Controlled-release urea application and optimized nitrogen applied strategy reduced nitrogen leaching and maintained grain yield of paddy fields in Northwest China

Nitrogen loss from paddy fields contributes to most of the nitrogen pollution load in the Ningxia Yellow River irrigation area, threatening the water quality of the Yellow River. Consequently, optimizing the nitrogen management practices in this area is essential, which can maintain paddy grain productivity and reduce nitrogen loss simultaneously. Five treatments with different nitrogen application rates and nitrogen fertilizer types were set in this study, including conventional urea application with zero nitrogen application rate (CK, 0 kg hm^-2), nitrogen expert-based fertilization application strategy (NE, 210 kg hm^-2), optimized nitrogen fertilizer application strategy recommended by local government (OPT, 240 kg hm^-2), and farmer's experience-based nitrogen fertilizer application strategy (FP, 300 kg hm^-2), and controlled-release urea application (CRU, 180 kg hm^-2). The data from one growth season field experiment in 2021 revealed the dynamics of nitrogen concentration, paddy yield and its nitrogen uptake characteristic, and nitrogen balance in the paddy field under different nitrogen application practices. Most nitrogen leaching was observed during the seedling and tillering stages in the form of nitrate nitrogen (NO₃ ^-N). Compared with the FP, the CRU and OPT significantly reduced the nitrogen concentrations of total nitrogen (TN), ammonium nitrogen (NH₄ ⁺-N), and NO₃ ^-N in the surface and soil water and reduced the nitrogen leaching at 100 cm soil depth. Meanwhile, the paddy grain yield in CRU (7737 kg hm^-2) and OPT (7379 kg hm^-2) was not significantly decreased compared with FP (7918 kg hm^-2), even though the nitrogen uptake by grain and straw was higher in FP (135 kg hm^-2) than in other treatments (52.10~126.40 kg hm^-2). However, the grain yield in NE (6972 kg hm^-2) was decreased compared with the FP. The differences in grain yield among these treatments were mainly attributed to the ear number and grain number changes. Also, the highest nitrogen use efficiency (40.14%), apparent nitrogen efficiency (19.53 kg kg^-1), and nitrogen partial productivity (43.98 kg kg^-1) were identified in CRU than in other treatments. Considering increased grain yield and reducing nitrogen loss in the paddy field simultaneously, the treatments of CRU (i.e., 180 kg hm^-2 nitrogen application rate with controlled-release urea) and OPT (i.e., 240 kg hm^-2 nitrogen application rate with conventional urea) were recommended for nitrogen fertilizer application in the study area.

[Effects of whole body vibration on bone strength and physical fitness in elderly COPD patients complicated with osteoporosis]

Objective: To investigate the effects of adding whole body vibration (WBV) to routine exercise regimen of pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) on bone strength, lung function and exercise ability of elderly patients with stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) complicated with osteoporosis (OP). Methods: Thirty seven elderly patients with stable COPD were randomly divided into control group (group C, n=12, age: 64.6±3.8 years), conventional PR group (PR group, n=12, age: 66.1±4.9 years), and whole body vibration combined PR group (WP group, n=13, age: 65.5±3.3 years). Before intervention, X-ray and computerized tomography bone scan, bone metabolic markers, pulmonary function, cardiopulmonary exercise, 6-minute walking and isokinetic muscle strength were performed, and then intervened for 36 weeks, three times/week, among which group C subjects were given routine treatment, PR group added aerobic running and static weight resistance on the basis of routine treatment, and WP group added WBV on the basis of PR group intervention. After the intervention, the same indicators were detected. Results: Compared with before the intervention, the pulmonary function indexes of each group were significantly improved after the intervention (P＜0.05), and the bone mineral density and bone microstructure indexes of the patients in the WP group were also significantly improved (P＜0.05). Compared with group C and group PR, the bone mineral density, bone microstructure, parathyroid hormone (PTH), insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), interleukin-6 (IL-6), osteocalcin (OCN) and other bone metabolism indexes, knee flexion, peak extension torque, fatigue index and muscle strength of patients in WP group were significantly improved (P＜0.05). Conclusion: Adding WBV to the conventional PR regimen can improve the bone strength, lung function and exercise capacity of elderly patients with COPD complicated with OP, and may be able to make up for the deficiency of the current conventional PR regimen for insufficient muscle and bone stimulation.

