A new alignment-free method: K-mer Subsequence Natural Vector (K-mer SNV) for classification of fungi.

As eukaryotic organisms, fungi play a pivotal role within ecosystems and exert profound influences on agriculture, the pharmaceutical industry, and human health. The classification of fungi in databases has emerged as a crucial and complex issue in the field of biology. In this study, by leveraging the local distribution of k-mer in nucleotide sequences, we introduce a novel alignment-free method, denoted as k-mer SNV, to address this challenge.

MRS demonstrates elevated brain glutathione in vascular mild cognitive impairment compared to cognitively normal coronary artery disease controls.

Introduction: Oxidative stress (OS) is implicated in dementia. While elevated peripheral OS biomarkers were observed in vascular mild cognitive impairment (vMCI), the role of central antioxidants remains unclear. We assessed levels of the major brain antioxidant glutathione (GSH) in vMCI compared to cognitively normal coronary artery disease (CAD) controls (CN).

Experimental Structural Template on Tensegrity and Textile Architecture Integrating Physical and Digital Approaches.

The construction industry is a major contributor to global carbon emissions, driving the need for sustainable solutions. Ultra-lightweight structures have emerged as an effective approach to reducing material usage and energy consumption. This study explores the potential of ultra-lightweight architectural systems through a learning-by-doing methodology, integrating innovative composite materials, PolRe, and knitting techniques to enhance tensegrity structures for sustainable, deployable, and efficient structural designs.

A beamforming algorithm with composite multi-conditional cross correlation and range standard deviation factor for high quality ultrasound imaging.

The traditional delay-and-sum (DAS) beamformer is inadequate for clutter suppression in ultrasound imaging. The coherence factor beamformer can effectively suppress clutter, but it is prone to cause dark-region artifacts during incoherent signal suppression. In this paper, the resolution and contrast of ultrasound images are improved by using a novel adaptive beamforming algorithm called composite multi-conditional cross correlation (MCC) and range standard deviation factor (CMCC-RSF).

Rhabdomyolysis in intensive care unit-distinctive clinical indicators and prognosis.

Background: Rhabdomyolysis is commonly encountered in intensive care unit (ICU), yet its clinical features and prognostic indicators have not been comprehensively defined. This study aims to identify clinical characteristics and outcomes of ICU patients with rhabdomyolysis, and assess if rhabdomyolysis predicts outcomes.

Methods: This retrospective study investigated patients admitted to the ICU of Shanghai Baoshan District Wusong Central Hospital from 2022 to 2023.

Coexistence of the Radial-Guided Mode and WGM in Azimuthal-Grating-Integrated Microring Lasers.

Whispering-gallery mode (WGM) resonators, renowned for their high Q-factors and narrow line widths, are widely utilized in integrated photonics. Integrating diffraction gratings onto WGM cavities has gained significant attention because these gratings function as azimuthal refractive index modulators, enabling single-mode WGM emissions and supporting beams with orbital angular momentum (OAM). The introduction of curved grating structures facilitates guided mode resonances by coupling high-order diffracted waves with leaking modes from the waveguide.

Comparison of different concentrations atropine in controlling children and adolescent myopia: an umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.

Purpose: To evaluate the myopia control effect of different concentrations atropine in children and adolescent.

Methods: Meta-analyses and systematic reviews available in the Pubmed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases from the databases' inception to August 2023 were searched to evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of different concentrations' atropine in controlling myopia progression. Overall effects were performed using random-effects model.

Enhanced removal of methylene blue by 2-(2,4,5-tricarboxybenzyloxy)-1,2,3-propanetricarboxylic acid modified cellulose.

A new type of polycarboxylic acid crosslinking agent 2-(2,4,5-tricarboxybenzyloxy)-1,2,3-propanetricarboxylic acid (TBPTA) with the morphology similar to the regular arrangement of the foliar morphology of Araucaria was synthesized by dissolving carboxylic acid system of 1, 2, 3, 4-butane tetracarboxylic acid (PMDA) and citric acid (CA) in the molar ratio of 1: 1 in tetrahydrofuran (THF) at 68 °C. On this basis, a novel adsorbent TEMPO-derived nanocellulose (CNF)/TBPTA with excellent adsorption properties for methylene blue (MB) was prepared by mixing CNF, TBPTA as raw materials and sodium hypophosphite (SHP) as catalyst in various proportions. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra showed that the cross-linking effect of TBPTA transformed the crystal structure of CNF from type I to type II.

Rare skin color changes in an acute pancreatitis patient undergoing maintenance hemodialysis.

Background: Skin conditions are common in patients on maintenance hemodialysis and those with pancreatitis. However, there is a lack of research on dermatological issues in patients who have both hemodialysis and pancreatitis concurrently.

Case Presentation: A 62-year-old male patient with a 4-year history of maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) presented with pain and was diagnosed with acute pancreatitis and gallbladder stones.

A modified sidelobe blanking beamforming method for ultrasound plane wave imaging.

In this paper, an ultrasound beamforming method for plane wave (PW) imaging based on modified sidelobe blanking (MSLB) is proposed to improve image resolution and contrast ratio (CR). In this framework, PWs from various angles were designed to create main and auxiliary beamformer signals. Specifically, the PW signals from all angles were first coherently combined to serve as the main beamformer output signals.

