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GNNs (Graph Neural Networks) have attracted increasing attention for their strong power on dealing with the graph structures. However, it remains a challenge to design an ideal GNN suitable for various downstream tasks. By revisiting the framework of MPNN (Message Passing Neural Network), we argue that an ideal GNN should satisfy following two conditions. First, the node embedding can absorb the knowledge from a wide range of neighbors while maintaining locality. Second, the first-order information aggregation can adapt to unknown graphs. In this paper, we first extend S 2 GC to GMGC (Generalized Markov Graph Convolution), which can maintain the node locality regardless the type of the embedded diffusion kernel. Next, we embed the improved self-gating mechanism into the GMGC framework and propose a novel model named AMGC (Attention-enabled Adaptive Markov Graph Convolution), which well satisfies the above conditions. Moreover, the advantages of AMGC can be explained in the frequency domain. First, the frequency of the first-order diffusion kernel is adaptive and no longer limited to low-pass as S 2 GC . Second, the multi-order diffusion kernel can retain more components around the core frequency compared with FAGCN. To verify the ability of AMGC, extensive experiments are conducted, including graph regression, graph classification and semi-supervised node classification. The results show that AMGC can achieve comparable performance in all graph tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sepsis is a high mortality disease which seriously threatens human life and health, for which the pathogenetic mechanism still unclear. There is increasing evidence showed that immune and inflammation responses are key players in the development of sepsis pathology. LncRNAs, which act as ceRNAs, have critical roles in various diseases. However, the regulatory roles of ceRNA in the immunopathogenesis of sepsis have not yet been elucidated. Results: In this study, we aimed to identify immune biomarkers associated with sepsis. We first generated a global immune-associated ceRNA (IMCE) network based on data describing interactions pairs of gene–miRNA and miRNA–lncRNA. Afterward, we excavated a dysregulated sepsis immune-associated ceRNA (SPIMC) network from the global IMCE network by means of a multi-step computational approach. Functional enrichment indicated that lncRNAs in SPIMC network have pivotal roles in the immune mechanism underlying sepsis. Subsequently, we identified module and hub genes (CD4 and STAT4) via construction of a sepsis immune-related PPI network. Then, we identified hub genes based on the modular structure of PPI network and generated a ceRNA subnetwork to analyze key lncRNAs associated with sepsis. Finally, 6 lncRNAs (LINC00265, LINC00893, NDUFA6-AS1, NOP14-AS1, PRKCQ-AS1 and ZNF674-AS1) that identified as immune biomarkers of sepsis. Moreover, the CIBERSORT algorithm and the infiltration of circulating immune cells types were performed to identify the inflammatory state of sepsis. Correlation analyses between immune cells and sepsis immune biomarkers showed that the LINC00265 was strongly positive correlated with the macrophages M2 (r = 0.77). Conclusion: Collectively, these results may suggest that these lncRNAs (LINC00265, LINC00893, NDUFA6-AS1, NOP14-AS1, PRKCQ-AS1 and ZNF674-AS1) played important roles in the immune pathogenesis of sepsis and provide potential therapeutic targets for further researches on immune therapy treatment in patients with sepsis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Implementing the transformer for global fusion is a novel and efficient method for pose estimation. Although the computational complexity of modeling dense attention can be significantly reduced by pruning possible human tokens, the accuracy of pose estimation still suffers from the problem of high overlap of candidate regions and severe background noise. Moreover, the undifferentiated fusion of features from different views also leads to a sizeable effective information loss. To address these challenges, we propose a Gated Region-Refine Pose Transformer (GRRPT) for human pose estimation. The proposed GRRPT can obtain the general area of the human body from the coarse-grained tokens and then embed it into the fine-grained ones to extract more details of the joints. Experimental results on COCO demonstrate that performing the Multi-Resolution Attention mechanism learns more refined candidate regions and improves accuracy. Furthermore, we design a Fusion Gate module consisting of two gates to pixel-wise select valid information from the auxiliary views, which significantly alleviates information redundancy. Finally, we evaluate the effectiveness of our method on Human3.6M and our dataset FDU-Motion and achieve state-of-the-art performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Optical motion capture systems have been used intensively to obtain human body poses. However, there still exist several problems. First is the dislocation problem caused by joints being too close together. The second is the joint lost problem. Restricted by severe self-occlusions, cameras may not capture the target joints. Given this observation, we investigate the high-level constraints over human poses to solve these two problems. In this work, we present a Simplified-attention Enhanced Graph Convolutional Network (SaEGC-Net) to extract both spatial and temporal features from monocular videos flexibly. The SaEGC-Net for 3D human pose estimation is U-shaped and involves the Cascaded Spatial-Temporal Graph Convolutional (CST-GC) blocks and the Simplified Spatial-Temporal Attention (SST-Att) blocks, allowing for drawing long-range dependencies between unconnected joints by graph topologies and attention mechanism, respectively. Specifically, the CST-GC block embeds two predefined graph structures into a convolutional network, incorporating discriminative features from distant joints. The proposed SST-Att block disregards redundant information by sharing part of the attention map, which is highly lightweight. It also considers dimension-expanded joint relationships to maintain the diversity of dependence. To evaluate the effectiveness of our method, we conduct extensive experiments on two datasets: Human3.6M and our own dataset FDU-Motion. Results demonstrate that our model achieves excellent performance and can competently handle the above two problems. Also, ablation studies show that our network's submodules can better exploit the motion information of the human body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The goal of this study is to investigate the efficacy, safety, and mechanism of ABL for inactivating Candida albicans (C. albicans), and to determine the best wavelength for treating candida infected disease, by experimental measurements and dynamic modeling. Methods: The changes in reactive oxygen species (ROS) in C. albicans and human host cells under the irradiation of 385, 405, and 415 nm wavelengths light with irradiance of 50 $mW/cm^2$ were measured. Moreover, a kernel-based nonlinear dynamic model, i.e., nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous inputs (NARX), was developed and applied to predict the concentration of light-induced ROS, whose kernels were selected by a newly developed algorithm based on particle swarm optimization (PSO). Results: The ROS concentration was increased respectively about 10-12 times in C. albicans and about 3-6 times in human epithelial cells by the ABL treatment with the same fluence of 90 $J/cm^2$. The NARX models were respectively fitted to the data from the experiments on both types of cells. Besides, four different kernel functions, including Gaussian, Laplace, linear and polynomial kernels, were compared in their fitting accuracies. The errors with