Clinical significance of the lactate-to-albumin ratio on prognosis in critically ill patients with acute kidney injury.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the relationship between lactate-to-albumin ratio (LAR) at ICU admission and prognosis in critically ill patients with acute kidney injury (AKI). METHODS: A retrospective analysis was conducted. Patients were divided into low (<0.659) LAR and high LAR (≥0.659) groups. Least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression analysis was conducted to select variables associated with the 30-day prognosis. Cox regression analyses were performed to assess the association between LAR and mortality. Kaplan-Meier curves were plotted to compare cumulative survival rates between high and low LAR groups. Subgroup analysis was employed to assess the stability of the results. ROC curve was used to determine the diagnostic efficacy of LAR on prognosis. RESULTS: A nonlinear relationship was observed between LAR and the risk of 30-day and 360-day all-cause mortality in AKI patients (p < 0.001). Cox regulation showed that high LAR (≥ 0.659) was an independent risk factor for 30-day and 360-day all-cause mortality in patients with AKI (p < 0.001). The Kaplan-Meier survival curves demonstrated a noteworthy decrease in cumulative survival rates at both 30 and 360 days for the high LAR group in comparison to the low LAR group (p < 0.001). Subgroup analyses demonstrated the stability of the results. ROC curves showed that LAR had a diagnostic advantage when compared with lactate or albumin alone (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: High LAR (≥0.659) at ICU admission was an independent risk factor for both short-term (30-day) and long-term (360-day) all-cause mortality in patients with AKI.

Association between albumin corrected anion gap and all-cause mortality in critically ill patients with acute kidney injury: a retrospective study based on MIMIC-IV database.

BACKGROUND: The early identification of patients at high risk for acute kidney injury (AKI) with a poor prognosis is crucial to prevent complications and minimize mortality. This study sought to investigate the association between albumin-corrected anion gap (ACAG) and all-cause mortality among critically ill patients with AKI. METHODS: All eligible AKI patients from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV (MIMIC-IV version 2.0) database were considered for participation in this study. We employed Kaplan-Meier curves to assess the 30-d and 360-d cumulative survival rates among various groups. Flexibly visualizing the connection between ACAG and mortality, we utilize restricted cubic splines (RCS) and multivariate Cox regression models. Result robustness underwent assessment through subgroup analyses and sensitivity analyses. Receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) curves were generated to evaluate the predictive performance of ACAG. RESULTS: The study included 9625 AKI participants, of whom 58.60% were male, and the 360-d all-cause mortality rate was 39.89%. According to Kaplan-Meier analysis, the 30-d and 360-d cumulative survival rates for AKI patients were significantly lower in the high ACAG group than in the normal ACAG group. RCS analysis indicated that ACAG levels had a non-linear correlation with the risk of 30-d and 360-d mortality for AKI patients. Cox regression analysis demonstrated that ACAG is an independent risk indicator for 30-d and 360-d prognosis in AKI patients in the ICU. CONCLUSIONS: Elevated ACAG levels (> 20 mmol/L) at ICU admission were associated with 30-d and 360-d all-cause mortality in critically ill patients with AKI.

Metal-Free Construction of Multisubstituted Indolizines via Intramolecular Amination of Allylic Alcohols.

An intramolecular amination of allylic alcohols is developed as an efficient and general access to biologically important multisubstituted indolizines and their variants. Two metal-free synthetic platforms including using aqueous hydrochloric acid solution as the solvent and p-toluenesulfonic acid as the catalyst have been established, enabling the divergent synthesis of these valuable compounds in high yields.

Metabolomics and Transcriptomics Reveal that Diarylheptanoids Vary in Amomum tsao-ko Fruit Development.

Amomum tsao-ko is an important spice and medicinal plant that has received extensive attention in recent years for its high content of bioactive constituents with the potential for food additives and drug development. Diarylheptanoids are major and characteristic compounds in A. tsao-ko; however, the biochemical and molecular foundation of diarylheptanoids in fruit is unknown. We performed comparative metabolomics and transcriptomics studies in the ripening stages of A. tsao-ko fruit. The chemical constituents of fruit vary in different harvest periods, and the diarylheptanoids have a trend to decrease or increase with fruit development. GO enrichment analysis revealed that plant hormone signaling pathways including the ethylene-activated signaling pathway, salicylic acid, jasmonic acid, abscisic acid, and response to hydrogen peroxide were associated with fruit ripening. The biosynthetic pathways including phenylpropanoid, flavonoids, and diarylheptanoids biosynthesis were displayed in high enrichment levels in ripening fruit. The molecular networking and phytochemistry investigation of A. tsao-ko fruit has isolated and identified 10 diarylheptanoids including three new compounds. The candidate genes related to diarylheptanoids were obtained by coexpression network analysis and phylogenetic analysis. Two key genes have been verified to biosynthesize linear diarylheptanoids. This integrative approach provides gene regulation and networking associated with the biosynthesis of characteristic diarylheptanoids, which can be used to improve the quality of A. tsao-ko as food and medicine.

