Development and validation of gestational diabetes mellitus health literacy scale.

OBJECTIVE: While there are various health literacy scales that exist, none of health literacy scale suitable for pregnant women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). To address this gap, this study aimed to develop GDM health literacy scale and evaluate its psychometric properties. METHODS: Based on the Delphi expert consultation, we developed the initial GDM health literacy scale. Item analysis was taken using a sample (n = 299) recruited in China to form formal scale. Additional participants (n = 395) completed survey to assess the internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability, content validity, construct validity and criterion correlation validity of scale. RESULTS: The scale performed well in terms of internal consistency reliability, content validity, construct validity and criterion correlation validity. Test-retest reliability indicated that the instrument was effective at measuring health literacy of GDM over time. CONCLUSION: The scale is a reliable and valid measure of six domains of health literacy for GDM. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: The scale can be used to effectively evaluate the level of health literacy of pregnant women with GDM. The information can provide targeted health support for pregnant women with GDM to improve their health literacy and self-management ability.

Increasing 1,4-Diaminobutane Production in Escherichia coli by Optimization of Cofactor PLP and NADPH Synthesis.

1,4-diaminobutane is widely used in the industrial production of polymers, pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and surfactants. Owing to economic and environmental concerns, there has been a growing interest in using microbes to produce 1,4-diaminobutane. However, there is lack of research on the influence of cofactors pyridoxal phosphate (PLP) and NADPH on the synthesis of 1,4-diaminobutane. PLP serves as a cofactor of ornithine decarboxylase in the synthesis of 1,4-diaminobutane. Additionally, the synthesis of 1 mol 1,4-diaminobutane requires 2 mol NADPH, thus necessitating consideration of NADPH balance in the efficient synthesis of 1,4-diaminobutane by Escherichia coli. The aim of this study was to enhance the synthesis efficiency of 1,4-diaminobutane through increasing production of PLP and NADPH. By optimizing the expression of the genes associated with synthesis of PLP and NADPH in E. coli, cellular PLP and NADPH levels increased, and the yield of 1,4-diaminobutane also increased accordingly. Ultimately, using glucose as the primary carbon source, the yield of 1,4-diaminobutane in the recombinant strain NAP19 reached 272 mg/L·DCW, by increased 79% compared with its chassis strain.

A Novel Fluorescent Probe for Nitroreductase Detection and Imaging of cancer Cells under Hypoxia Conditions.

Nitroreductase (NTR) is to be pivotal in the biodegradation of nitroaromatics. NTR is produced in tumor tissues under hypoxic conditions, which is one of the markers for early tumor diagnosis. In this study, a novel probe FD-NTR was developed for NTR detection. Probe FD-NTR can exhibit a specific reaction with NTR in the presence of NADH. The probe displayed satisfactory selectivity and sensitivity towards NTR with a calculated detection limit of 12 ng/mL. Under the conditions of low cytotoxic hypoxia, the FD-NTR probe has shown successful application in imaging both MCF-7 cells and tumor tissues, which indicated that the FD-NTR probe holds promising application prospects for detecting NTR in tumors.

Three-Dimensional Magneto-Acousto-Electrical Computed Tomography (3D MAE-CT): A Preliminary Study Using Ultrasound Linear Array Transducer.

Magneto-acousto-electrical tomography (MAET) is a hybrid imaging method that combines the high spatial resolution of ultrasonography with the high contrast of electrical impedance tomography (EIT). While most previous studies on MAET have focused on two-dimensional imaging, our recent research proposed a novel three-dimensional (3D) MAET method using B-mode and translational scanning. This method has been the first to reconstruct a 3D volume image of conductivity interfaces. However, this method has its limitations in mapping irregular shapes of conductivity. To address this challenge, we propose a 3D magneto-acousto-electrical computed tomography (3D MAE-CT) method utilizing an ultrasound linear array transducer in this work. Both phantom and in vitro experiments were conducted to validate our proposed method. The results from the phantom experiments demonstrate that our method can map the 3D volume conductivity with high spatial resolution. The oblique angles extracted from the 3D image closely match practical value, with the relative error ranging between -2.80% and 4.07%. Furthermore, the in vitro experiment successfully obtained a 3D image of a chicken heart, marking the first MAET 3D conductivity image of a tissue sample to date.

