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Background & Aims: The functional maturation of the liver largely occurs after birth. In the early stages of life, the liver of a newborn encounters enormous high-fat metabolic stress caused by the consumption of breast milk. It is unclear how the maturing liver adapts to high lipid metabolism. Liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSECs) play a fundamental role in establishing liver vasculature and are decorated with many glycoproteins on their surface. The Slc35a1 gene encodes a cytidine-5'-monophosphate (CMP)-sialic acid transporter responsible for transporting CMP-sialic acids between the cytoplasm and the Golgi apparatus for protein sialylation. This study aimed to determine whether endothelial sialylation plays a role in hepatic vasculogenesis and functional maturation. Methods: Endothelial-specific Slc35a1 knockout mice were generated. Liver tissues were collected for histologic analysis, lipidomic profiling, RNA sequencing, confocal immunofluorescence, and immunoblot analyses. Results: Endothelial Slc35a1-deficient mice exhibited excessive neonatal hepatic lipid deposition, severe liver damage, and high mortality. Endothelial deletion of Slc35a1 led to sinusoidal capillarization and disrupted hepatic zonation. Mechanistically, vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) in LSECs was desialylated and VEGFR2 signaling was enhanced in Slc35a1-deficient mice. Inhibition of VEGFR2 signaling by SU5416 alleviated lipid deposition and restored hepatic vasculature in Slc35a1-deficient mice. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that sialylation of LSECs is critical for maintaining hepatic vascular development and lipid homeostasis. Targeting VEGFR2 signaling may be a new strategy to prevent liver disorders associated with abnormal vasculature and lipid deposition.

IntroductionGelsemium elegans (G. elegans) as a traditional medicinal plant used in livestock production. The use of G. elegans in veterinary clinics may pose safety risks to human health.ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to investigate tissue residue depletion in pigs fed G. elegans powder.MethodsA precise quantitation method and a simultaneous semi-quantitation method for multiple components independently of standards in pig tissues were developed for the first time. The two methods were validated in terms of specificity, LODs, LOQs, linearity, accuracy, precision, and matrix effects. They were then applied to a tissue residue depletion study after G. elegans powder at a dose of 2% per kg feed were fed to pigs.ResultsCompared with precise quantitation, the method validation results indicated that the semi-quantitation method was reliable and acceptable for multicomponent quantification independent of standards. Many G. elegans alkaloids are widely distributed in most tissues of pigs. Tissue residue depletion studies indicated that 14-hydroxygelsenicine, 11-hydroxygelsenicine, and gelsemoxonine could be used as potential residue markers, and pancreas, small intestine, and lung tissues could be considered as potential residue target tissues of G. elegans. In addition, both urine and plasma could be used to predict 14-hydroxygelsenicine and gelsemoxonine residues in the liver, pancreas, and small intestinal tissues of pigs.ConclusionThe developed semi-quantification method can be applied to monitor the application and residue of G. elegans. The results provide scientific evidence for evaluating the safety of animal-derived food from G. elegans for consumers and will be helpful for its application and future development.

The assessment and diagnosis of agricultural drought vulnerability is the basis for the scientific control and prevention of agricultural drought risk. In order to quantitatively evaluate the regional agricultural drought vulnerability and effectively deal with the fuzziness and randomness between evaluation sample and evaluation grade, the entropy fuzzy pattern recognition model, which was coupled with maximum information entropy principle and fuzzy pattern recognition method, was applied to the evaluation of agricultural drought vulnerability. Furthermore, in order to find methods to reduce drought vulnerability, the subtraction set pair potential method was used to further identify the main influence factors of agricultural drought vulnerability. In addition, a case study was carried out in Bengbu City, China. The results showed that during the period from 2001 to 2010, the evaluation value of agricultural drought vulnerability in Bengbu dropped from grade IV to III, which meant that the tolerance of agricultural system to drought had been improved. Moreover, the main factors that affected the vulnerability in Bengbu were precipitation, water use efficiency and irrigation protection area rate. And the latter two were the main objects of regulation and control. Compared with the other three methods, the physical concept of drought vulnerability assessment model based on entropy fuzzy pattern recognition is more obvious, and the evaluation results are reasonable and credible. The drought vulnerability diagnosis method based on subtraction set pair potential can accurately identify key influence factor and provide measures to reduce drought vulnerability and improve drought risk management.

