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Background: This study aimed to explore the relationship between serum netrin-1 expression levels and acute prognosis in patients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) within 24 hours after revascularization. Methods: A total of 121 revascularized patients admitted to the Jinshan Branch of the Shanghai Sixth People's Hospital, China, between July 2019 and July 2021 were selected as study subjects. The primary outcome was the modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score three months after revascularization: patients with an mRS score >2 were classified into the unfavorable prognosis group and others into the favorable prognosis group. Those with serum netrin-1 expression levels greater than the median of all patients were classified into the elevated protein group and others into the decreased protein group. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the independent risk factors for prognosis in patients with AIS after revascularization. Results: The differences between the unfavorable prognosis group and the favorable prognosis group in gender, age, coronary heart disease, and netrin-1 levels were not statistically significant (p > 0.05). However, the National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) scores and number of patients with comorbid hypertension in the unfavorable prognosis group were significantly higher than in the favorable prognosis group (p < 0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that NIHSS score before revascularization was an independent risk factor for unfavorable prognosis but that netrin-1 expression levels were not significantly associated with prognosis in patients after revascularization. Conclusions: Serum netrin-1 expression levels in the acute phase are not significantly associated with prognosis in patients with AIS after revascularization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Begonia longlingensis Y.H.Tan & H.B.Ding, a new species of Begoniaceae from Southwest Yunnan, China, is described and illustrated. Morphologically, it is primarily similar to B. wenshanensis in same section but differs by its hairy inflorescences and ovary (vs. glabrous), five tepals of pistillate flower (vs. three tepals), bracteoles under the ovary (vs. without) and rhizomes well developed (vs. poorly developed). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has rich solar energy resources with great potential for future development. In recent years, encouraged and guided by China's central and local governments as well as international market, China's PV industry has seen a fast development, with increasingly expanded output. A complete industrial chain has taken shape. In 2011, the PV industry of China saw an annual output value of more than 300 billion RMB and total exports and imports of 142 billion RMB, providing jobs for 300,000 people. The development of China's PV industry mainly relies on the European market. Major factors driving the increase of its production capacity include: huge profits at early stage; great support of governments; lack of effective development planning; low-end processing and manufacturing; low admittance standards. The overcapacity in China's PV industry here refers to overcapacity of PV products such as silicon, polycrystalline silicon, solar cells and PV modules. Impacted by the US Financial Crisis and the European Debt Crisis, the market demand for PV products has been shrinking, resulting in more serious overcapacity of the industry. The Chinese government had hoped that the domestic PV market could absorb the overproduced PV products. However, it seems that, due to insufficient development and uncoordinated incentive system, the domestic PV market may not be able to promote significant change of the situation in a short period. Therefore, it should take a long time to solve the problem of overcapacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corydalis saxícola Bunting, also named Yanhuanglian in China, is widely used in folk prescriptions to treat hepatitis, hepato- cirrhosis and hepatic cancer. Its active components consists mainly of alkaloids, which have poor solubility in water. The previous study showed that the absolute bioavailabilities (BA) of the alkaloids were only about 10% after oral administration to rats, compared to intravenous administration. In this paper, the solid dispersion (SD) method was used to improve the BAs of dehydro- cavidine (YHL-1), coptisine (YHL-2), and dehydroapocavidine (YHL-3), the main alkaloids of the extract of Corydalis saxícola Bunting, by improving their solubility. The results showed that using PEG 4000 as a carrier at an amount equivalent to 7 folds of the extract could significantly improve the solubility of the compounds in water, pH 1.2 HC1 and pH 7.2 PBS. DSC and X-ray detection indicated that the drug might be in a dissolved or amorphous state in SD, which was different from that in the physical mixture. The formulation was further studied in terms of BA enhancement by cumulative urinary excretion after oral administration to rats. A new method using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to a diode-array detector (DAD) was established. The results showed that the relative BAs (RE BAs) of YHL-1, YHL-2 and YHL-3 were all significantly improved by about 1 fold after oral administration of SD solution, compared to the extract suspension (p < 0.05). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]