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The aim of the present study was to investigate the value of parameters related to right heart function combined with N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) in acute radiation-induced right heart injury.Seventy patients who received chest radiotherapy (RT) in the RT department of our hospital between September 2015 and March 2019 were included in the study.Of the included 70 patients, 19, 32, 4, and 15 had thoracic esophageal cancer, central lung cancer, thymoma, and left breast cancer, respectively. The Tei index, tricuspid annular displacement, right ventricular ejection fraction, and NT-proBNP of the 70 patients were measured 1 week before RT, at weeks 2 and 4 during RT, and 4 weeks after RT. Differences in the Tei index, the tricuspid annular displacement, and NT-proBNP were significant (P0.01, P0.05, and P0.05, respectively). The Tei index significantly increased in the second week of RT. Tricuspid annular displacement decreased significantly 4 weeks after RT. NT-proBNP reached its peak value in the fourth week of RT. However, there was no significant difference in right ventricular ejection fraction (P0.05).The Tei index of the right ventricle can be used as a sensitive indicator for the early detection of right heart injury after RT for thoracic tumors. Additionally, tricuspid annular displacement can be used as an index for the early detection of right ventricular damage after RT for thoracic tumors. However, right ventricular ejection fraction showed no significant change in the early stage of right heart damage after RT. Finally, it is important to consider NT-proBNP for the detection of acute radiation-induced heart injury. In acute radiation-induced right heart injury, the combined application of right ventricular Tei index, tricuspid annular displacement, and NT-proBNP is clinically relevant.

Multiple SARS-CoV-2 variants have widely spread around the globe since the end of 2020, all carrying the common N501Y mutation at the receptor binding motif of the viral-surface spike protein. Experimental studies show that N501Y enhances viral binding to human angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and confers moderate resistance to certain monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). A mechanistic understanding of this mutation remains elusive. In this study, we used molecular dynamics simulation and alchemical free energy calculations, to systematically evaluate the effects of this prominent substitution on recognizing the host receptor ACE2 and different types of neutralizing mAbs. Our results suggest that this mutation alters the delicate local interaction with its binding partners: Y501 enhances local hydrophobicity, strengthens interaction with neighbouring K353 and Y41, and yields a ΔΔGbinding value of about −0.9 kcal mol−1 to human ACE2, in quantitative agreement with the experimental measurement. Yet, N501Y diminishes the binding to cat ACE2 due to steric clash, indicating distinct transmissibility in different species. Meanwhile, the bulky Y501 reduces the binding to the antibody CB6 by about 4 folds, confirming recent experimental results. Intriguingly, the N501Y substitution fuses a larger hydrophobic core and sensitizes the binding to H014, which makes the viral strain more vulnerable to this typical antibody. The present study portraits the chemical nature of protein–protein interaction due to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein mutation at atomic resolution and enlightens future investigations of other variants and vaccine design.

Diesel particulate filter is an effective device to reduce diesel particulate emission. The particles in diesel particulate filter are usually affected by the aging of high-temperature exhaust gas before the regeneration process. In order to investigate the effect of aging conditions on the soot oxidation process, the effect of aging temperature and aging time on the oxidation process of carbon black (Printex-U, PU) and the PU/catalyst/ash mixture are studied by thermogravimetric analysis. The aging PU particles have lower starting temperature, peaking temperature, ending temperature, and activation energy. Compared with the particles without aging, the PU particles with a 400 °C aging temperature and 20 h aging time are able to reduce the activation energy from 191.2 to 158 kJ/mol. Low aging temperatures (200–300 °C) and the catalyst have a certain synergistic effect on the improvement of PU oxidation activity. The PU/CeO2 mixture with a 300 °C aging temperature and 20 h aging time decreases the activation energy from 178.4 to the lowest 113.6 kJ/mol. The addition of CaSO4 in PU particles cannot stop the improvement of its oxidation activity by aging, but it reduces the effect of aging. This work is helpful to reveal the mechanism of aging on PU and the PU/catalyst/ash mixture in air environment.

In order to provide the theorical basis for regeneration strategy and solid catalytic reaction of catalytic diesel particulate filter (CDPF), the effects of ash composition and ash stack heights on soot deposition and oxidation processes in CDPF are investigated. The MgO ash nanoparticles have an inert effect on soot oxidation process through a series of thermogravimetric experiments. Based on the visualized single-channel bench, the influence of ash stack height on the soot deposition and regeneration processes is studied. The deposition process of soot particles on the CDPF slice without ash is divided into three stages, including depth filtration, transitional filtration and soot cake formation stages. When the ash stack height is 15 μm, there are only transitional filtration and soot cake formation stages. Then, only soot cake formation stage remains when the height increases to 30 μm. During the regeneration process, the pressure drop mainly has three linear decline stages, the oxidation rates of which are 0.77, 1.78 and 0.54 Pa/s, respectively. When the ash stack height increases from 0 to 30 μm, the oxidation rate of soot layer during Ⅱ-regeneration stage decreases from 1.78 to 0.51 Pa/s. The oxidation rate is 0.51 Pa/s at 30 μm ash stack height, which is close to the 0.55 Pa/s oxidation rate of the clean DPF sample. Consequently, around 30 μm ash stack height is the limit distance of back-diffusion of active oxygen molecules, which leads to the failure of the CDPF catalytic layer.

