A comparison of beliefs about exercise during pregnancy between Chinese and Australian pregnant women

Background: Despite the well-established benefits of exercise during pregnancy, many women remain inactive. This may be related, in part, to women's beliefs about exercise in pregnancy, which are likely influenced by cultural background. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to compare attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control toward exercise, together with current levels of exercise participation between Chinese and Australian women during pregnancy. A second aim was to determine the extent to which these factors predict intention to exercise within a Theory of Planned Behaviour framework. Methods: Pregnant women (22 ± 2 weeks of gestation) living in China (n = 240) and Australia (n = 215) completed a questionnaire designed to assess a) maternal beliefs regarding the importance of exercise in relation to other health behaviours, b) attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and intentions toward exercise, and c) current levels of physical activity. One-way analyses of variance were used to compare the demographics, maternal beliefs, attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control, intentions to exercise, and current physical activity levels between the Chinese and Australian samples. Structural equation modelling was used to determine which factors predicted intention to exercise in the two samples. Results: Australian women reported higher levels of current exercise and intentions to exercise in the next four weeks of pregnancy compared with Chinese women. These observations were associated with higher instrumental attitudes, ratings of subjective norm, and perceived behavioural control toward exercise in the Australian women. Instrumental attitudes and perceived behavioural control predicted intention to exercise in the Australian women, while perceived behavioural control was the only predictor of intentions to exercise in the Chinese sample. Conclusions: Beliefs, attitudes, barriers and intentions towards exercise during pregnancy differ between cultures. Understanding these differences may assist in the design of exercise interventions to maximise exercise adherence and lifelong physical activity patterns

DiffusionGPT: LLM-Driven Text-to-Image Generation System

Diffusion models have opened up new avenues for the field of image generation, resulting in the proliferation of high-quality models shared on open-source platforms. However, a major challenge persists in current text-to-image systems are often unable to handle diverse inputs, or are limited to single model results. Current unified attempts often fall into two orthogonal aspects: i) parse Diverse Prompts in input stage; ii) activate expert model to output. To combine the best of both worlds, we propose DiffusionGPT, which leverages Large Language Models (LLM) to offer a unified generation system capable of seamlessly accommodating various types of prompts and integrating domain-expert models. DiffusionGPT constructs domain-specific Trees for various generative models based on prior knowledge. When provided with an input, the LLM parses the prompt and employs the Trees-of-Thought to guide the selection of an appropriate model, thereby relaxing input constraints and ensuring exceptional performance across diverse domains. Moreover, we introduce Advantage Databases, where the Tree-of-Thought is enriched with human feedback, aligning the model selection process with human preferences. Through extensive experiments and comparisons, we demonstrate the effectiveness of DiffusionGPT, showcasing its potential for pushing the boundaries of image synthesis in diverse domains

Effect of magnetic Fe3O4 nanoparticles with 2-methoxyestradiol on the cell-cycle progression and apoptosis of myelodysplastic syndrome cells

This study aims to evaluate the potential benefit of combination therapy of 2-methoxyestradiol (2ME) and magnetic nanoparticles of Fe3O4 (MNPs-Fe3O4) on myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) SKM-1 cells and its underlying mechanisms. The effect of the unique properties of tetraheptylammonium-capped MNPs-Fe3O4 with 2ME on cytotoxicity was tested by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay. Cell-cycle distribution and apoptosis were assessed by flow cytometry. The expression of cell-cycle marker protein was measured by Western blotting. Growth inhibition rate of SKM-1 cells treated with the 2ME-loaded MNPs-Fe3O4 was enhanced when compared with 2ME alone. 2ME led to an increase of caspase-3 expression, followed by apoptosis, which was significantly increased when combined with an MNPs-Fe3O4 carrier. Moreover, the copolymer of 2ME with MNPs- Fe3O4 blocked a nearly two-fold increase in SKM-1 cells located in G2/M phase than in 2ME alone, which may be associated with an accompanying increase of p21 as well as a decrease in cyclin B1 and cdc2 expression, but there was no obvious difference between the MNPs-Fe3O4 and control group. These findings suggest that the unique properties of MNPs-Fe3O4 as a carrier for 2ME, a new anticancer agent currently in clinical trials, may be a logical strategy to enhance the therapeutic activity of MDS

