Silencing p75NTR regulates osteogenic differentiation and angiogenesis of BMSCs to enhance bone healing in fractured rats.

BACKGROUND: Fractures heal through a process that involves angiogenesis and osteogenesis but may also lead to non-union or delayed healing. Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) have been reported to play a pivotal role in bone formation and vascular regeneration and the p75 neurotrophin receptor (p75NTR) as being an important regulator of osteogenesis. Herein, we aim to determine the potential mediation of BMSCs by p75NTR in bone healing. METHODS: Rat BMSCs were identified by flow cytometry (FCM) to detect cell cycle and surface markers. Then transfection of si/oe-p75NTR was performed in BMSCs, followed by Alizarin red staining to detect osteogenic differentiation of cells, immunofluorescence double staining was performed to detect the expression of p75NTR and sortilin, co-immunoprecipitation (CO-IP) was conducted to analyze the interaction between p75NTR and sortilin, and EdU staining and cell scratch assay to assess the proliferation and migration of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs). The expression of HIF-1α, VEGF, and apoptosis-related proteins were also detected. In addition, a rat fracture healing model was constructed, and BMSCs-si-p75NTR were injected, following which the fracture condition was observed using micro-CT imaging, and the expression of platelet/endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1 (CD31) was assessed. RESULTS: The results showed that BMSCs were successfully isolated, p75NTR inhibited apoptosis and the osteogenic differentiation of BMSCs, while si-p75NTR led to a decrease in sortilin expression in BMSCs, increased proliferation and migration in HUVECs, and upregulation of HIF-1α and VEGF expression. In addition, an interaction was observed between p75NTR and sortilin. The knockdown of p75NTR was found to reduce the severity of fracture in rats and increase the expression of CD31 and osteogenesis-related proteins. CONCLUSION: Silencing p75NTR effectively modulates BMSCs to promote osteogenic differentiation and angiogenesis, offering a novel perspective for improving fracture healing.

Low-Dose CT Image Super-resolution Network with Noise Inhibition Based on Feedback Feature Distillation Mechanism.

Low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) has been widely used in medical diagnosis. In practice, doctors often zoom in on LDCT slices for clearer lesions and issues, while, a simple zooming operation fails to suppress low-dose artifacts, leading to distorted details. Therefore, numerous LDCT super-resolution (SR) methods have been proposed to promote the quality of zooming without the increase of the dose in CT scanning. However, there are still some drawbacks that need to be addressed in existing methods. First, the region of interest (ROI) is not emphasized due to the lack of guidance in the reconstruction process. Second, the convolutional blocks extracting fix-resolution features fail to concentrate on the essential multi-scale features. Third, a single SR head cannot suppress the residual artifacts. To address these issues, we propose an LDCT CT joint SR and denoising reconstruction network. Our proposed network consists of global dual-guidance attention fusion modules (GDAFMs) and multi-scale anastomosis blocks (MABs). The GDAFM directs the network to focus on ROI by fusing the extra mask guidance and average CT image guidance, while the MAB introduces hierarchical features through anastomosis connections to leverage multi-scale features and promote the feature representation ability. To suppress radial residual artifacts, we optimize our network using the feedback feature distillation mechanism (FFDM) which shares the backbone to learn features corresponding to the denoising task. We apply the proposed method to the 3D-IRCADB and PANCREAS datasets to evaluate its ability on LDCT image SR reconstruction. The experimental results compared with state-of-the-art methods illustrate the superiority of our approach with respect to peak signal-to-noise (PSNR), structural similarity (SSIM), and qualitative observations. Our proposed LDCT joint SR and denoising reconstruction network has been extensively evaluated through ablation, quantitative, and qualitative experiments. The results demonstrate that our method can recover noise-free and detail-sharp images, resulting in better reconstruction results. Code is available at https://github.com/neu-szy/ldct_sr_dn_w_ffdm .

Rational Design of Orange-Red Emissive Carbon Dots for Tracing Lysosomal Viscosity Dynamics in Living Cells and Zebrafish.

