PTSD prevalence and factors in intern nursing students after COVID-19 full liberalization in China: a cross-sectional study.

Objective: This study aimed to assess the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and its influencing factors among intern nursing students after the full liberalization of the COVID-19 prevention and control policy in China. Methods: Participants completed the online survey from January 14 to January 19, 2023. A demographic questionnaire, COVID-19 and internship-related questionnaire, the Fear of COVID-19 scale, the Primary Care PTSD Screen, and the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale were used to conduct the online survey. Results: Of 438 participants, 88.4% tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 6 months. The prevalence of fear, resilience, and PTSD was 16.9, 15.5, and 11.2%, respectively. Direct care of COVID patients in hospital (OR = 2.084, 95%CI 1.034 ~ 4.202), the experience of occupational exposure (OR = 2.856, 95%CI 1.436 ~ 5.681), working with an experienced team (OR = 2.120, 95%CI 1.070 ~ 4.198), and fear COVID-19 (OR = 8.269, 95%CI 4.150 ~ 16.479) were significantly and positively associated with PTSD in nursing internship students. Conclusion: After COVID-19 full liberalization in China, intern nursing students still experienced pandemic-related mental distress, which can bring PTSD. Adequate support and counseling should be provided, as needed, to intern nursing students who are about to enter the workforce and have experienced severe PTSD symptoms related to COVID-19. Our findings indicated that should understand the importance of screening, formulate intervention strategies and preventive measures to address psychosocial problems, and provide coping skills training to intern nursing students.

The effectiveness of using situational awareness and case-based seminars in a comprehensive nursing skill practice course for undergraduate nursing students: a quasi-experimental study.

BACKGROUND: Nurses play an important role in healthcare development. The increasing demands for nurses mean that nursing schools at the undergraduate level have the responsibility to ensure patient safety and quality care through a well-designed curriculum. This research aimed to evaluate the effect of the teaching method combined with situational awareness and case-based seminars in a comprehensive nursing skills practice course on the level of self-directed learning, professional identity, academic self-efficacy, theoretical scores, practical scores, teaching satisfaction, and student competence among nursing students. METHODS: The research population comprised was of the grades of 2019 and 2020 at Wannan Medical College in Anhui Province, China (n = 169, response rate 77.88%). The observation group from grade 2020 used the teaching method combined with situational awareness and case-based seminars, whereas the control group from grade 2019 used the traditional teaching mode. General information, self-directed learning, a professional identity, and academic self-efficacy were compared between the two groups. This research used means and standard deviations, chi-square, the Shapiro-Wilk test, and an independent sample t-test for statistical analyses. RESULTS: Compared with the control group, the total scores for self-directed learning, professional identity, and academic self-efficacy were higher in the observation group (78.80 ± 7.89 vs 60.21 ± 7.44, 63.39 ± 7.87 vs 52.35 ± 7.68, and 22.31 ± 3.30 vs 21.28 ± 2.31, respectively, with P < 0.05 for all scores). More significant improvements were made in the observation group on the level of theoretical scores (81.39 ± 3.32 vs 76.28 ± 5.90) and practical scores (93.32 ± 4.70 vs 90.67 ± 5.09) (P < 0.05). Meanwhile, teaching satisfaction, which includes teaching method (66/18 vs 32/53) and teacher-student interaction (72/12 vs 34/51), and student competence, which includes team cooperation (67/17 vs 39/46), critical thinking (60/24 vs 31/54), and communication skills (67/17 vs 38/47) after the intervention (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in social persuasion (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: The teaching method combined with situational awareness and case-based seminars in a comprehensive nursing skills practice course has the potential to improve the level of self-directed learning, professional identity, and academic self-efficacy, and it increases theoretical scores, practical scores, teaching satisfaction, and student competence.

Predictive Role of Depressive Symptoms on Frailty and its Components in Chinese Middle-Aged and Older Adults: a Longitudinal Analysis.