Improving intestinal absorption and antibacterial effect of florfenicol via nanocrystallisation technology

To study the effects of nanocrystallisation technology on the intestinal absorption properties and antibacterial activity of florfenicol (FF). The florfenicol nanocrystals (FF-NC) were prepared by wet grinding and spray drying. Additionally, changes in particle size, charge, morphology, and dissolution of FF-NC in the long-term stability were monitored by laser particle sizer, TEM, SEM, paddle method, and the structure of FF-NC powder was characterised by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) test. The antibacterial activity, intestinal absorption and intestinal histocompatibility of FF-NC were investigated by the stiletto, mini broth dilution susceptibility test, in situ single-pass intestinal perfusion (SPIP) and haematoxylin-eosin (H-E) staining. After 12 months of storage, the particle size and zeta potential of FF-NC were 280.43 ± 8.21 nm and -19.64 ± 3.45 mV, and the electron microscopy results showed that FF-NC were nearly circular with no adhesion between particles. In addition, the drug loading, encapsulation efficiency, and dissolution of FF-NC did not change significantly during storage. The inhibition zone of FF-NC against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus was 21.37 ± 1.70 mm and 25.17 ± 2.47 mm, respectively. Compared with the FF, the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of FF-NC are reduced, and the absorption rate constant (K_a) and efficient permeability coefficient (P_eff) of FF-NC in the three intestinal segments were increased by 1.28, 0.25, and 9.10 times and 0.59, 0.17, and 6.0 times, respectively. The results of tissue sections showed that FF-NC had little damage to the small intestinal. Nanocrystallisation technology is an effective method to increase the intestinal absorption and antibacterial activity of FF.

[Introduction and implications of WHO position paper: vaccines against influenza, May 2022]

On May 13, 2022, World Health Organization(WHO) Position Paper on Influenza Vaccine (2022 edition) was published. This position paper updates information on influenza epidemiology, high risk population, the impact of immunization on disease, influenza vaccines and effectiveness and safety, and propose WHO's position and recommendation that all countries should consider implementing seasonal influenza vaccine immunization programmes to prepare for an influenza pandemic. In addition, it proposes that the influenza surveillance platform can be integrated with the surveillance of other respiratory viruses, such as SARS-CoV-2 and Respiratory Syncytial Virus. This position paper has some implications for the prevention and control of influenza and other respiratory infectious diseases in China: (1) Optimize influenza vaccine policies to facilitate the implementation of immunization services; (2) Influenza prevention and control should from the perspective of Population Medicine focus on the individual and community to integrate with "Promotion, Prevention, Diagnosis, Control, Treatment, Rehabilitation"; (3) Incorporate prevention and control of other respiratory infectious diseases such as influenza, COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus and adenovirus, and intelligently monitor by integrating multi-channel data to achieve the goal of co-prevention and control of multiple diseases.

Dissecting Latency in 360° Video Camera Sensing Systems

360° video camera sensing is an increasingly popular technology. Compared with traditional 2D video systems, it is challenging to ensure the viewing experience in 360° video camera sensing because the massive omnidirectional data introduce adverse effects on start-up delay, event-to-eye delay, and frame rate. Therefore, understanding the time consumption of computing tasks in 360° video camera sensing becomes the prerequisite to improving the system's delay performance and viewing experience. Despite the prior measurement studies on 360° video systems, none of them delves into the system pipeline and dissects the latency at the task level. In this paper, we perform the first in-depth measurement study of task-level time consumption for 360° video camera sensing. We start with identifying the subtle relationship between the three delay metrics and the time consumption breakdown across the system computing task. Next, we develop an open research prototype Zeus to characterize this relationship in various realistic usage scenarios. Our measurement of task-level time consumption demonstrates the importance of the camera CPU-GPU transfer and the server initialization, as well as the negligible effect of 360° video stitching on the delay metrics. Finally, we compare Zeus with a commercial system to validate that our results are representative and can be used to improve today's 360° video camera sensing systems.

Objective Outcomes of an Extended Anti-reflux Mucosectomy in the Treatment of PPI-Dependent Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (with Video)

BACKGROUND

Anti-reflux mucosectomy (ARMS) is a choice for proton pump inhibitor (PPI)-dependent patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). We present an extended anti-reflux mucosectomy, named ligation-assisted anti-reflux mucosectomy (L-ARMS). The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of the procedure and short-term outcomes on PPI use and symptom resolution.

METHODS

Institutional review board approval was obtained for retrospective review of a prospectively collected database including patients who underwent L-ARMS. L-ARMS includes mucosa ligation and endoscopic mucosectomy without submucosal injection around the squamocolumnar junction. The GERD symptoms, endoscopy, 24-h pH monitoring results, and manometry were collected by chart review. Voluntary validated surveys assessed symptomatic improvement over time.