the Laplace kernel turned out to be only 0.2704 and 0.0593, as respectively fitted to the experimental data of the C. albicans and human host cells. Conclusion: The results demonstrated the effectiveness of the NARX modeling approach, and revealed that the 415 nm light was more effective as an anti-fungal treatment with less damage to the host cells than the 405 or 385 nm light. Significance: The kernel-based NARX model identification algorithm offers opportunities for determining the effective and safe light dosages in treating various fungal infection diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Four different NBWs were added to the sludge anaerobic digestion. • The hydrolysis of sludge anaerobic digestion can be enhanced by the addition of NBW. • Addition of NBW increased methane production by 9.0–27.8% compared with control. • Addition of NBW (Air, CO 2 , He, and N 2) improved the dewaterability of digestate. • Air-NBW was the most cost-effective additive for sludge anaerobic digestion. The subsequence anaerobic digestion (AD) of dewatered sludge (DWS) from wastewater treatment plants necessitates an emphasis on enhancing methane production and dewaterability. The effect of different nanobubble water (NBW) on AD of DWS was investigated under mesophilic conditions. Cumulative methane production was improved by 9.0–27.8% with the addition of different NBW (Air, CO 2 , He, and N 2). NBW improved methanogenic performance by significantly enhancing the hydrolysis of sludge AD. Results from the digestate, the capillary suction time, specific resistance to filtration, and moisture content could be decreased by 14.6–18.2%, 18.8–29.6%, and 13.6–19.5%, respectively. The addition of NBW can improve the dewaterability of digestate by reducing the digestate particle size and increasing the zeta potential of digestate. The addition of NBW significantly increased methane production and improved dewaterability in AD; Air-NBW showed the best improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Microbial electrolysis cell was integrated in different phases of different TPAD. • Thermophilic conditions enhanced hydrolysis more than microbial electrolysis cell. • TPAD integrated microbial electrolysis cell improved the methane yield. • Microbial electrolysis cell was more effective in mesophilic-mesophilic TPAD. Temperature-phased anaerobic digestion (TPAD) and microbial electrolysis cell (MEC) are both able to improve hydrolysis and methane yield during anaerobic digestion (AD) of dewatered sludge. However, the effect of TPAD and MEC integration at different temperatures and different phases is unclear. This study investigated the effect of the integration of intermittent energization MEC in different phases of TPAD on the digestion of dewatered sludge. Thermophilic and MEC hydrolysis could release higher total ammonia nitrogen of 186.0% and 10.3% than control, mesophilic methanogenesis phase integrated with MEC relieved the ammonia inhibition and accelerated the acid utilization leading to the relief of acid accumulation. The ultimate methane yield of the TPAD integrated with MEC was increased by 118.9%, in which the relative abundance of Methanothermobacteria and Methanosarcina was increased. Therefore, intermittent energization MEC integrated TPAD synchronously improved the hydrolysis and methane yield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining the extreme values of wind loads is crucial for wind-resistant design of structures. The Hermite polynomial model (HPM)- based translation method, which uses the first four moments of wind load, is the most recognized and widely used method for extreme wind load estimations. In this study, a quartic HPM-based translation method for estimating extreme wind loads is proposed. A strategy for solving the shape coefficients is suggested for better practical use. The monotonic increasing condition required for the translation between non-Gaussian wind load and standard Gaussian process is discussed, based on which the constraint of shape coefficients governing the applicability of the quartic HPM is derived. From the validation study, it is found that the applicability of the quartic HPM is satisfactory. Compared with the cubic and improved HPMs, the quartic HPM stands out for yielding more accurate estimates of extreme wind loads. Comparative analysis with the XIMIS, an observed-maxima method, reveals the quartic HPM's consistency in estimating extreme wind loads from data with shorter periods, while the performance of XIMIS deteriorates with decreasing periods. Furthermore, the quartic HPM exhibits robustness in addressing strong non-Gaussian wind loads, outperforming the other methods under such conditions. • A quartic HPM-based translation method for estimating extreme values of wind loads is proposed. • Constraint of shape coefficients in quartic HPM that governs requirement of monotonic increasing condition is derived. • Intensity of non-Gaussianity is quantitatively defined and successfully associated to tail characteristic of parent distribution of wind loads. • Quartic HPM outperforms cubic and improved HPMs, as well as XIMIS, in estimating extreme values of wind loads with strong non-Gaussianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a complex neurological autoimmune disease with a pathogenetic mechanism that has yet to be elucidated. Emerging evidence has revealed that genes, non-coding RNAs and genetic variants play significant roles in the pathogenesis of MG. However, the molecular mechanisms of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located on lncRNAs could disturb lncRNA-mediated ceRNA regulatory functions still unclear in MG. In this study, we collated 276 experimentally confirmed MG risk genes and 192 MG risk miRNAs. We then constructed a lncRNA-mediated ceRNA network for MG based on multi-step computational strategies. Next, we systematically integrated risk pathways and identified candidate SNPs in lncRNAs for MG based on data acquired from public databases. In addition, we constructed a pathway-based lncRNA-SNP mediated network (LSPN) that contained 128 lncRNAs targeting 8 MG risk pathways. By analyzing network, we propose a latent mechanism for how the "lncRNA-SNP-mRNA-pathway" axis affects the pathogenesis of MG. Moreover, 25 lncRNAs and 51 SNPs on lncRNAs were extracted from the "lncRNA-SNP-mRNA-pathway" axis. Finally, functional analyses demonstrated lncRNA-SNPs mediated ceRNA regulation pairs associated with MG participated in the MAPK signaling pathway. In summary, we constructed MG-specific lncRNA-SNPs mediated ceRNA regulatory networks based on pathway in the present study, which was helpful to elucidate the roles of lncRNA-SNPs in the pathogenesis of MG and provide novel insights into mechanism of lncRNA-SNPs as potential genetic risk biomarkers of MG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti-fungal blue light (ABL) therapies have been widely studied to treat various microbial infections in the literature. The blue light with wavelengths ranging from 400 to 470 nm has been reported to be effective to inhibit various kinds of bacteria and fungi. The existing studies usually report the viability rates of the pathogens under the irradiation of the blue light with different dosage parameters. However, to the best of our knowledge, there is still no work especially focusing on studying the effect of ABL therapies on treating candida vaginitis, where it is important to study the viability of both the Candida albicans (C. albicans) and the human vaginal epithelial cells. It is the purpose of this work to conduct ABL experiments on both of these two cells, analyze the effects, and determine the best ABL wavelength out of three candidates, i.e., 405-nm, 415-nm, and 450-nm wavelength. The viability rates of the C. albicans and the human vaginal epithelial cells