The Comparison of Efficacy and Safety between Radiofrequency Ablation Alone and Ethanol Ablation Followed by Radiofrequency Ablation in the Treatment of Mixed Cystic and Solid Thyroid Nodule.

Purpose: To compare the efficacy and safety of radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and ethanol ablation (EA) followed by RFA in treating mixed cystic and solid thyroid nodules. Materials and Methods: We included 243 nodules from 243 patients who underwent RFA for mixed cystic and solid benign nodules. The nodules were divided into two groups (RFA alone and EA + RFA). We evaluated volume reduction rate (VRR), therapeutic success rate, improvement in symptomatic and cosmetic issues, complications, and adverse effects. Results: The RFA group included 204 patients, and the EA + RFA group included 39 patients. The long-term success rates in the RFA only and EA + RFA groups were 90.2% and 97.4%, respectively. The mean VRR at the last follow-up in the RFA and EA + RFA groups were 81.6% and 87.2%, respectively. Therapeutic results were similar in both groups at the last follow-up. Cosmetic and symptomatic problems markedly improved in both groups. No major complications were observed. Conclusion: Both RFA alone and EA + RA are safe and effective methods for treating mixed cystic and solid thyroid nodules, although EA + RFA is slightly more effective.

Mass-produced gram-negative bacterial outer membrane vesicles activate cancer antigen-specific stem-like CD8+ T cells which enables an effective combination immunotherapy with anti-PD-1.

Despite the capability of extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria to induce potent anti-tumour responses, large-scale production of bacterial EVs remains as a hurdle for their development as novel cancer immunotherapeutic agents. Here, we developed manufacturing processes for mass production of Escherichia coli EVs, namely, outer membrane vesicles (OMVs). By combining metal precipitation and size-exclusion chromatography, we isolated 357 mg in total protein amount of E. coli OMVs, which was equivalent to 3.93 × 1015 particles (1.10 × 1010 particles/µg in total protein amounts of OMVs) from 160 L of the conditioned medium. We show that these mass-produced E. coli OMVs led to complete remission of two mouse syngeneic tumour models. Further analysis of tumour microenvironment in neoantigen-expressing tumour models revealed that E. coli OMV treatment causes increased infiltration and activation of CD8+ T cells, especially those of cancer antigen-specific CD8+ T cells with high expression of TCF-1 and PD-1. Furthermore, E. coli OMVs showed synergistic anti-tumour activity with anti-PD-1 antibody immunotherapy, inducing substantial tumour growth inhibition and infiltration of activated cancer antigen-specific stem-like CD8+ T cells into the tumour microenvironment. These data highlight the potent anti-tumour activities of mass-produced E. coli OMVs as a novel candidate for developing next-generation cancer immunotherapeutic agents.

Study on the performance of a new type of combined packing biofilm reactor treating wastewater.

The present work investigates the performance of a biofilm reactor filled with a new type of combined packing used to treat wastewater and explores a new technology approach for the application of coral sand and waste non-woven fabric. The combined packing was made of coral sand and waste non-woven fabric, which was used as a biofilm carrier to treat sewage. The experimental results showed that the removal efficiencies of COD, NH4+-N and TN in the biofilm reactor containing the combined packing were 92.9%, 72.9% and 63.2%, respectively. The maximum removal efficiencies of COD, NH4+-N and TN in the biofilm reactor containing single packing were 89.0%, 63.4% and 55.2%, respectively. The properties of the combined packing were characterized by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), specific surface area, SEM and dehydrogenase activity. Infrared analysis showed that there were hydroxyl, carboxyl and carbonyl groups on the surface of coral sand and non-woven fabric which were beneficial for biofilm growth and wastewater treatment. The large pores in the interior of coral sand and non-woven fabric could provide a comfortable environment for microbes to grow and reproduce. The dehydrogenase activity of the biofilm on the surface of coral sand in the third biofilm reactor was 49.91 µgTF·g-1·h-1, which was significantly higher than that of the other two biofilm reactors. The new type of combined packing is suitable for biofilm carriers with low cost, which can be applied to actual sewage treatment projects. This study provides a reference for the practical application of the technique.

