The High Stability and Selectivity of Electrochemical Sensor Using Low-Cost Diamond Nanoparticles for the Detection of Anti-Cancer Drug Flutamide in Environmental Samples.

In this study, a novel electrochemical sensor was created by fabricating a screen-printed carbon electrode with diamond nanoparticles (DNPs/SPCE). The successful development of the sensor enabled the specific detection of the anti-cancer drug flutamide (FLT). The DNPs/SPCE demonstrated excellent conductivity, remarkable electrocatalytic activity, and swift electron transfer, all of which contribute to the advantageous monitoring of FLT. These qualities are critical for monitoring FLT levels in environmental samples. Various structural and morphological characterization techniques were employed to validate the formation of the DNPs. Remarkably, the electrochemical sensor demonstrated a wide linear response range (0.025 to 606.65 µM). Additionally, it showed a low limit of detection (0.023 µM) and high sensitivity (0.403 µA µM-1 cm-2). Furthermore, the practicability of DNPs/SPCE can be successfully employed in FLT monitoring in water bodies (pond water and river water samples) with satisfactory recoveries.

Science, interrupted: Funding delays reduce research activity but having more grants helps.

I study how scientists respond to interruptions in the flow of their research funding, focusing on research grants at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which awards multi-year, renewable grants. However, there can be delays during the renewal process. Over a period beginning three months before and ending one year after these delays, I find that interrupted labs reduce overall spending by 50% but over 90% in the month with the largest decrease. This change in spending is mostly driven by a decrease in payments to employees that is partially mitigated when scientists have other grants to draw on.

Non-invasive Assessment of Axillary Lymph Node Metastasis Risk in Early Invasive Breast Cancer Adopting Automated Breast Volume Scanning-Based Radiomics Nomogram: A Multicenter Study.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the work described here was to develop a non-invasive tool based on the radiomics and ultrasound features of automated breast volume scanning (ABVS), clinicopathological factors and serological indicators to evaluate axillary lymph node metastasis (ALNM) in patients with early invasive breast cancer (EIBC). METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 179 ABVS images of patients with EIBC at a single center from January 2016 to April 2022 and divided the patients into training and validation sets (ratio 8:2). Additionally, 97 ABVS images of patients with EIBC from a second center were enrolled as the test set. The radiomics signature was established with the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator. Significant ALNM predictors were screened using univariate logistic regression analysis and further combined to construct a nomogram using the multivariate logistic regression model. The receiver operating characteristic curve assessed the nomogram's predictive performance. DISCUSSION: The constructed radiomics nomogram model, including ABVS radiomics signature, ultrasound assessment of axillary lymph node (ALN) status, convergence sign and erythrocyte distribution width (standard deviation), achieved moderate predictive performance for risk probability evaluation of ALNs in patients with EIBC. Compared with ultrasound, the nomogram model was able to provide a risk probability evaluation tool not only for the ALNs with positive ultrasound features but also for micrometastatic ALNs (generally without positive ultrasound features), which benefited from the radiomics analysis of multi-sourced data of patients with EIBC. CONCLUSION: This ABVS-based radiomics nomogram model is a pre-operative, non-invasive and visualized tool that can help clinicians choose rational diagnostic and therapeutic protocols for ALNM.

The Singapore National Precision Medicine Strategy.

Precision medicine promises to transform healthcare for groups and individuals through early disease detection, refining diagnoses and tailoring treatments. Analysis of large-scale genomic-phenotypic databases is a critical enabler of precision medicine. Although Asia is home to 60% of the world's population, many Asian ancestries are under-represented in existing databases, leading to missed opportunities for new discoveries, particularly for diseases most relevant for these populations. The Singapore National Precision Medicine initiative is a whole-of-government 10-year initiative aiming to generate precision medicine data of up to one million individuals, integrating genomic, lifestyle, health, social and environmental data. Beyond technologies, routine adoption of precision medicine in clinical practice requires social, ethical, legal and regulatory barriers to be addressed. Identifying driver use cases in which precision medicine results in standardized changes to clinical workflows or improvements in population health, coupled with health economic analysis to demonstrate value-based healthcare, is a vital prerequisite for responsible health system adoption.

Diabetic macular edema and proliferative diabetic retinopathy treated with anti-vascular endothelial growth factor under the reimbursement policy in Taiwan.

