Photoelectric property degradation of graded barrier InAs/GaSb type II superlattice long-wave infrared detectors under 1†MeV electron irradiation.

Amid rapid advancements in aerospace science and technology, studying the effects of space radiation on an infrared detector is crucial for enhancing their reliability in radiation environments, particularly against electrons-one of the most damaging charged particles. Barrier structures significantly reduce dark current without any substantial degradation in the optical performance of the devices. Consequently, they are being investigated for use in extreme environments. This paper presents a study on the performance degradation of InAs/GaSb type II superlattice (T2SLs) long-wave infrared (LWIR) detectors with a graded barrier structure under 1 MeV electron irradiation and analyzes potential damage mechanisms. The findings indicate that 1 MeV electron irradiation causes both ionization and displacement damage to the graded barrier InAs/GaSb T2SL LWIR detectors. After irradiation with a fluence of 2 × 1015 e/cm2, the device's dark current density has increased by approximately two orders of magnitude, while the quantum efficiency has decreased by approximately one order of magnitude. As the device mesa shrinks, the sensitivity of dark current to radiation exposure increases. Electron irradiation notably exacerbates surface leakage and bulk dark current, with a pronounced increase in surface leakage current. The study also reveals that electron irradiation primarily enhances the dark current by introducing defect states, thereby leading to device performance degradation.

Role of liver resection in the era of advanced systemic therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma.

The recent dramatic progress in systemic therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) provides the possibility of a combination of surgery and systemic therapy including adjuvant, neoadjuvant, or conversion settings. Since the turn of the century, at least three negative studies have tested adjuvant therapies after curative resection or ablation, including uracil-tegafur, which is an oral chemotherapeutic drug, sorafenib, and peretinoin, which a synthetic retinoid that may induce the apoptosis and differentiation of liver cancer cells. Using more potent immuno-checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), at least 4 phase III trials of adjuvant immunotherapy are ongoing: nivolumab, durvalumab/ bevacizumab, pembrolizumab, and atezolizumab+bevacizumab. Very recently, the last trial indicated a significantly better recurrence-free survival (RFS) for adjuvant atezolizumab+bevacizumab. Another promising combination of surgery and systemic therapy is neoadjuvant therapy for potentially resectable cases or a conversion strategy for oncologically unresectable cases. There are 2 neoadjuvant trials for technically or oncologically unresectable HCCs ongoing in Japan: the LENS-HCC trial using lenvatinib and the RACB study using atezolizumab+bevacizumab. A longer follow-up may be needed, but the overall survival (OS) in resected cases seems much higher than that in unresectable cases. Recently, the Japan Liver Cancer Association (JLCA) and the Japanese Society of HPB Surgery (JSHPBS) created a joint working group on "so-called borderline resectable HCC". They obtained a Japanese consensus on this issue that has been published on the websites of JLCA and JSHPBS. The definition of resectability or borderline resectability provides a common language regarding advanced HCC for investigators and is a useful tool for future clinical trials.

Cinobufacini Inhibits Survival and Metastasis of Hepatocellular Carcinoma via c-Met Signaling Pathway.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the anti-tumor effects of cinobufacini (CINO) on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) induced by des-gamma-carboxy-prothrombin (DCP) and to uncover the underlying mechanisms. METHODS: The inhibitory effect of CINO on HCC cell proliferation was evaluated using the cell counting kit-8 method, and the apoptosis rate was quantified using flow cytometry. Immunofluorescence and Western blot analyses were used to investigate the differential expression of proteins associated with cell growth, apoptosis, migration, and invasion pathways after CINO treatment. The therapeutic potential of CINO for HCC was confirmed, and the possibility of combining cinobufacini with c-Met inhibitor for the treatment of primary HCC was further validated by in vivo experiments. RESULTS: Under the induction of DCP, CINO inhibited the activity of HCC cells, induced apoptosis, and inhibited migration and invasion. Upon the induction of DCP, CINO regulated c-Met activation and the activation of the phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase/protein kinase B (PI3K/AKT) and mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (MEK/ERK) pathways. In a mouse model of HCC, CINO exhibited significant antitumor effects by inhibiting the phosphorylation of c-Met and the downstream PI3K/AKT and MEK/ERK pathways in tumor tissues. CONCLUSIONS: CINO inhibited HCC cell growth, promoted apoptosis, and suppressed HCC cell invasion and migration by targeting c-Met and PI3K/AKT and MEK/ERK signaling pathways under DCP induction.

