Objective: Based on spinopelvic parameters and biomechanical principles, the pedicle-facet joint (PFJ) morphological characteristics of isthmic and degenerative spondylolisthesis were analyzed, and the mechanism of their onset and progression was discussed. Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study included 194 patients with L5 spondylolysis or L5–S1 low-grade isthmic spondylolisthesis (IS group), 172 patients with L4–5 degenerative spondylolisthesis (DS group), and 366 patients with nonlumbar spondylolysis (NL group). The spinopelvic parameters and PFJ morphological parameters of the patients were measured, the differences in these parameters among and within the 3 groups were compared, and the correlations were analyzed. Results: Sacral slope (SS) and lumbar lordosis (LL) were the highest in the IS group, the second highest in the DS group, and the lowest in the NL group. Among the 3 groups, the L4 facet joint angle (FJA) was the largest in the IS group, the second largest in the NL group, and the smallest in the DS group. The L4 pedicle-facet joint angle (PFA) was the largest in the DS group, the second largest in the IS group, and the smallest in the NL group. Pearson correlation analysis showed that within each group, SS and LL were negatively correlated with FJA and positively correlated with PFA. Conclusion This study found a correlation between the PFJ morphological characteristics of patients with lumbar spondylolisthesis and spinopelvic parameters, suggesting that the morphological characteristics of PFJs may be caused by varying stresses under different spinopelvic morphologies.

This study was aimed at investigating the prevalence of Dabie bandavirus(DBV)infection in suspected cases of se-vere fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome(SFTS)and tick specimens in Cangzhou City from 2023 to 2024,and providing scientific basis for the prevention,control and pathogen surveillance of SFTS in this area.Pathogen detection and virus isolation were performed on suspected SFTS cases and tick specimens collected in Cangzhou City from 2023 to 2024.The next-generation sequencing technol-ogy was used to conduct whole-genome sequencing of DBV.A phylogenetic tree was constructed using software such as MEGA,DNA Star,and homology comparison and amino acid variation site analysis were carried out.Among the 70 suspected SFTS cases,the DBV positive detection rate was 60%(42/70).The positive cases were mainly farmers aged 50-79,concentrated in Yanshan County and Haixing County.402 ticks were pooled into 31 sample tubes,among which 2 tubes tested positive for DBV nucleic acid,with a mini-mum infection rate of 0.50%.A total of 9 human-derived and 2 tick-derived DBV strains were isolated.The whole-genome sequencing results showed that all strains clustered within the F branch,with sequences homology exceeding 99%.There were a total of 10 amino acid variation sites in the RdRP,GP and NSs sequences.Therefore,the distribution of SFTS cases in Cangzhou City exhibited regional clustering.The overall level of DBV infection in ticks in this region was relatively low.It is recommended to further improve the disease early warning mechanism and continue to conduct pathogen surveillance.

To tackle the challenges posed by low resolution,weak contrast,and positional variations in liver tumor ultrasound images,which affects the diagnostic efficiency and accuracy,a novel method based on prototype generation and contrastive learning is proposed for liver tumor segmentation in ultrasound images.The core of this method is a weighted mask attention Transformer structure which utilizes the probabilities of real categories in the predicted probability distribution to weight image feature vectors,generates class prototypes with category discrimination,and thereby effectively captures key features while enhancing spatial information representation.By combining contrastive loss with Dice cross-entropy loss,the model achieves significant improvements in both category discrimination capability and segmentation accuracy,and overcomes the limitations of traditional models related to insufficient spatial information and intra-class pixel distribution imbalance.Comprehensive evaluations of the proposed method are conducted on a collected dataset of 253 ultrasound images,and the experimental results reveal that the proposed method attains a mean intersection-over-union of 78.44%and a Dice similarity coefficient of 87.41%,validating its superiority in liver tumor segmentation from ultrasound image.

