Search

In this meta-analysis, we explored whether tirofiban could safely improve outcomes when combined with endovascular therapy in acute ischemic stroke with large vessel occlusion. We searched the PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, and The Cochrane Library databases from January 2000 to October 2019 for relevant RCTs/non-RCTs. A total of 13 trials involving 2584 patients, of whom 893 (34.5%) received tirofiban, were ultimately included in the meta-analysis. The results suggested that tirofiban improved patient independence at 90 days (51.2% vs 42.4%; OR 1.26; p =0.02) without increasing the risk of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (OR 1.01; p =0.96) or mortality (OR 0.86; p =0.09). There was no association between the use of tirofiban and recanalization rate (OR 1.35; p =0.11). Subgroup analysis showed that a loading dose followed by maintenance doses, but not a single dose, of tirofiban increased favorable 90-day functional outcomes (OR 1.49; p =0.0008). Moreover, low maintenance doses may be more effective than high maintenance doses (OR 1.41; p =0.02). These results suggest that adjunctive tirofiban treatment administered as a loading dose followed by low-dose maintenance may improve functional outcomes of endovascular therapy in acute ischemic stroke.

The knowledge of the variation of arc current is helpful in improving the breaking performance of a vacuum circuit breaker. As a novel non-intrusive method, arc magnetic performance testing technol...

To compare the safety and efficacy of stenting with drug-eluting stent (DES), stenting with bare mental stent (BMS), and angioplasty alone with drug-coated balloon (DCB) in patients with symptomatic vertebral artery origin stenosis (VAOS) who did not respond to aggressive medical management.We performed a retrospective analysis of consecutive patients with symptomatic VAOS who underwent endovascular treatment between December 2018 and November 2021 at our institution. The main outcome compared were technical success, perioperative complications, residual stenosis, stroke recurrence, progression of residual stenosis, and restenosis.A total of 46 patients were included: 29 were stented with DES, 12 were stented with BMS, and 5 received angioplasty alone with DCB. Technical success was achieved in 100%, 100%, and 60%, respectively (P = 0.008). Residual stenosis was 10.8%, 20.2%, and 51.2%, respectively (P0.001). Perioperative complications occurred only in 1 case in the DES group (P = 1.00). During a mean follow-up of 14.1 months, stroke recurrence rate was 6.9%, 16.7%, and 0% respectively (P = 0.73). Absolute progression of residual stenosis was 10.1%, 34.9%, and -8.0%, respectively (P0.001). Restenosis rate was 6.9%, 50.0%, and 20.0%, respectively (P = 0.007).In patients with symptomatic VAOS who did not respond to aggressive medical management, stenting with DES shows superiority in the lowering the restenosis rate compared with stenting with BMS. Angioplasty alone with DCB is associated with the slowest progression of stenosis in spite of moderate residual stenosis.

Mutation of FBN1 has certain relation with the incidence of cranial cervical artery dissection. Our study reprogrammed human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of a patient with a mutation of FBN1c.1858C T (p. Pro620Ser). The generated iPSCs express pluripotent cell markers with no mycoplasma contamination. Besides, it has normal karyotype and could differentiate into mesoderm, endoderm and neuronal layers. We also identified it has the same specific mutation with our patient.

The mpg-C 3 N 4 /Ag 6 Si 2 O 7 hybrid photocatalyst was successfully prepared via in situ precipitation of Ag 6 Si 2 O 7 on mpg-C 3 N 4 surface using a facile ultrasonic-assisted wet-chemical method and characterized by FE-SEM, TEM, HRTEM, XRD, FTIR, BET, XPS and UV–vis DRS analysis to study its morphology, composition, surface structure, chemical state and light absorption property. The effects of mass percentages of mpg-C 3 N 4 /(mpg-C 3 N 4 +Ag 6 Si 2 O 7 ) on photocatalytic performence of the hybrid photocatalyst were investigated. The results showed that 4% mpg-C 3 N 4 /Ag 6 Si 2 O 7 hybrid exhibited greatly improved photocatalytic activity for different organic dyes and colorless 2,4-dichlorophenol degradation under visible light and the photocatalytic degradation rate of MB by it attains 2.31 times that by sole Ag 6 Si 2 O 7 and 51 times that by sole mpg-C 3 N 4 , and is also much higher than that by mechanical mixture of Ag 6 Si 2 O 7 and mpg-C 3 N 4 with the same mass percentage of mpg-C 3 N 4 , confirming the existence of the synergistic effect of Ag 6 Si 2 O 7 and mpg-C 3 N 4 in 4% mpg-C 3 N 4 /Ag 6 Si 2 O 7 hybrid. High stability after three recycling runs under visible light was also observed. On the basis of the scavengers quenching experiments, PL and EIS determination, the XRD pattern and XPS spectrum of Ag3d in used 4% mpg-C 3 N 4 /Ag 6 Si 2 O 7 hybrid after photocatalytic reaction, the highly efficient photocatalytic performance of 4% mpg-C 3 N 4 /Ag 6 Si 2 O 7 can be clearly elucidated using the mechanism of Z-scheme heterojunction generated between mpg-C 3 N 4 and Ag 6 Si 2 O 7 .

