Minimally invasive CAD/CAM lithium disilicate partial-coverage restorations show superior in-vitro fatigue performance than single crowns

OBJECTIVE

To analyze the influence of restoration design (partial-coverage restoration vs. crown) and ceramic layer thickness on the performance and failure loads of CAD/CAM-fabricated lithium disilicate (LDS) reconstructions on molars after fatigue.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Seventy-two posterior monolithic CAD/CAM-fabricated LDS restorations (IPS e.max CAD, Ivoclar Vivadent) with different occlusal/buccal ceramic layer thicknesses (1.5/0.8, 1.0/0.6, and 0.5/0.4 mm) and restoration designs (PCR: non-retentive full-veneer/partial-coverage restoration, C: crown,) were investigated and divided into six groups (n = 12, test: PCR-1.5, PCR-1.0, PCR-0.5; control: C-1.5, C-1.0, C-0.5). LDS restorations were adhesively bonded (Variolink Esthetic DC, Ivoclar Vivadent) to dentin-analogue composite dies (Z100, 3M ESPE). All specimens were subjected to thermomechanical loading (1.2 million cycles, 49 N, 1.6 Hz, 5-55°C) and exposed to single load to failure testing. Failure analysis was performed with light and scanning electron microscopies. Data were statistically analyzed using ANOVA, Tukey-Test, and t-test (p < 0.05).

RESULTS

Eight crown samples (C-0.5) and one PCR specimen (PCR-0.5) revealed cracks after fatigue, resulting in an overall success rate of 87.5% (crowns: 75%, PCRs: 96.88%). Direct comparisons of PCRs versus crowns for thicknesses of 0.5 mm (p < 0.001) and 1.0 mm (p = 0.004) were significant and in favor of PCRs. Minimally invasive PCRs (0.5 and 1.0 mm) outperformed crowns with the identical ceramic thickness. No difference was detected (p = 0.276) between thickness 1.5 mm PCRs and crowns.

CONCLUSIONS

Minimally invasive monolithic CAD/CAM-fabricated posterior LDS PCRs (0.5 and 1.0 mm) resulted in superior failure load values compared to minimally invasive crowns. Minimally invasive crowns (0.5 mm) are prone to cracks after fatigue.

CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Minimally invasive CAD/CAM-fabricated LDS PCR restorations with a non-retentive preparation design should be considered over single crowns for molar rehabilitation.

Insight into the aroma quality of 'Callista' cultivar of hop (Humulus lupulus L.): Impact of harvest timing, year, and location

Hops (Humulus lupulus L.) are essential ingredients in brewing, contributing to beer's flavor, aroma, and stability. This study pioneers an in-depth analysis of the 'Callista' cultivar, aiming to unravel how harvest timing, annual variations, and cultivation location synergistically influence its molecular profile, sensory perception, and biochemistry. Leveraging high-performance liquid chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry-olfactometry, we identified significant year-to-year and location-based fluctuations in bitter acids-the quintessential aroma constituents in hops. Our comprehensive aroma profiling discerned 55 volatile compounds, marking the first-ever sensory detection of 2-butanone in hops, with its presence showing remarkable interannual variability. This study showed significant differences among the three years tested, whereas hops were perceived "fruitier" and more "citrusy" in 2021, even though the bitter acid and aroma analysis showed that 2022 sticks out due to extremely high lupulone values up to 10% dry cone weight and 78% β-myrcene in the oil fraction compared to 60% and 45% in 2020 and 2021, respectively. Molecular analysis of key enzymes involved in hop aroma biosynthesis revealed no significant associations with location, but a strong diurnal pattern for all genes. The results indicated that especially the hot temperatures of 2022 may have induced significant changes of cone quality, while 2021 was more interesting from the sensory evaluations, which may justify the usage of viticultural terms such as "vintage" for hop marketing. These findings contribute to a better understanding of the factors influencing hop aroma and quality.

Choline induced cardiac dysfunction by inhibiting the production of endogenous hydrogen sulfide in spontaneously hypertensive rats

To investigate the exact effects of dietary choline on hypertensive heart disease (HHD) and explore the potential mechanisms, male spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and Wistar Kyoto rats (WKY) were randomly divided into five groups as follows: WKY group, WKY + Choline group, SHR group, SHR + Choline group, and SHR + Choline + NaHS group. In choline treatment groups, rats were fed with 1.3% (w/v) choline in the drinking water for 3 months. The rats in the SHR + Choline + NaHS group were intraperitoneally injected with NaHS (100 micromol/kg/day, a hydrogen sulfide (H2S) donor) for 3 months. After 3 months, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and fractional shortening (LVFS), the indicators of cardiac function measured by echocardiography, were increased significantly in SHR as compared to WKY, although there was no significant difference in collagen volumes and Bax/Bcl-2 ratio between the two groups, indicating the early stage of cardiac hypertrophy. There was a significant decrease in LVEF and LVFS and an increase in collagen volumes and Bax/Bcl-2 ratio in SHR fed with choline, meanwhile, plasma H2S levels were significantly decreased significantly in SHR fed with choline accompanying by the decrease of cystathionine-gamma-lyase (CSE) activity. Three months of NaHS significantly increased plasma H2S levels, ameliorated cardiac dysfunction and inhibited cardiac fibrosis and apoptosis in SHR fed with choline. In conclusion, choline aggravated cardiac dysfunction in HHD through inhibiting the production of endogenous H2S, which was reversed by supplementation of exogenous H2S donor.

Probing Small Bjorken-x Nuclear Gluonic Structure via Coherent J/ψ Photoproduction in Ultraperipheral Pb-Pb Collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.02 TeV

Quasireal photons exchanged in relativistic heavy ion interactions are powerful probes of the gluonic structure of nuclei. The coherent J/ψ photoproduction cross section in ultraperipheral lead-lead collisions is measured as a function of photon-nucleus center-of-mass energies per nucleon (W_{γN}^{Pb}) over a wide range of 40 Collapse

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Unusual magnetic interaction in CrTe: insights from machine-learning and empirical models

Chromium telluride (CrTe) has received much attention due to its small magnetic anisotropy, which hosts the potential for complex magnetic structures. However, its magnetic properties have been relatively unexplored with numerical simulations, as the magnetic interactions inside are quite unusual. In this study, we employ both a machine-learning model and an empirical model to investigate the magnetic phase transitions of bulk and monolayer CrTe, revealing the existence of unusual magnetic interaction, which can be captured by the machine-learning model but not the simple empirical model. Furthermore, our results also demonstrate that magnetic moments further apart exhibit stronger interactions than those in closer proximity, deviating from typical behavior.

[Correlation of carbon dioxide derived parameters during cardiopulmonary bypass with acute kidney injury after pediatric cardiac surgery]