Evaluation of the in vitro activity of ampicillin-sulbactam and cefoperazone-sulbactam against A. Baumannii by the broth disk elution test.

To evaluate the in vitro activity of ampicillin-sulbactam and cefoperazone-sulbactam against A. baumannii using the broth disk elution testing, a total of 150 A. baumannii isolates were collected from across China between January 2019 and January 2021, including 51 carbapenem-susceptible and 99 carbapenem-resistant isolates. Broth disk elution (BDE) and the broth microdilution (BMD) method were performed for all strains. The concentration range of the BDE was 10/10 µg/mL, 20/20 µg/mL, and 30/30 µg/mL for ampicillin-sulbactam, and 37.5/15 µg/mL, 75/30 µg/mL, 112.5/45 µg/mL, and 150/60 µg/mL for cefoperazone-sulbactam, respectively. Compared with BMD, the BDE results of ampicillin-sulbactam and cefoperazone-sulbactam showed a categorical agreement of 83.3% (125/150) and 95.3% (143/150), with minor errors of 16.7% (25/150) and 4.7% (7/150), respectively. No major error or very major errors were detected. The sensitivity differences by BDE of carbapenem-resistant A. baumannii (CRAb) to different concentrations of ampicillin-sulbactam showed statistically significant (p < 0.017), while those to cefoperazone-sulbactam at 37.5/15 µg/mL, 75/30 µg/mL, and 112.5/45 µg/mL were significant (p < 0.008). However, no significant difference in sensitivity was observed between 112.5/45 µg/mL and 150/60 µg/mL (p > 0.008). In conclusion, the BDE is a reliable and convenient method to detect the in vitro activity of cefoperazone-sulbactam against A. baumannii, and the results could serve as a clinical reference value when deciding whether or not to use high-dose sulbactam for the treatment of A. baumannii infections.

Addressing healthy aging in China: Practices and prospects.

One important challenge for global development is aging. China is one of the world's countries with the highest elderly population and the most rapid aging; in 2022, the percentage of the population over 65 was 14.9%; by 2050, it is expected to rise to 26.1%. China's health security, elderly care, and healthcare services are facing serious challenges as a result of this aging trend. With 80% of provinces including medical and elderly care in national basic public health care programs, China has adopted a proactive national plan to combat population aging. Moreover, geriatric departments have been established at 69.3% of public general hospitals at secondary and higher tiers, 48% of provinces have devises preventive interventions for disability and dementia in the elderly, 48 percent of provinces are serving as test regions for medical care related to rehabilitation, and 49 cities are involved in long-term care insurance (LTCI) trials that encompass 170 million people. There are 4,259 medical and health care facilities that provide hospice care services, 152 hospice care pilot regions, and 87,000 pairs of contracts between medical and health care facilities and elderly care providers. These developments provide a strong basis, but there are still major obstacles to overcome. The Chinese Government is urged to adopt early preventive measures, offer more ongoing, practical, and cost-effective diagnostic and treatment services, allocate resources equitably, and use intelligent technologies to enhance elderly care. The ultimate goals are to lessen the financial burden, enhance the health of the elderly, and offer a vital global resource.

The latest policies, practices, and hotspots in research in conjunction with the aging of Japan's population.

Population aging is a global concern, and Japan currently has the world's highest proportion of an aging population. In 2020, the population age 65 and over accounted for 10% of the global population, while this proportion was 29% in Japan, and it is expected to reach 38.4% in 2065. The average life expectancy in Japan in 2022 was 81.05 for males and 87.09 for females. At the same time, Japan's healthy life expectancy continues to increase, and it is increasing at a faster rate than the average life expectancy, with males expected to live 72.68 years and females expected to live 75.38 years in 2019. This is causing the social role of elderly people in Japan to constantly change. The Japanese Government continues to adjust its policy orientation, to improve the health level and social participation of the elderly, improve the accessibility of long-term nursing services and the treatment of nursing professionals, and improve the pension system. By 2025, one-fifth of people in Japan are expected to suffer from dementia. Japan has implemented a series of policies to create a dementia-inclusive and less risky society. The proportion of the population ages 65 and over living alone in Japan increased from 4.3% among males and from 11.2% among females in 1980 to 15.0% among males and 22.1% among females in 2020, representing a sustained increase. Changes in the composition of the population have prompted sustained attention to the personalization and diversification of elderly care. At the same time, Japanese researchers continue to utilize scientific and information technology to innovate elderly care products, improve the efficiency of elderly care, and provide intelligent elderly care.