Advanced oxidation processes are widely applied to removal of persistent toxic substances from wastewater by hydroxyl radicals (·OH), which is generated from hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) decomposition. However, their practical applications have been hampered by many strict conditions, such as iron sludge, rigid pH condition, large doses of hydrogen peroxide and Fe2+, etc. Herein, a magnetically recyclable Fe3O4@polydopamine (Fe3O4@PDA) core-shell nanocomposite was fabricated. As an excellent reducing agent, it can convert Fe3+ to Fe2+. Combined with the coordination of polydopamine and ferric ions, the production of iron sludge is inhibited. The minimum concentration of hydrogen peroxide (0.2 mmol/L and Fe2+ (0.18 mmol/L)) is 150-fold and 100-fold lower than that of previous reports, respectively. It also exhibits excellent degradation performance over a wide pH range from 3.0 to 9.0. Even after the tenth recycling, it still achieves over 99% degradation efficiency with the total organic carbon degradation rate of 80%, which is environmentally benign and has a large economic advantage. This discovery paves a way for extensive practical application of advanced oxidation processes, especially in environmental remediation.

Cervical cancer, as the second leading cause of death in women malignant tumor, is not optimistic about survival rate and late recurrence rate. RCAN3 has been reported to function in a variety of diseases, but its relationship with cervical cancer has not been reported. This study aimed to investigate whether RCAN3 contributes to the development of cervical cancer and its mechanism. RCAN3 expression was analyzed in 306 cervical cancer tissues and 13 normal healthy tissues from TCGA and GTEX databases. Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox regression analysis were carried out to assess the potential function of RCAN3. Subsequently, the upstream regulatory miRNA of RCAN3 was predicted by bioinformatics and confirmed using dual luciferase reporter assay. CCK-8, colony formation assay, transwell assay were used for functional analysis of miR-145/RCAN3 axis in vitro. The results showed that RCAN3 was highly expressed in cervical cancer tissues, leading to poor prognosis, and could be used as a prognostic factor for cervical cancer. MiR-145 directly targeted RCAN3, which was lowly expressed in cervical cancer tissues and cell lines, and the higher the miR-145 expression, the longer the survival time of patients. Finally, from the functional experiments results we can see that miR-145 can inhibit the proliferation, migration and invasion of cervical cancer cells, but overexpression of RCAN3 can reverse miR-145-mediated inhibition. To sum up, miR-145/RCAN3 axis may serve as a potential therapeutic target to regulate the progression of cervical cancer.

Background: Subjective Cognitive Decline (SCD) is the early preclinical stage of Alzheimer's Disease (AD). Previous study provided an invaluable contribution by showing that a tactile angle discrimination system can be used to distinguish between healthy older individuals and patients with mild cognitive impairment and AD. However, that study paid little attention to the relationship between tactile angle discrimination and SCD. Therefore, a means of differentiating Normal Controls (NCs), elderly subjects with SCD, patients with amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI), and AD is urgently needed. Methods: In the present study, we developed a novel tactile discrimination device that uses angle stimulation applied to the index finger pad to identify very small differences in angle discrimination between the NC (n = 30), SCD (n = 30), aMCI (n = 30), and AD (n = 30) groups. Using a three-alternative forced-choice and staircase method, we analyzed the average accuracy and threshold of angle discrimination. Results: We found that accuracy significantly decreased while thresholds of angle discrimination increased in the groups in the following order: NC, SCD, aMCI, and AD. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve also indicated that the tactile angle discrimination threshold was better than Mini-Mental State Examination scores in distinguishing NC individuals and SCD patients. Conclusion: These findings emphasize the importance of tactile working memory dysfunction in explaining the cognitive decline in angle discrimination that occurs in SCD to AD patients and offer further insight into the very early detection of subjects with AD.

miR-186-3p acts as a tumor suppressor in various cancers. This study aimed to explore the expression levels of miR-186-3p and its role in cervical cancer. We analyzed the effects of miR-186-3p and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1) on the proliferation, invasion, and apoptosis of cervical cancer cells in vitro by regulating the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway. In cervical cancer tissues and cells, miR-186-3p was downregulated, and IGF1 was upregulated. In addition, miR-186-3p inhibited cell proliferation and invasion and enhanced apoptosis of cervical cancer cells. Moreover, our results showed that miR-186-3p inversely regulated the mRNA expression of IGF1 through direct contact. Knockdown of IGF1 reversed the results of miR-186-3p inhibitor in cervical cancer cells. In addition, the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway was activated by the miR-186-3p inhibitor, although partially arrested by IGF1 knockdown. The PI3K/Akt signaling pathway inhibitor suppressed miR-186-3p inhibitor-stimulated cell proliferation in cervical cancer. In conclusion, miR-186-3p inhibits tumorigenesis of cervical cancer by repressing IGF1, which inactivates the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, implicating miR-186-3p as a potential new target for the treatment of cervical cancer.

