Occupational noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) is an irreversible sensorineural hearing loss that severely endangers workers’ health, making early screening crucial. This article reviewed the research progress on early screening methods for occupational NIHL, introduced the testing mechanisms of three core screening methods—tympanometry, otoacoustic emissions, and extended high-frequency audiometry —and summarized their clinical application advantages and limitations. It is proposed that multimodal combined detection (e.g., the combination of tympanometry, otoacoustic emissions, and extended high-frequency audiometry) can significantly improve the accuracy and comprehensiveness of early screening. Meanwhile, future studies with prospective cohort design are encouraged to verify the long-term monitoring value of each method and to strengthen the joint development of screening technologies with cutting-edge approaches such as machine learning, in order to further improve screening efficiency and provide stronger protection for workers’ hearing health.

Objective To analyze the effects of three sterilization methods,namely,pressure steam,low-temperature plasma and ethylene oxide,on the magnetic flux of magnetic surgical devices and their sterilization costs.Methods A total of 234 magnetic surgical devices of different specifications and models(magnetic rings)were randomly divided into Group A,Group B and Group C after the paired number was labelled,and each group consisted of 78 pieces(39 pairs).After packaging each pair of devices according to sterilization specifications,Group A was sterilized by pressure steam,Group B was sterilized by low-temperature plasma,and Group C was sterilized by ethylene oxide.We measured the magnetic flux of three sets of magnetic rings before and after sterilization,and comparatively analyzed the sterilization cost and sterilization time of the single package.Results There was no statistically significant difference in the impact of the three sterilization methods on the magnetic flux of the magnetic surgical devices(P＞0.05),but there was a significant difference in the magnetic flux before and after sterilization for each sterilization method(P＜0.001);the sterilization cost was(1.96±0.16)yuan for Group A,(23.17±0.32)yuan for Group B,and(8.16±0.18)yuan for Group C,showing statistically significant differences among the three groups(P＜0.01).The sterilization time was(65.21±3.36)min for Group A,(45.46±1.39)min for Group B,and(1020.38±12.21)min for Group C,with statistically significant differences among the three groups(P＜0.01).Conclusion None of the three sterilization methods affects the magnetic flux of the magnetic surgical devices.Pressure steam method shows the lowest cost of single package,low-temperature plasma method shows the highest cost of single package,while ethylene oxide method shows the highest sterilization time.Pressure steam should be the preferred sterilization method for magnetic surgical devices.

