Risk factors for kidney stone disease recurrence: a comprehensive meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Kidney stone disease (KSD) is a common illness that causes an economic burden globally. It is easy for patients to relapse once they have suffered from this disease. The reported recurrence rate of KSD ranged from 6.1% to 66.9%. We performed this meta-analysis to identify various potential risk factors for the recurrence of KSD. METHODS: The PubMed, Embase and Web of Science databases were searched using suitable keywords from inception to Mar 2022. A total of 2,663 records were collected initially. After screening the literature according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 53 articles (40 retrospective studies; 13 prospective studies) including 488,130 patients were enrolled. The study protocol was registered with PROSPERO (No. CRD42020171771). RESULTS: The pooled results indicated that 12 risk factors including younger age (n = 18), higher BMI (n = 16), family history of kidney stones (n = 12), personal history of kidney stones (n = 11), hypertension (n = 5), uric acid stone (n = 4), race of Caucasian (n = 3), suspected kidney stone episode before the first confirmed stone episode (n = 3), surgery (n = 3), any concurrent asymptomatic (nonobstructing) stone (n = 2), pelvic or lower pole kidney stone (n = 2), and 24 h urine test completion (n = 2) were identified to be associated with KSD recurrence. In the subgroup analysis, patients with higher BMI (OR = 1.062), personal history of nephrolithiasis (OR = 1.402), or surgery (OR = 3.178) had a higher risk of radiographic KSD recurrence. CONCLUSIONS: We identified 12 risk factors related to the recurrence of KSD. The results of this analysis could serve to construct recurrence prediction models. It could also supply a basis for preventing the recurrence of KSD.

A study on the current state and equity level of social participation ability among older adults in Henan Province, China.

BACKGROUND: The social participation ability among older adults (SPAOA) plays an important role in enhancing their quality of life and utilization of medical services. This study aimed to evaluate the current state and equity level of SPAOA in Henan Province, China, as well as explore the factors associated with the current state and equity level of SPAOA. METHODS: This study analyzed data from the "2019 Henan Provincial Older Adults Ability Assessment Survey", which included 4,593 older people (over 60 years old). The relationships among the SPAOA indicators were explored using the Structural Equation Model (SEM). The Dynamic Material Element Analysis (DMA) and Logistic Regression (LR) were used to examine the current state of SPAOA and its associated factors. The equity level of SPAOA and its correlated factors were determined using the concentration index and T Theil index. RESULTS: SPAOA received an overall score of 91.89 ± 9.83. Daily living, perception ability and mental state were positively correlated with SPAOA (r = 0.13, 0.83, 0.11, all P < 0.05). Results of LR indicated that the most significant predictors of SPAOA were age, education level, pre-retirement occupation, and income (all P < 0.05). The concentration index of SPAOA based on age and income were -0.0058 and 0.0096, respectively. SPAOA had a total T Theil index of 0.030-0.031, and the contribution rate of the difference within the group was greater than 94%. CONCLUSIONS: While the overall level of SPAOA has been demonstrated to be outstanding, persons with a higher educational level and income are likely to benefit the most. The observed unequal distribution of SPAOA is primarily related to disparities in age or income within the group. To better serve older adults and improve their position and equity in terms of social participation ability, policymakers could emphasize older males with little income who live in urban areas, as well as unhealthy older females who live in rural residences.

Obstructive Sleep Apnea with COVID-19.

The novel coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) and the ensuing pandemic have greatly impacted the global healthcare system due to its high infectiousness, associated high mortality, and a complete lack of immunity in the population. Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a health crisis that has not only seriously disrupted people's lives but also affected their normal sleep, along with physical and mental health; this situation is especially exacerbated in people suffering from pre-existing conditions, such as sleep apnea. A recent meta-analysis of 18 studies by Miller et al. (September 2020) showed that obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is related to higher mortality and morbidity in patients with COVID-19 and is most likely independent of other risk factors. A recent meta-analysis indicated that COVID-19 patients with OSA are more severely affected than those without OSA, thereby providing further evidence that concurrent OSA may elevate the severity of COVID-19 infection, along with the risk of mortality. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the diagnosis and therapeutic management of patients with OSA. Thus, it is necessary to identify and develop new diagnostic and therapeutic avenues in the future. In this context, the current study summarizes known associations between COVID-19 and OSA and the regular diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for OSA in the light of COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control.