H-Net: Heterogeneous Neural Network for Multi-Classification of Neuropsychiatric Disorders.

Clinical studies have proved that both structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) are implicitly associated with neuropsychiatric disorders (NDs), and integrating multi-modal to the binary classification of NDs has been thoroughly explored. However, accurately classifying multiple classes of NDs remains a challenge due to the complexity of disease subclass. In our study, we develop a heterogeneous neural network (H-Net) that integrates sMRI and fMRI modes for classifying multi-class NDs. To account for the differences between the two modes, H-Net adopts a heterogeneous neural network strategy to extract information from each mode. Specifically, H-Net includes an multi-layer perceptron based (MLP-based) encoder, a graph attention network based (GAT-based) encoder, and a cross-modality transformer block. The MLP-based and GAT-based encoders extract semantic features from sMRI and features from fMRI, respectively, while the cross-modality transformer block models the attention of two types of features. In H-Net, the proposed MLP-mixer block and cross-modality alignment are powerful tools for improving the multi-classification performance of NDs. H-Net is validate on the public dataset (CNP), where H-Net achieves 90% classification accuracy in diagnosing multi-class NDs. Furthermore, we demonstrate the complementarity of the two MRI modalities in improving the identification of multi-class NDs. Both visual and statistical analyses show the differences between ND subclasses.

Clinicopathologic Characteristics of MYC Copy Number Amplification in Breast Cancer.

Introduction. MYC overexpression is a known phenomenon in breast cancer. This study investigates the correlation of MYC gene copy number amplification and MYC protein overexpression with coexisting genetic abnormalities and associated clinicopathologic features in breast cancer patients. Methods. The study analyzed data from 81 patients with localized or metastatic breast cancers using targeted next-generation sequencing and MYC immunohistochemical studies, along with pathological and clinical data. Results. Applying the criteria of MYC/chromosome 8 ratio ≥5, MYC copy number amplified tumors (n = 11, 14%) were associated with invasive ductal carcinoma (91% vs 68%, P = .048), poorly differentiated (grade 3, 64% vs 30%, P = .032), mitotically active (Nottingham mitotic score 3, 71% vs 20%, P = .004), estrogen receptor (ER)-negative (45% vs 12%, P = .008), and triple-negative (56% vs 12%, P = .013) compared to MYC non-amplified tumors. Among MYC-amplified breast cancer patients, those with triple-negative status showed significantly shorter disease-free survival time than non-triple negative MYC-amplified patients (median survival month: 25.5 vs 127.6, P = .049). MYC amplification is significantly associated with TP53 mutation (P = .007). The majority (10 of 11; 91%) of MYC-amplified tumors showed positive c-MYC immunostaining. Conclusion. Breast cancers with MYC copy number amplication display distinct clinicopathologic characteristics indicative of more aggressive behavior.

Environmental fate of microplastics in high-altitude basins: the insights into the Yarlung Tsangpo River Basin.

Microplastics (MPs) have been found in remote high-altitude areas, but the main source and migration process remained unclear. This work explored the characteristics and potential sources of MPs in the Yarlung Tsangpo River Basin. The average abundances of MPs in water, sediment, and soil samples were 728.26 ± 100.53 items/m3, 43.16 ± 5.82 items/kg, and 61.92 ± 4.29 items/kg, respectively, with polypropylene and polyethylene as the main polymers. The conditional fragmentation model revealed that the major source of MPs lower than 4000 m was human activities, while that of higher than 4500 m was atmospheric deposition. Community analysis was further conducted to explore the migration process and key points of MPs among different compartments in the basin. It was found that Lhasa (3600 m) and Shigatse (4100 m) were vital sources of MPs inputs in the midstream and downstream, respectively. This work would provide new insights into the fate of MPs in high-altitude areas.

Effects of Natural Sound Therapy on Pain and Agitation Induced by Endotracheal Suctioning: A Real-World Study.