Recent research has indicated that the mismatch negativity (MMN) is elicited in response to a discernible small change of a somatosensory stimulus applied on the hand. However, the neural mechanism for detecting small change of somatosensory stimulus remains unknown. In the present study, we developed a novel pressure stimulation device using air jet applied on the index finger pad, and determined the just noticeable differences (JNDs) of pressure discrimination for each subject. Using the deviant-standard-reversed oddball paradigm, we analyzed the average dynamic changes in MMN amplitude and changes of evoked spectral power. We found a clear MMN component at the frontal and central regions at 100–300 msec after deviant stimulus presentation. Statistical tests showed that theta band activity played pivotal roles in the generation of the MMN elicited by a change in somatosensory pressure stimulation. Our results indicate that the somatosensory discriminatory process reflected on MMN is accompanied by phase-locked oscillation at the theta frequency.

Background Mounting evidence in the cancer literature suggests that microRNAs (miRNAs) influence the progression of human cancer cells by targeting protein-coding genes. How insulin-like growth factor 1(IGF1) and miR-186-3p contribute to the development of cervical cancer (CC) remains unclear. This study examined the regulatory roles of miR-186-3p and IGF1 in CC development. Methods Gene expression levels were determined by qRT-PCR. Proliferation, migration, and apoptosis of CC and normal cells were determined by MTT, Transwell, and caspase-3 activity assays, respectively. Dual-luciferase reporter activity and RNA pull-down assays were performed to identify the target gene of miR-186-3p. Results IGF1 was the target of miR-186-3p. The expression of miR-186-3p inhibited cell proliferation and migration abilities of CC cell lines, but induced the apoptosis rate of CC cells. IGF1 could restore the inhibitory effects of miR-186-3p on the proliferation, migration, and apoptosis abilities of CC cells. Experimental results revealed that miR-186-3p could inhibit IGF1 expression, thereby reducing the viability of CC cells. Conclusions The data suggest that targeting of IGF1 by miR-186-3p could be crucial in regulating the progression of CC.

The present study examined the effect of microRNA (miRNA/miR)-186-3p and its target gene, minichromosome maintenance complex component 2 (MCM2), on cervical cancer. Cervical cancer tissues and corresponding normal tissues were collected from 48 patients and bioinformatics analysis was performed to identify the differentially expressed genes in cervical cancer. TargetScan and TarBase were used to identify miRNAs, and reverse transcription-quantitative PCR was conducted to detect and evaluate mRNA expression levels. Additionally, MTT and 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine assays were performed to examine cell proliferation. Cell adhesion, cell cycle distribution and apoptosis were assessed using cell adhesion, flow cytometry and caspase-3/7 activity assays, respectively. The results revealed that miR-186-3p expression was downregulated in cervical cancer tissues and cells, and it negatively regulated MCM2 expression by directly targeting its 3′ untranslated region in cervical cancer. Furthermore, MCM2 facilitated cell proliferation and inhibited cell apoptosis, which were reversed by upregulation of miR-186-3p expression. Collectively, the present study suggested that MCM2 and its negative regulator, miR-186-3p, regulate cervical cancer progression.

Numerical simulation of the proximal femur could provide an effective approach to predict the femoral fracture risk. However, most of the extant numerical simulations are static simulations, which cannot accurately reflect the dynamic growth process of cracks. In this study, the dynamic simulation by incremental element deletion (IED) based finite element analysis (FEA) was developed on femur fracture analysis and compared with two widly-used approaches (XFEM and USDFLD). It was also evaluated using the in-vitro loading test. Moreover, the effects of different impact speeds, fall postures, and cortical thicknesses on fracture types and mechanical responses were investigated. Impact speeds cause different crack propagation behaviors of the femoral neck. Falling forward was less likely to cause proximal femoral fracture compared with falling backward. The model with thin cortical bone was prone to fracture. These provides a theoretical basis and method for predicting femoral fracture risk in the elderly.

