Tea saponin co-ball milled commercial micro zero-valent iron for boosting Cr(VI) removal.

Tea saponins (TS), a natural biosurfactant extracted from tea trees, were co-ball milled with commercial micro zero-valent iron (mZVI) to produce TS modified mZVI (TS-BZVI) for efficient hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) removal. The findings demonstrated that TS-BZVI could nearly remove 100% of Cr(VI) within 2 h, which was 1.43 times higher than that by ball milled mZVI (BZVI) (70%). Kinetics analysis demonstrated a high degree of compatibility with the pseudo-second-order (PSO), revealing that TS-BZVI exhibited a 2.83 times faster Cr(VI) removal rate involved primarily chemisorption. Further, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) measurements indicated that the TS co-ball milling process improved the exposure of Fe(II) and Fe(0) on mZVI, which further promoted the Cr(VI) reduction process. Impressively, the introduction of TS increased the hydrophobicity of ZVI, effectively inhibiting the H2 evolution by 95%, thus improved electron selectivity for efficient Cr(VI) removal. Ultimately, after operating for 10 days, a simulated permeable reactive barrier (PRB) column experiment revealed that TS-BZVI had a higher Cr(VI) elimination efficiency than BZVI, indicating that TS-BZVI was promising for practical environment remediation.

Flexible transparent and hydrophobic SiNCs/PDMS coatings for anti-counterfeiting applications.

Silicon nanocrystals (SiNCs) have attracted considerable attention in many advanced applications due to silicon's high natural abundance, low toxicity, and impressive optical properties. However, little attention has been paid to fluorescence anti-counterfeiting applications based on lipophilic silicon nanocrystals. Moreover, it is also a challenge to fabricate aging-resistant anti-counterfeiting coatings based on silicon nanocrystals. Herein, this paper presents a demonstration of aging-resistant fluorescent anti-counterfeiting coatings based on red fluorescent silicon nanocrystals. In this work, lipophilic silicon nanocrystals (De-SiNCs) with red fluorescence were prepared first by thermal hydrosilylation between hydrogen-terminated silicon nanocrystals (H-SiNCs) and 1-decene. Subsequently, a new SiNCs/PDMS coating (De-SiNCs/DV) was fabricated by dispersing De-SiNCs into reinforcing PDMS composites with vinyl-capped silicone resin. Interestingly, the De-SiNCs/DV composites exhibit superior transparency (up to 85%) in the visible light range, outstanding fluorescence stabilities with an average lifetime of 20.59 µs under various conditions including acidic/alkaline environments, different organic solvents, high-humidity environments and UV irradiation. Meanwhile, the encapsulation of De-SiNCs is beneficial to enhancing the mechanical properties and thermal stability of De-SiNCs/DV composites. Additionally, the De-SiNCs/DV coating exhibits an excellent anti-counterfeiting effect on cotton fabrics when used as an ink in screen-printing. These findings pave the way for developing innovative flexible multifunctional anti-counterfeiting coatings in the future.

Discrepancies in breast cancer guideline recommendations despite similar Cochrane systematic review conclusions.

AIM: This study aims to describe the citation patterns of Cochrane systematic reviews (CSR) in guidelines for managing breast cancer. METHODS: We searched for systematic reviews on breast cancer in The Cochrane Library from the date of inception to November 15, 2023, and identified guidelines that cited them. We described how systematic reviews were cited by the guidelines in each database and each year. Additionally, we presented the relationships between the conclusions of the systematic reviews and guideline recommendations and compared the consistency of the recommendations on the same topic across different guidelines. RESULTS: A total of 64 systematic reviews and 228 guidelines were included in this study. The average number of the 64 systematic reviews cited by the guidelines was 5.91. We found that the guideline recommendations were irrelevant or inconsistent with the conclusions of the systematic reviews in 56 (38.36%) cited entries. We grouped recommendations on the same topic across different guidelines into one group, of which only 5 groups (15.15%) had completely consistent recommendations, and the other 28 groups (84.85%) had inconsistent recommendations. CONCLUSION: The average number of citations for CSR on breast cancer in the guidelines was 5.91. There were also situations in which the guideline recommendations were inconsistent with the conclusions of the included systematic reviews, and recommendations on the same topic across different guidelines were inconsistent.

Cultural Adaptation and Validation of Questionnaires for Evaluation of Health-Related Quality of Life with Dysphagia in Different Countries: A Systematic Review.