The purpose of this retrospective interventional case series is to compare the functional and anatomical outcomes in eyes with diabetic macular edema (DME) and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) treated intravitreally with aflibercept or ranibizumab under the Taiwan National Insurance Bureau reimbursement policy. 84 eyes were collected and all eyes were imaged with spectral-domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT), color fundus photographs (CFPs), and fluorescein angiography (FA). At 24 months after therapy initiation, the logMAR BCVA improved from 0.58 ± 0.33 to 0.47 ± 0.38 (p < 0.01), the CRT decreased from 423.92 ± 135.84 to 316.36 ± 90.02 (p < 0.01), and the number of microaneurysms decreased from 142.14 ± 57.23 to 75.32 ± 43.86 (p < 0.01). The mean injection count was 11.74 ± 5.44. There was no intergroup difference in logMAR BCVA (p = 0.96), CRT (p = 0.69), or injection count (p = 0.81). However, the mean number of microaneurysms was marginally reduced (p = 0.06) in eyes treated with aflibercept at the end of the follow-up, and the incidence rates of supplementary panretinal photocoagulation (PRP) (p = 0.04) and subthreshold micropulse laser (SMPL) therapy sessions (p = 0.01) were also reduced. Multivariate analysis revealed that only initial logMAR BCVA influenced the final VA improvements (odds ratio (OR) 0.49, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.21 ~ 0.93, p < 0.01); in contrast, age (OR - 0.38, 95% CI - 6.97 ~ - 1.85, p < 0.01) and initial CRT (OR 0.56, 95% CI 0.34 ~ 0.84, p < 0.01) both influenced the final CRT reduction at 24 months. To sum up, both aflibercept and ranibizumab are effective in managing DME with PDR in terms of VA, CRT and MA count. Eyes receiving aflibercept required less supplementary PRP and SMPL treatment than those receiving ranibizumab. The initial VA influenced the final VA improvements at 24 months, while age and initial CRT were prognostic predictors of 24-month CRT reduction.

Characterizing soil salinity at multiple depth using electromagnetic induction and remote sensing data with random forests: A case study in Tarim River Basin of southern Xinjiang, China.

Tarim River Basin is experiencing heavy soil degeneration in a long term because of the extreme natural conditions, added with improper human activities such as reclamation and rejected field repeatedly, which hindered the soil health. One of the mainly form is soil salinization. Spatial distribution and variation of soil salinity is essential both for agricultural resource management and local economic development. However, knowledge of the spatial distribution of soil salinization in this region has not been updated since 1980s while land use and climate have undergone major changed. Electromagnetic induction (EMI) has been successfully used to directly measurement the spatial distribution of targeting soil property at field- scale, and apparent electrical conductivity (ECa, mS m-1) has become a surrogate of soil salinity (EC, dS m-1) studied by many researchers at local scale. However, the effectiveness of this equipment has not been verified in the typical soil salinization areas in southern Xinjiang, especially on a large scale. This study was aimed to test the performance of ECa jointed with Random Forest (RF) for soil salinity regional-scale mapping at a typical arid area, taking Tarim River Basin as an example. The result showed that ECa together with environmental derivative variables and with RF were suited for regional-scale soil salinity mapping. Predicted accuracy of EC was higher at surface (0-20 cm, R2 = 0.65, RMSE = 5.59) and deeper soil depth (60-80 cm, R2 = 0.63, RMSE = 2.00, and 80-100 cm, R2 = 0.61, RMSE = 1.73), lower at transitional zone (20-40 cm, R2 = 0.55, RMSE = 2.66, and 40-60 cm, R2 = 0.51, RMSE = 2.49). When ECa is involved in modeling, the prediction accuracy of multiple depths of EC is improved by 13.33%-61.54%, of which the most obvious depths are 60-80 cm and 0-20 cm. The results of variable importance show that SoilGrids were also favored the power EC model. Hence, we strongly recommended to joint EMI reads with remote sensing imagery for soil salinity monitoring at large scale in southern Xinjiang. These EC and ECa map can provide a data source for environmental modeling, a benchmark against which to evaluate and monitor water and salt dynamics, and a guide for the design of future soil surveys.

Dosimetric uncertainties impact on cell survival curve with low energy proton.