Objective To investigate the effect of two treatment regimens combining Tacrolimus(TAC)with different Rituximab(RTX)dosages,and to provide clinical reference for treatment strategies.Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on patients diagnosed with idiopathic membranous nephropathy(IMN)and treated with RTX combined with TAC regimen(RTX+TAC group and low-dose RTX+TAC group)in The First Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University.Propensity score matching(PSM)was performed at a 1:1 ratio,and a total of 60 patients were enrolled,with 30 in each group.In low-dose RTX(375 mg/m2 at the first and fifteenth day respectively)+TAC group,if circulating B cells(CD19?)exceeded 5 cells/μL after 3 months,a 200 mg RTX infusion was administered.In RTX(1g at the first and fifteenth day respectively)+TAC group,if complete remission(CR)was not achieved by 6 months,an additional 1000 mg RTX infusion was administered.The incidence of CR,partial remission,and adverse events were followed up for 12 months after medication in both groups.Results(1)Both groups showed significant reductions in 24-hour proteinuria,with the RTX+TAC group demonstrating a notably higher decrease compared to the low-dose RTX+TAC group.Statistical differences were observed between the two groups at the 1st and 3rd months of treatment(P<0.05).Albumin levels gradually increased,and there were differ-ences between the two groups at both the 1st and 3rd months(P<0.05).The anti-phospholipase A2 antibody levels decreased significantly after one month of treatment[3.45(1.90,22.10)vs.3.28(8.30,23.08)RU/mL],P>0.05.At 3 months of treatment,the overall clinical remission rate was 63.3％for the RTX+TAC group compared to 36.7％for the low-dose RTX+TAC group(P<0.05).At 12 months,the RTX+TAC group achieved an overall remission rate of 86.7％,while the low-dose RTX+TAC group reached 83.3％,showing no statistical significance(P>0.05).After one month of treatment,the RTX+TAC group achieved a complete serological immunological remission rate of 33.3％,significantly higher than the 3.3％in the low-dose RTX+TAC group(P<0.05).(2)The cumulative remission rate of the RTX+TAC group was higher than that of the low-dose RTX+TAC group during the first 6 months of follow-up.The remission rate in the low-dose RTX+TAC group increased significantly after 6 months.Log-rank test showed no statistical difference between the survival curves of the two groups(P=0.37).(3)Based on a multifactorial COX regression analysis of factors related to remission in patients with IMN,for every unit increase in serum immunological remission time,the risk of patients achieving remission decreased by 13.5％(HR=0.87,P=0.016).The risk of remission for patients with high titers of anti-PLA2R antibodies decreased by 60.2％(HR=0.39,P=0.018).Conclusions Different RTX dosages yielded comparable overall clinical remission rates without significantly increasing adverse events.RTX+TAC regimen achieves higher early CR rate.Serological remission time and high titer anti-PLA2R antibodies are associated with clinical outcomes.

To tackle the challenges posed by low resolution,weak contrast,and positional variations in liver tumor ultrasound images,which affects the diagnostic efficiency and accuracy,a novel method based on prototype generation and contrastive learning is proposed for liver tumor segmentation in ultrasound images.The core of this method is a weighted mask attention Transformer structure which utilizes the probabilities of real categories in the predicted probability distribution to weight image feature vectors,generates class prototypes with category discrimination,and thereby effectively captures key features while enhancing spatial information representation.By combining contrastive loss with Dice cross-entropy loss,the model achieves significant improvements in both category discrimination capability and segmentation accuracy,and overcomes the limitations of traditional models related to insufficient spatial information and intra-class pixel distribution imbalance.Comprehensive evaluations of the proposed method are conducted on a collected dataset of 253 ultrasound images,and the experimental results reveal that the proposed method attains a mean intersection-over-union of 78.44%and a Dice similarity coefficient of 87.41%,validating its superiority in liver tumor segmentation from ultrasound image.

OBJECTIVE The emergence of evolving variants of Coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)has fostered the need for change of newer and adaptive treatments for these infections.During the COVID-19 pandemic and persists,traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)herbs exhibit significant bioactivity and therapeutic effect.This study is aimed to evaluate the efficacy of four TCM preparations on 28-day mortality risk of patients and changes of the laboratory indicators.METHODS The retrospective cohort study included patients with COVID-19 who were admitted to the Jiangsu Province Hospital of Chinese Medicine from December 15,2022 to January 15,2023,and those died within 48 hours of admission or cannot be tracked for outcomes were excluded.The pri-mary outcome was survival status in 28 days(death or survival)starting from the day of admission.The second outcomes were labora-tory indicators,including absolute lymphocyte count,lactate dehydrogenase,creatinine,and blood urea nitrogen.Binary logistic re-gressions were used to estimate the effect of TCM preparations on the primary and secondary outcomes in main analysis.Meanwhile,heterogeneity and robustness of results from main analysis were assessed by subgroup analyses and multiple sensitivity analyses.RESULTS 1 816 eligible patients were included in analysis dataset,including 573 patients received standard care(control group)and 1 243 patients received TCM preparations(hospital preparation group).The 28-day mortality rate of hospital preparation group was lower than that of control group(4.75%vs.14.83%),and the difference was statistically significant(χ2=54.666,P<0.001).The risk of 28-day mortality was 0.535 times lower in the hospital preparation group as compared with the control group(OR=0.46,95%CI:0.305-0.708,P<0.001)showed by multivariable binary logistic regressions.Subgroup analyses showed that taking TCM preparations reduced the 28-day mortality risk.Sensitivity analyses demonstrated that the results of the main analysis for primary outcomes were robust.For secondary outcomes,the risk of abnormal absolute lymphocyte counts at discharge in the hospital prepara-tion group decreased by 0.284 times(OR=0.703,95%CI:0.515-0.961,P=0.027).CONCLUSION Compared with standard of care,taking four hospital preparations including Kanggan Heji,Feining Heji,Qishen Gubiao Keli,and Qianghuo Qushi Qingwen Heji decreased risk of 28-day mortality among hospitalized COVID-19 patients.TCM therapy achieves adequate therapeutic effects in COVID-19.

