Structure and function of type IV IRES in picornaviruses: a systematic review.

The Picornaviridae is a family of icosahedral viruses with single-stranded, highly diverse positive-sense RNA genomes. Virions consist of a capsid, without envelope, surrounding a core of RNA genome. A typical genome of picornavirus harbors a well-conserved and highly structured RNA element known as the internal ribosome entry site (IRES), functionally essential for viral replication and protein translation. Based on differences in their structures and mechanisms of action, picornaviral IRESs have been categorized into five types: type I, II, III, IV, and V. Compared with the type IV IRES, the others not only are structurally complicated, but also involve multiple initiation factors for triggering protein translation. The type IV IRES, often referred to as hepatitis C virus (HCV)-like IRES due to its structural resemblance to the HCV IRES, exhibits a simpler and more compact structure than those of the other four. The increasing identification of picornaviruses with the type IV IRES suggests that this IRES type seems to reveal strong retention and adaptation in terms of viral evolution. Here, we systematically reviewed structural features and biological functions of the type IV IRES in picornaviruses. A comprehensive understanding of the roles of type IV IRESs will contribute to elucidating the replication mechanism and pathogenesis of picornaviruses.

DON6D: a decoupled one-stage network for 6D pose estimation.

The six-dimensional (6D) pose object estimation is a key task in robotic manipulation and grasping scenes. Many existing two-stage solutions with a slow inference speed require extra refinement to handle the challenges of variations in lighting, sensor noise, object occlusion, and truncation. To address these challenges, this work proposes a decoupled one-stage network (DON6D) model for 6D pose estimation that improves inference speed on the premise of maintaining accuracy. Particularly, since the RGB images are aligned with the RGB-D images, the proposed DON6D first uses a two-dimensional detection network to locate the interested objects in RGB-D images. Then, a module of feature extraction and fusion is used to extract color and geometric features fully. Further, dual data augmentation is performed to enhance the generalization ability of the proposed model. Finally, the features are fused, and an attention residual encoder-decoder, which can improve the pose estimation performance to obtain an accurate 6D pose, is introduced. The proposed DON6D model is evaluated on the LINEMOD and YCB-Video datasets. The results demonstrate that the proposed DON6D is superior to several state-of-the-art methods regarding the ADD(-S) and ADD(-S) AUC metrics.

Efficient roxarsone degradation by low-dose peroxymonosulfate with the activation of recycling iron-base composite material: Critical role of electron transfer.

Pollutant degradation via electron transfer based on advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) provides an economical and energy-efficient method for pollution control. In this study, an iron-rich waste, heating pad waste (HPW), was recycled as a raw material, and a strong magnetic catalyst (Fe-HPW) was synthesized at high temperature (900 °C). Results showed that in the constructed Fe-HPW/PMS system, effective roxarsone (ROX) degradation and TOC removal (72.54%) were achieved at a low-dose of oxidant (PMS, 0.05 mM) and catalyst (Fe-HPW, 0.05 g L-1), the ratio of PMS to ROX was only 2.5:1. In addition, the released inorganic arsenic was effectively removed from the solution. The analysis of the experimental results showed that ROX was effectively degraded by forming PMS/catalyst surface complexes (Fe-HPW-PMS*) to mediate electron transfer in the Fe-HPW/PMS system. Besides, this system performed effective ROX degradation over a wide pH range (pH=3-9) and showed high resistance to different water parameters. Overall, this study not only provides a new direction for the recycling application of HPW but also re-emphasizes the neglected nonradical pathway in advanced oxidation processes.

Ecological threshold of phosphorus load in Baiyangdian Lake based on a PCLake model and ecological network analysis.