irradiated by the three blue LED light sources were measured, whose irradiance (power density) were all set to 50 mW/cm2. The dynamic viability models of the C. albicans and the epithelial cells were built based on the experimental data. Moreover, in this work, we also built a functional relationship between the viability of these two types of cells, by which we further compared the effects of the blue light irradiation on both the C. albicans and vaginal epithelial cells. The experimental data showed that when an approximately 80% inhibiting rate of the C. albicans was achieved, the survival rates of the epithelial cells were 0.6700, 0.7748, and 0.6027, respectively for the treatment by the 405-nm, 415-nm, and 450-nm wavelength light. On the other hand, by simulating the functional relationship between the viability of the two types of cells, the survival rates of the epithelial cells became 0.5783, 0.6898, and 0.1918 respectively using the 405-nm, 415-nm and 450-nm wavelength light, when the C. albicans was completely inhibited. Therefore, both the experimental data and the model simulation results have demonstrated that the 415-nm light has a more effective anti-fungal result with less damage to the epithelial cells than the 405-nm and 450-nm light. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the self-supervised learning issue on heterogeneous graph. Currently, contrastive learning has become the dominant approach on various heterogeneous graph tasks. Its performance is highly dependent on the elaborate selection strategy of negative samples. However, it is difficult to design such an ideal strategy giving sufficient consideration to the characteristics of graph, such as structural similarity and feature similarity. To circumvent this problem, we propose a novel negative sample-free self-supervised framework named HGISD (H eterogeneous G raph learning based on I terative S imilarity D istillation), where the student improves itself by imitating the teacher's behavior and the teacher updates itself as a slow-moving average of the student. Moreover, metapath-based HGNN is employed as the built-in information encoder. We argue that previous metapath-based HGNNs neglect the correlation among metapaths and the locality within metapaths. To tackle these issues, we respectively propose IMCD (I nter- M etapath C orrelation D istillation) and IMSD (I ntra- M etapath S imilarity D istillation) within the self-distillation framework. Both IMCD and IMSD treat the embeddings in the shallow layers as the knowledge source, which well preserves the inter-metapath correlation and the intra-metapath locality. Finally, we conduct extensive experiments on several real-world heterogeneous graph datasets. The results show that the proposed HGISD achieves superior performance compared with the state-of-the-art methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing scale of pre-trained language models (PLMs), full parameter fine-tuning becomes prohibitively expensive and practically infeasible. Therefore, parameter-efficient adaptation techniques for PLMs have been proposed to learn through incremental updates of pre-trained weights, such as in low-rank adaptation (LoRA). However, LoRA relies on heuristics to select the modules and layers to which it is applied, and assigns them the same rank. As a consequence, any fine-tuning that ignores the structural information between modules and layers is suboptimal. In this work, we propose structure-aware low-rank adaptation (SaLoRA), which adaptively learns the intrinsic rank of each incremental matrix by removing rank-0 components during training. We conduct comprehensive experiments using pre-trained models of different scales in both task-oriented (GLUE) and task-agnostic (Yelp and GYAFC) settings. The experimental results show that SaLoRA effectively captures the structure-aware intrinsic rank. Moreover, our method consistently outperforms LoRA without significantly compromising training efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of total solids (TS) content on sludge mesophilic anaerobic digestion (AD) was investigated in batch reactors. A range of TS below 10% was evaluated with two replicates. The volumetric biogas production rate (VBPR) increased with increasing initial TS. On day 5, VBPR increased from 133.2 ± 11.2 mL L −1 d −1 at TS 2% to 1111.7 ± 58.1 mL L −1 d −1 at TS 10%. The ultimate biogas yield ( P ) firstly increased and then decreased with the increasing TS. The greatest P was 246.8 mL g −1 -VS added at TS 8%. The corresponding free ammonia nitrogen (FAN) and total ammonia nitrogen (TAN) were 84.0 ± 16.1 and 1163.0 ± 108.6 mg L −1 , respectively. Normalized capillary suction time (NCST) and solid content of thickened sludge obtained by centrifuging sludge increased with increasing TS. On day 49, NCST were 1.2 ± 0.2 (TS = 2%) and 13.2 ± 1.1 (TS = 10%) s g −1 -TS. Meanwhile, solid content of thickened sludge was 7.5 ± 0.5 (TS = 2%) and 15.4 ± 0.0% (TS = 10%). In summary, high VBPR and dewatering effects were obtained after TS content optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of total solids content on sludge thermophilic anaerobic digestion was investigated in batch reactors. A range of total solids content from 2% to 10% was evaluated with two replicates. The lowest inhibitory concentration for free ammonia and total ammonia of sludge thermophilic anaerobic digestion was 110.9–171.4 mg/L and 1313.1–1806.7 mg/L, respectively. The volumetric biogas production rate increased with increasing of total solids content, but the corresponding biogas yield per gram volatile solid decreased. The result of normalized capillary suction time indicated that the dewaterability of digested sludge at high total solids content was poor, while solid content of sediment obtained by centrifuging sludge at 2000 g for 10 min increased with increasing of total solids content of sludge. The results suggest that thickened sludge mixed with dewatered sludge at an appropriate ratio could get high organic loading rate, high biogas yield and adequate dewatering effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Methane yield of thermophilic digester is greater than that of mesophilic digester. • Bacterial and archaeal diversity of mesophilic digesters is more abundant. • Plant growth promotion of mesophilic biogas slurry is more prominent. • Potassium in biogas slurry is the key factor to promote plant growth. The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of mixing ratios of Chinese cabbage waste (CCW) and cow manure (CM) on methane yields, microbial community, and biogas slurry fertility during anaerobic co-digestion. Batch experiments were conducted at mesophilic and thermophilic temperatures with five different CCW/CM mixing ratios. Methane yields at mesophilic and thermophilic temperatures were 4.2–184.4 mL g−1 Volatile solids added (mL g−1 VS added) and 11.8–321.7 mL g−1 VS added , respectively. The richness and diversity of bacteria and archaea at mesophilic temperatures were higher than those at thermophilic temperatures. Compared with the unfertilized control, the dry weight of corn seedlings with the follow-up application of mesophilic or thermophilic biogas slurry increased by 12.3 %-73.4 % or 16.8 %-43.3 %, respectively. This study demonstrates that thermophilic temperatures are conducive to increasing methane yields, but mesophilic temperatures are conducive to improving the biogas slurry fertility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of straw on natural solar sludge drying was investigated. As the thickness of the stack increased, the rate of water removal per unit area slightly increased and the rate of water removal per unit volume rapidly decreased. The rate of water removal increased as the accumulation of solar energy increased but decreased as the relative humidity increased. On the 23rd day, the moisture content of the dewatered sludge and the chopped straw mixture decreased from 75.2 to 45.1% at a thickness of stack of 30 cm, with an average water evaporation rate of 7.2 kg/m2d. