Effect of stepwise psychological intervention on improving adverse mood and quality of life after colon cancer surgery.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the effect of stepwise psychological intervention on adverse mood and quality of life of patients after colon cancer surgery. METHODS: The clinical data from 102 patients with colon cancer admitted to the Second Hospital of Baoding from January 2018 to June 2022 were collected and analyzed retrospectively. Based on the intervention measures, 51 patients with the general intervention were regarded as the general group, and 51 patients with the stepwise psychological intervention were considered as the intervention group. Piper Fatigue Scale (PFS) was used to scale the degree of Cancer-related fatigue (CRF); Self-rating anxiety scale (SAS) and Self-rating depression scale (SDS) were applied to measure the negative emotion; Positive and negative emotion scale (PANAS) was used to evaluate the degree of positive negative emotions. In addition, Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90), Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) self-assessment scale, and European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 (EORTC QLQ-C30) were applied to evaluate the mental state, mental resilience, and quality of life, respectively. The adverse reactions, prognosis, and intervention satisfaction after intervention were compared between the two groups. RESULTS: After intervention, the PFS scores, SAS score, SDS score, and PANAS score in the general group and intervention groups were decreased (all P < 0.05), and these scores decreased more obviously in the intervention group compared with the general group (all P < 0.05); The scores of each dimension in SCL-90 scale were decreased in both groups (P < 0.05), and the SCL-90 scores in the intervention group were lower than those in the general group (P < 0.05); The scores of each dimension in CD-RISC scale improved in both groups (P < 0.05), and the scores were higher in the intervention group compared with the general group (P < 0.05); The scores of EORTC QLQ-C30 scale improved in both groups (P < 0.05), and these scores were higher in the intervention groups compared with the general group (P < 0.05). In addition, the adverse reaction rate was lower, while the prognosis and nursing satisfaction were better in the intervention group than those in the general group (all P < 0.05). Logistic regression analysis showed that the poor emotion and poor life quality were the risk factors of the poor prognosis (all P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The stepwise psychological intervention can improve the psychological wellbeing and quality of life in the patients after colon cancer surgery.

Facile design of surface electric field driven tourmaline/g-C3N4 layered stacked photocatalysts with enhanced photocatalytic activity for antibiotic removal.

In the field of photocatalysis, Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) has received a lot of attention for its superior functionality and benefits. However, it suffers from the fatal defect of low charge separation efficiency, which is well addressed by tourmaline's self-contained surface electric field. In this work, tourmaline/g-C3N4 (T/CN) composites were successfully synthesized. Due to its surface electric field effect, tourmaline and g-C3N4 are stacked on top of each other. It makes its specific surface area increase greatly and more active sites are exposed. Additionally, the rapid separation of photogenerated electron holes under the action of electric field promotes the photocatalytic reaction. T/CN exhibited excellent photocatalytic performance under visible light, with 99.9% Tetracycline (TC 50 mg L-1) removal after 30 min. Compared to tourmaline (0.0160 min-1) and g-C3N4 (0.0230 min-1), the T/CN composite's reaction rate constant (0.1754 min-1) was 11.0 and 7.6 times higher. A series of characterizations also determined the structural properties and catalytic performance of the T/CN composites, which were found to have a larger specific surface area, narrower band gap, and higher charge separation efficiency compared to the monomer. In addition, the toxicity of tetracycline intermediates and their degradative pathways were investigated, and the toxicity of the intermediates was found to be reduced. Given the quenching experiments and active substance determination, it was also found that h+ and ·O2- play a major role. This work provides more inspiration for photocatalytic material performance research as well as green innovation for environmental management.

Bio-Physical Modeling, Characterization, and Optimization of Electro-Quasistatic Human Body Communication.

Human body communication (HBC) has emerged as an alternative to radio wave communication for connecting low power, miniaturized wearable, and implantable devices in, on, and around the human body. HBC uses the human body as the communication channel between on-body devices. Previous studies characterizing the human body channel has reported widely varying channel response much of which has been attributed to the variation in measurement setup. This calls for the development of a unifying bio-physical model of HBC, supported by in-depth analysis and an understanding of the effect of excitation, termination modality on HBC measurements. This paper characterizes the human body channel up to 1 MHz frequency to evaluate it as a medium for the broadband communication. The communication occurs primarily in the electro-quasistatic (EQS) regime at these frequencies through the subcutaneous tissues. A lumped bio-physical model of HBC is developed, supported by experimental validations that provide insight into some of the key discrepancies found in previous studies. Voltage loss measurements are carried out both with an oscilloscope and a miniaturized wearable prototype to capture the effects of non-common ground. Results show that the channel loss is strongly dependent on the termination impedance at the receiver end, with up to 4 dB variation in average loss for different termination in an oscilloscope and an additional 9 dB channel loss with wearable prototype compared to an oscilloscope measurement. The measured channel response with capacitive termination reduces low-frequency loss and allows flat-band transfer function down to 13 KHz, establishing the human body as a broadband communication channel. Analysis of the measured results and the simulation model shows that instruments with 50 Ω input impedance (Vector Network Analyzer, Spectrum Analyzer) provides pessimistic estimation of channel loss at low frequencies. Instead, high impedance and capacitive termination should be used at the receiver end for accurate voltage mode loss measurements of the HBC channel at low frequencies. The experimentally validated bio-physical model shows that capacitive voltage mode termination can improve the low frequency loss by up to 50 dB, which helps broadband communication significantly.