Objective: To explore the correlation of the ratio of venous-arterial carbon dioxide (CO2) tension difference to arterial-venous O2 content difference (Pv-aCO2/Ca-vO2) and venous-arterial CO2 gradient (Pv-aCO2) during cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) with acute kidney injury (AKI) after pediatric cardiac surgery. Methods: The clinical data of children (1 month ≤ age ≤ 3 years old) who underwent open heart surgery under CPB in West China Hospital of Sichuan University from March 2021 to August 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. All paired blood gases of the children during CPB (the sampling time interval of arterial and venous blood was within 10 minutes) were collected. According to the Failure, Loss, End-Stage Renal Disease (pRIFLE) diagnostic criteria, the children were divided into AKI group and non-AKI group. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to identify the risk factors of postoperative AKI in pediatric cardiac surgery. Results: A total of 213 children were enrolled (101 males and 112 females), aged 12(6, 24) months, and 84 of them (39.4%) developed AKI. Three children died in AKI group, with a mortality of 3.6%. There were no deaths in non-AKI group. The incidence of postoperative low cardiac output syndrome (LCOS) was higher in AKI group [29.8% (25/84) vs 7.0% (9/129), P<0.001]. In addition, compared with the non-AKI group, children in AKI group had longer recovery time [15 (6, 78) h vs 6 (3, 19) h, P<0.001], mechanical ventilation time [17 (7, 97) h vs 6 (4, 20) h, P<0.001], intensive care unit (ICU) stay [6 (4, 11) d vs 3 (2, 5) d, P<0.001], and hospital stay [12 (9, 18) d vs 9 (8, 11) d, P<0.001]. A total of 317 arterial and venous blood gas pairs from 30 (n=207), 60 (n=75) and 90 min (n=35) after aortic clamping were included in the analysis. Univariate analysis showed that Pv-aCO2/Ca-vO2 (P=0.015) at 30 min after aortic clamping, Pv-aCO2 (P=0.041) and Pv-aCO2/Ca-vO2 (P=0.014) at 60 min after aortic clamping, peak Pv-aCO2 (P=0.009), peak Pv-aCO2/Ca-vO2 (P<0.001) and the average value of Pv-aCO2/Ca-vO2 (P=0.001) were higher in AKI group. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that longer duration of CPB (OR=1.013, 95%CI: 1.003-1.023, P=0.012), higher peak Pv-aCO2/Ca-vO2 (OR=1.337, 95%CI: 1.037-1.723, P=0.025) were risk factors for AKI. Conclusion: The occurrence of AKI after pediatric cardiac surgery is related to the short-term adverse clinical prognosis, and longer duration of CPB and higher peak Pv-aCO2/Ca-vO2 are independent risk factors for AKI.

[Schistosomiasis control in Sichuan Province since the 12th Five - Year Plan period: progress and prospects]

An ambitious goal has been set for elimination of schistosomiasis in all endemic counties (districts) in Sichuan Province by 2023. To achieve this goal, and to continue to consolidate the control achievements, it is necessary to understand the current endemic status of schistosomiasis, identify the challenges and analyze the experiences and lessons from the schistosomiasis control program, and develop targeted control strategies and interventions in the province. This paper reviews the progress of schistosomiasis control in Sichuan Province since the 12th Five-Year Plan period, analyzes the challenges in the schistosomiasis elimination program, and proposes recommendations for future directions and priorities.

Combined Measurement of the Higgs Boson Mass from the H→γγ and H→ZZ^{*}→4ℓ Decay Channels with the ATLAS Detector Using sqrt[s]=7, 8, and 13 TeV pp Collision Data

A measurement of the mass of the Higgs boson combining the H→ZZ^{*}→4ℓ and H→γγ decay channels is presented. The result is based on 140  fb^{-1} of proton-proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector during LHC run 2 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV combined with the run 1 ATLAS mass measurement, performed at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV, yielding a Higgs boson mass of 125.11±0.09(stat)±0.06(syst)=125.11±0.11  GeV. This corresponds to a 0.09% precision achieved on this fundamental parameter of the Standard Model of particle physics.

Search for Dark Photons in Rare Z Boson Decays with the ATLAS Detector

A search for events with a dark photon produced in association with a dark Higgs boson via rare decays of the standard model Z boson is presented, using 139  fb^{-1} of sqrt[s]=13  TeV proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The dark boson decays into a pair of dark photons, and at least two of the three dark photons must each decay into a pair of electrons or muons, resulting in at least two same-flavor opposite-charge lepton pairs in the final state. The data are found to be consistent with the background prediction, and upper limits are set on the dark photon's coupling to the dark Higgs boson times the kinetic mixing between the standard model photon and the dark photon, α_{D}ϵ^{2}, in the dark photon mass range of [5, 40] GeV except for the ϒ mass window [8.8, 11.1] GeV. This search explores new parameter space not previously excluded by other experiments.

[Construction of a diagnostic model for fatty liver using human body composition analysis]

Objective: To construct a diagnostic model for fatty liver using body composition analysis and further evaluate the diagnostic effect of the model on fatty liver. Methods: 726 cases with chronic liver disease who visited Tianjin Second People's Hospital from April 2019 to June 2022 and had body composition analysis tests were retrospectively enrolled and were divided into a fatty liver group (551 cases with fatty liver) and a control group (175 cases without fatty liver) according to the measured values of abdominal ultrasound and controlled attenuation parameter. An independent sample t-test and a non-parametric rank sum test were used for statistical processing. Logistic regression was used to construct a diagnostic model. Hosmer-Lemeshow was used to validate the fit of model. Receiver operating characteristic curve was used to confirm the diagnostic efficiency of the model. In addition, 341 cases of chronic liver disease who visited Tianjin Second People's Hospital were included to further verify the application effect of the model between July 2022 and February 2023. Results: Compared with the control group, the differences in various indicators of body composition analysis in the fatty liver group were statistically significant (P < 0.05). Basal metabolic rate (X1), visceral fat area (X2), and body fat (X3) were eventually included in the diagnostic model for BCA-FL (body composition analysis-fatty liver)= -7.771+0.002X1-0.035X2+0.456X3 with the Hosmer-Lemeshow test (P=0.059). The measured area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, the sensitivity, and the specificity were 0.888, 0.889, and 0.726, respectively, when the diagnostic threshold value was 0.615 with the Youden index and the receiver operating characteristic curve. In the validated model group, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, Youden index, sensitivity, and specificity were 0.875, 0.624, 0.799, and 0.825, respectively. Conclusion: The diagnostic model BCA-FL for fatty liver constructed using human body composition analysis has good diagnostic efficacy and is suitable for screening fatty liver in different basic liver disease populations.

[Investigation on reproductive health status of women workers in different positions in oilfield enterprises]

Objective: The status and influencing factors of reproductive health (including menstrual period and gynecological diseases) of female workers in different positions of oilfield enterprises were analyzed. Methods: From January to December 2020, a total of 979 female workers in an oil field were selected as research objects by the judgment sampling method, and the "Female Reproductive Health Survey" was used as the investigation tool to investigate the demographic characteristics, menstrual status and gynecological diseases. The influential factors were analyzed by 2-test and logistic regression analysis. Results: The prevalence of abnormal menstruation was 26.1% (256/979), dysmenorrhea 53.1% (520/979), and gynecological diseases 54.34% (532/979). The prevalence of breast disease was 23.39% (229/979), uterine disease 11.03% (108/979), cervical disease 10.32% (101/979), and HPV infection 7.97% (78/979). Age, the nature of the job and whether occupational harmful factors were clear were the influencing factors of gynecological diseases (P=0.001, 0.000, 0.007). Age, job nature, working hours and work intensity were the influencing factors of abnormal menstruation (P=0.005, 0.000, 0.000, 0.010) . Conclusion: The reproductive health status of female workers in different positions of oil field enterprises is not optimistic, and the reproductive health status of female workers in professional and technical positions needs to be improved.

Efficient Dynamic Correspondence Network

We tackle the problem of establishing dense correspondences between a pair of images in an efficient way. Most existing dense matching methods use 4D convolutions to filter incorrect matches, but 4D convolutions are highly inefficient due to their quadratic complexity. Besides, these methods learn features with fixed convolutions which cannot make learnt features robust to different challenge scenarios. To deal with these issues, we propose an Efficient Dynamic Correspondence Network (EDCNet) by jointly equipping pre-separate convolution (Psconv) and dynamic convolution (Dyconv) to establish dense correspondences in a coarse-to-fine manner. The proposed EDCNet enjoys several merits. First, two well-designed modules including a neighbourhood aggregation (NA) module and a dynamic feature learning (DFL) module are combined elegantly in the coarse-to-fine architecture, which is efficient and effective to establish both reliable and accurate correspondences. Second, the proposed NA module maintains linear complexity, showing its high efficiency. And our proposed DFL module has better flexibility to learn features robust to different challenges. Extensive experimental results show that our algorithm performs favorably against state-of-the-art methods on three challenging datasets including HPatches, Aachen Day-Night and InLoc.

