Biventricular function after Ebstein anomaly repair from a single-center echocardiography study.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to examine biventricular remodeling and function after Ebstein anomaly (EbA) surgical correction using echocardiographic techniques, particularly, the relations between the biventricular changes and the EbA types. METHODS: From April 2015 to August 2022, 110 patients with EbA were included in this retrospective study based on the Carpentier classification. Echocardiography assessments during the preoperative, early, and mid-term postoperative periods were performed. RESULTS: The 54 patients with types A and B EbA were included in group 1, whereas the 56 patients with types C and D were in group 2. Seventy-eight patients underwent surgical correction of EbA. The median age at operation was 8.8 years. During the mid-term follow-up, only 9.1% of the patients had moderate or severe tricuspid regurgitation. Right ventricular (RV) systolic function worsened in group 2 at discharge (fractional area change: 27.6 ± 11.2 vs. 35.4 ± 11.5 [baseline], P < 0.05; global longitudinal strain: -10.8 ± 4.4 vs. -17.9 ± 4.7 [baseline], P = 0.0001). RV function slowly recovered at a mean of 12 months of follow-up. Regarding left ventricular (LV) and RV systolic function, no statistical difference was found between before and after surgery in group 1. CONCLUSION: A high success rate of surgical correction of EbA, with an encouraging durability of the valve, was noted. Biventricular systolic function was maintained fairly in most patients with types A and B postoperatively. A late increase in RV systolic function after an initial reduction and unchanged LV systolic function were observed in the patients with types C and D postoperatively.

Identifying cadmium and lead co-accumulation from living rice blade spectrum.

Neither cadmium (Cd) nor lead (Pb) is necessary for crop growth, but they both can accumulate in soil and crop tissues, resulting in land degradation and crop reduction. Few researchers have explored how to detect Cd-Pb co-accumulation in leaves using proximal sensing techniques, especially by low-cost, easy-to-use leaf clips that capture hyperspectral reflections at suitable foliar positions. In this study, a hyperspectral imager was employed to collect images of the rice canopy from a designed greenhouse experiment that included 16 pretreatments of Cd-Pb co-accumulation, followed by spectral extractions from 3 foliar positions: the blade root, the middle of the leaf, and the leaf apex. A support vector machine with leave-one-out cross-validation was performed to diagnose the contaminative levels based on the feature wavelengths selected by an improved successive projection algorithm. Partial least squares regression was used to predict Cd-Pb concentrations in rice blades. The results indicated that diagnostic accuracies were varied using spectra of different foliar positions. The blade root and leaf apex of rice blades were the optimal foliar position for detecting Cd and Pb contamination, respectively. At the optimal foliar positions, diagnostic accuracies exceeded 0.80 for distinguishing whether the rice is subject to Cd-Pb contamination. The Cd prediction performed 'very good' with a residual prediction deviation (RPD) of 2.21, a R2 of 0.79, and a root mean square error (RMSE)of 6.14, while that of Pb was 1.62, 0.61, and 186.54. Important wavelengths were identified at 659-694 nm and 667-694 nm to detect Cd and Pb contamination. In summary, our results verified the feasibility and clarified the optimal foliar positions of rice blades to detect Cd-Pb contamination. The wavelengths selecting have the great potential in the design of future leaf clips, and the optimal foliar position can provide suggestions to improve diagnostic performances in field applications.

[Effects of mid-palatal suture opening and midfacial bony structure changes induced by maxillary skeletal expansion in adults].

PURPOSE: To analyze the opening of mid-palatal suture, transverse changes in dental and dentoalveolar measurements and shift of midfacial bony structures induced by maxillary skeletal expansion (MSE) with cone-beam CT (CBCT), and to evaluate the effect of maxillary skeletal expansion and its influence on adjacent bony structures in adults. METHODS: The study sample consisted of 12 adult patients with maxillary transverse deficiency (4 males, 8 females) at a mean age of (21.17±4.13) years old. All patients were treated with MSE. After treatment, the posterior crossbite was corrected, and the width of the maxillary arch was achieved the optimal width. Pre- and post-treatment CBCT exams were taken before and after MSE treatment. Multiplanar coronal and axial slices obtained from CBCT images were used to measure the changes in transverse widths, angular changes and tooth inclination with Dolphin Imaging 11.9. SPSS 26.0 software package was used for statistical analysis. RESULTS: After MSE treatment, the anterior nasal spine width increased by (2.38±1.01) mm, posterior nasal spine width increased by (2.25±1.08) mm (P<0.01). The inter-crown and inter-apex distance at the first molar increased by (5.56±1.38) mm and (4.14±1.29) mm, respectively (P<0.01). No significant difference was seen in terms of tooth inclination of the first molar(P>0.05). Pterygoid process angle, pterygoid process width, anterior inter-maxillary distance, upper and lower inter-zygomatic distance were significantly larger after treatment (P<0.01), while the inter-temporal distance and bilateral zygomaticomaxillary angle remained unchanged(P>0.05). CONCLUSIONS: MSE has a favorable effect in adult patients with parallel skeletal expansion of the mid-palatal suture achieved after expansion. The teeth present with certain buccal inclination but show no significant movement relative to the alveolar bone. The midfacial bony structures also shift in three-dimensional under the effect of the expansion force.

