LiDAR-aid Inertial Poser: Large-scale Human Motion Capture by Sparse Inertial and LiDAR Sensors.

We propose a multi-sensor fusion method for capturing challenging 3D human motions with accurate consecutive local poses and global trajectories in large-scale scenarios, only using single LiDAR and 4 IMUs, which are set up conveniently and worn lightly. Specifically, to fully utilize the global geometry information captured by LiDAR and local dynamic motions captured by IMUs, we design a two-stage pose estimator in a coarse-to-fine manner, where point clouds provide the coarse body shape and IMU measurements optimize the local actions. Furthermore, considering the translation deviation caused by the view-dependent partial point cloud, we propose a pose-guided translation corrector. It predicts the offset between captured points and the real root locations, which makes the consecutive movements and trajectories more precise and natural. Moreover, we collect a LiDAR-IMU multi-modal mocap dataset, LIPD, with diverse human actions in long-range scenarios. Extensive quantitative and qualitative experiments on LIPD and other open datasets all demonstrate the capability of our approach for compelling motion capture in large-scale scenarios, which outperforms other methods by an obvious margin. We will release our code and captured dataset to stimulate future research.

Disulfiram inhibits IL-1ß secretion and inflammatory cells recruitment in Aspergillus fumigatus keratitis.

PURPOSE: Disulfiram, an inhibitor of gasdermin D-induced pore formation, is known to suppress interleukin (IL)-1ß secretion and pyroptosis. However, its effects on fungal keratitis remain unknown. Therefore, we investigated the role of disulfiram in Aspergillus fumigatus keratitis. METHODS: In vitro, Cell Count Kit-8 (CCK8) assay and cell scratch test were performed to determine optimal concentration. In vivo and in vitro experiments were conducted in a mouse model, human neutrophils, and mouse peritoneal macrophages. We pre-treated the mice or cells with disulfiram and infected them with A. fumigatus at specific times. We subsequently evaluated the development of fungal keratitis lesions, the recruitment of inflammatory cells, and the production of inflammatory cytokines using slit lamp microscopy, clinical evaluation, quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, immunofluorescence staining, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and western blotting. We also used slit lamp microscopy and clinical evaluation to assess the effect of natamycin with or without disulfiram. RESULTS: Disulfiram at 20 µM has no significant cytotoxic effect and does not affect cell migration. In the mouse model, disulfiram significantly suppressed inflammatory responses, reduced neutrophil and macrophage recruitment, and down-regulated myeloperoxidase and nitric oxide synthase levels at earlier stages of infection. Disulfiram had no effect on IL-1ß production and maturation, but it inhibited IL-1ß secretion in macrophages. Disulfiram combined with natamycin significantly increased corneal transparency in the mice model. CONCLUSION: Overall, disulfiram reduced the host immune response in fungal keratitis by attenuating neutrophil and macrophage recruitment and inhibiting IL-1ß secretion in macrophages. Disulfiram in combination with antifungal agents may serve as a novel therapeutic method for reducing corneal opacity in fungal keratitis.

Urine Culture in Hospitalized Patients during 2014-2018: An Analysis on Pathogen Distribution and Drug Sensitivity.

OBJECTIVE: We sought to analyze the distribution and antibiotic sensitivity of pathogens in hospitalized patients and to provide a scientific reference for the rational application of antibiotics. METHODS: From January 2014 to December 2018, urine cultures from patients in our hospital were collected and analyzed retrospectively for the presence, distribution, and drug sensitivity of pathogens. RESULTS: A total of 42,854 midstream urine cultures were collected from which 11,891 (27.75%) pathogens were isolated, including 8101 (68.13%) strains of gram-negative bacteria, 2580 (21.69%) strains of gram-positive bacteria, and 1210 (10.18%) strains of fungi. Escherichia coli and Enterococci were the most common species of gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, respectively. Drug sensitivity varied among different pathogens. Clear drug resistance was observed in bacteria, while fungus exhibited relatively lower resistance. CONCLUSION: Pathogens responsible for urinary tract infections in hospitalized patients are diversiform and display resistance to some antibiotics. Drug resistance monitoring should be enhanced to optimize antimicrobial therapy.

