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Background Epidemiological evidence suggested that systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) might be correlated with an increased risk of lung cancer. Nevertheless, few studies have comprehensively investigated their correlation and the causal effect remains unclear. With a meta-analysis and Mendelian randomization (MR) approach, we were able to systematically investigate the relationship between SLE and lung cancer risk. Methods A systematic search of cohort studies was conducted using network databases from the inception dates to February 1, 2020. Meta-analysis was performed to calculate standardized incidence rate (SIR) and their 95% CI. Furthermore, utilizing 33 SLE-related single nucleotide polymorphisms as instrumental variables (IVs) identified by the latest genome-wide association studies (GWASs), we investigated the correlation between genetically predisposed SLE and lung cancer risk using summary statistics from the International Lung Cancer Consortium (11,348 cases and 15,861 controls). The Inverse variance-weighted method was applied to estimate the causality and we further evaluated the pleiotropy by means of the weighted median and the MR-Egger regression method. Subgroup analysis according to different histotypes of lung cancer was also conducted. Results Through meta-analysis of 15 cohort studies involving 110,519 patients, we observed an increased risk of lung cancer among SLE patients (SIR =1.63, 95% CI, 1.39-1.90). Subgroup analysis suggested that female patients (SIR =1.28, 95% CI, 1.13-1.44) have a relatively higher lung cancer risk compared with male patients (SIR =1.15, 95% CI, 1.02-1.30). MR analysis indicated that genetically predisposed SLE was causally associated with an increased lung cancer risk (OR =1.045, 95% CI, 1.005-1.086, P=0.0276). When results were examined by histotypes, a causal relationship was observed between genetically predisposed SLE and squamous cell lung cancer (OR =1.065, 95% CI, 1.002-1.132, P=0.0429). Additionally, the results demonstrated the absence of the horizontal pleiotropy. Conclusions Both meta-analysis and MR analysis results suggested that SLE was associated with an increased lung cancer risk. Further investigations are warranted to investigate the etiology underlying the attribution of SLE to lung cancer.

Organoids developed from pluripotent stem cells or adult stem cells are three-dimensional cell cultures possessing certain key characteristics of their organ counterparts, and they can mimic certain biological developmental processes of organs in vitro. Therefore, they have promising applications in drug screening, disease modeling, and regenerative repair of tissues and organs. However, the construction of organoids currently faces numerous challenges, such as breakthroughs in scale size, vascularization, better reproducibility, and precise architecture in time and space. Recently, the application of bioprinting has accelerated the process of organoid construction. In this review, we present current bioprinting techniques and the application of bioinks and summarize examples of successful organoid bioprinting. In the future, a multidisciplinary combination of developmental biology, disease pathology, cell biology, and materials science will aid in overcoming the obstacles pertaining to the bioprinting of organoids. The combination of bioprinting and organoids with a focus on structure and function can facilitate further development of real organs.

Face detection is the basic step of many face-analysis tasks. In practice, face detectors usually run on mobile devices with limited memory and computing resources. Therefore, it is important to keep the face detectors lightweight. To this end, current methods usually focus on directly design lightweight detectors. Nevertheless, the resource consumption of the lightweight detectors could be further suppressed. In this paper, we propose to apply the network pruning method to the lightweight face detection network, which can further reduce the face detector's parameters and floating point operations (FLOPs). To identify the channels of less importance, we perform the network training with sparsity regularization on channel scaling factors of each layer. Then, we remove the connections and the corresponding weights with the near-zero scaling factors after the sparsity training. We apply the proposed pruning pipeline on a state-of-the-art face detection method, EagleEye [5], and get a shrunken EalgeEye model which has a reduced number of computing operations and parameters. The shrunken model could achieve comparable accuracy as the unpruned model. By using the proposed method, the EagleEye face detector achieve 57.2% reduction of parameter size with 2% accuracy loss on WiderFace dataset.

