Simplified Printed Log-Periodic Dipole Array Antenna Fed by CBCPW

A novel simple approach for designing single-layer printed log-periodic dipole array (PLPDA) antenna fed by conductor-backed coplanar waveguide (CBCPW) is presented. The PLPDA antenna has the merits of wide bandwidth, low profile, and stable radiation pattern, which should be fed by the balanced line. The balanced line, created by the geometric features of the CBCPW, provides a balun with a considerably wide bandwidth with low profile, broad bandwidth, low insertion loss, and so forth. The prototype of the proposed CBCPW-fed printed log-periodic array at Ka band is designed and fabricated; the measured data are in good agreement with the simulated results

Epidemiology and risk factors for Carbapenemase-Producing Enterobacteriaceae carriage in the hospital: a population-based nested case-control study

Objective: This study aims to study the epidemiology of Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) in Hong Kong. / Methods: This is a longitudinal population-based study reporting monthly CPE incidence rate and a nested case-control study for identifying risk factors for CPE carriage. The cases were patients with at least one CPE positive genotypic test, while the controls were randomly selected from the cohort with negative tests. Up to four controls per case were matched by sex, age group, and admission year-month. The independent risk factors were identified from a conditional logistic regression with potential covariates. / Results: From 1st January 2008 to 31st December 2019, 8,588 patients received CPE genotyping tests, and 2,353 had at least one positive result. Class B carbapenemase was the predominant enzyme in the samples (78.6%). The incidence rate increased from 0.04 in 2015 to 1.62 in 2019 per 10,000 person-year. In the nested case-control study, 1709 cases and 6664 controls were matched. Previous use of any beta-lactam antibiotics [Odds ratio:1.37 (1.22-1.53), p<.001] was found as an independent risk factor for carriage of CPE. / Conclusion: The carriage of CPE was found with an increasing trend in Hong Kong. Previous use of any beta-lactam antibiotics is a risk factor for CPE. / Summary: The incidence rate of Carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae is increasing in Hong Kong, with the predominant enzyme of class B carbapenemase. With multivariable conditional logistic regression, the previous use of any beta-lactam antibiotics was found as an independent risk factor for CPE carriage

Risk factors for long-term cardiovascular post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 infection: A nested case-control study in Hong Kong

People with COVID-19 can experience post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC). Studies on risk factors of PASC outcomes are ongoing, especially for endocrine system-related diseases that may impact the cardiovascular system. Cardiac-related PASC is one of the burdens after COVID-19 infection. This study aimed to examine the risk factors of cardiac-related PASC. In this nested case-control study, we obtained electronic health records (EHRs) database from the Hong Kong Hospital Authority. We defined cases as patients with at least one cardiac-related PASC and controls as patients without any cardiac-related PASC. We applied the incidence density sampling and matched controls to cases on age and sex at a 1:10 ratio. Multivariable conditional logistic regression was used to determine the associations between risk factors and cardiac-related PASC. A total of 455 individuals with cardiac-related PASC and matched 3,423 controls were obtained in the underlying cohort. COVID-19-associated hospitalisation (aOR: 1.41, 95% CI: 1.03–1.93) and peripheral vascular disease (aOR: 2.98, 95% CI: 1.31–6.79) were associated with an increased likelihood of cardiac-related PASC. Higher doses of the COVID-19 vaccine (2 doses: 0.68 [0.52–0.89]; ≥3 doses: 0.56 [0.40–0.78]) and more frequent healthcare utilization visits (aOR: 0.95, 95% CI: 0.92–0.97) were associated with a lower likelihood of cardiac-related PASC. This is the first study to examine risk factors of cardiac-related PASC among the Chinese population. We identified peripheral vascular disease and COVID-19-associated hospitalisation as the risk factors for cardiac-related PASC. COVID-19 vaccination was protective against cardiac-related PASC, which should be prioritized for high-risk patients

Analysis of Long Time Series of Summer Surface Urban Heat Island under the Missing-Filled Satellite Data Scenario

