Multiple diffusion models-enhanced extremely limited-view reconstruction strategy for photoacoustic tomography boosted by multi-scale priors.

Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is an innovative biomedical imaging technology, which has the capacity to obtain high-resolution images of biological tissue. In the extremely limited-view cases, traditional reconstruction methods for photoacoustic tomography frequently result in severe artifacts and distortion. Therefore, multiple diffusion models-enhanced reconstruction strategy for PAT is proposed in this study. Boosted by the multi-scale priors of the sinograms obtained in the full view and the limited-view case of 240°, the alternating iteration method is adopted to generate data for missing views in the sinogram domain. The strategy refines the image information from global to local, which improves the stability of the reconstruction process and promotes high-quality PAT reconstruction. The blood vessel simulation dataset and the in vivo experimental dataset were utilized to assess the performance of the proposed method. When applied to the in vivo experimental dataset in the limited-view case of 60°, the proposed method demonstrates a significant enhancement in peak signal-to-noise ratio and structural similarity by 23.08 % and 7.14 %, respectively, concurrently reducing mean squared error by 108.91 % compared to the traditional method. The results indicate that the proposed approach achieves superior reconstruction quality in extremely limited-view cases, when compared to other methods. This innovative approach offers a promising pathway for extremely limited-view PAT reconstruction, with potential implications for expanding its utility in clinical diagnostics.

Complete genome sequence of aquaculture pond isolate, Bacillus velezensis M4019.

Bacillus velezensis is commonly found in soil and has various antibacterial activities against animal and plant pathogens. Here, we present the complete genome sequence of Bacillus velezensis strain M4019, isolated from a euryhaline aquaculture pond water in Yong-An, Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. This pond-water-derived isolate, unlike common soil-derived isolates, may provide potentially different adaptations and antimicrobial cues for future research.

Collagen Type II-Based Injectable Materials for In situ Repair and Regeneration of Articular Cartilage Defect.

Repairing and regenerating articular cartilage defects (ACDs) have long been challenging for physicians and scientists. The rise of injectable materials provides a novel strategy for minimally invasive surgery to repair ACDs. In this study, we successfully developed injectable materials based on collagen type II, achieving hyaline cartilage repair and regeneration of ACDs. Analysis was conducted on the regenerated cartilage after materials injection. The histology staining demonstrated complete healing of the ACDs with the attainment of a hyaline cartilage phenotype. The biochemical and biomechanical properties are similar to the adjacent native cartilage without noticeable adverse effects on the subchondral bone. Further transcriptome analysis found that compared with the Native cartilage adjacent to the defect area, the Regenerated cartilage in the defect area repaired with type II collagen-based injection materials showed changes in cartilage-related pathways, as well as down-regulation of T cell receptor signaling pathways and interleukin-17 signaling pathways, which changed the immune microenvironment of the ACD area. Overall, these findings offer a promising injectable approach to treating ACDs, providing a potential solution to the challenges associated with achieving hyaline cartilage in situ repair and regeneration while minimizing damage to the surrounding cartilage.

Feasibility of augmented reality combine patient-specific implants (PSI) applied to navigation in mandibular genioplasty: A phantom experiment.

PURPOSE: Genitoplasty is becoming more and more common, and it is important to improve the accuracy of the procedure and simplify the procedure. This experiment explores the feasibility of using augmented reality (AR) technology combined with PSI titanium plates for navigational assistance in genioplasty performed on models, aiming to study the precision of such surgical interventions. METHODS: Twelve genioplasty procedures were designed and implemented on 3D-printed resin mandibular models by the same surgeon using three different approaches: AR+3DT group (AR+PSI) , 3DT group (patient-specific titanium plate) , and a traditional free-hand group(FH group). Postoperative models were assessed using CBCT to evaluate surgical accuracy. RESULTS: In terms of osteotomy accuracy, the AR group demonstrated a surgical error of 0.9440±0.5441 mm, significantly lower than the control group, which had an error of 1.685±0.8907 mm (P < 0.0001). In experiments positioning the distal segment of the chin, the overall centroid shift in the AR group was 0.3661±0.1360 mm, significantly less than the 2.304±0.9629 mm in the 3DT group and 1.562±0.9799 mm in the FH group (P < 0.0001). Regarding angular error, the AR+3DT group showed 2.825±1.373°, significantly <8.283±3.640° in the 3DT group and 7.234±5.241° in the FH group. CONCLUSION: AR navigation technology combined with PSI titanium plates demonstrates higher surgical accuracy compared to traditional methods and shows feasibility for use. Further validation through clinical trials is necessary.