Lysosomal viscosity is an essential microenvironment parameter in lysosomes, which is closely associated to the occurrence and development of various diseases, including cancer. Thus, accurately quantifying lysosomal viscosity changes is highly desirable for a better understanding of the dynamics and biological functions of lysosomes. In this study, lysosome self-targetable orange-red emissive carbon dots (OR-CDs) were rationally designed and developed for monitoring lysosomal viscosity fluctuations. The enhanced fluorescence of OR-CDs could be obviously observed as the viscosity increased from 1.07 to 950 cP. Moreover, the as-prepared OR-CDs could quickly enter cells for lysosome-targeting imaging and visualize viscosity variations in living cells and zebrafish. More importantly, by utilizing OR-CDs, we successfully achieved tracing the variations in lysosomal viscosity during the autophagy process. Additionally, as cancer cells possess high viscosity than normal cells, the OR-CDs have been effectively utilized for cancer imaging from cell, tissue, and organ to in vivo levels. It is expected that the developed OR-CDs not only provide a meaningful tool for visualizing investigations of lysosome viscosity-related diseases but also shed light on the development based on the nanomaterial for the clinical diagnosis of cancer.

Sub-5 nm Gate-Length Monolayer Selenene Transistors.

Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors are being considered as alternative channel materials as silicon-based field-effect transistors (FETs) have reached their scaling limits. Recently, air-stable 2D selenium nanosheet FETs with a gate length of 5 µm were experimentally produced. In this study, we used an ab initio quantum transport approach to simulate sub-5 nm gate-length double-gate monolayer (ML) selenene FETs. When considering negative-capacitance technology and underlap, we found that 3 nm gate-length p-type ML selenene FETs can meet the 2013 ITRS standards for high-performance applications along the armchair and zigzag directions in the 2028 horizon. Therefore, ML selenene has the potential to be a channel material that can scale Moore's law down to a gate length of 3 nm.

Brazilin inhibits bladder cancer by promoting cell necroptosis.

Brazilin possesses anticancer effects, but the mechanisms are poorly understood. This study investigated the mechanisms of brazilin-induced cell death in the T24 human bladder cancer cell line. Low serum cell culture and the lactate dehydrogenase assay were used to confirm the antitumor effect of brazilin. Annexin V and propidium iodide double staining, transmission electron microscopy, fluo-3-AM assay for Ca2+ mobilization and caspase activity assay were performed to identify the type of cell death after brazilin treatment. Mitochondria membrane potentials were measured using JC-1. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction and western blot analyses were performed to verify the expression of the necroptosis-related genes and proteins receptor interacting protein 1 (RIP1), RIP3 and mixed lineage kinase domain-like (MLKL). The results showed that brazilin induced necrosis in T24 cells and upregulated the mRNA and protein levels of RIP1, RIP3 and MLKL and Ca2+ influx. The necroptosis-mediated cell death was rescued by the necroptosis inhibitor necrostatin-1 (Nec-1), but not by the apoptosis inhibitor z-VAD-fmk. Brazilin repressed caspase 8 expression and decreased the mitochondrial membrane potentials; both effects were partially reversed by Nec-1. Brazilin induced physiological and morphological changes in T24 cells and RIP1/RIP3/MLKL-mediated necroptosis might be involved. In conclusion, the results confirm the involvement of necroptosis in brazilin-induced cell death and suggest that brazilin could be explored as an anticancer agent against bladder cancer.

Effects of porous structure on the deformation failure mechanism of cement sheaths for wellbores.