Ecological thresholds are a useful indicator for implementing ecological management. Many studies determine the thresholds for nutrient loads in lakes based on the maximum allowable concentration of chlorophyll a (Chla), although this neglects the overall performance of the ecosystem. A PCLake model of Baiyangdian (BYD) Lake in northern China was constructed with six ecological network analysis (ENA) indicators that characterized the ecosystem function, system maturity, and food web structure to quantify the overall status of the BYD ecosystem. To my knowledge, this is the first study on the system level responses of the BYD Lake to phosphorus load interference. Different phosphorus load scenarios were designed to simulate the ecological responses of BYD Lake. The simulated results were employed to calculate the ENA indicators. Ecological thresholds were determined through the driving response relationship between the phosphorus load gradient and the ENA indicators. The results show a non-linear transition response of ENA indicator under phosphorus load gradient. As phosphorus load increases, D/H, SOI, and FCI decreases while A/DC, TPP/TR, and TPP/TB increases. This indicates that the overall structure and function of the ecosystem will deteriorate if phosphorus load increases. The phosphorus load thresholds for the overall performance of BYD Lake were 0.50-1.32 mg m-2 d-1, slightly wider than that of Chla (0.53-1.26 mg m-2 d-1). The model results clearly indicate that there is a time-lag phenomenon at the switch points in the response of ENA indicators compared to that of single functional group. In addition, the A/DC, TPP/TR, SOI, and FCI present more time-lag than that of other ENA indicators. These time-lag effects provide a particular opportunity for biodiversity conservation. Therefore, a possible management strategy is proposed to combine system-level and function group-level thresholds, with the ENA-based threshold as the bottom line and the phytoplankton's threshold as the early-warning indicator. This design is expected to be more precise and efficient, by exploiting the advantages of two thresholds, and may benefit for ecological management practices.

Community ecological response to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in Baiyangdian Lake based on an ecological model.

The dynamic response of a single population to chemicals can be represented by a Weibull function. However, it is unclear whether the overall response can still be represented in this manner when scaled up to the community level. In this study, we investigated the responses of biological communities to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by using an ecological model of Baiyangdian Lake in northern China. The community dynamics process was divided into the following three stages. In the first stage, toxicity, played a dominant role and strong, medium, and weak species responses were observed according to the toxicity sensitivity. In the second stage, the dynamic process was dominated by the interaction strength with three alternative dynamic pathways comprising of direct response, no response, or inverse response. In the third stage, the toxicity was again dominant, and the biomasses of all species decreased to extinction. The toxicological dynamics were far more complex at the community level than those at the single species level and they were also influenced by the interaction strength as well as toxicity. The toxicological dynamic process in the community was constantly driven by the competing effects of these two forces. In addition to the total biomass, the interaction strength was identified as a suitable community-level signal because it exhibited good indicator properties regarding ecosystem steady-state transitions. However, we found that food web stability indicators were not suitable for use as community-level signals because they were not sensitive to changes in the ecosystem state. Some ecological management suggestions have been proposed, including medium to long-term monitoring, and reduction of external pollution loads and bioindicators. The results obtained in this study increase our understanding of how chemicals interfere with community dynamics, and the interaction strength and total biomass were identified as useful holistic indicators.

Self-sustained and Insulated Radiative/Evaporative Cooler for Daytime Subambient Passive Cooling.

Passive cooling technologies are one of the promising solutions to the global energy crisis due to no consumption of fossil fuels during operation. However, the existing radiative and evaporative coolers still have problems achieving daytime subambient cooling while maintaining evaporation over the long term. Here, we propose a self-sustained and insulated radiative/evaporative cooler (SIREC), which consists of a porous polyethylene film (P-PE) at the top, an air layer in the middle, and poly(vinyl alcohol) hydrogel with lithium bromide (PLH) at the bottom. In particular, the P-PE shows high solar reflectance (R̅solar = 0.91) and long-wave infrared transmittance (τ̅LWIR = 0.92), which reflects sunlight while enhancing the direct radiative heat transfer between outer space and PLH (ε̅LWIR = 0.96) for sky radiative cooling. In addition, the desirable vapor permeability (579 s m-1) of the P-PE also results in good compatibility with PLH for evaporative cooling (EC). Moreover, the PLH's ability to harvest atmospheric water at night provides self-sustainment for daytime EC. The air layer between P-PE and PLH further enhances the subambient cooling performance of the SIREC. These findings indicate promising prospects for the integration of passive cooling technologies.

Emotion generation method in online physical education teaching based on data mining of teacher-student interactions.