[Shifts in the diameter of continuous circular capsulorhexis based on the Gullstrand eye model with the Callisto Eye System during cataract surgery]

Objective: To investigate the disparity between the set value of the capsulorhexis ring diameter in ophthalmic surgical navigation systems and the actual capsulorhexis ring diameter projected onto the lens surface. Methods: It was a cross-sectional study. Based on the Gullstrand eye model, the theoretical diameter of the capsulorhexis ring projected onto the lens plane through the cornea was calculated using the law of refraction in the Callisto Eye System. When the anterior chamber depth (ACD) ranged from 2.0 to 4.0 mm and the corneal curvature ranged from 40.00 to 48.00 D, the capsulorhexis ring diameters were calculated after projecting capsulorhexis rings with set diameters of 5.5 mm and 6.0 mm onto the lens plane. Additionally, 40 patients (40 eyes) aged 40 to 85 years who underwent cataract phacoemulsification combined with intraocular lens implantation at the Sixth People's Hospital of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine were selected to validate the theoretical calculations. Among them, 15 were male, and 25 were female, and they were divided into three groups based on the ACD: group A (13 eyes) with ACD<3.0 mm; group B (16 eyes) with 3.0 mm≤ACD<3.5 mm; group C (11 eyes) with ACD≥3.5 mm. One week after surgery, anterior segment images of the eyes were taken, and the actual capsulorhexis ring diameter was measured using the Photoshop image processing software and compared with the set and calculated values. Results: When the capsulorhexis ring diameters were set at 5.5 mm and 6.0 mm and the corneal curvature was calculated based on the Gullstrand Eye model at 43.05 D, a linear negative correlation was found between ACD and the capsulorhexis ring diameter projected onto the lens plane (P<0.001). When the ACD was set at 2.5, 3.0, and 3.5 mm, and the capsulorhexis ring diameters were set at 5.5 and 6.0 mm, a linear negative correlation was observed between corneal curvature and the capsulorhexis ring diameter projected onto the lens plane (P<0.001). When the capsulorhexis ring diameter was set at 5.5 mm and the patient ACD and corneal curvature data were used for calculations, the capsulorhexis ring diameters projected onto the lens plane for groups A, B, and C were (5.09±0.05) mm, (4.97±0.05) mm, and (4.91±0.07) mm, respectively. When the capsulorhexis ring diameter was set at 6.0 mm, they were (5.56±0.05) mm, (5.44±0.05) mm, and (5.37±0.08) mm, respectively. One week after surgery, the actual measurements of capsulorhexis ring diameters for groups A, B, and C were (5.44±0.20) mm, (5.27±0.28) mm, and (5.25±0.41) mm, respectively, and the differences compared to the calculated values were not statistically significant (all P>0.05), but the differences compared to the set values were statistically significant (all P<0.001). Conclusion: The capsulorhexis ring diameter projected onto the lens surface by the Callisto Eye system was reduced by 7.33% to 10.48% compared to the set value, and the degree of reduction increased with the increase of ACD and corneal curvature.

[Comparison of formulas for intraocular lens power calculation after corneal refractive surgery]

Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of five intraocular lens (IOL) power calculation formulas for calculating IOL power in patients with previous myopia-corrected corneal refractive surgery. Methods: In this case series study, a total of 30 eyes of 30 patients who had excimer laser corneal refractive surgery for myopia and subsequent cataract surgery in Qingdao Eye Hospital from April 2020 to October 2022 were included. The Pentacam anterior segment analysis system and IOLMaster were used to measure ocular parameters, including axial length, anterior chamber depth, keratometry, lens thickness, and mean true net power (mTNP). Five formulas were used for IOL power calculation: Shammas formula, Olsen formula, SRK/T (mTNP) formula, Haigis-L formula, and Barrett True-K formula. After cataract extraction, we obtained the actual postoperative refraction by measuring the objective refraction. The prediction error was determined as the difference between the actual postoperative refraction and the predicted refraction, and the absolute value of the prediction error was the absolute error. The differences in the calculation errors of the 5 formulas were compared. Results: Regarding the prediction errors, the results of the SRK/T (mTNP) and Olsen formulas were better than those of Shammas and Haigis-L, and the differences were statistically significant (all P<0.05). The proportion of eyes with an absolute error of 0.50 D for Barrett True-K was highest (70%, 21/30), followed by the SRK/T (mTNP) formula (67%, 20/30). The proportions of eyes with an absolute error within 1.00 D for Barrett True-K, SRK/T (mTNP), and Olsen were all over 80%, with 24 eyes, 24 eyes, and 25 eyes, respectively. Conclusions: The Barrett True-K formula showed high accuracy in predicting the refraction after cataract extraction in patients with a history of corneal refractive surgery for myopia. The calculation result of the Haigis-L formula was highly unstable.

[Periodic dynamic observation and analysis of cellular and humoral immunity indexes of adults infected with Omicron BA.1]

Objective: To analyze the immunological characteristics and antibody changes of patients infected with the Omicron BA.1 and evaluate the possibility of secondary infection. Methods: A total of 104 patients infected with Omicron BA.1 in the Jinnan District of Tianjin from January 8 to February 2, 2022, were included in the study. The control group and case group were matched 1∶1 based on age, sex and vaccination status. Serum was collected from the case group and control group at 3, 6 and 9 months after infection. The serum levels of interleukin4 (IL-4), IL-5 and interferon-gamma (IFN-γ), as well as the positive rates of IgG, IgG1 and IgG2, were detected by ELISA. Results: The highest concentration of IFN-γ in the case group at 6 months after infection was 145.4 pg/ml, followed by a decrease in concentration. The concentrations of IL-4 and IL-5 began to decrease at 6 months after infection (all P<0.001). There was no significant difference in the IgG2 positive rate between the case group and the control group at 6 months after BA.1 infection. However, at 9 months, there was a significant decrease compared to the control group (P=0.003). The ratio of IFN-γ/IL4 at 3 months after infection in the case group was lower than that in the control group (P<0.001). There was no significant difference in the ratio between the case group and the control group at 9 months after infection. Conclusion: The cellular immune function has been impaired at 3 months after infection with BA.1, and the specific cellular immune and humoral immune functions decrease significantly after 6 months, and the risk of secondary infection increases.

[Molluscicidal effect of spraying 5% niclosamide ethanolamine salt granules with drones against Oncomelania hupensis in hilly regions]

OBJECTIVE

To establish a snail control approach for spraying chemicals with drones against Oncomelania hupensis in complex snail habitats in hilly regions, and to evaluate its molluscicidal effect.

METHODS

The protocol for evaluating the activity of spraying chemical molluscicides with drones against O. hupensis snails was formulated based on expert consultation and literature review. In August 2022, a pretest was conducted in a hillside field environment (12 000 m2) north of Dafengji Village, Dacang Township, Weishan County, Yunnan Province, which was assigned into four groups, of no less than 3 000 m2 in each group. In Group A, environmental cleaning was not conducted and 5% niclosamide ethanolamine salt granules were sprayed with drones at a dose of 40 g/m2, and in Group B, environmental cleaning was performed, followed by 5% niclosamide ethanolamine salt granules sprayed with drones at a dose of 40 g/m2, while in Group C, environmental cleaning was not conducted and 5% niclosamide ethanolamine salt granules were sprayed with knapsack sprayers at a dose of 40 g/m2, and in Group D, environmental cleaning was performed, followed by 5% niclosamide ethanolamine salt granules sprayed with knapsack sprayers at a dose of 40 g/m2. Then, each group was equally divided into six sections according to land area, with Section 1 for baseline surveys and sections 2 to 6 for snail surveys after chemical treatment. Snail surveys were conducted prior to chemical treatment and 1, 3, 5, 7 days post-treatment, and the mortality and corrected mortality of snails, density of living snails and costs of molluscicidal treatment were calculated in each group.

