Factors Affecting the Response to First-Line Treatments in Patients with Anti-N-Methyl-D-Aspartate Receptor Encephalitis

Xiaoting Zhang,Chunjuan Wang,Wenyao Zhu,Baojie Wang,Huiying Liang,Shougang Guo 대한신경과학회 2019 Journal of Clinical Neurology Vol.15 No.3

Background and Purpose Anti-N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor (anti-NMDAR) encephalitis is the most common type of autoimmune encephalitis. This study aimed to explore the possible factors affecting the response to first-line treatments in patients with anti-NMDAR encephalitis. Methods We enrolled 29 patients who were diagnosed as anti-NMDAR encephalitis between January 1, 2015, and June 30, 2018. They were divided into the remission and nonremission groups according to their response to first-line treatments. The demographics, clinical manifestations, main ancillary examinations, follow-up treatments, and prognosis of patients were recorded. The symptoms reported on in this study occurred before treatments or during the course of first-line treatments. Results There were 18 patients (62.07%) in the remission group and 11 patients (37.93%) in the nonremission group. Compared to the remission group, a higher proportion of the patients in the nonremission group exhibited involuntary movements, decreased consciousness, central hypoventilation, lung infection, and hypoalbuminemia. The nonremission group had a high incidence of increased intracranial pressure and significant elevations of the neutrophilto- lymphocyte ratio in peripheral blood (NLR), aspartate aminotransferase, and fibrinogen. Six patients (54.55%) in the nonremission group received second-line immunotherapy. Only one patient (3.45%) died, which was due to multiple- organ failure. Conclusions Anti-NMDAR-encephalitis patients with more symptoms—especially involuntary movements, disturbance of consciousness, central hypoventilation, and accompanying hypoalbuminemia and pulmonary infection—may respond poorly to first-line treatments. Positive second-line immunotherapy therefore needs to be considered. Admission to an intensive-care unit, increased cerebrospinal fluid pressure, and increased NLR might be the significant factors affecting the response to first-line treatments.

Adsorption of phosphate from aqueous solution by lanthanum modified macroporous chelating resin

Xiaoting Zhang,Chenghui Ma,Kang Wen,Runping Han 한국화학공학회 2020 Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol.37 No.5

A highly effective adsorbent of lanthanum-modified D751 resin (D751 resin for macroporous styrene chelated resin, sodium form) was prepared to enhance the effect of removing phosphate from solution. FTIR, SEM were used to explore the functional groups and structural features on the surface of D751-La; XPS analyzed the action mechanism between phosphate and D751-La. The adsorption performance about D751-La toward phosphate was investigated by batch experiment. The results showed that Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin, Koble-Corrigan as well as Redlich-Peterson models fitted well for the adsorption isotherms. The adsorption kinetics could be better fitted by Double Constant, Elovich, and Pseudo-second-order model. The effect of salinity was not significant, such as Cl and SO4 2. When the solid-liquid ratio was 15 g·L1 with setting the reaction time as 8 h, the unit adsorption quantity of D751-La to phosphate (calculated in P) reached up to 26.3mg·g1 under the solution pH=3 at 293 K. The process was spontaneous and exothermic from thermodynamic analysis. It shows that D751-La has potential to remove phosphate from solution.

Removal of Cr(VI) from solution using UiO-66-NH2 prepared in a green way

Xiaoting Zhang,Shusheng Zhang,Gangfeng Ouyang,Runping Han 한국화학공학회 2022 Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol.39 No.7

A zirconium-based metal organic framework (UiO-66-NH2) was prepared using a greener approach forthe removal of hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) from solution. The characterization of UiO-66-NH2 was performedusing several methods, and the influence of the solution pH, adsorbent dosage, salt, adsorption time, Cr(VI) concentrationand adsorption temperature on adsorption quantity was performed in batch mode. UiO-66-NH2 can efficientlyremove Cr(VI) through the synergistic effect of adsorption and reduction. At pH solution of 1.1 and solid-to-liquidratio of 2 g·L1, the removal rate of 100mg·L1 Cr(VI) increased to 95.2%. The maximum adsorption capacity of UiO-66-NH2 from Langmuir model was 252mg·g1. The adsorption equilibrium process can be well described by Langmuir,Koble-Corrigan and Temkin models, while the kinetic process can be predicted by pseudo-second-order andElovich model. UiO-66-NH2 showed a good adsorption capacity in a wide range of pH (pH=1.1-10) and also had betterregeneration performance after five cycles using 0.01 mol·L1 NaOH; consequently, it can be a promising adsorbentfor the removal of Cr(VI) from solution.

