A computable biomedical knowledge system: Toward rapidly building candidate-directed acyclic graphs.

AIM: It is essential for health researchers to have a systematic understanding of third-party variables that influence both the exposure and outcome under investigation, as shown by a directed acyclic graph (DAG). The traditional construction of DAGs through literature review and expert knowledge often needs to be more systematic and consistent, leading to potential biases. We try to introduce an automatic approach to building network linking variables of interest. METHODS: Large-scale text mining from medical literature was utilized to construct a conceptual network based on the Semantic MEDLINE Database (SemMedDB). SemMedDB is a PubMed-scale repository of the "concept-relation-concept" triple format. Relations between concepts are categorized as Excitatory, Inhibitory, or General. RESULTS: To facilitate the use of large-scale triple sets in SemMedDB, we have developed a computable biomedical knowledge (CBK) system (https://cbk.bjmu.edu.cn/), a website that enables direct retrieval of related publications and their corresponding triples without the necessity of writing SQL statements. Three case studies were elaborated to demonstrate the applications of the CBK system. CONCLUSIONS: The CBK system is openly available and user-friendly for rapidly capturing a set of influencing factors for a phenotype and building candidate DAGs between exposure-outcome variables. It could be a valuable tool to reduce the exploration time in considering relationships between variables, and constructing a DAG. A reliable and standardized DAG could significantly improve the design and interpretation of observational health research.

A Bibliographic Dataset of Health Artificial Intelligence Research.

Objective: The aim of this study is to construct a curated bibliographic dataset for a landscape analysis on Health Artificial Intelligence (HAI) research. Data Source: We integrated HAI-related bibliographic records, including publications, open research datasets, patents, research grants, and clinical trials from Medline and Dimensions. Methods: Searching: Relevant documents were identified using Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) and Field of Research (FoR) indexed by 2 bibliographic databases, Medline and Dimensions. Extracting: MeSH terms annotated from the aforementioned bibliographic databases served as the primary information for our processing. For document records lacking MeSH terms, we re-extracted them using the Medical Text Indexer (MTI). Mapping: In order to enhance interoperability, HAI multi-documents were organized using a mapping system incorporating MeSH, FoR, The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10), and Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT). Integrating: All documents were curated based on a pre-defined ontology of health problems and AI technologies from the MeSH hierarchy. Results: We collected 96,332 HAI documents (publications: 75,820, open research datasets: 638, patents: 11,226, grants: 6,113, and clinical trials: 2,535) during 2009 to 2021. On average, 75.12% of the documents were tagged with at least one label related to either health problems or AI technologies (with 92.9% of publications tagged). Summary: This study presents a comprehensive pipeline for processing and curating HAI bibliographic documents following the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) standard, offering a valuable multidimensional collection for the community. This dataset serves as a crucial resource for horizontally scanning the funding, research, clinical assessments, and innovations within the HAI field.

Constructing a finer-grained representation of clinical trial results from ClinicalTrials.gov.

Randomized controlled trials are essential for evaluating clinical interventions; however, selective reporting and publication bias in medical journals have undermined the integrity of the clinical evidence system. ClinicalTrials.gov serves as a valuable and complementary repository, yet synthesizing information from it remains challenging. This study introduces a curated dataset that extends beyond the traditional PICO framework. It links efficacy with safety results at the experimental arm group level within each trial, and connects them across all trials through a knowledge graph. This novel representation effectively bridges the gap between generally described searchable information and specifically detailed yet underutilized reported results, and promotes a dual-faceted understanding of interventional effects. Adhering to the "calculate once, use many times" principle, the structured dataset will enhance the reuse and interpretation of ClinicalTrials.gov results data. It aims to facilitate more systematic evidence synthesis and health technology assessment, by incorporating both positive and negative results, distinguishing biomarkers, patient-reported outcomes, and clinical endpoints, while also balancing both efficacy and safety outcomes for a given medical intervention.

Investigating the potential of structurally defective UiO-66 for Sb (V) removal from tailing wastewater.

Antimony contamination of tailings from the mining process remain attracted a great amount of concern. In this study, defective UiO-66-X crystal materials are rationally constructed using trifluoroacetic acid and hydrochloric acid as modulators for the removal of Sb(V) from actual tailing sand leachates. XRD and TG characterizations reveal that the number and kind of defects in UiO-66 are influenced by the type of modulators and the addition of trifluoroacetic acid makes UiO-66-TFA contain both cluster and ligand defects. Adsorption experiments show that UiO-66 and UiO-66-HCl achieve 100% removal of Sb(V) at pH 7.5 of the tailing sand leachate, and up to 90% removal of Sb(V) by the three materials at pH 2.5. It is noteworthy that the removal rate of Sb(V) by UiO-66-HCl is still satisfactory even under strongly acidic conditions at pH 0.5, with good potential for practical applications. Four kinetic models are used to fit the adsorption data and the analysis shows that the mechanism of Sb(V) adsorption by three adsorbent is all pseudo-second order and chemisorption acts as an important role in the adsorption process. In addition, the fixed bed adsorption experiments show that the material exhibit good prospects for practical applications.