The influence and mechanism of porous structure on the deformation failure of cement sheaths under hydraulic pressure is still unclear. To solve this problem, a net slurry cement sheath and a liquid silicon cement sheath were prepared by using a cement material and a liquid silicon suspension. The distributions of the pore radius and spatial location were analyzed using computed tomography scanning and statistics to obtain their probability density distribution functions. Based on the distribution functions, the single-layer and double-layer porous reconstruction models of the net slurry cement sheath and liquid silicon cement sheath were constructed using a FLAC 3D program. A series of numerical simulations were conducted to study the deformation failure of the cement sheaths under in situ stress and hydraulic pressure. The effects of the porous and double-layer structures on the breakdown pressure, plastic failure zone, radial deformation, and stress distribution of the cement sheaths were analyzed. As a result, the mechanisms for the influence of the porous and double-layer structures on the failure mode, failure path, and interaction between the cement sheath and metal casing were revealed. The results of this research provide a theoretical basis for an in-depth understanding of the failure mechanisms of porous cement sheaths.

Multi-pulse dynamic patterns in a mode-locked erbium-doped fiber laser based on an Sb2S3-PVA saturable absorber.

Multi-pulse dynamic patterns have been experimentally documented in a passively mode-locked (PML) erbium-doped fiber (EDF) laser using an Sb2S3-PVA saturable absorber (SA). The fundamental mode-locking operation, with a repetition rate of ∼3.22 MHz, a pulse width of ∼2.5 ps, a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of ∼50 dB and a peak power over 200 W, was achieved under a pump power from 280 to 360 mW with appropriate polarization states introduced by the polarization controllers (PCs). By rotating the orientation of the intra-cavity PCs carefully and slowly at a pump power of 350 mW, it was found that a multi-pulse bunch was transformed gradually from a single-pulse to a twelve-pulse bunch, with several intermediate transition states of multi-pulse bunches being observed. In addition, other characteristic modes including disordered multi-pulses and soliton rains have been experimentally observed by meticulously adjusting the polarization states of PCs at a pump power of 350 mW. Our systematic study clearly demonstrates that Sb2S3has potential as an effective SA for generating different operation states of multi-pulses in PML anomalous-dispersion EDF lasers.

Enrichment of Isaria felina Culture with Selenium Enhances its in vivo Antitumor Effects on H22 Hepatoma via Decreasing the Expression of VEGF.

BACKGROUND: The polysaccharide extract of C. sinensis, Isaria felina (IF), has antitumor effects. Selenium (Se) can improve disease prevention and reduce the toxicity of toxic elements, but the effect of Se-enriched IF on hepatoma remains unknown. OBJECTIVE: To determine the organic transformation of Se and compare the antitumor effects between Se-enriched IF (IF-Se) and IF on xenograft H22 hepatoma-bearing mice. METHODS: Se was added to the solid-state culture medium, and the organic Se content was detected by HPLC-ICP-MS. Forty-two Kunming mice were randomly divided into seven groups to test the antitumor effects of low- (300 mg/kg) and high- (600 mg/kg) doses of IF-Se and IF through xenograft. Huai'er granules were administered as the positive control. In addition, interleukin (IL)-2 and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expressions were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and immunohistochemistry method. RESULTS: The conversion rate in the IF-Se70, IF-Se140, and IF-Se280 groups were 91.5%, 93.4%, and 89.3%, respectively. Therefore, IF-Se140 was used to carry out the subsequent experiments. The tumor inhibition rates of IF-Se were significantly higher compared with IF (P < 0.05). Moreover, the spleen coefficient, IL-2, and VEGF expression levels significantly decreased (all Ps < 0.05), and the thymus coefficient significantly increased (P < 0.05) in the high-dose IF-Se group compared with the model control group. CONCLUSION: The inhibitory effects of IF on H22 hepatoma-bearing mice were enhanced after Se enrichment. Therefore, Se-enriched IF might be a new strategy for treating hepatoma.

Proapoptotic effect of nonthermal pulsed ultrasound on prostate cancer cells in a nude mouse model.