Objective:To discuss the effect of Boschnikia rossica polysaccharides rapa polysaccharides(BRPS)on lipopolysaccharide(LPS)-induced inflammatory responses in the THP-1 macrophages,and to clarify its mechanism.Methods:The THP-1 monocytes were differentiated into the macrophages,and the inflammation model was established using LPS to induce the THP-1 macrophages.CCK-8 method was used to detect the survial rates of the THP-1 macrophages after treated with different concentrations(0,100,200,500,1 000,and 2 000 μg·L-1)of LPS and different concentrations(0,12.5,25.0,50.0,100.0,and 200.0 mg·L-1)of BRPS to select the concentrations for the subsequent experiments.The THP-1 macrophages were divided into blank group,model group,low dose of BRPS group(25.0 mg·L-1 BRPS),medium dose of BRPS group(50.0 mg·L-1 BRPS),and high dose of BRPS group(100.0 mg·L-1 BRPS).P38 inhibitor SB203580,ERK inhibitor U0126,c-Jun N-terminal kinase(JNK)inhibitor SP600125,and nuclear factor of kappa B(NF-κB)inhibitor BAY11-7082 were used to verify the effects on THP-1 cells.The THP-1 cells were divided into control group,LPS group,inhibitor group,100.0 mg·L-1 BRPS group,and inhibitor+100.0 mg·L-1 BRPS group.ELISA method was used to detect the levels of tumor necrosis factor α(TNF-α),interleukin(IL)-6,and IL-1β in culture fluid of the THP-1 macrophages in various groups;DCFH-DA fluorescence probe method was used to detect the reactive oxygen species(ROS)levels in the THP-1 macrophages in various groups;Hoechst33342/PI fluorescence staining method was used to detect the membrane damage in the THP-1 macrophages in various groups;JC-1 fluorescence staining was used to observe mitochondrial membrane potential in the THP-1 macrophages in various groups;Western blotting method was used to detect the expression levels of cyclooxygenase-2(COX-2),high mobility group protein B1(HMGB1),NOD-like receptor thermal protein domain assciated protein 3(NLRP3),cysteinyl aspartate specific protease(Caspase)-1,gasdermin D(GSDMD)-N,IL-1β,mitogen-activated protein kinase(MAPK),and nuclear factor-kappa B(NF-κB)related proteins in the THP-1 macrophages in various groups.Results:The CCK-8 method results showed that when the LPS concentration was 100-2 000 μg·L-1,the survival rates of the THP-1 macrophages were over 90%.Compared with 0 μg·L-1 LPS group,the IL-6 levels in culture fluid of the THP-1 macrophages in 100,200,500,1 000,and 2 000 μg·L-1 LPS group were increased(P<0.05),indicating a significant enhancement of the inflammatory response in the macrophages,so 100 μg·L-1 LPS was used to construct the inflammation model.After treated with 12.5,25.0,50.0,100.0,and 200.0 mg·L-1 BRPS,the survival rates of the THP-1 macrophage were 91.2%,93.8%,91.4%,90.6%,and 91.8%,respectively,so 25.0,50.0,and 100.0 mg·L-1 BRPS were selected as the drug concentrations for low,medium,and high doses of BRPS groups in the subsequent experiments.The ELISA results showed that compared with blank group,the levels of IL-6,TNF-α,and IL-1β in culture fluid of the THP-1 macrophages in model group were increased(P<0.05);compared with model group,the levels of IL-6,TNF-α,and IL-1β in low,medium,and high doses of BRPS groups were decreased(P<0.05).The DCFH-DA fluorescence probe method results showed that compared with blank group,the ROS level in the THP-1 macrophages in model group was increased(P<0.05);compared with model group,the ROS levels in low,medium,and high doses of BRPS groups were decreased(P<0.05).The Hoechst33342/PI fluorescence staining results showed that compared with blank group,the degree of membrane damage in the THP-1 macrophages in model group was increased;compared with model group,the degrees of membrane damage in low,medium,and high doses of BRPS groups were decreased.The JC-1 fluorescence staining results showed that compared with blank group,the mitochondrial membrane potential in the THP-1 macrophages in model group was decreased significantly;compared with model group,the mitochondrial membrane potential in low,medium,and high doses of BRPS groups were increased gradually.The Western blotting results showed that compared with blank group,the expression levels of COX-2,HMGB1,NLRP3,Caspase 1,GSDMD-N,and IL-1β proteins and the ratios of p-P38/P38,p-ERK/ERK,p-JNK/JNK,and p-NF-κB/NF-κB in the THP-1 macrophages in model group were increased(P<0.05);compared with model group,the expression levels of HMGB1,NLRP3,Caspase-1,GSDMD-N,and IL-1β proteins and the ratios of p-P38/P38,p-ERK/ERK,p-JNK/JNK,and p-NF-κB/NF-κB in the THP-1 macrophages in medium and high doses of BRPS groups were decreased(P<0.05),the expression levels of NLRP3,Caspase-1,and IL-1β proteins in the cells in low dose of BRPS group were decreased(P<0.05),the expression level of COX-2 protein in the cells in high dose of BRPS group was decreased(P<0.05).Compared with control group,the ratios of p-P38/P38,p-ERK/ERK,p-JNK/JNK,and p-NF-κB/NF-κB,and the expression level of IL-1β protein in the THP-1 macrophages in LPS group were increased(P<0.05);compared with LPS group,the ratios of p-P38/P38,p-ERK/ERK,p-JNK/JNK,and p-NF-κB/NF-κB,and the expression level of IL-1β protein in the THP-1 macrophages in inhibitor group,100 mg·L-1 BRPS group,and inhibitor+100 mg·L-1 BRPS group were decreased(P<0.05);compared with inhibitor group,the ratios of p-P38/P38,p-ERK/ERK,p-JNK/JNK,and p-NF-κB/NF-κB in the THP-1 macrophages in inhibitor+100 mg·L-1 BRPS group were decreased(P<0.05).Conclusion:BRPS inhibits the inflammatory response of the THP-1 macrophages,which may be related to the MAPK and NF-κB signaling pathways regulated by BRPS.

