Biliary drainage in malignant biliary obstruction: an umbrella review of randomized controlled trials

BackgroundThere are still many controversies about biliary drainage in MBO, and we aimed to summarize and evaluate the evidence associated with biliary drainage.MethodsWe conducted an umbrella review of SRoMAs based on RCTs. Through July 28, 2022, Embase, PubMed, WOS, and Cochrane Database were searched. Two reviewers independently screened the studies, extracted the data, and appraised the methodological quality of the included studies. GRADE was used to evaluate the quality of the evidence.Results36 SRoMAs were identified. After excluding 24 overlapping studies, 12 SRoMAs, including 76 RCTs, and 124 clinical outcomes for biliary drainage in MBO were included. Of the 124 pieces of evidence evaluated, 13 were rated “High” quality, 38 were rated “Moderate”, and the rest were rated “Low” or “Very low”. For patients with MBO, 125I seeds+stent can reduce the risk of stent occlusion, RFA+stent can improve the prognosis; compared with PC, SEMS can increase the risk of tumor ingrowth and reduce the occurrence of sludge formation, and the incidence of tumor ingrowth in C-SEMS/PC-SEMS was significantly lower than that in U-SEMS. There was no difference in the success rate of drainage between EUS-BD and ERCP-BD, but the use of EUS-BD can reduce the incidence of stent dysfunction. For patients with obstructive jaundice, PBD does not affect postoperative mortality compared to direct surgery. The use of MS in patients with periampullary cancer during PBD can reduce the risk of re-intervention and stent occlusion compared to PC. In addition, we included four RCTs that showed that when performing EUS-BD on MBO, hepaticogastrostomy has higher technical success rates than choledochoduodenostomy. Patients who received Bilateral-ENBD had a lower additional drainage rate than those who received Unilateral-ENBD.ConclusionsOur study summarizes a large amount of evidence related to biliary drainage, which helps to reduce the uncertainty in the selection of biliary drainage strategies for MBO patients under different circumstances

Application and development of synchronous fluorescence spectrometry

Synchronous fluorescence spectrometry is useful in simultaneous determination of multi-component fluorescent substances. Its application and development in recent years are reviewed. Synchronous fluorescence approaches, including constant-wavelength synchronous fluorescence, constant-energy synchronous fluorescence, variable-angle synchronous fluorescence, isopotential matrix synchronous fluorescence, and the combination with the derivative technique, stoichiometry and cryogenic technique are discussed

PRIP: A Protein-RNA Interface Predictor Based on Semantics of Sequences

RNA–protein interactions play an indispensable role in many biological processes. Growing evidence has indicated that aberration of the RNA–protein interaction is associated with many serious human diseases. The precise and quick detection of RNA–protein interactions is crucial to finding new functions and to uncovering the mechanism of interactions. Although many methods have been presented to recognize RNA-binding sites, there is much room left for the improvement of predictive accuracy. We present a sequence semantics-based method (called PRIP) for predicting RNA-binding interfaces. The PRIP extracted semantic embedding by pre-training the Word2vec with the corpus. Extreme gradient boosting was employed to train a classifier. The PRIP obtained a SN of 0.73 over the five-fold cross validation and a SN of 0.67 over the independent test, outperforming the state-of-the-art methods. Compared with other methods, this PRIP learned the hidden relations between words in the context. The analysis of the semantics relationship implied that the semantics of some words were specific to RNA-binding interfaces. This method is helpful to explore the mechanism of RNA–protein interactions from a semantics point of view