Abstract Passive radar (PR) systems need to detect the presence of a target response, which is many orders of magnitude weaker than the clutter (direct signal and multipath). Indeed, the clutter cancellation is a key stage within a PR processing scheme. One of the most effective techniques in this field is using the CLEAN approach. In this paper, the batch-based CLEAN technique based on GMP and FFT has been proposed, which can speed up the computational processing and have better cancellation gain. Furthermore, segmenting operation can be applied to the signal obtained over long time. It is helpful to enhance temporal or spatial efficiency and overcome effect of time-varying clutter. Experiment results with simulated and real passive radar data verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Construction of an integrated drought index is a fundamental task to conducting drought disaster risk management and developing drought resistance planning strategies. Given the evident non-consistent features during the drought evolution process, firstly, the GAMLSS approach was utilized to construct multiple combination scenarios of time-variant parameters and corresponding probability distribution functions. Then, the time-variant comprehensive drought index integrating the variable characteristics of precipitation and soil moisture was established by means of the copula function. Finally, the reliability of the time-variant comprehensive drought index was verified through its application in frequency analysis and return period determination of drought hazard system in Huaibei Plain, China. The application results demonstrated that: (1) The variation of the time-variant integrated drought indicator presented strong consistency with both soil moisture and precipitation during historical years in Huaibei Plain. (2) The overall variation of the drought hazard system characterized by drought duration and severity presented a gradual mitigation trend from west to east and north to south in Huaibei Plain, which agrees with the geographic differences and water resources availability distribution features. (3) Drought recognition results, including the frequency of drought events and typical drought processes with extreme grades, are in agreement with the practical statistics and observed data series. On the whole, the proposed time-variant integrated drought indicator is capable of extracting complex variation characteristics within the drought hazard evolution process, and can be further applied in drought monitoring, recognition and assessment research fields.

Currently, the implementation of water resource spatial equilibrium strategy is a fundamental policy of water resource integrated management in China; it is also a considerable challenge to explore the relationship structure features of water resources, society, economy and ecological environment (WSEE) complex system. For this purpose, firstly, we applied information entropy, ordered degree and connection number coupling method to reveal the membership characteristics between different evaluation indicators and grade criterion. Secondly, the system dynamics approach was introduced to describe the relationship features among different equilibrium subsystems. Finally, the ordered degree, connection number, information entropy and system dynamics integrated model was established to conduct relationship structure simulation and evolution trend evaluation of the WSEE system. The application results in Hefei city, Anhui Province, China, demonstrated that: (1) the variation of overall equilibrium conditions of WSEE system in Hefei city, 2020–2029 was higher compared to that of 2010–2019, though the increasing rate of ordered degree and connection number entropy (ODCNE) became slower after 2019; and (2) the annual ODCNE value from 2020 to 2029 of WSEE system under dry year scenarios increased about 0.0812, which indicated that the construction of Yangtze-Huaihe Diversion (YHD) project could play significant positive role in mitigating the equilibrium situation of WSEE system in Hefei city in the future. On the whole, this study is capable of providing the guidance basis for constructing a theoretical framework of structure simulation and equilibrium evaluation analysis of WSEE complex system.

