Objective: To compare the effects of eccentric cycling (ECC), concentric cycling (CON), and standard care (CTL) on cardiopulmonary capacity, respiratory health, and quality of life (QoL) in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Methods: Thirty-one CKD patients were divided into the CTL, CON, and ECC groups. The CON and ECC groups participated in 8-week, 24-session cycling programs. Outcomes were assessed through cardiopulmonary exercise tests, respiratory function tests, and the 36-Item Short Form Survey Instrument questionnaire. Results: The ECC group achieved significant improvements in maximal oxygen uptake, while the CTL group showed a decline. For oxygen uptake efficiency slope, significant changes were observed only in the ECC group, with a group-by-time interaction effect compared to CTL. Furthermore, the ECC group demonstrated the most significant increase in diaphragm movement and a significant increase in diaphragm thickness, with comparisons indicating that ECC outperformed both CTL and CON. Regarding QoL, the ECC group exhibited significantly greater improvements in Physical Component Summary and Mental Component Summary, with statistically significant differences compared with the CTL and CON groups. Conclusion ECC is a low-effort, high-benefit exercise modality that significantly enhances cardiopulmonary fitness, respiratory function, and QoL in patients with CKD.

ObjectiveCleft palate (CP) is a common congenital deformity often associated with velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI), which disrupts the physiological coupling between respiration and speech. Conventional clinical assessments, such as nasometry and spirometry, provide limited static data and fail to visualize the dynamic spatiotemporal distribution of lung ventilation during phonation. This study introduces spatiotemporal electrical impedance tomography (ST-EIT) to evaluate speech-respiratory functional features in CP patients compared to normal controls (NC). The aim is to characterize multi-domain respiratory patterns and to validate an interpretable machine learning framework for providing objective, quantitative evidence for clinical assessment. MethodsSeventy-five participants were enrolled in this study, comprising 37 patients with surgically repaired CP and 38 healthy volunteers matched for age, gender, and body mass index (BMI). All subjects performed standardized sustained phonation tasks while undergoing synchronous monitoring with a 16-electrode EIT system and a pneumotachograph. A comprehensive feature engineering pipeline was developed to extract physiological parameters across 3 complementary domains. (1) Temporal domain: including inspiratory/expiratory phase duration (tPhase), time constants (Tau), and inspiratory-to-expiratory time ratios (TI/TE); (2) airflow domain: comprising mean flow, peak flow, and instantaneous flow at 25%, 50%, and 75% of tidal volume; and (3) spatial domain: quantifying global and regional tidal impedance variation (TIV), global inhomogeneity (GI), and center of ventilation (CoV). Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) classifiers were trained using 5 distinct data sources (Spirometry, Nasometry, Inspiratory-EIT, Expiratory-EIT, and fused ST-EIT). Model performance was rigorously evaluated via stratified 5-fold cross-validation, and Shapley additive explanations (SHAP) were employed to quantify global and local feature contributions. ResultsThe CP group exhibited a distinct respiratory phenotype compared to controls. In the temporal domain, CP patients showed significantly shorter inspiratory (1.60 s vs.1.85 s, P<0.001) and expiratory phase durations (2.45 s vs. 3.95 s, P<0.001), indicating a rapid, shallow breathing rhythm. In the airflow domain, while inspiratory flows were comparable, the CP group demonstrated significantly elevated mean and peak flows during the expiratory phase (P<0.001), reflecting compensatory respiratory effort. Spatially, CP patients presented significant ventilation redistribution, characterized by higher regional TIV in the right-anterior (ROI1) and left-posterior (ROI4) quadrants, but lower TIV in the left-anterior (ROI2) quadrant. In terms of diagnostic accuracy, the multi-modal ST-EIT model achieved the highest performance (AUC: 0.915±0.012, Accuracy: 0.843±0.019, F1-score: 0.872±0.017), substantially outperforming models based on spirometry (AUC: 0.721) or nasometry (AUC: 0.625) alone. Interpretability analysis revealed that spatial domain features were the most critical, contributing 53.4% to the model’s decision-making, followed by temporal (25.0%) and airflow (21.6%) features. ConclusionST-EIT successfully captures the temporal, airflow, and spatial deviations in CP speech respiration that are undetectable by conventional methods—specifically, rapid phase transitions, hyperdynamic expiratory airflow, and regional ventilation heterogeneity. This study validates ST-EIT as a robust, non-invasive, and radiation-free tool for characterizing speech-respiratory dysfunction, offering high clinical value for bedside screening, rehabilitation planning, and longitudinal monitoring of patients with cleft palate.