Facile synthesis of polyethyleneimine@Fe3O4 loaded with zirconium for enhanced phosphate adsorption: Performance and adsorption mechanism

Chenghui Ma,Xiaoting Zhang,Xiaoting Zhang,Kang Wen,Rong Wang,Runping Han 한국화학공학회 2021 Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering Vol.38 No.1

Coating superparamagnetic iron oxide particles, i.e., Fe3O4, as adsorbents have major advantages over bare adsorbents for water treatment. As a versatile material, zirconium has been extensively studied for phosphate removal. In this study, the Fe3O4 core was pre-coated with branched polyethyleneimine (PEI) first, and then loaded with zirconium to result in a highly selective adsorbent (i.e., Zr-PEI@Fe3O4) for phosphate with a greatly broadened pH range. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), BET surface area, and magnetization were used to characterize the resulting adsorbent and to explore the underlying adsorption mechanism. The adsorption performance of Zr-PEI@Fe3O4 toward phosphate was performed by batch experiment. The results showed that Freundlich model better fit the adsorption isotherms, while the Elovich equation better described the kinetic process. The maximum adsorption capacity of dephosphorization 32.2mg·g1 (according to P element) emerged in the condition of 1.0 g·L1 and pH at 2 with 303 K. The process was spontaneous and endothermic. Zr-PEI@Fe3O4 has the potential to remove phosphate from solution due to its easy separation and some good adsorption property.

Soluble Axl Is a Novel Diagnostic Biomarker of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Chinese Patients with Chronic Hepatitis B Virus Infection

Xiaoting Song,Ailu Wu,Zhixiao Ding,Shixiong Liang,Chunyan Zhang 대한암학회 2020 Cancer Research and Treatment Vol.52 No.3

Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic value of soluble Axl (sAxl) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in comparison with serum "-fetoprotein (AFP). Materials and Methods Eighty HCC patients, 80 liver cirrhosis patients (LC), 80 patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, and 80 healthy controls (HC) were enrolled. sAxl levels were measured by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, serum AFP levels were measured by an electrochemiluminescence immunoassay. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were used to evaluate diagnostic performances. Results The results show that levels of sAxl were high expression in patients with HCC (p < 0.05), varied with disease state as follows: HCC > LC > HC > HBV. Logistic regression and ROC curve analysis identified the optimal cut-off for sAxl in differentiating all HCC and non-HCC patients was 1,202 pg/mL (area under the receiver operating characteristic [AUC], 0.888; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.852 to 0.924) with sensitivity 95.0%, specificity 73.3%. Furthermore, differential diagnosis of early HCC with non-HCC patients for sAxl showed the optimal cut-off was 1,202 pg/mL (AUC, 0.881; 95% CI, 0.831 to 0.931; sensitivity, 94.1%; specificity, 73.3%). Among AFP-negative HCC patients with non-HCC patients, the cut-off was 1,301 pg/mL (AUC, 0.898; 95% CI, 0.854 to 0.942) with a sensitivity of 84.6%, a specificity of 76.3%. The optimal cut-off for sAxl in differentiating all HCC and chronic liver disease patients was 1,243 pg/mL (AUC, 0.840; 95% CI, 0.791 to 0.888) with sensitivity 93.8%, specificity 61.9%. The combination of AFP and sAxl increased diagnostic value for HCC. Conclusion sAxl outperforms AFP in detecting HCC, especially in early HCC and in AFP-negative HCC. Combination sAxl with AFP improved the specificity for early HCC diagnosis. In summary, sAxl is a candidate serum marker for diagnosing HCC.

Atomistic simulations of defect accumulation and evolution in heavily irradiated titanium for nuclear-powered spacecraft

Guopeng Zhang,Bin Cai,Hai Huang,Xiaoting Yuan,Longjingrui Ma,Jiwei Lin Korean Nuclear Society 2023 Nuclear Engineering and Technology Vol.55 No.6

Titanium alloys are expected to become one of the candidate materials for nuclear-powered spacecraft due to their excellent overall performance. Nevertheless, atomistic mechanisms of the defect accumulation and evolution of the materials due to long-term exposure to irradiation remain scarcely understood by far. Here we investigate the heavy irradiation damage in a-titanium with a dose as high as 4.0 canonical displacements per atom (cDPA) using atomistic simulations of Frenkel pair accumulation. Results show that the content of surviving defects increases sharply before 0.04 cDPA and then decreases slowly to stabilize, exhibiting a strong correlation with the system energy. Under the current simulation conditions, the defect clustering fraction may be not directly dependent on the irradiation dose. Compared to vacancies, interstitials are more likely to form clusters, which may further cause the formation of 1/3<1210> interstitial-type dislocation loops extended along the (1010) plane. This study provides an important insight into the understanding of the irradiation damage behaviors for titanium.

Water-Dispersible Hydrothermal Aramid Nanofibers Reinforced Styrene-Butadiene Rubber with Enhanced Mechanical Behaviour and Solvent Resistance

Jianpeng Wu,Xumin Zhang,Kuan Jiang,Hongbing Jia,Xiaoting Rui,Fufeng Yang 한국섬유공학회 2020 Fibers and polymers Vol.21 No.8

In this work, a distinguished hydrothermal treatment succeeded in modifying aramid nanofibers (ANFs) with thehelp of mixed acid, and the hydrothermal-treated ANFs (hANFs) were regarded as a reinforcement agent to be introducedinto styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) via latex co-agglutination treatment. The enhanced comprehensive behaviour of SBR/hANFs composites induced by π-π stacking interaction between hANFs and polymer chains were investigated in details. With respect to virgin SBR, it was found that the temperature at maximum rate of degradation, tear strength and tensilestrength of composites with adding 7 phr (parts per hundred rubber) hANFs significantly improved by 14 oC, 148 % and215 %, respectively. The incorporation of hANFs also endowed SBR with greatly enhanced solvent resistance.