A quantitative proton nuclear magnetic resonance(qHNMR) method was established to determine the glucose content in commercially available Massa Medicata Fermentata(MMF) products and explore the variations of glucose content in MMF products during processing. The qHNMR spectrum of MMF in deuterium oxide was obtained with 2,2,3,3-d_4-3-(trimethylsilyl) propionate sodium salt as the internal standard substance. With the doublet peaks of terminal hydrogen of glucose with chemical shift at δ 4.65 and δ 5.24 as quantitative peaks, the content of glucose in MMF samples was determined. The glucose content showed a good linear relationship within the range of 0.10-6.44 mg·mL~(-1). The relative standard deviations(RSDs) of precision, stability, repeatability, and recovery for determination were all less than 2.3%. The glucose content varied in different commercially available MMF samples, which were associated with the different fermentation days, wheat bran-to-flour ratios, and processing methods. The glucose content in MMF first increased and then decreased over the fermentation time. Compared with the MMF products fermented with wheat bran or flour alone, the products fermented with both wheat bran and flour had increased glucose. The glucose content of bran-fried MMF was slightly lower than that of raw MMF, while the glucose content in charred MMF was extremely low. In conclusion, the qHNMR method established in this study is simple, fast, and accurate, serving as a new method for determining the glucose content in MMF. Furthermore, this study clarifies the variations of glucose content in MMF during processing, which can not only indicate the processing degree but also provide a scientific basis for revealing the fermentation mechanism and improving the quality control of MMF.
Protons ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal/chemistry* ; Dietary Fiber ; Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

In recent years, photon-counting computed tomography (PCD-CT) based on photon-counting detectors (PCDs) has become increasingly utilized in clinical practice. Compared with conventional CT, PCD-CT has the potential to achieve micron-level spatial resolution, lower radiation dose, negligible electronic noise, multi-energy imaging, and material identification, etc. This advancement facilitates the promotion of ultra-low dose scans in clinical scenarios, potentially detecting minimal and hidden lesions, thus significantly improving image quality. However, the current state of the art is limited and issues such as charge sharing, pulse pileup, K-escape and count rate drift remain unresolved. These issues could lead to a decrease in image resolution and energy resolution, while an increasing in image noise and ring artifact and so on. This article systematically reviewed the physical principles of PCD-CT, and outlined the structural differences between PCDs and energy integration detectors (EIDs), and the current challenges in the development of PCD-CT. In addition, the advantages and disadvantages of three detector materials were analysed. Then, the clinical benefits of PCD-CT were presented through the clinical application of PCD-CT in the three diseases with the highest mortality rate in China (cardiovascular disease, tumour and respiratory disease). The overall aim of the article is to comprehensively assist medical professionals in understanding the technological innovations and current technical limitations of PCD-CT, while highlighting the urgent problems that PCD-CT needs to address in the coming years.
Tomography, X-Ray Computed/methods* ; Photons ; Noise ; China ; Phantoms, Imaging

OBJECTIVE: We propose a novel region- level self-supervised contrastive learning method USRegCon (ultrastructural region contrast) based on the semantic similarity of ultrastructures to improve the performance of the model for glomerular ultrastructure segmentation on electron microscope images. METHODS: USRegCon used a large amount of unlabeled data for pre- training of the model in 3 steps: (1) The model encoded and decoded the ultrastructural information in the image and adaptively divided the image into multiple regions based on the semantic similarity of the ultrastructures; (2) Based on the divided regions, the first-order grayscale region representations and deep semantic region representations of each region were extracted by region pooling operation; (3) For the first-order grayscale region representations, a grayscale loss function was proposed to minimize the grayscale difference within regions and maximize the difference between regions. For deep semantic region representations, a semantic loss function was introduced to maximize the similarity of positive region pairs and the difference of negative region pairs in the representation space. These two loss functions were jointly used for pre-training of the model. RESULTS: In the segmentation task for 3 ultrastructures of the glomerular filtration barrier based on the private dataset GlomEM, USRegCon achieved promising segmentation results for basement membrane, endothelial cells, and podocytes, with Dice coefficients of (85.69 ± 0.13)%, (74.59 ± 0.13)%, and (78.57 ± 0.16)%, respectively, demonstrating a good performance of the model superior to many existing image-level, pixel-level, and region-level self-supervised contrastive learning methods and close to the fully- supervised pre-training method based on the large- scale labeled dataset ImageNet. CONCLUSION USRegCon facilitates the model to learn beneficial region representations from large amounts of unlabeled data to overcome the scarcity of labeled data and improves the deep model performance for glomerular ultrastructure recognition and boundary segmentation.
Humans ; Electrons ; Endothelial Cells ; Learning ; Podocytes ; Kidney Diseases

The proton treatment control system is the supporting software of the proton therapy device, which specifically coordinates and controls the status and work of each subsystem. In this study, the software architecture and hardware implementation of the proton treatment control system was developed and built a foundation for the overall debugging. Using C# programming language and WPF programming techniques, TCP network communication protocol specified by the proton treatment technical document and MVVM pattern in Windows system, the logic design and implementation of each level were studied. Meanwhile, the communication interface between the subsystems under TCP communication protocol was agreed. The logic design and research of the setup field and treatment field were carried out. And the User Interface was designed and developed using the above technology. The program realizes the communication and interaction between the proton treatment control system and each subsystem, so as to control and monitor the whole treatment process. The proton treatment control system provides a software basis for the remote overall debugging and on-line monitor and control of proton treatment device.
Protons ; User-Computer Interface ; Software ; Computers ; Logic

