Risk and survival in colorectal cancer with increasing body mass index: A nationwide population-based cohort study.

AIM: The aim was to explore potential associations between the body mass index (BMI) and the risk of colorectal cancer (CRC), including subsites of the colon, and cancer-specific death. METHODS: A registry-based cohort study was conducted with baseline data gathered from the Norwegian Tuberculosis Screening Programme, collected between 1963 and 1975, and linked to follow-up data from the Cancer Registry of Norway and the Norwegian Cause of Death Registry. Cox regression models were used to explore associations between BMI and CRC risk and cancer-specific death. RESULTS: Of 1 723 692 included individuals, 76 616 developed CRC during 55 370 707 person-years of follow-up. In men, a 5 kg/m2 increase in BMI was associated with an increased risk of colon cancer, including both right and left subsites, and rectal cancer. Allowing for nonlinearities, we found a U-shaped association for the right colon and an inverse U-shape for the left colon and rectum cancer. In women, a 5 kg/m2 increase in BMI in early adulthood was associated with increased risk of colon cancer, including both subsites. In women, an increased risk of CRC death with increasing BMI was found for colon cancer. CONCLUSIONS: Men of all ages have an increased risk of CRC with increasing BMI, with the highest risk for right-sided colon cancer. An increased risk for colon cancer was also found in women with high BMI in early adulthood. Furthermore, women of all age groups appeared to have an increased risk of CRC death with higher BMI.

Cancer risk and survival according to body mass index in hepatobiliary malignancies: a nationwide registry-based cohort study.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to explore the associations between BMI and cancer of the liver, bile ducts, and gallbladder. METHODS: A registry-based cohort study was performed by linking data from several national registries in Norway. RESULTS: The cohort comprised 1 723 692 individuals including 4768 hepatobiliary cancer cases during 55 743 509 person-years of follow-up. In men, we found increased risk of cancer per 5 kg/m2 BMI increase for hepatocellular carcinoma and extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. In women there was increased risk of extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma and gallbladder cancer. Women with high BMI in early adulthood had increased risk of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. Reduced cancer-specific survival was found for all hepatobiliary malignancies in women with overweight and obesity. In men, reduced survival was observed in individuals with obesity for all hepatobiliary cancers, except gallbladder cancer. Increased risk of cancer-death per 5 kg/m2 BMI increase was found for hepatocellular carcinoma, intra-, and extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma in women. For men, 5 kg/m2 BMI increase was positively associated with cancer-death from intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma. DISCUSSION: This study supports the notion of an increased risk of hepatobiliary cancers with increasing BMI, with sex and age variations. The findings also suggest a higher risk of cancer-death with increasing BMI.

Study of Electrospinning Parameters and Collection Methods on Size Distribution and Orientation of PLA/PBS Hybrid Fiber Using Digital Image Processing.

The Canny Edge-Based Distance Transform and Hough Transform algorithms were successfully implemented to analyze the size distribution and the orientation of the electrospun PLA/PBS hybrid fiber. The effect of polymer concentration, voltage, feed rate and needle-collector distance were studied. It was found that feed rate of 0.5 ml/h and needle-collector distance of 12 cm is required to generate smooth and uniform hybrid fibers in the smallest size electrospinning with 6 wt.% polymer at voltage of 20 kV. The stationary flat collector with a swaying needle and fast rotating drum disc with a stationary needle were used for the fiber alignment. In order to improve the size distribution and the orientation of the hybrid fibers it is proposed that the fibers should be collected on the rotary drum disc at 700 rpm or higher speed.

APOE-ε4 associates with hippocampal volume, learning, and memory across the spectrum of Alzheimer's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies.