BACKGROUND: Ultrasound (US) can induce cell injury, and we have previously reported that adjusting the pulse repetition frequency (PRF) of ultrasound output can induce prostate cancer cell destruction without causing a rise in the temperature of the irradiated area. In this study, we examined the mechanism of nonthermal ultrasound cell destruction, which was not fully clarified in our previous reports. METHODS: In vitro, we evaluated postirradiation cells immediately after treatment and examined membrane disruption by proliferation assay, LDH assay, and apoptosis assay. In vivo, we injected mice with human LNCaP and PC-3 prostate cancer cells and evaluated the therapeutic effects of US irradiation by H-E staining and immunostaining. RESULTS: Proliferation assays showed inhibition at 3 h postirradiation independently of PRF and cell line (p < 0.05). Quantitative assessment of apoptosis/necrosis by flow cytometry showed widely varying results depending on cell type. LNCaP showed an increase in late apoptosis at 0 h independent of PRF (p < 0.05), while PC-3 showed no significant difference at 0 h. The LDH assay showed an increase in LDH independent of PRF in LNCaP (p < 0.05 respectively), but no significant difference in PC-3. In vivo, tumor volume was compared and a significant reduction was observed at 10 Hz for LNCaP (p < 0.05) and 100 Hz for PC-3 (p < 0.001) at 3 weeks after the start of irradiation. The excised tumors were evaluated with Ki-67, Caspase-3, and CD-31 and showed a significant treatment effect independent of cell type and PRF (p < 0.001 respectively). CONCLUSION: Examining the mechanism behind the therapeutic effect of US irradiation revealed that the main effect was achieved by apoptosis induction rather than necrosis.

Brazilin Inhibits the Invasion and Metastasis of Breast Cancer.

This study aimed to determine the effect of brazilin on the invasion and metastasis of breast cancer. The breast cancer MDA-MB-231 and 4T1 cells were treated with brazilin to investigate proliferation and invasion using cell proliferation assay, wound healing assay, transwell assay. BALB/C mice were randomized into normal, model, positive control, and Sappan L. extract groups (n = 6/group). The mice were injected with 4T1 cells via caudal veins to establish a lung metastasis model and via subcutaneous injection to establish a xenograft model. Metastatic nodules on the lung surface, survival rates and visceral indices were evaluated. Subcutaneous tumor volumes and weights were measured. Brazilin inhibited the proliferation of breast cancer cells and significantly inhibited the wound healing, migration, and invasion of MDA-MB-231 and 4T1 cells. Compared with the normal group, the average survival days and spleen index in the model group were significantly decreased, but the lung index and number of pulmonary metastatic nodules were significantly increased. Compared with the model group, the average survival and spleen index of dose groups were significantly increased, and the lung index, the number of pulmonary metastatic nodules, and tumor volume and weight were significantly decreased. Brazilin significantly inhibits the proliferation and metastasis of breast cancer. This study might suggest a new therapeutic agent for breast cancer.

Preparation and application of patient-derived xenograft mice model of colorectal cancer.

Objectives: Patient-derived xenograft (PDX) model becomes a more and more important tool for tumor research. This study aimed to establish a colorectal cancer PDX model and verify its applicability. Materials and Methods: Fresh human colorectal cancer tissue was surgically removed and subcutaneously inoculated into immunodeficient mice to establish the PDX model. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining and immunohistochemical staining were used to evaluate the model. The successful PDX model was selected to study the efficacy of capecitabine in treating colorectal cancer. Results: HE staining showed that the PDX mice model of colorectal cancer could preserve the histological characteristics of the primary tumor. Immunohistochemistry staining showed α-fetoprotein (AFP), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), and E-cadherin were strongly positively expressed in primary human and PDX tumor tissues, with a high degree of similarity. Capecitabine significantly inhibited PDX tumor growth and reduced the expression of AFP and CEA proteins in the tumor tissues (all P s<0.05). Conclusion: We successfully established a colorectal cancer PDX model, and the PDX model could retain the histological and biological characteristics of the primary tumor. Using this PDX model, we revealed that capecitabine at a dose of 300-400 mg/kg can effectively treat colorectal cancer, and no significant difference in toxicity was found among different dose groups. The current work provides a feasible framework for establishing and validating the PDX tumor model to better facilitate the evaluation of drug efficacy and safety.

Management of unresectable and recurrent intra-abdominal desmoid tumors treated with ultrasound-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound: A retrospective single-center study.