ObjectiveCleft palate (CP) is a common congenital deformity often associated with velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI), which disrupts the physiological coupling between respiration and speech. Conventional clinical assessments, such as nasometry and spirometry, provide limited static data and fail to visualize the dynamic spatiotemporal distribution of lung ventilation during phonation. This study introduces spatiotemporal electrical impedance tomography (ST-EIT) to evaluate speech-respiratory functional features in CP patients compared to normal controls (NC). The aim is to characterize multi-domain respiratory patterns and to validate an interpretable machine learning framework for providing objective, quantitative evidence for clinical assessment. MethodsSeventy-five participants were enrolled in this study, comprising 37 patients with surgically repaired CP and 38 healthy volunteers matched for age, gender, and body mass index (BMI). All subjects performed standardized sustained phonation tasks while undergoing synchronous monitoring with a 16-electrode EIT system and a pneumotachograph. A comprehensive feature engineering pipeline was developed to extract physiological parameters across 3 complementary domains. (1) Temporal domain: including inspiratory/expiratory phase duration (tPhase), time constants (Tau), and inspiratory-to-expiratory time ratios (TI/TE); (2) airflow domain: comprising mean flow, peak flow, and instantaneous flow at 25%, 50%, and 75% of tidal volume; and (3) spatial domain: quantifying global and regional tidal impedance variation (TIV), global inhomogeneity (GI), and center of ventilation (CoV). Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) classifiers were trained using 5 distinct data sources (Spirometry, Nasometry, Inspiratory-EIT, Expiratory-EIT, and fused ST-EIT). Model performance was rigorously evaluated via stratified 5-fold cross-validation, and Shapley additive explanations (SHAP) were employed to quantify global and local feature contributions. ResultsThe CP group exhibited a distinct respiratory phenotype compared to controls. In the temporal domain, CP patients showed significantly shorter inspiratory (1.60 s vs.1.85 s, P<0.001) and expiratory phase durations (2.45 s vs. 3.95 s, P<0.001), indicating a rapid, shallow breathing rhythm. In the airflow domain, while inspiratory flows were comparable, the CP group demonstrated significantly elevated mean and peak flows during the expiratory phase (P<0.001), reflecting compensatory respiratory effort. Spatially, CP patients presented significant ventilation redistribution, characterized by higher regional TIV in the right-anterior (ROI1) and left-posterior (ROI4) quadrants, but lower TIV in the left-anterior (ROI2) quadrant. In terms of diagnostic accuracy, the multi-modal ST-EIT model achieved the highest performance (AUC: 0.915±0.012, Accuracy: 0.843±0.019, F1-score: 0.872±0.017), substantially outperforming models based on spirometry (AUC: 0.721) or nasometry (AUC: 0.625) alone. Interpretability analysis revealed that spatial domain features were the most critical, contributing 53.4% to the model’s decision-making, followed by temporal (25.0%) and airflow (21.6%) features. ConclusionST-EIT successfully captures the temporal, airflow, and spatial deviations in CP speech respiration that are undetectable by conventional methods—specifically, rapid phase transitions, hyperdynamic expiratory airflow, and regional ventilation heterogeneity. This study validates ST-EIT as a robust, non-invasive, and radiation-free tool for characterizing speech-respiratory dysfunction, offering high clinical value for bedside screening, rehabilitation planning, and longitudinal monitoring of patients with cleft palate.

