Changes of brain functional network in Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia: a graph-theoretic analysis.

BACKGROUND: Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are the two most common neurodegenerative dementias, presenting with similar clinical features that challenge accurate diagnosis. Despite extensive research, the underlying pathophysiological mechanisms remain unclear, and effective treatments are limited. This study aims to investigate the alterations in brain network connectivity associated with AD and FTD to enhance our understanding of their pathophysiology and establish a scientific foundation for their diagnosis and treatment. METHODS: We analyzed preprocessed electroencephalogram (EEG) data from the OpenNeuro public dataset, comprising 36 patients with AD, 23 patients with FTD, and 29 healthy controls (HC). Participants were in a resting state with eyes closed. We estimated the average functional connectivity using the Phase Lag Index (PLI) for lower frequencies (delta and theta) and the Amplitude Envelope Correlation with leakage correction (AEC-c) for higher frequencies (alpha, beta, and gamma). Graph theory was applied to calculate topological parameters, including mean node degree, clustering coefficient, characteristic path length, global and local efficiency. A permutation test was then utilized to assess changes in brain network connectivity in AD and FTD based on these parameters. RESULTS: Both AD and FTD patients showed increased mean PLI values in the theta frequency band, along with increases in average node degree, clustering coefficient, global efficiency, and local efficiency. Conversely, mean AEC-c values in the alpha frequency band were notably diminished, which was accompanied by decreases average node degree, clustering coefficient, global efficiency, and local efficiency. Furthermore, AD patients in the occipital region showed an increase in theta band node degree and decreased alpha band clustering coefficient and local efficiency, a pattern not observed in FTD. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings reveal distinct abnormalities in the functional network topology and connectivity in AD and FTD, which may contribute to a better understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms of these diseases. Specifically, patients with AD demonstrated a more widespread change in functional connectivity, while those with FTD retained connectivity in the occipital lobe. These observations could provide valuable insights for developing electrophysiological markers to differentiate between the two diseases.

[Snoring noise removal method for bowel sound signal during sleep].

Monitoring of bowel sounds is an important method to assess bowel motility during sleep, but it is seriously affected by snoring noise. In this paper, the complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) method was applied to remove snoring noise from bowel sounds during sleep. Specifically, the noisy bowel sounds were first band-pass filtered, then decomposed by the CEEMDAN method, and finally the appropriate components were selected to reconstruct the pure bowel sounds. The results of semi-simulated and real data showed that the CEEMDAN method was better than empirical mode decomposition and wavelet denoising method. The CEEMDAN method is used to remove snoring noise from bowel sounds during sleep, which lays an important foundation for using bowel sounds to assess the intestinal motility during sleep.

[Methods for Processing Physiological Artifacts in Single/Few-Channel EEG Signals].

Electroencephalogram (EEG) is a non-invasive measurement method of brain electrical activity. In recent years, single/few-channel EEG has been used more and more, but various types of physiological artifacts seriously affect the analysis and wide application of single/few-channel EEG. In this paper, the regression and filtering methods, decomposition methods, blind source separation methods and machine learning methods involved in the various physiological artifacts in single/few-channel EEG are reviewed. According to the characteristics of single/few-channel EEG signals, hybrid EEG artifact removal methods for different scenarios are analyzed and summarized, mainly including single-artifact/multi-artifact scenes and online/offline scenes. In addition, the methods and metrics for validating the performance of the algorithm on semi-simulated and real EEG data are also reviewed. Finally, the development trend of single/few-channel EEG application and physiological artifact processing is briefly described.

Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Enterobacteriaceae related urinary tract infection in adult cancer patients: a multicenter retrospective study, 2015-2019.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and risk factors of extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Enterobacteriaceae related urinary tract infections (UTI) in adult cancer patients. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective study of three cancer hospitals centered on Cancer Hospital of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences from 2015 to 2019. The clinical characters, risk factors and antimicrobial susceptibility of ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae UTI in adult cancer patients were described and analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 4967 specimens of UTI were evaluated, of which 909 were positive. After excluding multiple infection bacteria, non-conforming strains, inconsistent pathological information, no drug sensitivity test or medical records, 358 episodes remained. Among them, 160 episodes belonged to ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae, while 198 were classified into non-ESBL group. The prevalence of ESBL UTI circled around 39.73 to 53.03% for 5 years. Subgroup analysis by tumor type revealed that 62.5% of isolates from patients with urological tumors were ESBL positive. Multivariate analysis showed that tumor metastasis (OR 3.41, 95%CI 1.84-6.30), urological cancer (OR 2.96, 95%CI 1.34-6.53), indwelling catheter (OR 2.08, 95%CI 1.22-3.55) and surgery or invasive manipulation (OR 1.98, 95%CI 1.13-3.50) were the independent risk factors. According to antimicrobial sensitivity, meropenem, imipenem and piperacillin/tazobactam were the most commonly used antibiotics for ESBL-producing Enterobacteriaceae UTI. CONCLUSIONS: In view of the high prevalence, clinicians should be alert to the occurrence of ESBL UTI, especially for patients with urological cancer or metastatic tumors. Regular replacement of urinary catheters, reduction of unnecessary invasive operations and selection of appropriate antibiotics are the necessary conditions to deal with the occurrence of ESBL UTI in adult cancer patients.