RESULTS

The mortality and corrected mortality of snails were 69.49%, 69.09%, 53.57% and 83.48%, and 68.58%, 68.17%, 52.19% and 82.99% in groups A, B, C and D 14 days post-treatment, and the density of living snails reduced by 58.40%, 63.94%, 68.91% and 83.25% 14 days post-treatment relative to pre-treatment in four groups, respectively. The median concentrations of chemical molluscicides were 37.08, 35.42, 42.50 g/m2 and 56.25 g/m2 in groups A, B, C and D, and the gross costs of chemical treatment were 0.93, 1.50, 0.46 Yuan per m2 and 1.03 Yuan per m2 in groups A, B, C and D, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

The molluscicidal effect of spraying 5% niclosamide ethanolamine salt granules with drones against O. hupensis snails is superior to manual chemical treatment without environmental cleaning, and chemical treatment with drones and manual chemical treatment show comparable molluscicidal effects following environmental cleaning in hilly regions. The cost of chemical treatment with drones is slightly higher than manual chemical treatment regardless of environmental cleaning. Spraying 5% niclosamide ethanolamine salt granules with drones is recommended in complex settings with difficulty in environmental cleaning to improve the molluscicidal activity and efficiency against O. hupensis snails.

Circulating Metabolites and Dental Traits: A Mendelian Randomization Study

It is of great importance to uncover causal biomarkers to gain insight into the pathogenesis of oral diseases and identify novel treatment targets for prevention and treatment thereof. This study aimed to systematically evaluate the causal effects of hundreds of metabolites on 10 dental traits using a 2-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) approach. Genetic variants from genome-wide association studies of 309 known metabolites were used as instrumental variables. We selected 10 dental traits, including clinical measures of dental diseases, from the Gene-Lifestyle Interactions in Dental Endpoints Consortium and self-reported oral health data from the UK Biobank. The causal relationships between metabolites and dental traits were inferred using the inverse variance-weighted approach and further controlled for horizontal pleiotropy using 5 additional MR methods. After correcting for multiple tests, 5 metabolites were identified as causal biomarkers. Genetically predicted increased levels of mannose were associated with lower risk of bleeding gums (odds ratio [OR] = 0.72; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.61-0.85; P = 9.9 × 10-5). MR also indicated 4 metabolites on the causal pathway to dentures, with fructose (OR = 0.50; 95% CI, 0.36-0.70; P = 5.2 × 10-5) and 1-palmitoleoyl-glycerophosphocholine (OR = 0.67; 95% CI, 0.56-0.81; P = 4.8 × 10-5) as potential protective factors and glycine (OR = 1.22; 95% CI, 1.11-1.35; P = 5.6×10-5) and 1,5-anhydroglucitol (OR = 1.32; 95% CI, 1.14-1.52; P = 1.5 × 10-4) as risk factors. The causal associations were robust in various sensitivity analyses. We further observed some shared metabolites among different dental traits, implying similar biological mechanisms underlying the pathogenic processes. Finally, the pathway analysis revealed several significant metabolic pathways that may be involved in the development of dental disorders. Our study provides novel insights into the combination of metabolomics and genomics to reveal the pathogenesis of and therapeutic strategies for dental disorders. It highlighted 5 metabolites and several pathways as causal candidates, warranting further investigation.

[Anticancer effect of parasites and its underlying mechanisms: a review]

Both parasitic diseases and cancers are disorders that seriously threaten human health. A strong correlation has been recently found between parasitic infections and cancers, and multiple species of parasites and their derived products have shown effective to suppress cancer development, progression and metastasis. Therefore, deciphering the interaction among parasites, cancers and hosts not only provides new insights into the development of cancer therapy, but also provides the basis for screening of parasites-derived active anticancer molecules. This review summarizes the latest advances in the anticancer activity of parasites and underlying mechanisms.

Dynamic Keypoint Detection Network for Image Matching

Establishing effective correspondences between a pair of images is difficult due to real-world challenges such as illumination, viewpoint and scale variations. Modern detector-based methods typically learn fixed detectors from a given dataset, which is hard to extract repeatable and reliable keypoints for various images with extreme appearance changes and weakly textured scenes. To deal with this problem, we propose a novel Dynamic Keypoint Detection Network (DKDNet) for robust image matching via a dynamic keypoint feature learning module and a guided heatmap activator. The proposed DKDNet enjoys several merits. First, the proposed dynamic keypoint feature learning module can generate adaptive keypoint features via the attention mechanism, which is flexibly updated with the current input image and can capture keypoints with different patterns. Second, the guided heatmap activator can effectively fuse multi-group keypoint heatmaps by fully considering the importance of different feature channels, which can realize more robust keypoint detection. Extensive experimental results on four standard benchmarks demonstrate that our DKDNet outperforms state-of-the-art image-matching methods by a large margin. Specifically, our DKDNet can outperform the best image-matching method by 2.1% in AUC@ 3px on HPatches, 3.74% in AUC@ 5° on ScanNet, 7.14% in AUC@ 5° on MegaDepth and 12.32% in AUC@ 5° on YFCC100M.

Feasibility of ammonium sulfate recovery from wastewater sludges: Hydrothermal liquefaction pathway vs. anaerobic digestion pathway

This study evaluated two pathways to recover the nitrogen-content of wastewater sludges as ammonium sulfate (AmS) for use as fertilizer. The first pathway entails sludge stabilization by hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) followed by recovery of AmS from the resulting aqueous product by gas permeable membrane (GPM) separation. The second one entails stabilization of the sludges by anaerobic digestion (AD) followed by recovery of AmS from the resulting centrate by GPM separation. A bench-scale GPM reactor is shown to be capable of recovering >90% of N in the feed. Recoveries of NH3-N in the HTL-pathway ranged 96-100% in 5.5-7.5 h at mass removal rates of 0.2-0.3 g N/day, yielding 3.3-6.0 g AmS/L of feed. Recoveries of 98% were noted in the AD-pathway in 4 h at mass removal rates of 0.06-0.97 g N/day and a yield of 1.7-2.1 g AmS/L of feed. Inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer analysis confirmed that both pathways yielded AmS meeting the US EPA and European region guidelines for land application. The GPM reactor enabled higher nitrogen-recoveries in the HTL-pathway than those reported for current practice of AD followed by ammonia stripping, ion exchange, reverse osmosis, and/or struvite precipitation (96-100% vs. 50-90%). A process model for the GPM reactor is validated using performance data on three different feedstocks.

Meta semi-supervised medical image segmentation with label hierarchy

Semi-supervised learning (SSL) has attracted increasing attention in medical image segmentation, where the mainstream usually explores perturbation-based consistency as a regularization to leverage unlabelled data. However, unlike directly optimizing segmentation task objectives, consistency regularization is a compromise by incorporating invariance towards perturbations, and inevitably suffers from noise in self-predicted targets. The above issues result in a knowledge gap between supervised guidance and unsupervised regularization. To bridge the knowledge gap, this work proposes a meta-based semi-supervised segmentation framework with the exploitation of label hierarchy. Two main prominent components named Divide and Generalize, and Label Hierarchy, are built in this work. Concretely, rather than merging all knowledge indiscriminately, we dynamically divide consistency regularization from supervised guidance as different domains. Then, a domain generalization technique is introduced with a meta-based optimization objective which ensures the update on supervised guidance should generalize to the consistency regularization, thereby bridging the knowledge gap. Furthermore, to alleviate the negative impact of noise in self-predicted targets, we propose to distill the noisy pixel-level consistency by exploiting label hierarchy and extracting hierarchical consistencies. Comprehensive experiments on two public medical segmentation benchmarks demonstrate the superiority of our framework to other semi-supervised segmentation methods, with new state-of-the-art results.

American Heart Association's new 'Life's Essential 8' score in association with cardiovascular disease: a national cross-sectional analysis

OBJECTIVE

The American Heart Association (AHA) has recently updated and enhanced the quantification of cardiovascular health by using the Life's Essential 8 (LE8) score. We intended to examine the correlation between cardiovascular health status, as measured by the new LE8 score, and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in US adults.

STUDY DESIGN

National cross-sectional study.

METHODS

A total of 24,730 individuals without pregnancy and with complete data from 2007 to 2018 enrolled in the study. The overall LE8 score was divided into low, moderate, and high groups. Multivariate logistic regressions were used to assess the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the associations between the LE8 score and the presence of CVD.