Cryptanalysis of an Image Encryption Algorithm Based on a 2D Hyperchaotic Map.

Recently, an image encryption scheme based on a 2D hyperchaotic map is proposed. It adopts the permutation-diffusion architecture and consists of three steps, which are permutation, forward diffusion, and backward diffusion. In this paper, we break this cipher with both the chosen-plaintext attack (CPA) and the chosen-ciphertext attack (CCA). According to our analysis, we found the two complex diffusion processes could be simplified into two simple diffusions and a modular addition operation. Based on this, the equivalent key can be obtained with CPA and CCA. Detailed theoretical derivations and the results of experiments confirmed the feasibility of our attack methods. When the image size was 256×256, the running time of the attacks was less than 2 hours on a laptop with a 2.59 GHz Intel Core i7 and 16 GB DDR3 memory. Other sizes of images were also tested, and some rules were found. In addition, the probability of other attacks has also been discussed, and some suggestions for improvements are given. The source codes are publicly available and can be found online.

Efficacy and safety of renal denervation for hypertension in patients with chronic kidney disease: a meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Renal denervation (RDN) is a new treatment for hypertension in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), but its efficacy is still debated. This meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of RDN for hypertension in patients with CKD. METHODS: PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, and Ovid databases were searched for relevant studies published. We performed both fixed- and random-effects meta-analyses of the changes in blood pressure, estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), and urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR) after RDN. RESULTS: The meta-analysis included 238 patients from 11 single-center, non-randomized, uncontrolled studies. Office blood pressure and 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure (24 h-ABP) showed a significant reduction 1 month after RDN (p < 0.05). This decrease of 24 h-ABP persisted for 24 months after RDN showed difference systolic blood pressure (p < 0.001) and diastolic blood pressure (p = 0.001). The 24 h-ABP exhibited a similar trend in the subgroup analysis. eGFR measurements obtained at each time point of analysis after RDN were not significantly different from those obtained before (p > 0.05). UACR levels were significantly reduced at 3 months and 6 months after RDN (p < 0.001). After RDN, the heart rate showed no significant changes (p > 0.05), and few major complications were encountered. CONCLUSIONS: The meta-analysis showed that RDN may be effective and safe for treating CKD patients with hypertension. Well-designed randomized controlled trials of RDN are urgently needed to confirm the safety and reproducibility of RDN and to assess its impact on clinical outcomes.

Polyethylene glycol-coated ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles-coupled sialyl Lewis X nanotheranostic platform for nasopharyngeal carcinoma imaging and photothermal therapy.

