Objective To explore the influence of singing therapy on anxiety and depression of patients with stable COPD.Methods Toally 56 COPD patients were divided into intervention group and control group according to random digit table.The control group was provided health education and mental nursing.On the base of treatment for the control group,the intervention group received singing therapy for 24 weeks.The anxiety and depression scale was to measure the anxiety and depression before and 24 weeks after intervention.Results There were no differences in HAD score and HAD-A score and HAD-D score between the groups before intervention (P＞0.05),but after intervention,the differences were significant in terms of the HAD score and HAD-A score and HAD-D score (P＜0.01).The scores of intervention group were significantly lower than those of the control group.For the scores,there was no difference in the control group between pre-and post-intervention (P＞0.05),but the scores after intervention were significantly lower than those before intervention in the intervention group (P＜0.001).Conclusion Singing therapy can effectively alleviate anxiety and depression of COPD patients at the stable state.

Objective:To investigate the value of ADC derived from DWI combined with texture analysis derived from T 2WI fat suppressed images in distinguishing benign and malignant soft tissue tumors. Methods:The MRI and DWI images of 94 patients with soft tissue tumors (44 cases with malignant and 50 cases with benign) confirmed by pathology were analyzed retrospectively in the First Affiliated Hospital of USTC West District. ADC values of solid components were measured at GE ADW4.6 workstation. The texture features were extracted by manually drawing the ROI on the maximum level of the T 2WI fat suppressed images; the ADC values and texture parameters between the two groups were statistically analyzed by SPSS17.0, and the multivariate logistic regression model were conducted to analyze and calculate the diagnostic performance. Results:ADC value of benign and malignant soft tissue tumors was (1.6±0.3)×10 -3 mm 2/s, (1.2±0.5)×10 -3 mm 2/s, respectively, and the difference was statistically significant( t=-5.382, P<0.05). Taking 1.28×10 -3 mm 2/s as the critical value, the area under curve (AUC) for the diagnosis of benign and malignant soft tissue tumors was 0.783, the sensitivity was 92.00%, and the specificity was 65.91%. Among the texture features, the AUC of frequency size, skewness, Inertia All Direction_offset7, Inverse Difference Moment angle0_offset1, Inverse Difference Moment angle0_offset7 and Haralick Correlation All Direction_offset4_SD distinguishing benign and malignant soft tissue tumors were 0.825, 0.739, 0.826, 0.816, 0.820 and 0.783, respectively. The AUC, sensitivity and specificity of the best predictive model distinguishing benign and malignant soft tissue tumors were 0.930, 88.00% and 86.36% respectively using multivariate logistic regression analysis. Conclusion:ADC combined with texture analysis is of great value in preoperative differentiation of benign and malignant soft tissue tumors.

In order to enhance the alkaline polygalacturonate lyase (PGL) productivity by Pichia pastoris, we developed a constant cell concentration culture strategy by methanol feeding (called as CCCM culture) used in the continuous cultures. We controlled reasonable cell concentrations in the bioprocess by different strategies of methanol feeding. Using this CCCM culture with DCW 75 g/L, we significantly enhanced the PGL productivity (Qv) and the average specific enzyme production rate (Qx) of PGL to 6.11 U/(mL x h) and 81.5 U/(g x h), increased by 42.1% and 191.2% than the fed-batch culture with high cell density, respectively. The final PGL activity was 441.9 U/mL. Moreover, the extracellular protease concentration is 1.9 mg/L and the cell viability is more than 94% after 120 hour induction. The results show that this new strategy is advantageous in reducing proteolytic degradation and enhancing cell viability.
Cell Count ; Culture Media ; Culture Techniques ; methods ; Fermentation ; Pichia ; genetics ; metabolism ; Polysaccharide-Lyases ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Recombinant Proteins ; biosynthesis ; genetics

Objective: To evaluate the performance of a convolutional neural network (CNN) model that can automatically detect and classify rib fractures, and output structured reports from computed tomography (CT) images. Materials and Methods: This study included 1079 patients (median age, 55 years; men, 718) from three hospitals, between January 2011 and January 2019, who were divided into a monocentric training set (n = 876; median age, 55 years; men, 582), five multicenter/multiparameter validation sets (n = 173; median age, 59 years; men, 118) with different slice thicknesses and image pixels, and a normal control set (n = 30; median age, 53 years; men, 18). Three classifications (fresh, healing, and old fracture) combined with fracture location (corresponding CT layers) were detected automatically and delivered in a structured report. Precision, recall, and F1-score were selected as metrics to measure the optimum CNN model. Detection/diagnosis time, precision, and sensitivity were employed to compare the diagnostic efficiency of the structured report and that of experienced radiologists. Results: A total of 25054 annotations (fresh fracture, 10089; healing fracture, 10922; old fracture, 4043) were labelled for training (18584) and validation (6470). The detection efficiency was higher for fresh fractures and healing fractures than for old fractures (F1-scores, 0.849, 0.856, 0.770, respectively, p = 0.023 for each), and the robustness of the model was good in the five multicenter/multiparameter validation sets (all mean F1-scores > 0.8 except validation set 5 [512 x 512 pixels; F1-score = 0.757]). The precision of the five radiologists improved from 80.3% to 91.1%, and the sensitivity increased from 62.4% to 86.3% with artificial intelligence-assisted diagnosis. On average, the diagnosis time of the radiologists was reduced by 73.9 seconds. Conclusion Our CNN model for automatic rib fracture detection could assist radiologists in improving diagnostic efficiency, reducing diagnosis time and radiologists’ workload.

