Achieving optimal nutritional status in patients with penetrating Crohn’s disease is crucial in preparing for surgical resection. However, there is a dearth of literature comparing the efficacy of total parenteral nutrition (TPN) v. exclusive enteral nutrition (EEN) in optimising postoperative outcomes. Hence, we conducted a case-matched study to assess the impact of preoperative EEN v. TPN on the incidence of postoperative adverse outcomes, encompassing overall postoperative morbidity and stoma formation, among penetrating Crohn’s disease patients undergoing bowel surgery. From 1 December 2012 to 1 December 2021, a retrospective study was conducted at a tertiary centre to enrol consecutive patients with penetrating Crohn’s disease who underwent surgical resection. Propensity score matching was utilised to compare the incidence of postoperative adverse outcomes. Furthermore, univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify the risk factors associated with adverse outcomes. The study included 510 patients meeting the criteria. Among them, 101 patients in the TPN group showed significant improvements in laboratory indicators at the time of surgery compared with pre-optimisation levels. After matching, TPN increased the occurrence of postoperative adverse outcomes (92·2 % v. 64·1 %, P = 0·001) when compared with the EEN group. In the multivariate analysis, TPN showed a significantly higher OR for adverse outcomes than EEN (OR = 4·241; 95 % CI 1·567–11·478; P = 0·004). The study revealed that penetrating Crohn’s disease patients who were able to fulfil their nutritional requirements through EEN exhibited superior nutritional and surgical outcomes in comparison with those who received TPN.

Accurately predicting neurosyphilis prior to a lumbar puncture (LP) is critical for the prompt management of neurosyphilis. However, a valid and reliable model for this purpose is still lacking. This study aimed to develop a nomogram for the accurate identification of neurosyphilis in patients with syphilis. The training cohort included 9,504 syphilis patients who underwent initial neurosyphilis evaluation between 2009 and 2020, while the validation cohort comprised 526 patients whose data were prospectively collected from January 2021 to September 2021. Neurosyphilis was observed in 35.8% (3,400/9,504) of the training cohort and 37.6% (198/526) of the validation cohort. The nomogram incorporated factors such as age, male gender, neurological and psychiatric symptoms, serum RPR, a mucous plaque of the larynx and nose, a history of other STD infections, and co-diabetes. The model exhibited good performance with concordance indexes of 0.84 (95% CI, 0.83–0.85) and 0.82 (95% CI, 0.78–0.86) in the training and validation cohorts, respectively, along with well-fitted calibration curves. This study developed a precise nomogram to predict neurosyphilis risk in syphilis patients, with potential implications for early detection prior to an LP.

Large volumes of data collected by the Automatic Identification System (AIS) provide opportunities for studying both single vessel motion behaviours and collective mobility patterns on the sea. Understanding these behaviours or patterns is of great importance to maritime situational awareness applications. In this paper, we leveraged AIS trajectories to discover vessel spatio-temporal co-occurrence patterns, which distinguish vessel behaviours simultaneously in terms of space, time and other dimensions (such as ship type, speed, width etc.). To this end, available AIS data were processed to generate spatio-temporal matrices and spatio-temporal tensors (i.e., multidimensional arrays). We then imposed a sparse bilinear decomposition on the matrices and a sparse multi-linear decomposition on the tensors. Experimental results on a real-world dataset demonstrated the effectiveness of this methodology, with which we show the existence of connection among regions, time, and vessel attributes.

A 100-J-level Nd:glass laser system in nanosecond-scale pulse width has been constructed to perform as a standard source of high-fluence-laser science experiments. The laser system, operating with typical pulse durations of 3–5 ns and beam diameter 60 mm, employs a sequence of successive rod amplifiers to achieve 100-J-level energy at 1053 nm at 3 ns. The frequency conversion can provide energy of 50-J level at 351 nm. In addition to the high stability of the energy output, the most valuable of the laser system is the high spatiotemporal beam quality of the output, which contains the uniform square pulse waveform, the uniform flat-top spatial fluence distribution and the uniform flat-top wavefront.