Efficient proximal tubule-on-chip model from hiPSC-derived kidney organoids for functional analysis of renal transporters.

Renal transporters play critical roles in predicting potential drug-drug interactions. However, current in vitro models often fail to adequately express these transporters, particularly solute carrier proteins, including organic anion transporters (OAT1/3), and organic cation transporter 2 (OCT2). Here, we developed a hiPSC-derived kidney organoids-based proximal tubule-on-chip (OPTC) model that emulates in vivo renal physiology to assess transporter function. Compared to chips based on immortalized cells, OPTC derived from the two most commonly used differentiation protocols exhibited significant improvement in expression level and polarity of OAT1/3 and OCT2. Hence, the OPTC demonstrates enhanced functionality in efflux and uptake assessments, and nephrotoxicity. Furthermore, these functionalities are diminished upon adding inhibitors during substrate-inhibitor interactions, which were closer to in vivo observations. Overall, these results support that OPTC can reliably assess the role of renal transporters in drug transport and nephrotoxicity, paving the way for personalized models to assess renal transport and disease modeling.

A biomimetic targeted nanosystem delivering synergistic inhibitors for glioblastoma immune microenvironment reprogramming and treatment.

Efficient drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier is imperative for treating glioblastoma (GBM). This study utilized the GBM cell membrane to construct a biomimetic targeted nanosystem (GMNPs@AMD/RAPA) that hierarchically releases the CXCR4 antagonist AMD3100 and the mTOR pathway inhibitor rapamycin (RAPA) for reprogramming the tumor immune microenvironment and suppressing the progression of GBM. By initially inhibiting the CXCL12/CXCR4 axis, the tumor microenvironment (TME) was reprogrammed to enhance the infiltration of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) into the TME while suppressing tumor cell survival, proliferation, and angiogenesis. Subsequently, through further cellular uptake and degradation of the nanoparticles, the mTOR pathway inhibitor RAPA was released, further suppressing the tumor progression. This study successfully combined chemotherapy and immunotherapy, achieving effective synergistic therapeutic effects, and suppressing the progression of GBM.

0D-2D multifunctional bimetallic MOF derivative-MXene heterojunction for high areal capacity lithium-sulfur batteries.

Lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries have attracted much attention due to their high specific capacity. However, at high loads and rates, the polysulfides conversion rate and ion transport of batteries are slow, limiting their commercialization. This work reports zero-dimensional (0D) bimetallic MOF derivatives grown in situ on two-dimensional (2D) MXene by electrostatic adsorption (FeCo@Ti3C2). The 0D bimetallic structure effectively avoids the stacking of MXene while providing a dual catalytic site for polysulfides. The 2D structure of MXene also provides a large number of pathways for the rapid diffusion of lithium ions. This 0D-2D heterostructured heterogeneous catalyst with bimetallic synergistic active sites efficiently immobilizes and catalyzes polysulfides, providing a fast charge transfer pathway for the electrochemical reaction of lithium polysulfides. The Li-S battery with this multifunctional 0D-2D heterojunction structure catalyst has outstanding high rate capacity (703 mAh g-1 at 4 C at room temperature and 555 mAh g-1 at 2 C at 0 °C), fascinating capacity at high load (5.5 mAh cm-2 after 100 cycles at a high sulfur content of 8.2 mg cm-2). The study provides new ideas for the commercialization of high-efficiency Li-S batteries.

Interpretable Machine Learning Models for Predicting Critical Outcomes in Patients with Suspected Urinary Tract Infection with Positive Urine Culture.

