Thickness-to-Height Ratio of Intravesical Prostatic Protrusion Predicts the Clinical Outcome and Morbidity of Prostatic Artery Embolization for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the presence of intravesical prostatic protrusion (IPP) and its thickness-to-height (T/H) ratio as a predictor for the clinical outcome and morbidity of prostatic artery embolization (PAE) for benign prostatic hyperplasia. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This was a prospective, single-center, institutional review board-approved study from June 2015 to December 2018 of 82 consecutive patients (age, 53-79 years; median, 66 years) with International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS) ≥15 and quality-of-life (QOL) score ≥3. The presence of IPP and its T/H ratio were assessed on baseline magnetic resonance imaging for their correlation with the clinical outcomes of suboptimal IPSS (IPSS ≥10) and suboptimal QOL (QOL ≥3) up to 12 months after PAE and the occurrence of post-procedure complications (≤30 days), which caused a certain degree of urinary outflow obstruction. The chi-squared test was used for analysis. RESULTS: IPP was present in 57 of 82 patients (69.5%). The presence of IPP correlated with the occurrence of post-procedure complications (P = .009) but not with suboptimal IPSS at 12 months (P = .758). IPP with a T/H ratio ≤1.3 correlated with suboptimal IPSS at 12 months (P = .025) and suboptimal QOL at 6 months (P = .025) and 12 months (P = .008), as well as with the occurrence of post-procedure complications (P = .009). CONCLUSIONS: IPP with a T/H ratio ≤1.3 predicted the occurrence of post-procedure complications with urinary obstruction. A T/H ratio ≤1.3 but not the presence of IPP alone predicted the clinical outcome up to 12 months after PAE.

Gate-controlled surface conduction in Na-doped Bi2Te3 topological insulator nanoplates.

Exploring exciting and exotic physics, scientists are pursuing practical device applications for topological insulators. The Dirac-like surface states in topological insulators are protected by the time-reversal symmetry, which naturally forbids backscattering events during the carrier transport process, and therefore offers promising applications in dissipationless spintronic devices. Although considerable efforts have been devoted to controlling their surface conduction, limited work has been focused on tuning surface states and bulk carriers in Bi(2)Te(3) nanostructures by external field. Here we report gate-tunable surface conduction in Na-doped Bi(2)Te(3) topological insulator nanoplates. Significantly, by applying external gate voltages, such topological insulators can be tuned from p-type to n-type. Our results render a promise in finding novel topological insulators with enhanced surface states.

What is the general Chinese public's awareness of and attitudes towards Helicobacter pylori screening and associated health behaviours? A cross-sectional study.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the general population's awareness of and attitudes toward Helicobacter pylori (HP) screening and health behaviours. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Hengyang, Hunan Province, China. PARTICIPANTS: Using stratified cluster random sampling, a pretested structured questionnaire was used to interview members of the general population aged ≥18 years. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Knowledge of and attitudes toward HP screening and associated health behaviours, sociodemographic factors associated with HP knowledge, and screening behaviours. RESULTS: This study featured 1042 participants. The average knowledge score was 11 (QL=4, QU=20, range 0-29). Approximately 68.9% of the participants said they had heard of HP, but 67.5% had never had an HP test. The most common reasons for not undergoing screening were 'no symptoms' (55.7%) and 'lack of knowledge regarding the benefits of the test' (21.1%). Independent factors related to knowledge included age, education level, occupation, HP infection, frequency of drinking unboiled water (p<0.05). Factors independently associated with screening behaviour included occupation, average monthly income, presence/absence of indigestion, stomach discomfort or pain, and/or stomach disease and knowledge score (p<0.05). Overall, 941 (90.3%) participants never used anti-HP toothpaste, and 442 (40.5%) never used serving spoons or chopsticks. The risk factors for HP infection included eating out and eating in groups (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: In China, the general population has poor knowledge of HP, but most people have a positive attitude towards HP screening. Being asymptomatic and lacking knowledge about testing were the main reasons for reluctance to be screened. These results highlight the urgent need for educational activities to raise awareness, enhance screening rates for HP, and encourage people to adopt a healthy lifestyle.

Metal nanodot memory by self-assembled block copolymer lift-off.

As information technology demands for larger capability in data storage continue, ultrahigh bit density memory devices have been extensively investigated. To produce an ultrahigh bit density memory device, multilevel cell operations that require several states in one cell have been proposed as one solution, which can also alleviate the scaling issues in the current state-of-the-art complementary metal oxide semiconductor technology. Here, we report the first demonstration of metal nanodot memory using a self-assembled block copolymer lift-off. This metal nanodot memory with simple low temperature processes produced an ultrawide memory window of 15 V at the +/-18 V voltage sweep. Such a large window can be adopted for multilevel cell operations. Scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy studies showed a periodic metal nanodot array with uniform distribution defined by the block copolymer pattern. Consequently, this metal nanodot memory has high potential to reduce the variability issues that metal nanocrystal memories previously had and multilevel cells with ultrawide memory windows can be fabricated with high reliability and manufacturability.

