Study on the photoaging process and metal ion release of plastic films with two kinds of structures in marine environment: Aliphatic and aromatic polymers.

The prevalence of plastics in the oceans has significantly intensified microplastic pollution, contributing to broader marine secondary pollution issues. This paper examines how plastic structure affects the aging characteristics of plastics and the release of metal ions, to better understand this secondary source of marine pollution. This study simulate the photoaging of plastics in natural environments, focusing on aliphatic and aromatic polymers. The results showed that the photodegradation degree was higher for aliphatic than aromatic polymers. All polymers contained thirteen detectable metals, with their release increasing over time due to photoaging, The release dynamics of these metal ions correlated more strongly with the level of polymer degradation rather than with the polymer structure itself, adhering to a second-order kinetic model driven by surface and intraparticle diffusion processes. The results will help control and treat marine plastic pollution.

Comparison between XGboost model and logistic regression model for predicting sepsis after extremely severe burns.

OBJECTIVE: To compare an Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGboost) model with a multivariable logistic regression (LR) model for their ability to predict sepsis after extremely severe burns. METHODS: For this observational study, patient demographic and clinical information were collected from medical records. The two models were evaluated using area under curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. RESULTS: Of the 103 eligible patients with extremely severe burns, 20 (19%) were in the sepsis group, and 83 (81%) in the non-sepsis group. The LR model showed that age, admission time, body index (BI), fibrinogen, and neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) were risk factors for sepsis. Comparing AUC of the ROC curves, the XGboost model had a higher predictive performance (0.91) than the LR model (0.88). The SHAP visualization tool indicated fibrinogen, NLR, BI, and age were important features of sepsis in patients with extremely severe burns. CONCLUSIONS: The XGboost model was superior to the LR model in predictive efficacy. Results suggest that, fibrinogen, NLR, BI, and age were correlated with sepsis after extremely severe burns.

CT-guided ozone-mediated lumbar-renal sympathetic denervation for resistant hypertension treatment: A pilot single-arm clinical trial.

BACKGROUND: Renal sympathetic denervation (RDN) reduces blood pressure (BP). METHODS: This single-arm open-label study enrolled patients with resistant hypertension (RH) and treat them by CT-guided ozone mediated lumbar-renal sympathetic denervation (L-RDN). The primary endpoint was to assess the changes of BP over 24-h ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) and to evaluate the anti-hypertensive medication burden (AHMB) at 3-month follow-up. This study was registered in Chictr.org.cn (ChiCTR2300071375). RESULTS: 17 patients (mean age 65.12 ± 10.77 years) with AHMB of 4.12 ± 1.11 were enrolled. After the procedure, 7 patients (46.7 %) matched the criteria for antihypertensive medication reduction. The AHMB decreased to 3.87 ± 0.96 for the whole objectives and from 3.87 ± 0.96 to 3.55 ± 0.78 for patients with normal baseline renal function. On top of the lessened AHMB, L-RDN further reduced morning systolic BP (SBP) by -8.6 ± 4.0 mmHg (p = 0.034) and diastolic BP (DBP) by -4.6 ± 2.1 mmHg (p = 0.032) for all participants and morning SBP by -13.2 ± 3.6 mmHg (p < 0.001), morning DBP by -6.2 ± 2.4 mmHg (p = 0.011) and daytime SBP by -4.1 ± 1.6 mmHg (p = 0.009) for those with normal baseline renal function at 3-month of follow-up. No adverse events were reported intra- and post operation. CONCLUSIONS: CT-guided ozone-mediated L-RDN might be an innovative approach of RDN for treating RH. Confirmatory studies are warranted.

The Impact of Expert Opinions in COVID-19 News Coverage on Vaccination During the Fifth Outbreak in Hong Kong: A Time Series Analysis.

