Evaluating the efficacy of percutaneous puncture biopsy guided by contrast-enhanced ultrasound for peripheral pulmonary lesions.

BACKGROUND: The incidence and mortality of lung cancer have increased annually. Accurate diagnosis can help improve therapeutic efficacy of interventions and prognosis. Percutaneous lung biopsy is a reliable method for the clinical diagnosis of lung cancer. Ultrasound-guided percutaneous lung biopsy technology has been widely promoted and applied in recent years. AIM: To investigate the diagnostic value of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS)-guided percutaneous biopsy in peripheral pulmonary lesions. METHODS: We retrospectively collected data on 237 patients with peripheral thoracic focal lesions who underwent puncture biopsy at Wuxi People's Hospital. The patients were randomly divided into two groups: The CEUS-guided before lesion puncture group (contrast group) and conventional ultrasound-guided group (control group). Analyze the diagnostic efficacy of the puncture biopsy, impact of tumor size, and number of puncture needles and complications were analyzed and compared between the two groups. RESULTS: Accurate pathological results were obtained for 92.83% (220/237) of peripheral lung lesions during the first biopsy, with an accuracy rate of 95.8% (113/118) in the contrast group and 89.9% (107/119) in the control group. The difference in the area under the curve (AUC) between the contrast and the control groups was not statistically significant (0.952 vs 0.902, respectively; P > 0.05). However, when the lesion diameter ≥ 5 cm, the diagnostic AUC of the contrast group was higher than that of the control group (0.952 vs 0.902, respectively; P < 0.05). In addition, the average number of puncture needles in the contrast group was lower than that in the control group (2.58 ± 0.53 vs 2.90 ± 0.56, respectively; P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: CEUS guidance can enhance the efficiency of puncture biopsy of peripheral pulmonary lesions, especially for lesions with a diameter ≥ 5 cm. Therefore, CEUS guidance has high clinical diagnostic value in puncture biopsy of peripheral focal lung lesions.

Anticipation dynamics of pedestrians based on the elliptical social force model.

Humans have excellent predictive capabilities, and this anticipation would reflect in the interactions between people. In this work, we utilize the elliptical specification of the social force model (SFM) for pedestrian movements to study how anticipation affects motion dynamics. An elliptical potential determines the interaction between pedestrians not in contact. Anticipation is introduced by shaping the ellipse according to the relative velocity. By adjusting the time to extrapolate, we can control the strength of anticipation. Simulations are conducted in four typical scenarios, i.e., circular motion, crowd gathering, escape through a bottleneck, and free wander. In each case, the qualitative observations from visual animations are followed by quantitative analyses involving different indicators. Simulation results demonstrate that anticipation plays an important role in pedestrian dynamics in several aspects. Briefly, it helps stabilize the movement by reducing perturbations, facilitates a more ordered crowd configuration, and promotes spontaneous collective motion. The findings may set avenues for further research in anticipation dynamics.

Risk tradeoffs between nitrogen dioxide and ozone pollution during the COVID-19 lockdowns in the Greater Bay area of China.

Photochemical regime for ozone (O3) formation is complicated in the sense that reducing emission of nitrogen oxides (NOx) may increase O3 concentration. The lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic affords a unique opportunity to use real observations to explore the O3 formation regime and the effectiveness of NOx emission control strategies. In this study, observations from ground networks during the lockdowns were used to assess spatial disparity of the Ratio of Ozone Formation (ROF) for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) reduction in the Greater Bay Area (GBA) of China. The health risk model from Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) system in Hong Kong was adopted to evaluate the risk tradeoffs between NO2 and O3. Results show that the levels of O3 increase and NO2 reduction were comparable due to high ROF values in urban areas of central GBA. The ozone reactivity to NO2 reduction gradually declined outwards from central GBA. Despite the O3 increases, the NOx emission controls reduced the Integrated Health Risk (IHR) of NO2 and O3 in most regions of the GBA. When risk coefficients from the AQHI in Canada or the global review were adopted in the risk analyses, the results are extremely encouraging because the controls of NOx emission reduced the IHR of NO2 and O3 almost everywhere in the GBA. Our results underscore the importance of using a risk-based method to assess the effectiveness of emission control measures and the overall health benefit from NOx emission controls in the GBA.

Impact of Dexamethasone Preconditioning on Prevention of Development of Cognitive Impairment following Acute Inflammation.

