Case report: Urothelial carcinoma of the renal pelvis with trophoblastic differentiation: A rare case report and review of literature

We report a rare case of urothelial carcinoma (UC) of the renal pelvis with trophoblastic differentiation that occurred in a 55-year-old male patient. The patient presented with gross hematuria and paroxysmal lumbago pain 5 months ago. The enhanced computed tomography (CT) scan demonstrated a large space occupying lesion in the left kidney and multiple retroperitoneal lymph node enlargements. Histologically, high-grade infiltrating urothelial carcinoma (HGUC) contained giant cells which were positive for beta-human chorionic gonadotropin (β-hCG). Three weeks after resection, positron emission tomography and computed tomography (PET-CT) scan showed multiple nodules of metastasis in the left renal region, extensive systemic muscle, bone, lymph node, liver and bilateral lung metastases. The patient underwent bladder perfusion chemotherapy and gemcitabine combined with cisplatin chemotherapy regimens. This is the eighth documented case of UC of the renal pelvis with trophoblastic differentiation. Due to its rarity and extremely poor prognosis, it is important to clarify the characteristics of the disease and make an accurate and prompt diagnosis

Role of tillage measures in mitigating waterlogging damage in rapeseed

Abstract Background Tillage measures have been effectively adopted for mitigating waterlogging damage in field crops, yet little is known about the role of tillage measures in crop responses to waterlogging. A field experiment was performed to investigate the effect of conventional planting (CK), small ridge planting (SR), big ridge planting (BR) and film side planting (FS) on soil available nutrients and enzymatic activity, chlorophyll contents, leaf nutrients, soluble protein, soluble sugar, nitrate reductase, antioxidant enzyme activity, lipid peroxidation, agronomic traits and yield of rapeseed under waterlogging stress conditions. Results Tillage measures remarkably improved rapeseed growth and yield parameters under waterlogging stress conditions. Under waterlogging conditions, rapeseed yield was significantly increased by 33.09 and 22.70% in the SR and BR groups, respectively, compared with CK. Correlation analysis showed that NO3 −-N, NH4 +-N, and urease in soils and malonaldehyde (MDA), superoxide dismutase (SOD), and nitrate reductase in roots were the key factors affecting rapeseed yield. The SR and BR groups had significantly increased NO3 −-N by 180.30 and 139.77%, NH4 +-N by 115.78 and 66.59%, urease by 41.27 and 26.45%, SOD by 6.64 and 4.66%, nitrate reductase by 71.67 and 26.67%, and significantly decreased MDA content by 14.81 and 13.35% under waterlogging stress, respectively, compared with CK. In addition, chlorophyll and N content in leaves, soluble sugar and POD in roots, and most agronomic traits were also significantly enhanced in response to SR and BR under waterlogging conditions. Conclusion Overall, SR and BR mitigated the waterlogging damage in rapeseed mainly by reducing the loss of soil available nitrogen, decreasing the MDA content in roots, and promoting urease in soils and SOD and nitrate reductase in roots. Finally, thorough assessment of rapeseed parameters indicated that SR treatment was most effective followed by BR treatment, to alleviate the adverse effects of waterlogging stress

Geriatric nutritional risk index is associated with the occurrence of acute kidney injury in critically ill patients with acute heart failure

Background: During the acute heart failure (AHF), acute kidney injury (AKI) is highly prevalent in critically ill patients. The occurrence of the latter condition increases the risk of mortality in patients with acute heart failure. The current research on the relationship between nutritional risk and the occurrence of acute kidney injury in patients with acute heart failure is very limited. Methods: This retrospective cohort study utilized data from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV (MIMIC-IV, version 2.1) database. We included adult patients with AHF who were admitted to the intensive care unit in the study. Results: A total of 1310 critically ill patients with acute heart failure were included. The AUC of geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI) (0.694) is slightly superior to that of controlling nutritional status (CONUT) (0.656) and prognostic nutritional index (PNI) (0.669). The Log-rank test revealed a higher risk of acute kidney injury in patients with high nutritional risk (p < 0.001). Multivariate COX regression analysis indicated that a high GNRI (adjusted HR 0.62, p < 0.001) was associated with a reduced risk of AKI during hospitalization in AHF patients. The final subgroup analysis demonstrated no significant interaction of GNRI in all subgroups except for diabetes subgroup and ventilation subgroup (P for interaction: 0.057-0.785). Conclusion: Our study findings suggest a correlation between GNRI and the occurrence of acute kidney injury in patients hospitalized with acute heart failure

Dynamic evaluation of water resources carrying capacity of the Dianchi Lake Basin in 2005–2015, based on DSPERM framework model and simulated annealing-projection pursuit model