Development of the Social Media Engagement Scale for Adolescents.

This study aimed to develop the Social Media Engagement Scale for Adolescents (SMES-A), and evaluate its reliability and validity. The initial items were collected via open-ended questions, a literature review, and suggestions from psychological experts. A total valid sample of 2519 adolescents participated in this study. The results of the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) indicated that this scale was composed of three factors named affective engagement, behavioral engagement, and cognitive engagement, accounting for 56.01% of the total variance. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed the three-factor model. The affective engagement, behavioral engagement, and cognitive engagement were positively correlated with the criterion variables of objective social media use. The mean intra-correlation coefficients of the three factors were 0.523, 0.451, and 0.512. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the affective engagement, behavioral engagement, and cognitive engagement were from 0.709 to 0.804. Their McDonald's omega were 0.805, 0.805, and 0.712, which showed high reliability of this three-factor structure. The test-retest reliability of the three factors were all above 0.68 8 weeks later. Overall, our findings suggested that the SMES-A is a reliable and valid measurement to evaluate social media engagement among Chinese adolescents.

Stabilization of ATF5 by TAK1-Nemo-like kinase critically regulates the interleukin-1ß-stimulated C/EBP signaling pathway.

Interleukin-1ß (IL-1ß) is a key proinflammatory cytokine that initiates several signaling cascades, including those involving CCAAT/enhancer binding proteins (C/EBPs). The mechanism by which IL-1ß propagates a signal that activates C/EBP has remained elusive. Nemo-like kinase (NLK) is a mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)-like kinase associated with many pathways and phenotypes that are not yet well understood. Using a luciferase reporter screen, we found that IL-1ß-induced C/EBP activation was positively regulated by NLK. Overexpression of NLK activated C/EBP and potentiated IL-1ß-triggered C/EBP activation, whereas knockdown or knockout of NLK had the opposite effect. NLK interacted with activating transcription factor 5 (ATF5) and inhibited the proteasome-dependent degradation of ATF5 in a kinase-independent manner. Consistently, NLK deficiency resulted in decreased levels of ATF5. NLK cooperated with ATF5 to activate C/EBP, whereas NLK could not activate C/EBP upon knockdown of ATF5. Moreover, TAK1, a downstream effector of IL-1ß that acts upstream of NLK, mimicked the ability of NLK to stabilize ATF5 and activate C/EBP. Thus, our findings reveal the TAK1-NLK pathway as a novel regulator of basal or IL-1ß-triggered C/EBP activation though stabilization of ATF5.

Vegetation net primary productivity and its response to climate change during 2001-2008 in the Tibetan Plateau.

Alpine ecosystems are highly sensitive to global climate changes. The Tibetan Plateau is one of the areas that are most sensitive to global climate change. Increases in temperature and changes in precipitation can impact the plateau's ecosystem productivity. Net primary productivity (NPP) is one of the most important factors in the carbon cycle of terrestrial ecosystems. In this paper, a light-use-efficiency model was used to estimate the net primary productivity in the Tibetan Plateau. The model is based on a 1-km×1-km-resolution map of vegetation type, multi-temporal 500-m-resolution MODIS data and daily meteorological data. The spatial distribution pattern and dynamic change of the annual NPP from 2001 to 2008 are analyzed. Then, we analyzed the response of the NPP to temperature and precipitation changes. The results show that the mean annual NPP of alpine ecosystems in the Tibetan Plateau is equal to 0.472 Pg C and that the NPP exhibits significant seasonal and interannual variation due to the combined effects of temperature and precipitation changes. Finally, to analyze the effect of temperature and precipitation on the inter-annual change of the NPP, the correlation coefficient between temperature, precipitation and the NPP was computed. It was found that the relations among air temperature, precipitation and the NPP in the Tibetan Plateau region are different. The annual average temperature increase had a significantly positive effect on the vegetation NPP (R(2)=0.83). In contrast, the annual precipitation changes had a weakly negative effect on the vegetation NPP (R(2)=0.373).

A primary pericardial undifferentiated sarcoma invading the right atrium and superior vena cava.

Primary undifferentiated cardiac sarcomas are rare. The literature demonstrated that 81% of primary cardiac undifferentiated sarcomas arose in the left atrium. We reported herein a case of 56-year-old male farmer with a primary pericardial undifferentiated sarcoma, which was revealed only on echocardiography but not computed tomography. The tumor, which invaded the right atrium and superior vena cava, was not completely resected.