RESULTS

Overall, the high LE8 group had a younger age (20-59 years, 82.95%) and more females (60.09%) compared to the low LE8 group. Moderate and high LE8 correlated negatively with the presence of CVD (moderate, OR: 0.46, 95% CI: 0.39-0.54; high, OR: 0.26, 95% CI: 0.21-0.33). One standard deviation increment in the LE8 score correlated significantly with lower odds of CVD (OR: 0.64; 95% CI: 0.60-0.69). Further stratification analysis also detected a significant relationship between the new LE8 score and CVD, and the result was enhanced among the young and women (P-interaction<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

Higher LE8 score correlated with lower odds of CVD, especially among the young and women.

Simulating soil C dynamics under intensive agricultural systems and climate change scenarios in the Matopiba region, Brazil

The recent agricultural expansion in the Matopiba region, Brazil's new agricultural frontier, has raised questions about the risk of increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) loss as large areas of native vegetation (NV; i.e., Cerrado biome) have been replaced by large-scale mechanized agriculture. Although sustainable managements, such as integrated crop-livestock (ICL) systems, are considered strategic to counterbalance the SOC loss associated with land-use change (LUC) while keeping food production, little is known about their long-term effects on SOC stocks in the Matopiba region. To this end, we used the DayCent model to simulate the effects of converting the management commonly used in this region, i.e., soybean-cotton rotation under no-tillage (NT), into ICL systems with distinct levels of intensification (e.g., crop rotations: soybean-pasture and soybean-pasture-cotton; soil and crop management: grass irrigation, scarification/harrowing, and length of grass cultivation) on long term SOC dynamics. Additionally, data from two projected climate scenarios: SSP2-4.5 [greenhouse gases emissions (GHG) will not change markedly over time and global temperature will increase by 2.0 °C by 2060] and SSP5-8.5 (marked changes in GHG emissions are expected to occur resulting in an increase of 2.4 and 4.4 °C in global temperature in the middle and at the end of the century) were included in our simulations to evaluate climate change effects on SOC dynamics in this region. Based on a 50-yr-time frame simulation, we observed that SOC stocks under ICL systems were, on average, 23% and 47% higher than in the NV (36.9 Mg ha-1) and soybean-cotton rotation under NT (30.9 Mg ha-1), respectively. Growing grasses interlaid with crops was crucial to increase SOC stocks even when disruptive soil practices were followed. Although the irrigation of grass resulted in an early increase of SOC stocks and a higher pasture stoking rate, it did not increase SOC stocks in the long term compared to non-irrigated treatments. The SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5 climate scenarios had little effects on SOC dynamics in the simulated ICL systems. However, additional SOC loss (∼0.065 Mg ha-1 yr-1) is predicted to occur if the current management is not improved. These findings can help guide management decisions for the Matopiba region, Brazil, to alleviate the anthropogenic pressure associated with agriculture development. More broadly, they confirm that crop-livestock integration in croplands is a successful strategy to regenerate SOC.

[Sequence analysis of Paragonimus internal transcribed spacer 2 and cyclooxygenase 1 genes in freshwater crabs in Henan Province]

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the sequences of internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) and cyclooxygenase 1 (COX1) genes of Paragonimus metacercariae in freshwater crabs in Henan Province, identify the species of Paragonimus and evaluate its genetic relationships with Paragonimus isolates from other provinces in China.

METHODS

Freshwater crabs were collected from 8 survey sites in Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Pingdingshan, Nanyang and Jiyuan cities of Henan Province from 2016 to 2021, and Paragonimus metacercariae were detected in freshwater crabs. Genomic DNA was extracted from Paragonimus metacercariae, and the ITS2 and COX1 genes were amplified using PCR assay, followed by sequencing of PCR amplification products. The gene sequences were spliced and aligned using the software DNASTAR, and aligned with the sequences of Paragonimus genes in the GenBank. Phylogenetic trees were created using the MEGA6 software with the Neighbor-Joining method based on ITS2 and COX1 gene sequences, with Fasciola hepatica as the outgroup.

RESULTS

The detection rates of Paragonimus metacercariae were 6.83% (11/161), 50.82% (31/61), 18.52% (5/26), 8.76% (12/137), 14.29% (9/63), 17.76% (19/105), 18.50% (32/173) and 42.71% (41/96) in freshwater crabs from 8 survey sites in Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Pingdingshan, Nanyang and Jiyuan cities of Henan Province, with a mean detection rate of 19.46% (160/822), and a mean infection intensity of 0.57 metacercariae/g. The amplified ITS2 and COX1 gene fragments of Paragonimus were approximately 500 bp and 450 bp in lengths, respectively. The ITS2 gene sequences of Paragonimus metacercariae from 8 survey sites of Henan Province showed the highest homology (99.8% to 100.0%) with the gene sequence of P. skrjabini (GenBank accession number: MW960209.1), and phylogenetic analysis showed that the Paragonimus in this study was clustered into the same clade with P. skrjabini from Sichuan Province (GenBank accession number: AY618747.1), Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region (GenBank accession number: AY618729.1) and Hubei Province (GenBank accession number: AY618751.1), and P. miyazaki from Fujian Province (GenBank accession number: AY618741.1) and Japan (GenBank accession number: AB713405.1). The COX1 gene sequences of Paragonimus metacercariae from 8 survey sites of Henan Province showed the highest homology (90.0% to 100.0%) with the gene sequence of P. skrjabini (GenBank accession number: AY618798.1), and phylogenetic analysis showed that the Paragonimus in this study was clustered into the same clade with all P. skrjabini and clustered into the same sub-clade with P. skrjabini from Hubei Province (GenBank accession numbers: AY618782.1 and AY618764.1).

CONCLUSIONS

Paragonimus species from freshwater crabs in Henan Province were all characterized as P. skrjabini, and the ITS2 and COX1 gene sequences had the highest homology to those of P. skrjabini from Hubei Province. The results provide insights into study of Paragonimus in Henan Province and China.

Solitary plexiform neurofibroma of the tongue: report of a case with no evidence of neurofibromatosis type 1

Neurofibromas are frequently present in the skin, but are uncommon in the oral and maxillofacial region. There are three histological variants of neurofibroma: localized, diffuse, and plexiform. The plexiform histological variant of neurofibroma is the least common and is a rare occurrence in the oral cavity. Furthermore, plexiform neurofibroma is usually pathognomonic of neurofibromatosis type 1. A case of solitary plexiform neurofibroma of the tongue with no evidence of neurofibromatosis in a 50-year-old female Chinese patient is reported here. The lesion presented as a single, large, well-circumscribed rounded mass in the left hemi-tongue. The tumour was completely excised. No recurrence was observed at the 6-month follow-up.

[Spatial distribution characteristics of the prevalence of advanced schistosomiasis and seroprevalence of anti-Schistosoma antibody in Hunan Province in 2020]

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the spatial distribution characteristics of the prevalence of advanced schistosomiasis and seroprevalence of anti-Schistosoma antibody, and to examine the correlation between the prevalence of advanced schistosomiasis and seroprevalence of anti-Schistosoma antibody in Hunan Province in 2020, so as to provide insights into advanced schistosomiais control in the province.

METHODS

The epidemiological data of schistosomiasis in Hunan Province in 2020 were collected, including number of permanent residents in survey villages, number of advanced schistosomiasis patients, number of residents receiving serological tests and number of residents seropositive for anti-Schistosoma antibody, and the prevalence advanced schistosomiasis and seroprevalence of anti-Schistosoma antibody were descriptively analyzed. Village-based spatial distribution characteristics of prevalence advanced schistosomiasis and seroprevalence of anti-Schistosoma antibody were identified in Hunan Province in 2020, and the correlation between the revalence advanced schistosomiasis and seroprevalence of anti-Schistosoma antibody was examined using Spearman correlation analysis.

