Development of a New Risk Score for Incident Type 2 Diabetes Using Updated Diagnostic Criteria in Middle-Aged and Older Chinese

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) reaches an epidemic proportion among adults in China. However, no simple score has been created for the prediction of T2DM incidence diagnosed by updated criteria with hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) ≥6.5% included in Chinese. In a 6-year follow-up cohort in Beijing and Shanghai, China, we recruited a total of 2529 adults aged 50–70 years in 2005 and followed them up in 2011. Fasting plasma glucose (FPG), HbA1c, and C-reactive protein (CRP) were measured and incident diabetes was identified by the recently updated criteria. Of the 1912 participants without T2DM at baseline, 924 were identified as having T2DM at follow-up, and most of them (72.4%) were diagnosed using the HbA1c criterion. Baseline body mass index, FPG, HbA1c, CRP, hypertension, and female gender were all significantly associated with incident T2DM. Based upon these risk factors, a simple score was developed with an estimated area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.714 (95% confidence interval: 0.691, 0.737), which performed better than most of existing risk score models developed for eastern Asian populations. This simple, newly constructed score of six parameters may be useful in predicting T2DM in middle-aged and older Chinese

Elevated serum uric acid is associated with cognitive improvement in older American adults: A large, population-based-analysis of the NHANES database

BackgroundThe many studies revealing a connection between serum uric acid (SUA) and dementia have reported conflicting results. This study sought to investigate the relations between SUA and cognitive function in older adults.Materials and methodsThe sample was 2,767 American adults aged ≥60 years from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2011–2014. Cognitive performance was evaluated by the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer’s Disease test, animal fluency test, digit symbol substitution test, and composite z-score. Multivariate linear regression analyses were conducted to estimate the association between SUA and cognitive function.ResultsSUA level and cognitive function were significantly, positively correlated. Age significantly correlated with the association between SUA and cognitive function.ConclusionThese findings support a connection between SUA and cognition, showing a positive link between SUA and cognitive scores among older American adults. We contend that a slight rise in uric acid within the normal range is advantageous for enhanced cognition. To confirm the precise dose-time-response relation, more tests will be needed

PCR Techniques and Their Clinical Applications

Kary B. Mullis developed a revolutionary method name polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in 1983, which can synthesize new strand of DNA complementary to the template strand of DNA and produce billions of copies of a DNA fragment only in few hours. Denaturation, annealing, and extension are the three primary steps involved in the PCR process, which generally requires thermocyclers, DNA template, a pair of primers, Taq polymerase, nucleotides, buffers, etc. With the development of PCR, from traditional PCR, quantitative PCR, to next digital PCR, PCR has become a powerful tool in life sciences and medicine. Applications of PCR techniques for infectious diseases include specific or broad-spectrum pathogen detection, assessment and surveillance of emerging infections, early detection of biological threat agents, and antimicrobial resistance analysis. Applications of PCR techniques for genetic diseases include prenatal diagnosis and screening of neonatal genetic diseases. Applications of PCR techniques for cancer research include tumor-related gene detection. This chapter aimed to discuss about the different types of PCR techniques, including traditional PCR, quantitative PCR, digital PCR, etc., and their applications for rapid detection, mutation screen or diagnosis in infectious diseases, inherited diseases, cancer, and other diseases

Q-Instruct: Improving Low-level Visual Abilities for Multi-modality Foundation Models

Multi-modality foundation models, as represented by GPT-4V, have brought a new paradigm for low-level visual perception and understanding tasks, that can respond to a broad range of natural human instructions in a model. While existing foundation models have shown exciting potentials on low-level visual tasks, their related abilities are still preliminary and need to be improved. In order to enhance these models, we conduct a large-scale subjective experiment collecting a vast number of real human feedbacks on low-level vision. Each feedback follows a pathway that starts with a detailed description on the low-level visual appearance (*e.g. clarity, color, brightness* of an image, and ends with an overall conclusion, with an average length of 45 words. The constructed **Q-Pathway** dataset includes 58K detailed human feedbacks on 18,973 images with diverse low-level appearance. Moreover, to enable foundation models to robustly respond to diverse types of questions, we design a GPT-participated conversion to process these feedbacks into diverse-format 200K instruction-response pairs. Experimental results indicate that the **Q-Instruct** consistently elevates low-level perception and understanding abilities across several foundational models. We anticipate that our datasets can pave the way for a future that general intelligence can perceive, understand low-level visual appearance and evaluate visual quality like a human. Our dataset, model zoo, and demo is published at: https://q-future.github.io/Q-Instruct.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figures, page 12-16 as appendi

Analysis for the units of regional geography on UK’s geography textbook: The case study of “Geog 4th edition”