White matter lesions (WMLs) are a type of cerebrovascular disorder accompanied by demyelination and cognitive decline. Dl-3-n-butylphthalide (D1-NBP) is a neuroprotective drug used for the treatment of ischemic cerebrovascular diseases, although the function of DI-NBP on WML is still not clear. This study aims to investigate whether DI-NBP affects cognitive function and ameliorates demyelination in a model of WML. The bilateral carotid artery stenosis (BCAS) mouse model and in vitro brain slice cultures with low glucose and low oxygen (LGLO) treatment were adopted. The Dl-NBP was administered intragastrically for 28 days after BCAS or added at a dose of 50 μm for 48 h after LGLO. Spatial learning and memory were evaluated by an eight-arm radial maze. Demyelination was detected using a TEM. Mitochondrial dynamics were assessed by time-lapse imaging in the cultured brain slices. The function of the synapse was evaluated by the patch clamp technique. In BCAS mice, obvious demyelination and cognitive decline were observed, while both were significantly relieved by a high-dose D1-NBP treatment (100 mg/kg). Along with demyelination, mitochondrial accumulation in the axons was significantly increased in the BCAS mice model, but with the treatment of a high-dose D1-NBP, mitochondrial accumulation was mitigated, and the anterograde/retrograde transport of mitochondria was increased. Following the improved anterograde/retrograde transport of mitochondria, the synapse activity was significantly upregulated while the reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation was remarkably decreased in the cultured brain slices. In addition, we identified syntaphilin (SNPH) as the downstream target of D1-NBP. The overexpression of SNPH mediated the effects of D1-NBP in mitigating axonal mitochondrial accumulation. In conclusion, the D1-NBP treatment significantly relieved demyelination and improved spatial learning and memory in the WML model by promoting mitochondrial dynamics. These neuroprotective effects of D1-NBP were mediated by inhibiting the mitochondrial arching protein, SNPH, which provided a potential therapeutic target for WML.

Trained immunity was recently discovered in innate immune cells and shown to facilitate the clearance of pathogens at the time of occurrence of the second insult. However, it exacerbates several aspects of neuropathologies, and proper therapy is needed to rectify this abnormal immune reaction. Mesenchymal-stem cells (MSCs) exhibit a distinct capability for brain repair but are associated with safety concerns. Extracellular vesicles derived from MSCs are a promising alternative therapy. In this study, we used lipopolysaccharides to activate trained immunity in the brain and examined the therapeutic potential of MSC-derived extracellular vesicles in mitigating the trained-immunity-induced exacerbated neuropathology. We found that MSC-derived extracellular vesicles showed comparable effects to those of MSCs in the mitigation of trained immunity in the brain. Moreover, the administration of MCS-derived extracellular vesicles mitigated the aggregated inflammatory responses in the acute stage of stroke and alleviated the trained-immunity-induced increased load of amyloid-β in APP/PS1 mice. We further investigated the molecular machinery of MSC-derived extracellular vesicles and found that IL-10 is important for the mediation of the therapeutic potential of MSC-derived extracellular vesicles toward the alleviation of trained immunity. Our study indicates that extracellular-vesicle-based regenerative strategies might be useful to mitigate trained immunity in the brain.