To assess the efficacy and safety of ultrasound (US)-guided high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) ablation for treatment of unresectable and recurrent intra-abdominal desmoid tumors. From June 2014 to March 2020, 15 patients with consecutive unresectable and recurrent diseases that pathologically proven to be intra-abdominal desmoid tumors had undergone the treatment of US-guided HIFU ablation. All patients underwent contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging before and after HIFU treatment. Nonperfused volume ratio was used to evaluate the effect of HIFU therapy. Intraprocedural and postprocedural adverse effects and complications are recorded to assess the safety of the therapy. Outcome of HIFU ablation has been investigated through serial contrast-enhanced imaging examinations during follow up. Out of 15 patients 14 of them have successfully completed the whole therapy, 1 patient is ineffective and gives up further treatment. The mean nonperfused volume ratio is 71.1% (95% confidence interval, 3% to 88.2%). During a mean follow up of 29 months (range from 8 to 61 months), the mean tumor volume was reduced by 59% (95% confidence interval, +49% to -100%). No tumor spreads along the treated area in all patients except one. Complications have occurred in 5 patients (33.3%), including bowel rupture (1 case), intra-abdominal abscess (1 case), slight injury to the femoral nerve (1 case), and bone injury (2 cases), the bowel rupture patient underwent surgery; the others have been cured during the follow up. US-guided HIFU ablation is an effective treatment modality for patients suffered from unresectable and recurrent intra-abdominal desmoid tumors.

Combined Treatment with Ultrasound and Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors for Prostate Cancer.

Background: Ultrasound (US) is mostly used for diagnostic purpose but could be used for cancer treatments with a US intensity or frequency fitted to such a purpose. Prostate cancer (PC) has the highest prevalence in the urological field, but indications for immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) for PC are limited to very few cases. In this study, we compared the antitumor effect of US irradiation alone with the combined use of US and ICIs in vitro and in vivo. Methods: PC cell line TRAMP-C2 cells were used in our experiments. TRAMP-C2 cells were irradiated with US with pulse repeated frequencies (PRF) of 1, 10, and 100 Hz. Cell proliferation was evaluated by MTS assay and apoptotic cells were analyzed using flow cytometry. To verify the antitumor effect of US irradiation on PC in vivo, we conducted animal experiments using mice. TRAMP-C2-bearing mice were irradiated with US with PRF of 10 and 100 Hz. Three weeks after the start of US irradiation, anti-PD-1 antibody was administered to the mice. Finally, mice were sacrificed and tumors were collected. Immunohistochemical (IHC) analyses were assessed for cleaved caspase-3 and CD3 in tumor cell extracts. Results: Cell proliferation assays showed that 1 and 10 Hz US significantly inhibited cell survival (p < 0.0001). In addition, US irradiation induced apoptosis at 1, 10, and 100 Hz (p = 0.0129, p = 0.0150, and p = 0.0017, respectively). In animal experiments, a significant tumor growth inhibitory effect was observed at 10 and 100 Hz, and 100 Hz + ICIs (p < 0.05, respectively). Hematoxylin−eosin (H−E) staining showed a significant increase in the necrotic area of the tumor at 100 Hz and 100 Hz + ICIs (p < 0.05, respectively). In addition, under IHC staining the expression level of cleaved caspase-3 and the number of CD3-positive cells increased at 100 Hz (p < 0.05, respectively). Conclusion: US irradiation induced apoptosis in cells and reduced cell viability. In vivo tumor growth was suppressed by combined treatment with US irradiation and ICIs. Further research on immune system activation will lead to less invasive and more efficient treatments for PC.

A case of refractory urethritis with repeated doctor shopping.

INTRODUCTION: In the field of sexually transmitted diseases, resistance and diversification of causative organisms are becoming a problem. We report a case in which the course of the disease was complicated by doctor shopping. CASE PRESENTATION: A man in his 40s visited his local doctor for painful urination and cloudy urine. Due to the lack of improvement in symptoms after antibiotic treatment, he self-selected to visit six hospitals in just five months. He visited our clinic only a few times and then stopped coming. CONCLUSION: Doctor shopping, as well as self-diagnosis and self-treatment, will continue to increase. Patient education is important, but medical professionals also need to be aware of the possibility of doctor shopping when treating patients.