BACKGROUND: Music therapy has been used as a complementary intervention to provide synergistic analgesia for various procedures. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of natural sound therapy on pain intensity and agitation scores in intubated adult Chinese patients who received endotracheal suctioning in a critical care unit. METHODS: A prospective, real-world, randomized, double-blind, controlled study was conducted from July 2021 through February 2022 among intubated surgical intensive care unit patients in a Chinese hospital. Patients were randomly assigned to a control group receiving conventional treatment or an intervention group receiving natural sound therapy plus conventional treatment (50 patients in each group). Patients' pain intensity and agitation levels were analyzed before, during, immediately after, 5 minutes after, and 15 minutes after completion of endotracheal suctioning. Pain intensity was assessed with the Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT); agitation was assessed with the Richmond Agitation-Sedation Scale (RASS). RESULTS: According to CPOT scores, patients in the intervention group had significant relief of pain intensity during, immediately after, and 5 minutes after endotracheal suctioning compared with patients in the control group (all P < .001). The RASS scores showed that agitation levels were significant lower in the intervention group than in the control group during (P = .002) and immediately after (P < .001) endotracheal suctioning. CONCLUSIONS: In this real-world study, natural sound therapy was part of a holistic bundle of interventions used to reduce pain and agitation in surgical intensive care unit patients during endotracheal suctioning.

Hierarchical Micro- and Mesoporous Zeolitic Imidazolate Framework-8-Based Enzyme Hybrid for Combination Antimicrobial by Lysozyme and Lactoferrin.

Pathogenic bacteria have consistently posed a formidable challenge to human health, creating the critical need for effective antibacterial solutions. In response, enzyme-metal-organic framework (MOF) composites have emerged as a promising class of antibacterial agents. This study focuses on the development of an enzyme-MOF composite based on HZIF-8, incorporating the advantages of simple synthesis, ZIF-8 antibacterial properties, lysozyme hydrolysis, and high biological safety. Through a one-pot method, core-shell nanoparticles (HZIF-8) were synthesized. This structure enables efficient immobilization of lysozyme and lactoferrin within the HZIF-8, resulting in the formation of the lysozyme-lactoferrin@HZIF-8 (LYZ-LF@HZIF-8) composite. Upon exposure to light irradiation, HZIF-8 itself possessed antibacterial properties. Lysozyme initiated the degradation of bacterial peptidoglycan and lactoferrin synergistically enhanced the antibacterial effect of lysozyme. All of the above ultimately contributed to comprehensive antibacterial activity. Antibacterial assessments demonstrated the efficacy of the LYZ-LF@HZIF-8 composite, effectively eradicating Staphylococcus aureus at a cell density of 1.5 × 106 CFU/mL with a low dosage of 200 µg/mL and completely inactivating Escherichia coli at 400 µg/mL with the same cell density. The enzyme-MOF composite exhibited significant and durable antibacterial efficacy, with no apparent cytotoxicity in vitro, thereby unveiling expansive prospects for applications in the medical and food industries.

Targetable ERBB2/HER2 Mutations in Gynecologic Malignancies: Clinicopathological, Immunohistochemical, and Molecular Correlations.

Targeted anti-HER2 therapy has been recently added to the standard treatment recommendations in endometrial serous carcinoma. Current eligibility requires testing for HER2 overexpression and/or gene amplification by immunohistochemistry and by fluorescence in situ hybridization. However, clinical trials have also demonstrated the efficacy of anti-HER2 drugs against activating ERBB2/HER2 mutations in a variety of solid tumor types, and fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan is now approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for HER2-mutant non-small cell lung cancer. This study aimed at evaluating the detailed clinical, histomorphological, immunohistochemical, and molecular characteristics of gynecologic malignancies with ERBB2/HER2 mutations. We identified 16 tumors with 19 ERBB2/HER2 mutations in our departmental archives: 11 endometrial primaries, 2 endocervical adenocarcinomas, 1 ovarian mucinous adenocarcinoma, 1 tubo-ovarian undifferentiated carcinoma, and 1 high-grade endometrioid adenocarcinoma of Mullerian origin. ERBB2/HER2 mutations most often involved the tyrosine kinase domain (52.6%), and the most frequent specific mutation was R678Q (31.6%), involving the juxtamembrane domain. More than half (54.5%) of endometrial carcinomas and half of all tumors were MMR-deficient, resulting from MSH6 loss in all but 2 tumors. None of the tumors (0%) were POLE-mutated, while 18.8% were TP53-mutated. HER2 IHC was negative (score 0 or 1+) in 12 tumors (67%) and equivocal (score 2+) in 4 tumors (33%), whereas none of the tumors were scored as HER2 3+. Score 2+ was associated with R678Q, L755S, I767M mutations, and ERBB2/HER2 rearrangement with a breakpoint in exon 23. Concurrent ERBB2/HER2 amplification was identified in 2 endometrial carcinomas, with HER2/CEP17 ratios of 3.1 and 3.5. We also queried the cBioportal database, which revealed 70 ERBB2/HER2-mutant gynecologic tumors with a total of 77 ERBB2/HER2 mutations, most often involving the active site of the tyrosine kinase domain (n=36; 46.8%), and the most common specific mutation was S310F (n=20; 26%), located in the extracellular domain. Our results provide important details regarding the clinicopathological and molecular associations of potentially actionable ERBB2/HER2 mutations in endometrial carcinoma and other gynecological cancer types and contribute to addressing clinical treatment needs and improving pathology testing recommendations in the future.

