Search Results (137,641)

The gastrointestinal cancer known as colorectal cancer (CRC) is caused by a variety of genetic and epigenetic alterations in the intestinal epithelium of the colon and rectum. It is becoming more common every year. In view of this significant progress, it is urgent and imperative for researchers to work more in this direction in order to improve this health situation that is a major concern for society. Certain phenomena, such as the development of resistance by certain cells as well as the failure of certain therapies, play a part in the significantly changed situation. However, plants have always been used for their therapeutic virtues due to the large number of compounds they contain. Among them, alkaloids (more than 20,000 alkaloids have been isolated from plants, of which about 600 are known to be bioactive), which are one of the most diverse and extensively investigated classes of compounds among natural products, can be consider as a promising approach with regard to their numerous biological activities in general and, in particular their activities against colorectal cancer. This work aims to undertake deeper research on the examination of alkaloids that can be used as lead compounds in the treatment of colorectal cancer. The databases used during the literature searches were Web of Science, PubMed/Medline, and Scopus. This methodology allowed us to obtain 11 studies and 24 alkaloids (axidimins A–D, tabersonine, 19R-hydroxytabersonine, 11-hydroxytabersonine, 11-methoxytabersonine, vandrikidine, fusiformine A, 3-oxotabersonine, 3-oxo-11-methoxytabersonine, melodinine W2, venalstonidine, scandine, (–)-larutienine A, solasonin, berbamine dihydrochloride, nitidine chloride, GB7 acetate, berberine, boldine, Worenine, and chaetocochin J). Axidimin C and axidimin D showed significant cytotoxic effects on CRC (HCT116 cells) with IC₅₀ values of 5.3 and 3.9 μM, respectively, and they were more active than 5-fluorouracil and etoposide (IC₅₀ = 6.4 and 10.6 μM, respectively) taken as references. These two compounds induced G₂/M phase arrest in HCT116 cells by downregulating cyclin B1 and cdc2 expression. Subsequently, promoting apoptosis via modulation of Bax and Bcl-2 levels, they enhanced p38 MAPK expression, leading to G₂/M cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in HCT116 cells. Chaetocochin J possess significant activity against three different CRC cell lines [RKO (0.5 μM < IC₅₀ = 0.56 μM < 1.0 μM), HCT116 (0.5 μM < IC₅₀ = 0.61 μM < 1.0 μM) and SW480 (0.5 μM < IC₅₀ = 0.65 μM < 1.0 μM)]. The 21 remaining compounds have a moderate anti-colorectal cancer activity. Thus, we believe that axidimin C, axidimin D and chaetocochin J could be promising compounds to fight colorectal cancer cell carcinoma. Nevertheless, future analysis should be performed on the study of the toxicologies of axidimin C and axidimin D. Full article

Acute lung Injury leads to alterations in surfactant lipid composition and metabolism. Although several mechanisms contribute to dysregulated surfactant metabolism, studies investigating in vivo surfactant metabolism are limited. The aim of this study is to characterise surfactant phospholipid composition and flux utilising a stable isotope labelling technique in mechanically ventilated paediatric patients. Paediatric patients (<16 years of age) received 3.6 mg/kg intravenous methyl-D₉-choline chloride followed by the endotracheal instillation of 100 mg/kg of exogenous surfactant after 24 h. Bronchioalveolar fluid samples were taken at baseline and 12, 24, 36, 48, 72 and 96 h after methyl-D₉-choline infusion. Nine participants (median age of 48 days) were recruited. The primary phosphatidylcholine (PC) composition consisted of PC16:0/16:0 or DPPC (32.0 ± 4.5%). Surfactant supplementation resulted in a 30% increase in DPPC. Methyl-D₉ PC enrichment was detected after 12 h and differed significantly between patients, suggesting variability in surfactant synthesis/secretion by the CDP-choline pathway. Peak enrichment was achieved (0.94 ± 0.15% of total PC) at 24 h after methyl-D₉-choline infusion. There was a trend towards reduced enrichment with the duration of mechanical ventilation prior to study recruitment; however, this was not statistically significant (p = 0.19). In this study, we demonstrated the fractional molecular composition and turnover of surfactant phospholipids, which was highly variable between patients. Full article