Background: To investigate the cross-sectional and longitudinal associations between depressive symptoms and the prevalence of frailty and its components in a nationally representative sample of middle-aged and older Chinese adults. Method: The China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) provided data on 17,104 adults aged ≥ 45 years. Every two years, face-to-face, computer-aided personal interviews (CAPI), and structured questionnaires were used to follow up with the respondents. The Chinese version of the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D) was used to evaluate depressive symptoms, and the Fried criteria were used to measure frailty. The odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the cross-sectional connections among depressive symptoms and frailty and its components in the individuals at baseline were analyzed using logistic regression. A Cox proportional hazards analysis was performed using the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval for the prospective connection between baseline depressive symptoms and frailty and its component in the participants without frailty at baseline. Results: At baseline, 11.62% of participants had frailty, and 57.92% had depressive symptoms. In the cross-sectional analysis, depressive symptoms (OR = 5.222, 95%CI 3.665-7.442) were associated with frailty. In the longitudinal analysis, after adjusting for the full set of covariates among participants free of baseline frailty, depressive symptoms were significantly associated with incident frailty during the short term [HR = 2.193 (1.324-3.631)] and the long term [HR = 1.926 (1.021-3.632)]. Meanwhile, depressive symptoms were associated with an increased risk of weakness [HR = 1.990 (1.250-3.166)], slowness [HR = 1.395 (1.044-1.865)], and exhaustion [HR = 2.827 (2.150-3.719)] onset during the short-term. Depressive symptoms were associated with an increased risk of exhaustion [HR = 2.869 (2.004-4.109)] onset during the long-term. Conclusion: Among middle-aged and older adults, depressive symptoms could predict frailty during 2 years of follow-up and 4 years of follow-up. When considering potential confounding factors, depressive symptoms were considered a predictor of weakness, slowness, and exhaustion. Interventions aimed at preventing depressive symptoms may be beneficial in reducing frailty and its components.

A new l-serine binding orphan SerBP affects indole synthesis in Pantoea ananatis.

Indole is traditionally known as a metabolite of l-tryptophan and now as an important signaling molecule in bacteria, however, the understanding of its upstream synthesis regulation is very limited. Pantoea ananatis YJ76, a predominant diazotrophic endophyte isolated from rice (Oryza sativa), can produce indole to regulate various physiological and biochemical behaviors. We constructed a mutant library of YJ76 using the mTn5 transposon insertion mutation method, from which an indole-deficient mutant was screened out. Via high-efficiency thermal asymmetric interlaced PCR (hiTAIL-PCR), the transposon was determined to be inserted in a gene (RefSeq: WP014605468.1) of unknown function that is highly conserved at the intraspecific level. Bioinformatics analysis implied that the protein (Protein ID: WP089517194.1) encoded by the mutant gene is most likely to be a new orphan substrate-binding protein (SBP) for amino acid ABC transporters. Amino acid supplement cultivation experiments and surface plasmon resonance revealed that the protein could bind to l-serine (KD = 6.149 × 10-5 M). Therefore, the SBP was named as SerBP. This is the first case that a SBP responds to l-serine ABC transports. As a precursor of indole synthesis, the transmembrane transported l-serine was directly correlated with indole signal production and the mutation of serBP gene weakened the resistance of YJ76 to antibiotics, alkali, heavy metals, and starvation. This study provided a new paradigm for exploring the upstream regulatory pathway for indole synthesis of bacteria.

Multi-scenario pear tree inflorescence detection based on improved YOLOv7 object detection algorithm.

Efficient and precise thinning during the orchard blossom period is a crucial factor in enhancing both fruit yield and quality. The accurate recognition of inflorescence is the cornerstone of intelligent blossom equipment. To advance the process of intelligent blossom thinning, this paper addresses the issue of suboptimal performance of current inflorescence recognition algorithms in detecting dense inflorescence at a long distance. It introduces an inflorescence recognition algorithm, YOLOv7-E, based on the YOLOv7 neural network model. YOLOv7 incorporates an efficient multi-scale attention mechanism (EMA) to enable cross-channel feature interaction through parallel processing strategies, thereby maximizing the retention of pixel-level features and positional information on the feature maps. Additionally, the SPPCSPC module is optimized to preserve target area features as much as possible under different receptive fields, and the Soft-NMS algorithm is employed to reduce the likelihood of missing detections in overlapping regions. The model is trained on a diverse dataset collected from real-world field settings. Upon validation, the improved YOLOv7-E object detection algorithm achieves an average precision and recall of 91.4% and 89.8%, respectively, in inflorescence detection under various time periods, distances, and weather conditions. The detection time for a single image is 80.9 ms, and the model size is 37.6 Mb. In comparison to the original YOLOv7 algorithm, it boasts a 4.9% increase in detection accuracy and a 5.3% improvement in recall rate, with a mere 1.8% increase in model parameters. The YOLOv7-E object detection algorithm presented in this study enables precise inflorescence detection and localization across an entire tree at varying distances, offering robust technical support for differentiated and precise blossom thinning operations by thinning machinery in the future.

