Deep Learning Combined with Radiologist's Intervention Achieves Accurate Segmentation of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Dual-Phase Magnetic Resonance Images.

Purpose: Segmentation of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is crucial; however, manual segmentation is subjective and time-consuming. Accurate and automatic lesion contouring for HCC is desirable in clinical practice. In response to this need, our study introduced a segmentation approach for HCC combining deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs) and radiologist intervention in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We sought to design a segmentation method with a deep learning method that automatically segments using manual location information for moderately experienced radiologists. In addition, we verified the viability of this method to assist radiologists in accurate and fast lesion segmentation. Method: In our study, we developed a semiautomatic approach for segmenting HCC using DCNN in conjunction with radiologist intervention in dual-phase gadolinium-ethoxybenzyl-diethylenetriamine penta-acetic acid- (Gd-EOB-DTPA-) enhanced MRI. We developed a DCNN and deep fusion network (DFN) trained on full-size images, namely, DCNN-F and DFN-F. Furthermore, DFN was applied to the image blocks containing tumor lesions that were roughly contoured by a radiologist with 10 years of experience in abdominal MRI, and this method was named DFN-R. Another radiologist with five years of experience (moderate experience) performed tumor lesion contouring for comparison with our proposed methods. The ground truth image was contoured by an experienced radiologist and reviewed by an independent experienced radiologist. Results: The mean DSC of DCNN-F, DFN-F, and DFN-R was 0.69 ± 0.20 (median, 0.72), 0.74 ± 0.21 (median, 0.77), and 0.83 ± 0.13 (median, 0.88), respectively. The mean DSC of the segmentation by the radiologist with moderate experience was 0.79 ± 0.11 (median, 0.83), which was lower than the performance of DFN-R. Conclusions: Deep learning using dual-phase MRI shows great potential for HCC lesion segmentation. The radiologist-aided semiautomated method (DFN-R) achieved improved performance compared to manual contouring by the radiologist with moderate experience, although the difference was not statistically significant.

Discrepancy between inter- and intra-subject variability in EEG-based motor imagery brain-computer interface: Evidence from multiple perspectives.

Introduction: Inter- and intra-subject variability are caused by the variability of the psychological and neurophysiological factors over time and across subjects. In the application of in Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI), the existence of inter- and intra-subject variability reduced the generalization ability of machine learning models seriously, which further limited the use of BCI in real life. Although many transfer learning methods can compensate for the inter- and intra-subject variability to some extent, there is still a lack of clear understanding about the change of feature distribution between the cross-subject and cross-session electroencephalography (EEG) signal. Methods: To investigate this issue, an online platform for motor-imagery BCI decoding has been built in this work. The EEG signal from both the multi-subject (Exp1) and multi-session (Exp2) experiments has been analyzed from multiple perspectives. Results: Firstly we found that with the similar variability of classification results, the time-frequency response of the EEG signal within-subject in Exp2 is more consistent than cross-subject results in Exp1. Secondly, the standard deviation of the common spatial pattern (CSP) feature has a significant difference between Exp1 and Exp2. Thirdly, for model training, different strategies for the training sample selection should be applied for the cross-subject and cross-session tasks. Discussion: All these findings have deepened the understanding of inter- and intra-subject variability. They can also guide practice for the new transfer learning methods development in EEG-based BCI. In addition, these results also proved that BCI inefficiency was not caused by the subject's unable to generate the event-related desynchronization/synchronization (ERD/ERS) signal during the motor imagery.

Comprehensive Treatment and Functional Rehabilitation After Pelvic Fracture in the Elderly With Multiple Organ Failure:Report of One Case / 中国医学科学院学报

We reported the comprehensive treatment of an elderly critically ill patient with pelvic fracture.The functions and quality of life of the patient were recovered after collaborative nursing by both family and hospital according to the general practice principle of both mental and physical rehabilitation.We summarized the diagnosis and treatment strategies of this case,aiming to provide reference for the clinical treatment of such cases.

To explore the mechanism of tobacco addiction using structural and functional MRI: a preliminary study of the role of the cerebellum-striatum circuit.

