Tailoring Polyamide Rejection Layer with Aqueous Carbonate Chemistry for Enhanced Membrane Separation: Mechanistic Insights, Chemistry-Structure-Property Relationship, and Environmental Implications

Surface roughness and the associated nanosized voids inside the roughness structures have great influence on the separation performance of thin film composite polyamide reverse osmosis (RO) membranes. Inspired by the recent findings that these voids are formed due to the degassing of CO₂ nanobubbles during interfacial polymerization, we systematically investigated the role of carbonate chemistry, particularly the solubility of CO₂, in the aqueous m-phenylenediamine (MPD) solution for the first time. "Ridge-and-valley" roughness features were obtained when the pH of the MPD solution was between the two acidity constants of the carbonate system (i.e., 6.3 ≤ pH ≤ 10.3), under which condition HCO₃^- dominates over the other carbonate species. Increasing pH over this range led to both increased water permeability and better rejection of various solutes, thanks to the simultaneously enhanced effective filtration area and cross-linking degree of the polyamide layer. Further increase of pH to 12.5 resulted in more disparate rejection results due to membrane hydrolysis: rejection of neural solutes (B and As(III)) was compromised whereas that of charged solutes (NaCl and As(V)) was maintained. The mechanistic insights gained in the current study reveal the critical need to design RO membranes directly for end applications based on first principles.

Cortical stroke affects activity and stability of theta/delta states in remote hippocampal regions

Cognitive impairment is a common outcome of ischemic stroke. Our previous work has shown that an experimental stroke in the cortex reduces activity in remote hippocampal layers in rats. This study seeks to uncover the underlying functional connections between these areas by analyzing changes to oscillatory activity, signal power, and communication. We induced an ischemic stroke in the left somatosensory cortex of rats and used linear micro-electrode arrays to simultaneously record from cortex and hippocampus under urethane anesthesia at two weeks and one month after stroke. We found significant increase in signal power, as well as an increase in the number of brain state changes in response to stroke. Our results suggest that the cortex modulates the activity and stability of hippocampal oscillations, which is disrupted following cortical stroke that can lead to cognitive impairment.

One-step tailoring surface roughness and surface chemistry to prepare superhydrophobic polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes for enhanced membrane distillation performances

Superhydrophobic polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membrane is a promising material for membrane distillation. Existing approaches for preparing superhydrophobic PVDF membrane often involve separate manipulation of surface roughness and surface chemistry. Here we report a one-step approach to simultaneously manipulate both the surface roughness and surface chemistry of PVDF nanofibrous membranes for enhanced direct-contact membrane distillation (DCMD) performances. The manipulation was realized in a unique solvent-thermal treatment process, during which a treatment solution containing alcohols was involved. We demonstrate that by using different chain-length alcohols in the treatment solvent, surface roughness can be promoted by creating nanofin structures on the PVDF nanofibers using an alcohol which has moderate affinity with PVDF. Meanwhile, surface chemistry can be tuned by adjusting the fraction distribution of crystal phases (nonpolar α phase and polar β phase) in the membrane using different alcohols. PVDF membranes with different surface wettabilities were used to evaluate the effects of surface roughness and surface energy on the DCMD performances. Combining both low surface energy and multi-scale surface roughness, pentanol-treated PVDF membrane achieved best anti-water property (water contact angle of 164.1° and sliding angle of 8.1°), and exhibited superior water flux and enhanced anti-wetting ability to low-surface-tension feed in the DCMD application.

Phenotypic analysis of atopic dermatitis in children aged 1-12 months: elaboration of novel diagnostic criteria for infants in China and estimation of prevalence

BACKGROUND

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is the most common skin disorder in infancy. However, the diagnosis and definite significance of infantile AD remains a debated issue.

OBJECTIVE

To analyse the phenotypes of AD in infancy, to establish diagnostic criteria and to estimate the prevalence of this condition in China.