CircSERPINA3 promoted cell proliferation, migration, and invasion of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma by targeting miR-885-5p.

CircSERPINA3 has been shown to be upregulated in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC); however, whether it regulates the development of LSCC and the specific molecular mechanism remains unclear, which is to be explored in this study. Expressions of circSERPINA3, miR-885-5p, and Malic enzyme 1 (ME1) in LSCC tissues or cell lines were determined by quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). The regulation of circSERPINA3 on the biological behavior of LSCC cells was confirmed by loss and gain experiments (cell counting kit-8, transwell, and colony formation assay). The correlation between circSERPINA3/ME1 and miR-885-5p was predicted and confirmed by bioinformatics analysis, dual-luciferase reporter assay, and qRT-PCR. The effect of circSERPINA3/miR-885-5p axis on the biological behavior of LSCC cells and expressions of epithelial-mesenchymal transition-related proteins was confirmed by rescue experiments. CircSERPINA3 and ME1 was upregulated in LSCC tissues, whereas miR-885-5p was downregulated. MiR-885-5p was the target gene of circSERPINA3, whereas ME1 was the target gene of miR-885-5p. Silent circSERPINA3 suppressed viability, invasion, migration, colony formation, and expression of ME1, claudin-4, snail, and vimentin but elevated expression of miR-885-5p and E-cadherin, whereas overexpressed circSERPINA3 was the opposite. However, miR-885-5p inhibitor or mimic reversed the effects of silent circSERPINA3 or overexpressed circSERPINA3. Collectively, circSERPINA3 promotes proliferation, migration, and invasion of LSCC cells by targeting miR-885-5p.

A Fast Weighted Fuzzy C-Medoids Clustering for Time Series Data Based on P-Splines.

The rapid growth of digital information has produced massive amounts of time series data on rich features and most time series data are noisy and contain some outlier samples, which leads to a decline in the clustering effect. To efficiently discover the hidden statistical information about the data, a fast weighted fuzzy C-medoids clustering algorithm based on P-splines (PS-WFCMdd) is proposed for time series datasets in this study. Specifically, the P-spline method is used to fit the functional data related to the original time series data, and the obtained smooth-fitting data is used as the input of the clustering algorithm to enhance the ability to process the data set during the clustering process. Then, we define a new weighted method to further avoid the influence of outlier sample points in the weighted fuzzy C-medoids clustering process, to improve the robustness of our algorithm. We propose using the third version of mueen's algorithm for similarity search (MASS 3) to measure the similarity between time series quickly and accurately, to further improve the clustering efficiency. Our new algorithm is compared with several other time series clustering algorithms, and the performance of the algorithm is evaluated experimentally on different types of time series examples. The experimental results show that our new method can speed up data processing and the comprehensive performance of each clustering evaluation index are relatively good.

Aeromicrobium piscarium sp. nov., isolated from the intestine of Collichthys lucidus.