Objectives. To investigate the performance of spleen stiffness (SS) by using two-dimensional shear-wave elastography (2D-SWE) for assessing the severity of gastroesophageal varices (GEVs) after transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS). Methods. 102 eligible patients were categorized as in the post-TIPS short-term ( n = 69 ) and long-term ( n = 38 ) follow-up groups. The performance of SS by using 2D-SWE for evaluating the severity of GEVs was compared with liver stiffness (LS), spleen stiffness-to-liver stiffness ratio (SS/LS), liver stiffness spleen-diameter-to-platelet-ratio score (LSPS), portal hypertension (PH) risk score, platelet count-to-spleen diameter ratio (PSR), and varices risk score by using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and DeLong test. Results. In the post-TIPS short-term follow-up group, area under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) of SS were 0.585 for mild ( cutoff value = 30.3 kPa), 0.655 for moderate ( cutoff value = 30.6 kPa), and 0.739 for severe ( cutoff value = 31.9 kPa) GEVs, which were higher than other parameters for severe GEVs. AUCs of SS were lower than other parameters for mild and moderate GEVs, but no difference was found ( p > 0.05 ). In the post-TIPS long-term follow-up group, AUCs of SS were 0.778 for mild ( cutoff value = 28.9 kPa), 0.82 for moderate ( cutoff value = 29.9 kPa), and 0.824 for severe ( cutoff value = 37.7 kPa) GEVs, which were higher than other parameters except for severe GEVs. AUC of SS was lower than other parameters for severe GEVs, but no significant difference was found ( p > 0.05 ). Conclusion. SS is an effective noninvasive tool to predict GEV severity during the post-TIPS follow-up.

Auditory sensory memory indexed by mismatch negativity has been broadly studied over the past century, but far less attention has been directed to tactile sensory memory. To investigate whether tactile sensory memory is affected by attention, we recorded somatosensory mismatch negativity (sMMN) from 24 healthy adults in two experiments to distinguish sustained attention from non-sustained attention. Using the roving somatosensory oddball paradigm, we analyzed the average dynamic changes in the amplitude and latency of sMMN amplitude and found a clear sMMN component at the central region at a 100–300 ms interval. The sMMN amplitude, which indexes the early detection of tactile stimuli with the sensory memory trace, was larger in the tactile attentional task. Additionally, the sMMN latency increased with the increasing visual attentional load, which indicates a decay of tactile sensory memory. Our results indicate that the more attention resources are allocated for a tactile sensation, the more favorable it is to the generation of tactile sensory memory.

Water and sediment are two of the most essential elements in estuaries. Their product, suspended sediment concentration (SSC), is involved in hydrology, geomorphology and ecology. This study was focused on the spatial and temporal variations of SSC in the Yangtze Estuary under new situations after the closure of ~50,000 dams in the Yangtze basin, including the Three Gorges Dam (TGD) in 2003. It was found that the SSC first exhibited an increasing and then a decreasing trend longitudinally from Xuliujing Station to the outer estuary with the Turbidity Maximum Zone located in the mouth bar area. Vertically, the SSC in the bottom layers averaged 0.96 kg/m3, about 2.4 times larger than the surface layers (0.40 kg/m3). During spring tides, the SSCs were always higher than those in neap tides, which was fit for the cognition law. As for the seasonal variations in the North Branch and mouth bar area, the SSCs in the dry season were higher than those in the flood season, while in the upper reach of the South Branch and outer estuary, the seasonal variation of SSCs reversed. This phenomenon primarily reflected the competition of riverine sediment flux and local resuspended sediment flux by wind-induced waves. As for the interannual changes, the SSCs demonstrated overall fluctuant downward trends, determined by riverine sediment flux and influenced by waves. This study revealed the new situation of SSC and can be a reference for other related researches in the Yangtze Estuary.

Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) is highly expressed in the central nervous system including the olfactory epithelium (OE) and olfactory bulb (OB). ApoE induction is beneficial for Alzheimer's disease (AD) treatment, whereas ApoE deficiency results in impaired olfaction, but the timing and underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms of these effects remain unclear. Uncovering the mechanisms underlying olfactory dysfunction in ApoE-deficient mice might provide a potential avenue for the early diagnosis of AD. We used an ApoE knockout (ApoE−/−) mouse model and a cookie-finding test to reveal an olfactory deficit in 3- to 5-month-old, but not 1- to 2-month-old, ApoE−/− mice. Electrophysiological experiments indicated a significant decline in the electroolfactogram (EOG) amplitude, which was associated with an increase in rise time in ApoE−/− mice. Knockout mice also exhibited compromised olfactory adaptation, as well as a reduced number of mature olfactory sensory neurons in the OE. Local field potential recording in the OB showed that gamma oscillation power was enhanced, which might be attributed to an increase in GABAergic inhibition mediated by parvalbumin-expressing (PV) interneurons. This study demonstrates the critical involvement of ApoE in olfactory information processing in the OE and OB. ApoE deficiency results in olfaction deficits in mice as young as 3 months old, which has implications for AD pathogenesis.