Multistimuli-Responsive PNIPAM-Based Double Cross-Linked Conductive Hydrogel with Self-Recovery Ability for Ionic Skin and Smart Sensor.

Multistimuli-responsive conductive hydrogels have been appealing candidates for multifunctional ionic skin. However, the fabrication of the multistimuli-responsive conductive hydrogels with satisfactory mechanical property to meet the practical applications is still a great challenge. In this study, a novel poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-co-sodium acrylate)/alginate/hectorite clay Laponite XLS (PNIPAM-SA/ALG/XLS) double cross-linked hydrogel with excellent mechanical property, self-recovery ability, temperature/pH-responsive ability, and strain/temperature-sensitive conductivity was fabricated. The PNSAX hydrogel possessed a moderate tensile strength of 290 kPa at a large elongation rate of 1120% and an excellent compression strength of 2.72 MPa at 90%. The hydrogel also possessed excellent mechanical repeatability and self-recovery ability. Thus, the hydrogel could withstand repetitive deformations for long time periods. Additionally, the hydrogel could change its transparency and volume once at a temperature of 44 °C and change its volume at different pHs. Thus, the visual temperature/pH-responsive ability allowed the hydrogel to qualitatively harvest environmental information. Moreover, the hydrogel possessed an excellent conductivity of 0.43 S/m, and the hydrogel could transform large/subtle deformation and temperature information into electrical signal change. Thus, the ultrafast strain/temperature-sensitive conductivity allowed the hydrogel to quantitatively detect large/small-scale human motions as well as environmental temperature. A cytotoxicity test confirmed the good cytocompatibility. Taken together, the hydrogel was suitable for human motion detecting and environmental information harvesting for long time periods. Therefore, the hydrogel has a great application potential as a multifunctional ionic skin and smart sensor.

Effect of Morphology/Structure on the Phase Behavior and Nonlinear Rheological Properties of NR/SBR Blends.

The evolution of the morphology/structure and the nonlinear viscoelasticity of rubber blends under large amounts of strain are key scientific issues for the design and manufacture of rubber blends. The rheological responses of natural rubber/styrene-butadiene rubber (NR/SBR) blends are traced over a wide range of blend compositions to gain an insight into the effect of blend morphology on their nonlinear viscoelasticity. We also prepare NR + SBR physical blends without melt mixing to distinguish the contributions of composition and blend morphology to the viscoelastic response. The microscopic heterogeneous gel-like structure of NR/SBR blends may remarkably weaken their strain softening and improve their modulus hysteretic recovery under large strain, which may be attributed to the heterogeneous microscopic deformation for the NR and SBR phases. Furthermore, additional elastic contribution resulted from the increasing interfacial energy of domain deformation. This may provide some new insights into the effect of blend morphology on the Payne effect of rubber blends.

Renin-angiotensin system inhibitor is associated with the reduced risk of all-cause mortality in COVID-19 among patients with/without hypertension.

Consecutively hospitalized patients with confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan, China were retrospectively enrolled from January 2020 to March 2020 to investigate the association between the use of renin-angiotensin system inhibitor (RAS-I) and the outcome of this disease. Associations between the use of RAS-I (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor (ACEI) or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB)), ACEI, and ARB and in-hospital mortality were analyzed using multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression models in overall and subgroup of hypertension status. A total of 2771 patients with COVID-19 were included, with moderate and severe cases accounting for 45.0% and 36.5%, respectively. A total of 195 (7.0%) patients died. RAS-I (hazard ratio (HR)= 0.499, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.325-0.767) and ARB (HR = 0.410, 95% CI 0.240-0.700) use was associated with a reduced risk of all-cause mortality among patients with COVID-19. For patients with hypertension, RAS-I and ARB applications were also associated with a reduced risk of mortality with HR of 0.352 (95% CI 0.162-0.764) and 0.279 (95% CI 0.115-0.677), respectively. RAS-I exhibited protective effects on the survival outcome of COVID-19. ARB use was associated with a reduced risk of all-cause mortality among patients with COVID-19.

Early versus late acute kidney injury among patients with COVID-19-a multicenter study from Wuhan, China.