The role of experts in news coverage has become increasingly prominent, but the evidence regarding the effectiveness of expert opinions in affecting public behavior remains mixed. This study seeks to examine the influence of expert opinions covered in the news on the public's response to public health crises. By adopting a macro-level framing perspective, we investigated how framing consistency, a macro-level concept indicating the agreement between expert opinions in news coverage and government policies or among peer experts, evolves over time and its temporal causal relationship with public behavior. Specifically, this study collected all press news coverage in Hong Kong over four months during the fifth outbreak, including 1,416 articles with 650 expert opinions, as well as the vaccination data that paralleled with this period. We constructed time series of expert opinions and vaccination behavior, and then conducted Vector Autoregressive (VAR) models with Granger causality analysis to examine how framing consistency of expert opinions in news coverage influenced vaccination. The results indicate that the consistent framing between expert opinions and government policies increased COVID-19 vaccination during the fifth outbreak in Hong Kong, while conflicting opinions responding to government policies had no significant effect on vaccination. Opinions among medical experts on COVID-19 issues also did not significantly impact vaccination. The implications for designing communication strategies and enhancing public behavioral support during public health crises are discussed.

Therapeutic potential of ADSC-EV-derived lncRNA DLEU2: A novel molecular pathway in alleviating sepsis-induced lung injury via the miR-106a-5p/LXN axis.

This study investigates the molecular mechanisms by which extracellular vesicles (EVs) derived from adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADSCs) promote M2 polarization of macrophages and thus reduce lung injury caused by sepsis. High-throughput sequencing was used to identify differentially expressed genes related to long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) in ADSC-derived EVs (ADSC-EVs) in sepsis lung tissue. Weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) was employed to predict the downstream target genes of the lncRNA DLEU2. The RNAInter database predicted miRNAs that interact with DLEU2 and LXN. Functional and pathway enrichment analyses were performed using GO and KEGG analysis. A mouse model of sepsis was established, and treatment with a placebo or ADSC-EVs was administered, followed by RT-qPCR analysis. ADSC-EVs were isolated and identified. In vitro cell experiments were conducted using the mouse lung epithelial cell line MLE-12, mouse macrophage cell line RAW264.7, and mouse lung epithelial cell line (LEPC). ADSC-EVs were co-cultured with RAW264.7 and MLE-12/LEPC cells to study the regulatory mechanism of the lncRNA DLEU2. Cell viability, proliferation, and apoptosis of lung injury cells were assessed using CCK-8, EdU, and flow cytometry. ELISA was used to measure the levels of inflammatory cytokines in the sepsis mouse model, flow cytometry was performed to determine the number of M1 and M2 macrophages, lung tissue pathology was evaluated by H&E staining, and immunohistochemistry was conducted to examine the expression of proliferation- and apoptosis-related proteins. High-throughput sequencing and bioinformatics analysis revealed enrichment of the lncRNA DLEU2 in ADSC-EVs in sepsis lung tissue. Animal and in vitro cell experiments showed increased expression of the lncRNA DLEU2 in sepsis lung tissue after treatment with ADSC-EVs. Furthermore, ADSC-EVs were found to transfer the lncRNA DLEU2 to macrophages, promoting M2 polarization, reducing inflammation response in lung injury cells, and enhancing their viability, proliferation, and apoptosis inhibition. Further functional experiments indicated that lncRNA DLEU2 promotes M2 polarization of macrophages by regulating miR-106a-5p/LXN, thereby enhancing the viability and proliferation of lung injury cells and inhibiting apoptosis. Overexpression of miR-106a-5p could reverse the biological effects of ADSC-EVs-DLEU2 on MLE-12 and LEPC in vitro cell models. Lastly, in vivo animal experiments confirmed that ADSC-EVs-DLEU2 promotes high expression of LXN by inhibiting the expression of miR-106a-5p, further facilitating M2 macrophage polarization and reducing lung edema, thus alleviating sepsis-induced lung injury. lncRNA DLEU2 in ADSC-EVs may promote M2 polarization of macrophages and enhance the viability and proliferation of lung injury cells while inhibiting inflammation and apoptosis reactions, thus ameliorating sepsis-induced lung injury in a mechanism involving the regulation of the miR-106a-5p/LXN axis.

The Media-Mediated Model of Information Seeking Behavior: A Proposed Framework in the Chinese Culture During the COVID Pandemic.