Different from conventional educational paradigms, online education lacks the direct interplay between instructors and learners, particularly in the sphere of virtual physical education. Regrettably, extant research seldom directs its focus toward the intricacies of emotional arousal within the teacher-student course dynamic. The formulation of an emotion generation model exhibits constraints necessitating refinement tailored to distinct educational cohorts, disciplines, and instructional contexts. This study proffers an emotion generation model rooted in data mining of teacher-student course interactions to refine emotional discourse and enhance learning outcomes in the realm of online physical education. This model includes techniques for data preprocessing and augmentation, a multimodal dialogue text emotion recognition model, and a topic-expanding emotional dialogue generation model based on joint decoding. The encoder assimilates the input sentence into a fixed-length vector, culminating in the final state, wherein the vector produced by the context recurrent neural network is conjoined with the preceding word's vector and employed as the decoder's input. Leveraging the long-short-term memory neural network facilitates the modeling of emotional fluctuations across multiple rounds of dialogue, thus fulfilling the mandate of emotion prediction. The evaluation of the model against the DailyDialog dataset demonstrates its superiority over the conventional end-to-end model in terms of loss and confusion values. Achieving an accuracy rate of 84.4%, the model substantiates that embedding emotional cues within dialogues augments response generation. The proposed emotion generation model augments emotional discourse and learning efficacy within online physical education, offering fresh avenues for refining and advancing emotion generation models.

Unraveling the rate-limiting step in microorganisms' mediation of denitrification and phosphorus absorption/transport processes in a highly regulated river-lake system.

River-lake ecosystems are indispensable hubs for water transfers and flow regulation engineering, which have frequent and complex artificial hydrological regulation processes, and the water quality is often unstable. Microorganisms usually affect these systems by driving the nutrient cycling process. Thus, understanding the key biochemical rate-limiting steps under highly regulated conditions was critical for the water quality stability of river-lake ecosystems. This study investigated how the key microorganisms and genes involving nitrogen and phosphorus cycling contributed to the stability of water by combining 16S rRNA and metagenomic sequencing using the Dongping river-lake system as the case study. The results showed that nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations were significantly lower in lake zones than in river inflow and outflow zones (p < 0.05). Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, and Microbacterium were the key microorganisms associated with nitrate and phosphate removal. These microorganisms contributed to key genes that promote denitrification (nirB/narG/narH/nasA) and phosphorus absorption and transport (pstA/pstB/pstC/pstS). Partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) revealed that environmental factors (especially flow velocity and COD concentration) have a significant negative effect on the key microbial abundance (p < 0.001). Our study provides theoretical support for the effective management and protection of water transfer and the regulation function of the river-lake system.

A clustering-based competitive particle swarm optimization with grid ranking for multi-objective optimization problems.

The goal of the multi-objective optimization algorithm is to quickly and accurately find a set of trade-off solutions. This paper develops a clustering-based competitive multi-objective particle swarm optimizer using the enhanced grid for solving multi-objective optimization problems, named EGC-CMOPSO. The enhanced grid mechanism involved in EGC-CMOPSO is designed to locate superior Pareto optimal solutions. Subsequently, a hierarchical-based clustering is established on the grid for improving the accuracy rate of the grid selection. Due to the adaptive division of clustering centers, EGC-CMOPSO is applicable for solving MOPs with various Pareto front (PF) shapes. Particularly, the inferior solutions are discarded and the leading particles are identified by the comprehensive ranking of particles in each cluster. Finally, the selected leading particles compete against each other, and the winner guides the update of the current particle. The proposed EGC-CMOPSO and the eight latest multi-objective optimization algorithms are performed on 21 test problems. The experimental results validate that the proposed EGC-CMOPSO is capable of handling multi-objective optimization problems (MOPs) and obtaining superior performance on both convergence and diversity.

Effect of an inactivated coronavirus disease 2019 vaccine, CoronaVac, on blood coagulation and glucose: a randomized, controlled, open-label phase IV clinical trial.