Objective This study reports on the obligatory parasitism of water mites Arrenurus sp. on Anopheles messeae at the Manzhouli Port, Inner Mongolia, China. Methods Duing July 2024, a survey on the mosquito diversity was conducted at the Manzhouli Port. Captured mosquitoes and their ectoparasites were identified to species level. Results A total of 1840 adult mosquitoes were collected, representing species from three genera: Culex(Cx. modestus, Cx. pipiens pallens), Aedes(Ae. dorsalis, Ae. flavidorsalis, Ae. flavescens), and Anopheles (An. messeae). Among all the mosqutioes specimens,3 out of 150 captured An. messeae were found to carry ectoparasitic mites, with number of 2,4,27 mites separately. Morphological and molecular identification reached the same result as water mites(Hydrachnidiae, Hydracrina). COI gene sequence showed 94% similarity with the closest species Arrenurus truncatellus. Conlusions Literature review suggests water mites are host-specific parasitism of mosquito species and herein with the first record of Arrenurus sp. parasiting on An. Messeae in the most high-latitude region globally.

AIM: To investigate the effects of high-concentration glucose on the cell viability of retinal pigment epithelialcells(ARPE-19)/ human umbilical vein endothelial cells(HUVEC)cells, as well as on the expression levels of sirtuin 6(SIRT6).

METHODS:ARPE-19 and HUVEC cells were cultured for 48 h in media containing various glucose concentrations(5.5, 25, 50, 75, 100 mmol/L)and cellular morphology was observed under an optical microscope.Cell viability was assessed using the CCK-8 assay. Flow cytometry was utilized to evaluate apoptosis levels, and Western blot analysis was conducted to measure the expression of Bcl-2 and SIRT6. ARPE-19/HUVEC cells were treated with 50 mmol/L glucose for 48 h, after which immunofluorescence staining was performed to determine the subcellular localization and expression level of SIRT6 protein. In parallel, cells receiving the same treatment were harvested at different time points(0, 6, 12, 24, 36, 48, and 72 h), and the temporal changes in SIRT6 protein expression were assessed by Western blot analysis. SIRT6 overexpressing stable ARPE-19/HUVEC cell lines were constructed. Western blot was performed to detect the effects of SIRT6 overexpression on the expression levels of glucose transporters in ARPE-19/HUVEC cells treated with high glucose(50 mmol/L glucose).

RESULTS:Compared with the 5.5 mmol/L glucose group, cell number was decreased and cell viability was significantly reduced in ARPE19/HUVEC cells with increasing glucose concentrations(all P<0.01). Meanwhile, the protein expression level of SIRT6 was markedly downregulated(P<0.05). Such inhibitory effects exhibited both concentration-and time-dependent patterns(all P<0.05). Furthermore, high glucose induced cell apoptosis and downregulated the protein expression of Bcl-2(P<0.05). Immunofluorescence staining revealed that SIRT6 protein was predominantly localized in the nucleus after 48 h of high-glucose treatment, accompanied by pyknosis and nuclear fragmentation. After incubation with highg-lucose medium(50 mmol/L glucose)for different durations, long-term high-glucose intervention was found to reduce SIRT6 protein expression in ARPE19/HUVEC cells. Successful construction of the SIRT6-overexpressing stable ARPE-19/HUVEC cell lines was confirmed via immunofluorescence and Western blotting. Western blot analysis revealed that, compared with the HG+LV-con group, the HG+LV-SIRT6 group exhibited no significant differences in GLUT1 or GLUT4 expression in ARPE-19 cells, whereas GLUT3 expression was elevated(P<0.05). Compared with the HG+LV-con group, the HG+LV-SIRT6 group showed no significant change in GLUT1 expression, while GLUT3 and GLUT4 levels were increased(both P<0.05).

CONCLUSION:High-concentration glucose-reduce the proliferative activity of ARPE-19/HUVEC cells, induce apoptosis, and downregulate SIRT6 expression. SIRT6 may alleviate high glucose-induced retinal cell damage by promoting the expression of glucose transporters.