Previous studies have found that the striatum and the cerebellum played important roles in nicotine dependence, respectively. In heavy smokers, however, the effect of resting-state functional connectivity of cerebellum-striatum circuits in nicotine dependence remained unknown. This study aimed to explore the role of the circuit between the striatum and the cerebellum in addiction in heavy smokers using structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging. The grey matter volume differences and the resting-state functional connectivity differences in cerebellum-striatum circuits were investigated between 23 heavy smokers and 23 healthy controls. The cigarette dependence in heavy smokers and healthy controls were evaluated by using Fagerström Test. Then, we applied mediation analysis to test whether the resting-state functional connectivity between the striatum and the cerebellum mediates the relationship between the striatum morphometry and the nicotine dependence in heavy smokers. Compared with healthy controls, the heavy smokers' grey matter volumes decreased significantly in the cerebrum (bilateral), and increased significantly in the caudate (bilateral). Seed-based resting-state functional connectivity analysis showed significantly higher resting-state functional connectivity among the bilateral caudate, the left cerebellum, and the right middle temporal gyrus in heavy smokers. The cerebellum-striatum resting-state functional connectivity fully mediated the relationship between the striatum morphometry and the nicotine dependence in heavy smokers. Heavy smokers showed abnormal interactions and functional connectivity between the striatum and the cerebellum, which were associated with the striatum morphometry and nicotine dependence. Such findings could provide new insights into the neural correlates of nicotine dependence in heavy smokers.

Prenatal inflammation exposure-programmed hypertension exhibits multi-generational inheritance via disrupting DNA methylome.

The multi-generation heredity trait of hypertension in human has been reported, but the molecular mechanisms underlying multi-generational inheritance of hypertension remain obscure. Recent evidence shows that prenatal inflammatory exposure (PIE) results in increased incidence of cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension. In this study we investigated whether and how PIE contributed to multi-generational inheritance of hypertension in rats. PIE was induced in pregnant rats by intraperitoneal injection of LPS or Poly (I:C) either once on gestational day 10.5 (transient stimulation, T) or three times on gestational day 8.5, 10.5, and 12.5 (persistent stimulation, P). Male offspring was chosen to study the paternal inheritance. We showed that PIE, irrespectively induced by LPS or Poly (I:C) stimulation during pregnancy, resulted in multi-generational inheritance of significantly increased blood pressure in rat descendants, and that prenatal LPS exposure led to vascular remodeling and vasoconstrictor dysfunction in both thoracic aorta and superior mesenteric artery of adult F2 offspring. Furthermore, we revealed that PIE resulted in global alteration of DNA methylome in thoracic aorta of F2 offspring. Specifically, PIE led to the DNA hypomethylation of G beta gamma (Gßγ) signaling genes in both the F1 sperm and the F2 thoracic aorta, and activation of PI3K/Akt signaling was implicated in the pathologic changes and dysregulated vascular tone of aortic tissue in F2 LPS-P offspring. Our data demonstrate that PIE reprogrammed DNA methylome of cells from the germline/mature gametes contributes to the development of hypertension in F2 PIE offspring. This study broadens the current knowledge regarding the multi-generation effect of the cumulative early life environmental factors on the development of hypertension.

The application of full-crew stratified teaching combined with PBL teaching in nursing practice teaching in emergency department / 中华医学教育探索杂志

Objective:To explore the application of full-crew stratified teaching combined with PBL teaching in nursing practice teaching in emergency department.Methods:A total of 86 intern nursing students in the Emergency Department of The First Affiliated Hospital of Air Force Medical University from February 2019 to August 2020 were randomly divided into the control group ( n=43) and the observation group ( n=43). The control group used full-crew stratified teaching, and the observation group adopted full-crew stratified teaching combined with PBL teaching. The learning interest, subjective initiative, and recognition of teaching were compared between the two groups, and the theoretical scores, operational skills, and comprehensive ability were assessed among them. Meanwhile, the nursing quality of the intern nursing students was evaluated. SPSS 22.0 was used for Chi-square test and t-test. Results:The incidence of total learning interest and total subjective initiative of nursing students in the observation group were better than those in the control group ( P<0.05). The scores of the four dimensions of case analysis, theoretical total score, quality, and operation score in the observation group were higher than those in the control group ( P<0.05). There was no significant difference between the two groups in the scores of the three dimensions of short answer, choice, and skills ( P>0.05). The scores of the four dimensions of reasoning ability, information management ability, goal completion ability, and communication ability in the observation were higher than those in the control group ( P<0.05). The total recognition of teaching in the observation group was 95.35% (41/43), which was higher than that in the control group (79.07%, 34/43). Conclusion:Full-crew stratified teaching combined with PBL teaching in emergency department in nursing teaching can fully stimulate the learning interest of the intern nursing students, improve their subjective initiative, enhance their recognition degree of the nursing teaching, and finally improve the nursing quality.