METHODS

This is a multicentric study, in which 12 locations were chosen from different metropolitan areas of China. Following careful and complete history-taking and skin examination, the definite diagnosis of AD was made and the severity based on the SCORAD index was determined by local experienced dermatologists. Based on the detailed phenotyping, the major and representative clinical features of infantile AD were selected to establish the diagnostic criteria and evaluate their diagnostic efficacy.

RESULTS

A total of 5967 infants were included in this study. The overall point prevalence of AD was 30.48%. The infantile AD developed as early as at the second month of life, and its incidence peaked in the third month of life at 40.81%. The proportion of mild, moderate and severe AD was 67.40%, 30.57% and 2.03%, respectively. The most commonly seen manifestations in the infantile AD were facial dermatitis (72.07%), xerosis (42.72%) and scalp dermatitis (27.93%). We established the novel diagnostic criteria of infants, which included: (i) onset after 2 weeks of birth; (ii) pruritus and/or irritability and sleeplessness comparable with lesions; and (iii) all two items above with one of the following items can reach a diagnosis of AD: (i) eczematous lesions distributed on cheeks and/or scalp and/or extensor limbs, and (ii) eczematous lesions on any other parts of body accompanied by xerosis.

CONCLUSIONS

In China, the prevalence of AD in infancy is 30.48% according to clinical diagnosis of dermatologists. The novel Chinese diagnostic criteria for AD in infants show a higher sensitivity and comparable specificity.

[Computer-aided assessment of liver fibrosis progression in patients with chronic hepatitis B: an exploratory research]

Objective: To establish automatic liver fibrosis classification models by using traditional machine learning and deep learning methods and preliminaryly evaluate the efficiency. Methods: Gray scale ultrasound images and corresponding elastic images of 354 patients, 247 males and 107 females, mean age (54±12) years undergoing partial hepatectomy in Zhongshan Hospital of Fudan University from November 2014 to January 2016 were enrolled in this study. By using traditional machine learning and deep learning methods, an automatic classification model of liver fibrosis stages (S0 to S4) were established through feature extraction and classification of ultrasound image data sets and the accuracy in different classification categories of each model were calculated, by using liver biopsy as the reference standard. Results: Pathological examination showed 73 cases in pathological stage S0, 40 cases in S1, 49 cases in S2, 41 cases in S3, and 151 cases in S4. The traditional machine classification model based on support vector machine (SVM) classifier and sparse representation classifier and the deep learning classification model based on LeNet-5 neural network, their accuracy rates in the two categories (S0/S1/S2 and S3/S4) were 89.8%, 91.8% and 90.7% respectively; the accuracy rates in the three categories (S0/S1 and S2/S3 and S4) were 75.3%, 79.4% and 82.8% respectively; the accuracy in the three categories (S0 and S1/S2/S3 and S4) were 79.3%, 82.7% and 87.2% respectively. Conclusions: Computer-aided assessment of liver fibrosis progression in patients with chronic hepatitis B has a high accuracy, and can achieve a more detailed classification. This method is expected to be applied in the non-invasive evaluation of liver fibrosis in patients with hepatitis B in clinical work in the future.

Evaluation of Diffusional Kurtosis Imaging in Sub-acute Ischemic Stroke: Comparison with Rehabilitation Treatment Effect

Stroke is a serious worldwide medical condition that causes neurological function disability. Diffusional kurtosis imaging, which measures the non-Gaussianity of water diffusion, has been demonstrated to be a sensitive biomarker in many neuro-pathologies. This study explores the relationship between neural function recovery and transformation of the ischemic lesion and/or corticospinal tract during the sub-acute phase after stroke by using diffusional kurtosis imaging. We performed a prospective study of function recovery and K metrics of 43 patients with sub-acute ischemic stroke in the middle cerebral artery territory. The effect of rehabilitation treatment was evaluated using both the Fugl-Meyer motor function score and modified Barthel index score at post-treatment compared with admission, and patients were allocated to two groups: good and poor rehabilitation effect (GRE and PRE). Metrics of diffusional kurtosis imaging within ischemic lesion and along the corticospinal tract were acquired, respectively. All three relative axial diffusional kurtoses (rKas) along the corticospinal tract in the GRE group ( n = 21) were significantly larger than those of the PRE group ( n = 22), including rKa in the posterior limb of internal capsule, rKa in the cerebral peduncle, and rKa in the basal part of the pons ( p = 0.014, 0.005, and 0.021, respectively). This multi-parametric magnetic resonance imaging study showed that diffusional kurtosis imaging has the potential to complement existing stroke imaging techniques and revealed its own advantages in elucidating the possible biophysical mechanism of functional restoration underlying ischemic stroke.