Background/Objectives: Coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) is associated with inflammation and complications, potentially leading to prolonged ICU and hospital stays. Omega-3 PUFA has anti-inflammatory properties, thought to potentially reduce complications in CABG patients. This study aims to systematically review and meta-analyze the impact of perioperative omega-3 PUFA supplementation on total ICU and total hospital stays in CABG patients; Methods: Randomized controlled trials examining the effects of omega-3 PUFA supplementation (IV/oral) on ICU and hospital stays in CABG patients were included. Studies were searched for in PubMed, EMBASE, PsychINFO, CINAHL, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trial databases, along with hand searching of reference lists. The quality and risk of bias of the included studies were evaluated by two independent reviewers using the revised Cochrane risk-of-bias tool. Meta-analysis was performed using fixed or random effects models according to the level of heterogeneity by mean difference with their 95% confidence intervals; Results: Twelve studies were included in the qualitative analysis and seven in the meta-analysis. Omega-3 PUFA was associated with a significant reduction in days of hospital stay (−0.58 (95% CI −1.13, −0.04)). Subgroup analysis showed that only oral omega-3 PUFA supplementation resulted in a statistically significant reduction in length of hospitalization after subgroup analysis with MD −0.6 (95% CI −1.17, −0.04); Conclusions: This study suggests that perioperative omega-3 PUFA supplementation may reduce the length of hospitalization in CABG patients, especially when administered orally. However, the findings should be interpreted cautiously due to the high level of heterogeneity. Full article

Coronary aneurysms are typically defined as sections of a coronary artery where the diameter is more than 1.5 times that of an adjacent normal segment. In rare circumstances, these aneurysms can become exceedingly large, leading to the classification of giant coronary artery aneurysms. Despite their occurrence, there is no clear consensus on the precise definition of giant coronary artery aneurysms, and their etiology remains somewhat ambiguous. Numerous potential causes have been suggested, with atherosclerosis being the most prevalent in adults, accounting for up to 50% of cases. In pediatric populations, Kawasaki disease and Takayasu arteritis are the primary causes. Although often discovered incidentally, coronary artery aneurysms can lead to severe complications. These complications include local thrombosis, distal embolization, rupture, and vasospasm, which can result in ischemia, heart failure, and arrhythmias. The optimal approach to medical, interventional, or surgical management of these aneurysms is still under debate and requires further clarification. This literature review aims to consolidate current knowledge regarding coronary artery aneurysms’ pathophysiology, emphasizing their definition, causes, complications, and treatment strategies. Recent research has begun to explore the molecular mechanisms involved in the formation and progression of coronary artery aneurysms. Various molecules, such as matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), inflammatory cytokines, and growth factors, play crucial roles in the degradation of the extracellular matrix and the remodeling of vascular walls. Elevated levels of MMPs, particularly MMP-9, have been associated with the weakening of the arterial wall, contributing to aneurysm development. Inflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and interleukins (IL-1β and IL-6) have been implicated in promoting inflammatory responses that further degrade vascular integrity. Additionally, growth factors such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) may influence angiogenesis and vascular remodeling processes. Understanding these molecular pathways is essential for developing targeted therapies aimed at preventing the progression of coronary artery aneurysms and improving patient outcomes. Full article

The evaluation of the wave-induced pore pressures around the offshore piles has attracted great attentions among coastal engineers, because they have been commonly used as foundations of numerous marine infrastructures. This paper presents comparative studies of the random wave-induced transient seabed response around single and double piles in a sandy seabed through a series of wave flume experiments. The influences of relative spacing ratios, wave incidence angles, and front pile diameters under different random wave parameters on oscillatory pore pressures in the vicinity of double piles are examined. In addition, variations in wave profiles and dynamic wave pressures surrounding single and double piles are quantitatively analyzed. Based on the experimental results, the following conclusions can be drawn: (1) under the influence of random waves, the wave profiles around the double piles exhibit obvious irregularity and nonlinearity; (2) the shielding effect existing in the tandem piles results in lower dynamic wave pressures around the rear pile compared to the front pile; (3) the pore pressures on the front surface of the double piles decrease with increasing soil depth, with a decreasing attenuation rate at each layer; (4) when the relative spacing ratio $G/D_2=3$, the group-pile effect weakens, leading to an increase in the pore pressures around the rear pile, approaching the results of a single pile under conditions of lower significant wave heights or periods; (5) the intense disturbance effect caused by large wave incidence angles exacerbates the pore pressure response around the double piles; (6) when the diameter of the front pile in the tandem piles increases, it enhances the shielding effect, thus suppressing the seabed response around the rear pile. In contrast, it causes an increase in the wave surface around the double piles, exacerbating the pore pressure response in the seabed. The latter effect becomes more pronounced when the significant wave height is larger. Full article