Objective: To compare the reproducibility and performance of quantitative metrics between ZOOMit and conventional intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the diagnosis of early- and mid-stage Sjögren’s syndrome (SS). Materials and Methods: Twenty-two patients (mean age ± standard deviation, 52.0 ± 10.8 years; male:female, 2:20) with early- or mid-stage SS and 20 healthy controls (46.9 ± 14.6 years; male:female, 7:13) were prospectively enrolled in our study.ZOOMit IVIM and conventional IVIM MRI were performed simultaneously in all individuals using a 3T scanner. Quantitative IVIM parameters - including tissue diffusivity (D), pseudodiffusion coefficient (D*), and perfusion fraction (f) - inter- and intra-observer reproducibility in measuring these parameters, and their ability to distinguish patients with SS from healthy individuals were assessed and compared between ZOOMit IVIM and conventional IVIM methods, appropriately. MR gland nodular grade (MRG) was also examined. Results: Inter- and intra-observer reproducibility was better with ZOOMit imaging than with conventional IVIM imaging (ZOOMit vs. conventional, intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.897–0.941 vs. 0.667–0.782 for inter-observer reproducibility and 0.891–0.968 vs. 0.814–0.853 for intra-observer reproducibility). Significant differences in ZOOMit f, ZOOMit D*, conventional D*, and MRG between patients with SS and healthy individuals (all p < 0.05) were observed. ZOOMit D* outperformed conventional D* in diagnosing early- and mid-stage SS (area under receiver operating curve, 0.867 and 0.658, respectively; p = 0.002). The combination of ZOOMit D*, MRG, and ZOOMit f as a new diagnostic index for SS, increased diagnostic area under the curve to 0.961, which was higher than that of any single parameter (all p < 0.01). Conclusion Considering its better reproducibility and performance, ZOOMit IVIM may be preferred over conventional IVIM MRI, and may subsequently improve the ability to diagnose early- and mid-stage SS.

Selective dorsal penile neurotomy is a surgical method proposed for the treatment of primary premature ejaculation in recent years. In view of the inconsistency of surgical methods and the controversy of the operation itself, Large-scale, multi-center research evidence is needed for comprehensive evaluation. This article starts with the etiology of premature ejaculation, and reviews the anatomical basis, indications, contraindications, surgical methods, efficacy evaluation, complications and combined treatment methods of selective dorsal neurotomy.

Proteases are enzymes that cleave and hydrolyse the peptide bonds between two specific amino acid residues of target substrate proteins. Protease-controlled proteolysis plays a key role in the degradation and recycling of proteins, which is essential for various physiological processes. Thus, solving the substrate identification problem will have important implications for the precise understanding of functions and physiological roles of proteases, as well as for therapeutic target identification and pharmaceutical applicability. Consequently, there is a great demand for bioinformatics methods that can predict novel substrate cleavage events with high accuracy by utilizing both sequence and structural information. In this study, we present Procleave, a novel bioinformatics approach for predicting protease-specific substrates and specific cleavage sites by taking into account both their sequence and 3D structural information. Structural features of known cleavage sites were represented by discrete values using a LOWESS data-smoothing optimization method, which turned out to be critical for the performance of Procleave. The optimal approximations of all structural parameter values were encoded in a conditional random field (CRF) computational framework, alongside sequence and chemical group-based features. Here, we demonstrate the outstanding performance of Procleave through extensive benchmarking and independent tests. Procleave is capable of correctly identifying most cleavage sites in the case study. Importantly, when applied to the human structural proteome encompassing 17,628 protein structures, Procleave suggests a number of potential novel target substrates and their corresponding cleavage sites of different proteases. Procleave is implemented as a webserver and is freely accessible at http://procleave.erc.monash.edu/.

Selective dorsal neurotomy (SDN) is a surgical treatment for primary premature ejaculation (PE), but there is still no standard surgical procedure for selecting the branches of the dorsal penile nerves to be removed. We performed this study to explore the value of intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring (IONM) of the penile sensory-evoked potential (PSEP) for standard surgical procedures in SDN. One hundred and twenty primary PE patients undergoing SDN were selected as the PE group and 120 non-PE patients were selected as the normal group. The PSEP was monitored and compared between the two groups under both natural and general anesthesia (GA) states. In addition, patients in the PE group were randomly divided into the IONM group and the non-IONM group. During SDN surgery, PSEP parameters of the IONM group were recorded and analyzed. The differences in PE-related outcome measurements between the perioperative period and 3 months' postoperation were compared for the PE patients, and the differences in effectiveness and complications between the IONM group and the non-IONM group were compared. The results showed that the average latency of the PSEP in the PE group was shorter than that in the normal group under both natural and GA states (P < 0.001). Three months after surgery, the significant effective rates in the IONM and non-IONM groups were 63.6% and 34.0%, respectively (P < 0.01), and the difference in complications between the two groups was significant (P < 0.05). IONM might be useful in improving the short-term therapeutic effectiveness and reducing the complications of SDN.
Male ; Humans ; Premature Ejaculation/surgery* ; Intraoperative Neurophysiological Monitoring/methods* ; Prospective Studies ; Neurosurgical Procedures/methods* ; Penis/surgery* ; Retrospective Studies