Effects of Cu2O nanoparticles on the kinetic characteristics of rapid chlorophyll fluorescence induction and related genes in wheat seedlings.

Metal nanoparticles could be accumulated in soils, which threatens the ecological stability of crops. Investigating the effects of cuprous oxide nanoparticles (Cu2O-NPs) on photosystem Ⅱ (PSⅡ) of wheat seedling leaves holds considerable importance in comprehending the implications of Cu2O-NPs on crop photosynthesis. Following the hydroponic method, we investigated the effects of 0, 10, 50, 100, and 200 mg·L-1 Cu2O-NPs on chlorophyll fluorescence induction kinetics and photosynthetic-related genes in wheat seedlings of "Zhoumai 18". The results showed that, with the increases of Cu2O-NPs concentrations, chlorophyll contents in wheat leaves decreased, and the standardization of the OJIP curve showed a clearly K-phase (ΔK＞0). Cu2O-NPs stress increased the parameters of active PSⅡ reaction centers, including the absorption flux per active RC (ABS/RC), the trapping flux per active RC (TRo/RC), the electron transport flux per active RC (ETo/RC), and the dissipation flux per active RC (DIo/RC). Cu2O-NPs stress decreased the parameters of PSⅡ energy distribution ratio including the maximum quantum yield of PSⅡ (φPo), the quantum yield of electron transport from QA (φEo), and the probability that a trapped exciton moved an electron further than QA (Ψo), while increased the quantum ratio for heat dissipation (φDo). Moreover, there was a decrease in photosynthetic quantum yield Y(Ⅱ), photochemical quenching coefficient (qP), net photosynthetic rate (Pn), stomatal conductance (gs), intercellular CO2 concentration (Ci), and transpiration rate (Tr) of leaves with the increases of Cu2O-NPs concentration. Under Cu2O-NPs stress, the expression levels of genes which included PSⅡ genes (PsbD, PsbP, Lhcb1), Rubisco large subunit genes (RbcL), cytochrome b6/f complex genes (PetD, Rieske), and ATP synthase genes (AtpA, AtpB, AtpE, AtpI) were downregulated. These results indicated that Cu2O-NPs stress altered the activity and structure of PSⅡ in wheat seedlings, affected the activity of PSⅡ reaction centers, performance parameters of PSⅡ donor and acceptor sides. PSⅡ related genes were downregulated and exhibited significant concentration effects.

Comprehensive assessment and treatment strategies for dysphagia in the elderly population: Current status and prospects.

As the population ages, the prevalence of dysphagia among older adults is a growing concern. Age-related declines in physiological function, coupled with neurological disorders and structural changes in the pharynx associated with aging, can result in weakened tongue propulsion, a prolonged reaction time of the submental muscles, delayed closure of the laryngeal vestibule, and delayed opening of the upper esophageal sphincter (UES), increasing the risk of dysphagia. Dysphagia impacts the physical health of the elderly, leading to serious complications such as dehydration, aspiration pneumonia, malnutrition, and even life-threatening conditions, and it also detrimentally affects their psychological and social well-being. There is a significant correlation between frailty, sarcopenia, and dysphagia in the elderly population. Therefore, older adults should be screened for dysphagia to identify both frailty and sarcopenia. A reasonable diagnostic approach for dysphagia involves screening, clinical assessment, and instrumental diagnosis. In terms of treatment, multidisciplinary collaboration, rehabilitation training, and the utilization of new technologies are essential. Future research will continue to concentrate on these areas to enhance the diagnosis and treatment of dysphagia, with the ultimate aim of enhancing the quality of life of the elderly population.