Accurate and robust feature description and dense point-wise matching based on feature fusion for endoscopic images.

Despite the rapid technical advancement of augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) in minimally invasive surgery (MIS) in recent years, monocular-based 2D/3D reconstruction still remains technically challenging in AR/MR guided surgery navigation nowadays. In principle, soft tissue surface is smooth and watery with sparse texture, specular reflection, and frequent deformation. As a result, we frequently obtain only sparse feature points that give rise to incorrect matching results with conventional image processing methods. To ameliorate, in this paper we enunciate an accurate and robust description and matching method for dense feature points in endoscopic videos. Our new method first extracts contours of the low-rank image sequences based on the adaptive robust principal component analysis (RPCA) decomposition. Then we propose a multi-scale dense geometric feature description approach, which simultaneously extracts dense feature descriptors of the contours in the original Euclidean coordinate space, the accompanying 3D color coordinate space, and the derived curvature-gradient coordinate space. Finally, we devise a new algorithm for both global and local point-wise matching based on feature fusion. For global matching, we employ the fast Fourier transform (FFT) to reduce the dimension of the dense feature descriptors. For local feature point matching, in order to enhance the robustness and accuracy of the matching, we cluster multiple contour points to form "super-point" based on dense feature descriptors and their spatio-temporal continuity. The comprehensive experimental results confirm that our novel approach can overcome the highlight influence, and robustly describe contours from image sequences of soft tissue surfaces. Compared with the state-of-the-art feature point description and matching methods, our analysis framework shows the key advantages of both robustness and accuracy in dense point-wise matching, even when the severe soft tissue deformation occurs. Our new approach is expected to have high potential in 2D/3D reconstruction in endoscopy.

Lipid Droplet-Specific Fluorescent Probe for In Vivo Visualization of Polarity in Fatty Liver, Inflammation, and Cancer Models.

Elucidating the intrinsic relationship between diseases and lipid droplet (LD) polarity remains a great challenge owing to the lack of the research on multiple disease models. Until now, the visualization of abnormal LD polarity in models of inflammation and clinical cancer patient samples has not been achieved. To meet the urgent challenge, we facilely synthesized a robust LD-specific and polarity-sensitive fluorescent probe (LD-TTP), which consists of a triphenylamine segment as an electron-donor group (D) and a pyridinium as an electron-acceptor moiety (A), forming a typical D-π-A molecular configuration. Owing to the unique intramolecular charge transfer effect, LD-TTP exhibits high sensitivity to polarity change in the linear range from Δf = 0.258 to 0.312, with over 278-fold fluorescence enhancement. Moreover, we revealed that LD-TTP possessed satisfactory ability for sensitively monitoring LD-polarity changes in living cells. Using LD-TTP, we first demonstrated the detection of LD-polarity changes in fatty liver tissues and inflammatory living mice via confocal laser scanning fluorescence imaging. Surprisingly, the visualization of LD polarity has been achieved not only at the cellular levels and living organs but also in surgical specimens from cancer patients, thus holding great potential in the clinical diagnosis of human cancer. All these features render LD-TTP an effective tool for medical diagnosis of LD polarity-related diseases.

Cordyceps sinensis-derived fungus Isaria felina ameliorates experimental autoimmune thyroiditis in mice.