During long-term electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring, various types of noise inevitably become mixed with the signal, potentially hindering doctors' ability to accurately assess and interpret patient data. Therefore, evaluating the quality of ECG signals before conducting analysis and diagnosis is crucial. This paper addresses the limitations of existing ECG signal quality assessment methods, particularly their insufficient focus on the 12-lead multi-scale correlation. We propose a novel ECG signal quality assessment method that integrates a convolutional neural network (CNN) with a squeeze and excitation residual network (SE-ResNet). This approach not only captures both local and global features of ECG time series but also emphasizes the spatial correlation among ECG signals. Testing on a public dataset demonstrated that our method achieved an accuracy of 99.5%, sensitivity of 98.5%, and specificity of 99.6%. Compared with other methods, our technique significantly enhances the accuracy of ECG signal quality assessment by leveraging inter-lead correlation information, which is expected to advance the development of intelligent ECG monitoring and diagnostic technology.
Electrocardiography/methods* ; Humans ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted ; Neural Networks, Computer ; Algorithms

Photoplethysmography (PPG) is often affected by interference, which could lead to incorrect judgment of physiological information. Therefore, performing a quality assessment before extracting physiological information is crucial. This paper proposed a new PPG signal quality assessment by fusing multi-class features with multi-scale series information to address the problems of traditional machine learning methods with low accuracy and deep learning methods requiring a large number of samples for training. The multi-class features were extracted to reduce the dependence on the number of samples, and the multi-scale series information was extracted by a multi-scale convolutional neural network and bidirectional long short-term memory to improve the accuracy. The proposed method obtained the highest accuracy of 94.21%. It showed the best performance in all sensitivity, specificity, precision, and F1-score metrics, compared with 6 quality assessment methods on 14 700 samples from 7 experiments. This paper provides a new method for quality assessment in small samples of PPG signals and quality information mining, which is expected to be used for accurate extraction and monitoring of clinical and daily PPG physiological information.
Photoplethysmography ; Machine Learning ; Neural Networks, Computer

Cerebral hemorrhage has a high incidence and numerous complications.Pulmonary in-fection is one of the serious complications of cerebral hemorrhage.Domestic and foreign researchers have developed pulmonary infection prediction models for patients with cerebral hemorrhage,which can provide references for clinical medical staff to identify high-risk groups in the early stage and formulate intervention strategies as soon as possible.This article summarized the risk factors of pulmonary infec-tion,the overview of risk prediction models,the current research status of pulmonary infection predic-tion models,and the significance of prediction,aiming to provide references for the evaluation and pre-vention of pulmonary infection in patients with cerebral hemorrhage.

Cerebral hemorrhage has a high incidence and numerous complications.Pulmonary in-fection is one of the serious complications of cerebral hemorrhage.Domestic and foreign researchers have developed pulmonary infection prediction models for patients with cerebral hemorrhage,which can provide references for clinical medical staff to identify high-risk groups in the early stage and formulate intervention strategies as soon as possible.This article summarized the risk factors of pulmonary infec-tion,the overview of risk prediction models,the current research status of pulmonary infection predic-tion models,and the significance of prediction,aiming to provide references for the evaluation and pre-vention of pulmonary infection in patients with cerebral hemorrhage.

Clinical data (including clinical phenotype and gene mutation characteristics) of a case of epileptic encephalopathy carrying the RHOBTB2 gene mutation treated at the Department of Pediatric Neurology, Shandong Provincial Hospital Affiliated to Shandong First Medical University in June 2020 was analyzed retrospectively.Relevant literatures were reviewed as well.A male patient aged 3 months and 12 days presented with repeated convulsions for 2 days.The main symptoms included afebrile epileptic status, featuring eye deviation to the left, and limb tonic-clonic jerk lasting for about 30 minutes.Physical examinations showed that the child could not control his head and cried lowly.The whole exome sequencing data revealed a novel heterozygous variation in exon 7 of the RHOBTB2 gene: c.1448G>A(p.Arg483His). Seizures were controlled by the treatment of Levetiracetam combined with Topiramate, but remained growth retardation.The prognosis of epileptic encephalopathy caused by the RHOBTB2 gene mutation is poor, and most children have dyskinesia and microcephaly.