RESULTS

There were 69 patients available for review. The procedure was technically completed in all cases with no severe complications, and the average operation time was 33 min. At 6 months after L-ARMS, treatment with PPIs had been halted in 55.1% of the patients, 30.4% of the enrolled patients used PPIs occasionally, and the lower esophageal sphincter (LES) pressure, DeMeester scores, and GERD-health-related quality of life questionnaire (GERD-HRQL) scores showed a significant improvement compared with the baseline measurements (P < 0.001). Forty-five patients complained of mild dysphagia and were relieved in 4 weeks with no specific treatment. Compared to patients without dysphagia, patients complained of dysphagia after surgery had better clinical benefits indicated by GERD-HRQL and DeMeester score.

CONCLUSIONS

As a modified ARMS, L-ARMS is an effective procedure for controlling GERD symptoms, esophageal acid exposure, and LES pressure, which can be safely performed endoscopically in a time-saving and simple manner.

Lactate Metabolism-Associated lncRNA Pairs: A Prognostic Signature to Reveal the Immunological Landscape and Mediate Therapeutic Response in Patients With Colon Adenocarcinoma

Background

Lactate metabolism is critically involved in the tumor microenvironment (TME), as well as cancer progression. It is important to note, however, that lactate metabolism-related long non-coding RNAs (laRlncRNAs) remain incredibly understudied in colon adenocarcinoma (COAD).

Methods

A gene expression profile was obtained from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database to identify laRlncRNA expression in COAD patients. A risk signature with prognostic value was identified from TCGA and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) cohort based on laRlncRNA pairs by the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and Cox regression analyses. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and functional experiments were carried out to verify the expression of laRlncRNAs in COAD. The relationship of laRlncRNA pairs with immune landscape as well as the sensitivity of different therapies was explored.

Results

In total, 2378 laRlncRNAs were identified, 1,120 pairs of which were studied to determine their prognostic validity, followed by a risk signature established based on the screened 5 laRlncRNA pairs. The laRlncRNA pairs-based signature provided a better overall survival (OS) prediction than other published signatures and functioned as a prognostic marker for COAD patients. According to the calculated optimal cut-off point, patients were divided into high- and low-risk groups. The OS of COAD patients in the high-risk group were significantly shorter than that of those in the low-risk group (P=4.252e-14 in the TCGA cohort and P=2.865-02 in the GEO cohort). Furthermore, it remained an effective predictor of survival in strata of gender, age, TNM stage, and its significance persisted after univariate and multivariate Cox regressions. Additionally, the risk signature was significantly correlated with immune cells infiltration, tumor mutation burden (TMB), microsatellite instability (MSI) as well as immunotherapeutic efficacy and chemotherapy sensitivity. Finally, one of the laRlncRNA, LINC01315, promotes proliferation and migration capacities of colon cancer cells.

Conclusion

The newly identified laRlncRNAs pairs-based signature exhibits potential effects in predicting prognosis, deciphering patients’ immune landscape, and mediating sensitivity to immunotherapy and chemotherapy. Findings in our study may provide evidence for the role of laRlncRNAs pairs as novel prognostic biomarkers and potentially individualized therapy targets for COAD patients.

A Machine Learning-Based System for Real-Time Polyp Detection (DeFrame): A Retrospective Study

Background and Aims

Recent studies have shown that artificial intelligence-based computer-aided detection systems possess great potential in reducing the heterogeneous performance of doctors during endoscopy. However, most existing studies are based on high-quality static images available in open-source databases with relatively small data volumes, and, hence, are not applicable for routine clinical practice. This research aims to integrate multiple deep learning algorithms and develop a system (DeFrame) that can be used to accurately detect intestinal polyps in real time during clinical endoscopy.

Methods

A total of 681 colonoscopy videos were collected for retrospective analysis at Xiangya Hospital of Central South University from June 2019 to June 2020. To train the machine learning (ML)-based system, 6,833 images were extracted from 48 collected videos, and 1,544 images were collected from public datasets. The DeFrame system was further validated with two datasets, consisting of 24,486 images extracted from 176 collected videos and 12,283 images extracted from 259 collected videos. The remaining 198 collected full-length videos were used for the final test of the system. The measurement metrics were sensitivity and specificity in validation dataset 1, precision, recall and F1 score in validation dataset 2, and the overall performance when tested in the complete video perspective.

Results

A sensitivity and specificity of 79.54 and 95.83%, respectively, was obtained for the DeFrame system for detecting intestinal polyps. The recall and precision of the system for polyp detection were determined to be 95.43 and 92.12%, respectively. When tested using full colonoscopy videos, the system achieved a recall of 100% and precision of 80.80%.

Conclusion

We have developed a fast, accurate, and reliable DeFrame system for detecting polyps, which, to some extent, is feasible for use in routine clinical practice.