Surface urban heat islands (SUHIs) are mostly an urban ecological issue. There is a growing demand for the quantification of the SUHI effect, and for its optimization to mitigate the increasing possible hazards caused by SUHI. Satellite-derived land surface temperature (LST) is an important indicator for quantifying SUHIs with frequent coverage. Current LST data with high spatiotemporal resolution is still lacking due to no single satellite sensor that can resolve the trade-off between spatial and temporal resolutions and this greatly limits its applications. To address this issue, we propose a multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) coupling the comprehensive, flexible, spatiotemporal data fusion (CFSDAF) method to generate a high-spatiotemporal-resolution LST dataset. We then analyzed the SUHI intensity (SUHII) in Chengdu City, a typical cloudy and rainy city in China, from 2002 to 2022. Finally, we selected thirteen potential driving factors of SUHIs and analyzed the relation between these thirteen influential drivers and SUHIIs. Results show that: (1) an MGWR outperforms classic methods for downscaling LST, namely geographically weighted regression (GWR) and thermal image sharpening (TsHARP); (2) compared to classic spatiotemporal fusion methods, our method produces more accurate predicted LST images (R2, RMSE, AAD values were in the range of 0.8103 to 0.9476, 1.0601 to 1.4974, 0.8455 to 1.3380); (3) the average summer daytime SUHII increased form 2.08 °C (suburban area as 50% of the urban area) and 2.32 °C (suburban area as 100% of the urban area) in 2002 to 4.93 °C and 5.07 °C, respectively, in 2022 over Chengdu City; and (4) the anthropogenic activity drivers have a higher relative influence on SUHII than other drivers. Therefore, anthropogenic activity driving factors should be considered with CO2 emissions and land use changes for urban planning to mitigate the SUHI effect

Uniplanar Millimeter-Wave Log-Periodic Dipole Array Antenna Fed by Coplanar Waveguide

A uniplanar millimeter-wave broadband printed log-periodic dipole array (PLPDA) antenna fed by coplanar waveguide (CPW) is introduced. This proposed structure consists of several active dipole elements, feeding lines, parallel coupled line, and the CPW, which are etched on a single metallic layer of the substrate. The parallel coupled line can be optimized to act as a transformer between the CPW and the PLPDA antenna. Meanwhile, this transform performs the task of a balun to achieve a wideband, low cost, low loss, simple directional antenna. The uniplanar nature makes the antenna suitable to be integrated into modern printed communication circuits, especially the monolithic millimeter-wave integrated circuits (MMIC). The antenna has been carefully examined and measured to present the return loss, far-field patterns, and antenna gain

Uniplanar Millimeter-Wave Log-Periodic Dipole Array Antenna Fed by Coplanar Waveguide

A uniplanar millimeter-wave broadband printed log-periodic dipole array (PLPDA) antenna fed by coplanar waveguide (CPW) is introduced. This proposed structure consists of several active dipole elements, feeding lines, parallel coupled line, and the CPW, which are etched on a single metallic layer of the substrate. The parallel coupled line can be optimized to act as a transformer between the CPW and the PLPDA antenna. Meanwhile, this transform performs the task of a balun to achieve a wideband, low cost, low loss, simple directional antenna. The uniplanar nature makes the antenna suitable to be integrated into modern printed communication circuits, especially the monolithic millimeter-wave integrated circuits (MMIC). The antenna has been carefully examined and measured to present the return loss, far-field patterns, and antenna gain

Tunable backbone-degradable robust tissue adhesives via in situ radical ring-opening polymerization

Abstract Adhesives with both robust adhesion and tunable degradability are clinically and ecologically vital, but their fabrication remains a formidable challenge. Here we propose an in situ radical ring-opening polymerization (rROP) strategy to design a backbone-degradable robust adhesive (BDRA) in physiological environment. The hydrophobic cyclic ketene acetal and hydrophilic acrylate monomer mixture of the BDRA precursor allows it to effectively wet and penetrate substrates, subsequently forming a deep covalently interpenetrating network with a degradable backbone via redox-initiated in situ rROP. The resulting BDRAs show good adhesion strength on diverse materials and tissues (e.g., wet bone >16 MPa, and porcine skin >150 kPa), higher than that of commercial cyanoacrylate superglue (~4 MPa and 56 kPa). Moreover, the BDRAs have enhanced tunable degradability, mechanical modulus (100 kPa-10 GPa) and setting time (seconds-hours), and have good biocompatibility in vitro and in vivo. This family of BDRAs expands the scope of medical adhesive applications and offers an easy and environmentally friendly approach for engineering

Correlation between human papillomavirus infection and reproduction

Human papillomavirus (HPV) is one of the most common sexually transmitted infectious viruses among men and women of reproductive age throughout the world. Pregnant women are susceptible during pregnancy and most infections of them are self-limiting infections, which can be removed by their autoimmunity, while the persistent infections are associated with precancerous lesions and cancer of the anogenital mucosa in women and men. In addition, HPV infection may also affect reproductive health and fertility. The effect of HPV on female fertility requires further study, but HPV influences sperm parameters. Furthermore, whether HPV infection alters the effect of assisted reproductive technology and whether there is an association between it and assisted reproductive technology (ART) outcomes is unknown. It is considered that the relationship between HPV infection and spontaneous abortion (SA), assisted reproductive technology (ART) outcomes and spontaneous preterm birth (sPTB) has profound implications for the medical care of pregnant and infertile women. This paper reviews the relationship between human papillomavirus infection during pregnancy and SA, sPTB and ART in reproduction, and reviews the relationship between human papillomavirus and human fertility by summarizing the recent domestic and foreign literature