As a widely used vital sign within cardiology, Electrocardiography (ECG) provides the basis for assessing heart function and diagnosing cardiovascular diseases. Automated anomaly detection for ECG plays an important role in improving patient diagnosis efficiency and reducing healthcare costs. Practically, due to the limits of electronics support or the medical system setting, image is a more common format for large-scale ECG storage in most clinical institutions. To guarantee an automated ECG detection model's scalability and practicality in clinical applications, taking good advantage of ECG images is crucial. However, existing time digital-based discriminative models fail to learn from images effectively for two reasons. First of all, the signals recorded on images have much lower resolution and higher noise, which makes it impractical to extract precise ECG signals following existing techniques. Meanwhile, the differences between abnormal signals are usually subtle, and they may be overwhelmed by the noises in the images as well. Towards this end, we design a novel neural framework that can be directly applied to massive ECG images determining various types of cardiology abnormalities. It classifies fine-grained ECG images based on weakly supervised strategy, in which case only image-level labeling is required. By eliminating the need for part annotations, the proposed method can result in significant savings in annotation time and cost. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated by experimental results on two real ECG datasets.

Vascularization is vital for the survival and functionality of complex tissue-engineered organs, and immune microenvironment is pivotal for effective vascularization. 3D bioprinting is a powerful technique for manufacturing engineered tissues. However, the reconstruction of functionalized vascular scaffolds with immunomodulatory properties through 3D bioprinting has rarely been reported. In this study, we fabricated scaffolds with immunomodulatory properties by incorporating INF-γ loaded laponite into the mixtures of gelatin methacrylate (GelMA)/alginate/4-arm poly(ethylene glycol) acrylate (PEG) (GAP) through coaxial bioprinting method with a sequential cross-linking mechanism that allows for stable production of 3D microfibrous scaffolds. Laponite addition optimized the hydrogel's physical and chemical performance, improved the rheological properties and printing feasibility while enhancing mechanical stress, making the direct fabrication of scaffolds with increased porosity and decreased filament diameter possible. Furthermore, new scaffolds facilitated the expression of chemotactic factors and accelerated EPC migration toward the microfiber peripheries to form a layer of confluent endothelium. Meanwhile, the scaffolds were capable of releasing IFN-γ in the early stage to stimulate macrophage M1 polarization, followed by induction of M2 polarization via the release of Si4+, Mg2+ as the degradation of laponite occurred, which successfully improved the sprouting and mature of newly formed vasculature, as well as vascularized bone regeneration. Our results suggested that a combination of GAP-IFN-γ@Lap bioink with a dual-step cross-linking procedure could regulate the local immune microenvironment, aiding the formation of a confluent endothelium, promoting angiogenesis and tissue regeneration, which potentially provides an efficient and simple strategy for developing complex vascularized tissues.

The spiro[indoline-3,3′-pyrrolidin]-2-ones were synthesized via a silica gel and alumina-mediated sequential transformation based on tryptamine-derived ynesulfonamide substrates under neat conditions. The inherent tendency of C−C bond migration through Wagner-Meerwein rearrangement in the synthesis of spirooxindole was prevented by water trapping to the spiroindoleninium intermediate. The functional group tolerances of the methodology were investigated using a variety of substrates. The detailed mechanism of the sequential transformation was probed by the isotope-labeled experiments. This strategy was further applied in the formal syntheses of indole alkaloids coerulescine and horsfiline.

Ynamides, as versatile synthetic precursors, have attracted much attention from synthetic chemists and sparked the development of a number of methodologies for the construction of various structures. 1H-Pyrrolo[2,3-d]carbazole is a core scaffold of a series of monoterpene indole alkaloids found in Kopsia, Strychnos, and Aspidosperma, for example. In this study, 1H-pyrrolo[2,3-d]carbazole derivatives were synthesized by a Brønsted acid-catalyzed tandem cyclization starting from tryptamine-based ynamides. This strategy prevented Wagner-Meerwein rearrangement by instantaneous intramolecular nucleophilic trapping of the indoleninium to afford a tetracyclic indoline via an in situ-formed enol species induced by the formation of a more stable conjugate diene moiety. The functional group tolerances were investigated by using a series of readily available substrates. A plausible mechanism has been proposed based on the evidence of the capture of the hemiaminal intermediate. Lastly, a Büchi ketone, which is the pivotal intermediate in the synthesis of the indole alkaloid vindorosine, was synthesized by utilizing our newly developed methodology.