Quantum Neural Network for Quantum Neural Computing.

Neural networks have achieved impressive breakthroughs in both industry and academia. How to effectively develop neural networks on quantum computing devices is a challenging open problem. Here, we propose a new quantum neural network model for quantum neural computing using (classically controlled) single-qubit operations and measurements on real-world quantum systems with naturally occurring environment-induced decoherence, which greatly reduces the difficulties of physical implementations. Our model circumvents the problem that the state-space size grows exponentially with the number of neurons, thereby greatly reducing memory requirements and allowing for fast optimization with traditional optimization algorithms. We benchmark our model for handwritten digit recognition and other nonlinear classification tasks. The results show that our model has an amazing nonlinear classification ability and robustness to noise. Furthermore, our model allows quantum computing to be applied in a wider context and inspires the earlier development of a quantum neural computer than standard quantum computers.

All-photonic quantum repeater for multipartite entanglement generation.

Quantum network applications such as distributed quantum computing and quantum secret sharing represent a promising future network equipped with quantum resources. Entanglement generation and distribution over long distances are critical and unavoidable when utilizing quantum technology in a fully connected network. The distribution of bipartite entanglement over long distances has seen some progress, while the distribution of multipartite entanglement over long distances remains unsolved. Here we report a two-dimensional quantum repeater protocol for the generation of multipartite entanglement over long distances with an all-photonic framework to fill this gap. The entanglement generation yield remains proportional to the transmission efficiency regardless of the number of network users and shows long transmission distance under various numbers of network users. With the improved efficiency and flexibility of extending the number of users, we anticipate that our protocol can work as a significant building block for quantum networks in the future.

Comparable humoral and cellular immunity against Omicron variant BA.4/5 of once-boosted BA.1/2 convalescents and twice-boosted COVID-19-naïve individuals.

The fourth vaccination dose confers additional protective immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection in individuals with no prior coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). However, its immunological benefit against currently circulating BA.4/5 is unclear in individuals who have received a booster shot and been infected with Omicron variant BA.1/2. We analyzed immune responses in whom had been boosted once and did not have COVID-19 (n = 16), boosted once and had COVID-19 when BA.1/2 was dominant in Korea (Hybrid-6M group, n = 27), and boosted twice and did not have COVID-19 (Vx4 group, n = 15). Antibody binding activities against RBDo BA.1 and RBDo BA.4/5 , antigen-specific memory CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses against BA.4/5, and B-cell responses against SARS-CoV-2 wild-type did not differ statistically between the Hybrid-6M and Vx4 groups. The humoral and cellular immune responses of the Hybrid-6M group against BA.4/5 were comparable to those of the Vx4 group. Individuals who had been boosted and had an Omicron infection in early 2022 may not have high priority for an additional vaccination.

Exosomes derived from human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells promote osteogenesis through the AKT signaling pathway in postmenopausal osteoporosis.

Postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMO) is a relatively common disease characterized by low bone mass and microstructural changes of trabecular bone. The reduced bone strength is caused a variety of complications, including fragility fracture and sarcopenia. We used CCK-8 and EdU assays to evaluate cell proliferation rates. The osteogenesis effect was detected using ALP staining, alizarin red staining, and q-PCR. In vivo, the effects of exosomes derived from HUC-MSCs were evaluated using HE staining, IHC staining and Masson staining. In addition, we explored the mechanism of exosomes and found that the AKT signaling pathway played an important role in osteogenesis and cell proliferation. This paper mainly explored the function of exosomes derived from human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (HUC-MSCs) and provided a new strategy for the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis. In conclusion, exogenous administration of exosomes can contribute to the treatment postmenopausal osteoporosis to a certain extent.

Experimental Quantum Advantage with Quantum Coupon Collector.