Synthesis of high-Curie-temperature Fe0.02Ge0.98 quantum dots.

Self-assembled Fe(0.02)Ge(0.98) dilute magnetic quantum dots show a high Curie temperature above 400 K. Such extraordinary magnetic properties can potentially resolve the critical problem of power dissipation in today's integrated circuits and lead to the realization of a new class of spintronics devices.

[Study on relationship between quantitative data of tongue picture and state of illness in 224 patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome].

OBJECTIVE: To observe the characteristics of tongue proper and tongue coating in patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and to explore the relationship between tongue picture and state of illness. METHODS: Tongue picture was taken by digital camera and colors (red, green and blue) of tongue proper and coating were analyzed quantitatively with image processing software. RESULTS: In the 69 patients of acute stage, the color of tongue proper was mostly light red (51 patients, 73.9%), with significant difference in comparing with other colors (P < 0.01). The color of tongue coating was mostly thin yellow (32 patients, 46.4%), and thin white was the second (29 patients, 42.0%). There was swollen tongue body in 5 patients (7.2%), teeth print on tongue margin in 12 cases (17.4%). In the 155 patients of recovery stage, the color of tongue proper was mostly dark pale (72 patients, 46.5%), the second light red (68 patients, 43.9%), color of tongue coating was mostly thin white (80 patients, 51.6%), which was significantly higher than other colors (P < 0.01), the second was yellow in tongue root region (31 patients, 20.0%). Swollen tongue body was found in 23 patients (14.8%) and teeth print on margin was found in 19 patients (12.3%). Most patients of ordinary state had light red tongue proper and thin white coating, patients of severe state mostly had dark pale tongue proper and yellow coating in root region, and the critical patients were mostly with dark pale proper and thick yellow coating. Patients with affected lung > or = 3 lobules mostly had pale dark proper and yellow coating on root, but those with involved lung < 3 lobules mostly had light red proper and thin white coating. CONCLUSION: The colors detected quantitatively by the method described above could comparatively reflect the difference of tongue proper and coating sensitively. Tongue picture is one of the objective evidence for judging state of illness and Syndrome Differentiation based on treatment in SARS patients.

Nanoparticles mimicking viral surface topography for enhanced cellular delivery.

Novel silica nanoparticles mimicking virus surface topography are prepared. It is demonstrated that increases in nanoscale surface roughness promote both binding of biomolecules and cellular uptake; thus, the cellular delivery efficiency is significantly increased (scale bars 20 µm).

PEGylation of protein-based MRI contrast agents improves relaxivities and biocompatibilities.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has emerged as a leading diagnostic technique in clinical and preclinical settings. However, the application of MRI to assess specific disease markers for diagnosis and monitoring drug effect has been severely hampered by the lack of desired contrast agents with high relaxivities, and optimized in vivo retention time. We have reported the development of protein-based MRI contrast agents (ProCA1) by rational design of Gd(3+) binding sites into a stable protein resulting in significantly increased longitudinal (r(1)) and transverse (r(2)) relaxivities compared to Gd-DTPA. Here, we report a further improvement of protein contrast agents ProCA1 for in vivo imaging by protein modification with various sizes of polyethylene glycol (PEG) chain. PEGylation results in significant increases of both r(1) and r(2) relaxivities (up to 200%), and these high relaxivities persist even at field strengths up to 9.4 T. In addition, our experimental results demonstrate that modified contrast agents have significant improvement of in vivo MR imaging and biocompatibilities including dose efficiency, protein solubility, blood retention time and decreased immunogenicity. Such improvement can be important to the animal imaging and pre-clinical research at high or ultra-high field where there is an urgent need for molecular imaging probes and optimized contrast agent.

[Preparation of spherical lignin cation adsorption resin with black pulping liquor].

Spherical lignin cation adsorption resin was obtained by two-step method with black liquor of paper mill and characterized by the Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR). Firstly, the spherical lignin beads were prepared with black liquor of paper mill by applying reverse-phase suspension polymerization technique, and the preparation conditions were also optimized. The suitable conditions include 200 r/min of stirring speed, 90 degrees C of reaction temperature, 1.0 h of reaction time and use epoxy chloropropane (1.5% by weight of lignin) as cross-linking agent, the ideal volume ratio between oil phase and water phase was 3:1 by using kerosene oil as disperse phase, and the perfect dispersant agent was Tween 80 (3% by weight of lignin). Secondly, the spherical lignin cation adsorption resin was developed by grafting the acrylamide onto the back-bone of the spherical lignin beads. The best concentration of acrylamide was 0.72 mol/L at ambient temperature for 2.0 h, and the ideal initiator system was the Fenton reagent of H2O2/Fe2+. Under the above conditions, the ion exchange capacity of the prepared resin could reach 1.640 5 mmol/g.