Differences in intestinal motility during different sleep stages based on long-term bowel sounds.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: This study focused on changes in intestinal motility during different sleep stages based on long-term bowel sounds. METHODS: A modified higher order statistics algorithm was devised to identify the effective bowel sound segments. Next, characteristic values (CVs) were extracted from each bowel sound segment, which included 4 time-domain, 4 frequency-domain and 2 nonlinear CVs. The statistical analysis of these CVs corresponding to the different sleep stages could be used to evaluate the changes in intestinal motility during sleep. RESULTS: A total of 6865.81 min of data were recorded from 14 participants, including both polysomnographic data and bowel sound data which were recorded simultaneously from each participant. The average accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of the modified higher order statistics detector were 96.46 ± 2.60%, 97.24 ± 2.99% and 94.13 ± 4.37%. In addition, 217088 segments of effective bowel sound corresponding to different sleep stages were identified using the modified detector. Most of the CVs were statistically different during different sleep stages ([Formula: see text]). Furthermore, the bowel sounds were low in frequency based on frequency-domain CVs, high in energy based on time-domain CVs and low in complexity base on nonlinear CVs during deep sleep, which was consistent with the state of the EEG signals during deep sleep. CONCLUSIONS: The intestinal motility varies by different sleep stages based on long-term bowel sounds using the modified higher order statistics detector. The study indicates that the long-term bowel sounds can well reflect intestinal motility during sleep. This study also demonstrates that it is technically feasible to simultaneously record intestinal motility and sleep state throughout the night. This offers great potential for future studies investigating intestinal motility during sleep and related clinical applications.

Evaluation of the SureX HPV genotyping test for the detection of high-risk HPV in cervical cancer screening.

BACKGROUND: The SureX HPV genotyping test (SureX HPV test), which targets the human papillomavirus (HPV) E6/E7 genes was compared with the Cobas 4800 and Venus HPV tests for detecting 14 high-risk HPV (HR-HPV) types in clinical referral and follow-up patients to evaluate its value for cervical cancer screening. METHODS: Two different populations were enrolled in the study. The first population comprised 185 cases and was used for comparing the SureX HPV test (Health, China) with the Cobas 4800 test (Roche, USA). The second population comprised 290 cases and was used for comparing the SureX HPV test (Health, China) with the Venus HPV test (Zhijiang, China). Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) sequencing was performed for further confirmation of discordant results. RESULTS: In the first population, the overall agreement rate was 95.6% for 14 high-risk HPV types. Eight discordant cases were confirmed by PCR sequencing, which showed that the agreement rates were 75.0% between the SureX HPV test and PCR sequencing and 25.0% between the Cobas 4800 test and PCR sequencing (P < 0.01). In the second population, the overall agreement rate was 95.5%. Thirteen discordant cases were confirmed by PCR sequencing, which showed that the agreement rates were 76.9% between the SureX HPV test and PCR sequencing and 23.1% between the Venus HPV test and PCR sequencing (P < 0.01). With cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2+ (CIN2+) as the reference standard, the sensitivity values of the SureX HPV test and the Venus HPV test were 93.5% and 92.0%, (P > 0.05), while the specificity values were 43.3% and 46.7%, respectively (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: The SureX HPV test had good consistency with both the Cobas 4800 and Venus HPV tests for 14 HR-HPV types. In addition, it avoided some false negatives and false positives. Therefore, the SureX HPV test can be used for cervical cancer screening.

Changes in bowel sounds of inpatients undergoing general anesthesia.