INTRODUCTION: Although the apolipoprotein E ε4-allele (APOE-ε4) is a susceptibility factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), its relationship with imaging and cognitive measures across the AD/DLB spectrum remains unexplored. METHODS: We studied 298 patients (AD = 250, DLB = 48; 38 autopsy-confirmed; NCT01800214) using neuropsychological testing, volumetric magnetic resonance imaging, and APOE genotyping to investigate the association of APOE-ε4 with hippocampal volume and learning/memory phenotypes, irrespective of diagnosis. RESULTS: Across the AD/DLB spectrum: (1) hippocampal volumes were smaller with increasing APOE-ε4 dosage (no genotype × diagnosis interaction observed), (2) learning performance as assessed by total recall scores was associated with hippocampal volumes only among APOE-ε4 carriers, and (3) APOE-ε4 carriers performed worse on long-delay free word recall. DISCUSSION: These findings provide evidence that APOE-ε4 is linked to hippocampal atrophy and learning/memory phenotypes across the AD/DLB spectrum, which could be useful as biomarkers of disease progression in therapeutic trials of mixed disease.

A census of α-helical membrane proteins in double-stranded DNA viruses infecting bacteria and archaea.

BACKGROUND: Viruses are the most abundant and genetically diverse biological entities on earth, yet the repertoire of viral proteins remains poorly explored. As the number of sequenced virus genomes grows into the thousands, and the number of viral proteins into the hundreds of thousands, we report a systematic computational analysis of the point of first-contact between viruses and their hosts, namely viral transmembrane (TM) proteins. RESULTS: The complement of α-helical TM proteins in double-stranded DNA viruses infecting bacteria and archaea reveals large-scale trends that differ from those of their hosts. Viruses typically encode a substantially lower fraction of TM proteins than archaea or bacteria, with the notable exception of viruses with virions containing a lipid component such as a lipid envelope, internal lipid core, or inner membrane vesicle. Compared to bacteriophages, archaeal viruses are substantially enriched in membrane proteins. However, this feature is not always stable throughout the evolution of a viral lineage; for example, TM proteins are not part of the common heritage shared between Lipothrixviridae and Rudiviridae. In contrast to bacteria and archaea, viruses almost completely lack proteins with complicated membrane topologies composed of more than 4 TM segments, with the few detected exceptions being obvious cases of relatively recent horizontal transfer from the host. CONCLUSIONS: The dramatic differences between the membrane proteomes of cells and viruses stem from the fact that viruses do not depend on essential membranes for energy transformation, ion homeostasis, nutrient transport and signaling.

Acute abdomen as an early symptom of COVID-19. / Covid-19 med akutte magesmerter som debutsymptom.

A woman with acute abdominal pain was admitted to hospital with suspected cholecystitis. In addition to abdominal pain, she had vomiting, loss of appetite, diarrhoea and symptoms of pyrexia. She had no symptoms from the respiratory tract, but was later found to have COVID-19. A number of patients have presented with similar symptoms at our hospital. This has led to temporary changes in our procedures for handling and investigating patients with acute abdominal pain.

ET-Network: A novel efficient transformer deep learning model for automated Urdu handwritten text recognition.

Automatic Urdu handwritten text recognition is a challenging task in the OCR industry. Unlike printed text, Urdu handwriting lacks a uniform font and structure. This lack of uniformity causes data inconsistencies and recognition issues. Different writing styles, cursive scripts, and limited data make Urdu text recognition a complicated task. Major languages, such as English, have experienced advances in automated recognition, whereas low-resource languages, such as Urdu, still lag. Transformer-based models are promising for automated recognition in high- and low-resource languages such as Urdu. This paper presents a transformer-based method called ET-Network that integrates self-attention into EfficientNet for feature extraction and a transformer for language modeling. The use of self-attention layers in EfficientNet helps to extract global and local features that capture long-range dependencies. These features proceeded into a vanilla transformer to generate text, and a prefix beam search is used for the finest outcome. NUST-UHWR, UPTI2.0, and MMU-OCR-21 are three datasets used to train and test the ET Network for a handwritten Urdu script. The ET-Network improved the character error rate by 4% and the word error rate by 1.55%, while establishing a new state-of-the-art character error rate of 5.27% and a word error rate of 19.09% for Urdu handwritten text.

Development of Microparticle Implanted PVDF-HF Polymer Coating on Building Material for Daytime Radiative Cooling.

