Impact of stress hyperglycemia ratio on mortality in patients with critical acute myocardial infarction: insight from American MIMIC-IV and the Chinese CIN-II study

Background: Among patients with acute coronary syndrome and percutaneous coronary intervention, stress hyperglycemia ratio (SHR) is primarily associated with short-term unfavorable outcomes. However, the relationship between SHR and long-term worsen prognosis in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) patients admitted in intensive care unit (ICU) are not fully investigated, especially in those with different ethnicity. This study aimed to clarify the association of SHR with all-cause mortality in critical AMI patients from American and Chinese cohorts. Methods: Overall 4,337 AMI patients with their first ICU admission from the American Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC)-IV database (n = 2,166) and Chinese multicenter registry cohort Cardiorenal ImprovemeNt II (CIN-II, n = 2,171) were included in this study. The patients were divided into 4 groups based on quantiles of SHR in both two cohorts. Results: The total mortality was 23.8% (maximum follow-up time: 12.1 years) in American MIMIC-IV and 29.1% (maximum follow-up time: 14.1 years) in Chinese CIN-II. In MIMIC-IV cohort, patients with SHR of quartile 4 had higher risk of 1-year (adjusted hazard radio [aHR] = 1.87; 95% CI: 1.40–2.50) and long-term (aHR = 1.63; 95% CI: 1.27–2.09) all-cause mortality than quartile 2 (as reference). Similar results were observed in CIN-II cohort (1-year mortality: aHR = 1.44; 95%CI: 1.03–2.02; long-term mortality: aHR = 1.32; 95%CI: 1.05–1.66). In both two group, restricted cubic splines indicated a J-shaped correlation between SHR and all-cause mortality. In subgroup analysis, SHR was significantly associated with higher 1-year and long-term all-cause mortality among patients without diabetes in both MIMIC-IV and CIN-II cohort. Conclusion: Among critical AMI patients, elevated SHR is significantly associated with and 1-year and long-term all-cause mortality, especially in those without diabetes, and the results are consistently in both American and Chinese cohorts

l-Arginine stimulates proliferation and prevents endotoxin-induced death of intestinal cells

This study tested the hypothesis that l-arginine (Arg) may stimulate cell proliferation and prevent lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced death of intestinal cells. Intestinal porcine epithelial cells (IPEC-1) were cultured for 4 days in Arg-free Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s-F12 Ham medium (DMEM-F12) containing 10, 100 or 350 μM Arg and 0 or 20 ng/ml LPS. Cell numbers, protein concentrations, protein synthesis and degradation, as well as mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) and Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) signaling pathways were determined. Without LPS, IPEC-1 cells exhibited time- and Arg-dependent growth curves. LPS treatment increased cell death and reduced protein concentrations in IPEC-1 cells. Addition of 100 and 350 μM Arg to culture medium dose-dependently attenuated LPS-induced cell death and reduction of protein concentrations, in comparison with the basal medium containing 10 μM Arg. Furthermore, supplementation of 100 and 350 μM Arg increased protein synthesis and reduced protein degradation in both control and LPS-treated IPEC-1 cells. Consistent with the data on cell growth and protein turnover, addition of 100 or 350 μM Arg to culture medium increased relative protein levels for phosphorylated mTOR and phosphorylated ribosomal protein S6 kinase-1, while reducing the relative levels of TLR4 and phosphorylated levels of nuclear factor-κB in LPS-treated IPEC-1 cells. These results demonstrate a protective effect of Arg against LPS-induced enterocyte damage through mechanisms involving mTOR and TLR4 signaling pathways, as well as intracellular protein turnover

Iterative Schemes for Finite Families of Maximal Monotone Operators Based on Resolvents

The purpose of this paper is to present two iterative schemes based on the relative resolvent and the generalized resolvent, respectively. And, it is shown that the iterative schemes converge weakly to common solutions for two finite families of maximal monotone operators in a real smooth and uniformly convex Banach space and one example is demonstrated to explain that some assumptions in the main results are meaningful, which extend the corresponding works by some authors

Iterative Scheme with Errors for Common Zeros of Finite Accretive Mappings and Nonlinear Elliptic Systems

We present a new iterative scheme with errors to solve the problems of finding common zeros of finite m-accretive mappings in a real Banach space. Strong convergence theorems are established, which extend the corresponding works given by some authors. Moreover, the relationship between zeros of m-accretive mappings and one kind of nonlinear elliptic systems is investigated, from which we can see that some restrictions imposed on the iterative scheme are valid and the solution of one kind of nonlinear elliptic systems can be approximated by a suitably defined iterative sequence

Fostering Creativity in the Classroom for High Ability Students: Context Does Matter

Researchers have argued for the importance of the classroom context in developing students’ creative potential. However, the emphasis on a performative learning culture in the classroom does not favour creativity. Thus, how creative potential can be realised as one of the educational goals in the classrooms remains a key question. This study measured creativity across three secondary schools using the Wallach-Kogan Creative Thinking Test (WKCT). A total of 283 students enrolled in the Express programme and 290 students enrolled in the Integrated Programme (IP) volunteered in the study. The same cohort of students took the 38-item WKCT twice; once at the beginning of Secondary One and then at the end of Secondary Three. Four aspects of creativity, namely fluency, flexibility, unusualness, and uniqueness, were investigated. Our analyses showed that (i) IP students showed a greater increase in scores over time when compared to Express students; (ii) when Programme and PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examination) were used to predict creativity scores in a multiple regression, the predictive power of Programme increased from Secondary 1 to Secondary 3 while that of PSLE decreased; and (iii) flexibility scores were more resistant to change than fluency scores. These findings suggest that the classroom context matters and that the removal of high-stakes examination can provide room for the development of creative potential

