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Background: Several scoring systems have been proposed to predict the risk of death due to severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (STFS), but they have limitations. We developed a new prognostic nomogram for STFS-related death and compared its performance with previous scoring systems and the Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation score (APACHE II Score). Methods: A total of 292 STFS patients were retrospectively enrolled between January 2016 and March 2023. Boruta's algorithm and backward stepwise regression were used to select variables for constructing the nomogram. Time-dependent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and clinical decision curves were generated to compare the strengths of the nomogram with others. Results: Age, Sequential Organ Failure Assessment Score (SOFA score), state of consciousness, continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT), and D-dimer were significantly correlated with mortality in both univariate and multivariate analyses (P<0.05). We developed a nomogram using these variables to predict mortality risk, which outperformed the SFTS and APACHE II scores (Training ROC: 0.929 vs. 0.848 vs. 0.792; Validation ROC: 0.938 vs. 0.839 vs. 0.851; P<0.001). In the validation set, the SFTS model achieved an accuracy of 76.14%, a sensitivity of 95.31%, a specificity of 25.00%, a precision of 77.22%, and an F1 score of 85.32%. The nomogram showed a superior performance with an accuracy of 86.36%, a precision of 88.24%, a recall of 93.75%, and an F1 score of 90.91%. Conclusion: Age, consciousness, SOFA Score, CRRT, and D-Dimer are independent risk factors for STFS-related death. The nomogram based on these factors has an excellent performance in predicting STFS-related death and is recommended for clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective To investigate the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in non-endemic areas. Methods From January 2020, the Nanjing Public Health Medical Center began to treat confirmed patients. Retrospective analysis was carried out in 57 patients with identified novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia and having been discharged for the epidemiological characteristics, clinical signs and symptoms, laboratory test results, and CT images. Results The 57 patients were at an age ranging from 5 to 97 years (median 37 years), and 29 males (50.9%) and 28 females (49.1%). Among them, 35 cases had clear contact with the epidemic area Wuhan, and 16 were clustered cases. The average incubation period was 7.4 d for the disease. In them, 54 cases occurred locally, 23 patients had fever as the first symptom, and 13 patients had normal temperature. Other main first symptoms included dry cough (14 cases, 24.6%) and body aches and fatigue (5 cases, 8.8%). The patients with decreased peripheral white blood cell count accounted for 26.3%, those with reduced lymphatic or eosinophils count for 47.4%, those with increased average platelet volume for 24.7%, elevated serum ALT or AST levels for 15.8%, raised CKMB for 5.3%, and those with decreased blood potassium for 40.4%. All patients had lung illness and were positive to nucleic acid test, and 66.7% of them got both lung involved. Of the 57 patients, 26.3% were mild and 73.7% were ordinary. Their average length of hospital stay was 10.1 d, and they had an average course of 15.6 d. All of them were treated with interferon αb1 combined with acetylcysteine, 47 cases were combined with kriging, and 18 cases with abidol. All the 57 cases were improved and discharged. Conclusion All these cases in Najing are almost imported from the epidemic area. The clinical classification is mainly ordinary type. Low fever, dry cough, sore throat and systemic soreness, decreased lymphocytes, ground glass shadow in CT images, and positive to nucleic acids are the main clinical features of the disease.

In this letter, a wideband low noise amplifier (LNA) using noise‐canceling topology and gm‐boosting technique is proposed. The noise‐canceling topology is used in the common gate (CG) amplifier to achieved better noise figure (NF) and wideband input matching. Meanwhile, the requirement of the input transconductance can be obviously decreased due to the application of gm‐boosting technique, which effectively alleviate the trade‐off between power consumption and voltage gain. The 3‐dB bandwidth of the LNA is from 2.1 to 4.1 GHz, covering widely used 5 G wireless communication frequency bands (n1, n7, n38, n41, n66, and n78 bands). The proposed LNA shows a flat and low measured NF of 3.3–3.6 dB within the operating bandwidth, while the peak power gain is 18.7 dB. The power consumption of this circuit is 16 mW with 1.2 V supply voltage, and the core area of the circuit is 0.066 mm2 with only one inductor for the whole chip. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Osteo-odonto-keratoprostheses, incorporating dental laminate material as an anchoring skirt around a central poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) optic, have been used to replace the cornea for many years. However, there are many intricacies associated with the use of autologous dental laminate material, surgical complexity and skirt erosion. Tissue engineering approaches to bone replacement may offer suitable alternatives in osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis (OOKP) surgery. In this study, a hydrogel polymer composite was investigated as a synthetic substitute for the OOKP skirt. A novel high strength interpenetrating network (IPN) hydrogel composite with nano-crystalline hydroxyapatite (nHAp) coated poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) PLGA microspheres was created to mimic the alveo-dental lamina by employing agarose and poly(ethylene glycol) diacrylate (PEGDA) polymers. The incorporation of nHAp coated PLGA microspheres into the hybrid IPN network provide a micro-environment similar to that of skeletal tissues and improve cellular response. Agarose was used as a first network to encapsulate keratocytes/3T3 fibroblasts and PEGDA (6000 Da) was used as a second network with varying concentrations (20 and 40 wt %) to produce a strong and biocompatible scaffold. An increased concentration of either agarose or PEG-DA and incorporation of nHAp coated PLGA microspheres led to an increase in the elastic modulus. The IPN hydrogel combinations supported the adhesion and proliferation of both fibroblast and ocular human keratocyte cell types during in in-vitro testing. The cells endured the encapsulation process into the IPN and remained viable at 1 week post-encapsulation in the presence of nHAp coated microspheres. The material did not induce significant production of inflammatory cytokine IL-6 in comparison to a positive control (p < 0.05) indicating non-inflammatory potential. The nHAp encapsulated composite IPN hydrogels are mechanically strong, cell supportive, non-inflammatory materials supporting their development as OOKP skirt substitutes using a new approach to dental laminate biomimicry in the OOKP skirt material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]