This study aims to unravel the key determinants of individuals' information seeking behavior during health crises. It challenges conventional perspectives that solely emphasize individual experiences. It also undermines frameworks that draw direct parallels between individual experiences and media factors, disregarding the mediating role of media. Models like the Comprehensive Model of Information Seeking (CMIS) also have limitations as they prioritize media mediation over recognizing the direct impacts of individual experiences on information seeking behaviors. We hereby propose a framework, the Media-Mediated Model of Information Seeking Behavior, that sheds light on the interplay between individual and media experiences. Analysis of survey data involving 5,469 participants in three Chinese societies, including mainland China (n = 2,067), Hong Kong (n = 1,913), and Taiwan (n = 1,489), reveals that individual experiences have both direct and indirect effects on information seeking, mediated by media utility. Experience of symptoms and risk perception depend on people's perceptions of the utility of media, while efficacy and media trust directly influence information seeking behaviors. These findings contribute to theoretical understanding and offer practical guidelines. Public institutions and health promoters can leverage media platforms to shape people's perceptions of health issues and encourage active information behaviors. It is also crucial to prioritize cultivating public trust in media and efficacy during crises.

Three-dimensional model of normal human dermal tissue using serial tissue sections.

Background: This study aims to construct a three-dimensional model of skin dermis utilizing continuous tissue sections, with the primary objective of obtaining anatomical structure data for normal human dermal tissues. Methods: Normal skin tissue specimens were acquired, paraffin-embedded, and subjected to HE staining. Panoramic images of skin sections were captured using a microscope. Tissue section images were aligned using the SIFT and StackReg image alignment methods, with analysis conducted using the OpenCV module. Mimics17 software facilitated the reconstruction of the skin dermal 3D model, enabling the calculation of dermal porosity and the void diameter. Results: Panoramic skin slices exhibited high-resolution differentiation of dermal fibers and cellular structures. Both SIFT and StackReg image alignment methods yielded similar results, although the SIFT method demonstrated greater robustness. Successful reconstruction of the three-dimensional dermal structure was achieved. Quantitative analysis revealed a dermal porosity of 18.96 ± 4.41% and an average pore diameter of 219.29 ± 34.27 µm. Interestingly, the porosity of the dermis exhibited a gradual increase from the papillary layer to the fourth layer, followed by a transient decrease and then a gradual increase. The distribution of the mean pore diameter mirrored the pattern observed in porosity distribution. Conclusion: Utilizing the continuous skin tissue slice reconstruction technique, this study successfully reconstructed a high-precision three-dimensional tissue structure of the skin. The quantitative analysis of dermal tissue porosity and average pore diameter provides a standardized dataset for the development of biomimetic tissue-engineered skin.

Application Value of Target Management Mode Based on Chronic Illness Trajectory Framework in Elderly Patients with Diabetes Mellitus and Cardiovascular Diseases.

Background: Diabetes and cardiovascular diseases represent significant global health challenges, leading to organ dysfunction and increased mortality rates. Managing these conditions is complex, especially in the elderly population. The study addresses this pressing issue by exploring the application of the Chronic Illness Trajectory Framework (CITF), aiming to improve self-care and quality of life in elderly patients with diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Methods: A total of 127 patients with diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases admitted to the hospital were enrolled between January 2020 and January 2022. According to the implementation of CITF management mode, they were divided into a control group (62 cases, non-implementation) and an observation group (65 cases, implementation). The control group was given routine intervention, while the observation group was given CITF-based target management mode for 3 months. The changes in blood glucose, blood lipid, negative emotions, self-efficacy, self-management, compliance, and quality of life before and after intervention in both groups were observed. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Zhujiang Hospital. Results: After intervention, levels of fasting plasma glucose (FPG), 2h plasma glucose (2hPG), hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG) and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), scores of self-rating depression scale (SDS), self-rating anxiety scale (SAS) and Diabetes Specific Quality of Life Scale (DSQL) were decreased (P < .05), while scores of General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) and Scale of the Diabetes Self-Care Activities Chinese version (SDSCA), and compliance rate were increased in both groups (P < .05). The levels of FPG, 2hPG, HbA1c, TC, TG, and LDL-C, scores of SDS, SAS, and DSQL in the observation group were lower than those in the control group (P < .001), and scores of GSES and SDSCA, and compliance rate were higher than those in the control group (P < .001). These results highlight the positive role of comprehensive intervention in improving the physical and mental health of patients with diabetes and provide strong support for the application of comprehensive intervention strategies in diabetes management. Conclusion: CITF-based target management mode can alleviate negative emotions in patients with diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases, improve self-management, self-efficacy, and compliance, effectively control blood glucose and lipids, and improve quality of life. The study conclusions highlight the importance of CITF management models in improving the management of patients with diabetes and cardiovascular disease. This comprehensive intervention helps reduce negative emotions, improve self-management and compliance, effectively control blood sugar and blood lipids, and improve quality of life. These results have important clinical implications and provide strong support for better care of patients with chronic diseases.