Humans exhibit a remarkable ability to discriminate variations in object volume based on natural haptic perception. The discrimination thresholds for the haptic volume perception of the whole hand are well known, but the discrimination thresholds for haptic volume perception of fingers and phalanges are still unknown. In the present study, two psychophysical experiments were performed to investigate haptic volume perception in various fingers and phalanges. The configurations of both experiments were completely dependent on haptic volume perception from the fingers and phalanges. The participants were asked to blindly discriminate the volume variation of regular solid objects in a random order by using the distal phalanx, medial phalanx, and proximal phalanx of their index finger, middle finger, ring finger, and little finger. The discrimination threshold of haptic volume perception gradually decreases from the little finger to the index finger as well as from the proximal phalanx to the distal phalanx. Overall, both the shape of the target and the part of the finger in contact with the target significantly influence the precision of haptic perception of volume. This substantial data set provides detailed and compelling perspectives on the haptic system, including for discrimination of the spatial size of objects and for performing more general perceptual processes.

Carthamus tinctorius L., or safflower, is an annual herbaceous crop belonging to the family Asteraceae, which is cultivated throughout China and used as a traditional Chinese medicine. Our previous study revealed anti-Parkinson's disease effects of an isolated standardized safflower flavonoid extract (SAFE). The purpose of this study is to evaluate the potential sub-chronic toxicity of SAFE. Male and female Sprague Dawley rats received three doses of SAFE (100, 300, and 500 mg/kg) q.d. by gavage for four weeks. Body weights were measured during the experiment, and blood samples were collected once per week for hematological and serum biochemical parameters. Major organs were examined after execution and histopathological analyses were performed. Body weight gain in the administration groups showed no decline compared to the control group. However, there were changes in values of aspartate transaminase (p < 0.05), alanine transaminase (p < 0.05), and blood glucose (p < 0.05) between treatments. SAFE influenced parameters related to platelets in rats receiving SAFE for both sexes under different dosages (p < 0.05). No histopathological changes were observed. SAFE might have influence on conglomeration of platelets, transaminases, and blood glucose. SAFE caused no significant toxicity and further studies may be needed to ensure safety of SAFE.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/ https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-020-02211-y

Glaucoma filtration surgery (GFS) is a classic surgical method used to treat glaucoma, the second leading cause of blindness. Scar formation caused by excessive Tenon's capsule fibroblast activation leads to surgical failure. However, the mechanism underlying this activation is largely unknown. In this study, we first isolated primary human Tenon's capsule fibroblasts (HTFs) and found that TGF-β promoted the viability, proliferation and extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition of HTFs. Then, we showed that TGF-β promoted the expression of H19 in HTFs and that suppression of H19 inhibited the effect of TGF-β on HTFs. Furthermore, we revealed that H19 exerted its effects by interacting with miR-200a in TGF-β-treated HTFs. Additionally, we showed that β-catenin was a target of miR-200a in TGF-β-treated HTFs. We also demonstrated that H19 acted by modulating the H19/miR-200a/β-catenin regulatory axis in TGF-β-treated HTFs. Ultimately, we found that the components of the H19/miR-200a/β-catenin regulatory axis were aberrantly expressed in a rat model of GFS. Our results show that H19 indeed acts by modulating β-catenin expression via miR-200a in TGF-β-treated HTFs, thus providing a novel rationale for the development of H19-based strategies to attenuate scar formation after GFS.

NaHCO3 was used as a novel activator to produce cassava ethanol sludge-based biochar. The NaHCO3-activated biochar showed superior adsorption capacity for tetracycline (154.45 mg/g) than raw biochar (34.04 mg/g). Orthogonal experiments confirmed the optimal preparation conditions of biochar. Increasing adsorbent dosage and temperature facilitated tetracycline removal. The maximum removal was 92.60% at pH = 3.0. Calcium ions and alkalinity decreased tetracycline removal. The time for attaining equilibrium was extended with increasing tetracycline concentration, but the equilibrium could be completed within 24 h. Langmuir model fitted the equilibrium data well. Kinetics process followed the Elovich model. The adsorption rate was controlled by both intraparticle and liquid film diffusion and the process was endothermic and spontaneous. The electrostatic attraction, hydrogen bonding, π-π interactions, and pore-filling were involved in the adsorption mechanism. The findings may provide an underlying guide for sludge disposal and removal of tetracycline from wastewater in practical application.

To investigate the neuroprotective effects of the mitochondria-targeted antioxidant Szeto-Schiller peptide 31 (SS-31) in a rat experimental glaucoma model, SS-31 was intraperitoneally (IP) injected into Sprague-Dawley rats, followed by intracameral injection of polystyrene microspheres to induce elevated intraocular pressure (IOP). After 6 weeks, electroretinography (ERG) and flash visual-evoked potentials (F-VEPs) were recorded to assess retinal function. Hematoxylin-eosin staining was performed on retinal cross-sections to measure ganglion cell complex (GCC) thickness. Apoptotic retinal cells were assessed by TUNEL staining. Brn3a-positive retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) were counted in retinal flat mounts via immunofluorescence. The retinal total SOD, SOD2, and MDA expression levels were assessed in retinal tissue homogenates. The cyt c, Bax, and Bcl-2 protein levels in rat retinas were detected by western blot analysis. Bax and Bcl-2 expressions were also evaluated using immunohistochemistry in paraffinized sections. Our results showed that the rats that received microsphere injection developed elevated IOP. SS-31 ameliorated the reductions in the a- and b-wave amplitudes on ERG and the F-VEP amplitude in glaucomatous eyes. GCC thickness was preserved, TUNEL-positive cells were decreased in the retina, and Brn3a-positive RGCs were increased in the SS-31-treated glaucoma group compared with those in the non-treated glaucoma group. SS-31 significantly reduced MDA levels and increased SOD2 levels after glaucoma induction. Significant suppression of cyt c release, upregulation of Bcl-2, and downregulation of Bax were observed following SS-31 administration. In summary, SS-31 exerts neuroprotective effects in this experimental glaucoma model by inhibiting mitochondrial dysfunction and therefore represents a promising therapeutic agent for glaucoma.

