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A facile yet efficient two‐step electrospinning calcination strategy is smartly developed to construct 1D hierarchical coral‐like CoTiO3/Co3O4/TiO2 hybrid nanobelts. The 1D coral‐like nanohybrid is homogeneously constructed from well‐dispersed CoTiO3 nanobelts and uniformly distributed secondary crystalline Co3O4/TiO2 nanoparticle building blocks. When evaluated as anodes for lithium‐ion batteries (LIBs), the hybrid CoTiO3/Co3O4/TiO2 nanobelt electrode exhibits a promising reversible capacity of 722.3 mAh g−1 at 100 mA g−1 after 250 cycles and has excellent cyclability with a capacity of 256.7 mAh g−1 after 1000 cycles at a current density of 2000 mA g−1. The imitating 1D coral‐like structural pattern is beneficial to alleviate the nanoparticle agglomeration and increase the contact area with the electrolyte, leading to the short diffusion path and facilitating the rapid transfer of lithium ions. The high‐level secondary nanobuilding blocks offer a large specific surface area, high surface‐to‐bulk ratio, and fast interfacial ion transport. Herein, it strongly sheds light on the elegant design concept of the hybrid for fabricating next‐generation advanced rechargeable LIBs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: This study aimed to investigate whether functional electrical stimulation (FES) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) enhanced the effect of occupational therapy (OT) on post-stroke limb functional recovery and quality of life, using direct and network meta-analysis. Methods: A computerized search was conducted in databases such as Medline, Web of Science, Embase, CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure), Wanfang Data, and VIP Information for prospective randomized controlled trials on OT, FES, and tDCS for improving post-stroke limb motor function and quality of life, with the search cutoff date of July 1, 2023. Results: Following the screening process, a total of 8 research articles were incorporated, encompassing 358 participants. Among these, 177 individuals underwent OT exclusively, while 181 individuals underwent a combined regimen of OT alongside electromagnetic therapy. In terms of the intervention methods, the control group received OT treatment only, while the experimental group employed tDCS in 5 studies and FES in 3 studies. Within these investigations, Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA) scores were reported in 8 studies. The aggregated mean difference (MD) for FMA scores was 5.08 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 2.46, 7.71), with a specific MD of 2.77 (95% CI: 1.46, 4.09) for the tDCS subgroup and 9.04 (95% CI: 5.34, 12.73) for the FES subgroup. Notably, FES combined with OT exhibited significant advantages in enhancing FMA scores when compared to the combination of tDCS and OT. Furthermore, four studies provided data on modified Barthel Index (MBI) scores, yielding a collective MD of 7.20 (95% CI: 4.44, 9.95). Conclusion: In patients with stroke, both FES combined with OT and tDCS combined with OT exhibit substantial enhancements in limb function and quality of life compared to OT alone. Notably, FES combined with OT yields superior clinical benefits when compared to the amalgamation of tDCS and OT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Study Design: An experimental study in a cervical intervertebral fusion goat model., Objective: To investigate the effect of bioactive xenogeneic porcine cancellous bone applied to the intervertebral fusion of goat cervical vertebrae., Summary of Background Data: Although autogenous bone achieves satisfied outcome in cervical intervertebral fusion, it is limited and cause several complications. The application of xenogeneic bone has potential to solve these problems., Methods: Thirty local goats were randomly divided into 3 groups: group A (12 goats): autogenous tricortical iliac bone group; group B (6 goats): polyetheretherketone (PEEK) cage with autologous bone; and group C (12 goats): PEEK cage with bioactive xenogeneic porcine cancellous bone. C3-C4 discectomy was performed in each group and the above bone graft and bone graft substitutes were implanted. Lateral cervical spine x-rays were taken at preoperative; immediately postoperative; and 4, 8, 12, and 24 weeks postoperatively every goat. Disc space heights (DSHs) were measured on lateral x-rays. CT examination was performed at 12 and 24 weeks after surgery for the fusion score. After 4 and 8 weeks after surgery, 3 goats were euthanized in both groups A and C to evaluate the immune rejection response through histology. At 12 and 24 weeks after surgery, 3 goats were euthanized in each group. The cervical implants fusion outcome was evaluated through specimen histology observation., Result: As time extended, the immune rejection of bioactive xenogeneic porcine cancellous bone gradually subsided. Radiology, specimen observation, and histology manifested that the C3-4 vertebral bodies of goats in each group gradually fused. All the goats in each group achieved bony fusion at 24 weeks after surgery. In terms of preventing intervertebral space collapse, the PEEK cage could achieve better results. There was no significant difference in the remaining experimental data (P>0.05)., Conclusions: Bioactive xenogeneic porcine cancellous bone can obtain satisfied fusion outcomes in cervical intervertebral fusion and is an ideal intervertebral fusion material in goats., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.)

