Rest-in-Peace: Research on the Architectural Types and Design Ideas to Guide Design of Hospice Care Building.

In the context of an aging population, the concept of peaceful end-of-life care has gained increasing significance as an essential component of individuals' fundamental well-being. This underscores the importance of researching and developing hospice care facilities and service systems dedicated to providing a tranquil resting environment. This study focuses on selected hospice care buildings, examining their service model evolution and architectural design. Through case analyses, it explores contemporary hospice care architecture, identifying various types and spatial design features that cater to the end-of-life needs of individuals. The findings guide the design of hospice care buildings in China, emphasizing patient-living areas, medical care zones, and auxiliary functional spaces. This comprehensive approach aims to enhance terminally ill patients' comfort, serenity, and dignity. Moreover, it aims to provide emotional and post-funeral support to terminally ill patients' families.

Cooling Efficiency of Sleeveless 3D-Printed Surgical Guides with Different Cylinder Designs.

Background and Objectives: Surgical guides might impede the flow of coolant to the implant drills during the preparation of the implant bed, potentially contributing to increased temperatures during bone drilling. The objective of this experimental study was to assess the cooling efficiency of various guiding cylinder designs for sleeveless surgical guides used in guided surgery. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, surgical guides with three different guiding cylinder designs were printed. One group had solid cylinders (control) and two test groups (cylinders with pores and cylinders with windows). Forty customized polyurethane blocks with type III bone characteristics were fitted into the guide and fixed in a vise, and implant bed preparations were completed using a simplified drilling protocol with and without irrigation. An infrared thermographic camera was used to record the temperature changes during drilling at the coronal, middle, and apical areas. ANOVA test and Games-Howell post hoc test were used to determine significant thermal differences among groups. Results: A significant thermal increase was observed at the coronal area in the group without irrigation (39.69 ± 8.82) (p < 0.05). The lowest thermal increase was recorded at the surgical guides with windows (21.451 ± 0.703 °C) compared to solid (25.005 ± 0.586 °C) and porous surgical guides (25.630 ± 1.004) (p < 0.05). In the middle and apical areas, there were no differences between solid and porous cylinders (p > 0.05). Conclusions: 3D-printed sleeveless surgical guides with window openings at the guiding cylinders reduce the temperature elevation at the cortical bone in guided implant surgery.

A systematic review of computational methods for designing efficient guides for CRISPR DNA base editor systems.

In only a few years, as a breakthrough technology, clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats/CRISPR-associated protein (CRISPR/Cas) gene-editing systems have ushered in the era of genome engineering with a plethora of applications. One of the most promising CRISPR tools, so-called base editors, opened an exciting avenue for exploring new therapeutic approaches through controlled mutagenesis. However, the efficiency of a base editor guide varies depending on several biological determinants, such as chromatin accessibility, DNA repair proteins, transcriptional activity, factors related to local sequence context and so on. Thus, the success of genetic perturbation directed by CRISPR/Cas base-editing systems relies on an optimal single guide RNA (sgRNA) design, taking those determinants into account. Although there is 11 commonly used software to design guides specifically for base editors, only three of them investigated and implemented those biological determinants into their models. This review presents the key features, capabilities and limitations of all currently available software with a particular focus on predictive model-based algorithms. Here, we summarize existing software for sgRNA design and provide a base for improving the efficiency of existing available software suites for precise target base editing.

Efficacy of Transosseous Tunnel Placement for Triple Endobutton Plate in Acromioclavicular Joint Reconstruction: A Three-Dimensional Printing Guide Design Technology.

OBJECTIVE: Explore an accurate transosseous tunnel drilling method based on three-dimensional (3D) printing technology for acromioclavicular joint reconstruction (ACD), design a guide design, and evaluate its accuracy. METHODS: Using Mimics software to reconstruct 100 cases of acromioclavicular joint computed tomography (CT) data. In design 2, the non-collinear tunnel is superimposed on the 3D model, and a virtual drilling is performed between the clavicle and the coracoid using a triple inner gusset. Then, in the Geomagic Studio software model, an elliptical plane is calculated and extracted as a guide design for precise drilling. Then put the design and the 3D shoulder model together for 3D printing. Ten lengths were measured, and the effects of the virtual model, the actual model, and the guide rail design were compared. RESULTS: We successfully compared 10 parameters of 3D virtual model and actual model. There was no significant difference between actual and virtual bone tunnels in 10 measurements (P > 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The accuracy of ACD combined with 3D printing guidance design technology in the transosseous tunnel of adult shoulder is reliable.

CRISPR Genome Editing Made Easy Through the CHOPCHOP Website.