BACKGROUND: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a type of head and neck malignant tumor with a high incidence in specific regional distribution, and its traditional therapies face some challenges. It has become an urgent need to seek new therapeutic strategies without or with low toxicity and side effects. At present, more and more researchers has been attracting attention by nanotheranostic platform. Therefore, our team synthesized the polyethylene glycol-coated ultrasmall superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles-coupled sialyl Lewis X (USPIO-PEG-sLex) nanotheranostic platform with high temperature pyrolysis. RESULTS: The USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles had excellent photothermal conversion property, and the temperature of USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles solution increased with its concentration and power density of near-infrared (NIR) on 808 nm wavelengths. Five USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles with different concentrations of 0 mg/ml, 0.025 mg/ml, 0.05 mg/ml, 0.1 mg/ml and 0.2 mg/ml were prepared. The biological toxicity results showed that the viability of NPC 5-8F cells is related to the concentration of USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles and the culture time (P < 0.001). The results of photothermal therapy (PTT) in vitro indicated that the viability of 5-8F cells decreased significantly with the concentration of USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles increases (P < 0.001), and the viability of NPC 5-8F cells were 91.04% ± 5.20%, 77.83% ± 3.01%, 73.48% ± 5.55%, 59.50% ± 10.98%, 17.11% ± 3.14%, respectively. The USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles could target the tumor area, and reduce the T2* value of tumor tissue. The T2* values of tumor pre- and post-injection were 30.870 ± 5.604 and 18.335 ± 4.351, respectively (P < 0.001). In addition, USPIO-PEG-sLex nanoparticles as a photothermal agent for PTT could effectively inhibit tumor progression. The ratio of volume change between tail vein injection group, control group, nanoparticles without laser irradiation group and blank group after 5 treatments were 3.04 ± 0.57, 5.80 ± 1.06, 8.09 ± 1.96, 7.89 ± 2.20, respectively (P < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Our synthesized USPIO-PEG-sLex nanotheranostic platform, and it may be become a new strategy for the treatment of NPC.

Educational Approaches Help Bridge Perception Gaps of Invasive Alien Species (Mikania micrantha) between Managers and Non-managers.

Invasive alien species (IAS) significantly impact biodiversity, human health, and economies, and considerable resources are often used to manage their spread. Few studies have focused on the human perception of IAS management, and little is known about approaches to improve stakeholder perception. This study examined perception gaps between managers and non-managers of a notorious weed Mikania micrantha and the preference for educational approaches to bridge those gaps. Household questionnaires and key informant interviews were conducted in the China-Myanmar Border Region (China), and ordinal logistic regressions and Wilcoxon rank sum tests were used in statistical analyses. We found a high level of perception of M. micrantha among stakeholders, and a significant influence of socio-demographic factors including gender, educational level, ethnic group, and geographical location. Scores of the identification, damage, control measure, and manual treatment of M. micrantha were significantly higher for managers than those for non-managers, indicating that there were certain perception gaps between two stakeholder groups. Nine educational approaches were identified as being effective in improving stakeholder perception of IAS, of which training workshops were mostly preferred, followed by brochures (or leaflets) and other promotional materials. Additionally, we propose that well-designed and well-conducted educational approaches would benefit stakeholder perception of IAS, and that integration of IAS management into a comprehensive rural development scheme would improve its long-term performance in marginalized rural communities.

Upregulated immune checkpoint HHLA2 in clear cell renal cell carcinoma: a novel prognostic biomarker and potential therapeutic target.

BACKGROUND: Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is a malignant urogenital cancer with high mortality; however, current progress in understanding its molecular mechanism and predicting clinical treatment outcome is limited. Therefore, this study is to evaluate the clinical significance of immune inhibitory molecular human endogenous retrovirus-H long terminal repeat-associating protein 2 (HHLA2) in ccRCC prognosis and transcriptional regulatory network. METHODS: Expression of HHLA2 in ccRCC was examined by an online database platform ONCOMINE. The ONCOMINE result was independently validated by qRT-PCR and immunohistochemistry. Kaplan-Meier survival was generated using IBM SPSS Statistics V.22. ccRCC tissues cells with high HHLA2 were sorted and subjected to microarray transcriptional profiling and analysis. RESULTS: It was shown that expression of HHLA2 was statistically significantly increased in ccRCC tissues compared with normal renal tissues at both transcriptional and protein level. Moreover, the expression of HHLA2 was closely correlated with multiple clinicopathological features including tumour size, clinical stage and histological grade. High HHLA2 expression was associated with poor overall survival and clinical outcome. Comprehensive microarray analysis further identified thousands of HHLA2 targets including mRNA, long non-coding RNA and circular RNA that might function in various biological processes, especially, immune response. CONCLUSION: Increased HHLA2 expression was observed in ccRCC tumour tissue, which leads to a remarkable shorter overall survival and poorer prognosis. Together with other molecular evidence, we have demonstrated that HHLA2 could be a potential prognostic biomarker for ccRCC.