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adding the Z‐source inverter into wireless power transfer systems helps to offer more control strategies due to its extra state than the traditional inverter. However, the parameters of the system should be strictly designed, otherwise the system will malfunction. The malfunction issue and factor's causing it are described accordingly. Suggestions on the design parameters of the system are provided. To verify the analysis, simulation results of the proposed system are added. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Filler enhance conversion rates of sludge digestion. [•] Pre-incubated filler improve dewaterability of digested sludge. [•] Filler alone do not improve dewaterability of digested sludge. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Highlights: [•] Protein degradation mainly limited by hydrolysis under aerobic condition. [•] Protein degradation limited by hydrolysis and metabolism under anaerobic condition. [•] Humification degree of aerobic digested sludge was greater than anaerobic one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), functioning as competing endogenous RNAs (ceRNAs), have been reported to play important roles in the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases. However, little is known about the regulatory roles of lncRNAs underlying the mechanism of myasthenia gravis (MG). The aim of the present study was to explore the roles of lncRNAs as ceRNAs associated with the progression of MG.Methods: MG risk genes and miRNAs were obtained from public databases. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network analysis and module analysis were performed. A lncRNA-mediated module-associated ceRNA (LMMAC) network, which integrated risk genes in modules, risk miRNAs and predicted lncRNAs, was constructed to systematically explore the regulatory roles of lncRNAs in MG. Through performing random walk with restart on the network, HCG18/miR-145-5p/CD28 ceRNA axis was found to play important roles in MG, potentially. The expression of HCG18 in MG patients was detected using RT-PCR. The effects of HCG18 knockdown on cell proliferation and apoptosis were determined by CCK-8 assay and flow cytometry. The interactions among HCG18, miR-145-5p and CD28 were explored by luciferase assay, RT-PCR and western blot assay.Results: Based on PPI network, we identified 9 modules. Functional enrichment analyses revealed these modules were enriched in immune-related signaling pathways. We then constructed LMMAC network, containing 25 genes, 50 miRNAs, and 64 lncRNAs. Through bioinformatics algorithm, we found lncRNA HCG18 as a ceRNA, might play important roles in MG. Further experiments indicated that HCG18 was overexpressed in MG patients and was a target of miR-145-5p. Functional assays illustrated that HCG18 suppressed Jurkat cell apoptosis and promoted cell proliferation. Mechanistically, knockdown of HCG18 inhibited the CD28 mRNA and protein expression levels in Jurkat cells, while miR-145-5p inhibitor blocked the reduction of CD28 expression induced by HCG18 suppression.Conclusion: We have reported a novel HCG18/miR-145-5p/CD28 ceRNA axis in MG. Our findings will contribute to a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanism of and provide a novel potential therapeutic target for MG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The role of long-acting hematopoietic growth factor in supporting dose-dense chemotherapy and minimizing hematologic toxicity has not been established. We investigated the efficacy and safety of once-per-cycle pegfilgrastim in breast cancer patients receiving neoadjuvant dose-dense epirubicin and cyclophosphamide (ddEC).Methods: Newly diagnosed stage I to III breast cancer patients received four cycles of ddEC (E, 100 mg/m2 and C, 600 mg/m2 every 2 weeks) and 6 mg of subcutaneous pegfilgrastim on day 2 of each cycle. The primary endpoint was to evaluate the incidence of chemotherapy delay. Secondary endpoints include the incidences of febrile neutropenia (FN) and grade 3/4 neutropenia during the four ddEC cycles.Results: A total of 240 patients were enrolled and 913 ddEC cycles were administered in the study. Chemotherapy delay occurred in 15 patients (6.3% of patients, 95% CI 3.2-9.4%) for 17 cycles (1.9% of cycles, 95% CI 1.0-2.8%). The most frequent cause of chemotherapy delay was transaminase elevation (10 patients, 12 cycles). A total of 12 patients (5.0%, 95% CI 2.2-7.8%) developed 13 episodes of FN. Of the 221 patients that completed four ddEC cycles with pegfilgrastim support, 209 patients (94.6%, 95% CI 91.6-97.6%) had a 100% relative dose intensity (RDI). A RDI ≥ 85% was achieved in 217 of 221 patients (98.2%, 95% CI 96.5-99.9%). Bone pain of any grade was recorded in 85 of 220 evaluable patients (38.6%, 95% CI 32.2-45.0%).Conclusions: Pegfilgrastim is effective and safe in facilitating four cycles of neoadjuvant ddEC, with low incidences of chemotherapy delay and febrile neutropenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional high-power wireless power transfer (WPT) systems that are required to deliver power over a wide operating range suffer from issues like hard switching, poor current sharing, and unwanted cross-coupling issues. This article proposes a new resonant inductor integrated-transformer-based multi-inverter to improve the WPT power rating without compromising performance. Viable modulation schemes of the proposed system are analyzed, and a hybrid modulation scheme is proposed for wide-range power regulation. To further investigate the feasibility of the proposed system, the power transfer capacity, current sharing among multiple inverters, and the soft switching regions are studied. A 14-kW LCC–LCC WPT experimental system with three parallel inverters is built, which achieves 93.5% efficiency, demonstrating the high performance of the proposed system. This article is accompanied by a video demonstrating these experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In anaerobic digestion (AD) of sludge, AD efficiency and digested sludge (DS) dewaterability are critical factors. In this study, polyester non-woven fabric fillers were integrated into a sludge digester. The effect of such fillers on digestion was investigated in thermophilic temperature range in semi-continuous mode. Methane production of filler system and control reactor were significantly different ( P < 0.05, paired t -test). At hydraulic retention times of 18 days and 12 days, the corresponding methane yields from filler system were 140% and 161%, respectively, of the yields from control digester without filler. Improvement of DS dewaterability was uncertain during 110 days of operation. While after a longer period of digestion, filler system resulted in a lower normalized capillary suction time of DS (76.5 ± 21.6 s L/g total suspended solids) than control reactor (118.7 ± 32.9 s L/g total suspended solids). The results showed that the filler could improve thermophilic AD performance, except at too short hydraulic retention times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gradual increase in cattle farming has led to a huge production of cattle manure (CM), but the conventional treatment methods are less efficient. In this study, the treatment method of anaerobic digestion (AD) of high-solids CM by combining nanobubble water (NBW) with different gases was proposed to present a new idea for the reduction, harmlessness, and resourcefulness of CM. It was found that the performance of the digester with added NBW was better than the control. Among them, the cumulative methane yield T-Air: 227.09 mL g−1 VS added and