A passive cooling method with great potential to lower space-cooling costs, counteract the urban heat island effect, and slow down worldwide warming is radiant cooling. The solutions available frequently require complex layered structures, costly products, or a reflective layer of metal to accomplish daytime radiative cooling, which restricts their applications in many avenues. Furthermore, single-layer paints have been used in attempts to accomplish passive daytime radiative cooling, but these usually require a compact coating or only exhibit limited cooling in daytime. In our study, we investigated and evaluated in daytime the surrounding cooling outcome with aid of one layer coating composed of BaSO4/TiO2 microparticles in various concentrations implanted in the PVDF-HF polymers on a concrete substrate. The 30% BaSO4/TiO2 microparticle in the PVDF-HF coating shows less solar absorbance and excessive emissivity. The value of solar reflectance is improved by employing micro-pores in the structure of PVDF polymers without noticeable effect on thermal emissivity. The 30% BaSO4/TiO2/PVDF coating is accountable for the hydrophobicity and proportionate solar reflection in the UV band, resulting in efficient solar reflectivity of about 95.0%, with emissivity of 95.1% and hydrophobicity exhibiting a 117.1° water contact angle. Also, the developed coating could cool to about 5.1 °C and 3.9 °C below the surrounding temperature beneath the average solar irradiance of 900 W/m-2. Finally, the results demonstrate that the 30% BaSO4/TiO2/PVDF-HF microparticle coating illustrates a typical figure of merit of 0.60 and is also capable of delivering outstanding dependability and harmony with the manufacturing process.

BaSO4/TiO2 Microparticle Embedded in Polyvinylidene Fluoride-Co-Hexafluoropropylene/Polytetrafluoroethylene Polymer Film for Daytime Radiative Cooling.

Radiative cooling is a new large-scale cooling technology with the promise of lowering costs and decreasing global warning. Currently, daytime radiative cooling is achieved via the application of reflective metal layers and complicated multilayer structures, limiting its application on a massive scale. In our research, we explored and tested the daytime subambient cooling effect with the help of single-layer films consisting of BaSO4, TiO2, and BaSO4/TiO2 microparticles embedded in PVDF/PTFE polymers. The film, consisting of BaSO4/TiO2 microparticles, offers a low solar absorbance and high atmospheric window emissivity. The solar reflectance is enhanced by micropores in the PVDF/PTFE polymers, without any significant influence on the thermal emissivity. The BaSO4/TiO2/PVDF/PTFE microparticle film attains 0.97 solar reflectance and 0.95 high sky-window emissivity when the broadly distributed pore size reaches 180 nm. Our field test demonstrated that the single-layer BaSO4/TiO2/PVDF/PTFE microparticle film achieved a temperature 5.2 °C below the ambient temperature and accomplished a cooling power of 74 W/m2. Also, the results show that, when the humidity rises from 33% to 38% at 12:30 pm, it hinders the cooling of the body surface and lowers the cooling effect to 8%.

Prediction of carbon-dioxide activity coefficient for solubility in ionic liquids using multi-non-linear regression analysis.

Activity coefficient values offer insight into the intermolecular interactions between the solute and the solvent and the deviation from the ideal behavior. CO2 capture from different industrial processes is a globally pertinent issue and the search for suitable chemicals is required. To address the issue, knowledge of activity coefficient values is crucial for CO2 separation-based process. In this regard, a correlation is developed that predicts the coefficient of CO2 activity in ionic liquids by multi-nonlinear regression analysis. The correlation is developed between the pressure range of 1-50 bar and the temperature range of 298.15-33.15 K for mole fractions of 0.3, 0.5, and 0.7. Outliers' analysis is performed using the boxplot method to determine the suitability of ranges of the selected input parameters. The preceding literature does not predict the activity coefficient in relatively lower to higher temperature and pressure ranges for CO2 solubility in ionic liquids. Initially, the activity coefficient values from COSMO-RS were obtained and compared with the correlation results. The COSMO-RS and the correlation predicted results were subsequently validated with the experimental data. The average absolute error (AAE%) of the predicted correlation values is 19.53% while the root mean square error (RMSE) value is 0.465. The correlation can be used in the future to predict the CO2 activity coefficient values in ionic liquids to facilitate qualitative analyses of their CO2 capture efficiency.

