Distribution of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia on the cervix in Chinese women: pooled analysis of 19 population based screening studies

Abstract Background Controversy remains whether a pattern of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia exists on the cervix. Our study aims at determining if the prevalence of histologically proven lesions differs by cervical four-quadrant location or by 12 o'clock surface locations of diagnosis. Methods We conducted a retrospective, histopathological study of 19 different population based cervical cancer screening studies from 1999 to 2010 by Cancer Hospital of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. The Institutional Review Board for human research subjects at CHCAMS approved all of the studies. During the colposcopy procedure, participant received either 4-quadrant biopsy or directed biopsy with/without endocervical curettage. Data of all samples were stratified by the methods of sampling. Kruskal-Wallis test was used to determine overall distribution of normal/CIN1, CIN2 and CIN3+ on the cervix. Results In total, 53,088 cervical samples were included in distribution analysis. 66.9 % samples were obtained by random biopsy, 16.1 % were by directed biopsy, and 17.0 % were by endocervical curettage. 95.9%of the biopsied samples were diagnosed as normal/CIN1, 2.0 % were CIN2, and 2.1 % were CIN3 + . CIN2 and CIN3+ were most often found in quadrants 2 and 3 (χKW2 = 46.6540, p < 0.0001) and at the 4- and 7-o'clock positions by directed biopsy (ORCIN2 = 2.572, 1.689, ORCIN3+ = 3.481, 1.678, respectively), and at the 5-, 6-, 7-, 9- and 12-o’clock positions by random biopsy. CIN3+ was least often found at the 11-o’clock position by directed biopsy (OR = 0.608). Conclusions Our results suggest a predisposition of specific locations on the cervix to CIN occurrence. Quadrants 2 and 3, especially the 4- and 7-o’clock positions should be preferentially targeted during biopsy. The decision for random biopsy should be reconsidered in future studies

Application of Ground LiDAR for The Investigation of Outcrop Discontinuities and Estimation of Associated Engineering Characteristics

Reliable and direct information about rock slope materials and discontinuity parameters from field investigation are keys to engineering design, structure maintenance and soil/water conservation. Under the impact of global climate change and the surge in extreme weather events, rapid and accurate equipment or procedures for geological engineering surveys are necessary to harmonize engineering facilities with natural environment. This study utilizes 3D laser scanning technology (also known as ground LiDAR), which obtains the coordinates of surface geometry rapidly in point clouds, to survey two outcrops. Applying ground LiDAR in a geological survey, we compare the results with those provided by the International Society of Rock Mechanics, and analyze the slope stability. This study also discusses the applicability and limitations of ground LiDAR technology in discontinuity investigation and estimation of rock mass engineering characteristics. Suggested operating procedures for the use of ground LiDAR technology in outcrop surveys are provided accordingly. The results show that ground LiDAR technology reduces the in-situ operation time significantly, thus facilitating efficient discontinuity surveys and outcrop parameters evaluation. However, the quantities of office work and the accuracy of point clouds depend on the velocity and accuracy of ground LiDAR surveys. Therefore, inspection of survey results and output parameter, along with the application and operating specifications of geological surveys, including point cloud resolution, reasonable error of superimposition, inspection procedures and data analysis, still await further research.岩石工程道路邊坡經現地調查獲得可靠、直接的岩石材料種類與不連續面參數，為確保工程設計施工、設施營運維護及環境水土保持之關鍵資訊。在近年全球氣候變遷與極端氣候事件規模與頻率加大的衝擊下，迅速、精準的工程地質調查工具與作業方法，為落實工程設施與自然環境永續發展的不二法門。本研究利用三維雷射掃描技術 (又稱光達技術，|iDAR)，運用其可快速取得露頭表面幾何坐標描述點雲的特性，透過2處露頭現地地質調查，探討地面光達在工址地質調查之應用，並比較國際岩石力學學會建議工址現地調查作業方法所獲得的參數，分析評估邊坡的穩定特性，據以提出地面光達應用於露頭不連續面調查與岩體工程特性評估的適用性與限制，並提出地面光達應用於露頭調查的作業程序。研究結果顯示，地面光達技術可大幅縮減現地調查作業時間，為露頭不連續面調查與參數評估的新利器，由於室內分析工作量和點雲的精度決定了|iDAR應用於露頭不連續面調查的速度與精準度，未來針對調查成果與產出參數的檢核、在地質調查的應用與作業規範，包括點雲解析度、疊合容許誤差以及資料分析與檢核程序等，有待進一步深入研究

Virulence Determinants Are Required for Brain Abscess Formation Through Staphylococcus aureus Infection and Are Potential Targets of Antivirulence Factor Therapy