A cascade [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangement/aromatization strategy to the synthesis of 2-(3-methylbenzofuran-2-yl)phenol derivatives was developed and applied to the collective syntheses of seven 2-arylbenzofuran-containing natural products, namely glycybenzofuran, glycyuralin E, lespedezol A1, puerariafuran, 7,2′,4′-trihydroxy-3-benzofurancarboxylic acid, coumestrol, and 4′-O-methylcoumestrol. Among them, the total syntheses of glycybenzofuran, glycyuralin E, puerariafuran, 7,2′,4′-trihydroxy-3-benzofurancarboxylic acid, and 4′-O-methylcoumestrol were reported for the first time. The practicality of this novel strategy in preparation of the key intermediates was demonstrated by performing the reaction on gram scale and by synthesizing a series of natural products with 2-(3-methylbenzofuran-2-yl)phenol scaffolds in a common strategy.

The automatic description of images has made good advances, but limited by the little-sample dataset, that the automatic generation of medical imaging reports is still a challenging problem. Aiming at the problem of training the joint model (CNN-RNN) on little-sample datasets, this paper proposes an improved encoding-decoding mode, in which the encoder uses less parameter in FCN (Fully Convolutional Network) for identifying lesions in mammography, and encoding it into a semantic vector. The decoder uses a LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory network) for solving, thereby reducing sample requirements. In addition, this paper combines multi-label classification (MLC) to assist the semantic coding process and uses post-processing such as the beam search to make the output fit in the natural language description better. Compared to existing models, our improved model on public mammography dataset (INbreast) with real-world data supplement achieved the BLEU score improvements by two points.

Background Population-based cohort studies have indicated that systemic sclerosis (SSc) may be associated with an increased risk of lung cancer. However, there are few studies that comprehensively investigate their correlation and the causal effect remains unknown. Methods A systematic search of PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and Embase from the inception dates to December 1, 2019 was carried out. Meta-analysis was performed to calculate odds ratio (OR) and corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) using random-effects models. Subgroup analyses were performed regarding gender. Two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) was carried out with summary data from published genome-wide association studies of SSc (Neale Lab, 3871 individuals; UK Biobank, 463,315 individuals) and lung cancer (International Lung Cancer Consortium, 27,209 individuals; UK Biobank, 508,977 individuals). Study-specific estimates were summarized using inverse variance-weighted, weighted median, and MR-Egger method. Results Through meta-analysis of 10 population-based cohort studies involving 12,218 patients, we observed a significantly increased risk of lung cancer among patients with SSc (OR 2.80, 95% CI 1.55–5.03). In accordance with subgroup analysis, male patients (OR 4.11, 95% CI 1.92–8.79) had a 1.5-fold higher lung cancer risk compared with female patients (OR 2.73, 95% CI 1.41–5.27). However, using a score of 11 SSc-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (p Conclusions This study indicated an increased risk of lung cancer among patients with SSc by meta-analysis, whereas the MR study did not support a causality between the two diseases. Further studies are warranted to investigate the factors underlying the attribution of SSc to lung cancer risk.

Aiming at the problem of single target object detection and tracking in unknown environment, we propose a dynamic target tracking and positioning method based on integral compensation algorithm. The discrete digital quantity is quantized and transformed into a continuous analog quantity, and the tracking direction is controlled by the angular rate control function. In the process of tracking, if the motion state of the target changes, the control function is directly integrated with the compensation algorithm to get a new tracking direction. Through the mathematical modeling analysis and experimental tests, experiments showed that in the single dynamic target object tracking, for the general object dynamic tracking, has a good dynamic, real-time. It has a certain application prospect in single target detection and multi-target tracking accuracy correction.

Background/Purpose An analytical solution is presented to predict the mean axial collapse forces of fiber reinforced conical shells under thermal loading, in which the fibers wrapped orientation is arbitrary; Methods Analytical method and finite element simulate; Results The influences of thermal loading, fibers wrapped orientations, geometrical eccentricity factor and proportionality coefficient on the axial collapse force of fiber reinforced conical shells are given. Conclusion The collapse loading Pm of fiber-reinforced conical shells appears in the maximum value under different thermal environment when the fibers wrapped direction equals 45°. By optimizing the wrapping orientation of fiber layers, the capability of energy absorption of fiber-reinforced conical shells can be enhanced.