For the development of nanotechnology, nanomaterials are in an important position. Due to their special structure and a series of unique properties, nano-metal oxide materials are widely used in nanoelectronics, catalysis, environmental monitoring, electrochemical sensors, and many other fields. Rice, as the most important food crop in the world, has a wide range of planting areas. Therefore, in this paper, the research on the construction of rice transgenic vectors is based on nano-metal oxide materials. In this paper, particle swarm optimization is used to optimize the weights of rice-growing convolutional neural networks. Secondly, it used rice as the test plant to study the effects of seven metal oxide nanomaterials on rice seed germination and root elongation. This sheds light on the toxic effects of metal oxide nanomaterials on rice growth and discusses the factors that affect the phytotoxicity of nanomaterials. The experimental results show that before optimization, the accuracy of the small batch sample test is 87.0456%, the accuracy of the large batch sample test is 93.5876%, and the accuracy of the test is increased by 6.542%. After optimization, the accuracy of the small batch sample test is 93.5876%, the accuracy of the large batch sample test is 99.0133%, and the accuracy of the test is increased by 5.4466%. The inhibition rates of nano-CuO and ZnO on rice root length were 97.28% and 66.75%.

A dielectric resonator-based sensor for temperature measurement is demonstrated. A dielectric resonator is used as the key sensing element to transform the temperature signals to electromagnetic signals. The dielectric resonator can produce strong localized electromagnetic field at resonance. Both the numerical and experimental results demonstrated the sensor can measure temperature with a high sensitivity. As the temperature increases from 26.7 to 141.6 °C, the change of the resonance frequency is 672 MHz, showing a temperature sensitivity of 5.91 MHz/°C. In addition, due to the strong resonance and temperature-sensitive performance of the dielectric resonator, the temperature sensor has a simple structure, which is conductive to the integration of temperature sensors.

Objective: Metabolic and other medical conditions are frequently comorbid with schizophrenia. As they might be the side-effects of antipsychotic treatment, studying first-episode drug-naïve schizophrenia (FDSZ) provides a unique opportunity to investigate a direct pathogenic link between metabolic changes and schizophrenia. Here, we presented the methods and baseline unique metabolic profile of FDSZ patients without medical comorbidities unveiling subthreshold indices of metabolic disturbances.Method: Drug-naïve individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia but without any previous medical conditions were invited to participate in the study. Participants were submitted to structured psychiatric and cognitive assessments, laboratory and neuroimaging tests. Subjects will be followed after antipsychotic treatment at 6, 24 and 48 weeks.Results: During an 8-month-period, out of 103 patients presenting with first episode psychosis, 67 subjects (43.3% men, 56.7% women) were enrolled in the study. They had a mean ± SD age of 32.1 ± 8.7 years, with a mean BMI of 21.1 kg/m2 and 11.3 ± 3.6 years of schooling. Less than 1/3 reported a family history of mental illness. Upon laboratory assessment, 10.4%, 7.5%, and 11.9% of patients were identified with hyperhomocysteinemia, hypertriglyceridemia and hyperprolactinemia, respectively, with percentages of women relatively higher than men except for hypertriglyceridemia.Conclusions: First episode schizophrenia patients, especially women, present subclinical metabolic abnormalities, independent of antipsychotic treatment.

Mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) is an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s B-cell lymphoma with poor prognosis. Despite recent advances, resistance to therapy and relapse remain significant clinical problems. G-protein-coupled estrogen receptor (GPER)-mediated estrogenic rapid signaling is implicated in the development of many cancers. However, its role in MCL is unknown. Here we report that GPER activation with selective agonist G-1 induced cell cycle arrest, DNA damage, mitochondria membrane potential abnormality, and eventually apoptosis of MCL cell lines. We found that G-1 induced DNA damage and apoptosis of MCL cells by promoting the expression of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase and the generation of reactive oxygen species. In addition, G-1 inhibited MCL cell proliferation by inactivation of NF-κB signaling and exhibited anti-tumor functions in MCL xenografted mice. Most significantly, G-1 showed synergistic effect with ibrutinib making it a potential candidate for chemotherapy-free therapies against MCL.