Beyond ENO1, emerging roles and targeting strategies of other enolases in cancers.

Aerobic glycolysis is a hallmark property of cancer metabolism. Enolase is a glycolytic enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of 2-phosphoglycerate into phosphoenolpyruvate. In mammals, enolases exist in three isoforms, encoded by the genes ENO1, ENO2, and ENO3. The altered expression of enolases is a common occurrence in various types of cancer. Although most published studies on enolases have predominantly focused on the role of ENO1 in cancer, ENO2 and ENO3 have recently emerged as crucial regulatory molecules in cancer development. Significant progress has been made in understanding their multifaceted roles in oncogenesis. In this comprehensive review, we provide an overview of the structure, subcellular localization, diagnostic and prognostic significance, biological functions, and molecular mechanisms of ENO2 and ENO3 in cancer progression. The importance of enolase in cancer development makes it a novel therapeutic target for clinical applications. Furthermore, we discuss anticancer agents designed to target enolases and summarize their anticancer efficacy in both in vitro and in vivo studies.

Microscopic dissolution process of cellulose in alkaline aqueous solvents and its application in CNFs extraction - Investigating temperature as a variable.

The target of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the micro-dissolution process of cellulose in alkaline aqueous solutions and to develop a novel method for extracting cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs). Herein, the dissolution process of cellulose in alkaline aqueous solutions will be controlled by varying the temperature, and the undissolved cellulose will be analyzed to reveal the microscopic dissolution process of cellulose, and a novel process for extracting cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs) will be developed based on the findings. The crystalline structure of cellulose was gradually disrupted as the dissolution progressed, and the crystal form of cellulose changed gradually from cellulose I to cellulose II during the dissolution process, while all undissolved cellulose crystals remained as cellulose I. Cellulose, after its structure is disrupted during the dissolution process, will inevitably decompose into CNFs, and the microscopic dissolution process of cellulose follows a "top-down" dissolution sequence. The CNFs extraction method developed in this study can extract CNFs with high yield (>60 %) in a stable manner, as well as narrow particle size distribution, high crystallinity (>77 %), and good thermal stability. This study enhances the comprehension of the dissolution process of cellulose and paves a possible way for industrialization of CNFs production.

Integrative transcriptomic profiling of mRNA, miRNA, circRNA, and lncRNA in alveolar macrophages isolated from PRRSV-infected porcine.

Introduction: The porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) continues to pose a significant threat to the global swine industry, attributed largely to its immunosuppressive properties and the chronic nature of its infection. The absence of effective vaccines and therapeutics amplifies the urgency to deepen our comprehension of PRRSV's intricate pathogenic mechanisms. Previous transcriptomic studies, although informative, are partially constrained by their predominant reliance on in vitro models or lack of long-term infections. Moreover, the role of circular RNAs (circRNAs) during PRRSV invasion is yet to be elucidated. Methods: In this study, we employed an in vivo approach, exposing piglets to a PRRSV challenge over varied durations of 3, 7, or 21 days. Subsequently, porcine alveolar macrophages were isolated for a comprehensive transcriptomic investigation, examining the expression patterns of mRNAs, miRNAs, circRNAs, and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). Results: Differentially expressed RNAs from all four categories were identified, underscoring the dynamic interplay among these RNA species during PRRSV infection. Functional enrichment analyses indicate that these differentially expressed RNAs, as well as their target genes, play a pivotal role in immune related pathways. For the first time, we integrated circRNAs into the lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA relationship, constructing a competitive endogenous RNA (ceRNA) network. Our findings highlight the immune-related genes, CTLA4 and SAMHD1, as well as their associated miRNAs, lncRNAs, and circRNAs, suggesting potential therapeutic targets for PRRS. Importantly, we corroborated the expression patterns of selected RNAs through RT-qPCR, ensuring consistency with our transcriptomic sequencing data. Discussion: This study sheds lights on the intricate RNA interplay during PRRSV infection and provides a solid foundation for future therapeutic strategizing.