Bacterial brain abscesses (BAs) are difficult to treat with conventional antibiotics. Thus, the development of alternative therapeutic strategies for BAs is of high priority. Identifying the virulence determinants that contribute to BA formation induced by Staphylococcus aureus would improve the effectiveness of interventions for this disease. In this study, RT-qPCR was performed to compare the expression levels of 42 putative virulence determinants of S. aureus strains Newman and XQ during murine BA formation, ear colonization, and bacteremia. The alterations in the expression levels of 23 genes were further confirmed through specific TaqMan RT-qPCR. Eleven S. aureus genes that persistently upregulated expression levels during BA infection were identified, and their functions in BA formation were confirmed through isogenic mutant experiments. Bacterial loads and BA volumes in mice infected with isdA, isdC, lgt, hla, or spa deletion mutants and the hla/spa double mutant strain were lower than those in mice infected with the wild-type Newman strain. The therapeutic application of monoclonal antibodies against Hla and SpA decreased bacterial loads and BA volume in mice infected with Newman. This study provides insights into the virulence determinants that contribute to staphylococcal BA formation and a paradigm for antivirulence factor therapy against S. aureus infections

Dbh+ catecholaminergic cardiomyocytes contribute to the structure and function of the cardiac conduction system in murine heart

The heterogeneity of functional cardiomyocytes arises during heart development, which is essential to the complex and highly coordinated cardiac physiological function. Yet the biological and physiological identities and the origin of the specialized cardiomyocyte populations have not been fully comprehended. Here we report a previously unrecognised population of cardiomyocytes expressing Dbhgene encoding dopamine beta-hydroxylase in murine heart. We determined how these myocytes are distributed across the heart by utilising advanced single-cell and spatial transcriptomic analyses, genetic fate mapping and molecular imaging with computational reconstruction. We demonstrated that they form the key functional components of the cardiac conduction system by using optogenetic electrophysiology and conditional cardiomyocyte Dbh gene deletion models. We revealed their close relationship with sympathetic innervation during cardiac conduction system formation. Our study thus provides new insights into the development and heterogeneity of the mammalian cardiac conduction system by revealing a new cardiomyocyte population with potential catecholaminergic endocrine function

ChatRadio-Valuer: A Chat Large Language Model for Generalizable Radiology Report Generation Based on Multi-institution and Multi-system Data

Radiology report generation, as a key step in medical image analysis, is critical to the quantitative analysis of clinically informed decision-making levels. However, complex and diverse radiology reports with cross-source heterogeneity pose a huge generalizability challenge to the current methods under massive data volume, mainly because the style and normativity of radiology reports are obviously distinctive among institutions, body regions inspected and radiologists. Recently, the advent of large language models (LLM) offers great potential for recognizing signs of health conditions. To resolve the above problem, we collaborate with the Second Xiangya Hospital in China and propose ChatRadio-Valuer based on the LLM, a tailored model for automatic radiology report generation that learns generalizable representations and provides a basis pattern for model adaptation in sophisticated analysts' cases. Specifically, ChatRadio-Valuer is trained based on the radiology reports from a single institution by means of supervised fine-tuning, and then adapted to disease diagnosis tasks for human multi-system evaluation (i.e., chest, abdomen, muscle-skeleton, head, and maxillofacial $\&$ neck) from six different institutions in clinical-level events. The clinical dataset utilized in this study encompasses a remarkable total of \textbf{332,673} observations. From the comprehensive results on engineering indicators, clinical efficacy and deployment cost metrics, it can be shown that ChatRadio-Valuer consistently outperforms state-of-the-art models, especially ChatGPT (GPT-3.5-Turbo) and GPT-4 et al., in terms of the diseases diagnosis from radiology reports. ChatRadio-Valuer provides an effective avenue to boost model generalization performance and alleviate the annotation workload of experts to enable the promotion of clinical AI applications in radiology reports

Search for light dark matter from atmosphere in PandaX-4T

We report a search for light dark matter produced through the cascading decay of $\eta$ mesons, which are created as a result of inelastic collisions between cosmic rays and Earth's atmosphere. We introduce a new and general framework, publicly accessible, designed to address boosted dark matter specifically, with which a full and dedicated simulation including both elastic and quasi-elastic processes of Earth attenuation effect on the dark matter particles arriving at the detector is performed. In the PandaX-4T commissioning data of 0.63 tonne$\cdot$year exposure, no significant excess over background is observed. The first constraints on the interaction between light dark matter generated in the atmosphere and nucleus through a light scalar mediator are obtained. The lowest excluded cross-section is set at $5.9 \times 10^{-37}{\rm cm^2}$ for dark matter mass of $0.1$ MeV$/c^2$ and mediator mass of 300 MeV$/c^2$. The lowest upper limit of $\eta$ to dark matter decay branching ratio is $1.6 \times 10^{-7}$

A Search for Light Fermionic Dark Matter Absorption on Electrons in PandaX-4T

We report a search on a sub-MeV fermionic dark matter absorbed by electrons with an outgoing active neutrino using the 0.63 tonne-year exposure collected by PandaX-4T liquid xenon experiment. No significant signals are observed over the expected background. The data are interpreted into limits to the effective couplings between such dark matter and electrons. For axial-vector or vector interactions, our sensitivity is competitive in comparison to existing astrophysical bounds on the decay of such dark matter into photon final states. In particular, we present the first direct detection limits for an axial-vector (vector) interaction which are the strongest in the mass range from 25 to 45 (35 to 50) keV/c$^2$

Association of maternal Vitamin D status with glucose tolerance and caesarean section in a multi-ethnic Asian cohort: the growing up in Singapore towards healthy outcomes study

10.1371/journal.pone.0142239PLoS ONE10111-16GUSTO (Growing up towards Healthy Outcomes