Competing Interests: Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at https://qims.amegroups.com/article/view/10.21037/qims-23-1655/coif). The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Objectives: Human Amniotic Mesenchymal Stem Cells (hAMSCs) have strong multidirectional differentiation ability. Studies have found that transfection of target genes into target cells by lentivirus can enhance the differentiation potential of the cells. Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme 2 (ACE2) was found to improve vascular remodeling. Research is lacking on ACE2-hAMSCs. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the ability to improve pulmonary arterial hypertension using ACE2-hAMSCs., Methods: Lentiviruses overexpressing ACE2 were mixed with hAMSCs. Then, ACE2-hAMSCs and hAMSCs with good growth in logarithmic growth phase were collected. We detected their migration and angiogenesis. RT-qPCR technology was used to detect the expression levels of genes related to angiogenesis, and inflammation in the two cell lines, and western-blotting was used to detect the expression levels of ACE2. As an animal study, 21 rats were randomly divided into four different groups. Right heart hypertrophy, pulmonary angiogenesis, and serum inflammatory factors were measured before dissection. H&E staining was used to observe the inflammatory infiltration of lung tissues., Results: The migration and angiogenesis of ACE2-hAMSCs were strongerthan that of hAMSCs alone. The expressions of genes in ACE2-hAMSCs were higher, and the expression of ACE2 protein in ACE2-hAMSCs was less. H&E staining showed that the inflammatory infilration of lung tissue in ACE2-hAMSCs groups was significantly improved. In addition, the ACE2-hAMSCs group had stronger pro-angiogenesis and anti-inflammatory effects., Conclusion: These results suggest that ACE2-hAMSCs can repair pulmonary vascular endothelial cell injury caused by pulmonary hypertension by promoting angiogenesis and anti-inflammatory ability. This shows that ACE2-hAMSCs have stronger ability to improve pulmonary vascular remodeling than hAMSCs alone., Competing Interests: None., (IJCEP Copyright © 2023.)

Objective: To evaluate the possibility of high-fat diet to induce metabolic syndrome and to alter intestinal development, liver function and intestinal microbiotaof C57 BL/6 J mice., Methods: Total 40 of male C57 BL/6 J aged 3 weeks old were randomly divided into two groups: control group and high-fat diet group. After one week of adaptive feeding, the tested mice in high-fat diet group were fed with high-fat diet for 20 weeks, while those in control group were fed with ordinary diet. During the intervention, the body weight of the tested mice was measured weekly and fasting blood glucose(FBG) was measured monthly. Before the end of the experiment, the oral glucose tolerance test(OGTT) of the tested mice was conducted and the fecal 16 S rRNA sequencing was used to profile fecal microbiota of the test mice. Real-time qPCR was used to analyze the concentration of fecal bifidobacteria. Viscera coefficient of liver, spleen and pancreas, visceral fat-body ratio and intestinal length were measured. The indexes of liver function and the levels of serum lipids, leptin and adiponectin were also measured. Liver inflammation and fat infiltration were observed by anatomical pathological analysis., Results: After intervention of high fat diet, the body weight, FBG, oral glucose tolerance, the fat-body ratio, the levels of serum lipids, leptin and adiponectin of mice were significantly increased(P<0. 05). The inflammatory state of liver and the degree of fat infiltration increased. The length of intestine decreased(P<0. 05). The concentration of Bifidobacterium decreased(P<0. 05), however, the concentration of B. bifidum and B. angulatum increased(P<0. 05). The ACE, Chao1, Shannon and Simpson indexes of the high-fat diet were significantly lower than that of the control group(P<0. 05). Firmicutes, Proteobacteria and Deferribacteres were found significantly more in high-fat diet group(P<0. 05), while Bacteroidetes and Verrucomicrobia were apparently more in control group(P<0. 05)., Conclusion: High-fat diet could induce the metabolic syndrome in tested C57 BL/6 J, and lead to the damage of intestinal development, abnormality of liver tissue and its function, decrease diversity of intestinal microbiota, and the transformation of intestinal microbiota community to obesity type.