BACKGROUND: General anesthesia can affect intestinal function, but there is no objective, practical and effective indicator to evaluate the inhibition and recovery of intestinal function. The main objectives of this study were to assess whether bowel sounds (BSs) changed before, immediately after and 3 h after general anesthesia, and whether these changes in BSs are an effective indicator of intestinal function and an accurate guide for postoperative feeding. METHODS: We randomly selected 26 inpatients and collected three sets of 5-min continuous BS data before the operation (Pre-op), immediately after the operation (Pro-op) and 3 h after the operation (3 h-Pro-op) for each patient. Then, the linear and nonlinear characteristic values (CVs) of each effective bowel sound were extracted and paired t tests and rank-sum tests were used to evaluate the changes in the BSs. RESULTS: The differences in CVs, between Pre-op and Pro-op, as well as between Pro-op and 3 h-Pro-op, were statistically significant (p < 0.05). However, there are no statistically significant differences between all the CVs between Pre-op and 3 h-Pro-op (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: BSs change before and after general anesthesia. Furthermore, the BSs are weakened due to general anesthesia and recover to the pre-op state 3 h later. Therefore, the BSs can be an indicator of intestinal function under general anesthesia, so as to provide guidance for postoperative feeding, which is of considerable clinical significance.

Heart rhythm complexity as predictors for the prognosis of end-stage renal disease patients undergoing hemodialysis.

BACKGROUND: Heart rhythm complexity, a measure of heart rate dynamics and a risk predictor in various clinical diseases, has not been systematically studied in patients with end-stage renal disease. The aim of this study is to investigate the heart rhythm complexity and its prognostic value for mortality in end-stage renal disease patients undergoing hemodialysis. METHODS: To assess heart rhythm complexity and conventional heart rate variability measures, 4-h continuous electrocardiography for a retrospective cohort of 202 ostensibly healthy control subjects and 51 hemodialysis patients with end-stage renal disease were analyzed. Heart rhythm complexity was quantified by the complexity index from the measurement of the multiscale entropy profile. RESULTS: During a follow-up of 13 months, 8 people died in the patient group. Values of either traditional heart rate variability measurements or complexity indices were found significantly lower in patients than those in healthy controls. In addition, the complexity indices (Area 1-5, Area 6-15 and Area 6-20) in the mortality group were significantly lower than those in the survival group, while there were no significant differences in traditional heart rate variability parameters between the two groups. In receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, Area 6-20 (AUC = 0.895, p < 0.001) showed the strongest predictive power between mortality and survival groups. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that heart rhythm complexity is impaired for patients with end-stage renal disease. Furthermore, the complexity index of heart rate variability quantified by multiscale entropy may be a powerful independent predictor of mortality in end-stage renal disease patients undergoing hemodialysis.

[Bowel Sound Signal Identifcation of Whole Abdomen Based on Voice Endpoint Detection].

Bowel sounds are one of the important physiological signals of the body,and different bowel sounds can reflect different gastrointestinal states.In this paper,long time bowel sound data is obtained with wearable full belly bowel sound recorder which is independent designed.After adaptive noise cancellation and wavelet threshold denoising,voice endpoint detection method based on short-time energy is used to identify effective bowel sounds.Experiments and results show that the sound recorder is simple and reliable.Through processing,analysis and endpoint detection algorithm,the recognition accuracy of effective bowel sounds is high,which has certain clinical practicality and research significance.

[Design and Implementation of Infusion Monitor Software Based on C# Language].

OBJECTIVE: To design an infusion monitor software and implement the establishment of wireless intelligent infusion monitoring system in hospital infusion area combined with the existing platform equipment in the laboratory. METHODS: On the platform of Visual Studio 2013, C# language was used to realize the software development of the upper computer, and the data from infusion monitoring equipment was received through WiFi wireless transmission technology. RESULTS: The upper computer software had a friendly user interface, and it could receive infusion data correctly and display normally. The upper computer software had alarm function and good performance. CONCLUSIONS: Infusion monitor software can realize comprehensive monitoring of multiple infusion monitors and real-time monitor of infusion process. It is easy to operate and carry which is helpful to improve the efficiency and quality of medical care.

A refined method of quantifying deceleration capacity index for heart rate variability analysis.

BACKGROUND: Phase-rectified signal averaging (PRSA) was often applied to assess the cardiac vagal modulation. Despite its broad use, this method suffers from the confounding effects of anomalous variants of sinus rhythm. This study aimed to improve the original PRSA method in deceleration capacity (DC) quantification. METHODS: The refined deceleration capacity (DCref) was calculated by excluding from non-vagally mediated abnormal variants of sinus rhythms. Holter recordings from 202 healthy subjects and 51 patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD) have been used for validity. The DCref was compared to original DC (DCorg) by the area under receiver operating characteristic curve. RESULTS: Experimental results demonstrate that the original and refined DCs calculated from 24-h, 2-h, and 30-min Holter recordings are significantly lower in patients with ESRD than those in the healthy group. In receiver operating characteristic curve analysis, the DCref provides better performance than the DCorg in distinguishing between the patients with ESRD and healthy control subjects. Furthermore, the refined PRSA technique enhances the low frequency and attenuates high frequency components for spectral analysis in ESRD patients. CONCLUSIONS: The DCref appears to reduce the influence of non-vagally mediated abnormal variants of sinus rhythm and highlighting the pathological influence. DCref, especially assessed from short-term electrocardiography recordings, may be complementary to existing autonomic function assessment, risk stratification, and efficacy prediction strategies.

