Plasma level of M-CSF was independently related to 30-day survival in patients with suspected sepsis, and correlated to pathogen load: A prospective cohort study.

The purpose of our study was to screen the plasma cytokines to find possible indicators of disease progression and prognosis of patients with infection. With a prospective cohort study, selected patients were divided into sepsis group and non-sepsis group. Demographic and clinical information were collected. Blood samples were tested for the levels of plasma cytokines and metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS). 30-day follow-up information was recorded, and data was analyzed by SPSS22.0 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL). A total of 95 patients were selected. After propensity score matching of age and gender, 36 patients with sepsis and 36 with non-sepsis were enrolled. 30-day follow-up data exhibited that 41 patients died and 31 survived. Patients with sepsis and 30-day death had higher plasma levels of cytokines, including macrophage-stimulating factor (M-CSF), monocyte chemoattractant protein-3 (MCP-3), etc., than patients with non-sepsis and 30-day survival, respectively. M-CSF > 8.21pg/ml was an independent risk factor for 30-day death, and the reads of pathogens in mNGS reports was positively correlated with the plasma concentrations of various cytokines, including M-CSF

Comparison of the Accuracy of Voxel Based Registration and Surface Based Registration for 3D Assessment of Surgical Change following Orthognathic Surgery

published_or_final_versio

Multilayer Mo2N-Ag/SiNx films for demanding applications: Morphology, structure and temperature-cycling tribological properties

Nowadays there is the need to avoid the excessive consumption of liquid lubricant oils, as they are harmful to the environment and hard to disposal. Self-lubricant films have been seen as the sustainable solution to achieve a long-term lubrication under high temperature-cycling conditions. In this manuscript, multilayer Mo2N-Ag/SiNx films with a fixed modulation ratio (thickness of Mo2N-Ag to SiNx) of 3:1, with changing modulation period (Λ, thickness of Mo2N-Ag and SiNx) from 8 to 200 nm were produced to achieve an effective balance between the lubricious phase diffusion control and the adequate formation of the low friction tribo-layers. Results showed that a dual-phase of fcc-Mo2N and fcc-Ag co-existed in Mo2N-Ag layers, while the SiNx layer exhibited an amorphous character. Both room temperature (RT) lubricant and wear-resistance properties of the films were improved by increasing Λ from 8 to 64 nm, while a further increase of Λ degraded the wear-resistance properties. The multilayer film at Λ = 64 nm exhibited an excellent RT-500 °C temperature-cycling tribological properties. Mechanical properties and the synergistic effect of both modulation layers were the cause for the improvement of the tribological properties.Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, China (51801081, 52071159, 52171071, 52172090); Portugal National Funds through FCT project, Portugal (2021.04115); Outstanding University Young Teachers of ‘‘Qing Lan Project” of Jiangsu Province, China; Excellent Talents of ‘‘Shenlan Project” of Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, China; China Merchants Marine Scientific Research and Innovation Fund, China. Filipe Fernandes acknowledges the funding received in the aim of the projects: MCTool21 - ref. ‘‘POCI-01-0247- FEDER-045940”, CEMMPRE – ref. ‘‘UIDB/00285/2020” and SMARTLUB – ref. ‘‘POCI- 01-0145-FEDER-031807”.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Enormous lithium isotopic variations of abyssal peridotites reveal fast cooling and Melt/Fluid-rock interactions

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth 125(9),(2020): e2020JB020393, doi:10.1029/2020JB020393.Fast diffusing Li isotopes provide important insights into the “recent” transient events or processes for both modern and ancient times, but questions remain concerning the large Li isotopic variations of mantle peridotites, which greatly hampers their usage as a geochemical tracer. This study investigates in situ Li content and isotopic profiles of the constituent minerals of abyssal peridotites from the Gakkel Ridge and Southwest Indian Ridge. The complicated and large variations of Li isotopic profiles in Clinopyroxene (Cpx) and Orthopyroxene (Opx) indicate Li isotopic disequilibrium at millimeter scale. The negative correlations of a wide range of Li contents (0.5 to 6.5 ppm) and δ7Li values (−10 to +20‰) of olivine, Opx and Cpx grains/relicts, trace element zoning of Cpx, the occurrence of plagioclase, olivine serpentinization along cracks, together with numerical modeling demonstrate the observed Li characteristics to be a manifestation of high‐temperature mineral‐melt Li diffusion during melt impregnation overprinted by low‐temperature mineral‐fluid Li diffusion during dissolution and serpentinization. The preservation of the Li isotopic diffusion profiles requires rapid cooling of 0.3–5°C/year after final‐stage melt impregnation at the Moho boundary, which is consistent with the low temperature at very slow spreadin g ridges caused by conductive cooling. Compared with the well‐studied melt‐rock interaction process, our study indicates that low‐temperature fluid‐rock interaction can induce Li diffusion even in the visibly unaltered mineral relicts of partially altered rocks.This study was financially supported by the National Science Foundation of China (grant no. 41872058) and the U.S. National Science Foundation grant.2021-03-0