Automatic Detection of Arrhythmia Based on Multi-Resolution Representation of ECG Signal.

Automatic detection of arrhythmia is of great significance for early prevention and diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. Traditional feature engineering methods based on expert knowledge lack multidimensional and multi-view information abstraction and data representation ability, so the traditional research on pattern recognition of arrhythmia detection cannot achieve satisfactory results. Recently, with the increase of deep learning technology, automatic feature extraction of ECG data based on deep neural networks has been widely discussed. In order to utilize the complementary strength between different schemes, in this paper, we propose an arrhythmia detection method based on the multi-resolution representation (MRR) of ECG signals. This method utilizes four different up to date deep neural networks as four channel models for ECG vector representations learning. The deep learning based representations, together with hand-crafted features of ECG, forms the MRR, which is the input of the downstream classification strategy. The experimental results of big ECG dataset multi-label classification confirm that the F1 score of the proposed method is 0.9238, which is 1.31%, 0.62%, 1.18% and 0.6% higher than that of each channel model. From the perspective of architecture, this proposed method is highly scalable and can be employed as an example for arrhythmia recognition.

Identifying Influencers in Social Networks.

Social network analysis is a multidisciplinary research covering informatics, mathematics, sociology, management, psychology, etc. In the last decade, the development of online social media has provided individuals with a fascinating platform of sharing knowledge and interests. The emergence of various social networks has greatly enriched our daily life, and simultaneously, it brings a challenging task to identify influencers among multiple social networks. The key problem lies in the various interactions among individuals and huge data scale. Aiming at solving the problem, this paper employs a general multilayer network model to represent the multiple social networks, and then proposes the node influence indicator merely based on the local neighboring information. Extensive experiments on 21 real-world datasets are conducted to verify the performance of the proposed method, which shows superiority to the competitors. It is of remarkable significance in revealing the evolutions in social networks and we hope this work will shed light for more and more forthcoming researchers to further explore the uncharted part of this promising field.

LINC00961 restrains cancer progression via modulating epithelial-mesenchymal transition in renal cell carcinoma.

Recently, long noncoding RNA have been identified as new gene regulators and prognostic biomarkers in various cancers, including renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The expression and biological roles of LINC00961 have been reported in many human cancers. However, up to date, no study of LINC00961 has been shown in RCC. Currently, we aimed to investigate the function of LINC00961 in RCC progression. Interestingly, we observed that LINC00961 could act as a novel biomarker in predicting the diagnosis of RCC. Then, we found that LINC00961 was greatly downregulated in RCC cell lines (Caki-1, Caki-2, 786-O, A498, and ACHN cells) compared with normal renal cell lines (HK-2 cells). Then, 786-O cells and ACHN cells were infected with LV-LINC00961. As displayed in our current study, LINC00961 overexpression could obviously suppress the proliferation and survival of RCC cells in vitro. In addition, RCC cell apoptosis was greatly induced and cell cycle progression was blocked in G1 phase by upregulation of LINC00961 in 786-O cells and ACHN cells. Subsequently, we found that LV-LINC00961 was able to restrain RCC cell migration and cell invasion capacity. Meanwhile, the messenger RNA and protein expression levels of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-associated markers Slug and N-cadherin in RCC cell lines were dramatically inhibited by overexpressing LINC00961. Finally, the in vivo experiment was carried out and we observed that LINC00961 could inhibit RCC development through modulating EMT process. Taken these together, it was indicated in our study that LINC00961 was involved in RCC progression through targeting EMT pathway.

Intron-mediated regulation of ß-tubulin genes expression affects the sensitivity to carbendazim in Fusarium graminearum.