There is an increasing number of radiobiological experiments being conducted with low energy protons (less than 5 MeV) for radiobiological studies due to availability of sub-millimetre focused beam. However, low energy proton has broad microdosimetric spectra which can introduce dosimetric uncertainty. In this work, we quantify the impact of this dosimetric uncertainties on the cell survival curve and how it affects the estimation of the alpha and beta parameters in the LQ formalism. Monte Carlo simulation is used to generate the microdosimetric spectra in a micrometer-sized water sphere under proton irradiation. This is modelled using radiobiological experiment set-up at the Centre of Ion Beam Application (CIBA) in National University of Singapore. Our results show that the microdosimetric spectra can introduce both systematic and random shifts in dose and cell survival; this effect is most pronounced with low energy protons. The alpha and beta uncertainties can be up to 10% and above 30%, respectively for low energy protons passing through thin cell target (about 10 microns). These uncertainties are non-negligible and show that care must be taken in using the cell survival curve and its derived parameters for radiobiological models.

Standardizing Monte Carlo simulation parameters for a reproducible dose-averaged linear energy transfer.

OBJECTIVE: Dose-averaged linear energy transfer (LETD) is one of the factors which determines relative biological effectiveness (RBE) for treatment planning in proton therapy. It is usually determined from Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. However, no standard simulation protocols were established for sampling of LETD. Simulation parameters like maximum step length and range cut will affect secondary electrons production and have an impact on the accuracy of dose distribution and LETD. We aim to show how different combinations of step length and range cut in GEANT4 will affect the result in sampling of LETD using different MC scoring methods. METHODS: In this work, different step length and range cut value in a clinically relevant voxel geometry were used for comparison. Different LETD scoring methods were established and the concept of covariance between energy deposition per step and step length is used to explain the differences between them. RESULTS: We recommend a maximum step length of 0.05 mm and a range cut of 0.01 mm in MC simulation as this yields the most consistent LETD value across different scoring methods. Different LETD scoring methods are also compared and variation up to 200% can be observed at the plateau of 80 MeV proton beam. Scoring Method one has one of the lowest percentage differences compared across all simulation parameters. CONCLUSION: We have determined a set of maximum step length and range cut parameters to be used for LETD scoring in a 1 mm voxelized geometry. LETD scoring method should also be clearly defined and standardized to facilitate cross-institutional studies. ADVANCES IN KNOWLEDGE: Establishing a standard simulation protocol for sampling LETD would reduce the discrepancy when comparing data across different centres, and this can improve the calculation for RBE.

[Distribution Characteristics and Ecological Risk Assessment of Phthalate Esters in Surface Sediments of the Songhua River].

This study assesses the spatial distribution characteristics and ecological risk of phthalate esters (PAEs) in the surface sediments of the mainstream and tributaries of the Songhua River, China, using concentrations and composition of six PAEs, which were analyzed using gas chromatography-mass spectrometery (GC-MS). We assess the ∑6PAEs ecological risk using the hazard quotient (HQ) method and environmental risk levels (ERL). The results were as follows. ① It was found that the total concentrations of ∑6PAEs ranged from 6832.5 to 36298.9 ng·g-1 dry weight (average 18388.6 ng·g-1), with the main contributions coming from di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) and di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP). The difference between the main stream ∑6PAEs (6832.5-36298.9 ng·g-1, average 18616.9 ng·g-1) and the tributary ∑6PAEs (10367.6-26593.3 ng·g-1, average 18264.1 ng·g-1) was not significant (P >0.05). The mean concentrations of individual PAEs in the tributary stream differed little from that of the main stream. The ∑6PAEs concentration of the Songhua River decreased initially but then increased from the upstream to the downstream. The average ∑6PAEs concentration in natural agricultural areas (18677.5 ng·g-1) was similar to that found in urban industrial areas (18063.7 ng·g-1), and DBP and DEHP contributed 98% of ∑6PAEs. ② The main sources of ∑6PAEs were domestic, agricultural production, and industrial production using plasticizers. ③ The ecological risk assessment indicated that DMP and BBP in the surface sediments of the Songhua River did not pose an ecological risk for aquatic organisms, and that DEP was associated with a low ecological risk, whereas DEHP and DBP posed a high ecological risk for aquatic organisms.

Proximity Environmental Feature Based Tree Health Assessment Scheme Using Internet of Things and Machine Learning Algorithm.