To promote the application of entropy concepts in uncertainty analysis of water resources complex system, a quantitative evaluation and obstacle factor diagnosis model of agricultural drought disaster risk was proposed using connection number and information entropy. The results applied to Suzhou City showed that the agricultural drought disaster risks in Suzhou during 2007–2017 were all in middle-risk status, while it presented a decreasing trend from 2010. The information entropy values of the difference degree item bI were markedly lower than those of the difference degree b, indicating that bI provided more information in the evaluation process. Furthermore, the status of drought damage sensitivity and drought hazard were improved significantly. Nevertheless, high exposure to drought and weak drought resistance capacity seriously impeded the reduction of risk. Thus, the key to decreasing risk was to maintain the level of damage sensitivity, while the difficulties were to reduce exposure and enhance resistance. In addition, the percentage of the agricultural population, population density, and percentage of effective irrigation area were the main obstacle factors of risk and also the key points of risk control in Suzhou. In short, the results suggest that the evaluation and diagnosis method is effective and conducive to regional drought disaster risk management.

This study explored the relationships between subjective family socioeconomic status (FSES), self-esteem, perceived stress, and perceived peer relationships among Chinese adolescents. A total of 1,353 adolescents (age range: 15–19 years) were asked to complete a questionnaire. Mediation analysis revealed that subjective FSES influenced perceived peer relationships in three ways: first, through the mediating effect of perceived stress; second, through the mediating effect of self-esteem; and third, through the serial mediating effects of perceived stress and self-esteem. The results remained significant after controlling for parental education. In addition, a contrast analysis showed no significant differences in the mediating effects of self-esteem and perceived stress. Thus, we suggest that steps should be taken to improve adolescents' self-esteem and reduce their stress through training interventions and preventive measures, to help them improve their perceived peer relationships and reduce adverse effects associated with low subjective FSES.

The genus Rhopalovalva Kuznetzov, 1964 belongs to Eucosmini within the famlily Tortricidae with larvae feeding on the plants of Fagaceae, Leguminosae, Convolvulaceae and Aceraceae. In this paper, Rhopalovalva is revised from China, with two species (Rhopalovalvaspinata sp. nov. and Rhopalovalva stilliformis sp. nov.) described as new to science. Photographs of the adults and male genitalia of these two new species are given. A key to Chinese species of Rhopalovalva Kuznetzov is provided based on the characters of the male genitalia.

Sialic acid is a common terminal residue of glycans on proteins and acidic sphingolipids such as gangliosides with important biological functions. The sialylation process is controlled by more than 20 different sialyltransferases, many of which exhibit overlapping functions. Thus, it is difficult to determine the overall biological function of sialylation by targeted deletion of individual sialyltransferase. To address this question, we established a mouse line with the Slc35a1 gene flanked by loxP sites. Slc35a1 encodes the CMP-sialic acid transporter that transports CMP-sialic acid from cytoplasm into the Golgi apparatus for sialylation. Here we report our study regarding the role of sialylation on megakaryocytes and platelets using a mouse line with significantly reduced sialylation in megakaryocytes and platelets (Plt Slc35a1-/-). The major phenotype of Plt Slc35a1-/- mice was thrombocytopenia. The number of bone marrow megakaryocytes in Plt Slc35a1-/- mice was reduced, and megakaryocyte maturation was also impaired. In addition, an increased number of desialylated platelets was cleared by Kupffer cells in the liver of Plt Slc35a1-/- mice. This study provides new insights into the role of sialylation in platelet homeostasis and the mechanisms of thrombocytopenia in diseases associated with platelet desialylation, such as immune thrombocytopenic purpura and a rare congenital disorder of glycosylation (CDG), SLC35A1-CDG, which is caused by SLC35A1 mutations.

Gray platelet syndrome (GPS) is a rare, inherited bleeding disorder characterized by the defect of platelet α-granule. Up to date, these are only four studies identifying NBEAL2 gene correlated with GPS. In the current report, we present a Chinese GPS patient who had severe bleeding tendency, abnormalities of platelet functions, and absence of platelet α-granules. Genomic DNA sequencing for the patient identified a nonsense mutation (g.27713C>A) of NBEAL2 gene (g.NG__031914.1) resulting in a premature protein (p.Glu1726*). In comparison with the reported patients, we conclude that homozygotes with nonsense or deletion mutation leading to a premature stop codon exhibit more serious bleeding problem than those with missense mutations.