BACKGROUND: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is an important complication of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which could be caused by both systematic responses from multi-organ dysfunction and direct virus infection. While advanced evidence is needed regarding its clinical features and mechanisms. We aimed to describe two phenotypes of AKI as well as their risk factors and the association with mortality. METHODS: Consecutive hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in tertiary hospitals in Wuhan, China from 1 January 2020 to 23 March 2020 were included. Patients with AKI were classified as AKI-early and AKI-late according to the sequence of organ dysfunction (kidney as the first dysfunctional organ or not). Demographic and clinical features were compared between two AKI groups. Their risk factors and the associations with in-hospital mortality were analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 4020 cases with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 were included and 285 (7.09%) of them were identified as AKI. Compared with patients with AKI-early, patients with AKI-late had significantly higher levels of systemic inflammatory markers. Both AKIs were associated with an increased risk of in-hospital mortality, with similar fully adjusted hazard ratios of 2.46 [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.35-4.49] for AKI-early and 3.09 (95% CI 2.17-4.40) for AKI-late. Only hypertension was independently associated with the risk of AKI-early. While age, history of chronic kidney disease and the levels of inflammatory biomarkers were associated with the risk of AKI-late. CONCLUSIONS: AKI among patients with COVID-19 has two clinical phenotypes, which could be due to different mechanisms. Considering the increased risk for mortality for both phenotypes, monitoring for AKI should be emphasized during COVID-19.

Surface Metallization of Porous Polymer Materials for Multifunctional Applications.

Porous materials have attracted great interest in recent years, and a variety of surface modification methods have been developed to endow porous materials with multifunctional applications. Herein, multifunctional porous materials are fabricated based on surface metallization. Metallized sponges with Ag and Cu are highly hydrophobic and are still hydrophobic under oil. The metallized sponges selectively adsorb oils from oil/water mixtures and can completely remove oils from water. We further demonstrate continuous oil-water separation by the metallized sponges with the aid of a peristaltic pump. The Ag-metallized materials show high catalytic performance for both chemical reduction and dye degradation. The catalytic reduction efficiency of 4-nitrophenol reaches 97.7% within 60 min and remains as high as 96% after 15 cycles. Moreover, the metallized materials show 99.99% bactericidal efficiency for both Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. Particularly, the Cu-metallized materials exhibit stable conductivity under deformation; and metal patterns are realized via the metallization method combined with a patterned mask, which may provide a feasible approach for flexible electronics. This work provides a versatile method to introduce metal coatings to porous materials, broadening the applications of porous materials.

Versatile RBC-derived vesicles as nanoparticle vector of photosensitizers for photodynamic therapy.

Various nanocarriers for photosensitizers have been developed to solve the problems of limiting the clinical utility of photodynamic therapy (PDT); however, to date, no carriers capable of supplying oxygen have been reported. We reported the development of a novel system composed of red blood cell (RBC)-derived vesicles (RDVs) generated by osmotic stress and demonstrated the capacity of RDVs for encapsulating and delivering external cargo into targeted cells due to the cellular uptake of RDVs. In this study, protoporphyrin IX (PpIX)-encapsulated RDVs (PpIX@RDVs) were prepared by the hypotonic incorporation of PpIX into RDVs in an aqueous environment, characterized, and utilized for PDT of cancer. PpIX@RDVs were rapidly uptaken by tumor cells via endocytosis in vitro, and the highly phototoxic effect of PpIX@RDVs was demonstrated upon irradiation. Superoxide anion (O(2)˙) and singlet oxygen ((1)O(2)) were involved in PpIX@RDV-induced cell apoptosis and necrosis. Finally, we demonstrated that RDVs with an oxygen supply capacity have potential as versatile delivery vehicles for efficient PDT.

The selective growth inhibition of oral cancer by iron core-gold shell nanoparticles through mitochondria-mediated autophagy.

Nanoparticles with an iron core and gold shell (denoted "Fe@AuÓ") have been reported to limit cancer-cell proliferation and therefore have been proposed as a potential anti-cancer agent. However, the underlying mechanisms are still unknown. In this study, we used flow cytometry, confocal fluorescence microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy to analyse the morphological and functional alterations of mitochondria in cancerous cells and healthy cells when treated with Fe@Au. It was found that Fe@Au caused an irreversible membrane-potential loss in the mitochondria of cancer cells, but only a transitory decrease in membrane potential in healthy control cells. Production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) was observed; however, additions of common ROS scavengers were unable to protect cancerous cells from the Fe@Au-induced cytotoxicity. Furthermore, iron elements, before oxidation, triggered mitochondria-mediated autophagy was shown to be the key factor responsible for the differential cytotoxicity observed between cancerous and healthy cells.