Recently, zero-shot image captioning (ZSIC) has gained significant attention, given its potential to describe unseen objects in images. This is important for real-world applications such as human–computer interaction, intelligent education, and service robots. However, the zero-shot image captioning method based on large-scale pretrained models may generate descriptions containing objects that are not present in the image, which is a phenomenon termed “object hallucination”. This is because large-scale models tend to predict words or phrases with high frequency, as seen in the training phase. Additionally, the method set a limitation to the description length, which often leads to an improper ending. In this paper, a novel approach is proposed to address and reduce the object hallucination and improper ending problem in the ZSIC task. We introduce additional emotion signals as guidance for sentence generation, and we find that proper emotion will filter words that do not appear in the image. Moreover, we propose a novel strategy that gradually extends the number of words in a sentence to confirm the generated sentence is properly completed. Experimental results show that the proposed method achieves the leading performance on unsupervised metrics. More importantly, the subjective examples illustrate the effect of our method in improving hallucination and generating properly ending sentences. Full article

The accurate segmentation of skin lesions plays an important role in the diagnosis and treatment of skin cancers. However, skin lesion areas are rich in details and local features, including the appearance, size, shape, texture, etc., which pose challenges for the accurate localization and segmentation of the target area. Unfortunately, the consecutive pooling and stride convolutional operations in existing convolutional neural network (CNN)-based solutions lead to the loss of some spatial information and thus constrain the accuracy of lesion region segmentation. In addition, using only the traditional loss function in CNN cannot ensure that the model is adequately trained. In this study, a generative adversarial network is proposed, with global and local semantic feature awareness (GLSFA-GAN) for skin lesion segmentation based on adversarial training. Specifically, in the generator, a multi-scale localized feature fusion module and an effective channel-attention module are designed to acquire the multi-scale local detailed information of the skin lesion area. In addition, a global context extraction module in the bottleneck between the encoder and decoder of the generator is used to capture more global semantic features and spatial information about the lesion. After that, we use an adversarial training strategy to make the discriminator discern the generated labels and the segmentation prediction maps, which assists the generator in yielding more accurate segmentation maps. Our proposed model was trained and validated on three public skin lesion challenge datasets involving the ISIC2017, ISIC2018, and HAM10000, and the experimental results confirm that our proposed method provides a superior segmentation performance and outperforms several comparative methods. Full article

Large language models (LLMs) are transforming the medical landscape by enhancing access to information, diagnostics, treatment customization, and medical education, especially in areas like Gastroenterology. LLMs utilize extensive medical data to improve decision-making, leading to better patient outcomes and personalized medicine. These models are instrumental in interpreting medical literature and synthesizing patient data, facilitating real-time knowledge for physicians and supporting educational pursuits in medicine. Despite their potential, the complete integration of LLMs in real-life remains ongoing, particularly requiring further study and regulation. This review highlights the existing evidence supporting LLMs’ use in Gastroenterology, addressing both their potential and limitations. Recent studies demonstrate LLMs’ ability to answer questions from physicians and patients accurately. Specific applications in this field, such as colonoscopy, screening for colorectal cancer, and hepatobiliary and inflammatory bowel diseases, underscore LLMs’ promise in improving the communication and understanding of complex medical scenarios. Moreover, the review discusses LLMs’ efficacy in clinical contexts, providing guideline-based recommendations and supporting decision-making processes. Despite these advancements, challenges such as data completeness, reference suitability, variability in response accuracy, dependency on input phrasing, and a lack of patient-generated questions underscore limitations in reproducibility and generalizability. The effective integration of LLMs into medical practice demands refinement tailored to specific medical contexts and guidelines. Overall, while LLMs hold significant potential in transforming medical practice, ongoing development and contextual training are essential to fully realize their benefits. Full article