Fundamental and multipole solitons in amplitude-modulated Fibonacci lattices.

We investigated the existence and stability of fundamental and multipole solitons supported by amplitude-modulated Fibonacci lattices with self-focusing nonlinearity. Owing to the quasi-periodicity of Fibonacci lattices, families of solitons localized in different waveguides have different properties. We found that the existence domain of fundamental solitons localized in the central lattice is larger than that of solitons localized in the adjacent central waveguide. The former counterparts are completely stable in their existence region, while the latter have a narrow unstable region near the lower cut-off. Two families of dipole solitons were also comprehensively studied. We found the outer lattice distribution can significantly change the existence region of solitons. In addition, we specifically analyzed the properties of four complicated multipole solitons with pole numbers 3, 5, 7, and 9. In the Fibonacci lattice, their field moduli of multipole solitons are all asymmetrically distributed. The linear-stability analysis and direct simulations reveal that as the number of poles of the multipole soliton increases, its stable domain is compressed. Our results provide helpful insight for understanding the dynamics of nonlinear localized multipole modes in Fibonacci lattices with an optical nonlinearity.

Fundamental and vortex gap solitons in quasiperiodic photonic lattices.

We address the existence and stability of fundamental, single-charged vortex, and double-charged vortex gap solitons in two-dimensional quasiperiodic photonic lattices imprinted in a Kerr-type medium. Fundamental and vortex gap solitons can bifurcate from linear localized states or their combination supported by quasiperiodic lattices for both defocusing and focusing nonlinearities. We find that the three types of solitons mentioned above are stable in the entire existence domain for defocusing nonlinearities, and that they can also be stable at a lower power level for focusing nonlinearities. At higher power, unstable solitons are characterized by a ring-shaped symmetry-breaking distribution, and the unique spot profile formed is repeatedly observed with changes in propagation distance.

Effects of phase transformation on the ultraviolet optical properties of alumina clusters in aircraft plumes.

Alumina particles experience phase transition as an undercooling process along the plume, during which the liquid alumina clusters transform into multiphase, and then into α phase. The phase transformation model was built by an improved diffusion limited aggregation (DLA) algorithm with monomers of stratified structure. The effects of phase transformation on the ultraviolet optical characteristics of alumina clusters were studied using the superposition T-matrix method (STMM). We found that the alumina clusters in phase transition had completely different optical properties compared with the fixed phase ones. Forward scattering, absorption efficiency and asymmetry parameter gradually decreased, whereas backward scattering, scattering efficiency, and single-scattering albedo gradually increased during the phase transformation process. Besides, multiphase alumina clusters were compared with the other two equivalent models, including the sphere model approximated by equivalent volume sphere (EVS) and the equivalent surface sphere (ESS) approaches and single-phase cluster model approximated by Maxwell-Garnett (MG) and Bruggeman (BR) approaches. Generally speaking, the optical properties of the single-phase cluster approximated by MG and BR approaches were relatively close to those of the real multiphase alumina cluster. Whereas the spheres approximated by EVS and ESS had great deviations, especially when the number of monomers in the cluster was 20, the relative error of scattering efficiency calculated by ESS was up to 52%. Therefore, approximate approaches for multiphase clusters should be chosen cautiously. Our results give further the understanding of the optical properties of alumina clusters. As the phase states are usually closely related to the plume radiation and burning process, these kinds of researches will be helpful to aircraft detection, identification, and other related fields.

Synthesis and characterization of bis(pyrazolyl)borate Ni(ii) complexes: ligand rearrangement and transformation.

