Selected Adnexal Cystic Masses in Postmenopausal Women Can be Safely Managed by Laparoscopy

The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy and safety of laparoscopic treatment for adnexal cystic masses that were predicted to be benign in postmenopausal women. Postmenopausal women found to have an adnexal cystic mass were retrospectively evaluated with transvaginal ultrasonography, and serum CA-125 levels. The selection criteria were adnexal cystic masses greater than 3 cm but less than 10 cm, the masses were in the benign range (4-8) of Sassone's scoring system for transvaginal ultrasonography, and the patients had serum CA-125 levels less than 65 IU/mL. Two hundred nineteen women fulfilled the criteria and underwent operative laparoscopy. Almost all the masses (99.5%) were accurately predicted to be benign except for one borderline ovarian tumor. Two hundreds thirteen (97.3%) women were successfully managed by operative laparoscopy and six (2.7%) required laparotomy. For the patients managed by laparoscopy, the mean operative time was 51.3 min; the mean hospital stay was 2.5 days. There was no significant morbidity and surgery-related mortality. The combination of the Sassone's scoring system for transvaginal ultrasonography and serum CA-125 level can accurately predict benign cystic masses, and operative laparoscopy is technically feasible and safe for the management of adnexal mass in postmenopausal women

Efficacy and safety of low-dose IL-2 in the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Objectives Open-labelled clinical trials suggested that low-dose IL-2 might be effective in treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). A double-blind and placebocontrolled trial is required to formally evaluate the safety and efficacy of low-dose IL-2 therapy. Methods A randomised, double-blind and placebocontrolled clinical trial was designed to treat 60 patients with active SLE. These patients received either IL-2 (n=30) or placebo (n=30) with standard treatment for 12 weeks, and were followed up for additional 12 weeks. IL-2 at a dose of 1 million IU or placebo was administered subcutaneously every other day for 2 weeks and followed by a 2-week break as one treatment cycle. The primary endpoint was the SLE Responder Index-4 (SRI-4) at week 12. The secondary endpoints were other clinical responses, safety and dynamics of immune cell subsets. Results At week 12, the SRI-4 response rates were 55.17% and 30.00% for IL-2 and placebo, respectively (p=0.052). At week 24, the SRI-4 response rate of IL-2 group was 65.52%, compared with 36.67% of the placebo group (p=0.027). The primary endpoint was not met at week 12. Low-dose IL-2 treatment resulted in 53.85% (7/13) complete remission in patients with lupus nephritis, compared with 16.67% (2/12) in the placebo group (p=0.036). No serious infection was observed in the IL-2 group, but two in placebo group. Besides expansion of regulatory T cells, low-dose IL-2 may also sustain cellular immunity with enhanced natural killer cells. Conclusions Low-dose IL-2 might be effective and tolerated in treatment of SThe work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31530020,31570880,81471601,81601417 and 81701598), Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences to ZG LI, Beijing Sci-Tech Committee Z171100000417007,Clinical Medicine Plus X-Young Scholars Project of Peking University (PKU2019LCXQ013) supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Beijing Nova Program Z171100001117025, National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFC0909003 to DY), BellberryViertel Senior Medical Research Fellowship to DY and Beijing SL PHARM

Chiplet Heterogeneous Integration Technology—Status and Challenges

As a heterogeneous integration technology, the chiplet-based design technology integrates multiple heterogeneous dies of diverse functional circuit blocks into a single chip by using advanced packaging technology, which is a promising way to tackle the failure of Moore’s law and Dennard scaling. Currently, as process nodes move forward, dramatically rising cost, design cycle, and complexity are driving industry to focus on the chiplets. Chiplets allows IC designers to merge dies fabricated at different process nodes and reuse them in different projects, which helps to reduce the cost during design and improve yield. In this review, we look back at the industry’s efforts over the past decade and summary the concepts and techniques associated with chiplets. In the end, a discussion and conclusion will be given to forecast the future of chiplets

Characteristics of Milk Fermented by Streptococcus thermophilus MGA45-4 and the Profiles of Associated Volatile Compounds during Fermentation and Storage

The lactic acid bacterium Streptococcus thermophilus is a major starter culture for the production of dairy products. In this study, the physiochemical characteristics of milk fermented by the MGA45-4 isolate of S. thermophilus were analyzed. Our data indicate that milk fermented using S. thermophilus MGA45-4 maintained a high viable cell count (8.86 log10 colony-forming units/mL), and a relatively high pH (4.4), viscosity (834.33 mPa·s), and water holding capacity (40.85%) during 14 days of storage. By analyzing the volatile compound profile using solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, we identified 73 volatile compounds in the fermented milk product, including five carboxylic acids, 21 aldehydes, 13 ketones, 16 alcohols, five esters, and 13 aromatic carbohydrates. According to the odor activity values, 11 of these volatile compounds were found to play a key role in producing the characteristic flavor of fermented milk, particularly octanal, nonanal, hexanal, 2,3-butanedione, and 1-octen-3-ol, which had the highest odor activity values among all compounds analyzed. These findings thus provide more insights in the chemical/molecular characteristics of milk fermented using S. thermophilus, which may provide a basis for improving dairy product flavor/odor during the process of fermentation and storage

Profiles of Volatile Flavor Compounds in Milk Fermented with Different Proportional Combinations of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus

Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus are key factors in the fermentation process and the final quality of dairy products worldwide. This study was performed to investigate the effects of the proportions of Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus isolated from traditionally fermented dairy products in China and Mongolia on the profile of volatile compounds produced in samples. Six proportional combinations (1:1, 1:10, 1:50, 1:100, 1:1000, and 1:10,000) of L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus IMAU20401 to S. thermophilus ND03 were considered, and the volatiles were identified and quantified by solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (SPME-GC-MS) against an internal standard. In total, 89 volatile flavor compounds, consisting of aldehydes, ketones, acids, alcohols, esters, and aromatic hydrocarbons, were identified. Among these, some key flavor volatile compounds were identified, including acetaldehyde, 3-methylbutanal, acetoin, 2-heptanone, acetic acid, butanoic acid, and 3-methyl-1-butanol. The of L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus IMAU20401 to S. thermophilus ND03 influenced the type and concentration of volatiles produced. In particular, aldehydes and ketones were present at higher concentrations in the 1:1000 treatment combination than in the other combinations. Our findings emphasize the importance of selecting the appropriate proportions of L. delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus for the starter culture in determining the final profile of volatiles and the overall flavor of dairy products

Study on classification methods of remote sensing image based on decision tree technology

Zhejiang University; Nanjing University; Nanjing University of Science and Technology; Shanghai Jiao Tong University; University of Science and Technology of China<span class="MedBlackText">In order to improve and enforce environmental monitoring ability, especially in fields of large scale monitoring and dynamic monitoring, the Environmental Satellite will be launched in 2008 in China. Before the Satellite is launched, necessary pre-research work has to be done. Considering future ecological monitoring demand, we have paid more attention to land use/land cover classification method based on the Satellite's CCD sensor. In this article, we compared the decision tree classification technology with other classic automatic classification technologies using Landsat ETM+ image data and GIS data of Tangshan City in Hebei, China. The result of this study showed: accuracy of decision tree classification compared with the classic automatic classification technologies was improved by 18.29%, Kappa coefficient was increased about 0.1878; classification accuracy was improved about 19.52% when DEM and its derivative data were used as ancillary data in the mountainous area, Kappa coefficient was increased about 0.281; the classification accuracy was improved by 15.86% when the DN(Digital Number) values were converted to at-satellite reflectance values; tasseled cap transformation could cause classification accuracy to be reduced appreciably accompanied by compression of data amount.</span

Polymer Tacticity Control for Stereoselective Ring-Opening Polymerization of Racemic <i>n</i>‑Propylglycolide

The synthesis of stereoregular aliphatic polyesters with superior (bio)degradability and recyclability has been one of the promising areas in material science, which can be achieved through the stereoselective polymerization of cyclic esters. However, it remains a long-standing challenge to achieve tacticity (isotactic and heterotactic) control of aliphatic polyesters in one catalytic system through modulation of the polymerization mechanism. Here we reported a tunable and controllable method for stereoselective polymerization of racemic n-propylglycolide (nPrgl) based on the analysis of the enantiomorphic site control (ESC) and chain-end control (CEC) mechanisms in the polymerization. The enantiomorphic site control and chain-end control-dominated stereoregular polymerization processes were achieved via adjustable polymerization conditions, producing isotactic poly(nPrgl) with a Pm of up to 0.88 (based on ESC) and heterotactic poly(nPrgl) with a Pr of up to 0.94 (based on CEC). This understanding of ESC and CEC mechanisms might provide a compelling guidance to the design of stereoselective polymerization

Circulating immune complexome analysis identified anti-tubulin-α-1c as an inflammation associated autoantibody with promising diagnostic value for Behcet's Disease.

BACKGROUND:Behcet's disease (BD) is a chronic, multisystem-involved vasculitis and its pathogenesis remains elusive. No specific serological markers for BD diagnosis have been established. Identification of novel diagnostic biomarkers will be helpful in timely diagnostic and treatment for Behcet's disease. OBJECTIVE:To screen novel autoantigens or autoantibodies with potential diagnostic value in circulating immune complexes (CICs) from BD patients. METHODS:A proteomic strategy for immune complexome analysis was developed, in which CICs were separated from serum sample of 10 BD patients and 10 healthy controls and then subjected to Orbitrap mass spectrometry for autoantigen profiling. Anti-tubulin-α-1c antibody levels were further determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in sera of patients with BD, systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), recurrent aphthous ulcers (RAU), ANCA associated systemic vasculitis (AASV), Takayasu's arteritis (TA) and 59 healthy controls. RESULT:A total of 17 potential antigens were identified in CICs from BD patients, but not in HC. The autoantibody to one of the identified antigens, tubulin-α-1c, was significantly increased in BD patients compared with that in healthy and disease controls. The sensitivity and specificity of tubulin-α-1c antibody in the diagnosis of BD in this study were 61.36% and 88.4%, respectively. Further analysis demonstrated that anti-tubulin-α-1c was associated with complications of deep venous thrombosis and erythema nodosum in BD. The levels of anti-tubulin-α-1c were also significantly correlated with the BD inflammation and disease activity markers ESR, CRP and BVAS. CONCLUSION:Anti-tubulin-α-1c antibody is a promising biomarker in diagnosis and severity evaluation of BD and in indicating the risk of deep venous thrombosis and erythema nodosum. The immune complexome analysis by proteomic CIC autoantigen screening is a feasible way of identifying novel biomarkers in BD