Enhanced Neutral Exciton Diffusion in Monolayer WS2 by Exciton-Exciton Annihilation

Dominant recombination pathways in monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) depend primarily on background carrier concentration, generation rate, and applied strain. Charged excitons formed in the presence of background carriers mainly recombine nonradiatively. Neutral excitons recombine completely radiatively at low generation rates, but experience nonradiative exciton-exciton annihilation (EEA) at high generation rates. Strain can suppress EEA, resulting in near-unity photoluminescence quantum yield (PL QY) at all exciton densities. Although exciton diffusion is the primary channel of energy transport in excitonic materials and a critical optoelectronic design consideration, the combined effects of these factors on exciton diffusion are not clearly understood. In this work, we decouple the diffusion of neutral and charged excitons with chemical counterdoping and explore the effect of strain and generation rate on exciton diffusion. According to the standard semiconductor paradigm, a shorter carrier recombination lifetime should lead to a smaller diffusion length. Surprisingly, we find that increasing generation rate shortens the exciton lifetime but increases the diffusion length in unstrained monolayers of TMDCs. When we suppress EEA by strain, both lifetime and diffusion length become independent of generation rate. During EEA one exciton nonradiatively recombines and kinetically energizes another exciton, which then diffuses fast. Our results probe concentration-dependent diffusion of pure neutral excitons by counterdoping and elucidate how strain controls exciton transport and many-body interactions in TMDC monolayers.

Exosomal hsa_circ_0000519 modulates the NSCLC cell growth and metastasis via miR-1258/RHOV axis

This study aims to explore the function and mechanism of exosomal circ_0000519 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) development. Expression of circ_0000519, microRNA (miR)-1258, and Ras homolog gene family V (RHOV) in serum samples of NSCLC patients or cell lines were examined via quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction and Western blotting. The function of circ_0000519 was evaluated through 5-ethynyl-2′-deoxyuridine (EdU) staining, colony formation, transwell, Western blotting, xenograft, and immunohistochemistry analyses. The binding relationship was evaluated by a dual-luciferase reporter assay and RNA pull-down assay. Results showed that circ_0000519 abundance was enhanced in the serum samples of NSCLC patients and cells. circ_0000519 knockdown suppressed the cell growth by decreasing the colony-formation ability and Cyclin D1 expression and inhibited cell metastasis via reducing migration, invasion, and levels of Vimentin and matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9). circ_0000519 overexpression promoted cell growth and metastasis. circ_0000519 was carried by exosomes and knockdown of exosomal circ_0000519 suppressed the cell growth and metastasis. miR-1258 was downregulated in NSCLC cells and targeted by circ_0000519. RHOV was targeted by miR-1258 and upregulated in the NSCLC cells. miR-1258 knockdown or RHOV overexpression attenuated the influence of exosomal circ_0000519 knockdown on cell growth and metastasis. Exosomal circ_0000519 knockdown decreased xenograft tumor growth. Collectively, the knockdown of exosomal circ_0000519 repressed the cell growth and metastasis in NSCLC through the miR-1258/RHOV axis, which provided a new insight into NSCLC development and treatment.

Three-arm phase II trial comparing camrelizumab plus chemotherapy versus camrelizumab plus chemoradiation versus chemoradiation as preoperative treatment for locally advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (NICE-2 Study)

Background

Preoperative chemoradiotherapy (CRT) with CROSS regimen has been the recommended treatment for locally advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). The addition of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor to preoperative CRT may further improve oncologic results. Preoperative camrelizumab plus chemotherapy has been demonstrated as a promising treatment modality based on results of the phase II NICE study (ChiCTR1900026240).

Methods

The NICE-2 study is designed as a three-arm, multicenter, prospective, randomized, phase II clinical trial, comparing camrelizumab plus chemotherapy (IO-CT) and camrelizumab plus CRT (IO-CRT) versus CRT as preoperative treatment for locally advanced ESCC. A total of 204 patients will be recruited from 8 Chinese institutions within 1.5 years. The primary endpoint is pathological complete response (pCR) rate and secondary endpoints include event-free survival (EFS), R0 resection rate, and adverse events.

Discussion

This is the first prospective randomized controlled trial to explore commonly used neoadjuvant treatments in clinical practice, which will provide high-level evidence of neoadjuvant treatment for patients with locally advanced ESCC. The purpose of this study is to establish the optimal modality of IO-CT, IO-CRT and CRT as preoperative treatment for locally advanced ESCC. The Institution Review Committee approved this study protocol in August 2021 and patient enrollment was started in September 2021.

Trial registration

ClinicalTrial.gov: NCT05043688 (August 29, 2021). The trial was prospectively registered.