ObjectiveTo address the key challenges in breast electrical impedance tomography (EIT) reconstruction including the severe ill‑posedness of the inverse problem, limited measurement information from the electrodes, low contrast of small lesions, as well as the common drawbacks of traditional reconstruction methods such as boundary blurring, low spatial resolution, and weak small-target detection capability, and to overcome the limitations of existing deep learning approaches namely low training efficiency, insufficient physical consistency, and substantial information loss during the low‑to‑high dimensional mapping process, this study proposes a multi‑scale attention and dynamic sparse mask fusion network (MADS‑Net). The proposed method aims to enhance high‑resolution reconstruction accuracy, small-lesion detectability, noise robustness, and computational efficiency in breast‑screening-oriented EIT, thereby providing a feasible solution for the application of EIT in breast functional imaging. MethodsThe proposed network adopts a strategy of “locate first, reconstruct later”. It realizes adaptive allocation of computational resources through a dynamic mask module, alleviates information loss in the low-to-high dimensional mapping process via a multi-scale attention mechanism, and embeds physical constraints to improve the physical rationality of reconstruction results. The performance of the proposed method was validated through systematic numerical simulations, agar phantom experiments, and porcine tissue experiments. Comparisons were made with mainstream methods including the Gauss-Newton algorithm, convolutional neural networks, U-Net, and Deep D-Bar. The image correlation coefficient (ICC), root mean square error (RMSE), and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) were adopted as quantitative evaluation metrics. Furthermore, lesion‑level evaluation metrics were introduced to assess the capability of different methods in reconstructing abnormal target boundaries and small‑sized target regions. ResultsExperimental results demonstrate that MADS-Net outperforms all comparison methods across all test scenarios. In numerical simulations, it achieves higher accuracy in target morphology and spatial location recovery as well as better background suppression. In agar phantom experiments, its detection and imaging reliability for small targets is significantly superior to the comparison methods. In porcine tissue experiments, the model maintains good generalization performance and can adapt to complex biological tissue imaging scenarios. Quantitative results show that MADS-Net achieves an average ICC of 0.917 6±0.048 8, an RMSE as low as0.060 6±0.031 6, and a PSNR of (23.893 9±2.685 3) dB. It successfully detects tiny targets as small as 5 mm within a 100 mm diameter sensing field, reduces the total training duration by 23.5% compared with the baseline method, and maintains stable reconstruction performance even under strong noise interference. ConclusionThe results demonstrate that MADS-Net achieves favorable EIT reconstruction performance in numerical simulations, agar phantom experiments, and porcine tissue experiments, even under common practical imaging challenges including low signal-to-noise ratio and blurred tissue boundaries. This study provides a methodological reference for further research on EIT in breast-screening-related scenarios and other medical functional imaging tasks, and also offers a low-cost, radiation-free alternative for breast lesion screening that aligns with the clinical demand for non-invasive diagnostic tools. It should be noted that real clinical breast data have not yet been used for validation in this study, and the clinical applicability of the proposed method requires further investigation. Future work will prioritize collecting multi-center real clinical breast datasets, and further optimize the model’s generalization ability to adapt to individual differences in breast tissue composition to promote its clinical application.

Objective To investigate clinical therapeutic value of combined posterior nasal nerve and anterior ethmoidal nerve ablation in patients with nasal septal deviation and moderate to severe persistent allergic rhinitis.Methods A total of 47 patients diagnosed with nasal septal deviation and moderate to severe persistent allergic rhinitis from April to December 2024 were divided into two groups.The control group(n=22)underwent septoplasty and bilateral inferior turbinate out-fracture,with postoperative symptom control managed by budesonide nasal spray.The experimental group(n=25)received the same septoplasty and turbinate surgery,supplemented by bilateral posterior nasal nerve and anterior ethmoidal nerve ablation.Symptom improvement was compared between groups by using the Visual Analogue Scale(VAS)and Rhinoconjunctivitis Quality of Life Questionnaire(RQLQ)scores preoperatively and3 months postoperatively.Results The operation time of the control group was(36.3±5.9)min,significantly shorter than that of the experimental group[(59.4±6.6)min,t=12.496,P=0.000].Both groups of patients showed significant improvement in VAS and PQLQ scores for nasal symptoms such as nasal congestion,runny nose,sneezing,and itching at 3 months after surgery compared to preoperative levels(all P=0.000).The mean VAS score of the four symptoms in the control group was(4.6±0.9)points at3 months after surgery,which was significantly lower than that before surgery[(6.3±1.1)points,t=9.796,P=0.000].The mean VAS score of the four symptoms in the experimental group was1.0(0.3-4.3)points at3 months after surgery,which was significantly lower than that before surgery[7.0(4.5-9.0)points,Z=-4.376,P=0.000].The improvement rate of the VAS score in the experimental group was(82.4±14.2)%,significantly higher than that in the control group[(26.9±11.7)%,t=14.510,P=0.000].At3 months after surgery,the RQLQ score of the control group[(2.3±0.8)points]was significantly lower than that before surgery[(3.3±0.8)points,t=10.055,P=0.000].The RQLQ score of the experimental group after surgery was 1.4(0.8-3.5)points,which was significantly lower than the preoperative score[3.6(1.5-6.1)points,Z=-4.373,P=0.000].The improvement rate of RQLQ score in the experimental group was(53.0±14.6)%,significantly higher than that in the control group[(30.2±13.4)%,t=5.555,P=0.000].Conclusion Postnasal nerve and anterior ethmoidal nerve ablation combined with nasal septal deviation correction can significantly improve nasal symptoms and quality of life in patients with nasal septal deviation complicated with moderate to severe allergic rhinitis compared with simple nasal septal deviation correction,but the operation time is prolonged.