Background At present, the harm of new-type drug, methamphetamine (METH), has gradually exceeded that of the traditional opioid drugs, and METH abuse has become a serious public health and social problem. In our previous study, complement factor H (CFH) was found to be upregulated in the sera of METH-addicted patients and rats and in certain brain regions in the rats. Methods We used ELISA and immunofluorescence to confirm the changes in CFH in the serum and hippocampus of a METH behavioral sensitization mouse model, and C1q expression was also detected by immunofluorescence in the hippocampus. We aimed to elucidate the involvement of CFH and C1q in the mechanism of METH addiction. We also detected the distribution of various small molecules by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) in select brain regions: the nucleus accumbens, the hippocampus and the ventral tegmental area. Results The expression of CFH was upregulated in the serum and hippocampus of METH behavioral sensitization model mice, consistent with our previous research on conditioned place preference rats. In contrast, C1q decreased dramatically in the mossy fibers of the hippocampus. The results of small-molecule imaging by MALDI-MSI showed that the levels of K+, antioxidants, neurotransmitters, and ATP metabolism-related molecules were altered in different regions. Conclusions These results indicate the involvement of the complement system in the mechanism of METH addiction and validate the presence of oxidative stress, energy metabolism changes during addiction. This suggests the utility of further investigation into the above aspects.

Dl-3-n-butylphthalide (NBP) is a drug that is used in the treatment of ischaemic stroke. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no systematic studies investigating the effects of dl-3-n-butylphtalide on the brain metabolism of small molecules. In this study, we first investigated the effects of dl-3-n-butylphthalide on the spatial distribution of small molecules in the brains of rats with permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion (pMCAO) using matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (MALDI–TOF–MS) imaging. After pMCAO modelling or a sham operation, rats were given four mg/kg of dl-3-n-butylphthalide through the caudal vein or saline once a day for nine days. The degree of neurological deficit in rats was evaluated using the modified neurological severity score (mNSS). MALDI–TOF–MS imaging was used to observe the content and distribution of small molecules related to metabolism during focal cerebral ischaemia. Multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode with liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) was used to verify the results obtained from MALDI–TOF–MS imaging. These small molecules were found to be involved in glucose metabolism, ATP metabolism, the glutamate–glutamine cycle, malate aspartate shuttle, oxidative stress, and inorganic ion homeostasis. Of the 13 metabolites identified by MALDI–TOF–MS imaging, seven compounds, ATP, ADP, AMP, GMP, N-acetylaspartic acid, ascorbic acid and glutathione, were further validated by LC–MS/MS. Taken together, these results indicate that dl-3-n-butylphthalide significantly improved ATP metabolism, level of antioxidants, and sodium-potassium ion balance in a rat model of pMCAO.

The degradation of trichloroacetic acid (TCA) in water under ultrasound (US), ultraviolet (UV)/TiO 2 , and combination of UV/TiO 2 and US irradiation was investigated. It was found that the extent of sonophotocatalytic degradation was higher compared with sonolysis or photolysis alone. The influence of operating parameters such as TiO 2 concentration, pH values, temperature and dissolved gases on sonophotocatalytic degradation of TCA was studied. Enhancement in the degradation rate has been observed at a higher catalyst loading, a higher temperature and an acidic condition under dissolved oxygen. In addition, the degradation kinetics, mechanism and possible degradation products were discussed in detail.

In this work, several polyacrylic acid (PAA) nanocomposite hydrogels containing different dimensional silica nanoparticles densely grafted with poly(2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate) (SiO2@PDMAEMA nano-objects) have been fabricated. Firstly, the spherical and sheetlike SiO2@PDMAEMA core/shell nano-objects were prepared based on self-assembly of poly(2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate)-block-poly(3-(triethoxysilyl)propyl methacrylate) (PDMAEMA-b-PTEPM) gelable block copolymers in bulk. Then, two different shaped SiO2@PDMAEMA nano-objects were introduced into the PAA hydrogel construction processes to obtain the corresponding PAA composite hydrogel, respectively. The results indicated that core/shell nano-objects were well dispersed in the PAA matrix, and the ionic bonds were formed between –N(CH3)2 groups in shell of nano-objects and –COOH units in matrix. The compressive strength of composite hydrogels containing 1–3 wt% of sheetlike or spherical nano-objects dramatically increased. For example, when the strain was 65%, it was increased to its maximum by 355.8% and 113.5% compared with that of pure PAA hydrogel (163.92 kPa), respectively. In addition, as induction of hybrid nanofillers, the swelling degree and water absorption behavior of composite hydrogels changed. Especially, the spherical nano-objects-doped composite hydrogel showed a lower swelling degree than others. The synergistic role from the shape of inorganic SiO2 core and alkaline component of shell was demonstrated to affect mechanical performance in PAA composite hydrogel.