Reevaluation of ovarian cyst fine-needle aspiration cytology: A 10-year institutional experience.

OBJECTIVES: Fine-needle aspiration (FNA) of ovarian cyst fluid remains useful for certain clinical circumstances despite low sensitivity and potential safety concerns. The current study aimed to reevaluate the performance of ovarian cystic fluid cytology following American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists guidelines using a single-institution cohort. METHODS: A total of 507 ovarian cyst FNA cases from 2013 to 2023 were reviewed. Patients' demographics and clinical and radiologic information were collected through the electronic database. The performance was calculated using corresponding surgical pathology diagnosis as the gold standard. RESULTS: Overall, cytologic diagnoses were nondiagnostic (ND), negative for malignancy (NFM), atypical (ATY), suspicious for malignancy (SFM), and malignant (M) in 5 (1.0%), 478 (94.3%), 14 (2.7%), 2 (0.4%), and 8 (1.6%) cases, respectively. Among 349 specimens (68.8%) that had a corresponding surgical pathology, the rate of malignancy (including borderline tumors) was 1.2% (4 of 325) in NFM, 72.7% in ATY (8 of 11), and 100% in both SFM (2 of 2) and M (8 of 8) specimens. Considering NFM and ATY as negative results and SFM and M as positive results, overall, the sensitivity of ovarian cystic fluid cytology was 45.4% and the specificity was 100%. CONCLUSIONS: As an uncommon test, ovarian cystic fluid cytology has moderate sensitivity and high specificity. Despite limitations, ovarian cystic FNA cytology remains a valuable diagnostic tool in certain aspects.

[Application and prospects of hyperspectral remote sensing in monitoring plant diversity in grassland]. / é«˜å ‰è°±é¥æ„Ÿåœ¨è‰åŽŸæ¤ç‰©å¤šæ ·æ€§ç›‘æµ‹ä¸­çš„åº”ç”¨ä¸Žå±•æœ›.

The biodiversity of grasslands is important for ecosystem function and health. The protection and mana-gement of grassland biodiversity requires the collection of the information on plant diversity. Hyperspectral remote sensing, with its unique advantages of extensive coverage and high spectral resolution, offers a new solution for long-term monitoring of plant diversity. We first reviewed the development history of hyperspectral remote sensing technology, emphasized its advantages in monitoring grassland plant diversity, and further analyzed its specific applications in this field. Finally, we discussed the challenges faced by hyperspectral remote sensing technology in its applications, such as the complexity of data processing, accuracy of algorithms, and integration with ground-based remote sensing data, and proposes prospects for future research directions. With the advancement of remote sensing technology and the integrated application of multi-source data, hyperspectral remote sensing would play an increasingly important role in grassland ecological monitoring and biodiversity conservation, which could provide scientific basis and technical support for global ecological protection and sustainable development.

A multi-scale feature fusion neural network for multi-class disease classification on the maize leaf images.