RESULTS

The prevalence of advanced schistosomiasis was 0 to 2.72% and the seroprevalence of anti-Schistosoma antibody was 0 to 20.25% in 1 153 schistosomiasis-endemic villages in Hunan Province in 2020. Spatial clusters were identified in both the prevalence of advanced schistosomiasis (global Moran's I = 0.416, P < 0.01) and the seroprevalence of anti-Schistosoma antibody (global Moran's I = 0.711, P < 0.01) in Hunan Province. Local spatial autocorrelation analysis identified 98 schistosomiasis-endemic villages with high-high clusters of the prevalence of advanced schistosomiasis, 134 endemic villages with high-high clusters of the seroprevalence of anti-Schistosoma antibody and 36 endemic villages with high-high clusters of both the prevalence of advanced schistosomiasis and seroprevalence of anti-Schistosoma antibody in Hunan Province. In addition, spearman correlation analysis showed a positive correlation between the prevalence of advanced schistosomiasis and seroprevalence of anti-Schistosoma antibody (rs = 0.235, P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

There were spatial clusters of the prevalence of advanced schistosomiasis and seroprevalence of anti-Schistosoma antibody in Hunan Province in 2020, which were predominantly located in areas neighboring the Dongting Lake. These clusters should be given a high priority in the schistosomiasis control programs.

Advances in the Construction and Application of Thyroid Organoids

Organoids are complex multicellular structures that stem cells self-organize in three-dimensional (3D) cultures into anatomical structures and functional units similar to those seen in the organs from which they originate. This review describes the construction of thyroid organoids and the research progress that has occurred in models of thyroid-related disease. As a novel tool for modeling in a 3D multicellular environment, organoids help provide some useful references for the study of the pathogenesis of thyroid disease.

Hyperon Polarization along the Beam Direction Relative to the Second and Third Harmonic Event Planes in Isobar Collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=200 GeV

The polarization of Λ and Λ[over ¯] hyperons along the beam direction has been measured relative to the second and third harmonic event planes in isobar Ru+Ru and Zr+Zr collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=200  GeV. This is the first experimental evidence of the hyperon polarization by the triangular flow originating from the initial density fluctuations. The amplitudes of the sine modulation for the second and third harmonic results are comparable in magnitude, increase from central to peripheral collisions, and show a mild p_{T} dependence. The azimuthal angle dependence of the polarization follows the vorticity pattern expected due to elliptic and triangular anisotropic flow, and qualitatively disagrees with most hydrodynamic model calculations based on thermal vorticity and shear induced contributions. The model results based on one of existing implementations of the shear contribution lead to a correct azimuthal angle dependence, but predict centrality and p_{T} dependence that still disagree with experimental measurements. Thus, our results provide stringent constraints on the thermal vorticity and shear-induced contributions to hyperon polarization. Comparison to previous measurements at RHIC and the LHC for the second-order harmonic results shows little dependence on the collision system size and collision energy.

PYY3-36 infused systemically or directly into the VTA attenuates fentanyl seeking in male rats

More effective treatments for fentanyl use disorder are urgently needed. An emerging literature indicates that glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonists attenuate voluntary opioid taking and seeking in rodents. However, GLP-1R agonists produce adverse malaise-like effects that may limit patient compliance. Recently, we developed a dual agonist of GLP-1Rs and neuropeptide Y2 receptors (Y2Rs) that attenuates fentanyl taking and seeking at doses that do not produce malaise-like effects in opioid-experienced rats. Whether activating Y2Rs alone is sufficient to reduce opioid taking and seeking, however, is not known. Here, we investigated the efficacy of the Y2R ligand PYY3-36 to reduce fentanyl self-administration and the reinstatement of fentanyl-seeking behavior, a model of relapse in humans. Male rats were allowed to self-administer fentanyl (2.5 μg/kg, i.v.) for 21 days on a fixed-ratio 5 (FR5) schedule of reinforcement. Rats were then pretreated with vehicle or PYY3-36 (50 μg/kg s.c.; 0.1 and 1.0 μg/100 nL intra-VTA) prior to fentanyl self-administration test sessions. There were no effects of systemic or intra-VTA PYY3-36 on intravenous fentanyl self-administration. Opioid taking was then extinguished. Prior to subsequent reinstatement test sessions, rats were pretreated with vehicle or PYY3-36 (50 μg/kg s.c.; 0.1 and 1.0 μg/100 nL intra-VTA). Both systemic and intra-VTA administration of PYY3-36 attenuated fentanyl reinstatement in male rats at doses that did not affect food intake or produce adverse malaise-like effects. These findings indicate that Y2R agonism alone is sufficient to decrease fentanyl-seeking behavior during abstinence in opioid-experienced rats and further support strategies aimed at targeting Y2Rs for treating opioid use disorders.

Test of CP Symmetry in Hyperon to Neutron Decays

The quantum entangled J/ψ→Σ^{+}Σ[over ¯]^{-} pairs from (1.0087±0.0044)×10^{10}  J/ψ events taken by the BESIII detector are used to study the nonleptonic two-body weak decays Σ^{+}→nπ^{+} and Σ[over ¯]^{-}→n[over ¯]π^{-}. The CP-odd weak decay parameters of the decays Σ^{+}→nπ^{+} (α_{+}) and Σ[over ¯]^{-}→n[over ¯]π^{-} (α[over ¯]_{-}) are determined to be 0.0481±0.0031_{stat}±0.0019_{syst} and -0.0565±0.0047_{stat}±0.0022_{syst}, respectively. The decay parameter α[over ¯]_{-} is measured for the first time, and the accuracy of α_{+} is improved by a factor of 4 compared to the previous results. The simultaneously determined decay parameters allow the first precision CP symmetry test for any hyperon decay with a neutron in the final state with the measurement of A_{CP}=(α_{+}+α[over ¯]_{-})/(α_{+}-α[over ¯]_{-})=-0.080±0.052_{stat}±0.028_{syst}. Assuming CP conservation, the average decay parameter is determined as ⟨α_{+}⟩=(α_{+}-α[over ¯]_{-})/2=-0.0506±0.0026_{stat}±0.0019_{syst}, while the ratios α_{+}/α_{0} and α[over ¯]_{-}/α[over ¯]_{0} are -0.0490±0.0032_{stat}±0.0021_{syst} and -0.0571±0.0053_{stat}±0.0032_{syst}, where α_{0} and α[over ¯]_{0} are the decay parameters of the decays Σ^{+}→pπ^{0} and Σ[over ¯]^{-}→p[over ¯]π^{0}, respectively.

Measurements of Groomed-Jet Substructure of Charm Jets Tagged by D^{0} Mesons in Proton-Proton Collisions at sqrt[s]=13 TeV

Understanding the role of parton mass and Casimir color factors in the quantum chromodynamics parton shower represents an important step in characterizing the emission properties of heavy quarks. Recent experimental advances in jet substructure techniques have provided the opportunity to isolate and characterize gluon emissions from heavy quarks. In this Letter, the first direct experimental constraint on the charm-quark splitting function is presented, obtained via the measurement of the groomed shared momentum fraction of the first splitting in charm jets, tagged by a reconstructed D^{0} meson. The measurement is made in proton-proton collisions at sqrt[s]=13  TeV, in the low jet transverse-momentum interval of 15≤p_{T}^{jet ch}<30  GeV/c where the emission properties are sensitive to parton mass effects. In addition, the opening angle of the first perturbative emission of the charm quark, as well as the number of perturbative emissions it undergoes, is reported. Comparisons to measurements of an inclusive-jet sample show a steeper splitting function for charm quarks compared with gluons and light quarks. Charm quarks also undergo fewer perturbative emissions in the parton shower, with a reduced probability of large-angle emissions.