An increasing number of communication and computational schemes with quantum advantages have recently been proposed, which implies that quantum technology has fertile application prospects. However, demonstrating these schemes experimentally continues to be a central challenge because of the difficulty in preparing high-dimensional states or highly entangled states. In this study, we introduce and analyze a quantum coupon collector protocol by employing coherent states and simple linear optical elements, which was successfully demonstrated using realistic experimental equipment. We showed that our protocol can significantly reduce the number of samples needed to learn a specific set compared with the classical limit of the coupon collector problem. We also discuss the potential values and expansions of the quantum coupon collector by constructing a quantum blind box game. The information transmitted by the proposed game also broke the classical limit. These results strongly prove the advantages of quantum mechanics in machine learning and communication complexity.

Neural network-based prediction of the secret-key rate of quantum key distribution.

Numerical methods are widely used to calculate the secure key rate of many quantum key distribution protocols in practice, but they consume many computing resources and are too time-consuming. In this work, we take the homodyne detection discrete-modulated continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD) as an example, and construct a neural network that can quickly predict the secure key rate based on the experimental parameters and experimental results. Compared to traditional numerical methods, the speed of the neural network is improved by several orders of magnitude. Importantly, the predicted key rates are not only highly accurate but also highly likely to be secure. This allows the secure key rate of discrete-modulated CV-QKD to be extracted in real time on a low-power platform. Furthermore, our method is versatile and can be extended to quickly calculate the complex secure key rates of various other unstructured quantum key distribution protocols.

Oncolytic Vaccinia Virus Augments T Cell Factor 1-Positive Stem-like CD8+ T Cells, Which Underlies the Efficacy of Anti-PD-1 Combination Immunotherapy.

Oncolytic virotherapy has garnered attention as an antigen-agnostic therapeutic cancer vaccine that induces cancer-specific T cell responses without additional antigen loading. As anticancer immune responses are compromised by a lack of antigenicity and chronic immunosuppressive microenvironments, an effective immuno-oncology modality that converts cold tumors into hot tumors is crucial. To evaluate the immune-activating characteristics of oncolytic vaccinia virus (VACV; JX-594, pexastimogene devacirepvec), diverse murine syngeneic cancer models with different tissue types and immune microenvironments were used. Intratumorally administered mJX-594, a murine variant of JX-594, potently increased CD8+ T cells, including antigen-specific cancer CD8+ T cells, and decreased immunosuppressive cells irrespective of tissue type or therapeutic efficacy. Remodeling of tumors into inflamed ones by mJX-594 led to a response to combined anti-PD-1 treatment, but not to mJX-594 or anti-PD-1 monotherapy. mJX-594 treatment increased T cell factor 1-positive stem-like T cells among cancer-specific CD8+ T cells, and anti-PD-1 combination treatment further increased proliferation of these cells, which was important for therapeutic efficacy. The presence of functional cancer-specific CD8+ T cells in the spleen and bone marrow for an extended period, which proliferated upon encountering cancer antigen-loaded splenic dendritic cells, further indicated that long-term durable anticancer immunity was elicited by oncolytic VACV.

Automated machine learning for secure key rate in discrete-modulated continuous-variable quantum key distribution.

Continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV QKD) with discrete modulation has attracted increasing attention due to its experimental simplicity, lower-cost implementation and compatibility with classical optical communication. Correspondingly, some novel numerical methods have been proposed to analyze the security of these protocols against collective attacks, which promotes key rates over one hundred kilometers of fiber distance. However, numerical methods are limited by their calculation time and resource consumption, for which they cannot play more roles on mobile platforms in quantum networks. To improve this issue, a neural network model predicting key rates in nearly real time has been proposed previously. Here, we go further and show a neural network model combined with Bayesian optimization. This model automatically designs the best architecture of neural network computing key rates in real time. We demonstrate our model with two variants of CV QKD protocols with quaternary modulation. The results show high reliability with secure probability as high as 99.15% - 99.59%, considerable tightness and high efficiency with speedup of approximately 107 in both cases. This inspiring model enables the real-time computation of unstructured quantum key distribution protocols' key rate more automatically and efficiently, which has met the growing needs of implementing QKD protocols on moving platforms.

Kidney VISTA prevents IFN-γ/IL-9 axis-mediated tubulointerstitial fibrosis after acute glomerular injury.