Maize is a globally important cereal crop, however, maize leaf disease is one of the most common and devastating diseases that afflict it. Artificial intelligence methods face challenges in identifying and classifying maize leaf diseases due to variations in image quality, similarity among diseases, disease severity, limited dataset availability, and limited interpretability. To address these challenges, we propose a residual-based multi-scale network (MResNet) for classifying multi-type maize leaf diseases from maize images. MResNet consists of two residual subnets with different scales, enabling the model to detect diseases in maize leaf images at different scales. We further utilize a hybrid feature weight optimization method to optimize and fuse the feature mapping weights of two subnets. We validate MResNet on a maize leaf diseases dataset. MResNet achieves 97.45% accuracy. The performance of MResNet surpasses other state-of-the-art methods. Various experiments and two additional datasets confirm the generalization performance of our model. Furthermore, thermodynamic diagram analysis increases the interpretability of the model. This study provides technical support for the disease classification of agricultural plants.

The Effects of Tremella fuciformis Polysaccharide on the Physicochemical, Multiscale Structure and Digestive Properties of Cyperus esculentus Starch.

In this study, we have investigated the effects of Tremella fuciformis polysaccharide (TP) on the pasting, rheological, structural and in vitro digestive properties of Cyperus esculentus starch (CS). The results showed that the addition of TP significantly changed the pasting characteristics of CS, increased the pasting temperature and pasting viscosity, inhibited pasting, reduced the exudation of straight-chain starch and was positively correlated with the amount of TP added. The addition of the appropriate amount of TP could increase its apparent viscosity and enhance its viscoelasticity. The composite system of CS/TP exhibited higher short-range ordered structure and solid dense structure, which protected the crystal structure of CS, but was related to the amount of TP added. In addition, the introduction of TP not only decreased the in vitro digestion rate of CS and increased the content of slow-digestible starch (SDS) and resistant starch (RS), but also reduced the degree of digestion. Correlation studies established that TP could improve the viscoelasticity, relative crystallinity and short-range order of the CS/TP composite gel, maintain the integrity of the starch granule and crystalline structure, reduce the degree of starch pasting and strengthen the gel network structure of CS, which could help to lower the digestibility of CS.

Leaching hazards of tire wear particles in hydrothermal treatment of sludge: Exploring molecular composition, transformation mechanism, and ecological effects of tire wear particle-derived compounds.

Tire wear particles (TWPs) are considered a significant contributor of microplastics (MPs) in the sludge during heavy rainfall events. Numerous studies have shown that hydrothermal treatment (HT) of sludge can accelerate the leaching of MP-derived compound into hydrothermal liquid, thus impairing the performance of subsequent anaerobic digestion and the quality of the hydrothermal liquid fertilizer. However, the leaching behavior of TWPs in the HT of sludge remains inadequately explored. This study examined the molecular composition of TWP-derived compounds and transformation pathways of representative tire-related additives under different hydrothermal temperatures using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) combined with mass difference analysis. The acute toxicity and phytotoxicity of TWP leachates were assessed using Vibrio qinghaiensis Q67 and rice hydroponics experiments. The results indicated that elevating the hydrothermal temperature not only amplified the leaching behavior of TWPs but also enhanced the chemical complexity of the TWP leachate. Utilizing both suspect and non-target screenings, a total of 144 compounds were identified as additives, including N-(1,3-dimethylbutyl)-N'-phenyl-p-phenylenediamine (6-PDD), hexa(methoxymethyl)melamine (HMMM), dibutyl phthalate (DBP). These additives underwent various reactions, such as desaturation, acetylation, and other reactions, leading to the formation of different transformation products (TPs). Moreover, certain additives, including caprolactam and 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-4-piperidinol, demonstrated the potential to form conjugate products with amino acids or Maillard products. Meanwhile, TWP-derived compounds showed significant acute toxicity and detrimental effects on plant growth. This study systematically investigated the environmental fate of TWPs and their derived compounds during the HT of sludge, offering novel insights into the intricate interactions between the micropollutants and dissolved organic matter (DOM) in sludge.

Surface Adsorption and Photoinduced Degradation: A Study of Spinel Ferrite Nanomaterials for Removal of a Model Organic Pollutant from Water.