To assess the preventive role of dexamethasone (Dex) in the development of neuroinflammation and concomitant neurocognitive disorders following acute inflammation. C57BL6 mice were fallen into the sham group, ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) group, and I/R + Dex group randomly. In the end, behavioral alterations were assessed with the Morris water maze (MWM) test, passive avoidance test (PAT), and open field test (OFT). The serum levels of IL-1ß and TNF-α were detected by ELISA. Immunofluorescence was adopted to observe the NF-kB expression in the hippocampus. In addition, TLR4, NF-kB, CD68, and CD206 were examined by Western blot. The cognitive ability of mice can be impaired by tourniquet-induced acute inflammation, and these changes were prevented by Dex. Compared to the I/R group, Dex pretreatment could decrease levels of IL-1ß and TNF-α proteins in serum. Besides, Dex preconditioning significantly decreased the utterance of NF-kB immunoreactive cells and TLR4, NF-kB, and CD68 overexpression in the hippocampus. Dex partly through inhibiting microglia transformation to the M1 polarization state and inactivating the TLR4/NF-kB pathway attenuates the cognitive disorders in mice.

Removing the effects of meteorological factors on changes in nitrogen dioxide and ozone concentrations in China from 2013 to 2020.

Previous studies on long-term ozone (O3) variations in China have reported inconsistent conclusions on the role of meteorological factors in controlling said variations. In this study, we used an observation-based decomposition model to conduct an up-to-date investigation of the effects of meteorological factors on the variations in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and O3 concentrations in China in the summer from 2013 to 2020. The variations in NO2 and O3 concentrations after removing the major meteorological effects were then analyzed to improve our understanding of O3 formation regimes. Ground measurements show that both NO2 and O3 concentrations decreased in eastern, central, and southeastern China (e.g., NO2 and O3 concentrations in Wuhan reduced by 4.3 and 6.2 ppb, respectively), which was not anticipated. Analyses of meteorological effects showed that reduced wind strength, decreased temperature, and increased relative humidity significantly reduced O3 concentrations in eastern and central China (e.g., by 10.5 ppb in Wuhan). After removing the major meteorological effects, the O3 trends were reversed in eastern and central China (e.g., increased by 4.9 ppb in Wuhan). The contrasting trends in NO2 and O3 concentrations suggest that their O3 formations were sensitive to volatile organic compounds (VOC-limited regime). In southeastern China, both NO2 and O3 concentrations decreased, implying that the O3 formation regimes changed to mixed sensitive or nitrogen oxide-limited (NOx-limited) regimes. The meteorological effects varied by region and may play a dominant role in controlling the long-term O3 variation. Our results indicate that the attribution of O3 variation to emission control without accounting for meteorological effects can be misleading.

An improved decomposition method to differentiate meteorological and anthropogenic effects on air pollution: A national study in China during the COVID-19 lockdown period.

Although the effects of meteorological factors on severe air pollution have been extensively investigated, quantitative decomposition of the contributions of meteorology and anthropogenic factors remains a big challenge. The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic affords a unique opportunity to test decomposition method. Based on a wind decomposition method, this study outlined an improved method to differentiate complex meteorological and anthropogenic effects. The improved method was then applied to investigate the cause of unanticipated haze pollution in China during the COVID-19 lockdown period. Results from the wind decomposition method show that weakened winds increased PM2.5 concentrations in the Beijing-Tianjin area and northeastern China (e.g., by 3.19 µg/m3 in Beijing). Using the improved decomposition method, we found that the combined meteorological effect (e.g., drastically elevated humidity levels and weakened airflow) substantially increased PM2.5 concentrations in northern China: the most substantial increases were in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region (e.g., by 26.79 µg/m3 in Beijing). On excluding the meteorological effects, PM2.5 concentrations substantially decreased across China (e.g., by 21.84 µg/m3 in Beijing), evidencing that the strict restrictions on human activities indeed decreased PM2.5 concentrations. The unfavorable meteorological conditions, however, overwhelmed the beneficial effects of emission reduction, causing the severe haze pollution. These results indicate that the integrated meteorological effects should be considered to differentiate the meteorological and anthropogenic effects on severe air pollution.

AP-002: A novel inhibitor of osteoclast differentiation and function without disruption of osteogenesis.