The plant pathogenic fungus, Fusarium graminearum, is known to have two ß-tubulin genes (named Fg-ß1tub and Fg-ß2tub). Mutations in Fg-ß2tub rather than in Fg-ß1tub have been shown to confer resistance to carbendazim (MBC), even though Fg-ß1tub has higher homology than Fg-ß2tub to the ß-tubulin isotypes related to benzimidazole resistance in other fungi. However, sequence alignment of ß-tubulin isotypes related to benzimidazole resistance showed that the number and position of introns in Fg-ß2tub are more consistent than Fg-ß1tub to those in other ß-tubulin genes. In detail, Fg-ß1tub lacks three introns, i.e., intron i3, i4, and i6 corresponding to positions in Fg-ß2tub of F. graminearum. To investigate the effects of the divergence introns on the function of ß-tubulins in F. graminearum, a strategy of intron deletion and insertion was used. Our results showed that deletion of the second intron from Fg-ß1tub gene increased Fg-ß1tub expression levels leading to increased sensitivity to MBC. Besides, inserting the divergence introns into Fg-ß1tub can increase Fg-ß1tub expression leading to increased sensitivity to MBC. In addition, intron-mediated Fg-ß1tub gene expression requires a splicing-competent intron within the body of the host gene. Furthermore, the insertion and deletion of introns in Fg-ß1tub gene have no significant effect on hyphal growth, conidiation and virulence in F. graminearum. Thus, we proposed that introns may be among the factors contributing to the evolution and functional divergence of two ß-tubulin genes and also significantly regulate the expression of ß-tubulin genes, which, in turn, affects sensitivity to MBC fungicides in F. graminearum.

Apoptotic effects of rhein through the mitochondrial pathways, two death receptor pathways, and reducing autophagy in human liver L02 cells.

Rhein (4,5-dihydroxyanthraquinone-2-carboxylic acid) is a major component of many medicinal herbs such as Rheum palmatum L. and Polygonum multiflorum. Despite being widely used, intoxication cases associated with rhein-containing herbs are often reported. Currently, there are no available reports addressing the effects of rhein on apoptosis in human liver L02 cells. Thus, the aim of this study is to determine the cytotoxic effects and the underlying mechanism of rhein on human normal liver L02 cells. In the present study, the methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium assay demonstrated that rhein decreased the viability of L02 cells in dose-dependent and time-dependent ways. Rhein was found to trigger apoptosis in L02 cells as shown by Annexin V-fluoresceine isothiocyanate (FITC) apoptosis detection kit and cell mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) assay, with nuclear morphological changes demonstrated by Hoechst 33258 staining. Detection of intracellular superoxide dismutase activity, lipid oxidation (malondialdehyde) content, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels showed that apoptosis was associated with oxidative stress. Moreover, it was observed that the mechanism implicated in rhein-induced apoptosis was presumably via the death receptor pathway and the mitochondrial pathway, as illustrated by upregulation of TNF-α, TNFR1, TRADD, and cleaved caspase-3, and downregulation of procaspase-8, and it is suggested that rhein may increase hepatocyte apoptosis by activating the increase of TNF-α level. Meanwhile, rhein upregulates the expression of Bax and downregulates the expression of procaspase-9 and -3, and it is suggested that the mitochondrial pathway is activated and rhein-induced apoptosis may be involved. In addition, we also want to explore whether rhein-induced apoptosis is related to the autophagic changes induced by rhein. The results showed that rhein treatment increased P62 and decreased LC3-II and beclin-1, which means that autophagy was weakened. The results of our studies indicated that rhein induced caspase-dependent apoptosis via both the Fas death pathway and the mitochondrial pathway by generating ROS, and meanwhile the autophagy tended to weaken.

Regulatory roles of introns in fungicide sensitivity of Fusarium graminearum.