Improperly grown trees may cause huge hazards to the environment and to humans, through e.g., climate change, soil erosion, etc. A proximity environmental feature-based tree health assessment (PTA) scheme is proposed to prevent these hazards by providing guidance for early warning methods of potential poor tree health. In PTA development, tree health is defined and evaluated based on proximity environmental features (PEFs). The PEF takes into consideration the seven surrounding ambient features that strongly impact tree health. The PEFs were measured by the deployed smart sensors surrounding trees. A database composed of tree health and relative PEFs was established for further analysis. An adaptive data identifying (ADI) algorithm is applied to exclude the influence of interference factors in the database. Finally, the radial basis function (RBF) neural network (NN), a machine leaning algorithm, has been identified as the appropriate tool with which to correlate tree health and PEFs to establish the PTA algorithm. One of the salient features of PTA is that the algorithm can evaluate, and thus monitor, tree health remotely and automatically from smart sensor data by taking advantage of the well-established internet of things (IoT) network and machine learning algorithm.

Comprehensive assessment of the association between genes on JAK-STAT pathway (IFIH1, TYK2, IL-10) and systemic lupus erythematosus: a meta-analysis.

Previous studies have reported that genes relating to JAK-STAT pathway (IFIH1, TYK2 and IL-10) conferred the susceptibility to SLE. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis (including 43 studies) to evaluate the association between IFIH1 (9288 patients and 24,040 controls), TYK2 (4928 patients and 11,536 controls), IL-10 (3623 patients and 4907 controls) polymorphisms and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in a comprehensive way. We found that IFIH1 rs1990760_T allele was associated with risk of SLE in overall population under three models (allelic: P = 2.56 × 10-11, OR 1.135, 95% CI 1.094-1.179, dominant: P = 1.8 × 10-8, OR 1.203, 95% CI 1.128-1.284, recessive: P = 2.6 × 10-7, OR 1.163, 95% CI 1.098-1.231). A strong association had been observed between TYK2 polymorphism rs2304256_C allele and SLE in Europeans (P = 5.82 × 10-5, OR 1.434, 95% CI 1.203-1.710). When coming to overall population, TYK2 rs2304256_C showed a significant association with SLE under recessive model (P = 8.05 × 10-3, OR 1.314, 95% CI 1.074-1.608). However, the other two SNPs (rs12720270, rs280519) of TYK2 were not significant. The results also indicated an association between IL-10 rs1800896_G allele and SLE in Asians under recessive model (P = 4.65 × 10-3, OR 2.623, 95% CI 1.346-5.115), while, IL-10 rs1800896_G had a trend of association with SLE in European population in dominant model (P = 1.21 × 10-2, OR 1.375, 95% CI 1.072-1.764). In addition, we found IL-10 rs1800896 GG homozygote might be associated with increased susceptibility to SLE (GG vs AA, P = 4.65 × 10-3, OR 1.539, 95% CI 1.142-2.072). We concluded that IFIH1 rs1990760_T and TYK2 rs2304256_C alleles were significantly associated with SLE, and IL-10 rs1800896 GG homozygote might have an enhancement effect on SLE risk.

Heavy Metal Pollution and Ecological Risk Assessment of the Agriculture Soil in Xunyang Mining Area, Shaanxi Province, Northwestern China.

Mining is considered to be one of the most significant sources of environmental pollution with regard to heavy metals. Mineral mining causes large quantities of mercury, cadmium, and other elements to be released into the environment and naturally poses a serious threat to environment. This paper will analyze the pollution status of agricultural soil caused by the mining of heavy metals in various mining areas in the Xunyang County in the Shaanxi Province of China, an area in famous for its resource mining. Equally, it will look at the potential ecological risk assessment process that is used to analyze the ecological risks of mining heavy metals in agricultural soil located in the surrounding areas. Based on the soil investigation, As pose a moderate ecological risk on the Au mining area. In addition, the Hg metals pose a significantly high potential ecological risk and Cd metals pose a considerable potential ecological risk on the Hg mining area. In the Pb-Zn mining area, a significantly high potential ecological risk was mainly posed by Cd. These results suggest that many heavy metals pose a high potential ecological risk on the agricultural soil in these three mining areas in the Xunyang County, and may cause elevated heavy metal contents in crops, eventually jeopardizing the health of local residents who consume food grown in polluted soil.

Risk Assessment of Metals in Urban Soils from a Typical Industrial City, Suzhou, Eastern China.