(1) Background: Urinary tract infection (UTI) is a leading cause of emergency department visits and hospital admissions. Despite many studies identifying UTI-related risk factors for bacteremia or sepsis, a significant gap remains in developing predictive models for in-hospital mortality or the necessity for emergent intensive care unit admission in the emergency department. This study aimed to construct interpretable machine learning models capable of identifying patients at high risk for critical outcomes. (2) Methods: This was a retrospective study of adult patients with urinary tract infection (UTI), extracted from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV Emergency Department (MIMIC-IV-ED) database. The critical outcome is defined as either in-hospital mortality or transfer to an intensive care unit within 12 h. ED visits were randomly partitioned into a 70%/30% split for training and validation. The extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), random forest (RF), and support vector machine (SVM) algorithms were constructed using variables selected from the stepwise logistic regression model. The XGBoost model was then compared to the traditional model and clinical decision rules (CDRs) on the validation data using the area under the curve (AUC). (3) Results: There were 3622 visits among 3235 unique patients diagnosed with UTI. Of the 2535 patients in the training group, 836 (33%) experienced critical outcomes, and of the 1087 patients in the validation group, 358 (32.9%) did. The AUCs for different machine learning models were as follows: XGBoost, 0.833; RF, 0.814; and SVM, 0.799. The XGBoost model performed better than others. (4) Conclusions: Machine learning models outperformed existing traditional CDRs for predicting critical outcomes of ED patients with UTI. Future research should prospectively evaluate the effectiveness of this approach and integrate it into clinical practice.

Tremella aurantialba polysaccharides alleviates ulcerative colitis in mice by improving intestinal barrier via modulating gut microbiota and inhibiting ferroptosis.

We aimed to investigate the effect of a polysaccharide from Tremella aurantialba on ulcerative colitis (UC), which targets ferroptosis in epithelial cells. TA 2-1 (127 kDa) was isolated from T. aurantialba and consisted of Man, Xyl, GlcA, Glc, Fuc and Rha with a molar ratio of 59.2: 23.2: 13.9: 1.6: 1.7: 0.4, exhibited a 1, 3-Man structure with branch chains of T-Xylp, 1,3-Xylp, 1,4-GlcAp, and T-Manp at its O-2 position. TA 2-1 (100 mg/mL) inhibited the cell viability of ferroptosis (19.8 %) in RLS3-induced Caco2 cells and significantly ameliorated symptoms in the colons of mice with dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced UC. TA 2-1 remarkably repaired the intestinal barrier by upregulating claudin-1 and zonula occludens-1 levels. Further analysis found TA 2-1 significantly suppressed lipid peroxidation by regulating ferroptosis-related proteins in UC mice, suggesting that its protective effects are partially mediated by inhibiting ferroptosis. Further analysis of the gut microbiota and fecal microbiota transplantation revealed TA 2-1 might relieve UC symptoms or inhibit ferroptosis by modulating the gut microbiota's composition or metabolites. Results suggest the protective effects of TA 2-1 on the intestinal barrier by inhibiting ferroptosis of epithelial cells, at least by regulating the gut microbiota, highlighting the potential of TA 2-1 in UC treatment.

Target of rapamycin coordinates auxin are involved in exogenous melatonin regulated low temperature tolerance in cucumber seedlings.

Low temperature (LT) is an important environmental factor affecting the growth and yield of plants. Melatonin (MT) can effectively enhance the LT tolerance of cucumber. This study found that LT stress induced the expression of Comt1 (caffeic acid O-methyltransferase 1), with the highest expression being about 2-times that of the control. Meanwhile, the content of MT was found to be roughly 63.16% of that in the control samples. Compared with LT treatment alone, exogenous MT pretreatment upregulated the expression levels of TOR (Target of rapamycin), PIN1 (Pin-formed 1), and YUC4 (YUCCA 4), with maximum upregulations reaching approximately 66.67%, 79.32%, and 42.86%, respectively. These results suggest that MT may modulate the tolerance of cucumber seedlings to LT stress by regulating the expression of TOR, PIN1, and YUC4. In addition, co-treatment with AZD-8055 (a TOR inhibitor) or NPA (N-1-naphthylphthalamic acid, an auxin polar transport inhibitor) and MT attenuated MT-induced resistance to LT stress, leading to higher levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), reduced antioxidant defense capacity, and increased damage to the membrane system in cucumber seedlings. Concurrently, the content of osmoregulatory substances and the photosynthesis decreased. These results demonstrate that both TOR and auxin were required for MT to alleviate LT-induced damage in cucumber. In summary, the present study demonstrates that TOR and auxin signaling synergistically contribute to alleviating LT damage in cucumber seedlings by exogenous MT. These findings help us understand the function of MT and provide insights into the regulatory network of MT that regulates the LT tolerance of plants.