Although the roles of introns have been much debated in eukaryotic organisms, none of them have been functionally characterized in Fusarium graminearum. In this study, we characterized the roles of introns in regulation of fungicide-sensitivity of F. graminearum. ß2 tub, cyp51A and myosin-5 are important target genes of benzimidazoles, triazoles and cyanoacrylates respectively. To explore the sensitivity regulation functions of introns in target genes, several detailed deletion studies were completed on the intronic regions of ß2 tub, cyp51A and myosin-5. Phenotypic analyses showed that deletion of the fourth intron from ß2 tub gene (designated ß2 Δi4), the sole intron from cyp51A gene (cyp51A-Δi) and the second intron from myosin-5 gene (myo5-Δi2) exhibited an increased sensitivity to corresponding fungicides. In contrast, deletion of the first or second intron from ß2 tub gene exhibited a decreased sensitivity to carbendazim. qRT-PCR showed that the mRNA transcript levels of target genes were significantly downregulated in ß2 Δi4, cyp51A-Δi and myo5-Δi2 respectively. Meanwhile, Western blot assays revealed that the protein expression levels of ß2 tub was also dramatically reduced in ß2 Δi4, but accumulated in ß2 Δi1 and ß2 Δi2. Overall, our results indicate that introns in target genes significantly regulate the fungicide-sensitivity by influencing expression of the corresponding resident genes in F. graminearum.

MnO nanoparticles embedded in a carbon matrix as high performance lithium-ion battery anodes: preparation, microstructure and electrochemistry.

Nano-sized MnO intimately embedded in a porous carbon matrix has been synthesized by a facile method in which the manganese-salts/glycerol sol was used as the precursor. The glycerol plays roles of the chelating agent, the carbon source and the solvent. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman results indicate that the carbon layer may have an obvious effect on the microstructure of MnO. The first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations further reveal a considerable charge transfer from MnO to the carbon, leading to a decrease of lattice parameters of MnO and the bond length of Mn-O in the MnO/C composite. The modified microstructure could improve electrochemical performance and meanwhile may explain the phenomenon of exceeding the theoretical capacity. The prepared MnO/C nanocomposite as an anode material displays superior Li-battery performance with a large reversible capacity, excellent cyclic performance and good rate capability.

Molecular characterization of Beclin 1 in rare minnow (Gobiocypris rarus) and its expression after waterborne cadmium exposure.

Beclin 1 plays an important role in autophagy and apoptosis which are well documented in mammals. However, relevant reports are rare in fish. This study characterized Beclin 1 of the rare minnow Gobiocypris rarus (rmBeclin 1), which encodes a peptide of 447 amino acids using RT-PCR and RACE. The deduced peptide showed 96.4 and 80.8% similarity to Beclin 1 of common carp and human, respectively. Semiquantitative RT-PCR revealed that rmBeclin 1 was ubiquitously expressed in all tested tissues of male and female fish in all developmental stages, even unfertilized eggs. RT-qPCR revealed that rmBeclin 1 mRNA transcripts were significantly up-regulated in gills after a 12 h treatment with waterborne CdCl2 but were decreased thereafter. However, rmBeclin 1 expression was decreased in the brain, but it was not significantly changed in other tissues. Subchronic CdCl2 exposure significantly increased rmBeclin 1 in the brain, but it distinctly decreased rmBeclin 1 in the gill and hepatopancreas. A dose-dependent effect was not observed in mature fish treated for 96 h, but a dose-dependent effect existed in immature fish treated for 10 days. Longer treatment (10 day) caused a significantly higher expression of rmBeclin 1 in the larvae groups. These data suggest that alterations in rmBeclin 1 after CdCl2 exposure are tissue-specific and time-related and that the dose-dependent effect was restricted to a certain concentration range and exposure time.

Nuclear-Spin-Induced Circular Dichroism in the Infrared Region for Liquids.