Background: Billions of doses of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines have been administered and several cases of thrombocytopenia with thrombosis syndrome (TTS) have been reported after the administration of adenoviral vector vaccines. However, the effects of an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine, CoronaVac, on coagulation are not well understood. Methods: In this randomized, controlled, open-label phase IV clinical trial, 270 participants including 135 adults aged 18-59 years and 135 adults aged 60 years or older, were enrolled and randomized to the CoronaVac group or to the control group in a 2:1 ratio and received two doses of CoronaVac or one dose of the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine and one dose of inactivated hepatitis A vaccine on days 0 and 28, respectively. Adverse events were collected for 28 days after each dose. Blood samples were taken on days 0, 4, 14, 28, 32, 42, and 56 after the first dose to evaluate neutralizing antibody titers and laboratory parameters of coagulation function and blood glucose. Results: Fourteen days after the second dose of CoronaVac, the seroconversion rates of neutralizing antibodies against the prototype strain and beta, gamma, and delta variants of concern (VOC) of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) reached peak values of 89.31%, 23.3%, 45.3%, and 53.5%, respectively. The incidence of adverse reactions was 43.6% and 52.2% in the CoronaVac group and in the control group, respectively. All were mild or moderate in severity. For the laboratory parameters, there was no difference in the means of any parameter between the two groups at any time point, except for the D-dimer on day 14. However, the D-dimer in the CoronaVac group decreased on day 14 compared to the value at baseline, while a higher D-dimer value, instead of a decreased D-dimer value, was a risk factor for TTS. Conclusion: CoronaVac showed a good safety profile and could induce a humoral response against the prototype and VOCs of SARS-CoV-2 in adults 18 years or older, with no abnormal effects on laboratory parameters of blood glucose and coagulation function.

Identification of THSD7B and PRMT9 mutations as risk factors for familial lung adenocarcinoma: A case report.

RATIONALE: Lung tumors arise from the unrestrained malignant growth of pulmonary epithelial cells. Lung cancer cases include both small and non-small cell lung cancers, with lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) accounting for roughly half of all non-small cell lung cancer cases. Research focused on familial cancers suggests that approximately 8% of lung cancer cases are linked to genetic susceptibility or heritability. The precise genetic factors that underlie the onset of lung cancer, however, remain to be firmly established. PATIENT CONCERNS: A 43-year-old presented with nodules in the lower left lung lobe. Following initial antibiotic treatment in a local hospital, these nodules remained present and the patient subsequently underwent the resection of the left lower lobe of the lung. The patient also had 4 family members with a history of LUAD. DIAGNOSIS: Immunohistochemical staining results including cytokeratin 7 (+), TTF-1 (+), new aspartic proteinase A (+), CK5/6 (-), P63 (-), and Ki-67 (5%+) were consistent with a diagnosis of LUAD. INTERVENTION: Whole exome sequencing analyses of 5 patients and 6 healthy family members were performed to explore potential mutations associated with familial LUAD. OUTCOMES: Whole exome sequencing was conducted, confirming that the proband and their 4 other family members with LUAD harbored heterozygous THSD7B (c.A4000G:p.S1334G) mutations and homozygous PRMT9 (c.G40T:p.G14C) mutations, as further confirmed via Sanger sequencing. These mutations were predicted to be deleterious using the SIFT, PolyPhen2, and MutationTaster algorithms. Protein structure analyses indicated that the mutation of the serine at amino acid position 1334 in THSD7B to a glycine would reduce the minimum free energy from 8.08 kcal/mol to 68.57 kcal/mol. The identified mutation in the PRMT9 mutation was not present in the predicted protein structure. I-Mutant2.0 predictions indicated that both of these mutations (THSD7B:p.S1334G and PRMT9: p.G14C) were predicted to reduce protein stability. LESSONS: Heterozygous THSD7B (c.A4000G:p.S1334G) and the homozygous PRMT9 (c.G40T:p.G14C) mutations were found to be linked to LUAD incidence in the analyzed family. Early analyses of these genetic loci and timely genetic counseling may provide benefits and aid in the early diagnosis of familial LUAD.

Immunogenicity, safety and consistency of seven lots of an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine in healthy children and adolescents: a randomized, double-blind, controlled, phase IV clinical trial.