Severe glomerular injury ultimately leads to tubulointerstitial fibrosis that determines patient outcome, but the immunological molecules connecting these processes remain undetermined. The present study addressed whether V-domain Ig suppressor of T cell activation (VISTA), constitutively expressed in kidney macrophages, plays a protective role in tubulointerstitial fibrotic transformation after acute antibody-mediated glomerulonephritis. After acute glomerular injury using nephrotoxic serum, tubules in the VISTA-deficient (Vsir-/-) kidney suffered more damage than those in WT kidneys. When interstitial immune cells were examined, the contact frequency of macrophages with infiltrated T cells increased and the immunometabolic features of T cells changed to showing high oxidative phosphorylation and fatty acid metabolism and overproduction of IFN-γ. The Vsir-/- parenchymal tissue cells responded to this altered milieu of interstitial immune cells as more IL-9 was produced, which augmented tubulointerstitial fibrosis. Blocking antibodies against IFN-γ and IL-9 protected the above pathological process in VISTA-depleted conditions. In human samples with acute glomerular injury (e.g., antineutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibody vasculitis), high VISTA expression in tubulointerstitial immune cells was associated with low tubulointerstitial fibrosis and good prognosis. Therefore, VISTA is a sentinel protein expressed in kidney macrophages that prevents tubulointerstitial fibrosis via the IFN-γ/IL-9 axis after acute antibody-mediated glomerular injury.

The Physical Fitness Level of College Students Before and After Web-Based Physical Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has been an emergency worldwide. Web-based physical education is a choice for college students to keep on their study. The aim of this study was to compare the data of physical fitness of college students before and after web-based physical education. Methods: All the students of 2018 and 2019 in Wuhan University of Technology who had taken the web-based physical education class in 2020 were included in this study. The records of annual physical fitness tests of all the subjects in 2019 and 2020 which were carried out in September were reviewed, including weight, height, body mass index (BMI), vital capacity (VC), 50-m dash, sit-and-reach, standing long jump, male-specific pull-ups and 1,000-m race, and female-specific sit-ups and 800-m race. Results: There were 24,112 male and 9,690 female records of physical fitness tests included in our study. The results of 11,219 male and 4,651 female students who completed both physical fitness tests in 2019 and 2020 were employed for Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Declined performance was observed on male 50-m dash by 0.1 s, male 1,000-m race by 14 s, and female 800-m race by 11 s. Notably, the percentage of male obesity, based on BMI, rose from 10.6 to 15.2% and 17.1 to 21.8% for male overweight; correspondingly, the percentage of male normal weight declined from 55.9 to 51.9% and 16.4 to 11.1% for male thinness. The trend of increasing BMI in males should be paid attention to. Improved results on vital capacity, sit-and-reach, standing long jump for both males and females, female 50-m dash, female sit-ups, and male pull-ups were observed in 2020. All the results of physical fitness tests were significantly different between 2019 and 2020 (p < 0.01) by Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Conclusions: The changes of physical fitness tests before and after web-based physical education suggested that the focus should be placed on improvement for running tests through appropriate alternatives, such as fast running in place and shuttle run. In addition, the simple, convenient, and practical sport that require available equipment and little field should be considered for web-based physical education.

Percutaneous Vertebroplasty Using a Rotary Cutter for Treating Kümmell's Disease with Intravertebral Vacuum Cleft.