Finite Element Simulation and Microstructural Analysis of Roll Forming for DP590 High-Strength Dual-Phase Steel Wheel Rims.

In this study, finite element (FE) simulation by the software Abaqus was relied on to investigate the roll forming process of a wheel rim made of an innovative dual-phase steel, i.e., DP590, after flash butt welding (FBW). In the simulation, an FE model was generated, including the design of the dies for flaring, three-roll forming, and expansion, and detailed key processing parameters based on practical production of the selected DP590. Combined with the microstructures and properties of the weld zone (WZ) and heat-affected zones (HAZs) after FBW, the distribution of stress/strain and the change in thickness of the base metal (BM), WZ and HAZs were analyzed, and compared in the important stages of roll forming. Theoretically, the variation in the microstructure and the corresponding stress-strain behaviors of the BM, WZ, and HAZs after FBW have led to the thickness reduction of DP590 that originated from softening behaviors occurring at the region of subcritical HAZs (SCHAZs), and a small amount of tempered martensite has evidently reduced the hardness and strength of the SCHAZ. Meanwhile, the distribution of stress/strain has been influenced to some extent. Further, the study includes the influence of the friction coefficient on the forming quality of the wheel rim to guarantee the simulation accuracy in practical applications. In sum, the dual-phase steel has to be carefully applied to the wheel rim, which needs to experience the processes of FBW and roll forming, focusing on the performance of SCHAZs.

The Use of Oxymetazoline 0.1% Ophthalmic Solution for Acquired Blepharoptosis: A Systematic Review.

OBJECTIVE: Oxymetazoline hydrochloride has been shown to be effective in some studies for acquired blepharoptosis and for aesthetic upper eyelid elevation. This study aims to systematically review the literature on the use of topical oxymetazoline for treating acquired blepharoptosis. DATABASES REVIEWED: PubMed (U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health), Scopus (Elsevier), and Cochrane. METHODS: A systematic review of studies published between 2013 and 2024 following PRISMA guidelines was performed using the PubMed, Scopus, and Cochrane databases. Primary outcomes included pre- to posttreatment change in marginal reflex distance (MRD1) after treatment with topical oxymetazoline, and mean difference (pre-to-posttreatment) in MRD1 versus control. RESULTS: Five articles included data from 458 patients for analysis. Meta-analysis demonstrated significant improvement in MRD1 measurements posttreatment with oxymetazoline (1.40 mm; 95% confidence interval, CI [0.41 mm, 2.40 mm]). In addition, when compared to controls, patients treated with oxymetazoline demonstrated greater increase in MRD1 values (0.83 mm; 95% CI [0.10 mm, 1.55 mmm]). Heterogeneity, measured by I2 statistic, was high in all studies (85%-95%). CONCLUSION: The use of oxymetazoline 0.1% ophthalmic solution significantly improves MRD1 in patients with acquired blepharoptosis. Further studies comparing this treatment in other etiologies of acquired blepharoptosis should be conducted. Laryngoscope, 2024.

