recognized in Wuhan, China and spread rapidly to all of the provinces of China. The West Campus of Wuhan Union Hospital, the designated hospital to admit and treat the severe and critically ill COVID-19 cases, has treated a large number of such patients with great success and obtained lots of valuable experiences based on the Chinese guideline (V7.0). To standardize and share the treatment procedures of severe and critically ill cases, Wuhan Union Hospital has established a working group and formulated an operational recommendation, including the monitoring, early warning indicators, and several treatment principles for severe and critically ill cases. The treatment experiences may provide some constructive suggestions for treating the severe and critically ill COVID-19 cases all over the world.

Oesophageal cancer is associated with high morbidity and mortality rates because it is highly invasive and prone to recurrence and metastasis, with a five-year survival rate of

At present, only professional doctors can use the professional scales to diagnose depression and anxiety in clinical practice. In recent years, the problems of detecting the presence of anxiety or depression using Electroencephalography (EEG) has received attention as a way to implement assistant diagnosis, and some researchers explored that there are differences in the degree of prefrontal lateralization and functional connectivity of brain networks between patients with anxiety and depression and normal people. In this paper, we proposed a new approach that combines functional connectivity of brain networks and convolutional neural networks (CNN) for EEG-based anxiety and depression recognition. EEG data are collected from subjects consisting ten healthy controls and ten patients with anxiety or depression. In this way, we achieved 67.67% classification accuracy. It points out the way to further explore the application of functional connectivity of brain networks and deep learning technology in EEG about patients with anxiety and depression.

Background and aims It has been confirmed that remnant-like particle cholesterol (RLP-C) mediates the progression of coronary artery disease (CAD). Currently there is limited information on RLP-C in menopausal women. With the special status of diabetes mellitus (DM) combined with the special body changes of the menopausal women, the RLP-C is particularly important when studying the changes that occurred in response to CAD and its associated risk factors. This study discussed whether RLP-C could be an independent risk factor for menopausal women with CAD and DM. Methods The cohort consisted of 4753 menopausal women who had undergone coronary angiography. Subjects were separated into CAD and non-CAD groups, and univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis of CAD risk factors were performed. All patients with a history of DM were divided into DM subgroups. Then, the univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis of the risk factors of CAD and the comparison among age groups in the DM subgroup were performed. After age stratification of the DM group, the Kruskal-Wallis test was used to analyze the differences of various lipid indexes among age groups. Results The multivariate logistic regression showed that RLP-C was an independent risk factor for CAD in menopausal women (OR 1.232, 95%CI 1.070–1.419). In the DM subgroup, it was also found that RLP-C was an independent risk factor for CAD (OR 1.366, 95%CI 1.043–1.791). Kruskal-Wallis test analysis found that RLP-C had no significant difference among three groups (P > 0.05). Conclusions RLP-C was proved to be an independent risk factor for menopausal women with CAD and DM.

Background Dyslipidemia is a key driver of coronary artery disease (CAD) development. This study aimed to determine whether the atherogenic index of plasma (AIP), a novel comprehensive lipid index, is an independent and reliable predictor of CAD risk in postmenopausal women. Methods A cohort of consecutive 4644 postmenopausal women (aged 50 or above) undergoing coronary angiography (CAG) in Anzhen Hospital (Beijing, China) from January–December 2014 was included in the analysis. Of them, 3039 women were CAD patients, and 1605 were non-CAD subjects. Results Relative to control subjects, TG levels in CAD patients were higher and HDL-C levels were lower. In CAD patients, non-traditional lipid profile values (TC/HDL-C, AI, and AIP) were significantly elevated relative to controls. AIP was positively correlated with TC (r = 0.157), TG (r = 0.835), LDL-C (r = 0.058), non-HDL-C (r = 0.337), TC/HDL-C (r = 0.683), LDL-C/HDL-C (r = 0.437), LCI (r = 0.662), and AI (r = 0.684), and negatively correlated with HDL-C (r = − 0.682) (all P P = 0.130) and BMI (r = 0.020, P = 0.168). Aunivariate logistic regression analysis revealed AIP to be the measured lipid parameter most closely related to CAD, and its unadjusted odds ratio was 1.824 (95% CI: 1.467–2.267, P P Conclusion AIP may be a powerful independent predictor of CAD risk in Chinese Han postmenopausal women, and may be superior to the traditional lipid indices.