T-CO 2 : 226.12 mL g−1 VS added increased by 17.72 % and 17.22 %, respectively, compared with the control T: 192.90 mL g−1 VS added under thermophilic conditions. Under mesophilic conditions, M-Air: 162.39 mL g−1 VS added increased by 9.68 % compared with control M: 148.05 mL g−1 VS added. Microbial communities analyzed at the genus level revealed that the relative abundance of bacteria favorable to hydrolysis and acid-producing processes, such as Defluviitalea , Haloplasma , and Bacillus , increased to varying degrees. Moreover, the relative abundance of archaea favorable for methanogenesis, such as Methanoculleus , Methanobrevibacter , and Methanosarcina , also increased to varying degrees. Therefore, the addition of NBW promoted the hydrolysis of high-solids CM, enhanced the stability of the reaction, improved the methanogenic performance, and increased the RA of favorable genera, which ultimately led to a better performance of the AD of high-solids CM. [Display omitted] • Compared with control, NBW increased CH 4 production by 5–17 %. • Compared with control, NBW contributes to the production/transformation of VFAs. • Incorporation of NBW improves stability of high solids anaerobic digestion. • Compared with control, NBW increased the RA of hydrolytic acidification-associated bacteria. • Compared with control, NBW increased the RA of methanogenic-associated archaea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prognostic and therapeutic implications in diffuse gliomas are still challenging. In this study, we first performed an integrative framework to infer the clonal status of mutations in glioblastomas (GBMs) and low-grade gliomas (LGGs) by using exome sequencing data from TCGA and observed both clonal and subclonal mutations for most mutant genes. Based on the clonal status of a given gene, we systematically investigated its prognostic value in GBM and LGG, respectively. Focusing on the subclonal mutations, our results showed that they were more likely to contribute to the poor prognosis, which could be hardly figured out without considering clonal status. These risk subclonal mutations were associated with some specific genomic features, such as genomic instability and intratumor heterogeneity, and their accumulation could enhance the prognostic value. By analyzing the regulatory mechanisms underlying the risk subclonal mutations, we found that the subclonal mutations of AHNAK and AHNAK2 in GBM and those of NF1 and PTEN in LGG could influence some important molecules and functions associated with glioma progression. Furthermore, we dissected the role of risk subclonal mutations in tumor evolution and found that advanced subclonal mutations showed poorer overall survival. Our study revealed the importance of clonal status in prognosis analysis, highlighting the role of the subclonal mutation in glioma prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sludge digestate stabilized by mesophilic anaerobic digestion was further degraded through thermophilic anaerobic digestion using 0-10 % (v/v) of thermophilic, proteolytic Coprothermobacter proteolyticus, and/or methanogenic granular sludge. The results demonstrated that the temperature shift to thermophilic condition promoted abiotic solubilization of proteins and reactivated the fermentative bacteria and methanogens indigenous in the sludge digestate, resulting in a final methane yield of 6.25 mmol-CH/g-volatile suspended solid (VSS) digestate. The addition of C. proteolyticus accelerated the hydrolysis and fermentation of proteins and polysaccharides in the digestate during the early stage of thermophilic anaerobic digestion and stimulated methane production by syntrophic cooperation with methanogenic granular sludge. In the treatment with granular sludge and inoculated with 10 % (v/v) of C. proteolyticus, a final methane yield of 7 mmol-CH/g-VSS digestate was obtained, and 48.4 % proteins and 27.0 % polysaccharides were degraded. The dissolved proteins were contributed by abiotic factor, C. proteolyticus, and indigenous digestate bacteria, respectively, by around 16, 28, and 56 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To enhance the dewaterability of anaerobic digested sludge and to make full use of the biogas slurry. This study set up five sludge conditioning methods: polymeric ferric sulfate, polymeric aluminum chloride, cationic polyacrylamide, chitosan, and chitosan combined with rice husk powder. Their effects on the dewaterability of thermal hydrolysis-anaerobic digested sludge, bacterial community, and biogas slurry fertility were studied to find a non-toxic and non-risk dewatering technology for the environment and biogas slurry. Compared with that of the control group, moisture content, normalization capillary suction time, and specific resistance to filtration were reduced by 12.8%, 97.7%, and 82.9%, respectively. Chitosan enlarges the sludge flocs and forms complexes with proteins, disrupting the structure of the extracellular polymeric substances, thereby exposing more hydrophobic groups and reducing the hydrophilicity of the sludge. The subsequent addition of rice husk powder enhances the adsorption of hydrophilic substances and provides a stronger drainage channel for the sludge. In addition, the biogas slurry obtained by this conditioning method used as a fertilizer increased the dry weight and fresh weight of corn seedlings by 59.3% and 91.0%, respectively. And the total chlorophyll content increased by 84.6%. Pearson's correlation analysis showed that chitosan and rice husk meal had no toxic effect on the biogas slurry compared to the other three flocculants. The results showed that the combined treatment of chitosan and rice husk powder resulted in the best dewaterability. Overall, chitosan combined with rice husk powder is a green dewatering technology with great potential for anaerobic digested sludge dewatering and biogas slurry recycling. [Display omitted] • Compared with control, CS+RHP reduced SRF and NCST of sludge by 82.9% and 97.7%. • Compared with PFS, PAC, and CPAM, CS is better for plant growth promotion. • Compared with control, dry weight of corn seedling in CS+RHP increased by 59.3%. • Compared with control, total chlorophyll of seedling in CS+RHP increased by 84.6%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nervous system is one of the most complex biological systems, and nervous system disease (NSD) is a major cause of disability and mortality. Extensive evidence indicates that numerous dysregulated microRNAs (miRNAs) are involved in a broad spectrum of NSDs. A comprehensive review of miRNA-mediated regulatory will facilitate our understanding of miRNA dysregulation mechanisms in NSDs. In this work, we summarized currently available databases on miRNAs and NSDs, star NSD miRNAs, NSD spectrum width, miRNA spectrum width and the distribution of miRNAs in NSD sub-categories by reviewing approximately 1000 studies. In addition, we characterized miRNA–miRNA and NSD–NSD interactions from a network perspective based on miRNA–NSD benchmarking data sets. Furthermore, we summarized the regulatory principles of miRNAs in NSDs, including miRNA synergistic regulation in NSDs, miRNA modules and NSD modules. We also discussed computational challenges for identifying novel miRNAs in NSDs. Elucidating the roles of miRNAs in NSDs from a network perspective would not only improve our understanding of the precise mechanism underlying these complex diseases, but also provide novel insight into the development, diagnosis and treatment of NSDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The status of axillary lymph nodes (ALNs) is one of the important factors in decision‐making for breast cancer treatment. Physical examination (PE) has long been the main, or even the only, means of clinical staging for ALNs in breast cancer. However, the sensitivity and accuracy of PE remains unsatisfactory. The results from this study suggest that axillary ultrasonography (US) should replace PE as a standard method for the clinical staging of ALNs in breast cancer. Methods: Consecutive and nonselective breast cancer patients treated between September 2018 and November 2018 in our center were enrolled in the study. Comparisons of ALN results between PE/US and pathological results were conducted and the difference in sensitivity, specificity and accuracy between PE and US were tested by McNemar chi‐square test. Results: A total of 123 patients were enrolled into the study. Their ages ranged from 28 to 76 years with a median age of 53 ± 10. There were 83 ALN positive cases and 40 ALN negative cases confirmed pathologically. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of PE and US were 54.2%, 90.0%, 65.9%, 91.8%, 48.7% versus 86.8%, 72.5%, 82.1%, 86.8%, 72.5%, respectively. The sensitivity and accuracy of US was significantly higher than that of PE (P = 0.004 and P = 0.002). Conclusion: The results of this study demonstrated that US is superior in evaluating ALNs when compared with PE and that US should replace PE as the standard method for the clinical staging of ALNs in breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The prevalence and clinical relevance of TP53 and PIK3CA mutations in pretreatment breast cancer have been previously reported. However, little is known regarding these mutations in residual tumor tissues after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Here, we investigated the association between TP53 and PIK3CA mutations in residual disease and survival of breast cancers. Methods: TP53 and PIK3CA somatic mutations were examined in 353 post-neoadjuvant chemotherapy residual tumor tissues by Sanger sequencing. Survival curves of patients with TP53 and PIK3CA mutations were compared using the Kaplan–Meier method. Results: Fifty-six (15.9%) of the 353 patients carried a TP53 somatic mutation and 79 patients (22.4%) carried a PIK3CA somatic mutation. A total of 18 patients carried co-mutation of TP53 and PIK3CA. Patients with somatic co-mutation were more likely to have high-grade tumors (35.3% vs. 10.6%, P = 0.010), estrogen receptor-negative tumors (55.6% vs. 26.7%, P = 0.009), progesterone receptor-negative tumors (61.1% vs. 30.5%, P = 0.008) and triple-negative tumors (35.3% vs. 13.3%, P = 0.025) compared with non-carriers. More importantly, co-mutation of TP53 and PIK3CA carriers had a significantly worse disease-free survival (DFS) and distant disease-free survival (DDFS) than non-carriers (5-year DFS: 58.0% vs. 83.2%, P < 0.001; 5-year DDFS: 70.3% vs. 86.4%, P = 0.024). Furthermore, in multivariate regression analysis, TP53 and PIK3CA co-mutation carriers showed a significantly worse DFS (adjusted hazard ratio = 3.70; 95% confidence interval, 1.79–7.63; P < 0.001). Conclusions: Patients with somatic co-mutation of TP53 and PIK3CA were associated with unfavorable survival compared with non-carriers. Co-mutation of TP53 and PIK3CA could be used as a potential prognosis marker in post-neoadjuvant chemotherapy breast cancer patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significant roles of microRNAs (miRNAs) in the pathogenesis of myasthenia gravis (MG) have been observed in numerous previous studies. The impact of miRNA clusters on immunity has been demonstrated in previous years; however, the regulation of miRNA clusters in MG remains to be elucidated. In the present study, 245 MG risk genes were collected and 99 MG risk pathways enriched by these genes were identified. A catalog of 126 MG risk miRNAs was then created; the MG risk miRNAs were located on each chromosome and a miRNA cluster was defined as a number of miRNAs with a relative distance of <6 kb on the same sub-band, same band, same region and same chromosome. Furthermore, enrichment analyses were performed using the target genes of the MG risk miRNA clusters, and a number of risk pathways of each miRNA clusters were identified. As a result, 15 significant miRNA clusters associated with MG were identified. Additionally, the most significant pathways of the miRNA clusters were identified to be enriched on chromosomes 9, 19 and 22, characterized by immunity, infection and carcinoma, suggesting that the mechanism of MG may be associated with certain abnormalities of miRNA clusters on chromosomes 9, 19 and 22. The present study provides novel insight into a global pathway view of miRNA clusters in the pathogenesis of MG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Digestate from biogas plants managing municipal solid waste needs to be stabilized prior to final utilization or disposal. Based on the concept of urban mining, aged refuse from a closed landfill was used to treat landfill leachate, but nitrogen removal by biological denitrification was limited. The aim of this study was to use a digestate layer in bioreactors containing aged refuse to enhance the biological denitrification capacity of the aged refuse, stabilize digestate, and mitigate the ammonia emissions from digestate leaching with leachate recirculation. Six identical landfill columns filled with 0% (R0), 5% (R5), and 15% (R15) of solid digestate above aged refuse (ratios based on Total Solids) were setup and nitrified leachate was periodically fed and recirculated to the columns. The nitrate removal rate in R5 and R15 was 3.4 and 10 times higher relative to the control (no digestate added). A 31.5–35.9% increase of solid digestate biostability was confirmed by tests performed under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. The results showed that instead of land use, the solid fraction of digestate could be utilized as an inexpensive functional layer embedded in an old landfill site to enhance the denitrification capacity and achieve digestate stabilization with minimal ammonia leaching from digestate. Graphical abstract A combined approach to manage digestate and landfill leachate treatment. Image 1 Highlights • Bioreactors packed with aged refuse and digestate were used to treat landfill leachate. • Digestate addition enhanced the denitrification capacity of aged landfill waste tenfold. • The aged refuse mitigated the amount of ammonia leaching from the solid digestate by 67.2%–84.8%. • N removal of old landfill leachate was jointly gained with digestate stabilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PURPOSE: To investigate the association between the HER2 germline mutation Ala270Ser (A270S), located in HER2 extracellular domain, and survival in breast cancer patients. METHODS: HER2 germline mutation A270S was identified in 5395 consecutive patients with operable primary breast cancer using direct Sanger sequencing analysis. Survival curves for patients with HER2 A270S mutation were compared using the Kaplan-Meier method with log-rank test. RESULTS: We identified that 31 cases carried HER2 germline mutation A270S in 5395 patients (0.6%, 31/5395). The HER2 A270S mutation was significantly associated with recurrence-free survival (RFS) and distant recurrence-free survival (DRFS) in the entire cohort of 5395 patients (RFS, unadjusted hazard ratio [HR] = 2.23; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.00–5.00; P = 0.045; DRFS, unadjusted HR = 2.80; 95% CI = 1.25–6.28; P = 0.009). Among the HER2-negative patients (n = 3825), those with the HER2 A270S mutation had a significantly worse RFS (unadjusted HR = 3.19; 95% CI = 1.42–7.16; P = 0.003) and DRFS (unadjusted HR = 3.98; 95% CI = 1.77–8.96; P < 0.001) than did those with wild type. Moreover, the A270S mutation remained an independent unfavorable factor for RFS and DRFS in the HER2-negative patients (RFS, HR = 3.30; 95% CI = 1.34–8.10; P = 0.009; DRFS, HR = 4.26; 95% CI = 1.73–10.47; P = 0.002). CONCLUSIONS: Breast cancer patients with the HER2 germline mutation A270S had a worse