Background: In China, the trend of the prevalence of nutrition risk and malnutrition among the patients in hospitals has changed dramatically in the past few years. The aim of this study was to compare the prevalence of nutrition risk, undernutrition, and the application of nutrition support among hospitalized general surgery patients over a 7-year period from 2010 to 2017., Methods: A total of 810 consecutive inpatients who met the inclusion criteria upon admission and provided informed consent were recruited from March to December 2017. Nutrition risk was screened using the Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 tool. All the data collected in 2017 were compared with the data collected in 2010., Results: The prevalence of undernutrition among the surgical patients in 2017 (12.8%) was lower than that in 2011 (15.5%) (P < .05), whereas the prevalence of nutrition risk in 2017 (42.6%) was higher than that in 2011 (30.4%) (P < .01). The application of nutrition support, including parenteral nutrition and enteral nutrition, among the patients in 2017 was higher than that in 2010 (P < .05). In 2017, 70.7% of the patients who were at nutrition risk received nutrition support, whereas only 48.9% of patients at nutrition risk did in 2010 (P < .05). Moreover, 26.9% of patients without nutrition risk received nutrition support in 2017 compared with 18.0% of patients in 2010., Conclusions: The nutrition statuses among surgical inpatients changed from 2010 to 2017. The prevalence of undernutrition was reduced, whereas the prevalence of nutrition risk increased. The application of nutrition support increased significantly, whereas inappropriate application of nutrition support still existed in our hospital. More attention should be paid to the nutrition-related issues of general surgery inpatients in the future., (© 2020 The Authors. Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition.)

Objective: To understand the prevalence and influencing factors of food hypersensitivity in 1-year-old infants in Chengdu., Methods: A two-way cohort study was conducted to select 923 pairs of mothers and infants from the Second Hospital of Sichuan University from March 2014 to March 2015. The questionnaires and telephone follow-up surveys were used to investigate the incidence and influencing factors of parents' self-reported food hypersensitivity of infants., Results: The prevalence of parents' self-reported food hypersensitivity was 14. 1% before the age of one year, and the average age of the first onset was(6. 9±3. 3) month old. The main manifestations were skin(85. 7%) and gastrointestinal symptoms(14. 3%), those were mainly caused by aquatic products(42. 3%), eggs(26. 0%), and milk(22. 1%). Family history of allergy, consumption of milk during pregnancy, exposure to pets during pregnancy, and addition of seafood within 6 months of age are risk factors for parents' self-reported food hypersensitivity in infants. Adding egg protein as early as possible within 1 year old may reduce the incidence of parents' self-reported food hypersensitivity of infants., Conclusion: Preventing food hypersensitivity should start from the beginning of pregnancy. Different types of complementary food have different effects on the occurrence of food hypersensitivity in infants. Personalized management of complementary food adding should be conducted according to infant genetic history, living environment and epidemiological survey data to preventing food hypersensitivity.