The water extract of Rheum palmatum has antioxidative properties and inhibits ROS production in mice.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Rheum palmatum (RP) is a widely used traditional herb, which possesses antioxidant properties, inhibits ROS production and reduces fever. AIM OF THE STUDY: The aim of this study was to examine the antioxidative properties of the water extract of RP on oxidative-stressed mice. MATERIALS & METHODS: Forty mice were administered with DL-homocysteine (DL-Hcy) to induce oxidative stress and were divided into four groups: 1) CK: NaCl and water; 2) DL-Hcy: DL-Hcy and water; 3) DL-Hcy+50RP: DL-Hcy with 50 mg kg-1 body weight (BW) d-1 RP; and 4) DL-Hcy+150RP: DL-Hcy with 150 mg kg-1 BW d-1 RP. Rhein (0.3 mg g-1 dry matter) was the main active ingredient in RP. RESULTS: When compared with Dl-Hcy mice, the mice with supplementary RP mitigated oxidative stress by reducing the liver concentrations of superoxide dismutase (SOD) by 27% and glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) by 32%, and the reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the kidney and spleen. These responses were more pronounced in DL-Hcy+150RP than DL-Hcy+50RP mice. RP also exhibited therapeutic effects on liver steatosis, chronic kidney nephritis and intestinal villus width shortening caused by oxidative stress, and concomitantly decreased the serum glucose concentration (RP vs. DL-HCY, 2.3 vs. 4.1 mmol L-1). CONCLUSION: It was concluded that RP possesses antioxidant and therapeutic properties that can mitigate lesions on organs and prevent diabetes in oxidative-stressed mice. This study highlights the potential of RP as a medicinal supplement for animals in the future.

Melatonin-mediated low-temperature tolerance of cucumber seedlings requires Ca2+/CPKs signaling pathway.

Melatonin (Mel) is recognized as a prominent plant growth regulator. This study investigated the alleviating effect of Mel pretreatment on growth inhibition caused by low-temperature (LT) stress (10 °C/6 °C) in cucumber seedlings and explored the role of the Ca2+/Calcium-dependent protein kinases (CPKs) signaling pathway in Mel-regulated LT tolerance. The main results are as follows: compared to LT treatment alone, 100 µM Mel increased both the content of Ca2+ (highest about 42.01%) and the expression levels of Ca2+ transporter and cyclic nucleotide-gated channel (CNGC) genes under LT. Similarly, Mel enhanced the content of CPKs (highest about 27.49%) and the expression levels of CPKs family genes in cucumber leaves under LT. Additionally, pretreatment with 100 µM Mel for three days strengthened the antioxidant defense and photosynthesis of seedlings under LT. Genes in the ICE-CBF-COR pathway and the MAPK cascade were upregulated by Mel, with maximum upregulations reaching approximately 2.5-fold and 1.9-fold, respectively, thus conferring LT tolerance to cucumber seedlings. However, the above beneficial effects of Mel were weakened by co-treatment with calcium signaling blockers (LaCl3 or EGTA) or CPKs inhibitors (TFP or W-7), suggesting that the Ca2+/CPKs pathway is involved in the Mel-mediated regulation of LT tolerance. In conclusion, this study revealed that Mel can alleviate growth inhibition in cucumber seedlings under LT stress and demonstrated that the Ca2+/CPKs signaling pathway is crucial for the Mel-mediated enhancement of LT tolerance. The findings hold promise for providing theoretical insights into the application of Mel in agricultural production and for investigating its underlying mechanisms of action.

Masked cross-domain self-supervised deep learning framework for photoacoustic computed tomography reconstruction.

Accurate image reconstruction is crucial for photoacoustic (PA) computed tomography (PACT). Recently, deep learning has been used to reconstruct PA images with a supervised scheme, which requires high-quality images as ground truth labels. However, practical implementations encounter inevitable trade-offs between cost and performance due to the expensive nature of employing additional channels for accessing more measurements. Here, we propose a masked cross-domain self-supervised (CDSS) reconstruction strategy to overcome the lack of ground truth labels from limited PA measurements. We implement the self-supervised reconstruction in a model-based form. Simultaneously, we take advantage of self-supervision to enforce the consistency of measurements and images across three partitions of the measured PA data, achieved by randomly masking different channels. Our findings indicate that dynamically masking a substantial proportion of channels, such as 80%, yields meaningful self-supervisors in both the image and signal domains. Consequently, this approach reduces the multiplicity of pseudo solutions and enables efficient image reconstruction using fewer PA measurements, ultimately minimizing reconstruction error. Experimental results on in-vivo PACT dataset of mice demonstrate the potential of our self-supervised framework. Moreover, our method exhibits impressive performance, achieving a structural similarity index (SSIM) of 0.87 in an extreme sparse case utilizing only 13 channels, which outperforms the performance of the supervised scheme with 16 channels (0.77 SSIM). Adding to its advantages, our method can be deployed on different trainable models in an end-to-end manner, further enhancing its versatility and applicability.