Canton (present-day Guangzhou, China) has a long history as a trading port and serves as a window for studying the history of Sino-Western cultural exchanges. Canton was a city built under Confucian orders, leading to significant differences (when compared to Christian cities) in urban functional zoning, layout, urban landscape, and methods for shaping spatial order. Therefore, the churches constructed by Christian missionary societies in Canton merit particular attention in missionary history research and urban planning history. Based on local gazetteers, historical maps, export paintings, Western travelogues, and archives at that time, from a cultural landscape perspective, this article compares and analyzes the spatial expansion of Christian churches and their influences on the urban landscape in Canton in two stages. In the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, the spatial layout of the churches indicated an active integration into Canton City. After the Opium War, churches were not only used for religious purposes but also served as symbols asserting the presence of Christians and Western powers (which made the situation more complicated). Missionary societies attracted believers through the construction of public facilities, building Christian communities centered around churches, thereby competing with authorities for spatial power and influencing the urban functional system and spatial layout controlled by the authorities. Comparatively, the Roman Catholic Cathedral has profoundly changed the traditional landscape order in Canton, while the Protestant Dongshan Church interacted more closely with the city. Full article

Background/Objectives: Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is associated with an increased risk of obesity and disordered eating behaviors. This study compared weight status and eating behaviors among drug-naïve ADHD children, those on stimulant monotherapy, those on combined stimulant and antipsychotic treatment, and healthy controls. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 547 children aged 6–12 years from four Turkish provinces: 361 with ADHD (152 drug-naïve, 156 on stimulants, and 53 on combined therapy), and 186 healthy controls. Anthropometric measurements, psychiatric assessments, and eating behavior evaluations were conducted using standardized tools. Results: Drug-naïve ADHD children had the highest obesity rate (13.8%), while those on stimulant monotherapy had the lowest (4.5%) compared to controls. Combined treatment group obesity rates were similar to controls (7.5% vs. 8.6%). The drug-naïve and combined treatment groups showed increased food approach behavior and desire to drink, with the combined treatment group also showing increased emotional overeating. Conclusions: This study reveals a complex relationship between ADHD, its pharmacological management, and the risk of obesity. Stimulant monotherapy may mitigate the risk of obesity, while combined stimulant and antipsychotic treatment may lead to problematic eating behaviors. These findings emphasize the importance of monitoring weight status and eating behaviors in ADHD children, especially those receiving pharmacological interventions. Full article

Dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs) demonstrate high proliferative and multilineage differentiation potential. As previously reported, the helioxanthin derivative 4-(4-methoxyphenyl)pyrido[40,30:4,5]thieno[2,3-b]pyridine-2-carboxamide (TH) has been demonstrated to induce the osteogenic differentiation of DPSCs. However, the mechanism of osteogenesis induced by TH in DPSCs remains unknown. The objective of this study was to identify functional extracellular vesicle (EV) microRNAs (miRNAs), and the principal genes involved in the TH-induced osteogenesis of DPSCs. DPSCs were derived from dental pulp extracted from the third molars of three healthy subjects, and were cultured with or without TH. miRNAs were extracted from DPSC-derived EVs. The gene expression patterns of mRNA and miRNA were compared using RNA-Seq and miRNA-Seq. To investigate miRNA/mRNA interacting networks, functional analyses were performed by Ingenuity Pathway Analysis. Alkaline phosphatase (ALP) staining demonstrated that treatment with TH resulted in enhanced ALP activity in DPSCs after 7 days. The expression levels of ALP and type 1 collagen alpha 1 were significantly higher in TH-induced DPSCs on day 7. RNA-Seq and miRNA-Seq analyses identified 869 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and 18 miRNA-DEGs. Gene Ontology analysis of the mRNA-Seq results showed that TH induced several biological activities associated with signal transduction, cell adhesion, and cell differentiation. Integrated miRNA-mRNA analyses showed that these miRNAs contain the targeting information of 277 mRNAs of the DEGs. Among them, 17 target genes known to be involved in the differentiation of osteoblasts, and 24 target genes known to be involved in the differentiation of bone cells were identified. Quantitative real-time PCR showed that WNT5a expression in DPSCs was upregulated by 48 h of TH treatment. Upstream regulator analysis indicated that WNT3a, FOS, and RAC1 may be responsible for gene expression changes in DPSCs after TH treatment. EV miRNA regulatory networks might play crucial roles in TH-induced osteogenic differentiation of DPSCs. Our results presented herein offer valuable insights that will facilitate further research into the mechanism of osteogenesis of DPSCs, which is expected to lead to the clinical application of TH-induced DPSCs for bone regeneration. Furthermore, EVs derived from TH-induced DPSCs might be useful as therapeutic tools for bone defects. Full article