Expression level and clinical significance of PARP14 in thyroid carcinoma / 国际生物医学工程杂志

Objective:To investigate the expression level of poly ADP ribose polymerase 14(PARP14) in thyroid cancer and its relationship with the clinicopathologic characteristics of the patient with thyroid cancer and evaluate the role of PARP14 in the progression of thyroid cancer.Methods:The gene expression interaction analysis (GEPIA) database was used to analyze the expression of PARP14 in normal thyroid tissue and thyroid cancer tissue and its relationship with disease-free survival of patients. The expression of PARP14 in thyroid cancer tissue and adjacent tissues of the patient with thyroid cancer was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. According to the staining intensity, the patients were divided into the high expression group and the low expression group, and the correlation between the expression of PARP14 and clinical pathological characteristics was analyzed. The effect of PARP14 on the proliferation of thyroid cancer cells was investigated by clone formation testing and MTT testing.Results:The results of bioinformatics analysis and immunohistochemistry showed that PARP14 was overexpressed in thyroid cancer tissue, and the disease-free survival rate of the patient with high expression was lower. The expression level of PARP14 was correlated with tumor stage and intrathyroidal spread (all P<0.05). The results of the clonogenic assay and the MTT assay showed that the expression of KIF4A could promote the proliferation of thyroid cancer cells ( P<0.05). Conclusions:PARP14 is highly expressed in thyroid cancer and is related to the clinicopathological characteristics of patients, suggesting that it may be a therapeutic target for thyroid cancer.

Regulatory effect of small nuclear ribonucleoprotein-associated protein B on proliferation and metastasis of liver cancer cells / 中华肝脏病杂志

Objective: To study the expression and effect of small nuclear ribonucleoprotein-associated protein B (SNRPB) on proliferation and metastasis of liver cancer tissues and cells. Methods: The bioinformatics database starBase v3.0 and GEPIA were used to analyze the expression of SNRPB in liver cancer tissue and normal liver tissue, as well as the survival and prognosis of liver cancer patients. The expression of SNRPB mRNA and protein in liver cancer cell lines were analyzed by qRT-PCR and Western blot. RNA interference technique (siRNA) was used to determine SNRPB protein expression down-regulation. The proliferation effect on hepatocellular carcinoma cells was observed by MTT assay. Transwell invasion and migration assay was used to detect the changes in the metastatic ability of liver cancer cells after SNRPB down-regulation. Western blot was used to detect the changes of epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers in liver cancer cells after down-regulation of SNRPB expression. Data were compared between two groups and multiple groups using t-test and analysis of variance. Results: The expression of SNRPB was significantly higher in liver cancer tissue than normal liver tissue, and its expression level was correlated with the prognosis of liver cancer patients. Compared with the immortalized hepatocyte LO(2), the expression of SNRPB was significantly increased in the liver cancer cells (P < 0.01). siRNA-SNRPB had significantly inhibited the expression of SNRPB mRNA and protein in liver cancer cells. MTT results showed that the absorbance value was lower in SNRPB knockdown group than negative control group, and the difference at 96 h after transfection was most significant (P < 0.01). Transwell assay results showed that compared with the negative control group, the SNRPB knockdown group (MHCC-97H: 121.27 ± 8.12 vs. 46.38 ± 7.54; Huh7: 126.50 ± 6.98 vs. 41.10 ± 8.01) invasion and migration (MHCC-97H: 125.20 ± 4.77 vs. 43.18 ± 7.32; Huh7: 132.22 ± 8.21 vs. 38.00 ± 6.78) ability was significantly reduced (P < 0.01) in liver cancer cells. Western blot showed that the expression level of epithelial phenotype marker E-cadherin was decreased after down-regulation of SNRPB, while the expression levels of mesenchymal phenotype markers N-cadherin and vimentin was increased, suggesting that down-regulation of SNRPB inhibited EMT in liver cancer cells. Conclusion: SNRPB expression is significantly increased in liver cancer tissues and cells, and it is involved in regulating the proliferation, metastasis and EMT of liver cancer cells.