In this work,a rapid and label-free sensing platform was designed for visual detection of p53 gene.The rolling circle amplification(RCA)process of the assay platform was activated by p53 gene to produce long DNA-wires,which could bound with berberine hydrochloride(BBH)and further enhanced its fluorescence.This method showed high sensitivity with a low detection limit of 5.63 pmol/L,and high specificity toward p53 gene over other interference materials,even for single-base mutation gene.The method could realize the visual detection of targets under the illumination of a UV lamp.In addition,the designed fluorescence detection platform was successfully applied to p53 gene analysis in 10% fetal bovine serum samples,and the relative standard deviation and the recoveries were 0.1% -1.2% and 99.5% -104.7%,respectively.This approach had satisfactory characteristics,such as low cost,label-free,rapidity,high sensitivity,good selectivity and anti-interference ability,and reliable detection capability for complex practical samples,demonstrating a promising prospect in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases,especially for cancer.

Plastic pharmaceutical packaging materials are widely used in drug packaging,and the effective quality control of these materials is of great significance for ensuring the quality of drugs.The Guidelines for Plastic Materials and Containers for Pharmaceutical Packaging in the 2025 Edition of the Pharmacopoeia of the People's Republic of China(hereinafter referred to as the guideline)is based on the characteristics of plastic pharmaceutical packaging materials and combined with the different uses of various products,clarifying the quality control requirements for different categories of products.The guideline not only improves the pharmacopoeia standard system,but also meets the needs of industrial development and drug regulation under the new situation,which is conducive to enterprises to better improve product quality.This article explains the main contents of the guideline in combination with the background,process,and ideas of its drafting,so as to provide guidance for the correct understanding and use of this standard by all parties in the industry.

OBJECTIVE: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is sensitive to ferroptosis, a new form of programmed cell death that occurs in most tumor types. However, the mechanism through which ferroptosis modulates HCC remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the oncogenic role and prognostic value of FANCD2 and provide novel insights into the prognostic assessment and prediction of immunotherapy. METHODS: Using clinicopathological parameters and bioinformatic techniques, we comprehensively examined the expression of FANCD2 macroscopically and microcosmically. We conducted univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses to identify the prognostic value of FANCD2 in HCC and elucidated the detailed molecular mechanisms underlying the involvement of FANCD2 in oncogenesis by promoting iron-related death. RESULTS: FANCD2 was significantly upregulated in digestive system cancers with abundant immune infiltration. As an independent risk factor for HCC, a high FANCD2 expression level was associated with poor clinical outcomes and response to immune checkpoint blockade. Gene set enrichment analysis revealed that FANCD2 was mainly involved in the cell cycle and CYP450 metabolism. CONCLUSION To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to comprehensively elucidate the oncogenic role of FANCD2. FANCD2 has a tumor-promoting aspect in the digestive system and acts as an independent risk factor in HCC; hence, it has recognized value for predicting tumor aggressiveness and prognosis and may be a potential biomarker for poor responsiveness to immunotherapy.
Humans ; Carcinoma, Hepatocellular/diagnosis* ; Liver Neoplasms/diagnosis* ; Immunotherapy ; Fanconi Anemia Complementation Group D2 Protein/metabolism* ; Prognosis ; Male ; Female ; Middle Aged ; Biomarkers, Tumor/metabolism*