Effectively contacted multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)–titanium dioxide nanocomposites and phosphate-functionalized MWCNT–TiO2 composites have been successfully synthesized by simple one-pot phase-separated hydrolysis–solvothermal processes. The key to this synthetic strategy is to disperse MWCNTs uniformly in Ti(OBu)4 in advance and then to put them into the toluene organic phase. The as-prepared nanocomposites between TiO2 and the correct amount of MWCNT exhibits higher activity in the photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B than that with the resulting TiO2, although the activity in the photocatalytic degradation of gas-phase aldehyde and liquid-phase phenol is lower. Interestingly, the functionalization of MWCNTs with an appropriate amount of phosphoric acids prior to the synthesis could greatly improve the activity of the MWCNT–TiO2 nanocomposites for the degradation of aldehyde and phenol, even superior to that of commercial P25 TiO2. Based on the measurements of atmosphere-controlled surface photovoltage spectra and O2 temperature-programmed desorption, it is suggested that MWCNTs are favorable to increase rhodamine B adsorption on the composite to promote the photosensitization oxidation reactions, whereas it is unfavorable for the adsorption of O2 and responsible for the low photocatalytic activity for the degradation of colorless pollutants. Phosphate functionalization greatly enhances the amount of O2 adsorbed on the MWCNT, which leads to significant charge separation, and thus, to significant photoactivity for the degradation of colored and colorless pollutants of the nanocomposites.

One-dimensional structure of ZnO nanorod arrays on nanocrystalline TiO2/ITO conductive glass substrates has been fabricated by cathodic reduction electrochemical deposition methods in the three-electrode system, with zinc nitrate aqueous solution as the electrolyte, and were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) and photoluminescence (PL) spectra. The effects of film substrates, electrolyte concentration, deposition time, and methenamine (HMT) addition on ZnO deposition and its luminescent property were investigated in detail. The results show that, compared with on the ITO glass substrate, ZnO is much easily achieved by electrochemical deposition on the TiO2 nanoparticle thin films. ZnO is hexagonally structured wurtzite with the c-axis preferred growth, and further forms nanorod arrays vertically on the substrates. It is favorable to the growth of ZnO to extend the deposition time, to increase the electrolyte concentration, and to add a certain amount of HMT in the system, consequently improving the crystallinity and orientation of ZnO arrays. It is demonstrated that the obtained ZnO arrays with high crystallinity and good orientation display strong band-edge UV (375 nm) and weak surface-state-related green (520 nm) emission peaks.

Effectively contacted multiwalled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)-titanium dioxide nanocomposites and phosphate-functionalized MWCNT-TiO

Si-doped and un-doped nanocrystalline TiO 2 samples have been synthesized by simple one-pot water-organic two-phase separated hydrolysis-solvothermal (HST) processes, and characterized by XRD, BET, TEM, FT-IR, DRS and surface photovoltage techniques. The effects of the solvothermal temperature and Si doping on the anatase thermal stability, and on the photocatalytic activity for degrading rhodamine B were investigated in detail. The results show that, as the solvothermal temperature rises, the crystallinity and thermal stability of the resulting nano-sized anatase TiO 2 gradually increase. Noticeably, the as-prepared TiO 2 obtained at appropriate solvothermal temperature (160 °C) exhibits high photocatalytic activity. Moreover, although Si doping does not improve the photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared anatase TiO 2 , it greatly enhances the anatase thermal stability and inhibits crystallite growth during the process of post-thermal treatment. Interestingly, the Si-doped TiO 2 post-treated at high temperature displays much higher photocatalytic activity than commercial P25 TiO 2 . It is clearly demonstrated that the joint effects of high anatase crystallinity and large surface area lead to high photocatalytic activity. This work provides a simple and effective strategy for the synthesis of high-performance TiO 2 -based functional nanomaterials.