Non-Polyamide Based Nanofiltration Membranes Using Green Metal-Organic Coordination Complexes: Implications for the Removal of Trace Organic Contaminants

Polyamide-based thin film composite (TFC) membranes are generally optimized for salt rejection but not for the removal of trace organic contaminants (TrOCs). The insufficient rejection of TrOCs such as endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) by polyamide membranes can jeopardize product water safety in wastewater reclamation. In this study, we report a novel nonpolyamide membrane chemistry using green tannic acid-iron (TA-Fe) complexes to remove TrOCs. The nanofiltration membrane formed at a TA-Fe molar ratio of 1:3 (TA-Fe3) had a continuous thin rejection layer of 10-30 nm in thickness, together with a water permeability of 5.1 Lm^2-h^-1bar^-1 and a Na₂SO₄ rejection of 89.7%. Meanwhile, this membrane presented significantly higher rejection of EDCs (up to 99.7%) than that of polyamide membranes (up to 81.8%). Quartz crystal microbalance results revealed that the sorption amount of a model EDC, benzylparbaen, by TA-Fe3 layer was nearly 2 orders of magnitude less than that by polyamide, leading to reduced transmission and higher rejection. Further analysis of membrane revealed a much greater water/EDC selectivity of the TA-Fe3 membrane compared to the polyamide membranes.

Abstract P3-12-05: Fractionation patterns in adjuvant breast radiotherapy in Ontario, Canada from 2009 to 2015

Purpose: To report the patterns of use of hypofractionated radiotherapy (HFRT) (≤16 fractions)in breast cancer and ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) patients in Ontario, Canada from 2009 to 2015 and identify factors related to HFRT use.

Methods: A retrospective cohort study of Ontario women diagnosed with breast cancer or DCIS followed by adjuvant breast or chest wall radiation (RT) from 2009 to 2015 was conducted using data from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). Logistic regression models were used to identify factors associated with HFRT use. Physician was included as a random effect. To calculate the potential amount of time that could be saved if all patients were to receive 16 fractions of HFRT, the number of extra RT treatments after the 16th visit was multiplied by the median amount of time spent to treat one patient at our cancer centre (8.76 minutes). This time was found with Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre data collected from October 2017 to March 2018 (n=523) and represents the amount of time from when a patient enters the RT unit for treatment setup, until the RT beam is turned off.

Results: A total of 42,072 patients were included. Most patients were aged between 50 and 69 years old (56.7%) with stage I or II breast cancer (74.6%) and had breast conserving surgery (BCS) (76.9%). Half previously received chemotherapy and 7.9% were DCIS patients. Use of sequential boost, simultaneous boost, and regional nodal RT was 17.2%, 3.1%, and 31.7% respectively. Institutional variation in HFRT use ranged from 27.5% to 71.6%. HFRT use has increased in all patient populations over the study period. HFRT use was more common in breast cancer and DCIS patients with BCS than in chest wall and nodal RT. Simultaneous boost (OR=0.09), nodal RT (OR=0.08), previous chemotherapy (OR=0.7), stage 0, II, and III breast cancer (OR=0.06 relative to stage I), were correlated with less HFRT use. Older age, later year of diagnosis, sequential boost (OR=0.09), BCS and no surgery (OR=1.2, 1.5 relative to mastectomy) were correlated with higher HFRT use. Institution was significantly correlated to HFRT use. The variance estimate for the physician random effect was 0.33 (p<0.0001). For breast cancer patients with BCS and breast RT specifically, 62,396 extra visits occurred from 2009 to 2015, corresponding to ˜9100 hours of treatment if all patients received HFRT. For the entire patient population, a total of 190,726 extra visits occurred or ˜27,900 hours.