survival, especially in HER2-negative patients. Therefore, HER2-negative patients with a HER2 germline mutation A270S might be potential candidates for HER2-targeted therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Knowledge of the pathology of axillary lymph nodes (ALN) in breast cancer patients is critical for determining their treatment. Ultrasound is the best noninvasive evaluation for the ALN status. However, the correlation between negative ultrasound results and the sentinel lymph nodes (SLN) pathology remains unknown. To test the hypothesis that negative ultrasound results of ALN predict the negative pathology results of SLN in breast cancer patients, we assessed the association between ALN ultrasonography‐negative results and the SLN pathology in 3115 patients with breast cancer recruited between October 2010 and April 2016 from a single cancer center, prospective database. Of these patients who met the inclusion criteria, 2317 (74.4%) had no SLN pathological metastasis. In the univariate analysis, other 798 patient with positive SLN tended to be under age 40 and premenopausal, having large tumor sizes (>2 cm), higher histological grade of primary tumor, positive hormone receptors, and negative HER‐2 status (P < .05 for all). In the multivariate analysis, menstrual status, tumor size, ER status and histological types of primary tumor remained to be independent predictors for SLN pathological metastasis. The area under curve (AUC) was 0.658 (95% CI = 0.637‐0.679), P > .05. In conclusion, only a 74.4% consistency between ALN ultrasonography‐negative results and negative pathological SLN results, although menstrual status, tumor size, histologic subtypes of primary tumor and ER status were found to be statistically independent predictors of positive SLN among patients negative for ALN ultrasonography. Therefore, the present study suggests that negative ultrasound results of ALN do not adequately predict the negative pathology results of SLN in breast cancer patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: RECQL is a number of the RecQ DNA helicase family and plays an important role in maintaining genome stability. Although several studies have reported that RECQL mutations were correlated with the susceptibility to breast cancer, the effect on prognosis in breast cancer was not yet clarified. Here, we explored the association between RECQL expression level and survival in patients with breast cancer.Methods: In the first cohort, the RECQL mRNA expression level was evaluated in 774 primary breast cancer patients using a quantitative real-time PCR assay. Then, in the second independent cohort, the level of RECQL protein expression was detected in 322 patients with breast cancer using immunohistochemistry assay. Survival curves of patients with RECQL expression were compared using the Kaplan-Meier method with log-rank test.Results: In the first cohort of 774 breast cancer patients, the low expression level of RECQL mRNA was significantly correlated with aggressive clinicopathological characteristics, including the positive lymph node status (P = 0.026), HER2 overexpression (P < 0.001), ER negative status (P = 0.047) and high tumor grade (P = 0.041). Moreover, the low expression level of RECQL mRNA was significantly associated with poor distant recurrence-free survival (DRFS, unadjusted hazard ratio (HR): 2.77, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.88-4.09, P < 0.001) and disease-specific survival (DSS, unadjusted HR: 3.10, 95% CI: 1.84-5.20,P < 0.001), and it remained an independent unfavorable factor for DRFS and DSS (DRFS: adjusted HR: 3.04, 95% CI: 1.89-4.87, P < 0.001; DSS: adjusted HR: 4.25, 95% CI: 2.12-8.46, P < 0.001). In the second cohort of 322 breast cancer patients, low expression of RECQL protein was also subject to poor survival in breast cancer, and it was an independent prognosis factor of poor DRFS by multivariate analysis (DRFS: adjusted HR: 2.12, 95% CI: 1.16-3.88, P = 0.015).Conclusions: Breast cancer patients with low RECQL expression had a worse survival. The expression level of RECQL may be a potential prognosis factor for breast cancer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oldhamianoside II is a novel triterpenoidsaponin that can be isolated from the roots of Gypsophila oldhamiana. In vitro and in vivo experiments have revealed that it inhibits tumor growth and metastasis in various types of tumor; however, the exact mechanism remains to be fully elucidated. In the present study, oldhamianoside II treatment in prostate cancer cells exerted substantial anticancer activity, including decreased cell proliferation and invasion. Mechanistically, oldhamianoside II was found to reverse the epithelial‑mesenchymal transition (EMT), as demonstrated by its induction of E‑cadherin and suppression of vimentin and N‑cadherin at the mRNA and protein levels. Furthermore, oldhamianoside II treatment upregulated Wnt antagonist expression and promoted the proteasome‑mediated degradation of β‑catenin to inhibit the activity of β‑catenin signaling. In summary, the present study revealed that oldhamianoside II exerts its antitumor effects via the regulation of EMT and β‑catenin function, and further supports its potential for use in clinical treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The non-ionic water-soluble X-ray contrast agent iomeprol (IOM) enters the water supply through sewage treatment plants, which can cause considerable environmental harm. In this study,Pseudomonassp. I-24 (I-24) was tested for its ability to remove IOM from water via co-metabolic pathways. The optimum removal rate of IOM by I-24 was 38.43% ± 3.70% when starch served as the source of external carbon, and its co-metabolism of IOM conformed to the first-order kinetics. The highest activity of intracellular enzyme (degrading enzyme) extracted from I-24 was 0.143 ± 0.005 mU in starch condition. The Michaelis constant of the degrading enzyme was found to be 91.08 μmol L−1. However, glucose and maltose showed the best promotive effects on the growth and electron transport activity of I-24, indicating that overgrowth may result in competitive inhibition and a reduced degradation rate of IOM. Adding I-24 and degrading enzymes to biological aerated filters increased IOM removal rates without affecting CODMnremoval. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background The prevalence of BRCA1 somatic mutations status in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) has not been well documented. The aims of this study were to determine the frequency of BRCA1 somatic mutations and to investigate the association between BRCA1 deleterious somatic mutation status and response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in women with TNBC. Methods Two hundred and five TNBC patients without BRCA1 germline mutations were enrolled in this study. Fresh tumor tissues were available for this cohort of 205 patients, including 112 patients with fresh core needle biopsy tumor tissues before treatment and 93 patients with fresh tumor tissues procured after surgery. BRCA1 somatic mutations were determined in the tumor samples using PCR-direct sequencing assay. Among the 112 patients with core needle biopsy samples, 97 patients received neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Results Eight patients (3.9%) carried a BRCA1 pathogenic somatic mutation in this cohort of 205 TNBC patients. These eight BRCA1 deleterious somatic mutations included five frameshift or nonsense mutations (c.191_212del22, c.1664delA, c.4674_4675 + 17del, c.3671_3672insTTCC, c.1162A > T), one splicing site mutation (c.134 + 2T > G) and two missense mutations (c.5511G > C and c.286G > A). No significant differences in tumor characteristics between BRCA1 deleterious somatic mutation carriers and non-carriers were observed. The pCR (pathologic complete