Body mass index and pancreatic adenocarcinoma: A nationwide registry-based cohort study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: An association between body mass index (BMI) and pancreatic cancer is suggested in observational studies. However, further studies are required to substantiate available evidence. The aim of this study was to explore the association between BMI and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) risk, treatment, and mortality. METHODS: A registry-based cohort study was performed by combining data from four registries in Norway. Baseline data were collected between 1963 and 1975 with follow-up data collected until 2018. Kaplan-Meier curves and multivariable Cox regressions were estimated. Chi-square tests were used to analyze differences between groups. RESULTS: The study cohort consisted of 1,723,692 individuals. A total of 8973 PDAC cases were identified during 55,744,749 person-years of follow-up. A 5 kg/m2 increase in BMI was associated with an increased risk of PDAC if high BMI at young age (16-29 years) (hazard ratio (HR): 1.21, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.13-1.31), both for men (HR: 1.30, 95% CI: 1.15-1.46) and women (HR: 1.16, 95% CI: 1.05-1.28). In men, there was a 52% increase in risk of early-onset PDAC (

Enhancement of the Desorption Properties of LiAlH4 by the Addition of LaCoO3.

The high hydrogen storage capacity (10.5 wt.%) and release of hydrogen at a moderate temperature make LiAlH4 an appealing material for hydrogen storage. However, LiAlH4 suffers from slow kinetics and irreversibility. Hence, LaCoO3 was selected as an additive to defeat the slow kinetics problems of LiAlH4. For the irreversibility part, it still required high pressure to absorb hydrogen. Thus, this study focused on the reduction of the onset desorption temperature and the quickening of the desorption kinetics of LiAlH4. Here, we report the different weight percentages of LaCoO3 mixed with LiAlH4 using the ball-milling method. Interestingly, the addition of 10 wt.% of LaCoO3 resulted in a decrease in the desorption temperature to 70 °C for the first stage and 156 °C for the second stage. In addition, at 90 °C, LiAlH4 + 10 wt.% LaCoO3 can desorb 3.37 wt.% of H2 in 80 min, which is 10 times faster than the unsubstituted samples. The activation energies values for this composite are greatly reduced to 71 kJ/mol for the first stages and 95 kJ/mol for the second stages compared to milled LiAlH4 (107 kJ/mol and 120 kJ/mol for the first two stages, respectively). The enhancement of hydrogen desorption kinetics of LiAlH4 is attributed to the in situ formation of AlCo and La or La-containing species in the presence of LaCoO3, which resulted in a reduction of the onset desorption temperature and activation energies of LiAlH4.

Investigation of physical properties and carbon dioxide solubility in tetramethylammonium bromide and tetraethylammonium bromide ionic liquids solutions.

Carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas that is responsible for global warming and renders harmful effects on the atmosphere. The unconstrained release of CO2 into the atmosphere should be prevented and various techniques have been developed in this regard to capture CO2 using different solvents and other compounds. Ionic liquids are a suitable candidate to capture CO2 due to their better solubility behaviour. In this work, two ionic liquids namely tetramethylammonium bromide (TMAB) and tetraethylammonium bromide (TEAB) are employed experimentally to capture CO2 and investigate their solubility behaviour. The study is performed at the temperature values of 303 K, 313 K, and 323 K and the pressure values of 5, 10, 15, and 20 bar equivalent to 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 MPa respectively. The concentrations of both ionic liquid solutions are 2.5 wt%, 5.0 wt%, and 10.0 wt%. The solubility results are considered in terms of mol fraction which is the ratio of moles of CO2 captured per moles of ionic liquid. The density and viscosity values are also determined for both compounds at respective conditions. COSMO-RS is used to generate the sigma profile, sigma surface, and Henry's constant of the ions involved in the study. CO2 is found to be soluble in both ionic liquids, but TEAB showed better solubility behaviour as compared to TMAB. The solubility of CO2 is found to be increasing with the increase in pressure while it decreases with the increase in temperature.

Effect of LaCoO3 Synthesized via Solid-State Method on the Hydrogen Storage Properties of MgH2.