Objective:To evaluate the effectiveness of anti-G straining maneuver (AGSM) in pilots by surface electromyography (sEMG), and to explore the relationships between characteristics of sEMG and anti-G endurance in pilots.Methods:Thirty-eight male high-performance fighter pilots who completed the human centrifuge test at the Air Force Medical Center were selected. Among them, 25 completed the 8.0 G for 10 s anti-G endurance test and 13 completed the 9.0 G for 10 s anti-G endurance test. The sEMG tester was used to keep track of the changes of sEMG in rectus abdominis, rectus femoris, anterior tibial and gastrocnemius muscles while pilots were engaged in AGSM. The anti-G endurance was evaluated according to the changes of visual fields and consciousness. The pilots were divided into 3 groups: the good vision and consciousness group, peripheral visual field narrowing group and endurance endpoint group. The differences in the integral electromyogram (iEMG), mean power frequency (MPF) and muscle input rates between the 3 groups were investigated.Results:A total of 25 pilots completed the 8.0 G for 10 s anti-G endurance test. Among them, 8 (32.0%) were in the good vision and consciousness group, 13 (52.0%) in the peripheral visual field narrowing group and 4 (16.0%) reached the endurance endpoint. Among the 13 pilots who completed the 9.0 G for 10 s anti-G endurance test, 3 (23.1%) were in the good vision and consciousness group, 6 (46.1%) in the peripheral visual field narrowing group, and 4 (30.8%) in the endurance endpoint group. The results of sEMG showed that the iEMG values of the anterior tibialis muscle in pilots under the 9.0 G for 10 s load were significantly different across endurance groups ( H=7.54, P=0.023), and that the iEMG values of the tibialis anterior muscle in the good vision and consciousness group were higher than those in the endurance endpoint group ( P=0.036). The negative slopes of MPF for the rectus abdominis, rectus femoris, anterior tibialis, and gastrocnemius muscles were higher in the good vision and consciousness group than in the other 2 groups, but the differences were not statistically significant ( P>0.05). During the 8.0 G for 10 s anti-G endurance test, there were significant differences in lower limb muscle contribution rates between the 3 groups ( F=4.19, P=0.029). The endurance endpoint group exhibited a lower contribution rate than the good vision and consciousness group ( P=0.025). During the 9.0 G for 10 s anti-G endurance test, there were significant differences in tibialis anterior muscle contribution rates between the 3 groups ( F=4.16, P=0.049). The endurance endpoint group demonstrated a lower contribution rate than the good vision and consciousness group ( P=0.049). Conclusions:The full and balanced activation of abdominal muscles and lower limb muscles, especially the effective mobilization of calf muscles, plays a pivotal role in improving pilots′ AGSM efficiency in high G environments.

Objective:To find out whether the performance of a China-made high performance human centrifuge can satisfy the need of high G training by conducting physiological experiments.Methods:The dynamic physical performance of the anti-G equipment with the human centrifuge was tested before 5 subjects underwent the gradual-onset rate (GOR) run and rapid onset rate (ROR) run experiments. The G onset rate of GOR was 0.1 G/s. The relaxed G-tolerance under GOR (GOR tolerance 1) and the anti-G straining maneuver aided G-tolerance under GOR (GOR tolerance 2) were tested respectively. The G onset rate of ROR was 3 G/s, and the closed-loop mode and pre-programed mode were employed respectively. The closed-loop mode involved 5 G 10 s and 8 G 10 s, where the subjects were required to manipulate the joystick to ensure that the real-time curve of the load matched the target curve. In the pre-programmed mode, the subjects were exposed to 8 G 10 s passively, without any operation requirements. A subjective evaluation form was filled out by subjects after the experiments, in which the 14 indexes for evaluation were about the gondola facilities and environment, running processes, medical monitoring and overall assessment.Results:Both the oxygen mask and anti-G suit achieved full pressurization within 2.0 s. The GOR tolerance 1 was [4.0(3.8, 4.6)] G while the GOR tolerance 2 was (6.2±0.5) G, suggesting a statistically significant difference ( Z=-2.63, P=0.008). The HP anti-G straining maneuver effect was (2.0±0.6) G. All the 5 subjects finished the 5 G 10 s experiment in a closed-loop mode. Three of them attempted 8 G 10 s in the closed-loop mode (1 subject achieved only 7.6 G peak acceleration, and the other 2 achieved full 8 G 10 s exposure), while the remaining 2 completed the 8 G 10 s in the pre-programmed mode. In the closed-loop mode, it was found that the stick force was too strong, the guiding G and real time G curve were not easy to distinguish for some of the subjects because the curve colors were similar, and that the subjects could not see the G curves clearly in case of a grayout. Both seat comfort and the voice quality of communication got the highest subjective assessment score [5.0(4.0, 5.0)] while the sensation of tumble got the lowest score (2.8±0.8). The median or mean scores of other subjective evaluation indexes ranged from 3.0 to 4.6 points. The overall score of subjective assessment was [4.0(3.5, 4.0)] points. Conclusions:The China-made high performance human centrifuge can meet the requirements of 8.0 G high G training, which can be made more effective and comfortable if the strong stick force and feeling of tumble during stop running are overcome.