Hydrological variable frequency analysis is a fundamental task for water resource management and water conservancy project design. Given the deficiencies of higher distribution features for the upper tail section of hydrological variable frequency curves and the corresponding safer resulting design of water conservancy projects utilizing the empirical frequency formula and Pearson type III function-based curve fitting method, the normal cloud transform algorithm-based model for hydrological variable frequency analysis was proposed through estimation of the sample empirical frequency by the normal cloud transform algorithm, and determining the cumulative probability distribution curve by overlapping calculation of multiple conceptual cloud distribution patterns, which is also the primary innovation of the paper. Its application result in northern Anhui province, China indicated that the varying trend of the cumulative probability distribution curve of annual precipitation derived from the proposed approach was basically consistent with the result obtained through the traditional empirical frequency formula. Furthermore, the upper tail section of the annual precipitation frequency curve derived from the cloud transform algorithm varied below the calculation result utilizing the traditional empirical frequency formula, which indicated that the annual precipitation frequency calculation result utilizing the cloud transform algorithm was more optimal compared to the results obtained by the traditional empirical frequency formula. Therefore, the proposed cloud transform algorithm-based model was reliable and effective for hydrological variable frequency analysis, which can be further applied in the related research field of hydrological process analysis.

Passive radar (PR) systems are attractive for various military and commercial applications, where illuminators of opportunity are used. Using the fact that most target scenes are very sparsely populated makes it possible to apply compressive sensing (CS) for PR. CS provides higher resolution than that obtained by using traditional ambiguous function, but suffers from increasing coherence associated with the finer grids whether for monostatic radar or multistatic radar. A novel incoherent CS dictionary construction method is presented here to deal with the case of finer grids. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed CS-based processing scheme with incoherent dictionary can work well for high-resolution PRs.

The time-delay estimation (TDE) arises in many applications, especially in radar signal processing. In this study, different TDE techniques are considered based on well-known approaches such as classical matched filter, multiple signal classification, standard least squares (LS), regularisation LS, and compressive sensing for the radar signal. In order to understand the particular behaviour of each technique, comparisons by theoretical analysis and numerical simulations are made. Then some brief conclusions can be obtained from simulation results. Finally, associated with primary factors, future research is prospected on the TDE problem.

Drought is one of the most typical and serious natural disasters, which occurs frequently in most of mainland China, and it is crucial to explore the evolution characteristics of drought for developing effective schemes and strategies of drought disaster risk management. Based on the application of Cloud theory in the drought evolution research field, the cloud transformation algorithm, and the conception zooming coupling model was proposed to re-fit the distribution pattern of SPI instead of the Pearson-III distribution. Then the spatio-temporal evolution features of drought were further summarized utilizing the cloud characteristics, average, entropy, and hyper-entropy. Lastly, the application results in Northern Anhui province revealed that the drought condition was the most serious during the period from 1957 to 1970 with the SPI12 index in 49 months being less than −0.5 and 12 months with an extreme drought level. The overall drought intensity varied with the highest certainty level but lowest stability level in winter, but this was opposite in the summer. Moreover, drought hazard would be more significantly intensified along the elevation of latitude in Northern Anhui province. The overall drought hazard in Suzhou and Huaibei were the most serious, which is followed by Bozhou, Bengbu, and Fuyang. Drought intensity in Huainan was the lightest. The exploration results of drought evolution analysis were reasonable and reliable, which would supply an effective decision-making basis for establishing drought risk management strategies.