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is well-known as a universal source of energy in living cells. Less known is that this molecule has a variety of important signaling functions: it activates a variety of specific metabotropic (P2Y) and ionotropic (P2X) receptors in neuronal and non-neuronal cell membranes. So, a wide variety of signaling functions well fits the ubiquitous presence of ATP in the tissues. Even more ubiquitous are protons. Apart from the unspecific interaction of protons with any protein, many physiological processes are affected by protons acting on specific ionotropic receptors-acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs). Both protons (acidification) and ATP are locally elevated in various pathological states. Using these fundamentally important molecules as agonists, ASICs and P2X receptors signal a variety of major brain pathologies. Here we briefly outline the physiological roles of ASICs and P2X receptors, focusing on the brain pathologies involving these receptors.
Humans ; Acid Sensing Ion Channels ; Protons ; Neurons ; Brain Diseases ; Adenosine Triphosphate/physiology*

Citric Acid Cycle ; NAD/metabolism* ; Photons ; Neurons/metabolism*

Hv1 is the only voltage-gated proton-selective channel in mammalian cells. It contains a conserved voltage-sensor domain, shared by a large class of voltage-gated ion channels, but lacks a pore domain. Its primary role is to extrude protons from the cytoplasm upon pH reduction and membrane depolarization. The best-known function of Hv1 is the regulation of cytosolic pH and the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidase-dependent production of reactive oxygen species. Accumulating evidence indicates that Hv1 is expressed in nervous systems, in addition to immune cells and others. Here, we summarize the molecular properties, distribution, and physiological functions of Hv1 in the peripheral and central nervous systems. We describe the recently discovered functions of Hv1 in various neurological diseases, including brain or spinal cord injury, ischemic stroke, demyelinating diseases, and pain. We also summarize the current advances in the discovery and application of Hv1-targeted small molecules in neurological diseases. Finally, we discuss the current limitations of our understanding of Hv1 and suggest future research directions.
Animals ; Protons ; Ion Channels/metabolism* ; Reactive Oxygen Species/metabolism* ; Brain/metabolism* ; NADPH Oxidases ; Mammals/metabolism*

At present, heavy ion is an ideal radiation for cancer treatment, and carbon ion is used in the treatment of many kinds of cancer due to its higher relative biological effect value. In 2019, Wuwei heavy ion center built the first medical heavy ion accelerator-carbon ion radiotherapy system in China, and obtained the registration license from the National Medical Products Administration, and officially received cancer patients in March 2020. This study introduced the development and application of the first carbon ion radiotherapy system in China.
Carbon ; China ; Heavy Ion Radiotherapy ; Heavy Ions ; Humans ; Neoplasms/radiotherapy*

Objective: To obtain precise data on the changes in the levels of 29 cytokines in mice after high or low linear energy transfer (LET) irradiation and to develop an accurate model of radiation exposure based on the cytokine levels after irradiation. Methods: Plasma samples harvested from mice at different time points after carbon-ion or X-ray irradiation were analyzed using meso-scale discovery (MSD), a high-throughput and sensitive electrochemiluminescence measurement technique. Dose estimation equations were set up using multiple linear regression analysis. Results: The relative levels of IL-6 at 1 h, IL-5 and IL-6 at 24 h, and IL-5, IL-6 and IL-15 at 7 d after irradiation with two intensities increased dose-dependently. The minimum measured levels of IL-5, IL-6 and IL-15 were up to 4.0076 pg/mL, 16.4538 pg/mL and 0.4150 pg/mL, respectively. In addition, dose estimation models were established and verified. Conclusions The MSD assay can provide more accurate data regarding the changes in the levels of the cytokines IL-5, IL-6 and IL-15. These cytokines could meet the essential criteria for radiosensitive biomarkers and can be used as radiation indicators. Our prediction models can conveniently and accurately estimate the exposure dose in irradiated organism.
Animals ; Biological Assay ; Biomarkers/blood* ; Carbon ; Cytokines/blood* ; Female ; Heavy Ions ; Linear Energy Transfer ; Linear Models ; Mice ; Radiation Dosage ; Radiation, Ionizing

Objective To design a novel automatic dispensing and injecting system of positron radiopharmaceuticals,for precise dose dispensing,simplified operation,and reduction of occupational radiation exposure. Methods The automatic dispensing and injecting system was fabricated with tungsten alloy as the shielding material.The performance and radiation protection of the device were assessed. Results The total time of injection using the automatic dispensing and injecting system was about 60 s.The ratio of successful injection in stability test was 100%.The deviation of the dispensing dose with the system was ≤3%.With the tungsten alloy shield(40 mmPb of the cabinet,60 mmPb of the countertop,15 mmPb of the protective shield,and 50 mmPb of the inbuilt jar for radiopharmaceuticals),the average dose rate at 30 cm from the device was 1.44 μSv/h,and the radiation dose at the operator's extremity was reduced by 99%. Conclusions This automatic dispensing and injecting system of positron radiopharmaceuticals is easy to operate with precise dispensing dose.It is safe and meets the requirements of radiation protection.
Electrons ; Occupational Exposure/analysis* ; Radiation Dosage ; Radiation Protection ; Radiopharmaceuticals