Sculpting the maturation, softening and ethylene pathway: The influences of microRNAs on tomato fruits

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a ubiquitous class of short RNAs, play vital roles in physiological and biochemical processes in plants by mediating gene silencing at post-transcriptional (PTGS) level. Tomato is a model system to study molecular basis of fleshy fruit ripening and senescence, ethylene biosynthesis and signal transduction owing to its genetic and molecular tractability. To study the functions of miRNAs in tomato fruit ripening and senescence, and their possible roles in ethylene response, the next generation sequencing method was employed to identify miRNAs in tomato fruit. Bioinformatics and molecular biology approaches were combined to profile the miRNAs expression patterns at three different fruit ripening stages and by exogenous ethylene treatment.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In addition to 7 novel miRNA families, 103 conserved miRNAs belonging to 24 families and 10 non-conserved miRNAs matching 9 families were identified in our libraries. The targets of many these miRNAs were predicted to be transcriptional factors. Other targets are known to play roles in the regulation of metabolic processes. Interestingly, some targets were predicted to be involved in fruit ripening and softening, such as Pectate Lyase, beta-galactosidase, while a few others were predicted to be involved in ethylene biosynthesis and signaling pathway, such as ACS, EIN2 and CTR1. The expression patterns of a number of such miRNAs at three ripening stages were confirmed by stem-loop RT-PCR, which showed a strong negative correlation with that of their targets. The regulation of exogenous ethylene on miRNAs expression profiles were analyzed simultaneously, and 3 down-regulated, 5 up-regulated miRNAs were found in this study.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A combination of high throughput sequencing and molecular biology approaches was used to explore the involvement of miRNAs during fruit ripening. Several miRNAs showed differential expression profiles during fruit ripening, and a number of miRNAs were influenced by ethylene treatment. The results suggest the importance of miRNAs in fruit ripening and ethylene response.</p

SDSS J013127.34−-032100.1: A newly discovered radio-loud quasar at z=5.18z=5.18 with extremely high luminosity

Only very few z>5 quasars discovered to date are radio-loud, with a radio-to-optical flux ratio (radio-loudness parameter) higher than 10. Here we report the discovery of an optically luminous radio-loud quasar, SDSS J013127.34-032100.1 (J0131-0321 in short), at z=5.18+-0.01 using the Lijiang 2.4m and Magellan telescopes. J0131-0321 has a spectral energy distribution consistent with that of radio-loud quasars. With an i-band magnitude of 18.47 and radio flux density of 33 mJy, its radio-loudness parameter is ~100. The optical and near-infrared spectra taken by Magellan enable us to estimate its bolometric luminosity to be L_bol ~ 1.1E48 erg/s, approximately 4.5 times greater than that of the most distant quasar known to date. The black hole mass of J0131-0321 is estimated to be 2.7E9 solar masses, with an uncertainty up to 0.4 dex. Detailed physical properties of this high-redshift, radio-loud, potentially super-Eddington quasar can be probed in the future with more dedicated and intensive follow-up observations using multi-wavelength facilities.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, accepted to ApJ

Identifying critically important vascular access outcomes for trials in haemodialysis : an international survey with patients, caregivers and health professionals