miR-214 could promote myocardial fibrosis and cardiac mesenchymal transition in VMC mice through regulation of the p53 or PTEN-PI3K-Akt signali pathway, promoting CF proliferation and inhibiting its ng pathway.

INTRODUCTION: This study aimed to investigate the role of miR-214 in the bidirectional regulation of p53 and PTEN and its influence on myocardial fibrosis and cardiac mesenchymal transformation in mice with viral myocarditis (VMC). METHODS: The study established a VMC model in BALB/c mice by injecting them with the CVB3 virus intraperitoneally. Techniques such as ELISA, H&E staining, Masson staining, immunohistochemical staining, RT-qPCR, western blot, and dual-luciferase reporter gene assay were used to detect the expression levels of relevant factors in tissues and cells. Isolation and culture of cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) were also conducted. RESULTS: The study found that miR-214 bidirectional regulation of p53 and PTEN promotes myocardial fibrosis and cardiac mesenchymal transformation in mice with VMC. The expression levels of collagen-related peptides, inflammatory-related factors, miR-214, mesenchymal transformation-related factors, and fibrosis-related factors were significantly increased, while the expression levels of p53, PTEN, and epithelial/endothelial cell phenotype marker factors were significantly decreased. Downregulation of miR-214 or upregulation of p53 and PTEN expression inhibited inflammatory cell and fibroblast infiltration in VMC mouse myocardial tissue. It reduced the proliferation ability while increasing the apoptosis of cardiac fibroblasts. CONCLUSION: miR-214 plays a significant role in the bidirectional inhibition of p53 and PTEN, which leads to myocardial fibrosis and cardiac mesenchymal transformation in mice with VMC. Downregulation of miR-214 or upregulation of p53 and PTEN expression may provide potential therapeutic targets for treating VMC-induced cardiac fibrosis and mesenchymal transformation.

Transcriptome Profiling of Vero E6 Cells during Original Parental or Cell-Attenuated Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus Infection.

Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) has led to significant economic losses in the global porcine industry since the emergence of variant strains in 2010. The high mutability of coronaviruses endows PEDV with the ability to evade the host immune response, which impairs the effectiveness of vaccines. In our previous study, we generated a highly cell-passaged PEDV strain, CT-P120, which showed promise as a live attenuated vaccine candidate by providing satisfactory protection against variant PEDV infection in piglets. However, the mechanism by which the attenuated CT-P120 adapts to cells during passage, resulting in increased replication efficiency, remains unclear. To address this question, we conducted a comparative transcriptomic analysis of Vero E6 cells infected with either the original parental strain (CT-P10) or the cell-attenuated strain (CT-P120) of PEDV at 6, 12, and 24 h post-infection. Compared to CT-P10, CT-P120 infection resulted in a significant decrease in the number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) at each time point. Functional enrichment analysis of genes revealed the activation of various innate immune-related pathways by CT-P10, notably attenuated during CT-P120 infection. To validate these results, we selected eight genes (TRAF3, IRF3, IFNL1, ISG15, NFKB1, MAP2K3, IL1A, and CCL2) involved in antiviral processes and confirmed their mRNA expression patterns using RT-qPCR, in line with the transcriptomic data. Subsequent protein-level analysis of selected genes via Western blotting and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay corroborated these results, reinforcing the robustness of our findings. Collectively, our research elucidates the strategies underpinning PEDV attenuation and immune evasion, providing invaluable insights for the development of effective PEDV vaccines.