Performance of disk diffusion method for aztreonam in combination with avibactam against Enterobacteriales.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the performance of an in-house developed disk diffusion method for aztreonam in combination with avibactam against Enterobacteriales. METHODS: The in vitro antibacterial activity of aztreonam with avibactam against 204 carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriales was determined by a disk diffusion method, with a broth microdilution method as a reference. RESULTS: The optimal S/R breakpoints for disk diffusion tests of 30/20 and 10/4 µg disks, calculated by the dBETs software using the model-based approaches, were ≥22/≤21 and ≥12/≤11 mm, respectively. On the basis of the estimated breakpoints, the CAs for disk diffusion tests of 30/20 and 10/4 µg aztreonam/avibactam disks were both 98.0%, with 0.5% major error and 37.5% very major error. CONCLUSIONS: The home-made disk diffusion method is an economical and practical method for clinical microbiology laboratories to determine the antibacterial susceptibility of aztreonam with avibactam against Enterobacteriales.

Neoadjuvant therapies in resectable hepatocellular carcinoma: Exploring strategies to improve prognosis.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a challenging malignancy, often necessitates surgical intervention, notably liver resection. However, the high recurrence rate, reaching 70% within 5 years post-resection, significantly impacts patient outcomes. Neoadjuvant therapies aim to preoperatively address this challenge, reducing lesion size, improving surgical resection rates, deactivating potential micro-metastases, and ultimately lowering postoperative recurrence rates. This review concentrates on advances in research on and clinical use of neoadjuvant therapies for HCC, with particular attention to the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) targeting programmed cell death-1 (PD-1), programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1), and cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein-4 (CTLA-4). Ongoing clinical studies exploring immunotherapy combined with a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), interventional therapy, radiotherapy, and other modalities offer promising insights into overcoming resistance to monotherapies. In summary, neoadjuvant therapies hold significant promise in terms of improving the prognosis for patients with HCC and enhancing long-term survival, particularly through innovative combination strategies.

Comparison of diagnosis-related groups (DRG)-based hospital payment system design and implementation strategies in different countries: The case of ischemic stroke.

Diagnosis-related groups (DRG) based hospital payment systems are gradually becoming the main mechanism for reimbursement of acute inpatient care. We reviewed the existing literature to ascertain the global use of DRG-based hospital payment systems, compared the similarities and differences of original DRG versions in ten countries, and used ischemic stroke as an example to ascertain the design and implementation strategies for various DRG systems. The current challenges with and direction for the development of DRG-based hospital payment systems are also analyzed. We found that the DRG systems vary greatly in countries in terms of their purpose, grouping, coding, and payment mechanisms although based on the same classification concept and that they have tended to develop differently in countries with different income classifications. In high-income countries, DRG-based hospital payment systems have gradually begun to weaken as a mainstream payment method, while in middle-income countries DRG-based hospital payment systems have attracted increasing attention and increased use. The example of ischemic stroke provides suggestions for mutual promotion of DRG-based hospital payment systems and disease management. How to determine the level of DRG payment incentives and improve system flexibility, balance payment goals and disease management goals, and integrate development with other payment methods are areas for future research on DRG-based hospital payment systems.

The use of artificial intelligence in the treatment of rare diseases: A scoping review.

With the increasing application of artificial intelligence (AI) in medicine and healthcare, AI technologies have the potential to improve the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of rare diseases. Presently, existing research predominantly focuses on the areas of diagnosis and prognosis, with relatively fewer studies dedicated to the domain of treatment. The purpose of this review is to systematically analyze the existing literature on the application of AI in the treatment of rare diseases. We searched three databases for related studies, and established criteria for the selection of retrieved articles. From the 407 unique articles identified across the three databases, 13 articles from 8 countries were selected, which investigated 10 different rare diseases. The most frequently studied rare disease group was rare neurologic diseases (n = 5/13, 38.46%). Among the four identified therapeutic domains, 7 articles (53.85%) focused on drug research, with 5 specifically focused on drug discovery (drug repurposing, the discovery of drug targets and small-molecule inhibitors), 1 on pre-clinical studies (drug interactions), and 1 on clinical studies (information strength assessment of clinical parameters). Across the selected 13 articles, we identified total 32 different algorithms, with random forest (RF) being the most commonly used (n = 4/32, 12.50%). The predominant purpose of AI in the treatment of rare diseases in these articles was to enhance the performance of analytical tasks (53.33%). The most common data source was database data (35.29%), with 5 of these studies being in the field of drug research, utilizing classic databases such as RCSB, PDB and NCBI. Additionally, 47.37% of the articles highlighted the existing challenge of data scarcity or small sample sizes.

Emotional Video Captioning With Vision-Based Emotion Interpretation Network.