AP-002 is a novel, gallium-based, anti-cancer oral compound in clinical development for cancer patients with bone metastases. We examined the effects of AP-002 on osteoclastogenesis, fusion, and osteogenesis. AP-002 exhibited a dramatic effect on osteoclast function without causing osteoclast cell death. The expression of tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase and cathepsin K mRNA levels was down-regulated in RAW264.7 cells treated with AP-002 in the presence of soluble receptor activator of NF-κB ligand. AP-002 was also found to block the fusion of osteoclasts from RAW264.7 cells. AP-002 had a similar inhibitory effect on RANKL-induced mouse primary bone marrow monocytes fusion. Human blood monocytes treated with AP-002 failed to form TRAcP/ACP5-positive cells. AP-002 caused these inhibitory effects without causing osteoclast cell death, which was in contrast to zoledronic acid controls. Furthermore, unlike zoledronic acid, AP-002 did not inhibit Rac1 activation. Gene expression analysis by microarrays showed that AP-002 significantly reverses the effects of RANKL-induced gene expression. These include several key osteoclast-differentiation/function-associated genes such as: Scinderin, OCSTAMP, Atp6v0d2, OSCAR, RhoU, Usp18, MMP9, and Trim30. The difference between AP-002 and zoledronic acid is also seen in its effects on osteogenesis. Osteoblast mineralization was promoted by AP-002 (0.1-3.0 µM), whereas zoledronic acid showed toxicity to osteoblasts at the concentration >0.5 µM, in the same dose range where it causes osteoclast cell death. Zoledronic acid therefore has no therapeutic window in its toxic effect on osteoclasts and osteoblasts. AP-002 promotes osteogenesis in this therapeutic window, while blocking osteoclast development. We therefore conclude that AP-002 has potential as a new anti-bone resorption agent, with a mechanism of action different compared with other currently marketed anti-bone resorption agents.

SeC Bonding Promoting Fast and Durable Na+ Storage in Yolk-Shell SnSe2 @SeC.

Tin-based compounds have received much attention as anode materials for lithium/sodium ion batteries owing to their high theoretical capacity. However, the huge volume change usually leads to the pulverization of electrode, giving rise to a poor cycle performance, which have severely hampered their practical application. Herein, highly durable yolk-shell SnSe2 nanospheres (SnSe2 @SeC) are prepared by a multistep templating method, with an in situ gas-phase selenization of the SnO2 @C hollow nanospheres. During this process, Se can be doped into the carbon shell with a tunable amount and form SeC bonds. Density functional theory calculation results reveal that the SeC bonding can enhance the charge transfer properties as well as the binding interaction between the SnSe2 core and the carbon shell, favoring an improved rate performance and a superior cyclability. As expected, the sample delivers reversible capacities of 441 and 406 mAh g-1 after 2000 cycles at 2 and 5 A g-1 , respectively, as the anode material for a sodium-ion battery. Such performances are significantly better than the control sample without the SeC bonding and also other metal selenide-based anodes, evidently showing the advantage of Se doping in the carbon shell.

IL1ß and TNFα promote RANKL-dependent adseverin expression and osteoclastogenesis.

Adseverin is an actin-binding protein involved in osteoclastogenesis, but its role in inflammation-induced bone loss is not well-defined. Here, we examined whether IL1ß and TNFα regulate adseverin expression to control osteoclastogenesis in mouse primary monocytes and RAW264.7 cells. Adseverin was colocalized with subcortical actin filaments and was enriched in the fusopods of fusing cells. In precursor cells, adseverin overexpression boosted the formation of RANKL-induced multinucleated cells. Both IL1ß and TNFα enhanced RANKL-dependent TRAcP activity by 1.6-fold and multinucleated cell formation (cells with ≥3 nuclei) by 2.6- and 3.3-fold, respectively. However, IL1ß and TNFα did not enhance osteoclast formation in adseverin-knockdown cells. RANKL-dependent adseverin expression in bone marrow cells was increased by both IL1ß (5.4-fold) and TNFα (3.3-fold). Luciferase assays demonstrated that this expression involved transcriptional regulation of the adseverin promoter. Activation of the promoter was restricted to a 1118 bp sequence containing an NF-κB binding site, upstream of the transcription start site. TNFα also promoted RANKL-induced osteoclast precursor cell migration. We conclude that IL1ß and TNFα enhance RANKL-dependent expression of adseverin, which contributes to fusion processes in osteoclastogenesis.