Hypoxic-ischemic forms of demyelination, caused by chronic or acute reduction of blood flow in subcortical white matter, is increasingly considered as an important contributor to cognitive decline. However, it remains unclear how hypoxia/ischemia leads to demyelination pathology and no effective drugs clinically. In this study, we aimed to investigate the relationship between axon injuries and demyelination as well as the mechanism in the development of hypoxic-ischemic forms of demyelination. Bilateral common carotid artery stenosis (BCAS) mouse model of whole-brain hypoperfusion was used to observe the pathological changes of hypoperfusion-induced demyelination in vivo, and low glucose-low oxygen (LGLO) treatment in cerebellum slice cultures was used to uncover molecular machinery in vitro. We found that mitochondria were excessively accumulated among axons after BCAS/LGLO, which impaired the retrograde transport of mitochondria for mitophagy and anterograde transport for metabolic supply. This axonal insult occurred prior to demyelination and promoted the progression of demyelination through impairing the paranode stability by mitochondrial ROS. Syntaphilin (SNPH), an axonal specific arching protein of mitochondria, was elevated after hypoperfusion and was responsible for the accumulation of mitochondria. Knockdown of SNPH promoted retrograde transport of mitochondria to alleviate ROS load among axons and enhanced anterograde transport of mito-chondria for synapse signalling, mitigated demyelination and retrieved cognitive function. Our results uncovered a distinctive pathological characteristic of hypoperfusion-induced demye-lination and clarified SNPH as a promising target in the treatment of hypoxic-ischemic forms of demyelination.

To construct composite photocatalysts with satisfactory visible light response, excellent redox ability, high electron-hole separation efficiency and good stability, herein, a new Bi2O3/g-C3N4/Ag6Si2O7 ternary photocatalyst was prepared employing a simple method via in situ deposition of Ag6Si2O7 on Bi2O3/g-C3N4 composite surface. XRD, XPS, EDS, TEM, HRTEM, FESEM, UV–vis DRS, FTIR, ESR, PL and EIS determination were used characterized the ternary composite. The influences of mass ratios of (Bi2O3 + g-C3N4)/Ag6Si2O7 on photocatalytic performance under visible light were investigated. Bi2O3/g-C3N4/Ag6Si2O7 (1:25.5) was found to have highly efficient photocatalytic performance for different dyes and colorless organic contaminants. The photocatalytic apparent rate constant for methylene blue (MB) attained 61.57, 49.52, 1.87, 27.78, 1.44, 1.84 and 2.20 times that by sole Bi2O3, g-C3N4, Ag6Si2O7, binary composite Bi2O3/g-C3N4, g-C3N4/Ag6Si2O7, Bi2O3/Ag6Si2O7, and physical mixture of Bi2O3/g-C3N4 and Ag6Si2O7 with the same mass ratio of (Bi2O3 + g-C3N4)/Ag6Si2O7, respectively. The composite kept good activity after three recycling runs. The photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline (TC) and rhodamine B (RhB) was also obviously improved. The excellent photocatalytic performance and efficient separation process of photogenerated carriers could be well elucidated by dual Z-scheme mechanism. The development of dual Z-scheme Ag6Si2O7 based composite has great significance for efficient removal of organic contaminants.

Solidification experiment of Mg-4Y-3Nd-1.2Al (wt%) alloy cast in a step-like sand-mold casting shows that a slow cooling rather than a fast cooling leads to grain refinement during solidification with in-situ formed nucleant particles (Al2RE) in molten melt. A two-dimensional cellular automaton (CA) model is adopted to fundamentally understand the mechanism of grain refinement. Conservation equation of energy is solved at macro-scale. The generated thermal history serves as input for the CA simulation. The model predictions are verified against the experiment. A high cooling rate leads to fast dendrite growth and solute enrichment in the interdendritic region. The nucleant particles, in-situ formed under the fast cooling condition, have small sizes. A larger number of small-sized particles are suppressed because they do not experience enough constitutional undercooling to nucleate. A critical particle size exists, above which the grain refinement becomes less sensitive to the cooling rate measured in the experiment. The simulation of one particle transported to the interdendritic area shows it is more difficult for this particle to develop under the faster cooling condition. We expect this fundamental understanding of the physics of cooling rate for the grain refinement would have implications on future complex magnesium alloy designs as well as solidification process control.

