Comparison of the efficacy and safety of vertebroplasty with different pedicle approaches for osteoporotic vertebral.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the efficacy and safety of vertebroplasty through different pedicle approaches in the treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compression fracture osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCF) by network meta-analysis. METHODS: Pubmed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science. Database for literature retrieval, retrieval time from the establishment of the database to April 2023, the randomized controlled trials of unilateral vertebroplasty (UVP), bilateral vertebroplasty (BVP), unilateral kyphoplasty (UKP), bilateral kyphoplasty (BKP), curved vertebroplasty (CVP) and curved kyphoplasty (CKP) were screened, evaluated and the data were extracted and included in the analysis. STATA 15.0 and ReMan 5.3 were used for data analysis. This study was registered in the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) with the registration number CRD42023405181. RESULTS: This study included 16 articles with a total of 1712 patients. The order of visual analogue scale (VAS) improvement from good to bad is CVP > BVP > UVP > CKP > BKP > UKP. The order of kyphotic angles improvement from good to bad is CKP > UKP > UKP > UVP > BVP > CVP. The order of bone cement injection from less to more is UVP > CVP > UKP > CKP > BVP > BKP. The order of bone cement leakage rate from less to more is CKP > CVP > UKP > BKP > UVP > BVP. The order of X-ray exposure time from less to more is CKP > CVP > UVP > BVP > UKP > BKP. The order of operation time from less to more is CVP > UVP > UKP > CKP > BVP > BKP. CONCLUSION: For patients with kyphotic angles, kyphoplasty has unique advantages in improving kyphotic angles. But generally speaking, curved approach can optimize the distribution of bone cement through unilateral approach to achieve the orthopedic effect of bilateral approach, which is a minimally invasive technique with better curative effect and higher safety in the treatment of OVCF.

A multi-source heterogeneous medical data enhancement framework based on lakehouse.

Obtaining high-quality data sets from raw data is a key step before data exploration and analysis. Nowadays, in the medical domain, a large amount of data is in need of quality improvement before being used to analyze the health condition of patients. There have been many researches in data extraction, data cleaning and data imputation, respectively. However, there are seldom frameworks integrating with these three techniques, making the dataset suffer in accuracy, consistency and integrity. In this paper, a multi-source heterogeneous data enhancement framework based on a lakehouse MHDP is proposed, which includes three steps of data extraction, data cleaning and data imputation. In the data extraction step, a data fusion technique is offered to handle multi-modal and multi-source heterogeneous data. In the data cleaning step, we propose HoloCleanX, which provides a convenient interactive procedure. In the data imputation step, multiple imputation (MI) and the SOTA algorithm SAITS, are applied for different situations. We evaluate our framework via three tasks: clustering, classification and strategy prediction. The experimental results prove the effectiveness of our data enhancement framework.

An adaptive feature selection algorithm based on MDS with uncorrelated constraints for tumor gene data classification.

The developing of DNA microarray technology has made it possible to study the cancer in view of the genes. Since the correlation between the genes is unconsidered, current unsupervised feature selection models may select lots of the redundant genes during the feature selecting due to the over focusing on genes with similar attribute. which may deteriorate the clustering performance of the model. To tackle this problem, we propose an adaptive feature selection model here in which reconstructed coefficient matrix with additional constraint is introduced to transform original data of high dimensional space into a low-dimensional space meanwhile to prevent over focusing on genes with similar attribute. Moreover, Alternative Optimization (AO) is also proposed to handle the nonconvex optimization induced by solving the proposed model. The experimental results on four different cancer datasets show that the proposed model is superior to existing models in the aspects such as clustering accuracy and sparsity of selected genes.

Mixture of controlled-release and conventional urea fertilizer application changed soil aggregate stability, humic acid molecular composition, and maize nitrogen uptake.

Controlled-release urea (CRU) fertilizer application has been shown to improve crop yield and nitrogen (N) use efficiency. However, its effects when mixed with conventional urea fertilizer on soil aggregate stability, humic acid (HA) molecular composition and crop N uptake remain unclear. Soil and plant samples were collected from a long-term (2008-2019) experiment on field maize (Zea mays L., 'Zhengdan 958') which included two types of fertilizers [conventional urea fertilizer (CUF), blended CUF with CRU fertilizer (CRF)], four N application rates (0, 150, 300 and 450 kg ha-1), each in three replicates. The results showed that at 300 kg N ha-1, compared to CUF treatment, the CRF treatment significantly improved soil aggregate characteristics [aggregate content with particle size larger than 0.25 mm (R0.25) by 9.6%, mean weight diameter by 19.8%, and geometric mean diameter by 21.7%]. CRF treatment also increased HA content by 5.5%, fulvic acid (FA) by 5.5%, lignin-like molecules by 0.94 times, and protein-like molecules by 3.69 times. At grain-filling stage, CRF treatments significantly increased the sum of soil NH4+-N and NO3--N content by 23.3-24.5%, sap bleeding rate by 12.8-18.2% and N delivery rate through bleeding sap by 60.6-87.7% compared to CUF treatments at the same N application rate. At the same rate of N application, the CRF treatments significantly improved the average yield during three growing seasons by 9.4-14.0% in contrast with CUF treatments. The regression equations showed that the maximum yield was 8294 kg ha-1 for CUF at the application rate of 312 kg N ha-1 while it was 9890 kg ha-1 for CRF at the application rate of 286 kg N ha-1. We conclude that the long-term application of CRF changed the HA molecular structure, enhanced the water stable aggregates, improved crop N uptake, and increased economically viable maize yield.