Background: CoronaVac has been authorized worldwide for preventing coronavirus disease 2019. Information on the safety, immunogenicity and consistency of different lots and workshops of CoronaVac is presented here. Methods: In this randomized, double-blind, phase IV clinical trial in healthy children and adolescents aged 3-17 years, we aimed to assess the lot-to-lot and workshop-to-workshop consistency, as well as immunogenicity and safety of seven lots of commercial-scale CoronaVac from three workshops. Eligible participants were enrolled into three age cohorts (3-5, 6-11 and 12-17 years). Within each cohort, participants were randomly assigned to seven groups to receive two doses of CoronaVac, with four weeks apart. Serum samples were collected before the first dose and 28 days after the second dose for neutralizing antibody testing. The primary objective was to evaluate the consistency of immune response among different lots within workshop 2 or 3, as well as among different workshops. The primary endpoint was geometric mean titer (GMT) of neutralizing antibody at 28 days after full-course vaccination. Results: Between July 27th and November 19th, 2021, a total of 2,520 eligible participants were enrolled. Results showed that 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of GMT ratios for all comparative groups among different lots or workshops were within the equivalence criteria of [0.67, 1.5]. The GMT and seroconversion rate for all participants were 126.42 (95%CI: 121.82, 131.19) and 99.86% (95%CI: 99.59%, 99.97%) at 28 days after two-dose vaccination. The incidences of adverse reactions were similar among seven lots, and most adverse reactions were mild in Grade 1, with no serious adverse event. Conclusion: CoronaVac is well-tolerated and can elicit a good immune response among children and adolescents. Lot-to-lot consistency results indicate stable manufacturing of commercial-scale CoronaVac.

A retrospective study of 12,538 internal conical connection implants focused on the long-term integrity of implant-abutment complexes.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the long-term integrity of implant-abutment complexes in implant systems with two internal conical angles. MATERIAL AND METHODS: 12,538 bone-level implants of two systems placed between January 2012 and December 2018 were retrospectively analyzed. Cumulative abutment/implant fracture rates in systems with larger (LA, 7.5°) and smaller (SA, 5.7°) internal conical angles were estimated using the Kaplan-Meier analysis and compared between groups. The association between implant systems and jammed abutment retrievability was evaluated by multivariable generalized estimating equation logistic regression modeling. RESULTS: For LA, the 8-year cumulative incident rate was 0.10% (95% confidence interval (CI): 0-0.24%) for implant fracture and 0.26% (95% CI: 0.11%-0.41%) for abutment fracture, demonstrating a significant difference in gender (p = .03), implant diameter (p = .01), jaw (p = .006), and antagonist tooth (p < .001). For SA, the 8-year cumulative incident rate was 0.38% (95% CI: 0-0.79%) for implant fracture and 2.62% (95% CI: 0.05%-5.13%) for abutment fracture, which was influenced by implant diameter (p < .001) and site (p = .03). The cumulative implant/abutment fracture rate was lower for LA implants, particularly for LA implant-supported single crowns (SCs) (p < .05). The abutment-retrieval success rate was 92.9% for LA and 57.1% for SA (p = .055). CONCLUSION: LA implants exhibited a lower incidence of fracture in abutment-implant complexes and a relatively higher retrievability success rate for jammed abutments.

Feature Fusion-Based Improved Capsule Network for sEMG Signal Recognition.

This paper proposes a feature fusion-based improved capsule network (FFiCAPS) to improve the performance of surface electromyogram (sEMG) signal recognition with the purpose of distinguishing hand gestures. Current deep learning models, especially convolution neural networks (CNNs), only take into account the existence of certain features and ignore the correlation among features. To overcome this problem, FFiCAPS adopts the capsule network with a feature fusion method. In order to provide rich information, sEMG signal information and feature data are incorporated together to form new features as input. Improvements made on capsule network are multilayer convolution layer and e-Squash function. The former aggregates feature maps learned by different layers and kernel sizes to extract information in a multiscale and multiangle manner, while the latter grows faster at later stages to strengthen the sensitivity of this model to capsule length changes. Finally, simulation experiments show that the proposed method exceeds other eight methods in overall accuracy under the condition of electrode displacement (86.58%) and among subjects (82.12%), with a notable improvement in recognizing hand open and radial flexion, respectively.

