Breaking the amyotrophic lateral sclerosis early diagnostic barrier: the promise of general markers

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a severe neurodegenerative disease that is associated with selective and progressive loss of motor neurons. As a consequence, the symptoms of ALS are muscle cramps and weakness, and it eventually leads to death. The general markers for early diagnosis can assist ALS patients in receiving early intervention and prolonging their survival. Recently, some novel approaches or previously suggested methods have validated the potential for early diagnosis of ALS. The purpose of this review is to summarize the status of current general markers discovery and development for early diagnosis of ALS, including genes, proteins neuroimaging, neurophysiology, neuroultrasound, and machine learning models. The main genetic markers evaluated are superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1), chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 (C9orf72), transactivation-responsive DNA binding protein 43 (TARDBP), and fused in sarcoma (FUS) genes. Among proteins, neurofilament light chain is still the most established disease-specific adaptive change in ALS. The expression of chitinases, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), and inflammatory factors are changed in the early stage of ALS. Besides, more patient-friendly and accessible feature assays are explored by the development of neuroimaging, neurophysiology, and neuroultrasound techniques. The novel disease-specific changes exhibited the promising potential for early diagnosis of ALS. All of these general markers still have limitations in the early diagnosis, therefore there is an urgent need for the validation and development of new disease-specific features for ALS

Neurological complications of COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 vaccination: an update

The respiratory infectious disease COVID-19, which emerged in 2019, has affected the world population over a brief period. In 2020, the disease was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. Although most COVID-19 patients primarily develop respiratory symptoms, neurological symptoms have been observed. Neurological symptoms are usually mild and non-specific. However, some patients could experience life-threatening neurological symptoms. With the increase in the incidence of COVID-19, the disease spectrum of patients with central and peripheral nervous system involvement has expanded significantly compared to the previous period. Lack of awareness has caused delays in diagnosis and treatment; therefore, updating the disease spectrum of neurological complications of COVID-19 is necessary. After COVID-19 claimed millions of lives, researchers found that some vaccines may induce autoimmune inflammatory responses in the nervous system via molecular mimicry, leading to SARS-CoV-2 vaccine-related neurological deficits. These neurological complications are often ignored by clinicians, delaying diagnosis and treatment; it is essential to study cases of vaccine-associated neurological complications. Therefore, we summarize the neurological complications of COVID-19 and nervous system adverse reactions caused by SARS-CoV-2 vaccines to help clinicians and public health service personnel understand these rare complications. Avoiding delays in diagnosis and treatment would ensure the safety of COVID-19 patients and SARS-CoV-2 vaccine recipients

Determination of nighttime VTEC average in the Klobuchar ionospheric delay model

The Klobuchar model has been widely used to correct the ionospheric delay in applications. However, the NVTEC (Nighttime Vertical Total Electron Content) of the Klobuchar model employs an empirical constant of 9 TECU (Total Electron Content Unit) at L1 frequency. In this paper, the rationality and reliability of the nighttime constant setting are investigated using the GIM (Global Ionosphere Map) product of the IGS (International GNSS Service) from 1998 to 2015. Our study indicates that the suitable time span of NVTEC average in nighttime should be between 20:00 and 06:00 LT (local time). The NVTEC is highly correlated with seasons, having positive extremes in spring and autumn and negative extremes in summer through the mean values in all latitudes. In addition to seasonal dependence, solar activity in the solar cycle 23 strongly influences NVTEC as well and leads to its variation within a range between 25 and 30 TECU in spring and autumn at solar maximum, which is about 1.5 times greater than that in summer and winter. The NVTEC also has a dependence on the latitude at solar maximum, with the mean value from 30 TECU in low latitudinal regions to 15 TECU in high latitudinal regions. Therefore, these results demonstrate that the nighttime VTEC has much greater deviations from the imperial constant in the Klobuchar model, and the newly estimated constant is expected to bring improvement to the predictability of the Klobuchar ionospheric delay model in nighttime. Keywords: Klobuchar model, Ionospheric correction, Nighttime VTEC, Global ionosphere ma

An effective electricity worker identification approach based on Yolov3-Arcface

To address the issues of low efficiency and high complexity of detection models for electric power workers in distribution rooms, the electric power worker identification approach is proposed. The ArcFace loss function is used as the coordinate regression loss of the target box. According to the score, the template box with the highest score is selected for prediction, which speeds up the rate of convergence. Dimensional clustering is used to set template boxes for bounding box prediction. The experimental results show that the improved YOLOv3 is a high-performance and lightweight model. The electric power worker identification approach proposed in this paper has a high-speed recognition process, accurate recognition results. The effectiveness of the approach is verified with better detection performance and robustness

Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor Associated Autoimmune Encephalitis, Rare and Novel Topic of Neuroimmunology: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) are being used in patients with various advanced malignancies, and patient outcomes have improved considerably. Although ICIs can effectively treat tumors, 30–60% of patients experience immune-related adverse events (irAEs). Autoimmune encephalitis (AE) is a rare irAE that has become a novel topic in neuroimmunology and has received increasing attention in recent years. Herein, we report a rare case of GAD65-antibody–associated AE after metastatic small cell lung cancer treatment with pembrolizumab. The patient received IVIg therapy for AE and continuous pembrolizumab therapy without suspension of tumor treatment. At 1 year follow-up, both the patient’s AE symptoms and tumors were stable. We consider that the treatment of ICI-associated AE should be more individualized with prudent decision-making and should balance the tumor progression and AE treatment. In addition, we have also comprehensively reviewed the literature of ICI-associated AE, and summarized the clinical features, treatment, and prognosis of AE caused by ICI, thus broadening our understanding of the neurological complications caused by ICI

A novel approach of jet polishing for interior surface of small-grooved components using three developed setups

It is a challenge to polish the interior surface of an additively manufactured component with complex structures and groove sizes less than 1 mm. Traditional polishing methods are disabled to polish the component, meanwhile keeping the structure intact. To overcome this challenge, small-grooved components made of aluminum alloy with sizes less than 1 mm were fabricated by a custom-made printer. A novel approach to multi-phase jet (MPJ) polishing is proposed, utilizing a self-developed polisher that incorporates solid, liquid, and gas phases. In contrast, abrasive air jet (AAJ) polishing is recommended, employing a customized polisher that combines solid and gas phases. After jet polishing, surface roughness ( Sa ) on the interior surface of grooves decreases from pristine 8.596 μ m to 0.701 μ m and 0.336 μ m via AAJ polishing and MPJ polishing, respectively, and Sa reduces 92% and 96%, correspondingly. Furthermore, a formula defining the relationship between linear energy density and unit defect volume has been developed. The optimized parameters in additive manufacturing are that linear energy density varies from 0.135 J mm ^−1 to 0.22 J mm ^−1 . The unit area defect volume achieved via the optimized parameters decreases to 1/12 of that achieved via non-optimized ones. Computational fluid dynamics simulation results reveal that material is removed by shear stress, and the alumina abrasives experience multiple collisions with the defects on the heat pipe groove, resulting in uniform material removal. This is in good agreement with the experimental results. The novel proposed setups, approach, and findings provide new insights into manufacturing complex-structured components, polishing the small-grooved structure, and keeping it unbroken