Due to the lack of a suitable theoretical model for simulating radar backscatter of soil based on salt content, we investigated a new method to exploit Sentinel-1 radar backscatters and polarimetric decomposition information for dryland soil salinity monitoring. Soil electrical conductivity (EC) was estimated using Sentinel-1 SAR imagery and field survey data combined with five machine learning models in Esperance, located in the southwest of Western Australia (SWWA). The performance of the five machine learning models was assessed and compared using the root-mean-square error (RMSE), the mean absolute error (MAE), and the correlation coefficient ( $r$ ). The results revealed that the Random Forest Regression model (RFR) yielded the highest prediction performance ( $\text{RMSE}=2.89\ S/m,\ \text{MAE}=1.90 S/m$ , and $\mathrm{r}=0.81$ ) and outperformed the other models. It can be concluded that the intensity images of VV and VH polarization of SAR imagery have the potential to predict EC of soils in SWWA.

Crop-type classification is one of the most significant applications in polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) imagery. As a remote sensing technique, PolSAR has been proved to have the ability to provide high-resolution information of illustrated objects. However, single-temporal PolSAR data are restricted to provide sufficient information for crop identification due to the complicated condition of varying morphology within various growing stages. With an increasing number of spaceborne PolSAR systems launched, a large amount of real PolSAR data are being generated and used to provide great opportunities for multitemporal analysis. The main contribution of this paper is to improve crop classification accuracy with various features of classical $H$ / $\alpha$ parameters. First, in order to deal with dual-PolSAR data, $H$ / $\alpha$ decomposition algorithm for quad-PolSAR is modified to suit to the case of dual polarization. Second, according to the differential scattering characteristics of main crops, a new parameter is innovatively defined to measure the differential characteristics in the $H$ / $\alpha$ classification plane. Third, crop types are discriminated by applying a supervised classification method with the newly defined parameter. Furthermore, the correctness of the parameter is verified with simulated and real Sentinel-1 data as well as AirSAR data. Finally, the performances of the classification method are investigated by the comparison with complex Wishart, Freeman–Wishart, and support vector machine (SVM) classifiers. Hence, the experimental results show that the proposed method and SVM classifier with the newly defined parameter have the ability to improve crop classification accuracy.

Background Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is the most common symptom in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) undergoing treatment with chemotherapy. However, evidence upon which to base management strategies is scarce. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been shown to be beneficial to patients with CRF. Chinese herbal injections should be administered under an evidence-based approach. This trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of the addition of the Shenmai injection (SMI) to conventional therapy for CRF in NSCLC patients undergoing chemotherapy. Methods/design The study is a two-group, prospective, randomized controlled trial (RCT) designed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of SMI for CRF NSCLC patients undergoing chemotherapy. Eligible participants will be randomized to either a treatment group receiving a 5-day Shenmai injection regimen plus conventional therapy or a control group receiving only conventional therapy. The primary outcome is fatigue, assessed using severity scores from the Functional Assessment for Chronic Illness Therapy-Fatigue (FACIT-F) measurement system. Secondary outcomes include symptom distress scores, depression, sleep disorders, quality of life, and levels of immunologic indicators. Assessments will be carried out at baseline and on day 5 (the end of the intervention). Discussion This study can provide evidence to support clinical decision-making in the management of CRF in NSCLC patients undergoing chemotherapy in a way that can be scaled up and used throughout China. Trial registration Chinese Clinical Trial Registry (chictr.org.cn), ChiCTR-INR-17013737. Registered on 6 December 2017. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13063-018-2845-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic and progressive lung disease with high morbidity and mortality. miR-182-5p is overexpressed in several fibrosis-related diseases but its effect in pulmonary fibrosis has not been reported yet. To investigate the function of miR-182-5p in pulmonary fibrosis, we established bleomycin (BLM)-induced fibrotic mice model and transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1)-treated human embryonic lung fibroblasts model. In this study, miR-182-5p was highly expressed in pulmonary tissues of BLM-induced fibrotic mice. The content of hydroxyproline and TGF-β1 was decreased by downregulating the expression of miR-182-5p, indicating that fibrosis was alleviated in mice treated with Lentivirus-anti-miR-182-5p.Quantification of fibrosis-related proteins demonstrated that downregulation of miR-182-5p inhibited the expression of profibrotic proteins (fibronectin, α-smooth muscle actin, p-Smad2/p-Smad3) as well as enhanced the level of Smad7. In vitro assays validated that miR-182-5p was induced by TGF-β1 with the function of promoting fibrosis. In dual-luciferase reporter assay, Smad7 was demonstrated to be negatively regulated by miR-182-5p. Moreover, the effect of knocking down miR-182-5p on inhibiting fibrosis was achieved by upregulating the expression of Smad7. Therefore, miR-182-5p can be regarded as a biomarker of IPF and its inhibition may be a promising therapeutic approach in treating IPF.

Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is one of the most serious life-threatening malignancies. Although chemotherapeutic targets and agents for ESCC have made much progress recently, the efficacy is still unsatisfactory. Therefore, there is still an unmet medical need for patients with ESCC. Here, we report the expression status of HDAC1 in human ESCC and matched paracancerous tissues, and the results indicated that HDAC1 was generally upregulated in ESCC specimens. Furthermore, we comprehensively assessed the anti-ESCC activity of a highly active HDAC1 inhibitor quisinostat. Quisinostat could effectively suppress cellular viability and proliferation of ESCC cells, as well as induce cell cycle arrest and apoptosis even at low treatment concentrations. The effectiveness was also observed in KYSE150 xenograft model when quisinostat was administered at tolerated doses (3 mg/kg and 10 mg/kg). Meanwhile, quisinostat also had the ability to suppress the migration and invasion (pivotal steps of tumor metastasis) of ESCC cells. Western blot analysis indicated that quisinostat exerted its anti-ESCC effects mainly through blockade of Akt/mTOR and MAPK/ERK signaling cascades. Overall, HDAC1 may serve as a potential therapeutic target for ESCC, and quisinostat deserves to be further assessed as a promising drug candidate for the treatment of ESCC.

Technology-based simulations provide vehicles for social work students to practice clinical skills in online environments. This teaching note reviews 2 simulation tools educators may consider imple...

Recently, the use of the pharmacological agents strontium ranelate (SR), parathyroid hormone (1-34, PTH) and zoledronic acid (ZA) has come to prominence for the treatment of osteoporosis due to their ability to prevent bone loss in osteoporotic patients. Although much emphasis has been placed on using pharmacological agents for the prevention of disease, much less attention has been placed on which one is more effective. There is still no direct comparative study on these three drugs. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of SR, PTH, ZA on preventing ovariectomy-induced osteoporosis in rats. After bilateral ovariectomy the rats randomly received vehicle, SR (500 mg/kg body weight/day, orally), PTH (20 μg/kg/day, subcutaneously) or a single injection of ZA (0.1 mg/kg, i.v.) until death at 12 weeks. The distal femurs were harvested for evaluation of bone metabolism. The rats treated with ZA demonstrated the highest levels of new bone formation as assessed by microcomputed tomography (CT), biomechanical strength, histological analysis and bone metabolism. Furthermore, PTH and SR showed a stronger effect on improving trabecular bone mass at 12 weeks. The results from the present study demonstrate that systemic administration of PTH, SR and ZA could prevent bone loss, while a single dose of ZA has a better effect on preventing ovariectomy-induced osteoporosis than either PTH or SR.

Purpose: Investigating surrogate endpoints shortening the time of therapeutic evaluation in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) after radical treatment. Patients and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 830 patients receiving intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) from 2008 to 2010 and being stratified by the 8th edition of UICC/AJCC staging system and the plasma Epstein-Barr virus DNA (EBV DNA). The annual rates of overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), loco-regional recurrence-free survival (LRFS), and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) were sequentially calculated using the life table and compared by the McNemar method. Results: The time of shortening therapeutic evaluation by surrogate endpoints: OS, PFS, LRFS and DMFS could be shortened to 1-year (100% vs 100%, P=1) in patients with stage I; OS, PFS, LRFS and DMFS could be shortened to 3-year (96.9% vs 96.1%, P = 1; 94.6% vs 92.2%, P = 0.125; 96.9% vs 95.3%, P = 0.5) and 4-year (92.2% vs 91.2%, P = 0.125) in stage II; In the high EBV DNA group , OS and DMFS could be shortened to 1-year (100% vs 100%, P = 1;100% vs 100%, P = 0.25) in stage II; OS and PFS could be shortened to 3-year (94.3% vs 91.4%, P = 1;82.9% vs 74.3%, P = 0.25) in stage III; OS could be shortened to 4-year (75% vs 72.7%, P = 1) in stage IVA. Conclusions: The time of therapeutic evaluation could be shortened to

Objective The radioprotective effects of amifostine remain uncertain in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), and adverse effects and cost limit generalization of its classical everyday regimen. This phase II multicenter randomized controlled trial aimed to explore whether amifostine could ameliorate the toxicities of NPC patients in the era of intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), and to compare different regimens of amifostine on effectiveness and safety. Methods Patients with stage I-IVB NPC were involved prospectively from January 1st, 2013. All patients received radical treatment based on IMRT. After a randomization stratified by their stage, these patients were allocated into 3 groups: the group treated without amifostine, the group treated with the everyday regimen of amifostine, and the group treated with the every-other-day regimen. The 3 groups of patients were compared on radiotherapy-related acute toxicities, treatment effects of NPC, and amifostine-related complications. This trial was registered on the clinicaltrials.gov (ID: NCT01762514). Results Until August 31st, 2017, totally 187 patients completed experimental intervention. Only amifostine of everyday regimen appeared to reduce the patient proportion of mucositis (79.1% vs. 96.8%, P=0.002). Hypocalcemia was less common in patients treated without amifostine than in those treated with amifostine (22.6% vs. 53.4% vs. 41.8%, P=0.002). Neither complete remission rates nor the survivals were affected by amifostine. Conclusions Amifostine of everyday regimen could reduce mucositis in NPC patients who received IMRT, though it also had the possibility to cause more hypocalcemia.

