Changes in clinical and CT manifestations related to liver abscesses in patients with vs. without basic diabetes mellitus before and after CT-guided interventional therapy: An observational study

Purpose: To explore differences in the changes of clinical and CT manifestations related to liver abscess before and after CT-guided interventional therapy between patients with and without Diabetes Mellitus (DM). Materials and methods: Fifty-eight consecutive patients with liver abscesses were retrospectively enrolled in this study. All patients underwent upper abdominal contrast-enhanced CT scans before and after CT-guided interventional therapy. They were divided into two groups including the DM group (n=30) and the Non-DM group (n=28) if the liver abscess occurred in patients with and without DM, respectively. The changes in the clinical and CT manifestations related to liver abscess after CT-guided interventional therapy in both groups were statistically analyzed. Results: After CT-guided interventional therapy, the length of hospital stay, white blood cell recovery time and drainage tube removal time in the DM group were longer than in the Non-DM group (all p-values < 0.05). The incidence of postoperative complications in the DM group was higher than in the Non-DM group (p < 0.05). As shown on CT, the postoperative reduced percentage of maximum diameter of abscess cavity and the reduction rate of edema band surrounding the liver abscess in the DM group were smaller than in the Non-DM group (both p-values < 0.05). The time intervals of the previous characteristic changes on CT before and after interventional therapy in the DM group were longer than in the Non-DM group (all p-values < 0.05). Conclusions: The liver abscesses patients with DM could not have a faster recovery and better therapeutic effect than those without DM after the CT-guided interventional therapy

Variational Learning for the Inverted Beta-Liouville Mixture Model and Its Application to Text Categorization

he finite invert Beta-Liouville mixture model (IBLMM) has recently gained some attention due to its positive data modeling capability. Under the conventional variational inference (VI) framework, the analytically tractable solution to the optimization of the variational posterior distribution cannot be obtained, since the variational object function involves evaluation of intractable moments. With the recently proposed extended variational inference (EVI) framework, a new function is proposed to replace the original variational object function in order to avoid intractable moment computation, so that the analytically tractable solution of the IBLMM can be derived in an effective way. The good performance of the proposed approach is demonstrated by experiments with both synthesized data and a real-world application namely text categorization

Effects of 4A Zeolite Additions on the Structure and Performance of LDPE Blend Microfiltration Membrane through Thermally Induced Phase Separation Method

Microfiltration membranes, 4A zeolite/LDPE, were prepared by blending low density polyethylene (LDPE) and4A zeolite through thermally induced phase separation (TIPS) process with diphenyl ether (DPE) as diluent. The effects of 4A zeolite loading on the pore structure and water permeation performance of the 4A zeolite/LDPE blend membranes were investigated. The incorporation of 4A zeolite particles greatly enhanced the connectivity of membrane pores, the pore size, and thus the water flux of 4A zeolite/LDPE blend membranes due to the gradually stronger DPE-zeolite affinity with the increase of the 4A zeolite loading. The water flux increased from 0 of LDPE control membrane to 87 L/m2h of 4A zeolite/LDPE blend membrane with 4A zeolite loading of 10 wt%. In addition, increasing the DPE content and cooling bath temperature is in favor of the water flux of 4A zeolite/LDPE blend membranes

Patterns of Lymph Node Metastasis and Optimal Surgical Strategy in Small (≤20 mm) Gastroenteropancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors

BackgroundRegional lymph node metastasis (LNM) is crucial for planning additional lymphadenectomy, and is directly correlated with poor prognosis in gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (GEP-NETs). However, the patterns of LNM for small (≤20 mm) GEP-NETs remain unclear. This population-based study aimed at evaluating LNM patterns and identifying optimal surgical strategies from the standpoint of lymph node dissemination.MethodsThis retrospective cohort study retrieved data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) 18 registries database for 17,308 patients diagnosed as having localized well-differentiated GEP-NETs ≤ 20 mm between January 1, 2004, and December 31, 2017. The patterns of LNM were characterized in 6,622 patients who underwent extended resection for adequate lymph node harvest.ResultsOf 6,622 patients with localized small GEP-NETs in the current study, 2,380 (36%) presented with LNM after regional lymphadenectomy. Nodal involvement was observed in approximately 7.4%, 49.1%, 13.6%, 53.7%, 13.8%, 7.8%, and 15.4% of gastric (g-), small intestinal (si-), appendiceal (a-), colonic (c-), rectal (r-), non-functional pancreatic (nfp-), and functional pancreatic (fp-) NETs ≤ 20 mm. Patients with younger age, larger tumor size, and muscularis invasion were more likely to present with LNM. Additional lymphadenectomy conferred a significant survival advantage in NETs (≤10 mm: HR, 0.47; 95% CI, 0.33–0.66; p < 0.001; 11–20 mm: HR, 0.54; 95% CI, 0.34–0.85; p = 0.008) and fp-NETs ≤ 20 mm (HR, 0.08; 95% CI, 0.02–0.36; p = 0.001), as well as g-NETs (HR, 0.39; 95% CI, 0.16–0.96; p = 0.041) and c-NETs of 11–20 mm (HR, 0.07; 95% CI, 0.01–0.48; p = 0.007). Survival benefits of additional lymphadenectomy were not found in a-NETs, r-NETs, and nfp-NETs with a small size.ConclusionsGiven the increased risk for nodal metastasis, primary tumor resection with regional lymphadenectomy is a potential optimal surgical strategy for si-NETs and fp-NETs ≤ 20 mm, as well as g-NETs and c-NETs of 11–20 mm. Local resection is an appropriate and reliable surgical approach for a-NETs, r-NETs, and nfp-NETs ≤ 20 mm