A Gram-stain-positive, rod-shaped, whitesmoke-coloured and aerobic bacterium, designated strain Co35T, was isolated from the intestine of Collichthys lucidus collected from the Jiangmen Guangdong Chinese White Dolphin Provincial Nature Reserve. Strain Co35T was able to grow at 15-35 °C (optimal 28 °C), at pH 7.0-8.5 (optimal 8.0) and with 0-9 % (w/v) NaCl (optimal 0.5-1 %). Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that strain Co35T was a member of the genus Aeromicrobium within the family Nocardioidaceae. The genomic DNA G+C content of strain Co35T was 68.4 mol%. Chemotaxonomic analysis showed that the sole respiratory quinone was menaquinone 9 (MK-9), and the major fatty acids included 10-methyl C18 : 0. The polar lipids were found to consist of phosphatidylglycerol (PG), diphosphatidylglycerol (DPG), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylinositol (PI), two unidentified phospholipids (PL1-2) and two unidentified glycolipids (GL1-2). On the basis of its phylogenetic, phenotypic, chemotaxonomic, genotypic and genomic characteristics presented in this study, strain Co35T represents a novel species in the genus Aeromicrobium, for which the name Aeromicrobium piscarium sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is Co35T (=KCTC 49280T=MCCC 1K03754T).

[STIM1 gene silencing suppresses tumor formation of human hypopharyngeal carcinoma cell line FaDu in nude mice].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the inhibition effect of STIM1 gene silencing on tumor growth of human hypopharyngeal carcinoma cell lines FaDu in nude mice. METHODS: STIM1 gene in FaDu was silenced by lentiviral infection, and the effect of inhibition was detected by Real-time PCR and Western blot after lentiviral infection. Nude mice were divided into 2 groups, 5 mice in each group. Inhibition group: subcutaneous inject FaDu cells which STIM1 expression was inhibited. CONTROL GROUP: subcutaneous inject FaDu cells infected with negative control siRNA-expressing lentivirus. Tumor volumes were measured by calipers, and small animal imaging was detected by NightOWL system on the day 10, 14, 18 and 22 after tumor inoculated. Tumor weights were evaluated in the day 22 after tumor inoculated. Statistical analysis was performed using standard student test(P value threshold was 0.05). RESULTS: The expressions of human STIM1 gene and protein in FaDu cells were suppressed effectively after STIM1-siRNA lentiviral infection. The mean tumor volumes of control group and inhibition group were (51±25) mm3 and (40±35) mm3, respectively, on the day 10, (262±107) and (106±41) mm3 on the day 14, (716±226) and (340±158) mm3 on the day, (1 682±592) mm3 and (917±252)mm3 on the day 22 (P<0.05). On the day 22, the tumor weight was (1.22±0.41) g in control group and (0.66±0.26) g in STIM1-siRNA group (P<0.05). Small animal imaging showed that the tumors had a smaller fluorescence range with lower signal intensity in STIM1-siRNA group than in control group on the day 14, 18 and 22. CONCLUSION: The expression of STIM1 in human hypopharyngeal carcinoma cell lines FaDu can be inhibited effectively by lentiviral infection, causing the inhibition of tumor formation and growth.

Stromal interaction molecule 1 (STIM1) silencing inhibits tumor growth and promotes cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in hypopharyngeal carcinoma.

As an important pathway maintaining the balance of intracellular calcium (Ca(2+)), store-operated Ca(2+) entry (SOCE) is critical for cellular functions. Stromal interaction molecule 1 (STIM1), a key component of SOCE, plays a dual role as an endoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+) receptor and an SOCE exciter. Aberrant expression of STIM1 could be discovered in several human cancer cells. However, the role of STIM1 in regulating human hypopharyngeal carcinoma still remains unclear. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to detect expression of STIM1 in human hypopharyngeal carcinoma cell line FaDu. STIM1 on FaDu cells was knocked down by lentiviral transduction method. The biological impacts after knocking down of STIM1 on FaDu cells were investigated in vitro and in vivo. The result of real-time PCR showed that STIM1 was expressed in FaDu cells. Lentiviral transduction efficiently downregulated the expression of STIM1 in FaDu cells at both mRNA and protein levels. Significant downregulation of STIM1 on FaDu cells inhibited cell proliferation, induced cell cycle arrest in G0/G1 phase, promoted cell apoptosis, and restrained cell growth rate. The antigrowth effect of STIM1 silencing was also discovered in FaDu hypopharyngeal tumor model. Our findings indicate that STIM1 is likely to become a new therapeutic target for hypopharyngeal carcinoma treatment.