Application of scaffolding education in the nursing teaching of infectious diseases in the post-epidemic era / 中华医学教育探索杂志

Objective:To explore the effect of applying scaffolding teaching to infectious disease teaching.Methods:The study selected 259 undergraduate nursing students of Batch 2017 as the research objects, and they were randomly divided into an experimental group (126 students) and a control group (133 students) according to the odd and even numbers of their student numbers. The experimental group carried out scaffolding teaching, and the control group adopted traditional teaching. After the teaching, the two groups of students were assessed on the theory of infectious diseases and scenario simulation excercises. The teaching satisfaction of the two groups was assessed through questionnaire surveys. SPSS was used for t test and chi-square test. Results:The experimental group's theoretical assessment and scenario simulation excercises scores were both higher than those of the control group, and the difference was statistically significant ( P<0.05). The results of the questionnaire survey showed that the experimental group students were more satisfied with the scaffolding teaching model [80.2% (101/126)], which was higher than that of the control group [54.1% (72/133)], with statistically significant differences ( P<0.001). Conclusion:Scaffolding teaching is helpful to improve teaching quality and satisfaction in infectious disease teaching, and it is worthy of further promotion and application in educational practice.

Effects of Zhongfeng capsule on autophagy related proteins expressions of brain tissue in rats with cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury / 中国应用生理学杂志

Objective: To investigate the effects of Zhongfeng capsule on the autophagy-related proteins expression in rats with cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury (CI/ RI), and to explore its neural protection mechanisms of the decoction. Methods: Rat middle cerebral artery ischemia/reperfusion injury model (ischemia for 2 h, reperfusion for 24 h) was prepared by the improved line plug method. Sixty male SD rats were randomly divided into sham operation group, model group, butylphthalide group(0.054 g/kg), Zhongfeng capsule high-dose groups (1.08 g/kg), Zhongfeng capsule middle-dose groups (0.54 g/kg), Zhongfeng capsule low-dose groups (0.27 g/kg), with 10 rats in each group. Rats were treated with Zhongfeng capsule by gavage once a day for 10 days. The rats were sacrificed and the brain tissue was obtained after the experiment in each group. Score neurological deficit was evaluated after 24 h of the last intervention in rat of each group. The pathological changes of brain tissue were observed by HE staining. The serum levels of estradiol (E2) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) were determined by ELISA. The expressions of key genes and proteins of PI3K/Akt/Beclin1 signaling pathway in brain tissue were detected by qRT-PCR and Western blot respectively. Results: Compared with the sham operation group, the body weight and protein expressions of p-PI3k and p-Akt in brain tissue of rats were decreased significantly in the model group, while the brain index, neurological deficit score, gene and protein expressions of Beclin1 and LC3 were increased markedly in the model group(P＜0.05 or P＜0.01). In the model group, nerve cells of brain tissue were loosely packed, interstitial edema, triangular in shape, nuclear pyknosis and dark-blue staining were observed. Compared with the model group, the body weight of rats was increased obviously, the neurological deficit score was decreased significantly and the pathological injury of brain tissue was alleviated evidently in high-dose of Zhongfeng capsule group (P＜0.05). The brain index, the gene and protein expressions of Beclin1 and LC3 were decreased apparently in Zhongfeng capsule treatment groups(P＜0.05 or P＜0.01), while the expressions of p-PI3k and p-Akt in brain tissue were increased evidently in Zhongfeng capsule treatment groups(P＜0.05 or P＜0.01). Conclusion: Zhongfeng capsule can inhibit autophagy and improve brain neurons lesion of CIRI rats, the mechanism may be related to regulate the expression of Beclin1 and LC3 in PI3K/Akt/Beclin1 signaling pathway.

Distal transradial access for cerebral angiography and neurointervention: a systematic review and meta-analysis / 国际脑血管病杂志

Objective:To investigate the efficacy and safety of distal transradial access for cerebral angiography and neurointervention.Methods:The literature about distal transradial access for cerebral angiography and neurointervention were searched in PubMed, EMbase, the Cochrane Library, CNKI, WanFang Data, and VIP database from January 2015 to September 2021. Two reviewers independently screened the literature and extracted data according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, evaluated the literature quality according to the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. The R 4.0.5 software was used for meta-analysis.Results:A total of 12 articles with 987 patients were enrolled. All the studies were retrospective design and did not compare with the results of proximal transradial access and transfemoral access. A meta-analysis of the operation success rate and complication rate using a fixed effect model showed that the operation success rate of distal transradial access was 96% (95% confidence interval 95%-97%), and the incidence of minor complications was 3% (95% confidence interval 2%-4%). One patient had serious complications.Conclusion:The distal transradial access is a safe and effective alternative approach for cerebral angiography and neurointervention.

Mortality prediction for patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome based on machine learning: a population-based study.