BACKGROUND: Vascular access outcomes reported across haemodialysis (HD) trials are numerous, heterogeneous and not always relevant to patients and clinicians. This study aimed to identify critically important vascular access outcomes. METHOD: Outcomes derived from a systematic review, multi-disciplinary expert panel and patient input were included in a multilanguage online survey. Participants rated the absolute importance of outcomes using a 9-point Likert scale (7-9 being critically important). The relative importance was determined by a best-worst scale using multinomial logistic regression. Open text responses were analysed thematically. RESULTS: The survey was completed by 873 participants [224 (26%) patients/caregivers and 649 (74%) health professionals] from 58 countries. Vascular access function was considered the most important outcome (mean score 7.8 for patients and caregivers/8.5 for health professionals, with 85%/95% rating it critically important, and top ranked on best-worst scale), followed by infection (mean 7.4/8.2, 79%/92% rating it critically important, second rank on best-worst scale). Health professionals rated all outcomes of equal or higher importance than patients/caregivers, except for aneurysms. We identified six themes: necessity for HD, applicability across vascular access types, frequency and severity of debilitation, minimizing the risk of hospitalization and death, optimizing technical competence and adherence to best practice and direct impact on appearance and lifestyle. CONCLUSIONS: Vascular access function was the most critically important outcome among patients/caregivers and health professionals. Consistent reporting of this outcome across trials in HD will strengthen their value in supporting vascular access practice and shared decision making in patients requiring HD

Decoding the dopamine transporter imaging for the differential diagnosis of parkinsonism using deep learning.

PURPOSE This work attempts to decode the discriminative information in dopamine transporter (DAT) imaging using deep learning for the differential diagnosis of parkinsonism. METHODS This study involved 1017 subjects who underwent DAT PET imaging ([11C]CFT) including 43 healthy subjects and 974 parkinsonian patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (IPD), multiple system atrophy (MSA) or progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). We developed a 3D deep convolutional neural network to learn distinguishable DAT features for the differential diagnosis of parkinsonism. A full-gradient saliency map approach was employed to investigate the functional basis related to the decision mechanism of the network. Furthermore, deep-learning-guided radiomics features and quantitative analysis were compared with their conventional counterparts to further interpret the performance of deep learning. RESULTS The proposed network achieved area under the curve of 0.953 (sensitivity 87.7%, specificity 93.2%), 0.948 (sensitivity 93.7%, specificity 97.5%), and 0.900 (sensitivity 81.5%, specificity 93.7%) in the cross-validation, together with sensitivity of 90.7%, 84.1%, 78.6% and specificity of 88.4%, 97.5% 93.3% in the blind test for the differential diagnosis of IPD, MSA and PSP, respectively. The saliency map demonstrated the most contributed areas determining the diagnosis located at parkinsonism-related regions, e.g., putamen, caudate and midbrain. The deep-learning-guided binding ratios showed significant differences among IPD, MSA and PSP groups (P < 0.001), while the conventional putamen and caudate binding ratios had no significant difference between IPD and MSA (P = 0.24 and P = 0.30). Furthermore, compared to conventional radiomics features, there existed average above 78.1% more deep-learning-guided radiomics features that had significant differences among IPD, MSA and PSP. CONCLUSION This study suggested the developed deep neural network can decode in-depth information from DAT and showed potential to assist the differential diagnosis of parkinsonism. The functional regions supporting the diagnosis decision were generally consistent with known parkinsonian pathology but provided more specific guidance for feature selection and quantitative analysis

Cancer-associated fibroblast infiltration in osteosarcoma: the discrepancy in subtypes pathways and immunosuppression

Introduction: Osteosarcoma (OS), the primary malignant bone tumor, has a low survival rate for recurrent patients. Latest reports indicated that cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) were the main component of tumor microenvironment, and would generate a variable role in the progression of tumors. However, the role of CAFs is still few known in osteosarcoma.Methods: The processed RNA-seq data and the corresponding clinical and molecular information were retrieved from the Cancer Genome Atlas Program (TCGA) database and processed data of tumor tissue was obtained from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Xcell method was used in data processing, and Gene set variation analysis (GSVA) was used to calculates enrichment scores. Nomogram was constructed to evaluate prognostic power of the predictive model. And the construction of risk scores and assessment of prognostic predictive were based on the LASSO model.Results: This study classified Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohort into high and low CAFs infiltrate phenotype with different CAFs infiltration enrichment scores. Then TOP 9 genes were screened as prognostic signatures among 2,488 differentially expressed genes between the two groups. Key prognostic molecules were CGREF1, CORT and RHBDL2 and the risk score formula is: Risk-score = CGREF1*0.004 + CORT*0.004 + RHBDL2*0.002. The signatures were validated to be independent prognostic factors to predict tumor prognosis with single-factor COX and multi-factor COX regression analyses and Norton chart. The risk score expression of risk score model genes could predict the drug resistance, and significant differences could be found between the high and low scoring groups for 17-AAG, AZD6244, PD-0325901 and Sorafenib.Discussion: To sum up, this article validated the prediction role of CAF infiltration in the prognosis of OS, which might shed light on the treatment of OS