Objective The BACES score is calculated based on the body mass index, age, presence of cavity, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), and sex, and it is used to predict the overall and respiratory-related mortality risks in patients with nontuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease. ESR and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels are commonly used to assess inflammation. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the usefulness of the CRP level as a substitute for ESR when calculating the BACES score. The scores determined using this substitution are referred to as the BACCS scores.Methods We retrospectively evaluated the medical records of 195 patients (median age, 64 years; 47 (24.1%) patients were male) with Mycobacterium avium complex (MAC) pulmonary disease who presented to our hospital between 2003 and 2019. We compared the prognostic performance of the BACCS and BACES scores for all-cause and MAC-specific mortalities.Results According to the BACCS score, 102 (52.3%),75 (38.5%), and 18 (9.2%) patients comprised the low-, moderate-, and high-risk groups, respectively. All-cause mortality significantly differed between the low- and moderate-risk and low- and high-risk groups. The C-indices for all-cause mortality were 0.79 (95% CI, 0.73-0.86) and 0.78 (0.72-0.85) for the BACCS and BACES scores, respectively, and for MAC-specific mortality, 0.87 (0.80-0.93) and 0.84 (0.75-0.92), respectively.Conclusion The BACCS score may serve as a practical alternative to the BACES score in routine clinical settings.

This article presents a reproducible hybrid 2D-3D RGB-D method for estimating the growth axis of Phalaenopsis orchid buds and converting it into a robotic grasp pose. Synchronized RGB images and depth maps are used as input. Instance segmentation first isolates individual buds, and the resulting masks are used for 2D skeleton extraction and mask-constrained 3D point cloud reconstruction. After point cloud denoising, background plane removal, and coordinate normalization, branch-wise Principal Component Analysis estimates local geometric direction candidates. These candidates are fused with skeleton-derived branch topology to determine the final growth axis. The estimated axis is then used to construct a local grasp-oriented coordinate frame and generate a 6-DoF grasp pose in the robot base frame through camera-robot calibration. The method was evaluated on 520 RGB-D samples of Phalaenopsis orchid buds and compared with 2D skeleton-only and global 3D PCA-only baselines. The hybrid method achieved a mean angular error of 5.1° ± 3.3° (mean ± standard deviation), compared with 9.3° ± 4.2° for global 3D PCA and 14.2° ± 6.1° for the 2D skeleton method. It processed each sample in 65 ms on average and achieved a 94.0% grasp success rate (47/50) under controlled laboratory conditions. • The method integrates 2D skeleton topology and 3D point cloud geometry in a reproducible RGB-D processing pipeline. • Branch-wise PCA and skeleton-guided fusion improve growth-axis estimation for multi-branch orchid buds. • The estimated growth axis is converted into a robot-referenced 6-DoF grasp pose for perception-guided manipulation.

Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a chronic inflammatory disease of the bile ducts that can lead to biliary cancer and end-stage liver disease. PSC is associated with inflammatory bowel disease and an altered gut microbiota. However, the molecular mechanisms underlying gut-liver interactions in PSC remain poorly characterized. Here we show that the gut microbiota-derived metabolite imidazole propionate (ImP) is a disease driver in PSC. Individuals with PSC have higher circulating ImP levels than individuals with related conditions, and high ImP levels predict reduced survival in PSC. Cholangiocytes exposed to ImP show activated mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1) signalling and secrete pro-inflammatory and pro-fibrogenic factors. Chronic administration of ImP to mice induces liver inflammation and fibrosis through a p38-dependent mechanism, upstream of mTORC1. We propose that chronic exposure to ImP induces cholangiocyte injury, which alone or in concert with other factors causes clinical worsening of PSC. Therefore, targeting ImP production or signalling may represent therapeutic avenues in PSC.

Bovine mastitis causes significant economic losses in the dairy industry, with excessive inflammation and pyroptosis in its pathogenesis. Honokiol (HKL), a natural compound that may regulate mitochondrial deacetylase Sirtuin 3 (SIRT3)-related signaling, possesses anti-inflammatory properties. This study aimed to investigate whether HKL exerts therapeutic efficacy against lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced pyroptosis and to explore its regulatory mechanism. In vitro, Western blot and ELISA were employed to assess pyroptosis markers and cytokine release in LPS-stimulated bovine mammary epithelial cells (MAC-T) and human breast cancer cells (MCF-7) treated with HKL. Furthermore, SIRT3 knockdown was established via siRNA transfection, followed by the assessment of NLRP3 inflammasome assembly via colocalization. In vivo, HKL efficacy in a mouse mastitis model was confirmed by histopathology and Western blot. HKL significantly inhibited LPS-induced pyroptosis in MAC-T and MCF-7 cells, as evidenced by downregulated expression of NLRP3 inflammasome components (NLRP3, GSDMD, Caspase-1, Caspase-1 p20 and ASC) and reduced secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β and IL-18. Crucially, HKL enhanced SIRT3 expression, whereas SIRT3 silencing largely abrogated the anti-pyroptotic effects of HKL and reactivated NLRP3 inflammasome assembly. Consistent with in vitro findings, HKL administration remarkably alleviated mammary tissue damage and suppressed pyroptosis in the mouse model. In summary, HKL ameliorates pyroptosis via SIRT3-mediated inhibition of the NLRP3 inflammasome. This study supports HKL as a potential precision therapy for bovine mastitis and highlights SIRT3 as a pivotal regulatory target for controlling mammary inflammation.