No abstract

Vitamin D3 is an effective skin protective substance to prevent photoaging. Liposomes were used as a carrier to deliver vitamin D3 to improve the stability and to enhance the treatment effect of vitamin D3. The stability of vitamin D3 liposomes, average cumulative penetration, and retention of vitamin D3 in the skin were then evaluated and compared with free vitamin D3. Finally, the treatment effect of vitamin D3 liposomes in a rat photoaging model was appraised and Haematoxylin-Eosin (H&E) staining was used to assess the histology changes of the skin after vitamin D3 liposome treatment. The results indicated that liposomes could significantly improve the stability of vitamin D3. The average skin retention of vitamin D3 liposomes was 1.65 times that of the vitamin D3 solution. Vitamin D3 liposomes could repair the surface morphology of skin in the photoaging model and promote the production of new collagen fibers. Vitamin D3 liposomes as a potential skin care agent could significantly improve skin appearance and repair damage in the histology of photoaging.

No abstract

Image reconstruction for Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) is a highly nonlinear and ill-posed inverse problem. It requires the design and employment of feasible reconstruction methods capable to guarantee trustworthy image generation. Deep Neural Networks (DNN) have a powerful ability to express complex nonlinear functions. This research paper introduces a novel framework based on DNN aiming to achieve EIT image reconstruction. The proposed DNN model, comprises of the following two layers, namely: The Stacked Autoencoder (SAE) and the Logistic Regression (LR). It is trained using the large lab samples which are obtained by the COMSOL simulation software (a cross platform finite elements analysis solver). The relationship between the voltage measurement and the internal conductivity distribution is determined. The untrained voltage measurement samples are used as input to the trained DNN, and the output is an estimate for image reconstruction of the internal conductivity distribution. The results show that the proposed model can achieve reliable shape and size reconstruction. When white Gaussian noise with a signal-to-noise ratio of 30, 40 and 50 were added to test set, the proposed DNN structure still has good imaging results, which proved the anti-noise capability of the network. Furthermore, the network that was trained using simulation data sets, would be applied for the EIT image reconstruction based on the experimental data that were produced after preprocessing.

Purpose: Risk behaviors are significantly impacting physical and psychological health among adolescents, resulting in a tremendous public health issue. The aim of this study is to examine the association of clustered risk behaviors with mental health and physical activity, and identify to what extent the clustering of various risk behaviors is associated with psychological health and physical activity in Chinese adolescents. Methods: Students aged 16-18 years, male 16.2 ± 1.03, female 16.3 ± 1.56, were recruited from 30 high schools to complete an online questionnaire in fall semester 2017. A structured questionnaire, 2017 state and local youth risk behavior survey was revised, modified, and translated into Chinese. Five questions were designed to assess physical activity times of the last 7 days. Symptom checklist 90 (SCL-90) was used to investigate the mental health status of the participants. Statistical analyses were done employing chi-square tests, two step cluster analysis, logistic regression. Result: Results illustrate that girls report a significantly higher mean of being bullied in school, electronically bullied, feeling sad or hopeless, and trying cigarette smoking. Two-step cluster analysis and regression analysis find that alcohol use, smoking and sedentary behavior have significant effect on adolescent health. Logic regression demonstrated that risk behaviors have significantly associated with mental health and physical activity in specific cluster. Conclusion: This study finds that a specific behavior cluster has significant impact on mental health and physical activity among adolescents. Integrating risk behaviors cluster with factors can be employed to target high-risk adolescents who have poor physical and psychosocial health. The research suggest that more effective and feasible school intervention programs can be designed to promote adolescent health-related behavior in terms of those pathways.

Ovarian cancer is a gynecological malignancy with high mortality. Adjuvant therapy such as chemoradiotherapy inevitably leads to side effects and drug resistance. In recent years, traditional Chinese medicine has been widely studied for its safety, effectiveness, and unique pharmacological effects. Polyphyllin VII is an important component of Rhizoma paridis saponins, and has cytotoxic effects on many types of cancer cells. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the anti-tumor activity of polyphyllin VII in human ovarian cancer cells. Recent studies found that polyphyllin VII induces mitochondrial pathway apoptosis by increasing mitochondrial division, but the specific mechanism was unclear. The results of this study revealed that polyphyllin VII could effectively induce mitochondrial dysfunction, including increased mitochondrial division and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production. Notably, the mitochondrial location of dynamin-related protein 1 (DRP1) plays an important role in its function. In addition, polyphyllin VII enhanced the mitochondrial localization of DRP1 which is mediated by increased protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) activity, and decreased AKT activity. A specific PP2A inhibitor, LB100, attenuated mitochondrial division and apoptosis in cells caused by polyphyllin VII, confirming the function of the PP2A/AKT pathway in polyphyllin VII treatment. Additionally, xenotransplantation experiments have also confirmed the anti-tumor effect of polyphyllin VII in vivo. Therefore, interference of the mitochondrial translocation of DRP1 through PP2A/AKT pathway may be an attractive and effective therapeutic approach by polyphyllin VII in ovarian cancer. This may provide new strategies for polyphyllin VII in the clinical treatment of ovarian cancer.

Docetaxel (DTX) is commonly used for breast cancer treatment. Tween 80 used for DTX dissolution in its clinical formulation causes severe hypersensitivity and other adverse reactions. In this study, trastuzumab (Tmab)-coated lipid-polymer hybrid nanoparticles (PLNs) were prepared, composed of poly (d, l-lactide- co-glycolide), PLGA; polyethylenimine (PEI); and lipids. The PLGA/PEI/lipid formed a hydrophobic core, while Tmab was electrostatically adsorbed on the surface of the PLNs as a ligand that targets human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive breast cancer cells. The resulting PLNs, electrostatically adsorbed Tmab-bearing PLGA/PEI/lipid nanoparticles (eTmab-PPLNs), had a mean particle size of 217.4 ± 13.36 nm, a ζ potential of 0.056 ± 0.315 mV, and good stability. In vitro, the eTmab-PPLNs showed increased cytotoxicity in HER2-postive BT474 cells but not in HER2-negative MCF7 cells. Studies of the ability of eTmab-PPLNs to target HER2 were performed. The uptake of eTmab-PPLNs was shown to be dependent on HER2 expression level. Therefore, eTmab-PPLNs provide a promising therapeutic for the treatment of breast cancer.

Background: Differential diagnosis of ovarian masses can influence both treatment selection and prognosis of ovarian tumor patients. A comprehensive review was performed with respect to the diagnostic value of conventional ultrasonography, Doppler ultrasonography and contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) in differentiating benign from malignant ovarian masses. Methods: Databases were searched for relevant articles. Retrieved studies were screened according to the inclusion criteria. Pooled statistics including specificity, sensitivity, positive likelihood ratios (PLR), negative likelihood ratios (NLR), diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) and area under curve (AUC) were utilized to calculate the overall diagnostic value for each diagnostic approach. Results: Sixty-seven high quality articles were finally enrolled in the present meta-analysis. The sensitivity and specificity of conventional US were 0.92 and 0.86, respectively. The corresponding sensitivity and specificity of Doppler US were 0.93 and 0.85, respectively. Additionally, these figures for CEUS were 0.97 and 0.92, respectively. Finally, the AUC values for conventional US, Doppler US and CEUS were 0.95, 0.96 and 0.99, respectively. Conclusion: All of the three US-related imaging modalities have relatively high diagnostic value in distinguishing malignant tumors from benign ones in ovarian tumors.