Constructing Orbital Coupling-Modulated Homogeneous Dual-Atom Fe-Fe Sites for Boosting Bidirectional Conversion of Polysulfides.

Homogeneous dual-atom catalysts (HDACs) have garnered significant attention for their potential to overcome the shuttling effect and sluggish reaction kinetics in lithium-sulfur (Li-S) batteries. However, modulating the electron structure of metal atomic orbitals for HDACs to dictate the catalytic activity toward polysulfides has remained meaningful but unexplored so far. Herein, an interfacial cladding strategy is developed to obtain a new type of dual-atom iron matrix with a unique FeN2P1-FeN2P1 coordination structure (Fe2@NCP). The 3d orbital electrons of the Fe centers are redistributed by incorporating phosphorus atoms into the first coordination sphere. The theoretical calculations disclose that the strong coupling between the Fe d orbital and the S p orbital exhibits an enhanced Fe-S bond and improved reactivity toward polysulfides. Moreover, the Fe2@NCP catalyst achieves robust adsorption ability toward Li2Sn (1 ≤ n ≤ 8) and significantly boosts bidirectional sulfur redox reaction kinetics by lowering the Li2S deposition/decomposition energy barriers. Consequently, the assembled Li-S batteries present a high retention ratio of 77.3% after 500 cycles at 1C. Furthermore, the Li-S pouch cell also exhibits good performance at 0.1C (80.2% retention over 100 cycles) for practical application with a sulfur loading of 4.0 mg/cm2. The outcome of this study will facilitate the design of homogeneous dual-atom catalysts for Li-S batteries.

Studies on the Relationships between Growth and Gonad Development during First Sexual Maturation of Macrobrachium nipponense and Associated SNPs Screening.

In this study, we used full-sib families to investigate the association between growth and gonad development during first sexual maturation of M. nipponense. We found that male GSI was significantly negatively correlated with growth traits (p < 0.01) and there were no significant correlations between female GSI (Gonadosomatic index) and growth traits (p > 0.05). HSI (Hepatopancreas index) in both males and females showed no significant correlations with growth traits (p > 0.05). We furthermore investigated the association between the specific allele of Mn-CTS L1 polymorphism and gonad development and growth traits. In total, 35 mutation loci were screened and 16 high-quality single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) loci were obtained after validation. Four and two SNPs proved to be strongly associated with all growth traits in female and male M. nipponense separately, among which A+118T might be a candidate SNP positively associated with large growth traits. Two and one SNPs were screened, respectively, in males and females to associate with GSI, while three SNPs were detected to associate with female HSI, among which A+1379C may be applied as a potential molecular marker for gene-assisted selection to improve both reproduction speed and growth traits in M. nipponense.

Ferroelectric Order Evolution in Freestanding PbTiO3 Films Monitored by Optical Second Harmonic Generation.

The demand for low-dimensional ferroelectric devices is steadily increasing, however, the thick substrates in epitaxial films impede further size miniaturization. Freestanding films offer a potential solution by eliminating substrate constraints. Nevertheless, it remains an ongoing challenge to improve the stability in thin and fragile freestanding films under strain and temperature. In this work, the structure and ferroelectric order of freestanding PbTiO3 (PTO) films are investigated under continuous variation of the strain and temperature using nondestructive optical second harmonic generation (SHG) technique. The findings reveal that there are both out-of-plane and in-plane domains with polarization along out-of-plane and in-plane directions in the orthorhombic-like freestanding PTO films, respectively. In contrast, only out-of-plane domains are observed in the tetragonal epitaxial PTO films. Remarkably, the ferroelectricity of freestanding PTO films is strengthened under small uniaxial tensile strain from 0% up to 1.66% and well-maintained under larger biaxial tensile strain up to 2.76% along the [100] direction and up to 4.46% along the [010] direction. Moreover, a high Curie temperature of 630 K is identified in 50 nm thick freestanding PTO films by wide-temperature-range SHG. These findings provide valuable understanding for the development of the next-generation electronic nanodevices with flexibility and thermostability.