One of the ideal energy carriers for the future is hydrogen. It has a high energy density and is a source of clean energy. A crucial step in the development of the hydrogen economy is the safety and affordable storage of a large amount of hydrogen. Thus, owing to its large storage capacity, good reversibility, and low cost, Magnesium hydride (MgH2) was taken into consideration. Unfortunately, MgH2 has a high desorption temperature and slow ab/desorption kinetics. Using the ball milling technique, adding cobalt lanthanum oxide (LaCoO3) to MgH2 improves its hydrogen storage performance. The results show that adding 10 wt.% LaCoO3 relatively lowers the starting hydrogen release, compared with pure MgH2 and milled MgH2. On the other hand, faster ab/desorption after the introduction of 10 wt.% LaCoO3 could be observed when compared with milled MgH2 under the same circumstances. Besides this, the apparent activation energy for MgH2-10 wt.% LaCoO3 was greatly reduced when compared with that of milled MgH2. From the X-ray diffraction analysis, it could be shown that in-situ forms of MgO, CoO, and La2O3, produced from the reactions between MgH2 and LaCoO3, play a vital role in enhancing the properties of hydrogen storage of MgH2.

Physicochemical approaches reveal the impact of electrolytes and hydrotropic salt on micellization and phase separation behavior of polymer polyvinyl alcohol and surfactant mixture.

The polymer-surfactant mixture has usages in numerous industries mainly in the production of daily used materials. Herein, the micellization and phase separation nature of the sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and TX-100 along with a synthetic water-soluble polymer-polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) have been conducted using conductivity and cloud point (CP) measurement tools. In the case of micellization study of SDS + PVA mixture by conductivity method, the CMC values were obtained to be dependent on the categories and extent of additives as well as temperature variation. Both categories of studies were performed in aq. solutions of sodium chloride (NaCl), sodium acetate (NaOAc), and sodium benzoate (NaBenz) media. The CP values of TX 100 + PVA were decreased and enhanced in simple electrolytes and sodium benzoate media respectively. In all cases, the free energy changes of micellization (∆Gm0) and clouding (∆Gc0) were obtained as negative and positive respectively. The enthalpy (∆Hm0) and entropy (∆Sm0) changes for SDS + PVA system micellization was negative and positive respectively in aq. NaCl and NaBenz media, and in aq. NaOAc medium the ∆Hm0 values were found negative while ∆Sm0 were found negative except at the highest studied temperature (323.15 K). The enthalpy-entropy compensation of both processes was also assessed and described clearly.

Comparative Efficacy of Direct Oral Anticoagulants and Low-Molecular-Weight Heparin in Cancer-Associated Thromboembolism: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Patients diagnosed with cancer often experience an abnormal occurrence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) and its related complications. In order to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of both treatment approaches, we conducted a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis within the realm of cancer-associated thromboembolism. A thorough search was conducted across PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and Embase databases to find studies comparing direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs) with low molecular weight heparins (LMWHs) for the treatment of VTE in patients with malignancy. The analyses utilized the random-effects model. This meta-analysis included 11 studies. The results showed that DOACs were associated with a significantly reduced risk of VTE recurrence (RR: 0.67; 95% CI: 0.55, 0.81, p<0.0001; I2: 0%) and deep vein thrombosis (DVT) (RR: 0.63; 95% CI: 0.46, 0.86, p<0.0001; I2: 0%) compared to LMWHs. However, there was no significant difference in the risk of pulmonary embolism (PE) (RR: 0.76; 95% CI: 0.54, 1.06, p=0.11; I2: 11%) between the two groups. The use of DOACs was also associated with a non-significant increase in the risk of major bleeding events (RR: 1.23; 95% CI: 0.85, 1.78, p: 0.26; I2: 49%), while clinically relevant non-major bleeding (CRNMB) was significantly higher with DOACs (RR: 1.92; 95% CI: 1.11, 3.30, p: 0.02; I2: 81%). Secondary outcomes, such as survival rates and fatal PE, did not show significant differences between the two treatment groups. Our analysis indicates that direct oral anticoagulants exhibit a substantial decrease in the occurrence of VTE recurrence, deep vein thrombosis, and pulmonary embolism when compared to low molecular weight heparin in cancer-associated thromboembolism. However, it should be noted that DOACs carry a higher risk of CRNMB. Based on these findings, DOACs are recommended as a superior therapeutic option for managing cancer-associated thromboembolism compared to LMWH.