Understanding CD4+ T cells in autoimmune bullous diseases

Autoimmune bullous diseases (AIBDs) are a group of life-threatening blistering diseases caused by autoantibodies that target proteins in the skin and mucosa. Autoantibodies are the most important mediator in the pathogenesis of AIBDs, and various immune mechanisms contribute to the production of these pathogenic autoantibodies. Recently, significant progress has been made in understanding how CD4+ T cells drive autoantibody production in these diseases. Here, we review the critical role of CD4+ T cells in the production of pathogenic autoantibodies for the initiation and perpetuation of humoral response in AIBDs. To gain an in-depth understanding of CD4+ T-cell pathogenicity, antigen specificity, and mechanisms of immune tolerance, this review covers comprehensive mouse and human studies of pemphigus and bullous pemphigoid. Further exploration of pathogenic CD4+ T cells will potentially provide immune targets for improved treatment of AIBDs

Spinal cord compression by B-cell lymphoma, unclassifiable, with features intermediate between diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and Burkitt lymphoma in a patient seropositive for human immunodeficiency virus: a case report

INTRODUCTION: Although non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma is one of the most common and frequently fatal of the acquired immune deficiency syndrome-defining illnesses, survival has improved significantly since the introduction of antiretroviral therapy. Patients with spinal cord compression resulting from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma present with clinically acute or rapidly progressive neurologic deficits. The purpose of this case report is to present a case of a patient seropositive for human immunodeficiency virus with spinal cord compression due to B-cell lymphoma, unclassifiable, with features intermediate between diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and Burkitt lymphoma. CASE PRESENTATION: A 40-year-old Asian man, who was seropositive for human immunodeficiency virus, presented with progressive neurological deficits. Magnetic resonance images of his thoracic spine showed an epidural mass from T2 to T4, resulting in severe cord compression. Emergent surgical decompression and biopsy were performed, followed by palliative radiation therapy. The pathologic findings showed that the specimen was compatible with B-cell lymphoma, unclassifiable, with features intermediate between diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and Burkitt lymphoma. Palliative radiation therapy was performed; however, leptomeningeal seeding and pulmonary embolism led to his death. CONCLUSIONS: When a patient infected with human immunodeficiency virus presents with a rapidly progressive spinal tumor accompanying paraplegia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma should be considered, and surgical decompression should be weighed with respect to the patient’s general condition and the subtype/prognosis of the lymphoma

In situ-generated metal oxide catalyst during CO oxidation reaction transformed from redox-active metal-organic framework-supported palladium nanoparticles

The preparation of redox-active metal-organic framework (ra-MOF)-supported Pd nanoparticles (NPs) via the redox couple-driven method is reported, which can yield unprotected metallic NPs at room temperature within 10 min without the use of reducing agents. The Pd@ra-MOF has been exploited as a precursor of an active catalyst for CO oxidation. Under the CO oxidation reaction condition, Pd@ra-MOF is transformed into a PdOx-NiOy/C nanocomposite to generate catalytically active species in situ, and the resultant nanocatalyst shows sustainable activity through synergistic stabilization.open4

Immunization decision-making in the Republic of Korea: The structure and functioning of the Korea Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices

AbstractThe Korea Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (KACIP), established by law in the early 1990s, makes recommendations on a range of issues related to the National Immunization Program. The Committee consists of 15 members and always includes the two government officials who belong to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Korea Food and Drug Administration. Other members usually come from affiliated organizations and serve for 2-year terms. The KACIP depends on special-topics sub-committees or temporary advisory committees to gather and analyze data and to make recommendations which are normally reached by consensus and implemented by public sector health providers and private providers

Biological Effect of Gas Plasma Treatment on CO 2

Porous polycaprolactone (PCL) scaffolds were fabricated by using the CO2 gas foaming/salt leaching process and then PCL scaffolds surface was treated by oxygen or nitrogen gas plasma in order to enhance the cell adhesion, spreading, and proliferation. The PCL and NaCl were mixed in the ratios of 3 : 1. The supercritical CO2 gas foaming process was carried out by solubilizing CO2 within samples at 50°C and 8 MPa for 6 hr and depressurization rate was 0.4 MPa/s. The oxygen or nitrogen plasma treated porous PCL scaffolds were prepared at discharge power 100 W and 10 mTorr for 60 s. The mean pore size of porous PCL scaffolds showed 427.89 μm. The gas plasma treated porous PCL scaffolds surface showed hydrophilic property and the enhanced adhesion and proliferation of MC3T3-E1 cells comparing to untreated porous PCL scaffolds. The PCL scaffolds produced from the gas foaming/salt leaching and plasma surface treatment are suitable for potential applications in bone tissue engineering

HierSpeech++: Bridging the Gap between Semantic and Acoustic Representation of Speech by Hierarchical Variational Inference for Zero-shot Speech Synthesis

Large language models (LLM)-based speech synthesis has been widely adopted in zero-shot speech synthesis. However, they require a large-scale data and possess the same limitations as previous autoregressive speech models, including slow inference speed and lack of robustness. This paper proposes HierSpeech++, a fast and strong zero-shot speech synthesizer for text-to-speech (TTS) and voice conversion (VC). We verified that hierarchical speech synthesis frameworks could significantly improve the robustness and expressiveness of the synthetic speech. Furthermore, we significantly improve the naturalness and speaker similarity of synthetic speech even in zero-shot speech synthesis scenarios. For text-to-speech, we adopt the text-to-vec framework, which generates a self-supervised speech representation and an F0 representation based on text representations and prosody prompts. Then, HierSpeech++ generates speech from the generated vector, F0, and voice prompt. We further introduce a high-efficient speech super-resolution framework from 16 kHz to 48 kHz. The experimental results demonstrated that the hierarchical variational autoencoder could be a strong zero-shot speech synthesizer given that it outperforms LLM-based and diffusion-based models. Moreover, we achieved the first human-level quality zero-shot speech synthesis. Audio samples and source code are available at https://github.com/sh-lee-prml/HierSpeechpp.Comment: 16 pages, 9 figures, 12 table

Trends in the Quality of Primary Care and Acute Care in Korea From 2008 to 2020: A Cross-sectional Study

Objectives Measuring the quality of care is paramount to inform policies for healthcare services. Nevertheless, little is known about the quality of primary care and acute care provided in Korea. This study investigated trends in the quality of primary care and acute care. Methods Case-fatality rates and avoidable hospitalization rates were used as performance indicators to assess the quality of primary care and acute care. Admission data for the period 2008 to 2020 were extracted from the National Health Insurance Claims Database. Case-fatality rates and avoidable hospitalization rates were standardized by age and sex to adjust for patients’ characteristics over time, and significant changes in the rates were identified by joinpoint regression. Results The average annual percent change in age-/sex-standardized case-fatality rates for acute myocardial infarction was -2.3% (95% confidence interval, -4.6 to 0.0). For hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke, the age-/sex-standardized case-fatality rates were 21.8% and 5.9%, respectively in 2020; these rates decreased since 2008 (27.1 and 8.7%, respectively). The average annual percent change in age-/sex-standardized avoidable hospitalization rates ranged from -9.4% to -3.0%, with statistically significant changes between 2008 and 2020. In 2020, the avoidable hospitalization rates decreased considerably compared with the 2019 rate because of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. Conclusions The avoidable hospitalization rates and case-fatality rates decreased overall during the past decade, but they were relatively high compared with other countries. Strengthening primary care is an essential requirement to improve patient health outcomes in the rapidly aging Korean population