[Design and Implementation of the Wireless ECG Monitor Based on AD8232 and CC2530].

Based on the heart rate monitor front end AD8232 chips and Zigbee system solutions CC2530 single chip, the wireless ECG monitor has been realized in order to implement the acquisition, processing and wireless transmission of electrocardiogram signal. Meanwhile, the real-time heart rate has been calculated and wirelessly transmitted. The wireless ECG monitor is characterized by low power consumption, small size and simple operation. It can be seen from the experimental results that the wireless ECG monitor designed in this paper can successfully obtain favorable ECG data and real-time heart rate data and display it.

[Design and Implementation of Medical Wireless Gateway Based on Several Communication Protocols].

We designed a multi-functional medical wireless gateway based on Zigbee Bluetooth and WiFi Technology to monitor the medical physiological status of subjects in real time. On the one hand, the gateway acts as the Zigbee coordinator, organizing the Zigbee network and controlling multiple medical digital terminals. On the other hand, the gateway implements a heterogeneous wireless network. It establishes the communication between the medical digital terminals and the host computers or hand-held devices. In addition, we developed a display interface based on the LabVIEW platform, implemented the display and storage of various physiological data on the host computer, and verified the availability of the medical wireless gateway.

ZnO nanorod/porous silicon nanowire hybrid structures as highly-sensitive NO2 gas sensors at room temperature.

ZnO nanorod/porous silicon nanowire (ZnO/PSiNW) hybrids with three different structures as highly sensitive NO2 gas sensors were obtained. PSiNWs were first synthesized by metal-assisted chemical etching, and then seeded in three different ways. After that ZnO nanorods were grown on the seeded surface of PSiNWs using a hydrothermal procedure. ZnO/PSiNW hybrids showed excellent gas sensing performance for various NO2 concentrations (5-50 ppm) at room temperature, and the electrical resistance change rate reached as high as 35.1% when responding to 50 ppm NO2. The distinct enhancement was mainly attributed to the faster carrier transportation after combination, the increase in gas sensing areas and the oxygen vacancy (VO) concentration. Moreover, the p-type gas sensing behavior was explained by the gas sensing mechanism and the effect of VO concentration on gas sensing properties was also discussed concerning the photoluminescence (PL) spectra performance.

Increased Kappa/Lambda Hybrid Antibody in Serum Is a Novel Biomarker Related to Disease Activity and Inflammation in Rheumatoid Arthritis.

The κ/λ hybrid antibodies in normal human serum were reported recently, but their clinical relevance has not yet been explored. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is one of the major joint diseases, and the early diagnosis and treatment of RA remain a challenge. Here, we developed a double-sandwich enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay system to quantify relative serum κ/λ hybrid antibody levels in RA patients, osteoarthritis (OA) patients, and healthy controls (HC) in order to assess their potential use as a serological biomarker of early disease and clinical activity and to preliminarily investigate their immunomodulatory roles in RA. Surprisingly, we found that κ/λ hybrid antibody was markedly increased in both early and established RA. Serum κ/λ hybrid antibody levels were significantly correlated with clinical indexes and inflammatory markers in RA. Further analysis showed a positive correlation between κ/λ hybrid antibody levels and the 28-joint disease activity score (DAS28). In conclusion, serum κ/λ hybrid antibodies in RA were identified for the first time. High levels of κ/λ hybrid antibody may be a useful tool in distinguishing early RA from OA and HC. We suggest κ/λ hybrid antibody as a marker for disease activity. The increased κ/λ hybrid antibodies were associated with inflammatory conditions in RA.

[Design and Implementation of Wearable Multi-channel Bowel Sound Recorder].

This paper implements the wearable multi-channel bowel sound recorder which can col ect five channels bowel sound continuously for long time. This paper also measures bowel sound on real person to verify the availability of the recorder.

Enhanced field-emission of silver nanoparticle-graphene oxide decorated ZnO nanowire arrays.