Inferior survival and frequent hepatic dysfunction in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients with HBV infection: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVES: No clear consensus has been reached about the clinical features in hepatitis B virus (HBV)-associated non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) patients. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the clinical characteristics and prognosis of NHL patients with chronic HBV infection (HBsAg+). METHODS: Seven electronic databases were searched for relevant studies up to 31 January 2021. Hazard ratio (HR) or odds ratio (OR) corresponding to 95% confidence interval (CI) were calculated to estimate the outcomes. The primary outcome was survival outcome, including overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Subgroup analysis was performed in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients. RESULTS: Twenty-three retrospective studies, comprising of 1202 HBsAg+ NHL patients and 4448 HBsAg- NHL patients, were included. Twenty-two studies were conducted on Chinese patients. Compared with HBsAg- NHL patients, significantly shorter OS (HR 1.68; 95% CI 1.48-1.91) and PFS (HR 1.80; 95% CI 1.20-2.71), lower rate of complete remission (OR 0.59, 95% CI 0.44-0.80) and higher frequency of hepatic dysfunction during chemotherapy (OR 3.46; 95% CI 2.61-4.57) were demonstrated in HBsAg+ NHL patients. Moreover, HBsAg+ patients were characterized by a younger age of disease onset, advanced disease stage, higher level of LDH and more frequent presence of B symptoms, and involvement of spleen and liver at diagnosis. Furthermore, subgroup analysis in DLBCL patients was also showed similar results. CONCLUSION: Our study implicated that NHL patients, especially DLBCL, with chronic HBV infection displayed inferior prognosis, higher incidence of hepatic dysfunction during chemotherapy and distinct clinical features.

Indirect effects of carbon taxes on water conservation: A water footprint analysis for China.

Water scarcity is a severe problem for regional environmental protection and socioeconomic development, and water footprints are effective tools for evaluating the magnitude of the water scarcity. However, water is closely intertwined with energy. Carbon taxes are an essential policy tool for managing energy use, and could therefore indirectly change the water footprint. Previous research on water footprints has revealed the historical characteristics of water footprints, but has not predicted how these characteristics would change under a carbon tax. Identifying the indirect impacts of carbon taxes on water footprints could therefore offer important information to support more effective energy and water policies. In the present study, we explored the impacts of carbon taxes on water footprints. We established a computable general equilibrium model to predict the effects of carbon taxes on the socioeconomic system, and adopted an input-output model to account for changes in the water footprint. We then used China as a case study. We found that a carbon tax could reduce the total water footprint, even though the water footprint for primary industries increased. In addition, the tax could decrease the virtual water content, and the reduction of virtual water content is the greatest for the secondary industries.

Clinical characteristics and management of immune checkpoint inhibitor-related pneumonitis: A single-institution retrospective study.

INTRODUCTION: The increasing application of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) will cause more checkpoint inhibitor-related pneumonitis (CIP), which is a common cause of ICI-related death. The clinical management of CIP needs further optimization. METHODS: Patients who were managed at Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH) between February 2017 and December 2019 with a diagnosis of CIP were retrospectively analyzed. Clinical data including clinical manifestations, radiologic data, laboratory and bronchoscopy results, treatments, and outcomes were collected and analyzed. The Mann-Whitney test was used to compare patients with and without co-infections. RESULTS: In total, 48 CIP cases in 42 patients were analyzed. The median time from the first dose of ICI to the onset of CIP was 1.9 months (range: 0.1-13.7). Grade 3-4 (G3-4) accounted for 30 cases (71.4%). The most common symptoms were cough (88.1%) and dyspnea (78.6%). The median starting dose of equivalent prednisone (EP) was 55 mg (range: 30-200) for all patients. The median total duration of glucocorticosteroids (GCS) treatment was 42.5 days (range: 15-89). Three patients (7.14%) died because of infection. A higher starting dose and longer duration of GCS (≥30 mg/day; p = 0.001) were associated with opportunistic infection. Chest computed tomography (CT) showed diverse and asymmetrical lesions. Twelve patients were re-challenged, and six patients developed recurrent CIP. CONCLUSIONS: The clinical and imaging manifestations of CIP are various, and differential diagnosis of exclusion is essential. GCS at 1-2 mg/kg is feasible to treat CIP, but the duration of GCS ≥30 mg/day should be used with caution, given the high risk of acquired infections. Re-challenges of ICI are feasible, but the recurrence of CIP needs to be closely monitored.

