A Comparative Study of Ultrasound Attenuation Imaging, Controlled Attenuation Parameters, and Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy for the Detection of Hepatic Steatosis.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the methodology and clinical application of ultrasound attenuation imaging (ATI) and comparative analyze the diagnostic performance of ATI and controlled attenuation parameters (CAP) for detecting and grading hepatic steatosis. METHODS: A total of 159 patients with NAFLD were prospectively enrolled. CAP and ATI examinations were performed within a week before proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1 H-MRS). Ten liver attenuation coefficient (AC) measurements by ATI were obtained in each patient. The interclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) of the intraobserver consistencies and the ICCs between the median of the first two through the first nine measurements and all 10 measurements were calculated. The correlations between 1 H-MRS, CAP, biological data, and ATI were evaluated. The significant factors associated with ATI and the diagnostic performance of ATI and CAP for detecting hepatic steatosis was evaluated. RESULTS: The median value of AC for detecting hepatic steatosis was 0.831 dB/cm/MHz. For the intraobserver consistency of ATI, the ICC was 0.931. Compared with 10 measurements, a minimum of four ATI measurements was required. The correlation of AC with hepatic fat fraction (HFF) was significantly higher than that of CAP (0.603 vs 0.326, P = .0015). The HFF and triglyceride (TG) were the significant factors for the ATI. The area under the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves of ATI and CAP were 0.939 and 0.788 for detecting ≥10% hepatic steatosis; 0.751 and 0.572 for detecting >33% hepatic steatosis. The cutoff values of ATI and CAP were 0.697 dB/cm/MHz and 310 dB/m for detecting ≥10% hepatic steatosis; 0.793 dB/cm/MHz and 328 dB/m for detecting >33% hepatic steatosis. The sensitivity of ATI and CAP were 85.92% and 52.11% for detecting ≥10% hepatic steatosis; 87.50% and 82.14% for detecting >33% hepatic steatosis. The specificity of ATI and CAP were 94.12% and 100% for detecting ≥10% hepatic steatosis; 54.37% and 43.69% for detecting >33% hepatic steatosis. CONCLUSIONS: ATI technology showed excellent intraobserver consistency and the optimal minimum number of ATI measurements was 4. ATI is a promising noninvasive, quantitative and convenient tool for assessing hepatic steatosis.

A systematic review of Tuina for women with primary dysmenorrhea: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Primary dysmenorrhea (PD) occurs most often in adolescent girls. Tuina, a kind of Chinese massage, can effectively relieve women's pain and is widely used in clinical practice. However, there is no relevant systematic review show its effectiveness and safety. The study aims to assess the effectiveness and safety of Tuina for PD. METHODS: The following electronic databases will be searched from the respective dates of database inception to September 1st, 2021: The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, EMBASE, Springer, MEDLINE, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, the Chinese Scientific Journal Database, Wanfang database, and other sources. RESULTS: This study will provide a high quality comprehensive and/or descriptive analysis of existing evidence on Tuina therapy for PD. CONCLUSION: This study will provide the evidence of whether Tuina is an effective and safe intervention for women with PD. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42021257392.

Efficacy of Baduanjin exercise for rehabilitation after COVID-19: A protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: The study aims to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of Baduanjin exercise for rehabilitation after COVID-19. METHODS: The following electronic databases will be searched from establishment to Jan 2021: Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, Springer, World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wan-fang database, Chinese Scientific Journal Database, Chinese Biomedical Literature Databases, and other databases, All published randomized controlled trials about this topic will be included. Two independent researchers will operate article retrieval, duplication removing, screening, quality evaluation, and data analyses by Review Manager (V.5.3.5). Meta-analyses, subgroup analysis, and/or descriptive analysis will be performed based on the included data conditions. RESULTS: The results of this study will provide a combination of high-quality evidence for researchers in the current field of COVID-19 treatment and rehabilitation. CONCLUSION: The conclusion of this study will provide the evidence of whether Baduanjin is an effective and safe intervention for rehabilitation after COVID-19. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42020181078.

Effect of Yijinjing exercise on cervical spondylosis: A protocol for systematic review.

BACKGROUND: Cervical spondylosis (CS) is a common disease due to the modern lifestyle. Yijinjin, a kind of traditional Chinese exercise, is frequently used for the prevention of CS by Traditional Chinese Medicine doctors. However, there is no relevant systematic review show its effectiveness and safety. The study aims to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of Yijinjing for patients with CS. METHODS: The following electronic databases will be searched from the respective dates of database inception to June 1st, 2020: The Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Springer, EMBASE, MEDLINE, the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, the Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang database, the Chinese Scientific Journal Database, and other sources. All published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and blinded researches that are relevant to the subject of interest only will be contained. Two independent researchers will operate article retrieval, duplication removing, screening, quality evaluation, and data analyses by Review Manager (V.5.3.5). Meta-analyses, subgroup analysis and/or descriptive analysis will be performed based on the included data conditions. RESULTS: High-quality synthesis and/or descriptive analysis of current evidence will be provided from the neck disability index, neck pain questionnaire questionnaires, patient satisfaction scale and adverse reactions. CONCLUSION: This study will provide the evidence of whether Yijinjing is an effective and safe intervention for people with CS. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42020164706.

Climate background, relative rate, and runoff effect of multiphase water transformation in Qilian Mountains, the third pole region.

Multiphase water transformation has great effects on alpine hydrology, but these effects remain unclear in the third pole region. Taking the Qilian Mountains as an example, the climate background and relative rates of multiphase water transformation were analyzed, and the runoff effect was evaluated based on long-term field observations. There are three climatic aspects driving multiphase water transformation, including lengthening ablation period, accelerative warming after 1990, and larger warming in the cryosphere belt than in the vegetation belt. The accelerative multiphase water transformation was quantified by three facts: the glacier area retreat rate accelerated by 50% after 1990, the percentage of snowfall in precipitation decreased by 7% after 1990, and the contribution from recycling moisture to precipitation increased by 60% from 1961-1990 to 1991-2016. Under the multiphase water transformation, the outlet runoff for three inland rivers increased by 5 × 108 m3/10 a after 1990. This runoff increase was concentrated mainly in the ablation period. For the seasonal runoff pattern, maximum runoff lagged maximum precipitation by one month under increasing glacier snow meltwater and thickening permafrost active layer. Meltwater from the cryosphere is a crucial runoff component in the Qilian Mountains. At present, these multiphase water transformations are accelerating, along with the yearly runoff increase, which will obviously have a profound impact on water resources management and flood control in the third pole region.

Incremental Hashing for Semantic Image Retrieval in Nonstationary Environments.

A very large volume of images is uploaded to the Internet daily. However, current hashing methods for image retrieval are designed for static databases only. They fail to consider the fact that the distribution of images can change when new images are added to the database over time. The changes in the distribution of images include both discovery of a new class and a distribution of images within a class owing to concept drift. Retraining of hash tables using all images in the database requires a large computation effort. This is also biased to old data owing to the huge volume of old images which leads to a poor retrieval performance over time. In this paper, we propose the incremental hashing (ICH) method to deal with the two aforementioned types of changes in the data distribution. The ICH uses a multihashing to retain knowledge coming from images arriving over time and a weight-based ranking to make the retrieval results adaptive to the new data environment. Experimental results show that the proposed method is effective in dealing with changes in the database.