Understanding the composition of disposed municipal solid waste (MSW) and recyclables can lead to better waste management. New York State (United States) has never had a state-wide waste characterization sorting program. In 2021, sampling was conducted at 11 locations, representing 25% of the state population outside of New York City. Twenty-three tonnes from 173 discrete samples were sorted into 41 categories. The resulting data were analyzed by single constituent approaches and more novel multivariate distance techniques. The analyses found that disposed MSW was 22.8% paper, 20.5% food, and 16.8% plastics. Recyclable paper and glass–metal–plastic containers were 18.2% (11.7% paper, 6.5% containers) and yard waste was 6.5%, meaning about 25% of the disposed MSW could have been recovered. Multivariate analysis determined that the disposed MSW was similar to that from other United States jurisdictions such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York City, and Syracuse (NY), and different from California and United States Environmental Protection Agency model data. Recyclables composition was different from disposed MSW composition. Dual-stream recyclables were sorted better than single-stream recyclables. Corrugated cardboard was the most common paper recyclable and plastics were the most common container recyclable. The data are being used to help guide planning for an expected packaging extended producer responsibility law for the State. Full article

The microbial biofilms are a community of microorganisms that adhere to each other and to surfaces, typically in a mucilaginous or gel-like matrix composed of extracellular polymeric substances, including polysaccharides, proteins, lipids, and DNA. In the food industry, the bacterial biofilms may be formed on different surfaces and cause post-processing contamination or cross-contamination from the food contact surfaces to food products. Conventional cleaning and sanitizing methods are often ineffective at removing bacterial biofilms. Among more recent alternative methods proposed to address this problem are the use of hydrolytic enzymes, essential oils, and bacteriocins. These methods show promise since their antibacterial and antibiofilm actions involve degradation of the extracellular polymeric matrix of the biofilm and lead to inhibition of the foodborne pathogens present. Understanding the limitations and mechanisms of action of enzymes, bacteriocins, and essential oils in controlling bacterial biofilms on foods and food contact surfaces is essential for developing solutions to prevent and control biofilm formation. This review critically summarizes the current knowledge of bacterial biofilm components, their formation, detection methods, prevention, and removal from food contact surfaces. Full article

In the current work, aluminum dross from the aluminum industry and fired-clay brick waste (Homra) were combined with alkaline activators (Na₂SiO₃/NaOH) with varying molarities of NaOH to create insulating geopolymer bricks. An alkaline activator with an (S/L) ratio of 3/1 was combined with Homra to replace it partly. The mixture was then molded into 50 × 50 × 50 mm³ stainless steel molds. Water absorption, compressive strength, bulk density, and apparent porosity of the produced geopolymer were measured at various curing durations and NaOH molarities. The findings showed that adding more aluminum dross waste replacement leads to a decrease in bulk density and compressive strength and an increase in the creation of pores that improve the produced bricks’ ability to insulate against heat. Using 8 M of NaOH after 28 days, the findings revealed that 3% aluminum dross waste replacement has a compressive strength of about 8.6 MPa, water absorption of 14.6%, bulk density of 1.307 g/cm³, and thermal conductivity of 0.32 W/m·K. The Egyptian standard, ASTM C62, satisfies these outcomes. Using DesignBuilder energy simulation software version 6.1.06, the constructed insulating brick under ideal circumstances was utilized to calculate its contribution performance in energy consumption. The annual energy consumption was reduced by about 21% compared to traditional hollow cement bricks. Full article

Cardiovascular disease is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality. New research elucidates increasingly complex relationships between cardiac and metabolic health, giving rise to new possible therapeutic targets. Sphingolipids are a heterogeneous class of bioactive lipids with critical roles in normal human physiology. They have also been shown to play both protective and deleterious roles in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disease. Ceramides are implicated in dysregulating insulin signalling, vascular endothelial function, inflammation, oxidative stress, and lipoprotein aggregation, thereby promoting atherosclerosis and vascular disease. Ceramides also advance myocardial disease by enhancing pathological cardiac remodelling and cardiomyocyte death. Glucosylceramides similarly contribute to insulin resistance and vascular inflammation, thus playing a role in atherogenesis and cardiometabolic dysfunction. Sphingosing-1-phosphate, on the other hand, may ameliorate some of the pathological functions of ceramide by protecting endothelial barrier integrity and promoting cell survival. Sphingosine-1-phosphate is, however, implicated in the development of cardiac fibrosis. This review will explore the roles of sphingolipids in vascular, cardiac, and metabolic pathologies and will evaluate the therapeutic potential in targeting sphingolipids with the aim of prevention and reversal of cardiovascular disease in order to improve long-term cardiovascular outcomes. Full article