Late cretaceous metamorphism and anatexis of the gangdese magmatic arc, south tibet: implications for thickening and differentiation of juvenile crust

Magmatic arcs are the primary sites of growth of post-Archean continental crust; however, the mechanisms and processes for transforming primary arc crust into mature continental crust are subject to disagreement. We conducted a detailed petrologic and geochronological study on mafic and felsic migmatites from the eastern Gangdese magmatic arc, which is typical of continental arcs worldwide. The studied mafic migmatites contain amphibole, garnet, plagioclase, epidote, white mica, quartz, rutile and ilmenite in melanosomes, and plagioclase, garnet, epidote, amphibole, white mica, and quartz in leucosomes. The leucosomes occur as diffuse patches, concordant bands, or concordant and discordant networks and veins in the melanosomes. The migmatites have protolith ages between ~157 and ~86–87 Ma, and metamorphic ages of ~83–87 Ma and underwent high-pressure granulite-facies metamorphism at peak P–T conditions of ~850–880°C and 15–17 kbar. Heating, burial, and associated partial melting preceded near-isobaric cooling with residual melt crystallization. Significant melt (>16 wt.%) generated during heating and loading had a granitic composition. Compositional comparison to low-grade meta-gabbros implies that any extracted melt had adakitic affinities (high Sr/Y and highly fractionated REE patterns). The eastern Gangdese magmatic arc experienced crustal thickening during Late Cretaceous late-stage evolution of the arc due to magma loading and tectonic shortening and thrusting of the arc crust. Crustal thickening and chemical differentiation of the Gangdese arc occurred during late subduction of the Neo-Tethys, prior to the India–Asia collision. Metamorphism nearly completely erased all prior igneous mineralogy and mineral chemistry, and consequent partial melting represents a potential source for Late Cretaceous granitoids of the upper arc crust. Although prior studies demonstrate the significance of fractional crystallization, deep-seated metamorphic processes largely drove chemical differentiation to produce mature continental crust in the Gangdese arc during the late Cretaceous

Late Triassic orogenic assembly of the Tibetan Plateau: constraints from magmatism and metamorphism in the East Lhasa terrane

The early Mesozoic evolution of the Lhasa terrane, which represents a major component of the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen, remains highly controversial. In particular, geological units and events documented either side of the eastern Himalayan syntaxis (EHS) are poorly correlated. Here, we report new petrological, geochemical and geochronological data for cogenetic peraluminous S-type granites and metamorphic rocks (gneiss and schist) from the Motuo-Bomi-Chayu region of the eastern Lhasa terrane, located on the eastern flank of the EHS. Zircon U-Pb dating indicates that these units record both Late Triassic magmatic (216-206 Ma) and metamorphic (209-198 Ma) episodes. The granites were derived from a Paleoproterozoic crustal source with negative zircon ϵHf(t) values (-5·5 to -16·6) and TDM2 model ages of 1·51-1·99 Ga, and are interpreted to have formed by crustal anatexis of nearby metasediments during collisional orogeny and crustal thickening. The gneisses and schists experienced similar upper amphibolite-facies peak metamorphism and associated partial melting, followed by decompressional cooling and retrograde metamorphism. These rocks were buried to lower-crustal depths and then exhumed to the surface in a collisional orogenic setting during plate convergence. From comparison of these data with those for other metamorphic belts with similar grades and ages, and association of coeval granitic magmatism widespread in the central-east Lhasa terrane, we propose that the studied cogenetic magmatism and metamorphism in the Motuo-Bomi-Chayu region records Late Triassic accretion of the North Lhasa and South Lhasa terranes, which represents the first evidence of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean closure in this part of Asia. These data provide new constraints on the spatial and temporal evolution of the Paleo-Tethyan Wilson Cycle and provide a 'missing link' to correlate the geology and tectonic history of the Lhasa terrane continental crust on either side of the EHS

A hypoxia risk score for prognosis prediction and tumor microenvironment in adrenocortical carcinoma