The shock, the coping, the resilience: smartphone application use reveals Covid-19 lockdown effects on human behaviors.

Human mobility restriction policies have been widely used to contain the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). However, a critical question is how these policies affect individuals' behavioral and psychological well-being during and after confinement periods. Here, we analyze China's five most stringent city-level lockdowns in 2021, treating them as natural experiments that allow for examining behavioral changes in millions of people through smartphone application use. We made three fundamental observations. First, the use of physical and economic activity-related apps experienced a steep decline, yet apps that provide daily necessities maintained normal usage. Second, apps that fulfilled lower-level human needs, such as working, socializing, information seeking, and entertainment, saw an immediate and substantial increase in screen time. Those that satisfied higher-level needs, such as education, only attracted delayed attention. Third, human behaviors demonstrated resilience as most routines resumed after the lockdowns were lifted. Nonetheless, long-term lifestyle changes were observed, as significant numbers of people chose to continue working and learning online, becoming "digital residents." This study also demonstrates the capability of smartphone screen time analytics in the study of human behaviors. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1140/epjds/s13688-023-00391-9.

Research on Seawater Intrusion Suppression Scheme of Minjiang River Estuary.

Seawater intrusion in the Minjiang River estuary has gravely endangered the water security of the surrounding area in recent years. Previous studies mainly focused on exploring the mechanism of intrusion, but failed to provide a scheme for suppressing seawater intrusion. The three most relevant determinants to chlorine level, which represented the strength of seawater intrusion, were determined using Pearson correlation analysis as being the daily average discharge, daily maximum tidal range, and daily minimum tidal level. Considering the lower requirement of sample data and the ability to handle high-dimensional data, the random forest algorithm was used to construct a seawater intrusion suppression model and was combined with a genetic algorithm. The critical river discharge for suppressing estuary seawater intrusion determined using this model. The critical river discharge was found to gradually increase with the maximum tidal range, which in three different tide scenarios was 487 m3/s, 493 m3/s, and 531 m3/s. The practicable seawater intrusion suppression scheme was built up with three phases to make it easier to regulate upstream reservoirs. In the scheme, the initial reading of river discharge was 490 m3/s, and it rose to 650 m3/s over six days, from four days before the high tide's arrival to two days following it, and before falling down to 490 m3/s at the end. Verified with the 16 seawater intrusion events in the five dry years, this scheme could eliminate 75% of the seawater intrusion risk and effectively reduce the chlorine level for the remaining 25% of events.

Ginsenoside Rg3 alleviates the migration, invasion, and angiogenesis of lung cancer cells by inhibiting the expressions of cyclooxygenase-2 and vascular endothelial growth factor.

Lung cancer (LC) is a common cancer with high incidence and mortality rates. In recent years, ginsenoside Rg3 (Rg3), a traditional medicine, is widely used for the treatment of LC. Herein, we concentrate on assessing the effect of Rg3 on LC cell migration and invasion. The effects of Rg3 (0, 25, 50, and 100 µg/ml) on the viability, migration, invasion, angiogenesis, and expressions of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-related proteins, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX2), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) of LC cell lines were evaluated by cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8), scratch, transwell, tube formation, and western blot assays. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) was performed to assess transfection efficiency. COX2 overexpression plasmid and short hairpin RNA for VEGF (shVEGF) were applied to evaluate whether the effect of Rg3 is related to COX2 and VEGF through rescue assay. In this study, Rg3 significantly dose-dependently suppressed the viability, migration, invasion, angiogenesis, and protein expressions of N-cadherin, vimentin, COX2, and VEGF in H1299 and A549 cells, while promoting the expression of E-cadherin protein. COX2 overexpression markedly reversed the effects of Rg3 on the viability, migration, invasion, angiogenesis, and EMT-related protein expression levels in LC cells; however, such effects of COX2 overexpression were offset by VEGF knockdown. In sum, Rg3 alleviates the migration, invasion, and angiogenesis of LC cells by inhibiting the expressions of COX2 and VEGF.

Intradermal delivery of an angiotensin II receptor blocker using a personalized microneedle patch for treatment of hypertrophic scars.