Spinel oxide nanocrystals are attractive materials for photoinduced advanced oxidation processes that degrade organic pollutants in water due to their chemical stability and tunability, visible light absorption, and magnetic recoverability. However, a systematic understanding of the structural and chemical factors that control the reactivity of specific spinel oxide nanocrystal materials toward photoinduced degradation processes is lacking. This Perspective illustrates these knowledge gaps through an investigation into the impacts of surface chemistry and composition of spinel ferrite nanocrystals of formula MFe2O4 (M = Mg, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn) on their ability to remove a model organic pollutant (methyl orange (MO)) from water. We identify two mechanisms by which the nanocrystals remove MO from water: (i) surface adsorption and (ii) photoinduced degradation under visible light irradiation in the presence of hydrogen peroxide via the photo-Fenton reaction. Nanocrystals that do not contain any surface ligands are more effective at removing MO from water than nanocrystals that contain surface ligands, despite our observation that the ligand-less nanocrystals do not form stable colloidal dispersions in water, while ligand-coated nanocrystals are colloidally stable. For many of the spinel ferrite compositions studied here, the fraction of methyl orange removal via adsorption to the nanocrystal surface in the absence of photoexcitation is larger than the fraction removed under irradiation. Our data indicate that the composition-dependent surface charge of the nanocrystals controls the degree of surface adsorption of the charged MO molecule. Overall, these results demonstrate that careful consideration of the impacts of surface chemistry on the behavior of spinel ferrite nanocrystals is required to accurately assess and subsequently understand their activity toward the photoinduced degradation of organic molecules.

Effects of post-saccadic oscillations on visual processing times.

Saccadic eye movements enable us to search for the target of interest in a crowded scene or, in the case of goal-directed saccades, to simply bring the image of the peripheral target to the very centre of the fovea. This mechanism extends the use of the superior image processing performance of the fovea over a large visual field. We know that visual information is processed quickly at the end of each saccade but estimates of the times involved remain controversial. This study aims to investigate the processing of visual information during post fixation oscillations of the eyeball. A new psychophysical test measures the combined eye movement response latencies, including fixation duration and visual processing times. When the test is used in conjunction with an eye tracker, each component that makes up the 'integrated saccade latency' time, from the onset of the peripheral stimulus to the correct interpretation of the information carried by the stimulus, can be measured and the discrete components delineated. The results show that the time required to process and encode the stimulus attribute of interest at the end of a saccade is longer than the time needed to carry out the same task in the absence of an eye movement. We propose two principal hypotheses, each of which can account for this finding. 1. The known inhibition of afferent retinal signals during fast eye movements extends beyond the end point of the saccade. 2. The extended visual processing times measured when saccades are involved are caused by the transient loss of spatial resolution due to eyeball instability during post-saccadic oscillations. The latter can best be described as retinal image smear with greater loss of spatial resolution expected for stimuli of low luminance contrast.

Mariculture waters as yet another hotbed for the creation and transfer of new antibiotic-resistant pathogenome.

With the rapid growth of aquaculture globally, large amounts of antibiotics have been used to treat aquatic disease, which may accelerate induction and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (ARB) and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in aquaculture environments. Herein, metagenomic and 16S rRNA analyses were used to analyze the potentials and co-occurrence patterns of pathogenome (culturable and unculturable pathogens), antibiotic resistome (ARGs), and mobilome (mobile genetic elements (MGEs)) from mariculture waters near 5000 km coast of South China. Total 207 species of pathogens were identified, with only 10 culturable species. Furthermore, more pathogen species were detected in mariculture waters than those in coastal waters, and mariculture waters were prone to become reservoirs of unculturable pathogens. In addition, 913 subtypes of 21 ARG types were also identified, with multidrug resistance genes as the majority. MGEs including plasmids, integrons, transposons, and insertion sequences were abundantly present in mariculture waters. The co-occurrence network pattern between pathogenome, antibiotic resistome, and mobilome suggested that most of pathogens may be potential multidrug resistant hosts, possibly due to high frequency of horizontal gene transfer. These findings increase our understanding of mariculture waters as reservoirs of antibiotic resistome and mobilome, and as yet another hotbed for creation and transfer of new antibiotic-resistant pathogenome.