Trace organic pollutants in water can potentially and persistently impart destructive effects on human body and it is difficult to remove them by conventional treatment process owing to their low concentration. Herein, considering the importance and difficulty, a novel atomically Pt implanted nanoporous TiO2 film was prepared using a facile immersion and reduction method and confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectra (XPS), field-emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), aberration-corrected high-angle annual dark-filed scanning transmission electron microscopy (HAADF-STEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) and extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS). The platinum single-atom photocatalyst exhibited considerable performance and good stability for vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) and ultraviolet (UV) photocatalytic degradation of ethenzamide, one of the typical trace organic pollutants in water, and the removal rate of ethenzamide reached 94.52% and 100% under VUV irradiation when residence time was only 0.5 min and its initial concentrations were 500 ppb and 100 ppb, respectively. The corresponding photocatalytic degradation ratios were 2.19 and 3.98 times those by pristine nanoporous TiO2 film, respectively and energy consumption was only 0.46 kW·h/m3, which was about 28% that by pristine nanoporous TiO2 film. 84.44% of ethenzamide was degraded under UV irradiation when the initial ethenzamide concentration was 500 ppb and residence time was 24 min. Mass transfer resistance coming from low concentration was effectively overcome owing to eddy diffusion accelerated by the nanopores on the surface of TiO2 film and molecular diffusion of trace pollutants promoted by Pt single atoms. The development of the platinum single-atom photocatalyst has great significance for highly efficient removal of trace organic pollutants in water.

We have fabricated Ni0.81Fe0.19 films with (Ni0.81Fe0.19)1−xCrx films as underlayers by dc magnetron sputtering, the results show that larger anisotropic magnetoresistance (ΔR/R) values of Ni0.81Fe0.19 films are observed using the underlayers with Cr concentration of ∼36 at.% at an optimum underlayer thickness of ∼4.4 nm, the maximum AMR value is 3.35%. The results of atomic force microscope (AFM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) show that the ΔR/R enhancement is attributed to the formation of large average grain size and the strong(111) texture in the Ni0.81Fe0.19 films.

The ficolin-mediated complement pathway plays an important role in vertebrate immunity, but it is not clear whether this pathway exists in invertebrates. Here we identified homologs of ficolin pathway components from the cephalochordate amphioxus and investigated whether they had been co-opted into a functional ficolin pathway. Four of these homologs, ficolin FCN1, serine protease MASP1 and MASP3, and complement component C3, were highly expressed in mucosal tissues and gonads, and were significantly up-regulated following bacterial infection. Recombinant FCN1 could induce hemagglutination, discriminate among sugar components, and specifically recognize and aggregate several bacteria (especially Gram-positive strains) without showing bactericidal activity. This suggested that FCN1 is a dedicated pattern-recognition receptor. Recombinant serine protease MASP1/3 formed complexes with recombinant FCN1 and facilitated the activation of native C3 protein in amphioxus humoral fluid, in which C3 acted as an immune effector. We conclude that amphioxus have developed a functional ficolin-complement pathway. Because ficolin pathway components have not been reported in non-chordate species, our findings supported the idea that this pathway may represent a chordate-specific innovation in the evolution of the complement system.

We present results on silicon wafer surface oxidation observed during low energy high dose BF2+ implantation. Experiments were performed on single‐crystal and pre‐amorphized silicon wafers that help elucidate the surface structure impact on boron distribution profiles and dose retention. Implanters with different architectures were compared including both single wafer and batch systems. It was found that the oxidation rate depends on implanter type and design, and that the surface oxide thickness is a linear function of implantation dose and time. Surface oxidation is significantly higher for batch systems compared to single wafer tools. This is due primarily to the significantly lower beam duty cycle on the batch implanter. The oxide thicknesses estimated from SIMS oxygen profiles are in agreement with ellipsometry measurements after spike annealing, and show a similar difference between single wafer and batch implanters. SIMS boron distribution profiles after implantation were compared and used to calculate retained dose. In the medium dose range (≤3×1014 at/cm2) the profiles from different implanters are well matched and the dose retention is close to 100%. For the higher dose range (≥3×1015 at/cm2) retention for the batch implanter is significantly less than the single wafer tool and depends on the wafer surface structure. A higher oxidation rate results in lower dopant activation and higher Rs value after spike annealing. For high implantation doses the single wafer system allows much higher dose retention and better boron activation after annealing.

Cloud computing has been the most prevalent technology in the past few years and many prominent enterprises have prompted their cloud systems, preparing for the coming age of cloud computing. We can predict that the mobile area will take on a boom with the advent of this new concept. While due to the inherent characteristics of mobile environment, challenges like mobility, heterogeneity and low band-width will hinder the advancement of this incorporation. In this paper we will introduce a new concept and an abstraction derived from mobile agent-Universal Mobile Service Cell to shield the unequivalence of heterogeneous distributed systems between mobile devices and the cloud. Then scheduling the cell plays a key role in the mobile cloud computing. Here we adopt the Genetic Algorithm to meet this challenge. This paper is aimed at proposing a whole solution from the architecture to the algorithm.