The outbreak of the novel Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) that emerged in Wuhan, China, towards the end of 2019 quickly spread around the world following predicted patterns of high connectivity, with a speed that is much higher compared with other emerging infectious diseases such as Ebola or Zika. ^1–3 Swift and decisive measures in China to contain the outbreak in Wuhan included (i) Fangcang shelter hospitals to isolate all cases, even mild cases; ⁴ (ii) lockdown; ⁵ (iii) prolonged social distancing period and extension of Lunar New Year holiday; (iv) active case finding and contact tracing and (v) effective public health messaging to change people’s behaviors. ^{6, 7} By mid-February, new cases were falling every day, suggesting that containment is feasible. By 13 March 2020, the number of newly imported COVID-19 cases in China exceeded the number of new indigenous cases in China for the first time. By end March, Europe was the new epicenter for the COVID-19 pandemic, followed by the USA, Brazil and Russia by end May 2020, while China did not see any new locally acquired cases for more than 50 days.

Early-life stress disrupts central nervous system development and increases the risk of neuropsychiatric disorder in offspring based on rodent studies. Maternal sleep deprivation (MSD) in rodents has also been associated with depression and cognitive decline in adult offspring. However, it is not known whether these issues persist into old age. Environmental enrichment is a non-pharmacological intervention with proven benefits in improving depression and cognitive impairment; however, it is unclear whether these benefits hold for aging mice following MSD exposure. The aim of this study was to explore the effects of MSD on depression and cognition in elderly offspring CD-1 mice and to determine whether long-term environmental enrichment could alleviate these effects by improving neuroinflammation and synaptic plasticity. The offspring mice subjected to MSD were randomly assigned to either a standard environment or an enriched environment. At 18 months of age, the forced swimming and tail suspension tests were used to evaluated depression-like behaviors, and the Morris water maze test was used to evaluate cognitive function. The expression levels of hippocampal proinflammatory cytokines and synaptic plasticity-associated proteins were also measured. MSD increased depression-like behaviors and impaired cognition function in aging CD-1 offspring mice. These effects were accompanied by upregulated interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-6, and tumor necrosis factor-α expression, and downregulated brain-derived neurotrophic factor, tyrosine kinase receptor B, postsynaptic density-95, and synaptophysin expression in the hippocampus. All of these changes were reversed by long-term exposure to an enriched environment. These findings suggest that MSD exerts long-term effects on the behaviors of offspring in mice, leading to depression and cognitive impairment in older age. Importantly, long-term environmental enrichment could counteract the behavior difficulties induced by MSD through improving hippocampal proinflammatory cytokines and synaptic plasticity-associated proteins.

Objectives. The necessity to develop a method for prognostication and to identify novel biomarkers for personalized medicine in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) cannot be overstated. Recently, pathomics, which relies on quantitative analysis of medical imaging, has come to the forefront. CXCL8, an essential inflammatory cytokine, has been shown to correlate with overall survival (OS). This study examined the relationship between CXCL8 mRNA expression and pathomics features and aimed to explore the biological underpinnings of CXCL8.Methods. Clinical information and transcripts per million mRNA sequencing data were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)-HNSCC dataset. We identified correlations between CXCL8 mRNA expression and patient survival rates using a Kaplan-Meier survival curve. A retrospective analysis of 313 samples diagnosed with HNSCC in the TCGA database was conducted. Pathomics features were extracted from hematoxylin and eosin–stained images, and then the minimum redundancy maximum relevance, with recursive feature elimination (mRMR-RFE) method was applied, followed by screening with the logistic regression algorithm.Results. Kaplan-Meier curves indicated that high expression of CXCL8 was significantly associated with decreased OS. The logistic regression pathomics model incorporated 16 radiomics features identified by the mRMR-RFE method in the training set and demonstrated strong performance in the testing set. Calibration plots showed that the probability of high gene expression predicted by the pathomics model was in good agreement with actual observations, suggesting the model’s high clinical applicability.Conclusion. The pathomics model of CXCL8 mRNA expression serves as an effective tool for predicting prognosis in patients with HNSCC and can aid in clinical decision-making. Elevated levels of CXCL8 expression may lead to reduced DNA damage and are associated with a pro-inflammatory tumor microenvironment, offering a potential therapeutic target.