Measurement of Energy-Dependent Pair-Production Cross Section and Electromagnetic Form Factors of a Charmed Baryon

We study the process e^{+}e^{-}→Λ_{c}^{+}Λ[over ¯]_{c}^{-} at twelve center-of-mass energies from 4.6119 to 4.9509 GeV using data samples collected by the BESIII detector at the BEPCII collider. The Born cross sections and effective form factors (|G_{eff}|) are determined with unprecedented precision after combining the single and double-tag methods based on the decay process Λ_{c}^{+}→pK^{-}π^{+}. Flat cross sections around 4.63 GeV are obtained and no indication of the resonant structure Y(4630), as reported by Belle, is found. In addition, no oscillatory behavior is discerned in the |G_{eff}| energy dependence of Λ_{c}^{+}, in contrast to what is seen for the proton and neutron cases. Analyzing the cross section together with the polar-angle distribution of the Λ_{c}^{+} baryon at each energy point, the moduli of electric and magnetic form factors (|G_{E}| and |G_{M}|) are extracted and separated. For the first time, the energy dependence of the form factor ratio |G_{E}/G_{M}| is observed, which can be well described by an oscillatory function.

Aperiodic neural activity is a biomarker for depression severity

A reliable physiological biomarker for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is necessary to improve treatment success rates by shoring up variability in outcome measures. In this study, we establish a passive biomarker that tracks with changes in mood on the order of minutes to hours. We record from intracranial electrodes implanted deep in the brain - a surgical setting providing exquisite temporal and spatial sensitivity to detect this relationship in a difficult-to-measure brain area, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). The aperiodic slope of the power spectral density captures the balance of activity across all frequency bands and is construed as a putative proxy for excitatory/inhibitory balance in the brain. This study demonstrates how shifts in aperiodic slope correlate with depression severity in a clinical trial of deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant depression (TRD). The correlation between depression severity scores and aperiodic slope is significant in N=5 subjects, indicating that flatter (less negative) slopes correspond to reduced depression severity, especially in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. This biomarker offers a new way to track patient response to MDD treatment, facilitating individualized therapies in both intracranial and non-invasive monitoring scenarios.

Tests of Light-Lepton Universality in Angular Asymmetries of B^{0}→D^{*-}ℓν Decays

We present the first comprehensive tests of the universality of the light leptons in the angular distributions of semileptonic B^{0}-meson decays to charged spin-1 charmed mesons. We measure five angular-asymmetry observables as functions of the decay recoil that are sensitive to lepton-universality-violating contributions. We use events where one neutral B is fully reconstructed in ϒ(4S)→BB[over ¯] decays in data corresponding to 189  fb^{-1} integrated luminosity from electron-positron collisions collected with the Belle II detector. We find no significant deviation from the standard model expectations.

Use of Radiomics Models in Preoperative Grading of Cerebral Gliomas and Comparison with Three-dimensional Arterial Spin Labelling

AIMS

To build machine learning-based radiomics models to discriminate between high- (HGGs) and low-grade gliomas (LGGs) and to compare the effectiveness of three-dimensional arterial spin labelling (3D-ASL) to evaluate which is a better method.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We retrospectively analysed the magnetic resonance imaging T1WI-enhanced images of 105 patients with gliomas that were pathologically confirmed in our hospital. We divided the patients into a training group and a verification group at a ratio of 8:2; 200 patients from the Brain Tumour Segmentation Challenge 2020 were selected as the test group for image segmentation, feature extraction and screening. We constructed models using multilayer perceptron (MLP), support vector machine, random forest and logistic regression and evaluated their predictive performance. We obtained the mean maximum relative cerebral blood flow (rCBFmax) value from 3D-ASL of 105 patients from the hospital to evaluate its efficacy in discriminating between HGGs and LGGs.

RESULTS

In machine learning, the MLP classifier model exhibited the best performance in discriminating between HGGs and LGGs; the areas under the curve obtained by MLP and rCBFmax were 0.968 versus 0.815 (verification group) and 0.981 versus 0.815 (test group), respectively. The machine learning-based MLP classifier model performed better in discriminating between HGGs and LGGs than 3D-ASL.

CONCLUSION

In our study, we found that machine learning-based radiomics models and 3D-ASL were valuable in discriminating between HGGs and LGGs and between them, the machine learning-based MLP model had better diagnostic performance.

Correlation of diclofenac sodium sustained-release capsules in conjunction with function training and VAS score after ankle fracture surgery

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the effect of Diclofenac sodium sustained-release capsules combined with function training on functional recovery and Visual Analog Scale (VAS) score after surgery for ankle fractures.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

The study included 88 patients with ankle fractures who were surgically treated at our institution between October 2019 and October 2021. The individuals were randomized into experimental and control groups, with 44 patients in each group. Following their hospitalization, all patients had surgical therapy. After surgery, patients in the control group received conventional analgesics together with function training, whereas those in the experimental group received Diclofenac sodium sustained-release capsules along with function training. The efficacy of the post-surgical treatment in the two groups was then evaluated using functional recovery and VAS scores.

RESULTS

There was no significant difference in the VAS score between the two groups before intervention (p>0.05). After treatment, both groups experienced pain relief, with the VAS score of the experimental group being significantly lower than the control group (p<0.05). The number of patients in the experimental group who fully and partially complied with the study was 19 and 24, respectively, significantly higher than that of 15 and 20 in the control group. Only 1 patient in the experimental group was non-compliant, compared to 9 in the control group. The total compliance rate in the experimental group was 97.73%, much higher than that of 79.55% in the control group (p<0.05). Before the intervention, there was no significant difference in the range of active ankle motion between the two groups (p>0.05). After treatment, there was an improvement in the range of active motion of the ankle in patients from both groups.

CONCLUSIONS

After ankle fracture surgery, using Diclofenac sodium sustained-release capsules in conjunction with function training successfully lowers postoperative pain. It also maintains emotional stability and ensures sleep, factors which are helpful in improving patient compliance to treatment and promoting functional recovery of the ankle. The clinical value of this treatment regimen is certain, and it deserves more widespread application.

Clinical Performance of Minimally Invasive Monolithic Ultratranslucent Zirconia Veneers: A Case Series up to Five Years of Follow-up

There is a lack of reports in the literature on the long-term clinical performance of ultratranslucent zirconia, especially considering its use in manufacturing monolithic veneers. The purpose of this case series is to describe the aesthetic treatment steps of three patients with minimally invasive ultratranslucent zirconia veneers and to report the clinical findings up to five years. Three patients (woman: 2, man: 1; mean age: 30 years) unsatisfied with their dental aesthetics sought dental treatment. The treatment plan involved cementing ultratranslucent zirconia veneers. Air-abrasion was performed on the internal surface of zirconia with alumina particles coated by silica (silicatization), followed by silane and adhesive applications for the adhesive cementation. All veneers were adhesively cemented to enamel with resin cement (Variolink Esthetic, Ivoclar). The patients were clinically evaluated annually considering the Ryge modified/ California Dental Association criteria. After a mean follow-up of 4.33 years (4-5 years), a survival rate of 100% was detected for the 28 minimally invasive ultratranslucent zirconia veneers cemented in the 3 patients. There were no absolute failures such as debonding, veneer fracture, or secondary caries. Superficial marginal discoloration was observed in one element (maxillary left lateral incisor) of one patient. Ultratranslucent zirconia is a viable option for manufacturing veneers due to its excellent clinical performance and longevity. However, further long-term clinical studies are essential to consolidate this material as an option for esthetic restorations.

Kinetic magnetism in triangular moiré materials

Magnetic properties of materials ranging from conventional ferromagnetic metals to strongly correlated materials such as cuprates originate from Coulomb exchange interactions. The existence of alternate mechanisms for magnetism that could naturally facilitate electrical control has been discussed theoretically1-7, but an experimental demonstration8 in an extended system has been missing. Here we investigate MoSe2/WS2 van der Waals heterostructures in the vicinity of Mott insulator states of electrons forming a frustrated triangular lattice and observe direct evidence of magnetic correlations originating from a kinetic mechanism. By directly measuring electronic magnetization through the strength of the polarization-selective attractive polaron resonance9,10, we find that when the Mott state is electron-doped, the system exhibits ferromagnetic correlations in agreement with the Nagaoka mechanism.