Comparative Efficacy of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation in Treating Refractory or Recurrent Infection among Patients with and without Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

infection (CDI) worsens inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) prognosis. While fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) is effective for refractory or recurrent CDI (rrCDI), comparative success rates between IBD and non-IBD patients are scarce. This study addresses this gap.

Neurofilament Light Chain as a Biomarker of Global Cognition in Individuals With Possible Vascular Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Background: Neurofilament Light Chain (NfL) is a biomarker of axonal injury elevated in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer's disease dementia. Blood NfL also inversely correlates with cognitive performance in those conditions. However, few studies have assessed NfL as a biomarker of global cognition in individuals demonstrating mild cognitive deficits who are at risk for vascular-related cognitive decline.

Association of interleukin-6, ferritin, and lactate dehydrogenase with venous thromboembolism in COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is frequntly accompanied by venous thromboembolism (VTE), and its mechanism may be related to the abnormal inflammation and immune status of COVID-19 patients. It has been proved that interleukin-6 (IL-6), ferritin and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) may play an important role in the occurrence of VTE in COVID-19 infection. But whether they can server as predictors for VTE in COVID-19 is still unclear.

Ultrasound Plane-Wave Compressed Sensing Reconstruction Method Using Intra-frame and Inter-frame Joint Multi-hypothesis and Reference Frame Multi-hypothesis Predictions.

Objective: Ultrasound plane-wave imaging has the advantage of high frame rate in addition to high data volume. High data sampling rates and large amounts of data storage can become bottlenecks in ultrasound system design. Although compressed sensing technology can help reduce the burden of sampling and transmission, it achieves relatively low image quality because of its reliance solely on signal sparsity.

Multi-apodization with cross-correlation combined with generalized sidelobe canceller applied to ultrasound imaging.

Background: Beamforming is vital for medical ultrasound imaging systems. The generalized sidelobe canceller (GSC) beamforming can improve the image quality of lateral resolution, but its performance improvement in contrast and robustness is limited.

Objective: This paper proposes an improved generalized sidelobe canceller algorithm based on multi-apodization with cross-correlation (MAXB-IGSC), which aims to improve the contrast and robustness of ultrasound imaging while maintaining the high image resolution and background speckle quality of GSC.

Gesture Recognition System Using Reduced Graphene Oxide-Enhanced Hydrogel Strain Sensors for Rehabilitation Training.

Gesture recognition systems epitomize a modern and intelligent approach to rehabilitative training, finding utility in assisted driving, sign language comprehension, and machine control. However, wearable devices that can monitor and motivate physically rehabilitated people in real time remain little studied. Here, we present an innovative gesture recognition system that integrates hydrogel strain sensors with machine learning to facilitate finger rehabilitation training.

Low complexity adaptive ultrasound image beamformer combined with improved multiphase apodization with cross-correlation.

In this paper, an ultrasound imaging method combined with low-complexity adaptive beamformer (LCA) and improved multiphase apodization with cross-correlation (IMPAX) is proposed to improve image resolution and contrast with low hardware cost. Firstly, the delayed echo signal is apodized by the LCA to obtain a narrow mainlobe width echo signal and LCA output. Then, multiple pairs of complementary square-wave phase apodizations are applied to the apodized echo signal to obtain corresponding signal pairs, which are used to calculate the normalized cross-correlation (NCC) matrix.

Altered central and blood glutathione in Alzheimer's disease and mild cognitive impairment: a meta-analysis.

Background: Increasing evidence implicates oxidative stress (OS) in Alzheimer disease (AD) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Depletion of the brain antioxidant glutathione (GSH) may be important in OS-mediated neurodegeneration, though studies of post-mortem brain GSH changes in AD have been inconclusive. Recent in vivo measurements of the brain and blood GSH may shed light on GSH changes earlier in the disease.

The coupling of mixotrophic denitrification, dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) and anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox) promoting the start-up of anammox by addition of calcium nitrate.

This study discovered one nitrate-calcium-based anammox start-up pathway. Compared with control, the start-up time of anammox was saved by 33.3%, and the average total nitrogen removal efficiency increased from 29.

Glutathione Peroxidase Activity Is Altered in Vascular Cognitive Impairment-No Dementia and Is a Potential Marker for Verbal Memory Performance.

Background: Coronary artery disease (CAD) increases risk for vascular cognitive impairment-no dementia (VCIND), a precursor to dementia, potentially through persistent oxidative stress.

Objective: This study assessed peripheral glutathione peroxidase activity (GPX), which is protective against oxidative stress, in VCIND versus cognitively normal CAD controls (CN). GPX activity was also evaluated as a biomarker of cognition, particularly verbal memory.

Responses of Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaea and Bacteria in Malodorous River Sediments to Different Remediation Techniques.

In this study, the joint use of high throughput sequencing, real-time quantitative PCR, and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB)-inhibiting allylthiourea was used to differentiate between the contributions of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) vs AOB to ammonia oxidation and ascertain how AOA and AOB responded to two widely used river remediation techniques (aeration and Ca(NO) injection). Results showed that ammonia oxidation was largely attributed to ATU-sensitive AOB rather than AOA and Nitrosomonas was the predominant AOB-related genus (53.86%) in the malodorous river.