AIMS: This study aimed to investigate the therapeutic effect of Cordyceps sinensis-derived fungus Isaria felina on experimental autoimmune thyroiditis (EAT). METHODS: A NaI-induced EAT mouse model was established. The mice received oral administration of vehicle, low-dose Isaria felina (300 mg/kg), or high-dose Isaria felina (600 mg/kg) once a day for four weeks before euthanasia. Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) was performed to measure serum thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels, thyroid antibodies, and cytokines. Hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining was conducted to assess histopathological changes in the thyroid tissue samples of mice. TUNEL and Bcl-2 immunohistochemistry (IHC) were performed to evaluate cell apoptosis, and cleaved caspase-3 IHC was performed to detect the relative expression in the thyroid tissue samples. RESULTS: Compared with KIO3 and KI water, NaI water consumption successfully induced EAT in mice, as evidenced by significantly increased circulating TSH and thyroid antibody levels, along with typical histopathological abnormalities of autoimmune thyroiditis (AIT) in the thyroid tissue samples. Compared with vehicle or low-dose Isaria felina, high-dose Isaria felina treatment resulted in significant reductions in white cell counts and circulating TSH, thyroid antibody, and cytokine levels of EAT mice. High-dose Isaria felina also alleviated histopathological abnormalities and attenuated TUNEL staining, Bcl-2 protein expression, and cleaved caspase-3 expression in the thyroid tissue samples. CONCLUSION: High-dose Isaria felina treatment alleviates thyroid inflammation and cell apoptosis in EAT, serving as a novel, promising therapeutic agent for AIT.

[SURGEON QUESTIONNAIRE FOR ESTABLISHING A SURGEON EDUCATION SYSTEM FOR TRANSURETHRAL LASER RESECTION OF THE PROSTATE (HoLEP)].

(Introduction)HoLEP's role in the surgical management of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is steadily growing. In this study, a questionnaire containing questions about perioperative management was submitted to HoLEP surgeons to help establish standard surgical training procedures. (Methods)We sent a comprehensive 17 questionnaires on HoLEP procedures to 18 surgeons. The questionnaire asked, "Which method are you using, the 1-LOBE or 3-LOBE method?", "What educational methods are being used for surgeons?", "How long is the catheter insertion period after HoLEP?", and "What is the most difficult problem encountered in surgical HoLEP education and what aspect of training is the most emphasized?" (Results)Sixteen (88.9%) surgeons answered these questionnaires. Five surgeons reported using the one lobe method, five surgeons reported using the three lobe method, and four surgeons answered that it depends on the case. Regarding educational methods, the main answer was that it is important to evaluate pre-HoLEP imaging tests such as MRI and cystoscopy and to simulate surgery for education. Regarding the postoperative catheter insertion period, 1 day: 1 surgeon, 2 days: 9 surgeons, 3 days: 3 surgeons, 4 days or more: 1 surgeon. The most important thing reported for surgical education was to help beginners understand the characteristics of lasers, including direction, distance to prostate tissue, and adenoma removal. (Conclusions)The surgeons' responses clearly indicated some differences in practices between institutions. More detailed data from these results will provide a step towards designing standardized surgical and educational protocols for HoLEP.

High Performance Both in Low-Speed Tracking and Large-Angle Swing Scanning Based on Adaptive Nonsingular Fast Terminal Sliding Mode Control for a Three-Axis Universal Inertially Stabilized Platform.

In order to improve the performance in the practical engineering applications including so called low-speed video tracking and large-angle swing scanning imaging at the same time for a three-axis universal inertially stabilized platform (UISP), we propose an adaptive nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode control (ANFTSMC) strategy subjected to the uncertain disturbances and input saturation constraints. First of all, a second-order dynamic model is established with uncertain disturbances and input saturation constraints. Secondly, a nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode controller (NTSMC) is constructed to ensure the system error converges to zero fast in a finite time; meanwhile, a novel reaching law based on a modified normal distribution function is designed to adjust the control gain. Thirdly, an adaptive control law is designed to online estimate the parameters of the lumped uncertain disturbances. Additionally, the stability of the control system is proved by Lyapunov theory. Finally, extensive comparative simulations and experiments are carried out, the results comprehensively show the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed control method, which can accelerate convergence, weaken the chattering, and has the better control accuracy and robust performance both in the low-speed tracking and large-angle swing scanning applications. Moreover, the exact dynamic model and the prior knowledge of the upper bounds of the disturbances are not required during the procedure of the controller design, which make it have more extensive application value in practical engineering.