Insomnia among coronavirus disease 2019 survivors: A single-center cross-sectional study.

Since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic, insomnia has become one of the longer COVID-19 symptoms. This study aimed to investigate insomnia among COVID-19 survivors and explore the occurrence and influencing factors of insomnia. A cross-sectional study was performed from December 2022 to February 2023 through an online questionnaire star survey with 8 questions. The insomnia severity index scale (ISI) was used to assess the severity of insomnia. Univariate analysis was used to analyze the factors related to COVID-19 infection. A total of 564 participants (183 males and 381 females) were surveyed in the present study. The prevalence of insomnia was 63.12%. Among these insomnia patients, there were 202 (35.82%) with sub-threshold symptoms, 116 (20.57%) with moderate symptoms, and 38 (6.74%) with severe symptoms. Univariate analysis indicated that there were statistically significant differences in the prevalence of insomnia among COVID-19 survivors of different ages, occupations, and educational levels (P < .05). Of the 356 insomnia patients, 185 (51.97%) did not take any measures against insomnia, while those who took drugs only, physical exercise only, drugs and physical exercise, and other measures were 90 (25.28%), 42 (11.80%), 17 (4.78%), and 22 (6.18%), respectively. Additionally, of the 107 insomnia patients with drug therapy, 17 (15.89%) took estazolam, 16 (14.95%) took alprazolam, 39 (36.45%) took zopiclone, and 35 (32.71%) took other drugs to improve insomnia symptoms. The prevalence of insomnia symptoms remains high among COVID-19 survivors in China. Education level and occupation may be the influencing factors. Unfortunately, most patients with insomnia do not take corresponding treatment measures.

Autophagy is required for proper meiosis of porcine oocytes maturing in vitro.

Autophagy is an essential cellular mechanism that degrades cytoplasmic proteins and organelles to recycle their components; however, the contribution of autophagy during meiosis has not been studied in porcine oocytes maturing in vitro. In this study, we observed that the autophagy-related gene, LC3, was expressed in porcine oocytes during maturation for 44 h in vitro. Knockdown of the autophagy-related gene, BECN1, reduced both BECN1 and LC3 protein expression levels. Moreover, BECN1 knockdown and treatment with the autophagy inhibitor, LY294002, during maturation of porcine oocytes in vitro impaired polar body extrusion, disturbed mitochondrial function, triggered the DNA damage response, and induced early apoptosis in porcine oocytes. Autophagy inhibition during oocyte maturation also impaired the further developmental potential of porcine oocytes. These results indicate that autophagy is required for the in vitro maturation of porcine oocytes.

Serum Helicobacter pylori KatA and AhpC antibodies as novel biomarkers for gastric cancer.

AIM: To investigate catalase (KatA) and alkyl hydroperoxide reductase (AhpC) antibodies of Helicobacter pylori as biomarkers for gastric cancer (GC). METHODS: This study included 232 cases and 264 controls. Recombinant KatA and AhpC proteins were constructed and the levels of antibodies were tested by indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Logistic regression was applied to analyze the relationships between KatA, AhpC and GC. The χ(2) trend test was used to evaluate the dose-response relationships between serum KatA and AhpC antibody levels and GC. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the screening accuracy of KatA and AhpC as biomarkers. Combined analysis was used to observe screening accuracy of predictors for GC. RESULTS: In all subjects, the association between KatA and AhpC and GC risk was significant (P < 0.001) with odds ratio (OR) = 12.84 (95%CI: 7.79-21.15) and OR = 2.4 (95%CI: 1.55-3.73), respectively. KatA and AhpC antibody levels were strongly related to GC risk with a dose-dependent effect (P for trend < 0.001). The area under the ROC (AUC) for KatA was 0.806, providing a sensitivity of 66.81% and specificity of 86.36%; and the AUC for AhpC was 0.615, with a sensitivity of 75.65% and specificity of 45.49%. The AUC was 0.906 for KatA and flagella protein A (FlaA) combined analysis. CONCLUSION: Serum KatA and AhpC antibodies are associated with GC risk and KatA may serve as a biomarker for GC. KatA/FlaA combined analysis improved screening accuracy.

[Algorithm for Background Removal in Spectral Image of Echelle Spectrometer].