BACKGROUND: Traditional scoring systems for patients' outcome prediction in intensive care units such as Oxygenation Saturation Index (OSI) and Oxygenation Index (OI) may not reliably predict the clinical prognosis of patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Thus, none of them have been widely accepted for mortality prediction in ARDS. This study aimed to develop and validate a mortality prediction method for patients with ARDS based on machine learning using the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC-III) and Telehealth Intensive Care Unit (eICU) Collaborative Research Database (eICU-CRD) databases. METHODS: Patients with ARDS were selected based on the Berlin definition in MIMIC-III and eICU-CRD databases. The APPS score (using age, PaO2/FiO2, and plateau pressure), Simplified Acute Physiology Score II (SAPS-II), Sepsis-related Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA), OSI, and OI were calculated. With MIMIC-III data, a mortality prediction model was built based on the random forest (RF) algorithm, and the performance was compared to those of existing scoring systems based on logistic regression. The performance of the proposed RF method was also validated with the combined MIMIC-III and eICU-CRD data. The performance of mortality prediction was evaluated by using the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUROC) and performing calibration using the Hosmer-Lemeshow test. RESULTS: With the MIMIC-III dataset (308 patients, for comparisons with the existing scoring systems), the RF model predicted the in-hospital mortality, 30-day mortality, and 1-year mortality with an AUROC of 0.891, 0.883, and 0.892, respectively, which were significantly higher than those of the SAPS-II, APPS, OSI, and OI (all P<0.001). In the multi-source validation (the combined dataset of 2,235 patients in MIMIC-III and 331 patients in eICU-CRD), the RF model achieved an AUROC of 0.905 and 0.736 for predicting in-hospital mortality for the MIMIC-III and eICU-CRD datasets, respectively. The calibration plots suggested good fits for our RF model and these scoring systems for predicting mortality. The platelet count and lactate level were the strongest predictive variables for predicting in-hospital mortality. CONCLUSIONS: Compared to the existing scoring systems, machine learning significantly improved performance for predicting ARDS mortality. Validation with multi-source datasets showed a relatively robust generalisation ability of our prediction model.

Analysis of the primary presenting symptoms and hematological findings of COVID-19 patients in Bangladesh.

INTRODUCTION: SARS-Cov-2 infection or COVID-19 is a global pandemic. In this manuscript, we investigated the primary symptoms and basic hematological presentations of SARS-CoV-2 infection among the Bangladeshi patients. METHODOLOGY: This was a multicentre cross-sectional study done on COVID-19 patients tested positive by RT PCR in Bangladesh. Clinical features of mild to moderate degree of COVID-19 patients; hematological and biochemical admission day laboratory findings of moderate to severe degree hospitalized COVID-19 patients were analyzed. RESULTS: COVID-19 patients in Bangladesh commonly presented with fever, cough, fatigue, shortness of breath, and sore throat. But symptoms like myalgia, diarrhea, skin rash, headache, Abdominal pain/cramp, nausea, vomiting, restlessness, and a higher temperature of >100°F have a greater presentation rate and more frequent than other published studies. CRP and Prothrombin time was found to increase in all the patients. Serum ferritin, ESR, SGPT, and D-Dimer were increased among 53.85%, 80.43, 44%, and 25% patients. 17.39% of the patients had leucocytosis and neutrophilia, 28.26% presented with lymphocytopenia, and 62.52% had mild erythrocytopenia. The difference between the decrease hemoglobin count (higher in the male) and increased SGPT (higher in female) against gender was significant. CONCLUSIONS: Our study had evaluated a different expression in presenting symptoms of COVID-19 patients in Bangladesh. CRP, Prothrombin time, serum ferritin, ESR, SGPT, D-Dimer, erythrocytopenia, and lymphocytopenia can be assessments for diagnosis and prognosis of COVID-19 disease. Decrease hemoglobin count (higher in the male) and increased SGPT (higher in female) establish these two markers as a good candidate for diagnostic value against gender.

Deep Semantic Segmentation Feature-Based Radiomics for the Classification Tasks in Medical Image Analysis.

Recently, an emerging trend in medical image classification is to combine radiomics framework with deep learning classification network in an integrated system. Although this combination is efficient in some tasks, the deep learning-based classification network is often difficult to capture an effective representation of lesion regions, and prone to face the challenge of overfitting, leading to unreliable features and inaccurate results, especially when the sizes of the lesions are small or the training dataset is small. In addition, these combinations mostly lack an effective feature selection mechanism, which makes it difficult to obtain the optimal feature selection. In this paper, we introduce a novel and effective deep semantic segmentation feature-based radiomics (DSFR) framework to overcome the above-mentioned challenges, which consists of two modules: the deep semantic feature extraction module and the feature selection module. Specifically, the extraction module is utilized to extract hierarchical semantic features of the lesions from a trained segmentation network. The feature selection module aims to select the most representative features by using a novel feature similarity adaptation algorithm. Experiments are extensively conducted to evaluate our method in two clinical tasks: the pathological grading prediction in pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (pNENs), and the prediction of thrombolytic therapy efficacy in deep venous thrombosis (DVT). Experimental results on both tasks demonstrate that the proposed method consistently outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches by a large margin.