BACKGROUND: Reported data indicate that the curative effect of percutaneous vertebroplasty (PVP) on the patients with intravertebral vacuum cleft (IVC) is worse than on those without IVC. OBJECTIVES: This study was to prospectively investigate the advantage of rotary cutter-PVP (RC-PVP) in patients with Kümmell's disease with IVC. STUDY DESIGN: A prospective outcome study. SETTING: A tertiary care hospital. METHODS: Patients who underwent conventional PVP served as the control group. For the RC-PVP group, the rotary cutters were applied before the cement injection to destroy the IVC structure and the surrounding necrotic bone. The following data were compared between the two groups: the cement filling patterns, effective therapeutic rate, the pre- to post-procedural changes of spinal geometry, and the subsequent fractures. RESULTS: This study included a total of 64 patients (30 and 34 patients in RC-PVP group and control group, respectively). In the RC-PVP group, the cement in 26 cases was filled as a mixed pattern, while the filling pattern in the control group was mainly the cystic type (n = 31). There were no significant differences in the height restoration rate between the RC-PVP and control groups (32.7 ± 13.6 and 32.4 ± 13.9, respectively, P = 0.93). The RC-PVP group had a higher effective rate during the first week and the first month (93.3% vs. 70.6%, P = 0.02) and at 3 months (90.4% vs. 73.9%, P = 0.03). Long-term follow-up indicated that vertebral recollapse of the same treated vertebral body occurred in 5 patients after conventional PVP, which was not observed in the RC-PVP group. LIMITATIONS: The small number of included patients and no long-term follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: RC-PVP, with the destruction of IVC, may lead to better clinical outcomes with fewer complications.

Cryopreservation method for Drosophila melanogaster embryos.

The development of a widely adopted cryopreservation method remains a major challenge in Drosophila research. Here we report a robust and easily implemented cryopreservation protocol of Drosophila melanogaster embryos. We present innovations for embryo permeabilization, cryoprotectant agent loading, and rewarming. We show that the protocol is broadly applicable, successfully implemented in 25 distinct strains from different sources. We demonstrate that for most strains, >50% embryos hatch and >25% of the resulting larvae develop into adults after cryopreservation. We determine that survival can be significantly improved by outcrossing to mitigate the effect of genetic background for strains with low survival after cryopreservation. We show that flies retain normal sex ratio, fertility, and original mutation after successive cryopreservation of 5 generations and 6-month storage in liquid nitrogen. Lastly, we find that non-specialists are able to use this protocol to obtain consistent results, demonstrating potential for wide adoption.

Efficient quantum digital signatures without symmetrization step.

Quantum digital signatures (QDS) exploit quantum laws to guarantee non-repudiation, unforgeability and transferability of messages with information-theoretic security. Current QDS protocols face two major restrictions, including the requirement of the symmetrization step with additional secure classical channels and the quadratic scaling of the signature rate with the probability of detection events. Here, we present an efficient QDS protocol to overcome these issues by utilizing the classical post-processing operation called post-matching method. Our protocol does not need the symmetrization step, and the signature rate scales linearly with the probability of detection events. Simulation results show that the signature rate is three orders of magnitude higher than the original protocol in a 100-km-long fiber. This protocol is compatible with existing quantum communication infrastructure, therefore we anticipate that it will play a significant role in providing digital signatures with unconditional security.

Immune cell composition in normal human kidneys.

An understanding of immunological mechanisms in kidney diseases has advanced using mouse kidneys. However, the profiling of immune cell subsets in human kidneys remains undetermined, particularly compared with mouse kidneys. Normal human kidneys were obtained from radically nephrectomised patients with urogenital malignancy (n = 15). Subsequently, human kidney immune cell subsets were analysed using multicolor flow cytometry and compared with subsets from C57BL/6 or BALB/c mice under specific pathogen-free conditions. Twenty kidney sections from healthy kidney donors or subjects without specific renal lesions were additionally analysed by immunohistochemistry. In human kidneys, 47% ± 12% (maximum 63%) of immune cells were CD3+ T cells. Kidney CD4+ and CD8+ T cells comprised 44% and 56% of total T cells. Of these, 47% ± 15% of T cells displayed an effector memory phenotype (CCR7- CD45RA- CD69-), and 48% ± 19% were kidney-resident cells (CCR7- CD45RA- CD69+). However, the proportions of human CD14+ and CD16+ myeloid cells were approximately 10% of total immune cells. A predominance of CD3+ T cells and a low proportion of CD14+ or CD68+ myeloid cells were also identified in healthy human kidney sections. In mouse kidneys, kidney-resident macrophages (CD11blow F4/80high) were the most predominant subset (up to 50%) but the proportion of CD3+ T cells was less than 20%. These results will be of use in studies in which mouse results are translated into human cases under homeostatic conditions or with disease.