Echelle spectrometer gets full spectrum by transient direct reading because of the characteristic of cross-dispersion. The two-dimension spectra received by flat-plane detector needs to be reduced to one-dimension spectra so that the effective wavelength can be detected. Because of huge original data and few effective data, background removal plays an important role of decreasing the amount of data and improving data processing speed. The two-dimension spectrum of echelle spectrometer is analyzed and a suitable background removal algorithms is came up. The edge detection method is applied to diffuse spot detection. Selecting appropriate operator to convolute original image to get edge image and calculating global threshold to segment edge image which can be used to map original image to get the background removed image. Two-dimensional spectral images based on different elements at different integration time are used to judge the effect of different background removal algorithm and different operator are analyzed to figure out their effect of speed and accuracy for algorithm. Experimental result shows that the algorithm came up by this letter is better for image background removal than the others. The background removed image can be used in spectrum reductionand the speed of data processing is notable promoted.

[An Effective Wavelength Detection Method Based on Echelle Spectra Reduction].

Echelle spectrometer with high dispersion, high resolution, wide spectral coverage, full spectrum transient direct-reading and many other advantages, is one of the representative of the advanced spectrometer. In the commercialization trend of echelle spectrometer, the method of two-dimension spectra image processing is becoming more and more important. Currently, centroid extraction algorithm often be used first to detect the centroid position of effective facula and then combined with echelle spectrum reduction method to detect the effective wavelength, but this method is more difficult to achieve the desired requirements. To improve the speed, accuracy and the ability of imaging error correction during detecting the effective wavelength, an effective wavelength detection method based on spectra reduction is coming up. At the beginning, the two-dimension spectra will be converted to a one-dimension image using echelle spectra reduction method instead of finding centroid of effective facula. And then by setting appropriate threshold the one-dimension image is easy to be dealing with than the two-dimension spectra image and all of the pixel points stand for effective wavelength can be detected at one time. Based on this new idea, the speed and accuracy of image processing have been improved, at the same time a range of imaging errors can be compensated. Using the echelle spectrograph make a test applying this algorithm for data processing to check whether this method is fit for the spectra image processing or not. Choosing a standard mercury lamp as a light source during the test because the standard mercury lamp have a number of known characteristic lines which can be used to examine the accuracy of wavelength detection. According to experimental result, this method not only increase operation speed but improve accuracy of wavelength detection, also the imaging error lower than 0.05 mm (two pixel) can be corrected, and the wavelength accuracy would up to 0.02 nm which can satisfy the requirements of echelle spectrograph for image processing.

[Epidemiological characteristics and risk factors of hospital patients with clonorchiasis].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the epidemiological characteristics and risk factors of clonorchiasis of hospital patients in Heilongjiang Province, so as to provide the evidence for formulating the control and prevention strategies. METHODS: A total of 2,359 suspected patients from human parasitic disease research institute of Harbin medical university were investigated. Totally 6,718 stool samples and 2 359 serum samples were tested by Kato-Katz technique and the enzyme linked immune method re- spectively. Meanwhile, the information of the patients was collected by questionnaires. RESULTS: Totally 513 suspected patients were infected with Clonorchis sinensis. The infection rate of the suspected patients was higher in the ≥29 group (P < 0.05), and the infection rate and positive rate of blood tests of the rural suspected patients were both higher than those of the urban suspected patients (both P < 0.05). The habit of eating raw fish and shrimp was the risk factor of clonorchiasis. CONCLUSION: Clonorchiasis is one of the main food-borne parasitic diseases in Heilongjiang Province. The habit of eating raw fish and shrimp is the risk factor of clonorchiasis.

Ubiquitin-specific peptidase 22 overexpression may promote cancer progression and poor prognosis in human gastric carcinoma.

Ubiquitin-specific peptidase 22 (USP22) was recently identified as a new tumor cell marker, and previous studies demonstrated its expression in a variety of tumors and its correlation with tumor progression. Because tumor progression plays an important role in cancer, researchers are paying more attention to the correlation between USP22 expression and metastatic potential, resistance to chemotherapy, and patient prognosis. This study showed that USP22 is highly expressed in gastric cancer tissues, and significant differences in USP22 expression (P < 0.01) were identified between different types of gastric cancer (the highest expression was found in poorly differentiated adenocarcinomas). In addition USP22 expression was found to be correlated with the promotion of cancer evolution, tumor invasion, and lymph node metastasis. The C-myc protein was also shown to have synergistic effects with USP22 in gastric cancer tissue. On the basis of the results, USP22 expression may play an important role in gastric carcinoma tissue, particularly in precancerous lesions during the gastric cancer evolution process.