Objectives: This qualitative study aimed to explore the lived experiences, challenges, and perceptions of nurses regarding disaster preparedness in non–first-tier (inland) cities in China. Building upon our previous quantitative findings, we sought to understand the psychological, professional, and organizational factors that influence nurses’ disaster response capabilities in resource-limited settings. Methods: A descriptive phenomenological approach was employed. Semistructured in-depth interviews were conducted with 12 nurses from four comprehensive hospitals at or above the second level in Yongcheng City, Henan Province, China, between September and December 2023. Participants were purposively selected based on their involvement in disaster response activities. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using Colaizzi’s 7-step method. Results: Five major themes emerged from the analysis: (1) Psychological Stress and Emotional Adaptation, (2) Disaster Emergency Response Capacity and Management, (3) Communication and Collaboration, (4) Challenges in Disaster Nursing Capacity Development, and (5) Impact of Disaster Relief Participation. Key findings revealed that nurses experienced significant psychological pressure during disaster response, struggled with limited specialized training opportunities, faced challenges in team coordination, and identified institutional barriers to disaster preparedness enhancement. Despite these challenges, participants demonstrated strong professional commitment and developed personal coping strategies. Conclusions: This study provides critical insights into the lived experiences of nurses during disaster response in Chinese non–first-tier cities. The findings highlight the need for systematic psychological support mechanisms, specialized disaster nursing training programs tailored to local contexts, enhanced interhospital collaboration networks, and stronger institutional commitment to disaster preparedness. These insights complement our previous quantitative findings and offer a comprehensive foundation for developing targeted interventions to enhance disaster nursing capabilities in resource-limited settings.

Objectives: Compared with first-tier cities in China that are of abundant funds and resources like legions of high-level hospitals, the degree of nurses’ disaster nursing preparedness in non-first-tier cities (inland) is relatively lower. For example, nurses’ knowledge reserve of specific disasters is not comprehensive enough. And nurses are diffident when it comes to the skills of handling disaster rescue. Furthermore, their understanding of the roles to take in disaster coordination management is ambiguous. Conquering these challenges could be conducive to the improvement of local medical staffs’ confidence and capabilities in disaster relief. Consequently, the objective of this research is to probe for approaches of improving the strategies of disaster nursing in Chinese small cities. Methods: In order to ascertain the factors that influence disaster preparedness, a cross-sectional study with SPSS 25.0 data analysis method is adopted. The sample of the study is nursing personnel from 4 comprehensive hospitals at or above the second level in Yongcheng, Henan Province, China, as nurses are first-line responders in disasters and pandemics and the largest group in disaster rescue. Results: From 813 distributed questionnaires, 784 completed questionnaires were returned, for a response rate of 96.43%. The total average score of the Disaster Preparedness Evaluation Tool is 146.76 ± 34.98, and the average score of all the entries is 3.26 ± 0.45, indicating moderate performance. The results indicate that age affects post disaster management ( P < 0.05), meaning that as age increases, the scores also tend to be higher. Work experience, professional titles, disaster relief experience, and disaster training significantly differ in terms of knowledge, skills, post disaster management, and total scores (P < 0.01). The result of multivariate analysis indicates that titles, disaster relief experiences, and disaster training are the main factors affecting the disaster preparedness of nurses in Chinese non-first-tier (inland) cities( P < 0.05). Conclusions: For the sake of upgrading the efficiency of disaster nursing preparedness in Chinese non-first-tier (inland) cities with limited funds and resources, it is very important to formulate training and education methods that are suitable for the local area, conduct characteristic simulation exercises, and expand experience exchange between hospitals. It’s certain that the local government will also play an important role in coordinating and organizing the division of labor, resource allocation, and management of hospitals at all levels in different phases of disasters, which can help nursing staff have a clearer understanding of their roles when preparing for disasters.