AIM: To research the neuroprotective effects of lomerizine(LOM)on retinal ganglion cells(RGCs)in the diet-induced obese C57BL/6J mice. METHODS: Fifty-four mice were randomly divided into two groups which were fed a high-fat diet for 19wk. One group mice were lavaged LOM by the dosage of 80mg/kg daily at the same time. The obese mice were selected and divided into diet-induced obesity(DIO)group, diet-induced obesity and lomerizine(DIO+LOM)group. The mice in the control(CON)group were fed a basal diet. The ultrastructural changes of RGCs were detected by transmission electron microscope. The cellular apoptosis was detected by TUNEL. The laser scanning confocal microscope was used to measure intracellular calcium ion concentration. RESULTS: Compared with the CON group, the RGCs in DIO group showed smaller and condensation of nuclear chromatin and increased electron density of the cytoplasm, whereas the changes in DIO+LOM mice were obviously diminished. TUNEL staining showed that the number of apoptosis cells in the ganglion cell layer(GCL)increased in DIO group and the percentage of apoptotic cells was much higher than that in the CON groups(PP2+ staining intensity of RGCs in DIO group increased and its staining intensity ratio was significantly higher than in CON group(P2+ staining intensity and its staining intensity ratio in DIO+LOM group were significantly decreased than the DIO group(PCONCLUSION: Lomerizine has neuroprotective effects on damage of retinal ganglion cells in diet-induced obesity mice, which may be related to the attenuation of intracellular Ca2+ overload.

Pregnancy toxemia is a metabolic disorder of lipid and glucose. Recent investigations have found that angiopoietin-like protein 3 (ANGPTL3) can contribute to disorder of carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. The present study was conducted to investigate the change of ANGPTL3 expression during pregnancy toxemia. We firstly cloned the full-length cDNA of ANGPTL3 in Liuyang Black goats, revealing that goat ANGPTL3 had the typical structure of the angiopoietin-like family, and its mRNA was exclusively expressed in liver. Pregnancy toxemia of pregnant goat does with twins during late gestation was induced by being fasted for 72 h, and then they were recovered after 5 d of refeeding. Hepatic ANGPTL3 gene expression was significantly down-regulated concomitantly with decreased serum glucose concentration, elevated serum β-hydroxybutyrate and free fatty acid levels in pregnant toxemic goats, and these changes were reversed after refeeding. These results suggest ANGPTL3 may play a certain role in the development of pregnancy toxemia in goats.

AIM: To investigate the mechanism of retinal ganglion cells(RGCs)apoptosis in the diet-induced obese C57BL/6 mice. METHODS: Mice were fed high-fat diet. After 19 weeks of feeding, the mice were divided into diet induced obesity-resistant(DIO-R)group and diet induced obesity(DIO)group, while mice of the control(CON)group were fed a basal diet at the same time. The apoptosis of RGCs was detected by TUNEL. Laser scanning confocal microscope was used to detect the intracellular calcium ion concentration. RESULTS: TUNEL staining showed apoptosis cells in ganglion cell layer(GCL)in DIO group increased and the percentage of apoptotic cells was(6.7±1.2)% which was much higher than in CON and DIO-R groups(PPP>0.05). Laser scanning confocal microscope detection showed Ca2+ staining intensity of RGCs in DIO group increased and its staining intensity was significantly higher than in CON and DIO-R mice(PPP>0.05). CONCLUSION: Intracellular calcium ion overload might be involved in the RGCs apoptosis in the diet-induced obese C57BL/6 mice.

We conducted this randomized trial to investigate the efficacy and safety of rapamycin treatment in adults with chronic immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). Eighty-eight patients were separated into the control (cyclosporine A plus prednisone) and experimental (rapamycin plus prednisone) groups. The CD4+CD25+CD127low regulatory T (Treg) cells level, Foxp3 mRNA expression, and the relevant cytokines levels were measured before and after treatment. The overall response (OR) was similar in both groups (experimental group versus control group: 58% versus 62%, P=0.70). However, sustained response (SR) was more pronounced in the experimental group than in the control group (68% versus 39%, P