Acupuncture can improve explosive force production and affect joint stiffness by affecting muscle activation levels. This study aims to explore the effects of true acupuncture (TA) compared with sham acupuncture (SA) on the explosive force production and stiffness of the knee joint in healthy male subjects. Twenty subjects were randomly divided into the TA group (n = 10) and SA group (n = 10) to complete isokinetic movement of the right knee joint at a speed of 240°/s before and after acupuncture. Futu (ST32), Liangqiu (ST34), Zusanli (ST36), Xuehai (SP10), and Chengshan (BL57) were selected for acupuncture. The intervention of SA is that needles with a blunt tip were pushed against the skin, giving an illusion of insertion. The results showed that acupuncture and the intervention time had a significant interaction effect on knee joint explosive force and joint stiffness (p &lt, 0.05). The average maximum (max) torque, average work, average power, average peak power and total work of the TA group increased significantly after acupuncture (p &lt, 0.05), while the SA group did not (p &gt, 0.05). Therefore, true acupuncture can immediately improve the explosive force and joint stiffness of the male knee joint by inducing post-activation potentiation (PAP) and/or De-Qi.

The present work was aimed to evaluate the effect of different administration modes of sodium valproate (VPA) on bone strength, bone mass and bone mineral density in ovariectomized (OVX) rats and further investigation of the possible mechanism. 60 female SD rats were randomly divided into 4 groups: Sham group (Sham, n = 15), OVX group (OVX, n = 15), OVX rats received intermittent VPA treatment group (IVPA, n = 15) and OVX rats received daily VPA treatment group (EVPA, n = 15). After 12 weeks of treatment, the rats were sacrificed, and serum and femur samples were harvested. DEXA, Micro-CT, history, biomechanical testing, biochemical index and western blot analysis were used to observe the therapeutic effect and explore the possible mechanism. Micro-CT and DEXA analysis of bones revealed better BMD and higher BV/TV, Tb. Th, Tb. N, Conn. D and lower Tb. Sp at femoral metaphysis evaluated in IVPA when compared with OVX and EVPA group (P 0.05). Histological, fluorescent analysis and biological strength revealed more trabecular bone and higher relative mineral apposition rate, maximal load, elastic modulus and energy at break with evaluated in IVPA when compared with OVX and EVPA group (P 0.05). The levels of P1NP, estrogen, CTX, TRAP-5b and RANKL of the IVPA group showed a significant increase when compared with the OVX and EVPA group (P 0.05). We confirm adverse effects on protein expressions including Notch1, Jagged1, HEY1, Wnt 1, β-catenin and RUNX2 following daily VPA treatment in OVX female rats. Our current study demonstrated that intermittent administration of sodium valproate has a protective effect on bone health in OVX rats and these effects may be achieved by activating Notch/Wnt/β-catenin/RUNX2 signal axis.

To evaluate the effect of Fuzheng Kang’ai Formula (扶正抗癌方, FZKA) plus gefitinib in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations. A randomized controlled trial was conducted from 2009 to 2012 in South China. Seventy chemotherapynaive patients diagnosed with stage IIIB/IV non-small cell lung cancer with EGFR mutations were randomly assigned to GF group [gefitinib (250 mg/day orally) plus FZKA (250 mL, twice per day, orally); 35 cases] or G group (gefitinib 250 mg/day orally; 35 cases) according to the random number table and received treatment until progression of the disease, or development of unacceptable toxicities. The primary endpoint [progression-free survival (PFS)] and secondary endpoints [median survival time (MST), objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR) and safety] were observed. No patient was excluded after randomization. GF group had significantly longer PFS and MST compared with the G group, with median PFS of 12.5 months (95% CI 3.30–21.69) vs. 8.4 months (95% CI 6.30–10.50; log-rank P 0.05). The most common toxic effects in the GF group and G group were rash or acne (42.8% vs. 57.1%, P>0.05), diarrhea (11.5% vs. 31.4%, P 0.05). Patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer selected by EGFR mutations have longer PFS, MST with less toxicity treated with gefitinib plus FZKA than gefitinib alone.