Recent studies have shown abnormal expression levels of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) and miR-21b-3p in cerebral ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) rat models. Decreased COX-2 expression could reduce brain injury and thus could be a target of miR-21b-3p according to the miRNA databases (miRDB) analysis. However, its functions and underlying mechanisms in I/R injury remain unclear. In our study, we have established an oxygen/glucose deprivation and reperfusion (OGD/R) model by using NS2OY cells. The expression of miR-21b-3p and COX-2 was determined by quantitative real-time PCR or Western blot, and the fluorescence intensities were detected by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) or immunofluorescence. After transfection and OGD/R treatments, the functions of miR-21b-3p and COX-2 on cell viability and apoptosis were detected using cell-counting kit 8, Edu staining, flow cytometry and Hoechst staining, respectively. Finally, dual-luciferase reporter assay was used to explore the relationship between miR-21-b-3p and COX-2. The results have showed that COX-2 mRNA and protein expression were significantly increased; however, the expression of miR-21b-3p was remarkably reduced in NS2OY cells after OGD/R treatment. The changes were most remarkable in OGD 2 h/R24 group. Function analysis has showed that when NS2OY cells were exposed to OGD/R injury, overexpressed miR-21b-3p significantly downregulated COX-2 expression, increased cell viability and decreased apoptosis. In addition, knocking down the expression of COX-2 could also increase cell viability and decrease apoptosis. Dual-luciferase reporter assays showed miR-21b-3p as the target of 3'-UTR of COX-2. Therefore, we concluded that OGD/R-induced injury by down-regulating COX-2., Competing Interests: None.

A method was developed for the determination of ethylene glycol bis(2-aminoethyl) ether-N,N,N,N-tetraacetic acid (EGTA) by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The content of EGTA can be determined by that of EGTA-Cu through the complexation between EGTA and Cu2+. The chromatographic separation was performed on an Ultimate-AQ C18 analytical column (250 mm x 4.6 mm, 5 µm) using the mobile phase of acetonitrile-ion-pairing reagents (with 0.3% tetrabutyl ammonium hydroxide in mass fraction adjusted to pH 6.50 using acetate)-buffered saline (35 mmol/L sodium acetate of pH 6.50) (20:20:60, v/v/v). The chromatographic conditions were as follows: flow rate, 1.50 mL/min; detection wavelength, 245 nm; injection volume, 100 µL; column temperature, 40 °C. Under the conditions, good linear relationships between the mass concentration and the peak area of EGTA were observed in the range of 0.10-15.00 mg/L (R = 0.9998). The limit of detection (LOD, S/N = 3) and limit of quantitation (LOQ, S/N = 10) were determined as 0.05 mg/L and 0.17 mg/L, respectively. The average recoveries were 98.34%-99.03% with the RSDs of 1.08%-3.33% (n = 9). The results showed that the developed method is sensitive, accurate, reproducible and suitable for the analysis of EGTA in medicine.

A matched case-control study was conducted in Beijing to identify the relative importance of major environmental risk factors for outbreaks of hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD). A case was defined as a kindergarten class with at least 1 HFMD outbreak. As a control, a kindergarten class that did not experience an HFMD outbreak was used. To identify potential transmission factors, the control group was divided into 2 subgroups: a sporadic group and an HFMD-negative group. We collected data for 8 environmental factors and basic information of each class. The correlations between the suspected environmental factors and HFMD outbreaks were analyzed. Thirty outbreak classes, 19 sporadic classes, and 30 HFMD-negative classes were enrolled. Class grade, indoor solar radiation, and ultraviolet (UV) radiation revealed significant differences among the 3 groups. After controlling for other factors, UV radiation (adjusted β = -0.42) and class grade (adjusted β = -0.46) as protective factors and temperature (adjusted β = 0.31) as a risk factor were significantly associated with the attack rate by multiple linear regression analysis. Logistic regression analysis showed that the probability of an HFMD outbreak in the lower grade was 6-fold greater than that in the higher grade (P = 0.0380, odds ratio = 0.157, 95% confidence interval = 0.027-0.903). We identified UV radiation and class grade as protective factors that were associated with the epidemic intensity in Beijing. However, more data is needed to evaluate the relationship between these factors and HFMD outbreaks.