With the intensified impact of human activities, most lakes have been severely disturbed and the lake ecosystem has been seriously damaged, which exerted a great impact on the living environment of human beings in the lake basins. The health of the lake ecosystem has gradually become one of the hot issues in recent years. In this study, the water resources carrying capacity (WRCC) was used to reveal the chain relationship between human activities and water environment in the economic development of the Dianchi Lake Basin in Kunming City of China during 2005–2015. Specifically, we chose 25 evaluation indicators related to the water environment and social-economic activities, classified them into six subsystems, i.e., the driving force subsystem (D), the water resources situation and consumption subsystem (S), the water resources pressure subsystem (P), the water environmental situation subsystem (E), the response subsystem (R), and the management subsystem (M), and built a comprehensive assessment system-DSPERM framework model. Simulated annealing-projection pursuit model which reflects the structure or feature of high-dimensional data was adopted to calculate the WRCC of the Dianchi Lake Basin during 2005–2015 by weighting each evaluation indicator and each subsystem of the DSPERM framework model. The results show that the WRCC of the Dianchi Lake Basin was in level III (medium carrying capacity) from 2005 to 2012. Since 2013, the WRCC has been at level II (strong carrying capacity), and from 2005 to 2015, it showed a gradual upward trend. The evaluation indicators of each subsystem varied greatly and exhibited different development trends. The indicators of the water resources pressure subsystem had the greatest impact on the WRCC, followed by the indicators of the water environmental situation subsystem and the water resources situation and consumption subsystem. We recommend that the DSPERM framework model and the simulated annealing-projection pursuit model constructed in this work can be used to analyze the dynamic changes of the WRCC over the years. They have the advantages of practicability and feasibility, and can provide the basis for the scientific decision-making and comprehensive management of regional water environment planning

Effects of Biochar Combined with Nitrogen Fertilizer Reduction on Rapeseed Yield and Soil Aggregate Stability in Upland of Purple Soils

Reduction of soil fertility and production efficiency resulting from excessive application of chemical fertilizers is universal in rapeseed-growing fields. The main objective of our study was to assess the effects of biochar combined with nitrogen fertilizer reduction on soil aggregate stability and rapeseed yield and to identify the relationship between yield and soil aggregate stability. A two-factor field experiment (2017&ndash;2019) was conducted with biochar (0 (C0), 10 (C10), 20 (C20) and 40 t&middot;ha&minus;1 (C40)) and nitrogen fertilizer (180 (N100), 144 (N80) and 108 kg N&middot;ha&minus;1 (N60)). Experimental results indicated that under N100 and N80 treatments, C10 significantly increased the macro-aggregates (R0.25), mean weight diameter (MWD) and geometric mean diameter (GMD) of soil water stable aggregate by 14.28%&ndash;15.85%, 14.88%&ndash;17.08% and 36.26%&ndash;42.22%, respectively, compared with C0. Besides, the overall difference of the soil water-stable aggregate content in 2&ndash;5 mm size range among nitrogen treatments was significant under the application of C10, which increased by 17.04%&ndash;33.04% compared with C0. Total organic carbon (TOC) in R0.25 of soil mechanical-stable aggregates was basically all increased after biochar application, especially in 0.25&ndash;1 mm and 1&ndash;2 mm aggregates, and had an increasing trend with biochar increase. C10 significantly increased rapeseed yield by 22.08%&ndash;45.65% in 2019, compared with C0. However, the reduction of nitrogen fertilizer reduced the two-year average rapeseed yield, which decreased by 11.67%&ndash;31.67% compared with N100. The highest yield of rapeseed was obtained by N100C10 in two consecutive years, which had no statistical difference with N80C10. However, the two-year yields of N80C10 were all higher than those of N100C0 with increase rate of 16.11%, and which would reduce 35.43% nitrogen fertilizer in the case of small yield difference, compared with the highest yield (2.67 t&middot;ha&minus;1) calculated by multi-dimensional nonlinear regression models. The regression analysis indicated R0.25, MWD and GMD had the strong positive associations with rapeseed yield, whereas percentage of aggregate destruction (PAD0.25) had a significant negative correlation with rapeseed yield. This study suggests that the application of biochar into upland purple soil could improve soil structure, increase the content of TOC in macro-aggregates under nitrogen fertilizer reduction as well as replace part of nitrogen fertilizer to achieve relatively high rapeseed yield

Study of Surface Integrity of Titanium Alloy (TC4) by Belt Grinding to Achieve the Same Surface Roughness Range

Titanium alloy materials are used in a variety of engineering applications in the aerospace, aircraft, electronics, and shipbuilding industries, and due to the continuous improvement of the contemporary age, surface integrity needs to be improved for engineering applications. Belt grinding parameters and levels directly affect the surface integrity of titanium alloys (TC4), which further affects the fatigue life of the titanium alloys during service. In order to investigate the surface integrity of titanium alloys at different roughness levels, the surfaces were repeatedly ground with the same type and different models of abrasive belts. The results showed that at roughness Ra levels of 0.4 μm to 0.2 μm, the compressive residual stresses decreased with increasing linear velocity and there were problems with large surface morphological defects. At the roughness Ra of 0.2 μm or less, grinding improves the surface morphology, the compressive residual stress increases with increasing feed rate, and the surface hardness decreases with increasing linear velocity. In addition, the research facilitates the engineering of grinding parameters and levels that affect surface integrity under different roughness conditions, providing a theoretical basis and practical reference

Label-free imaging of basement membranes differentiates normal, precancerous, and cancerous colonic tissues by second-harmonic generation microscopy.

Since changes in the basement membranes are the critical indicators for differentiating normal, precancerous, and cancerous colonic tissues, direct visualization of these warning signs is essential for the early diagnosis and treatment of colonic cancer. Here, we present that second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy can probe the changes of basement membranes in different colonic cancer stages. Our results also show the capability of using the quantitative analyses of images for quantifying these changes in different cancer stages. These results suggest that SHG microscopy has the potential in label-freely imaging the changes of basement membranes for effectively distinguishing between normal, precancerous, and cancerous colonic tissues. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of the dynamics of basement membrane changes in different colonic cancer stages using entirely intrinsic source of contrast