In Britain, the volume of “Regional Geography” was decreased in “the National Curriculum”. The aim of this paper is to cralify the contents of “Regional Geography” in Britain. We analyzed the geographical school textbook “Geog 4th edition” by Oxfor University Press. We find that “Geog” has only 2 or 3 case studies in each grade. The students don’t learn all of the world in geographical class. That is because it is important to learn the geographical skill

A novel gradient composite material CrMnFeCoNiB2C0.5 prepared by laser melting deposition

A novel gradient composite of CrMnFeCoNiB2C0.5 was prepared by laser melting deposition (LMD). The heat accumulation during LMD results in thin-walled structure that exhibit significant structural gradients. The material was tested with an ultimate compressive stress of 1.56 ± 0.067 GPa and a compressive strain of 19.17 ± 1.96%. Such materials have the potential to prepare additive manufactured parts with locally-controllable strength and plasticity by simply varying the thermal input only

Exploration and Clinical Verification of the Blood Co-Expression Genes of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Mild Cognitive Dysfunction in the Elderly

With the development of society, the incidence of dementia and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) in the elderly has been increasing. Although the correlation between T2DM and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) has been confirmed in the previous literature, the interaction mechanism remains to be clarified. To explore the co-pathogenic genes in the blood of MCI and T2DM patients, clarify the correlation between T2DM and MCI, achieve the purpose of early disease prediction, and provide new ideas for the prevention and treatment of dementia. We downloaded T2DM and MCI microarray data from GEO databases and identified the differentially expressed genes associated with MCI and T2DM. We obtained co-expressed genes by intersecting differentially expressed genes. Then, we performed GO and KEGG enrichment analysis of co-DEGs. Next, we constructed the PPI network and found the hub genes in the network. By constructing the ROC curve of hub genes, the most valuable genes for diagnosis were obtained. Finally, the correlation between MCI and T2DM was clinically verified by means of a current situation investigation, and the hub gene was verified by qRT-PCR. A total of 214 co-DEGs were selected, 28 co-DEGs were up-regulated, and 90 co-DEGs were down-regulated. Functional enrichment analysis showed that co-DEGs were mainly enriched in metabolic diseases and some signaling pathways. The construction of the PPI network identified the hub genes in MCI and T2DM co-expression genes. We identified nine hub genes of co-DEGs, namely LNX2, BIRC6, ANKRD46, IRS1, TGFB1, APOA1, PSEN1, NPY, and ALDH2. Logistic regression analysis and person correlation analysis showed that T2DM was correlated with MCI, and T2DM increased the risk of cognitive impairment. The qRT-PCR results showed that the expressions of LNX2, BIRC6, ANKRD46, TGFB1, PSEN1, and ALDH2 were consistent with the results of bioinformatic analysis. This study screened the co-expressed genes of MCI and T2DM, which may provide new therapeutic targets for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases

Effects of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor-Gamma Agonists on Cognitive Function: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is known to be a risk factor for dementia, especially in the elderly population, and close associations between diabetes and Alzheimer disease (AD) have been determined. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPAR-γ) agonists are insulin-sensitising drugs. In addition to their anti-diabetic properties, their effectiveness in preventing and decreasing cognitive impairment are the most recent characteristics that have been studied. For this study, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to critically analyse and evaluate the existing data on the effects of PPAR-γ agonist therapy on the cognitive status of patients. For this purpose, we first analysed both early intervention and later treatment with PPAR-γ agonists, according to the disease status. The involved studies indicated that early PPAR-γ agonist intervention is beneficial for patients and that high-dose PPAR-γ therapy may have a better clinical effect, especially in reversing the effects of cognitive impairment. Furthermore, the efficacy of pioglitazone (PIO) seems to be promising, particularly for patients with comorbid diabetes. PIO presented a better clinical curative effect and safety, compared with rosiglitazone (RSG). Thus, PPAR-γ agonists play an important role in the inflammatory response of AD or DM patients, and clinical therapeutics should focus more on relevant metabolic indices

Analysis of Spatiotemporal Variation and Drivers of Ecological Quality in Fuzhou Based on RSEI

Background: High-speed urbanization has brought about a number of ecological and environmental problems, as well as the use of remote sensing to monitor the urban ecological environment and explore the main factors affecting its changes. It is important to promote the sustainable development of cities. Methods: In this study, we quantify the ecological quality of the study area from 2000 to 2020 based on the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) and analyze its drivers through Geodetector and geographically weighted regression. Results: The RSEI of Fuzhou City from 2000 to 2020 showed an increasing followed by a decreasing trend, with obvious spatial autocorrelation. The main driving factors causing the spatial divergence of the RSEI were elevation (q = 0.48–0.63), slope (0.42–0.59), and GDP (0.3–0.42), and the driving effect and range of each factor changed with time. Conclusion: In this paper, we explore changes in the ecological environment in Fuzhou City over the past 20 years, as well as the scope and magnitude of the drivers, providing an important reference basis to improve the ecological environment quality of the city