This work presents a new method to improve the field emission (FE) properties of semiconductors decorated with low-cost graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets and trace amounts of noble metal. The Ag/GO/ZnO composite emitter exhibited efficient FE properties with a low turn-on field of 1.4 V µm(-1) and a high field enhancement factor of 7018. The excellent FE properties of the Ag/GO/ZnO composite can be attributed to the tunneling effect of electrons through the heterojunction. The FE properties of the Ag/GO/ZnO composite are slightly better than those of the Ag/ZnO composite which forms an energy well that collects electrons on interfaces when an electric field is applied. This behavior is associated with heterostructures that offer more contact points and protrusions between ZnO nanowire arrays (NWAs) and Ag/GO, which leads to easier electron transfer. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were employed to characterise the connection and evolution of the ZnO NWAs and Ag/GO composites.

A novel method to produce armored double-stranded DNA by encapsulation of MS2 viral capsids.

With the rapid development of molecular diagnostic techniques, there is a growing need for quality controls and standards with favorable properties to monitor the entire detection process. In this study, we describe a novel method to produce armored hepatitis B virus (HBV) and human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA for use in nucleic acid tests, which was confirmed to be stable, homogeneous, noninfectious, nuclease resistant, and safe for shipping. We demonstrated that MS2 bacteriophage could successfully package double-stranded DNA of 1.3-, 3-, 3.5-, and 6.5-kb length into viral capsids with high reassembly efficiency. This is the first application of RNA bacteriophage MS2 as a platform to encapsulate double-stranded DNA, forming virus-like particles (VLPs) which were indistinguishable from native MS2 capsids in size and morphology. Moreover, by analyzing the interaction mechanism of pac site and the MS2 coat protein (CP), we found that in addition to the recognized initiation signal TR-RNA, TR-DNA can also trigger spontaneous reassembly of CP dimers, providing a more convenient and feasible method of assembly. In conclusion, this straightforward and reliable manufacturing approach makes armored DNA an ideal control and standard for use in clinical laboratory tests and diagnostics, possessing prospects for broad application, especially providing a new platform for the production of quality controls for DNA viruses.

[Change of pulse transit time during stepwise paced breathing].

To investigate the effect of stepwise paced breathing (PB) on pulse transit time (PTT), we collected physiological signals of electrocardiogram (ECG), respiration and arterial pulse wave during a procedure of stepwise PB, which consists of 6 different breathing rates changing in a protocol of 14.0-12.5-11.0-9.5-8.0-7.0 breath per minute (BPM), with each breathing rate lasting 3 minutes. Twenty two healthy adults involved in this experiment and the change of PTT was analyzed during the stepwise PB procedure. In our study, the PTT was measured by calculating the time interval from the R-spike of the ECG to the peaks of the second derivative of the arterial pulse wave. Ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) was applied to PTT to decompose the signal into different intrinsic mode function, and respiratory oscillation and trend component (baseline) in PTT were further extracted. It was found that the respiratory oscillations in the PTT increased with decreasing of the PB rate, and many of the subjects (14 out of 22) showed the phenomena of PTT baseline increasing during the stepwise PB procedure. The results indicated that the stepwise PB procedure induced a high level of cardiovascular oscillation and produced an accumulative effect of PTT baseline increase. As PTT is capable of predicting changes in BP over a short period of time, increase of PTT baseline indicates the decrease of blood pressure. The experiments showed that the stepwise PB procedure could reduce blood pressure for most subjects. For future work, it is necessary to develop certain indices differentiating the effectiveness of the stepwise PB procedure on the PTT baseline change, and to test the effectiveness of this stepwise PB procedure on blood pressure reduction for patients with essential hypertension.

Neoadjuvant chemohormonal therapy before radical prostatectomy in high-risk prostate cancer: a mini-review.

High-risk localized prostate cancer (PCa) has the potential of recurrence and progression to a lethal phenotype, and neoadjuvant therapy followed by radical prostatectomy (RP) may be an option for these patients. Docetaxel has been recently shown to be an effective chemotherapeutic agent for high-volume metastatic hormone-sensitive PCa and metastatic castration-resistant PCa, and these increased efficacy create the impetus to assess the potential role of preoperative docetaxel in high-risk localized PCa. In this mini-review, we found that neoadjuvant chemohormonal therapy (NCHT) may be an effective neoadjuvant regimen to improve oncological outcome of high-risk PCa. However, the addition of docetaxel in the neoadjuvant setting would unavoidably increase the rate of adverse events, impose additional economic burdens. Therefore, suitable patient selection is crucial and pathological response might be a surrogate endpoint. Furthermore, we also found that molecular imaging prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) PET/CT was a promising tool to evaluation the effectiveness of NCHT, and the expression status of AR, AR-V7, Ki-67, PTEN and TP53 might be helpful for urologists to identify more suitable candidates for NCHT.