Background: Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare malignant endocrine tumor derived from the adrenal cortex. Because of its highly aggressive nature, the prognosis of patients with adrenocortical carcinoma is not impressive. Hypoxia exists in the vast majority of solid tumors and contributes to invasion, metastasis, and drug resistance. This study aimed to reveal the role of hypoxia in Adrenocortical carcinoma and develop a hypoxia risk score (HRS) for Adrenocortical carcinoma prognostic prediction.Methods: Hypoxia-related genes were obtained from the Molecular Signatures Database. The training cohorts of patients with adrenocortical carcinoma were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas, while another three validation cohorts with comprehensive survival data were collected from the Gene Expression Omnibus. In addition, we constructed a hypoxia classifier using a random survival forest model. Moreover, we explored the relationship between the hypoxia risk score and immunophenotype in adrenocortical carcinoma to evaluate the efficacy of immune check inhibitors (ICI) therapy and prognosis of patients.Results: HRS and tumor stage were identified as independent prognostic factors. HRS was negatively correlated with immune cycle activity, immune cell infiltration, and the T cell inflammatory score. Therefore, we considered the low hypoxia risk score group as the inflammatory immunophenotype, whereas the high HRS group was a non-inflammatory immunophenotype. In addition, the HRS was negatively related to the expression of common immune checkpoint molecules such as PD-L1, CD200, CTLA-4, and TIGIT, suggesting that patients with a lower hypoxia risk score respond better to immunotherapy.Conclusion: We developed and validated a novel hypoxia risk score to predict the immunophenotype and response of patients with adrenocortical carcinoma to immune check inhibitors therapy. These findings not only provide fresh prognostic indicators for adrenocortical carcinoma but also offer several promising treatment targets for this disease

Association of early life adversity with cardiovascular disease and its potential mechanisms: a narrative review

Strong epidemiological evidence has shown that early life adversity (ELA) has a profound negative impact on health in adulthood, including an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death worldwide. Here, we review cohort studies on the effects of ELA on cardiovascular outcomes and the possible underlying mechanisms. In addition, we summarize relevant studies in rodent models of ELA. This review reveals that the prevalence of ELA varies between regions, time periods, and sexes. ELA increases cardiovascular health risk behaviors, susceptibility to mental illnesses, and neuroendocrine and immune system dysfunction in humans. Rodent models of ELA have been developed and show similar cardiovascular outcomes to those in humans but cannot fully replicate all ELA subtypes. Therefore, combining cohort and rodent studies to further investigate the mechanisms underlying the association between ELA and cardiovascular diseases may be a feasible future research strategy

Role of Toll-Like Receptor 4 on Lupus Lung Injury and Atherosclerosis in LPS-Challenge ApoE −/−

To investigate the pathologic mechanisms of toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) in lung injury and atherosclerosis, ApoE−/− or wild-type mice were intraperitoneally administered saline, lipopolysaccharides (LPS), or LPS plus TAK-242 (TLR4 inhibitor), respectively, twice a week for 4 weeks. Serum autoantibody of antinuclear antibody (ANA), anti-double-stranded DNA (anti-dsDNA), and cytokines of interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α), and interleukin-1 (IL-1β) were assessed by ELISA. Hematoxylin and eosin (HE) and Perl's stains for lung pathomorphology as well as HE staining for atherosclerosis were employed. TLR4 in macrophages was detected by double immunofluorescent staining. While protein expressions of TLR4, nuclear factor-kappa B p65 (NF-κB p65), and B cell activating factor belonging to the TNF family (BAFF) were examined by immunohistochemistry. We found that serum autoantibody (ANA and anti-dsDNA), cytokines (IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-1β), lung inflammation, and intima-media thickness in brachiocephalic artery were obviously increased after LPS challenge in both genotypes, but to a lesser extent in wild-type strains. And those alterations were alleviated by coadministration of LPS and TAK-242. Mechanistically, upregulation of TLR4, NF-κb, and BAFF was involved. We concluded that TLR4/NF-κb/BAFF in macrophages might be a possible common autoimmune pathway that caused lung injury and atherosclerosis. TLR4 signal will be a therapeutic target in atherosclerosis and immune-mediated lung injury