Mechanism of polypyrimidine tract-binding protein 1 on the proliferation and metastasis of gastric cancer cells / 中华消化杂志

Objective:To explore the expression of polypyrimidine tract-binding protein 1 (PTBP1) in gastric cancer (GC) tissues and GC cell lines, and the role of PTBP1 in the proliferation and metastasis of GC cells.Methods:From January to June in 2019 at The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi′an Jiaotong University, the cancer tissues and corresponding para-cancer tissues of GC patients underwent surgical resection were collected. The Kaplan-Meier Plotter database was used to analyze the survival of GC patients. The expression of PTBP1 was down-regulated by transfecting small interfering RNA (siRNA) in human GC cell lines SGC7901 and AGS with relatively high expression of PTBP1. The cells were divided into blank control group, negative control group, and PTBP1 knockdown group. The expression of PTBP1 at mRNA and protein level were detected by real-time fluorescence quantification polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) and Western blotting. At 24, 48, 72 and 96-hour after transfection, the effect of PTBP1 on the proliferation of GC cells was observed by 3-(4, 5 dimethylthiazol)-2, 5 diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) experiment. The changes of invasion and migration of GC cells after down-regulation of PTBP1 were detected by transwell assay. The expression changes of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers E-cadherin, N-cadherin and vimentin after down-regulation of PTBP1 in GC cells were determined by Western blotting. Indenpendent samples t test, analysis of variance and rank sum test were used for statistical analysis. Results:The Kaplan-Meier Plotter prognostic analysis showed that the overall survival of GC patients with high PTBP1 expression was shorter than that of GC patients with low PTBP1 expression (9.2 months, 6.2 months to 17.2 months vs. 19.0 months, 14.5 months to 28.4 months), and the difference was statistically significant ( Z=5.31, P<0.05). The results of RT-qPCR showed that in GC cell lines SGC7901 and AGS, the expression of PTBP1 at mRNA level of PTBP1 knockdown group was lower than that of blank control group and negative control group (SGC7901: 0.78±0.11 vs.3.10±0.19 and 2.99±0.23; AGS: 0.80±0.09 vs. 3.55±0.24 and 3.50±0.18), and the differences were statistically significant ( tSGC7901=10.57 and 8.08, tAGS=10.91 and 13.42; all P<0.01). The results of Western blotting indicated that in GC cell lines SGC7901 and AGS, the expression of PTBP1 at protein level of PTBP1 knockdown group was lower than those of blank control group and negative control group (SGC7901: 0.38±0.04 vs. 1.42±0.05 and 1.35±0.09; AGS: 0.17±0.02 vs. 1.52±0.08 and 1.38±0.45), and the differences were statistically significant ( tSGC7901=15.94 and 10.57, tAGS=16.60 and 20.80; all P<0.01). The results of MTT showed that at 48, 72 and 96-hour after transfection the absorbance values of PTBP1 knockdown group decreased by 0.25±0.01, 0.38±0.02, and 0.84±0.04 as compared with those of negative control group, and the decrease was the most significant at 96-hour after transfection, and the differences were statistically significant ( t=10.21、14.32, both P<0.01). The results of transwell experiment demonstrated that the number of invasion and migration cells of PTBP1 knockdown group were both less than that of the blank control group and the negative control group (SGC7901: 42.00±5.91 vs. 116.40±10.23 and 114.40±10.43; 39.60±6.77 vs. 125.80±11.51 and 122.40±5.90; AGS: 40.20±7.25 vs. 115.60±14.63 and 117.40±9.12; 36.00±5.20 vs. 122.40±12.10 and 125.40±12.74), and the differences were statistically significant ( tSGC7901=14.07, 13.50, 14.43 and 20.62; tAGS=10.27, 14.75, 14.68 and 16.76; all P<0.01). The results of Western blotting showed that the expression of E-cadherin of PTBP1 knockdown group was higher than that of the blank control group and the negative control group (SGC7901: 1.42±0.05 vs. 0.53±0.05 and 0.57±0.03; AGS: 1.34±0.04 vs. 0.54±0.03 and 0.61±0.01), however the expression levels of N-cadherin and vimentin were both lower than those of the blank control group and the negative control group (SGC7901: 0.50±0.03 vs. 1.64±0.05 and 1.46±0.07; 0.32±0.07 vs. 1.42±0.07 and 1.33±0.07; AGS: 0.37±0.06 vs. 1.47±0.04 and 1.36±0.04; 0.41±0.04 vs. 1.53±0.06 and 1.37±0.04), and the differences were statistically significant ( tSGC7901=11.63, 13.19, 18.83, 11.68, 11.43 and 10.43; tAGS= 15.02, 16.23, 14.67, 12.97, 14.45 and 17.18; all P<0.01). Conclusions:The expression levels of PTBP1 increase in GC tissues and cells, which may be involved in regulating the proliferation, metastasis and EMT of GC cells.