response) rate was 32.0% in the 97 patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy. BRCA1 deleterious somatic mutation carriers (n = 5) had a higher pCR rate than did non-carriers (n = 92) ( BRCA1 carriers vs non-carriers, 60.0% vs 30.4%, P = 0.32), although it did not reach a significance due to a small sample size. Conclusions A small subset of TNBC patients carried a BRCA1 deleterious somatic mutation; BRCA1 somatic mutation carriers are likely to respond to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The genetic cause for approximately 80% of familial breast cancer patients is unknown. Here, by sequencing the entire exomes of nine early-onset familial breast cancer patients without BRCA1/2 mutations (diagnosed with breast cancer at or before the age of 35) we found that two index cases carried a potentially deleterious mutation in the RECQL gene (RecQ helicase-like; chr12p12). Recent studies suggested that RECQL is involved in DNA double-strand break repair and it plays an important role in the maintenance of genomic stability. Therefore, we further screened the RECQL gene in an additional 439 unrelated familial breast cancer patients. In total, we found three nonsense mutations leading to a truncated protein of RECQL (p.L128X, p.W172X, and p.Q266X), one mutation affecting mRNA splicing (c.395-2A>G), and five missense mutations disrupting the helicase activity of RECQL (p.A195S, p.R215Q, p.R455C, p.M458K, and p.T562I), as evaluated through an in vitro helicase assay. Taken together, 9 out of 448 BRCA-negative familial breast cancer patients carried a pathogenic mutation of the RECQL gene compared with one of the 1,588 controls (P = 9.14×10-6). Our findings suggest that RECQL is a potential breast cancer susceptibility gene and that mutations in this gene contribute to familial breast cancer development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To retrospectively investigate the incidence of severe neutropenia and elevation of transaminase during neoadjuvant chemotherapy using epirubicin, cyclophosphamide and fluorouracil in breast cancer patients. Methods From January 2011 to December 2012, 303 consecutive breast cancer patients with complete treatment data treated in our department were included in this analysis. All patients received neoadjuvant chemotherapy with equal dose of EPI (100 mg/m2 ) administered every 3 weeks for 4 cycles before surgery. Results 200 patients (66. 0% ) experienced at least one episode of grade ¾ neutropenia/leukopenia, among them 176 patients experienced their first episode after the first cycle. Febrile neutropenia (FN) occurred in 13 patients for 14 episodes. Elevation of transaminase occurred in a total of 46 patients ( 15. 2%), among them, grade 2 or higher elevation occurred in 15 patients (5.0%). Three blood test plans were adopted to monitor the patients during chemotherapy;( 1 ) Routine blood count repeated every week; (2) Routine blood count belore and on day 10 of each chemotherapy episode; (3) Routine blood count before and on day 7, 10 and 14 of each chemotherapy episode. The number of patients whose chemotherapy was delayed due to ¾ neutropenia/leucopenia in each blood lest plan was 3 (5.0% ), 7 (3. 9% ) and 2 (3. 2%), respectively. The number of palienls with febrile neutropenia ( FIN ) in each blood test plan was 2 (3. 3% ) , 8 (4. 4% ) and 3 (4. 8% ) , respectively. No statistically significant difference in treatment delay or the incidence of FN was observed among different blood lest plans. No statistically significant difference in the incidence of grade ¾ neutropenia/leukopenia or grade 2 or higher transaminase elevation was observed among different 5-Fu regimens. Conclusions During neoadjuvant chemotherapy using FE100C, Fci E100 C or E100 C for breast cancer patients without routine prophylactic G-CSF, the incidence of grade ¾neutropenia/leukopenia is 66.0%. With the patient management plan we adopted, 4.3% of patients developed febrile neutropenia. Prophylactic medication may not be necessary for patients without evident liver dysfunction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Co-digestion improved methane yield 31.3%-68.0% at thermophilic temperature. • Co-digestion improved methane yield 83.0%-136.5% at mesophilic temperature. • The highest methane yield of anaerobic co-digestion obtained at P/S = 2:1. • NCST and TS of sediment increased with increasing initial TS of substrate. • NCST has a strong negative correlation with the water removal efficiency. The objective of this study is to assess the effects of the mixing ratio on the methane production and digestate dewaterability of co-digestion of pig manure (P) and sludge (S). Batch experiments were carried out at five different P/S mixing ratios at mesophilic and thermophilic temperatures. Compared to sludge anaerobic digestion, co-digestion of pig manure with sludge increased methane yield 83.0%-136.5% at mesophilic temperature and 31.3%-68.0% at thermophilic temperature. The normalized capillary suction time (NCST) and total solids (TS) of sediment (centrifugal dewatering) increased when pig manure proportion of substrate increased. The NCST at thermophilic temperatures (4.87–17.58 s g−1-TSS) was higher than that at mesophilic temperatures (1.89–10.95 s g−1-TSS). However, the TS of sediment was close at thermophilic and mesophilic temperatures. The results indicated that anaerobic co-digestion of pig manure and sludge at a proper mixing ratio (P/S = 2:1) provides a good choice for energy recovery and land utilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A relatively little is known of whether CYP2D6 *10 (188 C to T) polymorphism mediates susceptibility to breast cancer. In this study the CYP2D6 *10 polymorphism was detected in Chinese women (286 breast cancer patients and 305 healthy women) by a PCR-RFLP assay. We found that women with the 188T/T genotype displayed a slightly increased risk for breast cancer as compared with those with the 188C/C genotype (OR 1.36, CI 0.89–2.1), the association of the 188T/T genotype with breast cancer risk was more pronounced among postmenopausal women (OR 1.49, CI 0.8–2.76), but the association did not reach statistical significance. Furthermore, we found that patients carrying the 188T/T or T/C genotype were more likely to be a positive lymph node status than those with the 188C/C genotype (OR 2.12, CI 1.08–4.18, P = 0.019). Our results suggest that CYP2D6 *10 mutant 188T/T genotype displays a non-significant increased risk for breast cancer. Moreover, patients carrying 188T/T or T/C genotype might exhibit a more aggressive phenotype than those carrying 188C/C genotype, as the observation association of genotype with clinical outcome may be due to chance, therefore, further studies are required to confirm our present findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Myasthenia gravis (MG) is an autoimmune diseases characterized by fatigue and weakness of skeletal muscles. B-lymphocyte-activating factor (BAFF), an essential factor for B cell differentiation and development, is important in the progression of MG. The current study aimed to investigate the association between single nucleotide polymorphism rs2893321 in BAFF with MG susceptibility in Chinese Han population. Methods: One hundred forty-nine patients with MG and 148 healthy controls were recruited. Using improved multiple ligase detection reaction technology, the polymorphisms of rs2893321 between groups and among MG subgroups have been compared. Results: A significant differences between the MG group and the healthy control group was observed. Additionally, rs2893321 was found to be associated with gender and age in patients with MG. Conclusion: Genetic variations of rs2893321 in BAFF might be associated with susceptibility to MG in the Chinese Han population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]