Dysphagia can have devastating and long-lasting effects on the patient's health-related quality of life (HRQoL). In recent years, a number of questionnaires for the evaluation of the HRQoL of patients with dysphagia have been developed and have been adapted for use in different countries and cultures. However, problems may arise in the process of cultural adaptation and validation, which can affect the quality of the questionnaires and their measurements. This study was conducted to systematically summarize the cultural adaptation and validation of questionnaires for the evaluation of dysphagia-related HRQoL in different countries, assessing the varieties, measurement properties, and qualities of these questionnaires, with the aim of identifying the status of their adaptation and validation and ways in which they might be improved. Four databases were searched, and relevant articles were screened, with data from eligible reports extracted and reviewed. The methodological quality of the included articles was evaluated using the QualSyst critical appraisal tool. The HRQoL questionnaires for patients with dysphagia were assessed using the quality criteria for the measurement properties of health status questionnaires proposed by Terwee et al. and Timmerman et al. 29 studies published between 2008 and 2020 were included. The questionnaires described in these 29 studies were translated into 19 languages and culturally adapted to 21 countries. The adapted questionnaires were based on the Swallowing quality of life questionnaire (SWAL-QOL) by Mchorney et al., the Dysphagia Handicap Index (DHI) by Silbergleit et al., the M.D. Anderson Dysphagia Inventory (MDADI) by Chen et al., and the Eating Assessment Tool-10 (EAT-10) by Belafsky et al. It was found that the questionnaires were reliable and valid instruments for the assessment of dysphagia-related HRQoL, but the quality criteria for cultural adaptation and validation were not strictly followed, especially in the categories of criterion validity, agreement, responsiveness, and interpretability. In conclusion, although the questionnaires were found to be both reliable and valid, the quality criteria should be considered and strictly followed in the cultural adaptation and validation process in the future.

[Meta-analysis of effects of neuromuscular electrical stimulation of lower limbs on patients with mechanical ventilation in intensive care unit].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of lower limb neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) on mechanical ventilation patients in intensive care unit (ICU). METHODS: Databases including the Cochrane Library, PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, SinoMed, CNKI, VIP and Wanfang database were searched from inception to May 2021. Randomized controlled trails (RCT) about the influence of NMES of lower limbs in patients with mechanical ventilation in ICU were collected. Routine rehabilitation measures were implemented in the control group, while the combination of routine rehabilitation and NMES on the lower limbs was implemented in the observation group. The literature screening, data extracting, and bias risk assessment of included studies were conducted independently by two reviewers. RevMan 5.3 software was used to perform Meta-analysis. Funnel plot was used to test publication bias. RESULTS: A total of 8 RCT were eventually enrolled. The literature quality evaluation results showed that 1 study was grade A and 7 studies were grade B, suggesting that the quality of the included literature was relatively high. The Meta-analysis results showed that NMES in the lower extremities could effectively shorten the duration of mechanical ventilation in ICU patients [standardized mean difference (SMD) = -0.51, 95% confidence interval (95%CI) was -0.72 to -0.31, P < 0.000 01], increase the maximum inspiratory pressure [MIP; mean difference (MD) = 14.19, 95%CI was 9.30 to 19.09, P < 0.000 01], and improve the functional status of critically ill patients [functional status score for ICU (FSS-ICU); MD = 10.44, 95%CI was 3.12 to 17.77, P = 0.005] with statistically significances. However, there were no significant advantages in increasing the Medical Research Council (MRC) score (MD = 2.13, 95%CI was -1.38 to 5.63, P = 0.23), reducing ICU mortality [relative risk (RR) = 0.80, 95%CI was 0.51 to 1.24, P = 0.31], shortening length of ICU stay (MD = -0.54, 95%CI was -3.67 to 2.59, P = 0.74), and the combined effect was not statistically significant. Funnel plot based on the duration of mechanical ventilation showed that the distribution of included articles was basically symmetrical, and no publication bias was detected. CONCLUSIONS: NMES of the lower limbs can not only shorten the ventilation duration effectively, but also improve the MIP and functional status of mechanically ventilated patients in ICU. However, it has no significant effect on the MRC score, ICU mortality and length of ICU stay of patients with mechanical ventilation. In the future, high-quality, large sample size and multi-center RCT are needed to verify the effects of NMES.