Recently, the nuclear-spin-induced optical rotation (NSOR) and circular dichroism (NSCD) for liquids were discovered and extensively studied and developed. However, so far, nuclear-spin-induced magnetic circular dichroism in the IR region (IR-NSCD) has not been explored, even though all polyatomic molecules exhibit extensive IR spectra. Herein, IR-NSCD is proposed and discussed theoretically. The results indicate that in favorable conditions the IR-NSCD angle may be much larger than the NSOR angle in the UV/Vis region due to a vibrational resonance effect and can be measurable by using the NSOR experiment scheme. IR-NSCD can automatically combine and give NMR spectra and IRCD spectra of the nuclear spin prepolarized samples in liquids, which, in principle, could be developed to become a unique, novel analytical tool.

Study on chaotic fault tolerant synchronization control based on adaptive observer.

Aiming at the abrupt faults of the chaotic system, an adaptive observer is proposed to trace the states of the master system. The sufficient conditions for synchronization of such chaotic systems are also derived. Then the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method are illustrated via numerical simulations of chaotic Chen system. Finally, the proposed synchronization schemes are applied to secure communication system successfully. The experimental results demonstrate that the employed observer can manage real-time fault diagnosis and parameter identification as well as states tracing of the master system, and so the synchronization of master system and slave system is achieved.

Exploring the association between social media and farmers' knowledge of a worldwide invasive agricultural pest, Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae).

BACKGROUND: Public education has profound effects on the management effectiveness of invasive alien species by shaping stakeholders' knowledge systems. However, our understanding of the association between social media and farmers' knowledge is lacking for the majority of invasive agricultural pests. In this study, we used the fall armyworm (FAW), Spodoptera frugiperda, one of the most invasive insects globally, as a case to test the hypothesis that social media has a significant association with farmers' knowledge of FAW. To address this, we developed a theoretical framework, conducted extensive household questionnaires in the China-Myanmar-Laos border region (China), and used quantitative descriptions and binary logistic regressions in statistical analyses. RESULTS: Our results showed that (1) farmers frequently reported using 12 social media applications on smartphones (SMASs), and obtained FAW-relevant information from six of them, with high preferences for WeChat and TikTok, (2) farmers possessed a generally high level of knowledge of FAW which was significantly associated with their socio-demographic profiles, and (3) FAW-relevant information from SMASs was significantly associated with certain aspects of farmers' knowledge of FAW. CONCLUSIONS: We concluded that social media has a significant association with farmers' knowledge of FAW. We suggest that well-designed and -conducted educational programs based on the use of SMASs could help improve the management of FAW, and the Department of Agricultural Extension could play an important and necessary role. Our findings provide insights into this novel educational approach for the management of serious invasive agricultural pests. © 2023 Society of Chemical Industry.

Associations between inhalation of typical volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds in e-waste dismantling workers with liver function damage.

Studies in cell culture and animal models suggest hepatotoxicity of some volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), however, their effects in human populations under real exposure conditions have never been clarified. In this cross-sectional study, 224 participants, 38 e-waste dismantling workers and 186 subjects residing near to the dismantling sites in southern China, were evaluated for personal inhalational exposure to 72 VOCs and 91 SVOCs according to site-specific atmospheric chemical concentrations and personal exposure time. Additionally, their serum samples were subjected to liver function tests (LFTs), including total protein (TP), albumin (ALB), globulin (GLB), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), gamma-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT), and bilirubin. Linear regression analysis of the VOC/SVOC levels against the LFTs results indicated that VOC exposure was negatively associated with the TP, ALB, GLB levels (indicating liver-specific protein synthesis functions), while positively associated with AST, ALT, GGT activities (marking liver damage). Somehow, SVOC exposure appeared to be positively associated with not only AST and ALT but also TP and ALB. These findings were supported by the quantile g-computation analysis and confirmed in the Bayesian kernel machine regression model. This study indicates that simultaneous inhalation of VOCs and SVOCs may impair human liver functions.