Grazing weakens competitive interactions between active methanotrophs and nitrifiers modulating greenhouse-gas emissions in grassland soils

This work was financially supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (41977033, 41907026, and 41721001), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2019QNA6011), National Key Basic Research Program of China (2014CB138801), Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation (ZR2019BD032), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2020T130387 and 2019M652448). CG-R was funded by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (UF150571). Special thanks to ChunMei Meng, Yu Luo, and Yan Zheng for their assistance in laboratory analyses.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

CC Chemokine Ligand 3 Overcomes the Bacteriocidal and Phagocytic Defect of Macrophages and Hastens Recovery from Experimental Otitis Media in TNF-/- Mice

Innate immune mechanisms are crucial in defense against bacterial illnesses in humans, as evidenced by abnormal antibacterial responses due to defects in TLR signaling, seen in children with MyD88 or IL-1R–associated kinase 4 deficiency. Otitis media (OM) is the most common disease of childhood, and the role of innate immune molecules in this disorder remains unclear. In a murine model of OM, we show that, in the absence of TNF, a key effector of innate immunity, this disease is prolonged after middle ear infection with nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi). In the absence of TNF, mice fail to upregulate both TLRs and downstream genes and proteins, such as CCL3, resulting in defects in both inflammatory cell recruitment and macrophage function. Peritoneal macrophages of mice lacking TNF have a diminished ability to phagocytose and kill NTHi, and this defect is partially corrected in vitro by exogenous rTNF. Addition of rCCL3 alone or in combination with rTNF restores phagocytosis and killing by TNF-deficient macrophages to that of unstimulated wild-type macrophages. In vivo administration of rCCL3 to animals deficient in TNF fully restores the ability to control OM due to NTHi, whereas a CCL3-blocking Ab impaired the ability of wild-type mice to recover from OM. Thus, CCL3 is a potent downstream effector of TNF-mediated inflammation in vitro and in vivo. Manipulation of CCL3 and/or TNF may prove to be effective therapeutic approaches in OM or other conditions associated with defective TNF generation

Innate Signaling in Otitis Media: Pathogenesis and Recovery

Otitis media (OM) is the most prevalent childhood disease in developed countries. Involvement of innate immunity mediated by Toll-like receptors (TLRs) in OM has been implicated primarily in cell lines and by association studies of innate immune gene polymorphisms with OM prevalence. However, the precise role of innate immunity in OM is incompletely understood. We review recent research that has advanced our understanding of how innate immunity in the middle ear is mediated by the interaction of pathogen molecules with receptors such as the TLRs, leading to the activation of adaptor molecules and production of proinflammatory cytokines. TLR genes and signaling molecules are upregulated in OM in a murine model. Deletion of several key innate immune genes results in persistent OM in mice, coupled with an inability to clear bacterial infection from the middle ear. It is concluded that an intact innate immune signaling system is critical to recovery from bacterial OM

MiR-137 Targets Estrogen-Related Receptor Alpha and Impairs the Proliferative and Migratory Capacity of Breast Cancer Cells

ERRα is an orphan nuclear receptor emerging as a novel biomarker of breast cancer. Over-expression of ERRα in breast tumor is considered as a prognostic factor of poor clinical outcome. The mechanisms underlying the dysexpression of this nuclear receptor, however, are poorly understood. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level and play important roles in tumor initiation and progression. In the present study, we have identified that the expression of ERRα is regulated by miR-137, a potential tumor suppressor microRNA. The bioinformatics search revealed two putative and highly conserved target-sites for miR-137 located within the ERRα 3′UTR at nt 480–486 and nt 596–602 respectively. Luciferase-reporter assay demonstrated that the two predicted target sites were authentically functional. They mediated the repression of reporter gene expression induced by miR-137 in an additive manner. Moreover, ectopic expression of miR-137 down-regulated ERRα expression at both protein level and mRNA level, and the miR-137 induced ERRα-knockdown contributed to the impaired proliferative and migratory capacity of breast cancer cells. Furthermore, transfection with miR-137mimics suppressed at least two downstream target genes of ERRα–CCNE1 and WNT11, which are important effectors of ERRα implicated in tumor proliferation and migration. Taken together, our results establish a role of miR-137 in negatively regulating ERRα expression and breast cancer cell proliferation and migration. They suggest that manipulating the expression level of ERRα by microRNAs has the potential to influence breast cancer progression