Effectively summarizing and re-expressing video content by natural languages in a more human-like fashion is one of the key topics in the field of multimedia content understanding. Despite good progress made in recent years, existing efforts usually overlooked the emotions in user-generated videos, thus making the generated sentence a bit boring and soulless. To fill the research gap, this paper presents a novel emotional video captioning framework in which we design a Vision-based Emotion Interpretation Network to effectively capture the emotions conveyed in videos and describe the visual content in both factual and emotional languages. Specifically, we first model the emotion distribution over an open psychological vocabulary to predict the emotional state of videos. Then, guided by the discovered emotional state, we incorporate visual context, textual context, and visual-textual relevance into an aggregated multimodal contextual vector to enhance video captioning. Furthermore, we optimize the network in a new emotion-fact coordinated way that involves two losses- Emotional Indication Loss and Factual Contrastive Loss, which penalize the error of emotion prediction and visual-textual factual relevance, respectively. In other words, we innovatively introduce emotional representation learning into an end-to-end video captioning network. Extensive experiments on public benchmark datasets, EmVidCap and EmVidCap-S, demonstrate that our method can significantly outperform the state-of-the-art methods by a large margin. Quantitative ablation studies and qualitative analyses clearly show that our method is able to effectively capture the emotions in videos and thus generate emotional language sentences to interpret the video content.

Conversion therapy for initially unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma: Current status and prospects.

Research has shown that locoregional and/or systemic treatments can reduce the tumor stage, enabling radical surgical resection in patients with initially unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma. This is referred to as conversion therapy. Patients who undergo conversion therapy followed by curative surgery experience a significant survival benefit compared to those who receive chemotherapy alone, those who are successfully downstaged with conversion therapy but not treated with surgery, or those who are treated with upfront surgery. Several treatments have been studied as conversion therapy. However, the success rate of conversion varies greatly, ranging from 0.8% to 60%. Combined locoregional plus systemic conversion therapy has demonstrated significant clinical advantages, with a conversion rate of up to 60%, an objective remission rate of 96% for patients, and a disease control rate of up to 100%. However, patients who underwent conversion therapy experienced significantly more complications than those who underwent direct LR without conversion therapy. Conversion therapy can cause hepatotoxicity, bone marrow suppression, local adhesions, increased fragility of blood vessels and liver tissues, and hepatic edema, which can increase the difficulty of surgery. In addition, criteria need to be established to evaluate the efficacy of conversion therapy and subsequent treatment. Further clinical evidence in this area is urgently needed.

Predictive role of impulsivity, anxiety, and depression in the efficacy of intermittent theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation modalities for treating methamphetamine use disorder: A randomized clinical trial.

INTRODUCTION: Methamphetamine use disorder (MUD) can cause impulsive behavior, anxiety, and depression. Stimulation of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in MUD patients by intermittent theta burst repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (iTBS-rTMS) is effective in reducing cravings, impulsive behavior, anxiety, and depression. The purpose of this study was to explore whether these psychological factors helped to predict MUD patients' responses to iTBS-rTMS treatment. METHODS: Fifty MUD patients and sixty healthy subjects matched for general conditions were used as study subjects. The study randomly divided MUD patients into iTBS-rTMS and sham stimulation groups and received 20 sessions of real or sham iTBS-rTMS treatment, and the study collected cue-related evoked craving data before and after treatment. All subjects completed the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), Self-rating Anxiety Scale (SAS), and Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS). RESULTS: The MUD patients showed significantly higher levels of impulsivity, anxiety, and depression than the healthy subjects. The MUD patients who received the real treatment had significantly lower impulsivity, anxiety, and depression scores, and better treatment effects on cravings than the sham stimulation group. The Spearman rank correlation and stepwise multiple regression analyses showed that the baseline BIS-11 and the reduction rate (RR) of BIS-11 and RR of SDS were positively correlated with the decrease in cravings in the iTBS-rTMS group. ROC curve analysis showed that RR of SDS (AUC = 91.6 %; 95 % CI = 0.804-1.000) had predictive power to iTBS- rTMS therapeutic efficacy, the cutoff value is 15.102 %. CONCLUSIONS: iTBS-rTMS had a good therapeutic effect in MUD patients and the baseline impulsivity, the improved depression and impulsivity were associated with therapeutic effect of iTBS-rTMS. The improved depression had the potential to predict the efficacy of the iTBS-rTMS modality for MUD treatment.