Trends in the use of HFRT (%) from 2009 to 2015 for DCIS and breast cancer patients in Ontario.YearStage I-IV + BCS + Breast RTStage I-IV + BCS + Breast + Nodal RTStage I-IV + Mastectomy + Breast RTStage I-IV + Mastectomy + Breast + Nodal RTDCIS + BCS200962.610.329.09.545.2201062.06.323.76.951.2201162.24.121.34.752.7201263.79.621.711.452.0201365.112.629.315.057.3201469.37.835.415.164.5201573.711.839.217.573.4BCS: breast conserving surgery, RT: radiation treatment

Conclusions: HFRT use in Ontario has increased over time for all patient populations, and reflects the current evidence supporting HFRT in different patient populations, with lower HFRT use seen in chest wall and nodal RT and higher HFRT use in early-stage breast cancer patients with BCS.

Citation Format: Chow E, Chan S, Yao Z, Sutradhar R, Lee J, Wan BA, Paszat L. Fractionation patterns in adjuvant breast radiotherapy in Ontario, Canada from 2009 to 2015 [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium; 2018 Dec 4-8; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P3-12-05.

Prevalence of the cardiovascular health status in adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

The American Heart Association has outlined seven cardiovascular health (CVH) metrics, including smoking, body mass index, physical activity, dietary pattern, total cholesterol, and fasting plasma glucose, to define and monitor CVH status. Our study was to evaluate the global CVH in adults.

METHODS AND RESULTS

We searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and reference lists of relevant articles for studies published between 1 January 2010 and 30 June 2018. Included studies should report the proportions of ideal status for the seven CVH metrics and/or provide the prevalence of overall poor (having 0-2 ideal metrics) or ideal (having 5-7 ideal metrics) CVH status in adults. 88 articles were identified: 75 for the prevalence of ideal CVH metrics, 58 for the proportion of overall poor CVH status, and 55 for the proportion of overall ideal CVH status. Smoking had the highest prevalence of ideal status (69.1%) while dietary pattern has the lowest (12.1%). 32.2% and 19.6% of participants had overall poor and ideal CVH, respectively. Females and young adults had better CVH status when compared to males and older adults. There existed regional variations in ideal CVH metrics and overall CVH status. The overall CVH status had improved over study time.

CONCLUSION

The prevalence of ideal status was low for some metrics, such as dietary pattern, and the overall CVH status was still unsatisfactory. We should continue to measure the CVH status and carry out lifestyle interventions to improve the CVH status in the whole population.

[YAP regulates the proliferation and modifies the sensitivity to sorafenib in hepatocellular carcinoma cells]