Surface Plasmon-coupled Emission of Multicolor Quantum Dots

National Natural Science Foundation of China [21127005, 20975084]; 973 Program of China [2013CB933703]; Ph.D. Programs Foundation of Ministry of Education of China [20110121110011]Aqueous CdTe quantum dots (QDs) were synthesized employing thiols as stabilizing ligands and their emission wavelengths could be tuned by controlling the reflux time. Surface plasmon-coupled emission (SPCE) properties of multi-color CdTe QDs were studied by using a laboratory-built multifunctional spectrofluorimeter. To fabricate a CdTe QDs-doped complete film onto the surface of continuous thin metal films, CdTe QDs were spin-coated at 3000 r/min with poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) solution of various concentrations. For SPCE measurements, the spin-coated slides were attached to a semi-cylindrical prism made of fused silica with a refractive-index-matching fluid and then positioned on a precise rotary stage that allowed for excitation and emission observation at any angle relative to the vertical axis of the stage. For excitation, we used the reverse Kretschmann (RK) configuration and the incident light was normal to the sample interface. The spectra were measured using a monochromator equipped with a photomultiplier tube. The experimental results showed CdTe QDs located nearby continuous thin metal film could be excited using either blue (473 nm) or green (532 nm) laser as a result of their broad excitations and their emissions resulting from the surface plasmon coupling were strongly directional, highly polarized and closely related to sample thickness. Because of the wavelength-resolution property of SPCE, CdTe QDs with different emission wavelengths were found to emit at different fixed angles, longer wavelengths corresponding to smaller angles. The free space emission spectra of 720 nm and 630 nm CdTe QDs in a mixture were overlapped and could not be separated at any detection angle. However, owing to the unique wavelength resolution ability of SPCE, the spectra of 720 nm and 630 nm CdTe QDs were obtained at 43 degrees and 51 degrees on the prism side, respectively. The determination of each component of the mixtures of CdTe QDs was achieved by changing the detection angle to avoid spectral overlap. Therefore, QDs are ideal fluorophores for SPCE in high-throughput, multiplex analysis application

Quantitative analyses of ageing status of dam concrete for a 25-year-old dam

In order to evaluate the aging status of the dam concrete for a 25-years-old concrete dam, the internal concrete and surface layer of the dam were tested by elastic wave computerized tomography (CT) and spectral analysis of surface wave (SASW). Also mechanical strength and elastic wave velocity were tested for the concrete cores from the dam. The CT results show that the elastic wave velocities of the three dam sections are basically around 4400~4500m/s and no obvious low-speed zone could be detected, indicating the quality of the internal concrete is good without aging signs. The SASW results show that the Rayleigh wave velocity of the surface layer (deeper than 25cm) is about 2500 m/s (the corresponding P wave velocity is 4500 m/s) which is basically consistent with the CT results. The average compressive strength of the concrete cores is over 40 MPa (higher than the design values) while the elastic wave velocities are between 3600 and 4400 m/s. Microstructural analysis results show that the a few microcracks could be observed in all the 16 cores from the upstream, the downstream, the gallery and the spillway. The overall results indicate that the dam concrete is of good quality and no obvious aging signs could be found

Additional file 1 of Prognostic factors associated with early recurrence following liver resection for colorectal liver metastases: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Supplementary Material 1

Determination of protein with TPPS by total internal reflection synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy

A new method of quantitative determination for serum albumin in aqueous solution has been developed by measuring total internal reflection synchronous fluorescence at the solid/liquid interface. The combination of bovine serum album in (BSA) and mesotetrakis (4-sulphonatophenyl) porphyrin (TPPS) adsorbed onto the glass surface produced a synchronous fluorescence signal at 421 nm. At pH 4.25, the signal intensity of BSA adsorbed on the interface was proportional to the BSA concentration in bulk solution. The linear range of 1.0-8.0 mu g center dot mL(-1) and the detection limit of 0.94 mu g center dot mL(-1) were obtained. The human serum samples were determined with satisfactory results

Additional file 3 of Chemotherapy and targeted therapy for advanced biliary tract cancers: an umbrella review

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Additional file 4 of Chemotherapy and targeted therapy for advanced biliary tract cancers: an umbrella review

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Additional file 1 of Chemotherapy and targeted therapy for advanced biliary tract cancers: an umbrella review

Additional file 1