Retraction Note: LncRNA TUG1 was upregulated in osteoporosis and regulates the proliferation and apoptosis of osteoclasts.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Developing water and nitrogen budgets of a wheat-maize rotation system using auto-weighing lysimeters: Effects of blended application of controlled-release and un-coated urea.

Evaluation of the effectiveness of best management practices for reducing nitrate leaching in agricultural systems requires detailed water and nitrogen (N) budgets. A 3-year field experiment using 15 auto-weighing lysimeters was set up to quantify nitrate leaching, crop evapotranspiration (ET), and N and water use efficiencies within an intensive wheat-maize rotation system in the Northern China Plain. The lysimeter consists mainly of the following: (1) high-resolution weighing cells; (2) ceramic solution samplers for soil solutions collection; and (3) circular stainless steel leaching trays for collecting seepage water. Two N fertilizer types were applied at two rates (150 and 225 kg N hm-2 for each crop) with no-N applied as the control. The N fertilizer types were monotypic un-coated urea and a blend product with controlled-release urea (CRU) and un-coated urea. The results indicate that when compared with un-coated urea at the same application rate, the blend product greatly improved water and N use efficiencies with significant increase in yields and crop ET as well as reduction of nitrate accumulation and leaching in the soil profile (p < 0.05). This was mostly because the blend product consistently supplied N to meet crop demands over the entire growth season. The study implied that effective best management practices to control nitrate leaching should be based on technically sound fertilization and irrigation schemes in terms of timing, rate, and fertilizer type to suit site specific conditions.

LncRNA TUG1 was upregulated in osteoporosis and regulates the proliferation and apoptosis of osteoclasts.

BACKGROUND: Long non-coding RNA (LncRNA) TUG1 plays critical roles in the development of human cancers. Its inhibition has been proved to participate in ankylosing spondylitis, which is an inverse pathological procedure of osteoporosis. In the present study, we aim to investigate the role of lncRNA TUG1 in ankylosing spondylitis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Expressions of lncRNA TUG1 in plasma of 98 patients with osteoporosis and 60 healthy participants were detected by real-time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR). Diagnostic values of lncRNA CASC11 for osteoclasts were performed by the ROC curve with osteoporosis patients as positive and healthy participants as negative. All experiments were repeated 3 times. Mean ± standard deviation was calculated. RESULTS: We found that plasma lncRNA TUG1 was upregulated in osteoporosis patients than in healthy participants. Upregulation of plasma lncRNA TUG1 distinguished osteoporosis patients from healthy participants. LncRNA TUG1 level increased with the advances of clinical stages. Over-expression of lncRNA TUG1 promoted the proliferation and inhibited the apoptosis of mice osteoclasts, while lncRNA TUG1 siRNA silencing played an opposite role. In addition, lncRNA TUG1 over-expression led to downregulated PTEN, while lncRNA TUG1 siRNA silencing played an opposite role. CONCLUSION: Therefore, lncRNA TUG1 is upregulated in osteoporosis and regulates the proliferation and apoptosis of osteoclasts. lncRNA TUG1 knockdown may serve as a promising therapeutic target for osteoporosis by inhibiting the proliferation and promoting the apoptosis of osteoclasts through PTEN.

Infection of finger caused by Morganella morganii leading to digital amputation: A case report.

RATIONALE: Digital infection is a common disease in clinic, featured by pain and swelling of digits. As far as we know, no article has reported a case of digital infected by Morganella morganii. PATIENT CONCERNS: A 58-year-old Chinese female complains about whitlow with pain and swelling for 2 weeks. She has a history of diabetes for 10 years. She received incision and drainage before coming to our hospital and preoperative X-ray of left ring finger presented no bone eroded. DIAGNOSIS: She is diagnosed with infection of ring finger caused by M morganii in our hospital. INTERVENTIONS: We perform aggressive operative debridement and drainage firstly. Meanwhile, we provide tissue samples for diagnosis and the result indicates M morganii infection. Then, she is treated with anti-infection therapy and regulation of diabetes. However, 1 week after first surgery, her condition deteriorate presenting bone erosion in distal phalanx of ring finger from X-ray. Considering severity of illness, we decide to perform digital amputation. OUTCOMES: At 3-month follow-up, the patient has a satisfactory result and X-ray shows no bone eroded. LESSONS: Clinicians should consider M morganii, which is rare in hand infection, as a cause of digital infection. This case reminds us that some whitlow is dangerous, amputation should be considered if necessary.