Objective: To detect the expression level of YES-associated protein 1 (YAP) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell lines and investigate its effects on the proliferation activity and the sensitivity to sorafenib in HCC cells. Methods: Western blot was used to detect the protein expression levels of YAP in SMMC-7721, SK-Hep-1, HepG-2, Huh7 and the normal liver cell line L-O2. YAP specific small interfering RNA (si-YAP) or YAP expression plasmid were transfected in SK-Hep-1 or Huh7 cells, respectively. Cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) test was used to detect the cell proliferation activity and the cell cycle test was conducted by flow cytometry. SK-Hep-1 and SK-Hep-1 si-YAP cells were subcutaneously injected into the nude mice which were sequentially treated by intragastric administration of sorafenib, and the tumor growth in vivo were observed and compared. Results: The expression of YAP was upregulated in HCC cell lines. Deletion of YAP expression significantly decreased the survival rate of SK-Hep-1 cells [(78.5±0.3)% vs (92.3±0.2)%, P=0.025]. Knockdown of YAP significantly increased the percentage of G(0)/G(1)-phase cells [ (65.4±3.3) % vs (55.7±3.4) %, P=0.039]. On the contrary, upregulation of the YAP expression in Huh7 cells significantly increased the cell survival rate [(81.2±1.3)% vs (62.5±1.1)%, P=0.013] and reduced the percentage of G(0)/G(1)-phase cells [(38.2±3.8)% vs (48.8±2.9)%, P=0.019]. The survival rate of SK-Hep-1 cells treated by si-YAP combined with sorafenib was (31.13±1.79)%, significantly lower than (48.87±0.58) % of SK-Hep-1 cells treated by sorafenib alone (P=0.001), while overexpression of YAP attenuated the inhibitory effect of sorafenib on the survival of Huh7 cells [(69.98±2.94) % vs (53.53±1.93)%, P=0.001]. The tumor weights of SK-Hep-1 group, sorafenib alone group, SK-Hep-1 si-YAP group and SK-Hep-1 si-YAP combined with sorafenib group were (0.96±0.08) g, (0.62±0.08) g, (0.70±0.06) g and (0.27±0.02) g, respectively. The tumor weights of sorafenib alone group and SK-Hep-1 si-YAP group were significantly lower than that of SK-Hep-1 group (P=0.012 and P=0.031, respectively). The tumor weight of SK-Hep-1 si-YAP combined with sorafenib group was significantly lower than that of SK-Hep-1 si-YAP group (P=0.001). Conclusions: The expression of YAP is upregulated in HCC cell lines, which regulates the proliferation, cell cycle, and sensitivity to sorafenib of HCC cells. YAP is a potential molecular target for HCC treatment.

Serum exosomes of chronic gastritis patients infected with Helicobacter pylori mediate IL-1α expression via IL-6 trans-signalling in gastric epithelial cells

Emerging evidence has linked the exosomes to many immunological disorders, including infectious diseases. However, knowledge regarding the role of exosomes in Helicobacter pylori infection is limited. Here, we show that serum exosomes from chronic gastritis patients with H. pylori infection (Hp exosomes) stimulate the expression of the soluble interleukin (IL)-6 receptor (sIL-6R), which is involved in IL-6 trans-signalling in gastric epithelial cells. Interestingly, sIL-6R up-regulates expression of the proinflammatory cytokine IL-1α, and the neutralization of sIL-6R suppresses IL-1α secretion. Thus, Hp exosomes regulate IL-1α expression via sIL-6R-mediated IL-6 trans-signaling. Altogether, this study reveals a novel perspective in which exosomes play a vital role in immunological mechanisms during H. pylori infection.

Tannic Acid/Fe3+ Nanoscaffold for Interfacial Polymerization: Toward Enhanced Nanofiltration Performance

Conventional thin-film composite (TFC) membranes suffer from the trade-off relationship between permeability and selectivity, known as the "upper bound". In this work, we report a high performance thin-film composite membrane prepared on a tannic acid (TA)-Fe nanoscaffold (TFC_n) to overcome such upper bound. Specifically, a TA-Fe nanoscaffold was first coated onto a polysulfone substrate, followed by performing an interfacial polymerization reaction between trimesoyl chloride (TMC) and piperazine (PIP). The TA-Fe nanoscaffold enhanced the uptake of amine monomers and provided a platform for their controlled release. The smaller surface pore size of the TA-Fe coated substrate further eliminated the intrusion of polyamide into the substrate pores. The resulting membrane TFC_n showed a water permeability of 19.6 ± 0.5 L m^2- h^-1 bar^-1, which was an order of magnitude higher than that of control TFC membrane (2.2 ± 0.3 L m^-2 h^-1 bar^-1). The formation of a more order polyamide rejection layer also significantly enhanced salt rejection (e.g., NaCl, MgCl₂, Na₂SO₄, and MgSO₄) and divalent to monovalent ion selectivity (e.g., NaCl/MgSO₄). Compared to conventional TFC nanofiltration membranes, the novel TFC_n membrane successfully overcame the longstanding permeability and selectivity trade-off. The current work paves a new avenue for fabricating high performance TFC membranes.