Telemonitoring of electroencephalogram (EEG) through wireless body-area networks is an evolving direction in personalized medicine. Among various constraints in designing such a system, three important constraints are energy consumption, data compression, and device cost. Conventional data compression methodologies, although effective in data compression, consumes significant energy and cannot reduce device cost. Compressed sensing (CS), as an emerging data compression methodology, is promising in catering to these constraints. However, EEG is non-sparse in the time domain and also non-sparse in transformed domains (such as the wavelet domain). Therefore, it is extremely difficult for current CS algorithms to recover EEG with the quality that satisfies the requirements of clinical diagnosis and engineering applications. Recently, Block Sparse Bayesian Learning (BSBL) was proposed as a new method to the CS problem. This study introduces the technique to the telemonitoring of EEG. Experimental results show that its recovery quality is better than state-of-the-art CS algorithms, and sufficient for practical use. These results suggest that BSBL is very promising for telemonitoring of EEG and other non-sparse physiological signals., Comment: Matlab codes can be downloaded at: http://dsp.ucsd.edu/~zhilin/BSBL.html, or http://sites.google.com/site/researchbyzhang/bsbl

TAp73 and p53 are involved in regulating tumor angiogenesis and vasohibin-1 (VASH1) is an anti-angiogenic factor. Whether TAp73 regulates angiogenesis positively or negatively is controversial. The status of P53 may determine the effect of TAp73 on angiogenesis. To the best of our knowledge it has not been previously reported whether TAp73, p53 and VASH1 are coexpressed in lung cancer. We profiled the association between TAp73 and p53 and VASH1 expression in lung adenocarcinoma (LAC) and investigated the function of TAp73 in regulating tumor angiogenesis. TAp73, p53 and VASH1 expression in 53 human LAC tissues and the adjacent normal tissues were evaluated using immunohistochemistry. The positive expression rates of p53, TAp73 and VASH1 were significantly higher (92.6, 97.7 and 67.4%, respectively) in LAC tissue compared with paraneoplastic lung tissue (7.4, 2.3 and 32.6%, respectively, P

Compressed sensing (CS) has been used as an efficient, low-energy data compressor for the telemonitoring of physiological signals such as ECG or EEG. However, the performance of these applications is often assessed by the quality of signal recovery such as Percentage Root-mean square Difference (PRD). In this paper, (1) we show that the metric of signal recovery quality such as PRD is not adequate for CS based compressor, especially when failing to regard the sampling rate of raw signals. (2) we analyze the distortion of CS on EEG telemonitoring for the epileptic, where the performance is evaluated using different sampling rates and the quality is assessed by epileptic seizure classification accuracy. We aim to establish a task-oriented protocol for correctly applying CS as a data compressor on EEG and other physiological signals.

The development of natural plant extracts and essential oils will assist to decrease the negative effects of synthetic chemicals. The antifungal activity of 20 pure monoterpenes was assessed their efficacy against Botryosphaeria dothidea. 20 compounds were investigated the antifungal activity against B. dothidea at the concentration of 400 μg·mL−1. And components were used to the future test, which of the antifungal rate is greater than 50% against B. dothidea. Results from antifungal tests revealed that cuminaldehyde, β-citronellol, nerol, geraniol, citral and α-terpineol exhibited strong antifungal effect against B. dothidea. In addition, the antifungal activity of cuminaldehyde, β-citronellol, and geraniol had a highest effect toward B. dothidea with LC50 values of 105.15, 135.73, 132.69 μg·mL−1, respectively. In addition to the antagonistic effect of geraniol/β-citronellol (1/2) mixture, the combination of other compounds has synergistic effect on B. dothidea. The present results indicated that cuminaldehyde, geraniol, and β-citronellol are promising antifungal effect against B. dothidea and could be useful in the search for new natural fungicide. Several high activity monoterpenes and some combined with two monoterpenes were identified, and provided a rationale for pursuing further research on the fungicide and enhanced efficacy by the combined of fungicide.

