The Clinical Efficacy of Autologous Platelet-Rich Plasma Interventional Circulatory Perfusion Combined with Radiofrequency Ablation and Thermocoagulation in the Treatment of Discogenic Low Back Pain.

Objective: In this study, we aimed to explore the efficacy of the autologous platelet-rich plasma (PRP) interventional circulatory perfusion combined with radiofrequency ablation and thermocoagulation (RFAT) in the treatment of discogenic low back pain (DLBP). Methods: From January 2020 to November 2022, 158 patients of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University were selected as the study subjects, and 24 patients met the exclusion criteria. The 134 patients who met the inclusion criteria were divided into 65 patients in the control group (3 patients lost to follow-up) and 69 patients in the observation group (5 patients lost to follow-up), so 126 patients were actually completed the study, including 62 patients in the control group and 64 patients in the observation group. The control group responsible disc received RFAT, and an interventional circulatory perfusion was performed; the observation group received RFAT, and an interventional circulatory perfusion was performed, and then autologous PRP 2 ml was injected. Visual Analog Scale (VAS) and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) were performed before and 4 and 8 weeks after treatment, and the efficacy was evaluated at 4 and 8 weeks after treatment. The changes of lumbar disc MRI before and after treatment were observed. Results: The differences in the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) scores and the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) between the observation group and the control group before the treatment were not statistically significant (P > 0.05 in both). However, four weeks and eight weeks after the treatment, the VAS scores and the ODIs were significantly lower in both groups than those before the treatment (P < 0.05 in both). In terms of the therapeutic efficacy, eight weeks after the treatment, the total effective rates in the control group and the observation group were 67.7% and 87.5%, respectively, with the observation group being superior to the control group (P < 0.05). Conclusion: After RFAT, interventional circulatory perfusion combined with autologous PRP intramedullary injection in the lumbar disc is a safe and effective treatment for DLBP, and it had superior long-term effects in improving the clinical symptoms and patient dysfunction than the RFAT and interventional circulatory perfusion.

Investigation of Mandarin Word Production in Children and Adults: Evidence from Phonological Priming with Non-words.

Using a cross-modal picture-word interference (PWI) task, we examined phonological representations and encoding in Mandarin-speaking children and adults. Pictures of monosyllabic words were presented visually, with auditory primes presented before, concurrent with, or after the picture's appearance (SOA -200, -100, 0, +150). Primes were related to the targets in terms of Onset, Rhyme, Tone, Onset and Tone, Rhyme and Tone, or were unrelated. The rhymes of target words were counterbalanced between simple and complex structures to examine effects of rhyme complexity. Twenty Mandarin-speaking adults (aged 20;3 to 23;10), 20 school-age children (aged 9;1 to 10;11) and 20 preschoolers (aged 5;0 to 5;11) were asked to name the pictures as quickly as possible while ignoring the primes played over a headset. The results showed that adults exhibited consistent Onset and Onset-Tone priming effects across later SOAs, while the older children (9- to 10-year-olds) exhibited Onset, Rhyme, Onset-Tone and Rhyme-Tone priming effects across later SOAs. The younger children (5-year-olds), in contrast, exhibited Rhyme and Rhyme-Tone priming effects at the earliest SOA. For both groups of children, Rhyme and Rhyme-Tone priming effects were complexity-dependent. Our findings suggest that the phonological representations of Mandarin speakers develop from holistic units into those with an onset-based structure. Moreover, an incremental processing pattern at the sub-syllabic level is gradually developed around the age of 9 or 10, though susceptibility to holistic phonological similarity is retained to some degree.

Haemoglobin A1C Levels Constantly Below Lower Reference Limit in a Diabetic Patient With Microcytic Anaemia.

INTRODUCTION: Haemoglobin A1C (A1C), as a parameter of long-term glycaemic control, has been adopted to guide diabetic therapy all over the world. However, falsely high or low A1C could be troublesome in daily practice. CASE DESCRIPTION: A 75-year-old male diabetic patient affected by a reasonably inferred life-long history of microcytic anaemia was found to have abnormally low A1C values in the previous 5 months. Subsequent laboratory assessment with brilliant cresyl blue staining and haemoglobin electrophoresis detected haemoglobin H disease as the underlying cause of both the microcytic anaemia and the disturbed A1C measurement. DISCUSSION: Enhanced erythrocyte destruction such as in haemoglobin H disease could explain a falsely decreased A1C level very well. Upon facing a questionable A1C value, physicians dealing with diabetes should consider the possibility of undiscovered underlying causes rather than too tightly glycaemic control. LEARNING POINTS: Haemoglobin A1C values lower than the normal range most likely do not mean too good a control of blood sugar in diabetic patients.Careful investigation to find the underlying causes is mandatory to provide well-qualified medical care.Various haemoglobinopathies with chronic haemolysis should be considered as the background reason, especially in an endemic area for thalassaemia.

Executive Function in Preschoolers with Primary Language Impairment.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether preschoolers with primary language impairment (PLI) show deficits in executive function (EF) compared with their peers with typical development (TD) when inhibition, updating, and mental-set shifting are examined using both linguistically based and visually based tasks. Method: Twenty-two 4- and 5-year-old preschoolers with PLI and 30 preschoolers with TD completed 2 sets of computerized EF tasks: 3 that were linguistically based and 3 that were visually based. This permitted us to test the hypothesis that poor performance on EF tasks in preschoolers with PLI results from impaired language rather than impaired EF. Results: The PLI group scored significantly lower than the TD group on linguistically and visually based updating tasks and mental-set shifting tasks. The PLI and TD groups did not differ significantly for accuracy or response time on linguistically and visually based inhibition tasks. Conclusion: Results suggest that preschool-age children with PLI have domain-general EF deficits in updating and mental-set shifting but not inhibition deficits, as measured by our tasks.

Fluoride adsorption on carboxylated aerobic granules containing Ce(III).

Aerobic granules (AG) were carboxylated and Ce(III) was incorporated to obtain modified granuels (Ce(III)-MAG) for removal of fluoride from aqueous solutions. The Ce(III)-MAG was characterized by SEM, FTIR, XRD and pH(pzc), and the introduction of carboxyl groups and Ce(III) was confirmed. The adsorption capacity of Ce(III)-MAG for fluoride was 45.80 mg/g at neutral pH, an increase of 359% compared to the capacity of pristine AG. Adsorption was highest at pH range of 3.0-5.0. A positive effect on fluoride removal in the order of K(+) ≈ Mg(2+) > Ca(2+) > Na(+) and a negative effect in the order of NO(3)(-) > Cl(-) > SO(4)(2-) > HCO(3)(-) > PO(4)(3-) was observed. Fluoride adsorption followed the Redlich-Peterson model and the pseudo-first order model with correlation factors of 0.999 and 0.950, respectively. Ce(III)-MAG held up to 790 bed volumes and the effluent fluoride concentration remained below 1.0mg/L (influent fluoride 10mg/L).

One-handed helical double stranded polybisnorbornenes.

Helical double stranded polymers incorporated with a covalently bound chiral ferrocene linker are synthesised and characterized by CD spectra and STM images and molecular dynamics simulations.

Electrochemical oxidation of double-stranded polybisnorbornenes containing linearly aligned ferrocene linkers.

Seventy percent of the ferrocene moieties in double-stranded polybisnorbornenes containing linearly aligned ferrocene linkers are oxidised and each of the neighbouring monomeric units in these polymers may strongly interact with each other; the oxidised form of has been shown to be antiferromagnetic.