Risk factors for pelvic lymph node metastasis in endometrial cancer.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the risk factors for pelvic lymph node metastasis (LNM) in endometrial cancer (EC). METHODS: Clinicopathological characteristics and preoperative laboratory results were retrospectively analyzed in 393 surgically staged patients with EC (January 2014-February 2019). RESULTS: Pelvic LNM was detected in 45 (11.5%) patients. Univariate analysis showed that increased preoperative levels of human epididymis protein 4 (HE4), carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125), monocyte to lymphocyte ratio (MLR), platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and decreased absolute lymphocyte count (ALC), as well as non-endometrioid histology, grade 3 tumor, deep myometrial invasion, vaginal or para-uterine involvement, adnexal involvement, positive peritoneal cytology, and lymphovascular space invasion (LVSI) were risk factors for pelvic LNM (All p < 0.05). Multivariate analysis revealed that preoperative serum HE4 ≥ 132 pmol/L (odds ratio (OR) 4.25, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.65-10.94, p = 0.003), serum CA 125 ≥ 27.6 U/mL (OR 6.10, 95% CI 2.31-16.07, p = 0.000), non-endometrioid histology (OR 16.64, 95% CI 5.96-46.47, p = 0.000), myometrial invasion ≥ 50% (OR 5.30, 95% CI 2.07-13.55, p = 0.001), positive peritoneal cytology (OR 4.70, 95% CI 1.21-18.27, p = 0.025), and LVSI (OR 3.11, 95% CI 1.09-8.92, p = 0.034) remained as independent risk factors for pelvic LNM in EC. With the increase of these independent risk factors, the rate of pelvic LNM was increased significantly. CONCLUSIONS: Higher preoperative levels of serum HE4 and CA125, non-endometrioid histology, deep myometrial invasion, positive peritoneal cytology, and LVSI are independent risk factors for pelvic LNM in EC, which can provide scientific basis for lymphadenectomy.

Molecular epidemiology of Clostridium difficile in two tertiary care hospitals in Shandong Province, China.

PURPOSE: The incidence and severity of Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) have markedly increased over the past decade. However, there is very limited epidemiological data on CDI in China so far, specifically no data in Shandong Province. The aim of this study was to evaluate diagnostic algorithm for CDI and to gain data on molecular epidemiology of CDI in the Shandong Province of China. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Nonrepetitive unformed fecal specimens (n=504) were investigated by the glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), C. difficile toxin A&B (CDAB) tests and toxigenic culture. Furthermore, 85 isolates were characterized by toxin gene detection, multilocus sequence typing, ribotyping and antimicrobial susceptibility testing. RESULTS: The algorithm of combining GDH and CDAB tests could define diagnosis of 54.2% CDI cases and excluded 90% of non-CDI. Further adding the toxigenic culture to the algorithm enhanced the detection sensitivity to 100%. Toxigenic strains comprised 84.7% of isolates, including A+B+CDT- (71.8%, 61/85), A-B+CDT- (11.8%, 10/85) and A+B+CDT+ (1.2%, 1/85) isolates. RT046/ST35 (13.9%, 10/72), RT014/ST2 (12.5%, 9/72) and RT017/ST37 (12.5%, 9/72) were the more common genotypes among toxigenic C. difficile strains. The clinical severity score of A-B+CDT- toxin genes genotype (3.50±0.85) was significantly higher than the A+B+CDT- type (2.59±0.93) (P<0.05). RT046/ST35 isolates were highly prevalent and had high clinical severity scores (3.80±0.92). Variations in resistance from different sequence types (STs) were observed. Toxigenic strains showed higher resistance rates to erythromycin, clindamycin and ciprofloxacin compared to nontoxigenic strains (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: The epidemiology of C. difficile in Shandong Province differed from other regions in China. Comprehensive optimized diagnosis strategy and continuous surveillance should be established and applied in order to curb the spread of toxigenic C. difficile strains, especially for hospitalized patients.

The Combination of the Tumor Markers Suggests the Histological Diagnosis of Lung Cancer.

Tumor markers are beneficial for the diagnosis and therapy monitoring of lung cancer. However, the value of tumor markers in lung cancer histological diagnosis is unknown. In this study, we analyzed the serum levels of six tumor markers (CEA, CYFRA21-1, SCC, NSE, ProGRP, and CA125) in 2097 suspected patients with lung cancer and determined whether the combination of the tumor markers was useful for histological diagnosis of lung cancer. We found that CYFRA21-1 was the most sensitive marker in NSCLC. ProGRP showed a better clinical performance than that of NSE in discriminating between SCLC and NSCLC. The serum level of CYFRA21-1 or SCC was significantly higher in squamous carcinoma (p < 0.05), and the levels of ProGRP and NSE were significantly higher in SCLC (p < 0.05). According to the criteria established, SCLC and NSCLC were discriminated with sensitivity of 87.12 and 62.63% and specificity of 64.61 and 99.5%, respectively. The sensitivity and specificity in the differentiation of adenocarcinoma and squamous carcinoma were 68.1 and 81.63% and 70.73 and 65.93%, with NPV of 46.03 and 68.97% and PPV of 85.82 and 79.47%, respectively. Our results suggested the combination of six tumor markers could discriminate the histological types of lung cancer.