Vitamin D and suicidality: a Chinese early adolescent cohort and Mendelian randomization study

Abstract Aims Previous cross-sectional and case–control studies have proposed that decreased vitamin D levels are positively correlated with the risk of suicidality in adults. However, limited studies have examined the association between vitamin D and suicidality in adolescents. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between serum vitamin D and suicidality risk among early adolescents. Methods Data were obtained from a Chinese early adolescent cohort. In this cohort, seventh-grade students from a middle school in Anhui Province were invited to voluntarily participate in the baseline assessments and provide peripheral blood samples (in September 2019). The participants were followed up annually (in September 2020 and September 2021). Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] and vitamin D–related single-nucleotide polymorphisms at baseline were measured in November 2021. Traditional observational and Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses were performed to examine the relationship between serum 25(OH)D at baseline and the risk of baseline and incident suicidality (i.e., suicidal ideation [SI], plans and attempts). Results Traditional observational analysis did not reveal a significant linear or non-linear association of serum 25(OH)D concentration with the risks of baseline and 2-year incident suicidality in the total sample (P > .05 for all). Sex-stratified analysis revealed a non-linear association between the 25(OH)D concentration and the risk of baseline SI in women (Poverall = .002; Pnon-linear = .001). Moreover, the risk of baseline SI in the 25(OH) insufficiency group was lower than that in the 25(OH) deficiency group in the total sample (odds ratio [OR] = 0.69, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.51–0.92, P = .012). This difference remained significant in women (OR = 0.59, 95% CI = 0.40–0.87, P = .008) but not in men (OR = 0.78, 95% CI = 0.53–1.15, P = .205). Additionally, both linear and non-linear MR analyses did not support the causal effect of serum 25(OH)D concentration on the risk of baseline, 1-year and 2-year incident suicidality (P > .05 for all). Conclusions This study could not confirm the causal effect of vitamin D on suicidality risk among Chinese early adolescents. Future studies must confirm these findings with a large sample size

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Micromachined structures decoupling Joule heating and electron wind force

Abstract Microstructural changes in conductive materials induced by electric current treatments, such as electromigration and electroplasticity, are critical in semiconductor and metal processing. However, owing to the inevitable thermal effect (Joule heating), the athermal effect on microstructural modifications remains obscure. This paper presents an approach of utilizing pre-micromachined structures, which obstruct current flow but maintain a thermal history similar to that of the matrix, effectively disentangling the thermal and athermal effects. A duplex stainless-steel material is selected to validate the feasibility of this method. Microstructural characterizations show that the athermal effect, especially the electron wind force (EWF), primarily governs the element diffusion and phase transformation in this study. Moreover, many σ phases (Cr-enriched) are precipitated in the micromachined structures, whereas no precipitation occurred in the matrix, suggesting that the directional EWF disrupts the Cr aggregation caused by Joule heating. Furthermore, we present a critical formula for determining the dimensions of micromachined structures of commonly used metallic materials. The proposed method may serve as an effective and powerful tool for unveiling the athermal effect on microstructural alterations

Proceedings of the 17th International Meeting on Fully 3D Image Reconstruction in Radiology and Nuclear Medicine

Contained within this volume are the scholarly contributions presented in both oral and poster formats at Fully3D 2023: The 17th International Meeting on Fully Three-Dimensional Image Reconstruction in Radiology and Nuclear Medicine. This conference convened from July 16-21, 2023, at Stony Brook University in New York. For ease of reference, all papers are organized alphabetically according to the last names of the primary authors. Our heartfelt appreciation goes out to all participants who took the time to submit, present, and revise their work for inclusion in these proceedings. Collectively, we would also like to express our profound gratitude to our generous sponsors, detailed in subsequent pages, who have played an instrumental role in offering awards and facilitating the various conference activities. Additionally, our thanks extend to the diligent reporter who collated invaluable feedback from attendees, which can be found in the pages that follow. September 7, 2023 Fully3D 2023 Co-Chairs: Jerome Liang, Paul Vaska, and Chuan HuangComment: arXiv admin note: contains arXiv:2302.03285, arXiv:2302.06251, arXiv:2303.11724, arXiv:2301.06604, arXiv:2302.06436, arXiv:2212.12519, arXiv:2304.08350, arXiv:2209.10350, arXiv:2310.04299, arXiv:2310.1069

A Joint-Parameter Estimation and Bayesian Reconstruction Approach to Low-Dose CT

Most penalized maximum likelihood methods for tomographic image reconstruction based on Bayes’ law include a freely adjustable hyperparameter to balance the data fidelity term and the prior/penalty term for a specific noise–resolution tradeoff. The hyperparameter is determined empirically via a trial-and-error fashion in many applications, which then selects the optimal result from multiple iterative reconstructions. These penalized methods are not only time-consuming by their iterative nature, but also require manual adjustment. This study aims to investigate a theory-based strategy for Bayesian image reconstruction without a freely adjustable hyperparameter, to substantially save time and computational resources. The Bayesian image reconstruction problem is formulated by two probability density functions (PDFs), one for the data fidelity term and the other for the prior term. When formulating these PDFs, we introduce two parameters. While these two parameters ensure the PDFs completely describe the data and prior terms, they cannot be determined by the acquired data; thus, they are called complete but unobservable parameters. Estimating these two parameters becomes possible under the conditional expectation and maximization for the image reconstruction, given the acquired data and the PDFs. This leads to an iterative algorithm, which jointly estimates the two parameters and computes the to-be reconstructed image by maximizing a posteriori probability, denoted as joint-parameter-Bayes. In addition to the theoretical formulation, comprehensive simulation experiments are performed to analyze the stopping criterion of the iterative joint-parameter-Bayes method. Finally, given the data, an optimal reconstruction is obtained without any freely adjustable hyperparameter by satisfying the PDF condition for both the data likelihood and the prior probability, and by satisfying the stopping criterion. Moreover, the stability of joint-parameter-Bayes is investigated through factors such as initialization, the PDF specification, and renormalization in an iterative manner. Both phantom simulation and clinical patient data results show that joint-parameter-Bayes can provide comparable reconstructed image quality compared to the conventional methods, but with much less reconstruction time. To see the response of the algorithm to different types of noise, three common noise models are introduced to the simulation data, including white Gaussian noise to post-log sinogram data, Poisson-like signal-dependent noise to post-log sinogram data and Poisson noise to the pre-log transmission data. The experimental outcomes of the white Gaussian noise reveal that the two parameters estimated by the joint-parameter-Bayes method agree well with simulations. It is observed that the parameter introduced to satisfy the prior’s PDF is more sensitive to stopping the iteration process for all three noise models. A stability investigation showed that the initial image by filtered back projection is very robust. Clinical patient data demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed joint-parameter-Bayes and stopping criterion