Five examples of bis(pyrazolyl)borate Ni(ii) complexes 2-5, exhibiting C-HNi interactions, were readily prepared from the reactions of K[BBN(3-R1-4-R2-pz)2] with Ni(ii) precursors (Ni(acac)2 or NiCl2(PPh3)2) in dichloromethane or toluene. When R1 = R2 = H, complex 2a with square-planar geometry around the Ni centre and showing an unusual C-HNi anagostic interaction was obtained. In contrast, when R1 = Me, R2 = H or R1 = Me, R2 = Br, tetrahedral complexes 3 or 4 were formed preferentially with strong C-HNi agostic interactions, respectively. Additionally, some differences in the formation and transformation of 3 and 4 were also found including a 1,2-borotropic shift during the formation of 3 and a further geometrical transformation from tetrahedral 3 to square-planar 2b by the second 1,2-borotropic shift under continuous heating; in contrast, no ligand change and further conversion were found in 4. When the more hindered 3-iPr-substituted ligand 1d was introduced in the reaction, the hydrolysis and cleavage of one B-N bond in the ligand occurred, leading to the singly hydroxo-bridged complex 5. The experimental and theoretical results indicate that the preference to form a thermodynamically stable complex and then balancing with orbital energy should be the intrinsic reason for the reaction selectivity.

Study on bubble column humidification and dehumidification system for coal mine wastewater treatment.

Water is important resource for human survival and development. Coal mine wastewater (CMW) is a byproduct of the process of coal mining, which is about 7.0 × 1010 m3 in China in 2016. Considering coal mine wastewater includes different ingredients, a new bubble column humidification and dehumidification system is proposed for CMW treatment. The system is mainly composed of a bubble column humidification and dehumidification unit, solar collector, fan and water tank, in which air is used as a circulating medium. The system can avoid water treatment component blocking for reverse osmosis (RO) and multi effect distillation (MED) dealing with CMW, and produce water greenly. By analysis of heat and mass transfer, the effects of solar radiation, air bubble velocity and mine water temperature on water treatment production characteristics are studied. Compared with other methods, thermal energy consumption (TEC) of bubble column humidification and dehumidification (BCHD) is moderate, which is about 700 kJ/kg (powered by solar energy). The results would provide a new method for CMW treatment and insights into the efficient coal wastewater treatment, besides, it helps to identify the parameters for the technology development in mine water treatment.

Dynamic evolution of circular edge dislocations in free space and atmospheric turbulence.

Based on the extended Huygens-Fresnel principle, the analytical expressions for the cross-spectral density function of circular edge dislocation beams propagating through atmospheric turbulence and free space have been derived, and used to study the dynamic evolution of circular edge dislocations. It is shown that the number of circular edge dislocations on propagation equals that at the source plane when propagating through free space. The radius of circular edge dislocations increases with increasing propagation distance z. n-circular edge dislocations vanish and transform to n pairs of optical vortices with the opposite topological charge when propagating through atmospheric turbulence, and the position of each pair of optical vortices are symmetric about the slanted axis y = x. All the optical vortices will annihilate as soon as the propagation distance becomes large enough. The smaller radius of circular edge dislocation corresponds with the sooner annihilation of optical vortices. The structure constant affects the annihilation distance of the pairs of optical vortices, and the annihilation distance of the pairs of optical vortices will increase with the decrement of the structure constant.

Ursolic acid improves survival and attenuates lung injury in septic rats induced by cecal ligation and puncture.

BACKGROUND: Sepsis is characterized as a systemic inflammatory response syndrome during infection, which can result in multiple organ dysfunction and death. Ursolic acid (UA), a pentacyclic triterpene acid, has been reported to have potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. The aim of this study was to detect the possible protective effects of UA on sepsis-evoked acute lung injury. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A rat model of sepsis induced by cecal ligation and puncture (CLP) was used. Rats were injected intraperitoneally with UA (10 mg/kg) after CLP, and then the survival was determined twice a day for 4 d. The protective effects of UA on CLP-induced acute lung injury were assayed at 24 h after CLP. RESULTS: The results revealed that UA treatment markedly improved the survival of septic rats, and attenuated CLP-induced lung injury, including reduction of lung wet/dry weight ratio, infiltration of leukocytes and proteins, myeloperoxidase activity, and malondialdehyde content. In addition, UA significantly decreased the serum levels of tumor necrosis factor-α, interleukin-6, and interleukin-1ß, inhibited the expression of inducible nitric oxide synthase and cyclooxygenase-2 in the lung, which are involved in the productions of nitric oxide and prostaglandin E2. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that UA exerts protective effects on CLP-induced septic rats. UA may be a potential therapeutic agent against sepsis.