Risk of metals in urban soils is less studied, compared to that in other types of soils, hindering accurate assessment of human exposure to metals. In this study, the concentrations of five metals (As, Cd, Cr, Pb, and Hg) were analyzed in 167 surface soil samples collected from Suzhou city and their potential ecological and human health risks were assessed. The mean concentrations of As, Cd, Pb, and Hg except Cr, were higher than the background values in Jiangsu Province. Metal concentrations varied among districts, where sites of high contamination showed a punctate distribution. Principal components and correlation analyses revealed that As, Pb, and Cd could originate from the same sources. The geo-accumulation (Igeo) and potential ecological risk indices (RI) were calculated and the relatively low values of Igeo (<0) and RI (<150) suggested generally low ecological risk. The noncarcinogenic risks of the metals were relatively low for Suzhou residents (i.e., average hazard index or HI: 0.1199 for adults and 0.5935 for children, <1), while the total carcinogenic risks (TCR) of Cr and As were acceptable (TCR in the range of 1.0 × 10-6 to 1.0 × 10-4). Children faced a higher threat than adults. Results of Monte-Carlo simulations were lower than those obtained from models using deterministic parameters. Of all the uncertain parameters, the ingestion rate and body weight were the most sensitive for adults and children, respectively, while As was an important factor for both. The results as well as the factors controlling risks of metals could help better understand the risks of metals in urban soils of industrial cities in China.

Nail Fusion Plasty: Nail Cosmetic Results and Assessment Criteria of Nail Reconstruction.

PURPOSE: This study aimed to develop a scoring system for evaluating the nail appearance after nail fusion plasty of the duplicated thumb, and to investigate the operation indication of the combination procedure and its effect on the postoperative nail appearance. METHODS: The nail fusion plasty technique was carried out in 20 patients with congenital thumb duplication. The patients were followed up to observe the appearance of nail, and the results were assessed by our nail appearance evaluation criteria. RESULTS: Twenty patients were followed up for 18 to 92 months (48 months on average). According to our criteria, we achieved excellent results in 12 cases, good in 6 cases, fair in 1 case, and poor in 1 case. CONCLUSIONS: The combination procedure is recommended when the size of the thumb is less than 80% of the size of the normal side or the width of the nail is less than 80% of that of the normal side. Satisfactory results can be obtained by careful operation. The newly devised scoring system assesses the nail appearance in a very comprehensive manner.

Conceptualizing and assessing the effects of installation and operation of photovoltaic power plants on major hydrologic budget constituents.

This study addresses the effects of land use change from agricultural to photovoltaic parks (PVPs) on the hydrology of an area. Although many environmental effects have been identified and analyzed, only minor attention has been given to the hydrologic effects of the installation and operation of PVPs. The effects of current PVP installation and operation practices on major hydrologic budget constituents (surface runoff, evapotranspiration and percolation) were identified, conceptualized, quantified and simulated using SWAT model. Vosvozis river basin located in north Greece was selected as a test site. Additionally, long-term effects were simulated using dynamically downscaled climate projections by a Regional Climate Model (RCM) driven by 5 different General Circulation Models (GCMs) for the period 2011-2100. Results indicate that surface runoff and percolation potential are significantly increased at the local scale and have to be considered during PVP siting, especially when sensitive and protected ecosystems are involved.

Benchmark experimental data set and assessment of adsorption free energy for peptide-surface interactions.

With the increasing interest in protein adsorption in fields ranging from bionanotechnology to biomedical engineering, there is a growing need to understand protein-surface interactions at a fundamental level, such as the interaction between individual amino acid residues of a protein and functional groups presented by a surface. However, relatively little data are available that experimentally provide a quantitative, comparative measure of these types of interactions. To address this deficiency, the objective of this study was to generate a database of experimentally measured standard state adsorption free energy (DeltaGoads) values for a wide variety of amino acid residue-surface interactions using a host-guest peptide and alkanethiol self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) with polymer-like functionality as the model system. The host-guest amino acid sequence was synthesized in the form of TGTG-X-GTGT, where G and T are glycine and threonine amino acid residues and X represents a variable residue. In this paper, we report DeltaGoads values for the adsorption of 12 different types of the host-guest peptides on a set of nine different SAM surfaces, for a total of 108 peptide-surface systems. The DeltaGoads values for these 108 peptide-surface combinations show clear trends in adsorption behavior that are dependent on both peptide composition and surface chemistry. These data provide a benchmark experimental data set from which fundamental interactions that govern peptide and protein adsorption behavior can be better understood and compared.