High-quality postoperative rehabilitation is the focus of most patients currently, and hypertrophic scar (HS) greatly reduces the patient's quality of life due to the symptom of severe itching. Traditional HS therapies are associated with limitations, such as poor drug delivery efficiency for topical administration and severe pain for intralesional injection. In this study, we developed a personalized microneedle patch system for minimally invasive and effective treatment of HSs. The microneedle patches were personalized designed and fabricated with 3D printing in order to adapt to individual HS. The optimized microneedle patches were composed of dissolving gelatin and starch and loaded with losartan. Losartan, as a drug class of angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs), can effectively inhibit the proliferation and migration of hypertrophic scar fibroblasts (HSFs) and downregulate the gene expression related to scar formation in HSFs. The dissolving microneedle patches exhibited strong mechanical strength, effectively penetrated the stratum corneum of HSs and increased the losartan delivery into HSs upon dissolution of gelatin and starch. Together, the losartan-loaded microneedle patches effectively inhibited the formation of HSs in rabbit ears with reduced scar elevation index (SEI), and decreased fibrosis and collagen deposition in HSs. This personalized microneedle patch system increases the drug delivery efficiency into HSs with minimal invasion, and opens a new window for personalized management and treatment of skin diseases.

A Sparse Model-Inspired Deep Thresholding Network for Exponential Signal Reconstruction-Application in Fast Biological Spectroscopy.

The nonuniform sampling (NUS) is a powerful approach to enable fast acquisition but requires sophisticated reconstruction algorithms. Faithful reconstruction from partially sampled exponentials is highly expected in general signal processing and many applications. Deep learning (DL) has shown astonishing potential in this field, but many existing problems, such as lack of robustness and explainability, greatly limit its applications. In this work, by combining the merits of the sparse model-based optimization method and data-driven DL, we propose a DL architecture for spectra reconstruction from undersampled data, called MoDern. It follows the iterative reconstruction in solving a sparse model to build the neural network, and we elaborately design a learnable soft-thresholding to adaptively eliminate the spectrum artifacts introduced by undersampling. Extensive results on both synthetic and biological data show that MoDern enables more robust, high-fidelity, and ultrafast reconstruction than the state-of-the-art methods. Remarkably, MoDern has a small number of network parameters and is trained on solely synthetic data while generalizing well to biological data in various scenarios. Furthermore, we extend it to an open-access and easy-to-use cloud computing platform (XCloud-MoDern), contributing a promising strategy for further development of biological applications.

Exponential Signal Reconstruction With Deep Hankel Matrix Factorization.

Exponential function is a basic form of temporal signals, and how to fast acquire this signal is one of the fundamental problems and frontiers in signal processing. To achieve this goal, partial data may be acquired but result in severe artifacts in its spectrum, which is the Fourier transform of exponentials. Thus, reliable spectrum reconstruction is highly expected in the fast data acquisition in many applications, such as chemistry, biology, and medical imaging. In this work, we propose a deep learning method whose neural network structure is designed by imitating the iterative process in the model-based state-of-the-art exponentials' reconstruction method with the low-rank Hankel matrix factorization. With the experiments on synthetic data and realistic biological magnetic resonance signals, we demonstrate that the new method yields much lower reconstruction errors and preserves the low-intensity signals much better than compared methods.

Country/Region Level Pandemic Severity Moderates the Relationships among Risk Experience, Perceived Life Satisfaction, and Psychological Distress in COVID-19.

Scholars and communications practitioners worldwide have sought novel resilience models amid heightened rates of psychological distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined perceived life satisfaction as a determinant of resilience. Additionally, we investigated the assumption that perceived pandemic severity at the country/region level moderates structural relationships within our risk-resilience model. Analyzing more than 34,000 valid samples from 15 countries/regions, we found that (1) perceived life satisfaction alleviated psychological distress across all 15 countries/regions; and (2) country/region-level pandemic severity moderated the relationships among COVID-19 symptom experience, perceived life satisfaction, and psychological distress. The effects of COVID-19 symptom experience and perceived life satisfaction on psychological distress were conditional. We discuss possible mechanisms behind our findings and provide practical implications for mitigating psychological distress during public health crises.