The Clinical Symptoms and Psychological Status of Biofeedback Electrical Stimulation Combined with Pelvic Floor Muscle Training during the Treatment of Mild Stress Urinary Incontinence after Holmium Laser Enucleation of the Prostate.

INTRODUCTION: To study the clinical symptoms and psychological status of biofeedback electrical stimulation combined with pelvic floor muscle training during the treatment of mild stress urinary incontinence (SUI) after holmium laser enucleation of the prostate (HoLEP). METHODS: Group A was treated by biofeedback and electrical stimulation; Group B was treated by pelvic floor muscle training; and Group C was treated by biofeedback and electrical stimulation combined with pelvic floor muscle training. Patients in the 3 groups had follow-up evaluations every 8, 16, and 24 weeks. Clinical symptoms of urinary incontinence were assessed using the 24-h urinary pad test, the Incontinence Questionnaire-Urinary Incontinence Short Form (ICIQ-UI-SF); and psychological status was evaluated using the modified Hospital Anxiety Depression Scale (HADS). RESULTS: The results of ICIQ-UI-SF showed that there were differences within and between the three groups at 8 weeks, 16 weeks, and 24 weeks (p < 0.05). The results of the 24-h pad tests were similar (p < 0.05), except for no difference between group B and group C at 8 weeks (p > 0.05). In the study with the score of HADS >35, the differences among the three groups were statistically significant (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference among the three groups at 0 and 8 weeks (p > 0.05). There were differences in the results between group C and the other two groups at 16 and 24 weeks of treatment (p < 0.05). For patients with HADS <35 at week 0, the results were basically the same except for the difference between groups at week 8. HADS of all patients were no statistical difference (p > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Biofeedback electrical stimulation combined with pelvic floor muscle training is an efficient nonsurgical combination therapy for the symptoms of SUI after HoLEP for benign prostatic hyperplasia. In addition, the recovery of the patient's psychological state does not coincide with the recovery of urinary incontinence; therefore, we propose that patients still need additional psychological treatment after SUI disappears.

Sulforaphane impaired immune checkpoint blockade therapy through activating ΔNP63α/PD-L1 axis in gastric cancer.

Sulforaphane (SFN) exerts anticancer effect on various cancers including gastric cancer. However, the regulatory effect of SFN on programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) and checkpoint blockade therapy in gastric cancer have not been elucidated. Here we demonstrated that SFN suppressed gastric cancer cell growth both in vitro and in vivo study. SFN upregulated PD-L1 expression through activating ΔNP63α in gastric cancer cells. Further, we found that SFN impaired the anticancer effect of anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody (α-PD-L1 mab) on gastric cancer cells. These results uncover a novel PD-L1 regulatory mechanism and the double-edged role of SFN in gastric cancer intervention.

A compound pendulum for thrust measurement of micro-Newton thruster.

A thrust stand is developed for testing micro-Newton level thrusters on the ground. The stand is composed of a compound pendulum that is symmetrically suspended by two thin beryllium copper strips, and it is precisely calibrated by gravity. The stiffness of the stand can be adjusted in 3 orders of magnitude by a counterweight. When the stiffness is larger than 1 Nm/rad, the stand demonstrates a fast response to thrust. The measured range of the stand reaches 1000 µN, and the noise is less than 0.1 µN/Hz within 1 mHz-1 Hz. To calibrate the resolution of the stand, an electrostatic force is applied to the stand with an actuator. The equivalent thrust is determined to be 0.09 µN with a standard uncertainty of 0.02 µN. Using the stand, a micro-Newton colloid thruster is tested. The output of the colloid thruster changes with the applied voltage as 0.015(1) µN/V. When changing the voltage by 50 V, the change in thrust is measured to be 0.7 µN with a standard uncertainty of 0.1 µN.

Hydrothermal-Induced Formation of Well-Defined Hollow Carbons with Curvature-Activated N-C Sites for Zn-Air Batteries.

Metal-free carbons have been regarded as one of the promising materials alternatives to precious-metal catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) due to their high activity and stability. In this paper, well-defined N-doped hollow carbons (NHCs) are firstly synthesized by using an ammonia-based hydrothermal synthesis that is environmentally friendly and suitable for mass production in industry and a commercial black carbon as raw material. Moreover, the shell thickness of the NHCs can be easily tuned by this hydrothermal strategy. Zn-air battery test results reveal shell thickness-dependent activity and durability for ORR over the NHCs, which exceeds that obtained by commercial Pt/C (20 wt %). The enhanced battery performance can be attributed to the curvature-activated N-C moieties on the hollow carbon surface, which served as the main active sites for ORR as evidenced by DFT calculations. The proposed approach may open a way for designing curved hollow carbons with high graphitization degree and dopant nitrogen level for metal-air batteries or fuel cells.