An LSTM-Based Prediction Method for Lower Limb Intention Perception by Integrative Analysis of Kinect Visual Signal.

Recently, computer vision and deep learning technology has been applied in various gait rehabilitation researches. Considering the long short-term memory (LSTM) network has been proved an excellent performance in learn sequence feature representations, we proposed a lower limb joint trajectory prediction method based on LSTM for conducting active rehabilitation on a rehabilitation robotic system. Our approach based on synergy theory exploits that the follow-up lower limb joint trajectory, i.e. limb intention, could be generated by joint angles of the previous swing process of upper limb which were acquired from Kinect platform, an advanced computer vision platform for motion tracking. A customize Kinect-Treadmill data acquisition platform was built for this study. With this platform, data acquisition on ten healthy subjects is processed in four different walking speeds to acquire the joint angles calculated by Kinect visual signals of upper and lower limb swing. Then, the angles of hip and knee in one side which were presented as lower limb intentions are predicted by the fore angles of the elbow and shoulder on the opposite side via a trained LSTM model. The results indicate that the trained LSTM model has a better estimation of predicting the lower limb intentions, and the feasibility of Kinect visual signals has been validated as well.

A comprehensive hierarchical classification based on multi-features of breast DCE-MRI for cancer diagnosis.

Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) is widely used for early diagnosis of breast cancer. The commonly used morphological feature (MF), dynamic feature (DF), and texture feature (TF) from breast dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) have been proved very valuable and are studied in this paper. However, previous studies ignored the prior knowledge that most of the benign lesions have clearer and smoother edges than malignant ones. Therefore, two new TFs are proposed. To obtain an optimal feature subset and an accurate classification result, feature selection is applied in this paper. Moreover, most existing CAD models with simple structure only focus on common lesions and ignore hard-to-spot lesions so that a satisfied performance can be obtained for common lesions but there are some contradictions for those hard-to-spot lesions. Therefore, in this paper, a comprehensive hierarchical model is proposed to deal with contradictions and predict all kinds of lesions. The experimental result shows that the new features obviously increase ACC of TF from 0.7788 to 0.8584 and feature selection increases ACC of DF form 0.6991 to 0.7345. More importantly, compared with the existing CAD models and deep learning method, the proposed model which provides a higher performance for both common and hard-to-spot lesions significantly increases the classification performance with sensitivity of 0.9452 and specificity of 0.9000. Graphical abstract.

Using Eye Aspect Ratio to Enhance Fast and Objective Assessment of Facial Paralysis.

A rapid and objective assessment of the severity of facial paralysis allows rehabilitation physicians to choose the optimal rehabilitation treatment regimen for their patients. In this study, patients with facial paralysis were enrolled as study objects, and the eye aspect ratio (EAR) index was proposed for the eye region. The correlation between EAR and the facial nerve grading system 2.0 (FNGS 2.0) score was analyzed to verify the ability of EAR to enhance FNGS 2.0 for the rapid and objective assessment of the severity of the facial paralysis. Firstly, in order to accurately calculate the EAR, we constructed a landmark detection model based on the face images of facial paralysis patients (FP-FLDM). Evaluation results showed that the error rate of facial feature point detection in patients with facial paralysis of FP-FLDM is 17.1%, which was significantly superior to the landmark detection model based on normal face images (NF-FLDM). Secondly, in this study, the Fréchet distance was used to calculate the difference in bilateral EAR of facial paralysis patients and to verify the correlation between this difference and the corresponding FNGS 2.0 score. The results showed that the higher the FNGS 2.0 score , the greater the difference in bilateral EAR. The correlation coefficient between the bilateral EAR difference and the corresponding FNGS 2.0 score was 0.9673, indicating a high correlation. Finally, through a 10-fold crossvalidation, we can know that the accuracy of scoring the eyes of patients with facial paralysis using EAR was 85.7%, which can be used to enhance the objective and rapid assessment of the severity of facial paralysis by FNGS 2.0.