Effect of cumulative radiation exposure from Coronary catheterization on lung cancer mortality

Abstract Background Coronary catheterization (CC) procedure inevitably exposes patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD) to radiation, while cumulative radiation exposure may lead to higher risk of cancer. Methods This multi-center, retrospective study was based on the CC procedure in Cardiorenal ImprovemeNt II cohort (CIN-II, NCT05050877) among five regional central tertiary teaching hospitals in China between 2007 and 2020. Patients without known cancer were stratified according to the times they received CC procedure. Baseline information from their last CC procedure was analyzed. Cox regression and Fine-Gray competing risk models were used to assess the relationship between cumulative radiation exposure from CC procedures and cancer-specific, all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. Results Of 136,495 hospitalized survivors without cancer at baseline (mean age: 62.3 ± 11.1 years, 30.9% female), 116,992 patients (85.7%) underwent CC procedure once, 15,184 patients (11.1%) on twice, and 4,319 patients (3.2%) underwent CC procedure more than three times. During the median follow-up of 4.7 years (IQR: 2.5 to 7.4), totally 18,656 patients (13.7%) died after discharge, of which 617 (0.5%) died of lung cancer. Compared with the patients who underwent CC procedure once, the risk of lung cancer mortality increased significantly with the increase of the number of CC procedure (CC 2 times vs. 1 time: HR 1.42, 95% CI 1.13 to 1.78, P < 0.001; CC ≥ 3 times vs. 1 time: HR 1.64, 95%CI 1.13 to 2.39, P < 0.05). Similar results were observed in all-cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality, but not in other cancer-specific mortality. Conclusions Our data suggest that substantial proportion of CVD patients are exposed to multiple high levels of low-dose ionizing radiation from CC procedure, which is associated with an increased risk of cancer mortality in this population. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT05050877; URL: http://www.clinicaltrials.gov ; 21/09/2021

Multiplicity of solutions to geophysical inversion reflected by rupture slip distribution of the 2015 Nepal earthquake

The equivalence of geophysical fields, the finiteness of measurements and the measurement errors make the result of geophysical inversion non-unique. For example, the measurements and inversion method used, the priori rupture model determined and the slip distribution smoothing factor selected will have significant influences on the earthquake rupture slip distribution. Using different data and methods, different authors have given different rupture slip distribution models of the 2015 Mw7.9 Nepal earthquake, with the maximum slip ranging from 3.0 m to 6.8 m. In this paper, geometry parameters of the single rectangular fault model in elastic half-space were inferred constraining with the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) coseismic deformations and bounding the slip with approximate average value; and then, the single rectangular fault was divided into multiple sub-faults, and the final slip smoothing factor, the final slip distribution and the maximum slip were determined with the misfit–roughness tradeoff curve, the cross-validation sum of squares (CVSS) and the third-party observation data or indexes being comprehensively taken into account. The results show that, the rupture of the Nepal earthquake extended by over 100 km east by south. The maximum slip of the earthquake was about 6.5–6.7 m, and most of the slip is confined at depths of 8–20 km, consistent with the depth distribution of aftershocks. The method for reducing the multiplicity of solutions to rupture slip distribution in this paper was ever used in inversion of rupture slip distribution for the 2008 Wenchuan and 2013 Lushan earthquakes, and the third-party measurement – surface dislocation has very large effect on reducing the multiplicity of solutions to inversion of the Wenchuan earthquake. Other priori information or indicators, such as fault strike, dip, earthquake magnitude, seismic activity, Coulomb stress, and seismic period, can be used for beneficial validation of and comparison with inversion results

Spatial heterogeneity of uncertainties in daily satellite nighttime light time series

Remotely sensed light imagery provides a unique perspective for high-frequency human activity monitoring. NASA has developed the Black Marble, a daily nighttime light (NTL) product from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) nighttime images by correcting environmental effects (i.e., atmospheric, lunar, and stray light effects). However, variation and uncertainty remain in the daily lunar-BRDF corrected NTL product and hinder its quantitative applications. To better understand the uncertainty across multiple spatial and temporal scales, this study proposed a spatial–temporal hierarchical analysis strategy to separate uncertainties from different sources, and evaluated the effects of multiple factors on daily NTL time series. The experiments conducted on two populous regions show that: (1) The daily NTL in Northern America has variations up to 50% of the annual average, which is stronger than in East Asia, with variations up to 25%. (2) The variation in seasonality is stronger in Northern America, whereas the variation related to day-to-day changing factors is stronger in East Asia. (3) Generalized linear models are built to capture the relationship between daily NTL and influential factors in each grid, revealing that approximately 25%∼50% of the daily variations can be explained by environmental factors, observational factors, and seasonality. (4) Environmental factors and observational conditions show spatially varying impacts on NTL. Specifically, aerosol exhibit opposite impacts on rural and urban areas; significant impacts of moonlight are mainly distributed in rural areas; the impact of satellite viewing angle is less pronounced and frequent in East Asian cities compared to those in North America. This research revealed the essential knowledge about variations of satellite-derived NTL and will benefit the processing and utilization of daily NTL products