Background Long-term exposure to arsenic can cause liver injury of varying degrees. Mitochondrial damage may be an early key event of arsenic-induced liver injury. Silent mating type information regulation 2 homolog 1 (SIRT1)/ recombinant peroxisome proliferators-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1 alpha (PGC-1α) is an important pathway regulating mitochondrial mass and function. However, whether arsenic-induced liver injury is related to mitochondrial dysfunction mediated by SIRT1/PGC-1α pathway remains unclear. Objective To investigate potential effects of sodium arsenite (NaAsO₂) on mitochondrial function and expressions of SIRT1/PGC-1α pathway-related proteins in human normal liver cell. Methods Human normal liver cells (MIHA cells) were used as the research object. MIHA cells were treated with different concentrations of NaAsO₂ (0, 5, 10 and 20 μmol·L⁻¹) for 24 h, and the cells were collected for study. The ultrastructure of mitochondria was observed by transmission electron microscopy, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) concentration by fluorescence method, mitochondrial membrane potential (MMP) level by flow cytometry, and SIRT1, PGC-1α and their downstream nuclear respiratory factor 1 (NRF1) and mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM) protein expression levels by Western blotting. One-way analysis of variance and trend test were used for data statistical analysis. Results The viability of MIHA cells decreased gradually with the increase of NaAsO₂ concentration (F=6495.47, P<0.001). The transmission electron microscope observation showed that the size of mitochondria in the 10 μmol·L⁻¹ NaAsO₂ treatment group was different, and the mitochondria were swollen or elongated in a rod-like shape. The mitochondria in the 20 μmol·L⁻¹ NaAsO₂ treatment group swelled like air spheres or vacuoles. The ATP concentration and MMP level of MIHA cells gradually decreased with the increase of NaAsO₂ concentration (F_{trend of ATP}=172.28, F_{trend of MMP}=59.91, both Ps<0.001). Compared with the control group, the protein expression levels of SIRT1, PGC-1α, NRF1, and TFAM were not significantly changed in the 5 μmol·L⁻¹ NaAsO₂ treatment group, while the protein expression levels of SIRT1, PGC-1α, and TFAM were decreased in the 10 μmol·L⁻¹ NaAsO₂ treatment group, and the protein expression levels of SIRT1, PGC-1α, and NRF1 were decreased in the 20 μmol·L⁻¹ NaAsO₂ treatment group. The results of trend test showed that the protein expression levels of SIRT1, PGC-1α, NRF1, and TFAM decreased gradually with the increase of NaAsO₂ concentration (F_{trend of SIRT1}=47.07, P<0.001; F_{trend of PGC-1α}=15.17, P<0.01; F_{trend of NRF1}=13.54, P<0.01; F _{trend of TFAM}=4.20, P<0.05). Conclusion The down-regulation of SIRT1/PGC-1α and its downstream NRF1 and TFAM may be involved in NaAsO₂-induced mitochondrial dysfunction in liver cells.

Objective:The aims of the study were to investigate the relationship among atherogenic index of plasma (AIP) and inflammatory adipocytokines with the severity of coronary artery calcification (CAC) score in coronary artery disease (CAD). And then we analyzed the diagnostic value of the new markers on CAC.Methods:A total of 241 patients with CAD diagnosed by coronary CT angiography (CTA) and coronary angiography in Baoding First Central Hospital from June 2019 to June 2020 were retrospectively enrolled. According to the presence of calcification in coronary CTA, they were divided into CAC group ( n=63) and non-CAC group ( n=178). The clinical data of the patients were collected, and the levels of serum inflammatory factors were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The correlation between CAC score and AIP and inflammatory cytokines was analyzed. The diagnostic value of AIP and inflammatory factors in the formation of CAC in patients with CAD. Results:The levels of AIP, serum osteoprotegerin (OPG) and oligomeric matrix protein (COMP) in CAC group were higher than those in non-CAC group, while the levels of serum fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) were lower than those in non-CAC group, with statistically significant difference (all P<0.01). Correlation analysis showed that CAC score of CAD patients was positively correlated with AIP, OPG and COMP ( r=0.581, 0.451, 0.326, P<0.05), and negatively correlated with FGF21 ( r=-0.294, P<0.05). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed that AIP, OPG, COMP and FGF21 had diagnostic value for CAC in CAD patients (all P<0.05). AIP>0.387, OPG>5.150 ng/ml, FGF21>136.35 pg/ml, COMP>733.16 ng/ml were independent factors affecting the formation of CAC (all P<0.05). Conclusions:The increase of AIP and the change of inflammatory factors can be used as markers for the diagnosis of CAC formation in CAD patients.