Association of swallowing problems with frailty in Chinese hospitalized older patients.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of dysphagia and frailty among hospitalized older patients and to analyze the relationship between dysphagia and frailty in these people. METHODS: Data were collected on 386 participants aged 65 and older in a general hospital from April to December 2017. Patients were asked to complete a self-designed demographic questionnaire. Frailty and swallowing function assessments were performed using the Fried frailty phenotype and the 30-ml water swallowing test, respectively. Multiple stepwise logistic regression analyses were used to identify the association between frailty and dysphagia. RESULTS: Dysphagia developed in 31.1% of older people, and 24.4% developed frailty. Frailty was statistically significantly related with dysphagia. Dysphagia was more prevalent in frail and pre-frail patients (48.9% and 32.4%, respectively) than those who were non-frail (13.6%). In multivariate analyses, frail（OR, 5.420; 95% CI, 2.684-10.944；P＜0.001） and history of choking/coughing while drinking（OR, 2.954; 95% CI, 1.844-4.733；P＜0.001）were associated with dysphagia.result. CONCLUSIONS: Frailty is associated with dysphagia. More attention should be paid to frailty and dysphagia of the elderly and further studies are needed to evaluate the correlated mechanism and develop targeted nursing interventions.

Development and properties of dental Ti-Zr binary alloys.

In this study, two medium Zr-containing Ti-based alloys with commercially pure titanium as control were systematically investigated to assess their potential biomedical application. After samples subjected to TMP and CR, it was found that the Zr addition significantly affected the microstructure, phase constitutions, mechanical properties and cytocompatibility. The microstructural results showed that increasing Zr concentrations resulted in more refined grains. Furthermore, Zr changed the phase constitution: CR Ti-20Zr was formed by the single α-phase while CR Ti-30Zr alloy was formed by the coexistence of α and deformation-induced FCC phases. The P-type FCC phase was dominant and more prone to occur than the B-type one. The mechanical tests demonstrated that the increasing Zr content led to a simultaneous increase in micro-hardness, strength and plasticity of CR samples due to the combined effects of solution strengthening, work hardening and the FCC phase. The SEM fractography indicated that the brittle fracture of CR Ti-20Zr due to deformation twins and ductile fracture of CR Ti-30Zr because of FCC phase. Furthermore, Ti-Zr alloys presented comparable cytocompatibility to the CP-Ti control based on cell viability, proliferation and intracellular O2- content of MSCs. Specifically, alkaline phosphatase activity in BMSCs were significantly higher for grain refined CR Ti-30Zr. Considering all these results, CR Ti-30Zr alloy exhibited the optimal comprehensive performance to be potential dental materials.

Image Denoising Using Sparsifying Transform Learning and Weighted Singular Values Minimization.

In image denoising (IDN) processing, the low-rank property is usually considered as an important image prior. As a convex relaxation approximation of low rank, nuclear norm-based algorithms and their variants have attracted a significant attention. These algorithms can be collectively called image domain-based methods whose common drawback is the requirement of great number of iterations for some acceptable solution. Meanwhile, the sparsity of images in a certain transform domain has also been exploited in image denoising problems. Sparsity transform learning algorithms can achieve extremely fast computations as well as desirable performance. By taking both advantages of image domain and transform domain in a general framework, we propose a sparsifying transform learning and weighted singular values minimization method (STLWSM) for IDN problems. The proposed method can make full use of the preponderance of both domains. For solving the nonconvex cost function, we also present an efficient alternative solution for acceleration. Experimental results show that the proposed STLWSM achieves improvement both visually and quantitatively with a large margin over state-of-the-art approaches based on an alternatively single domain. It also needs much less iteration than all the image domain algorithms.