Approximately 50 % of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) suffer from anaemia, with Fe deficiency being the most common cause. CD52 monoclonal antibody (mAb) targets the cell surface CD52 and is effective in depleting lymphocytes through cytolytic effects in vivo. The aim of the present study was to investigate the therapeutic effect of anti-mouse CD52 mAb on Fe-deficient anaemia in IBD. IL-10 knockout mice (IL-10− / −) of 12 weeks with established colitis were treated with anti-mouse CD52 mAb once per week for 2 weeks. Severity of colitis, blood T lymphocytes, blood Hb, haematocrit, plasma erythropoietin (EPO), serum Fe concentration, transferrin saturation, splenic Fe stores, expression of liver hepcidin mRNA, Western blotting of the phosphorylated form of Smad1/5/8 and total Smad1 were measured at the end of the experiment. IL-10− / − mice treated with CD52 mAb showed a reduction in the percentage of CD4+ and CD4+CD45+ T cells in blood and weight loss typically associated with colonic inflammation, serum levels of EPO, the expression of liver hepcidin mRNA and total Smad1 protein, while they showed an increase in Hb concentrations, haematocrit, levels of serum Fe, transferrin saturation and splenic Fe stores. The present results indicated that anti-CD52 therapy may ameliorate Fe-deficient anaemia by reducing colonic inflammation. These findings may open novel horizons in the treatment of patients with IBD by resetting of immunological homeostasis in the gut by depleting the activated T cells in the gut mucosa.

The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of peroral bifidobacteria on the intestinal microbiota, barrier function and bacterial translocation (BT) in a mouse model of ischaemia and reperfusion (I/R) injury. A total of twenty-four male BALB/c mice were randomly allocated into three groups: (1) sham-operated, (2) I/R and (3) I/R injury and bifidobacteria pretreatment (109 colony-forming units/d). Bifidobacteria were administered daily intragastrically for 2 weeks before induction of I/R. Subsequently, samples of caecal content, intestinal mucosa, ileal segments, blood, mesenteric lymph nodes (MLN) and distant organs (liver, spleen and kidney) were prepared for examination. In the I/R model, barrier dysfunction (caecal microbiota dysbiosis, disruption of tight junction (TJ), increased epithelial cell apoptosis, disruption of mucosa and multiple erosions) in the intestine was observed, associated with increased BT to extraintestinal sites. The ratio of BT to MLN and distant organs in mice exposed to I/R injury was 62·5 %, which was significantly higher than the sham-operated group. However, pretreatment of animals with bifidobacteria prevented I/R-induced BT, reduced pro-inflammatory cytokine release, the levels of endotoxin, intestinal epithelial cell apoptosis, disruption of TJ and increased the concentration of SCFA, resulting in recovered microbiota and mucosal integrity. Bifidobacteria may be beneficial in reducing BT in I/R injury of mice. Therefore, peroral administration of bifidobacteria is a potential strategy to prevent I/R-induced BT and intestinal barrier dysfunction.

Dihydrogen, copper, platinum, and lead octakis(2-ethylhexyloxy)phthalocyanines (Pc's) were studied in polystyrene films at 532 nm and in chloroform solutions at 1064 nm by picosecond degenerate four wave mixing. Resonant χ(3) values of Pc's at 532 nm (a local minimum in the absorption spectrum) at a time coincident with the 20 psec pump pulses were as high as 104 times that of CS2 by extrapolation of the response from 1 wt % PtPc in polystyrene film to a value for pure PtPc. Delay of the probe pulse as long as 3 nsec revealed acoustic responses stronger than the fast electronic responses. The films showed the expected quadratic dependence of the instantaneous reflectivity on incident intensity only for a decade of magnitude of intensity, 100–1000 MW/cm2, with the output saturating at higher intensities. Excited state absorption at 532 nm was detected in the film samples by pulse-probe spectroscopy and was shown to be a factor in the saturation observed in the NLO signals. Nonresonant χ(3) values at 1064 nm were as high as 120 times that of CS2 from measured responses of 1 wt % chloroform solutions of Pc's. Time delay of the probe revealed both fast electronic and slower acoustic responses at 1064 nm too.