[Comparison of the effects of injured vertebra pedicle fixation combined with vertebroplasty and vertebra pedicle screw fixation combined with vertebroplasty in the treatment of osteoporotic thoracolumbar burst fractures].

OBJECTIVE: To assess the curative effects of injured vertebra pedicle fixation combined with vertebroplasty and short-segment pedicle screw fixation combined with vertebroplasty in treatment of osteoporotic thoracolumbar burst fractures. METHODS: Seventy patients with osteoporotic thoracolumbar burst fractures who met the inclusion criteria were collected in the study from January 2015 to December 2017. Among them, 35 patients were treated with injured vertebra pedicle fixation combined with vertebroplasty (group A), including 20 males and 15 females, aged from 55 to 74 years with an average of (64.03± 7.82) years. Twenty-six cases were type A3 and 9 cases were type A4 according to the AO typing;another 35 patients were treated with short segment pedicle screw fixation combined with vertebroplasty (group B), including 18 males and 17 females, aged from 54 to 72 years with an average of (62.78±6.40) years. Twenty-eight cases were type A3 and 7 cases were type A4 according to AO typing. Operation length, intraoperative bleeding volume, complication, imaging parameters and clinical effects were compared between the two groups. RESULTS: All the patients were followed up for at least 12 months. There were no significant differences in gender, age, injury site, preoperative VAS, Cobb angle, and injured vertebral height before surgery. There were no significant differences in operation length, intraoperative bleeding volume between two groups. In terms of VAS scores before surgery, 1 week after surgery, and at the final follow up, group A was 5.5 ±2.5, 1.8 ±0.8, 0.9 ±0.4, group B was 5.4 ± 2.3, 1.7±0.6, 1.2±1.8, respectively;injured vertebral height was (40.4±8.8)%, (92.0±4.9)%, (87.1±3.8)% in group A, and (41.2±6.6)%, (93.2±4.6)%, (80.0±4.3)% in group B;Cobb angle was (18.4±6.9) °, (2.8±2.2) °, (4.2±2.6) ° in group A, and (16.8±7.2) °, (2.7±2.5) °, (6.0±2.4) ° in group B. There were significant differences in the 3 parameters above before the operation and at the final follow up in all groups (P<0.05). There were significant differences in the Cobb angle and injured vertebral height between 1 week after operation and at the final follow up (P<0.05). At the final follow up, injured vertebral height in group A was obviously better than that in group B (P<0.05). Internal fixation failure occurred in 2 cases from the group A, and occurred in 4 cases from the group B. There were no neurological complications in both groups. CONCLUSION: For osteoporotic thoracolumbar vertebral burst fractures, injured vertebra pedicle fixation combined with vertebroplasty and vertebra pedicle screw fixation combined with vertebroplasty can achieve good clinical effects. However, injured vertebra pedicle fixation combined with vertebroplasty is better at maintaining postoperative vertebral height and sagittal arrangement, and reducing internal fixation related complications. The treatment strategy is worthy of application and promotion.

Case report on a misleading case of appendiceal perforation presented with severe generalized convulsion.

Appendicitis and convulsions are two common pathologies among children. Though appendicitis has some certain symptoms, they might present with atypical symptoms in young ages. Here we present a misleading case of a perforated appendix that presented with severe generalized convulsion, no significant abdominal symptoms and had a recent history of mild gastrointestinal problems. The primary symptoms and the related examination findings guided the differential diagnosis as viral encephalitis, febrile convulsion, and Epilepsy. The initial treatment was started accordingly with an aim to prevent further convulsion. But this case was later diagnosed as a case of peritonitis following perforated appendix and was operated successfully. After surgery, the patient recovered with no further attack of convulsion even following the postoperative withdrawal of sedative therapy. He was discharged on the 7th postoperative day and there were no major complaints on his follow-ups. Such misleading cases usually lead to misdiagnosis and might cause morbidity, even endanger the life of the patient. Therefore regarding children of sudden generalized convulsion with even minute abdominal findings or recent gastrointestinal history, it is necessary to pay attention and evaluate the abdomen by a CT or MRI besides the nervous system at the first impression.