Predictive values of cervix length measurement based on transvaginal ultrasonography combined with pathological examination of placenta for premature delivery and correlation between premature delivery and infection

OBJECTIVE

The predictive values of cervix length (CL) measurement based on transvaginal ultrasonography (TVUS) and pathological examination of placenta for premature delivery (PTD) were investigated, and the correlation between PTD and infection was analyzed.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

A total of 120 pregnant women with PTD or high-risk factors for PTD admitted to Hengyang Maternal and Child Health Hospital, between February 2020 and March 2022 were included in this retrospective study. There were 36 subjects in the PTD group and 84 in the normal delivery group (control group). They underwent pathological examination of the placenta and TVUS for CL measurement. The final gestational age was set as the standard for the evaluation of the predictive values of pathological examination of the placenta and TVUS. Moreover, a pathological examination of the placenta was used to analyze the correlation between PTD and infection.

RESULTS

The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of joint inspection were remarkably superior to those of single CL or pathological examination of the placenta (p<0.05). The proportion of pregnant women with CL ≤30 mm and positive placental pathology was higher than that of pregnant women with CL >30 mm and negative placental pathology (p<0.05). In addition, the incidence of Ureaplasma urealyticum (UU), Chlamydia trachomatis (CT), and chorioamnionitis (CA) in the vaginal discharge of the PTD group was markedly superior to that of the control group (p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

The combination of CL ≤30 mm and positive placental pathology could effectively predict PTD, and placental infection was notably correlated with the occurrence of PTD.

MRI-based radiomics analysis of bladder cancer: prediction of pathological grade and histological variant

AIM

To develop magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-based radiomics models for the prediction of the pathological grade and histological variant of bladder cancer.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A total of 227 patients who underwent bladder MRI and had histopathologically confirmed grades and variants were included retrospectively from January 2017 to March 2022. They were assigned to a training set (n=131) and a testing set (n=96) based on the MRI system. MRI-based radiomics features were extracted from manually segmented volumes of interest from high-b-value DWI images and ADC maps. The radiomics models were trained with all possible pipelines in the training set. One optimal model was selected using the fivefold cross-validation method and verified by the testing set according to the pathological results. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to identify the significant clinical and imaging factors for developing clinical-radiomics models.

RESULTS

The radiomics model for grade prediction had area under the curve (AUC) values of 0.784, 0.786, and 0.733 in the training, cross-validation, and testing sets, respectively. The radiomics model for variant prediction had AUC values of 0.748, 0.757, and 0.789 in the training, cross-validation, and testing sets, respectively. The performance of the clinical-radiomics model was significantly improved compared with the radiomics models alone for the total dataset (AUC for grade: 0.846 versus 0.756; AUC for variant: 0.810 versus 0.757, p<0.05).

CONCLUSION

MRI-based radiomics models could be used to predict the pathological grade and histological variants of bladder cancer with relatively good performance.

Observation of New Baryons in the Ξ_{b}^{-}π^{+}π^{-} and Ξ_{b}^{0}π^{+}π^{-} Systems

The first observation and study of two new baryonic structures in the final state Ξ_{b}^{0}π^{+}π^{-} and the confirmation of the Ξ_{b}(6100)^{-} state in the Ξ_{b}^{-}π^{+}π^{-} decay mode are reported using proton-proton collision data collected by the LHCb experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9  fb^{-1}. In addition, the properties of the known Ξ_{b}^{*0}, Ξ_{b}^{'-} and Ξ_{b}^{*-} resonances are measured with improved precision. The new decay mode of the Ξ_{b}^{0} baryon to the Ξ_{c}^{+} π^{-} π^{+} π^{-} final state is observed and exploited for the first time in these measurements.

Measurement of Suppression of Large-Radius Jets and Its Dependence on Substructure in Pb+Pb Collisions at sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.02 TeV with the ATLAS Detector

This letter presents a measurement of the nuclear modification factor of large-radius jets in sqrt[s_{NN}]=5.02  TeV Pb+Pb collisions by the ATLAS experiment. The measurement is performed using 1.72  nb^{-1} and 257  pb^{-1} of Pb+Pb and pp data, respectively. The large-radius jets are reconstructed with the anti-k_{t} algorithm using a radius parameter of R=1.0, by reclustering anti-k_{t} R=0.2 jets, and are measured over the transverse momentum (p_{T}) kinematic range of 158 Collapse

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Precision Measurement of CP Violation in the Penguin-Mediated Decay B_{s}^{0}→ϕϕ

A flavor-tagged time-dependent angular analysis of the decay B_{s}^{0}→ϕϕ is performed using pp collision data collected by the LHCb experiment at the center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 6  fb^{-1}. The CP-violating phase and direct CP-violation parameter are measured to be ϕ_{s}^{ss[over ¯]s}=-0.042±0.075±0.009  rad and |λ|=1.004±0.030±0.009, respectively, assuming the same values for all polarization states of the ϕϕ system. In these results, the first uncertainties are statistical and the second systematic. These parameters are also determined separately for each polarization state, showing no evidence for polarization dependence. The results are combined with previous LHCb measurements using pp collisions at center-of-mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV, yielding ϕ_{s}^{ss[over ¯]s}=-0.074±0.069  rad and |λ|=1.009±0.030. This is the most precise study of time-dependent CP violation in a penguin-dominated B meson decay. The results are consistent with CP symmetry and with the standard model predictions.

Precise Measurement of the D_{s}^{+} Lifetime at Belle II

We measure the lifetime of the D_{s}^{+} meson using a data sample of 207  fb^{-1} collected by the Belle II experiment running at the SuperKEKB asymmetric-energy e^{+}e^{-} collider. The lifetime is determined by fitting the decay-time distribution of a sample of 116×10^{3} D_{s}^{+}→ϕπ^{+} decays. Our result is τ_{D_{s}^{+}}=(499.5±1.7±0.9)  fs, where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second is systematic. This result is significantly more precise than previous measurements.

[A follow-up study of the severe occlusal surface wear of implant-supported full-arch prostheses]

Objective: To evaluate the severe occlusal surface wear of implant-supported full-arch prostheses, and to explore the risk factors affecting the severe occlusal surface wear of implant-supported full-arch prostheses. Methods: Five hundred and thirty-five patients who received implant-supported fixed complete dental prostheses or implant-overdentures and completed at least one follow-up 3 months after the delivery of definitive prostheses were enrolled from October 1994 to October 2021 in this retrospective cohort study. The information on demographics, implants, definitive prostheses, and related outcomes was collected. Cox proportional hazard regression model was adopted to analyze the risk factors of the severe wear of occlusal surfaces in implant-supported full-arch prostheses. Univariate analysis was performed on the factors that may affect the severe wear of occlusal surfaces, and the parameters of P<0.10 in univariate analysis were included in multivariate analysis to explore the risk factors affecting the severe wear of occlusal surfaces in implant-supported full-arch prostheses. Results: Severe wear of the posterior occlusal surfaces was detected in 114 prostheses with a duration of 61.4 (33.3, 89.4) months. 13 cases occurred≤2 years after the delivery of definitive prostheses, 44 cases>2 years and≤5 years, 44 cases>5 years and≤10 years, and the other 13 cases>10 years. There was no significant difference in the average time of severe occlusal surface wear between implant-supported fixed complete dental prostheses and implant-overdentures in the maxilla (Z=-1.03, P=0.303). However, in the mandible, it was 48.2 (31.2, 80.2) and 79.2 (51.3, 119.1) months respectively, which was statistically significant (Z=-2.93, P=0.003). Cox proportional hazard regression model showed opposed fixed dentition, bruxism, and posterior resin occlusal surfaces were risk factors (P<0.05) affecting the severe wear of the occlusal surfaces. Conclusions: Severe occlusal surface wear was clinically common with the prolonged application of implant-supported full-arch prostheses. Prostheses opposed to fixed dentition, in patients with bruxism, and made of posterior resin materials were at higher risk of severe occlusal surface wear on the posterior artificial teeth. Regular follow-up, patients' behavior guidance, and clinicians' appropriate intervention were necessary to manage this complication.