The design of optimal guide RNA (gRNA) sequences for CRISPR systems is challenged by the need to achieve highly efficient editing at the desired location (on-target editing) with minimal editing at unintended locations (off-target editing). Although laboratory validation should ideally be used to detect off-target activity, computational predictions are almost always preferred in practice due to their speed and low cost. Several studies have therefore explored gRNA-DNA interactions in order to understand how CRISPR complexes select their genomic targets. CHOPCHOP (https://chopchop.cbu.uib.no/) leverages these developments to build a user-friendly web interface that helps users design optimal gRNAs. CHOPCHOP supports a wide range of CRISPR applications, including gene knock-out, sequence knock-in, and RNA knock-down. Furthermore, CHOPCHOP offers visualization that enables an informed choice of gRNAs and supports experimental validation. In these protocols, we describe the best practices for gRNA design using CHOPCHOP. © 2021 The Authors. Current Protocols published by Wiley Periodicals LLC. Basic Protocol 1: Design of gRNAs for gene knock-out Alternate Protocol 1: Design of gRNAs for dCas9 fusion/effector targeting Support Protocol: Design of gRNAs for targeting transgenic or plasmid sequences Basic Protocol 2: Design of gRNAs for RNA targeting Basic Protocol 3: Design of gRNAs for sequence knock-in Alternate Protocol 2: Design of gRNAs for knock-in using non-homologous end joining Basic Protocol 4: Design of gRNAs for knock-in using Cas9 nickases.

Design and Evaluation of LYSO/SiPM LIGHTENING PET Detector with DTI Sampling Method.

Positron emission tomography (PET) has a wide range of applications in the treatment and prevention of major diseases owing to its high sensitivity and excellent resolution. However, there is still much room for optimization in the readout circuit and fast pulse sampling to further improve the performance of the PET scanner. In this work, a LIGHTENING® PET detector using a 13 × 13 lutetium-yttrium oxyorthosilicate (LYSO) crystal array read out by a 6 × 6 silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) array was developed. A novel sampling method, referred to as the dual time interval (DTI) method, is therefore proposed to realize digital acquisition of fast scintillation pulse. A semi-cut light guide was designed, which greatly improves the resolution of the edge region of the crystal array. The obtained flood histogram shown that all the 13 × 13 crystal pixels can be clearly discriminated. The optimum operating conditions for the detector were obtained by comparing the flood histogram quality under different experimental conditions. An average energy resolution (FWHM) of 14.3% and coincidence timing resolution (FWHM) of 972 ps were measured. The experimental results demonstrated that the LIGHTENING® PET detector achieves extremely high resolution which is suitable for the development of a high performance time-of-flight PET scanner.

Improving CRISPR guide design with consensus approaches.

BACKGROUND: CRISPR-based systems are playing an important role in modern genome engineering. A large number of computational methods have been developed to assist in the identification of suitable guides. However, there is only limited overlap between the guides that each tool identifies. This can motivate further development, but also raises the question of whether it is possible to combine existing tools to improve guide design. RESULTS: We considered nine leading guide design tools, and their output when tested using two sets of guides for which experimental validation data is available. We found that consensus approaches were able to outperform individual tools. The best performance (with a precision of up to 0.912) was obtained when combining four of the tools and accepting all guides selected by at least three of them. CONCLUSIONS: These results can be used to improve CRISPR-based studies, but also to guide further tool development. However, they only provide a short-term solution as the time and computational resources required to run four tools may be impractical in certain applications.

Guide Picker is a comprehensive design tool for visualizing and selecting guides for CRISPR experiments.

BACKGROUND: Guide Picker ( https://www.deskgen.com/guide-picker/ ) serves as a meta tool for designing CRISPR experiments by presenting ten different guide RNA scoring functions in one simple graphical interface. It allows investigators to simultaneously visualize and sort through every guide targeting the protein-coding regions of any mouse or human gene. RESULTS: Utilizing a multidimensional graphical display featuring two plots and four axes, Guide Picker can analyze all guides while filtering based on four different criteria at a time. Guide Picker further facilitates the CRISPR design process by using pre-computed scores for all guides, thereby offering rapid guide RNA generation and selection. CONCLUSIONS: The ease-of-use of Guide Picker complements CRISPR itself, matching a powerful and modular biological system with a flexible online web tool that can be used in a variety of genome editing experimental contexts.

Iterations of computer- and template assisted mandibular or maxillary reconstruction with free flaps containing the lateral scapular border--Evolution of a biplanar plug-on cutting guide.

BACKGROUND: Computer-assisted planning and intraoperative implementation using templates have become appreciated modalities in craniofacial reconstruction with fibula and DCIA flaps due to saving in operation time, improved accuracy of osteotomies and easy insetting. Up to now, a similar development for flaps from the subscapular vascular system, namely the lateral scapular border and tip, has not been addressed in the literature. PATIENTS/METHOD: A cohort of 12 patients who underwent mandibular (n = 10) or maxillary (n = 2) reconstruction with free flaps containing the lateral scapular border and tip using computer-assisted planning, stereolithography (STL) models and selective laser sintered (SLS) templates for bone contouring and sub-segmentation osteotomies was reviewed focussing on iterations in the design of computer generated tools and templates. RESULTS: The technical evolution migrated from hybrid STL models over SLS templates for cut out as well as sub-segmentation with a uniplanar framework to plug-on tandem template assemblies providing a biplanar access for the in toto cut out from the posterior aspect in succession with contouring into sub-segments from the medial side. CONCLUSION: The latest design version is the proof of concept that virtual planning of bone flaps from the lateral scapular border can be successfully transferred into surgery by appropriate templates.