Objective:Periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) is one of the most severe complications following hip and knee arthroplasty and is a leading cause of revision surgery. Pathogens and their antibiotic susceptibility are key factors in the successful treatment of PJI. This study retrospectively analyzes the pathogen characteristics and antimicrobial susceptibility of PJI patients treated at our center, aiming to establish an empirical antibiotic regimen for PJI in the region, providing a reference for empirical antibiotic therapy in the clinical management of PJI.Methods:This study retrospectively reviewed PJI patients treated at our center from January 2018 to October 2024. In each case, preoperative arthrocentesis fluid, and synovium tissue from at least three sites during surgery were collected for aerobic and anaerobic blood culture. The positive culture rate, distribution of pathogens based on Gram staining, methicillin resistance, mixed infections, and multidrug resistance were analyzed. Effective coverage parameters were constructed based on antimicrobial sensitivity and coverage rates, and appropriate empirical antimicrobial regimens were proposed.Results:A total of 233 PJI patients were included in the analysis. There were 99 males and 134 females with an average age of 67.0±10.1 years (ranging from 32 to 93 years). The study included 130 hip and 103 knee arthroplasty patients. Among the patients, 202 (86.7%) had positive cultures, with a total of 301 pathogen strains isolated: 268 Gram-positive bacteria (89.4%), 25 Gram-negative bacteria (8.3%), and 7 fungal strains (2.3%). The most common Gram-positive bacteria were coagulase-negative staphylococci (196 strains, 65.1%), epidermal staphylococci (77 strains, 25.6%), Staphylococcus aureus (39 strains, 13.0%), and Streptococcus spp. (19 strains, 6.3%). The most common Gram-negative bacteria were Enterobacteriaceae (14 strains, 4.7%). In hip joint infections, the most prevalent pathogens were epidermal Staphylococci (48 strains, 28.1%) and Staphylococcus aureus (27 strains, 15.8%), while in knee joint infections, epidermal Staphylococci (29 strains, 22.3%) were most common. Regarding antibiotic resistance, 48.5% of staphylococcal strains were methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus, and 51.5% were multidrug-resistant strains. Staphylococci were 100% susceptible to vancomycin, teicoplanin, daptomycin, linezolid, and tigecycline, but exhibited high resistance to β-lactams and quinolone antibiotics. Analysis of empirical antibiotic regimens revealed that vancomycin combined with meropenem, linezolid combined with meropenem, vancomycin combined with imipenem, vancomycin combined with piperacillin/tazobactam, and vancomycin combined with ceftriaxone had effective coverage rates of 97.0%, 97.0%, 96.0%, 94.9%, and 90.9%, respectively.Conclusion:The main pathogens in PJI in this region are Gram-positive bacteria, with high rates of methicillin resistance and multidrug resistance. Based on antimicrobial susceptibility data, we recommend vancomycin combined with meropenem as the empirical treatment regimen for culture-negative PJI in this region, with linezolid combined with meropenem as an alternative.

Objective To explore terminal neuromagnetic activity and functional connectivity changes in childhood absence epilepsy(CAE)by multi-frequency magnetoencephalogram(MEG)analysis,and explore the mechanisms of termination and identify biological markers to better understand seizure termination and the recovery of consciousness.Methods This study recruited 20 drug-naive children with CAE and collected MEG data from 30 seizures and interictal periods using a MEG system.Minimum-norm estimation was used to model the distribution of the MEG data,the joint Welch method was used for Power Spectral Density(PSD)analysis,and corrected Amplitude Envelope Correlation was used to assess functional connectivity.Results During seizure termination,the low-frequency power decreased,with beta-band changes occurring first,while high-frequency power remained low and stable.Functional connectivity also shifted,showing transient increased synchrony in the delta band at seizure termination and continual reductions in alpha and beta connectivity.NBS analyses also showed the earliest whole-brain decrease in connectivity in the beta band and a transient enhancement of connectivity in the delta band 1 s before termination.Conclusion This study investigated neuromagnetic changes during seizure termination in CAE using MEG,highlighting the distinct roles of beta-band involvement and delta-band hypersynchronization in CAE termination.