A Virtual Supermarket Program for the Screening of Mild Cognitive Impairment in Older Adults: Diagnostic Accuracy Study

BackgroundMild cognitive impairment (MCI) is often a precursor of dementia, and patients with MCI develop dementia at a higher rate than healthy older adults. Early detection of cognitive decline at the MCI stage supports better planning of care and interventions. At present, the use of virtual reality (VR) in screening for MCI in older adults is promising, but there is little evidence regarding the use of virtual supermarkets to screen for MCI. ObjectiveThe objectives of this study are to validate a VR game–based test, namely, the Virtual Supermarket Program (VSP), for differentiating patients with MCI and healthy controls and to identify cutoff scores for different age levels. MethodsSubjects were recruited from several nursing homes and communities in Changchun, China. They were divided into a healthy control group (n=64) and an MCI group (n=62). All subjects were administered the VSP and a series of neuropsychological examinations. The study determined the optimal cutoff, discriminating validity, concurrent validity, and retest reliability of the VSP. We used the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) to evaluate the discriminating validity and obtain the optimal cutoff values. Pearson correlation analysis and the intraclass correlation coefficient were used to evaluate the concurrent validity and retest reliability, respectively. ResultsA cutoff score of 46.4 was optimal for the entire sample, yielding a sensitivity of 85.9% and specificity of 79.0% for differentiating individuals with MCI and healthy controls, and the AUC was 0.870 (95% CI 0.799-0.924). The median index of VSP score was 51.1 (range 42.6-60.0). There was a moderate positive correlation between the VSP total score and Mini-Mental State Examination score (r=0.429, P<.001). There was a strong positive correlation between VSP total score and Montreal Cognitive Assessment score (r=0.645, P<.001). The retest reliability of the VSP was feasible (r=0.588, P=.048). ConclusionsThe VSP is interesting and feasible for subjects. It shows high sensitivity and specificity for the identification of MCI in older adults, which makes it a promising screening method. The VSP may be generalized to older adults in other countries, although some cultural adaptation may be necessary. Trial RegistrationChinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR2000040074; https://www.chictr.org.cn/showprojen.aspx?proj=6463

The metagenomic and metabolomic profile of the gut microbes in Chinese full-term and late preterm infants treated with Clostridium butyricum

Abstract The present study investigated the composition, abundance, and diversity of gut microbes in full-term and late-preterm infants from a medical center in eastern China. A total of 144 genomes of stool samples were captured for 16S rRNA metagenomic analyses. A high abundance of commensal intestinal bacteria was detected in these samples such as Phocaeicola vulgatus, Escherichia coli, and Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, indicating a relatively consistent diversity of gut microbes in the present full-term infants aged 38–40 weeks. However, late preterm infants (n = 50) with mandatory antimicrobials feeding exhibited lower diversity but a higher composition of opportunistic pathogens such as Enterococcus species. Centralized on the situation, we explored the regulatory effect of Clostridium butyricum as probiotics on these late preterm infants. The consumption of C. butyricum did not restore the composition of gut microbes altered by antimicrobials to normal levels, although several opportunistic pathogens decreased significantly after probiotic therapy including Staphylococcus aureus, Sphingomonas echinoides, and Pseudomonas putida. We also compared the effects of day-fed versus night-fed probiotics. Intriguingly, the nighttime feeding showed a higher proportion of C. butyricum compared with probiotic day-feeding. Finally, fecal metabolome and metabolites were analyzed in late preterm infants with (n = 20) or without probiotic therapy (n = 20). The KEGG enrichment analysis demonstrated that vitamin digestion and absorption, synaptic vesicle cycle, and biotin metabolism were significantly increased in the probiotic-treated group, while MSEA indicated that a series of metabolism were significantly enriched in probiotic-treated infants including glycerolipid, biotin, and lysine, indicating the complex effects of probiotic therapy on glutathione metabolism and nutrients digestion and absorption in late preterm infants. Overall, this study provided metagenomic and metabolomic profile of the gut microbes in full-term newborns and late preterm infants in eastern China. Further studies are needed to support and elucidate the role of probiotic feeding in late preterm infants with mandatory antimicrobial treatment