Goal: A new method for heart rate monitoring using photoplethysmography (PPG) during physical activities is proposed. Methods: It jointly estimates spectra of PPG signals and simultaneous acceleration signals, utilizing the multiple measurement vector model in sparse signal recovery. Due to a common sparsity constraint on spectral coefficients, the method can easily identify and remove spectral peaks of motion artifact (MA) in PPG spectra. Thus, it does not need any extra signal processing modular to remove MA as in some other algorithms. Furthermore, seeking spectral peaks associated with heart rate is simplified. Results: Experimental results on 12 PPG datasets sampled at 25 Hz and recorded during subjects' fast running showed that it had high performance. The average absolute estimation error was 1.28 beat per minute and the standard deviation was 2.61 beat per minute. Conclusion and Significance: These results show that the method has great potential to be used for PPG-based heart rate monitoring in wearable devices for fitness tracking and health monitoring., Comment: Published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 62, No. 8, PP. 1902-1910, August 2015

The objective of this work is to respond to the question: can quantitative electroencephalography (EEG) distinguish among Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) patients, mild cognitive impaired (MCI) subjects and elderly healthy controls? In other words, are there nonlinear indexes extracted from raw EEG data that are able to manifest the background difference among EEG? The response we give here is that a synthetic index of entropic complexity (Permutation Entropy, PE) as well as a measure of compressibility of the EEG can be used to discriminate among classes of subjects. An experimental database has been analyzed to make these measurements and the results we achieved are encouraging also in terms of disease evolution. Indeed, it is clearly shown that the condition of MCI has intermediate properties with respect to the analyzed markers: thus, these markers could in principle be used to evaluate the probability of transition from MCI to mild AD.

Dendrolimus kikuchii Matsumura nucleopolyhedrovirus (DkNPV) is a novel nucleopolyhedrovirus strain that has exhibited high potential as biological control agent against D. kikuchii. In this work, a 1755-bp DkChi gene with sequence homology to a chitinase gene was cloned from the genomic DNA of DkNPV using a DNA fragment library. The DkChi gene, encoding 558 residues protein with a predicted mass of 61.6 kDa, was expressed at high levels in Escherichia coli and purified by affinity chromatography. We confirmed that the prepared protein was the DkChi protein by mass spectrometry analysis. Enzyme activity analysis showed that DkChi had both endo- and exo-chitinase activities. Interestingly, the DkChi protein displayed a strong insecticidal activity against Spodoptera exigua, Hyphantria cunea, Helicoverpa armigera and Lymantria dispar. The results suggest that DkChi is a good candidate protein for significantly contributing to pest control.

Fetal ECG (FECG) telemonitoring is an important branch in telemedicine. The design of a telemonitoring system via a wireless body-area network with low energy consumption for ambulatory use is highly desirable. As an emerging technique, compressed sensing (CS) shows great promise in compressing/reconstructing data with low energy consumption. However, due to some specific characteristics of raw FECG recordings such as non-sparsity and strong noise contamination, current CS algorithms generally fail in this application. This work proposes to use the block sparse Bayesian learning (BSBL) framework to compress/reconstruct non-sparse raw FECG recordings. Experimental results show that the framework can reconstruct the raw recordings with high quality. Especially, the reconstruction does not destroy the interdependence relation among the multichannel recordings. This ensures that the independent component analysis decomposition of the reconstructed recordings has high fidelity. Furthermore, the framework allows the use of a sparse binary sensing matrix with much fewer nonzero entries to compress recordings. Particularly, each column of the matrix can contain only two nonzero entries. This shows the framework, compared to other algorithms such as current CS algorithms and wavelet algorithms, can greatly reduce code execution in CPU in the data compression stage., Comment: The code and the data can be downloaded from the first author's homepage: http://sites.google.com/site/researchbyzhang/bsbl, or http://dsp.ucsd.edu/~zhilin/BSBL.html

In order to verify whether or not the EEG patterns can be classified when the subjects perceive different types of geometric figures, we perform some EEG experiments. In this paper, the evoked potentials by three types of geometric figures are extracted and classified using a series of approaches. First, a two-stage source extraction algorithm is proposed to extract the evoked potentials from the recorded EEG signals, and then a mutual information based feature selection method is presented to find effective features for classification. Finally, a multi-category support vector machine classifier is employed, which achieves the average classification performance of 93.2%.

The capsular polysaccharide (CP) of Bacteroides fragilis is an important virulence factor in the formation of experimental intraabdominal abscesses. Incubation of this organism with subinhibitory doses of clindamycin induced morphological changes in the bacteria, including elongation and loss of CP, detected by ferritin-labeled antibody to capsule. Pretreatment of bacteria with subinhibitory doses of clindamycin, however, did not affect the ability of live or heat-killed organisms to produce intraabdominal abscesses in a mouse model of intraabdominal sepsis. Dose-response experiments with purified CP as well as lipopolysaccharide (LPS) from B. fragilis ATCC strain 23745 mixed with sterile cecal contents as adjuvant revealed that both surface components of the organism were capable of causing abscesses in the mouse model. The dose of LPS required to induce abscesses was five times higher than the required dose of CP. Nevertheless, these studies suggested that B. fragilis LPS is another virulence factor in the formation of intraabdominal abscesses.