Background Inherited deficiency of antithrombin, protein C and protein S, three important, naturally occurring coagulation inhibitors, might play a major role in the occurrence of venous thromboembolism in Chinese. The establishment of age- and gender-related normal ranges of these inhibitors is crucial for an accurate diagnosis of these deficiencies.Design and Methods We designed a prospective cross-sectional study recruiting healthy adults from four university–affiliated hospitals in China. Antithrombin, protein C and protein S were studied by measuring their activity. Gene analysis was performed when natural anticoagulant deficiency was suspected. Polymorphisms of the factor V gene were searched for among subjects who were positive for activated protein C resistance.Results In 3493 healthy Chinese adults (1734 men, 1759 women; age 17–83 years), we found higher age-adjusted activities for protein C and protein S in men than in women but no sex difference for antithrombin. In women, mean protein C and protein S activities increased with age. In men, mean protein C levels increased with age up to the age of 49 but decreased after 50 years old; mean protein S levels decreased after 50 years of age. Antithrombin levels remained stable over time in women but decreased significantly after 50 years of age in men. Reference values according to age and sex allowed the identification of 15 genetic variants (protein C: 10, antithrombin: 3, protein S: 2) in subjects with protein activity below the 1st percentile.Conclusions This is the largest survey ever conducted in the healthy general Chinese population. These normal ranges provide the essential basis for the diagnosis and treatment of thrombosis in Chinese.

Introduction: Chronic schizophrenia has a course of 5 years or more and has a widespread abnormalities in brain functional connectivity. This study aimed to find characteristic functional and structural changes in a long illness duration chronic schizophrenia (10 years or more). Methods: Thirty-six patients with a long illness duration chronic schizophrenia and 38 healthy controls were analyzed by independent component analysis of brain network functional connectivity. Correlation analysis with clinical duration was performed on six resting state networks: auditory network, default mode network, dorsal attention network, fronto-parietal network, somatomotor network, and visual network. Results: The differences in the resting state network between the two groups revealed that patients exhibited enhanced inter-network connections between default mode network and multiple brain networks, while the inter-network connections between somatomotor network, default mode network and visual network were reduced. In patients, functional connectivity of Cuneus_L was negatively correlated with illness duration. Furthermore, receiver operating characteristic curve of functional connectivity showed that changes in Thalamus_L, Rectus_L, Frontal_Mid_R, and Cerebelum_9_L may indicate a longer illness duration chronic schizophrenia. Discussion: In our study, we also confirmed that the course of disease is significantly associated with specific brain regions, and the changes in specific brain regions may indicate that chronic schizophrenia has a course of 10 years or more. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The prognostic value of an effective biomarker, pan-immuneinflammation value (PIV), for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients after radical surgery or chemoradiotherapy has not been well explored. This study aimed to construct and validate nomograms based on PIV to predict survival outcomes of HNSCC patients. Methods: A total of 161 HNSCC patients who underwent radical surgery were enrolled retrospectively for development cohort. The cutoff of PIV was determined using the maximally selected rank statistics method. Multivariable Cox regression and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression analyses were performed to develop two nomograms (Model A and Model B) that predict disease-free survival (DFS). The concordance index, receiver operating characteristic curves, calibration curves, and decision curve analysis were used to evaluate the nomograms. A cohort composed of 50 patients who received radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy (RT/CRT) alone was applied for generality testing of PIV and nomograms. Results: Patients with higher PIV (=123.3) experienced a worse DFS (HR, 5.01; 95% CI, 3.25-7.72; p<0.0001) and overall survival (OS) (HR, 5.23; 95% CI, 3.34-8.18; p<0.0001) compared to patients with lower PIV (<123.3) in the development cohort. Predictors of Model A included age, TNM stage, neutrophil-tolymphocyte ratio (NLR), and PIV, and that of Model B included TNM stage, lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio (LMR), and PIV. In comparison with TNM stage alone, the two nomograms demonstrated good calibration and discrimination and showed satisfactory clinical utility in internal validation. The generality testing results showed that higher PIV was also associated with worse survival outcomes in the RT/CRT cohort and the possibility that the two nomograms may have a universal applicability for patients with different treatments. Conclusions: The nomograms based on PIV, a simple but useful indicator, can provide prognosis prediction of individual HNSCC patients after radical surgery and may be broadly applicated for patients after RT/CRT alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]