Covering corneal stromal lenticule for macular hole in pathological myopia

AIM:To evaluate the clinical effect of a new surgery technique(covering corneal stromal lenticule,CSL)for macular hole(MH)in pathological myopia.METHODS:This was a prospective non-randomized series case study.Fourteen eyes of 14 patients whose axial length were more than 29 mm and suffered from MH and macular hole retinal detachment(MHRD)were included in this study.All cases were treated with 25-gauge pars plana vitrectomy(PPV)with internal limiting membrane(ILM)peeling,covering CSL and C_(3)F_(8) gas tamponade.These cases were followed for 6mo,and the best-corrected visual acuity(BCVA),healing status of MH,the reattached rate of retinal detachment(RD),and reoperation rate were analyzed.RESULTS:All cases were successfully performed the surgery and the postoperative follow-up was completed.After surgery,MHs were healed in all 14 eyes(100%,14/14)after assessed by optical coherence tomography.The reattachment of retina was achieved in all 6 eyes(100%,6/6)with MHRD.BCVA was improved in 12 eyes(85.71%,12/14),and had no significant change in 2 eyes(14.29%,2/14).The overall mean BCVA was improved from 1.80±0.77 to 0.82±0.46 logMAR(F=10.46,P<0.01).No serious complications occurred in all cases.CONCLUSION:The new surgery technique(covering CSL)has high reattached rate of RD and high healing rate of MH in pathological myopia in the preliminary study.And it can effectively improve the visual function of patients.This new technique offers meaningful new ideas for treating refractory MH in pathological myopia.

Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders Following 10-Year Universal Salt Iodization in Hebei Province of China

Objective To evaluate the effectiveness of universal salt iodization （USI） for the control of IDD in Hebei province since it was implemented in 1995, identify the problems currently encountered in the implementation of USI and provide practical proposals for addressing these problems. Methods Probability proportionate to size sampling （PPS） was employed in the surveillance of IDD, for which a total of 1200 school children aged 8-10 years were randomly selected from 30 counties around the whole province during each IDD survey. The iodine content of salt was determined quantitatively with the titration method. The iodine content of urinary samples was measured by the method of ammonium persulfate oxidation. Results The coverage of iodized salt increased from 65.0% in 1995 to 98.0% in 1999, then decreased to 88.1% in 2005 which was below the national standard of 90%. The median urinary iodine of children aged 8-10 years varied between 160.1 μg/L and 307.4 μg/L, which was above the national standard. The proportion of urinary samples with iodine content above 300 lag/L was over 30% in 2005, implying exorbitant iodine nutrition among the children. The goiter rate （TGR） among children aged 8-10 years dropped from 11.8% in 1995 to 2.7% in 2005, indicating that the spread of endemic goiter was under control. Conclusion Preliminary elimination of IDD was achieved by USI in Hebei province. Nevertheless, some problems still existed in USI such as non-iodized salt competition, over iodization and un-standardized iodization. In order to address these problems, the management and supervision of salt market needs to be strengthened to prevent non-iodized salt from reaching households; updating equipment and modifying techniques are also necessary to ensure the quality of iodized salt; to clarify the causes of excessive urinary iodine content, the various sources of iodine from the diet need to be investigated in the future.

A Bioorthogonal Post-modification of N^(6)-Isopentenyl Adenosine i^(6) A RNA in Live Cells

Selective methods for modulating RNA epigenetic modifications within living cells and organisms represent attractive techniques for investigating biological functions and medicinal application.In contrast to enzymatic methods,abiotic chemical modulation offers access to diverse new-to-natural functionalities.We herein report a visible light-assisted bioorthogonal reaction involving flavin mononucleotide,sodium azide,and blue light irradiation.In concert with previous chemical approaches mimicking the demodification pathway,our system functions as a powerful and selective post-modification enzyme that targets N^(6)-prenyl adenosine i^(6) A in RNA and enables the efficient construction of an artificial N^(6)-cyanomethyl adenosine(cnm^(6) A).Notably,most endogenous biomacromolecular functions,including other common RNA epigenetics,remained unaffected.Consequently,we have successfully modified i^(6) A in tRNA to cnm^(6) A in human cells and establish this system as a bona fide bioorthogonal reaction with potential applications in chemical biology and in-cell modulation.

An efficient projection defocus algorithm based on multi-scale convolution kernel templates

The focal problems of projection include out-of-focus projection images from the projector caused by incomplete mechanical focus and screen-door effects produced by projection pixilation. To eliminate these defects and enhance the imaging quality and clarity of projectors, a novel adaptive projection defocus algorithm is proposed based on multi-scale convolution kernel templates. This algorithm applies the improved Sobel-Tenengrad focus evaluation function to calculate the sharpness degree of intensity equalization and then constructs multi-scale defocus convolution kernels to remap and render the defocus projection image. The resulting projection defocus corrected images can eliminate out-of-focus effects and improve the sharpness of uncorrected images. Experiments show that the algorithm works quickly and robustly and that it not only effectively eliminates visual artifacts and can run on a self-designed smart projection system in real time but also significantly improves the resolution and clarity of the observer's visual perception.

A chemical labeling of N^(6)-formyl adenosine(f^(6)A) RNA

N^(6)-methyl adenosine (m^(6)A) is an eminent epigenetic mark in mRNAs that affects a broad range of biological functions in diverse species. However, the chemically inert methyl group prevents a direct labeling of this modification for subsequent detection and sequencing. Therefore, most current approaches for the labeling of m^(6)A still have limitations of relying on the utilization of corresponding methyltransferases, which resulted in the lacking of efficiency. Here we present an approach which selectively alkylated the N^(6)-formyl adenosine (f^(6)A), the key intermediate during chemical oxidation of m^(6)A, with an alkyne functionality that can be further labeled with click reactions. This covalent labeling approach will be able to facilitate in the affinity purification, detection and genome-wide profiling studies.

Mining item-item and between-set correlated association rules

To overcome the failure in eliminating suspicious patterns or association rules existing in traditional association rules mining, we propose a novel method to mine item-item and between-set correlated association rules. First, we present three measurements: the association, correlation, and item-set correlation measurements. In the association measurement, the all-confidence measure is used to filter suspicious cross-support patterns, while the all-item-confidence measure is applied in the correlation measurement to eliminate spurious association rules that contain negatively correlated items. Then, we define the item-set correlation measurement and show its corresponding properties. By using this measurement, spurious association rules in which the antecedent and consequent item-sets are negatively correlated can be eliminated. Finally, we propose item-item and between-set correlated association rules and two mining algorithms, I&ISCoMine_AP and I&ISCoMine_CT. Experimental results with synthetic and real retail datasets show that the proposed method is effective and valid.